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Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846

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Title: Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846

Author: Various


        
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE, VOLUME 59, NO. 363, JANUARY, 1846 ***




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Paolucci and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
https://www.pgdp.net. (This file was produced from images
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BLACKWOOD'S

Edinburgh

MAGAZINE

VOL. LIX.

JANUARY-JUNE, 1846.

[Illustration]

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, EDINBURGH;

AND

37, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.

1846.




BLACKWOOD'S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.


No. CCCLXIII. JANUARY, 1846. VOL. LIX.




CONTENTS.


SIR WILLIAM FOLLETT,                           1

LET NEVER CRUELTY DISHONOUR BEAUTY,           16

THE LAST HOURS OF A REIGN. CONCLUSION,        17

A CAMPAIGN IN TEXAS,                          37

THE MOTHER AND HER DEAD CHILD,                53

THE GREEK AND ROMANTIC DRAMA,                 54

MY COLLEGE FRIENDS. NO. III.,                 73

THE STUDENT OF SALAMANCA. PART III.,          85

SICILIAN SKETCHES. SYRACUSIANA,              103

ÆSTHETICS OF DRESS. MILITARY COSTUME,        114

FROM GOETHE,                                 120

CHRISTMAS CAROL. 1845,                       122

THE CRISIS,                                  124

       *       *       *       *       *

EDINBURGH:
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, 45, GEORGE STREET;
AND 37, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.

_To whom all Communications (post paid) must be addressed._

SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.

       *       *       *       *       *

PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND HUGHES, EDINBURGH.




SIR WILLIAM FOLLETT.


The disappearance from the legal hemisphere of so bright a star as the
late Sir William Follett, cast a gloom, not yet dissipated, over the
legal profession, and all classes of society capable of appreciating
great intellectual eminence. He died in his forty-seventh year; filling
the great office of her Majesty's Attorney-general; the head and pride
of the British Bar; a bright ornament of the senate; in the prime of
manhood, and the plenitude of his extraordinary intellectual vigour; in
the full noontide of success, just as he had reached the dazzling
pinnacle of professional and official distinction. The tones of his low
mellow voice were echoing sadly in the ears, his dignified and graceful
figure and gesture were present to the eyes, of the bench and bar--when,
at the commencement of last Michaelmas term, they re-assembled, with
recruited energies, in the ancient inns of court, for the purpose of
resuming their laborious and responsible professional exertions in
Westminster Hall. It was impossible not to think, at such a time, of Sir
William Follett, without being conscious of having sustained a grievous,
if not an irreparable, loss. Where was he whose name was so lately a
tower of strength to suitors; whose consummate logical skill--whose
wonderful resources--taxed to the uttermost those of judicial intellect,
and baffled and overthrew the strongest who could be opposed to him in
forensic warfare? Where, alas, was Sir William Follett? His eloquent
lips were stilled in death, his remains were mouldering in the
tomb--yes, almost within the very walls of that sacred structure,
hallowed with the recollections and associations of centuries, in which
his surviving brethren were assembled for worship on Sunday the 2d day
of November 1845--the commencement of the present legal year--at that
period of it when _his_ was erewhile ever the most conspicuous and
shining figure, _his_ exertions were the most interesting, the most
important, _his_ success was at once the most easy, decisive, and
dazzling. Yes, there were assembled his brethren, who, with saddened
faces and beating hearts, had attended his solemn obsequies in that very
temple where was "committed his body to the ground, earth to earth,
ashes to ashes, dust to dust," where all, including the greatest and
noblest in the land, acknowledged, humbly and mournfully, at the mouth
of his grave, _that man walketh in a vain shadow, and disquieteth
himself in vain; he heapeth up riches, and cannot tell who shall gather
them_! Surely these are solemnizing and instructive reflections; and
many a heart will acknowledge them to be such, amidst all the din, and
glare, and bustle of worldly affairs, in the awful presence of Him _who
turneth man to destruction, and sayeth, Come again, ye children of men_!

Sir William Follett has now lain in his grave for six months. During
this interval, the excitement which his death created amongst those who
had been in constant intercourse with him for years, has subsided;
leaving them better able to take a calm and candid view of his
character, acquirements, and position, and form a sober estimate of the
nature and extent of his reputation while living, and the probability of
its permanently surviving him.

When summoned from the scene of his splendid and successful exertions,
he was unquestionably the brightest ornament of the British bar.
Immediately afterwards the press teemed with tributes to his memory:
some of them characterised by great acuteness and discrimination,
several by exaggerated eulogy, and one or two by a harsh
disingenuousness amounting to misrepresentation and malevolence. Nothing
excited more astonishment among those who had thoroughly known Sir
William Follett, than the appearance of these attacks upon his memory,
and the bad taste and feeling which alone could have prompted the
perpetration of them, at a moment when the hearts of his surviving
relatives and friends were quivering with the first agonies of their
severe bereavement; when they had just lost one who had been the pride
of their family, the pillar of their hopes,--and who was universally
supposed to have left behind him not a single enemy--who had been
distinguished for his courteous, mild, and inoffensive character, and
its unblemished purity in all the relations of private life. Certain of
the strictures here alluded to, were petty, coarse, and uncandid; and
with this observation they are dismissed from further notice. Sir
William Follett had undoubtedly his shortcomings, in common with every
one of his fellow men; and, as a small set-off against his many
excellences of temper and character, one or two must be glanced at by
any one essaying to present to the public, however imperfectly, a just
account of this very eminent person. The failing in question formed the
chief subject of vituperation--_vituperation of the dead!_--by the
ungracious parties to whom brief reference has just been made; and
consists, in short, in the excessive eagerness to accumulate money, by
which it was alleged that the late Sir William Follett was
characterised. This charge is certainly not without foundation; but
while this frank admission is made, an important consideration ought to
accompany it in guiding the judgment of every person of just and
generous feeling; and will relieve the memory of the departed from much
of the discredit sought to be attached to it.

The life of Sir William Follett appears to have been, from the first, of
frail tenure. Could he have foreseen the terrible tax upon his scanty
physical resources which would be exacted by the profession which he was
about to adopt, he would probably have abandoned his intentions, justly
conscious though he might have been of his superior mental fitness for
the Bar, and would have betaken himself to some more tranquil walk of
life, which he might have been at this moment brightly adorning. He
devoted himself, however, to the law, with intense and undivided energy;
and, at a very early period of his professional career, was compelled to
retire for a time from practice, by one of the most serious mischances
which can befall humanity--it is believed, the bursting of a bloodvessel
in the lungs. Was not this a very fearful occurrence--was it not almost
conclusive evidence of the unwise choice which he had made of a
profession requiring special strength in that organ--was it not justly
calculated to alarm him for his future safety? And yet, what was he to
have done? To have abandoned a profession for which alone he had
qualified himself by years of profound and exclusive thought and labour?
What Office would, under such circumstances, have insured the life of
young Mr Follett, who, with such a fatal flaw in his constitution, was
nevertheless following a profession which would hourly attack his most
vulnerable part? Poor Follett! who can tell the apprehensions and
agonies concerning his safety, to which he was doomed, from the moment
of his first solemn summons to the grave, on the occasion alluded to?
What had happened, he too well knew, might happen again at any moment,
and hurry him out of life, leaving, in that case, comparatively
destitute those whom he tenderly loved--for whom he was bound to
provide--his widow and children. And for the widow and children of such
a man as he knew that he had become, he felt that he ought to make a
suitable provision: that those who, after he was gone, were to bear his
distinguished name, might be enabled to occupy the position in which he
had placed them with dignity and comfort. Was such an illegitimate
source of anxiety to one so circumstanced, and capable of Sir William
Follett's superior aspirations? Was it not abundantly justified by his
splendid qualifications and expectations? Why, then, should he not toil
severely--exert himself even desperately--to provide against the direful
contingency to which his life was subject? Alas! how many ambitious,
honourable, high-minded, and fond husbands and fathers are echoing such
questions with a sigh of agony! Poor Follett! 'twas for such reasons
that he lived with an honourable economy, eschewing that extravagance
and ostentation which too often, to men in his dazzling position, prove
irresistible; it was for such reasons that he _rose up early, and went
to bed late, and ate the bread of carefulness_. Had he been alone in the
world--had he had none to provide for but himself, and yet had
manifested the same feverish eagerness to acquire and accumulate
money--had he loved money for money's sake, and accumulated it from the
love of accumulation, the case would have been totally different. He
might then have been justly despised, and characterized as being _of the
earth, earthy_--incapable of high and generous sentiments and
aspirations--sordid, grovelling, and utterly despicable. Sir William
Follett had, during twenty years of intense and self-denying toil,
succeeded in acquiring an ample fortune, which he disposed of, at his
death, justly and generously; and how many hours of exhaustion, both of
mind and body, must have been cheered, from time to time, by reflecting
upon the satisfactory provision which he was making--which he was daily
augmenting--for those who were to survive him! Who can tell how much of
the bitterness of death was assuaged by such considerations! When his
fading eyes bent their aching glances upon those who wept around his
death-bed, the retrospect of a life of labour and privation spent in
providing for their comfort, must indeed have been sweet and
consolatory! Surely this is but fair towards the distinguished dead. It
is but just towards the memory of the departed, to believe his conduct
to have been principally influenced by such considerations. All men have
many faults--most men have grave faults. Is parsimony intrinsically more
culpable than prodigality? Have not most of mankind a tendency towards
one or the other? for how few are ennobled by the ability to steer
evenly between the two! And even granting that Sir William Follett had a
_tendency_ towards the former failing, it was surely exhibited under
circumstances which warrant us in saying, that "even his failings leaned
to virtue's side."

Connected with and immediately dependent upon this imputation upon the
late Sir William Follett, is another which cannot be overlooked. He is
charged with having made a profit of his prodigious popularity and
reputation, by discreditably and unconscientiously receiving fees from
clients for services which he well knew at the time that he could not
possibly render to them; in short, with taking briefs in cases to which
he had no reasonable hope of being able to attend. This is a very grave
accusation, and requires a deliberate and honest examination. It is a
long-established rule of English law, that barristers have no legal
means of recovering their fees, even in cases of most arduous and
successful exertion, except in the very few instances where a barrister
may consider it consistent with the dignity of his position to enter
beforehand into an express agreement with his client for the payment of
his fees[A]. A barrister's fee is regarded, in the eye of the law, as
_quiddam honorarium_; and is usually--and ought to be invariably--paid
beforehand, on the brief being delivered. A fee thus paid, a rule at the
bar forbids being returned, except under very special circumstances; and
the rule in question is a very reasonable one. As counsel have no legal
title to remuneration, however laborious their exertions, what would be
their position if they were expected or required to return their fees at
the instance of unreasonable and disappointed clients? Where ought the
line to be drawn? Who is to be the judge in such a case? A client may
have derived little or no benefit from his counsel's exertions, which
may yet have been very great; an accident, an oversight may have
intervened, and prevented his completing those exertions by attending at
the trial either at all, or during the whole of the trial; he may have
become unable to provide an efficient substitute; through the sudden
pressure of other engagements, he may be unable to bestow upon the case
the deliberate and thorough consideration which it requires--an
unexpected and formidable difficulty may prove too great for his means
of overcoming it, as might have been the case with men of superior skill
and experience;--in these and many other instances which might be put,
an angry and defeated client would rarely be without some pretext for
requiring the return of his fees, and counsel would be subject to a
pressure perfectly intolerable, most unreasonable, most unfair to
themselves, leading to results seriously prejudicial to the interests of
their clients; and a practice would be introduced entailing great evils
and inconveniences, affecting the credit and honour of both branches of
the legal profession. The rule in question rests upon the above, among
many other valid reasons, and is generally acted upon. No one, however,
can have any practical knowledge of the bar, without being aware of very
many instances of counsel disregarding that rule, and evincing a noble
disinterestedness in the matter of fees, either returning or declining
to accept them, at a severe sacrifice of time and labour, after great
anxiety and exertion have been bestowed, and successfully bestowed. The
rule in question is rigidly adhered to, subject to these exceptions by
eminent counsel, on another ground; viz. for the protection of junior
counsel, who would be subject to incessant importunities if confronted
by the examples of their seniors. Take, now, the case of a counsel who
has eclipsed most, if not every one, of his competitors, in reputation,
for the skill and success of his advocacy--who is acute, ready,
dexterous, sagacious, eloquent, and of accurate and profound legal
knowledge: that is the man whose name instantly occurs to any one
involved, or likely to be involved, in litigation--such an one must be
instantly secured--_at all events, taken from the enemy_--at any cost.
The pressure upon such a counsel's time and energies then becomes really
enormous, and all but insupportable. As it is of the last importance
either to secure his splendid services, or deprive the enemy of them,
such a counsel--and such, it need hardly be said, was Sir William
Follett--is continually made the subject of mere speculation by clients
who are content to take the _chance_ of obtaining his attendance, with
the _certainty_ of securing his absence as an opponent. When, however,
the hour of battle has arrived, and, with a compact array visible upon
the opposite side, the great captain is _not_ where it had been
hoped--or thought possible that he might have been--when, moreover, no
adequate provision has been made against such a serious
contingency--when the battle has been fought and lost, and great
interests are seriously compromised, or for ever sacrificed--_then_ the
client is apt, in the first smarting agony of defeat, to forget the
_chance_ which he had been content to run, and to persuade himself that
he had from the first calculated as a matter of _certainty_ on the great
man's attendance--and intense is that client's chagrin, and loud are his
complaints. Can it be supposed that this eminent counsel is not
sufficiently aware of the true state of the case? It is but fair to
give him credit for being under the impression, that all which is
expected from him, in many cases, is his best exertions to attend the
trial or hearing--to provide an effective substitute, if unable to
attend--and give due attention to the case at consultation. For counsel
to act otherwise, deliberately to receive a brief and fee, in a case
which he _knows_ that he cannot possibly attend, without in the first
instance fairly intimating as much to the client--to do so, in cases of
importance, and habitually--is surely most foully dishonourable,
dishonest, and cruel; and conduct which there is no pretence for
imputing to the members of the bar. It cannot, however, be denied, that
very serious misunderstandings occasionally arise on such occasions; but
there are many ways of accounting for them, without having recourse to a
supposition involving such serious imputations upon the honour of
counsel--arising out of _bonâ fide_ accident and mistake--the
unavoidable hurry and sudden emergencies of business--misunderstandings
between a counsel and his clerks;[B] between either or both, and the
client--and the perplexity and confusion almost necessarily attending
the movements of very eminent counsel. On such occasions every thing is
usually done which can be dictated by liberality and honour, and fees
are returned without hesitation. If, however, the case can be looked at
from another point of view--if the eager client be fairly apprised by
the clerk, that Sir ---- or Mr ---- "may not be able to attend"--or,
"there is a _chance_ of his attending"--or "he is very likely to be
elsewhere"--and, aware of the multifarious and conflicting calls upon
the time of Sir ---- or Mr ----, will be content to take his "chance,"
and deliver his brief, and pay his fee; in such a case the client will
have had all which he had a right to expect,--viz. the chance, not the
certainty; there will be no pretence for alleging careless
misunderstanding or deception.

If ever there were a member of the English bar who may be said to have
been overwhelmed by the distracting importunities of clients to secure
his services, at all hazards and at any cost, it was the late Sir
William Follett; and how he contrived to satisfy the calls upon him, to
the extent which he did, is truly wonderful. How can one head, and one
tongue, do so much, so admirably? is a question which has a thousand
times occurred to those of his brethren at the bar, who knew most of his
movements, and were least likely to form an exaggerated estimate of his
exertions. The litigant public seemed to feel that every moment of this
accomplished and distinguished advocate's waking hours was their own,
and they were restricting his sleeping hours within the very narrowest
limits. Every one would have had Sir William every where, in every
thing, at once! Whenever, during the last fifteen years of his life,
there was a cause of magnitude and difficulty, there was Sir William
Follett. What vast interests have been by turns perilled and protected,
according as Sir William Follett acted upon the offensive or defensive!
Misty and intricate claims to dormant peerages, before committees of
privileges, in the House of Lords; appeals to the High Court of
Parliament, from all the superior courts, both of law and equity, in the
United Kingdom, involving questions of the greatest possible nicety and
complexity--and that, too, in the law of Scotland, both mercantile and
conveyancing, so dissimilar to that prevailing in other parts of the
kingdom; appeals before the Privy Council, from the judicial decisions
of courts in every quarter of the globe where British possessions exist,
and administering varying systems of law, all different from that of
England; the most important cases in the courts of equity, in courts of
error, and the common law courts in _banc_; all the great cases
depending before parliamentary committees, till he entered the House of
Commons; every special jury cause of consequence in London and
Middlesex, and in any of the other counties in England, whither he went
upon special retainers; compensation cases, involving property to a very
large amount;--in all these cases, the first point was--to secure Sir
William Follett; and, for that purpose, run a desperate race with an
opponent. Every morning that Sir William Follett rose from his bed, he
had to contemplate a long series of important and pressing engagements
filling up almost every minute of his time--not knowing where or before
what tribunal he might be at any given moment of the day--and often
wholly ignorant of what might be the nature of the case he would have to
conduct, against the most able and astute opponents who could be pitted
against him, and before the greatest judicial intellects of the kingdom:
aware of the boundless confidence in his powers reposed by his clients,
the great interests entrusted to him, and the heavy pecuniary sacrifices
by which his exertions had been secured. Relying with a just confidence
on his extraordinary rapidity in mastering all kinds of cases almost as
soon as they could be brought under his notice, and also on the desire
universally manifested by both the bench and the bar to consult the
convenience and facilitate the business arrangements of one, himself so
courteous and obliging to all, and whom they knew to be entrusted at a
heavy expense to his clients, with the greatest interests involved in
litigation; relying upon these considerations, and also upon those
others which have been already alluded to, Sir William Follett
undoubtedly permitted briefs to be delivered to him, _all_ of which he
must have suspected himself to be incapable of personally attending to.
It must be owned that on many such occasions he may not--distracted with
the multiplicity of his exhausting labours--have given that full
consideration to those matters which it was his bounden duty to have
given to them; and his conduct in this respect has been justly censured
by both branches of the high and honourable profession to whom the
public entrusts such mighty interests. Still he turned away business
from his chambers which would have made the fortunes of two or three
even eminent barristers, and has been known to act with spirit and
liberality in cases where his imprudence on the score alluded to had
been attended with inconvenience and loss to his clients. Nor was he
_always_ so fortunate, as latterly, with respect to his clerks; who had,
equally with himself, a direct pecuniary interest[C] on every brief
which he accepted, and consequently a strong motive for listening with a
too favourable ear to the importunities of clients. The necessary
consequence of all this was occasionally the bitter upbraiding of Sir
William Follett's desperately disappointed and defeated clients. Still,
however, he did make most extraordinary efforts to satisfy all the
claims upon his time and energies, and at length sacrificed himself in
doing so; to a very great extent foregoing domestic and social
enjoyments--sparing himself neither by night nor by day, neither in mind
nor body. Crowded with consultations as was almost every hour of the
day not actually spent in open business in court--from the earliest
period in the morning till the latest at night--it was really amazing
that he contrived to obtain that perfect mastery of his ponderous and
intricate briefs, which secured him his repeated and splendid triumphs
in court. Till within even the last eighteen months, or two years, if
you had gone down one morning at half-past nine to Westminster, you
might have heard him opening with masterly ease, clearness, and skill, a
patent case, or some other important matter, before a special jury; and
immediately after resuming his seat, you would see him go perhaps into
an adjoining court of Nisi Prius, in which also he was engaged as
leading counsel, and where he would quickly ascertain the exact position
of the case--and effectively cross-examine or re-examine a witness, or
object to or support the admissibility of evidence;--then if you
followed his footsteps, you would find him in the Lord Chancellor's
Court, engaged in some equity case of great magnitude and difficulty.
Some time afterwards be might be seen hastening to the Privy
Council--and by about two or three o'clock at the bar of the House of
Lords, in the midst of an admirable reply in some great appeal or
peerage case. When the House broke up, Sir William Follett would doff
the full-bottomed wig in which alone Queen's counsel are allowed to
appear before the House of Lords, and, resuming his short wig, reappear
in either--or by turns in both--the Courts of Nisi Prius, where he had
left trials pending, having directed himself to be sent for if there
should arise any necessity for it. Then he would in a very few moments
calmly possess himself of the exact state of the cause, and resume his
personal conduct of it, as effectively as if he had never quitted the
Court. If he could be spared for a quarter of an hour, he would glide
out, followed by one or two counsel and attorneys, to hold one, or
perhaps two consultations, in cases fixed for the next day. On the
court's rising--perhaps about six or seven o'clock, he would go home to
swallow a hasty dinner; then hold one, two, or even three consultations
at his own house; read over--as none but he could read--some briefs; and
about eleven or twelve o'clock make his appearance in the House of
Commons, and perhaps take a leading part in some very critical
debate--listened to with uninterrupted silence, and with the admiration
of both friends and foes. The above, with the exception of taking part
in the debate of the House of Commons, was an average day's work of the
late Sir William Follett! And was it not the life of a galley-slave
chained to the oar? He had, however, chosen it, and would not quit his
seat but at the icy touch of death. Such appears to be a fair and
temperate account of the real state of the case, with reference to Sir
William Follett's great anxiety to acquire money, and his over-eagerness
in accepting briefs. Great allowances ought undoubtedly to be made for
him, on the grounds above suggested; and, with reference to the former
case, another consideration occurs, which ought to have been already
more distinctly adverted to. Sir William Follett had a right to regard
his elevation to the peerage as a matter almost of course. Had he lived
possibly only a few months longer, he would, in all probability, have
become a peer of the realm; and he ought to be given credit for an
honourable ambition to avoid the imputation of having inflicted a pauper
peerage upon the country. Frail he knew his health to be; and
doubtlessly contemplated the necessity of providing suitably for the
family whom he was to leave behind him, and which he had ennobled. But
what was involved in providing, under such circumstances, "_suitably_"
for a noble family? What ample means would have to be secured by one who
had inherited no fortune himself, but was, on the contrary, the sole
architect of his fortunes? What prodigious efforts are necessary for a
lawyer to realise, by his own individual exertions, an amount which
would produce an income of five, four, or even three thousand a-year?
And let any one of common sense, and ordinary knowledge of the world,
ask himself--whether the highest of those amounts is more than barely
sufficient, without undue economy, to provide for a dowager peeress and
a young family! That such considerations were not lost sight of by Sir
William Follett, but, on the contrary, were stimulants to his intense,
unremitting, and exhausting labours, it is easy to understand; and they
sprang out of a high, and honourable, and a legitimate ambition. But
whatever weight may be attached to these considerations--and generosity
and forbearance towards the dead will attach great weight to them--they
are no answer to much of the charge brought against the late Sir William
Follett, and which ought not to be glossed over and explained
away--that, in his excessive eagerness to accomplish his object, he was
hurried into an occasional forgetfulness of that nice and high sense of
moral principle which ought to regulate every one's conduct--especially
those in eminent positions--for the sake of illustrious example, and, in
a man's own case, with reference to the awful realities of HEREAFTER:
for a man should strive so to pass through things temporal, as not to
lose sight of things eternal.

Let us now, however, endeavour to point out some of the excellences of
Sir William Follett's character; and perhaps the most prominent of them
was his admirable temper. Continually in collision with others, on
behalf of important interests entrusted to him, and exposed to a
thousand trials and provocations--that temper, nevertheless, scarce ever
failed him. Serene and unruffled on the most exciting occasions, his
manners were perfectly fascinating to all those who came in contact with
him. A rude or unkind expression may be said never to have fallen from
his lips towards an opponent--or, indeed, any one; towards juniors and
inferiors he was always good-natured and considerate; and towards the
judicial bench he exhibited uniformly a demeanour of dignified courtesy
and deference. He was very tenacious of his own opinions--confident in
the propriety of his view of a case--_apparently so, always_, for he
could assume a confidence though he had it not--and would persevere in
his efforts to overcome the adverse humour of judges and juries, to an
extent never exceeded; yet withal so blandly, so unassumingly, so
mildly, that he never irritated or provoked any one. His temper and
self-possession were unequalled, and approached, as nearly as possible,
to perfection. Amidst all the distracting multiplicity of his
engagements--the sudden and harassing emergencies arising incessantly
out of his prodigious practice--he preserved an urbane tranquillity
which gave him on all occasions the full possession of his extraordinary
faculties, enabled him to concentrate them instantly upon whatever was
submitted to his attention, however suddenly--and to conquer without
irritating or mortifying even the most eager and sensitive opponent. He
never suffered himself to be in a _hurry_, or _fidgeted_; however sudden
and serious the emergency which frighted others from their propriety, he
retained and exhibited complete composure; surveying his position with
lightning rapidity, and taking his measures with consummate
caution--with prompt and bold decision. His guiding energies kept
frequently half a dozen important causes all going on at once in their
proper course. He would glide in at a critical moment--paying, in his
agitated client's view, "an angel's visit"--and with smiling ease seize
advantages seen by none but himself, repair disasters appearing to
others irreparable, and with a single blow demolish the entire fabric
which in his absence had been laboriously and skilfully raised by his
opponent. No impetuosity or irritability, on the part of others, could
provoke him to retaliate, or sufficed to disturb that marvellous
equanimity of his, which enabled him the rather good-naturedly to
convert impetuosity and loss of temper in others, into an instrument of
victory for himself. When others, not similarly blessed, would, in like
manner, essay to rush to the rescue, their hurried and confused
movements served only to place them more completely prostrate before
him. The instant after the issue had been--perhaps suddenly--decided in
Sir William's favour--through some unexpected masterstroke of his--he
would turn with an arch smile to his opponent, and whisper--"How did
you come to let me do it?" If his advance were met sulkily, he would
add, with unaffected good humour, "Come, don't be angry; I dare say you
will serve me in the same way to-morrow!" Towards adverse and frequently
interrupting judges--towards petulant counsel--towards impudent,
equivocating, dishonest witnesses, Sir William Follett exhibited
unwavering calmness and self-possession; and withal a dignity of
demeanour by which he was remarkably distinguished, and which lent
importance to even the most trivial cases which could be intrusted to
his advocacy. Perhaps no man ever defeated a greater number of important
cases, by unexpected objections of the very extremest technical
character, than Sir William Follett; but he would do it with an air and
manner so courteous and imposing, as to lead the uninitiated into the
belief that there were doubtless good reasons by which such a course
having been reluctantly adopted, was morally justified. This topic
naturally leads to some observations upon the consummate skill, the
wonderful rapidity of perception, precision of movement, and unfaltering
vigilance, which characterized Sir William Follett's conduct of
business. Doubtless his own consciousness of possessing powers and
resources far beyond those of the majority of counsel opposed to him, as
evidenced in his extraordinary successes, contributed, in no small
degree, to his maintenance of that composed self-reliance, and
forbearance towards others, by which he was so peculiarly distinguished,
and which was aided by a naturally tranquil temperament. What advantage
could escape one so uniformly and surprisingly calm, vigilant, and
guarded as Sir William Follett? It might have been supposed that a man
so overwhelmed with all but incompatible professional engagements, could
not give to each case that full and undivided attention which were
requisite to secure success, especially against the ablest members of
the bar, who were constantly opposed to him. It was, however, very far
otherwise. No one ever ventured to calculate upon Sir William Follett's
overlooking a slip or failing to seize an advantage. _Totus teres atque
rotundus_ must indeed have been the case which was to withstand his
onslaughts. So accurate and extensive was his legal knowledge, so acute
his discrimination, so dexterous were all his movements, so lynx-eyed
was his vigilant attention to what was going on, that the most learned
and able of his opponents were never at their ease till after victory
had been definitively announced from the bench--from a Court of
Error--or even the House of Lords. They were necessarily on the _qui
vive_ to the very latest moment. Some short time before he was compelled
to relinquish practice, a certain counsel was engaged with him as junior
in a case before the Privy Council, which it was deemed of great moment
that Sir William Follett should be able to attend to.

"I don't exactly know how I stand in the Queen's Bench to-morrow
morning," said he, at the consultation late over-night--"but I fear that
that long troublesome case of the ---- Railway will be brought on by
---- at the sitting of the court. I'm afraid I can't get him to put it
off--but I'll try; and if he won't, I may yet be able to _settle_ the
case before he has got far into it--for it will be very strange if all
their proceedings are right."

On this slender chance rested the likelihood of Sir William's attendance
at the Privy Council. The next morning at ten o'clock, beheld all the
counsel on both sides ready for action.

"You're not going to bring on the ---- case this morning, are you?"
whispered Sir William Follett, as soon as he had taken his seat, to his
opponent who was arranging his papers.

"I am indeed, and no mistake whatever about it."

"Can't we bring it on to-morrow, or some day next week? It would greatly
oblige me--I really have scarcely read my papers, and, besides, want to
be elsewhere."

"I'll see what my clients say,"--and then he consulted them, and
resumed--"No--my people are peremptory."

"Very well. Then keep your eyes wide open. I must bring you down as soon
as possible, for I want to be elsewhere."

"Ah--I must take my chance about that"--then, turning round to an
experienced and learned junior, he whispered--"You hear what Follett
says?--Are we really all right?"

"Oh, pho! never mind him--we are as right as possible."

A few moments afterwards, up rose ----, and soon got into his case, and
very soon, also, to the end of it. The case had not been heard more than
half an hour, Sir William Follett at once attentively listening to his
opponent, and hastily glancing over his own papers, when he rose very
quietly, and said--"If my learned friend will pardon me, I think, my
Lord, I can save the court a very long and useless enquiry--for there is
clearly a fatal objection _in limine_ to these proceedings."

"Let us hear what it is," said the court.

Sir William had completely checkmated his opponent! A statutory
requisition had not been complied with; and in less than ten minutes'
time the enemy were all prostrate--their expensive and elaborate
proceedings all defeated--and that, too, permanently, unless on acceding
to the terms which Sir William Follett dictated to them, and which, it
need hardly be observed, were somewhat advantageous to his own client!

"Really this is too bad, Follett," might have been heard whispered by
his opponent, as the next case was called in.

"Not at all--why didn't you let it stand over as I asked you?"

"Oh--you would have done just the same then as you have now."

"I don't know that," replied Sir William Follett with a significant
smile. "But why won't your people be more careful?" And then turning to
his junior, said--"Now for the Privy Council!" And all this with such
provoking, easy, smiling _nonchalance_!

Heaven forbid that any thing here said should favour the attempt to
defeat justice by technical objections; but there is, at the same time,
much vulgar error on that subject, grounded on reasons which would tend
to subvert all rules of law and legal procedure whatever. In the case
above mentioned, the legislature had thought fit to impose on applicants
for redress under the statute in question, a duty, which through haste
or negligence had been overlooked, and which Sir William Follett's
clients had a perfect right to take advantage of, as soon as his
acuteness had detected it. To return, however. No member of the bar, let
his experience and skill have been what they might, was ever opposed to
Sir William Follett without feeling, as has been already intimated, the
necessity of the greatest possible vigilance and research to encounter
his boundless resources; his dangerous subtlety and acuteness in
detecting flaws, and raising objections; his matchless art in concealing
defects in his own case; and building up, with easy grace, a
superstructure equally unsubstantial and imposing, and defeating all
attempts to assail or overthrow it. Even very strong heads would be
often at fault, conscious that they were the victim of some subtle
fallacy, which yet they could not _then and there_ detect and expose;
and by their hazy and inconsistent efforts to do so, only supplied
additional materials for the use of their astute and skilful enemy, to
whom nothing ever seemed to come amiss; who converted every thing into
ingredients of success; whom scarce any surprise or mischance could
defeat or overthrow. A very short time before he withdrew from practice,
he was engaged at Liverpool, whither he had gone upon a special
retainer, in a very intricate and important ejectment case.

Unexpectedly he discovered, when about half-way through the case, that
his client (the plaintiff) had omitted to serve a notice upon the
defendant's attorney to produce a certain critical document, at the
contents of which it was necessary to get, in order to make out the
plaintiff's case. The objection was promptly taken by his opponent--and
to the dismay of Sir William's clients. Not so with him, however.

"You have not given a notice to produce them, eh?" he calmly whispered
to his client, and was answered with a disturbed air in the negative;
and all the court saw that Sir William was in the very jaws of a
non-suit.

"You ought to have done so, but it does not much signify," said he, very
quietly--"what's the name of the defendant's attorney?" and, on being
told it, that gentleman, doubtless chuckling with delight in his
anticipated triumph, was somewhat astounded by being suddenly called as
a witness by Sir William Follett; who coolly asked him to produce the
document in question--and on his refusal, with one or two artful
questions, which completely concealed his real object, elicited the fact
that he had no such document, had searched every where for it, both in
his own office, and among his clients' papers, and elsewhere, but in
vain.

"Now, then, my lord," said Sir William Follett, "I am entitled to give
secondary evidence of its contents!"

The Judge assented.

Sir William extracted from his own witness all that was necessary--and
out of the nettle danger plucking the flower _safety_, won the verdict.
Every one, however, who has had opportunities of observing, can give
many instances of Sir William Follett's extraordinary tact and readiness
in encountering unexpected difficulty, and defeating an opponent by
interposing successive unthought-of obstacles. In the most desperate
emergencies, when the full tide of success was arrested by some totally
unlooked-for impediment, Sir William Follett's vast practical knowledge,
quickness of perception, unerring sagacity, and immoveable
self-possession, enabled him, without any apparent effort or uneasiness,
to remove that impediment almost as soon as it was discovered, and
conduct his case to a triumphant issue. He was, indeed, the very
perfection of a practical lawyer. Whatever he did, he did as well as
even his most exacting client could have wished--he won the battle, won
it with little apparent effort, and won it with grace and dignity of
demeanour. A gentleman felt proud of being represented by such an
advocate--who never descended into any thing approaching even the
confines of vulgarity, coarseness, or personality--who lent even to the
flimsiest case a semblance of substance and strength--whose consummate
and watchful adroitness placed weak places quite out of the sight and
reach of the shrewdest opponent, and never perilled a good case by a
single act of incaution, negligence, rashness, or supererogation. When
necessary, he would prove a case barely up to the point which would
suffice to secure a decision in his favour, and then leave it--equally
before the court, and a jury--the result afterwards showing with what
consummate judgment he had acted in running the risk--the latent
difficulties to have been afterwards encountered which he had avoided,
the collateral interests which he had shielded from danger. He possessed
that sort of intuitive sagacity which enabled him to see _safety_ at the
first instant of its existence--to be confident of having the judgment
of the court, or the verdict of the jury, when others deeply interested
and concerned in the cause imagined that they were making no way
whatever. "Now, I've knocked him," his opponent, "down"--he would say at
such a moment to his junior--"don't let him get up again! I must go off
to the House of Lords--and will come back if you want me! But mind, if
he attempt to do so or so--to put in such and such a paper, on no
account allow it; send for me, and fight till I come." He possessed, to
an extraordinary degree, the power of rapidly transferring his undivided
and undisturbed attention to every thing, great and small, which could
be brought before it. A single glance of his eye penetrated the most
obscure and perplexing parts of a case--a touch of his master-hand
disentangled apparently inextricable complexities. He could apply, with
beautiful promptitude and precision, some maxim or principle which had
not occurred to those who had devoted long and anxious attention to the
case, and which at once dissolved the difficulty. Whether acting on the
offensive or defensive, he was equally characterised by the great
qualities essential to successful advocacy; but perhaps, when acting on
the offensive, he displayed more formidable powers. He tripped up the
heels of the most wary and experienced antagonists, just when they
imagined themselves in the very act of throwing him. It was almost
useless to quote a "_case_" against him. Though the party doing so
deemed it precisely in point in his favour, and on that ground was
stopped by the court from proceeding further, Sir William Follett would
ask for the case; and rising up, after a momentary glance at it, show
that it was perfectly distinguishable from that before the court, and,
in a few minutes' time, would be interrupted by the court, with--"We
think, Mr ----, that you had better resume your argument!" If, on such
occasions, Sir William's opponent were not a ready and dextrous legal
logician, his client would wish that he had secured Sir William Follett.
His power of drawing distinctions and detecting analogies--and that,
too, on the spur of the moment--was almost unequalled. It was in vain
for an opponent to _feel_ that the suggested distinction was without a
difference--he could not _prove_ it to be so--he could not demonstrate
the fallacy which had been imposed on even a strong court by that
exquisite astuteness which, however sinister, was carried off by a
charming air of frankness and confidence in the validity of the
distinction. On such an occasion, directly the cause was over he would
turn round and say, laughingly, to his discomfited opponent, "You
haven't your wits about you this morning--why didn't you quote such and
such case?" or "say so and so?" Such things were never said in an
unpleasant manner--never truculently--never triumphantly--but simply
with a good-humoured, cheerful air of _badinage_, which, so far from
irritating you, took off the edge of vexation, and set you almost
laughing at yourself for having suffered yourself to be so completely
circumvented.

While thus paying a just tribute to the skill and wonderful resources of
this eminent advocate, another of his great merits, which shall be
noticed, will afford an opportunity for doing justice to the junior bar,
with reference to the invaluable, and--to the public--often totally
unperceived, assistance which they afford to their leaders. Sir William
Follett was pre-eminently characterised by the rapidity with which he
availed himself of the suggestions and labours of others. A whisper--a
line or two--would suffice to suggest to him a truly admirable and
conclusive argument, which he instantly elaborated as if he had prepared
it deliberately beforehand in his chamber; and he would put the point
with infinitely greater cogency than could have been exhibited by him
who suggested it, and defend it from the assaults of his opponents and
the bench with truly admirable readiness and ingenuity. He exhibited
great judgment and discrimination, however, on these occasions. A false
or doubtful point he quietly rejected _in limine_, and would afterwards
point out to him who had suggested it, the impolicy of adopting it. Sir
William Follett, as is the case with all eminent leaders, was under very
great obligations, in his successful displays, to the learning and skill
of his juniors, and of the gentlemen who practise under the bar as
special pleaders. It is to them that is intrusted the responsible and
critical duty of preparing and advising upon pleadings, and shaping them
in the way in which they ought to be presented in court. Their
"opinions" and "arguments" are often of the greatest possible
value--often very masterly; and no one more highly estimated, or was
more frequently and largely indebted to them, than Sir William Follett;
but who could do such complete justice to them and so suddenly--as he? A
hasty glance over, in court, such an analysis of pleadings, or
affidavits, or legal documents of any kind, as has been spoken of--in a
cause to which he had been, up to that moment, entirely a
stranger--would suffice to put him in full possession of the true
bearings of the most complicated case; and his own great learning,
surpassing power of arrangement, and masterly argumentation, would do
the rest. If he were taken quite unawares in such a case, and could not
possibly procure its postponement, an instant's whisper with a junior--a
moment's glance at his papers--would make him apparently master of the
case; and, by some unexpected adroit manoeuvre, he would often
contrive to throw the labouring oar upon his opponent--and then, _from
him_, would acquire that knowledge of the facts of the case which Sir
William Follett rarely failed to turn to his own advantage, so as to
secure him success. Great as were his natural endowments, how could
incessant exercise, during twenty years' hourly conflict with the ablest
of his brethren and of the bench, fail of developing his splendid
energies to the uttermost, even up to a point of which we may conceive
as little short of perfection? The strength of his reasoning faculties
was equalled, if not exceeded, by that of his memory, which was equally
susceptible, tenacious, and ready; qualities these, which, as Dugald
Stewart has observed, are rarely united in the same person,[D] and
which, in the case of an advocate, give him immense advantages; while he
possessed that accurate practical knowledge which enabled him to detect
the minutest errors in the conduct of a cause, his comprehensive grasp
of mind enabled him to take in the whole of the greatest cause, with all
its dependencies; and while he fixed his own eye, with unwavering
steadfastness, on the object which he had in view, he could lead his
opponent and keep him far away from _his_; and address himself to every
passing humour of the judicial mind, supporting favourable, and
repelling adverse intimations, with reasons so plausible as to appear
absolutely conclusive. Whoever might forget facts, or lose the drift of
the argument, Sir William Follett never did; and when he had _the last
word_, he was almost always irresistible. He required, for the purposes
of justice, to be followed by a watchful and strong-headed judge, who
could detect the cunning fallacy, or series of fallacies, which had led
the jury quite astray from the real points--the true merits of the case;
and even such a person was often unable to remove the impression which
had been produced by the subtle and persuasive advocate whose voice had
preceded his. That voice was one indeed lovely to listen to. It was not
loud, but low and mellow, insinuating its faintest tones into the ear,
and filling it with gentle harmony. His utterance was very distinct--a
capital requisite in a speaker--and he had the art of varying his tones,
so as to sustain the attention of both judges and juries for almost any
length of time. His person and attitudes, also, were most prepossessing.
Their chief characteristics were a calmness and dignity which never
disappeared in even the most exciting moments of contest, and of
irritability, and provoking interruption. Woe, indeed, to one who
ventured to _interrupt_ him! However plausible, cogent, or even just,
might be the suggestion thrown in by his adversary, Sir William Follett
contrived to make it tell terribly against him, either harmonising it
with his own case, or showing it to be utterly inconsistent with that of
the interrupting party.--Sir William Follett, who was above the middle
size, always stood straight upright, as every one ought to do while
addressing either judge or juries. He seldom used his left hand in
speaking, but the play of his right hand was very graceful, easy, and
natural. His countenance was by no means handsome, yet of very striking
expression--decisively indicative of great intellectual power,
particularly about the forehead, which was very strongly developed. His
eyes were grey, rather small, and deep-set; but they had a power of
riveting the attention of any one whom he was addressing, particularly
in public. You felt him to be a man whom you could neither neglect nor
trifle with; who was addressing your intellect in weighty words,
fathoming your intentions, and detecting your inclinations and
prepossessions, and leading you in some given direction with gentle but
irresistible force. He would often startle you with the boldness of his
propositions, but never till he had contrived, somehow or other, to
predispose you in favour of that view of the case which he was
presenting. He had a most seductive smile; truth, candour, and
gentleness seemed to beam from it upon you; and you were convinced that
he felt perfect confidence in the goodness of his cause. He evinced a
sort of intuitive sagacity, in adapting himself to the character and
mode of thinking of those whom he addressed. If he were standing before
four judges, all of different but decided characters--and all
continually interrupting him with questions and suggestions, a close
experienced observer could detect, in full play, in this wily advocate,
the quality which has just been mentioned. He was never irritable, or
disrespectful to the bench, however trying their interruptions; but calm
determination was always accompanied with courteous deference for
judicial authority. It is believed that no one ever heard a sharp
expression fall on Sir William Follett from the bench. Foreigners coming
to our courts, have frequently expressed admiration at his tone and
bearing, as calm, graceful, and dignified, even though what he said
could not be understood by them. His language was chaste, simple, and
vigorous, but never ornate. He always came direct to the point; and the
severest critics could find no fault in his diction. If he had read
extensively, his speeches never bore witness of that fact; for he was,
perhaps, never heard to use a quotation, either in verse or
prose--except, of course, in the latter instance, books of legal
authority, treatises, and reports of cases. Of fancy, of imagination, he
appeared quite destitute. If originally possessed of any, it must for
many years have been overpowered and extinguished, by the incessant and
exclusive exercise of his memory and reasoning powers, for the purposes
of business. Yet was he capable, on great and interesting occasions,
when addressing either the full court or a jury, of riveting the
attention and exciting the emotions of his hearers. Trickery, however
compact and strong its meshes, he tore to pieces contemptuously, and
with scarce an effort; nothing could escape his penetrating eye; it
detected those faint vanishing traces of fraud, which were invisible to
all other eyes. If there be genius in advocacy, Sir William Follett was
undoubtedly a man of genius; and genius may perhaps be taken to signify
great natural powers, accidentally directed--or, a disposition of
nature, by which any one is qualified for some peculiar employment. What
intellectual qualifications and resources are not requisite to
constitute a first-rate advocate? If the Duke of Wellington has a genius
for military affairs, so had Sir William Follett for advocacy--and
genius of a very high order, as will be testified by all those before
whom, or on whose behalf, he exhibited it--alike by clients or
judges--as by opponents. If he were a very subtle sophist himself, he
was himself one on whom no sophistry could impose. It fled before the
penetrating glance of his aquiline eye. Faculties such as his must have
secured him eminence in any pursuit or walk in life to which he might
have devoted himself; particularly to the military profession, to which
it is believed he always had a strong inclination. Who can doubt that if
his lot had been placed from the first in political life, he would
quickly have become pre-eminent in the senate, and as a statesman? Who
that knew him, but would pronounce him to have been pre-eminently fit
for political life, to govern men of intellect, to deal with great
affairs and mighty interests--to detect and discomfit the adversaries of
peace and order, to vindicate the laws, and uphold the best interests of
society? All this he might have been; _sed dîs aliter visum_--he devoted
himself, heart and soul, throughout life, to the labours of the bar, and
the acquisition by them of a rapid and large fortune, and official
distinction. In all these aims he must have succeeded to his heart's
content; for he was for many years the most distinguished and popular of
advocates; he became the Queen's Attorney-general, and died in the prime
of life, leaving behind him a fortune of some two hundred thousand
pounds. That great class of persons who constituted his clients, will
always remember his brilliant and successful exertions with gratitude.
His brethren who were opposed to him, heartily acknowledge the
pre-eminence of his abilities and professional acquirements; and they,
as well as the junior bar, who for years watched his brilliant
exertions, must acknowledge that the one in struggling with him, and the
other in witnessing those struggles, have witnessed an instructive
exhibition of forensic excellence--a model of advocacy. To prepare for a
contest with Sir William Follett, and to contend with him, called forth
all a man's energies, and formed a severe and salutary discipline for
the strongest. "Their antagonist was their helper: they that wrestled
with him, strengthened their nerves, and sharpened their skill: that
conflict with difficulty obliged them to an intimate acquaintance with
their object, and compelled them to consider it in all its relations,
and would not suffer them to be superficial."[E] In him they saw daily
in exercise, many of the greatest qualities of advocacy--and beheld it
triumphing over every imaginable kind end degree of obstacle end
difficulty. He showed them how to maintain the bearing of gentlemen, in
the moments of hottest exasperation and provocation which can arise in
forensic warfare. He taught them how to look on success undazzled--to
bear it with modesty of demeanour, and subordination of spirit. He
exhibited to them the inestimable value of early acquiring accurate and
extensive local knowledge--of being thoroughly imbued with the
_principles_ of jurisprudence, and habituating the mind to close and
correct reasoning. The traces of his surpassing excellence in these
matters, are now to be found nowhere but in the volumes of Law Reports,
where the essence of his innumerable masterly arguments will be found
collected and preserved by gentlemen of patient attention and learning
competent for the task, and on whose modest but valuable labours will
hereafter depend all that posterity will know of Sir William Follett.
These are the legitimate records of his intellectual triumph; as are the
prosperous circumstances in which he has left his family, _to them_ a
solid and noble testimonial of his affectionate devotion to their
interests. Their fortune was the purchase of his life's blood. The
acquisition of that fortune absorbed the whole of his time, and of his
energies; it deprived him of thousands of opportunities for relaxation
and enjoyment, and also--it must be added--for the exercise of virtues
which probably he possessed, but gave himself little or no time for
calling into action--of those virtues which elevate and adorn the
individual, while they benefit our fellow-creatures and society--for
performing the duties which God Almighty has imposed upon his creatures,
proportionately to their endowments and opportunities, himself telling
us, that _to whom much is given, of him shall much be required_. To the
young, eager, and ambitious lawyer, the contemplation of Sir William
Follett's career is fraught with instruction. It will teach him the
necessity of _moderation_, in the pursuit of the distinctions and
emoluments of his profession. By grasping at too much often every thing
is lost. Was not Sir William Follett's life one uninterrupted scene of
splendid slavery, the pressure of which at length broke him down in the
meridian of his days? Had he been able to resist the very strong
temptations by which he was assailed--temptations, too, appealing
powerfully to his love of family and offspring--a long life's evening of
tranquillity, of unspeakable enjoyment, might have rewarded a day of
great, yet not excessive, labour. He might also have devoted his
powerful talents to the public benefit, in such a way as to secure the
lasting gratitude and admiration of posterity, by remedying some great
existing defect in his country's jurisprudence, by making some solid
contribution to the safeguards of the constitution. But did he ever do
so? All his great experience, talents, and learning, might never have
existed, for any trace of them remaining in the records of his country's
constitution. What page in the statute-book attests his handiwork? And
what did he ever do to advance the interests of the profession to which
he belonged? These are questions asked with sorrowful sincerity and
reluctance, and with every disposition to make the amplest allowances
for those failings of Sir William Follett, which undoubtedly detracted
somewhat from his excellence and eminence. He was a man of modest, mild,
inoffensive character, who spoke ill of, and did harm to, no one; but,
at the same time, was not distinguished by that active and energetic
benevolence, liberality, and generosity, which secure for the memory of
their exhibitant, ardent, enduring gratitude and reverence. His
excellence was of a negative, rather than a positive kind. He did harm
to no one, when he might have done so with impunity, and was possibly
sometimes tempted to do so; but then he did not do good, at all events,
to the extent which might have been expected from him. He was, however,
by no means of a mean or selfish nature; but in his excessive, and to a
certain extent pardonable, eagerness to make what he deemed a suitable
provision for himself and his family, gave himself the appearance of
being comparatively indifferent to the interests or welfare of others.
It is, however, only fair to his memory to acknowledge, that legal
eminence is too often liable to the same imputations--that professional
pursuits have certainly a strong tendency to warp amiable and generous
natures--to keep the eye of ambition, amidst the intense fires of
rivalry and opposition, fixed exclusively upon one object--the interest
and advancement of the individual. Nothing can effectually control or
counteract this tendency, but a lively and constant sense of religious
principle; which enlarges the heart till it can _love our neighbour as
ourself_, which brightens the present with the hopes of the future,
which purifies our corrupt nature, and elevates its grovelling earthward
tendencies by the contemplation of an eternal state of being dependent
upon our conduct in this transient state of trial. Who can tell the
extent to which these and similar considerations are present to the
minds of the dying great ones of the earth, who, suddenly plucked from
amidst the dazzling scenes of successful ambition, are laid prostrate
upon the bed of death--their _pale faces turned to the wall_, with
HEREAFTER alone in view, and under an aspect equally _new_ and awful?
Let us, therefore, be wise, and be wise in time, nor haughtily disregard
the earnest voice of warning, however humble and obscure may be the
quarter whence it comes.

Sir William Follett belonged to a respectable family in Devonshire, and
was born on the 2d December 1798. In 1814 he went to Trinity College,
Cambridge, and took the degree of B.A. in 1818, without any attempt to
obtain _honours_; quitting college in this latter year, and entering the
Inner Temple, he prosecuted the study of the law in the chambers of
eminent practitioners, where he continued for three years--and then
practised for about three years as a special pleader. He was called to
the bar in 1824, and went the western circuit, but for one or two years
was much disheartened by his want of success. He expressed, on one
occasion, his readiness to accept of the place of police magistrate, if
it were offered! His progress was, soon afterwards, signal, and all but
unprecedentedly rapid. He was appointed Solicitor-general in 1834, while
yet behind the bar, and in 1835 was returned for Exeter, for which place
he sate till his death. He quitted office with Sir Robert Peel in 1835,
but returned with him to it in 1841, and became Attorney-general in
1844, on the promotion of Sir Frederick Pollock to the chief seat in the
Court of Exchequer. For several years before Sir William Follett's
decease, his constitution, never of the strongest, was broken by his
incessant and severe labours; and in 1844, having been obliged to give
up practice altogether, he went to Italy at the close of the
session--having attended at the bar of the House of Lords, to lead for
the Crown in the O'Connell case. He was, however, quite unfit for the
task. His spine was then so seriously affected, that he was obliged to
sit upon a raised chair while addressing the House, the Chancellor and
the other Lords, out of great consideration for the distinguished and
enfeebled speaker, moving down to the lower end of the House, close to
the bar, in order to occasion him as little exertion and fatigue as
possible. He did not speak long, and the effort greatly exhausted him;
and it was not without difficulty, owing to something like partial
paralysis of the lower extremities, that he could walk from the House.
He returned from the Continent in March 1845, a little better than when
he had gone, and endeavoured to resume the discharge of such of his
less onerous, professional, and official duties as admitted of their
being attended to at his own house. He continued to listen to patent
cases, attended by counsel, till within a short period of his being
finally disabled; but every one saw with pain the total exhaustion under
which he was suffering. Finding himself rapidly declining, in May 1845,
he wrote a letter to the Prime Minister, proffering the resignation of
his office of Attorney-general.

He soon afterwards retired, for the advantage of some little change of
air, to the house of a relative in the Regent's Park, where he enjoyed
the soothing attentions of his family, and reverently received the
consolations of religion. The public manifested great anxiety to have
the state of his health, and the morning and evening newspapers
contained regular announcements on the subject, as in the case of
persons of the highest distinction. Her Majesty, Prince Albert, also,
with numbers of the nobility, sent daily to enquire concerning him. For
the last day, or possibly two days of his life, he became unconscious,
and slightly delirious--and expired, without apparent pain, on Saturday
afternoon, the 28th June 1845. For a long series of years, the death of
no member of the legal profession had excited a tithe of the public
concern which followed that of Sir William Follett, the
Attorney-general. The bar felt that its brightest light had been almost
suddenly extinguished. Its most gifted members, and those of the
judicial bench, heartily acknowledged the transcendence of his
professional qualifications, and the unassuming peacefulness with which
he had passed through life. Had he lived to occupy the highest judicial
seat--the woolsack--few doubted that, when relieved from the crushing
pressure of private practice, he would have displayed qualities
befitting so splendid a station, and earned a name worthy of ranking
with those of his great predecessors.

His funeral took place on Friday, the 4th of July, at the Temple church.
He was a bencher of the Inner Temple, and his remains repose in the
vault at the south-eastern extremity of the church. For nearly two hours
before the funeral took place, the church--a chaste and splendid
structure--had been filled with members of the bar, and a few others,
all in mourning, and awaiting, in solemn silence, the commencement of
the mournful ceremony. At length the pealing of the organ announced the
arrival of the affecting moment when the body of Sir William
Follett--himself having been not very long before a worshipper in the
church--was being borne within its walls, preceded by the surpliced
choir, chanting the service, in tones which still echo in the ears of
those who heard them. All rose silently, with moistened eyes, and
beating hearts, as they beheld, slowly borne through the aisle, the
coffin which contained the prematurely dead--him whose figure, erect and
graceful in forensic robes, and dignified in gesture, had so recently
stood among them, their cheerful and gifted associate in the anxious
business of life--from whose lips, now closed for ever, had but lately
issued that rich, harmonious voice, whose tones had scarce, even then,
died away! They were bearing him to his long home, with all the solemn
pomp and circumstance which testify the reverence paid to departed
eminence: and when the coffin was placed beside the altar, at the mouth
of the vault, no language can adequately describe the affecting and
imposing scene which presented itself. The pall had been borne by the
Prime Minister, (Sir Robert Peel,) the Lord Chancellor, one of the
Secretaries of State, (Sir James Graham,) and the Vice-Chancellor of
England; and amongst those who followed, were Lord Brougham, Lord
Langdale, the Chief-Justice of the Common Pleas, and many of the judges,
(almost all the courts, both of law and equity, having suspended their
sittings on account of the funeral;) while in the body of the church
were to be seen nearly all the distinguished members of the bar, who had
been, up to a very recent period, opposed to, or associated with, him
whose dust was now on the point of being committed to its kindred dust.
Nearest to the body sat the three great ministers of the Crown, who had
come to pay their tribute of respect to the remains of their gifted and
confidential adviser; and their solemn countenances told the deep
impression which the scene was making upon them, so illustrative of the
fleeting shadowiness of earthly greatness! and their reflections must
have been akin to those which--as may have occurred to them--their
own obsequies might, at some future period, excite in the
spectators--reflections such as those with which a great one,
departed,[F] closed his grandest labours.

"Oh, eloquent, just, and mighty death! whom none could advise, thou hast
persuaded; what none hath dared, thou hast done: and whom all the world
hath flattered, thou only hast cast out of the world and despised. Thou
hast drawn together all the far-stretched greatness, all the pride,
cruelty, and ambition of man, and covered it all over with these two
narrow words--HIC JACET!"

FOOTNOTES:

[A] This has been recently the subject of a decision of the Court of
Queen's Bench, in the case of _Egan_ v. _The Guardians of the Kensington
Union_, 3 Queen's Bench Reports, p. 935, note (_a_). The same rule
applies to physicians. _Veitch_ v. _Russell_, _ib._ 928.

[B] Leading counsel, indeed all counsel much engaged in business,
necessarily place their time almost altogether at the disposal of their
clerks, whose duty it is to keep an exact record of their employer's
engagements, and see that no incompatible ones are made for him. Counsel
find quite enough to do, in adequately attending to the matters actually
put before them by their clerks, without being harassed by adjusting the
very troublesome arrangements and appointments, for time and place,
where their duties are to be performed or, at all events, doing more
than keeping a general superintendence over their arrangements thus
made. To all this must be added those innumerable contingencies in the
arrangements of the courts, and the course of business, which no one can
possibly foresee; and which often derange a whole series of
arrangements, however cautiously and prudently made, and render counsel
unable, after having carefully mastered their cases, to attend at the
trial or argument.

[C] The clerk of a barrister has a fee on every fee of his employer, in
a long-settled proportion of 2s. 6d. on all fees under five guineas;
from, and inclusive of five guineas, up to ten guineas, 5s.; from ten
guineas, 10s., and so on for higher fees.

[D] _Phil._ c. vi. sec. 7.

[E] Adapted from Edmund Burke.

[F] Sir Walter Raleigh--_History of the World_, last paragraph.




LET NEVER CRUELTY DISHONOUR BEAUTY.

The words chosen as the subject of the following verses, form the first
line of an antiquated song, of which the remainder seems not to have
been preserved.--See Mr Dauney's "_Ancient Scotish Melodies_," p. 227.


    "Let never Cruelty dishonour Beauty"--
      Be no such war between thy face and mind.
    Heaven with each blessing sends an answering duty:
      It made thee fair, and meant thee to be kind.

    Resemble not the panther's treacherous seeming,
      That looks so lovely to beguile its prey;
    Seek not to match the basilisk's false gleaming,
      That charms the fancy only to betray.

    See the great Sun! God's best and brightest creature--
      Alike on good and ill his gifts he showers:
    Look at the Earth, whose large and liberal nature
      To all who court her offers fruits or flowers.

    Then, lady, lay aside that haughty scorning--
      A robe unmeet to deck a mortal frame;
    Mild be thy light, and innocent as morning,
      And shine on high and humble still the same.

    Bid thy good-will, in bright abundance flowing,
      To all around its kindly stream impart;
    Thy love the while on One alone bestowing,
      The fittest found, the husband of thy heart!




THE LAST HOURS OF A REIGN.

A TALE IN TWO PARTS.--PART II.


CHAPTER III.

    "A deep and mighty shadow
    Across my heart is thrown,
    Like a cloud on a summer meadow,
    Where the thunder wind hath blown!"

    BARRY CORNWALL.

At this period of French history, and even up to a period much later,
the bridges which crossed the Seine, and connected the two separate
parts of the city of Paris, were built over with houses, and formed
narrow streets across the stream. These houses, constructed almost
entirely of wood, the beams of which were disposed in various
directions, so as to form a sort of pattern, and ornamented with carved
window-sills and main-beams, were jammed together like figs in a cask,
and presented one gable to the confined gangway, the other to the water,
which, in many cases, their upper story overhung with a seemingly
hazardous spring outward. Towards the river, also, many were adorned
with wooden balconies, sheltered by the far-advancing angles of the
roofs; whilst beneath, upon the water, the piles of the bridge were
encumbered by many water-mills, to the incessant noise of which, habit
probably reconciled the inhabitants of the houses above.

In an upper room in one of the houses which, after this fashion, lined
the _Pont au Change_, sat, on the evening of the day on which Philip de
la Mole had escaped from the Louvre, three persons, the listlessness of
whose attitudes showed that they were all more or less pre-occupied by
painful reflections.

The principal personage of this group--a woman between fifty and sixty
years of age--lay back on a large wooden chair, her eyes fixed on
vacancy. Her dress was of simple dark stuff, very full upon the sleeves
and below the waist, and relieved by a small white standing collar; a
dark coif, of the fashion of the period, covered the grizzled hair,
which was drawn back from the forehead and temples, leaving fully
exposed a face, the rude features and heavy eyebrows of which gave it a
stern character. But in spite of this severity of aspect, there
naturally lurked an expression of goodness about the mouth and eyes,
which spoke of a kindliness of disposition and tenderness of heart,
combined with firmness and almost obstinacy of character. Those eyes,
however, were now vacant and haggard in expression; and that mouth was
contracted as if by some painful thought.

By her side, upon a low stool, was seated a fair girl, whose attire was
as plain as that of the more aged woman; but that lovely form needed no
aids of the toilet to enhance its beauty. The fair brown hair brushed
off from the white brow, in the graceless mode of the day, hid nothing
of a face which had all the purity of some beautiful Madonna; although
the cheek was pale, and the lines of the physiognomy were already more
sharpened than is usual at years so young. Her head, however, was now
bent down over a large book which lay upon her knees, and from which she
appeared to have been reading aloud to the elder woman; and, as she sat,
a tear dropped into its pages, which she hastily brushed away with her
fair hand.

The third person, who completed the group, was a young man scarcely
beyond the years of boyhood. His good-looking round face was bronzed and
ruddy with fresh colour, and his dark eyes and full mouth were
expressive of natural gaiety and vivacity. But he, too, sat leaning his
elbows upon his knees, and gazing intently, and with a look of anxiety,
upon the fair girl before him; until, as he saw the tear fall from her
eye, he turned impatiently upon his stool, and proceeded to polish, with
an animation which was not that of industry, the barrel of a gun which
lay between his knees.

The room which formed the groundwork to the picture composed of these
three personages, was dark and gloomy, as was generally the interior of
the houses of the time; a large wardrobe of black carved wood filled a
great space of one of the walls; presses and chests of the same dark and
heavy workmanship occupied considerable portions of the rest of the
room. The low casement window, left open to admit the air of a bright
May evening, looked out upon the course of the rapid Seine, and gave a
cheering relief to the dark scene. The hazy rays from the setting sun
streamed into the room; and from below rose up the sound of the rushing
waters, and the wheels of the mills, mixed with occasional cries of men
upon the river, and the more distant murmur of the city. The scene was
one of calmness; and yet the calmness of those within that room was not
the calmness of repose and peace.

It was the youth who first spoke.

"Jocelyne," he said in a low tone, approaching his stool nearer to that
of the fair girl, and then continuing to polish his gun-barrel without
looking her in the face--"if you knew how it grieves me to see you thus!
You sit and droop like a bird upon the wintry branch, when I would fain
see you lift your head and chirp, as in days gone by, now that summer
begins to gladden around us."

The maiden thus addressed looked at him with a languid smile, and then
faintly shook her head.

"How would you have me gay, Alayn," she said softly, "when our
grandmother continues thus?"

Alayn made a gesture of doubt, as if he would have said, that solicitude
for her grandmother was not the only cause of Jocelyne's sadness; but he
made no observation to that effect, and, nodding his head towards the
older woman, asked in a low tone--

"How is Dame Perrotte to-day? She did not answer my greeting on my
entrance; and during your reading from that forbidden book of Scripture,
she has uttered not a word."

"You may speak aloud," replied Jocelyne. "When she is in this state, she
does not hear us. She is fully absorbed in her sad thoughts. I have
seldom seen her more troubled than she has been for some few days past.
One would suppose that the return of sunny summer days recalls more
fearfully to her mind that epoch of carnage and destruction at the fête
of St Bartholomew, when the heavens above were so joyous and bright,
whilst below the earth was reeking with blood, and your poor father
perished, Alayn, for his religion's sake. I have ever remarked, when the
sun shines the cheeriest, her spirit is the darkest."

"Will she not speak to me?" enquired Alayn.

"No," replied his cousin. "When in these deepest moods of melancholy,
she will not speak but upon the subject of those fatal days, or if her
attention be aroused by the mention of her slaughtered kindred; and
Heaven forbid that an unguarded word from me should excite so terrible a
crisis as would ensue!"

"And she remains always thus now?" asked the youth.

"Not always," answered Jocelyne. "There are times when she is as of old,
and speaks to me with calmness. But at these better hours she makes no
mention of the past."

"She never talks, then, of returning to the palace?" continued Alayn,
with an evident air of satisfaction upon his round ruddy face.

"Never," replied the girl, with an involuntary sigh.

"And yet her foster-son, the king, has often sent for her."

"Hush!" interrupted Jocelyne. "Let not that name strike upon her ear.
Although she hears us not, the very word might, perchance, call up
within her recollections I would were banished from her mind for ever.
The name of her nursling, whom she once loved as were she his own
mother, and he had not worn a crown, is now a sound of horror to her.
Often has she cursed him in the bitterness of her heart," she continued
in a low tone of mystery, as if fearful lest the very walls should hear
her confidence, "as the slayer of the righteous. She never can forgive
him the treacherous order given for that murderous deed of slaughter and
destruction."

"But he protected her from all harm in that general massacre of our
party in religion, from which so few of us escaped," said Alayn.

"She would rather have died, I verily believe," pursued the fair girl
shuddering, "than have lived to see her own son fall, so cruelly
murdered by the son of her fostering care."

"And she never will return to him again?" enquired the young man with
another gleam of satisfaction.

Jocelyne shook her head.

"So much the better. So much the better," pursued Alayn stoutly. "For
then I can see you when I will, fair cousin Jocelyne, and come and sit
by your side as I do now, to continue my work with the permission of my
master the armourer, who, whatever he may say, is as good a Calvinist at
heart as ourselves, I am sure. And you will return no more with my
grandmother among those villanous popinjays about the court, who are
ever for telling you soft tales of love, and swearing that your eyes are
the brightest in creation--as, to be sure, they are; and that never such
an angel walked the earth--as, to be sure, there never did; but who mean
it not well with you, cousin Jocelyne, and would but have their will to
desert you and leave you to sorrow, and who, with all their gilded
finery, are not worth one inch of the coarse stuff of a stout-hearted
honest artisan who loves you, and would see you happy; although I say
it, who should not say it."

Jocelyne drew up her head proudly as if about to speak; but, as her
melancholy pale hazel eyes met those of her cousin, sparkling with
animation and good-humour, she only turned herself away, whilst a bright
flush of colour overspread that cheek but a moment before so pale.

"Why, look ye, cousin Jocelyne," continued the youth once more, after a
moment's pause; "it will out, in spite of me, all that I have got to
say. I cannot see your pale cheek and tearful eye, and hear the sigh
that ever and anon breaks so painfully from your bosom, but that, all
simple as I be, I can tell it is not only for our poor grandmother you
sorrow. Mayhap I have heard what I have heard, and seen what I have seen
besides; but never mind that. Believe me, you sorrow for those who love
you not truly as there are others who love you--you pain your heart
until you will break it, for those who play you false."

"Alayn, I can hear no more of this! You know not what you say!" cried
the fair girl hastily; and, laying down upon the table her book, she
arose and walked away from him to lean out of the window.

"Nay, pardon me, cousin Jocelyne," exclaimed the youth in a pained tone,
also rising and advancing towards the window. "I do but speak as I
should and must speak, being your well-wisher--I mean you well, God
knows. And the time will come when you too will know _how_ well!"

Jocelyne turned her eyes, which were moist with tears, to her cousin;
and, stretching out her hand to him, she said, with all that romantic
fervour of the ingenuous girl which almost wears the semblance of
inspiration--

"Alayn, I know you love me, and that you mean it well with me. You are a
kind and sincere brother to me. But, oh! you cannot read the deep deep
feelings of the heart, or judge how little words have the power, like
the charms we read of, to heal its wounds and wrench asunder the chains
that bind it for ever and ever! The ivy, when torn from the stem to
which it clings, may wither and die, but it cannot be attached to
another trunk, however skilful the hand of the gardener who would attach
it."

The youth took her hand, and, as she again turned to the window to hide
her increasing emotion, shook his head sadly and doubtfully; then,
returning to his stool, he took the gun-barrel between his knees with a
movement of impatience, and continued his occupation of polishing it,
although his eyes were constantly fixed askance upon the graceful form
of the girl as she leant upon the window sill.

Presently the old woman moved uneasily in her chair, and, placing her
hands firmly upon its arms, as if about to rise from her seat, she
exclaimed aloud--

"Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, and I will avenge the blood of the
righteous!"

Both Jocelyne and Alayn turned; but, before the fair girl could hurry
to her grandmother's side, she had sunk down again into her chair,
murmuring--

"No, no! enough of blood! enough of vengeance! God pardon him, and turn
the hearts of those who counseled him to this deed."

"Give me my Bible, Jocelyne my girl," said again the old woman after a
pause. "It seems I have not read it for many a long hour. God forgive
me! But my poor head wanders strangely. Ah! is it you Alayn? Good-day to
you," she continued, as if she had then first become aware of the
presence of her grandson.

Jocelyne hastily gave her grandmother the volume which she had laid down
upon the table; and whispering in her cousin's ear, as she passed, "She
has spoken, she will be better now," sat down once more by her side.

A silence again pervaded that still room, when suddenly a noise of steps
resounded upon a wooden stair. They approached the door, upon which a
hurried knocking was now heard. Before Jocelyne, who, at the sound of
these steps, had clasped her hands before her, with an expression of
surprise and almost of alarm, had fully risen from her seat, the door
was flung open, and a man enveloped in a cloak, and with a jewelled hat
sunk low upon his brow, entered hastily.

He closed the door, and then gazed with a rapid glance around him.

Jocelyne had sprung up with a suppressed cry.

"Ah! I am not mistaken," said the man advancing, and removing his hat.
"Jocelyne! Dame Perrotte! I am a fugitive, and I seek a shelter at your
hands. I could not trust myself to those who call themselves my friends;
others who might have protected me, I know not where to find, but I
bethought myself of you--of you, Jocelyne--and"----

"Philip! Monseigneur," stammered the astonished girl. "You--here--and a
fugitive!"

"Do you not know me?" said the fugitive to Dame Perrotte, who had risen
from her chair, and stood staring at him as if with a return of troubled
intellect.

"Not know you?" exclaimed the old woman rising. "I know you well, Philip
de la Mole! And is it you, the Catholic, who seek a shelter beneath the
roof of the proscribed and outlawed Huguenot?"

"But it is in the cause of your religion that I have conspired, my good
woman, and that I am now compelled to fly," replied La Mole; "it was for
one, who, as chief of your party, would have espoused your quarrel, and
re-established your influence in the land."

"Ay, for your master, the shallow Duke of Alençon," responded Perrotte
coldly. "False, hollow ambition all! And ye call that the cause of
religion--Mockery! Yes, I know you well, Philip de la Mole, who in the
hour of bloodshed," she continued, growing more and more excited, "could
approve the hellish deed, and who now can babble of sacrifice and
self-offering in the cause of our religion."

"You belie me, woman," said La Mole proudly.

"Yes, I know you, Philip de la Mole," pursued the old woman with knitted
brows and flashing eyes; "you, who, to amuse your hours of idleness,
could talk of love to a poor trusting girl, heedless how you destroyed
her peace of mind, had you but your pastime and your jest of it."

"Grandmother!" cried Jocelyne in the bitterest distress.

"It was he, then!" exclaimed Alayn, advancing upon the fugitive
nobleman, with the gun-barrel raised in his arm.

"If you love me, forbear!" screamed his cousin, flinging herself before
him.

"I had hoped to have found shelter among honest hearts, whom misfortune
should have taught pity," said the fugitive proudly, and unmoved; "and I
have erred--unjust hate, prejudice, inhospitality, are the only virtues
practised beneath this roof. I will again brave the danger, and seek
elsewhere that kindly feeling I find not here. Jocelyne, my sweet pretty
Jocelyne, farewell!"

With these words La Mole moved towards the door. The old woman regarded
him motionless, and with the same cloud of irritation on her brow. Alayn
seemed equally inclined to prosecute his first hostile intention; but
Jocelyne sprang after the retreating nobleman and caught him by the arm.

"Grandmother," she said, drawing herself up to her full height, and
leaning fondly against La Mole--"if any one have erred, it is I, and I
alone. It was I chose him _forth_ as the noblest, the brightest, the
best among those who glittered about the court, in which we humbly
lived. I had given him my heart ere he had deigned to cast a look upon
me. If I have loved him--if I love him still--it is because I alone have
sought it should be so."

"Jocelyne! be still, sweet girl," said La Mole, affected, and moving
towards the door.

"And were he our bitterest enemy," continued the excited girl, still
clinging to his arm, "he is now a proscribed fugitive--no matter
why--God sends him to us--and it is ours to save, not to condemn him."

"But it is said, that the enemy of the righteous shall perish from the
earth," said her grandmother sternly; "it is not I condemn or kill him.
If it be the will of God that his cause of error cease, let him go forth
and die."

"If he die, mother," exclaimed Jocelyne with energy, "I shall die too. I
have given him my heart, my life, my soul--punish me as you
will--trample me at your feet. But I love him, mother; and, if you drive
him forth to be hunted by his enemies to the death, your child will not
survive it."

Alayn had turned away in bitterness of heart, and the old Huguenot
woman, although giving way more and more to that excitement, which, at
times, fully troubled her reason, only wrung her hands, as if moved by
the address of the agitated girl.

"Stay! stay, Monseigneur," continued Jocelyne, as La Mole again pressed
her hand and turned to depart. "She relents--she has a kind heart; and
she would not, surely, deliver up the guest who begs shelter at her
threshold, into the hands of those who seek to capture and to kill him."

"Let me go forth, Jocelyne! farewell!" repeated La Mole.

"Mother!" again commenced the unhappy girl, throwing herself down to
clasp the knees of her grandmother, who, overcome by the violence of her
feelings, had sunk back again into her chair. "Mother! would your
husband, or your son, have driven even their deadliest enemy from their
door?"

"Speak not of my son, girl; or you will drive me mad!" cried Perrotte,
clasping her hands before her face.

Jocelyne sprang up with a look of despair, and returned to detain once
more La Mole.

As they thus stood, and before the old woman had again stirred, or Alayn
interfered, a rumour from the street formed by the bridge, caught the
ear of the excited girl.

"What is that?" she exclaimed, starting in alarm.

"The agents of the Queen-mother sent in my pursuit, probably," replied
La Mole coolly, and disengaging himself from the convulsive embrace of
Jocelyne. "How they have tracked me, I know not. So be it, then. I had
hoped for the sake of others to avoid their hands; but I am prepared to
meet my fate."

"No, no," screamed Jocelyne. "It cannot be! Mother--mother, would you
see him made a prisoner in your own house--murdered, perhaps, before
your very face!"

Alayn moved towards the door; and the girl sprang to intercept him.

"Would you be so base? Would you have me hate you?" cried the poor girl
in despair, to her cousin.

Many steps were now heard ascending the lower stair. The old woman, who
trembled in every limb, stirred not from her chair; but, removing one
hand from her face, she stretched it out towards a corner of the room.

"Ah! I understand you, mother," exclaimed Jocelyne. "That secret closet
where our books of religion are deposited, where our old priest, during
the massacre, was hid!"

"Whilst my son perished--a victim--a martyr!" groaned the old woman,
fearfully agitated.

"Come, come, Monseigneur," pursued the excited girl; and, in spite of
the unwillingness of La Mole to profit by a hospitality thus bestowed,
she dragged him to one corner of the room, and pushing back the spring
of one of those secret recesses then so commonly constructed in all
houses, as well of the bourgeois as the nobles, on account of the
troubles and dangers of the times, she compelled him by her entreaties
to enter a dark nook--then hastily closing the aperture, she exclaimed,
"God shield him!" and sank down into the stool by her grandmother's
side.

"Alayn!" she said, in a low hurried tone, as the heavy steps still
mounted the stairs, "you will be silent, will you not? You will not
betray him, and see the poor girl, whom you profess to love, die at your
feet!"

The youth shook his head with a gesture of resignation, although the
frown upon his brow showed how painful were the feelings that he
suppressed.

"Mother!" whispered Jocelyne once more to the old woman. "Calm your
agitation--oh! let not a word, a gesture, betray our secret! Stay! I
will read to you!" And she seized the Bible, then a dangerous book to
produce thus openly before Catholic agents of the court, and took it on
her lap.

Perrotte answered not a word, but continued to rock herself with much
agitation from side to side in her chair.

The noise of the arquebuses of soldiery was now, in truth, heard on the
landing-place. A heavy blow was given on the panels of the door; and,
without waiting for permission to enter, a man in the military
accoutrements of the period, whose head was crowned with a high hat,
adorned with a short red feather, advanced into the room with an air
which betrayed at once a strange mixture of effrontery and hypocrisy.

"Landry!" exclaimed together both Jocelyne and Alayn.

"Captain Landry, at your service," said the man; "or, if you will, at
the service of her majesty the Queen-mother. Good-day, my gentle cousins
both. Good-day to you, my good aunt Perrotte. How goes it with her now?
Her head was somewhat ailing as I heard, since she had left the court."
And he touched his forehead significantly with his finger.

"She is well!" answered Jocelyne hastily, trembling in spite of her
efforts to be calm.

"But this is no visit of ceremony, my good friends," continued Captain
Landry, with some haughtiness of manner. "I come upon state affairs. A
criminal of rank, who has conspired against the life and person of the
king, has escaped; and we are sent in his pursuit. We have contrived to
track him of a surety to this neighbourhood; and, as I bethought me that
this same delinquent was a friend of my fair cousin Jocelyne, who,
although she has received my offers of affection with disdain, could
look upon another with more favour, I doubted not that I should find
news of him in her company. Know you of none such here, sweet cousin?"

"I know not of whom you speak," said Jocelyne, her colour varying from
the flush of emotion to the deadly paleness of fear.

"And you, Alayn, boy, since our fair cousin's memory is so short, can
doubtless tell me. Has no one entered here within the last half hour?"

"No one!" answered Alayn sturdily; but he then turned and moved to the
window to hide his confusion.

The Queen's agent shrugged his shoulders.

"And my good aunt has had no visitors?" he resumed, advancing towards
the old woman.

Perrotte lifted her head, and regarded the captain fixedly, and with a
look of scorn, but said not a word.

"Search!" said the officer, turning to the soldiers, who had waited
without.

The men entered; and in a few instants the scanty and small rooms
attached to the principal apartment were examined. The captain was
informed that no one could be found. For a moment he looked
disappointed, and paused to reflect.

"Their trouble is evident," he murmured to himself. "He may still be
here. The reward for his capture is too great to be given up lightly;
and, besides, I hate the fellow for the love she bears him--I will leave
no stone unturned."

"Dame Perrotte!" he said returning to the old woman, and speaking to her
in a low tone of voice--"A criminal of state has escaped from the king's
justice. In spite of the protestations of your grandchildren, I cannot
doubt that he is concealed hereabouts; and you must know where. You
will not fail, I am sure, to indicate the place of his retreat, when you
know that, as the friend of those who have proved the bitterest enemies
of your religion, he must also be your deadly enemy."

"And is it Landry, the recreant, the apostate, the only seceder of our
family from the just cause, who speaks thus?" said the old woman lifting
her head with a haggard expression.

"The necessary policy of the times," whispered the captain, sitting down
on the stool by her side, and approaching himself confidentially nearer,
"has compelled me, like many others, to be that in seeming which we are
not in heart. Has not our chief, Henry of Navarre, yielded also to the
pressure of the circumstances in which he lives? Judge me not so
harshly, good aunt. But this criminal--he is one of those who have
hunted and destroyed, who have cried--'Down with them; down with the
Huguenots--pursue and kill;' and you would withdraw him from the
punishment he merits?"

"He! he! Was it, so?" muttered Perrotte, with eyes staring at the
vacancy before her.

"Do you not fear to pass for the accomplice of his crimes?" continued
Captain Landry in her ear. "Know you not that he has attainted the life
of your nursling by deeds of sorcery, and that Charles IX., our king,
now lies upon his death-bed."

"Who speaks of Charles?" exclaimed the old woman with increasing
wildness and excitement. "Charles and death! Yes, they go hand in hand!"

"Landry! You shall not torture our poor mother thus," cried Jocelyne
springing towards them, in order to interrupt a conversation which she
had been witnessing in agony, although she could not hear it, and the
effect of which upon her grandmother's unsettled mind became every
moment more visible.

"Fair cousin, with your leave!" replied the captain. "I am bound to do
the duties of my office. I shall be grieved to use constraint." And,
waving his hand to her to withdraw, he made a sign to the soldiers to
approach both Jocelyne and Alayn, and prevent their interference.

Jocelyne wrung her hands.

"Do you not fear the reproaches of your murdered son?" continued Captain
Landry, turning to Perrotte, with an expression of perfidious hypocrisy
in his eyes, and again pouring his words lowly, but distinctly, into her
ear. "Do you not fear that he should rise from his tomb, and, showing
the bloody wounds of that fatal night, cry for vengeance on his
murderers, and curse the weakness of that mother who would screen and
shelter them? Do you not fear that Heaven should condemn you as a friend
to the destroyers of the righteous? Think on your slaughtered kindred,
woman!"

"Mercy! mercy! my son!" cried the old woman, springing up with her hands
outstretched, as if to repel a spectre. "Oh! hide that streaming blood!
Look not so angry on me! Blood shall have blood, thou say'st; so be it.
Vengeance is the Lord's! and He shall avenge his people!"

"Where is he?" enquired Landry, also rising, and watching her every
movement.

"There! there!" exclaimed the excited woman, pointing to the corner of
the room.

In spite of the attempt of Jocelyne, who was now restrained by the
soldiers, to interrupt him, Captain Landry walked to the corner
indicated, and after a few attempts succeeded in discovering the secret
of the concealed recess.

"Count Philip de la Mole, you are my prisoner, under warrant of his
majesty the King, and by order of the Queen-mother," he said, as the
young nobleman appeared to view.

Jocelyne uttered a cry of despair.

"Conduct me where you are bidden, sir," said La Mole, offering his
sword. "My sweet Jocelyne, farewell!--your kindly interest in my fate I
shall never forget. But we shall meet again. Fear nothing for me; I will
prove my innocence."

The unhappy girl fell at the feet of the captured nobleman, and wetted
his outstretched hand with her tears, as she pressed it to her lips.

"My strict orders," said Captain Landry, "were to arrest all those who
should be convicted of harbouring the criminal. Forget not, then,
cousin Jocelyne, that I spare you so hard a lot. But my duty compels me
to adopt other measures. Come, sir!"

When Philip de la Mole had been conducted from the room by the agents of
the Queen-mother, Jocelyne turned to her grandmother, without rising
from the ground, and exclaimed in the bitterest despair--

"Mother--mother--you have killed me!"

"Who spoke of Charles? Who said he lay upon his death-bed?" cried
Perrotte, walking up and down with the uncertain step of the deranged of
mind, and unheeding her unhappy grandchild; "Charles dying! and I shall
see him no more--shall he die without a warning word from her who loved
and cherished him so long--die without repentance? What was that voice
that tortured my very soul? Who said he was about to die, and that I
should see him no more?"

Jocelyne sprung up from the ground, as if a sudden thought had crossed
her mind.

"Yes, mother, yes," she cried, "the king is dying. Come to him. See him
once more. He will hear your words upon his death-bed, and extend his
pardon to the innocent--for Philip de la Mole is innocent, my mother. He
will save him who is unjustly condemned; and you will save his repentant
soul. Come, mother, come--come," she continued, as if speaking to a
child, "the king is waiting for you!"

"Charlot--my nursling--dying!" murmured the old woman--"Yes--let us go."

"Alayn will accompany us," said Jocelyne, turning to the youth, who
stood at the window unhappy and confused.

Without waiting for any addition to their dress, the eager girl seized
her grandmother's hand, and led her to the door.

When it was opened, two soldiers appeared upon the threshold, stationed
to prevent all egress of the inhabitants; and one of them, placing his
arquebuse across the door-stall, cried, in a rude voice--

"_On ne passe pas._"

The two women drew back in alarm.


CHAPTER IV.

    "Sweet Isabel, take my part;
    Lend me your knees, and all my life to come
    I'll lend you all my life to do you service."

    SHAKSPEARE.

    "Your suit's unprofitable; stand up, I say."

    IDEM.

Again the scene changes to the palace of the Louvre, where so many dark
intrigues surrounded the rich chamber of the dying king; where, instead
of the sympathy of friends, and the tears of relations, jarring
ambition, and rivalry, and hatred, between brethren and kindred, between
mother and children, escorted him on his passage to the tomb, and
darkened the _last hours of his reign_. Such might have been supposed by
a moralist to be the punishment, inflicted, even upon this earth, on
him, who, if he did not instigate, ordained and prosecuted the horrible
massacre of St Bartholomew.

The state of the miserable Charles grew hourly worse, and he rapidly
approached his last moments. None knew better than his heartless mother,
as she had herself admitted, that he _must die_; but yet, with so much
artifice and intrigue did she envelope in mystery his lost condition,
that, even in the Palace of the Louvre, his own nearest relations were
ignorant how near approached the hour, which, by leaving the crown as
heirloom to a successor far away in a distant country, opened a field to
the ambitious designs of so many struggling parties in the state.

Unconscious, as many others, of the rapid advance of that fatal event,
sat in her chamber Margaret of Valois, Queen of Navarre, the sister of
the dying king. Her beautiful head was reclined languidly against the
tapestry of the wall, the dark colours of which formed an admirable
background to that brilliant and bejewelled portrait. A lute, of the
fashion of the day, lay upon her lap; music, dresses, scraps of poetry
in her own handwriting, caskets with jewellery, manuscripts, and
illuminated volumes, were littered in various parts of the room. A
handsome spaniel slumbered at her feet; whilst two of her ladies sat on
chests at a respectful distance, occupied in embroidery. A look of soft
pensiveness pervaded the delicate and highly expressive features of the
young Queen; but her thoughts were not bent, at that moment, either on
her suffering brother, or on those ambitious views for her husband,
which, spite of her little affection for him, she entertained, partly
out of a sort of friendship for the man she esteemed, although her hand
had been so unwillingly bestowed upon him; partly out of that innate
ambition and love of intrigue, which formed, more or less one ingredient
in the character of all the children of the crafty Catherine de Medicis.
No! they rambled unrestrained upon the souvenir of an object of woman's
preference and princess's caprice, who for some time past had no more
crossed her path. It was on that account her brow was clouded, and that
a trait of sadness shaded her smiling mouth.

As she still lay thus languidly, one of the ladies was called by an
officer from the room, and shortly returned to announce that there was a
young girl without, who besought, with earnest supplication, to see her
Majesty.

Although astonished at this request, Margaret, eager for any subject of
passing occupation that might enliven, even for a moment, an hour's
ennui, desired that she might be admitted; and shortly after a simply
dressed girl, whose sunken head could not conceal her exquisite beauty,
was ushered in. Her step as ill-assured and trembling; her face was
deadly pale.

"What would you, maiden, with the Queen of Navarre?" said Margaret
kindly. "How came you here?"

The girl raised her head, but still struggled with her emotion before
she could speak.

"Ah! I remember me," pursued the princess with a smile. "You are the
pretty Jocelyne, the fair grand-daughter of my brother Charles's
favourite old nurse, Dame Perrotte; you are she of whom all our gallants
spake with so much praise, to the great detriment and neglect of all our
ladies of the court. Nay, blush not--or rather blush--blush, it becomes
your pale face well, my dainty one. But I thought that you had left the
court with Dame Perrotte, the sturdy Huguenot, ever since. Oh yes! I
recall it all now," she continued, checking herself with a sort of
shudder. "But what brings you hither? Speak. Have you any favour to ask
that the Queen of Navarre can grant?"

"I would speak with you, madam, and alone, upon a matter of urgency and
importance," stammered Jocelyne.

The thought, that as the fair girl before her belonged to a Huguenot
family, she might have been used by the Calvinist party as a secret
agent to convey her some intelligence connected with the various plots
ripe at that period to place Henry of Navarre in a post of influence
about the crown, if not upon the throne, crossed the mind of Margaret,
and she gave instant orders that her ladies should retire. To her
surprise, as soon as they were left alone, the lovely girl threw herself
sobbing at her feet.

"Save him! save him!" cried Jocelyne, with outstretched arms. "You have
influence--you can approach the king--you can save him if you will. And
you will save him--will you not?"

"Of whom do you speak, my pretty maiden?" said the princess in surprise.

"Of Monseigneur the Count Philip de la Mole!" sobbed Jocelyne.

"Philip de la Mole!" exclaimed Margaret aghast. "What ails him, girl?
You bid me save him--Why? What mean you?"

"Oh! madam, know you not," pursued the sobbing girl, "that he has been
arrested for treason--for a conspiracy against the life of the king?
that he is at this moment a prisoner, and that his life is threatened?"

"La Mole! arrested! accused of attempting the life of Charles!" cried
the Queen of Navarre in the highest agitation. "And I knew naught of
this? Is it true? How did you learn the story? Do you come from him?
Speak, girl, speak, I say!"

"He was arrested, madam, in our very house," stammered Jocelyne,
wringing her hands. "He had sought a refuge there--and he there lay
concealed. But, alas! my poor grandmother, her wits are at times
unsettled. Oh! she knew not what she did. Believe me she did not know. A
treacherous villain worked upon her wavering mind--she betrayed him.
They took him from the room a prisoner. I would have led my grandmother
to seek his pardon at the feet of the king, who loved her so well that
he would refuse her nothing; but soldiers guarded our doors; they would
not let us pass. Then I bethought myself of the window. Our house is on
the bridge, and looks upon the river. Below was a mill and the miller's
boat. He is a good man, and kind of heart. I knew that he would row me
to the shore. Alayn, my cousin, would have prevented me; but I would not
hear him. What was the rushing stream, or the whirling mill-wheel to me?
I saw not danger when I thought I could save the noble Count."

"Brave girl! brave girl!" interrupted Margaret, in palpitating
excitement.

"There were beams and posts that descended to the water's edge," pursued
Jocelyne, her eyes sparkling and her cheek now flushed with the
animation of her tale. "Alayn aided me, although unwillingly, with cord
and linen. I reached the mill--the boat. The miller rowed me to the
shore. I knew I could not approach the king; but I bethought me of you,
madam--for they say--they say, you love him well." At these words
Jocelyne hesitated, with a mixture of feelings, in which bashful
timidity struggled with her jealousy of the great lady before whom she
knelt.

"Pursue, girl, pursue," said Margaret, an instantaneous blush again
colouring that cheek, from which alarm had driven all colour.

"Yes; and I knew that you would save him," continued the excited girl,
stretching out her hands in anguish. "He is your own brother--he--the
king, the dispenser of life and death; and he will listen to you. And
you will save the Count, will you not?"

"Yes--yes, girl! I will do all I can!" said the princess walking up and
down in agitation. "Rise, rise--your tale is confused. I know not what
all this may mean; but the truth is there. He is a prisoner! Oh, La
Mole! La Mole! Whether has your imprudence driven you? And were it for
me that he has done thus. Yes--yes I will to my brother Charles--I will
learn all--supplicate--save him!"

With these words, half murmured to herself, half addressed to Jocelyne,
the Queen of Navarre paced her room. Then making another sign to the
unhappy girl to rise and remain, she took a whistle lying on a table,
and whistled to call those without.

The hangings of the door were parted. But instead of one of her
attendant ladies, it was the calm imposing form of Catherine de Medicis
that entered the apartment.

Margaret started back as if she had seen a spectre.

"My mother!" burst involuntarily from her lips in a tone of alarm; for
she divined, by rapid instinct, that such a visit could bode naught but
evil.

The Queen-mother cast a searching glance over the two agitated females,
and smiled as if, with that quickness of intelligence which
characterised her cunning mind, she had discovered at once the meaning
of the scene before her. With an imperious wave of the hand she
signified her desire that the damsel should leave the room, since she
would speak with her daughter. In spite of her agitation and distress,
Margaret of Valois, with that implicit obedience to her mother's will
which, in common with all the children of Catherine de Medicis, (except
the unhappy Charles in the latter years of his hardly wrought and dearly
paid emancipation from her authority,) she never ventured to refuse. She
bid Jocelyne leave them; and the fair girl retired with trembling steps
and sinking heart. The apparition of the Queen-mother had appalled her.

Catherine motioned to her daughter to be seated on a low stool, and
taking herself a high-backed chair, smiled with her usual bland and
treacherous smile.

"You seem agitated, Margaret, _ma mie_," commenced the Queen-mother,
after a due pause. "I have come to condole and sympathise with you in
your distress. Much as I may have blamed your misplaced and unbecoming
attachment to an obscure courtier, almost an adventurer in this palace,
I cannot but feel that you must suffer from the discovery of the utter
baseness of this man. Look not thus surprised. I see you have already
learned his arrest--your whole manner betrays it."

"You speak of ----," stammered Margaret, trembling.

"I speak of Philip de la Mole," said the Queen coldly.

"It is true, then?" pursued her daughter. "He is arrested on a charge of
treason. Oh, no! It cannot be! He is innocent!"

"He is guilty!" said Catherine coldly. "I have evidence the most
incontrovertible, that he has conspired against the life of the king,
your brother, by the foulest acts of sorcery. A wax figure, fashioned as
a king, pierced to the heart by his very hand, has been laid before me.
Your brother's illness, his mortal pains, his malady so
incomprehensible, all declare that the hellish deed has but too much
succeeded up to this hour."

Margaret shook her head with a smile of contempt and doubt.

"But for what purpose was designed this murderous act?" pursued the
Queen-mother. "In despite of the rights of Henry of Anjou, to place his
master, your brother, the Duke of Alençon, upon the throne upon the
death of Charles. We have every proof that so it was."

"For Alençon!" stammered the princess.

"It was for him," continued Catherine, unheeding this interruption, but
with an increasing smile of satisfaction, "that these treasonable plots
were designed, and partly executed. The ambitious favourite thought, by
his master's hand, to rule the destinies of France. But the traitor will
now reap the fruits of his black treachery."

"For Alençon!" repeated Margaret in a tone of regret.

"Doubt not that I sympathise in all your sorrow at this discovery, my
child," resumed the Queen-mother. "Bitterly indeed must you feel how the
base traitor has betrayed and forgotten the woman who loved him so
fondly, so imprudently."

"For Alençon!" again muttered Margaret with sunken head.

"Be this the punishment of your folly, and its reparation," pursued
Catherine, after a pause. "Long ago should you have ceased to cherish an
attachment for one so unworthy. But you have too soft a heart, Margaret,
my girl; you are too kind. I wonder and admire the sacrifice of your own
feelings, and the woman's weakness with which you could hear and
compassionate the supplications of his mistress."

"Madam!" said the princess lifting her head in surprise.

"But even now I saw her at your feet," continued her mother, with a
slight sneer, "begging you to intercede to obtain his pardon."

"His mistress! speak you of La Mole, madam?" exclaimed Margaret.

"What! you knew not, child, what all the court can tell you," replied
Catherine, "that of this chit-faced grandchild of that old Huguenot,
whom Charles so favoured, Philip de la Mole had made his light o' love?
Ay, so it was. It was the talk and scandal of the palace. Where was he
discovered on his arrest? In the girl's chamber, as I hear. And now she
dares to come and tear her hair, and whine out for mercy for her
paramour, at your feet--at yours! Effrontery could go no further!"

"Philip! could he be so base?" murmured Margaret to herself. "But
yes--her tears--her agony! Oh! it is true! And he must love her well,
that she should thus, at the hazard of her life"----

The Queen-mother smiled with satisfaction, as she saw that mistrust had
entered Margaret's mind; but to make her purpose sure, she remained
long, to comfort and console her daughter, as she said, with words of
false sympathy, and hypocritical advice.

When at last she saw Margaret thus convinced of La Mole's utter
unworthiness, and knew that injured pride and offended dignity had
usurped in her heart the place, where, so shortly before, love alone had
throned, Catherine de Medicis rose and retired.

Margaret did not weep. She was one lightly moved by the more violent as
the tenderer feelings of a woman's heart, and she was proud. She sat
still, unmoved, with her hands clenched before her, when a slight
movement in the apartment startled her. Upon raising her head she saw
Jocelyne before her.

"You here, my mistress?" she exclaimed in anger.

"They would have bid me begone," said Jocelyne timidly; "but I concealed
myself; and when her majesty the Queen-mother had gone forth, I returned
unperceived."

"And you again dare to affront my presence?" said Margaret rising. "This
is unheard of insolence."

"Alas, madam!" replied Jocelyne trembling, "I did but seek a last
assurance that you would save him."

"Away with you, mistress," continued the princess, her eyes flashing
with anger. "La Mole is but a traitor, as are men all. Let him meet his
deserts. But I wonder at myself that I should bandy words with you. Go
to your lover, girl, and comfort him as best you may."

"My lover! he!" murmured Jocelyne; "alas! he never loved me!"

Overwhelmed with the rude reception she had so unexpectedly received
from the princess, who, but a short time before, had listened to her
with so much eager interest, the poor girl moved with unsteady step
towards the door.

"He loved you not, say you?" burst forth Margaret as to recall her.
"Speak! He loved you not--this--young Count?"

"Madam," said Jocelyne, turning her head, but with downcast eyes, "in
this dreadful moment, when he lies a prisoner, his life in danger, I can
avow, what I could scarcely dare avow even to myself, that I loved him
with a passionate and unrequited love. I loved him with an eager and
devoted affection, although his heart was not mine--poor simple
uncourtly girl as I am--although it was another's. He too loved, I
know--but it was a great and noble lady, more worthy of him than was I.
Pardon me, madam, if I dared to think she loved him too."

"Come hither, maiden, once again," said the princess in agitation. "He
loved another, you say--this Count de la Mole--and who was she?"

"Madam," replied Jocelyne in embarrassment, "I have already craved your
pardon that I should have ventured even to surmise it!"

"Ah!" sighed forth Margaret with a gleam of satisfaction in her face.
"Come back, my girl, come back!" she resumed. "I have treated you
harshly. I knew not what I did. Hear me--this Count has proved a traitor
to his king; perhaps, I may fancy, a traitor to others also; he has
conspired to turn away the rightful succession of the crown. But I
believe him not guilty of all the black arts of which he is accused. I
would save him from the unhappy consequences of his error, if I could.
But what can I do? My mother is fearfully incensed against him!"

"Oh, madam, you have access to the king!" cried Jocelyne imploringly.
"He is your brother--and the power to save or to destroy is his. He will
not refuse you, if you entreat his pardon and mercy for the Count."

Margaret shook her head doubtfully.

"Alas!" she said, with a look of distress, "other influences are at work
which mine cannot resist. I knew not all--but now I tremble."

Jocelyne still entreated, in all the agony of despair; and the young
Princess, again calling to her ladies, and learning that the
Queen-mother had returned to her own apartment, at last departed from
her chamber, bidding her fair suppliant await her return.

Long, eternally long, appeared those minutes, as the unhappy girl still
waited for that return which she imagined was to bring her the news of
life or death. To calm the agitation of her mind, she prayed. But her
thoughts were far too disturbed for prayer; and the prayer brought her
no comfort.

At length the Queen of Navarre came back to her apartment--as Jocelyne
looked in her face, she could scarcely repress a scream; that face was
one of sorrow, and disappointment--the poor girl trembled in every limb,
and did not dare to speak.

"I have done all I could," said Margaret--"His door was obstinately
closed to me--I could not see him--it was she--it was my mother, who has
done this. I know it well."

"What is to be done? whether turn for help?" cried Jocelyne in dispair.
"Oh! would that I could lay down my life to save his."

"Noble girl!" exclaimed the princess. "Thus devoted, whilst he loves
another! How far more generous than was I; ay, I believe thee--couldst
thou lay down thy life for him, thou wouldst do it."

"And is there no hope of seeking pardon at his hands?" resumed the
afflicted girl.

"In time, perhaps--at another opportunity," replied Margaret; "but now
my mother's influence triumphs."

"Another opportunity!" sobbed Jocelyne. "In time! Alas! such words are
words of mockery--the king is dying--at his death the Queen-mother will
command; and what have we then to hope?"

"Dying? the king--my brother!" exclaimed the Queen of Navarre--you rave,
girl! he is ill--I know, but"----

"Know you not, madam," interrupted Jocelyne, "what all the city of Paris
knows--that the king cannot live long--not many hours, perhaps--that he
lies upon his death-bed?"

"Charles--dying! And my mother has concealed it from me!" cried
Margaret. "I see through all her designs! she would keep us from his
presence, that he bestow not upon my husband, whom he loves, the reins
of power at his death. Charles--dying! Then there lies our only hope. If
he die, let Henry of Navarre be Regent--he will listen to my prayer--and
La Mole is saved. Yes, there lies the only chance. I will to my husband.
We may have still time to effect our purpose, and secure the Regency, in
these few _last hours of the reign_."


CHAPTER V.

     "O cousin, thou art come to set mine eye;
     The tackle of my heart is crack'd and burn'd;
     And all the shrouds, wherewith my life should sail,
     Are turned to one thread, one little hair;
     My heart hath one poor string to stay it by--

        *   *   *

         "All this thou see'st is but a clod,
     And module of confounded royalty."

        *   *   *

         "But now a king--now thus--
     This was now a king, and now is clay."

     SHAKSPEARE.

The miserable king lay, indeed, upon his bed of death. He had refused to
quit the room which he usually occupied, all encumbered as it was with
his favourite hounds, his hunting accoutrements, and these horns, the
winding of which had been his favourite amusement, and had contributed
so powerfully to affect his lungs, and undermine his constitution. A
sort of couch had been prepared for him of mattresses and cushions upon
the floor; and upon that rude bed was the emaciated form of the dying
monarch extended. To his customary attacks of blood-spitting, had
succeeded a strange, and, until then, unknown symptom of malady, from
which the very physicians recoiled with horror. Drops of red moisture,
which bore all the appearance of blood, had burst, like perspiration,
from the pores of the body; and there were moments when the wretched man
writhed on his couch in the double anguish of body and mind, that, in
spite of the efforts of the physicians to remove this extraordinary
appearance, he might have been thought to be bathed in gore.

It was indeed an agony, and a bloody sweat!

The physicians had long since declared that there was no hope. In one of
those fitful bursts of anger, in which Charles from time to time
indulged, even in his state of exhaustion and in his dying moments, he
had desired to be left by his doctors and attendants, and he slumbered
his last slumber in this world, before closing his eyes for ever in the
great sleep of death, to wake upon another. One person alone sat by the
side of his couch; and that person was one, whom the incessant
intriguing efforts of his mother would have taught him was his
bitterest enemy.

That ivory paleness which had been so characteristic a trait of Charles,
and had added at once to the melancholy and majesty of his face, was now
of a yellow waxen colour, which might be said to increase from minute to
minute in lividness of hue. His large nose stood frightfully prominent
from those hollow sunken cheeks; his lips, in life, red almost to
bleeding, were now ashy pale. Beneath his thin lids, the eyeballs,
sunken into the deep cavities of his eyes, might be seen to roll and
palpitate; whilst from his open and distorted mouth burst forth, even in
his troubled sleep, moans, and then words of anguish.

The man who sat by his side, listened with varying feelings. Sometimes
he started back with a movement of horror; sometimes he again bent
forward in compassion, and with a kerchief lightly wiped away that
fearful perspiration which burst from the hollow temples of the young
man. The aspect of this personage was noble; his forehead was bold; his
nose formed with that eagle curve which seems fashioned for command. The
expression of his grey eyes denoted both resolution and wariness; whilst
a general look of good temper and openness, which amounted almost to
_insouciance_, pervaded the whole face. He was clothed in black. It was
Henry of Navarre, the ill-used and betrayed victim of Catherine's
policy.

During the whole reign of Charles IX., the Queen-mother had used every
effort to instil into his mind suspicions of the loyalty of the man,
who, were the Valois to die childless, would be heir to the throne of
France; and whom the decrees of Providence finally led, through the
wiles and plots set to snare his liberty and his life, and in the midst
of the clashing of contending parties, to rule the destinies of the
country, as Henry the Fourth. Henry of Navarre, whom the artifice and
calumny of a Medicis had done their best to separate and estrange from
his king and brother-in-law during life, was now the only attendant upon
his last moments--the only friend to press his dying hand and close his
eyes. By a last exercise of his authority, Charles had declared that it
was his will that Henry of Navarre, and he alone, should be permitted to
approach his couch, and receive his last instructions; and in spite of
all the manoeuvres of the crafty Catherine, who no longer ventured
openly to oppose her son's commands, the two princes were united in this
supreme and awful hour.

And now Henry of Navarre sat and watched his dying relation with
oppressed and anxious heart, aware that, were the king to die without
providing for his safety by a last exercise of his power, his liberty,
and even his life, would be in danger from the manoeuvres of the
revengeful Catherine; that his only chance of escape was in flight
before the death of the expiring king; and yet, too noble and generous
to leave the man who, at such a time, had called him to his side, he sat
and watched.

Presently the king rolled convulsively upon his couch; his parted lips
quivered horribly; and with a mutter, which increased at last into a
distinct and piercing scream, he let fall the words--

"Away--away--torment me not! Why do you haunt me thus? Fire--fire!
Kill--kill! No--spare them--spare them, and spare me a hopeless misery.
Ah! they fly--they bleed--they fall. And the poor old Admiral--his grey
heirs are dabbled with blood. Away--away--it was not I--not I! Ah!"----

With a sudden start of horror, the king lifted his head from his pillow,
and for a time gazed with staring and glassy eyes, as if the hideous
vision which had tortured his sleep were still before him. Then with a
bitter groan, he again fell back upon his couch. Again he raised his
head, and, looking upon Henry, said, with a faint and plaintive voice,
that contrasted strangely with these brusque and harsh tones which were
natural to him,

"Why do they ever pursue me thus--those Huguenots, who perished with the
Admiral? It was not I--it was my mother who was the cause of all. And
yet, I myself, arquebuse in hand, I hunted them to the death. Oh! but my
remorse has been long and bitter, Henry. What I have suffered none on
earth can tell. Since that fatal night, I have never enjoyed a moment's
peace of mind. Do kings ever enjoy peace of mind, Henry? Oh, be glad
that thou art not a reigning king! Peace of mind is not for them. If
there be a purgatory, Henry, in another world, I have already endured
all its tortures on this earth. Is not remorse the worst purgatory?
ay--the most damning hell. But why, then, do they pursue me thus in
hideous visions still?"

The wretched king buried his head in his pillow.

"Strive to be calm," said Henry of Navarre, bending over him to lift up
his head, and arrange his cushions. "Those visions will leave you."

"Yes! in the grave--perhaps!" replied Charles, again looking up with a
shudder.

"Let us hope better things," continued Henry. "With more tranquillity of
mind, you will regain your strength, and"----

"No--all is past," murmured the king. "I feel that I am dying. Know you
not that there is one accused of practising sorcery upon me. Folly!
madness! An evil deed _has_ been practised upon me. Yes--the thought
will not leave me. I would drive it away, but it still rankles in my
heart. Evil _has_ been done me, but not by sorcery. And yet the sorcerer
must die. The world must believe that it was he who worked my death; but
it was another. Come here, Henry; bend your ear to me, for I can no
longer rise. Wouldst thou know who it was?"

A noise in the further part of the room startled the young King of
Navarre at this moment, and he turned his head. The only living creature
present was the favourite green ape of the king, that sat and grinned
and moaned, as if in mockery of his dying master.

"Come nearer, Henry," pursued the king, "for I would speak that to thee,
that not the very walls may hear. Know you what has caused my death--who
has been my murderer?"

Henry bent his head over the dying man, more to satisfy a caprice of the
sufferer, than in the expectation of any serious revelation; and, as
Charles whispered in his ear, he started back in horror.

"Oh, sire, think not so! Drive away so miserable a suspicion!" he said.
"It were too horrible. It is impossible!"

"Impossible!" repeated the king, with a faint ironical laugh. "To some
hearts all things are possible."

"You had a mother once," continued Charles, after a painful pause. "But
she was good and kind; and she is dead. Know you how she died?--Mine
still lives--and now it is I who die."

"Speak not thus, I entreat you, sire!" interrupted Henry. "This is
horrible!"

"Horrible! is it not?" repeated the wretched king with the same
harrowing laugh. "Henry! trust not yourself to the tender mercies of my
mother!"

Again the same strange noise struck upon the ear of Henry of Navarre.

"Nor shall my people, my poor suffering people, be trusted to her care,"
continued the king with more energy. "Henry, thou art the only one, in
this my palace of the Louvre, who loves me. In spite of all that has
been said and done, thou alone hast left me in repose, hast never
troubled my last days by conspiracies against my crown, and against my
life--ay, my life! Brother has been set against Brother in bitter
hatred. Thou alone hast not hated me, Henry. Thou alone, in spite of all
the wrongs I have done thee--thou hast loved me. To thee I commend my
poor patient wife--to thee I commend my people!"

"But, sire, should it please Heaven to take you from us--and may you
live long, I pray"--resumed Henry of Navarre, whilst the king shook his
head--"it will be your mother who will claim the regency, until the
return from Poland of your brother, Henry of Anjou. It will be hers
probably to command!"

"When I bid you not trust yourself to her tender mercies," replied
Charles, "think not I spoke as a child. My life is ebbing fast, I know,
but my mind is clear. Give me that paper!" He pointed to a paper laid
upon a table close by his side. "This is my last and binding command,
which I shall now sign with my own hand," he continued, as Henry brought
him the desired paper, and laid it upon his couch. "This declares, that,
by my last will, I appoint you as Regent of this realm until the return
of the King of Poland. The name is still in blank; for I would not that
those who drew it up should know my purpose, and bring my mother
clamouring to my side, to thwart my last wish by her reproaches. Give me
a pen, Henry. Now, support me--so--in your arms. Where is now the paper?
My sight is troubled; but I shall find strength to see and strength to
trace that name."

Raised up in the arms of the King of Navarre, Charles took the pen
placed in his hand, and laid it on the paper.

"When you are regent, Henry," he paused to say, "remove my mother from
your court. It is I who bid you do it. She would hate you with a mortal
hatred; for power is her only aim in this world, and for that she would
forfeit her salvation in the next. Not a moment would your life be in
safety. She would poison you, as she has poisoned her miserable son."

"Sire! retract those words!" said a voice close by the dying king.

Before the couch of her son stood Catherine de Medicis. Her face was
cold and passionless as ever, although her dark eyes gleamed with
unusual fire, and her pallid face was still more pale.

"What would you have with me, madam?" said Charles, shuddering, as she
approached. "Have I not desired to be alone with my good brother Henry
upon affairs of state?"

"Retract those words, sire!" pursued his mother, unheeding him. "You
have brought against me the most awful accusation that malice can lay to
the charge of a human being. Would you leave this world, if so it please
the saints above, with so hideous a lie upon your lips? Sire! retract
those words!"

"Leave me, woman! Leave me to die in peace!" said Charles, with an
effort of energy, struggling with his weakness and the violence of his
emotions. "Be you guilty of this deed, or be you not, may Heaven forgive
you your misdeeds, as I pray it may forgive me mine."

"My son! my son!" cried Catherine, kneeling down by his side, whilst the
tears, which were ever ready at her command, and might now have been
natural tears of rage, rolled down her cheeks, "I cannot leave you thus,
a victim to the most horrible suspicion. I may have erred against you,
but it has been unconsciously. I have ever sought your honour and your
glory, perhaps by means you now condemn; but I have acted, like a weak,
fallible mortal, for the best. No--no--you really cannot entertain
thoughts so terrible. It cannot be. This is the suggestion of my
enemies--and my enemies are yours, my son." And, as she said these
words, Catherine darted a cold, sharp look of rage at Henry of Navarre,
who had risen, and now remained an unwilling spectator of so terrible a
scene--a scene of the most fearful passions of the human heart between
mother and son, and upon the bed of death. "No--no--you will retract
your words. You will say you did not entertain that frightful thought."

As the Queen-mother spoke, her eyes were fixed upon the paper, which was
to consign the regency to Henry of Navarre; and, in spite of the
animation with which she addressed her son, it was evident that upon
that paper her chief thoughts were directed.

"Madam!" said Charles faintly, raising himself with difficulty on one
elbow, and struggling with internal pain--"you have received my last
words of pardon. Let my last moments be undisturbed."

"Charles, Charles!" exclaimed his mother, wringing her hands. "Let me
remove these horrible ideas from your mind. What shall I say? What shall
I do? Can a son think thus of a mother who has ever loved him? Oh,
no!--it is impossible. Your mind wandered. You did not think it."

"Enough, madam!--enough!" replied the King. "It was the passing fancy of
a wandering brain, if you will have it so. It is gone now. I think of it
no more. Now leave me."

"But, my son," persisted Catherine, "I have such secrets to reveal to
you, as you alone may hear. They are necessary to the safety of the
state--necessary to the salvation of your soul hereafter. I cannot, must
not, leave you. It is my bounded duty to remain."

"The time is past, madam," gasped her son, "when I can listen to such
matters. My moments are counted--and I have that to do that can brook no
delay."

Catherine sprung up with a feeling of despair, and turned away for a
moment.

"It is near noon," she muttered to herself. "And it was to be at noon,
said the astrologer. Oh! a few minutes--but a few minutes"----

"My son," she continued aloud, again approaching the bed of the king,
and having recourse once more to that importunity, which, in the latter
days of his reign, was the only weapon with which she could contrive to
work upon the mind of Charles, "but I have that to reveal which deeply
affects the honour of our family. Would you that other ears should
listen to our shame?"

"Aye, ever shame--ever blood--ever remorse!" murmured Charles, turning
his head upon his pillow.

"Would you refuse the last request of her who is, after all, your
mother?" exclaimed Catherine, with the well acted accent of extreme
despair.

The king uttered not a word.

"Leave us, sir," said the Queen-mother, with an imperious sign of her
hand to Henry of Navarre, upon seeing these symptoms of the wavering
resolution of her son.

The young prince remained unmoved, to await the will of the dying king.

"Leave us, Henry," said the Monarch; "you will return to me anon. This
is her last request--these are her last words. When she is gone, let me
see you instantly."

Henry of Navarre shook his head with a look of mournful resignation, and
then bowed and left the apartment.

"Now speak, madam," said the king, "and quickly. What would you reveal
to me?"

"That Henry of Navarre conspires against your throne," commenced
Catherine, rapidly; "that he has been proved to be in connexion with
that sorcerer who has aimed at your life; that the chiefs of the
accursed Huguenot party are concealed in Paris, awaiting but your death
to place the crown upon his brow; that he also looks to this event to
abjure once more the true Catholic faith, and return into the bosom of
heresy; that by giving power into his hands, you endanger the safety of
the state; that by committing the rule of the country to a Heretic and a
Seceder, you endanger the safety of your own soul; that, by such a step,
the honour of our House will be eternally lost; that in all the
countries of Catholic Christendom, we shall be pointed at with the
finger of scorn and shame."

"Madam, you have deceived me with words of equivocation to gain my ear,"
replied the king, mustering all the strength that still remained to him,
"and you deceive me now."

"I deceive you not, my son," pursued Catherine, eagerly. "Each word that
I pronounce is God's own truth. Could you then confide into the power of
a base and lying Heretic, one who seeks your death, but to grasp himself
the Crown, the government of a Catholic and a Christian country? Hear
you not already the anathema of our holy father, the Pope, that curses
even in the tomb that soul lost by a step so rash? See you not already
our blessed Virgin, and all the saints of Heaven, turn from you their
glorious faces, and refuse to look on one who has despised them, and set
them at nought by a deed so unholy? Feel you not already the torture of
that punishment to which the Heretic, and the aider and abettor of the
Heretic, are eternally condemned? Have I deceived you when I said that
you endanger the welfare of your own immortal soul?"

"But you err, madam," said her miserable son, shuddering at the picture
thus placed before him, to work upon his mind in these last moments.
"Henry is become a good and fervent Catholic."

"All is ready for his abjuration at the moment of your death," continued
the Queen-mother. "To resume a powerful party among the Huguenots, he
will renounce our religion. My son--my son--pause, reflect, before you
thus sacrifice your own salvation, and throw your unhappy country
beneath the Papal ban."

"Heaven aid me!" cried the miserable Charles. "On all sides darkness and
despair, in this world and the next."

"Heaven shall aid you, my son," pursued his wily mother, "if you but
trust the guidance of your kingdom to such hands as shall maintain it in
the true religion. The paper that resigns your country to the hands of a
regent, lies, I see, before you. Can you hesitate? Can you a moment
doubt? Whose name should fill that space, where but just now you would
have written the traitorous name of Henry of Navarre?"

"God guide my unhappy France!" sighed the king, turning his face away
and closing his eyes. "In His hands I leave it."

Catherine smiled with a look of scorn, and then picking up the pen,
which had fallen by the bedside, calmly fetched some ink from the table,
and attempted to place the pen in her son's hand.

Before her purpose could be fulfilled, a noise was heard in the outer
room. The voice of a woman clamoured loudly for admittance. Charles
heard that voice, opened his eyes, and attempted to raise his head.

"Ah, it is she!" he cried, with choking voice. "At last!--at last! Let
her come in."

Catherine de Medicis rose, for the purpose, probably, of opposing the
order of her son; but before she could reach the door, an old woman,
simply attired, and of a strange appearance and expression, had entered
the room.

"What means this intrusion, and at such a moment?" exclaimed the
Queen-mother.

"Perrotte!" stammered Charles. "Ah! thou art come at last to console and
to forgive me."

Catherine clenched her teeth tightly together with rage; but she no
longer attempted to oppose the entrance of the old woman.

The old Huguenot nurse advanced with solemn step into the room, and with
a stern and troubled brow; but, on a sudden, a host of recollections
seemed to crowd upon her mind at the sight of that emaciated form, and,
hurrying to the side of the king, she flung herself down upon the couch
and sobbed bitterly.

"Perrotte--my darling old Perrotte!" sobbed forth the dying king. "Art
thou come then at last to thy poor nursling? Thou wast a mother to me,
and yet thou couldst desert thy poor boy; but he deserved his lot.
Perrotte! Perrotte! Thou knowest not what I have suffered since thou
hast left me."

"My son," said Catherine, advancing, "is this a moment to bestow your
tenderness upon a miserable woman like this? Greet her if you will, but
bid her leave us."

"She was a mother to me--she"----continued Charles unheeding her, and,
drawing forth his emaciated hand from beneath the coverlid, he held it
forth towards the old woman, who lay stretched across his feet.

"Charlot," said the old woman, raising up her head with a haggard look,
"they told me that thou wast dying; and I forgot all--all that thou hast
done of evil--to see thee once more--to hear the words of repentance
from thy own lips--to console and guide. They would have opposed my
coming. They had placed guards about my door; but my Jocelyne, my
grandchild, found means to lure them from their post, and I escaped
them. I had promised her--what had I promised her? Oh, my poor Charlot!
my brain wanders strangely at times. No matter. Here, in your palace of
the Louvre, too, they would have shut the doors to me; but they knew you
loved me, Charlot, and they dared not refuse my supplications. Oh my
boy, my boy, that I should see you thus!"

"Perrotte! hast thou forgiven me?" said the king with a violent effort,
for his breath was now fast failing him. His mother watched the scene
with folded arms and haughty mien. Each ebbing of the breath brought her
nearer to her much-desired power.

"Hast thou forgiven me?" sobbed the king.

"May God forgive the injuries thou hast done to others, as I now forgive
thee on thy bed of suffering, those thou hast done to mine," said the
old woman solemnly; and rising from her recumbent position, she advanced
to the head of the couch, and took the dying man in her arms, as it were
an infant she clasped to her bosom.

"And how can I repay thee, mother?" said Charles to his nurse; "speak
quickly, for my moments are but few!"

"By thy repentance, my poor son," replied the Huguenot woman earnestly.
"There is still time to repair thy errors. If thy remorse has reconciled
thee to thy God, let thy last act reconcile thee to thy injured
fellow-creatures. Ay! it is of that I would have spoken. That was my
promise. Let thy last act of government as King, depute thy power into
the hands of him who alone can pacify the unhappy religious discords of
thy state, and thus thou mayst still save the life of the innocent and
unjustly condemned."

"Woman! do you dare even in my presence?" said Catherine advancing.

"Silence, madam. I have heard you," interrupted her son: "let me now
hear her who has been my real mother."

"My son, can you listen to the vile insinuations of an accursed heretic?
Think on your soul," cried Catherine.

"Yea, think on thy soul, my son," said Perrotte solemnly, "and earn its
salvation by thy repentance."

"Let that woman be dragged from our presence, who thus dares to utter
treason and blasphemy in our face," exclaimed the Queen-mother,
forgetting her forbearance in her wrath.

"My son, my son! Let peace and pardon await thee," urged the old
Huguenot nurse, her face growing more wild with the excitement of the
moment.

"Madam," said Charles faintly to the Queen-mother, "would you shorten
the few moments still accorded to me of life? Perrotte, give me that
pen, guide my hand to that paper. Quickly, as thou lovedst me, woman!"

"Never," exclaimed Catherine, violently grasping the arm of her dying
son, as it approached the paper.

Charles raised his head to speak to her; but his emotions were too
violent for his feeble frame. His lips quivered; the blood rose to his
mouth, and choked his utterance. He fell back on his pillow, whilst a
hollow rattling sounded in his throat; the pen remained between his
powerless fingers.

"Ah! he is no more! he is dead!" screamed the nurse in despair, and she
flung herself upon the bed.

"No--no," said the Queen-mother to herself. "There is still life. My
son! Son," she continued aloud, "give me thy hand. If thou wilt sign
that paper--be it signed." And grasping his hand, she conducted it to
the place of signature on the paper. Mechanically the fingers followed
the impulse she bestowed upon them. But four letters only of the name of
Charles had been traced, when Catherine uttered a fearful scream. A
rough hand had grasped her own, and lacerated its skin. The first
thought of her superstitious mind was, that the arch-fiend himself had
risen up in bodily form before her. On to the bed had sprung the ape;
with a movement of detestation to the Queen-mother, which the animal had
always evinced, when she approached its master; it bit the hand that
held that of the dying king.

Catherine drew back with another cry, but after a moment she again
advanced her hand to grasp that of her son. When she took it within her
own it was utterly motionless; but, nothing daunted in her purpose, she
again fixed the pen between the dead fingers, and thus guiding them,
contrived to trace the three remaining letters, regardless of the stream
of blood, which, trickling from her wounded hand, besmeared that fatal
signature. Then letting fall the dead man's hand, she wrote her own name
firmly into the blank space.

The Huguenot woman, aroused by her scream, had gazed upon the daring
deed with horror.

For a moment not a sound was heard.

On one side of the corpse knelt the nurse, who had loved so well that
erring man. On the other stood the Queen-mother, trembling in spite of
her cold and dauntless nature. At the bed's head sat the hideous ape,
grinning a fearful grin, as it were the evil spirit that had arisen to
claim the lost soul of him who had thus passed away.

"Charles the King is dead," exclaimed the Queen-mother, "and Catherine
de Medicis is Regent of the Realm!"

"It is false! That signature is a forgery," cried Perrotte, starting up,
her eyes staring before her with all the expression of the deranged in
mind. "I saw it done. To the world I will proclaim that--that Catherine
de Medicis is a false Queen, and a usurping Regent."

Catherine smiled a smile of scorn; and advancing to the door of the
outer room, she flung it open with the words.

"The King is dead!"

"The King, is dead!" was repeated along the corridors of the Louvre.

A pause ensued.

"The King is dead! Long live the King, Henry the Third of France!" again
said Catherine.

"Long live the King!" was once more shouted from mouth to mouth.

"Gentlemen, his Majesty has been pleased, before his death, to sign a
warrant appointing his mother Regent of France," announced Catherine
once more to those assembled without.

"Long live the Queen Regent," was the cry which announced to many an
anxious heart of the various parties in the State, that the reign of the
dreaded Queen-mother had commenced.

"Let some of those without advance and seize that woman!" was the first
order of the Regent. "Heed not her words! She is mad!"

Catherine of Medicis spoke with greater truth than she herself believed.
The shock of that scene of death, and strife, and evil passions, had
again turned the old woman's brain.


CONCLUSION.

One of the first acts of the Regency of Catherine de Medicis, was to
give directions for the hastening the trial of La Mole, upon the charge
of sorcery against the life of the late King. Although, with the Regency
in her power, and in daily expectation of the return from Poland of her
favourite son, whose weak and pliant mind she was aware she could bend
to her own will in every thing, and thus have the whole power of the
government within her own grasp, yet she still pursued her vengeance
against the man who, in conspiring to place another of her sons upon the
throne, had thwarted her designs. The wax figure formed by Ruggieri, who
himself was fully screened by the Queen-mother, was made to form a
prominent feature in this celebrated trial; and it is well known that
the unfortunate La Mole fell a victim to an ambition, which, in the
confused and distracted state of affairs at the time, could scarcely
have been looked upon as a crime.

Among those who thronged to witness his execution was one, whose thread
of life was nearly torn asunder by the blow of that axe which severed
the beloved head from the trunk. Poor Jocelyne only recovered from the
state of insensibility into which she fell, to linger on a few months of
a wretched existence, during which she never spoke. Her heart was
broken. The King's nurse was conveyed by the order of the Queen Regent
to a place of security; but as soon as it was known that her senses were
really lost, she was allowed to be taken back to her own home.
Jocelyne's only thought for the living before her own death, was
concentrated in her grandmother; when her bright spirit fled, it was
Alayn who performed the mournful task of care for the welfare of the
miserable old woman.

Henry of Anjou returned from Poland to claim his Crown; and, as Henry
the Third of France, he filled the country with the scandals of that
folly, licentiousness, and weakness of mind, which were fostered by his
mother, Catherine de Medicis, in order to retain the power she coveted,
completely within her own grasp.

Upon the assumption of the Regency, Henry of Navarre contrived to fly,
in spite of the plans laid to entrap him by the Queen-mother, to his own
country; his wife Margaret accompanied him to his solitude; and paid the
penalty of her lightness of conduct at the court of France, in sorrow
and ennui.

Despised and rejected by all parties, the weak Duke of Alençon, after a
vain and abortive attempt to raise himself into a position of greater
distinction, as the husband of Elizabeth of England, in whose eyes he
found no grace or favour, died early, unlamented, and speedily
forgotten.




A CAMPAIGN IN TEXAS.[G]


"A meeting of citizens"--so ran the announcement that, on the morning of
the 11th October 1835, was seen posted, in letters a foot high, at the
corner of every street in New Orleans--"a meeting of citizens this
evening, at eight o'clock, in the Arcade Coffeehouse. It concerns the
freedom and sovereignty of a people in whose veins the blood of the
Anglo-Saxon flows. Texas, the prairie-land, has risen in arms against
the tyrant Santa Anna, and the greedy despotism of the Romish
priesthood, and implores the assistance of the citizens of the Union. We
have therefore convoked an assembly of the inhabitants of this city, and
trust to see it numerously attended.

    "_The Committee for Texas._"

The extensive and fertile province of Texas had, up to the period of
Mexico's separation from Spain, been utterly neglected. Situated at the
north-eastern extremity of the vast Mexican empire, and exposed to the
incursions of the Comanches, and other warlike tribes, it contained but
a scanty population of six thousand souls, who, for safety's sake,
collected together in a few towns, and fortified mission-houses, and
even there were compelled to purchase security by tribute to the
Indians. It was but a very short time before the outbreak of the Mexican
revolution, that the Spaniards began to turn their attention to Texas,
and to encourage emigration from the United States. The rich soil, the
abundance of game, the excellence of the climate, were irresistible
inducements; and soon hundreds of hardy backwoodsmen crossed the Sabine,
with their families and worldly goods, and commenced the work of
colonization. Between the iron-fisted Yankees and the indolent cowardly
Mexicans, the Indian marauders speedily discovered the difference;
instead of tribute and unlimited submission, they were now received with
rifle-bullets and stern resistance; gradually they ceased their
aggressions, and Texas became comparatively a secure residence.

The Mexican revolution broke out and triumphed, and at first the policy
of the new government was favourable to the Americans in Texas, whose
numbers each day increased. But after a time several laws, odious and
onerous to the settlers, were passed; and various disputes and partial
combats with the Mexican garrisons occurred. When Santa Anna put himself
at the head of the liberal party in Mexico, the Texians gladly raised
his banner; but they soon discovered that the change was to prove of
little advantage to them. Santa Anna's government showed a greater
jealousy of the American settlers than any previous one had done; their
prayer, that the province they had colonized might be erected into a
state of the Mexican union, was utterly disregarded, and its bearer,
Stephen F. Austin, detained in prison at Mexico; various citizens were
causelessly arrested, and numerous other acts of injustice committed. At
last, in the summer of 1835, Austin procured his release, and returned
to Texas, where he was joyfully received by the aggrieved colonists.
Presently arrived large bodies of troops, under the Mexican general,
Cos, destined to strengthen the Texian garrisons; and at the same time
came a number of ordinances, as ridiculous as they were unjust. One of
these ordered the Texians to give up their arms, only retaining one gun
for every five plantations; another forbade the building of churches.
The tyranny of such edicts, and the positive cruelty of the first-named,
in a country surrounded by tribes of Indian robbers, are too evident to
require comment. The Texians, although they were but twenty-seven
thousand against eight millions, at once resolved to resist; and to do
so with greater effect, they sent deputies to the United States, to
crave assistance in the struggle about to commence.

The summons of the Texian committee of New Orleans to their
fellow-citizens was enthusiastically responded to. At the appointed
hour, the immense Arcade Coffeehouse was thronged to the roof, speeches
in favour of Texian liberty were made and applauded to the echo; and two
lists were opened--one for subscriptions, the other for the names of
those who were willing to lend the aid of their arms to their oppressed
fellow-countrymen. Before the meeting separated, ten thousand dollars
were subscribed, and on the following afternoon, the steamer Washita
ascended the Mississippi with the first company of volunteers. These had
ransacked the tailors' shops for grey clothing, such being the colour
best suited to the prairie, and thence they received the name of "The
Greys;" their arms were rifles, pistols, and the far-famed bowie-knife.
The day after their departure, a second company of Greys set sail, but
went round by sea to the Texian coast; and the third instalment of these
ready volunteers was the company of Tampico Blues, who took ship for the
port of Tampico. The three companies consisted of Americans, English,
French, and several Germans. Six of the latter nation were to be found
in the ranks of the Greys; and one of them, a Prussian, of the name of
Ehrenberg, who appears to have been for some time an inhabitant of the
United States, and to be well acquainted with the country, its people,
their language and peculiarities, survived, in one instance by a seeming
miracle, the many desperate fights and bloody massacres that occurred
during the short but severe conflict for Texian independence, in which
nearly the whole of his comrades were slain. He has recently published
an account of the campaign; and his narrative, highly characteristic and
circumstantial, derives a peculiar interest from his details of the
defeats suffered by the Texians, before they could succeed in shaking
off the Mexican yoke. Of their victories, and especially of the crowning
one at San Jacinto, various accounts have already appeared; but the
history of their reverses, although not less interesting, is far less
known; for the simple reason, that the Mexicans gave no quarter to those
whom they styled rebels, and that the defeat of a body of Texians was
almost invariably followed by its extermination.

Great was the enthusiasm, and joyful the welcome, with which the Texian
colonists received the first company of volunteers, when, under the
command of Captain Breece, they landed from their steamboat upon the
southern bank of the river Sabine. No sooner had they set foot on shore,
than a flag of blue silk, embroidered with the words, "To the first
company of Texian volunteers from New Orleans," was presented to them in
the name of the women of Texas; the qualification of Texian citizens was
conferred upon them; every house was placed at their disposal for
quarters; and banquets innumerable were prepared in their honour. But
the moment was critical--time was too precious to be expended in feasts
and merry-making, and they pressed onwards. A two days' march brought
them to San Augustin, two more to Nacoydoches, and thence, after a short
pause, they set out on their journey of five hundred miles to St
Antonio, where they expected first to burn powder. Nor were they
deceived in their expectations. They found the Texian militia encamped
before the town, which, as well as its adjacent fort of the Alamo, was
held by the Mexicans, the Texians were besieging it in the best manner
their imperfect means and small numbers would permit. An amusing account
is given by Mr Ehrenberg of the camp and proceedings of the besieging
force:--

We had arrived late in the night, and at sunrise a spectacle offered
itself to us, totally different from any thing we had ever before
beheld. To our left flowed the river St Antonio, which, although it
rises but a few miles from the town of the same name, is already, on
reaching the latter, six or eight feet deep, and eighteen or twenty
yards broad. It here describes a curve, enclosing a sort of promontory
or peninsula, at the commencement of which, upstream, the Texian camp
was pitched. At the opposite or lower extremity, but also on the right
bank of the river, was the ancient town of St Antonio, hidden from the
camp by the thick wood that fringes the banks of all Texian streams.
Between us and the town was a maize-field, a mile long, and at that time
lying fallow; opposite to the field, on the left bank, and only
separated from the town by the river, stood the Alamo, the principal
fortress of the province of Texas. The camp itself extended over a space
half a mile in length, surrounded by maize-fields and prairie, the
latter sprinkled with muskeet thickets, and with groups of gigantic
cactuses; in the high grass between which the horses and oxen of our
troops were peaceably grazing. On entering the adjacent fields, the air
was instantly darkened by millions of blackbirds, which rose like a
cloud from the ground, described a few circles, and then again settled,
to seek their food upon the earth. In one field, which had been used as
a place of slaughter for the cattle, whole troops of vultures, of
various kinds, were stalling about amongst the offal, or sitting, with
open beaks and wings outspread, upon the dry branches of the
neighbouring pecan-trees, warming themselves in the sunbeams, no bad
type of the Mexicans; whilst here and there, a solitary wolf or prairie
dog prowled amongst the heads, hides, and entrails of the slaughtered
beasts, taking his breakfast as deliberately as his human neighbours.
The _reveillé_ had sounded, and the morning gun been fired from the
Alamo, when presently the drum beat to summon the various companies to
roll-call; and the men were seen emerging from their tents and huts. It
will give some idea of the internal organization of the Texian army, if
I record the proceedings of the company that lay opposite to us, the
soldiers composing which were disturbed by the tap of the drum in the
agreeable occupation of cooking their breakfast. This consisted of
pieces of beef, which they roasted at the fire on small wooden spits.
Soon a row of these warriors, some only half-dressed, stood before the
sergeant, who, with the roll of the company in his hand, was waiting
their appearance; they were without their rifles, instead of which, most
of them carried a bowie-knife in one hand, and a skewer, transfixing a
lump of smoking meat, in the other. Several did not think proper to obey
the summons at all, their roast not being yet in a state that permitted
them to leave it. At last the sergeant began to call the names, which
were answered to alternately from the ranks or from some neighbouring
fire, and once a sleepy "here!" proceeding from under the canvass of a
tent, caused a hearty laugh amongst the men, and made the sergeant look
sulky, although he passed it over as if it were no unusual occurrence.
When all the names had been called, he had no occasion to dismiss his
men, for each of them, after answering, had returned to the fire and his
breakfast.

We Greys, particularly the Europeans, looked at each other, greatly
amused by this specimen of Texian military discipline. We ourselves, it
is true, up to this time, had never even had the roll called, but had
been accustomed, as soon as the _reveillé_ sounded, to get our
breakfast, and then set forward in a body, or by twos and threes,
trotting, walking, or galloping, as best pleased us. Only in one respect
were we very particular; namely, that the quartermaster and two or three
men, should start an hour before us, to warn the inhabitants of our
approach, and get food and quarters ready for our arrival. If we did not
find every thing prepared, and that it was the quarter-master's fault,
he was reduced to the ranks, as were also any of the other officers who
misbehaved themselves. I must observe, however, that we were never
obliged to break either of our captains; for both Breece of ours, and
Captain Cook of the other company of Greys, made themselves invariably
beloved and respected. Cook has since risen to the rank of
major-general, and is, or was the other day, quartermaster-general of
the republic of Texas.

Towards nine o'clock, a party crossed the field between our camp and the
town, to reinforce a small redoubt erected by Cook's Greys, and provided
with two cannon, which were continually thundering against the Alamo,
and from time to time knocking down a fragment of wall. The whole
affair seemed like a party of pleasure, and every telling shot was
hailed with shouts of applause. Meanwhile, the enemy were not idle, but
kept up a fire from eight or nine pieces, directed against the redoubt,
the balls and canister ploughing up the ground in every direction, and
driving clouds of dust towards the camp. It was no joke to get over the
six or eight hundred yards that intervened between the latter and the
redoubt, for there was scarcely any cover, and the Mexican artillery was
far better served than ours. Nevertheless, the desire to obtain a full
view of the Alamo, which, from the redoubt, presented an imposing
appearance, induced eight men, including myself, to take a start across
the field. It seemed as if the enemy had pointed at us every gun in the
fort; the bullets fell around us like hail, and for a moment the
blasting tempest compelled us to take refuge behind a pecan-tree. Here
we stared at each other, and laughed heartily at the absurd figure we
cut, standing, eight men deep, behind a nut-tree, whilst our comrades,
both in the camp and the redoubt, shouted with laughter at every
discharge that rattled amongst the branches over our heads.

"This is what you call making war," said one of our party, Thomas Camp
by name.

"And that," said another, as a whole swarm of iron musquitos buzzed by
him, "is what we Americans call variations on Yankee Doodle."

Just then there was a tremendous crash amongst the branches, and we
dashed out from our cover, and across to the redoubt, only just in time;
for the next moment the ground on which we had been standing was strewn
with the heavy boughs of the pecan-tree.

All was life and bustle in the little redoubt; the men were standing
round the guns, talking and joking, and taking it by turns to have a
shot at the old walls. Before firing, each man was compelled to name his
mark, and say what part of the Alamo he meant to demolish, and then bets
were made as to his success or failure.

"A hundred rifle-bullets to twenty," cried one man, "that I hit between
the third and fourth window of the barracks."

"Done!" cried half a dozen voices. The shot was fired, and the clumsy
artilleryman had to cast bullets all next day.

"My pistols--the best in camp, by the by"--exclaimed another aspirant,
"against the worst in the redoubt."

"Well, sir, I reckon I may venture," said a hard-featured backwoodsman
in a green hunting-shirt, whose pistols, if not quite so good as those
wagered, were at any rate the next best. Away flew the ball, and the
pistols of the unlucky marksman were transferred to Green-shirt, who
generously drew forth his own, and handed them to the loser.

"Well, comrade, s'pose I must give you yer revenge. If I don't hit,
you'll have your pistols back again."

The cannon was reloaded, and the backwoodsman squinted along it, as if
it had been his own rifle, his features twisted up into a mathematical
calculation, and his right hand describing in the air all manner of
geometrical figures. At last he was ready; one more squint along the
gun, the match was applied, and the explosion took place. The rattle of
the stones warned us that the ball had taken effect. When the smoke
cleared away, we looked in vain for the third and fourth windows, and a
tremendous hurra burst forth for old Deaf Smith, as he was called, for
the bravest Texian who ever hunted across a prairie, and who
subsequently, with a small corps of observation, did such good service
on the Mexican frontier between Nueces and the Rio Grande.

The restless and impetuous Yankee volunteers were not long in finding
opportunities of distinction. Some Mexican sharpshooters having come
down to the opposite side of the river, whence they fired into the
redoubt, were repelled by a handful of the Greys, who then, carried away
by their enthusiasm, drove in the enemy's outposts, and entered the
suburbs of the town. They got too far, and were in imminent risk of
being overpowered by superior numbers, when Deaf Smith came to their
rescue with a party of their comrades. Several days passed away in
skirmishing, without any decisive assault being made upon the town or
fort. The majority of the men were for attacking; but some of the
leaders opposed it, and wished to retire into winter quarters in rear of
the Guadalupe river, wait for further reinforcements from the States,
and then, in the spring, again advance, and carry St Antonio by a _coup
de main_. To an army, in whose ranks subordination and discipline were
scarcely known, and where every man thought his opinion as worthy to be
listened to as that of the general, a difference of opinion was
destruction. The Texian militia, disgusted with their leader, Burleson,
retreated in straggling parties across the Guadalupe; about four hundred
men, consisting chiefly of the volunteers from New Orleans and the
Mississippi, remained behind, besieging St Antonio, of which the
garrison was nearly two thousand strong. The four hundred melted away,
little by little, to two hundred and ten; but these held good, and
resolved to attack the town. They did so, and took it, house by house,
with small loss to themselves, and a heavy one to the Mexicans. On the
sixth day, the garrison of the Alamo, which was commanded by General
Cos, and which the deadly Texian rifles had reduced to little more than
half its original numbers, capitulated. After laying down their arms,
they were allowed to retire beyond the Rio Grande. Forty-eight pieces of
cannon, four thousand muskets, and a quantity of military stores, fell
into the hands of the Texians, whose total loss amounted to six men
dead, and twenty-nine wounded.

After two or three weeks' sojourn at St Antonio, it was determined to
advance upon Matamoras; and on the 30th December the volunteers set out,
leaving a small detachment to garrison the Alamo. The advancing column
was commanded by Colonel Johnson; but its real leader, although he
declined accepting a definite command, was Colonel Grant, a Scotchman,
who had formerly held a commission in a Highland regiment, but had now
been for many years resident in Mexico. On reaching the little fort of
Goliad, near the town of La Bahia, which had a short time previously
been taken by a few Texians under Demmit, they halted, intending to wait
for reinforcements. A company of Kentuckians, and some other small
parties, joined them, making up their strength to about six hundred men;
but they were still obliged to wait for ammunition, and as the troops
began to get impatient, their leaders marched them to Refugio, a small
town and ruinous fort, about thirty miles further on. Here, in the
latter days of January 1836, General Houston, commander-in-chief of the
Texian forces, suddenly and unexpectedly appeared amongst them. He
assembled the troops, harangued them, and deprecated the proposed
expedition to Matamoras as useless, that town being without the proposed
limits of the republic. Nevertheless, so great was the impatience of
inaction, that two detachments, together about seventy men, marched by
different roads towards the Rio Grande, under command of Grant and
Johnson. Their example might probably have been followed by others, had
not the arrival of some strong reinforcements from the United States
caused various changes in the plan of campaign. The fresh troops
consisted of Colonel Fanning's free corps, the Georgia battalion under
Major Ward, and the Red Rovers, from Alabama, under Doctor Shackleford.
Fanning's and Ward's men, and the Greys, retired to Goliad, and set
actively to work to improve and strengthen the fortifications; whilst
Colonel Grant, whose chief failing appears to have been over-confidence,
continued with a handful of followers his advance to the Rio Grande,
promising at least to bring back a supply of horses for the use of the
army.

On the 5th of March, the garrison of Goliad received intelligence of the
declaration of Texian independence, and of the appointment of a
government, with Burnet as president, and Lorenzo de Zavala, a Mexican,
as vice-president. At the same time, came orders from General Houston to
destroy the forts of Goliad and the Alamo, and retreat immediately
behind the Guadalupe. Santa Anna, with twelve thousand men, was
advancing, by rapid marches, towards Texas. The order reached the Alamo
too late, for the little garrison of a hundred and eighty men was
already hemmed in, on all sides, by several thousand Mexicans, and had
sent messengers, imploring assistance, to Fanning at Goliad, and to
Houston, who was then stationed with five hundred militia at Gonzales,
high up on the Guadalupe. A second despatch from General Houston gave
Fanning the option of retiring behind the Guadalupe; or, if his men
wished it, of marching to the relief of the Alamo, in which latter case
he was to join Houston and his troops at Seguin's Rancho, about forty
miles from St Antonio. Fanning, however, who, although a man of
brilliant and distinguished courage, seems to have been an undecided and
wrongheaded officer, did neither, but preferred to wait for the enemy
within the walls of Goliad. In vain did a majority of his men, and
especially the Greys, urge him to march to the rescue of their comrades;
he positively refused to do so, although each day witnessed the arrival
of fresh couriers from St Antonio, imploring succour.

One morning three men belonging to the small detachment which, under
Colonel Grant, had gone upon the mad expedition to the Rio Grande,
arrived at Goliad with news of the destruction of their companions. Only
thirty in number, they had collected four hundred fine horses, and were
driving them northward to rejoin their friends, when, in a narrow pass
between thickets, they were suddenly surrounded by several hundred of
the enemy's lancers, whose attack, however, seemed directed rather
against the horses than the escort. Grant, whose courage was blind, and
who had already witnessed many instances of the almost incredible
poltroonery of those half-Indians, drew his sword, and charged the
Mexicans, who were at least ten times his strength. A discharge of
rifles and pistols stretched scores of the lancers upon the ground; but
that discharge made, there was no time to reload, and the Texians had to
defend themselves as best they might, with their bowie-knives and
rifle-buts, against the lances of the foe, with the certainty that any
of them who fell wounded from their saddles, would instantly be crushed
and mangled under the feet of the wild horses, which, terrified by the
firing and conflict, tore madly about the narrow field. Each moment the
numbers of the Texians diminished, one after the other disappeared,
transfixed by the lances, trampled by the hoofs. Colonel Grant and three
men--those who brought the news to Goliad--had reached the outskirt of
the _mêlée_, and might at once have taken to flight; but Grant perceived
some others of his men still fighting heroically amongst the mass of
Mexicans, and once more he charged in to rescue them. Every thing gave
way before him, his broadsword whistled around him, and man after man
fell beneath its stroke. His three followers having reloaded, were
rushing forward to his support, when suddenly the fatal lasso flew
through the air, its coils surrounded the body of the gallant Scot, and
the next instant he lay upon the ground beneath the feet of the foaming
and furious horses. In horrorstruck silence, the three survivors turned
their horses' heads north-east, and fled from the scene of slaughter.

Besides this disaster, numerous detachments of Texians were cut off by
the Mexicans, who now swarmed over the southern part of the province.
Colonel Johnson and his party were surprised in the town of San Patricio
and cut to pieces, Johnson and four of his followers being all that
escaped. Thirty men under Captain King, who had been sent by Fanning to
escort some settlers on their way northwards, were attacked by
overpowering numbers, and, after a most desperate defence, utterly
exterminated. The Georgia battalion under Major Ward, which had marched
from Goliad to the assistance of King and his party, fell in with a
large body of Mexican cavalry and infantry, and although, during the
darkness, they managed to escape, they lost their way in the prairie,
were unable to return to Goliad, and subsequently, as will hereafter be
seen, fell into the hands of the enemy. The Alamo itself was taken, not
a man surviving of the one hundred and eighty who had so valiantly
defended it. On the other hand, we have Mr Ehrenberg's assurance that
its capture cost Santa Anna two thousand two hundred men. In the ranks
of the besieging army were between two and three thousand convicts, who,
on all occasions, were put in the post of danger. At the attack on the
Alamo they were promised a free pardon if they took the place.
Nevertheless, they advanced reluctantly enough to the attack, and twice,
when they saw their ranks mown down by the fire of the Texians, they
turned to fly, but each time they were driven back to the charge by the
bayonets and artillery of their countrymen. At last, when the greater
part of these unfortunates had fallen, Santa Anna caused his fresh
troops to advance, and the place was taken. The two last of the garrison
fell by the Mexican bullets as they were rushing, torch in hand, to fire
the powder magazine. The fall of the Alamo was announced to Colonel
Fanning in a letter from Houston.

"The next point of the enemy's operations," said the old general, "will
be Goliad, and let the garrison reflect on the immensity of the force
that within a very few days will surround its walls. I conjure them to
make a speedy retreat, and to join the militia behind the Guadalupe.
Only by a concentration of our forces can we hope to achieve any thing;
and if Goliad is besieged, it will be impossible for me to succour it,
or to stake the fate of the republic upon a battle in the prairie, where
the ground is so unfavourable to our troops. Once more, therefore,
Colonel Fanning--in rear of the Guadalupe!"

At last, but unfortunately too late, Fanning decided to obey the orders
of his general. The affairs of the republic of Texas were indeed in a
most critical and unfavourable state. St Antonio taken, the army of
volunteers nearly annihilated, eight or ten thousand Mexican troops in
the country, for the garrison of Goliad no chance of relief in case of a
siege, and, moreover, a scanty store of provisions. These were the
weighty grounds which finally induced Fanning to evacuate and destroy
Goliad. The history of the retreat will be best given in a condensed
translation of the interesting narrative now before us.

On the 18th April 1836, says Mr Ehrenberg, at eight in the morning, we
commenced our retreat from the demolished and still burning fort of
Goliad. The fortifications, at which we had all worked with so much
zeal, a heap of dried beef, to prepare which nearly seven hundred oxen
had been slaughtered, and the remainder of our wheat and maize flour,
had been set on fire, and were sending up black columns of smoke towards
the clouded heavens. Nothing was to be seen of the enemy, although their
scouts had for some days previously been observed in the west, towards
St Antonio. All the artillery, with the exception of two long
four-pounders and a couple of mortars, were spiked and left behind us.
But the number of store and ammunition waggons with which we started was
too great, and our means of drawing them inadequate, so that, before we
had gone half a mile, our track was marked by objects of various kinds
scattered about the road, and several carts had broken down or been left
behind. At a mile from Goliad, on the picturesque banks of the St
Antonio, the remainder of the baggage was abandoned or hastily thrown
into the river, chests full of cartridges, the soldiers' effects, every
thing, in short, was committed to the transparent waters; and having
harnessed the oxen and draught horses to the artillery and to two
ammunition waggons, we slowly continued the march, our foes still
remaining invisible.

Our road lay through one of those enchanting landscapes, composed of
small prairies, intersected by strips of oak and underwood. On all sides
droves of oxen were feeding in the high grass, herds of wild-eyed deer
gazed wonderingly at the army that thus intruded upon the solitary
prairies of the west, and troops of horses dashed madly away upon our
approach, the thunder of their hoofs continuing to be audible long after
their disappearance. At eight miles from Goliad begins an extensive and
treeless prairie, known as the Nine-mile Prairie; and across this,
towards three in the afternoon, we had advanced about four or five
miles. Myself and some of my comrades, who acted as rearguard, were
about two miles behind, and had received orders to keep a sharp eye
upon the forest, which lay at a considerable distance to our left; but
as up to this time no signs of an enemy had been visible, we were riding
along in full security, when, upon casually turning our heads, we
perceived, about four miles off, at the edge of the wood, a something
that resembled a man on horseback. But as the thing, whatever it was,
did not appear to move, we decided that it must be a tree or some other
inanimate object, and we rode on without taking further notice. We
proceeded in this way for about a quarter of an hour, and then, the main
body being only about a quarter of a mile before us, marching at a
snail's pace, we halted to rest a little, and let our horses feed. Now,
for the first time, as we gazed out over the seemingly boundless
prairie, we perceived in our rear, and close to the wood, a long black
line. At first we took it to be a herd of oxen which the settlers were
driving eastward, to rescue them from the Mexicans; but the dark mass
drew rapidly nearer, became each moment more plainly discernible, and
soon we could no longer doubt that a strong body of Mexican cavalry was
following us at full gallop. We sprang upon our horses, and, at the top
of their speed, hurried after our friends, to warn them of the
approaching danger. Its intimation was received with a loud hurra; all
was made ready for the fight, a square was formed, and in this manner we
marched on, as fast as possible certainly, but that was slowly enough.
Fanning, our commander, was unquestionably a brave and daring soldier,
but unfortunately he was by no means fitted for the post he held, or
indeed for any undivided command. As a proof of this, instead of
endeavouring to reach the nearest wood, hardly a mile off, and sheltered
in which our Texian and American riflemen would have been found
invincible, he resolved to give battle upon the open and unfavourable
ground that we now occupied.

The Mexicans came up at a furious gallop to a distance of five or six
hundred paces, and thence gave us a volley from their carbines, of which
we took no notice, seeing that the bullets flew at a respectful height
above our heads, or else fell whistling upon the earth before us,
without even raising the dust. One only of the harmless things passed
between me and my right hand man, and tore off part of the cap of my
friend, Thomas Camp, who, after myself, was the youngest man in the
army. We remained perfectly quiet, and waited for the enemy to come
nearer, which he did, firing volley after volley. Our artillery
officers, for the most part Poles, tall, handsome men, calmly waited the
opportune moment to return the fire. It came; the ranks opened, and the
artillery vomited death and destruction amongst the Mexicans, whose
ill-broken horses recoiled in dismay and confusion from the flash and
thunders of the guns. The effect of our fire was frightful, steeds and
riders lay convulsed and dying upon the ground, and for a time the
advance of the enemy was checked. We profited by this to continue our
retreat, but had marched a very short distance before we were again
threatened with a charge, and Fanning commanded a halt. It was pointed
out to him that another body of the enemy was advancing upon our left,
to cut us off from the wood, and that those who had already attacked us
were merely sent to divert our attention whilst the manoeuvre was
executed. But Fanning either did not see the danger, or he was vexed
that another should be more quicksighted than himself, for he would not
retract his order. At last, after much vain discussion, and after
representing to him how necessary it was to gain the wood, the Greys
declared that they would march thither alone. But it was too late. The
enemy had already cut us off from it, and there was nothing left but to
fight our way through them, or give battle where we stood. Fanning was
for the latter course; and before the captains, who had formed a council
of war, could come to a decision, the Mexican trumpets sounded the
charge, and with shout and shot the cavalry bore down upon us, their
wild cries, intended to frighten us, contrasting oddly with the silence
and phlegm of our people, who stood waiting the opportunity to make the
best use of their rifles. Again and again our artillery played havoc
amongst the enemy, who, finding his cavalry so unsuccessful in its
assaults, now brought up the infantry, in order to make a combined
attack on all sides at once. Besides the Mexicans three hundred of their
Indian allies, Lipans and Caranchuas, approached us on the left,
stealing through the long grass, and, contemptible themselves, but
formidable by their position, wounded several of our people almost
before we perceived their proximity. A few discharges of canister soon
rid us of these troublesome assailants.

Meanwhile the hostile infantry, who had now joined the cavalry, slowly
advanced, keeping up a constant but irregular fire, which we replied to
with our rifles. In a very short time we were surrounded by so dense a
smoke that we were often compelled to pause and advance a little towards
the enemy, before we could distinguish an object at which to aim. The
whole prairie was covered with clouds of smoke, through which were seen
the rapid flashes of the musketry, accompanied by the thunder of the
artillery, the sharp clear crack of our rifles, and the occasional blare
of the Mexican trumpets, encouraging to the fight. At that moment, I
believe there was not a coward in the field; in the midst of such a
tumult there was no time to think of self. We rushed on to meet the
advancing foe, and many of us found ourselves standing firing in the
very middle of his ranks. I myself was one of these. In the smoke and
confusion I had got too far forward, and was too busy loading and
firing, to perceive that I was in the midst of the Mexicans. As soon as
I discovered my mistake, I hurried back to our own position, in all the
greater haste, because the touchhole of my rifle had got stopped.

But things went badly with us; many of our people were killed, more,
severely wounded; all our artillerymen, with the exception of one Pole,
had fallen, and formed a wall of dead bodies round the guns; the
battlefield was covered with dead and dying men and horses, with rifles
and other weapons. Fanning himself had been thrice wounded. The third
bullet had gone through two coats and through the pocket of his
overalls, in which he had a silk handkerchief, and had entered the
flesh, but, strange to say, without cutting through all the folds of the
silk; so that when he drew out the handkerchief, the ball fell out of
it, and he then for the first time felt the pain of the wound.

It was between five and six o'clock. In vain had the cavalry endeavoured
to bring their horses against our ranks; each attempt had been rendered
fruitless by the steady fire of our artillery and rifles, and at last
they were obliged to retreat. The infantry also retired without waiting
for orders, and our guns, which were now served by the Greys, sent a
last greeting after them. Seven hundred Mexicans lay dead upon the
field; but we also had lost a fifth part of our men, more than had ever
fallen on the side of the Texians in any contest since the war began,
always excepting the massacre at the Alamo. The enemy still kept near
us, apparently disposed to wait till the next day, and then renew their
attacks. Night came on, but brought us no repose; a fine rain began to
fall, and spoiled the few rifles that were still in serviceable order.
Each moment we expected an assault from the Mexicans, who had divided
themselves into three detachments, of which one was posted in the
direction of Goliad, another upon the road to Victoria, which was our
road, and the third upon our left, equidistant from the other two, so as
to form a triangle. Their signals showed us their position through the
darkness. We saw that it was impossible to retreat unperceived and that
our only plan was to spike the guns, abandon the wounded and artillery,
put our rifles in as good order as might be, and cut our way through
that body of Mexicans which held the road to Victoria. Once in the wood,
we were safe, and all Santa Anna's regiments would have been
insufficient to dislodge us. The Greys were of opinion that it was
better to sacrifice a part than the whole, and to abandon the wounded,
rather than place ourselves at the mercy of a foe in whose honour and
humanity no trust could be reposed. But Fanning was of a different
opinion. Whether his wounds--none of them, it is true, very severe--and
the groans and complaints of the dying, had rendered him irresolute,
and shaken his well-tried courage, or whether it was the hope that our
vanguard, which had reached the wood before the Mexicans surrounded us,
would return with a reinforcement from Victoria, only ten miles distant,
and where, as it was falsely reported, six hundred militiamen were
stationed, I cannot say; but he remained obstinate, and we vainly
implored him to take advantage of the pitch-dark night, and retreat to
the wood. He insisted upon waiting till eight o'clock the next morning,
and if no assistance came to us by that time, we could cut our way, he
said, in open day, through the ranks of our contemptible foe, and if we
did not conquer, we could at least bravely die.

"Give way to my wishes, comrades," said he; "listen to the groans of our
wounded brethren, whose lives may yet be saved by medical skill. Will
the New Orleans' Greys, the first company who shouldered the rifle for
Texian liberty, abandon their unfortunate comrades to a cruel death at
the hands of our barbarous foes? Once more, friends, I implore you, wait
till daybreak, and if no help is then at hand, it shall be as you
please, and I will follow you."

In order to unstiffen my limbs, which were numbed by the wet and cold, I
walked to and fro in our little camp, gazing out into the darkness. Not
a star was visible, the night was gloomy and dismal, well calculated to
crush all hope in our hearts. I stepped out of the encampment, and
walked in the direction of the enemy. From time to time dark figures
glided swiftly by within a short distance of me. They were the Indians,
carrying away the bodies of the dead Mexicans, in order to conceal from
us the extent of their loss. For hours I mournfully wandered about, and
day was breaking when I returned to the camp. All were already astir. In
silent expectation, we strained our eyes in the direction of the
neighbouring wood, hoping each moment to see our friends burst out from
its shelter; but as the light became stronger, all our hopes fled, and
our previous doubts as to whether there really were any troops at
Victoria, became confirmed. The Mexican artillery had come up during the
night, and now appeared stationed with the detachment which cut us off
from the wood.

It was seven o'clock; we had given up all hopes of succour, and had
assembled together to deliberate on the best mode of attacking the
Mexicans, when their artillery suddenly bellowed forth a morning
salutation, and the balls came roaring over and around us. These
messengers hastened our decision, and we resolved at once to attack the
troops upon the road with rifle and bowie-knife, and at all hazards and
any loss to gain the wood. All were ready; even the wounded, those at
least who were able to stand, made ready to accompany us, determined to
die fighting, rather than be unresistingly butchered. Suddenly, and at
the very moment that we were about to advance, the white flag, the
symbol of peace, was raised upon the side of the Mexicans. Mistrusting
their intentions, however, we were going to press forward, when
Fanning's command checked us. He had conceived hopes of rescuing himself
and his comrades, by means of an honourable capitulation, from the
perilous position into which he could not but feel that his own
obstinacy had brought them.

Three of the enemy's officers now approached our camp, two of them
Mexican cavalry-men, the third a German who had got into favour with
Santa Anna, and had risen to be colonel of artillery. He was, if I am
not mistaken, a native of Mayence, and originally a carpenter, but
having some talent for mathematics and architecture, he had entered the
service of an English mining company, and been sent to Mexico. There
Santa Anna employed him to build his well-known country-house of Mango
do Clavo, and conceiving, from the manner in which the work was
executed, a high opinion of the talent of the builder, he gave him a
commission in the engineers, and in time made him colonel of artillery.
This man, whose name was Holzinger, was the only one who spoke English
of the three officers who came with the flag of truce; and as he spoke
it very badly, a great deal of our conference took place in German, and
was then retranslated into Spanish. After a long discussion, Fanning
agreed to the following conditions: namely, that we should deliver up
our arms, that our private property should be respected, and we
ourselves sent to Corpano or Matamora, there to embark for New Orleans.
So long as we were prisoners of war, we were to receive the same rations
as the Mexican soldiers. On the other hand, we gave our word of honour
not again to bear arms against the existing government of Mexico.

Whilst the three officers returned to General Urrea, who commanded the
Mexican army, to procure the ratification of these conditions, we, the
volunteers from New Orleans and Mobile, surrounded Fanning, highly
dissatisfied at the course that had been adopted. "What!" was the cry,
"is this the way that Fanning keeps his promise--this his boasted
courage? Has he forgotten the fate of our brothers, massacred at St
Antonio? Does he not yet know our treacherous foes? In the Mexican
tongue, to capitulate, means to die. Let us die then, but fighting for
Texas and for liberty; and let the blood of hundreds of Mexicans mingle
with our own. Perhaps, even though they be ten times as numerous, we may
succeed in breaking through their ranks. Think of St Antonio, where we
were two hundred and ten against two thousand, and yet we conquered. Why
not again risk the combat?" But all our expostulations and reproaches
were in vain. The majority were for a surrender, and we were compelled
to give way and deliver up our weapons. Some of the Greys strode
sullenly up and down the camp, casting furious glances at Fanning and
those who had voted for the capitulation; others sat motionless, their
eyes fixed upon the ground, envying the fate of those who had fallen in
the fight. Despair was legibly written on the faces of many who but too
well foresaw our fate. One man in particular, an American, of the name
of Johnson, exhibited the most ungovernable fury. He sat grinding his
teeth, and stamping upon the ground, and puffing forth volumes of smoke
from his cigar, whilst he meditated, as presently appeared, a frightful
plan of vengeance.

Stimulated by curiosity, a number of Mexicans now strolled over to our
camp, and gazed shyly at the gloomy grey marksmen, as if they still
feared them, even though unarmed. The beauty of the rifles which our
people had given up, was also a subject of great wonder and admiration;
and soon the camp became crowded with unwelcome visitors--their joy and
astonishment at their triumph, contrasting with the despair and
despondency of the prisoners. Suddenly a broad bright flame flashed
though the morning fog, a tremendous explosion followed, and then all
was again still, and the prairie strewn with wounded men. A cloud of
smoke was crushed down by the heavy atmosphere upon the dark green
plain; the horses of the Mexican officers reared wildly in the air, or,
with bristling mane and streaming tail, galloped furiously away with
their half-deafened riders. Numbers of persons had been thrown down by
the shock, others had flung themselves upon the ground in consternation,
and some moments elapsed before the cause of the explosion was
ascerta

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