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Harper's New Monthly Magazine

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Title: Harper's New Monthly Magazine

Author: Various


        
Release date: February 14, 2011 [eBook #35271]
                Most recently updated: January 7, 2021

Language: English

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HARPER'S

NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

No. XVI.--SEPTEMBER, 1851--VOL. III.




NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.

BY JOHN S.C. ABBOTT.


II. DAWNING GREATNESS.

While Napoleon was spending his few months of furlough in Corsica, he
devoted many hours every day to the careful composition, after the
manner of Plutarch, of the lives of illustrious Corsicans. Though he had
made considerable progress in the work, it was lost in the subsequent
disorders of those times. He also established a debating club, composed
of the several officers in the army upon the island, to discuss the
great political questions which were then agitating Europe. These
subjects he studied with most intense application. In this club he was a
frequent speaker, and obtained much distinction for his argumentative
and oratorical powers. Napoleon, at this time, warmly espoused the cause
of popular liberty, though most sternly hostile to lawless violence. As
the reign of terror began to shed its gloom on Paris, and each day
brought its tidings of Jacobin cruelty and carnage, Napoleon imbibed
that intense hatred of anarchy which he ever after manifested, and which
no temptation could induce him to disguise. One day he expressed himself
in the club so vehemently, that an enemy, Salicetti, reported him to the
government as a traitor. He was arrested, taken to Paris, and obtained a
triumphant acquittal. Some years after he had an opportunity to revenge
himself, most magnanimously, upon his enemy who had thus meanly sought
his life, and whom he could not but despise. Salicetti, in his turn,
became obnoxious to the Jacobins, and was denounced as an outlaw. The
officers of police were in pursuit of him, and the guillotine was
ravenous for his blood. He ungenerously sought concealment under the
roof of Madame Permon, the mother of the young lady who had suggested to
Napoleon the idea of "Puss in Boots." By this act he exposed to the most
imminent peril the lives of Madame Permon and of all the members of her
household. Napoleon was on terms of familiar intimacy with the family,
and Salicetti was extremely apprehensive that he might discover his
retreat, and report him to the police. Madame Permon also, knowing the
hatred with which Salicetti had sought Napoleon's life, participated in
these fears.

The very next morning Napoleon made his appearance in the saloon of
Madame Permon.

"Well, Madame Permon," said he, "Salicetti will now in his turn be able
to appreciate the bitter fruits of arrest. And to him they ought to be
the more bitter, since he aided, with his own hand, to plant the trees
which bear them."

"How!" exclaimed Madame Permon, with an air of affected astonishment,
"is Salicetti arrested?"

"And is it possible," replied Napoleon, "that you do not know that he
has been proscribed. I presumed that you were aware of the fact, since
it is in your house that he is concealed."

"Concealed in my house!" she cried, "surely, my dear Napoleon, you are
mad. I entreat you do not repeat such a joke in any other place. I
assure you it would peril my life."

Napoleon rose from his seat, advanced slowly toward Madame Permon,
folded his arms upon his breast, and fixing his eyes in a steadfast gaze
upon her, remained for a moment in perfect silence.

"Madame Permon!" he then said, emphatically, "Salicetti is concealed in
your house. Nay--do not interrupt me. I know that yesterday at five
o'clock he was seen proceeding from the Boulevard in this direction. It
is well known that he has not in this neighborhood any acquaintances,
you excepted, who would risk their own safety, as well as that of their
friends by secreting him."

"And by what right," Madame Permon replied, with continued duplicity,
"should Salicetti seek an asylum here? He is well aware that our
political sentiments are at variance, and he also knows that I am on the
point of leaving Paris."

"You may well ask," Napoleon rejoined, "by what right he should apply to
you for concealment. To come to an unprotected woman, who might be
compromised by affording a few hours of safety to an outlaw who merits
his fate, is an act of baseness to which no consideration ought to have
driven him."

"Should you repeat abroad this assertion," she replied, "for which there
is no possible foundation, it would entail the most serious consequences
upon me."

Again Napoleon, with much apparent emotion, fixed his steadfast gaze
upon Madame Permon, and exclaimed, "You, Madame, are a generous woman,
and Salicetti is a villain. He was well aware that you could not close
your doors against him, and he would selfishly allow you to peril your
own life and that of your child, for the sake of his safety. I never
liked him. Now I despise him."

With consummate duplicity Madame Permon took Napoleon's hand, and
fixing her eye unquailing upon his, firmly uttered the falsehood, "I
assure you, Napoleon, upon my honor, that Salicetti is not in my
apartments. But stay--shall I tell you all?"

"Yes! all! all!" he vehemently rejoined.

"Well, then," she continued, with great apparent frankness, "Salicetti
was, I confess, under my roof yesterday at six o'clock; but he left in a
few hours after. I pointed out to him the moral impossibility of his
remaining concealed with me, living as publicly as I do. Salicetti
admitted the justice of my objection, and took his departure."

Napoleon, with hurried step, traversed the room two or three times, and
then exclaimed, "It is just as I suspected. He was coward enough to say
to a woman, 'Expose your life for mine.' But," he continued, stopping
before Madame Permon, and fixing a doubting eye upon her, "you really
believe, then, that he left your house and returned home!"

"Yes!" she replied, "I told him that since he must conceal himself in
Paris, it were best to bribe the people of his own hotel, because that
would be the last place where his enemies would think of searching for
him."

Napoleon then took his leave, and Madame Permon opened the door of the
closet where Salicetti was concealed. He had heard every word of the
conversation, and was sitting on a small chair, his head leaning upon
his hand, which was covered with blood, from a hemorrhage with which he
had been seized. Preparations were immediately made for an escape from
Paris, and passports were obtained for Salicetti as the valet de chambre
of Madame Permon. In the early dawn of the morning they left Paris,
Salicetti as a servant, seated upon the box of the carriage. When they
had arrived at the end of the first stage, several miles from the city,
the postillion came to the window of the coach, and presented Madame
Pennon with a note, which, he said, a young man had requested him to
place in her hands at that post. It was from Napoleon. Madame Permon
opened it and read as follows:

"I never like to be thought a dupe. I should appear to be such to you,
did I not tell you that I knew perfectly well of Salicetti's place of
concealment.

"You see, then, Salicetti, that I might have returned the ill you did to
me. In so doing I should only have avenged myself. But you sought my
life when I never had done aught to harm you. Which of us stands in the
preferable point of view at the present moment? I might have avenged my
wrongs; but I did not. Perhaps you may say, that it was out of regard to
your benefactress that I spared you. That consideration, I confess, was
powerful. But you, alone, unarmed and an outlaw, would never have been
injured by me. Go in peace, and seek an asylum where you may cherish
better sentiments. On your name my mouth is closed. Repent and
appreciate my motives.

"Madame Permon! my best wishes are with you and your child. You are
feeble and defenseless beings. May Providence and a friend's prayers
protect you. Be cautious, and do not tarry in the large towns through
which you may have to pass. Adieu."

Having read the letter, Madame Permon turned to Salicetti, and said,
"You ought to admire the noble conduct of Bonaparte. It is most
generous."

"Generous!" he replied, with a contemptuous smile, "What would you have
had him do? Would you have wished him to betray me?"

The indignant woman looked upon him with disgust, and said, "I do not
know what I might expect _you_ to do. But this I do know, that it would
be pleasant to see you manifest a little gratitude."

When they arrived at a seaport, as Salicetti embarked on board a small
vessel which was to convey him to Italy, he seemed for a moment not to
be entirely unmindful of the favors he had received. Taking Madame
Permon's hands in his, he said, "I should have too much to say, were I
to attempt to express to you my gratitude by words. As to Bonaparte,
tell him I thank him. Hitherto I did not believe him capable of
generosity. I am now bound to acknowledge my mistake. I thank him."

Napoleon, after his acquittal from the charges brought against him by
Salicetti, remained in Paris for two or three months. He lived in the
most frugal manner, spending no money or time in dissipation or
amusements. He passed most of his hours in the libraries, reading
volumes of solid worth, and seeking the conversation of distinguished
men. Without any exhibition of vanity, he seemed to repose great
reliance upon his own powers, and was never abashed in the slightest
degree by the presence of others, of whatever rank or attainments.
Indeed he seemed, even then, to be animated by the assurance that he was
destined for some great achievements. His eye was surveying the world.
He was meditating upon the rise and fall of empires. France, Europe
even, seemed too small for his majestic designs. He studied with intense
interest the condition of the countless myriads of men who swarm along
the rivers and the hill-sides of internal Asia; and dreamed of being
himself the founder of an Empire there, in comparison with which the
dynasties of Europe should be insignificant. Indeed he never, in all his
subsequent career, manifested the least surprise in view of his
elevation. He rose from step to step, regarding each ascent as a matter
of course, never shrinking in the least degree from assuming any weight
of responsibility, and never manifesting the slightest embarrassment in
taking the command from the hands of gray-headed veterans.

While in Paris, he was, on the famous morning of the 20th of June, 1792,
walking with his friend Bourrienne, along the banks of the Seine, when
he saw a vast mob of men, women, and boys, with hideous yells and
frantic gestures, and brandishing weapons of every kind, rolling like an
inundation through the streets of the metropolis, and directing their
steps toward the palace of the imprisoned monarch. Napoleon ran before
them that he might witness their proceedings. Climbing, by an iron
fence, upon the balustrade of a neighboring building, he saw the squalid
mass of thirty thousand miscreants break into the garden of the
Tuileries, swarm through the doors of the regal mansion, and, at last,
compel the insulted and humiliated king, driven into the embrasure of a
window, to put the filthy red cap of Jacobinism upon his brow. This
triumph of the drunken vagrants, from the cellars and garrets of infamy,
over all law and justice, and this spectacle of the degradation of the
acknowledged monarch of one of the proudest nations on the globe,
excited the indignation of Napoleon to the highest pitch. He turned away
from the sight as unendurable, exclaiming, "The wretches! how could they
suffer this vile mob to enter the palace! They should have swept down
the first five hundred with grape shot, and the rest would have soon
taken to flight."

[Illustration: THE ATTACK UPON THE TUILERIES]

New scenes of violence were now daily enacted before the eyes of
Napoleon in the streets of Paris, until the dreadful 10th of August
arrived. He then again saw the triumphant and unresisted mob sack the
palace of the Tuileries. He witnessed the king and the royal family
driven from the halls of their ancestors, and followed by the frenzied
multitude, with hootings, and hissings, and every conceivable insult, in
momentary peril of assassination, until they took refuge in the
Assembly. He saw the merciless massacre of the faithful guards of the
king, as they were shot in the garden, as they were pursued and
poniarded in the streets, as they were pricked down with bayonets, from
the statues upon which they had climbed for protection, and in cold
blood butchered. He saw, with his bosom glowing with shame and
indignation, the drunken rioters marching exultingly through the streets
of the metropolis, with the ghastly heads of the slaughtered guards
borne aloft, upon the points of their pikes, as the trophies of their
victory.

These hideous spectacles wrought quite a revolution in the mind of
Napoleon. They effectually arrested the progress of all his tendencies
toward democracy. He had been a great admirer of constitutional liberty
in England, and a still greater admirer of republican liberty in
America. He now became convinced that the people of France were too
ignorant and degraded for self-government, that they needed the guidance
and control of resistless law. He hated and despised the voluptuousness,
the imbecility, and the tyranny of the effete monarchy. He had himself
suffered most keenly from the superciliousness of the old nobility who
grasped at all the places of profit and honor, merely to gratify their
own sensuality, and left no career open to merit. Napoleon had his own
fortune to make, and he was glad to see all these bulwarks battered
down, which the pride and arrogance of past ages had reared to foster a
worthless aristocracy; and to exclude the energetic and the aspiring,
unaided by wealth and rank, from all the avenues of influence and
celebrity. On the other hand the dominion of the mob appeared to him so
execrable that he said, "I frankly declare that if I were compelled to
choose between the old monarchy and Jacobin misrule, I should infinitely
prefer the former." Openly and energetically, upon all occasions,
fearless of consequences, he expressed his abhorrence of those
miscreants who were trampling justice and mercy beneath their feet, and
who were, by their atrocities, making France a by-word among all
nations. This is a key to the character of Napoleon. Those opposing
forces guided his future career. He ever, subsequently, manifested the
most decisive resolution to crush the Jacobins. He displayed untiring
energy in reconstructing in France a throne invincible in power, which
should govern the people, which should throw every avenue to greatness
open to all competitors, making wealth, and rank, and influence, and
power the reward of merit. Napoleon openly avowed his conviction that
France, without education and without religion, was not prepared for the
republicanism of the United States. In this sentiment La Fayette and
most of the wisest men of the French nation fully concurred. With an arm
of despotic power he crushed every lawless outbreak. And he gathered
around his throne eminent abilities, wherever he could find them, in the
shop of the artisan, in the ranks of the army, and in the hut of the
peasant. In France at this time, there was neither intelligence,
religion, nor morality, among the masses. There was no reverence for law
either human or divine. Napoleon expressed his high approval of the
constitutional monarchy of England, and declared that to be the model
upon which he would have the new government of France constructed. He
judged that France needed an imposing throne, supported by an
illustrious nobility and by a standing army of invincible power, with
civil privileges cautiously and gradually disseminated among the people.
And though in the pride of subsequent success he was disposed to gather
all power into his own hands, few persons could have manifested during
so long a reign, and through the temptations of so extraordinary a
career, more unwavering consistency.

One evening he returned home from a walk, through the streets of the
tumultuous metropolis, in which his ears had been deafened by the shouts
of the people in favor of a new republican constitution. It was in the
midst of the reign of terror, and the guillotine was drenched in blood.
"How do you like the new constitution?" said a lady to him. He replied,
hesitatingly, "Why, it is good in one sense, to be sure; but, all that
is connected with carnage, is bad," and then, as if giving way to an
outburst of sincere feeling, he exclaimed, emphatically, "_No! no! no!
away with this constitution. I do not like it!_"

The republicanism of the United States is founded on the intelligence,
the Christianity, and the reverence for law so generally prevalent
throughout the whole community. And should that dark day ever come, in
which the majority of the people will be unable to read the printed vote
which is placed in their hands, and lose all reverence for earthly law,
and believe not in God, before whose tribunal they must finally appear,
it is certain that the republic can not stand for a day. Anarchy must
ensue, from which there can be no refuge but in a military despotism.

In these days of pecuniary embarrassment Napoleon employed a bootmaker,
a very awkward workman, but a man who manifested very kindly feelings
toward him, and accommodated him in his payments. When dignity and
fortune were lavished upon the first consul and the emperor, he was
frequently urged to employ a more fashionable workman. But no
persuasions could induce him to abandon the humble artisan who had been
the friend of his youthful days. Instinctive delicacy told him that the
man would be more gratified by being the shoemaker of the emperor, and
that his interests would thus be better promoted than by any other
favors he could confer.

A silversmith, in one of Napoleon's hours of need, sold him a
dressing-case upon credit. The kindness was never forgotten. Upon his
return from the campaign of Italy, he called, rewarded him liberally,
and ever after employed him, and also recommended him to his marshals
and to his court in general. In consequence the jeweler acquired an
immense fortune.

Effects must have their causes. Napoleon's boundless popularity in the
army and in the nation, was not the result of accident, the sudden
outbreak of an insane delusion. These exhibitions of an instinctive and
unstudied magnanimity won the hearts of the people as rapidly as his
transcendent abilities and Herculean toil secured for him renown.

Napoleon with his political principles modified by the scenes of lawless
violence which he had witnessed in Paris, returned again to Corsica.

Soon after his return to his native island, in February, 1793, he, being
then 22 years of age, was ordered, at the head of two battalions, in
co-operation with Admiral Turget, to make a descent upon the island of
Sardinia. Napoleon effected a landing and was entirely successful in the
accomplishment of his part of the expedition. The admiral, however,
failed, and Napoleon, in consequence, was under the necessity of
evacuating the positions where he had entrenched himself, and of
returning to Corsica.

He found France still filled with the most frightful disorders. The king
and queen had both fallen upon the scaffold. Paoli, disgusted with the
political aspect of his own country, treasonably plotted to surrender
Corsica, over which he was the appointed governor, to the crown of
England. It was a treacherous act, and was only redeemed from utter
infamy by the brutal outrages with which France was disgraced. A large
party of the Corsicans rallied around Paoli. He exerted all the
influence in his power to induce Napoleon, the son of his old friend and
comrade, and whose personal qualities he greatly admired, to join his
standard. Napoleon, on the other hand, with far greater penetration into
the mysteries of the future, entreated Paoli to abandon the unpatriotic
enterprise. He argued that the violence with which France was filled was
too terrible to be lasting, and that the nation must soon return again
to reason and to law. He represented that Corsica was too small and
feeble to think of maintaining independence in the midst of the powerful
empires of Europe; that in manners, language, customs, and religion it
never could become a homogeneous part of England; that the natural
connection of the island was with France, and that its glory could only
be secured by its being embraced as a province of the French Empire. And
above all, he argued that it was the duty of every good citizen, in such
hours of peril, to cling firmly and fearlessly to his country, and to
exert every nerve to cause order to emerge from the chaos into which all
things had fallen. These were unanswerable arguments, but Paoli had
formed strong attachments in England, and remembered, with an avenging
spirit, the days in which he had fled before the armies of conquering
France.

The last interview which took place between these distinguished men, was
at a secluded convent in the interior of the island. Long and earnestly
they argued with each other, for they were devoted personal friends. The
veteran governor was eighty years of age, Napoleon was but twenty-two.
It was with the greatest reluctance that either of them could consent to
draw the sword against the other. But there was no alternative. Paoli
was firm in his determination to surrender the island to the English. No
persuasions could induce Napoleon to sever his interests from those of
his native country. Sadly they separated to array themselves against
each other in civil war.

As Napoleon, silent and thoughtful, was riding home alone, he entered a
wild ravine among the mountains, when suddenly he was surrounded by a
party of mountaineers, in the employ of Paoli, and taken prisoner. By
stratagem he effected his escape, and placed himself at the head of the
battalion of national guards over which he had been appointed commander.
Hostilities immediately commenced. The governor, who with his numerous
forces had possession of the town of Ajaccio, invited the English into
the harbor, surrendering to them the island. The English immediately
took possession of those heights on the opposite side of the gulf,
which, it will be remembered, that Napoleon had previously so carefully
examined. The information he gained upon this occasion was now of
special service to him. One dark and stormy night he embarked in a
frigate, with a few hundred soldiers, landed near the entrenchments,
guided the party in the darkness, over the ground, with which he was
perfectly familiar, surprised the English in their sleep, and, after a
short but sanguinary conflict, took possession of the fort. The storm,
however, increased to a gale, and when the morning dawned, they strained
their eyes in vain through the driving mist to discern the frigate. It
had been driven by the tempest far out to sea. Napoleon and his little
band were immediately surrounded by the allied English and Corsicans,
and their situation seemed desperate. For five days they defended
themselves most valiantly, during which time they were under the
necessity of killing their horses for food to save themselves from
starvation. At last the frigate again appeared. Napoleon then evacuated
the town in which he had so heroically contended against vastly
outnumbering foes, and, after an ineffectual attempt to blow up the
fort, succeeded in safely effecting an embarkation. The strength of
Paoli was daily increasing, and the English in greater numbers crowding
to his aid. Napoleon saw that it was in vain to attempt further
resistance, and that Corsica was no longer a safe residence for himself
or for the family. He accordingly disbanded his forces and prepared to
leave the island.

Paoli called upon Madame Letitia, and exhausted his powers of persuasion
in endeavoring to induce the family to unite with him in the treasonable
surrender of the island to the English. "Resistance is hopeless," said
he, "and by this perverse opposition, you are bringing irreparable ruin
and misery on yourself and family." "I know of but two laws," replied
Madame Letitia, heroically, "which it is necessary for me to obey, the
laws of honor and of duty." A decree was immediately passed banishing
the family from the island. One morning Napoleon hastened to inform his
mother that several thousand peasants, armed with all the implements of
revolutionary fury, were on the march to attack the house. The family
fled precipitately, with such few articles of property as they could
seize at the moment, and for several days wandered, houseless and
destitute, on the sea-shore, until Napoleon could make arrangements for
their embarkation. The house was sacked by the mob, and the furniture
entirely destroyed.

It was midnight when an open boat manned by four strong rowers, with
muffled oars, approached the shore in the vicinity of the pillaged and
battered dwelling of Madame Letitia. A dim lantern was held by an
attendant, as the whole Bonaparte family, in silence and in sorrow, with
the world, its poverty and all its perils, wide before them, entered the
boat. A few trunks and bandboxes, contained all their available
property. The oarsmen pulled out into the dark and lonely sea. Earthly
boat never before held such a band of emigrants. There sat Madame
Letitia, Joseph, Napoleon, Lucien, Louis, Jerome, Eliza, Pauline, and
Caroline. Little did those poor and friendless fugitives then imagine
that all the thrones of Europe were to tremble before them, and that
their celebrity was to fill the world. Napoleon took his stand at the
bows, for although the second son, he was already the commanding spirit
of the family. They soon ascended the sides of a small vessel which was
waiting for them in the offing, with her sails fluttering in the breeze,
and when the morning sun arose over the blue waters of the
Mediterranean, they were approaching the harbor of Nice. Here they
remained but a short time, when they removed to Marseilles, where the
family resided in great pecuniary embarrassment until relieved by the
rising fortunes of Napoleon.

[Illustration: THE EMIGRANTS.]

The English immediately took possession of the island, and retained it
for two years. The fickle Corsicans soon grew weary of their new
masters, in whose language, manners, and religion they found no
congeniality, and a general rising took place. A small force from France
effected a landing, notwithstanding the vigilance of the English
cruisers. Beacon fires, the signals of insurrection, by previous
concert, blazed from every hill, and the hoarse sound of the horn,
echoing along the mountain sides and through the ravines, summoned the
warlike peasants to arms. The English were driven from the island with
even more precipitation than they had taken possession of it. Paoli
retired with them to London, deeply regretting that he had not followed
the wise counsel of young Napoleon. Bonaparte never visited Corsica
again. He could not love the _people_ in whose defense he had suffered
such injustice. To the close of life, however, he retained a vivid
recollection of the picturesque beauties of his native island, and often
spoke, in most animating terms, of the romantic glens, and precipitous
cliffs, and glowing skies endeared to him by all the associations of
childhood. The poetic and the mathematical elements were both combined
in the highest degree in the mind of Napoleon, and though his manly
intellect turned away in disgust from mawkish and effeminate
sentimentalism, he enjoyed the noble appreciation of all that is
beautiful, and all that is sublime. His retentive memory was stored with
the most brilliant passages from the tragedies of Corneille, Racine, and
Voltaire, and no one could quote them with more appropriateness.

We now approach more eventful scenes in the life of this extraordinary
man. All the monarchies of Europe were allied, in arms, against the
French Revolution, and slowly, but resistlessly, their combined armies
were marching upon Paris. The emigrant nobles and monarchists, many
thousands in number, were incorporated into the embattled hosts of these
allies. The spirit of insurrection against the government began to
manifest itself very strongly in several important cities. Toulon, on
the shores of the Mediterranean, was the great naval depot and arsenal
of France. It contained a population of about twenty-five thousand
inhabitants. More than fifty ships-of-the-line and frigates were riding
at anchor in its harbor, and an immense quantity of military and naval
stores, of every description, was collected in its spacious magazines.
The majority of the inhabitants of this city were friends of the old
monarchy. Some ten thousand of the royalists of Marseilles, Lyons, and
other parts of the south of France, took refuge within the walls of
Toulon, and, uniting with the royalist inhabitants, surrendered the
city, its magazines, its ships, and its forts to the combined English
and Spanish fleet, which was cruising outside of its harbor. The English
ships sailed triumphantly into the port, landed five thousand English
troops, and eight thousand Spaniards, Neapolitans, and Piedmontese, took
full possession of the place. This treacherous act excited to the
highest pitch the alarm and the indignation of the revolutionary
government; and it was resolved that, at all hazards, Toulon must be
retaken, and the English driven from the soil of France. But the English
are not easily expelled from the posts which they once have occupied;
and it was an enterprise of no common magnitude to displace them, with
their strong army and their invincible navy, from fortresses so
impregnable as those of Toulon, and where they found stored up for them,
in such profuse abundance, all the munitions of war.

Two armies were immediately marched upon Toulon, the place invested, and
a regular siege commenced. Three months had passed away, during which
time no apparent progress had been effected toward the capture of the
town. Every exertion was made by the allied troops and the royalist
inhabitants to strengthen the defenses, and especially to render
impregnable a fort called the Little Gibraltar, which commanded the
harbor and the town. The French besieging force, amounting to about
forty thousand men, were wasting their time outside of the
entrenchments, keeping very far away from the reach of cannon balls. The
command of these forces had been intrusted to Gen. Cartaux, a
portrait-painter from Paris, as ignorant of all military science, as he
was self-conceited. Matters were in this state when Napoleon, whose
commanding abilities were now beginning to attract attention, was
promoted to the rank of Brigadier-general, and invested with the command
of the artillery train at Toulon. He immediately hastened to the scene
of action, and beheld, with utter astonishment, the incapacity with
which the siege was conducted. He found batteries erected which would
not throw their balls one half the distance between the guns and the
points they were designed to command. Balls also were heated in the
peasants' houses around, at perfectly ridiculous distances from the
guns, as if they were articles to be transported at one's leisure.
Napoleon requested the commander-in-chief, at whose direction these
batteries were reared, to allow him to witness the effect of a few
discharges from the guns. With much difficulty he obtained consent. And
when the general saw the shot fall more than half-way short of the mark,
he turned upon his heel, and said, "These aristocrats have spoiled the
quality of the powder with which I am supplied."

Napoleon respectfully but firmly made his remonstrance to the
Convention, assuring them that the siege must be conducted with far more
science and energy if a successful result was to be expected. He
recommended that the works against the city itself should be
comparatively neglected, and that all the energies of the assaults
should be directed against Little Gibraltar. That fort once taken, it
was clear to his mind that the English fleet, exposed to a destructive
fire, must immediately evacuate the harbor, and the town would no longer
be defensible. In fact, he pursued precisely the course by which
Washington had previously driven the British from Boston. The
distinguished American general turned aside from the city itself, and by
a masterly movement planted his batteries on Dorchester heights, from
which he could rain down a perfect tempest of balls upon the decks of
the English ships. The invaders were compelled to fly, and to take with
them their Tory allies. Napoleon did the same thing at Toulon. The
enterprise was, however, vastly more arduous, since the English had
foreseen the importance of that port, and had surrounded it with works
so unapproachable that they did not hesitate to call it their _Little
Gibraltar_. Napoleon, then but twenty-three years of age, undertook
their dislodgment. Dugommier, a scarred and war-worn veteran, was now
placed in the supreme command, and cordially sympathized with his young
artillery officer in all his plans. The agents of the Convention, who
were in the camp as spies to report proceedings to the government,
looked with much incredulity upon this strange way of capturing Toulon.
One morning some of these commissioners ventured to criticise the
direction of a gun which Napoleon was superintending. "Do you," he
tartly replied, "attend to your duty as a national commissioner, and I
will be answerable for mine with my head."

Napoleon's younger brother, Louis, visited him during the siege. They
walked out one morning to a place where an unavailing assault had been
made by a portion of the army, and two hundred mangled bodies of
Frenchmen were strewn over the ground. On beholding the slaughter which
had taken place, Napoleon exclaimed, "All those men have been needlessly
sacrificed. Had intelligence commanded here none of these lives need
have been lost. Learn from this, my brother, how indispensable and
imperatively necessary it is, that those should possess knowledge who
aspire to assume the command over others."

Napoleon, with an energy which seemed utterly exhaustless, devoted
himself to the enterprise he had undertaken. He shared all the toils and
all the perils of his men. He allowed himself but a few hours' sleep at
night, and then wrapped in his cloak, threw himself under the guns. By
the utmost exertions he soon obtained, from all quarters, a train of two
hundred heavy battering cannon. In the midst of a storm of shot and
shells incessantly falling around him, he erected five or six powerful
batteries, within point-blank range of the works he would assail. One
battery in particular which was masked by a plantation of olives, he
constructed very near the entrenchments of the enemy. He seemed utterly
regardless of his own safety, had several horses shot from under him,
and received from an Englishman so serious a bayonet wound in his left
thigh that for a time he was threatened with the necessity of
amputation. All these operations were carried on in the midst of the
storms of battle. There were daily and nightly skirmishes and sallies,
and deadly assaults, and the dreadful tide of successful and
unsuccessful war ever ebbed and flowed. One day an artillery man was
shot down by his side, and the ramrod which he was using was drenched
with blood. Napoleon immediately sprung into the dead man's place,
seized the rod, and to the great encouragement of the soldiers, with his
own hand, repeatedly charged the gun.

While the siege was in progress, one day, fifteen carriages, from Paris,
suddenly made their appearance in the camp, and about sixty men
alighting from them, dressed in gorgeous uniform, and with the pomp and
important air of embassadors from the revolutionary government,
demanded to be led into the presence of the commander-in-chief.

"Citizen general," said the orator of the party. "We come from Paris.
The patriots are indignant at your inactivity and delay. The soil of the
Republic has been violated. She trembles to think that the insult still
remains unavenged. She asks, Why is Toulon not yet taken? why is the
English fleet not yet destroyed? In her indignation she has appealed to
her brave sons. We have obeyed her summons and burn with impatience to
fulfill her expectations. We are volunteer gunners from Paris. Furnish
us with arms. To-morrow we will march against the enemy."

The general was not a little disconcerted by this pompous and
authoritative address. But Napoleon whispered to him, "Turn those
gentlemen over to me. I will take care of them." They were very
hospitably entertained, and the next morning, at daybreak, Napoleon
conducted them to the sea-shore, and gave them charge of several pieces
of artillery, which he had placed there during the night, and with which
he requested them to sink an English frigate whose black and threatening
hull was seen, through the haze of the morning, at anchor some distance
from the shore. The trembling volunteers looked around with most nervous
uneasiness in view of their exposed situation, and anxiously inquired if
there was no shelter behind which they could stand. Just then John Bull
uttered one of his most terrific roars, and a whole broadside of cannon
balls came whistling over their heads. This was not the amusement they
had bargained for, and the whole body of braggadocios took to
precipitate flight. Napoleon sat quietly upon his horse, without even a
smile moving his pensive and marble features as he contemplated, with
much satisfaction, the dispersion of such troublesome allies.

[Illustration: THE VOLUNTEER GUNNERS.]

Upon another occasion, when the enemy were directing their fire upon the
works which he was constructing, having occasion to send a dispatch from
the trenches, he called for some one who could write, that he might
dictate an order. A young private stepped out from the ranks and,
resting the paper upon the breastwork, began to write, as he dictated.
While thus employed, a cannon ball, from the enemy's battery, struck the
ground but a few feet from them, covering their persons and the paper
with the earth. "Thank you," said the soldier, gayly, "we shall need no
more sand upon this page." The instinctive fearlessness and readiness
thus displayed arrested the attention of Napoleon. He fixed his keen and
piercing eye upon him for a moment, as if scrutinizing all his mental
and physical qualities, and then said, "Young man! what can I do for
you?" The soldier blushed deeply, but promptly replied, "Every thing,"
and then touching his left shoulder with his hand, he added, "you can
change this worsted into an epaulet." A few days after, Napoleon sent
for the same soldier, to reconnoitre the trenches of the enemy, and
suggested that he should disguise his dress, as his exposure would be
very great. "Never," replied the soldier; "do you take me for a spy? I
will go in my uniform, though I should never return." He set out
immediately, and fortunately escaped unharmed. These two incidents
revealed character, and Napoleon immediately recommended him for
promotion. This was Junot, afterward Duke of Abrantes, and one of the
most efficient friends of Napoleon. "I love Napoleon," said Junot
afterward, most wickedly, "as my God. To him I am indebted for all that
I am."[1]

At last the hour arrived when all things were ready for the grand
attempt. It was in the middle watches of the night of the 17th of
December, 1793, when the signal was given for the assault. A cold storm
of wind and rain was wailing its midnight dirges in harmony with the
awful scene of carnage, destruction, and woe, about to ensue. The genius
of Napoleon had arranged every thing and inspired the desperate
enterprise. No pen can describe the horrors of the conflict. All the
energies of both armies were exerted to the utmost in the fierce
encounter. To distract the attention of the enemy, the fortifications
were every where attacked, while an incessant shower of bomb-shells were
rained down upon the devoted city, scattering dismay and death in all
directions. In the course of a few hours eight thousand shells from the
effective batteries of Napoleon were thrown into Little Gibraltar, until
the massive works were almost one pile of ruins. In the midst of the
darkness, the storm, the drenching rain, the thunder of artillery, and
the gleaming light of bomb-shells, the French marched up to the very
muzzles of the English guns, and were mown down like grass before the
scythe by the tremendous discharges of grape-shot and musketry. The
ditches were filled with the dead and the dying. Again and again the
French were repulsed, only to return again and again to the assault.
Napoleon was every where present, inspiring the onset, even more
reckless of his own life than of the lives of his soldiers. For a long
time the result seemed very doubtful. But the plans of Napoleon were too
carefully laid for final discomfiture. His mangled, bleeding columns
rushed in at the embrasures of the rampart, and the whole garrison were
in a few moments silent and still in death. "General," said Bonaparte to
Dugommier, broken down by fatigue and age, as he raised the tricolored
flag over the crumbling walls of the rampart, "go and sleep. We have
taken Toulon." "It was," says Scott, "upon this night of terror,
conflagration, tears, and blood, that the star of Napoleon first
ascended the horizon, and though it gleamed over many a scene of horror
ere it set, it may be doubted whether its light was ever blended with
that of one more dreadful."

Though Little Gibraltar was thus taken, the conflict continued all
around the city until morning. Shells were exploding, and hot shot
falling in the thronged dwellings. Children in the cradle, and maidens
in their chambers had limb torn from limb by the dreadful missiles.
Conflagrations were continually bursting forth, burning the mangled and
the dying, while piercing shrieks of dismay and of agony rose even above
the thunders of the terrific cannonade. The wind howled in harmony with
the awful scene, and a cold and drenching rain swept the streets. One
can not contemplate such a conflict without wondering that a God of
mercy could have allowed his children thus brutally to deform this fair
creation with the spirit of the world of woe. For the anguish inflicted
upon suffering humanity that night a dread responsibility must rest
somewhere. A thousand houses were made desolate. Thousands of hearts
were lacerated and crushed, with every hope of life blighted forever.
The English government thought that they did right, under the
circumstances of the case, to send their armies and take possession of
Toulon. Napoleon deemed that he was nobly discharging his duty, in the
Herculean and successful endeavors he made to drive the invaders from
the soil of France. It is not easy for man, with his limited knowledge,
to adjust the balance of right and wrong. But here was a crime of
enormous magnitude committed--murder, and robbery, and arson, and
violence--the breaking of every commandment of God upon the broadest
scale; and a day of Judgment is yet to come in which the responsibility
will be with precise and accurate justice awarded.

The direful tragedy was, however, not yet terminated. When the morning
sun dawned dimly and coldly through the lurid clouds, an awful spectacle
was revealed to the eye. The streets of Toulon were red with blood,
while thousands of the mangled and the dead, in all the most hideous
forms of mutilation, were strewed through the dwellings and along the
streets. Fierce conflagrations were blazing in many parts of the city,
while mouldering ruins and shattered dwellings attested the terrific
power of the midnight storm of man's depravity. The cannonade was still
continued, and shells were incessantly exploding among the terrified and
shrieking inhabitants.

Napoleon, having accomplished the great object of his exertions, the
capture of Little Gibraltar, allowed himself not one moment for triumph,
or repose, or regret; but, as regardless of the carnage around him, as
if he were contemplating a field over which the scythe of the mower had
passed, immediately prepared his guns to throw their plunging balls into
the English ships, and to harass them at every point of exposure. No
sooner did Lord Howe see the tricolored flag floating from the parapets
of Little Gibraltar, than, conscious that the city was no longer
tenable, he made signal for the fleet to prepare for immediate
evacuation. The day was passed by the English in filling their ships
with stores from the French arsenals, they having determined to destroy
all the munitions of war which they could not carry away. The victorious
French were straining every nerve in the erection of new batteries, to
cripple and, if possible, to destroy the retiring foe. Thus passed the
day, when another wintry night settled gloomily over the beleaguered and
woe-exhausted city. The terror of the royalists was dreadful. They saw,
by the embarkation of the British sick and wounded, the indications that
the English were to evacuate the city, and that they were to be left to
their fate. And full well they knew what doom they, and their wives and
their children, were to expect from republican fury in those days of
unbridled violence. The English took as many of the French ships of the
line as could be got ready for sea, to accompany them in their escape.
The rest, consisting of fifteen ships of the line and eight frigates,
were collected to be burned. A fire-ship, filled with every combustible
substance, was towed into their midst, and at ten o'clock the torch was
applied. The night was dark and still. The flames of the burning ships
burst forth like a volcano from the centre of the harbor, illumining the
scene with lurid and almost noonday brilliance. The water was covered
with boats, crowded with fugitives, hurrying, frantic with despair, in
the abandonment of homes and property, to the English and Spanish ships.
More than twenty thousand loyalists, men, women, and children, of the
highest rank, crowded the beach and the quays, in a state of
indescribable consternation, imploring rescue from the infuriate army of
the republicans howling like wolves around the walls of the city, eager
to get at their prey. In increase of the horror of the scene, a most
furious cannonade was in progress all the time from every ship and every
battery. Cannon balls tore their way through family groups. Bombs
exploded upon the thronged decks of the ships, and in the crowded boats.
Many boats were thus sunk, and the shrieks of drowning women and
children pierced through the heavy thunders of the cannonade. Husbands
and wives, parents and children, brothers and sisters were separated
from each other, and ran to and fro upon the shore in delirious agony.
The daughter was left mangled and dying upon the beach; the father was
borne by the rush into one boat, the wife into another, and no one knew
who was living, and who, mercifully, was dead. The ships, the magazines,
the arsenals were all now in flames. The Jacobins of Toulon began to
emerge from garrets and cellars, and frenzied with intoxication, like
demons of darkness, with torch and sword, rioted through the city,
attacked the flying royalists, tore their garments from their backs, and
inflicted upon maids and matrons every conceivable brutality. A little
after midnight two frigates, each containing many thousand barrels of
gunpowder, blew up, with an explosion so terrific, that it seemed to
shake, like an earthquake, even the solid hills. As at last the
rear-guard of the English abandoned the ramparts and hurried to their
boats, the triumphant republican army, nearly forty thousand strong,
came rushing into the city at all points. The allied fleet, with
favoring winds, spread its sails, and soon disappeared beneath the
horizon of the silent sea, bearing away nearly twenty thousand wretched
exiles to homelessness, penury, and a life-long woe.

Dugommier, the commander of the republican army, notwithstanding all his
exertions, found it utterly impossible to restrain the passions of his
victorious soldiers, and for many days violence and crime ran rampant
in the doomed city. The crime of having raised the flag of royalty, and
of having surrendered the city and its stores to the foe, was one not to
be forgiven. The Jacobin government in Paris sent orders for a bloody
and a terrible vengeance, that the loyalists all over France might be
intimidated from again conspiring with the enemy. Napoleon did every
thing in his power to protect the inhabitants from the fury which was
wreaked upon them. He witnessed, with anguish, scenes of cruelty which
he could not repress. An old merchant, eighty-four years of age, deaf
and almost blind, was guilty of the crime of being worth five millions
of dollars. The Convention, coveting his wealth, sentenced him to the
scaffold. "When I witnessed the inhuman execution of this old man," said
Napoleon, "I felt as if the end of the world was at hand." He exposed
his own life to imminent peril in his endeavors to save the helpless
from Jacobin rage. One day a Spanish prize was brought into the harbor,
on board of which had been taken the noble family of Chabrillant, well
known loyalists, who were escaping from France. The mob, believing that
they were fleeing to join the emigrants and the allied army in their
march against Paris, rushed to seize the hated aristocrats, and to hang
them, men and women, at the nearest lamp-posts. The guard came up for
their rescue and were repulsed. Napoleon saw among the rioters several
gunners who had served under him during the siege. He mounted a
platform, and their respect for their general secured him a hearing. He
induced them, by those powers of persuasion which he so eminently
possessed, to intrust the emigrants to him, to be tried and sentenced
the next morning. At midnight he placed them in an artillery wagon,
concealed among barrels of powder and casks of bullets, and had them
conveyed out of the city as a convoy of ammunition. He also provided a
boat to be in waiting for them on the shore, and they embarked and were
saved.

Though the representatives of the Convention made no allusion to
Napoleon in their report, he acquired no little celebrity among the
officers in the army by the energy and skill he had manifested. One of
the deputies, however, wrote to Carnot, "I send you a young man, who
distinguished himself very much during the siege, and earnestly
recommend to you to advance him speedily. If you do not, he will most
assuredly advance himself."

Soon after the capture of Toulon, Napoleon accompanied General Dugommier
to Marseilles. He was in company with him there, when some one, noticing
his feminine figure, inquired, "Who is that little bit of an officer,
and where did you pick him up?" "That officer's name," gravely replied
General Dugommier, "is Napoleon Bonaparte. _I picked him up_ at the
siege of Toulon, to the successful termination of which he eminently
contributed. And you will probably one day see that this _little bit of
an officer_ is a _greater man_ than any of us."

Napoleon was immediately employed in fortifying the maritime coast of
southern France, to afford the inhabitants protection against attacks
from the allied fleet. With the same exhaustless, iron diligence which
had signalized his course at Toulon, he devoted himself to this new
enterprise. He climbed every headland, explored every bay, examined all
soundings. He allowed himself no recreation, and thought not of repose.
It was winter, and cold storms of wind and rain swept the bleak hills.
But the energies of a mind more intense and active than was perhaps ever
before encased in human flesh, rendered this extraordinary man, then but
twenty-three years of age, perfectly regardless of all personal
indulgences. Drenched with rain, living upon such coarse fare as he
chanced to meet in the huts of fishermen and peasants; throwing himself,
wrapped in his cloak, upon any poor cot, for a few hours of repose at
night, he labored, with both body and mind, to a degree which no
ordinary constitution could possibly have endured, and which no ordinary
enthusiasm could have inspired. In a few weeks he accomplished that to
which others would have devoted years of energetic action. It seems
incredible that a human mind, in so short a time, could have matured
plans so comprehensive and minute, and could have achieved such vast
results. While other young officers, of his age, were sauntering along
the windings of mountain streams with hook and line, or strolling the
fields with fowling-pieces, or, in halls of revelry, with mirthful
maidens, were accomplishing their destiny in cotillions and waltzes,
Napoleon, in Herculean toil, was working day and night, with a sleepless
energy, which never has been surpassed. He divided the coast batteries
into three classes: those for the defense of men-of-war in important
harbors; those for the protection of merchant vessels, and those reared
upon promontories and headlands, under whose guns the coasting trade
could hover.

Having accomplished this vast undertaking in the two wintry months of
January and February, early in March, 1794, he joined the head-quarters
of the army of Italy in Nice, promoted to the rank of Brigadier-general
of Artillery. The personal appearance of Napoleon, at this time, was any
thing but prepossessing. He was diminutive in stature, and thin and
emaciated in the extreme. His features were angular and sharp, and his
complexion sallow. His hair, contrary to the fashion of the times, was
combed straight over his forehead. His hands were perfectly feminine in
their proportions. Quite regardless of the display of dress, he usually
appeared without gloves, which, he said, were a useless luxury, in a
plain round hat, with boots clumsily fitted to his feet, and with that
gray great-coat, which afterward became as celebrated as the white plume
of Henry IV. His eye, however, was brilliant, and his smile ever
peculiarly winning.

[Illustration: NIGHT STUDIES.]

Napoleon, upon his arrival at Nice, found the French army idly reposing
in their intrenchments among the Maritime Alps, and surrounded by
superior forces of Austrians and Sardinians. General Dumerbion, who was
in command, was a fearless and experienced soldier, but aged and infirm,
and suffering severely from the gout. The sun of returning spring was
causing the hills and the valleys to rejoice. Mild airs from the south
were breathing gently over the opening foliage, and the songs of birds
and the perfume of flowers lured to listless indulgence. Napoleon was
pale and emaciate from the toils of his batteries at Toulon, and from
his sleepless exertions in fortifying the coast. He now had an
opportunity for repose, and for the recruiting of his apparently
exhausted frame. He, however, did not allow himself one single day of
recreation or of rest. The very hour of his arrival found him intensely
occupied in informing himself respecting all the particulars of the
numbers, positions, the organization, and the available resources of the
two armies. He carefully examined every outpost of the French, and
reconnoitred with the most scrutinizing attention the line occupied by
the opposing hosts. He studied the map of the country. He galloped hour
after hour, and day after day through the ravines and over the
mountains, to make himself perfectly familiar with all the localities of
the region. After a day of incessant toil he would spend the night with
his maps and charts before him, with every meandering stream, every
valley, every river carefully laid down, and with pins, the heads of
some covered with red sealing-wax to represent the French, and others
with blue to designate the enemy, he would form all possible
combinations, and study the advantages or the perils of the different
positions which the republican army might assume. Having thrown himself
upon his cot for a few hours of repose, the earliest dawn of the morning
would find him again upon his horse's back, exploring all the intricate
and perilous fastnesses of the Alps.

A large force of Austrians were intrenched near Saorgia, along the banks
of the fertile Roya, in the enjoyment of ease and abundance, and
dreaming not of peril. Napoleon, with great deliberation, formed his
plan. He had foreseen all probable contingencies, and guarded against
every conceivable danger. A council was assembled. He presented his
suggestions so forcibly and so clearly, as to insure their immediate
adoption. Massena,[2] with fifteen thousand men, secretly and rapidly
was to ascend the banks of the Oreglia, a stream running parallel with
the Roya, till, far up near the sources of the two rivers, crossing over
to the Roya, he was to descend that valley, and fall unexpectedly upon
the Austrians in the rear. At the same time General Dumerbion, the
commander-in-chief, with ten thousand men, was to assail the enemy in
front. Napoleon, with ten thousand men, marching nearer to the
Mediterranean coast, was to seize the important posts there, and cut
off, from the fertile plains of the south, the retreat of the enemy.
Thus, in three weeks after Napoleon had made his appearance at the
head-quarters of the army in Nice, the whole force of the French was in
motion. The energy of the youthful general was immediately communicated
to the entire army. Desperate and sanguinary conflicts ensued, but the
plan was triumphantly successful. The Piedmontese troops, twenty
thousand strong, amazed at the storm thus suddenly bursting upon them,
precipitately fled. Saorgia, the principal depot of the allied forces,
and well stored with provisions and ammunition of every kind, was taken
by the French. Before the end of May the French were masters of all the
passes of the Maritime Alps, and their flags were waving in the breeze
from the summits of Mt. Cenis, Mt. Tende, and Mt. Finisterre. The news
of these sudden and unexpected victories went with electric speed
through France. With the nation in general the honor redounded to
Dumerbion alone, the commander-in-chief. But in the army it was well
understood to whose exertions and genius the achievements were to be
attributed. Though as yet the name of Napoleon had hardly been
pronounced in public, the officers and soldiers in the army were daily
contemplating, with increasing interest, his rising fame. Indeed General
Dumerbion was so deeply impressed by the sagacity and military science
displayed by his brigadier-general, that he unresistingly surrendered
himself to the guidance of the mind of Napoleon.

An incident occurred, during this brief campaign, which strikingly
illustrates the criminal disregard which Napoleon entertained for human
life. It was then the custom with the Convention at Paris always to have
representatives in the army to report proceedings. The wife of one of
these representatives, a virtuous and beautiful woman, fully appreciated
the intellectual superiority of Napoleon, and paid him very marked
attention. Napoleon, naturally of a grateful disposition, became
strongly but fraternally attached to her. One day walking out with her
to inspect some of the positions of the army, merely to give her some
idea of an engagement he ordered an attack upon one of the advanced
posts of the enemy. A brisk skirmish immediately ensued, and the roar of
artillery and the crackling of musketry reverberated sublimely through
the Alps. The lady, from a safe eminence, looked down with intensest
interest upon the novel scene. Many lives were lost on both sides,
though the French were entirely victorious. It was, however, a conflict
which led to no possible advantage, and which was got up merely for the
entertainment of the lady. Napoleon subsequently often alluded to this
wanton exposure of life as one of his most inexcusable acts. He never
ceased to regret it.

Some years after, when Napoleon was First Consul, this lady, then a
widow, friendless, and reduced to poverty, made her appearance at St.
Cloud, and tried to gain access to Napoleon. He was, however, so hedged
in by the etiquette of royalty, that all her exertions were unavailing.
One day he was riding on horseback in the park, conversing with some
members of his court, when he alluded to this event, which he so deeply
deplored. He was informed that the lady was then at St. Cloud. He
immediately sent for her, and inquired with most brotherly interest into
all of her history during the years which had elapsed since they parted.
When he heard her sad tale of misfortune, he said, "But why did you not
sooner make your wants known to me." "Sire," she replied, "I have for
many weeks been in vain seeking to obtain an audience." "Alas!" he
exclaimed, "such is the misfortune of those who are in power." He
immediately made ample provision for her future comfort.

The summer months rapidly passed away, while the French, upon the
summits of the mountains, were fortifying their positions, to resist the
attacks of a formidable army of Austrians and Piedmontese combining to
displace them. Napoleon was still indefatigable in obtaining a familiar
acquaintance with all the natural features of the country, in studying
the modes of moving, governing, and provisioning armies, and eagerly
watching for opportunities to work out his destiny of renown, for which
he now began to believe that he was created.

But suddenly he was arrested on the following extraordinary charge, and
narrowly escaped losing his head on the guillotine. When Napoleon,
during the preceding winter, was engaged in the fortification of the
maritime frontier, he proposed repairing an old state prison at
Marseilles, that it might serve as a powder magazine. His successor on
that station, proceeded to the execution of this plan, so evidently
judicious. Some disaffected persons represented this officer to the
Committee of Public Safety, as building a second Bastile, in which to
imprison patriotic citizens. He was accordingly at once arrested and
brought before the Revolutionary Tribunal. Here he so clearly proved
that the plan was not his own, but that he was merely carrying out the
suggestions of his predecessor, that he was released, and orders were
sent for the arrest of Napoleon. He was seized, and for fifteen days
held under arrest. An order, however, soon came from Paris for his
release. An officer entering his room, a couple of hours after midnight,
to communicate the tidings, found, much to his astonishment, Napoleon
dressed and seated before his table, with maps, books, and charts spread
out before him.

"What!" inquired his friend, "are you not in bed yet?"

"In bed!" Napoleon replied. "I have had my sleep and am already risen."

"What, so early'!" the other rejoined.

"Yes," continued Napoleon, "so early. Two or three hours of sleep are
enough for any man."

Though the representatives of the government, conscious of the value of
Napoleon's services, had written to the Convention, making such an
explanation of the facts that he was immediately set at liberty, still
they saw fit, in an ungenerous attempt at self-justification, to deprive
him of his rank as general of artillery, and to assign him a post in the
infantry in its stead. Napoleon, regarding this transfer as an insult,
threw up his commission in disgust, and retired, in comparative
indigence, to join his mother and the rest of the family, who were now
residing at Marseilles. This was in the autumn of 1794, Napoleon being
then 24 years of age. He spent the winter in comparative inaction, but
carefully studying the convulsions of the times, the history of past
revolutions, and the science of government. Tired of inactivity, early
in May he proceeded to Paris, to seek employment. He was, however,
unsuccessful. The government had its favorites to reward and promote,
and Napoleon, deeply chagrined and mortified, found all his offers of
service rejected. An old officer of artillery, who had seen but little
active service, was president of the military committee. Rather
superciliously he remarked to Napoleon, whose feminine and youthful
appearance did not indicate that he was born to command, "You are too
young to occupy stations of such responsibility as you seek." Napoleon
imprudently retorted, "Presence in the field of battle, sir, ought to
anticipate the claim of years." This personal reflection so annoyed the
president that he sought rather to obstruct than to aid the aspirations
of the young officer. His situation became daily more painful, as his
scanty funds were rapidly failing. He even formed the plan of going to
Turkey to offer his services to the Grand Seignior. "How singular it
would be," said he, at this time, to a companion, "if a little Corsican
officer were to become king of Jerusalem!"

One gloomy night at St. Helena, when Napoleon, unable to sleep, was
endeavoring to beguile the weary hours by conversation, he narrated the
following anecdote, illustrative of his destitution and his distress in
these early days of adversity. "I was, at this period, on one occasion
suffering from that extreme depression of spirits which suspend the
faculties of the brain, and render life a burden too heavy to be borne.
I had just received a letter from my mother, revealing to me the utter
destitution into which she was plunged. She had been compelled to flee
from the war with which Corsica was desolated, and was then at
Marseilles, with no means of subsistence, and having naught but her
heroic virtues to defend the honor of her daughters against the misery
and the corruption of all kinds existing in the manners of that epoch of
social chaos. I also, deprived of my salary and with exhausted
resources, had but one single dollar in my pocket. Urged by animal
instinct to escape from prospects so gloomy and from sorrows so
unendurable, I wandered along the banks of the river, feeling that it
was unmanly to commit suicide, and yet unable to resist the temptation
to do so. In a few more moments I should have thrown myself into the
water, when I ran against an individual, dressed like a simple
mechanic, who, recognizing me, threw himself upon my neck, and cried,
'Is it you, Napoleon? How glad I am to see you again!' It was Demasis,
an old friend and former comrade of mine in the artillery regiment. He
had emigrated, and had afterward returned to France, in disguise, to see
his aged mother.

"He was about to leave me, when stopping, he exclaimed, 'But what is the
matter, Napoleon? You do not listen to me! You do not seem glad to see
me! What misfortune threatens you? You look to me like a madman about to
kill himself.' This direct appeal to the feelings which had seized upon
me, produced such an effect upon my mind, that, without hesitation, I
revealed to him every thing. 'Is that all?' said he, unbuttoning his
coarse waistcoat, and detaching a belt which he placed in my hands.
'Here are six thousand dollars in gold, which I can spare without any
inconvenience. Take them and relieve your mother.' I can not to this day
explain to myself how I could have been willing to receive the money,
but I seized the gold as by a convulsive movement, and, almost frantic
with excitement, ran to send it to my distressed mother. It was not
until the money had left my hands and was on its way to Marseilles that
I reflected upon what I had done. I hastened back to the spot where I
had left Demasis, but he was no longer there. For several days
continuously, I went out in the morning and returned not till evening,
searching every place in Paris where I could hope to find him. All the
researches I then made, as well as those I made after my accession to
power, were in vain. It was not till the Empire was approaching its fall
that I again discovered Demasis. It was now my turn to question him, and
to ask him what he had thought of my strange conduct, and why I had
never heard even his name for fifteen years. He replied that as he had
been in no need of money he had not asked me to repay the loan, although
he was well assured that I should find no difficulty in reimbursing him.
But he feared that if he made himself known, that I should force him to
quit the retirement in which he lived happily, occupying himself with
horticulture. I had very great difficulty in making him accept sixty
thousand dollars as an imperial reimbursement for the six thousand lent
to his comrade in distress. I also made him accept the office of
director-general of the crown gardens, with a salary of six thousand
dollars a year, and the honors of an officer of the household. I also
provided a good situation for his brother.

"Two of my comrades in the military school, and the two to whom I was
most closely united by the sympathies of early friendship, had, by one
of those mysteries of Providence which we often witness, an immense
influence upon my destiny. Demasis arrested me at the moment when I was
about to commit suicide; and Philippeau prevented my conquest of St.
Jean d'Acre. Had it not been for him I should have been master of this
key of the East. I should have marched upon Constantinople, and have
established an empire in Asia."

But reverses began now to attend the army in Italy. Defeat followed
defeat. They were driven by the Austrians from the posts to which
Napoleon had conducted them, and were retreating before their foes. The
Committee of Public Safety were in great trepidation. In their ignorance
they knew not what orders to issue. Some one who had heard of Napoleon's
achievements among the Alps suggested his name. He was called into the
meetings of the committee for advice. The local and technical
information he had acquired, his military science, and the vast
resources of his highly cultivated mind, placed him immediately at the
head of the committee. Though young in years, and still more youthful in
appearance, his gravity, his serious and pensive thoughtfulness, gave
oracular weight to his counsels, and his plans were unhesitatingly
adopted. He had studied the topography of the Maritime Alps with the
most enthusiastic assiduity, and was familiar with the windings and
characteristics of every stream, and the course of mountain ranges, and
with the military capabilities of the ravines and glens. The judicious
dispositions which he proposed of the various divisions of the army
arrested the tide of Austrian conquest, and enabled the French, though
much inferior in number to their allied foes, to defend the positions
they had been directed to occupy. During all this time, however, while
Napoleon, in the committee-room in Paris, was guiding the movements of
the army in Italy, he was studying in the public libraries, during every
leisure moment, with an assiduity so intense and inexhaustible that it
could not have been surpassed had he been inspired with the highest
ambition for literary and scientific honors.

In his occasional evening saunterings along the boulevards, as he saw
the effeminate young men of that metropolis, rolling in luxury, and, in
affected speech, criticising the tones of an opera singer, or the
exquisite moulding of a dancer's limbs, he could not refrain from giving
utterance to his contempt. When he was thus one evening treading the
dusty thoroughfares and looking upon such a spectacle, he impatiently
exclaimed, "Can it be, that upon such creatures fortune is willing to
lavish her favors! How contemptible is human nature." Though Napoleon
secluded himself entirely from haunts of revelry and scenes of
dissipation, and from all those dissolute courses into which the young
men of those days so recklessly plunged, he adopted this course, not
apparently from any conscientious desire to do that which was right in
the sight of God, but from what has been called "the expulsive power of
new affection." Ambition seemed to expel from his mind every other
passion. The craving to obtain renown by the performance of great and
glorious deeds; the desire to immortalize his name, as one of the
distinguished men and illustrious benefactors of the human race, had
infused itself so intensely throughout his whole nature, that animal
passion even was repressed, and all the ordinary pursuits of worldly
pleasure became in his view frivolous and contemptible. His ambition
needed but the spirit of religion to sanctify it, to make it as noble an
ambition as ever glowed in a human bosom. But alas! it all centred in
himself. He wished to benefit the human race, not because he loved his
fellow man, but that he might immortalize his own name.

At this time it can hardly be said that there was any religion in
France. Christianity had been all but universally discarded. The priests
had been banished; the churches demolished or converted into temples of
science or haunts of merriment; the immortality of the soul was denied,
and upon the gateways of the grave-yards there was inscribed, "Death is
an eternal sleep." Napoleon was consequently deprived of all the
influences of religion in the formation of his character. And yet his
mind was naturally, if it be proper so to speak, a devotional mind. His
temperament was serious, thoughtful, and pensive. The grand and the
mysterious engrossed and overawed him. Even his ambition was not
exulting and exhilarating, but sombre, majestic, and sublime. He thought
of Herculean toil and sleepless labor, and heroic deeds. For ease, and
luxury, and self-indulgence, he had no desire, but he wished to be the
greatest of men by accomplishing more than any other mortal had ever
accomplished. Even in youth life had but few charms for him, and he took
a melancholy view of man's earthly pilgrimage, after asserting that
existence was not a blessing. And when drawing near to the close of life
he asserted that he had known but few happy moments upon earth, and that
for those few he was indebted to the love of Josephine.

The National Convention now prepared another constitution for the
adoption of the people of France. The executive power, instead of being
placed in the hands of one king, or president, was intrusted to five
chiefs, who were to be called Directors. The legislative powers were
committed to two bodies, as in the United States. The first,
corresponding to the United States Senate, was to be called the _Council
of Ancients_. It was to consist of two hundred and fifty members, each
of whom was to be at least forty years of age, and a married man or a
widower. An unmarried man was not considered worthy of a post of such
responsibility in the service of the state. The second body was called
the _Council of Five Hundred_, from the number of members of which it
was to be composed. It corresponded with our House of Representatives,
and each of its members was to be at least thirty years of age.

This constitution was far superior to any other which had yet been
formed. It was framed by the moderate republicans, who wished to
establish a republican government, protecting France on the one hand
from the royalists, who would reestablish the Bourbons upon the throne,
and on the other hand from the misrule of the violent Jacobins, who
wished to perpetuate the reign of terror. This constitution was sent
down to the primary assemblies of the people, for their adoption or
rejection. It was accepted promptly in nearly all the rural districts,
and was adopted by acclamation in the army.

The city of Paris was divided into ninety-six sections, or wards, in
each of which, as in our cities, the inhabitants of that particular ward
assembled at the polls. When the constitution was tendered to these
several sections of Paris, forty-eight of them voted in its favor, while
forty-six rejected it. The royalists and the Jacobins, the two extremes,
united in the opposition, each party hoping that by the overthrow of the
Convention their own views might obtain the precedence. The Convention
declared that the majority of the nation had every where pronounced in
favor of the new constitution, and they prepared to carry its provisions
into effect. The opposing sections, now thoroughly aroused, began to
arm, resolved upon violent resistance. The Parisian mob, ever ready for
an outbreak, joined most heartily with their more aristocratic leaders,
and all Paris seemed to be rousing to attack the Convention. The
National Guard, a body of soldiers corresponding with the American
militia, though far better officered, equipped, and drilled, joined
promptly the insurgents. The insurrection-gun was fired, the tocsin
tolled, and the gloomy, threatening masses, marshaled under able
leaders, swarmed through the streets. The Convention was in the utmost
state of trepidation; for in those days of anarchy, blood flowed like
water, and life had no sacredness. It was not a mob of a few hundred
straggling men and boys who were to surround their hall with hootings
and to break their windows; but a formidable army of forty thousand men,
in battle array, with artillery and musketry, headed by veteran
generals, who had fought the battles of the old monarchy, with gleaming
banners and trumpet tones, were marching down from all quarters of the
city, upon the Tuileries. To meet this foe the Convention had at its
command but five thousand regular troops; and it was uncertain but that
they, in the moment of peril, might fraternize with the insurgents.
General Menou was appointed, by the Convention, to quell the
insurrection. He marched to meet the enemy. Napoleon, intensely
interested in the passing scenes, followed the solid columns of Menou.
But the general, a mild and inefficient man, with no nerve to meet such
a crisis, was alarmed in view of the numbers and the influence of his
antagonists, and retired before them. Shouts of victory resounded from
the National Guard, through all the streets of Paris. They were greatly
emboldened by this triumph, and felt confident that the regular troops
would not dare to fire upon the citizens. The shades of night were now
settling down over the agitated city. Napoleon having witnessed the
unsuccessful mission of Menou, ran through the streets to the Tuileries,
and ascending the gallery where the Convention was assembled,
contemplated, with a marble brow and a heart apparently unagitated, the
scene of consternation there. It was now eleven o'clock at night, and
the doom of the Convention seemed sealed. In the utmost alarm Menou was
dismissed, and the unlimited command of the troops intrusted to Barras.
The office was full of peril. Successful resistance seemed impossible,
and unsuccessful was certain death. Barras hesitated, when suddenly he
recollected Napoleon, whom he had known at Toulon, and whose military
science and energy, and reckless disregard of his own life, and of the
lives of all others, he well remembered. He immediately exclaimed, "I
know the man who can defend us, if any one can. It is a young Corsican
officer, Napoleon Bonaparte, whose military abilities I witnessed at
Toulon. He is a man who will not stand upon ceremony." Napoleon was in
the gallery at the time, and it is not impossible that the eye of Barras
chancing to light upon him, caused the suggestion.

He was immediately introduced to the Convention. They expected to see a
man of gigantic frame and soldierly bearing, brusque and imperious. To
their surprise there appeared before them a small, slender, pale-faced,
smooth-cheeked young man, apparently about eighteen years of age. The
president said, "Are you willing to undertake the defense of the
Convention?"--"Yes!" was the calm, laconic reply. After a moment's
hesitation, the president continued, "Are you aware of the magnitude of
the undertaking?" Napoleon fixed that eagle glance upon him, which few
could meet, and not quail before it, and replied, "Perfectly; and I am
in the habit of accomplishing that which I undertake." There was
something in the tone and the manner of this extraordinary man, which
secured for him immediately the confidence of all the members of the
House. His spirit so calm and imperturbable, in the midst of a scene so
exciting, impressed them with the conviction that they were in the
presence of one of no common powers. After the exchange of a few more
words, Napoleon said, "One condition is indispensable. I must have the
unlimited command, entirely untrammeled by any orders from the
Convention." It was no time for debate, and there was unhesitating
acquiescence in his demand.

[Illustration: NAPOLEON BEFORE THE CONVENTION.]

The promptness, energy, and unfailing resources of Napoleon, were now
most conspicuously displayed. At Sablons, about five miles from Paris,
there was a powerful park of artillery, consisting of fifty heavy guns.
Napoleon instantly dispatched Murat, with a party of dragoons to take
those guns, and bring them to the Tuileries. They were seized by the
mounted troops, but a few moments before a party of infantry arrived
from the sections, for the same purpose. The insurgents, though more
numerous, dared not attack the dragoons, and the guns were taken in
safety to Napoleon; and he disposed them, heavily charged with grape
shot, in such a way as to sweep all the avenues leading to the
Convention. The activity of the young general knew not a moment's
intermission. He was every where during the night, giving directions,
infusing energy, and inspiring courage. He was well aware of the fearful
odds against him; for with five thousand troops he was to encounter
forty thousand men, well armed, well disciplined, and under experienced
officers. They could easily besiege him, and starve him into surrender.
They could, from behind barricades, and from housetops and chamber
windows, soon so thin out his ranks, that resistance would be hopeless.
The officers of the National Guard, however, had no conception of the
firm, indomitable, unflinching spirit which they were to encounter. They
did not believe that any one would dare to fire upon the citizens of
Paris. The Convention were aroused to a most lively sense of the serious
aspect of affairs, when in the gloom of night eight hundred muskets were
brought in with an abundant supply of cartridges, by order of Napoleon,
to arm the members as a corps of reserve. This precaution indicated to
them the full extent of the danger, and also the unwavering
determination of the one who was intrusted with their defense. As the
light of morning dawned upon the city, the Tuileries presented the
aspect of an intrenched camp. Napoleon had posted his guns so as to
sweep all the bridges and all the avenues, through which an opposing
force could approach the capital. His own imperturbable calmness and
firmness and confidence, communicated itself to the troops he commanded.
The few laconic words with which he addressed them, like electric fire
penetrated their hearts, and secured devotion, even to death, to his
service.

The alarm bells were now ringing, and the _generale_ beating in all
parts of the city. The armed hosts, in dense black masses, were
mustering at their appointed rendezvous, and preparing to march in solid
columns upon the Convention. The members in their seats, in silence and
awe, awaited the fearful assault, upon whose issue their lives were
suspended. Napoleon, pale and solemn, and perfectly calm, imperturbable
and determined, had completed all his arrangements, and was waiting,
resolved that the responsibility of the first blow should fall upon his
assailants, and that he would take the responsibility of the second.
Soon the enemy were seen advancing from every direction, in masses which
perfectly filled the narrow streets of the city. With exultant music and
waving banners, they marched proudly on to attack the besieged band upon
every side, and confident, from their overpowering numbers, of an easy
victory. They did not believe that the few and feeble troops of the
Convention would dare to resist the people, but cherished the delusion
that a very few shots, from their own side, would put all opposition to
flight. Thus, unhesitatingly, they came within the sweep of the
grape-shot, with which Napoleon had charged his guns to the muzzle. But
seeing that the troops of the Convention stood firm, awaiting their
approach, the head of one of the advancing columns leveled their muskets
and discharged a volley of bullets at their enemies. It was the signal
for an instantaneous discharge, direct, sanguinary, merciless from every
battery. In quick succession explosion followed explosion, and a perfect
storm of grape-shot swept the thronged streets. The pavements were
covered with the mangled and the dead. The columns wavered--the storm
still continued; they turned--the storm still raged unabated; they fled
in utter dismay in every direction; the storm still pursued them. Then
Napoleon commanded his little division impetuously to follow the
fugitives, and to continue the discharge, but with blank cartridges. As
the thunder of these heavy guns reverberated along the streets, the
insurgents dispersed through every available lane and alley, and in less
than an hour the foe was nowhere to be found. Napoleon sent his division
into every section and disarmed the inhabitants, that there could be no
re-gathering. He then ordered the dead to be buried, and the wounded to
be conveyed to the hospitals, and then, with his pale and marble brow as
unmoved as if no event of any great importance had occurred, he returned
to his head-quarters at the Tuileries.

"How _could you_," said a lady, "thus mercilessly fire upon your own
countrymen?" "A soldier," he coolly replied, "is but a machine to obey
orders. This is _my seal_, which I have impressed upon Paris."
Subsequently Napoleon never ceased to regret the occurrence; and tried
to forget, and to have others forget that he had ever deluged the
streets of Paris with the blood of Frenchmen.

Thus Napoleon established the new government of France called the
Directory, from the five Directors, who composed its executive. But a
few months passed away before Napoleon, by moral power, without the
shedding of a drop of blood, overthrew the constitution which his
unpitying artillery had thus established. Immediately after the quelling
of the sections, Napoleon was triumphantly received by the Convention.
It was declared, by unanimous resolve, that his energy had saved the
Republic. His friend Barras, became one of the Directors, and Napoleon
was appointed Commander-in-chief of the Army of the Interior, and
intrusted with the military defense and government of the metropolis.
The defeat of the insurgents was the death-blow to all the hopes of the
Royalists, and seemed to establish the Republic upon a permanent
foundation. Napoleon manifested the natural clemency of his disposition
very strongly in this hour of triumph. When the Convention would have
executed Menou as a traitor, he pleaded his cause and obtained his
acquittal. He urged, and successfully, that as the insurgents were now
harmless, they should not be punished, but that a vail of oblivion
should be thrown over all their deeds. The Convention, influenced not a
little by the spirit of Napoleon, now honorably dissolved itself, by
passing an act of general amnesty for all past offenses, and
surrendering the government to the Directory.

The situation of Napoleon was now flattering in the extreme. He was but
twenty-five years of age. The distinguished services he had rendered;
the high rank he had attained, and the ample income at his disposal,
gave him a very elevated position in the public view. The eminence he
had now attained was not a sudden and accidental outbreak of celebrity.
It was the result of long years of previous toil. He was now reaping the
fruit of the seed which he had sown in his incessant application to
study in the military school; in his continued devotion to literary and
scientific pursuits, after he became an officer; in his energy, and
fearlessness, and untiring assiduity at Toulon; in his days of wintry
exposure, and nights of sleeplessness in fortifying the coast of France,
and in his untiring toil among the fastnesses of the Alps. Never was
reputation earned and celebrity attained by more Herculean labor. If
Napoleon had extraordinary genius, as unquestionably he had, this genius
stimulated him to extraordinary exertions.

Immediately upon the attainment of this high dignity and authority, with
the ample pecuniary resources accompanying it, Napoleon hastened to
Marseilles, to place his mother in a position of perfect comfort. And he
continued to watch over her with most filial assiduity, proving himself
an affectionate and dutiful son. From this hour the whole family,
mother, brothers, and sisters were taken under his protection, and all
their interests blended with his own.

The post which Napoleon now occupied was one of vast responsibility,
demanding incessant care, and moral courage, and tact. The Royalists and
the Jacobins were exceedingly exasperated. The government was not
consolidated, and had obtained no command over the public mind. Paris
was filled with tumult and disorder. The ravages of the revolution had
thrown hundreds of thousands out of employment, and starvation was
stalking through the streets of the metropolis. It became necessary for
the government, almost without means or credit, to feed the famishing.
Napoleon manifested great skill and humanity, combined with unflinching
firmness in repressing disorders. It was not unfrequently necessary to
appeal to the strong arm of military power to arrest the rising array of
lawless passion. Often his apt and pithy speeches would promote
good-nature and disperse the crowd. On one occasion a fish-woman of
enormous rotundity of person, exhorted the mob, with most vehement
volubility, not to disperse, exclaiming, "Never mind these coxcombs with
epaulets upon their shoulders; they care not if we poor people all
starve, if they can but feed well and grow fat." Napoleon, who was as
thin and meagre as a shadow, turned to her and said, "Look at me, my
good woman, and tell me which of us two is the fatter." The Amazon was
completely disconcerted by this happy repartee; and the crowd in
good-humor dispersed.

[Illustration: THE AMAZON DISCOMFITED.]

[Footnote 1: It is pleasant to witness manifestations of gratitude. God
frowns upon impiety. The wealthy, illustrious, and miserable Junot, in a
paroxysm of insanity, precipitated himself from his chamber window, and
died in agony upon the pavement.]

[Footnote 2: Andre Massena rose from a common soldier to the rank of a
commander, and became Duke of Rivoli and Marshal of France. "He was,"
said Napoleon, "a man of superior talent. He generally, however, made
bad dispositions previously to a battle. It was not until the dead began
to fall about him that he began to act with that judgment which he ought
to have displayed before. In the midst of the dying and the dead, and of
balls sweeping away those who encircled him, he gave his orders, and
made his dispositions with the most perfect coolness and judgment. It
was truly said of him, that he never began to act with skill until the
battle was going against him. He was, however, _a robber_. He went
halves with the contractors and commissaries of the army. I signified to
him often, that if he would discontinue his peculations I would make him
a present of a hundred and fifty or two hundred thousand dollars, but he
had acquired such a habit that he could not keep his hands from money.
On this account he was hated by the soldiers, who mutinied against him
three or four times. However, considering the circumstances of the
times, he was precious. Had not his bright parts been sullied by
avarice, he would have been a great man." Massena lived through all the
wars of Napoleon, and died of chagrin, when the master, whom he adored,
was an exile at St. Helena.]




THE TREASON OF BENEDICT ARNOLD.

BY BENSON J. LOSSING.

[Illustration: BENEDICT ARNOLD.]

[The engravings which illustrate this article, are from Lossing's
_Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution_, now in course of publication
by Harper and Brothers.]


The defection of Arnold, and his attempt to betray the strong post of
West Point and its dependencies into the power of the British army, was
the ripened head of faction which had been festering in the Legislature
and the Camp for more than three years. The stern and disinterested
patriotism which marshaled a beleaguering army around Boston, and
declared, in solemn council, the thirteen Anglo-American colonies to be
free and independent states, had become diluted by the commingling of
selfish ambition. Already Church, Duche, Galloway, Zubley, and other
smaller traitors who, like Peter, were courageous when danger appeared
remote, and boasted loudly of their love for the patriot cause, until
the hour of its trial came, had denied their allegiance to the new faith
by words or deeds, and gave countenance to multitudes of the weak,
timid, and unprincipled, who openly espoused the cause of the king.

As the contest advanced, and the night of the Revolution grew darker,
ambitious men became bolder; and, already, general officers and their
minions had secretly plotted against the good Washington, and found
abettors in Congress. Arnold, however, had nothing to do with these
intrigues, for none made him a confidant, and he seldom confided in
others. Yet it was not until his bolder act alarmed the whole people,
and awakened them to vigilance and the keenest scrutiny of the conduct
of their officers in the field, that the factious spirit was abashed. In
his treason it culminated--it came to a head; in his failure it
waned--it discharged its impurities, and healthier action ensued.

The time when Arnold's defection was discovered, in the autumn of 1780,
was the gloomiest period of the war. Public credit had sunk to the
lowest point of distrust. No prestige of a great achievement during the
campaign, like that of the capture of Burgoyne, could secure loans
abroad. The people of America were impoverished and discouraged. The
whole business of the country was controlled by heartless speculators.
The continental bills had so depreciated that seven hundred dollars in
paper sold for one dollar in specie. The governmental machinery of the
Confederation worked inefficiently. New York city, the Virginia sea
board, and almost the whole of the Carolinas and Georgia were in
possession of the enemy, and the French army under Rochambeau, whose
advent gave such joy and hope to the patriots, was lying idle at
Newport, unwilling to engage in a campaign till another spring. In this
hour of its weakness and distress, Arnold sought the utter ruin of his
country, for the wicked purpose of gratifying petty spite; for the base
consideration of paltry, perishing gold!

Arnold was innately wicked and treacherous. The mother who bore him was
an exemplar of piety and sweetness of character, and daily counseled her
boy with words of heavenly wisdom. Yet, from earliest childhood he was
wayward, disobedient, reckless, and profane. A stranger to physical
fear, and always heedless of the consequences resulting from action, his
hands were ever ready to do the bidding of a perverse nature or the
impulses of circumstances. When the tocsin of Freedom was sounded at
Lexington and Concord, his impetuous spirit was aroused, and his
feelings assumed the character of the most zealous patriotism. He was
doubtless sincere, and went into the contest with a soul filled with
desires to cast back the surges of despotism, which were beating higher
and higher against the liberties of his country. His brave exploits on
Lake Champlain; his wondrous journey through the wilderness from the
Kennebeck to the St. Lawrence; his assault on the capital of the
Canadas, and his brilliant deeds at Ridgefield, Compo, and Saratoga
excited the astonishment and admiration of his countrymen. Congress
awarded him special honors, and the name of Arnold was a host in the
Northern Department. As a soldier and leader he was the bravest of the
brave, skillful and high-souled; but in his social relations he was a
moral coward, deceptive, mean-spirited, and debased. Washington admired
his military genius, but despised his avarice, selfishness, and
profligacy. He was ever distrustful of his patriotism, because he lacked
the essential elements of that virtue, except personal courage. He was
disliked by the leading men in the army, for he quarreled with all his
peers, and was reserved toward his subordinates. His avarice was
notorious. "Money is this man's God, and to get enough of it, he would
sacrifice his country," said Colonel Brown, in a hand-bill, almost four
years before Arnold's defection. From the hour when temptation lured him
at Montreal and St. John's, till the termination of his command in
Philadelphia, he was guilty of peculations, fraudulent, and unworthy
acts, which dimmed the lustre of his military fame.

Justice, however, demands some light touches upon this dark picture.
Envy, the bane of happiness, and the sure accompaniment of honors, was
rank among his fellow-officers. The brilliancy of Arnold's personal acts
eclipsed their achievements, and doubtless the jealous feelings excited
thereby were powerful and not very remote causes of his defection. At
the outset, when, in company with Ethan Allen, he assisted in the
capture of Ticonderoga, he felt aggrieved by the seeming neglect of the
civil authorities of Connecticut and Massachusetts; and during the five
years succeeding, fresh instances of neglect occurred, and obstacles
were continually placed in the way of his advancement and popularity, by
those who hoped to shine in proportion to the waning of his fame. The
very men who conspired against Washington, were most prominent in
opposition to Arnold, and that officer saw no hope of justice, real or
shadowy, at the hands of Congress, for faction was as rife there as in
the army. With contracted vision he beheld, in the conduct of its
political representatives, the ingratitude and injustice of his country;
and the hatred which he fostered for the few was extended to the
_cause_, of which they were the accredited supporters. This feeling, and
the hope of large pecuniary reward, by which he might relieve himself of
heavy and increasing embarrassments, extinguished his patriotism, and
beckoned him to the bad pre-eminence of a mercenary traitor.

   From Cain to Catiline, the world hath seen
     Her traitors--vaunted votaries of crime--
   Caligula and Nero sat alone
     Upon the pinnacle of vice sublime;
   But they were moved by hate, or wish to climb
     The rugged steeps of Fame, in letters bold
   To write their names upon the scroll of time;
     Therefore their crimes some virtue did enfold--
   But, Arnold! thine had none; 'twas all for sordid gold.

ESTELLE ANNA LEWIS.

In consequence of a bad wound received in his leg while gallantly
fighting at Saratoga (and which was yet unhealed), Arnold was not fit
for active service when the British evacuated Philadelphia in the spring
of 1778. Washington, desirous of keeping him employed, appointed him
military governor of that city, in command of a small corps of soldiers.
Fond of show, and feeling the importance of his station, Arnold adopted
a style of living incompatible with his resources and the character of a
republican. He made the fine old mansion of William Penn his residence;
kept a coach-and-four; gave splendid soirees and banquets, and charmed
the gayer portion of Philadelphia society with his princely displays.
His station, and the splendor of his equipage, captivated the daughter
of Edward Shippen, a leading loyalist, and afterward Chief Justice of
the State. Her beauty and accomplishments won the heart of the widower
of forty. She had bloomed but eighteen summers, and admirers of every
degree coveted her smiles; yet she gave her hand to Arnold, and they
were married. Stanch Whigs shook their heads in distrust, and the
equally stanch loyalists were gratified. To the former, this union
augured of evil; to the latter, it had promises of hope. Both were right
interpreters.

Arnold's extravagance soon brought importunate creditors to his door.
Rather than retrench his expenses, he procured money by a system of
fraud and prostitution of his official power. The city being under
martial law, his power was supreme. He forbade shopkeepers selling
certain articles, and then, through agents, he trafficked in those very
articles, and sold them at enormous profits. The people were incensed,
and a deputation went before the President and Council of Pennsylvania,
and preferred charges against him. These were laid before Congress, and
that body referred the whole matter to Washington, to be adjudicated by
a military tribunal.

After a delay of more than a year Arnold was tried, and found guilty of
two of four charges preferred against him. The court pronounced the
mildest sentence in its power--a mere reprimand by the Commander-in-chief.
Washington performed the duty with the greatest delicacy. "Our profession,"
he said, "is the chastest of all. Even the shadow of a fault tarnishes the
lustre of our finest achievements. The least inadvertence may rob us of the
public favor, so hard to be acquired. I reprimand you for having forgotten
that, in proportion as you had rendered yourself formidable to our enemies,
you should have been guarded and temperate in your deportment toward your
fellow-citizens. Exhibit anew those noble qualities which have placed
you on the list of our most valued commanders. I will myself furnish
you, as far as it may be in my power, with opportunities of regaining
the esteem of your country."

What punishment could have been lighter! Yet Arnold was greatly
irritated. He had anticipated a full acquittal, and a triumphant
vindication of his honor. Even this slight punishment deeply wounded his
pride, and instead of receiving it with the generous feelings of true
honor and dignity, he resented it as a meditated wrong. The rank weed of
treason was already growing luxuriantly in his heart, for he had been
for nine months in secret correspondence with the enemy in New York; now
it bloomed, and its fruit expanded under the genial heat of intense
hatred, fed by mortified pride, foiled ambition, the pressure of
embarrassments, the want of employment, intercourse with loyalists, and
a sense of public injustice.

When the great fete, called the _Mischianza_ was given in Philadelphia
in honor of General Sir William Howe, on his departure from America in
the spring of 1778, Captain John Andre was the most active and talented
officer engaged in its preparation. He was a wit, a poet, and a painter.
Thwarted in an engagement of marriage with the charming Honora Sneyd, by
the unwise scruples of her father, on account of the suitor's youth and
obscurity, Andre placed in his bosom the miniature of his idol, painted
by his own hands, joined the army, and came to America to seek, in the
excitement of the camp, an alleviation of sufferings inflicted by
disappointed love. He landed in Canada; was captured at St. John's on
the Sorel, where he saved the picture of Honora by concealing it in his
mouth; was taken to Pennsylvania; was exchanged, and finally rejoined
the army in New York.

[Illustration: JOHN ANDRE.]

[Illustration: SIR HENRY CLINTON.]

Among the young ladies of Philadelphia who graced the _Mischianza_, was
the gay and brilliant Margaret Shippen, who afterward became the wife of
Arnold. Andre was a frequent guest at her father's table, and Margaret
continued her acquaintance with him, by epistles, even after her
marriage. Through this channel her husband opened a correspondence with
Sir Henry Clinton, the Commander-in-chief of the British forces in
America, and then quartered in New York. For a long time Arnold's
letters were vague. His advances were slow and cautious. He assumed the
name of _Gustavus_, and couched his letters in commercial phrases.
Profound secrecy was observed by both. Arnold's wife, it is believed,
was ignorant of the true intent of her husband's letters, and Clinton
had no other confidant than Andre and Colonel Beverly Robinson. The
latter was the son-in-law of Frederick Phillipse, one of the largest
landholders in America. Twenty years before, Washington, then a Virginia
colonel, had enjoyed the hospitalities of his house, and there became
enamored of Mary Phillipse, the betrothed of Roger Morris, his old
companion in arms in the battle of Monongahela. Of course his suit was
rejected, and the young soldier gave his heart and hand to a charming
widow of his own province. Robinson had an extensive acquaintance among
the American officers. He early espoused the patriot cause, even as
early as the era of the Stamp Act; but when the Declaration of
Independence was promulgated, he was unwilling to accede to so bold a
measure as the dismemberment of the British Empire, and he took up arms
for the king.

[Illustration: Bev. Robinson]

West Point, on the Hudson, fifty miles above New York, made strong by
nature, and strengthened by art, was an object of covetous desire to Sir
Henry Clinton. It was the key to the northern country and the route to
Canada, and the strong link of co-operation between the patriots of the
Eastern and Middle States. Arnold knew its value to both parties, and he
resolved to make its betrayal the equivalent for personal honors and a
large sum of money. When his determination was fixed, and his plans were
arranged, his deportment was suddenly changed. Hitherto he had been
sullen and indifferent; now his patriotism glowed with all the apparent
ardor of his earlier career. Hitherto he had pleaded the bad state of
his wounds as an excuse for inaction; now they healed rapidly. He was
now anxious to join his old companions in arms, and to General Schuyler,
Robert R. Livingston, and other influential men in Congress, he
expressed his impatience to be in the camp or the field. Rejoiced at the
change, and believing him sincere, they wrote letters to Washington
commendatory of Arnold, and, in pursuance of his intimation, suggested
his appointment to the command of West Point. At the same time Arnold
visited the camp to pay his respects to the commander-in-chief, and
expressed his desire to have a command, like that at West Point, for his
wounds would not now allow him to perform active service on horseback in
the field. Washington was surprised, but, unsuspicious of wrong, acceded
to his request, and on the 3d of August, 1780, gave him written
instructions. His command included West Point and its dependencies from
Stony Point to Fishkill.

[Illustration: ROBINSON'S HOUSE.]

Upon a fertile plateau, high above the river, and at the foot of a range
of lofty hills, nearly opposite West Point, was the confiscated country
seat of Colonel Beverly Robinson, a spacious mansion for the times, and
now a pleasant residence. There Arnold established his quarters, and
elaborated his wicked scheme; and there he was joined by his wife and
infant son, when his plans were ripe, and his treason almost
consummated.

It was a part of Washington's plan for the autumn campaign, to make an
attack upon the city of New York, with the combined French and American
forces, the former to approach by the way of Long Island, and the other
by crossing Kingsbridge at the head of York, or Manhattan Island. Arnold
communicated the details of this plan to Sir Henry Clinton, and proposed
that when the assailants approached, a large British force should
proceed up the Hudson to the Highlands in a flotilla under Admiral
Rodney, when the traitor should surrender West Point and its
dependencies, excusing himself with the plea of a weak garrison. The
anticipated result was a retreat of Washington toward the Highlands to
regain the fortress and save his ample stores and the probable capture
of the French army.

Sir Henry Clinton was delighted with the plan, and eagerly sought to
carry it out. Hitherto he was not certified of the real name and
character of _Gustavus_, although for some months he had suspected him
to be General Arnold. Unwilling to proceed further upon uncertainties,
he proposed sending an officer to some point near the American lines to
have a personal interview with his correspondent. Arnold consented, and
insisted that young Andre, now the adjutant-general of the British army,
and high in the confidence of Sir Henry Clinton, should be the officer
sent. They agreed to meet at Dobb's Ferry, upon the Neutral Ground, some
twenty miles above New York. Thither Andre, accompanied by Colonel
Robinson, proceeded; but the vigilance of the British water-guard
prevented the approach of Arnold, and the conference was deferred.

Sir Henry Clinton, anxious to effect definite arrangements with Arnold,
sent the Vulture sloop-of-war up the river, as far as Teller's Point,
nearly opposite Haverstraw, with Colonel Robinson on board. That
officer, under pretense of making inquiries respecting his confiscated
property, communicated with Arnold, who, in an ambiguous answer,
informed him that a flag and a boat would be sent to the Vulture on the
night of the twentieth, to be used as circumstances might require. This
fact was communicated to Clinton, and on the morning of that day, Major
Andre, after singing a song and taking wine with some fellow-officers,
at Kip's Bay, proceeded by land to Dobb's Ferry, and from thence in a
barge to the Vulture. He was instructed not to change his dress, go
within the American lines, receive papers, or in any other way act as a
spy. It was supposed that Arnold himself would come to the Vulture, and
that there the whole plan would be arranged. The wily general was not to
be caught, and he chose a meeting place which involved less personal
hazard.

About half way between Stony Point and Haverstraw, lived Joshua Hett
Smith, a brother of the Tory Chief Justice of New York. To his house
Arnold repaired, and employed him to proceed to the Vulture, at night,
and bring a gentleman to the western shore of the Hudson. Smith was an
active man, of considerable influence in his neighborhood, and is
supposed to have been the _dupe_, not the voluntary aid of Arnold in his
treasonable preparations. Unable to procure oarsmen, Smith did not
proceed to the Vulture until the night of the twenty-first. As soon as
the moon went down, he glided silently out of Haverstraw creek, with
muffled oars, and at a little past midnight reached the vessel anchored
in the middle of the river. It was a serene, starry night, and not a
ripple was upon the bosom of the waters. Cautiously he approached the
Vulture, and, by proper signal, obtained admission on board. His oarsmen
waited but a few minutes, when Smith, accompanied by a British officer,
descended into the boat. The latter was dressed in the scarlet uniform
of the royal army, but all was covered with a long blue surtout,
buttoned to the chin, and a plain cocked hat covered his head. Not a
word was spoken as they moved noiselessly toward a deep-shaded estuary
at the foot of Long Clove Mountain, a little below Haverstraw. Smith led
the officer, in the gloom, to a thicket near by, and there, in a low
whisper, introduced John Anderson (the name assumed by Major Andre in
his correspondence) to General Arnold, and then retired. The
conspirators were left alone. There, in the deep shadows of night,
concealed from human cognizance, they discussed their dark plans, and
plotted the utter ruin of the patriot cause. There the arch-traitor,
eager for the coveted gold of a royal purchaser, higgled with the king's
broker about the price of his infamy; there the perjured recusant,
satisfied with the _word_ of an honest man (for he dared not accept a
written bond), "sold his birth-right for a mess of pottage."

[Illustration: SMITH'S HOUSE.]

The hour of dawn approached, and their conference was not ended. Smith
came, and urged the necessity for haste, for the water-guard would soon
be on the alert, and it would be difficult to return to the Vulture.
Much was yet to be done, and Andre reluctantly consented to accompany
Arnold to Smith's house, nearly four miles distant, and await the
darkness of another night to return to the vessel. Expecting a
protracted interview, Arnold had brought two horses with him. While it
was yet dark they mounted, and as they passed in the rear of Haverstraw,
in the dim twilight of earliest dawn, the voice of a sentinel gave Andre
the first intimation that he was within the American lines. He perceived
the danger, but it was too late to recede. They reached Smith's house
before sunrise, and at that moment the boom of a cannon came up from the
bosom of the bay. Several discharges quickly succeeded each other, and
soon the Vulture, galled by an iron four-pounder upon Teller's Point,
weighed anchor, and dropped down the river beyond the vision of the
conspirators. Deep inquietude stirred the soul of Andre. He was within
the enemy's lines, without flag or pass. If detected, he would be called
a spy--a name he hated as much as that of traitor. The ingenious
sophistry of Arnold allayed his apprehensions, and in an upper room of
Smith's house, the plan of operations was determined, and there Andre
passed a day of great solicitude. The plan was simple. Washington had
gone to Hartford, to confer with the French officers. It was agreed to
consummate the scheme during the absence of the Commander-in-chief,
instead of waiting for the uncertain movements of the armies. The
garrison at West Point was to be weakened by dispersion, and Clinton was
to sail up the river with a strong force, and take possession.

At noon, the whole plan being arranged, Arnold placed in Andre's
possession, several papers, explanatory of the condition of West Point
and its dependencies. Zealous in the service of his king and country,
Andre disobeyed the commands of his general, and received them. At
Arnold's suggestion, he placed them in his stockings under his feet, and
receiving a pass from the traitor (printed on the next page), waited
impatiently for the approach of night.

Fully believing that no obstacle now interposed in the way of success,
Arnold prepared for the reception of Rodney's flotilla with a strong
force under Clinton. Pretending that it needed repairing, a link from
the great iron chain which spanned the Hudson at West Point, was taken
out and sent to the smith, and the garrison at Fort Clinton, on the
Point, was weakened by scattering the troops in detachments among the
several redoubts in the vicinity. Colonel Lamb, who commanded the
garrison, wondered at the movement, but did not suspect his chief. So
skillfully had Arnold managed all his plans, that no suspicion of his
defection was abroad; and Washington held his conference with Rochambeau
and Ternay, satisfied that West Point was in safe hands.

[Illustration: copy of pass for John Anderson]

When night approached, Smith positively refused to convey Andre back to
the Vulture, but offered to accompany him to the borders of the Neutral
Ground on the east side of the Hudson. Andre remonstrated in vain. There
was no alternative but to remain. He exchanged his uniform for a
citizen's dress, and at twilight, mounted on good horses, and
accompanied by a negro servant, Smith and Andre crossed King's Ferry
(now Verplanck's Point), and turned their faces toward White Plains.
Andre was moody, for he felt uneasy. They met with no interruption,
until near the little village of Crompond, eight miles from King's
Ferry, when they were hailed by a sentinel. Arnold's pass was examined,
known to be genuine, and the travelers were about to pass on, when the
officer of the post magnified the dangers of the road, and persuaded
them to halt for the night. Sleep was a stranger to the eyes of Andre,
and at dawn they were in the saddle. When they approached Pine's Bridge,
and he was assured that he was upon neutral ground, beyond the American
lines, his gloomy taciturnity was exchanged for cheerful garrulity, and
he conversed in an almost playful manner upon poetry, the arts,
literature, and common topics. A mile above the bridge, Smith handed him
a small sum in Continental bills, and they parted, the former to proceed
to Arnold's quarters and report his success, the latter to hasten toward
New York. Andre, being told that the _Cow-boys_[3] were more numerous on
the Tarrytown road, took that direction, contrary to the advice of Smith
and others, who directed him to proceed by the way of White Plains.
Andre was anxious to be among his friends, and as these marauders were
such, he concluded that the Tarrytown road would be the safer for him,
for if he fell into their hands, he would be taken to New York, whither
he was hastening. This was his fatal mistake.

On the morning when Andre left Pine's Bridge, a little band of seven
young volunteers, went out near Tarrytown to watch the movements of the
_Cow-boys_ and other depredators. Four of them (John Yorks, John Dean,
James Romez, and Abraham William) agreed to tarry upon a hill which
commanded an extensive view of the highway, while the remaining three
(John Paulding, Isaac Van Wart, and David Williams) were to be concealed
in the bushes on the bank of a small stream, near the road. At ten
o'clock in the morning, while engaged in playing cards, the young men
saw a horseman approach from the direction of Sleepy Hollow. They
confronted him, and demanded a knowledge of his business and
destination. "I hope, gentlemen, that you belong to our party," said the
traveler. "What party?" inquired Williams, who had presented his
firelock to his breast. "The lower party" (meaning the British), quickly
replied the horseman.

[Illustration: MAP SHOWING ANDRE'S WHOLE ROUTE. (_The fine lines
indicate the highways he traveled_.)]

"I am a British officer, out upon urgent business. I hope you will not
detain me a minute."

He was ordered to dismount, when he instantly discovered his fatal
mistake. "My God!" he exclaimed, half laughing, "we must do anything to
get along;" and then showed them Arnold's pass, for the traveler was
Major Andre. The young militia men were not as easily satisfied as the
sentinel at Crompond. They insisted upon searching him. They made him
strip; ripped up the housings of his saddle, and finally ordered him to
pull off his boots. He reluctantly obeyed, and beneath his feet were the
papers given him by Arnold.

[Illustration: PRESENT APPEARANCE OF THE PLACE WHERE ANDRE WAS
CAPTURED.]

Andre offered his captors tempting bribes of money and merchandise, if
they would allow him to pass on, but their patriotism was too dear to be
bought with a price. They conducted him to the quarters of Colonel
Jameson at North Castle, the nearest post, and delivered him up. That
officer, with obtuseness of perception most extraordinary, resolved to
send him immediately to General Arnold! Major Tallmadge, with better
judgment, boldly expressed his belief that Arnold was a traitor, and
finally induced Jameson to send the prisoner to Colonel Sheldon's
quarters at North Salem, until more should be known respecting him, for,
they had no suspicion of the rank and character of the young man in
their custody. Jameson, however, would not suspect the fidelity of his
general, and actually sent a letter to inform him that "a Mr. John
Anderson" was a prisoner in his hands.

On the morning of the 24th of September, the day fixed upon by the
conspirators for the surrender of the fort, Washington returned from
Hartford. It was two days earlier than Arnold expected him. The traitor
was astounded when a messenger rode up, a little after sunrise, and
announced the intention of the Commander-in-chief to breakfast with him.
On approaching Arnold's quarters, Washington directed La Fayette and
Hamilton, who were with him, to go on and breakfast with Mrs. Arnold,
while he turned down a lane to the river to inspect a redoubt upon the
bank.

[Illustration: THE BREAKFAST ROOM.]

Arnold and his guests were at breakfast when a messenger came in haste
with a letter for the general. It was from Jameson, announcing the
arrest of Andre, instead of the expected intelligence that the enemy
were moving up the river. Agitated, but not sufficiently to excite the
special notice of his guests, he arose from the table, hastened to the
room of his wife, kissed his sleeping babe, and telling his spouse in
hurried words that they must part, perhaps forever, left her in a swoon,
mounted the horse of one of his aids standing at the door, dashed across
the fields and down a declivity to a narrow pathway on the borders of a
morass to a dock built by Colonel Robinson, and throwing himself into
his barge, nerved the oarsmen with promises of large rewards of rum and
money for swiftness of speed, and was soon sweeping through the Race at
Fort Montgomery. The old dock from whence the traitor escaped, is still
there, but the Hudson River Railway has spanned the mouth of the swale,
and cleft the rocky point, so that little of the original features of
the scenery remain.

[Illustration: VIEW AT ROBINSON'S DOCK.]

Washington went over to West Point before going to Arnold's quarters. He
was surprised when informed by Lamb that the general had not been at the
garrison for two days. He recrossed the river, and when he approached
Robinson's house, Hamilton, greatly excited, met him, and revealed the
dreadful secret of Arnold's guilt and flight. His guilt was made
manifest by the arrival of the papers taken from Andre, and his flight
confirmed the dark tale which they unfolded. With these papers came a
letter from Andre to Washington, frankly avowing his name and character.
"Whom can we trust now?" said the Chief with calmness, while feelings of
the deepest sorrow were evidently at work in his bosom, as he laid
before La Fayette, Hamilton, and Knox the evidences of treason.

The condition of Mrs. Arnold excited Washington's liveliest sympathy.
But one year a mother and not two a bride, the poor young creature had
received a blow of the most appalling nature. She raved furiously and
mourned piteously, alternately. The tenderest care was bestowed upon
her, and she was soon sent in safety to New York, whither her fallen
husband had escaped.

Pursuit of the traitor was unavailing. He had four hours the start. The
Vulture was yet lying below Teller's Point, awaiting the return of
Andre, and to the security of her bulwarks Arnold escaped. She proceeded
to New York that evening, and Sir Henry Clinton, informed of the failure
of the scheme, was unwilling to hazard an attack upon the Highland
fortresses, now that the patriots were thoroughly awake.

The main body of the American army was lying at Tappan, on the west side
of the Hudson, near the present terminus of the New York and Erie
Railroad. Thither Andre was conveyed, after being brought to West Point,
and in a stone house, near the head-quarters of the commander-in-chief,
he was strongly guarded. On the twenty-ninth of September a court
martial was convened near by, for his trial, and, after a patient
investigation, it being proven, and confessed by the prisoner himself,
that he was in the American lines (though not voluntarily) without a
flag, they gave it as their opinion that he ought to suffer death as a
spy. All hearts were alive with sympathy for the condemned, and
Washington would gladly have saved his life; but the stern demands of
the cruel and uncompromising rules of war, denied the petitions of
mercy, and the Commander-in-chief was obliged to sign his death-warrant.
He was sentenced to be hung on the afternoon of the first of October.

[Illustration: WASHINGTON'S HEAD-QUARTERS AT TAPPAN.]

Andre exhibited no fear of death, and to the last the workings of his
genius were displayed. On the morning of the day appointed for his
execution, he sketched a likeness of himself with a pen and ink, and
conversed cheerfully with those around him upon the pleasures of
painting and kindred arts. But the _manner_ of his death disturbed his
spirit. He pleaded earnestly to be _shot_ as a soldier, not _hung_ as a
spy. But even this poor boon could not be allowed, for the rules of war
demanded death by a cord and not by a bullet. His execution was delayed
one day in consequence of the intercession of Sir Henry Clinton, and a
hope that Arnold might be obtained and righteously suffer in his stead.
All was unavailing, and Major Andre, in the bloom of manhood, was hung
at Tappan on the second of October, 1780, at the age of twenty-nine
years.

[Illustration: ANDRE'S PEN-AND-INK SKETCH OF HIMSELF.]

The youth, accomplishments, and gentleness of manners of the young
soldier, endeared him to all, and his fate was deeply regretted on both
sides of the Atlantic. His king caused a mural monument, of elegant
device, to be erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey; and in 1831,
the Duke of York had his remains removed from Tappan and taken to
London, where they now repose beneath his marble memorial, among those
of many heroes and poets of old England. A halo of melancholy sweetness
surrounds the name and character of the unfortunate youth which
increases in glory with the flight of time.

[Illustration: ANDRE'S MONUMENT IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.]

The traitor, though unsuccessful, received ten thousand guineas from the
British treasury, and the commission of a brigadier from the king. He
served his new master faithfully. With the spirit of a demon he
desolated, with fire and sword, the beautiful country near the mouth of
the Thames, in Connecticut, almost in sight of the roof which sheltered
his infancy; and with augmented ferocity he spread distress and ruin, to
the extent of his power, upon the Virginia shores of the Chesapeake, and
along the fertile borders of the James and the Appomattox. Hated and
despised by his new companions in arms, and insulted and contemned in
public places after the war, Arnold became an outcast like Cain, and
like Esau he found no place for repentance, though he sought it
diligently with tears. He died in obscurity in the British metropolis,
in 1801, and who knows the place of his grave?

[Illustration: PAULDING'S MONUMENT AND ST. PETER'S CHURCH.]

The captors of Andre were highly applauded by the people, and honored
and rewarded by Congress. That body awarded to each a silver medal,
having on one side the word FIDELITY, and on the other, VINCIT AMOR
PATRAE; "the love of country conquers." They were also allowed each an
annual pension of two hundred dollars, during their lives. Public esteem
for their services has erected monuments over the remains of two of
them. Paulding's mortality sleeps beneath a chaste marble cenotaph in
the old St. Peter's church-yard, two miles eastward of Peekskill; and
over the dust of Van Wart, in the Greenburgh church-yard, near the banks
of the beautiful Nepara, in Westchester county, stands a plain monument
of white marble. The former was erected by the corporation of the city
of New York; the latter by citizens of Westchester county. No public
memorial yet marks the place of rest of David Williams in the
church-yard at Livingstonville, in Schoharie county.

[Illustration: VAN WART'S MONUMENT.]

The traitor and his victim, the captors, judges, and executioner, have
all gone to the spirit-land whither the ken of the historian and the
moralist may not follow; and the myriads of hearts which beat with
sympathy or indignation, as the sad intelligence of the tragedy at
Tappan winged its way over our land, or sped to the abodes of
intelligent men in the Old World, are pulseless and forgotten. Charity
would counsel tenderly respecting each,

   "No farther seek his merits to disclose,
     Or draw his frailties from their dread abode,
   (There they alike in trembling hope repose)
     The bosom of his father, and his God."
                                        GRAY.

Yet it is well, occasionally, to lift the vail from past events, though
they may be dark and forbidding in aspect, for to the wise and
thoughtful they convey lessons of wisdom, and to the foolish and
inconsiderate, the wayward and the wicked, they may speak a word of
warning in season to curb an evil spirit and promote righteousness.

[Footnote 3: The _Cow-boys_ were a set of people mostly, if not wholly
refugees, belonging to the British side, and engaged in plundering
cattle near the lines and driving them to New York. The name indicates
their vocation. There was another description of banditti called
_Skinners_, who lived for the most part within the American lines, and
professed attachment to the American cause; but in reality they were
more unprincipled, perfidious, and inhuman than the _Cow-boys_
themselves; for these latter exhibited some symptoms of fellow-feeling
for their friends, whereas the _Skinners_ committed their depredations
equally upon friends and foes.

By a law of the State of New York, every person refusing to take an oath
of fidelity to the State, was considered as forfeiting his property. The
large territory between the American and British lines, extending nearly
thirty miles from north to south, and embracing Westchester county, was
populous and highly cultivated. This was the famous Neutral Ground. A
person living within that space, who took the oath of fidelity, was sure
to be plundered by the _Cow-boys_; and if he did not take it, the
_Skinners_ would come down upon him, call him a Tory, and seize his
property as confiscated by the State. Thus the execution of the laws was
assumed by robbers, and the innocent and guilty were involved in a
common ruin.

It is true, the civil authority endeavored to guard against these
outrages, as far as it could, by legislative enactments and executive
proclamations; but, from the nature of the case, this formidable
conspiracy against the rights and claims of humanity could be crushed
only by a military arm. The detachments of Continental troops and
militia, stationed near the lines, did something to lessen the evil; yet
they were not adequate to its suppression, and frequently this force was
so feeble as not to afford any barrier against the inroads of the
banditti. The _Skinners_ and _Cow-boys_ often leagued together. The
former would sell their plunder to the latter, taking in exchange
contraband articles from New York. It was not uncommon for the farce of
a skirmish to be acted near the American lines, in which the _Skinners_
never failed to come off victorious; and then they would go boldly into
the interior with their booty, pretending it had been captured from the
enemy while attempting to smuggle it across the lines.--_Sparks_.]




MEMORIES OF MEXICO.


The first action fought by the American army in the valley of Mexico, on
the 20th August, 1847, was at Contreras. It was an attack upon a
fortified camp, in which lay General Valencia with 6000 Mexicans,
composed of the remnant of the army beaten by Taylor, on the hills of
Buena Vista. It was styled "The Army of the North;" most of the soldiers
composing it being from the northern departments--the hardy miners of
Zacatecas and San Luis Potosi--and they were esteemed "the flower of the
Mexican army."

On the previous day powder enough was burned to have cured the
atmosphere for twenty miles around, yet there was nothing done. We held
the ground, however, in mud up to our ankles. In this we lay shivering
under a cold drizzle until the morning. By daylight we were at it in
earnest. During the night two of our best brigades had crept,
unperceived, through the clay "barrancas" close up to the rear of the
enemy's camp, ready to spring. At daybreak old Riley shouted, "_Forward
and give them h-ll!_" and before our foes--not expecting us from that
quarter--could bring their artillery to bear upon us, we were in the
midst of them. The action lasted just seventeen minutes. At the end of
that time we had laid our hands upon thirty of Valencia's cannon, and
taken about a thousand prisoners; and had the satisfaction of seeing the
rest of them, in their long yellow mantles, disappearing through the
fissures of the lava fields, in rapid flight along the road to Mexico.
We followed, of course, but as our cavalry had not been able to cross
the Pedregal, and the enemy were our superiors in retreat, we were soon
distanced. As we came down upon the village of San Angel, the occasional
blast of a light infantry bugle, with the "crack--crack--cr-r-r-ack" of
our rifles in front, told us that we had still more work to do before
entering the halls of the Montezumas. We were, in fact, driving in the
light troops of Santa Anna's main army, lying we knew not where, but
somewhere between us and the far-famed city.

It is not my intention to give an account of the battle that followed,
nor should I have entered into these details of the fight at Contreras,
but to put the reader in possession of "situations," and, moreover, to
bring to his notice an incident that occurred, during that action, to a
friend--the hero of this narrative--whom I will now introduce. I was
then a Sub., and my friend, Richard L----, was the captain of my
company; young as myself, and full as ardent in pursuit of the red glory
of war. We had long known each other, had gone through the campaign
together, and, more than once, had stood side by side under the leaden
shower. I need not say how a juxtaposition of this kind strengthens the
ties of friendship.

We had come out of Resaca and Monterey unscathed. We had passed through
Cerro Gordo with "only a scratch." So far we had been fortunate, as I
esteemed it. Not so my friend; he wished to get a wound, for the honor
of the thing. He was accommodated at Contreras; for the bullet from an
escopette had passed through his left arm below the elbow-joint. It
appeared to be only a flesh wound; and as his sword-arm was still safe,
he disdained to leave the field until the "day was done." Binding the
wounded limb with a rag from his shirt, and slinging it in his sash, he
headed his company in the pursuit. By ten o'clock we had driven the
enemy's skirmishers out of San Angel, and taken possession of the
village. Our commander-in-chief was as yet ignorant of the position of
the Mexican army; and we halted, to await the necessary reconnoisance.

Notwithstanding the cold of the preceding night, the day had become hot
and oppressive. The soldiers, wearied with watching, marching, and the
fight, threw themselves down in the dusty streets. Hunger kept many
awake, for they had eaten nothing for twenty hours. A few houses were
entered, and the _tortillas_ and _tasajo_ drawn forth; but there is but
little to be found, at any time, in the larder of a Mexican house; and
the jail-like doors of most of them were closely barred. The unglazed
windows were open; but the massive iron railings of the "reja" defended
them from intrusion. From these railings various flags were
suspended--French, German, Spanish, and Portuguese--signifying that the
inmates were foreigners in the country, and therefore entitled to
respect. Where no excuse for such claim existed, a white banner, the
emblem of peace, protruded through the bars; and perhaps this was as
much respected as the symbols of neutrality.

It was the season when fashion deserts the Alameda of Mexico, and
betakes itself to _monte_, cock-fighting, and intriguing, in the
romantic "pueblos" that stud the valley. San Angel is one of these
pueblos, and at that moment many of the "familias principales" of the
city were domiciled around us. Through the rejas we could catch an
occasional glimpse of the inmates in the dark apartments within.

It is said that, with woman, curiosity is stronger than fear. It
appeared to be so in this case. When the inhabitants saw that pillage
was not intended, beautiful and stylish women showed themselves in the
windows and on the "balcons," looking down at us with a timorous yet
confiding wonder. This was strange, after the stories of our barbarity,
in which they had been so well drilled; but we had become accustomed to
the high courage of the Mexican females, and it was a saying among us,
that "the women were the best men in the country." Jesting aside, I am
satisfied, that had they taken up arms instead of their puny countrymen,
we should not have boasted so many easy victories.

Our bivouac lasted about an hour. The reconnoisance having been at
length completed, the enemy was discovered in a fortified position
around the convent and bridge of Churubusco. Twiggs' division was
ordered forward to commence the attack, just as the distant booming of
cannon across the lava fields, told us that our right wing, under Worth,
had sprung the enemy's left at the hacienda of San Antonio, and was
driving it along the great national road. Both wings of our army were
beautifully converging to a common focus--the pueblo of Churubusco. The
brigade to which I was attached still held the position where it had
halted in San Angel. We were to move down to the support of Twiggs'
division, as soon as the latter should get fairly engaged. Our place in
the line had thrown us in front of a house somewhat retired from the
rest, single-storied, and, like most of the others, flat-roofed, with a
low parapet around the top. A large door and two windows fronted the
street. One of the windows was open, and knotted to the reja was a small
white handkerchief embroidered along the borders, and fringed with fine
lace. There was something so delicate, yet striking in the appeal, that
it at once attracted the attention of L---- and myself. It would have
touched the compassion of a Cossack; and _we_ felt at the moment that we
would have protected that house against a general's order to pillage.

We had seated ourselves on the edge of the banquette, directly in front
of the window. A bottle of wine by some accident had reached us; and as
we quaffed its contents, our eyes constantly wandered upon the open
reja. We could see no one. All was dark within; but we could not help
thinking that the owner of the kerchief--she who had hurriedly displayed
that simple emblem of truce--could not be otherwise than an interesting
and lovely creature.

At length the drums beat for Twiggs' division to move forward, and,
attracted by the noise, a gray-haired old man appeared at the window.
With feelings of disappointment, my friend and I turned our glances upon
the street, and for some moments watched the horse artillery as it swept
past. When our gaze was again directed to the house, the old man had a
companion--the object of our instinctive expectation; yet fairer even
than our imagination had portrayed.

The features indicated that she was a Mexican, but the complexion was
darker than the half-breed, the Aztec blood predominated. The crimson,
mantling under the bronze of her cheeks, gave to her countenance that
picture-like expression of the mixed races of the Western World. The
eye, black, with long fringing lash, and a brow upon which the jetty
crescent seemed to have been painted. The nose slightly aquiline,
curving at the nostril; while luxuriant hair, in broad plaits, fell far
below her waist. As she stood on the sill of the low window, we had a
full view of her person--from the satin slipper to the _reboso_ that
hung loosely over her forehead. She was plainly dressed in the style of
her country. We saw that she was not of the aristocracy, for, even in
this remote region, has Paris fashioned the costume of that order. On
the other hand, she was above the class of the "poblanas," the
demoiselles of the showy "naguas" and naked ankles. She was of the
middle rank. For some moments my friend and myself gazed upon the fair
apparition in silent wonder.

She stood awhile, looking out upon the street, scanning the strange
uniforms that were grouped before her. At length her eye fell upon us;
and as she perceived that my comrade was wounded, she turned toward the
old man.

"Look, father, a wounded officer! ah, what a sad thing, poor officer."

"Yes, it is a captain, shot through the arm."

"Poor fellow! he is pale--he is weary. I shall give him sweet water,
shall I, father?"

"Very well, go, bring it."

The girl disappeared from the window; and in a few moments returned with
a glass, containing an amber-colored liquid--the essence of the
pine-apple. Making a sign toward L----, the little hand that held the
glass was thrust through the bars of the reja. Being nearer, I rose, and
taking the glass, handed it to my friend. L---- bowed to the window, and
acknowledging his gratitude in the best Spanish he could muster, drank
off the _agua dulce_. The glass was returned; and the young girl took
her station as before.

We did not enter into conversation, neither L---- nor myself; but I
noticed that the incident had made an impression upon my friend. On the
other hand, I observed the eyes of the girl, although at intervals
wandering away, always return, and rest upon the features of my comrade.
L---- was handsome; besides, he bore upon his person the evidence of a
higher quality--courage; the quality that, before all others, will win
the heart of a woman.

All at once, the features of the girl changed their expression, and she
uttered a scream. Turning toward my friend, I saw the blood dripping
through the sash. His wound had re-opened.

I threw my arms around him, as several of the soldiers rushed forward;
but before we could remove the bandage L---- had swooned.

"May I beseech you to open the door?" said I, addressing the young girl
and her father.

"_Si--si, senor_," cried they together, hurrying away from the window.

At that moment the rattle of musketry from Coyoacan, and the roar of
field artillery, told us that Twiggs was engaged. The long roll echoed
through the streets, and the soldiers were speedily under arms.

I could stay no longer, for I had now to lead the company; and leaving
L---- in charge of two of the men, I placed myself at its head. As the
"Forward" was given, I heard the great door swing upon its hinges; and
looking back as we marched down the street, I saw my friend conducted
into the house. I had no fears for his safety, as a regiment was to
remain in the village.... In ten minutes after I was upon the field of
battle, and a red field it was. Of my own small detachment every second
soldier "bit the dust" on the plain of Portales. I escaped unhurt,
though my regiment was well peppered by our own artillerists from the
_tete de pont_ of Churubusco. In two hours we drove the enemy through
the _garita_ of San Antonio de Abad. It was a total rout; and we could
have entered the city without firing another shot. We halted, however,
before the gates--a fatal halt, that afterward cost us nearly 2000 men,
the flower of our little army. But, as I before observed, I am not
writing a history of the campaign.

An armistice followed, and gathering our wounded from the fields around
Churubusco, the army retired into the villages. The four divisions
occupied respectively the pueblos of Tacubaya, San Angel, Mixcoac, and
San Augustin de les Cuevas. San Angel was our destination; and the day
after the battle my brigade marched back, and established itself in the
village.

I was not long in repairing to the house where I had left my friend. I
found him suffering from fever, burning fever. In another day he was
delirious; and in a week _he had lost his arm_; but the fever left him,
and he began to recover. During the fortnight that followed, I made
frequent visits; but a far more tender solicitude watched over him.
Rafaela was by his couch; and the old man--her father--appeared to take
a deep interest in his recovery. These, with the servants, were the only
inmates of the house.

The treacherous enemy having broken the armistice, the storming of the
Palace-castle of Chapultepec followed soon after. Had we failed in the
attempt not one of us would ever have gone out from the valley of
Mexico. But we _took the castle_, and our crippled forces entered the
captured city of the Montezumas, and planted their banners upon the
National Palace. I was not among those who marched in. Three days
afterward I was _carried in_ upon a stretcher, with a bullet hole
through my thigh, that kept me within doors for a period of three
months.

During my invalid hours L---- was my frequent visitor; he had completely
recovered his health, but I noticed that a change had come over him, and
his former gayety was gone.

Fresh troops arrived in Mexico, and to make room, our regiment, hitherto
occupying a garrison in the city, was ordered out to its old quarters at
San Angel. This was welcome news for my friend, who would now be near
the object of his thoughts. For my own part, although once more on my
limbs, I did not desire to return to duty in that quarter; and on
various pretexts, I was enabled to lengthen out my "leave" until the
treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

Once only I visited San Angel. As I entered the house where L---- lived,
I found him seated in the open _patio_, under the shade of the orange
trees. Rafaela was beside him, and his only hand was held in both of
hers. There was no surprise on the part of either, though I was welcomed
cordially by both--by her, as being the friend of the man she loved.
Yes, she loved him.

"See," cried L----, rising, and referring to the situation in which I
had found them. "All this, my dear H., in spite of my misfortunes!" and
he glanced significantly at his armless sleeve. "Who would not love
her?"

The treaty of Guadalupe was at length concluded, and we had orders to
prepare for the route homeward. The next day I received a visit from
L----.

"Henry," said he, "I am in a dilemma."

"Well, major," I replied, for L---- as well as myself had gained a
"step." "What is it?"

"You know I am in love, and with whom you know. What am I to do with
her?"

"Why, marry her, of course. What else?"

"I dare not."

"Dare not!"

"That is--not now."

"Why not? Resign your commission, and remain here. You know our regiment
is to be disbanded; you can not do better."

"Ah! my dear fellow, that is not the thing that hinders me."

"What then?"

"Should I marry her, and remain, our lives would not be safe one moment
after the army had marched. Papers containing threats and ribald jests
have from time to time been thrust under the door of her house--to the
effect that, should she marry 'el official Americano'--so they are
worded--both she and her father will be murdered. You know the feeling
that is abroad in regard to those who have shown us hospitality."

"Why not take her with you, then?"

"Her father, he would suffer."

"Take him, too."

"That I proposed, but he will not consent. He fears the confiscation of
his property, which is considerable. I would not care for that, though
my own fortune, as you know, would be small enough to support us. But
the old man will go on no terms, and she will not leave him."

The old man's fears in regard to the confiscation were not without good
foundation. There was a party in Mexico, while we occupied the city,
that had advocated "annexation"--that is, the annexing of the whole
country to the United States. This party consisted chiefly of pure
Spaniards, "ricos" of the republic, who wanted a government of stability
and order. In the houses of these many of our officers visited,
receiving those elegant hospitalities that were in general denied us by
Mexicans of a more patriotic stamp. Our friends were termed
"Ayankeeados," and were hated by the populace. But they were "marked" in
still higher quarters. Several members of the government, then sitting
at Queretaro--among others a noted minister--had written to their agents
in the city to note down all those who, by word or act, might show
kindness to the American army. Even those ladies who should present
themselves at the theatre were to be among the number of the proscribed.

In addition to the Ayankeeados were many families--perhaps not otherwise
predisposed to favor us--who by accident had admitted us within their
circle--such accident as that which had opened the house and heart of
Rafaela to my friend L----. These, too, were under "compromisa" with the
rabble. My comrade's case was undoubtedly what he had termed it--a
dilemma.

"You are not disposed to give her up, then?" said I, smiling at my
anxious friend, as I put the interrogation.

"I know you are only jesting, Henry. You know me too well for that. No!
Rather than give her up, I will stay and risk every thing--even life."

"Come, major," said I, "there will be no need for you to risk any thing,
if you will only follow my advice. It is simply this--come home with
your regiment; stay a month or two at New Orleans, until the excitement
consequent upon our evacuation cools down. Shave off your mustache, put
on plain clothes; come back and marry Rafaela."

"It is terrible to think of parting with her. Oh!--"

"That may all be; I doubt it not; but what else can you do?"

"Nothing--nothing. You are right. It is certainly the best--the only
plan. I will follow it," and L---- left me.

I saw no more of him for three days, when the brigade to which he
belonged entered the city on its road homeward. He had detailed his
plans to Rafaela, and bade her for a time farewell.

The other three divisions had already marched. Ours was to form the
rear-guard, and that night was to be our last in the city of Mexico. I
had retired to bed at an early hour, to prepare for our march on the
morrow. I was about falling asleep when a loud knock sounded at my door.
I rose and opened it. It was L----. I started as the light showed me his
face--it was ghastly. His lips were white, his teeth set, and dark rings
appeared around his eyes. The eyes themselves glared in their sockets,
lit up by some terrible emotion.

"Come!" cried he, in a hoarse and tremulous voice. "Come with me, Henry,
I need you."

"What is it, my dear L----? A quarrel? A duel?"

"No! No! nothing of the sort. Come! come! come! I will show you a sight
that will make a wolf of you. Haste! For God's sake, haste!"

I hurried on my clothes.

"Bring your arms!" cried L----, "you may require them."

I buckled on my sword and pistol-belt, and followed hastily into the
street. We ran down the Calle Correo toward the Alameda. It was the road
to the Convent of San Francisco, where our regiment had quartered for
the night. As yet I knew not for what I was going. Could the enemy have
attacked us? No--all was quiet. The people were in their beds. What
could it be? L---- had not, and would not explain; but to my inquiries,
continually cried, "Haste--come on!" We reached the convent, and,
hastily passing the guard, made for the quarters occupied by my friend.
As we entered the room--a large one--I saw five or six females, with
about a dozen men, soldiers and officers. All were excited by some
unusual occurrence. The females were Mexicans, and their heads were
muffled in their rebosos. Some were weeping aloud, others talking in
strains of lamentation. Among them I distinguished the face of my
friend's betrothed.

"Dearest Rafaela!" cried L----, throwing his arms around her--"it is my
friend. Here, Henry, look here! look at this!"

As he spoke, he raised the reboso, and gently drew back her long black
hair. I saw blood upon her cheek and shoulders! I looked more closely.
It flowed from her ears.

"Her ears! _O God! they have been cut off!_"

"Ay, ay," cried L----, hoarsely; and dropping the dark tresses, again
threw his arms around the girl, and kissed away the tears that were
rolling down her cheeks--while uttering expressions of endearment and
consolation.

I turned to the other females; they were all similarly mutilated; some
of them even worse, for their foreheads, where the U.S. had been freshly
burned upon them, were red and swollen. Excepting Rafaela, they were all
of the "poblana" class--the laundresses--the mistresses of the soldiers.

The surgeon was in attendance, and in a short time all was done that
could be done for wounds like these.

"Come!" cried L----, addressing those around him, "we are wasting time,
and that is precious; it is near midnight. The horses will be ready by
this, and the rest will be waiting; come, Henry, you will go? You will
stand by us?"

"I will, but what do you intend?"

"Do not ask us, my friend, you will see presently."

"Think, my dear L----," said I in a whisper, "do not act rashly."

"Rashly! there is no rashness about me--you know that. A cowardly act,
like this, can not be revenged too soon. Revenge! what am I talking of!
It is not revenge, but justice. The men who could perpetrate this
fiendish deed are not fit to live on the earth, and, by heavens! not one
of them shall live by the morning. Ha, dastards! they thought we were
gone; they will find their mistake. Mine be the responsibility--mine the
revenge. Come, friends! Come!" And so saying, L---- led the way, holding
his betrothed by the hand. We all followed out of the room, and into the
street.

On reaching the Alameda a group of dark objects was seen among the
trees. They were horses and horsemen; there were about thirty of the
latter, and enough of the former to mount the party who were with L----.
I saw from their size that the horses were of our own troops, with
dragoon saddles. In the hurry L---- had not thought of saddles for our
female companions, but the oversight was of no consequence. _Their_
habitual mode of riding was _a la Duchess de Berri_, and in this way
they mounted. Before summoning me, L---- had organized his band--they
were picked men. In the dim light I could see dragoon and infantry
uniforms, men in plain clothes, followers of the army, gamblers,
teamsters, Texans, desperadoes, ready for just such an adventure. Here
and there I could distinguish the long-tailed frock--the undress of the
officer. The band in all mustered more than forty men.

We rode quietly through the streets, and, issuing from the gate of Nino
Perdido, took the road for San Angel. As we proceeded onward, I gathered
a more minute account of what had transpired at the village. As soon as
our division had evacuated, a mob of thirty or forty ruffians had
proceeded to the houses of those whom they termed "Ayankeeados," and
glutted their cowardly vengeance on their unfortunate victims. Some of
these had been actually killed in attempting to resist; others had
escaped to the Pedregal which runs close to the village; while a
few--Rafaela among the number--after submitting to a terrible atrocity,
had fled to the city for protection.

On hearing the details of these horrid scenes, I no longer felt a
repugnance in accompanying my friend. I felt as he did, that men capable
of such deeds were "not fit to live," and we were proceeding to execute
a sentence that was just though illegal. It was not our intention to
punish all; we could not have accomplished this, had we so willed it. By
the testimony of the girls, there were five or six who had been the
promoters and ringleaders of the whole business. These were well known
to one or other of the victims, as in most instances it had been some
old grudge for which they had been singled out as objects of this
cowardly vengeance. In Rafaela's case it was a ruffian who had once
aspired to her hand, and been rejected. Jealousy had moved the fiend to
his terrible revenge.

It is three leagues from Mexico to San Angel. The road runs through
meadows and fields of magueys. Except the lone _pulqueria_, at the
corner where a cross-path leads to the hacienda of Narvarte, there is
not a house before reaching the bridge of Coyoacan. Here there is a
cluster of buildings--"fabricas"--that, during the stay of our army, had
been occupied by a regiment. Before arriving at this point we saw no
one; and here only people who, waked from their sleep by the tread of
our horses, had not the curiosity to follow us.

San Angel is a mile further up the hill. Before entering the village we
divided into five parties, each to be guided by one of the girls.
L----'s vengeance was especially directed toward the _ci-devant_ lover
of his betrothed. She herself, knowing his residence, was to be our
guide.

Proceeding through narrow lanes, we arrived in a suburb of the village,
and halted before a house of rather stylish appearance. We had
dismounted outside the town, leaving our horses in charge of a guard. It
was very dark, and we clustered around the door. One knocked--a voice
was heard from within--Rafaela recognized it as that of the ruffian
himself. The knock was repeated, and one of the party who spoke the
language perfectly, called out:

"Open the door! Open, Don Pedro!"

"Who is it?" asked the voice.

"_Yo_," (I) was the simple reply.

This is generally sufficient to open the door of a Mexican house, and
Don Pedro was heard within, moving toward the "Saguan."

The next moment the great door swung back on its hinges, and the ruffian
was dragged forth. He was a swarthy, fierce-looking fellow--from what I
could see in the dim light--and made a desperate resistance, but he was
in the hands of men who soon overpowered and bound him. We did not delay
a moment, but hurried back to the place where we had left our horses. As
we passed through the streets, men and women were running from house to
house, and we heard voices and shots in the distance. On reaching our
rendezvous, we found our comrades, all of whom had succeeded in making
their capture.

There was no time to be lost; there might be troops in the
village--though we saw none--but whether or not, there were "leperos"
enough to assail us. We did not give them time to muster. Mounting
ourselves and our prisoners we rode off at a rapid pace, and were soon
beyond the danger of pursuit.

Those who have passed through the gate of Nino Perdido will remember
that the road leading to San Angel runs, for nearly a mile, in a
straight line, and that, for this distance, it is lined on both sides
with a double row of large old trees. It is one of the drives (_paseos_)
of Mexico. Where the trees end, the road bends slightly to the south. At
this point a cross road strikes off to the pueblito of Piedad, and at
the crossing there is a small house, or rather a temple, where the pious
wayfarer kneels in his dusty devotions. This little temple, the
residence of a hermitical monk, was uninhabited during our occupation of
the valley, and, in the actions that resulted in the capture of the
city, it had come in for more than its share of hard knocks. A battery
had been thrown up beside it, and the counter-battery had bored the
walls of the temple with round shot. I never passed this solitary
building without admiring its situation. There was no house nearer it
than the aforementioned "tinacal" of Narvarte, or the city itself. It
stood in the midst of swampy meadows, bordered by broad plats of the
green maguey, and this isolation, together with the huge old trees that
shadowed and sang over it, gave the spot an air of romantic loneliness.

On arriving under the shelter of the trees, and in front of the lone
temple, our party halted by order of their leader. Several of the
troopers dismounted, and the prisoners were taken down from their
horses. I saw men uncoiling ropes that had hung from their saddle-bows,
and I shuddered to think of the use that was about to be made of them.

"Henry," said L----, riding up to me, and speaking in a whisper, "_they_
must not see this."--He pointed to the girls.--"Take them some distance
ahead and wait for us, we will not be long about it, I promise."

Glad of the excuse to be absent from such a scene, I put spurs to my
horse, and rode forward, followed by the females of the party. On
reaching the circle near the middle of the paseo I halted.

It was quite dark, and we could see nothing of those we had left behind
us. We could hear nothing--nothing but the wind moaning high up among
the branches of the tall poplars; but this, with the knowledge I had of
what was going on so near me, impressed me with an indescribable feeling
of sadness.

L---- had kept his promise; he was not long about it. In less than ten
minutes the party came trotting up, chatting gayly as they rode, but
_their prisoners had been left behind_!...

As the American army moved down the road to Vera Cruz, many traveling
carriages were in its train. In one of these were a girl and a
gray-haired old man. Almost constantly during the march a young officer
might be seen riding by this carriage, conversing through the windows
with its occupants within.

A short time after the return-troops landed at New Orleans, a bridal
party were seen to enter the old Spanish cathedral; the bridegroom was
an officer who had lost an arm. His fame, and the reputed beauty of the
bride, had brought together a large concourse of spectators.

"She loved me," said L---- to me on the morning this his happiest day;
"she loved me in spite of my mutilated limb, and should I cease to love
her because she has--no, I see it not; she is to me the same as ever."

And there were none present who saw it; few were there who knew that
under those dark folds of raven hair were the _souvenirs_ of a terrible
tragedy....

The Mexican government behaved better to the Ayankeeados than was
expected. They did not confiscate the property; and L---- is now
enjoying his fortune in a snug hacienda, somewhere in the neighborhood
of San Angel.




THE POOLS OF ELLENDEEN.


Joel Jerdan was a thriving retail hosier, in a close street at the
eastern end of the vast metropolis. He had a snug little shop, and a
nice, snug little wife, together with an annually increasing nice little
family; and Joel himself, if we except one weakness, was the most
diligent and steady little fellow to be found within the circuit where
the musical bells of Bow are heard. Small in person, pleasing in
exterior, and scrupulously neat in his attire, Joel Jerdan was always
considered a peculiarly dapper, civil, smart tradesman. His father had
pursued the same business in the same house; and though there were not
large profits, there was certainly contentment, which Joel very wisely
judged was far better. It did not require any vivid stretch of
imagination to form a comparison between the venerable Izaak Walton, of
piscatorial celebrity, and our hosier; for, like that immortal angler,
Joel was devoted to his calling and usually confined to precincts of no
large dimensions, but making his escape whenever he could to enjoy the
sole recreation of his existence--that recreation being the sport with
which Izaak's name is ever associated.

Joel Jerdan was a worthy disciple of this renowned piscator--at least,
he would have been had he strictly followed that master's injunctions;
but, if truth must be all confessed, the _one_ weakness already alluded
to in our little hosier, consisted of indulgence beyond the bounds of
strict sobriety, when any prolonged or favorable "sport" more than
usually elated his spirits. On such occasions, Patty, his faithful wife,
of course lectured the recreant hosier most severely; while he, shocked
and humbled, meekly promised "never to do so any more," and kept his
word until betrayed into temptation again. Being a water-drinker at
home, from motives of prudence, not to say necessity, it did not require
much in the way of stimulus to render poor little Joel addle-headed.
Whenever he could spare an hour or two on the long summer evenings,
after the business of the day was pretty well over, leaving the shop to
Patty's care, away sallied Joel to the docks, there to watch his float
and forget his cares, until night's sombre shadows warned him that all
sober citizens were retiring bedward. It was only at rare intervals that
Joel enjoyed a whole day's fishing; for, in the first place, he could
not absent himself from pressing daily duties, and, in the second, he
had no friend resident in the country within easy access, to whom he
could resort for an introduction to babbling streams and flowery meads.
He had toiled early and late, as his excellent father had done before
him; and when Patty's brother retired from official life (he was a
nobleman's butler), and became proprietor of a small public-house about
fifty miles from London, situated on the banks of a river much resorted
to by anglers, and sent a hearty invitation to Joel to come and visit
him, what words may paint the bright anticipations of the exulting
hosier? He had not been well of late--needed summer holidays; and, in
short Joel could not resist the tempting offer.

Patty urged her husband with affectionate solicitude, to "keep watch"
over himself; but she loved him too well, and was too unselfish, to
object to his accepting her brother's hospitality. "Make hay while the
sun shines, my dear," she said; "you may never have such another
opportunity. Business is slack just now--besides, baby is weaned, and I
can mind the shop with Charlie; only--" here there was a private
whispered admonition, the tenor of which may be inferred from Joel's
answer, accompanied by a hearty kiss: "I promise you, my ducky, that I
will never taste a drop, except when I get wet-footed, and _then_ only
just enough to keep the cold out."

"Ah, that cold, Joel!" replied Patty, "it's a queer thing, _that cold
is!_ always trying to gain a footing; and nothing but a sip of brandy to
keep it out!" And the wife shook her head.

It was too much felicity for Joel Jerdan!--the gathering together his
scanty assortment of rods and tackle--the laying out his hard-earned
money to purchase more--the packing his portmanteau and setting out on a
gay summer's morning!

Yet his dreams fell short of reality when Joel first beheld the paradise
of greenerie wherein "The Swan" nestled on the picturesque beauties of
Wood End. Here he could fish off the bank from a variegated
flower-garden, whose roses hung over the broad, deep waters, where
monsters of the finny tribes abounded. Here he _did_ fish off the
emerald bank; but, alas! the fish were strangely shy or cunning. Joel
labored most assiduously; but somehow, he caught nothing. There was
always _something_ wrong; either it was too hot, or the water was too
clear, or the fish wouldn't take the particular bait at that particular
spot, and they must be sought up or down stream for miles. And so Joel
followed the river's course patiently, day by day striving most manfully
to ensnare the wary inhabitants of the treacherous element, on whose
tranquil bosom wan lilies reposed as peacefully as primroses on the
hill-side graves reflected nigh. "Try the pools of Ellendeen," said one;
and "Try the pools of Ellendeen," said another, until Joel determined he
_would_ try these far-famed still waters, though it was a good way up
stream to reach them. However, a farmer offered to give him a lift in
his cart, and drop him on the road to market, leaving Joel to work his
way back to Wood End as might suit his sport or inclination; and well
supplied with refreshing viands, stowed away in his basket, slung across
his shoulder sportsman-like with leathern belt, Joel set forth to try
his luck in the "bottomless pit," for so the deepest pool of Ellendeen
was significantly named by the peasant-folk, with whom the domain
bounding the water was in ill-repute.

Solemn and stately were the neighboring woods, and a gray castellated
mansion frowned on the summit of a high hill overhanging the water. It
was uninhabited now, the family were extinct, and, of course, there was
a legend attached.

A former lord of Ellendeen was most anxious for a son and heir; but on
his unhappy lady presenting him with nothing but daughters, he swore
that on the birth of the next he would throw it into the pool beside the
wood. He did so with his own wicked hands more than once; and tradition
said that no less than four baby daughters of the ancient race of
Ellendeen were engulfed in those deep, dismal waters, which refused to
yield their dead, and, in short, proved to be "bottomless." However,
whether it was that they were left very much to themselves, or that the
fish in Ellendeen Pools were really finer than elsewhere, report had not
exaggerated their abundance and size; and Joel, to his infinite
satisfaction, managed to capture some "splendid fellows," according to
his own phrase.

It was a solitary place. The river here was dark and sleeping; it was a
fitting scene for the enactment of the baby tragedy. The air was
sultry, as if a storm were brewing, clouds were lowering, and the heat
was intense. There was "no cold" to keep out, and Joel's feet were
perfectly dry, but so was his throat; and Edwards, his kindly
brother-in-law, had placed a flask of brandy in the basket, saying he
might like "a little in water by-and-by." Joel was very thirsty and he
drank a vast deal of water out of a horn cup, pouring in just enough
spirit to take the "chill off," which in his heated condition, was not
safe or pleasant.

"I'll not forget my promise to my dear little Patty," said Joel to
himself, as he sipped. "Not one drop of brandy _alone_ will I touch. Ah,
bless me! how her precious heart would ache if she were to hear this
tale of the wicked lord and those dear innocents? She'd most think she
could see their pretty upturned faces in the water. _I_ wonder, now, if
there's any truth in such a queer story." And Joel fell into a reverie
as he wondered; and, sitting down on the bank, he fell asleep, and
dreamt that instead of hooking a fine heavy fish he had pulled out a
baby girl! Great was his horror, and he awoke with a start, to find that
darkness was rapidly gathering round him, while a few pattering drops
now and then betokened the approach of a storm, as the grumbling thunder
faintly died away in the distance. One draught to fortify himself, and
Joel commenced his homeward route--a rather difficult undertaking,
seeing that he was a stranger, and obliged to diverge frequently from
the immediate proximity of the river, which, however, was a sure guide,
as it flowed past "The Swan's" very door. But rivers are stray, winding
things; and after an hour's hard toiling over uneven paths, moving
slowly and carefully, for caution was extremely necessary on the river's
bank, poor little Joel Jerdan became thoroughly nervous and exhausted,
as the rain pelted down and the thunder burst over head. Wet through in
a trice, he had recourse to his brandy-flask. "Even Patty would
recommend it now," said he; and his thoughts reverted to his snug little
room behind the shop, where, beside a comfortable fire, he was wont to
enjoy a frugal supper with his beloved helpmate. Now, here he was,
wandering and houseless, uncertain of the way, wet through, and no sight
or sound of human kind to greet his longing eyes or ears. No. He only
heard the rushing of waters, the wailing of winds, and those strange,
mysterious noises which issue from desolate woods by night. It was
enough to appall a stouter heart than Joel Jerdan's; no wonder he had
recourse to the brandy-flask!

"Catch me a-going a-fishing in a strange place again!" murmured he to
himself; "only catch me at it, that's all!"

An impression that he was trespassing on haunted ground, and that, at
the same time, his basket became heavier and heavier, oppressed Joel
Jerdan with a sensation almost approaching to suffocation; and he
ejaculated aloud, as if to increase his courage--talking _at_ himself
_to_ himself--"Who says that Joel is tipsy? Who dares to say so
is--is--a reprobate. Who dares to say that Joel Jerdan carries a basket
full of dead babies instead of fish?" But just as the reeling piscator
came to this portion of his argument, a light appeared but a short
distance off, and, as he made toward it, a low, dull sound, as of
monotonous knocking, fell on his ear, notwithstanding his perceptions
were not particularly acute.

Joel staggered onward until he reached a building from whence the sounds
appeared to proceed; and, creeping slowly toward an aperture, peeped in
with a remarkably sagacious expression of countenance, no doubt, had the
darkness permitted it to be visible. What he beheld there caused him to
start backward so suddenly that, coming in contact with a felled tree,
whose bared trunk was stretched along the ground, he fell violently on
his face, the blood spurting from his nose, and a cry escaping at the
same moment from the hapless intruder. Joel Jerdan had seen three
spectral-looking men working at a coffin, engaged in finishing the
dismal receptacle with all their might, as if it was wanted in a hurry.
When he recovered from temporary stupor occasioned by his fall, the
scared little man in vain essayed to speak or move; for his tongue clave
to the roof of his mouth, and his legs were powerless to sustain his own
slight weight. Once, indeed, he thickly muttered, "Brandy, more brandy!"
but immediately sank back helpless and hopeless, for he heard a voice
say, "We'll put him in when it is finished; it is just done. We're in
good time, and it'll be the safest place for the drunken rascal." Poor
Joel Jerdan! to be put in a coffin alive at the suggestion of one whom
he considered an evil spirit!

He heard another one say, "Halloo! let's have a look into his basket!
Ho, ho, they are fine plump ones. Put them in with him, and let's be off
at once."

Off at once! _Where?_ thought the terrified and miserable man--where are
they off to? To the "bottomless pit" of Ellendeen, said Conscience, and
for stealing the dread secrets of the haunted pool, in the shape of the
long sought-for Ellendeen babies! As to the brandy-drinking, _that_ was
nothing--ghostly beings never interfered with such terrestrial matters!
The knocking discontinued, a tramping of feet was heard, a bustle as of
preparation, and Joel felt himself lifted up and laid in what he felt by
instinct to be--a coffin! Oh, it was most horrible! and, with a violent
effort, he jerked aside the lid which was placed lightly over him, half
raising himself as he did so.

"If he turns restive," said an authoritative, stern voice, "we must
secure him better, or he'll be in the water before his time comes, and
make food for the fishes instead of sport for Beelzebub."

So they _were_ conveying him to his nameless majesty, dead babies and
all, perhaps mistaking him for the wicked defunct Lord of Ellendeen
himself! Oh, as to his fishing in the still, deep pools, what had it
done for him? whither had it led him? Joel retained sense to be aware
that his impotent struggles only rendered things worse; for he was in
powerful hands, and they tossed him about like a feather. Could his dear
wife behold her husband in a coffin, what would her feelings be? And as
Joel thought of this, his tears began to flow copiously. He sobbed and
wailed like an infant, whining, and in a sickly maudlin tone; but it had
a lulling effect, and he fell off into a sleep just as he was conscious
of being lifted into a boat, and, amid gleaming torches, rowed rapidly
from land, but whether "up" or "down" stream he could not tell. But of
course they are taking me to the "bottomless pit," and there they will
cast me in with my unhallowed load, he thought.

Could it be the brandy that made Joel Jerdan confound the fish he had
caught with the Ellendeen heiresses, who had slumbered beneath the wave
for upward of a century? With a stifled cry for pardon on his lips,
insensibility succeeded; and when Joel awoke next day at noon, in his
own cosy bed at "The Swan," with the sun's bright beams streaming in
through the chinks of closely-drawn curtains, he shuddered at the
remembrance of his horrible adventure, much wondering how he came
_there_, and also how he had come by a bandaged cheek, from which the
blood was still streaming, and a head which throbbed to agony at every
breath he drew.

"What a terrific vision!" he exclaimed feebly, but aloud. "Demons rowing
me in a coffin to the bottomless pool of Ellendeen! Joel Jerdan! Joel
Jerdan! it is a warning to prepare for thy latter end!"

"Nay, nay, brother Joel!" exclaimed the cheerful voice of his
brother-in-law; "it isn't a death-warning, but only a gentle hint not to
attack the brandy-flask too often; your head is none of the strongest,
and won't bear it. However, be comforted, for you have brought back four
as fine fish as have been caught hereabouts for long and many a day,
though both they and you came to Wood End in _rayther_ a queer sort, it
must be owned--all packed up in a coffin together."

"Brother Edwards," murmured Joel, solemnly, "they were _not_ fish; they
were the babes of Ellendeen!"

"Poor fellow, so he is wandering again! There must be another blister
on!" exclaimed Mr. Edwards, compassionately. And by the time another
blister was put on, and more drugs had been administered, Joel's fever
was so far reduced that he was able to collect his thoughts and attempt
a description of the prodigious scenes he had gone through. "Why, that
was old Matthew Filkins and his two big sons whom you took for demons,"
shouted Mr. Edwards, as he listened attentively to Joel's account of his
midnight adventures. "Mat is a teetotaller, and thinks nothing of
parceling a man to Beelzebub if he gets drunk; and between ourselves,
brother Joel, I do not think that Matthew is far wrong, for drunkenness
is the high-road to ruin at all times."

"Yes, yes, I know that," groaned Joel. "But they put me in a coffin,
and rowed me away. How do I come _here_? Oh, I am a doomed man! I am a
doomed man! I shall not be long out of my real coffin!"

"Not if you go on like this, my brother," replied Mr. Edwards,
impressively, and with a serious air. "You have received a severe
contusion on the head, besides other injuries; and it is absolutely
necessary that you be kept quiet, and discard these foolish fancies. Old
Matthew Filkins is our only undertaker hereabouts; his workshop and
wood-yard are close to the river side, and by water he frequently
conveys his dismal but needful burdens. The wooden box in which he laid
you for safety was required urgently for the body of a poor lad who died
of infectious fever, and was laid in his mother's hovel midst living
brothers and sisters. Mat is a kind-hearted man, and he did that for the
poor widow which he would have scrupled to do for a rich one; though
night or day on the river is all the same to him, for he could guide a
boat blindfold: man and boy, for seventy years, Matthew Filkins has
journeyed on that highway. He thought that he was doing best by you; he
found, by a letter in your coat-pocket, that you came from 'The Swan,'
Wood End, and, as he dropped down stream past our door, he deposited
_you_, brother Joel, on the threshold where we found you, in a sad state
indeed. I believe old Mat considered his dismal box tainted from having
had one in your state in it, far more so than when it contained the
remains of the poor boy for whom it was destined."

"And so it was, so it was, brother Edwards," exclaimed the penitent and
humbled Joel; "and before I am put in a coffin again, I deserve to be
buried alive if I am not a reformed man. When I get drunk _again_, may I
be hurled into the pools of Ellendeen, along with the little misses of
respected memory. But I say, brother, we must keep this mishap a secret
from Patty, for she would be hard of belief as to it's being a reality,
as you say it is; she would stick to the warning, and make sure I was a
doomed man."

Very grateful and pleased was Patty, as time progressed and temptations
multiplied, to find that her dear husband was proof against the
strongest. Never was he known to be in the least degree inebriated after
his return from the memorable expedition to Wood End; and not even to
keep the "cold out," would he sip a drop of "fire-water" undiluted. The
"warning" had not been in vain; and a long while after the events
recorded had taken place, when Patty was made acquainted with them by
her loving husband, who detested all concealments from the partner of
his cares, she exclaimed in pitying tones, "It was very natural, my
dear, that your thoughts should run on the terrible story about those
precious babies, you that have little ones of your own. For _my_ part,
nothing in the wide world would tempt _me_ to go a-fishing in those deep
dark pools of Ellendeen; I should expect, every time I pulled up a heavy
weight to see a dear baby instead of a fish!"

"But my dear," deprecatingly returned Joel, "even if the tale be true,
it happened a century back, you know."

"Ah, Jo, Jo!" cried Patty, with a sly smile, "if I had a brandy-flask in
my basket, _perhaps_ I might forget _that_ important fact."




A WATERSPOUT IN THE INDIAN OCEAN.


One of the noblest and most beautiful sights in the world is a gallant,
symmetrical, full-rigged ship, clothed with mighty wings from keel to
truck, cleaving through the waves under the influence of a "right
merrie" wind abeam. There is something exceedingly grand, to behold it
steadily gliding along, like a thing instinct with life; to see its
towering pyramidal sails swelling to the generous breeze; to glance from
its fluttering ensigns, and bright sides, and snowy canvas, to the
contrasting deep blue sea, sparkling beneath the vertical rays of the
tropical sun; to hastily run over in one's mind a few only of the
spirit-stirring associations conjured by the object. But it is not with
a ship in this exhilarating position that I have now to deal; to the
reverse--it is with one which lay like "a painted ship upon a painted
ocean"--being a large East Indiaman, chartered to convey troops to the
Bombay presidency, and lying totally becalmed not far from the tropics.

I was languidly swinging in my hammock, one sultry morning, when not a
breath of air was stirring strong enough "to blow a lady's curl aside,"
when I heard a sound which convinced me that something unusual had
occurred to arouse the listless idlers lounging on the upper deck. It
speedily increased to such a degree that all between decks who were able
(myself included) rushed up, pell-mell, to discover the reason, and soon
there were none left below but the miserable sick, who could not crawl
from their stifling berths.

"What's the kick-up?" roared the gigantic corporal of the grenadier
company, the moment he got his head above the combing of the hatchway.

"Niver sighted sich a jamb sin' the meet at Ballyshannon!" echoed a
voluble Irish comrade. "Maybe a tu-an'-thirty-punder wouldn't mak'
buthermilk of us all just now."

"Can ye no kape that long red rope i' yer own impty hid, but ye must let
every body know ye're a gomulah? Ain't it a watherspout, eh?" fiercely
responded a brother Emeralder.

"A watherspout! an' what's that, avick? Summat to ate?"

"Ate! ye gossoon! Ay, it's summat as'll soon ate _yer_, big and ugly as
yer are."

Some few happy-go-lucky reprobates laughed at Pat's sapience, but the
majority felt the matter to be far too serious to permit their indulging
in senseless merriment, and strove, with uncontrollable interest, to
secure some position whence they could behold an object of which they
had heard or read highly-colored accounts. I myself instantly sprang
into the shrouds, and the whole spectacle then burst full upon me in
all its novel grandeur.

As already mentioned, not a breath of air was stirring, and the vessel
herself lay sluggishly on the briny ocean, the sails hanging in bags, or
clewed up in festoons to the yards, and the masts motionless as Pompey's
Pillar. At the distance of very little more than the ship's length, the
sea was bubbling up in the shape of spiral cones of varying height and
sizes, all of them springing from within a circle, the circumference of
which might be equal to that of the ring of an equestrian circus. The
vertical rays of the sun invested the falling spray with an
indescribable beauty, but the level water appeared of a dull, strong,
white color. The phenomenon was attended by a very loud and
long-continued hissing noise, of a peculiar and terrifying kind. This
was but the commencement of a waterspout. Every moment we expected to
see the several columns unite in one; and, from their contiguity, there
would, in such a case, be no hope of final escape. Either the ship would
be totally engulfed, or every atom of mast, rigging, and all above deck,
would be whirled a hundred fathoms through the air.

Travelers say that the serpent possesses the basilisk power of
fascinating its prey by the glare of its eye, and certainly a waterspout
is equal in that terrible attribute, for scarcely a man in the ship that
saw it was able to withdraw his gaze from the fearful spectacle. All
other faculties seemed to be absorbed, and even had they had the
opportunity to flee, few would have been able to move a foot.

Many on board were personally cognizant that any extraordinary
concussion of the air, as that produced by the firing of guns, had been
known to cause waterspouts to subside, and the captain of our ship had
given orders to train two of the main-deck large carronades (for we were
armed _en flute_) upon it, with heavy charges. But so riveted and
entranced were all, that it was with extreme difficulty that either
soldiers or sailors could be got to move; and only when some of the
officers literally placed their own shoulders to the wheel, and
exhorted, and even struck the gaping, bewildered men, were the guns
charged and trained in the waist of the ship. Scarcely was this done,
when five or six of the largest columns suddenly joined together, as
though by a species of magnetic attraction, and formed one of colossal
magnitude, high as the maintopsail-yard, the spiral motion rapidly
increasing, and the whole body seeming to near the ship.

"We shall soon know our fate," exclaimed the captain. "Now, Tom," said
he, to the old man-o'-war's gunner, "do your best--your very best."

"Ay, ay, sir!" replied the tough old salt, in that muttering, indistinct
manner, common to old seamen when much excited. "Avast a minute!"
grumbled he to an assistant, who was busy with the chocks. "Hand me that
monkey's tail!"

Eagerly clutching with his fish-hooks of fingers the short iron crowbar
so denominated, he rammed it as far as he could down the ample mouth of
the piece, in a peculiar direction.

"Away, skylarkers! Sea-room, ye red-coats! There: _de_-press a
little--more--so, avast!" He took a quick squint down the short but
deadly tube, and then turned to the artillery-man presiding over the
other carronade, with "Ship mate, are you all clear for a run?"

"All ready?" inquired the captain.

"All ready, sir," repeated the veteran tar.

"Very good," was the reply; and, springing on the capstan-head, the
latter sang out at the top of his voice, "Now men, I want every one of
you--red-coats and blue-jackets--to try your lungs! They're strong
enough on most occasions, and don't be behindhand now. Our lives depend
upon it." Here he paused; and, pointing significantly to the tremendous
spout, which enlarged and neared the ship every moment, he impressively
demanded, "Do you see yon big fellow?"

"Ay, ay," said the tarry-jackets.

"Yes," said the red-coats.

"Very well, then, all I've got to say, is, that if we don't thrash him,
he will thrash us! So no demi-semi-quavers, but give three hearty cheers
to frighten him away, for he's a real coward. Hats off, and up at arm's
length!" They obeyed.

"Now, my hearties," continued he, well knowing in what strain to address
them, "let us try if our throats can not drown the bark of these two
bull-dogs of ours! Why, we're good-for-nothing, if we can't make as much
din as a couple of rusty iron candlesticks! Hu-r-r-ah!"

As the gallant commander waved his hat aloft, the keen eye of the old
gunner glistened with uncommon ardor, and, squirting a long stream of
suspicious-looking fluid some odd fathoms from the ship's side, he
muttered, "Here goes a re'g'lar wide-awaker"--applied the match to the
priming--bang! bang! the two "candlesticks" blended into one
simultaneous roar, accompanied by hurrahs which of themselves shook the
sultry air.

The steady state of the ship was highly favorable to the marksmen, and
the skill of the old gunner produced a result equal to his most sanguine
expectations, for the "monkey's tail" struck fairly athwart the spout at
an elevation of some fifteen feet, and the whole immense body
immediately fell with a crash like that of a steeple, and before the
cheering ended, all had subsided--old Neptune's face became unwrinkled
as heretofore, ship and shadow again became double, rainbow-hued
dolphins again glided like elfin shadows just beneath the translucent
surface, flying-fish again skipped along it with redoubled zest, the
huge albatross again inertly stretched its immense wings, the screaming
sea-hawk again descended from the regions of immensity, where it had
been soaring at an elevation far beyond the pierce of human vision, the
white side of the insatiate shark again glanced in fearful proximity to
the imprisoned ship; aboard which ship hearts rose as the waves fell,
fear was indignantly kicked out of its brief abiding-place, tongues
were again in active commission, feet were again pattering, and arms
again swinging about, shrill orders were again bandied, the pet monkey
ran chattering aloft to complete its lately suspended dissection of the
marine's cap, tarry-jackets again freshened their quids, hitched their
voluminous trowsers, and made vigorous renewed allusion to their
precious eyes and limbs, and red-coats once more found themselves at the
usual discount.

So heavily had the guns been charged, that they rebounded across the
deck, overturning a score of the very "finest pisantry in the world,"
who one and all vehemently asserted in the rich brogue, and with the
lively gesticulations of their native land, that they were "kilt
intirely, an' no misthake, at all, at all!"

I have only to add, that a glorious spanking breeze followed within a
few hours; and many a poor fellow blessed the waterspout, from a vague
notion that to its agency we were indebted for the grateful change. But
what mysterious affinity there could be between a waterspout in a calm,
and a breeze springing up soon afterward, I leave my scientific friends
to discover and explain. Such things are above a plain seaman's
philosophy.




 MAURICE TIERNAY,
 THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE.

[Continued from the August Number.]


CHAPTER XXXVIII.

A ROYALIST "DE LA VIEILLE ROCHE."

On a hot and sultry day of June, I found myself seated in a country
cart, and under the guard of two mounted dragoons, wending my way toward
Kuffstein, a Tyrol fortress, to which I was sentenced as a prisoner. A
weary journey was it; for in addition to my now sad thoughts, I had to
contend against an attack of ague, which I had just caught, and which
was then raging like a plague in the Austrian camp. One solitary
reminiscence, and that far from a pleasant one, clings to this period.
We had halted on the outskirts of a little village called "Broletto,"
for the siesta; and there, in a clump of olives, were quietly dozing
away the sultry hours, when the clatter of horsemen awoke us; and on
looking up, we saw a cavalry escort sweep past at a gallop. The corporal
who commanded our party hurried into the village to learn the news, and
soon returned with the tidings that "a great victory had been gained
over the French, commanded by Bonaparte in person; that the army was in
full retreat; and this was the dispatch an officer of Melas's staff was
now hastening to lay at the feet of the emperor."

"I thought several times this morning," said the corporal, "that I heard
artillery; and so it seems I might, for we are not above twenty miles
from where the battle was fought."

"And how is the place called?" asked I, in a tone skeptical enough to be
offensive.

"Marengo," replied he; "mayhap the name will not escape your memory."

How true was the surmise, but in how different a sense from what he
uttered it! But so it was; even as late as four o'clock the victory was
with the Austrians. Three separate envoys had left the field with
tidings of success; and it was only late at night that the general,
exhausted by a disastrous day, and almost broken-hearted, could write to
tell his master that "Italy was lost."

I have many a temptation here to diverge from a line that I set down for
myself in these memoirs, and from which as yet I have not wandered--I
mean, not to dwell upon events wherein I was not myself an actor; but I
am determined still to adhere to my rule; and leaving that glorious
event behind me, plod wearily along my now sad journey.

Day after day we journeyed through a country teeming with abundance;
vast plains of corn and maize, olives, and vines every where: on the
mountains, the crags, the rocks, festooned over cliffs, and spreading
their tangled networks over cottages, and yet every where poverty,
misery, and debasement, ruined villages, and a half-naked, starving
populace, met the eye at every turn. There was the stamp of slavery on
all, and still more palpably was there the stamp of despotism in the air
of their rulers.

I say this in sad spirit; for within a year from the day in which I
write these lines, I have traveled the self-same road, and with
precisely the self-same objects before me. Changed in nothing, save what
time changes, in ruin and decay! There was the dreary village as of
yore; the unglazed windows closed with some rotten boarding, or occupied
by a face gaunt with famine. The listless, unoccupied group still sat or
lay on the steps before the church; a knot of nearly naked creatures sat
card-playing beside a fountain, their unsheathed knives alongside of
them; and, lastly, on the wall of the one habitation which had the
semblance of decency about it, there stared out the "double-headed
eagle," the symbol of their shame and their slavery! It never can be the
policy of a government to retard the progress and depress the energies
of a people beneath its rule. Why, then, do we find a whole nation,
gifted and capable as this, so backward in civilization? Is the fault
with the rulers? or are there, indeed, people, whose very development is
the obstacle to their improvement; whose impulses of right and wrong
will submit to no discipline; and who are incapable of appreciating true
liberty? This would be a gloomy theory; and the very thought of it
suggests darker fears for a land to which my sympathies attach me more
closely!

If any spot can impress the notion of impregnability, it is Kuffstein.
Situated on an eminence of rock over the Inn, three sides of the base
are washed by that rapid river, a little village occupies the fourth;
and from this the supplies are hoisted up to the garrison above, by
cranes and pulleys; the only approach being by a path wide enough for a
single man, and far too steep and difficult of access to admit of his
carrying any burden, however light. All that science and skill could do
is added to the natural strength of the position, and from every
surface of the vast rock itself the projecting mouths of guns and
mortars show resources of defense it would seem madness to attack.

Three thousand men, under the command of General Urleben, held this
fortress at the time I speak of; and by their habits of discipline and
vigilance, showed that no over-security would make them neglect the
charge of so important a trust. I was the first French prisoner that had
ever been confined within the walls, and to the accident of my uniform
was I indebted for this distinction. I have mentioned that in Genoa they
gave me a staff-officer's dress and appointments, and from this casual
circumstance it was supposed that I should know a great deal of
Massena's movements and intentions, and that by judicious management I
might be induced to reveal it.

General Urleben, who had been brought up in France, was admirably
calculated to have promoted such an object, were it practicable. He
possessed the most winning address, as well as great personal
advantages; and although now past the middle of life, was reputed one of
the handsomest men in Austria. He at once invited me to his table, and
having provided me with a delightful little chamber, from whence the
view extended four miles along the Inn, he sent me stores of books,
journals, and newspapers, French, English, and German, showing by the
very candor of their tidings a most flattering degree of confidence and
trust.

If imprisonment could ever be endurable with resignation, mine ought to
have been so. My mornings were passed in weeding or gardening a little
plot of ground outside my window, giving me ample occupation in that
way, and rendering carnations and roses dearer to me, through all my
after life, than without such associations they would ever have been.
Then I used to sketch for hours, from the walls, bird's-eye views,
prisoner's glimpses, of the glorious Tyrol scenery below us. Early in
the afternoon came dinner, and then, with the general's pleasant
converse, a cigar, and a chess-board, the time wore smoothly on till
nightfall.

An occasional thunder-storm, grander and more sublime than any thing I
have ever seen elsewhere, would now and then vary a life of calm but not
unpleasant monotony; and occasionally, too, some passing escort, on the
way to or from Vienna, would give tidings of the war; but except in
these, each day was precisely like the other, so that when the almanac
told me it was autumn, I could scarcely believe a single month had
glided over. I will not attempt to conceal the fact, that the inglorious
idleness of my life, this term of inactivity at an age when hope, and
vigor, and energy, were highest within me, was a grievous privation;
but, except in these regrets, I could almost call this time a happy one.
The unfortunate position in which I started in life, gave me little
opportunity, or even inclination, for learning. Except the little Pere
Michel had taught me, I knew nothing. I need not say that this was but a
sorry stock of education, even at that period; when I must say, the
sabre was more in vogue than the grammar.

I now set steadily about repairing this deficiency. General Urleben lent
me all his aid, directing my studies, supplying me with books, and at
times affording me the still greater assistance of his counsel and
advice. To history generally, but particularly that of France, he made
me pay the deepest attention, and seemed never to weary while impressing
upon me the grandeur of our former monarchies, and the happiness of
France when ruled by her legitimate sovereigns.

I had told him all that I knew myself of my birth and family, and
frequently would he allude to the subject of my reading, by saying, "The
son of an old 'Garde du Corps' needs no commentary when perusing such
details as these. Your own instincts tell you how nobly these servants
of a monarchy bore themselves--what chivalry lived at that time in men's
hearts, and how generous and self-denying was their loyalty."

Such and such like were the expressions which dropped from him from time
to time; nor was their impression the less deep, when supported by the
testimony of the memoirs with 

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