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Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, No. 15, August, 1851

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Title: Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, No. 15, August, 1851

Author: Various


        
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Language: English

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                                HARPER'S

                         NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

                    NO. XV.--AUGUST, 1851.--VOL. III.




                          TABLE OF CONTENTS


             NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.                                  289

             THE SOMNAMBULE.                                      304

             THE HOUSEHOLD OF SIR THO^S. MORE.                    310

             REMINISCENCES OF AN ATTORNEY.                        314

             VILLAGE LIFE IN GERMANY.                             320

             A PEEP AT THE "PERAHARRA."                           322

             A TOBACCO FACTORY IN SPAIN.                          326

             INFIRMITIES OF GENIUS.                               327

             RACE HORSES AND HORSE RACES.                         329

             HARTLEY COLERIDGE.                                   334

             THE ORIENTAL SALOONS IN MADRID.                      335

             PHANTOMS AND REALITIES.--AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY.           337

             THE FEET-WASHING ON GOOD FRIDAY IN MUNICH.           349

             A PEDESTRIAN IN HOLLAND.                             351

             THE LAST PRIESTESS OF PELE.                          354

             A SPANISH BULL FIGHT.                                359

             MAURICE TIERNAY, THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE.             360

             FRENCH COTTAGE COOKERY.                              369

             STUDENT LIFE IN PARIS.                               373

             A FAQUIR'S CURSE.                                    375

             LOVE AND SMUGGLING.--A STORY OF THE ENGLISH COAST.   378

             AMERICAN NOTABILITIES.                               384

             THE HUNTER'S WIFE.                                   388

             THE WARNINGS OF THE PAST.                            391

             THE PIE SHOPS OF LONDON.                             392

             MY NOVEL; OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.             394

             Monthly Record of Current Events.                    411

             Literary Notices.                                    419

             Editor's Drawer.                                     420

             WOMAN'S EMANCIPATION.                                424

             Three Leaves from Punch.                             425

             FASHIONS FOR AUGUST.                                 431




                          NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.

                          BY JOHN S. C. ABBOTT


                        I. CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH.

The island of Corsica, sublimely picturesque with its wild ravines and
rugged mountains, emerges from the bosom of the Mediterranean Sea, about
one hundred miles from the coast of France. It was formerly a province
of Italy, and was Italian in its language, sympathies, and customs. In
the year 1767 it was invaded by a French army, and after several most
sanguinary conflicts, the inhabitants were compelled to yield to
superior power, and Corsica was annexed to the empire of the Bourbons.

At the time of this invasion there was a young lawyer, of Italian
extraction, residing upon the island, whose name was Charles Bonaparte.
He was endowed with commanding beauty of person, great vigor of mind,
and his remote lineage was illustrious, but the opulence of the noble
house had passed away, and the descendant of a family, whose line could
be traced far back into the twilight of the dark ages, was under the
fortunate necessity of being dependent for his support upon the energies
of his own mind. He had married Letitia Raniolini, one of the most
beautiful and accomplished of the young ladies of Corsica. Of thirteen
children born to them eight survived to attain maturity. As a successful
lawyer the father of this large family was able to provide them with an
ample competence. His illustrious descent gave him an elevated position
in society, and the energies of his mind, ever in vigorous action,
invested him with powerful influence.

The family occupied a town house, an ample stone mansion, in Ajaccio,
the principal city of the island. They also enjoyed a very delightful
country retreat near the sea-shore, a few miles from Ajaccio. This rural
home was the favorite resort of the children during the heats of summer.
When the French invaded Corsica, Charles Bonaparte, then quite a young
man, having been married but a few years, abandoned the peaceful
profession of the law, and grasping his sword, united with his
countrymen, under the banner of General Paoli, to resist the invaders.
His wife, Letitia, had then but one child, Joseph. She was expecting
soon to give birth to another. Civil war was desolating the little
island. Paoli and his band of patriots, defeated again and again, were
retreating before their victorious foes into the fastnesses of the
mountains. Letitia followed the fortunes of her husband, and,
notwithstanding the embarrassment of her condition, accompanied him on
horseback in these perilous and fatiguing expeditions. The conflict,
however, was short, and, by the energies of the sword, Corsica became a
province of France, and the Italians who inhabited the island became the
unwilling subjects of the Bourbon throne. On the 15th of August, 1769,
in anticipation of her confinement, Letitia had taken refuge in her town
house at Ajaccio. On the morning of that day she attended church, but,
during the service, admonished by approaching pains, she was obliged
suddenly to return home, and throwing herself upon a couch, covered with
an ancient piece of tapestry, upon which was embroidered the battles and
the heroes of the Illiad, she gave birth to her second son, Napoleon
Bonaparte. Had the young Napoleon seen the light two months earlier he
would have been by birth an Italian, not a Frenchman, for but eight
weeks had then elapsed since the island had been transferred to the
dominion of France.

The father of Napoleon died not many years after the birth of that child
whose subsequent renown has filled the world. He is said to have
appreciated the remarkable powers of his son, and, in the delirium which
preceded his death, he was calling upon Napoleon to help him. Madame
Bonaparte, by this event, was left a widow with eight children, Joseph,
Napoleon, Lucien, Jerome, Eliza, Pauline, and Caroline. Her means were
limited, but her mental endowments were commensurate with the weighty
responsibilities which devolved upon her. Her children all appreciated
the superiority of her character, and yielded, with perfect and
unquestioning submission, to her authority. Napoleon in particular ever
regarded his mother with the most profound respect and affection. He
repeatedly declared that the family were entirely indebted to her for
that physical, intellectual, and moral training, which prepared them to
ascend the lofty summits of power to which they finally attained. He was
so deeply impressed with the sense of these obligations that he often
said, "My opinion is that the future good or bad conduct of a child,
depends entirely upon its mother." One of his first acts, on attaining
power, was to surround his mother with every luxury which wealth could
furnish. And when placed at the head of the government of France, he
immediately and energetically established schools for female education,
remarking that France needed nothing so much to promote its regeneration
as good mothers.

Madame Bonaparte after the death of her husband, resided with her
children in their country house. It was a retired residence, approached
by an avenue overarched by lofty trees and bordered by flowering shrubs.
A smooth, sunny lawn, which extended in front of the house, lured these
children, so unconscious of the high destinies which awaited them, to
their infantile sports. They chased the butterfly; they played in the
little pools of water with their naked feet; in childish gambols they
rode upon the back of the faithful dog, as happy as if their brows were
never to ache beneath the burden of a crown. How mysterious the designs
of that inscrutable Providence, which, in the island of Corsica, under
the sunny skies of the Mediterranean, was thus rearing a Napoleon, and
far away, beneath the burning sun of the tropics, under the shade of the
cocoa groves and orange-trees of the West Indies, was moulding the
person and ennobling the affections of the beautiful and lovely
Josephine. It was by a guidance, which neither of these children sought,
that they were conducted from their widely separated and obscure homes
to the metropolis of France. There, by their united energies, which had
been fostered in solitary studies and deepest musings they won for
themselves the proudest throne upon which the sun has ever risen; a
throne which in power and splendor eclipsed all that had been told of
Roman, or Persian, or Egyptian greatness.

[Illustration: THE BIRTH-HOUSE OF NAPOLEON.]

The dilapidated villa in Corsica, where Napoleon passed his infantile
years, still exists, and the thoughtful tourist loses himself in pensive
reverie as he wanders over the lawn where those children have played--as
he passes through the vegetable garden in the rear of the house, which
enticed them to toil with their tiny hoes and spades, and as he
struggles through the wilderness of shrubbery, now running to wild
waste, in the midst of which once could have been heard the merry shouts
of these infantile kings and queens. Their voices are now hushed in
death. But the records of earth can not show a more eventful drama than
that enacted by these young Bonapartes between the cradle and the grave.

There is, in a sequestered and romantic spot upon the ground, an
isolated granite rock, of wild and rugged form, in the fissures of which
there is something resembling a cave, which still retains the name of
"Napoleon's Grotto." This solitary rock was the favorite resort of the
pensive and meditative child, even in his earliest years. When his
brothers and sisters were in most happy companionship in the garden, or
on the lawn, and the air resounded with their mirthful voices, Napoleon
would steal away alone to his loved retreat. There, in the long and
sunny afternoons, with a book in his hand, he would repose, in a
recumbent posture, for hours, gazing upon the broad expanse of the
Mediterranean, spread out before him, and upon the blue sky, which
overarched his head. Who can imagine the visions which in those hours
arose before the expanding energies of that wonderful mind?

Napoleon could not be called an amiable child. He was silent and
retiring in his disposition, melancholy and irritable in his
temperament, and impatient of restraint. He was not fond of
companionship nor of play. He had no natural joyousness or buoyancy of
spirit, no frankness of disposition. His brothers and sisters were not
fond of him, though they admitted his superiority. "Joseph," said an
uncle at that time, "is the eldest of the family, but Napoleon is its
head." His passionate energy and decision of character were such that
his brother Joseph, who was a mild, amiable, and unassuming boy, was
quite in subjection to his will. It was observed that his proud spirit
was unrelenting under any severity of punishment. With stoical firmness,
and without the shedding of a tear, he would endure any inflictions. At
one time he was unjustly accused of a fault which another had committed.
He silently endured the punishment and submitted to the disgrace, and to
the subsistence for three days on the coarsest fare, rather than betray
his companion; and he did this, not from any special friendship for the
one in the wrong, but from an innate pride and firmness of spirit.
Impulsive in his disposition, his anger was easily and violently
aroused, and as rapidly passed away. There were no tendencies to cruelty
in his nature, and no malignant passion could long hold him in
subjection.

There is still preserved upon the island of Corsica, as an interesting
relic, a small brass cannon, weighing about thirty pounds, which was the
early and favorite plaything of Napoleon. Its loud report was music to
his childish ears. In imaginary battle he saw whole squadrons mown down
by the discharges of his formidable piece of artillery. Napoleon was the
favorite child of his father, and had often sat upon his knee; and, with
a throbbing heart, a heaving bosom, and a tearful eye, listened to his
recital of those bloody battles in which the patriots of Corsica had
been compelled to yield to the victorious French. Napoleon hated the
French. He fought those battles over again. He delighted, in fancy, to
sweep away the embattled host with his discharges of grape-shot; to see
the routed foe, flying over the plain, and to witness the dying and the
dead covering the ground. He left the bat and the ball, the kite and the
hoop for others, and in this strange divertisement found exhilarating
joy.

He loved to hear, from his mother's lips, the story of her hardships and
sufferings, as, with her husband and the vanquished Corsicans, she fled
from village to village, and from fastness to fastness before their
conquering enemies. The mother was probably but little aware of the
warlike spirit she was thus nurturing in the bosom of her son, but with
her own high mental endowments, she could not be insensible of the
extraordinary capacities which had been conferred upon the silent,
thoughtful, pensive listener. There were no mirthful tendencies in the
character of Napoleon; no tendencies in childhood, youth, or manhood to
frivolous amusements or fashionable dissipation. "My mother," said
Napoleon, at St. Helena, "loves me. She is capable of selling every
thing for me, even to her last article of clothing." This distinguished
lady died at Marseilles in the year 1822, about a year after the death
of her illustrious son upon the island of St. Helena. Seven of her
children were still living, to each of whom she bequeathed nearly two
millions of dollars; while to her brother, Cardinal Fesch, she left a
superb palace, embellished with the most magnificent decorations of
furniture, paintings, and sculpture which Europe could furnish. The son,
who had conferred all this wealth--to whom the family was indebted for
all this greatness, and who had filled the world with his renown, died a
prisoner in a dilapidated stable, upon the most bleak and barren isle of
the ocean. The dignified character of this exalted lady is illustrated
by the following anecdote: Soon after Napoleon's assumption of the
imperial purple, he happened to meet his mother in the gardens of St.
Cloud. The Emperor was surrounded with his courtiers, and half playfully
extended his hand for her to kiss. "Not so, my son," she gravely
replied, at the same time presenting her hand in return, "it is your
duty to kiss the hand of her who gave you life."

"Left without guide, without support," says Napoleon, "my mother was
obliged to take the direction of affairs upon herself. But the task was
not above her strength. She managed every thing, provided for every
thing with a prudence which could neither have been expected from her
sex nor from her age. Ah, what a woman! where shall we look for her
equal? She watched over us with a solicitude unexampled. Every low
sentiment, every ungenerous affection was discouraged and discarded. She
suffered nothing but that which was grand and elevated to take root in
our youthful understandings. She abhorred falsehood, and would not
tolerate the slightest act of disobedience. None of our faults were
overlooked. Losses, privations, fatigue had no effect upon her. She
endured all, braved all. She had the energy of a man, combined with the
gentleness and delicacy of a woman."

A bachelor uncle owned the rural retreat where the family resided. He
was very wealthy, but very parsimonious. The young Bonapartes, though
living in the abundant enjoyment of all the necessaries of life, could
obtain but little money for the purchase of those thousand little
conveniences and luxuries which every boy covets. Whenever they ventured
to ask their uncle for coppers, he invariably pleaded poverty, assuring
them that though he had lands and vineyards, goats and poultry, he had
no money. At last the boys discovered a bag of doubloons secreted upon a
shelf. They formed a conspiracy, and, by the aid of Pauline, who was too
young to understand the share which she had in the mischief, they
contrived, on a certain occasion, when the uncle was pleading poverty,
to draw down the bag, and the glittering gold rolled over the floor. The
boys burst into shouts of laughter, while the good old man was almost
choked with indignation. Just at that moment Madame Bonaparte came in.
Her presence immediately silenced the merriment. She severely
reprimanded her sons for their improper behavior, and ordered them to
collect again the scattered doubloons.

When the island of Corsica was surrendered to the French, Count
Marboeuf was appointed, by the Court at Paris, as its governor. The
beauty of Madame Bonaparte, and her rich intellectual endowments,
attracted his admiration, and they frequently met in the small but
aristocratic circle of society, which the island afforded. He became a
warm friend of the family, and manifested much interest in the welfare
of the little Napoleon. The gravity of the child, his air of pensive
thoughtfulness, the oracular style of his remarks, which characterized
even that early period of life, strongly attracted the attention of the
governor, and he predicted that Napoleon would create for himself a path
through life of more than ordinary splendor.

[Illustration: THE HOME OF NAPOLEON'S CHILDHOOD.]

When Napoleon was but five or six years of age, he was placed in a
school with a number of other children. There a fair-haired little
maiden won his youthful heart. It was Napoleon's first love. His
impetuous nature was all engrossed by this new passion, and he inspired
as ardent an affection in the bosom of his loved companion as that which
she had enkindled in his own. He walked to and from school, holding the
hand of Giacominetta. He abandoned all the plays and companionship of
the other children to talk and muse with her. The older boys and girls
made themselves very merry with the display of affection which the
loving couple exhibited. Their mirth, however, exerted not the slightest
influence to abash Napoleon, though often his anger would be so aroused
by their insulting ridicule, that, regardless of the number or the size
of his adversaries, with sticks, stones, and every other implement which
came in his way, he would rush into their midst and attack them with
such a recklessness of consequences, that they were generally put to
flight. Then, with the pride of a conqueror, he would take the hand of
his infantile friend. The little Napoleon was, at this period of his
life, very careless in his dress, and almost invariably appeared with
his stockings slipped down about his heels. Some witty boy formed a
couplet, which was often shouted upon the play-ground, not a little to
the annoyance of the young lover.

          Napoleone di mezza calzetta
          Fa l'amore a Giacominetta.
          Napoleon with his stockings half off
          Makes love to Giacominetta.

When Napoleon was about ten years of age, Count Marboeuf obtained for
him admission to the military school at Brienne, near Paris. Forty years
afterward Napoleon remarked that he never could forget the pangs which
he then felt, when parting from his mother. Stoic as he was, his
stoicism then forsook him, and he wept like any other child. His journey
led him through Italy, and crossing France, he entered Paris. Little did
the young Corsican then imagine as he gazed awe-stricken upon the
splendors of the metropolis, that all those thronged streets were yet to
resound with his name, and that in those gorgeous palaces the proudest
kings and queens of Europe were to bow obsequiously before his unrivaled
power. The ardent and studious boy was soon established in school. His
companions regarded him as a foreigner, as he spoke the Italian
language, and the French was to him almost an unknown tongue. He found
that his associates were composed mostly of the sons of the proud and
wealthy nobility of France. Their pockets were filled with money, and
they indulged in the most extravagant expenditures. The haughtiness with
which these worthless sons of imperious but debauched and enervated
sires, affected to look down upon the solitary and unfriended alien,
produced an impression upon his mind which was never effaced. The
revolutionary struggle, that long and lurid day of storms and desolation
was just beginning darkly to dawn; the portentous rumblings of that
approaching earthquake, which soon uphove both altar and throne, and
overthrew all of the most sacred institutions of France in chaotic ruin,
fell heavily upon the ear. The young noblemen at Brienne taunted
Napoleon with being the son of a Corsican lawyer; for in that day of
aristocratic domination the nobility regarded all with contempt who were
dependent upon any exertions of their own for support. They sneered at
the plainness of Napoleon's dress, and at the emptiness of his purse.
His proud spirit was stung to the quick by these indignities, and his
temper was roused by that disdain to which he was compelled to submit,
and from which he could find no refuge. Then it was that there was
implanted in his mind that hostility which he ever afterward so signally
manifested to rank founded not upon merit but upon the accident of
birth. He thus early espoused this prominent principle of republicanism:
"I hate those French," said he, in an hour of bitterness, "and I will do
them all the mischief in my power."

Thirty years after this Napoleon said, "Called to the throne by the
voice of the people, my maxim has always been, '_A career open to
talent_,' without distinction of birth."

[Illustration: NAPOLEON AT BRIENNE.]

In consequence of this state of feeling, he secluded himself almost
entirely from his fellow-students, and buried himself in the midst of
his books and his maps. While they were wasting their time in
dissipation and in frivolous amusements, he consecrated his days and his
nights with untiring assiduity to study. He almost immediately elevated
himself above his companions, and, by his superiority, commanded their
respect. Soon he was regarded as the brightest ornament of the
institution, and Napoleon exulted in his conscious strength and his
undisputed exaltation. In all mathematical studies he became highly
distinguished. All books upon history, upon government, upon the
practical sciences he devoured with the utmost avidity. The poetry of
Homer and of Ossian he read and re-read with great delight. His mind
combined the poetical and the practical in most harmonious blending. In
a letter written to his mother at this time, he says, "With my sword by
my side, and Homer in my pocket, I hope to carve my way through the
world." Many of his companions regarded him as morose and moody, and
though they could not but respect him, they still disliked his recluse
habits and his refusal to participate in their amusements. He was seldom
seen upon the play-ground, but every leisure hour found him in the
library. The Lives of Plutarch he studied so thoroughly, and with such
profound admiration, that his whole soul became imbued with the spirit
of these illustrious men. All the thrilling scenes of Grecian and Roman
story, the rise and fall of empires, and deeds of heroic daring absorbed
his contemplation. Even at this early period of his life, and in all
subsequent years, he expressed utter contempt for those enervating tales
of fiction, with which so many of the readers of the present day are
squandering their time and enfeebling their energies. It may be doubted
whether he ever wasted an hour upon such worthless reading. When
afterward seated upon the throne of France, he would not allow a novel
to be brought into the palace; and has been known to take such a book
from the hands of a maid of honor, and after giving her a severe
reprimand to throw it into the fire. So great was his ardor for
intellectual improvement, that he considered every day as lost in which
he had not made perceptible progress in knowledge. By this rigid mental
discipline he acquired that wonderful power of concentration by which he
was ever enabled to simplify subjects the most difficult and
complicated.

He made no efforts to conciliate the good-will of his fellow-students;
and he was so stern in his morals and so unceremonious in his manners
that he was familiarly called the Spartan. At this time he was
distinguished by his Italian complexion, a piercing eagle eye, and by
that energy of conversational expression which, through life, gave such
an oracular import to all his utterances. His unremitting application to
study, probably impaired his growth, for his fine head was developed
disproportionately with his small stature. Though stubborn and
self-willed in his intercourse with his equals, he was a firm friend of
strict discipline, and gave his support to established authority. This
trait of character, added to his diligence and brilliant attainments,
made him a great favorite with the professors. There was, however, one
exception. Napoleon took no interest in the study of the German
language. The German teacher, consequently, entertained a very
contemptible opinion of the talents of his pupil. It chanced that upon
one occasion Napoleon was absent from the class. M. Bouer, upon
inquiring, ascertained that he was employed that hour in the class of
engineers. "Oh! he does learn something, then," said the teacher,
ironically. "Why, sir!" a pupil rejoined; "he is esteemed the very first
mathematician in the school." "Truly," the irritated German replied, "I
have always heard it remarked, and have uniformly believed, that any
fool, and none but a fool, could learn mathematics." Napoleon afterward
relating this anecdote, laughingly said, "It would be curious to
ascertain whether M. Bouer lived long enough to learn my real character,
and enjoy the fruits of his own judgment."

Each student at Brienne had a small portion of land allotted to him,
which he might cultivate, or not, as he pleased. Napoleon converted his
little field into a garden. To prevent intrusion, he surrounded it with
palisades, and planted it thickly with trees. In the centre of this, his
fortified camp, he constructed a pleasant bower, which became to him a
substitute for the beloved grotto he had left in Corsica. To this grotto
he was wont to repair to study and to meditate, where he was exposed to
no annoyances from his frivolous fellow-students. In those trumpet-toned
proclamations which subsequently so often electrified Europe, one can
see the influence of these hours of unremitting mental application.

At that time he had few thoughts of any glory but military glory. Young
men were taught that the only path to renown was to be found through
fields of blood. All the peaceful arts of life, which tend to embellish
the world with competence and refinement, were despised. He only was the
chivalric gentleman, whose career was marked by conflagrations and
smouldering ruins, by the despair of the maiden, the tears and woe of
widows and orphans, and by the shrieks of the wounded and the dying.
Such was the school in which Napoleon was trained. The writings of
Voltaire and Rousseau had taught France, that the religion of Jesus
Christ was but a fable; that the idea of accountability at the bar of
God was a foolish superstition; that death was a sleep from which there
was no awaking; that life itself, aimless and objectless, was so
worthless a thing that it was a matter of most trivial importance how
soon its vapor should pass away. These peculiarities in the education of
Napoleon must be taken into account in forming a correct estimate of his
character. It could hardly be said that he was educated in a Christian
land. France renounced Christianity and plunged into the blackest of
Pagan darkness, without any religion, and without a God. Though the
altars of religion were not, at this time, entirely swept away, they
were thoroughly undermined by that torrent of infidelity which, in
crested billows, was surging over the land. Napoleon had but little
regard for the lives of others and still less for his own. He never
commanded the meanest soldier to go where he was not willing to lead
him. Having never been taught any correct ideas of probation or
retribution, the question whether a few thousand illiterate peasants,
should eat, drink, and sleep for a few years more or less, was in his
view of little importance compared with those great measures of
political wisdom which should meliorate the condition of Europe for
ages. It is Christianity alone which stamps importance upon each
individual life, and which invests the apparent trivialities of time
with the sublimities of eternity. It is, indeed, strange that Napoleon,
graduating at the schools of infidelity and of war, should have
cherished so much of the spirit of humanity, and should have formed so
many just conceptions of right and wrong. It is, indeed, strange that
surrounded by so many allurements to entice him to voluptuous indulgence
and self-abandonment, he should have retained a character, so
immeasurably superior in all moral worth, to that of nearly all the
crowned heads who occupied the thrones around him.

The winter of 1784 was one of unusual severity. Large quantities of snow
fell, which so completely blocked up the walks, that the students at
Brienne could find but little amusement without doors. Napoleon
proposed, that to beguile the weary hours, they should erect an
extensive fortification of snow, with intrenchments and bastions,
parapets, ravelins, and horn-works. He had studied the science of
fortification with the utmost diligence, and, under his superintendence
the works were conceived and executed according to the strictest rules
of art. The power of his mind now displayed itself. No one thought of
questioning the authority of Napoleon. He planned and directed while a
hundred busy hands, with unquestioning alacrity, obeyed his will. The
works rapidly rose, and in such perfection of science, as to attract
crowds of the inhabitants of Brienne for their inspection. Napoleon
divided the school into two armies, one being intrusted with the defense
of the works, while the other composed the host of the besiegers. He
took upon himself the command of both bodies, now heading the besiegers
in the desperate assault, and now animating the besieged to an equally
vigorous defense. For several weeks this mimic warfare continued, during
which time many severe wounds were received on each side. In the heat of
the battle, when the bullets of snow were flying thick and fast, one of
the subordinate officers, venturing to disobey the commands of his
general, Napoleon felled him to the earth, inflicting a wound which left
a scar for life.

[Illustration: THE SNOW FORT.]

In justice to Napoleon it must be related that when he had attained the
highest pitch of grandeur, this unfortunate school-boy, who had thus
experienced the rigor of Napoleon's military discipline, sought to
obtain an audience with the Emperor. Calamities had darkened the path of
the unfortunate man, and he was in poverty and obscurity. Napoleon, not
immediately recalling his name to mind, inquired if the applicant could
designate some incident of boyhood which would bring him to his
recollection. "Sire!" replied the courtier; "he has a deep scar upon his
forehead which he says was inflicted by your hand." "Ah!" rejoined
Napoleon, smiling; "I know the meaning of that scar perfectly well. It
was caused by an ice bullet which I hurled at his head. Bid him enter."
The poor man made his appearance, and immediately obtained from Napoleon
every thing that he requested.

At one time the students at Brienne got up a private theatre for their
entertainment. The wife of the porter of the school, who sold the boys
cakes and apples, presented herself at the door of the theatre to obtain
admission to see the play, of the death of Caesar, which was to be
performed that evening. Napoleon's sense of decorum was shocked at the
idea of the presence of a female among such a host of young men, and he
indignantly exclaimed, in characteristic language, "Remove that woman,
who brings here the license of camps."

Napoleon remained in the school at Brienne for five years, from 1779
till 1784. His vacations were usually spent in Corsica. He was
enthusiastically attached to his native island, and enjoyed exceedingly
rambling over its mountains, and through its valleys, and listening at
humble firesides to those traditions of violence and crime with which
every peasant was familiar. He was a great admirer of Paoli, the friend
of his father and the hero of Corsica. At Brienne the students were
invited to dine, by turns, with the principal of the school. One day
when Napoleon was at the table, one of the professors, knowing his young
pupil's admiration for Paoli, spoke disrespectfully of the distinguished
general, that he might tease the sensitive lad. Napoleon promptly and
energetically replied, "Paoli, sir, was a great man! He loved his
country; and I never shall forgive my father, for consenting to the
union of Corsica with France. He ought to have followed Paoli's fortunes
and to have fallen with him."

Paoli, who upon the conquest of Corsica had fled to England, was
afterward permitted to return to his native island. Napoleon, though in
years but a boy, was, in mind a full-grown man. He sought the
acquaintance of Paoli, and they became intimate friends. The veteran
general and the manly boy took many excursions together over the island;
and Paoli pointed out to his intensely-interested companion, the fields
where sanguinary battles had been fought, and the positions which the
little army of Corsicans had occupied in the struggle for independence.
The energy and decision of character displayed by Napoleon produced such
an impression upon the mind of this illustrious man, that he at one time
exclaimed, "Oh, Napoleon! you do not at all resemble the moderns. You
belong only to the heroes of Plutarch."

Pichegru, who afterward became so celebrated as the conqueror of Holland
and who came to so melancholy a death, was a member of the school at
Brienne at the same time with Napoleon. Being several years older than
the young Corsican, he instructed him in mathematics. The commanding
talents and firm character of his pupil deeply impressed the mind of
Pichegru. Many years after, when Napoleon was rising rapidly to power,
the Bourbons proposed to Pichegru, who had espoused the royalist cause,
to sound Napoleon and ascertain if he could be purchased to advocate
their claims. "It will be but lost time to attempt it," said Pichegru:
"I knew him in his youth. His character is inflexible. He has taken his
side, and he will not change it."

One of the ladies of Brienne, occasionally invited some of the
school-boys to sup with her at her chateau. Napoleon was once passing
the evening with this lady, and, in the course of conversation, she
remarked, "Turenne was certainly a very great man; but I should have
liked him better had he not burned the Palatinate." "What signifies
that," was Napoleon's characteristic remark, "if the burning was
necessary to the object he had in view?"[1] This sentiment, uttered in
childhood, is a key to the character of Napoleon. It was his great moral
defect. To attain an end which he deemed important, he would ride over
every obstacle. He was not a cruel man. He was not a malignant man. It
was his great ambition to make himself illustrious by making France the
most powerful, enlightened, and happy empire upon the surface of the
globe. If, to attain this end, it was necessary to sacrifice a million
of lives, he would not shrink from the sacrifice. Had he been educated
in the school of Christianity, he might have learned that the end will
not sanctify the means. Napoleon was not a Christian.

    [1] Turenne was a marshal of France, and a distinguished
    military leader in the reign of Louis XIV. He marched an
    invading army into the Palatinate, a province of Germany, on
    the Rhine, and spread devastation every where around him. From
    the top of his castle at Manheim, the Elector of the
    Palatinate, at one time saw two of his cities and twenty five
    of his villages in flames.

His character for integrity and honor ever stood very high. At Brienne
he was a great favorite with the younger boys, whose rights he defended
against the invasions of the older. The indignation which Napoleon felt
at this time, in view of the arrogance of the young nobility, produced
an impression upon his character, the traces of which never passed away.
When his alliance with the royal house of Austria was proposed, the
Emperor Francis, whom Napoleon very irreverently called "an old
granny,"[2] was extremely anxious to prove the illustrious descent of
his prospective son-in-law.

    [2] Some one repeated, to Maria Louisa, this remark of
    Napoleon. She did not understand its meaning, and went to
    Talleyrand, inquiring, "What does that mean, Monsieur, _an old
    granny_, what does it mean?" "It means," the accomplished
    courtier replied, with one of his most profound bows, "it
    means a venerable sage."

He accordingly employed many persons to make researches among the
records of genealogy, to trace out the grandeur of his ancestral line.
Napoleon refused to have the account published, remarking, "I had rather
be the descendant of an honest man than of any petty tyrant of Italy. I
wish my nobility to commence with myself, and to derive all my titles
from the French people. I am the Rodolph of Hapsburg of my family. My
patent of nobility dates from the battle of Montenotte."[3]

    [3] Rodolph of Hapsburg, was a gentleman, who by his own
    energies had elevated himself to the imperial throne of
    Germany; and became the founder of the house of Hapsburg. He
    was _the ancestor_ to whom the Austrian kings looked back with
    the loftiest pride.

Upon the occasion of this marriage, the Pope, in order to render the
pedigree of Napoleon more illustrious, proposed the canonization of a
poor monk, by the name of Bonaparte, who for centuries had been quietly
reposing in his grave. "_Holy Father!_" exclaimed Napoleon, "_I beseech
you, spare me the ridicule of that step. You being in my power, all the
world will say that I forced you to create a saint out of my family._"
To some remonstrances which were made against this marriage Napoleon
coolly replied, "I certainly should not enter into this alliance, if I
were not aware of the origin of Maria Louise being equally as noble as
my own."

Still Napoleon was by no means regardless of that mysterious influence
which illustrious descent invariably exerts over the human mind. Through
his life one can trace the struggles of those conflicting sentiments.
The marshals of France, and the distinguished generals who surrounded
his throne, were raised from the rank and file of the army, by their own
merit; but he divorced his faithful Josephine, and married a daughter of
the Caesars, that by an illustrious alliance he might avail himself of
this universal and innate prejudice. No power of reasoning can induce
one to look with the same interest upon the child of Caesar and the child
of the beggar.

Near the close of Napoleon's career, while Europe in arms was crowding
upon him, the Emperor found himself in desperate and hopeless conflict
on that very plain at Brienne, where in childhood he had reared his
fortification of snow. He sought an interview with the old woman, whom
he had ejected from the theatre, and from whom he had often purchased
milk and fruit.

"Do you remember a boy by the name of Bonaparte," inquired Napoleon,
"who formerly attended this school?" "Yes! very well," was the answer.
"Did he always pay you for what he bought?" "Yes;" replied the old
woman, "and he often compelled the other boys to pay, when they wished
to defraud me." "Perhaps he may have forgotten a few sous," said
Napoleon, "and here is a purse of gold to discharge any outstanding debt
which may remain between us." At this same time he pointed out to his
companion a tree, under which, with unbounded delight, he read, when a
boy, Jerusalem Delivered, and where, in the warm summer evenings, with
indescribable luxury of emotion, he listened to the tolling of the bells
on the distant village-church spires. To such impressions his
sensibilities were peculiarly alive. The monarch then turned away sadly
from these reminiscenses of childhood, to plunge, seeking death, into
the smoke and the carnage of his last and despairing conflicts.

It was a noble trait in the character of Napoleon, that in his day of
power he so generously remembered even the casual acquaintances of his
early years. He ever wrote an exceedingly illegible hand, as his
impetuous and restless spirit was such that he could not drive his pen
with sufficient rapidity over his paper. The poor writing-master at
Brienne was in utter despair, and could do nothing with his pupil. Years
after, Napoleon was sitting one day with Josephine, in his cabinet at
St. Cloud, when a poor man, with threadbare coat, was ushered into his
presence. Trembling before his former pupil, he announced himself as the
writing-master of Brienne, and solicited a pension from the Emperor.
Napoleon affected anger, and said, "Yes, you were my writing-master,
were you? and a pretty chirographist you made of me, too. Ask Josephine,
there, what she thinks of my handwriting!" The Empress, with that
amiable tact, which made her the most lovely of women, smilingly
replied, "I assure you, sir, his letters are perfectly delightful." The
Emperor laughed cordially at the well-timed compliment, and made the
poor old man comfortable for the rest of his days.

In the days of his prosperity, amidst all the cares of empire, Napoleon
remembered the poor Corsican woman, who was the kind nurse of his
infancy, and settled upon her a pension of two hundred dollars a year.
Though far advanced in life, the good woman was determined to see her
little nursling, in the glory of whose exaltation her heart so
abundantly shared. With this object in view she made a journey to Paris.
The Emperor received her most kindly, and transported the happy woman
home again with her pension doubled.

In one of Napoleon's composition exercises at Brienne, he gave rather
free utterance to his republican sentiments, and condemned the conduct
of the royal family. The professor of rhetoric rebuked the young
republican severely for the offensive passage, and to add to the
severity of the rebuke, compelled him to throw the paper into the fire.
Long afterward, the professor was commanded to attend a levee of the
First Consul to receive Napoleon's younger brother Jerome as a pupil.
Napoleon received him with great kindness, but at the close of the
business, very good-humoredly reminded him that times were very
considerably changed since the burning of that paper.

Napoleon remained in the school of Brienne for five years, from 1779
till 1784. He had just entered his fifteenth year, when he was promoted
to the military school at Paris. Annually, three of the best scholars,
from each of the twelve provincial military schools of France, were
promoted to the military school at Paris. This promotion, at the
earliest possible period in which his age would allow his admission,
shows the high rank, as a scholar, which Napoleon sustained. The records
of the Minister of War contain the following interesting entry:

"State of the king's scholars eligible to enter into service, or to pass
to the school at Paris. Monsieur de Bonaparte (Napoleon), born 15th
August, 1769; in height five feet six and a half inches; has finished
his fourth season; of a good constitution, health excellent, character
mild, honest, and grateful; conduct exemplary; has always distinguished
himself by application to mathematics; understands history and geography
tolerably well; is indifferently skilled in merely ornamental studies,
and in Latin, in which he has only finished his fourth course; would
make an excellent sailor; deserves to be passed to the school at Paris."

The military school at Paris, which Napoleon now entered, was furnished
with all the appliances of aristocratic luxury. It had been founded for
the sons of the nobility, who had been accustomed to every indulgence.
Each of the three hundred young men assembled in this school had a
servant to groom his horse, to polish his weapons, to brush his boots,
and to perform all other necessary menial services. The cadet reposed on
a luxurious bed, and was fed with sumptuous viands. There are few lads
of fifteen who would not have been delighted with the dignity, the ease,
and the independence of this style of living. Napoleon, however,
immediately saw that this was by no means the training requisite to
prepare officers for the toils and the hardships of war. He addressed an
energetic memorial to the governor, urging the banishment of this
effeminacy and voluptuousness from the military school. He argued that
the students should learn to groom their own horses, to clean their
armor, and to perform all those services, and to inure themselves to
those privations which would prepare them for the exposure and the toils
of actual service. No incident in the childhood or in the life of
Napoleon shows more decisively than this his energetic, self-reliant,
commanding character. The wisdom, the fortitude, and the foresight, not
only of mature years, but of the mature years of the most powerful
intellect, were here exhibited. The military school which he afterward
established at Fontainebleau, and which obtained such world-wide
celebrity, was founded upon the model of this youthful memorial. And one
distinguishing cause of the extraordinary popularity which Napoleon
afterward secured, was to be found in the fact, that through life he
called upon no one to encounter perils, or to endure hardships which he
was not perfectly ready himself to encounter or to endure.

At Paris the elevation of his character, his untiring devotion to study,
his peculiar conversational energy, and the almost boundless information
he had acquired, attracted much attention. His solitary and recluse
habits, and his total want of sympathy with most of his fellow students
in their idleness, and in their frivolous amusements, rendered him far
from popular with the multitude. His great superiority was, however,
universally recognized. He pressed on in his studies with as much
vehemence as if he had been forewarned of the extraordinary career
before him, and that but a few months were left in which to garner up
those stores of knowledge with which he was to remodel the institutions
of Europe, and almost change the face of the world.

About this time he was at Marseilles on some day of public festivity. A
large party of young gentlemen and ladies were amusing themselves with
dancing. Napoleon was rallied upon his want of gallantry in declining to
participate in the amusements of the evening. He replied, "It is not by
playing and dancing that a _man_ is to be formed." Indeed he never, from
childhood, took any pleasure in fashionable dissipation. He had not a
very high opinion of men or women in general. He was perfectly willing
to provide amusements which he thought adapted to the capacities of the
masculine and feminine minions flitting about the court; but his own
expanded mind was so engrossed with vast projects of utility and renown,
that he found no moments to spare in cards and billiards, and he was at
the furthest possible remove from what may be called a lady's man.

On one occasion a mathematical problem of great difficulty having been
proposed to the class, Napoleon, in order to solve it, secluded himself
in his room for seventy-two hours; and he solved the problem. This
extraordinary faculty of intense and continuous exertion both of mind
and body, was his distinguishing characteristic through life. Napoleon
did not blunder into renown. His triumphs were not casualties; his
achievements were not accidents; his grand conceptions were not the
brilliant flashes of unthinking and unpremeditated genius. Never did man
prepare the way for greatness by more untiring devotion to the
acquisition of all useful knowledge, and to the attainment of the
highest possible degree of mental discipline. That he possessed native
powers of mind, of extraordinary vigor it is true; but those powers were
expanded and energized by Herculean study. His mighty genius impelled to
the sacrifice of every indulgence, and to sleepless toil.

The vigor of Napoleon's mind, so conspicuous in conversation, was
equally remarkable in his exercises in composition. His professor of
Belles-Lettres remarked that Napoleon's amplifications ever reminded him
of "flaming missiles ejected from a volcano." While in the military
school at Paris the Abbe Raynal became so forcibly impressed with his
astonishing mental acquirements, and the extent of his capacities, that
he frequently invited him, though Napoleon was then but a lad of
sixteen, to breakfast at his table with other illustrious guests. His
mind was at that time characterized by great logical accuracy, united
with the most brilliant powers of masculine imagination. His
conversation, laconic, graphic, oracular, arrested every mind. Had the
vicissitudes of life so ordered his lot, he would undoubtedly have been
as distinguished in the walks of literature and in the halls of science,
as he became in the field and in the cabinet. That he was one of the
profoundest of thinkers all admit; and his trumpet-toned proclamations
resounded through Europe, rousing the army to almost a frenzy of
enthusiasm, and electrifying alike the peasant and the prince. Napoleon
had that comprehensive genius which would have been pre-eminent in any
pursuit to which he had devoted the energies of his mind. Great as were
his military victories, they were by no means the greatest of his
achievements.

In September, 1785, Napoleon, then but sixteen years of age, was
examined to receive an appointment in the army. The mathematical branch
of the examination was conducted by the celebrated La Place. Napoleon
passed the ordeal triumphantly. In history he had made very extensive
attainments. His proclamations, his public addresses, his private
conferences with his ministers in his cabinet, all attest the
philosophical discrimination with which he had pondered the records of
the past, and had studied the causes of the rise and fall of empires. At
the close of his examination in history, the historical professor,
Monsieur Keruglion, wrote opposite to the signature of Napoleon, "A
Corsican by character and by birth. This young man will distinguish
himself in the world if favored by fortune." This professor was very
strongly attached to his brilliant pupil. He often invited him to
dinner, and cultivated his confidence. Napoleon in after years did not
forget this kindness, and many years after, upon the death of the
professor, settled a very handsome pension upon his widow. Napoleon, as
the result of this examination, was appointed second lieutenant in a
regiment of artillery. He was exceedingly gratified in becoming thus
early in life an officer in the army. To a boy of sixteen it must have
appeared the attainment of a very high degree of human grandeur.

That evening, arrayed in his new uniform, with epaulets and the enormous
boots which at that time were worn by the artillery, in an exuberant
glow of spirits, he called upon a female friend, Mademoiselle Permon,
who afterward became Duchess of Abrantes, and who was regarded as one
of the most brilliant wits of the imperial court. A younger sister of
this lady, who had just returned from a boarding-school, was so much
struck with the comical appearance of Napoleon, whose feminine
proportions so little accorded with this military costume, that she
burst into an immoderate fit of laughter, declaring that he resembled
nothing so much as "Puss in Boots." The raillery was too just not to be
felt. Napoleon struggled against his sense of mortification, and soon
regained his accustomed equanimity. A few days after, to prove that he
cherished no rancorous recollection of the occurrence, he presented the
mirthful maiden with an elegantly bound copy of Puss in Boots.

[Illustration: LIEUTENANT BONAPARTE.]

Napoleon soon, exulting in his new commission, repaired to Valence to
join his regiment. His excessive devotion to study had impeded the full
development of his physical frame. Though exceedingly thin and fragile
in figure, there was a girlish gracefulness and beauty in his form; and
his noble brow and piercing eye attracted attention and commanded
respect. One of the most distinguished ladies of the place, Madame du
Colombier, became much interested in the young lieutenant, and he was
frequently invited to her house. He was there introduced to much
intelligent and genteel society. In after life he frequently spoke with
gratitude of the advantages he derived from this early introduction to
refined and polished associates. Napoleon formed a strong attachment for
a daughter of Madame du Colombier, a young lady of about his own age and
possessed of many accomplishments. They frequently enjoyed morning and
evening rambles through the pleasant walks in the environs of Valence.
Napoleon subsequently speaking of this youthful attachment said, "We
were the most innocent creatures imaginable. We contrived short
interviews together. I well remember one which took place, on a
midsummer's morning, just as the light began to dawn. It will scarcely
be credited that all our felicity consisted in eating cherries
together." The vicissitudes of life soon separated these young friends
from each other, and they met not again for ten years. Napoleon, then
Emperor of France, was, with a magnificent retinue, passing through
Lyons, when this young lady, who had since been married, and who had
encountered many misfortunes, with some difficulty gained access to him,
environed as he was with all the etiquette of royalty. Napoleon
instantly recognized his former friend and inquired minutely respecting
all her joys and griefs. He immediately assigned to her husband a post
which secured for him an ample competence, and conferred upon her the
situation of a maid of honor to one of his sisters.

From Valence Napoleon went to Lyons, having been ordered, with his
regiment, to that place in consequence of some disturbances which had
broken out there. His pay as lieutenant was quite inadequate to support
him in the rank of a gentleman. His widowed mother, with six children
younger than Napoleon, who was then but seventeen years of age, was
quite unable to supply him with funds. This pecuniary embarrassment
often exposed the high-spirited young officer to the keenest
mortification. It did not, however, in the slightest degree, impair his
energies or weaken his confidence in that peculiar consciousness, which
from childhood he had cherished, that he was endowed with extraordinary
powers, and that he was born to an exalted destiny. He secluded himself
from his brother officers, and, keeping aloof from all the haunts of
amusement and dissipation, cloistered himself in his study, and with
indefatigable energy devoted himself anew to the acquisition of
knowledge, laying up those inexhaustible stores of information and
gaining that mental discipline which proved of such incalculable
advantage to him in the brilliant career upon which he subsequently
entered.

While at Lyons, Napoleon, friendless and poor, was taken sick. He had a
small room in the attic of an hotel, where, alone, he lingered through
the weary hours of hunger and pain. A lady from Geneva, visiting some
friends at Lyons, happened to learn that a young officer was sick in the
hotel. She could only ascertain, respecting him, that he was quite
young--that his name was Bonaparte--then an unknown name; and that his
purse was very scantily provided. Her benevolent feelings impelled her
to his bedside. She immediately felt the fascination with which Napoleon
could ever charm those who approached him. With unremitting kindness she
nursed him, and had the gratification of seeing him so far restored as
to be able to rejoin his regiment. Napoleon took his leave of the
benevolent lady with many expressions of gratitude for the kindness he
had experienced.

After the lapse of years when Napoleon had been crowned Emperor, he
received a letter from this lady, congratulating him upon the eminence
he had attained, and informing him that disastrous days had darkened
around her. Napoleon immediately returned an answer, containing two
thousand dollars, and expressing the most friendly assurances of his
immediate attention to any favors she might in future solicit.

The Academy at Lyons offered a prize for the best dissertation upon the
question: "What are the institutions most likely to contribute to human
happiness?" Napoleon wrote upon the subject, and though there were many
competitors, the prize was awarded to him. Many years afterward, when
seated upon the throne, his Minister Talleyrand sent a courier to Lyons
and obtained the manuscript. Thinking it would please the Emperor, he,
one day, when they were alone, put the essay into Napoleon's hands,
asking him if he knew the author. Napoleon immediately recognizing the
writing, threw it into the flames, saying at the same time, that it was
a boyish production full of visionary and impracticable schemes. He
also, in these hours of unceasing study, wrote a History of Corsica,
which he was preparing to publish, when the rising storms of the times
led him to lay aside his pen for the sword.

Two great parties, the Royalists and the Republicans, were now
throughout France contending for the supremacy. Napoleon joined the
Republican side. Most of the officers in the army being sons of the Old
Nobility, were of the opposite party; and this made him very unpopular
with them. He, however, with great firmness, openly avowed his
sentiments, and eagerly watched the progress of those events, which he
thought would open to him a career of fame and fortune. He still
continued to prosecute his studies with untiring diligence. He was, at
this period of his life, considered proud, haughty, and irascible,
though he was loved with great enthusiasm by the few whose friendship he
chose to cultivate. His friends appreciated his distinguished character
and attainments, and predicted his future eminence. His remarkable
logical accuracy of mind, his lucid and energetic expressions, his
immense information upon all points of history and upon every subject of
practical importance, his extensive scientific attainments, and his
thorough accomplishments as an officer, rendered him an object of
general observation, and secured for him the respect even of the idlers
who disliked his unsocial habits.

About this time, in consequence of some popular tumults at Auxonne,
Napoleon, with his regiment, was ordered to that place. He, with some
subaltern officers, was quartered at the house of a barber. Napoleon, as
usual, immediately, when off of duty, cloistered himself in his room
with his law books, his scientific treatises, his histories, and his
mathematics. His associate officers loitered through the listless days,
coquetting with the pretty wife of the barber, smoking cigars in the
shop, and listening to the petty gossip of the place. The barber's wife
was quite annoyed at receiving no attentions from the handsome,
distinguished, but ungallant young lieutenant. She accordingly disliked
him exceedingly. A few years after as Napoleon, then commander of the
army of Italy, was on his way to Marengo, he passed through Auxonne. He
stopped at the door of the barber's shop and asked his former hostess,
if she remembered a young officer by the name of Bonaparte, who was once
quartered in her family. "Indeed, I do," was the pettish reply, "and a
very disagreeable inmate he was. He was always either shut up in his
room or, if he walked out, he never condescended to speak to any one."
"Ah! my good woman," Napoleon rejoined; "had I passed my time as you
wished to have me, I should not now have been in command of the army of
Italy."

The higher nobility and most of the officers in the army were in favor
of Royalty. The common soldiers and the great mass of the people were
advocates of Republicanism. Napoleon's fearless avowal, under all
circumstances, of his hostility to monarchy and his approval of popular
liberty, often exposed him to serious embarrassments. He has himself
given a very glowing account of an interview at one of the fashionable
residences at Auxonne, where he had been invited to meet an aristocratic
circle. The revolution was just breaking out in all its terror, and the
excitement was intense throughout France. In the course of conversation
Napoleon gave free utterance to his sentiments. They all instantly
assailed him, gentlemen and ladies, pell-mell. Napoleon was not a man to
retreat. His condensed sentences fell like hot shot among the crowd of
antagonists who surrounded him. The battle waxed warmer and warmer.
There was no one to utter a word in favor of Napoleon. He was a young
man of nineteen, surrounded by veteran generals and distinguished
nobles. Like Wellington at Waterloo he was wishing that some "Blucher or
night were come." Suddenly the door was opened, and the mayor of the
city was announced. Napoleon began to flatter himself that a rescue was
at hand, when the little great man in pompous dignity joined the
assailants and belabored the young officer at bay, more mercilessly than
all the rest. At last the lady of the house took compassion upon her
defenseless guest, and interposed to shield him from the blows which he
was receiving in the unequal contest.

One evening, in the year 1790, there was a very brilliant party in the
drawing-rooms of M. Neckar, the celebrated financier. The Bastile had
just been demolished. The people, exulting in newly found power, and
dimly discerning long-defrauded rights, were trampling beneath their
feet, indiscriminately, all institutions, good and bad, upon which ages
had left their sanction. The gay and fickle Parisians, notwithstanding
the portentous approachings of a storm, the most fearful earth has ever
witnessed, were pleased with change, and with reckless curiosity awaited
the result of the appalling phenomenon exhibited around them. Many of
the higher nobility, terrified at the violence, daily growing more
resistless and extended, had sought personal safety in emigration. The
tone of society in the metropolis had, however, become decidedly
improved by the greater commingling, in all the large parties, of men
eminent in talents and in public services, as well as of those
illustrious in rank.

The entertainments given by M. Neckar, embellished by the presence, as
the presiding genius, of his distinguished daughter, Madame de Stael,[4]
were brilliant in the extreme, assembling all the noted gentlemen and
ladies of the metropolis. On the occasion to which we refer, the
magnificent saloon was filled with men who had attained the highest
eminence in literature and science, or who, in those troubled times, had
ascended to posts of influence and honor in the state. Mirabeau was
there,[5] with his lofty brow and thunder tones, proud of his very
ugliness. Talleyrand[6] moved majestically through the halls,
conspicuous for his gigantic proportions and courtly bearing. La
Fayette, rendered glorious as the friend of Washington and his companion
in arms, had gathered around him a group of congenial spirits. In the
embrasure of a window sat Madame de Stael. By the brilliance of her
conversational powers she had attracted to her side St. Just, who
afterward obtained such sanguinary notoriety; Malesherbes, the eloquent
and intrepid advocate of royalty; Lalande, the venerable astronomer;
Marmontel and Lagrange, illustrious mathematicians, and others, whose
fame was circulating through Europe.

    [4] Napoleon, at St. Helena, gave the following graphic and
    most discriminating sketch of the character of Madame de
    Stael. "She was a woman of considerable talent and great
    ambition; but so extremely intriguing and restless, as to give
    rise to the observation, that she would throw her friends into
    the sea, that, at the moment of drowning, she might have an
    opportunity of saving them. Shortly after my return from the
    conquest of Italy, I was accosted by her in a large company,
    though at that time I avoided going out much in public. She
    followed me every where, and stuck so close that I could not
    shake her off. At last she asked me, 'Who is at this moment
    the first woman in the world?' intending to pay a compliment
    to me, and thinking that I would return it. I looked at her,
    and replied, 'She, madame, who has borne the greatest number
    of children,' an answer which greatly confused her." From this
    hour she became the unrelenting enemy of Napoleon.

    [5] "Few persons," said Mirabeau, "comprehend the power of my
    ugliness." "If you would form an idea of my looks," he wrote
    to a lady who had never seen him, "you must imagine a tiger
    who has had the small-pox." "The life of Mirabeau," says
    Sydney Smith, "should embrace all the talents and all the
    vices, every merit and every defect, every glory and every
    disgrace. He was student, voluptuary, soldier, prisoner,
    author, diplomatist, exile, pauper, courtier, democrat,
    orator, statesman, traitor. He has seen more, suffered more,
    learned more, felt more, done more, than any man of his own or
    any other age."

    [6] Talleyrand, one of the most distinguished diplomatists,
    was afterward elevated by the Emperor Napoleon to be Grand
    Chamberlain of the Empire. He was celebrated for his
    witticisms. One day Mirabeau was recounting the qualities
    which, in those difficult times, one should possess to be
    minister of state. He was evidently describing his own
    character, when, to the great mirth of all present, Talleyrand
    archly interrupted him with the inquiry, "_He should also be
    pitted with the small-pox, should he not?_"

In one corner stood the celebrated Alfieri, reciting with almost
maniacal gesticulation his own poetry to a group of ladies. The grave
and philosophical Neckar was the centre of another group of careworn
statesmen, discussing the rising perils of the times. It was an
assemblage of all which Paris could afford of brilliance in rank,
talent, or station. About the middle of the evening, Josephine, the
beautiful, but then neglected wife of M. Beauharnais, was announced,
accompanied by her little son Eugene. Madame de Genlis, soon made her
appearance, attended by the brother of the king; and, conscious of her
intellectual dignity, floated through that sea of brilliance, recognized
wherever she approached, by the abundance of perfumery which her dress
exhaled. Madame Campan, the friend and companion of Maria Antoinette,
and other ladies and gentlemen of the Court were introduced, and the
party now consisted of a truly remarkable assemblage of distinguished
men and women. Parisian gayety seemed to banish all thoughts of the
troubles of the times, and the hours were surrendered to unrestrained
hilarity. Servants were gliding through the throng, bearing a profusion
of refreshments consisting of delicacies gathered from all quarters of
the globe.

As the hour of midnight approached there was a lull in the buzz of
conversation, and the guests gathered in silent groups to listen to a
musical entertainment. Madame de Stael took her seat at the piano, while
Josephine prepared to accompany her with the harp. They both were
performers of singular excellence, and the whole assembly was hushed in
expectation. Just as they had commenced the first notes of a charming
duet the door of the saloon was thrown open, and two new guests entered
the apartment. The one was an elderly gentleman, of very venerable
aspect, and dressed in the extreme of simplicity. The other was a young
man, very small, pale, and slender. The elderly gentleman was
immediately recognized by all as the Abbe Raynal, one of the most
distinguished philosophers of France; but no one knew the pale, slender,
fragile youth who accompanied him. They both, that they might not
interrupt the music, silently took seats near the door. As soon as the
performance was ended, and the ladies had received those compliments
which their skill and taste elicited, the Abbe approached Madame de
Stael, accompanied by his young protege, and introduced him as Monsieur
Napoleon Bonaparte. Bonaparte! that name which has since filled the
world, was then plebeian and unknown, and upon its utterance many of the
proud aristocrats in that assembly shrugged their shoulders, and turned
contemptuously away to their conversation and amusement.

Madame de Stael had almost an instinctive perception of the presence of
genius. Her attention was instantly arrested by the few remarks with
which Napoleon addressed her. They were soon engaged in very animated
conversation. Josephine and several other ladies joined them. The group
grew larger and larger as the gentlemen began to gather around the
increasing circle. "Who is that young man who thus suddenly has gathered
such a group around him?" the proud Alfieri condescended to ask of the
Abbe Raynal. "He is," replied the Abbe, "a protege of mine, and a young
man of very extraordinary talent. He is very industrious, well read, and
has made remarkable attainments in history, mathematics, and all
military science." Mirabeau came stalking across the room, lured by
curiosity to see what could be the source of the general attraction.
"Come here! come here!" said Madame de Stael, with a smile, and in an
under tone. "We have found a little great man. I will introduce him to
you, for I know that you are fond of men of genius."

Mirabeau very graciously shook hands with Napoleon, and entered into
conversation with the untitled young man, without assuming any airs of
superiority. A group of distinguished men now gathered round them, and
the conversation became in some degree general. The Bishop of Autun
commended Fox and Sheridan for having asserted that the French army, by
refusing to obey the orders of their superiors to fire upon the
populace, had set a glorious example to all the armies of Europe;
because, by so doing, they had shown that men by becoming soldiers did
not cease to be citizens.

"Excuse me, my lord," exclaimed Napoleon, in tones of earnestness which
arrested general attention, "if I venture to interrupt you; but as I am
an officer I must claim the privilege of expressing my sentiments. It is
true that I am very young, and it may appear presumptuous in me to
address so many distinguished men; but during the last three years I
have paid intense attention to our political troubles. I see with sorrow
the state of our country, and I will incur censure rather than pass
unnoticed principles which are not only unsound but which are subversive
of all government. As much as any one I desire to see all abuses,
antiquated privileges, and usurped rights annulled. Nay! as I am at the
commencement of my career, it will be my best policy as well as my duty
to support the progress of popular institutions, and to promote reform
in every branch of the public administration. But as in the last twelve
months I have witnessed repeated alarming popular disturbances, and have
seen our best men divided into factions which threaten to be
irreconcilable, I sincerely believe that now _more than ever_, a strict
discipline in the army is absolutely necessary for the safety of our
constitutional government and for the maintenance of order. Nay! if our
troops are not compelled unhesitatingly to obey the commands of the
executive, we shall be exposed to the blind fury of democratic passions,
which will render France the most miserable country on the globe. The
ministry may be assured that if the daily increasing arrogance of the
Parisian mob is not repressed by a strong arm, and social order rigidly
maintained, we shall see not only this capital, but every other city in
France, thrown into a state of indescribable anarchy, while the real
friends of liberty, the enlightened patriots, now working for the best
good of our country, will sink beneath a set of demagogues, who, with
louder outcries for freedom on their tongues, will be in reality but a
horde of savages worse than the Neros of old."

These emphatic sentences uttered by Napoleon, with an air of authority
which seemed natural to the youthful speaker, caused a profound
sensation. For a moment there was perfect silence in the group, and
every eye was riveted upon the pale and marble cheek of Napoleon. Neckar
and La Fayette listened with evident uneasiness to his bold and weighty
sentiments, as if conscious of the perils which his words so forcibly
portrayed. Mirabeau nodded once or twice significantly to Tallyrand,
seeming thus to say "that is exactly the truth." Some turned upon their
heels, exasperated at this fearless avowal of hostility to democratic
progress. Alfieri, one of the proudest of aristocrats, could hardly
restrain his delight, and gazed with amazement upon the intrepid young
man. "Condorcet," says an eye witness, "nearly made me cry out, by the
squeezes which he gave my hand at every sentence uttered by the pale,
slender, youthful speaker."

As soon as Napoleon had concluded, Madame de Stael, turning to the Abbe
Raynal, cordially thanked him for having introduced her to the
acquaintance of one, cherishing views as a statesman so profound, and so
essential to present emergencies. Then turning to her father and his
colleagues, she said, with her accustomed air of dignity and authority,
"Gentlemen, I hope that you will heed the important truths which you
have now heard uttered." The young Napoleon, then but nineteen years of
age, thus suddenly became the most prominent individual in that whole
assembly. Wherever he moved many eyes followed him. He had none of the
airs of a man of fashion. He made no attempts at displays of gallantry.
A peaceful melancholy seemed to overshadow him, as, with an abstracted
air, he moved through the glittering throng, without being in the
slightest degree dazzled by its brilliance. The good old Abbe Raynal
appeared quite enraptured in witnessing this triumph of his young
protege.

Soon after this, in September, 1791, Napoleon, then twenty years of age,
on furlough, visited his native island. He had recently been promoted to
a first-lieutenancy. Upon returning to the home of his childhood, to
spend a few months in rural leisure, the first object of his attention
was to prepare for himself a study, where he could be secluded from all
interruption. For this purpose he selected a room in the attic of the
house, where he would be removed from all the noise of the family. Here,
with his books spread out before him, he passed days and nights of the
most incessant mental toil. He sought no recreation; he seldom went out;
he seldom saw any company. Had some guardian angel informed him of the
immense drafts which, in the future, were to be made upon his mind, he
could not have consecrated himself with more sleepless energy, to
prepare for the emergency. The life of Napoleon presents the most
striking illustration of the truth of the sentiment,

          "The heights by great men reached and kept
            Were not attained by sudden flight;
          But they, while their companions slept,
            Were toiling upward in the night."

[Illustration: THE WATER-EXCURSION.]

One cloudless morning, just after the sun had risen, he was sauntering
along by the sea-shore, in solitary musings, when he chanced to meet a
brother officer, who reproached him with his unsocial habits, and urged
him to indulge, for once, in a pleasure excursion. Napoleon, who had,
for some time, been desirous of taking a survey of the harbor, and of
examining some heights, upon the opposite side of the gulf, which, in
his view, commanded the town of Ajaccio, consented to the proposal, upon
the condition that his friend should accompany him upon the water. They
made a signal to some sailors on board a vessel riding at anchor, at
some distance from the shore, and were soon in a boat propelled by
vigorous rowers. Napoleon seated himself at the stern, and taking from
his pocket a ball of pack-thread, one end of which he had fastened upon
the shore, commenced the accurate measurement of the width of the gulf.
His companion, feeling no interest in the survey, and seeking only
listless pleasure, was not a little annoyed in having his amusement thus
converted into a study for which he had no relish. When they arrived at
the opposite side of the bay, Napoleon insisted upon climbing the
heights. Regardless of the remonstrances of his associate, who
complained of hunger, and of absence from the warm breakfast which was
in readiness for him, Napoleon persisted in exploring the ground.
Napoleon in describing the scene says: "My companion, quite uninterested
in researches of this kind, begged me to desist. I strove to divert him,
and to gain time to accomplish my purpose, but appetite made him deaf.
If I spoke to him of the width of the bay, he replied that he was
hungry, and that his warm breakfast was cooling. If I pointed out to
him a church steeple or a house, which I could reach with my
bomb-shells, he replied, "Yes, but I have not breakfasted." At length,
late in the morning, we returned, but the friends with whom he was
expecting to breakfast, tired of the delay, had finished their repast,
so that, on his arrival he found neither guests nor banquet. He resolved
to be more cautious in future as to the companion he would choose, and
the hour in which he would set out, on an excursion of pleasure."

Subsequently the English surmounted these very heights by a redoubt, and
then Napoleon had occasion to avail himself very efficiently of the
information acquired upon this occasion.




                            THE SOMNAMBULE.


About twelve months ago Andre Folitton, horticulturist and herbalist of
St. Cloud, a young man of worth and respectability, was united in
marriage to Julienne, daughter of an apothecary of the same place. Andre
and Julienne had long loved each other, and congeniality of disposition,
parity of years, and health and strength, as well as a tolerably
comfortable setout in the world, seemed to promise for them many years
of happiness. Supremely contented, and equally disposed to render life
as pleasant and blithe as possible, the future seemed spread before
them, a long vista of peace and pleasantness, and bright were the
auguries which rose around them during the early days of their espousal.

Though he loved mirth and fun as much as any one, Andre was extremely
regular in his habits, and every engagement he made was pretty sure of
being punctually attended to. Julienne quickly discovered that thrice
every week, precisely at seven o'clock in the evening, her husband left
his home, to which he returned generally after the lapse of two hours.
Whither he went she did not know, nor could she find out.

Andre always parried her little inquisitions with jokes and laughter.
She perceived, however, that his excursions might be connected with
business in some way or other, for he never expended money, as he would
had he gone to a cafe or estaminet. Julienne's speculations went no
further than this. As to the husband and wife, had they been left to
themselves, not the slightest interruption of mutual good-feeling would
ever have arisen out of this matter.

But it is a long lane which has no turning, and a very slight
circumstance gave an unhappy twist to the path which had promised such a
direct and pleasant voyage through life. Julienne had almost ceased to
puzzle herself about her husband's periodical absences, indeed had
ceased to joke when he returned from them, having easily learned--the
good-tempered little woman--to consider them as nothing more than some
engagement connected with the ordinary course of business. One night,
however, a neighbor, Madame Margot, stepped into the bowery cottage of
the young pair to have a chat and a cup of coffee with Madame Folitton.
Madame Margot, though she had more words than Julienne, and could keep
the conversation going at a more rattling pace, had by no means so sweet
and gracious a presence. Her sharp eye and thin lips were true indices
to a prying and somewhat ill-natured disposition; and the fact is, that
Madame Margot, having several times seen Andre pass her house alone in
the evening, as if taking a walk by himself, had been seized with a
strong desire to know "how things were going on" between him and his
wife. Madame Margot had never joined other folks in their profuse
prophesies of future happiness when Andre and Julienne were wedded. She
was not the woman to do it; her temper had spread her own bed, and her
husband's too, with thorns and briars, and so she declared that the
happiness of wedded life was something worse than a _mauvaise
plaisanterie_. "Eh, bien!" she exclaimed, when folks spoke of Andre and
his wife. "I wish them well, but I have lived too long to suppose that
such a beginning as theirs can hold on long! We shall hear different
tales by and by!" So Madame Margot, with her sharp eye and thin lips,
eager to verify her prognostications, had visited Andre's house to
reconnoitre.

"M. Folitton? he is not here?" said she, in the course of conversation.

"He is from home," answered Julienne; and as she saw the peering
expression of Madame Margot's face, she answered in such a manner as to
check further inquiry.

"I knew it!" thought Madame Margot. "I was sure there was something
wrong!"

"Andre will be in presently," added Julienne.

"Ah, well," exclaimed her companion, with the look of one resigned to
the inconveniences of life, "it is well that he is so attentive to
business; and very glad I am to see how much he has upon his hands:
early in the morning till late at night. Fortune and leisure await those
who work like him."

"You are kind," said Julienne. "It is true that Andre works very hard.
Let me fill your cup."

"Ah, Julienne! On your wedding-day, my dear, all the songs were hosannas
and jubilates, and it really does seem that you are very happy and
comfortable. Is it not so?"

"You are right, Madame Margot. Andre and I are very happy, and we have
many blessings to be thankful for."

"There is one thing," rejoined the wily lady, "which, allow me to say,
people who have businesses to look after feel rather strongly. Ay, well
do I and Margot know that business interferes terribly with domestic
happiness."

"In what manner?" asked Julienne, in some surprise, for Madame Margot's
experience did not "come home" to her. "I have never thought so, nor
Andre either, I believe."

"Why, my dear, when people are abroad they can't be at home," continued
the inquisitress. "And as I and Margot feel that it is hard we can be
so very little together, I naturally think that other people must feel
the same. But, however, we _can_ enjoy our little walk in the evening. I
am sure, my dear, you would like it all the better if you could do the
same."

"I should," said Julienne; "but as Andre's time is occupied, there is no
use thinking about it. I can't think where he goes," added she,
unguardedly and pensively.

Madame Margot pricked up her ears.

"Why, my dear!" exclaimed she, lowering her voice, as if about to say
something of momentous importance, "do you mean to say that you don't
know where he goes so many evenings in the week?" The good lady had
always exercised a sharp scrutiny over the movements of her lord, and
the bare idea of Julienne being ignorant of Andre's proceedings excited
her indignation and pity.

"I don't know, nor have I ever taken any trouble to know," answered
Julienne, frankly and carelessly.

"Well, it's very good of you, I daresay," returned her visitor, with
something like contemptuous commiseration in her tone. "But, my friend,
you should think how necessary it is that husband and wife should be as
one person. It vexes me to find that Andre does not acquaint you with
all his doings--especially with that to which he seems to pay such
unfailing attention. You shouldn't let it go on any longer, my dear, for
you don't know what may happen. It never smokes but there is fire. No
one can tell what might have happened between me and Margot had I not
always kept my eyes open: a little watchfulness has saved us worlds of
annoyance and trouble." Observing that Julienne looked offended, and was
about to say something, Madame Margot dextrously handed her cup with a
most gracious and winning bow, and launched into another topic,
resolving by all means not to spoil the effect of the stimulants and
hints she had let fall.

When Andre returned this night, Julienne, to his surprise, asked him
where he had been, and implored him to tell her. With a serious look he
answered that it was impossible, and begged her not to inquire into a
matter which in nowise concerned her, and which would cause her no sort
of surprise if she knew all. As usual, the two bantered each other over
the mystery, and the subject was dropped. But Madame Margot, though she
had not succeeded in setting the young folks by the ears, had
nevertheless implanted in a woman's breast an ardent desire to probe a
secret. Julienne, good as she was, could not vanquish nature, and a
curiosity possessed her as strong as Fatima's.

One day as she was glancing over the columns of a newspaper of which
Andre was a constant reader, an advertisement of a peculiar description
met her eye. It was headed _La Somnambule_, and announced that
Mademoiselle Trompere, whose _prodigieuses facultes_ and _lucidite
extreme_ had caused the greatest astonishment and excitement, continued
to give mesmeric _seances_ on such and such days. Julienne then turned
the paper and read other matters, but now and then she looked back at
this advertisement, read it again and again, and presently laid it down
with a merry little laugh. There was a promise of inviolable secrecy at
the end of the announcement: that she regarded particularly. She had
heard stories of the wonders of clairvoyance, she was artless, and knew
little or nothing of the world, and thought it would be a capital joke
to try the power of Mademoiselle Trompere's _lucidite_. She was going
into Paris on business the very next day, and she resolved to put her
project into execution. She laughed gayly as she anticipated the
astonishment her husband would evince while she might let fall, some of
these days, when they were alone, that she knew his secret.

Behold the young wife, with sparkling eyes, and a smile upon her fresh
lips, wending her way up the long and narrow Rue St. Nicholas in Paris!
Arrived at the house of the clairvoyante, she asked at the concierge for
Mademoiselle Trompere.

"_Quatrieme a gauche!_" cried the porter, and Julienne hurried up the
narrow staircase. Arrived at the fourth story, she rang the bell at the
door on the left, and awaited the issue of the summons in something like
trepidation. The door was opened, and there came forth an old man of
really venerable and imposing appearance. Thick locks of curling silver
hair were combed back off a high and well-formed forehead; and beneath
this appeared a countenance pale, but clear, and of serious and
benign expression. Thin, and of middle height, a long dark-green
robe-de-chambre made him appear tall, and the little Julienne
thought she had never seen so grand an old man before. From his
slightly-abstracted air, and a pair of silver-rimmed spectacles still
resting on his visage, one would have fancied he had just risen from
profound study. Julienne felt quite abashed that she should have
interrupted the labors of one who looked so much like a good seer,
especially as she thought what a trumpery and childish errand she had
come upon. It was with a faltering voice and a deprecating smile that
she asked for Mademoiselle Trompere.

"Ah!" exclaimed the old man, as if just awakened to full presence of
mind; "you wish to see her? Wait one moment, my child."

He spoke softly and tenderly, conveying the idea that he was good and
wise as well as aged. Julienne waited in the lobby of the suite of
apartments while he entered the salon. He returned after the lapse of a
few minutes, which seemed hours to the visitor, who began to grow
nervous, and to feel, to use a common phrase "ashamed of herself."

"I am sorry," said the old man as he returned, "Mademoiselle is fully
engaged to-day. I might have told you so before, but I am forgetful. Can
your business be postponed, my child?"

"Oh, indeed, yes!" answered Julienne, readily.

"It is well," continued he. "To-day is Friday: can you return on
Monday? Mademoiselle will be most happy to assist in any investigation
you may wish to make."

"Really"--commenced Julienne, intending, as haply Mademoiselle Trompere
was engaged at present, to have postponed her contemplated interview
_sine die_.

"I will tell her to expect you on Monday," said the old man, gently
shaking Julienne's unresisting hand. "Pray, what may be your name?"

"Folitton."

"Married, I see," added he, looking at the ring upon her finger. "It is
well! Of the Folittons of the Rue St. Lazare?"

"No," said Julienne; "I live at St. Cloud, where M. Folitton is a
florist and botanist."

"Ah, I know him: a worthy and clever young man!" answered the seer. And
thus, holding her hand, they enjoyed a pleasing and confidential chat.

Julienne, wishing she had never undertaken her adventure, or that, being
commenced, it were well over, kept her appointment on the Monday--it
being a very common thing for her in the summer-time to start off to
Paris. Something was continually being wanted from the vast storehouses
of the metropolis. Thus her journey attracted no attention.

When she rang Mademoiselle Trompere's bell this second time, the summons
was answered by a little girl, who conducted her into the salon. On
entering, she perceived the old man whom she had before seen, writing at
a table covered with papers and large books, many of the latter being
open. A young woman, dressed in black, and of genteel appearance, but
the expression of whose features Julienne did not altogether like, was
sitting by the window busied with her crotchet-needles. The latter
personage rose from her seat, and inclined her head to Julienne.

"Madame Folitton?"

"Yes."

"My father has prepared me to expect you. I was much engaged when you
came the other day, but now I am at your service." She touched the old
man whom she called father upon the shoulder, but she had to repeat the
operation twice or thrice ere he turned his eyes from his manuscript, so
profoundly was his attention engaged thereon. He shifted his position
slowly, raised his spectacles, and rubbed his eyes like one awakened
from a dream.

"He studies much," said Mademoiselle Trompere to Julienne, as if by way
of apology for the old man's abstraction. "Do you see?--here is Madame
Folitton."

"Ah, it is well!" exclaimed he, as, with half sigh half smile, he
advanced to the young visitor and shook her hand. "She comes to consult
you, my child, as I have told you; and I half suspect the little lady is
not so anxious for the mere solving of what seems a riddle to her, as
she is to test the truth of clairvoyance; so we must be upon our metal.
Saucy little bird! She is not the only one who doubts the wondrous
insight into the mysteries of nature which science has in our day
obtained."

Mademoiselle Trompere, the somnambule, then deposited herself in a large
and handsome armchair, softly cushioned in crimson velvet. She sat
upright for a while, and the old man and his daughter looked fixedly at
each other, while the former passed his right hand slowly up and down
before her face. After eight or ten "passes," her eyes suddenly closed,
her face grew white as death, and she sank back in an attitude of
complete repose. The old man continued making the "passes" for a minute
or two longer, and then going softly round to the back of the
somnambule, laid his hand lightly upon her head.

"Mademoiselle is now ready for your interrogations," said he to
Julienne.

Poor Julienne was frightened, and had she known beforehand that such a
mysterious operation as she had just witnessed would have been necessary
to the gratification of her whim, she would rather a thousand times have
let it remain unsatisfied. So flurried was she, that she knew not what
to ask, and would have been very glad to have paid her fee at once and
gone home again without testing the _lucidite extreme_. As if divining
her thoughts, the old man turned them into a different channel by
himself asking the question which Julienne had intended.

"Can you give your visitor any information respecting M. Folitton at St.
Cloud?"

"At St. Cloud say you?" said the somnambule, in a low, dreamy voice.
"Wait one moment Ah! now I see him. He is in a large garden. There are
workmen round him who ask him questions respecting the labor next to be
taken in hand. Now they leave him, each proceeding to his appointed
task. M. Folitton goes into his house. He takes a billet from his breast
and reads it. I can see the signature: it is _Marie Colonne_."

Julienne started. The old man looked toward her wistfully, and then, as
if interpreting her thoughts, asked the somnambule, "Can you read the
contents of the billet?"

"It is not very distinct," was the reply; "apparently written in haste.
The words are--_'Your fears, Andre, are needless. What matters it that
Fate would seem to demand our eternal separation? Can we not be superior
to Fate? Have we not proved it? Do not fail to-night; but this I need
not tell you, for since you first discovered the grand mistake of your
life, you have not wavered.'_ Monsieur Folitton reads it again and
again, and replaces it in his breast. He opens his desk and examines
something. I see it now: it is the miniature of a lady. She is young:
her hair is very long, her eyes dark and bright."

"It is enough," said Julienne, rising quickly. "Be it true or false, I
will hear no more." She moved hurriedly toward the door, as if to escape
as quickly as possible from a cruel torment. The old man followed her.

"I forgot," exclaimed the agitated girl, as she paused and drew from
her little glove the stipulated fee.

That very evening Madame Margot repeated her visit, and requested to see
Julienne alone. She found her alone, but, as if she had something too
weighty to be said in the salle-a-manger, she insisted that they should
shut themselves up in Julienne's bedroom, while she relieved her loaded
mind.

"Ah, poor Julienne!" said she, "I never come to see her of an evening
but I find her alone! Poor child! so innocent and unsuspecting too!
Well, we all have our trials; but to see one whom I love as if she were
my own child so treated, is enough to drive me mad!"

"What do you mean?" asked Julienne, nervously, for her adventure with
the clairvoyante had given her a shock.

"My dear, do you mean still to say that you don't know where your
husband spends his evenings?"

"It is true; I do not know," said Julienne, blushing deeply; then
adding, in a tone which, though meant to be firm and resolute, was
painfully faint and timid--"nor do I wish to--"

"Well, my child, _I_ happen to know!" exclaimed Madame Margot, her sharp
eyes flashing with eager excitement. "By the merest chance in the world
I have made the discovery, and I considered it my duty to speak to you
directly, in the hope of saving you and your husband, if possible, from
much future misery. My love, prepare yourself for what I have to
tell:--Your husband repairs to M. Colonne's nearly every evening, and is
always admitted and let out by Mademoiselle Marie! She is the one who
gives him welcome, and bids him _adieu_! Oh, it is enough to drive one
crazy! My tears flowed for you last night, poor Julienne!"

"Oh, restez tranquille!" said Julienne, coldly. She had started and
trembled upon hearing a tale which coincided so completely with the
revelations of the somnambule, but Madame Margot's acrid and triumphant
manner roused her indignation, and whether the story she told and the
inference she so readily founded upon it were true or false, Julienne
heartily wished her away--never to see her malignant eyes or hear her
bitter voice again. She was too proud to ask any questions for the sake
of proving what foundation her sympathizing companion had for her
suspicions. She loved Andre warmly, and sincerely believed him to be
worthy of her love; but there was something in his own secrecy and in
the similarity of the different reports which had reached her ears this
day which staggered her earnest faith. A dreary feeling overcame her:
the radiance of her life was clouded over. The anchor which had held her
safely in a tranquil and beautiful bay seemed to have lost its hold
suddenly, and now she was tossing upon a strange and restless sea. And
Madame Marmot watched the quivering of her lip and the fevered flushing
of her face, and gloated upon the agony she had caused.

"I have done my errand," said she, "and now my mind is a little more at
ease. Take what steps you think proper, my poor child; the sooner the
matter is settled the better for all parties; and if you should have any
difficulty, pray do not hesitate to apply to me. It might not yet be too
late to prevent mischief."

Andre came home that night as hearty and good-tempered as ever. He saw
that his little wife looked but poorly, and he affectionately inquired
what ailed her; caressed her, and tried to comfort and revive her.
Indescribably oppressed, she burst into tears. This relieved her, but
she was silent and _triste_ the rest of the evening. She could not bear
to think of telling him what she had heard, and what she felt. Indeed a
deep feeling of reproach rose up in her heart as she looked in his frank
and sympathetic face; but she could not comprehend the mystery, and felt
miserable and crushed.

The days passed on, and Andre grieved to find his young wife grow no
better. At length, satisfied, from the peculiarity of her malady, from
her silent behavior, and the strange brooding manner in which he
sometimes found her regarding him--feeling assured that the change owed
its existence to something relating to himself--he gravely asked her
what had brought it about, and solemnly conjured her to conceal nothing
from him. So repugnant to her, however, was the idea of exhibiting a
feeling so gross, and so unjust to her husband, as she determined to
think, was her jealousy, that she still withheld the secret.

She seemed to be pining day by day. Andre's pain and vexation were as
deep as her own sadness. A mutual dissatisfaction was fast springing up
between them. While matters were at this pass, Madame Margot, who, like
the bats, rarely moved out before the evening, paid her third visit to
the house of the botanist. Andre coming home earlier than usual this
night, she spent some time with the husband as well as the wife. Eagerly
she watched the behavior of the two, and acutely she judged how things
stood. Supper passed, however, without any allusion thereto, and Andre
led madame to the door.

"Poor Julienne!" said she when they were alone. "You do not take care of
her; she is looking very so-so."

"It is true," said Andre, sadly; "I can not understand it. She says she
is well, but there is something the matter I am sure."

"Ah! don't tell me!" exclaimed Madame Margot, lifting her right arm,
protruding her head, and shaking her forefinger at him. "You can not
understand, eh? Ah, I'm too old a bird for that, and I haven't forgotten
how _I_ was treated once by Margot!"

"What do you mean?" inquired Andre, seriously.

"Mean! Ah, ah! it is very good, M. Folitton! You should have been made
an actor!"

"Madame Margot, I can not joke with you, nor read your riddles.
Julienne's ailment is a serious matter to me."

"Well, well! It is amusing to hear him! But one word in your ear, my
good Andre. How can you expect your poor wife to look happy and pleased
when it is known all over St. Cloud that you are forever with Marie
Colonne? There!"

"What--what!" cried Andre; but Madame Margot was off, muttering and
tittering as she walked rapidly home. Andre was thunderstruck. The
conversation between him and his young wife when he returned to the room
was any thing but satisfactory. He wished to draw from her all she knew;
but Julienne was cold and mysterious; and at length the husband became
angry, or else feigned to do so, as she half-suspected, by way of a
cloak for his misdeeds.

"It seems we did not know much of each other after all," said Andre,
ruefully one day. "After being together so many years too! Had any one
told me that so shortly after our marriage my house would be filled with
gloom and grief, I should have laughed finely, or taken offense."

"Oh, Andre, Andre, Andre!" cried poor Julienne, laying her face upon his
breast, while her tears flowed fast and thick--all the inward pride,
which, though creditable to her heart, was capable of effecting so much
misunderstanding, completely vanquished. "Why have there been secrets
between us? Why have we sought to conceal any thing from each other? I
am sure that our love is not dried up, and that there is something
mysterious to each of us in the bitterness of these days! We have both
had secrets: let me have what blame I may for mine--I can keep it no
longer." And then, with some shame and humiliation, she recounted to
Andre the little history of her own feelings and doings--how at first
she cared nothing whither he went, or what he did, satisfied that he was
good, and that he loved her truly; how Madame Margot had paid her a
visit, and had stimulated her curiosity by sarcasm and pity; how she
came, after seeing an advertisement in the newspaper, to think of
visiting the somnambule, more by way of a joke than any thing else; the
revelations that were made to her, and the apparent confirmation they
received from what Madame Margot afterward told her. She was in too much
fear of making him angry to tell him before; but how could her little
head be expected to see through all this, and how withstand the
inevitable influences of such a trial?

Andre was aghast. Trembling with excitement, and muttering imprecations
against the clairvoyante and Madame Margot, he bade Julienne quickly
prepare to accompany him to Paris. He got his horse and gig ready, and
in a few minutes himself and his wife, the latter greatly agitated and
alarmed, were proceeding at a rapid pace along the road to Paris. Andre
drove his good horse as he had never been driven before, and the five
miles betwixt St. Cloud and the capital were quickly passed. The Rue St.
Nicholas was presently gained, and the bell of the somnambule's
apartment sharply rung. The old man appeared, looking sage and
benevolent as ever. His attitude and aspect, imposing and tranquil,
somewhat checked the impetuosity of the angry husband. The latter even
bowed, and took off his hat as he asked to see Mademoiselle Trompere,
but his voice and quick breathing still betrayed his excitement. His
eagerness appeared to take the old man by surprise; he looked at
Julienne; but her head being turned away, he did not recognize her; and
after an instant of consideration, bade them enter. Mademoiselle the
clairvoyante was discovered sitting in the same place, and occupied in
the same manner, as she had before been found by Julienne. She looked up
from her employment, and scanned both husband and wife with a quick,
penetrating glance as they advanced toward her. Her features for an
instant betrayed some excitement as she noted the flushed cheek and
wrathful eye of the former. It was but for an instant, however: almost
immediately they were resolved into an expression of perfect
nonchalance.

"Woman, your second-sight has cost us dear!" cried Andre.

"Monsieur!" interrupted Mademoiselle Trompere, sternly.

"Your impositions will bring you into trouble, as they do other people,"
continued Andre. "Your lies bear seed--do you know it?--and grow into
poison, blighting and working mischief wherever you spread them. If you
do not fully contradict the tale you told my silly wife the other day, I
will let you know that you carry on a dangerous trade."

"Your wife! My good man, you are mad!" returned the somnambule.

"I am nearly so," said Andre; "so take care what you say. My wife--look
at her--you have seen her before; you need not attempt to deny _that_.
She, in a foolish whim, came to you the other day, and you told her
certain falsehoods respecting me, which I now demand that you own to be
such. Acknowledge your trick, and I will have no more to say; but
refuse, and I go instantly to the prefet of police." The old man stood
by with a wandering look, as if stricken with sudden imbecility; but his
bolder companion regarded the furious visitor with absolute
_sang-froid_, fixing upon him a glance that never wavered.

"My profession, my good man," said she, coldly, leaning back in her
cushioned chair, "is to discover truth, not to deny it. People consult
me when they find the course of their lives disturbed by secret causes,
and when the clearing up of such little mysteries is desirable. Your
wife, prompted by a very justifiable and proper curiosity, has availed
herself of the grand discovery of which I am an exponent. M. Folitton,
you accuse me of falsehood, and ask me to deny what I know to be true.
Of course I refuse to do any thing of the sort. Doubtless you think to
make yourself appear guiltless in the eyes of the wife whom you have
wronged, by frightening a woman, and forcing her to declare that you are
perfectly faithful and true. Impostor as you style me, I am neither
weak nor wicked enough for that!"

"Then I must consult the prefet," said Andre.

"And I also," said the clairvoyante. "If necessary, I will not scruple
to make manifest to the whole world the truth of the revelations your
wife heard from me."

"You are bold, woman!"

"Yes, in common with the meanest living thing, I am bold when attacked.
You will not find it easy to turn me to your own account. Try, if you
are so disposed, by all means; but as surely as I know the truth, you
had better not!" This was uttered with such complete assurance, so
firmly and hardily, and her whole demeanor exhibited such supreme
defiance of him and reliance upon herself, that Andre's indignation was
turned into bewilderment and perplexity. He abruptly seized the arm of
his agitated wife, and drawing it within his own, strode out of the
room, telling his contemptuous opponent that she should soon hear what
step he would take next. As yet, not a word of reconciliation or
explanation had passed between himself and Julienne. He was too proud to
make his peace with her before he had fully justified himself, do it how
he could.

But the same evening he brought Mademoiselle Marie Colonne and her
father and mother to his house, and to them, in the presence of his
wife, related the story of his troubles, up to the passage between
himself and the lady of vaunted _lucidite_ that morning. The worthy
family were highly indignant, but displayed much good-feeling toward
Julienne, who, sick at heart, was really deserving of commiseration. She
in her turn warmly denied that she had been actuated by any feeling of
suspicion or jealousy in consulting Mademoiselle Trompere: she had done
a very silly thing, and should repent it as long as she lived; but it
was merely a careless whim, and indeed was contemplated more as a joke
than any thing else, for being sure that Andre was faithful to her, she
never had an idea that misunderstanding and misery to herself, induced
by remarkable coincidences, would result from what she did. She was now
perfectly satisfied, and trusted that Marie and her husband would
forgive her.

"That all may be made perfectly clear," said Andre, "let me now say
that, in thinking over it, as I never happened to do before, I can
hardly wonder Julienne took my frequent absences and my secrecy
concerning them amiss. I never dreamed that misery would happen from a
husband concealing so small a matter from his wife; but I now see how
very possible it is, and in future am resolved never to refuse to answer
when she inquires where I have been."

He then explained to his wife that he had been a member of one of those
secret clubs which sprang up in such numbers all over France, but
especially in the neighborhood of Paris, immediately after the
Revolution of 1848. M. Colonne was the president of that club, and at
his house its meetings were held. All society was one great vortex of
antagonistic parties; and this club, consisting of several of the
substantial inhabitants of St. Cloud, owed its birth to the anxiety so
very commonly felt by the lovers of order and quiet to lay down for
themselves some unanimous and practical course of conduct in the event
of another outbreak. The continuance of tranquillity had for the
present, however, caused its dissolution, until, mayhap, another season
of disorder and violence should occur; "so in future," said Andre, "I
shall spend my evenings at home!"

Julienne heard this explanation with mingled feelings of pleasure and
regret. She humbly asked Marie to forgive her, and was quickly in the
embrace of the sympathizing young girl.

M. Colonne, exceedingly wounded by the imputations which had been cast
upon the character of his daughter, of whom he was at once fond and
proud, paid Madame Margot a visit on his way home, and talked to the old
lady in a manner which caused her considerable trepidation, and no doubt
went far to check the propensity so strongly developed in the
composition of her character for picking holes in her neighbors'
jackets. He also resolved to prosecute Mademoiselle Trompere and her
confederate. This Andre was hardly ready to do, being perfectly
satisfied, now the misunderstanding was cleared up; but M. Colonne
declared that no member of his family should be aspersed with impunity;
and even if it were solely on public grounds, to protect the unguarded
and the credulous from imposition and misery, he would spend a thousand
francs to make an example of the pair. Andre was very reluctant,
however, to carry the affair before the public, and persuaded M.
Colonne, in the first place, to visit Mademoiselle Trompere with Marie,
and force her to contradict her tale; "Indeed," said he, "they had
better all go together, and then the woman would have no possible room
for subterfuge or persistence in her calumnies."

They were off to Paris the next day. As it happened, M. Colonne and his
daughter preceded Andre and Julienne at the house of the somnambule. M.
Colonne was a man of warm and quick temperament.

"My name is Colonne," said he abruptly, the moment he stood before the
somnambule and her father; "this is my daughter Marie. We have made a
journey from St. Cloud purposely to inform you that your clairvoyance is
defective, and to warn you that, not being overskilled in the profession
you now follow, you had better choose another--a more honest and safe
one; for when people deal in slanders and lies, they risk intimate
acquaintance with police-officers and jails."

"Ah, my father, did I not say so?" exclaimed Mademoiselle Trompere,
turning tranquilly to the old man. "I told you we should shortly have a
little sequel to the romance of the poor Folittons."

"There will be another little sequel, mademoiselle, unless you quickly
apologize to my daughter!" said M. Colonne, warmly.

"M. Colonne," returned the somnambule, coolly, and even dictatorially,
"you have no doubt been induced to come here by a parental and honorable
feeling; but perhaps you are not aware that you yourself have been
duped."

"No, indeed!" said M. Colonne, with a smile; "I am not so easily duped."

"You think so, no doubt," continued Mademoiselle Trompere, smiling in
her turn. "Still, it is true: you are a dupe all the time. Your daughter
and M. Folitton know it well. They seek to escape suspicion of
intrigue--the one from her father, the other from his wife--by boldly
facing it out, and seeking to compel me, who happen to know all
concerning it, to declare that their virtue and honor are unimpeachable.
That I do not choose to do. They might content themselves, if they were
wise, with the satisfaction of knowing that such matters as I am engaged
to discover, do not go forth to the world, but remain solely betwixt
myself and them."

"Admirable!" cried M. Colonne, amazed at this immense impudence.

"Yes," said Mademoiselle Trompere, smiling ironically, "the case is so.
Poor M. Folitton the other day was going to turn the world upside down
because I would not contradict what I revealed to his wife. He
threatened me with the police, and I know not what more. Let him do it:
the result will be, that I shall be obliged to prove to the world the
truth of all I have said, and in doing that I should not have much
difficulty."

"Well, well!" cried M. Colonne, fairly overcome. "Talking is of no use
here, I perceive!" and as he and his daughter hurried down the stairs,
the triumphant and derisive laughter of the somnambule tended by no
means to the restoration of their good temper.

Andre and his wife were just about to ascend as they arrived at the
bottom of the staircase, and to them they related the result of their
visit.

Proceedings were now immediately commenced against Mademoiselle Trompere
and her alleged father, and the latter shortly found themselves before
the tribunal of correctional police. The case was made out so very
clearly--Julienne, Marie, and Andre, the sole parties whom the
revelations of the sibyl concerned, being arrayed against her--that she
was immediately convicted of imposture, and the old man as a
confederate. In the course of the trial the wig of silver hair was
unceremoniously lifted from the head of the male prisoner by an officer
of police. The change effected in his appearance by this simple
operation was remarkable, and greatly to his disadvantage. The officer
then read from his police record a list of no fewer than nine
convictions for imposition and misconduct against the aged sinner. The
female was truly, it appeared, his daughter. They had visited many parts
of France and Belgium under different names, and the diligent inquiries
of the police had been successful in establishing against them a long
course of guilt--one scheme of imposture having been tried after
another, and each terminated by disgrace and punishment. They were now
sentenced to two years' imprisonment and a thousand francs' fine.

All has gone brightly and pleasantly at Andre's house since this
unpleasant affair, and so will continue, it is my belief. Husband and
wife seem on better terms with each other than ever. Madame Margot
sedulously keeps herself out of the way of the Folittons and the
Colonnes, nor do I suppose she will ever take coffee with Julienne any
more.




                   THE HOUSEHOLD OF SIR THO^S. MORE.[7]

   LIBELLUS A MARGARETA MORE. QUINDECIM ANNOS NATA, CHELSEIAE INCEPTVS.

                        "Nulla dies sine linea."


Soe my fate is settled. Who knoweth at sunrise what will chance before
sunsett? No; the Greeks and Romans mighte speake of chance and of fate,
but we must not. Ruth's _hap_ was to light on y^e field of Boaz: but
what she thought casual, y^e Lord had contrived.

    [7] Continued from the July Number.

Firste, he gives me y^e marmot. Then, the marmot dies. Then, I, having
kept y^e creature soe long, and being naturallie tender, must cry a
little over it. Then Will must come in and find me drying mine eyes.
Then he must, most unreasonablie, suppose that I c^d not have loved the
poor animal for its owne sake soe much as for his; and thereupon, falle
a love-making in such downrighte earneste, that I, being alreadie
somewhat upset, and knowing 'twoulde please father ... and hating to be
perverse ... and thinking much better of Will since he hath studdied soe
hard, and given soe largelie to y^e poor, and left off broaching his
heteroclite opinions.... I say, I supposed it must be soe, some time or
another, soe 'twas noe use hanging back for ever and ever, soe now
there's an end, and I pray God give us a quiet life.

Noe one w^d suppose me reckoning on a quiet life if they knew how I've
cried alle this forenoon, ever since I got quit of Will, by father's
carrying him off to Westminster. He'll tell father, I know, as they goe
along in the barge, or else coming back, which will be soone now, though
I've ta'en no heed of the hour. I wish 'twere cold weather, and that I
had a sore throat or stiff neck, or somewhat that might reasonablie send
me a-bed, and keep me there till to-morrow morning. But I'm quite well,
and 'tis the dog-days, and cook is thumping the rolling-pin on the
dresser, and dinner is being served, and here comes father.

       *       *       *       *       *

Father hath had some words with the Cardinall. 'Twas touching the
draught of some forayn treaty which y^e Cardinall offered for his
criticism, or rather, for his commendation, which father c^d not give.
This nettled his Grace, who exclaimed,--"By the mass, thou art the
veriest fool of all the council." Father, smiling, rejoined, "God be
thanked, the King our master hath but one fool therein."

The Cardinall may rage, but he can't rob him of the royal favour. The
King was here yesterday, and walked for an hour or soe about the garden,
with his arm round father's neck. Will coulde not help felicitating
father upon it afterwards; to which father made answer, "I thank God I
find his Grace my very good lord indeed, and I believe he doth as
singularly favour me as any subject within this realm. Howbeit, son
Roper, I may tell thee between ourselves, I feel no cause to be proud
thereof, for if my head would win him a castle in France, it shoulde not
fail to fly off."

--Father is graver than he used to be. No wonder. He hath much on his
mind; the calls on his time and thoughts are beyond belief: but God is
very good to him. His favour at home and abroad is immense: he hath good
health, soe have we alle; and his family are established to his mind and
settled alle about him, still under y^e same fostering roof. Considering
that I am the most ordinarie of his daughters, 'tis singular I s^d have
secured the best husband. Daisy lives peaceablie with Rupert Allington,
and is as indifferent, me seemeth, to him as to all y^e world beside.
He, on his part, loves her and theire children with devotion, and woulde
pass half his time in y^e nurserie. Dancey always had a hot temper, and
now and then plagues Bess; but she lets noe one know it but me.
Sometimes she comes into my chamber and cries a little, but the next
kind word brightens her up, and I verilie believe her pleasures far
exceed her payns. Giles Heron lost her through his own fault, and might
have regained her good opinion after all, had he taken half the pains
for her sake he now takes for her younger sister: I cannot think how
Cecy can favour him; yet I suspect he will win her, sooner or later. As
to mine own deare Will, 'tis the kindest, purest nature, the finest
soul, the ... and yet how I was senselesse enow once to undervalue him.

Yes, I am a happy wife; a happy daughter; a happy mother. When my little
Bill stroaked dear father's face just now, and murmured "pretty!" he
burst out a-laughing, and cried,--

"You are like the young Cyrus, who exclaimed,--'Oh! mother, how pretty
is my grandfather!' And yet, according to Xenophon, the old gentleman
was soe rouged and made up, as that none but a child woulde have admired
him!"

"That's not the case," I observed, "with Bill's grandfather."

"He's a More all over," says father, fondly. "Make a pun, Meg, if thou
canst, about Amor, Amore, or Amores. 'Twill onlie be the thousand and
first on our name. Here, little knave, see these cherries: tell me who
thou art, and thou shalt have one. 'More! More!' I knew it, sweet
villain. Take them all."

I oft sitt for an hour or more, watching Hans Holbein at his brush. He
hath a rare gift of limning; and has, besides, the advantage of deare
Erasmus his recommendation, for whom he hath alreddie painted our
likenesses, but I think he has made us very ugly. His portraiture of my
grandfather is marvellous; ne'erthelesse. I look in vayn for y^e
spirituallitie which our Lucchese friend, Antonio Bonvisi, tells us is
to be found in the productions of y^e Italian schools.

Holbein loves to paint with the lighte coming in upon his work from
above. He says a lighte from above puts objects in theire proper lighte,
and shews theire just proportions; a lighte from beneath reverses alle
y^e naturall shadows. Surelie, this hath some truth if we spirituallize
it?

       *       *       *       *       *

Rupert's cousin, Rosamond Allington, is our guest. She is as beautiful
as ... not as an angel, for she lacks the look of goodness, but very
beautiful indeed. She cometh hither from Hever Castle, her account of
y^e affairs whereof I like not. Mistress Anne is not there at present;
indeed, she is now always hanging about court, and followeth somewhat
too literallie the Scripturall injunction to Solomon's spouse--to forget
her father's house. The King likes well enow to be compared with
Solomon, but Mistress Anne is not his spouse yet, nor ever will be, I
hope. Flattery and Frenchified habitts have spoilt her, I trow.

Rosamond says there is not a good chamber in the castle; even y^e
ball-room, which is on y^e upper floor of alle, being narrow and low. On
a rainy day, long ago, she and Mistress Anne were playing at shuttlecock
therein, when Rosamond's foot tripped at some unevennesse in y^e floor,
and Mistress Anne, with a laugh, cried out, "Mind you goe not down into
y^e dungeon"--then pulled up a trap-door in the ball-room floor, by an
iron ring, and made Rosamond look down into the unknown depth; alle in
y^e blacknesse of darkness. 'Tis an awfulle thing to have onlie a step
from a ball-room to a dungeon. I'm glad we live in a modern house, we
have noe such fearsome sights here.

Rosamond is sociable with alle, and mightilie taken with my husband,
who, in his grave way, jests with her pleasantlie enough. Daisy, who
seldom thinks anything worth giving an opinion on, said yestereven, when
they were bantering eache other in Robin Hood's Walk, "I'm glad, Meg,
she fancies your husband insteade of mine." 'Twas a foolish speech, and
had better have beene left unsaid. What a pity that folks who say soe
little shoulde say aught amiss. I have noe jealousy in my composition.

       *       *       *       *       *

Father, hearing little Tom Allington hammering over y^e 34th Psalm this
morning,--

"Child," says he, "don't say O! as unemphaticallie as if 'twere A, E, I,
or U. David is labouring to expresse a thoughte too big for
utterance.... '_Oh_,--_taste_ and _see_ that the Lord is good.' Try it
agayn. That's better, my little man. Yet once more."

I'm glad Rosamond is going. That tiresome saying of Daisy's rankles. A
poisoned shaft will infect the soundest flesh. What a pity we ever use
such. I never will.

       *       *       *       *       *

Yes, she's gone, but Will is not happy. Oh, God, that I should ever
know this feeling! We can never be sure of ourselves; we can never be
sure of one another; we can never be sure of any but Thee. For Thou art
love itself, without a shadowe of turning; and dost even condescend, in
Thine exquisite tendernesse, to call Thyself a _jealous_ God ... for of
whom are we jealous but of those whom we passionately love? And such is
the love, not the sternnesse, wherewith Thou sayest unto our souls,
"Thou _shalt_ not love any God but me! thou _shalt_ not make to thyself
anie earthlie idol! for I the Lord _thy_ God am ... a _jealous_ God,"--I
cannot bear a rival on my throne, which is your heart. Love me firste,
him next, even as much as you love yourself; and then I will bless you
both.

Fecisti nos, etc.

       *       *       *       *       *

Sancta mater, ora pro nobis, ora, ora.

Alas! am I awake, or dreaming still? He beganne to talk indistinctlie in
his sleep last night, and as I cannot beare to heare people speak when
they sleep but their heart waketh, I gently shooke him, and made him
turn about; but not until that he had distinctlie exclaimed, "Tu, Jesu,
es justicia mea." Thereon, a suddain light broke in on me, and I felt, I
know not how to expresse what sense of relief, at the apprehension that
his disquietation was not for Rosamond, but on y^e old count of
justification by faith. Waking up, he says,--"Oh, sweet Meg, I am soe
unhappy," and gives way to tears; but I try to relieve him. But the
matter is too hard for me; we cannot unravel it, soe he holds his peace,
and sleeps, or affects to sleep, the while I pray to every saint in y^e
calendar.

I am glad I did him injustice; which is a strange thing for a wife to
say.

       *       *       *       *       *

How many, many tears have I shed! Poor, imprudent Will!

To think of his escape from y^e Cardinall's fangs, and yet that he will
probablie repeat y^e offence. This morning father and he had a long,
and, I fear me, fruitless debate in the garden; on returning from which,
father took me aside and sayd,--

"Meg, I have borne a long time with thine husband; I have reasoned and
argued with him, and still given him my poor, fatherly counsel; but I
perceive none of alle this can call him home agayn. And therefore, Meg,
I will no longer dispute with him.".... "Oh, father!".... "Nor yet will
I give him over; but I will set another way to work, and get me to God
and pray for him."

And have I not done so alreadie?

       *       *       *       *       *

I feare me they parted unfriendlie; I hearde father say, "Thus much I
have a right to bind thee to, that thou indoctrinate not her in thine
own heresies. Thou shalt not imperill the salvation of my child."

Since this there has beene an irresistible gloom on our spiritts, a
cloud between my husband's soul and mine, without a word spoken. I pray
but my prayers seem dead.

... Last night, after seeking unto this saint and that, methought "why
not applie unto y^e fountain head? Maybe these holy spiritts may have
limitations sett to y^e power of theire intercessions--at anie rate, the
ears of Mary-mother are open to alle."

Soe I beganne, "Pia mater, fons amoris...."

Then, methoughte, "but I am onlie asking _her_ to intercede--I'll mount
a step higher still...."

Then I turned to y^e great Intercessor of alle. But methought, "Still he
intercedes with another, although the same. And his owne saying was, 'In
that day ye shall ask _me nothing_. Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name,
_he_ will give it you.'" Soe I did.

I fancy I fell asleep with y^e tears on my cheek. Will had not come up
stairs. Then came a heavie, heavie sleep, not such as giveth rest; and a
dark, wild dream. Methought I was tired of waiting for Will, and became
alarmed. The night seemed a month long, and at last I grew soe weary of
it, that I arose, put on some clothing, and went in search of him whom
my soul loveth. Soon I founde him, sitting in a muse; and said, "Will,
deare Will?" but he hearde me not; and, going up to touch him, I was
amazed to be broughte short up or ever I reached him, by something
invisible betwixt us, hard, and cleare, and colde, ... in short, a wall
of ice! Soe it seemed, in my strange dreame. I pushed at it, but could
not move it; called to him, but coulde not make him hear: and all y^e
while my breath, I suppose, raised a vapor on the glassy substance, that
grew thicker and thicker, soe as slowlie to hide him from me. I coulde
discerne his head and shoulders, but not see down to his heart. Then I
shut mine eyes in despair, and when I opened 'em, he was hidden
altogether.

Then I prayed. I put my hot brow agaynst y^e ice, and I kept a weeping
hot tears, and y^e warm breath of prayer kept issuing from my lips; and
still I was persisting, when, or ever I knew how, y^e ice beganne to
melt! I felt it giving way! and, looking up, coulde in joyfulle
surprize, just discerne the lineaments of a figure close at t'other
side; y^e face turned away, but yet in the guise of listening. And,
images being apt to seem magnified and distorted through vapours,
methought 'twas altogether bigger than Will, yet himself,
nothingthelesse; and, y^e barrier between us having sunk away to
breast-height, I layd mine hand on's shoulder, and he turned his head,
smiling, though in silence; and ... oh, heaven! 'twas not Will, but
----.

What coulde I doe, even in my dreame, but fall at his feet? What coulde
I doe, waking, but the same? 'Twas grey of morn; I was feverish and
unrefreshed, but I wanted noe more lying-a-bed. Will had arisen and gone
forthe; and I, as quicklie as I could make myself readie, sped after
him.

I know not what I expected, nor what I meant to say. The moment I opened
the door of his closett, I stopt short. There he stoode, in the centre
of the chamber; his hand resting flat on an open book, his head raised
somewhat up, his eyes fixed on something or some one, as though in
speaking communion with 'em; his whole visage lightened up and glorifide
with an unspeakable calm and grandeur that seemed to transfigure him
before me; and, when he hearde my step, he turned about, and 'steade of
histing me away, helde out his arms.... We parted without neede to utter
a word.

       *       *       *       *       *

Events have followed too quick and thick for me to note 'em. Firste,
father's embassade to Cambray, which I shoulde have grieved at more on
our owne accounts, had it not broken off alle further collision with
Will. Thoroughlie home-sick, while abroad, poor father was; then, on his
return, he noe sooner sett his foot a-land, than y^e King summoned him
to Woodstock. 'Twas a couple o' nights after he left us, that Will and I
were roused by Patteson's shouting beneath our window, "Fire, fire,
quoth Jeremiah!" and the house was a-fire sure enow. Greate part of y^e
men's quarter, together with alle y^e outhouses and barns, consumed
without remedie, and alle through y^e carelessness of John Holt.
Howbeit, noe lives were lost, nor any one much hurt; and we thankfullie
obeyed deare father's behest, soe soone as we received y^e same, that we
woulde get us to church, and there, upon our knees, return humble and
harty thanks to Almighty God for our late deliverance from a fearfulle
death. Alsoe, at fathers desire, we made up to y^e poor people on our
premises theire various losses, which he bade us doe, even if it left
him without soe much as a spoon.

But then came an equallie unlookt for, and more appalling event: y^e
fall of my Lord Cardinall, whereby my father was shortlie raised to y^e
highest pinnacle of professional greatnesse, being made Lord Chancellor,
to y^e content, in some sort, of Wolsey himself, who sayd he was y^e
onlie man fit to be his successor.

The unheard-of splendour of his installation dazzled the vulgar; while
the wisdom that marked y^e admirable discharge of his daylie duties, won
y^e respect of alle thinking men, but surprized none who alreadie knew
father. On y^e day succeeding his being sworn in, Patteson marched
hither and thither bearing a huge placard, inscribed, "Partnership
Dissolved;" and apparelled himself in an old suit, on which he had
bestowed a coating of black paint, with weepers of white paper;
assigning for't that "his brother was dead." "For now," quoth he, "that
they've made him Lord Chancellor, we shall ne'er see Sir Thomas more."

Now, although y^e poor Cardinal was commonlie helde to shew much
judgment in his decisions, owing to y^e naturall soundness of his
understanding, yet, being noe lawyer, abuses had multiplied during his
chancellorship, more especiallie in y^e way of enormous fees and
gratuities. Father, not content with shunning base lucre in his proper
person, will not let anie one under him, to his knowledge, touch a
bribe; whereat Dancey, after his funny fashion, complains, saying:

"The fingers of my Lord Cardinall's veriest door-keepers were tipt with
gold, but I, since I married your daughter, have got noe pickings; which
in your case may be commendable, but in mine is nothing profitable."
Father, laughing, makes answer:

"Your case is hard, son Dancey, but I can onlie say for your comfort,
that, soe far as honesty and justice are concerned, if mine owne father,
whom I reverence dearly, stoode before me on y^e one hand, and the
devil, whom I hate extremely, on y^e other, yet, the cause of y^e latter
being just, I shoulde give the devil his due."

Giles Heron hath found this to his cost. Presuming on his near connexion
with my father, he refused an equitable accommodation of a suit, which,
thereon, coming into court, father's decision was given flat against
him.

His decision against mother was equallie impartiall, and had something
comique in it. Thus it befelle. A beggar-woman's little dog, which had
beene stolen from her, was offered my mother for sale, and she bought it
for a jewel of no greate value. After a week or soe, the owner finds
where her dog is, and cometh to make complaynt of y^e theft to father,
then sitting in his hall. Sayth father, "Let's have a faire hearing in
open court; thou, mistress, stand there where you be, to have impartiall
justice; and thou, Dame Alice, come up hither, because thou art of y^e
higher degree. Now, then, call each of you the puppy, and see which he
will follow." Soe Sweetheart, in spite of mother, springs off to y^e old
beggar-woman, who, unable to keep from laughing, and yet moved at
mother's losse, sayth:

"Tell'ee what, mistress ... thee shalt have 'un for a groat."

"Nay," saith mother, "I won't mind giving thee a piece of gold;" soe the
bargain was satisfactorily concluded.

Father's despatch of business is such, that, one morning before the end
of term, he was tolde there was no other cause nor petition to be sett
before him; the which, being a case unparallelled, he desired mighte be
formally recorded.

He ne'er commences businesse in his owne court without first stepping
into y^e court of King's Bench, and there kneeling down to receive my
grandfather's blessing. Will sayth 'tis worth a world to see y^e unction
with which the deare old man bestows it on him.

In Rogation-week, following the Rood as usuall, round y^e parish, Heron
counselled him to go a horseback for y^e greater seemlinesse, but he
made answer that 'twoulde be unseemlie indeede for y^e servant to ride
after his master going a-foot.

His grace of Norfolk, coming yesterday to dine with him, finds him in
the church-choir, singing, with a surplice on.

"What!" cries y^e Duke, as they walk home together, "my Lord Chancellor
playing the parish clerk? Sure, you dishonor the King and his office."

"Nay," says father, smiling, "your grace must not deem that the King,
your master and mine, will be offended at my honoring _his_ Master."

Sure, 'tis pleasant to heare father taking y^e upper hand of these great
folks: and to have 'em coming and going, and waiting his pleasure,
because he is y^e man whom y^e King delighteth to honor.

True, indeede, with Wolsey 'twas once y^e same; but father neede not
feare y^e same ruin; because he hath Him for his friend, whom Wolsey
said woulde not have forsaken him had he served Him as he served his
earthly master. 'Twas a misproud priest; and there's the truth on't. And
father is not misproud; and I don't believe we are; though proud of him
we cannot fail to be.

And I know not why we may not be pleased with prosperitie, as well as
patient under adversitie; as long as we say, "Thou, Lord, hast made our
hill soe strong." 'Tis more difficult to bear with comelinesse,
doubtlesse; and envious folks there will be; and we know alle things
have an end, and everie sweet hath its sour, and everie fountain its
fall; but ... 'tis very pleasant for all that.

                           (TO BE CONTINUED.)




                      REMINISCENCES OF AN ATTORNEY.

                         THE CHEST OF DRAWERS.


I am about to relate a rather curious piece of domestic history, some of
the incidents of which, revealed at the time of their occurrence in
contemporary law reports, may be in the remembrance of many readers. It
took place in one of the midland counties, and at a place which I shall
call Watley; the names of the chief actors who figured in it must also,
to spare their modesty or their blushes, as the case may be, be changed;
and should one of those persons, spite of these precautions, apprehend
unpleasant recognition, he will be able to console himself with the
reflection, that all I state beyond that which may be gathered from the
records of the law courts will be generally ascribed to the fancy or
invention of the writer. And it is as well, perhaps, that it should be
so.

Caleb Jennings, a shoemender, cobbler, snob--using the last word in its
genuine classical sense, and by no means according to the modern
interpretation by which it is held to signify a genteel sneak or
pretender--he was any thing but that--occupied, some twelve or thirteen
years ago, a stall at Watley, which, according to the traditions of the
place, had been hereditary in his family for several generations. He may
also be said to have flourished there, after the manner of cobblers; for
this, it must be remembered, was in the good old times, before the
gutta-percha revolution had carried ruin and dismay into the
stalls--those of cobblers--which in considerable numbers existed
throughout the kingdom. Like all his fraternity whom I have ever fallen
in with or heard of, Caleb was a sturdy Radical of the Major Cartwright
and Henry Hunt school; and being withal industrious, tolerably
skillful, not inordinately prone to the observance of Saint Mondays,
possessed, moreover, of a neatly-furnished sleeping and eating apartment
in the house of which the projecting first floor, supported on stone
pillars, overshadowed his humble workplace, he vaunted himself to be as
really rich as an estated squire, and far more independent.

There was some truth in this boast, as the case which procured us the
honor of Mr. Jennings's acquaintance sufficiently proved. We were
employed to bring an action against a wealthy gentleman of the vicinity
of Watley for a brutal and unprovoked assault he had committed, when in
a state of partial inebriety, upon a respectable London tradesman who
had visited the place on business. On the day of trial our witnesses
appeared to have become suddenly afflicted with an almost total loss of
memory; and we were only saved from an adverse verdict by the plain,
straightforward evidence of Caleb, upon whose sturdy nature the various
arts which soften or neutralize hostile evidence had been tried in vain.
Mr. Flint, who personally superintended the case, took quite a liking to
the man; and it thus happened that we were called upon some time
afterward to aid the said Caleb in extricating himself from the
extraordinary and perplexing difficulty in which he suddenly and
unwittingly found himself involved.

The projecting first floor of the house beneath which the humble
work-shop of Caleb Jennings modestly disclosed itself, had been occupied
for many years by an ailing and somewhat aged gentleman of the name of
Lisle. This Mr. Ambrose Lisle was a native of Watley, and had been a
prosperous merchant of the city of London. Since his return, after about
twenty years' absence, he had shut himself up in almost total seclusion,
nourishing a cynical bitterness and acrimony of temper which gradually
withered up the sources of health and life, till at length it became as
visible to himself as it had for some time been to others, that the oil
of existence was expended, burnt up, and that but a few weak flickers
more, and the ailing man's plaints and griefs would be hushed in the
dark silence of the grave.

Mr. Lisle had no relatives at Watley, and the only individual with whom
he was on terms of personal intimacy was Mr. Peter Sowerby, an attorney
of the place, who had for many years transacted all his business. This
man visited Mr. Lisle most evenings, played at chess with him, and
gradually acquired an influence over his client which that weak
gentleman had once or twice feebly but vainly endeavored to shake off.
To this clever attorney, it was rumored, Mr. Lisle had bequeathed all
his wealth.

This piece of information had been put in circulation by Caleb Jennings,
who was a sort of humble favorite of Mr. Lisle's, or, at all events, was
regarded by the misanthrope with less dislike than he manifested toward
others. Caleb cultivated a few flowers in a little plot of ground at
the back of the house, and Mr. Lisle would sometimes accept a rose or a
bunch of violets from him. Other slight services--especially since the
recent death of his old and garrulous woman-servant, Esther May, who had
accompanied him from London, and with whom Mr. Jennings had always been
upon terms of gossiping intimacy--had led to certain familiarities of
intercourse; and it thus happened that the inquisitive shoe-mender
became partially acquainted with the history of the wrongs and griefs
which preyed upon, and shortened the life of the prematurely-aged man.

The substance of this every-day, commonplace story, as related to us by
Jennings, and subsequently enlarged and colored from other sources, may
be very briefly told.

Ambrose Lisle, in consequence of an accident which occurred in his
infancy, was slightly deformed. His right shoulder--as I understood, for
I never saw him--grew out, giving an ungraceful and somewhat comical
twist to his figure, which, in female eyes--youthful ones at
least--sadly marred the effect of his intelligent and handsome
countenance. This personal defect rendered him shy and awkward in the
presence of women of his own class of society; and he had attained the
ripe age of thirty-seven years, and was a rich and prosperous man,
before he gave the slightest token of an inclination toward matrimony.
About a twelvemonth previous to that period of his life, the
deaths--quickly following each other--of a Mr. and Mrs. Stevens threw
their eldest daughter, Lucy, upon Mr. Lisle's hands. Mr. Lisle had been
left an orphan at a very early age, and Mrs. Stevens--his aunt, and then
a maiden lady--had, in accordance with his father's will, taken charge
of himself and brother till they severally attained their majority.
Long, however, before she married Mr. Stevens, by whom she had two
children--Lucy and Emily. Her husband, whom she survived but two months,
died insolvent; and in obedience to the dying wishes of his aunt, for
whom he appears to have felt the tenderest esteem, he took the eldest of
her orphan children to his home, intending to regard and provide for her
as his own adopted child and heiress. Emily, the other sister, found
refuge in the house of a still more distant relative than himself.

The Stevenses had gone to live at a remote part of England--Yorkshire, I
believe--and it thus fell out, that till his cousin Lucy arrived at her
new home he had not seen her for more than ten years. The pale, and
somewhat plain child, as he had esteemed her, he was startled to find
had become a charming woman; and her naturally gay and joyous
temperament, quick talents, and fresh young beauty, rapidly acquired an
overwhelming influence over him. Strenuously but vainly he struggled
against the growing infatuation--argued, reasoned with himself--passed
in review the insurmountable objections to such a union, the difference
of age--he leading toward thirty-seven, she barely twenty-one; he
crooked, deformed, of reserved, taciturn temper--she full of young
life, and grace, and beauty. It was useless; and nearly a year had
passed in the bootless struggle when Lucy Stevens, who had vainly
striven to blind herself to the nature of the emotions by which her
cousin and guardian was animated toward her, intimated a wish to accept
her sister Emily's invitation to pass two or three months with her. This
brought the affair to a crisis. Buoying himself up with the illusions
which people in such an unreasonable frame of mind create for
themselves, he suddenly entered the sitting-room set apart for her
private use, with the desperate purpose of making his beautiful cousin a
formal offer of his hand. She was not in the apartment, but her opened
writing-desk, and a partly-finished letter lying on it, showed that she
had been recently there, and would probably soon return. Mr. Lisle took
two or three agitated turns about the room, one of which brought him
close to the writing-desk, and his glance involuntarily fell upon the
unfinished letter. Had a deadly serpent leaped suddenly at his throat,
the shock could not have been greater. At the head of the sheet of paper
was a clever pen-and-ink sketch of Lucy Stevens and himself; he,
kneeling to her in a lovelorn ludicrous attitude, and she laughing
immoderately at his lachrymose and pitiful aspect and speech. The letter
was addressed to her sister Emily; and the engaged lover saw not only
that his supposed secret was fully known, but that he himself was
mocked, laughed at for his doting folly. At least this was his
interpretation of the words which swam before his eyes. At the instant
Lucy returned, and a torrent of imprecation burst from the furious man,
in which wounded self-love, rageful pride, and long pent-up passion,
found utterance in wild and bitter words. Half an hour afterward Lucy
Stevens had left the merchant's house--forever, as it proved. She,
indeed, on arriving at her sister's, sent a letter supplicating
forgiveness for the thoughtless, and, as he deemed it, insulting sketch,
intended only for Emily's eye; but he replied merely by a note written
by one of his clerks, informing Miss Stevens that Mr. Lisle declined any
further correspondence with her.

The ire of the angered and vindictive man had, however, begun sensibly
to abate, and old thoughts, memories, duties, suggested partly by the
blank which Lucy's absence made in his house, partly by remembrance of
the solemn promise he had made her mother, were strongly reviving in his
mind, when he read the announcement of her marriage in a provincial
journal, directed to him, as he believed, in the bride's hand-writing;
but this was an error, her sister having sent the newspaper. Mr. Lisle
also construed this into a deliberate mockery and insult, and from that
hour strove to banish all images and thoughts connected with his cousin
from his heart and memory.

He unfortunately adopted the very worst course possible for effecting
this object. Had he remained amid the buzz and tumult of active life, a
mere sentimental disappointment, such as thousands of us have sustained
and afterward forgotten, would, there can be little doubt, have soon
ceased to afflict him. He chose to retire from business, visited Watley,
and habits of miserliness growing rapidly upon his cankered mind, never
afterward removed from the lodgings he had hired on first arriving
there. Thus madly hugging to himself sharp-pointed memories which a
sensible man would have speedily cast off and forgotten, the sour
misanthrope passed a useless, cheerless, weary existence, to which death
must have been a welcome relief.

Matters were in this state with the morose and aged man--aged mentally
and corporeally, although his years were but fifty-eight--when Mr. Flint
made Mr. Jennings's acquaintance. Another month or so had passed away
when Caleb's attention was one day about noon claimed by a young man
dressed in mourning, accompanied by a female similarly attired, and from
their resemblance to each other, he conjectured, brother and sister. The
stranger wished to know if that was the house in which Mr. Ambrose Lisle
resided. Jennings said it was; and with civil alacrity left his stall
and rang the front-door bell. The summons was answered by the landlady's
servant, who, since Esther May's death, had waited on the first-floor
lodger: and the visitors were invited to go up-stairs. Caleb, much
wondering who they might be, returned to his stall, and from thence
passed into his eating and sleeping room just below Mr. Lisle's
apartments. He was in the act of taking a pipe from the mantle-shelf, in
order to the more deliberate and satisfactory cogitation on such an
unusual event, when he was startled by a loud shout, or scream rather,
from above. The quivering and excited voice was that of Mr. Lisle, and
the outcry was immediately followed by an explosion of unintelligible
exclamations from several persons. Caleb was up-stairs in an instant,
and found himself in the midst of a strangely-perplexing and distracted
scene. Mr. Lisle, pale as his shirt, shaking in every limb, and his eyes
on fire with passion, was hurling forth a torrent of vituperation and
reproach at the young woman, whom he evidently mistook for some one
else; while she, extremely terrified, and unable to stand but for the
assistance of her companion, was tendering a letter in her outstretched
hand, and uttering broken sentences, which her own agitation and the
fury of Mr. Lisle's invectives rendered totally incomprehensible. At
last the fierce old man struck the letter from her hand, and with
frantic rage ordered both the strangers to leave the room. Caleb urged
them to comply, and accompanied them down stairs. When they reached the
street, he observed a woman on the other side of the way, dressed in
mourning, and much older apparently, though he could not well see her
face through the thick vail she wore, than she who had thrown Mr. Lisle
into such an agony of rage, apparently waiting for them. To her the
young people immediately hastened, and after a brief conference the
three turned away up the street and Mr. Jennings saw no more of them.

A quarter of an hour afterward the house-servant informed Caleb that Mr.
Lisle had retired to bed, and although still in great agitation, and, as
she feared, seriously indisposed, would not permit Dr. Clarke to be sent
for. So sudden and violent a hurricane in the usually dull and drowsy
atmosphere in which Jennings lived, excited and disturbed him greatly:
the hours, however, flew past without bringing any relief to his
curiosity, and evening was falling, when a peculiar knocking on the
floor overhead announced that Mr. Lisle desired his presence. That
gentleman was sitting up in bed, and in the growing darkness his face
could not be very distinctly seen; but Caleb instantly observed a vivid
and unusual light in the old man's eyes. The letter so strangely
delivered was lying open before him; and unless the shoemender was
greatly mistaken, there were stains of recent tears upon Mr. Lisle's
furrowed and hollow cheeks. The voice, too, it struck Caleb, though
eager, was gentle and wavering. "It was a mistake, Jennings," he said;
"I was mad for the moment. Are they gone?" he added in a yet more
subdued and gentle tone. Caleb informed him of what he had seen; and as
he did so, the strange light in the old man's eyes seemed to quiver and
sparkle with a yet intenser emotion than before. Presently he shaded
them with his hand, and remained several minutes silent. He then said
with a firmer voice: "I shall be glad if you will step to Mr. Sowerby,
and tell him I am too unwell to see him this evening. But be sure to say
nothing else," he eagerly added, as Caleb turned away in compliance with
his request; "and when you come back, let me see you again."

When Jennings returned, he found to his great surprise Mr. Lisle up and
nearly dressed; and his astonishment increased a hundredfold upon
hearing that gentleman say, in a quick but perfectly collected and
decided manner, that he should set off for London by the mail-train.

"For London--and by night!" exclaimed Caleb, scarcely sure that he heard
aright.

"Yes--yes, I shall not be observed in the dark," sharply rejoined Mr.
Lisle; "and you, Caleb, must keep my secret from every body, especially
from Sowerby. I shall be here in time to see him to-morrow night, and he
will be none the wiser." This was said with a slight chuckle; and as
soon as his simple preparations were complete, Mr. Lisle, well wrapped
up, and his face almost hidden by shawls, locked his door, and assisted
by Jennings, stole furtively down stairs, and reached unrecognized the
rail way station just in time for the train.

It was quite dark the next evening when Mr. Lisle returned; and so well
had he managed that Mr. Sowerby, who paid his usual visit about half an
hour afterward, had evidently heard nothing of the suspicious absence of
his esteemed client from Watley. The old man exulted over the success of
his deception to Caleb the next morning, but dropped no hint as to the
object of his sudden journey.

Three days passed without the occurrence of any incident tending to the
enlightenment of Mr. Jennings upon these mysterious events, which,
however, he plainly saw had lamentably shaken the long-since failing
man. On the afternoon of the fourth day, Mr. Lisle walked, or rather
tottered, into Caleb's stall, and seated himself on the only vacant
stool it contained. His manner was confused, and frequently purposeless,
and there was an anxious, flurried expression in his face which Jennings
did not at all like. He remained silent for some time, with the
exception of partially inaudible snatches of comment or questionings,
apparently addressed to himself. At last he said: "I shall take a longer
journey to-morrow, Caleb--much longer: let me see--where did I say? Ah,
yes! to Glasgow; to be sure, to Glasgow!"

"To Glasgow, and to-morrow!" exclaimed the astounded cobbler.

"No, no--not Glasgow; they have removed," feebly rejoined Mr. Lisle.
"But Lucy has written it down for me. True--true; and to-morrow I shall
set out."

The strange expression of Mr. Lisle's face became momentarily more
strongly marked, and Jennings, greatly alarmed, said: "You are ill, Mr.
Lisle; let me run for Dr. Clarke."

"No--no," he murmured, at the same time striving to rise from his seat,
which he could only accomplish by Caleb's assistance, and so supported,
he staggered indoors. "I shall be better to morrow," he said faintly,
and then slowly added: "To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow! Ah, me!
Yes, as I said, to-morrow, I--" He paused abruptly, and they gained his
apartment. He seated himself, and then Jennings, at his mute
solicitation, assisted him to bed.

He lay some time with his eyes closed; and Caleb could feel--for Mr.
Lisle held him firmly by the hand, as if to prevent his going away--a
convulsive shudder pass over his frame. At last he slowly opened his
eyes, and Caleb saw that he was indeed about to depart upon the long
journey from which there is no return. The lips of the dying man worked
inarticulately for some moments; and then with a mighty effort, as it
seemed, he said, while his trembling hand pointed feebly to a bureau
chest of drawers that stood in the room: "There--there, for Lucy; there,
the secret place is--" Some inaudible words followed, and then after a
still mightier struggle than before, he gasped out: "No word--no
word--to--to Sowerby--for her--Lucy."

More was said, but undistinguishable by mortal ear; and after gazing
with an expression of indescribable anxiety in the scared face of his
awestruck listener, the wearied eyes slowly reclosed--the deep silence
flowed past; then the convulsive shudder came again, and he was dead!

Caleb Jennings tremblingly summoned the house-servant and the landlady,
and was still confusedly pondering the broken sentences uttered by the
dying man, when Mr. Sowerby hurriedly arrived. The attorney's first care
was to assume the direction of affairs, and to place seals upon every
article containing or likely to contain any thing of value belonging to
the deceased. This done, he went away to give directions for the
funeral, which took place a few days afterward; and it was then formally
announced that Mr. Sowerby succeeded by will to the large property of
Ambrose Lisle; under trust, however, for the family, if any, of Robert
Lisle, the deceased's brother, who had gone when very young to India,
and had not been heard of for many years--a condition which did not at
all mar the joy of the crafty lawyer, he having long since instituted
private inquiries, which perfectly satisfied him that the said Robert
Lisle had died, unmarried, at Calcutta.

Mr. Jennings was in a state of great dubiety and consternation. Sowerby
had emptied the chest of drawers of every valuable it contained; and
unless he had missed the secret receptacle Mr. Lisle had spoken of, the
deceased's intentions, whatever they might have been, were clearly
defeated. And if he had _not_ discovered it, how could he, Jennings, get
at the drawers to examine them? A fortunate chance brought some relief
to his perplexities. Ambrose Lisle's furniture was advertised to be sold
by auction, and Caleb resolved to purchase the bureau chest of drawers
at almost any price, although to do so would oblige him to break into
his rent-money, then nearly due. The day of sale came, and the important
lot in its turn was put up. In one of the drawers there were a number of
loose newspapers, and other valueless scraps; and Caleb, with a sly
grin, asked the auctioneer if he sold the article with all its contents.
"Oh yes," said Sowerby, who was watching the sale; "the buyer may have
all it contains over his bargain, and much good may it do him." A laugh
followed the attorney's sneering remark, and the biddings went on. "I
want it," observed Caleb, "because it just fits a recess like this one
in my room underneath." This he said to quiet a suspicion he thought he
saw gathering upon the attorney's brow. It was finally knocked down to
Caleb at L5, 10s., a sum considerably beyond its real value; and he had
to borrow a sovereign in order to clear his speculative purchase. This
done, he carried off his prize, and as soon as the closing of the house
for the night secured him from interruption, he set eagerly to work in
search of the secret drawer. A long and patient examination was richly
rewarded. Behind one of the small drawers of the _secretaire_ portion of
the piece of furniture was another small one, curiously concealed, which
contained Bank-of-England notes to the amount of L200, tied up with a
letter, upon the back of which was written, in the deceased's
handwriting, "To take with me." The letter which Caleb, although he read
print with facility, had much difficulty in making out, was that which
Mr. Lisle had struck from the young woman's hand a few weeks before and
proved to be a very affecting appeal from Lucy Stevens, now Lucy Warner,
and a widow, with two grown-up children. Her husband had died in
insolvent circumstances, and she and her sister Emily, who was still
single, were endeavoring to carry on a school at Bristol, which promised
to be sufficiently prosperous if the sum of about L150 could be raised,
to save the furniture from her deceased husband's creditors. The claim
was pressing, for Mr. Warner had been dead nearly a year, and Mr. Lisle
being the only relative Mrs. Warner had in the world, she had ventured
to entreat his assistance for her mother's sake. There could be no moral
doubt, therefore, that this money was intended for Mrs. Warner's relief;
and early in the morning Mr. Caleb Jennings dressed himself in his
Sunday's suit, and with a brief announcement to his landlady that he was
about to leave Watley for a day or two on a visit to a friend, set off
for the railway station. He had not proceeded far when a difficulty
struck him: the bank-notes were all twenties; and were he to change a
twenty-pound note at the station, where he was well known, great would
be the tattle and wonderment, if nothing worse, that would ensue. So
Caleb tried his credit again, borrowed sufficient for his journey to
London, and there changed one of the notes.

He soon reached Bristol, and blessed was the relief which the sum of
money he brought afforded Mrs. Warner. She expressed much sorrow for the
death of Mr. Lisle, and great gratitude to Caleb. The worthy man
accepted with some reluctance one of the notes, or at least as much as
remained of that which he had changed; and after exchanging promises
with the widow and her relatives to keep the matter secret, departed
homeward. The young woman, Mrs. Warner's daughter, who had brought the
letter to Watley, was, Caleb noticed, the very image of her mother, or
rather of what her mother must have been when young. This remarkable
resemblance it was, no doubt, which had for the moment so confounded and
agitated Mr. Lisle.

Nothing occurred for about a fortnight after Caleb's return to disquiet
him, and he had begun to feel tolerably sure that his discovery of the
notes would remain unsuspected, when, one afternoon, the sudden and
impetuous entrance of Mr. Sowerby into his stall caused him to jump up
from his seat with surprise and alarm. The attorney's face was deathly
white, his eyes glared like a wild beast's, and his whole appearance
exhibited uncontrollable agitation. "A word with you, Mr. Jennings," he
gasped--"a word in private, and at once!" Caleb, in scarcely less
consternation than his visitor, led the way into his inner room, and
closed the door.

"Restore--give back," screamed the attorney, vainly struggling to
dissemble the agitation which convulsed him--"that--that--which you have
purloined from the chest of drawers!"

The hot blood rushed to Caleb's face and temples; the wild vehemence and
suddeness of the demand confounded him; and certain previous dim
suspicions that the law might not only pronounce what he had done
illegal, but possibly felonious, returned upon him with terrible force,
and he quite lost his presence of mind.

"I can't--I can't," he stammered. "It's gone--given away--"

"Gone!" shouted, or more correctly howled, Sowerby, at the same time
flying at Caleb's throat as if he would throttle him. "Gone--given away!
You lie--you want to drive a bargain with
me--dog!--liar!--rascal!--thief!"

This was a species of attack which Jennings was at no loss how to meet.
He shook the attorney roughly off, and hurled him, in the midst of his
vituperation, to the further end of the room.

They then stood glaring at each other in silence, till the attorney,
mastering himself as well as he could, essayed another and more rational
mode of attaining his purpose.

"Come, come, Jennings," he said, "don't be a fool. Let us understand
each other. I have just discovered a paper, a memorandum of what you
have found in the drawers, and to obtain which you bought them. I don't
care for the money--keep it; only give me the papers--documents."

"Papers--documents!" ejaculated Caleb in unfeigned surprise.

"Yes--yes; of use to me only. You, I remember, can not read writing; but
they are of great consequence to me--to me only, I tell you."

"You can't mean Mrs. Warner's letter?"

"No--no; curse the letter! You are playing with a tiger! Keep the money,
I tell you; but give up the papers--documents--or I'll transport you!"
shouted Sowerby with reviving fury.

Caleb, thoroughly bewildered, could only mechanically ejaculate that he
had no papers or documents.

The rage of the attorney when he found he could extract nothing from
Jennings was frightful. He literally foamed with passion, uttered the
wildest threats; and then suddenly changing his key, offered the
astounded cobbler one--two--three thousand pounds: any sum he chose to
name, for the papers--documents! This scene of alternate violence and
cajolery lasted nearly an hour; and then Sowerby rushed from the house,
as if pursued by the furies, and leaving his auditor in a state of
thorough bewilderment and dismay. It occurred to Caleb, as soon as his
mind had settled into something like order, that there might be another
secret drawer; and the recollection of Mr. Lisle's journey to London
recurred suggestively to him. Another long and eager search, however,
proved fruitless; and the suspicion was given up, or, more correctly,
weakened.

As soon as it was light the next morning, Mr. Sowerby was again with
him. He was more guarded now, and was at length convinced that Jennings
had no paper or document to give up. "It was only some important
memoranda," observed the attorney carelessly, "that would save me a
world of trouble in a lawsuit I shall have to bring against some heavy
debtors to Mr. Lisle's estate; but I must do as well as I can without
them. Good-morning." Just as he reached the door, a sudden thought
appeared to strike him. He stopped, and said: "By the way, Jennings, in
the hurry of business I forgot that Mr. Lisle had told me the chest of
drawers you bought, and a few other articles, were family relics which
he wished to be given to certain parties he named. The other things I
have got; and you, I suppose, will let me have the drawers for--say a
pound profit on your bargain?"

Caleb was not the acutest man in the world; but this sudden proposition,
carelessly as it was made, suggested curious thoughts. "No," he
answered; "I shall not part with it. I shall keep it as a memorial of
Mr. Lisle."

Sowerby's face assumed, as Caleb spoke, a ferocious expression. "Shall
you?" said he. "Then be sure, my fine fellow, that you shall also have
something to remember me by as long as you live!"

He then went away, and a few days afterward Caleb was served with a writ
for the recovery of the two hundred pounds.

The affair made a great noise in the place; and Caleb's conduct being
very generally approved, a subscription was set on foot to defray the
cost of defending the action--one Hayling, a rival attorney to Sowerby,
having asserted that the words used by the proprietor of the chest of
drawers at the sale barred his claim to the money found in them. This
wise gentleman was intrusted with the defense; and, strange to say, the
jury--a common one--spite of the direction of the judge, returned a
verdict for the defendant, upon the ground that Sowerby's jocular or
sneering remark amounted to a serious, valid leave and license to sell
two hundred pounds for five pounds ten shillings!

Sowerby obtained, as a matter of course, a rule for a new trial; and a
fresh action was brought. All at once Hayling refused to go on, alleging
deficiency of funds. He told Jennings that in his opinion it would be
better that he should give in to Sowerby's whim, who only wanted the
drawers in order to comply with the testator's wishes. "Besides,"
remarked Hayling in conclusion, "he is sure to get the article, you
know, when it comes to be sold under a writ of _fi fa_." A few days
after this conversation, it was ascertained that Hayling was to succeed
to Sowerby's business, the latter gentleman being about to retire upon
the fortune bequeathed him by Mr. Lisle.

At last Caleb, driven nearly out of his senses, though still doggedly
obstinate, by the harassing perplexities in which he found himself,
thought of applying to us.

"A very curious affair, upon my word," remarked Mr. Flint, as soon as
Caleb had unburdened himself of the story of his woes and cares; "and in
my opinion by no means explainable by Sowerby's anxiety to fulfill the
testator's wishes. He can not expect to get two hundred pence out of
you; and Mrs. Warner, you say, is equally unable to pay. Very odd
indeed. Perhaps if we could get time, something might turn up."

With this view Flint looked over the papers Caleb had brought, and found
the declaration was in _trover_--a manifest error--the notes never
admittedly having been in Sowerby's actual possession. We accordingly
demurred to the form of action, and the proceedings were set aside.
This, however, proved of no ultimate benefit. Sowerby persevered, and a
fresh action was instituted against the unhappy shoemender. So utterly
overcrowed and disconsolate was poor Caleb, that he determined to give
up the drawers, which was all Sowerby even now required, and so wash his
hands of the unfortunate business. Previous, however, to this being
done, it was determined that another thorough and scientific examination
of the mysterious piece of furniture should be made; and for this
purpose Mr. Flint obtained a workman skilled in the mysteries of secret
contrivances, from the desk and dressing-case establishment in
King-street, Holborn, and proceeded with him to Watley.

The man performed his task with great care and skill: every depth and
width was gauged and measured, in order to ascertain if there were any
false bottoms or backs; and the workman finally pronounced that there
was no concealed receptacle in the article.

"I am sure there is," persisted Flint, whom disappointment as usual
rendered but the more obstinate; "and so is Sowerby: and he knows, too,
that it is so cunningly contrived as to be undiscoverable, except by a
person in the secret, which he no doubt at first imagined Caleb to be.
I'll tell you what we'll do: You have the necessary tools with you.
Split the confounded chest of drawers into shreds: I'll be answerable
for the consequences."

This was done carefully and methodically, but for some time without
result. At length the large drawer next the floor had to be knocked to
pieces; and as it fell apart, one section of the bottom, which, like all
the others, was divided into two compartments, dropped asunder, and
discovered a parchment laid flat between the two thin leaves, which,
when pressed together in the grooves of the drawer, presented precisely
the same appearance as the rest. Flint snatched up the parchment, and
his eager eye had scarcely rested an instant on the writing, when a
shout of triumph burst from him. It was the last will and testament of
Ambrose Lisle, dated August 21, 1838--the day of his last hurried visit
to London. It revoked the former will, and bequeathed the whole of his
property, in equal portions, to his cousins Lucy Warner and Emily
Stevens, with succession to their children; but with reservation of
one-half to his brother Robert or children, should he be alive, or have
left offspring.

Great, it may be supposed, was the jubilation of Caleb Jennings at this
discovery; and all Watley, by his agency, was in a marvelously short
space of time in a very similar state of excitement. It was very late
that night when he reached his bed; and how he got there at all, and
what precisely had happened, except, indeed, that he had somewhere
picked up a splitting headache, was, for some time after he awoke the
next morning, very confusedly remembered.

Mr. Flint, upon reflection, was by no means so exultant as the worthy
shoemender. The odd mode of packing away a deed of such importance, with
no assignable motive for doing so, except the needless awe with which
Sowerby was said to have inspired his feeble-spirited client, together
with what Caleb had said of the shattered state of the deceased's mind
after the interview with Mrs. Warner's daughter, suggested fears that
Sowerby might dispute, and perhaps successfully, the validity of this
last will. My excellent partner, however, determined, as was his wont,
to put a bold face on the matter; and first clearly settling in his own
mind what he should and what he should _not_ say, waited upon Mr.
Sowerby. The news had preceded him, and he was at once surprised and
delighted to find that the nervous, crest-fallen attorney was quite
unaware of the advantages of his position. On condition of not being
called to account for the moneys he had received and expended, about
L1200, he destroyed the former will in Mr. Flint's presence, and gave up
at once all the deceased's papers. From these we learned that Mr. Lisle
had written a letter to Mrs. Warner, stating what he had done, and where
the will would be found, and that only herself and Jennings would know
the secret. From infirmity of purpose, or from having subsequently
determined on a personal interview, the letter was not posted; and
Sowerby subsequently discovered it, together with a memorandum of the
numbers of the bank notes found by Caleb in the secret drawer--the
eccentric gentleman appears to have had quite a mania for such
hiding-places--of a writing-desk.

The affair was thus happily terminated: Mrs. Warner, her children, and
sister, were enriched, and Caleb Jennings was set up in a good way of
business in his native place, where he still flourishes. Over the centre
of his shop there is a large nondescript sign, surmounted by a golden
boot, which, upon close inspection, is found to bear some resemblance to
a huge bureau chest of drawers, all the circumstances connected with
which may be heard, for the asking, and in much fuller detail than I
have given, from the lips of the owner of the establishment, by any lady
or gentleman who will take the trouble of a journey to Watley for that
purpose.




                        VILLAGE LIFE IN GERMANY.

                               THE CLUB.


Lesmona possesses a club. Its meetings are suspended during summer, but
are resumed as autumn wanes. Professedly, it is a whist club; but
card-playing is in reality the least of its objects, its chief intention
being to cultivate a kindly feeling among the inhabitants of the village
and the neighborhood, by bringing them periodically together. I was duly
balloted for and admitted. On the Friday evening after this honor was
conferred on me, I was introduced. The meetings were held in Meyerholz's
inn, and in the same apartment which had served as a ball-room. Here I
found a dozen or fifteen of the notabilities of the place assembled. In
a short time they assorted themselves, and sat down, some to whist, some
to chess, while others contented themselves with looking on. The points
at whist were fixed at a grote, about equivalent to a halfpenny--any
higher play would have been considered gambling, and would have been
regarded with extreme disfavor. Doctor W----'s phrase, "To be, or not to
be," was, I now found, the usual signal for the end as well as the
beginning of the game. Wine, and still more commonly beer, were imbibed
during the course of it. The wine usually drank in that part of the
world is French wine--St. Julian or some other Bordeaux wine is the
commonest. Rhenish wine is very rare. Some indulged in what they called
"grogs"--a "grog" is a small tumbler of brandy-punch. Almost all smoked;
indeed the pastor of the village was the only person in it who never
did. The pipe was much preferred to the cigar, the smoke from the latter
being apt to be troublesome when the hands are engaged. Of course the
pipe was the long German one, consisting of mouth-piece, flexible tube,
polished or cherry-tree stem, schwammdose or receiver, and the more or
less ornamented head or bowl. Since I am speaking of pipes, I may
mention that in Germany every smoker possesses several--and these, of
course, vary much in length, calibre, and value. There is abundant
opportunity of displaying the owner's taste. Some have their armorial
bearings painted on the bowl. Among students, again, it is common to
present a friend with a bowl bearing one's likeness, the said likeness
being a _silhouette_ or shade in profile. There are, of course, all the
other varieties of bowl; some have female figures, others landscapes or
public buildings, others the likenesses of well-known characters--John
Ronge was rather a favorite at the time I speak of. As to the stem, the
most esteemed are those of the cherry-tree, brought from the Vistula.
These stems disengage a pleasant odor.

But to return. "To be, or not to be," says Dr. W---- as he rises. The
rest of the party finish their games, and think of supper. It is a
slight repast; each orders what he chooses, and there is no set table. A
beefsteak or a sandwich are the most common viands. The German
expression for sandwich, by the way, is rather circumlocutory--the
literal translation of it is, "a butter-bread-with-meat;" it is like
some of the other composite terms in that language which strike a
beginner as being so odd--_hand-shoes_, for instance, or _finger-hat_,
for gloves and a thimble.

The club used to meet every Friday. Each alternate week, however, we had
what was called a ladies' club. On these occasions, the female portions
of the families of members were entitled to be present. The only other
difference was, that, when ladies came, the gentlemen abstained from
smoking pipes, and confined themselves to cigars.

But it is time to break up. Cloaks and great-coats are donned. There is
a lighting of lanterns, for the roads are dark, and some of us have a
considerable way to go. We separate with a simultaneous "Good-night--may
you sleep well."


                         A TEMPERANCE MEETING.

A temperance meeting was announced as being about to be held at a
village called Blumenthal, situated a few miles from Lesmona. On the
appointed day, I proceeded thither with some friends. On our arrival at
the place, we found a large canvas-covered booth erected on the border
of an extensive wood; this booth was open on every side, being meant as
a protection only against the rays of the sun. Adjacent was an inn, a
solitary house, the village being at some little distance. Entering
here, I was not a little surprised to find the majority of the promoters
of temperance drinking wine. It was just ten o'clock of the forenoon.
The fact, however, was, first, that many had come from a considerable
distance, and stood in need of some refreshment, and secondly, that the
pledge given on entering the society went no further than a promise to
abstain from ardent spirits. Total abstinence seems not to find much
favor in Germany, and the efforts of the Maessigkeit-Verein are directed
almost entirely against the use of the deadly branntwein of the country.
This branntwein is made from the potato, and is not merely intoxicating,
but, even in small quantities, is of a most pernicious effect on the
human system, destroying the stomach, and affecting the nerves, even
when far from being indulged in to any thing like excess.

At last the meeting began. A clergyman opened it with a short prayer,
and then the assembly sang a temperance hymn. The air to which it was
adapted was no other than our National Anthem--which, by the way, the
Germans fondly but erroneously claim as a German composition. Then came
the usual succession of speeches, then another hymn, and then the
meeting, it being past noon, adjourned for dinner. The meal was served
in the inn, and also in booths similar to that constructed for the
meeting; but many had brought their provisions with them, and stretched
themselves on the turf under the shade of the forest. Altogether--and
especially as a large number of women had attended, and these of all
classes, from the peasant in gaudy colors to the more simply-dressed
lady--the scene was most picturesque: it looked like a pic-nic on a
great scale. After dinner, there were more speeches and more music. The
speeches tired me, and I wandered into the wood, where I found the music
much improved by being heard at a distance. The fact is, that the
country people in this part of Germany are any thing but the proficients
in music, which, according to the idea commonly entertained on the
subject in Britain, all Germans are. They, on the contrary, know
scarcely any thing whatever of the art; even in the churches,
part-singing is unknown. While I was at Lesmona, the pastor of that
place had indeed begun to instruct the children of his parish in
psalmody, and, as he is perfectly competent to do so, a change may
ultimately be effected; but in my time the church music was absolutely
painful to listen to; the vocal was deafening and discordant, and, as
for the instrumental, I shall not to my dying day forget the inhuman
turn which old Mr. Mueller the organist introduced, and with evident
complacency, too, at the end of every two or three bars. Even among the
upper classes in the country, music is but scantily cultivated. In
Lesmona, for instance, one family, and one alone, paid any attention to
the art. That family, however--all its members included--had attained to
a very high degree of excellence in it. In the large towns, on the other
hand, the case is very different. In Bremen, for example, I heard the
Paulus of Mendelssohn given entirely by amateurs, and both in the
choruses, and in the solos, the finish of the performance was perfect.
In the neighborhood of Hamburg, too, I have met small companies of
workmen from the town enjoying a short walk into the country, and
singing in parts with admirable precision and _ensemble_.

But to return to Blumenthal. The meeting at last broke up. As soon as it
did, a fire balloon was sent up. What connection, however, this had with
the objects of the assembly, I never was able to ascertain.

Since I have introduced the word Verein--union, or society--I may notice
one of another kind, a branch of which had its head-quarters at Lesmona.
I mean the Gustavus-Adolphus Society. Its object is to unite by a common
bond the common Protestantism of Germany. I have not heard lately of its
progress and success, but I always greatly doubted of its possibility,
and am convinced it can not endure, on its original footing at least. On
what common ground (unless it be a negative one, and that is worth
nothing), can the evangelical party and the rationalists take their
stand? Even while I was in Lesmona, the elements of discord had begun to
show themselves; for in that remote nook were found keen partisans; and
it was only by a compromise effected with the greatest difficulty that
the Lesmona branch of the union did not fall to pieces before it was
completely established. And, as for the compromise, such things never
last long.


                            EVENING PARTIES.

I found the inhabitants of Lesmona exceedingly hospitable. It is the
custom in that part of the world for any new-comer to pay a visit to
those people of the place, to whom he desires to make himself known. It
is in their option to return the visit or not. If the visit is not
returned, it is understood that the honor and pleasure and so forth of
your visit is declined; if, on the contrary, even a card is left for you
within a few days, you may count on the friendship of the family.

One of the first visits I made was to Dr. W----. As is usual, I was
offered coffee and a cigar. When they were finished, and my small-talk
exhausted, I took my leave, after what I thought a somewhat stiff
interview. Indeed I almost regretted I had gone. So much for first
impressions. I changed my mind, when within a very few days I received a
kind invitation to an evening party at the worthy doctor's house. Doctor
W----, as I found out when I came to know him, was quite a _character_.
Bred to the bar, he was soon found totally unqualified for his
profession, from the extraordinary benevolence of his nature. Instead of
seeking for practice, he did all he could to prevent his clients from
going to law. The consequence was, that, whatever may have been the
rewards of his conscience, his profession gave him but few. Finding,
therefore, that he had mistaken his vocation, and that his purse
remonstrated strongly against his continuing in the pursuit of forensic
distinction, he wisely abandoned the line he had at first chosen, and
accepted the post of chief custom-house-officer on the frontier of
Hanover and Bremen. Here, modestly but comfortably settled, he gave his
leisure hours to the study of history, and, in a congenial retirement,
soon found himself quite happy. He soon became remarkable for the
accuracy of his information, and more especially for his acquaintance
with minute points and details. Thus, for example, when on his return
from his journey to Marienbad, to which I have already alluded, he
visited the town and field of battle of Leipsic, he found himself as
much at home, with regard to the topography, as did the very guide he
had engaged to point out the places rendered famous by the great fight.

On the evening appointed, I duly made my appearance in Madame W----'s
saloon or drawing-room. It was the handsomest I saw in the country, and
possessed a carpet. In general, this article, so indispensable to
English comfort, is represented, and that indeed but barely, by a few
straw mats scattered about. Tea was handed round. This the Germans drink
with cream, or wine, or neither. It is esteemed a great luxury, as it
costs dear, but they make it so weak, that there is not an old woman in
England who would not regard it with contempt. After tea, we began to
play at what they call company-games. Many of these are identical with
our own inn-door amusements. Thus, they have hide-the-handkerchief,
blind-man's-buff (which they call _the blind cow_), and many others.
One, however, seems to me quite peculiar, not merely to Germany, but to
this part of it. It is called _Luitye lebt noch_--literally, _the little
fellow is still alive_. _Luitye_ is Plattdeutsch, or low German, the
dialect, as I have already said, of this district. The game is played
thus: The party form a circle. Some splints of wood, three or four
inches long, have been provided. One of these is lighted, and blown out
again in a few seconds. This is _luitye_. There is, of course, for some
little time, a part of the charcoal which remains red. The stick is
passed from hand to hand, each player, as he gives it to his neighbor,
exclaiming, "Luitye lebt noch!" He or she in whose hands it is finally
extinguished has to pay a forfeit. No one can refuse it when offered;
and one of the most amusing parts of the matter is to hold luitye--the
little fellow--till he is on the very point of expiring, and then to
force him on the person next you, so that he goes out before he can get
him further. It is, however, more amusing still, when he who would thus
victimize his friend delays too long, and is himself caught.

After this, and some other German games, which I did not much enjoy, as
they consisted chiefly in the repetition of certain formal phrases,
without much meaning, we acted charades--not very successfully, I must
admit. Then we seated ourselves round a table, in the middle of which a
piece of light cotton was placed. At this we all began to blow fiercely,
and a tempest arose, on which the cotton was tossed about in all
directions. When it finally found refuge on the person of any of us, the
recipient was condemned to a forfeit. This game is entertaining enough,
and was carried on amidst much boisterous puffing and laughing, till
suddenly the cotton mysteriously disappeared. It appeared it had
actually been carried into the open mouth of a gentleman, whose powers
had been so severely taxed that he had lost his wind. This put an end to
the amusement, and we proceeded to draw the forfeits.

Then we had supper. It was a less substantial and more judicious meal
than I had generally seen in the neighborhood. It was also a more
ambitious one; not a few of the dishes were disguised with the artistic
skill which is the pride of modern cookery. In particular, I remember
that I accepted a spoonful of what I thought was a composition of
raspberries, strawberries, and red currant jelly. It turned out to be a
sort of hashed lobster pickle. Shortly after supper we broke up.

In such parties, I should remark that all present took part in them,
from the oldest to the youngest. What distinguished them most, besides
this, was a kind of homely cheerfulness that was quite delightful. Every
one came in good humor, and resolved to enjoy himself. And in this it
was very evident all succeeded. I never saw any dancing at any of these
soirees, and rarely was there any music. When, however, there was any of
the latter, it was excellent. I shall not soon forget the way in which
the music of Schiller's "Founding of the Bell" was performed by some of
my Lesmona and Ritterhude friends.




                       A PEEP AT THE "PERAHARRA."


Of the religious festivals of the Buddhists of Ceylon, that known as the
Peraharra is the most important. It is observed at Kandy, the capital of
the ancient kings of Ceylon, and at Ratnapoora, the chief town of the
Saffragam district. Few good Buddhists will be absent from these
religious observances; and whole families may be seen journeying on foot
for many miles, over mountains, through dense jungles and unwholesome
swamps, across rapid and dangerous streams, along hot sandy pathways,
loaded with their pittance of food and the more bulky presents of fruit,
rice, oil, and flowers, to lay at the foot of the holy shrine of Buddha,
to be eventually devoured by the insatiable priests.

In the month of July, 1840, I had a peep at the celebrated Peraharra of
Ratnapoora, where the shrine sacred to the memory of _Saman_ rivals in
attraction the great _Dalada Maligawa_ of Kandy. Like its mountain
competitor, it has its relic of Buddha enshrined in a richly-jeweled
casket, which is made an object of especial veneration to the votaries
of that god. _Saman_ was the brother of the famed Rama, the Malabar
conqueror who invaded Ceylon in ages long past, and extirpated from its
flowery shores the race of mighty giants who had held its people in
subjection for many centuries--a sort of Oriental King Arthur. To Saman
was given the district of Saffragam; and the people of that country at
his death, promoted him to the dignity of a deity, as a slight token of
their regard.

The Ratnapoora festival is the more attractive by reason of its being
made the occasion of a large traffic in precious stones, with which the
neighborhood abounds. In this way the great part of the Buddhists manage
to combine commerce with devotion.

The road to the Saffragam district was, in the time at which I traveled
it, a very barbarous and dangerous affair, differing widely from the
excellent traces which existed through most of the maritime provinces of
Ceylon. It was then, in fact, little more than a mere bullock-track, or
bridle-path, with no bridges to aid in crossing the streams which
intersect it. The journey from Colombo to Ratnapoora may now be easily
performed in one day: at that time it required a good nag and careful
diligence to accomplish it in two.

Day dawned as I got clear of the Pettah, or Black Town of Colombo, and
crossed a small stream which led me to the jungle, or village road, I
was to follow. In England, we should call such a muddy lane; but here
one knows little between the good high roads and the bullock-track.
Strange as it may sound to home travelers, one is often glad to see the
sun rise, and feel it warm the heavy, damp air in the tropics. Before me
lay a long straggling line of low jungle, indicating the road: far away
in the distance rose the high, bluff hill and rocks towering over the
once royal domain of _Avishawella_. Around, on every side, was water,
completely hiding the fields from view, and only allowing a bush, or a
tree, or a hut-top, to be seen peeping up through the aqueous vail,
dotting the wide expanse like daisies in a field. The rains had flooded
the whole of the low country, which, inundated by many mountain
torrents, could not discharge the mass of streams nearly so fast as it
received them. Over and across all this watery wilderness huge masses of
misty vapor came rolling and tumbling along, as though shrouding some
Titanic water-sprites who had been keeping it up rather late the night
before, and were not quite sure of the way home. One might have
imagined, indeed, that it was some universal washing-day, and that the
great lid of the national copper had just been lifted up.

As the sun rose above the line of black rocks in the distance, its rays
lit up those misty monsters of the flood, imparting to them life-like
tints, which gave them beauty, and forms they had not known before. As
these sun-lit fogs rolled on, a thousand shapes moved fitfully among
them: troops of wild horsemen; crystal palaces with gilded gates; grim
figures playing at bopeep; hills, towns, and castles; with many a ship
at sea, and lovely cottages in quiet, sunny glades; all these, and more,
seemed there. With the sea-breeze, all that array of cloudy creatures
departed, leaving the air hot and stifling from the reflection of the
sun's rays in the endless flood above me. But where were the poor
Singalese villagers, their families, and their goods, amidst all this
wreck? As I jogged along, the cry of a child, the crowing of a cock, the
bark of a dog, floated across the ocean of mist, but whence came they? I
looked to the right and to the left. I strained my eyes straightforward,
but not a soul, or a feather, or a snout was to be seen. Presently the
fog cleared away, and I could see overhead into the trees. There,
chairs, tables, chatties, paddy-pounders, boxes of clothes, children in
cots, men, women, cats, dogs, all were there in one strange medley,
curiously ensconced among the wide-spreading branches of the trees. Over
their heads, and on each side, mats and cocoa-nut leaves were hung to
keep off rain and damp fogs, while against each side of the tree was
placed a thick notched stick, which served as a ladder for the whole
party. Here and there canoes were to be seen paddled across the fields
to keep up communication between the different villages. It was a
strange but desolate spectacle, and I was glad to find myself, at last,
free from the watery neighborhood, and once more riding on _terra
firma_.

During the heat of the next day I turned aside to a shady green lane. A
mile along this quiet pathway I was tempted to rest myself at the mouth
of a dark-looking cave, by the side of a running stream of beautiful
water. Tying my pony to a bush, I entered at the low archway, and found
myself at once in utter darkness; but after a short time I began to
distinguish objects, and then saw, close to me, one whom I should have
least looked for in that strange, desolate spot. It was a Chinese, tail
and all. My first idea was, as I looked at the figure through the dim
light of the cave, that it was nothing more than a large China jar, or,
perhaps a huge tea-chest, left there by some traveler; but, when the
great, round face relaxed into a grin, and the little pea-like eyes
winked, and the tail moved, and the thick lips uttered broken English, I
took a proper view of the matter, and wished my cavern acquaintance
"good-morning." I soon gathered the occupation of See Chee in this
strange place; the cave we were then in was one of the many in that
neighborhood, in which a particular kind of swallow builds the edible
nests so highly prized by the Chinese and Japanese for conversion into
soups, stews, and, for aught we know, into tarts. The Chinaman told me,
what I was scarcely prepared to learn, that he rented from the Ceylon
government the privilege to seek these birds' nests in this district,
for which he paid the yearly sum of one hundred dollars, or seven
pounds, ten shillings. Procuring a _chule_, or native torch, the Chinese
nest-hunter showed me long ledges of shelving rock at the top of the
cavern, whereon whole legions of curious little gummy-like excrescences
were suspended; some were perfect nests, others were in course of
formation, and these latter I learned were the most valued; those which
had had the young birds reared in them being indifferently thought of,
and were only bought by the lower orders of soup-makers. Having rested
myself and pony, I once more pushed on for Ratnapoora, where I arrived,
heated, jaded, and dusty, by high noon.

A chattie bath seldom fails to refresh the Indian traveler, and fit him
for the enjoyment of his meal. In the cool of the evening I strolled out
to watch the preparations for the nightly festivities. These continue
for about a fortnight, chiefly after sunset, though devotees may be seen
laying their simple offerings at the foot of the shrine, during most
part of the afternoon. The little bazaar of the town was alive with
business; all vestiges of its wonted filth and wretchedness were hidden
beneath long strips of white linen, and garlands of cocoa-nut leaves and
flowers hung round by bands of bright red cloth. Piles of tempting wares
were there; beads, bangles, and scarfs to decorate; rice, jaggery, and
sweetmeats to eat, and innumerable liquors to drink, were placed in
profuse array. The streets and lanes poured forth long strings of human
beings, heated with the sun, flushed with drink, and bedizened with
trumpery jewelry and mock finery. Poor tillers of the soil; beggarly
fishermen; mendicant cinnamon peelers; half-starved coolies; lean,
sickly women, and poor, immature children, passed onward in the motley
throng, burying their every-day misery beneath the savage mirth of a
night or two at the Peraharra.

Following the living, dark stream, as closely as the heat, dust, and
strange odors would allow me, I arrived, at length, near to the Temple
of Saman. The edifice, of which I caught a distant glimpse, was half
concealed beneath the heavy, luxuriant foliage of cocoa-nut topes,
arekas, plantains, and banyan trees. An ocean of human heads filled up
the space around the building, from which proceeded the well-known
sounds of the reed and the tom-tom. Gay flags fluttered from the four
corners, and the lofty pinnacle in the centre; wreaths of flowers,
plaited leaves and ribbons of many colors, waved jauntily from roof to
door; while round the pillars of the walls and door posts clustered rich
bunches of most tempting fruit.

Close by this busy scene, another group was forming under a large and
lofty _Pandahl_, or open bungalow. Forcing my way to one corner of the
shed, I found a company of Indian jugglers consisting of two men, a
girl, and a child of perhaps three years. The men were habited in
strange uncouth dresses, with large strings of heavy black beads round
their necks; the girl was simply and neatly clad in white, with silver
bangl

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