HARPER’S
NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

No. XXIV.—MAY, 1852.—Vol. IV.

RODOLPHUS.—A FRANCONIA STORY.
BY JACOB ABBOTT.

CHAPTER III.

I. ANTONIO.

The person who came in so suddenly to help
the boys extinguish the fire under the corn-barn,
on the night of the robbery, was Antonio,
or Beechnut, as the boys more commonly called
him. In order to explain how he came to be
there, we must go back a little in our narrative,
and change the scene of it to Mrs. Henry’s house
at Franconia, where Antonio lived.

One morning about a week before the robbery,
Phonny, Mrs. Henry’s son, and his cousin Malleville,
who was at that time making a visit at his
mother’s, were out upon the back platform at
play, when they saw Antonio walking toward
the barn.

“Children,” said Antonio, “we are going into
the field to get a great stone out of the ground.
You may go with us if you like.”

“Well;” said Phonny, “come, Malleville, let
us go.”

So the children followed Antonio to the barn.
There was a man there, one of Mrs. Henry’s
workmen, called James, who was getting out the
oxen. James drove the oxen into the shed, and
there attached them to a certain vehicle called
a drag. This drag was formed of two planks
placed side by side, with small pieces nailed
along the sides and at the ends. The drag was
shaped at the front so as to turn up a little, in
order that it might not catch in the ground when
drawn along. There was a hole in the front part
of the drag for the end of a chain to be passed
through, to draw the drag by. The end of the
chain was fastened by a wooden pin called a fid,
which was passed through the hook or one of
the links, and this prevented the chain from being
drawn back through the hole again.

While James was attaching the oxen to the
drag, Antonio was putting such tools and implements
upon it as would be required for the work.
He put on an iron bar, an ax, a saw, a shovel,
and two spare chains.

“Now, children,” said he, “jump on.”

So Phonny and Malleville jumped on, and Antonio
with them. Antonio stood in the middle
of the drag, while Phonny and Malleville took
their places on each side of him, and held on by
his arms. James then started the oxen along,
and thus they went into the field.

“And now, Beechnut,” said Malleville, “I
wish you would sing me the little song that
Agnes sung when she was dancing on the ice
that summer night.”

Phonny laughed aloud at this. “Oh, Malleville!”
said he; “there could not be any ice on
a summer night.”

“Yes, there could,” said Malleville, in a very
positive tone, “and there was. Beechnut told
me so.”

“Oh, that was only one of Beechnut’s stories,”
said Phonny, “made up to amuse you.”

“Well, I don’t care,” said Malleville, “I want
to hear the song again.”

Beechnut had told Malleville a story about
the fairy Agnes whom he found dancing upon a
fountain one summer night in the woods, having
previously frozen over the surface of the water
with a little silver wand. He had often sung
this song to Malleville, and now she wished to
hear it again. The words of the song, as Beechnut
sang them, were as follows:

The music was as follows:

[Listen]

When Beechnut had sung the song Malleville
said, “Again.” She was accustomed to say
“again,” when she wished to hear Beechnut go
on with his singing, and as she usually liked to
hear such songs a great many times. Beechnut
always continued to sing them, over and over, as
long as she said “again.”

[Pg 722]
Thus Malleville kept him singing Agnes’s song
in this instance all the way toward the field.

At length Malleville ceased to say “again,”
on account of her attention being attracted to a
bridge which she saw before them, and which it
was obvious they were going to cross. It had
only logs on the sides of it for railing. Beyond
the bridge the road lay along the margin of a
wood. The stone which James and Antonio
were going to get out, was just beyond the bridge,
and almost in the road. When the oxen got
opposite to the stone, James stopped them, and
Antonio and the children got off the drag.

THE DRAG RIDE.

It was only a small part of the stone that appeared
above the ground. James took the shovel
and began to dig around the place, so as to bring
the stone more fully to view, while Antonio went
into the wood to cut a small tree, in order to make
a lever of the stem of it. Phonny took the saw—first
asking Antonio’s permission to take it—and
climbed up into a large tree near the margin
of the wood, where he began to saw off a dead
branch which was growing there, and which may
be seen in the picture. Malleville, in the mean
time, sat down upon a square stone which was
lying by the road-side near the wood, and occupied
herself sometimes in watching the operation
of digging out the stone, sometimes in looking
up at Phonny, and sometimes in singing the
song which Antonio had sung to her on the
way.

Presently Antonio, having obtained his lever,
came out into the road with it, and laid it down
by the drag. He looked at the drag in doing
this, and observed that one of the side-pieces had
started up, and that it ought to be nailed down
again. He looked up into the tree where Phonny
was sawing, and said:

“Phonny!”

“What!” said Phonny.

“Look up over your head,” said Antonio.
Phonny looked up.

“Do you see that short branch just above
you?”

“This?” said Phonny, putting his hand upon it.

“Yes,” said Antonio.

“Yes,” said Phonny, “I see
it.”

“Hang your saw on it,” said
Antonio.

Phonny did so.

“Now, come down from the
tree,” said Antonio.

Phonny climbed down as fast
as he could, and came to Beechnut.

“Take all the things out of
your pocket and put them down
on the drag.”

Phonny began to take the
things out. First came a pocket
handkerchief. Then a knife handle
without any blades. Then a
fishing line. Then two old coins
and a dark red pebble stone.
This exhausted one pocket.—From
the other came a small
glass prism, three acorns, and
at last two long nails.

“Ah, that is what I want,”
said Antonio, taking up the nails.
“I thought you had two nails in
your pocket, for I remembered
that I gave you two yesterday.
Will you give them back to me
again?”

“Yes,” said Phonny.

“Now, put the things back in
your pocket. I admire a boy that
obeys orders, without stopping to ask why. He
waits till the end, and then he sees why. Now,
you can go back to your saw.”

But instead of going back to his saw, Phonny
seemed just at that instant to get a glimpse of
something which attracted his attention along the
road beyond the bridge, for as soon as he had put
his goods and chattels back in his pockets, he
paused a moment, looking in that direction, and
then he set out to run as fast as he could over
the bridge. Antonio looked, and saw that there
was a girl coming along, and that Phonny was
running to meet her.

Antonio wondered who it could be.

It proved to be Ellen Linn. When Malleville
saw that it was Ellen, she ran to meet her. She
asked her why she did not bring Annie with her.

“I did,” said Ellen; “she is at the house.
She was tired after walking so far, and so I left
her there.”

[Pg 723]
“I am glad that she has come,” said Malleville,
“let us go and see her.”

“Not just yet,” said Ellen. “I will go with
you pretty soon.”

The fact was that Ellen had come to see Antonio
about Rodolphus, and now she did not know
exactly how she should manage to have any conversation
with him alone; and she did not wish
to talk before James and all the rest about the
misconduct of her brother. As soon as Antonio
saw her, he went to meet her, and walked with
her up to the place where they were at work, to
show her the great stone that they were digging
out. Ellen looked at it a few minutes and asked
some questions about it, but her thoughts were
after all upon her brother, and not upon the stone.
Presently she went to the place where Malleville
had been sitting, and sat down there. She
thought, perhaps, that Antonio would come there,
and that then she could speak to him.

Phonny climbed up into the tree again, partly
to finish his sawing, and partly to let Ellen Linn
see how well he could work in such a high place.
While he was there, Antonio went to the place
where Ellen Linn was sitting, and asked her if
she had heard from Rodolphus lately.

“Yes,” said Ellen, “and that is the very thing
that I came to see you about. I want to talk
with you about Rodolphus.”

Ellen said this in a low and desponding voice,
and Antonio knew that she wished to speak to
him alone.

“We can not talk very well here,” said Antonio,
“will it do if I come and see you about it
to-night?”

“Yes,” said Ellen, looking up joyfully. “Only
I am sorry to put you to that trouble.”

“I will come,” said Antonio. “I shall get
there about half-past eight.”

Pretty soon after this, Ellen Linn went back
to the house, and after a time she and Annie
went home. About a quarter past eight that
evening, she went out into the yard and down to
the gate to watch for Antonio. At length she
saw him coming. When he reached the house,
Ellen walked with him to the great tree in the
middle of the yard, and they both sat down on
the bench by the side of it, while Annie was running
about in the great circular walk, drawing
her cart. Here Antonio and Ellen had a long
conversation about Rodolphus. Ellen said that
she had heard very unfavorable accounts of him.
She had learned that he had got into bad company
in the town where he now lived, as he had
done at home, and that she was afraid that he
was fast going to ruin. She did not know what
could be done, but she thought that perhaps Antonio
might go there and see him, and find out
how the case really was, and perhaps do something
to save her brother.

“I will go, at any rate,” said Antonio, “and
see if any thing can be done. Perhaps,” he
continued, “Mr. Kerber has found that he is a
troublesome boy and may be willing to give him
up, and then we can get him another place.
However, at all events, I will go and see.”

“When can you go?” asked Ellen.

“I can go next Saturday, most conveniently,”
said Antonio. “Besides if I go on Saturday I
can stay till Monday, and that will give me all
of Sunday to see Rodolphus, when he will of
course be at leisure.”

So it was arranged that Antonio was to go on
Saturday. Ellen requested him to manage his
expedition as privately as possible, for she did
not wish to have her brother’s misconduct made
known more than was absolutely necessary.
Antonio told her that nobody but Mrs. Henry
should know where he was going, and that he
would not even tell her what he was going
for.

That evening Antonio obtained leave of Mrs.
Henry to go to the town where Mr. Kerber lived,
on Saturday, and to be gone until Monday. He
told Mrs. Henry that the business on which he
was going, was private, and that it concerned
other persons, and that on their account, if she
had confidence enough in him to trust him, he
should like to be allowed to go without explaining
what the business was. Mrs. Henry said
that she had perfect confidence in him, and that
she did not wish him to explain the nature of
the business. She surmised, however, that it
was something relating to Rodolphus, for she
knew about his character and history, and she
recollected Ellen’s calling at her house to inquire
for Antonio that morning.

When the Saturday arrived, Antonio began
about ten o’clock to prepare for his journey.
He had decided to set out on foot. He thought
that he should get along very comfortably and
well without a horse, as he supposed it would be
easy for him to make bargains with the teamsters
and travelers that would overtake him on the
road, to carry him a considerable part of the
way. He could have taken a horse as well as
not from Mr. Henry’s, but as he was to remain in
the place where he was going over Sunday, he
concluded that the expense of keeping the horse
there, if he were to take one, would be more
than he would have to pay to the travelers and
teamsters for carrying him along the road.

He told James that he was going away, and
that he was not to be back again until Monday.
He did not, however, tell him where he was
going. When he was all ready to set out, he
went to his chest and took some money out of
his till—as much as he thought that he should
need—and then went into the parlor to tell
Mrs. Henry that he was going.

“Are you all ready, and have you got every
thing that you want?” asked Mrs. Henry.

Antonio said that he had every thing.

“Well, good-by then,” said Mrs. Henry. “I
wish you a pleasant journey; and if you find
that any thing occurs so that you think it best
to stay longer than Monday, you can do so.”

Antonio thanked Mrs. Henry, bade her good-by,
and went away.

Antonio stopped at Mrs. Linn’s as he passed
through the village. He had promised Ellen
that he would call there on his way, to get a letter[Pg 724]
which she was going to send, and had told
her at what time he should probably come. He
found Ellen waiting for him at the gate. She
had a small parcel in her hand. When Antonio
came to the gate she showed him the parcel,
and asked him if he could carry such a large
one.

“It is not large at all,” said Antonio; “I can
carry it just as well as not.”

“It is my little Bible,” said she, “and the letter
is inside. It is the Bible that my aunt gave
me; but I thought she would be willing that I
should give it to Rodolphus, if she knew—”

Here Ellen stopped, without finishing her sentence,
and walked away toward the house. Antonio
looked after her a moment, and then went
away without saying another word.

It was twelve o’clock before he was fairly set
out on his journey. He walked on for about two
hours, meeting with various objects of interest
in the way, but without finding any traveler going
the same way, to help him on his journey.
At last he came to a place where there were two
girls standing by a well before a farm-house.
Antonio, being tired and thirsty, went up to the
well to get a drink.

THE WELL.

“How far is it from here to Franconia?” said
Antonio to the girls.

They looked at him as if surprised, but at first
they did not answer.

“Do you know?” said Antonio, speaking again.

“Haven’t you just come from Franconia?”
said one of the girls.

“Yes,” said Antonio.

“Then I should think that you would know
yourself,” said she.

“No,” said Antonio, “I don’t know. I have
been walking about two hours; but I don’t know
how far it is.”

“I believe it is about five miles,” said the
youngest girl.

“Then I have come two miles and a half an
hour,” said Antonio. “It is twenty miles more
that I have got to go.”

Then he made a calculation in his mind, and
found that if he should have to walk all the way,
he should not reach the end of his journey till
about eleven o’clock, allowing one hour to stop
for supper and rest.

Antonio thanked the girls for his drink of water
and then went on.

Pretty soon he saw a large wagon in the road
before him. He walked on fast until he overtook
it. He made a bargain with the wagoner to carry
him as far as the wagon was going on his road,
which was about ten miles. This ride rested
him very much, but it did not help him forward
at all in respect to time, for the wagon did not
travel any faster than he would have walked.

At length the wagon came to the place where
it was to turn off from Antonio’s road; so Antonio
paid the man the price which had been
agreed upon, and then took to the road again as
a pedestrian.

He walked on about an hour, and then he began
to be pretty tired. He concluded that he
would stop and rest and get some supper at the
very next tavern. It was now about half-past
seven, and he was yet, as he calculated, nearly
eight miles from the end of his journey. Just
then he heard the sound of wheels behind him,
and, on looking round, he saw a light wagon
coming, drawn by a single horse, and with but
one man in the wagon. The wagon was coming
on pretty rapidly, but Antonio determined to stop
it as it passed; so he stood at one side of the
road, and held up his hand as a signal, when the
wagon came near.

The man stopped. On inquiry Antonio found
that he was going directly to the town where
Rodolphus lived. Antonio asked the man what
he would ask to carry him there.

“What may I call your name?” said the man.

“My name is Antonio.”

“And my name is Antony,” said the man.
“Antony. It is a remarkable coincidence that
our names should be so near alike. Get in here
with me and ride on to the tavern, we will see if
we can make a trade.”

Antonio found Antony a very amusing and
agreeable companion. In the end it was agreed
that they should stop at the tavern and have some
supper, and that Antonio should pay for the supper
for both himself and Antony, and in consideration
of that, he was to be carried in the wagon
to the end of his journey.

During the supper and afterward, while riding
along the road, Antony was quite inquisitive to
learn all about Antonio, and especially to ascertain
what was the cause of his taking that journey.
But Antonio resisted all these attempts,
and would give no information whatever in respect
to his business.

They reached the end of their journey about
half-past nine o’clock. Antonio was set down at
the tavern, which has already been spoken of as
situated at the head of the lane leading to the
corn-barn, where Rodolphus and the other boys[Pg 725]
had made their rendezvous. Immediately after
being shown to his room, which it happened
was a chamber on the side of the house which
was toward the lane, Antonio came down stairs
and went out. His plan was to proceed directly
to Mr. Kerber’s house, hoping to be able to see
Rodolphus that evening. He was afraid before
he left the tavern that it might be too late, and
that he should find they had all gone to bed at
Mr. Kerber’s. He thought, however, that he
could tell whether the family were still up, by the
light which he would in that case see at the windows;
and he concluded that if the house should
appear dark, he would not knock at the door, but
go back to the tavern, and wait till the next
morning.

The house was dark, and so Antonio, after
standing and looking at it a few moments with a
disappointed air, went back to the tavern. He
went in at the door, and went up to his room.
It happened that no one saw him go into the
tavern this time, for as there was a very bright
moon, and it shone directly into his chamber-window,
he thought that he should not need a
lamp to go to bed by, so he went directly up stairs
to his room.

It was now about ten o’clock. Antonio sat
down by his window and looked out. It was a
beautiful evening, and he sat some time enjoying
the scene. At length he heard suppressed
voices, and looking down he saw three boys come
stealing along round the corner of a fence and
enter a lane. He saw the light of a lantern, too,
for he was up so high that he could look down
into it, as it were. He was convinced at once
from these indications that there was something
going on that was wrong.

He listened attentively, and thought that he
could recognize Rodolphus’s voice, and he was
at once filled with apprehension and anxiety. He
immediately took his cap, and went softly down
stairs, and out at the door, and then going round
into the lane, he followed the boys down toward
the corn-barn. When they had all got safely in,
underneath the building, he crept up softly to the
place, and looking through a small crack in the
boards he saw and heard all that was going on;
he overheard the conversation between the boys
about the box, saw them take away the straw,
dig the hole, and bury it, and then had just time
to step round the corner of the barn, and conceal
himself, when the boys came out to see if the
way was clear for them to go home. The next
moment the light from the burning straw broke
out, and Antonio, without stopping to think, ran
instinctively in among the boys to help them to
put out the fire.

Of course when the boys fled he was left there
alone, and he soon found that it would be impossible
for him to extinguish the fire. It spread so
rapidly over the straw and among the boxes, that
it was very plain all his efforts to arrest the progress
of it would be unavailing. In the mean time
he began to hear the cry of “fire.” The people of
the tavern had been the first to see the light, and
were running to the spot down the lane. It suddenly
occurred to Antonio that if he were found
there at the fire he should be obliged to explain
how he came there, and by so doing to expose
Rodolphus as a thief and a burglar.[1] When Antonio
thought how broken-hearted Ellen would
be to have her brother sent to prison for such
crimes, he could not endure the thought of being
the means of his detection. He immediately determined
therefore to run away, and leave the
people to find out how the fire originated as they
best could.

All these thoughts passed through Antonio’s
mind in an instant, and he sprang out from under
the corn-barn as soon as he heard the men coming,
and ran off toward the fields. The men saw
him, and they concluded immediately that he was
an incendiary who had set the building on fire,
and accordingly the first two that came to the
spot instead of stopping to put out the fire, determined
to pursue the fugitive. Antonio ran to
a place where there was a gap in a wall, and,
leaping over, he crouched down, and ran along
on the outer side of the wall. The men followed
him. Antonio made for a haystack which was
near, and after going round to the further side of
the haystack, he ran on toward a wood, keeping the
haystack between himself and the men, in hopes
that he should thus be concealed from their view.
As soon as he got into the wood he ran into a
little thicket, and creeping into the darkest place
that he could find, he lay down there to await the
result.

The men came up to the place out of breath
with running. They looked about in the wood
for some time, and Antonio began to think that
they would not find him. But he was mistaken.
One of the men at length found him, and pulled
him out roughly by the arms.

They took hold of him, one on one side and
the other on the other, and led him back toward
the fire. The building was by this time all in
flames, and though many men had assembled
they made no effort to extinguish the fire. It
was obvious, in fact, that all such efforts would
have been unavailing. Then, besides, as the
building stood by itself, there was no danger to
any other property, in letting it burn. The men
gathered round Antonio, wondering who he could
be, but he would not answer any questions. He
was there an utter stranger to them all—a prisoner,
seized almost in the very act of setting the
building on fire, and yet he stood before them
with such an open, fearless, honest look, that no
one knew what to think or to say in respect to him.

In the mean time the flames rolled fearfully
into the air, sending up columns of sparks, and
illuminating all the objects around in the most
brilliant manner. Groups of boys stood here and
there, their faces brightened with the reflection
of the fire, and their arms held up before their
eyes to shield them from the dazzling light. A
little further back were companies of women and
children, beaming out beautifully from the surrounding[Pg 726]
darkness, and a gilded vane on the village
spire appeared relieved against the sky, as
if it were a great blazing meteor at rest among
the stars. At length the fire went down. The
people gradually dispersed. The men who had
charge of Antonio took him to the tavern, locked
him up in a room there, and stationed one of
their number to keep guard at the door till morning.

THE CONFLAGRATION.

II. ANTONIO A PRISONER.

During the night, Antonio had time to reflect
upon the situation in which he was placed, and
to consider what it was best for him to do. He
decided that the first thing to be done, was to
write to Mrs. Henry, and inform her what had
happened. He determined also not to reveal
any thing against Rodolphus, unless he should
find that he was required by law to do so—at
least until he could have time to consider whether
something could not yet be done to save him from
the utter ruin which would follow from his being
convicted of burglary and sent to the state
prison.

In the morning, an officer came with a regular
warrant for arresting Antonio, on the charge of
setting the corn-barn on fire. A warrant is a
paper signed by a justice or judge, authorizing
the officer to seize a prisoner, and to bring him
before a magistrate, for what is called an examination.
If, on the examination, the magistrate
sees that the prisoner is clearly innocent, he
releases him, and that is the end of the matter.
If, however, he finds that there is reason to suspect
that he may be guilty, he orders the officer
to keep him in the jail till the time comes for the
court to meet and try his case.

Sometimes, when the offense is not very serious,
they release the prisoner on bail,
as it is called, during the time that
intervenes between his examination
and his trial. That is, they give him
up to his friends, on condition that
his friends agree that he shall certainly
appear at the time of trial—covenanting
that if he does not appear they
will pay a large sum of money. The
money that is to be forfeited, if he
fails to appear, varies in different
cases, and is fixed by the judge in
each particular case. This money is
called the bail. If the prisoner has
a bad character, and his friends generally
believe that he is guilty, he can
not get bail, for his friends are afraid
that if they give bail for him, and so
let him have his liberty, he will run
away before the time comes for his
trial, and then they will lose the
money. When, for this or any other
reason, a prisoner can not get bail,
he has to go to prison, and stay there
till his trial comes on. On the other
hand, if the prisoner has a good character,
and if his friends have confidence
in him, they give bail, and thus
he is left at liberty until his trial
comes on.

At the examination of a prisoner,
which takes place usually very soon
after he is first arrested, he is allowed to say any
thing that he pleases to say, in explanation of the
suspicious circumstances under which he was
taken. He is, however, not required to say any
thing unless he chooses. The reason of this is,
that no one is required to furnish any proof
against himself, when he is charged with crime.
If he can say any thing which will operate in his
favor, he is allowed to do it, and what he says
is written down, and is produced on his trial, to
be used for or against him according to the circumstances
of the case.

When the officer came in, in the morning, to arrest
Antonio, he told him he was to go at eleven
o’clock the next morning before the magistrate to
be examined. Antonio asked the officer whether
he could be allowed, in the mean time, to write
a letter to his friends in Franconia.

“Yes,” said the officer, “only I must see what
you write.”

So they brought Antonio a sheet of paper, and
a pen and ink. He sat down to a table and
wrote as follows:

“Hiburgh, July 10.

“To Mrs. Henry;

“There was a fire here last night which burnt
up an old corn-barn, and I have been taken up
for it, by the officers. They think that I set the
corn-barn on fire, but I did not do it. I suppose,
though, that I shall have to be tried, and I expect
that I must go to prison until the trial comes[Pg 727]
on, unless Mr. Keep could come down here and
make some arrangement for me. You may depend
that I did not set the corn-barn on fire.

“Yours with much respect,
“A. Bianchinette.”

The officer read this letter when it was finished,
and then asked Antonio whether it should
be put into the post-office. Antonio inquired
how much it would cost to send a boy with it on
purpose. The officer told him what he thought
it would cost, and then Antonio took out the
money that he had in his pocket to see if he had
enough. He found that he had more than enough,
and so the officer sent a special messenger with
the letter.

“And now,” said the officer, “you must go
with me to my house. I am going to keep you
there until the examination to-morrow.”

So Antonio took his cap and went down stairs
with the officer. He found quite
a number of men and boys at
the door, waiting to see him
come. These people followed
him along through the street, as
he walked toward the officer’s
house, some running before, to
look him in the face, and some
running behind, and calling
him incendiary and other hard
names. Antonio took no notice
of them, but walked quietly
along, talking with the officer.

When he got opposite to the
lane, he looked down toward the
place where the corn-barn had
stood. He found that it had
been burnt to the ground. The
ruins were still smoking, and
several men and boys were
standing around the place—some
looking idly on, and some
poking up the smouldering fires.

There was something in Antonio’s
frank and honest air, and
in the intelligence and good sense which he
manifested in his conversation, which interested
the officer in his favor. He told his wife
when he got home that Antonio was the most
honest looking rogue that he ever had the
custody of. It shows, however, he added, how
little we can trust to appearances. I once had
a man in my keeping, who looked as innocent
and simple-minded as Dorinda there, but he
turned out to be one of the most cunning counterfeiters
in the state.

Dorinda was the officer’s little girl.

There was a room in the officer’s house, which
was made very strong, and used for the temporary
keeping of prisoners. They put Antonio
into this room and locked him in.

The officer, however, told him when he went
away, that he would bring him some breakfast
pretty soon; and this he did in about half an
hour. Antonio ate his breakfast with an excellent
appetite.

After breakfast he moved his chair up to a
small window, which had been made in one side
of the room. The window had a sash on the
inside, and great iron bars without. Antonio
opened the sash and looked out through the iron
bars. He saw a pleasant green yard, and a little
girl playing there upon the grass.

“What is your name?” said Antonio.

The little girl started at hearing this voice,
ran back a little way, and then stood looking at
Antonio with her hands behind her.

“Bring me that piece of paper,” said Antonio,
“that lies there on the grass, and I will make
you a picture.”

The girl stood still a moment as if much
astonished, and then advancing timidly, she
picked up the paper and brought it to Antonio’s
window, which was very near the ground, and
held it up. Antonio reached his arm out between
the bars of the grating and took the paper in.

THE BARRED WINDOW.

Although the window was not high, it seemed
to be with some difficulty that Antonio could
reach the paper as Dorinda held it up. But this
was partly because Dorinda was afraid, and did
not dare to come too near.

Antonio took a pencil out of his pocket, and
putting the paper down upon the window sill, he
began to draw. Dorinda stood still upon the
ground outside, watching him. Antonio made a
picture of a very grave and matronly-looking cat,
lying upon a stone step and watching two kittens
that were playing upon the grass before her.
There was a bare-headed boy near, who seemed
to be putting a mitten upon his hand. Underneath
Antonio wrote the words—

ANTONIO’S PICTURE.

When the work was finished, Antonio threw
the paper out the window, and Dorinda who had[Pg 728]
been all the time looking on with a very serious
expression of countenance, took it up, and began
to look at the drawing. She could not read, so
she only looked at the picture. After examining
it for some minutes, without, however, at all relaxing
the extreme gravity of her countenance,
she ran off to show the paper to her mother.

Presently she came back again. By this time
Antonio had made another drawing. It was the
representation of his own window, as it would
appear on the outside, with iron bars forming a
grating, and himself looking through between
them. Underneath he wrote,

“Pity the poor prisoner, and bring him some
books to read.”

Dorinda took this picture too, when Antonio
threw it out to her, and ran in with it to her mother.
Presently she came out with two books
in her hand. She came under the window and
held them up timidly to Antonio, and Antonio
took them in.

By the help of these books and some other indulgences
that the officer allowed him, Antonio
got through the day very comfortably and well.

The next morning, at eleven o’clock, the officer
came to take his prisoner to the justice, for
examination. The officer led Antonio along the
street till he came to a lawyer’s office. There
were several men and boys about the door.
These persons eyed Antonio very closely when
he went in. On entering the office, Antonio
was brought up in front of a table which stood
in the middle of the room. A young man was
sitting at the table with paper, and pen, and ink
before him. He was the clerk. The justice
himself sat in an arm-chair near the window.

The men and boys from the outside came in
immediately after Antonio, and stood in the office,
near the door, to hear the examination.

When all was ready, the justice commenced
by saying to Antonio,

“What is your name?” young man.

“Antonio Bianchinette,” said Antonio.

“Where do you live?” asked the justice.

“In Franconia,” said Antonio.

“You are aware, I suppose,” said the justice,
“that you are charged with having set fire to
the building which was burned night before last,
and you are brought here for a preliminary examination.
You can do just as you please about
giving any explanation of the circumstances of
the case, or answering any questions that I put
to you. If you make any statements or answer
any questions, what you say will be put down,
and will be used either for, or against you, as
the case may be, on your trial.”

Antonio said in reply, that he did not wish to
make any statements, or to answer any questions
in relation to the fire.

“There is one thing, however,” he added, “that
I wish to say, and that is, that there is something
buried in the ground, under the place where the
building stood, that ought to be dug up, and if
you will take me to the place I will show you
where to dig.”

“What is it that is buried there?” said the
justice.

“I would rather not answer that question,”
said Antonio.

The justice paused a moment to consider what
to do. He had heard of the robbery that had
been committed on Saturday night, for Mr. Kerber,
on going into his office on Monday morning,
had found the back door unhasped, and his desk
broken open, and the news of the robbery had
spread all over the village. People wondered
whether there could be any connection between
the robbery and the fire, though nothing had been
said to Antonio about it.

After thinking a moment about Antonio’s proposal,
the justice concluded to accede to it. The
officer accordingly sent a man to get a spade and
directed him to come with it to the ruins of the
corn-barn. Another man went to tell Mr. Kerber
that the boy who had been taken up for setting
the barn on fire, had said that there was
something buried there, and that perhaps it might
prove to be his money-box. So Mr. Kerber determined
to go and see.

In a short time quite a large party were assembled
around the ruins. Antonio directed
them where to dig. The men pulled away the
blackened timbers and brands which were lying
over the spot, and began to dig into the ground.
In a few minutes they struck something hard
with the spade, and setting the spade down beneath
it so as to pry it out, they found that it
was indeed Mr. Kerber’s box.

The men gathered eagerly around to examine
the box. Mr. Kerber shook it and found that
the money was safe inside. He took out his key,
but he could not get it into the key-hole, for the
key-hole had got filled with earth. He turned
the box down upon its side and knocked it upon
something hard, and so got the earth out, and
then he found that the key would go in. He unlocked
the box, and to his great joy found that
all was safe.

Antonio would not make any explanation, except
that he did not suppose that any thing else
was buried there, and that consequently it would
do no good to dig any more. He said, moreover,[Pg 729]
that he expected some of his friends would
come from Franconia before night to see about
his case, and so the justice gave him up to the
care of the officer again, until his friends should
come. The officer accordingly took his prisoner
away again, and Mr. Kerber carried his money-box
home.

Mr. Keep arrived that day about noon. He
immediately had an interview with Antonio.
After some little general conversation, Antonio
said that he would rather not make any explanations
of the circumstances under which he was
arrested at present, even to Mr. Keep, unless
Mr. Keep requested it.

“I tell you truly, sir,” said he, “that I am
entirely innocent: but I can not state what I
know, without breaking a poor girl’s heart who
once saved my life, and I can not do it.”

Mr. Keep was silent a few minutes when Antonio
said this. He recollected Rodolphus and
Ellen his sister, and recalled to mind the story
of Ellen and the snow-shoes, which he had heard
at the time. He immediately understood the
whole case.

“I am not surprised that you feel as you do,”
said he, “but when a crime is committed and we
are called upon to testify as a witness, we are
bound to state what we know, without regard to
our private feelings.”

“Yes, sir,” said Antonio, “but I
am not called upon as a witness. I
am charged with committing the
crime myself, and the justice said
that I was at liberty to answer or
not, as I chose.”

Mr. Keep was silent for a moment.
He seemed to be reflecting upon what
Rodolphus had said.

“By taking the course that you
propose,” he added, at length, “you
run a great risk of being condemned
yourself for the crime.”

“Why, no, sir,” said Antonio; “I
can’t be condemned unless they prove
that I did it; and as I really did not
do it, I don’t think that they can
prove that I did.”

Mr. Keep smiled.

“Well suppose that you do as
you propose,” said Mr. Keep, “and
allow yourself to take the place of
the one who is really guilty, what
good will it do him? You will only
leave him to commit more crimes.”

“I hope not, sir,” said Antonio
“I should try to get him away from
here to some new place. I think
that he has been led away. He has
got into bad company.”

“Well,” said Mr. Keep, after a short pause,
“the plan may succeed, but you run a great risk
in taking such a course. I think that there is
great danger that you would be condemned and
sent to the state prison.”

“Well,” said Beechnut, “I should not mind
that very much. There is no great harm in going
to prison, if you are only innocent. I have
been shut up here one day already, and I had a
good time.”

Mr. Keep said finally that the subject required
time for consideration, and that in the mean time
he would make arrangements for giving bail for
Antonio. This he did, and then he and Antonio
went together back to Franconia.

III. THE TRIAL.

The time arrived for Antonio’s trial very soon.
At the appointed day he and Mr. Keep went together
to the town where the court was to be held.

Mr. Keep delivered Antonio to the officer
again, and the officer led him into a little room
adjoining the court room and left him there
under the custody of a subordinate officer. At
length his case was called, and the officer came
forward and conducted him into the court room.

THE COURT ROOM.

When Antonio entered the room he looked
around to see how it was arranged. At one end
there was a platform, with a curtained window
behind it, and a long desk in front. Behind the
desk there sat an elderly gentleman whom Antonio
supposed was the judge. He sat in a large
arm-chair. There was another arm-chair upon
the platform, but there was nobody sitting in it.
Antonio thought that probably it was for another
judge, and that he would come in by-and-by, but
he did not come.

In front of the judge’s desk and a little lower
down, there was another desk, with a great many
books and bundles of papers upon it. There was
a man seated at this desk with his back to the
judge’s desk. This man was writing. He was
the clerk of the court.

In front of the clerk’s desk, and toward the
middle of the room was a pretty large table with[Pg 730]
lawyers sitting around it. The lawyers had green
bags with papers in them.

On each side of the room there were two long
seats facing toward the middle of the room.
These seats were for the juries. Each seat was
long enough for six men, making twelve in all
on each side. Between the juries’ seats and the
judge’s platform, there was, on each side, a stand
for the witnesses. The witnesses’ stands were
placed in this position, so that all could hear the
testimony which the witnesses should give.

On the back side of the room there were several
seats for spectators. In front of the spectator’s
seats there were two chairs. The officer
led Antonio to one of these chairs and gave him
a seat there. The officer himself took his seat
in the other chair. He had a long slender pole
in his hand, which was his badge of office.

The first thing to be done was for the clerk to
read the accusation. The accusation to be made
against a prisoner is always written out in full,
and is called an indictment. The indictment
against Antonio was handed to the clerk and he
read it. It charged Antonio with breaking into
and robbing Mr. Kerber’s office, and then setting
fire to the barn.

After the indictment had been read, the judge,
looking to Antonio, asked him whether he was
guilty or not guilty.

“Not guilty,” said Antonio.

The arrangements were then made for the
trial. The jury were appointed, and they took
their places in the jury seats which were on the
right hand side of the court room. Some jury-men
belonging to another jury were sitting in
the seats on the left hand, but they had now nothing
to do but to listen, like the other spectators.

There is a sort of public lawyer in every county,
appointed for the purpose, whose business it
is to attend to the trial of any person accused of
crime in his county. He is called the county
attorney. It is his duty to collect the evidence
against the prisoner, and to see that it is properly
presented to the court and jury, and to prove that
the prisoner is guilty, if he can. The prisoner,
on the other hand has another lawyer, whose
duty it is to collect all the evidence in his favor,
and to try to prove him innocent. The trial is always
commenced by adducing first the evidences
of the prisoner’s guilt.

Accordingly, when the jury were ready, the
judge called upon the county attorney to proceed.

He rose, and spoke as follows:

“May it please your Honor.”

Here the county attorney bowed to the judge.

“And you, gentlemen of the jury.”

Here he bowed to the jury.

“I am very sorry to have to appear against so
young, and, I may add, so innocent-looking a person
as the prisoner before you, on a charge of so
serious a nature as burglary. But I have no
choice. However much we may regret that a
person so young should become so depraved as
to commit such crimes, our duty to the community
requires that we should proceed firmly and
decidedly to the exposure and punishment of
them. I shall proceed to lay before you the evidence
that the prisoner at the bar is guilty of the
crime charged against him. It will be the duty
of his counsel, on the other hand, to prove his
innocence, if he can. I shall be very glad, and I
have no doubt that you will be, to find that he
can succeed in doing this. I fear, however, that
it will be out of his power.

“I shall prove to you, gentlemen of the jury, by
the witnesses that I shall bring forward, that the
prisoner left his home in a very mysterious manner
on the Saturday when the robbery was committed.
That he came to Hiburgh, and arrived
here about nine o’clock. That he then went to
his room, as if to go to bed, and immediately
afterward went out in a secret manner. About
half-past ten the corn-barn was found to be on
fire; and on the people repairing to the spot,
found the prisoner there alone. He fled, and was
pursued. He was taken, and at length finding
that he was detected, and terrified, perhaps, at
the consequences of what he had done, he gave
information of the place where the money which
had been taken was concealed.

“These circumstances all point to the prisoner
as the guilty party, or at least as one of the guilty
parties concerned in the robbery. As to the fire,
we lay no particular stress upon that, for it may
have been accidental. We think it probable that
it was so. The charge which we make against
the prisoner is the robbery, and we are willing to
consider the fire as an accident, providentially
occurring as a means of bringing the iniquity to
light.”

The county attorney then began to call in his
witnesses. The first witness was James.

James said that Antonio was well known to
him; that he came originally from Canada; that
he had lived for some time at Mrs. Henry’s; and
that on the Saturday in question he said that he
was going to Hiburgh; but would not give him,
James, any explanation of the business that called
him there.

The next witness was Antony, the man who
had brought Antonio in his wagon the last part
of his journey.

Antony testified that he overtook the prisoner
on the road, and that he brought him forward in
his wagon. The prisoner, he said, seemed very
anxious to get into town before nine o’clock; but
he was very careful not to say any thing about
the business which called him there. There was
something very mysterious about him, Antony
said, and he thought so at the time.

The next witness was the tavern keeper.

The tavern-keeper testified that Antonio came
to his house a little past nine; that he seemed in
a hurry to go to his room, that the tavern-keeper
showed him the room and left him there; but that
on going up a few minutes afterward to ask him
what time he would have breakfast, he found that
he was not there. That about an hour afterward
he saw a light, and running out he found that the
corn-barn was on fire. He cried “fire,” and with
another man ran to the corn-barn, and there saw[Pg 731]
some one running away. He and the other man
pursued the fugitive, and finally caught him, and
found that it was the prisoner—the same young
man that had come to his house as a traveler an
hour before.

The next witness was Mr. Kerber.

Mr. Kerber testified that he left his office safe,
with his money in the money-box, in the desk,
on Saturday night, about half-past eight. That
on the Monday morning following he found that
the office had been broken into, the desk opened,
and the money-box carried away. That he was
present at the prisoner’s examination before the
justice, and that the prisoner then and there said
that there was something buried under where the
corn-barn had stood, and that the company all
proceeded to the place, and dug into the ground
where the prisoner directed them to dig, and that
there they found the money-box.

The minutes of Antonio’s examination before
the justice were also read, in which he declined
to give any explanation of the case.

The county attorney then said that his evidence
was closed.

The judge then called upon Mr. Keep to bring
forward whatever evidence he had to offer in the
prisoner’s favor. Mr. Keep had only two witnesses,
and they could only testify to Antonio’s
general good character. They were Franconia
men, who said that they had known Antonio a
long time, that he had always borne an irreproachable
character, and that they did not believe him
capable of committing such a crime.

After the evidence was thus all in, Mr. Keep
made a speech in defense of his client. He admitted,
he said, that the case was a very extraordinary
one. There was a mystery about it
which was not explained. Still he said it was
not really proved, either that Antonio stole the
money or that he set fire to the barn. Many
suppositions might be made to account for the
facts, without implicating Antonio as really guilty.

The county attorney then made his speech.
It was, of course, against Antonio. He said
that the appearances were all against the prisoner,
and that if he were really innocent, it would
be easy for him to explain the case. His refusal
to do this, and his showing where the money was
hid, ought to be considered as completing the
proofs of guilt, furnished by the other circumstances
of the affair.

The judge then told the jury that it was their
duty to decide whether it had been proved that
Antonio was guilty.

“You have heard all the evidence,” said he,
“and you must decide. If you are perfectly satisfied
that the prisoner is guilty, then you must
condemn him. If you are satisfied that he is
innocent, then of course you must acquit him.
And if you are uncertain whether he is innocent
or guilty, then you must acquit him too; for no
one is to be condemned, unless it is proved positively
that he is guilty.”

The jury were then conducted out by an officer
of the court, to a small room adjoining, where
they were to deliberate on the case. In about
fifteen minutes they returned. The judge then
called upon the prisoner to rise. Antonio rose
and looked toward the judge. The jury were
standing in their places, looking toward the
judge, too.

“Gentlemen of the jury,” said the judge, “are
you agreed upon the verdict?”

The foreman of the jury said,

“We are agreed.”

“Gentlemen of the jury,” said the judge again,
“what say you? is the prisoner guilty or not
guilty?”

“Not guilty,” said the foreman.

There was general smile of satisfaction about
the room at hearing this decision. The clerk
wrote down the verdict in the record. The judge
directed the prisoner to be discharged, and then
called for the case which came next on the
docket.[2]

Antonio went out with Mr. Keep and got into
a wagon which Mr. Keep had provided all ready
for him at the door. They set out, counsel and
client, on their return to Franconia.

Mr. Keep was of course very much relieved
at the result of the trial; for though he was
himself perfectly satisfied of his client’s innocence,
still the circumstances were very strong
against him, and there was, in fact, nothing but
his good character in his favor. He had been
very much afraid, therefore, that Antonio would
be condemned, for the jury are bound to decide
according to the evidence that is placed before
them.

“You have got off very well, so far,” said
Mr. Keep. “Having been accused as an accomplice
in the crime, it was your privilege to
be silent. Should you, however, hereafter be
called upon as a witness, you will have to give
your testimony.”

“Why must I?” asked Antonio.

“Your duty to your country requires it,” said
Mr. Keep.

“Then,” said Antonio, “I suppose I must,
and I will.”

IV. ANOTHER TRIAL.

Rodolphus and his two confederates in crime
were in a state of great anxiety and apprehension,
during the period which intervened between
the committing of the crime and the trial of Antonio.
Antonio did not attempt to hold any communication
with Rodolphus during this interval,
for fear that by so doing he might awaken in
people’s minds some suspicion of the truth. He
had, however, a secret plan of doing something
to save Rodolphus from ruin, so soon as the excitement,
which had been occasioned by the robbery
and the fire, should have passed by. All
his plans however were defeated by an unexpected
train of occurrences, which took place a
day or two after his acquittal, and which changed
suddenly the whole aspect of the affair.

One night very soon after Antonio’s trial, Rodolphus,
after he had gone to bed and was just
falling asleep, was awakened by a loud knocking
at his door.

[Pg 732]
“Rodolphus!” said a harsh voice, outside,
“Rodolphus! get up and let us in.”

THE ARREST

Rodolphus was dreadfully terrified. He was
always terrified by any unexpected sight or sound,
as the guilty usually are. He got up and opened
the door. Mr. Kerber and another man came in.

“You are my prisoner,” said the stranger.
“You must put on your clothes and come with
me.”

Rodolphus was in great distress and trepidation.
He however put on his clothes. He did
not dare to ask what he was arrested for. He
knew too well. The officer informed him that
he was arrested on a charge of being concerned
in the robbery of Mr. Kerber, but that he need
not say any thing about it unless he chose to do
so. Rodolphus was so terrified and distressed
that he did not know what to say or do. So the
officer led him away, pale and trembling, to his
house, and locked him up in the same room
where Antonio had been confined. There was
a little bed in one corner of the room. Rodolphus
went and sat down upon it, and sobbed
and wept in anguish and despair.

In a day or two his friends in Franconia heard
of his arrest, and Mr. Keep went down to see
him. Mr. Keep came as Rodolphus’s counsel
and friend—in order to confer with him and to
defend him on his trial; but Rodolphus considered
him as banded with all the rest of the world
against him, and either could not, or would not
answer any of the friendly questions which Mr.
Keep proposed to him; but sat crying all the
time while Mr. Keep was there, and making
himself very miserable. Mr. Keep saw at once
that he was guilty, and despaired of being able
to do any thing to save him.

There was nobody to give bail for Rodolphus,
and so it was necessary to keep him in close
confinement until the time for his trial arrived.
In consideration, however, of his tender years,
it was decided not to take him to the jail, but to
keep him at the house of the officer, in the strong
room where he was put when he was first arrested.

The room itself was a very comfortable
one, but Rodolphus spent
his time in it very unhappily. The
people treated him very kindly, but
nothing gave him any peace or comfort.
They brought him books, but
he could not read well enough to
take any pleasure in them. Sometimes
he would go to the window
and look out upon the green yard,
but it only made him more miserable
to see the grass and the flowers,
and the trees waving in the wind,
and the birds flying about at liberty.
Sometimes he saw Dorinda there
playing with her kitten, and singing
little songs; but this sight made
him more unhappy than all the rest.

Rodolphus’s mother came down to
to see him once, with Antonio. Antonio
drove down with her in a wagon.
The visit, however, did not give
either Rodolphus or his mother any
pleasure. They spoke scarcely a word to each
other, while she staid. When she got into the
wagon to go home, Antonio, seeing how much
she was distressed, tried to comfort her by saying,
that she must not be so troubled; he hoped,
he said, that Rodolphus would yet turn out to be
a good boy. There had been a great many cases,
where boys had been led away when young, by
bad company, to do what was very wrong, who
were afterward sorry for it, and changed their
courses and behaved well. This conversation
seemed to make Mrs. Linn feel somewhat more
composed, but she was still very unhappy.

At length the time for the trial drew near.
Rodolphus felt great solicitude and anxiety as
the time approached. He did not know what
evidence there was against him, for no one had
been allowed to talk with him on the subject of
the crime. Even Mr. Keep, his lawyer, did not
know what the evidence was, for it is always
customary in such cases, for each party to keep
the evidence which they have to offer, as much
as possible concealed. Antonio had, however,
received a summons to appear as a witness, and
Mr. Keep told him that if they insisted on examining
him, he would be bound to answer all the
questions which they put to him, honestly and
truly, whatever his private feelings might be.

When the day arrived, Rodolphus was taken
by the officer to the court room, and placed in
the same chair where Antonio had sat. Antonio
had looked around upon the proceedings with so
frank and honest an expression of countenance,
and with such an unconcerned air, that every one
had been impressed with a belief of his innocence.
Rodolphus, on the other hand, sat still, pale, and
trembling, and he manifested in his whole air and
demeanor every indication of conscious guilt.

The preliminary proceedings were all much
the same as they had been in the case of Antonio.[Pg 733]
When these had been gone through, the
judge called upon the county attorney to proceed.
After a short opening speech he said, that
his first witness was Mr. Kerber. Mr. Kerber
was called, and took his place upon the stand.

Mr. Kerber first gave an account of the robbery,
describing the situation of his office and of
the two doors leading to it, and of the desk in
the corner, and narrating all the circumstances
relating to the appearance of his office on the
Monday morning, and the discovery of the strong
box under the ruins of the corn-barn. He then
proceeded as follows:

“For a time I considered it certain that Antonio,
the one who was first suspected, was the
one really guilty, and made no effort or inquiry
in any other direction until he was tried. I was
convinced then that he was innocent, and immediately
began to consider what I should do to find
out the robber. I examined the hole again which
had been bored into the door, and the marks of
the tools by which the desk had been broken open.
I thought that I might, perhaps, possibly find the
tools that fitted these places somewhere about
town, and that if I should, I might, possibly, in
that way, get some clew to the robbers. So I
borrowed the bits and the chisels of several of my
neighbors, but I could not find any that would fit.

“At last I happened to think of some old tools
that I had in a back room, and on comparing them
I found two that fitted exactly. There was a bit
which just fitted the hole, and there were some
fibres of the wood which had been caught upon
the edge of the bit, where it was dull, that looked
fresh and compared well with the color of the
wood of the door. There was a large chisel, too,
that fitted exactly to the impressions made upon
the wood of the desk, in prying it open.

“I could see, too, that some of these tools had
recently been moved, by the dust having been
disturbed around them. There were marks and
tracks, too, in the dust, upon a bench, where
some boy had evidently climbed up to get the
tools. I tried one of Rodolphus’s shoes to these
tracks, and found that it fitted exactly.”

While Mr. Kerber was making these statements,
Rodolphus hung his head, and looked utterly
confounded.

“Just about the time,” continued Mr. Kerber,
“that I made these discoveries, a person came to
me and informed me—”

“Stop,” interrupted Mr. Keep. “You are not
to state what any other person informed you.
You are only to state what you know personally,
yourself.”

Mr. Kerber was silent.

The county attorney, who knew well that this
was the rule in all trials, said that he had nothing
more to ask that witness then, but that he would
withdraw him for a time. He then called Antonio.
Antonio took his place upon the stand.

After the oath was administered as usual, the
county attorney began to question Antonio as
follows:

“Were you in Hiburgh on the night of this
robbery?”

“I was,” said Antonio.

“At what time did you arrive there?” asked
the attorney.

“I believe it was a little past nine,” said Antonio.

“Were you at the corn-barn when it took
fire?”

“I was,” said Antonio.

“State now to the jury what it was that led
you to go there.”

Antonio recollected that what first attracted
his attention and led him to go out, was seeing
Rodolphus and the other boys going by with their
lantern, and hearing their suppressed voices; and
he perceived that if he went any further in his testimony
he should prove Rodolphus to be guilty;
so he stopped, and after a moment’s pause, he
turned to the judge, and asked whether he could
not be excused from giving any more testimony.

“On what ground do you wish to be excused?”
said the judge.

“Why, what I should say,” said Antonio,
“might go against the boy, and I don’t wish to
say any thing against him.”

“You can not be excused,” said the judge,
shaking his head. “It is very often painful to give
testimony against persons accused of crime, but
it is a duty which must be performed.”

“But there is a special reason,” said Antonio,
“in this case.”

“What is the reason?” said the judge.

Antonio hesitated. At length he said timidly,

“His sister saved my life.”

Here there was a pause. The preferring such
a request, to be excused from testifying, and for
such a reason, is a very uncommon occurrence in
a court. The judge, the jury, the lawyers, and
all the spectators looked at Antonio, who stood
upon the witness’s stand all the time, turning his
face toward the judge, awaiting his decision.

After a pause the judge said,

“Your unwillingness to do any thing to injure
the brother of a girl who saved your life, does you
honor, and I would gladly excuse you if I could,
but it is not in my power. The ends of justice
require that you should give your testimony,
whatever the consequences may be.”

“What would be done,” asked Antonio, “if I
should refuse to do so?”

“Then you would be sent to prison yourself,”
said the judge, “for contempt of court.”

“And suppose I am willing to go to prison,”
said Antonio, “rather than testify against Ellen’s
brother; can I do so?”

The judge looked a little perplexed. What
answer he would have given to this question we
do not know, for he was prevented from answering
it, by the county attorney, who here rose and
said,

“May it please your honor, I will withdraw
this witness for the present. I shall be glad to
get along without his testimony, if possible, and
perhaps I can.”

Antonio then left the stand, very much relieved.
Rodolphus wondered who would be
called next. His heart sank within him, when[Pg 734]
he saw an officer who had gone out a moment
before, come in and lead Gilpin to the witness-stand.

It is customary in almost all countries, whenever
a crime is committed, and it is not possible
to ascertain who committed it by any ordinary
proofs, to allow any one of the accomplices who
is disposed to do so, to come forward and inform
against the rest, and then to exempt him from
punishment in consideration of his so doing. It
seems very base for one person to lead another
into sin, or even to join him in it, and then to
assist in bringing his accomplice to punishment,
in order to escape it himself. But they who combine
to commit crimes, must be expected to be
base. Gilpin was so. There seemed to be nothing
noble or generous in his nature. As soon
as he found out that Rodolphus was suspected,
he feared that Rodolphus would confess, and then
that he should himself be seized. Accordingly,
he went immediately to Mr. Kerber, and told him
that he knew all about the robbery, and that he
would tell all about it, if they would agree that
he should not come to any harm.

This arrangement was finally made. They,
however, seized Gilpin, and shut him up, so as
to secure him for a witness, and he had been in
prison ever since Rodolphus’s arrest, though Rodolphus
knew nothing about it. Christopher had
run away the moment he heard of Rodolphus’s
arrest, and nothing had since been heard of him.
Gilpin was now brought forward to give his testimony.

There was a great contrast in his appearance,
as he came upon the stand, from that of Antonio.
He looked guilty and ashamed, and he did not
dare to turn his eyes toward Rodolphus at all.
He could not go forward himself and tell a connected
story, but he made all his statements in
answer to questions put to him by the county
attorney. He, however, in the end, told all. He
explained how Rodolphus had first cut a hole in
the partition, and then he narrated the conversation
which the boys had held together behind the
wall. He told about the tools, and the dark lantern,
and the breaking in; also about going to
the corn-barn, burying the box, and then of the
accidental setting of the straw on fire, and of Antonio’s
suddenly coming in among them. In a
word, the whole affair was brought completely to
light. Mr. Keep questioned Gilpin afterward
very closely, to see if he would contradict himself,
and so prove that the story which he was
telling, was not true; but he did not contradict
himself, and finally he went away.

There were no witnesses to be offered in favor
of Rodolphus, and very little to be said in his defense.
When, at length, the trial was concluded,
the jury conferred together a little in their seats,
and then brought in a verdict of guilty.

The next day Rodolphus was sentenced to ten
days’ solitary confinement in the jail, and after
that, to one year of hard labor in the state prison.

V. THE FLIGHT.

Two or three days after Rodolphus’s trial, Ellen,
who had done every thing she could to cheer
and comfort her mother in her sorrow, told her
one morning that she desired to go and see her
uncle Randon that day.

“Is it about Rodolphus?” asked her mother.

“Yes, mother,” said Ellen.

“Well, you may go,” said her mother; “but I
don’t think that any thing will do any good now.”

After all her morning duties had been performed,
about the house, Ellen put on her bonnet,
and taking Annie by the hand, in order that she
might lead her to school, she set out on the way
to her uncle’s. She left Annie at school as she
passed through the village, and she arrived at
her uncle’s about ten o’clock.

Her uncle had been married again. His present
wife was a very strong and healthy woman,
who was almost all the time busily engaged about
the farm work, but she was very fond of Ellen,
and always glad to see her at the farm. When
Ellen arrived at the farm, on this occasion, she
went in at the porch door as usual. There was no
one in the great room. She passed through into
the back entry. From the back entry she went
into the back room—the room where in old times
she used to shut up her kitten.

This room was now used as a dairy. There
was a long row of milk-pans in it, upon a bench.
Mrs. Randon was there. She seemed very glad
to see Ellen, and asked her to walk into the
house.

Ellen said that she came to see her uncle. So
her aunt went with her out into the yard where
her uncle was at work; he was mending a harrow.

“Well, Ellen,” said her uncle, “I am very glad
to see you. But I am sorry to hear about poor
Rodolphus.”

“Yes,” said Ellen, “but I have thought of
one more plan. It’s of no use to keep him from
going to the state prison, even if we could, unless
we can get a good place for him. Now
what I wish is, that if we can get him free, you
would let him come and live here with you.
Perhaps you could make him a good boy.”

Mr. Randon leaned upon the handle of his
broad ax, and seemed to be at a loss what to say.
He looked toward his wife.

“Yes,” said she, “let him come. I should
like to have him come very much. We can make
him a good boy.”

“Well,” said Mr. Randon.

“Well!” said Ellen. Her eyes brightened up
as she said this, and she turned to go away.
Mr. and Mrs. Randon attempted to stop her, but
she said that she could not stay then, and so she
went away.

“She can not get him free,” said Mr. Randon.

“I don’t know,” said his wife. “Perhaps she
may. Such a girl as she can do a great deal
when she tries.”

Ellen went then as fast as she could go, to
Mrs Henry’s. She found Antonio in the garden.

“Antonio,” said she, “my uncle Randon says
that he will take Rodolphus and let him live
there with him, on the farm, if we can only get
him out of prison.”

“But we can’t get him out of prison,” said[Pg 735]
Antonio. “It is too late now, he has been condemned
and sentenced.”

“But the governor can pardon him,” said Ellen.

“Can he?” said Antonio.

“Yes,” said Ellen.

“Can he?” repeated Antonio. “Then I’ll go
and see if he will.”

Two days after this Antonio was on his way
to the town where the governor lived. He met
with various adventures on his way, and he felt
great solicitude and doubt about the result of the
journey. At last he arrived at the place.

He was directed to a large and handsome
house, which stood in the centre of the principal
street of the village, enveloped in trees and shrubbery.
There was a beautiful yard, with a great
gate leading to it, on one side of the house.

Antonio looked up this yard and saw an elderly
gentleman there, just getting into a chaise. A
person who seemed to be his hired man was holding
the horse. The gentlemen stopped, with
his foot upon the step of the chaise, when he saw
Antonio coming, and looked toward him.

THE GOVERNOR.

“Is this Governor Dummer?” said Antonio,
as he came up.

“Yes,” said the gentleman, “that is what
they call me.”

“I wanted to see you about some business,”
said Antonio, “but you are going away.”

The governor looked at Antonio a moment,
and, being pleased with his appearance, he said,

“Yes, I am going away, but not far. Get
into the chaise with me, and we can talk as we
ride.”

So the governor got into the chaise.

Antonio followed him; the hired man let go
of the horse’s head, and Antonio and the governor
rode together out of the yard.

Antonio was quite afraid at first, to find himself
suddenly shut up so closely with a governor.
He, however, soon recovered his self-possession,
and began to give an account of Rodolphus’
case. The governor listened very attentively to
all he had to say. Then he asked Antonio a
great many questions, some about Rodolphus’
mother and sister, and also about Antonio himself.
Finally he asked what it was proposed to
do with Rodolphus, in case he should be pardoned
and set at liberty. Antonio said that he was
to go to his uncle’s, which was an excellent
place, and where he hoped that he would learn
to be a good boy.

The governor seemed very much interested
in the whole story. He, however, said that he
could not, at that time, come to any conclusion
in respect to the affair; he must make some
further inquiries. He must see the record of the
trial, and the other documentary evidence connected
with the case. He would attend to it
immediately, he said, and write to Mr. Keep in
respect to the result.

About a week after this, Mr. Keep sent for
Antonio to come and see him. Antonio went.

“Well, Antonio,” said Mr. Keep, as Antonio
entered his office, “Rodolphus is pardoned. I
I should like to have you ask Mrs. Henry if she
will let you go to-morrow, and bring
him home. If she says that you may
go, call here on your way, and I will
give you some money to pay the expenses
of the journey.”

Early the next morning, Antonio
called at Mr. Keep’s office, on his
way after Rodolphus. Mr. Keep
gave him some money. Antonio received
it, for he thought it would
not be proper to decline it. He had,
however, plenty of his own. He
had already put in his pocket six half
dollars which he had taken from his
chest that morning. Mr. Keep gave
him a bank bill. He put this bill
into his waistcoat pocket and pinned
it in.

He then proceeded on his journey.
In due time he arrived at the place
where Rodolphus was imprisoned.
The pardon had already arrived, and
the jailer was ready to deliver up Rodolphus
to his friends. He told Antonio that he
was very glad that he had come to take the
boy away. He did not like, he said, to lock up
children.

Antonio took Rodolphus in his wagon, and
they drove away. It was late in the afternoon
when they set out, but though Antonio did not
expect to get to Franconia that night, he was
anxious to proceed as far as he could. He intended
to stop that night at a tavern in a large
town, and get home, if possible, the next day.
They arrived at the tavern safely. They took
supper; and after supper, being tired, they went
to bed. Antonio had done all that he could to
make Rodolphus feel at his ease and happy,
during the day, having said nothing at all to him
about his bad conduct. He had talked to him
about his uncle, and about his going there to live,
and other pleasant subjects. Still Rodolphus[Pg 736]
seemed silent and sober, and after supper he
seemed glad to go to bed.

The two boys slept in two rooms which opened
into each other. Antonio proposed to have the
door open, between these rooms, but Rodolphus
seemed to wish to have it shut. Antonio made
no objection to this, but at last, when he was
ready to go to bed, he opened the door a little to
say good-night to Rodolphus. Rodolphus, he
saw, when he opened the door, was sitting at a
little table, writing upon a piece of paper, with
a pencil. Antonio bade him good-night and shut
the door again.

“I hope he is writing to his mother,” said
Antonio to himself, “to confess his faults and
promise to be a good boy.”

The next morning Antonio rose pretty early,
but he moved softly about the room, so as not to
disturb Rodolphus, who he supposed was asleep,
as his room was still. Antonio went down and
ordered breakfast, and attended to his horses,
and by-and-by he came up again to see if Rodolphus
had got up. He listened at the door,
and all was still. He then opened the door
gently and looked in. There was nobody there,
and to Antonio’s great surprise, the bed was
smooth and full, as if had not been disturbed.

Antonio went in. He saw a paper lying on
the table with his own name on the outside of it.
He took this paper up, and found that it was in
Rodolphus’s handwriting. It was half in written,
and half in printed characters, and very badly
spelled. The substance of it was this.

“Antonio,

“I am sorry to go off and leave you, but I
must. I should be glad to go and live at my
uncle’s, but I can’t. Don’t try to find out where
I have gone. Give my love to my mother and
to Ellen. I had not any money, and so I had
to take your half dollars out of your pocket. If
I ever can, I shall pay you.

“Rodolphus.

“P.S. It’s no use in me trying to be a good
boy.”

Antonio made diligent inquiry for Rodolphus,
in the town where he disappeared, and in all the
surrounding region, but no trace of the fugitive
could be found. He finally gave up the search
and went mournfully home.

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.
BY JOHN S.C. ABBOTT.

THE CONSULAR THRONE.

France had tried republicanism, and the
experiment had failed. There was neither
intelligence nor virtue among the people, sufficient
to enable them to govern themselves.
During long ages of oppression they had sunk
into an abyss, from whence they could not rise,
in a day, to the dignity of freemen. Not one in
thirty of the population of France could either
read or write. Religion and all its restraints,
were scouted as fanaticism. Few had any idea
of the sacredness of a vote, of the duty of the
minority good-naturedly to yield to the majority.
It is this sentiment which is the political salvation
of the United States. Not unfrequently,
when hundreds of thousands of ballots have been
cast, has a governor of a State been chosen by the
majority of a single vote. And the minority, in
such circumstances, have yielded just as cordially
as they would have done to a majority of tens of
thousands. After our most exciting presidential
elections, the announcement of the result is the
harbinger of immediate peace and good-natured
acquiescence all over the land. The defeated
voter politely congratulates his opponent upon
his success. The French seemed to have attained
no conception of the sanctity of the decisions
of the ballot-box. Government was but a
series of revolutions. Physical power alone was
recognized. The strongest grasped the helm,
and, with the guillotine, confiscation, and exile,
endeavored hopelessly to cripple their adversaries.
Ten years of such anarchy had wearied
the nation. It was in vain to protract the experiment.
France longed for repose. Napoleon
was the only one capable of giving her repose.
The nation called upon him, in the loudest tones
which could be uttered, to assume the reins of
government, and to restore the dominion of security
and order. We can hardly call that man
an usurper who does but assume the post which
the nation with unanimity entreats him to take.
We may say that he was ambitious, that he loved
power, that glory was his idol. But if his ambition
led him to exalt his country; if the power
he loved was the power of elevating the multitude
to intelligence, to self-respect, and to comfort;
if the glory he sought was the glory of
being the most illustrious benefactor earth has
ever known, let us not catalogue his name with
the sensualists and the despots, who have reared
thrones of self-aggrandizement and self-indulgence
upon the degradation of the people. We
must compare Napoleon with the leaders of
armies, the founders of dynasties, and with those
who, in the midst of popular commotions, have
ascended thrones. When we institute such a
comparison, Napoleon stands without a rival,
always excepting, in moral worth, our own
Washington.

The next morning after the overthrow of the
Directory, the three consuls, Napoleon, Sieyes,
and Ducos, met in the palace of the Luxembourg.
Sieyes was a veteran diplomatist, whose gray
hairs entitled him, as he supposed, to the moral
supremacy over his colleagues. He thought that
Napoleon would be satisfied with the command
of the armies, while he would be left to manage
the affairs of state. There was one arm-chair
in the room. Napoleon very coolly assumed it.
Sieyes, much annoyed, rather petulantly exclaimed,
“Gentlemen, who shall take the chair?”
“Bonaparte surely,” said Ducos; “he already
has it. He is the only man who can save us.”
“Very well, gentlemen,” said Napoleon, promptly,
“let us proceed to business.” Sieyes was
staggered. But resistance to a will so imperious,
and an arm so strong, was useless.
[Pg 737]

THE CONSULS AND THE GOLD.

Sieyes loved gold. Napoleon loved only glory.
“Do you see,” inquired Sieyes, pointing to a
sort of cabinet in the room, “that pretty piece
of furniture?” Napoleon, whose poetic sensibilities
were easily aroused, looked at it with interest,
fancying it to be some relic of the disenthroned
monarchs of France. Sieyes continued:
“I will reveal to you a little secret. We Directors,
reflecting that we might go out of office in
poverty, which would be a very unbecoming
thing, laid aside, from the treasury, a sum to
meet that exigence. There are nearly two hundred
thousand dollars in that chest. As there
are no more Directors, the money belongs to us.”
Napoleon now began to understand matters. It
was not difficult for one who had proudly rejected
millions, to look with contempt upon thousands.
“Gentlemen,” said he, very coolly,
“should this transaction come to my knowledge,
I shall insist that the whole sum be refunded
to the public treasury. But should I not
hear of it, and I know nothing of it as yet, you,
being two old Directors, can divide the money
between you. But you must make haste. Tomorrow
it may be too late.” They took the hint,
and divided the spoil; Sieyes taking the lion’s
share. Ducos complained to Napoleon of the
extortion of his colleague. “Settle the business
between yourselves,” said Napoleon, “and be
quiet. Should the matter come to my ears, you
will inevitably lose the whole.”

This transaction, of course, gave Napoleon a
supremacy which neither of his colleagues could
ever again question. The law which decreed[Pg 738]
the provisional consulship, conferred upon them
the power, in connection with the two legislative
bodies, of twenty-five members each, of preparing
a new Constitution to be submitted to the
people. The genius of Napoleon, his energy,
his boundless information, and his instinctive insight
into the complexities of all subjects were so
conspicuous in this first interview, that his colleagues
were overwhelmed. That evening Sieyes
went to sup with some stern republicans, his intimate
friends. “Gentlemen,” said he, “the
republic is no more. It died to-day. I have this
day conversed with a man who is not only a
great general, but who is himself capable of
every thing, and who knows every thing. He
wants no counselors, no assistance. Politics,
laws, the art of governing, are as familiar to
him as the manner of commanding an army. He
is young and determined. The republic is finished.”
“But,” one replied, “if he becomes a
tyrant, we must call to our aid the dagger of
Brutus.” “Alas! my friends,” Sieyes rejoined,
“we should then fall into the hands of the Bourbons,
which would be still worse.”

Napoleon now devoted himself, with Herculean
energies, to the re-organization of the government,
and to the general administration of the
affairs of the empire. He worked day and night.
He appeared insensible to exhaustion or weariness.
Every subject was apparently alike familiar
to his mind; banking, police regulations,
diplomacy, the army, the navy, every thing which
could pertain to the welfare of France was,
grasped by his all-comprehensive intellect.

The Directory had tyrannically seized, as hostages,
any relatives of the emigrants upon whom
they could lay their hands. Wives, mothers,
sisters, brothers, fathers, children, were imprisoned
and held responsible, with their lives, for the
conduct of their emigrant relatives. Napoleon
immediately abolished this iniquitous edict, and
released the prisoners. Couriers, without delay,
were dispatched all over France to throw
open the prison doors to these unfortunate captives.

Napoleon even went himself to the Temple,
where many of these innocent victims were
imprisoned, that he might, with his own hand
break their fetters. On Napoleon’s return from
this visit to the prison he exclaimed, “What
fools these Directors were! To what a state
have they brought our public institutions. The
prisoners are in a shocking condition. I questioned
them, as well as the jailers, for nothing is
to be learned from the superiors. When in the
prison I could not help thinking of the unfortunate
Louis XVI. He was an excellent man,
but too amiable to deal with mankind. And
Sir Sydney Smith, I made them show me his
apartments. If he had not escaped I should
have taken Acre. There are too many painful
associations connected with that prison. I
shall have it pulled down one day or other. I
ordered the jailer’s books to be brought, and finding
the list of the hostages, immediately liberated
them. I told them that an unjust law had
placed them under restraint, and that it was my
first duty to restore them to liberty.”

NAPOLEON IN THE TEMPLE.

The priests had been mercilessly persecuted.
They could only escape imprisonment by taking
an oath which many considered hostile to their
religious vows. Large numbers of them were
immured in dungeons. Others, in dismay and
poverty, had fled, and were wandering fugitives
in other lands. Napoleon redressed their wrongs,
and spread over them the shield of his powerful
protection. The captives were liberated, and the
exiles invited to return. The principle was
immediately established that the rights of conscience
were to be respected. By this one act,
twenty thousand grief-stricken exiles were restored
to France, proclaiming through city and
village the clemency of the First Consul. In the
rural districts of France, where the sentiment of
veneration for Christianity still lingered, the
priests were received with the warmest welcome.
And in the hut of the peasant the name of Napoleon
was breathed with prayers and tears of
gratitude.

Some French emigrants, furnished with arms
by England, were returning to France, to join the
royalists in La Vendee, in extending the ravages
of civil war. The ship was wrecked on the
coast of Calais, and they were all made prisoners.
As they were taken with arms in their hands, to
fight against their country, rigorous laws doomed
them, as traitors, to the guillotine. Napoleon interposed
to save them. Magnanimously he asserted—”No
matter what their intentions were.
They were driven on our soil by the tempest.
They are shipwrecked men. As such they are
entitled to the laws of hospitality. Their persons
must be held inviolable.” Unharmed they
were all permitted to re-embark and leave France.
Among these emigrants were many men of illustrious
name. These acts of generosity on the
part of Napoleon did much to disarm their hostility,
and many of them became subsequently
firm supporters of his power.

The Revolutionary tribunals had closed the
churches, and prohibited the observance of the
Sabbath. To efface, if possible, all traces of that
sacred day, they had appointed every tenth day,
for cessation from labor and festivity. A heavy
fine was inflicted upon any one who should close
his shop on the Sabbath, or manifest any reverence
for the discarded institution. Napoleon,
who had already resolved to reinstate Christianity
in paganized France, but who found it necessary
to move with the utmost caution, ordered
that no man should be molested for his religious
principles or practices. This step excited hostility.
Paris was filled with unbelief. Generals,
statesmen, philosophers, scouted the idea
of religion. They remonstrated. Napoleon was
firm. The mass of the common people were
with him, and he triumphed over aristocratic
infidelity.

With singular tact he selected the most skillful
and efficient men to fill all the infinitely varied
departments of state. “I want more head,” said
he, “and less tongue.” Every one was kept[Pg 739]
busy. Every one was under the constant vigilance
of his eagle eye. He appeared to have an
instinctive acquaintance with every branch of
legislation, and with the whole science of government.
Three times a week the minister of
finance appeared before him, and past corruption
was dragged to light and abolished. The
treasury was bankrupt. Napoleon immediately
replenished it. The army was starving, and almost
in a state of mutiny. Napoleon addressed
to them a few of his glowing words of encouragement
and sympathy, and the emaciate soldiers
in their rags, enthusiastically rallied again around
their colors, and in a few days, from all parts of
France, baggage wagons were trundling toward
them, laden with clothing and provisions. The
navy was dilapidated and blockaded. At the
voice of Napoleon in every port of France the
sound of the ship hammer was heard, and a
large armament was prepared to convey succor
to his comrades in Egypt. Such vigor mortal
man never exhibited before. All France felt an
immediate impulse. At the same time in which
Napoleon was accomplishing all these duties,
and innumerable others, any one of which would
have engrossed the whole energies of any common
man, he was almost daily meeting his colleagues
and the two committees to discuss the
new Constitution.

Sieyes was greatly alarmed at the generosity
of some of Napoleon’s acts. “The emigrants,”
said he, “will return in crowds. The royalists
will again raise their heads, and the republicans
will be massacred.” His imagination was so excited
with apprehensions of conspiracies and assassinations,
that he once awoke Napoleon at three
o’clock in the morning, to inform him of a fearful
conspiracy, which had just been discovered by
the police. Napoleon quietly listened to his
story, and then, raising his head from his pillow,
inquired, “Have they corrupted our guard?”
“No!” Sieyes replied. “Then go to bed,” said
Napoleon, “and let them alone. It will be time
enough to be alarmed, when our six hundred
men are attacked.” Napoleon was so powerful,
that he could afford to be generous. His magnanimity
was his most effectual safeguard.

In less than six weeks, the new Constitution
was ready to be presented to the nation for their
acceptance. In the original draft, drawn up by
Sieyes, the supreme power was to be vested in
a Grand Elector, to be chosen for life, to possess
a revenue of one million of dollars, and to reside
in the utmost possible magnificence in the palaces
of Versailles. He was to be a mock king, with
all the pomp and pageantry of royalty, but without
its power. This was the office which Sieyes
hoped would satisfy the ambition of Napoleon.
Napoleon exploded it as with a bomb-shell. “Can
you conceive,” he exclaimed, “that a man of
the least talent or honor, would humble himself
to accept an office, the duties of which are merely
to fatten like a pig on so many millions a year?”
The Grand Elector was annihilated. The following
was the Constitution adopted. The sovereign
power was to be invested in Napoleon as
First Consul. Two subordinate consuls, Cambaceres
and Lebrun, were to be his counselors,[Pg 740]
with deliberative voices only. The Consuls proposed
laws to a body called the Tribunate, who
thoroughly discussed them, and either rejected,
or, if they approved, recommended the law to a
third body, called the Legislature. The Legislature
heard the report in silence, having no deliberative
voice. Three were appointed from the
Tribunate to present the arguments in favor of
the law, and three those against it. Without
further debate, the Legislature, as judges, voted.
The Senate also was a silent body. It received
the law from the Legislature, and approved or
condemned. Here were the forms of an ample
supply of checks and balances. Every act proposed
by Napoleon, must be sanctioned by the
Tribunate, the Legislature, and the Senate before
it could become a law.

“The Constitution,” said Sieyes, “is a pyramid
of which the people is the base.” Every
male in France 21 years of age, paying a tax,
was a voter. They amounted to about 5,000,000.
In their primary assemblies, they chose 500,000
delegates. These delegates, from their own
number, chose 50,000. These latter, from themselves,
chose 5000. These 5000 were the Notables,
or the eligible to office. From them, thus
elected by the people, all the offices were to be
filled. The Constitution declared Napoleon to
be First Consul for ten years, with an annual
salary of $100,000. Cambaceres and Lebrun
were his associate Consuls, with a salary of
$60,000. These three, with Sieyes and Ducos,
were to choose, from the Notables, the Senate, to
consist of eighty members. They were elected
for life, and received a salary of $5000. The
Senate chose three hundred members, from the
Notables, to compose the Legislature, with a
salary of $2000, and one hundred members to
compose the Tribunate, with an annual salary
of $3000 each.

Such, in brief, was the Constitution under
which Napoleon commenced his reign. Under
a man of ordinary vigor this would have been a
popular and a free government. With Napoleon
it was in effect an unlimited monarchy. The
energy of his mind was so tremendous that he
acquired immediately the control of all these
bodies. The plans he proposed were either so
plainly conducive to the public welfare, or he had
such an extraordinary faculty of convincing Tribunes,
Legislators, and Senators that they were
so, that these bodies almost invariably voted in
perfect accordance with his will. It was Napoleon’s
unquestioned aim to aggrandize France.
For the accomplishment of that purpose he was
ready to make any conceivable personal sacrifice.
In that accomplishment was to consist all his
glory. No money could bribe him. No enticements
of sensual indulgence could divert his energies
from that single aim. His capacious intellect
seemed to grasp intuitively every thing
which could affect the welfare of France. He
gathered around him, as agents for the execution
of his plans, the most brilliant intellects of Europe,
and yet they all took the attitude of children
in his presence. With a body which seemed incapable
of fatigue, and a mind whose energies
never were exhausted, he consecrated himself to
the majestic enterprise, by day and by night,
and with an untiring energy which amazed and
bewildered his contemporaries, and which still
excites the wonder of the world. No one thought
of resisting his will. His subordinates sought
only to anticipate his wishes. Hence no machinery
of government, which human ingenuity
could devise, could seriously embarrass the free
scope of his energies. His associates often expressed
themselves as entirely overawed by the
majesty of his intellect. They came from his
presence giving utterance to the most profound
admiration of the justice and the rapidity of his
perceptions. “We are pressed,” said they, “into
a very whirlwind of urgency; but it is all for the
good of France.”

The Constitution was now presented to the
whole people, for their acceptance or rejection.
A more free and unbiased expression of public
opinion could not possibly have been obtained.
The result is unparalleled in the annals of the
ballot-box. There were 3,011,007 votes cast in
favor of the Constitution, and but 1562 in the
negative. By such unanimity, unprecedented in
the history of the world, was Napoleon elected
First Consul of France. Those who reject the
dogma of the divine right of kings, who believe
in the sacred authority of the voice of the people,
will, in this act, surely recognize the legitimacy
of Napoleon’s elevation. A better title to the
supreme power no ruler upon earth could ever
show. With Americans it can not be a serious
question who had the best title to the throne,
Louis Capet, from the accident of birth, or
Napoleon Bonaparte, from the unanimous vote
of the people. Napoleon may have abused the
power which was thus placed in his hands.
Whether he did so or not, the impartial history
of his career will record. But it is singularly
disingenuous to call this an usurpation. It was
a nation’s voice. “I did not usurp the crown,”
said Napoleon, proudly and justly. “It was
lying in the mire. I picked it up. The people
placed it on my head.” It is not strange that the
French people should have decided as they did.
Where is the man now, in either hemisphere,
who would not have preferred the government
of Napoleon to any other dominion which was
then possible in France?

From the comparatively modest palace of the
Luxembourg, Napoleon and Josephine now removed
to take up their residence in the more
magnificent apartments of the Tuileries. Those
saloons of royalty which had been sacked and
denied by the mob of Paris, were thoroughly repaired.
The red cap of Jacobinism had been
daubed upon the walls of the apartments of state,
and a tri-colored cockade had been painted upon
the military hat of Louis XIV. “Wash those
out,” said Napoleon. “I will have no such
abominations.” The palace was furnished with
more than its former splendor. Statues of illustrious
men of all lands embellished the vacant
niches. Those gorgeous saloons, where kings[Pg 741]
and queens for so many ages had reveled, were
now adorned, with outvying splendor, for the
residence of the people’s chosen ruler.

Louis was the king of the nobles, placed by
the nobles upon the throne. He consulted for
their interests. All the avenues of wealth and
honor were open for them alone. The people
were merely slaves, living in ignorance, poverty,
obscurity, that the king and the nobles might
dwell in voluptuousness. Napoleon was the
ruler of the people. He was one of their own
number. He was elevated to power by their
choice. He spread out an unobstructed arena
for the play of their energies. He opened before
them the highways to fame and fortune.
The only aristocracy which he favored was the
aristocracy of intellect and industry. No privileged
classes were tolerated. Every man was
equal in the eye of the law. All appealed to the
same tribunals, and received impartial justice.
The taxes were proportioned to property. The
feudal claims of the landed proprietors were
abolished. And there was no situation in the
state, to which the humblest citizen might not
aspire. They called Napoleon First Consul.
They cared not much what he was called, so
long as he was the supreme ruler of their own
choice. They were proud of having their ruler
more exalted, more magnificent, more powerful
than the kings of the nobles. Hence the secret
of their readiness to acquiesce in any plans
which might minister to the grandeur of their
own Napoleon. His glory was their glory. And
never were they better pleased than when they
saw him eclipse in splendor the proudest sovereigns
upon the surrounding thrones.

One evening Napoleon, with his gray surtout
buttoned up closely around him, went out with
Bourrienne, incognito, and sauntered along the
Rue St. Honoré, making small purchases in the
shops, and conversing freely with the people
about the First Consul and his acts. “Well,
citizen,” said Napoleon, in one of the shops,
“what do they say of Bonaparte?” The shop-keeper
spoke of him in terms of the most enthusiastic
admiration. “Nevertheless,” said Napoleon,
“we must watch him. I hope that it will
not be found that we have merely changed one
tyrant for another—the Directory for Bonaparte.”
The shop-keeper was so indignant at this irreverent
intimation, that he showered upon Napoleon
such a volley of abuse, as to compel him to escape
precipitately into the street, greatly amused
and delighted with the adventure.

It was on the morning of the 19th of February,
1800, when all Paris was in commotion to witness
the most gratifying spectacle of the people’s
sovereign taking possession of the palace of the
ancient kings. The brilliance of Napoleon’s character
and renown had already thrown his colleagues
into the shade. They were powerless.
No one thought of them. Sieyes foresaw this
inevitable result, and, with very commendable
self-respect, refused to accept the office of Second
Consul. A few interviews with Napoleon
had taught him that no one could share power
with a will so lofty and commanding. Napoleon
says, “Sieyes had fallen into a mistake respecting
the nature of these Consuls. He was fearful
of mortification and of having the First Consul
to contend with at every step. This would
have been the case had all the Consuls been
equal. We should then have all been enemies.
But the Constitution having made them subordinate,
there was no room for the struggles of
obstinacy.” Indeed there was no room for such
a conflict. Utter powerlessness can not contend
with omnipotence. The subordinate Consuls
could only give advice when Napoleon asked it.
He was not likely to trouble them.

The royal apartments in the Tuileries were
prepared for the First Consul. The more modest
saloons in the Pavilion of Flora were assigned to
the two other Consuls. Cambaceres, however,
was so fully conscious of the real position which
he occupied, that he declined entering the palace
of the kings. He said to his colleague, Lebrun,
“It is an error that we should be lodged
in the Tuileries. It suits neither you nor me.
For my part, I will not go. General Bonaparte
will soon want to lodge there by himself. Then
we shall be suffered to retire. It is better not to
go at all.”

The morning of Napoleon’s removal to the
Tuileries, he slept later than usual. When
Bourrienne entered his chamber at seven o’clock,
Napoleon was soundly asleep. On awaking he
said, “Well, Bourrienne, we shall at length sleep
at the Tuileries. You are very fortunate; you
are not obliged to make a show of yourself. You
may go in your own way. But as for me, I must
go in a procession. This I dislike. But we must
have a display. It gratifies the people. The
Directory was too simple; it therefore enjoyed
no consideration. With the army, simplicity is
in its place. But in a great city, in a palace, it
is necessary that the chief of a state should draw
attention upon himself by all possible means.
But we must move with caution. Josephine
will see the review from the apartments of Consul
Lebrun.”

Napoleon entered a magnificent carriage, seated
between his two colleagues, who appeared
but as his attendants or body-guard. The carriage
was drawn by six beautiful white horses, a
present to Napoleon from the Emperor of Austria,
immediately after the treaty of Campo Formio.
A gorgeous train of officers, accompanied
by six thousand picked troops, in the richest
splendor of military display, composed the cortège.
Twenty thousand soldiers, with all the
concomitants of martial pomp, in double files,
lined the streets through which the procession
was to pass. A throng which could not be numbered,
from the city and from the country, filled
the garden, the streets, the avenues, the balconies,
the house-tops, and ebbed and flowed in
surging billows far back into the Elysian Fields.
They had collected to exult in introducing the
idol of the army and of the nation—the people’s
king—into the palace from which they had expelled
the ancient monarchs of France. The[Pg 742]
moment the state carriage appeared, the heavens
seemed rent with the unanimous shout, “Long
live the First Consul.” As soon as Napoleon
arrived at the foot of the great stair, ascending
to the palace, he left the other Consuls, and,
mounting his horse, passed in review the magnificent
array of troops drawn up before him.
Murat was on his right; Lannes on his left.
He was surrounded by a brilliant staff of war-worn
veterans, whose scarred and sun-burnt
visages told of many a toilsome and bloody campaign.
There were three brigades, which appeared
with the banners which had passed
through the terrific conflicts of Lodi, Rivoli, and
Arcola. They were black with powder, and torn
into shreds by shot. Napoleon instantly uncovered
his head, and, with profound reverence,
saluted these monuments of military valor. An
universal burst of enthusiasm greeted the well-timed
and graceful act. Napoleon then returned
to the Tuileries, ascended to the audience-chamber,
and took his station in the centre of the
room. All eyes were fixed upon him. The two
associate Consuls were entirely forgotten, or,
rather, they were reduced to the rank of pages,
following in his train, and gracing his triumph.

NAPOLEON’S ENTRANCE INTO THE TUILERIES.

The suite of rooms appropriated to Josephine,
consisted of two magnificent saloons, with private
apartments adjoining. In the evening a vast assemblage
of brilliant guests were gathered in those
regal halls. When Josephine entered the gorgeously
illumined apartments, leaning upon the
arm of Talleyrand, and dressed with that admirable
taste which she ever displayed, a murmur
of admiration rose from the whole assembly.
The festivities of the evening were protracted
until nearly the dawn of the ensuing morning.
When the guests had all retired, Napoleon, with
his hands folded behind him, paced to and fro
through the spacious halls, apparently absorbed
in profound and melancholy thought; and then,
as if half soliloquizing, said to his secretary,
Bourrienne, “Here we are in the Tuileries. We
must take good care to remain here. Who has
not inhabited this palace? It has been the abode
of robbers; of members of the Convention. There
is your brother’s house, from which, eight years
ago, we saw the good Louis XVI. besieged in
the Tuileries and carried off into captivity. But
you need not fear a repetition of that scene. Let
them attempt it with me if they dare.”

The next morning Napoleon said to Bourrienne,
“See what it is to have the mind set upon a
thing. It is not two years since we resolved to
take possession of the Tuileries. Do you think
that we have managed affairs badly since that
time. In fact, I am well satisfied. Yesterday’s
affair went off well. Do you imagine that all
those people who came to pay their court to me
were sincere? Most certainly they were not.
But the joy of the people was real. The people
know what is right. Besides, consult the great
thermometer of public opinion, the public funds.
On the 17th Brumaire they were at 11—the
20th, 16—to-day, 21. In this state of things,
I can allow the Jacobins to chatter. But they
must not talk too loud.”

With consummate tact, Napoleon selected the
ablest men of the empire to occupy the most
important departments in the state. Talleyrand,
the wily diplomatist, having received his appointment,
said to Napoleon, “You have confided
to me the administration of foreign affairs.
I will justify your confidence. But I deem it
my duty at once to declare, that I will consult
with you alone. That France may be well governed,
there must be unity of action. The First
Consul must retain the direction of every thing,
the home, foreign, and police departments, and
those of war and the marine. The Second Consul
is an able lawyer. I would advise that he
have the direction of legal affairs. Let the Third[Pg 743]
Consul govern the finances. This will occupy
and amuse them. Thus you, having at your
disposal the vital powers of government, will be
enabled to attain the noble object of your aims,
the regeneration of France.” Napoleon listened
in silence. Having taken leave of his minister,
he said to his secretary, “Talleyrand has detected
my views. He is a man of excellent sense. He
advises just what I intend to do. They walk
with speed who walk alone.” Some one had
objected to the appointment of Talleyrand, saying,
“He is a weathercock.” “Be it so,” said
Napoleon, “he is the ablest Minister for Foreign
Affairs in our choice. It shall be my care that
he exerts his abilities.”

“Carnot,” objected another, “is a republican.”
“Republican or not,” Napoleon replied, “he is
the last Frenchman who will wish to see France
dismembered. Let us avail ourselves of his unrivaled
talents in the war department, while he
is willing to place them at our command.”

“Fouché,” objected one, “is a compound of
falsehood and duplicity.” “Fouché alone,” Napoleon
rejoined, “is able to conduct the ministry
of the police. He alone has a knowledge of all
the factions and intrigues which have been spreading
misery through France. We can not create
men. We must take such as we find. It is
easier to modify, by circumstances, the feelings
and conduct of an able servant than to supply
his place.”

M. Abriel, a peer of France, was recommended
as Minister of Justice. “I do not know you,
citizen Abriel,” said Napoleon, as he presented
him his diploma of office, “but I am informed
that you are the most upright man in the magistracy.
It is on that account that I have named
you Minister of Justice.”

One of Napoleon’s first acts was to abolish
the annual festival celebrating the bloody death
of Louis XVI. He declared it to be a barbarous
ceremony, and unworthy of a humane people.
“Louis was a tyrant,” said Sieyes. “Nay,
nay,” Napoleon promptly replied, “Louis was
no tyrant. Had he been a tyrant, I should this
day have been a captain of engineers, and you,
Monsieur L’Abbé, would have been saying mass.”

The Directory had resorted to the iniquitous
procedure of forced loans to replenish the bankrupt
treasury. Napoleon immediately rejected
the tyrannical system. He assembled seventy
of the most wealthy capitalists of Paris, in his
closet at the Tuileries. Frankly he laid before
them the principles of the new government, and
the claims it had on the confidence of the public.
The appeal was irresistible. The merchants and
bankers, overjoyed at the prospect of just and
stable laws, by acclamation voted an immediate
loan of two millions of dollars. Though this
made provision but for a few days, it was very
timely aid. He then established an equitable
tax upon property, sufficient to meet the exigencies
of the state. The people paid the tax
without a murmur.

Napoleon entertained profound aversion for
the men who had been engaged in the sanguinary
scenes of the revolution, particularly for the
regicides. He always spoke with horror of those
men of blood, whom he called the assassins of
Louis. He deplored the necessity of employing
any of them. Cambaceres was a member of the
Convention which had condemned the king to
the guillotine. Though he voted against the
sentence of death, he had advocated his arrest.
“Remember,” said Napoleon one day to Cambaceres,
at the same time playfully pinching his
ear, “that I had nothing to do with that atrocious
business. But your case, my dear Cambaceres,
is clear. If the Bourbons ever return, you must
be hanged.” Cambaceres did not enjoy such
pleasantry. His smile was ghastly. Upon
the reorganization of the Supreme Court of
France, Napoleon said to Bourrienne, “I do not
take any decided steps against the regicides.
But I will show what I think of them. Target,
the president of this court, refused to defend
Louis XVI. I will replace him by Tronchet,
who so nobly discharged that perilous duty.
They may say what they choose. My mind is
made up.”

The enthusiasm of the army was immediately
revived by the attention which the First Consul
devoted to its interests. He presented beautiful
sabres to those soldiers who had highly distinguished
themselves. One hundred were thus
conferred. A sergeant of grenadiers had obtained
permission to write to the First Consul,
expressing his thanks. Napoleon, with his own
hand, replied, “I have received your letter, my
brave comrade. You had no occasion to remind
me of your gallant behavior. You are the most
courageous grenadier in the army since the death
of the brave Benezeti. You have received one
of the hundred sabres which I have distributed,
and all agree that none deserve it better. I wish
much to see you again. The Minister of War
sends you an order to come to Paris.” This letter
was widely circulated in the army, and roused
the enthusiasm of the soldiers to the highest
pitch. The First Consul, the most illustrious
general of France, the great Napoleon, calls a
sergeant of grenadiers “my brave comrade.”
This sympathy for the people was ever a prominent
trait in Napoleon’s character.

The following anecdote will illustrate his views
upon this subject; or, rather, a part of his views.
All men have varying moods of mind, which seem
to be antagonistic to each other. Napoleon was
conversing with O’Meara respecting the English
naval service.

“During the winter,” said O’Meara, “the seamen
are better off at sea than the officers.”

“Why so?” inquired Napoleon.

“Because,” was the reply, “they have the advantage
of the galley-fire, where they can warm
and dry themselves.”

“And why can not the officers do the same?”

“It would not be exactly decorous,” O’Meara
replied, “for the officers to mix in that familiar
way with the men.”

“Ah, this aristocratic pride!” exclaimed Napoleon
“Why, in my campaigns, I used to go[Pg 744]
to the lines in the bivouacs; sit down with the
humblest soldier, and converse freely with him.
You are the most aristocratic nation in the world.
I always prided myself on being the man of the
people. I sprung from the populace myself.
Whenever a man had merit I elevated him, without
asking how many degrees of nobility he had.
To the aristocracy you pay every kind of attention.
Nothing can be too good for them. The
people you treat precisely as if they were slaves.
Can any thing be more horrible than your pressing
of seamen? You send your boats on shore
to seize upon every male that can be found, who,
if they have the misfortune to belong to the populace,
if they can not prove themselves gentlemen,
are hurried on board your ships. And yet you
have the impudence to cry out against the conscription
in France. It wounds your pride, because
it fell upon all ranks. You are shocked
that a gentleman’s son should be obliged to defend
his country, just as if he were one of the
common people—that he should be compelled to
expose his body like a vile plebeian. Yet God
made all men alike. One day the people will
avenge themselves. That conscription, which so
offended your aristocratic pride, was conducted
scrupulously according to the principles of equal
rights. Every native of a country is bound to
defend it. The conscription did not, like your
press-gang, crush a particular class, because they
were poor. It was the most just, because the
most equal, mode of raising troops. It rendered
the French army the best composed in the world.”

When a prisoner on board the Northumberland,
in his passage to St. Helena, all the common
sailors, though English, became most enthusiastically
attached to Napoleon. Some one alluded
to this fact. “Yes,” said Napoleon, “I believe
that they were my friends. I used to go among
them; speak to them kindly, and ask familiar
questions. My freedom in this respect quite
astonished them, as it was so different from that
which they had been accustomed to receive from
their own officers. You English are great aristocrats.
You keep a wide distance between
yourselves and the people.”

It was observed in reply, “On board a man-of-war
it is necessary to keep the seamen at a
great distance, in order to maintain a proper respect
for the officers.”

“I do not think,” Napoleon rejoined, “that it
is necessary to keep up so much reserve as you
practice. When the officers do not eat or drink,
or make too many freedoms with the seamen, I
see no necessity for any greater distinctions.
Nature formed all men equal. It was always
my custom to go freely among the soldiers and
the common people, to converse with them, ask
them little histories, and speak kindly to them.
This I found to be of the greatest benefit to me.
On the contrary, the generals and officers I kept
at a great distance.”

Notwithstanding these protestations of freedom
from aristocratic pride, which were unquestionably
sincere, and in their intended application
strictly true, it is also evident that Napoleon was
by no means insensible to the mysterious fascination
of illustrious rank. It is a sentiment implanted
in the human heart, which never has
been, and never can be eradicated. Just at this
time Murat sought Napoleon’s sister Caroline
for his bride. “Murat! Murat!” said Napoleon,
thoughtfully and hesitatingly. “He is the son
of an innkeeper. In the elevated rank to which I
have attained I can not mix my blood with his.”
For a moment he seemed lost in thought, and
then continued, “Besides, there is no hurry. I
shall see by-and-by.” A friend of the young
cavalry officer urged the strong attachment of
the two for each other. He also plead Murat’s
devotion to Napoleon, his brilliant courage, and
the signal service he had rendered at the battle
of Aboukir. “Yes,” Napoleon replied, with animation,
“Murat was superb at Aboukir. Well,
for my part, all things considered, I am satisfied.
Murat suits my sister. And, then, they can not
say that I am aristocratic, that I seek grand alliances.
Had I given my sister to a noble, all
you Jacobins would have cried out for a counter-revolution.
Since that matter is settled we must
hasten the business. We have no time to lose.
If I go to Italy I wish to take Murat with me.
We must strike a decisive blow, there. Come
to-morrow.” Notwithstanding Napoleon’s vast
power, and the millions which had been at his
disposal, his private purse was still so empty,
that he could present his sister Caroline with but
six thousand dollars as her marriage portion.
Feeling the necessity of making some present in
accordance with his exalted rank, he took a magnificent
diamond necklace, belonging to Josephine,
as the bridal gift. Josephine most gracefully
submitted to this spoliation of her jewelry.

As Napoleon became more familiar with the
heights of power to which he had attained, all these
plebeian scruples vanished. He sought to ally his
family with the proudest thrones of Europe; and,
repelling from his bosom the faithful wife of his
early years, he was proud of commingling his
own blood with that of a daughter of the Cæsars.

In the midst of these events, the news arrived
in France of the death of Washington. Napoleon
immediately issued the following order of the day
to the army:—”Washington is dead! That
great man fought against tyranny. He established
the liberty of his country. His memory
will be ever dear to the free men of both hemispheres;
and especially to the French soldiers,
who, like him and the American troops, have
fought for liberty and equality. As a mark of
respect, the First Consul orders that, for ten days,
black crape be suspended from all the standards
and banners of the Republic.”

In reference to the course he pursued at this
time, Napoleon subsequently remarked, “Only
those who wish to deceive the people, and rule
them for their own personal advantage, would
desire to keep them in ignorance. The more they
are enlightened, the more will they feel convinced
of the utility of laws, and of the necessity of defending
them; and the more steady, happy, and
prosperous will society become. If knowledge[Pg 745]
should ever be dangerous to the multitude, it can
can only be when the government, in opposition
to the interests of the people, drives them into an
unnatural situation, or dooms the lower classes
to perish for want. In such a case, knowledge
will inspire them with the spirit to defend themselves.
My code alone, from its simplicity, has
been more beneficial to France than the whole
mass of laws which preceded it. My schools and
my system of mutual instruction, are to elevate
generations yet unborn. Thus, during my reign,
crimes were constantly diminishing. On the contrary,
with our neighbors in England, they have
been increasing to a frightful degree. This alone
is sufficient to enable any one to form a decisive
judgment of the respective governments.[3]

“Look at the United States,” he continued,
“where, without any apparent force or effort,
every thing goes on prosperously. Every one is
happy and contented. And this is because the
public wishes and interests are in fact the ruling
power. Place the same government at variance
with the will and interest of its inhabitants, and
you would soon see what disturbance, trouble,
and confusion—above all, what increase of crime,
would ensue. When I acquired the supreme direction
of affairs, it was wished that I might become
a Washington. Words cost nothing; and
no doubt those who were so ready to express
the wish, did so without any knowledge of times,
places, persons, or things. Had I been in America,
I would willingly have been a Washington.
I should have had little merit in so being. I do
not see how I could reasonably have acted otherwise.
But had Washington been in France, exposed
to discord within and invasion from without,
he could by no possibility have been what
he was in America. Indeed it would have been
folly to have attempted it. It would only have
prolonged the existence of evil. For my part, I
could only have been a crowned Washington. It
was only in a congress of kings, and in the
midst of kings, yielding or subdued, that I could
take my place. Then, and then only, could I
successfully display Washington’s moderation,
disinterestedness and wisdom.”

“I think,” said La Fayette, at the time of the
revolution which placed Louis Phillipe upon the
throne of France, “that the Constitution of the
United States is the best which has ever existed.
But France is not prepared for such a government.
We need a throne surrounded by republican
institutions.”

Napoleon was indefatigable in his endeavors to
reorganize in the Tuileries the splendors of a
court. The French people were like children
who needed to be amused, and Napoleon took
good care to provide amusement for them. His
ante-chambers were filled with chamberlains,
pages, and esquires. Servants, in brilliant liveries,
loitered in the halls and on the staircases. Magnificent
entertainments were provided, at which
Josephine presided with surpassing grace and
elegance. Balls, operas, and theatres, began to be
crowded with splendor and fashion, and the gay
Parisians were delighted. Napoleon personally
took no interest whatever in these things. All
his energies were engrossed in the accomplishment
of magnificent enterprises for the elevation
of France. “While they are discussing these
changes,” said he, “they will cease to talk nonsense
about my politics, and that is what I want.
Let them amuse themselves. Let them dance.
But let them not thrust their heads into the councils
of government. Commerce will revive under
the increasing expenditure of the capital. I am
not afraid of the Jacobins. I never was so much
applauded as at the last parade. It is ridiculous
to say that nothing is right but what is new. We
have had enough of such novelties. I would
rather have the balls of the opera than the saturnalia
of the Goddess of Reason.”[4]

While Napoleon was thus engaged in reconstructing
society in France, organizing the army,
strengthening the navy, and conducting the
diplomacy of Europe, he was maturing and executing
the most magnificent plans of internal
improvements. In early life he had conceived a
passion for architectural grandeur, which had
been strengthened and chastened by his residence
among the time-honored monuments of Italy and
Egypt. With inconceivable activity of mind, he
planned those vast works of utility and of beauty
in Paris, and all over the empire, which will forever
remain the memorials of his well-directed
energies, and which will throw a lustre over his
reign which never can be sullied. He erected the
beautiful quay on the banks of the Seine, in front
of the Tuileries. He swept away the buildings
which deformed the Place Carrousel, and united
the Louvre and the Tuileries, forming a magnificent
square between those splendid edifices. He
commenced the construction of a fourth side for
the great square opposite the picture gallery. It
was a vast and a noble undertaking; but it was
interrupted by those fierce wars, which the allied
kings of Europe waged against him. The Bridge
of Arts was commenced. The convents of the
Feuillans and Capucines, which had been filled
with victims during the revolution, were torn
down, and the magnificent Rue de Rivoli, now
one of the chief ornaments of Paris, was thrown
open. Canals, bridges, turnpike-roads, all over
the empire, were springing into existence. One
single mind inspired the nation.

The most inveterate opponents of Napoleon
are constrained to the admission that it is impossible[Pg 746]
to refuse the praise of consummate prudence
and skill to these, and indeed to all the arrangements
he adopted in this great crisis of his history.
“We are creating a new era,” said he.
“Of the past we must forget the bad, and remember
only the good.”

In one of the largest and most populous provinces
of France, that of La Vendee, many thousand
royalists had collected, and were carrying
on a most desperate civil war. England, with her
ships, was continually sending to them money,
ammunition, and arms, and landing among them
regiments of emigrant troops formed in London.
They had raised an army of sixty thousand men.
All the efforts of the Directory to quell the insurrection
had been unavailing. The most awful
atrocities had disgraced this civil conflict. As
soon as Napoleon was firmly seated in his consular
chair, he sent an invitation for the chiefs
of these royalist forces in La Vendee to visit him
in Paris, assuring them of a safe return. They
all accepted the invitation. Napoleon met them
in his audience-chamber with the utmost kindness
and frankness. He assured them that it was
his only object to rescue France from the ruin
into which it had fallen; to bring peace and happiness
to his distracted country. With that laconic
logic which he had ever at command, he
said, “Are you fighting in self-defense? You
have no longer cause to fight. I will not molest
you. I will protect you in all your rights. Have
you taken arms to revive the reign of the ancient
kings? You see the all but unanimous decision
of the nation. Is it honorable for so decided a
minority to attempt, by force of arms, to dictate
laws to the majority?”

Napoleon’s arguments were as influential as
his battalions. They yielded at once, not merely
their swords but their hearts’ homage. One alone,
George Cadoudal, a sullen, gigantic savage, who
preferred banditti marauding above the blessings
of peace, refused to yield. Napoleon had a private
interview with him. The guard at the door
were extremely alarmed lest the semi-barbarian
should assassinate the First Consul. Napoleon
appealed to his patriotism, his humanity, but all
in vain. Cadoudal demanded his passports and
left Paris. “Why did I not,” he afterward
often said, as he looked at his brawny, hairy,
Samson-like arms, “strangle that man when I
had him in my power?” He went to London,
where he engaged in many conspiracies for the
assassination of Napoleon, and was finally taken
in France, and shot.

NAPOLEON AND THE VENDEEAN CHIEF.

Civil war was now at an end, and with most
singular unanimity all France was rejoicing in
the reign of the First Consul. Napoleon loved
not war. He wished to build up, not to tear
down. He desired the glory of being the benefactor
and not the scourge of his fellow-men.
Every conflict in which he had thus far been engaged
was strictly a war of self-defense. The
expedition to Egypt can not be considered an
exception, for that enterprise was undertaken as
the only means of repelling the assaults of the
most determined and powerful enemy France has
ever known. Napoleon was now strong. All
France was united in him. With unobstructed
power he could wield all her resources, and guide
all her armies. Under these circumstances most
signally did he show his love of peace, by adopting
the very characteristic measure of writing
directly to the King of England and to the Emperor
of Austria, proposing reconciliation. It was
noble in the highest degree for him to do so.
Pride would have said, “They commenced the
conflict; they shall be the first to ask for peace.”
To the King of England he wrote,

“Called, Sire, by the wishes of the French
nation, to occupy the first magistracy of the Republic,
I judge it well, on entering my office, to
address myself directly to your Majesty. Must[Pg 747]
the war, which for the four last years has devastated
the world, be eternal? Are there no means
of coming to an understanding? How can the
two most enlightened nations of Europe, stronger
already and more powerful than their safety
or their independence requires, sacrifice to ideas
of vain-glory the well-being of commerce, internal
prosperity, and the repose of families! How
is it that they do not feel peace to be the first of
necessities as the first of glories? These sentiments
can not be strangers to the heart of your
Majesty, who governs a free people with the sole
aim of rendering it happy.

“Your Majesty will perceive only, in this
overture, the sincerity of my desire to contribute
efficaciously, for a second time, to the general
pacification, by this prompt advance, perfectly confidential
and disembarrassed of those forms, which,
perhaps necessary to disguise the dependence
of weak states, reveal, when adopted by strong
states, only the wish of mutual deception. France
and England by the misuse of their powers, may
yet, for a long period, retard, to the misery of all
nations, their exhaustion. But I venture to say
that the fate of the civilized world is connected
with the termination of a war, which has set the
whole world in flames.”

To this magnanimous application for peace,
the King of England did not judge it proper to
return any personal answer. Lord Grenville replied
in a letter full of most bitter recriminations.
And all France was exasperated by the insulting
declaration that if France really desired peace,
“The best and most natural pledge of its reality
and permanence, would be the restoration of that
line of princes which, for so many centuries maintained
the French nation in prosperity at home, and
consideration and respect abroad. Such an event
would at once remove, and will at any time remove
all obstacles in the way of negotiation or peace.“

This was, indeed, an irritating response to
Napoleon’s pacific appeal. He, however, with
great dignity and moderation, replied through his
minister, M. Talleyrand, in the following terms:

“So far from having provoked the war, France,
from the commencement of the revolution, solemnly
proclaimed her love of peace, her disinclination
for conquests, and her respect for the independence
of all governments. And it is not
to be doubted, that occupied at that time entirely
with her own internal affairs, she would have
avoided taking any part in those of Europe, and
would have remained faithful to her declarations.

“But from an opposite disposition, as soon as
the French revolution had broken out, almost all
Europe entered into a league for its destruction.
The aggression was real long before it was public.
Internal resistance was excited; the enemies
of the revolution were favorably received,
their extravagant declamations were supported,
the French nation was insulted in the person of
its agents, and England particularly set this example,
by the dismissal of the minister of the Republic.
Finally, France was attacked in her independence,
her honor, and her safety, long before
war was declared.

“It is to these projects of dismemberment, subjection,
and dissolution, that France has a right
to impute the evils which she has suffered, and
those which have afflicted Europe. Assailed on
all sides, the Republic could not but equally extend
the efforts of her defense. And it is only
for the maintenance of her own independence,
that she has called into requisition her own
strength and the courage of her citizens. If in
the midst of the critical circumstances which the
revolution and the war have brought on, France
has not always shown as much moderation as
the nation has shown courage, it must be imputed
to the fatal and persevering animosity with
which the resources of England have been lavished
to accomplish the ruin of France.

“But if the wishes of his Britannic majesty
are in unison with those of the French Republic,
for the re-establishment of peace, why, instead
of attempting apologies for the war, should not
attention be directed to the means of terminating
it. It can not be doubted that his Britannic Majesty
must recognize the right of nations to choose
their form of government, since it is from this
right that he holds his crown. But the First
Consul can not comprehend how, after admitting
this fundamental principle, upon which rests the
existence of political societies, his Majesty could
annex insinuations, which tend to an interference
with the internal affairs of the Republic. Such
interference is no less injurious to the French
nation and its government, than it would be to
England and his Majesty, if an invitation were
held out, in form of a return to that republican
form of government which England adopted about
the middle of the last century, or an exhortation
to recall to the throne that family whom their
birth had placed there, and whom a revolution
had compelled to descend from it.”

There was no possibility of parrying these
home thrusts. Lord Grenville consequently entirely
lost his temper. Replying in a note even
more angry and bitter than the first, he declared
that England was fighting for the security of all
governments against French Jacobinism, and
that hostilities would be immediately urged on
anew without any relaxation. Napoleon was not
at all disappointed or disheartened at the result
of this correspondence. He earnestly desired
peace. But he was not afraid of war. Conscious
of the principle, “thrice is he armed who hath
his quarrel just,” he was happy in the conviction
that the sympathies of impartial men in all nations
would be with him. He knew that the arrogant
tone assumed by England, would unite
France as one man, in determined and undying
resistance. “The answer,” said he, “filled me
with satisfaction. It could not have been more
favorable. England wants war. She shall have
it. Yes! yes! war to the death.”

The throne of the King of England, the opulence
of her bishops, and the enormous estates
of her nobles were perhaps dependent upon the
issue of this conflict. The demolition of all exclusive
privileges, and the establishment of perfect
equality of rights among all classes of men[Pg 748]
in France, must have shaken the throne, the
aristocracy, and the hierarchy of England, with
earthquake power. The government of England
was mainly in the hands of the king, the bishops,
and the lords. Their all was at stake. In a
temptation so sore, frail human nature must not
be too severely censured. For nearly ten years,
the princes of France had been wandering houseless
fugitives over Europe. The nobles of France,
ejected from their castles, with their estates confiscated,
were beggars in all lands. Bishops
who had been wrapped in ermine, and who had
rolled in chariots of splendor, were glad to warm
their shivering limbs by the fire of the peasant,
and to satiate their hunger with his black bread.
To king, and bishop, and noble, in England,
this was a fearful warning. It seemed to be
necessary for their salvation to prevent all friendly
intercourse between England and France, to
hold up the principles of the French Revolution
to execration, and above all, to excite, if possible,
the detestation of the people of England, against
Napoleon, the child and the champion of popular
rights. Napoleon was the great foe to be feared,
for with his resplendent genius he was enthroning
himself in the hearts of the people of all
lands.

But no impartial man, in either hemisphere,
can question that the right was with Napoleon. It
was not the duty of the thirty millions of France
to ask permission of the fifteen millions of England
to modify their government. The kings
of Europe, led by England, had combined to
force with the bayonet, upon France, a rejected
and an execrated dynasty. The inexperienced
Republic, distracted and impoverished by these
terrific blows, was fast falling to ruin. The people
invested Napoleon with almost dictatorial
powers for their rescue. It was their only hope.
Napoleon, though conscious of strength, in the
name of bleeding humanity, pleaded for peace.
His advances were met with contumely and scorn,
and the trumpet notes of defiant hosts rang from
the Thames to the Danube. The ports of France
were blockaded by England’s invincible fleet,
demolishing the feeble navy of the Republic, and
bombarding her cities. An army of three hundred
thousand men pressed upon the frontiers
of France, threatening a triumphant march to her
capital, there to compel, by bayonet and bomb-shell,
the French people to receive a Bourbon for
their king. There was no alternative left to
Napoleon but to defend his country. Most nobly
he did it.

The correspondence with the British government,
which redounds so much to the honor of
Napoleon, vastly multiplied his friends among
the masses of the people in England, and roused
in parliament, a very formidable opposition to the
measures of government. This opposition was
headed by Fox, Sheridan, Lord Erskine, the
Duke of Bedford, and Lord Holland. They did
not adopt the atrocious maxim, “Our country—right
or wrong,” but rather the ennobling principle
“Our country—when in the wrong, we will
try to put her right.” Never, in the history of
the world, has there been a more spirited or a
more eloquent opposition than this question elicited.
Fox, the rival of Pitt, and the profound
admirer of Napoleon, was the most prominent
leader of this opposition. Napoleon, with his
laconic and graphic eloquence, thus describes
the antagonistic English statesmen. “In Fox,
the heart warmed the genius. In Pitt the genius
withered the heart.”

“You ask,” the opposition exclaimed, “who
was the aggressor? What matters that? You
say it was France. France says it was England.
The party you accuse of being the aggressor is
the first to offer to lay down arms. Shall interminable
war continue merely to settle a question
of history? You say it is useless to treat with
France. Yet you treated with the Directory.
Prussia and Spain have treated with the Republic,
and have found no cause for complaint.
You speak of the crimes of France. And yet
your ally, Naples, commits crimes more atrocious,
without the excuse of popular excitement. You
speak of ambition. But Russia, Prussia, and
Austria, have divided Poland. Austria grasps
the provinces of Italy. You yourself take possession
of India, of part of the Spanish, and of
all the Dutch colonies. Who shall say that one
is more guilty than another in this strife of
avarice. If you ever intend to treat with the
French Republic, there can be no more favorable
moment than the present.”

By way of commentary upon the suggestion
that France must re-enthrone the Bourbons, a
letter was published, either real or pretended,
from the heir of the exiled house of Stuart, demanding
from George the Third, the throne of
his ancestors. There was no possible way of
parrying this home thrust. George the Third,
by his own admission, was an usurper, seated
upon the throne of the exiled Stuarts. The opposition
enjoyed exceedingly the confusion produced,
in the enemies’ ranks, by this well-directed
shot.

The government replied, “Peace with Republican
France endangers all the monarchies of
Europe. The First Consul is but carrying out,
with tremendous energy, the principles of the
revolution—the supremacy of the people. Peace
with France is but a cessation of resistance to
wrong. France still retains the sentiments which
characterized the dawn of her revolution. She
was democratic. She is democratic. She declares
war against kings. She continues to seek
their destruction.”

There was much force in these declarations.
It is true that Napoleon was not, in the strict
sense of the word, a democrat. He was not in
favor of placing the government in the hands of
the great mass of the people. He made no disguise
of his conviction that in France the people
had neither the intelligence nor the virtue essential
to the support of a wise and stable republic.
Distinctly he avowed that in his judgment the
experiment of a republic had utterly failed, that
France must return to monarchy. The great
mass of the people were also satisfied of this[Pg 749]
necessity. “The French generally,” said Napoleon,
“do not ask for liberty. They only seek
equality.”

But France no longer wished for an aristocratic
king, who would confer wealth, splendor,
and power exclusively upon his nobles. The
old feudal throne was still hated with implacable
hatred. France demanded a popular throne; a
king for the people, one who would consult the
interests of the masses, who would throw open
to all alike the avenues of influence and honor
and opulence. Such a monarch was Napoleon.
The people adored him. He is our emperor, they
shouted with enthusiasm. We will make him
greater than all the kings of all the nobles. His
palaces shall be more sumptuous, his retinue more
magnificent, his glory more dazzling; for our
daughters may enter his court as maids of honor,
and our sons may go in and out at the Tuileries,
Versailles, and St. Cloud, the marshals of France.
Lord Grenville was right in saying that Napoleon
was but carrying out the principles of the revolution—equality
of privileges—the supremacy of
popular rights. But the despots of Europe were
as hostile to such a king as to a republic.

On the same day in which Napoleon’s pacific
letter was sent to the King of England, another,
of the same character, was dispatched to the
Emperor of Austria. It was conceived in the
following terms:

“Having returned to Europe, after an absence
of eighteen months, I find a war kindled between
the French Republic and your Majesty. The
French nation has called me to the occupation
of the First Magistracy. A stranger to every
feeling of vain-glory, the first of my wishes is to
stop the effusion of blood which is about to flow.
Every thing leads me to foresee that, in the next
campaign, numerous armies, ably conducted, will
treble the number of the victims, who have already
fallen since the resumption of hostilities.
The well-known character of your Majesty, leaves
me no doubt as to the secret wishes of your
heart. If those wishes only are listened to, I
perceive the possibility of reconciling the interests
of the two nations.

“In the relations which I have formerly entertained
with your Majesty, you have shown me
some personal regard. I beg you, therefore, to
see in this overture, which I have made to you,
the desire to respond to that regard, and to convince
your Majesty, more and more, of the very
distinguished consideration which I feel toward
you.”

Austria replied, in courteous terms, that she
could take no steps in favor of peace without
consulting her ally England. Thus all Napoleon’s
efforts to arrest the desolations of war
failed. The result had been anticipated. He
was well aware of the unrelenting hostility with
which the banded kings of Europe contemplated
the overthrow of a feudal throne, and of the
mortal antipathy with which they regarded the
thought of receiving a democratic king into their
aristocratic brotherhood. Nothing now remained
for Napoleon but to prepare to meet his foes.
The allies, conscious of the genius of that great
captain who had filled the world with the renown
of his victories, exerted themselves to the utmost
to raise such forces, and to assail Napoleon with
numbers so overwhelming, and in quarters so
varied as to insure his bewilderment and ruin.
The Archduke Charles, of Austria, who was
practically acquainted with the energy of Napoleon,
urged peace. But England and Austria
were both confident that France, exhausted in
men and money, could not hold out for another
campaign.

The Bourbons now made an attempt to bribe
Napoleon to replace them upon their lost throne.
The Count of Provence, subsequently Louis
XVIII., wrote to him from London, “For a long
time, general, you must have known the esteem
in which I hold you. If you doubt my gratitude,
mark your own place. Point out the situation
you wish for your friends. The victor of Lodi,
Castiglione, and Arcola, can never prefer a vain
celebrity to true glory. But you are losing the
most precious moments. We could secure the
happiness of France. I say we, for I require
Bonaparte for such an attempt, and he could not
achieve it without me. Europe observes you.
Glory awaits you. I am impatient to restore
peace to my people.”

Napoleon did not imitate the example of the
King of England and pass this letter over to his
minister. Courteously and kindly, with his own
hand he replied. “I have received your letter.
I thank you for the obliging expressions it contains
respecting myself. You should renounce
all hopes of returning to France. You could not
return but over the corpses of 100,000 Frenchmen.
Sacrifice your interest to the happiness
and repose of your country. History will duly
appreciate your conduct, in so doing. I am not
insensible to the misfortunes of your family, and
shall learn with pleasure that you are surrounded
with every thing which can restore the tranquillity
of your retreat.”

Benedict Arnold attempted to bring the American
Revolution to a close by surrendering the
United States to their rejected king. It was
not in Napoleon’s line of ambition to imitate
his example. The Bourbons, finding the direct
proffer of reward unavailing, then tried the effect
of female blandishments. The fascinating Duchess
of Guiche, a lady of great beauty and talent,
was dispatched a secret emissary to the court of
the First Consul, to employ all the arts of eloquence,
address, and the most voluptuous loveliness,
in gaining an influence over Napoleon.
Josephine, who had suffered so much during the
Revolution, and whose associations had been
with the aristocracy of France, was a royalist.
She trembled for the safety of her husband, and
was very anxious that he should do whatever in
honor might be done, to restore the Bourbons.
In every possible way she befriended the royalists,
and had secured, all over Europe, their cordial
esteem. The Duchess of Guiche easily got access
to Josephine. Artfully she said, one morning
at the breakfast-table, “A few days ago I[Pg 750]
was with the Count of Provence in London.
Some one asked him what he intended to do for
Napoleon, in the event of his restoring the Bourbons.
He replied, ‘I would immediately make
him Constable of France, and every thing else
which he might choose. And we would raise on
the Carrousel, a magnificent column, surmounted
with a statue of Bonaparte crowning the Bourbons.'”
Soon after breakfast Napoleon entered.
Josephine most eagerly repeated the words to
him. “And did you not reply,” said Napoleon,
“that the corpse of the First Consul would be
made the pedestal of the column.” The fascinating
duchess was still present. She immediately
assailed Napoleon with all her artillery of
beauty, smiles, and flattery. The voluptuous
freedom of her manners, and the charms of the
bewitching emissary, alarmed the jealousy of
Josephine. Napoleon, however, was impervious
to the assault. That night the duchess received
orders to quit Paris; and in the morning, in the
charge of the police, she was on her way toward
the frontier.

NAPOLEON AND THE DUCHESS OF GUICHE.

It has often been said that Napoleon made
overtures to the Bourbons for the cession of their
rights to the throne. In reference to this assertion
Napoleon says, “How was such a thing
possible? I, who could only reign by the very
principle which excluded them, that of the sovereignty
of the people; how could I have sought
to possess, through them, rights which were proscribed
in their persons? That would have been
to proscribe myself. The absurdity would have
been too palpable, too ridiculous. It would have
ruined me forever in public opinion. The fact
is that neither directly nor indirectly, at home
or abroad, did I ever do any thing of the kind.”

The report probably originated in the following
facts. Friendly relations were at one time
existing between Prussia and France. The
Prussian government inquired if Napoleon would
take umbrage if the Bourbon princes were allowed[Pg 751]
to remain in the Prussian territory. Napoleon
replied that he had no objections to that
arrangement. Emboldened by the prompt consent,
it was then asked if the French government
would be willing to furnish them with an annual
allowance for their support. Napoleon replied
that it should be done most cheerfully, provided
Prussia would be responsible for the princes remaining
quiet, and abstaining from all intrigues
to disturb the peace of France.

A few evenings after this last attempt of Louis
XVIII. to regain the throne, Napoleon was one
evening walking with Bourrienne in the gardens
of his favorite retreat at Malmaison. He was in
fine spirits, for all things were moving on very
prosperously.

NAPOLEON AND BOURRIENNE.

“Has my wife,” said he to Bourrienne, “been
speaking to you of the Bourbons?”

“No, general!” Bourrienne replied.

“But, when you converse with her,” Napoleon
added, “you lean a little to her opinions. Tell
me now, why do you desire the return of the
Bourbons? You have no interest in their return;
nothing to expect from them. You can
never be any thing with them. You have no
chance but to remain all your life in an inferior
situation. Have you ever seen a man rise under
kings by merit alone?”

“General,” replied Bourrienne, “I am quite
of your opinion on one point. I have never received
any favor under the Bourbons; neither have
I the vanity to suppose I should ever rise, under
them, to any conspicuous station. But I look at
the interests of France. I believe that you will
hold your power as long as you live. But you have
no children, and it is pretty certain that you will
never have any by Josephine. What are we to
do when you are gone? What is to become of
France? You have often said that your brothers
were not—”

Here Napoleon interrupted him, exclaiming:
“Ah! as to that you are right. If I do not
live thirty years to finish my work, you will, when
I am dead, have long civil wars. My brothers
do not suit France. You will then have a violent
contest among the most distinguished generals,
each of whom will think that he has a right to
take my place.”

“Well, general,” said Bourrienne, “why do
you not endeavor to remedy those evils which
you foresee?”

“Do you suppose,” Napoleon replied, “that
I have never thought of that? But weigh well
the difficulties which are in my way. In
case of a restoration, what is to become
of the men who were conspicuous in the
revolution? What is to become of the
confiscated estates and the national domain,
which have been sold and sold
again? What is to become of all the
changes which have been effected in the
last twelve years?”

“But, general,” said Bourrienne, “need
I recall to your attention, that Louis
XVIII. in his letter to you guarantees the
contrary of all which you apprehend?
Are you not in a situation to impose any
conditions you may think fit?”

“Depend upon it,” Napoleon replied,
“the Bourbons will think that they have
reconquered their inheritance, and will
dispose of it as they please. Engagements
the most sacred, promises the most
positive, will disappear before force. No
sensible man will trust them. My mind is
made up. Let us say no more upon the
subject. But I know how these women
torment you. Let them mind their knitting,
and leave me to mind my affairs.”

Pithily Bourrienne adds, “The women
knitted. I wrote at my desk. Napoleon
made himself Emperor. The empire has
fallen to pieces. Napoleon is dead at St. Helena.
The Bourbons have been restored.”

The boundless popularity which Napoleon acquired,
was that which follows great achievements,
not that which is ingloriously sought for
by pampering to the vices and yielding to the
prejudices of the populace. Napoleon was never
a demagogue. His administration was in accordance
with his avowed principles. “A sovereign,”
said he, “must serve his people with dignity, and
not make it his chief study to please them. The
best mode of winning their love is to secure their
welfare. Nothing is more dangerous than for a
sovereign to flatter his subjects. If they do not
afterward obtain every thing which they want,
they become irritated, and fancy that promises
have been broken. If they are then resisted,
their hatred increases in proportion as they consider
themselves deceived. A sovereign’s first
duty is unquestionably to conform with the wishes
of his people. But what the people say is scarcely[Pg 752]
ever what they wish. Their desires and their
wants can not be learned from their own mouths,
so well as they are to be read in the heart of their
prince.”

Again he said in memorable words, which must
not be forgotten in forming a just estimate of his
character, “The system of government must be
adapted to the spirit of the nation. France required
a strong government. France was in the
same state as Rome when a dictator was declared
necessary for the salvation of the republic. Successions
of coalitions against the existence of the
Republic, had been formed by English gold among
all the most powerful nations of Europe. To
resist successfully it was essential that all the
energies of the country should be at the disposal
of the chief. I never conquered unless in my
own defense. Europe never ceased to make war
against France and her principles. It was necessary
for us to conquer, that we might not be conquered.
Between the parties which agitated
France I was like a rider seated on an unruly
horse, who always wants to swerve either to the
right or the left. To lead him to keep a straight
course, he is obliged to make him feel the bridle.
The government of a country, just emerging from
revolution, menaced by foreign enemies and agitated
by the intrigues of domestic traitors, must
necessarily be energetic. In quieter times my
dictatorship would have terminated, and I should
have commenced my constitutional reign. Even,
as it was, with a coalition always existing against
me, either secret or public, there was more equality
in France, than in any other country in Europe.
One of my grand objects was to render
education accessible to every body. I caused
every institution to be formed upon a plan which
offered instruction to the public either gratis, or
at a rate so moderate as not to be beyond the
means of the peasant. The museums were
thrown open to the whole people. The French
populace would have become the best educated
in the world. All my efforts were directed to
illuminate the mass of the nation, instead of
brutifying them by ignorance and superstition.
The English people, who are lovers of liberty,
will one day lament, with tears, having gained
the battle of Waterloo. It was as fatal to the
liberties of Europe as that of Philippi was to
those of Rome. It has precipitated Europe into
the hands of despots, banded together for the oppression
of mankind.”

Though Napoleon felt deeply the sanctity of
law, and the necessity of securing the inflexible
enforcement of its penalties, he was never more
highly gratified than when he was enabled, by
the exercise of the pardoning power, to rescue
the condemned. Says Bourrienne, whose testimony
will not be questioned, “When the imperious
necessities of his political situation, to
which, in fact, he sacrificed every thing, did not
interpose, the saving of life afforded him the highest
satisfaction. He would even have thanked
those, to whom he rendered such a service, for
the gratification they had thus afforded him.”
A French emigrant, M. Defeu, had been taken,
with arms in his hands, fighting against France.
The crime was treason; the penalty death. He
was connected with some of the most honorable
families in France. A very earnest petition was
presented to Napoleon for his pardon. “There
is no room for mercy here,” Napoleon sternly
replied. “A man who fights against his country
is a child who would kill his mother.” The
affecting condition of his family was urged, and
the beneficial effects upon the community of such
an act of clemency. Napoleon paused for a moment,
and then said, “Write, ‘The First Consul
orders the judgment on M. Defeu to be suspended.'”
The laconic reprieve was instantly written,
signed by Napoleon, and dispatched to Sens,
where the unfortunate man was imprisoned. The
next morning, the moment Bourrienne entered
the First Consul’s apartment, Napoleon said to
him, “I do not like to do my work by halves.
Write to Sens, ‘The First Consul desires that M.
Defeu be immediately liberated.’ He may repay
the deed with ingratitude. But we can not help
that—so much the worse for him. In all such
cases, Bourrienne, never hesitate to speak to me.
When I refuse it will only be because I can not
do otherwise.”

In Napoleon’s disposition firmness and gentleness
were singularly and beautifully blended.
The following anecdote illustrates the inflexibility
of his sense of justice. A wealthy nobleman,
thirty years of age, had married a young girl of
sixteen. It was a mercenary marriage. The
friends of the young lady, without any regard
to her feelings, dragged her to the altar. She
cherished no affection for her husband. He became
jealous of her, and, without the slightest
proof of her criminality, murdered her. He was
arrested, tried, and condemned to death. Connected
by birth with the first families in France,
and rallying around him the interest of the most
influential of friends, great exertions were made
to obtain from the First Consul a pardon. To
the petitioners, pleading in his behalf, Napoleon
replied:

“Why should I pardon this man? He availed
himself of his fortune for the vile purpose of
bribing the affections of a girl. He did not succeed
in winning them, and he became jealous.
His jealousy was not the result of love but of
vanity. He has committed the crime of murder.
What urged him to it? Not his honor, for his
wife had not injured it. No! he was instigated
by brutality, vanity, and self-love. He has no
claim to mercy. The rich are too prone to consider
themselves elevated above the reach of the
law. They imagine that wealth is a sacred shield
to them. This man has committed a crime for
which there are no extenuating circumstances.
He must suffer the punishment to which he is
justly doomed. If I were to pardon him, that
act of misplaced indulgence would put in jeopardy
the life of every married woman. As the law
positively protects the outraged husband, so it
must protect the wife against the consequences
of dislike, interest, caprice, or a new passion,
which may impel a husband to obtain a divorce,[Pg 753]
by a more prompt and less expensive course than
a legal process.”

UNAVAILING INTERCESSION OF JOSEPHINE.

Josephine whose tender feelings at times controlled
her judgment was urgent in her intercession.
Many of the relatives of the wretched man
were among her most intimate friends. “This,”
said she, “is the first favor I have asked since
your attainment of the supreme power. Surely
you will not deny me?”

“I can not,” said Napoleon, “grant your request.
And when it is known, Josephine, that
even your persuasions could not induce me to
commit an act of injustice, no one else will
henceforth dare to petition me for such a purpose.”

England, Austria, and Russia, together with
many other of the minor powers of monarchical
Europe, were now combined against France.
The Emperor Paul of Russia had furnished a
large army to co-operate with the allies in their
assault upon the Republic. Ten thousand of the
Russians had been taken prisoners. But in the
recent disasters which had overwhelmed the arms
of France, many thousand French prisoners were
in the hands of the allies. Napoleon proposed
an exchange. The Austrian government refused,
because it selfishly wished to exchange for Austrians
only. The English government also refused,
assigning the reason that it was contrary
to their principles to exchange for prisoners taken
from other nations. “What,” exclaimed Napoleon
to the Court of St. James, “do you refuse
to liberate the Russians, who were your allies,
who were fighting in your ranks, and under your
own commander, the Duke of York?” With
Vienna he also expostulated, in tones of generous
warmth, “Do you refuse to restore to their
country those men to whom you are indebted for
your victories and conquests in Italy, and who
have left in your hands a multitude of French
prisoners, whom they have taken? Such injustice
excites my indignation.” Then yielding to
those impulses, so characteristic of his generous
nature, he exclaimed, “I will restore them to the
Czar without exchange. He shall see how I
esteem brave men.” Whatever Napoleon undertook
he performed magnificently. The Russian
officers immediately received their swords. The
captive troops, ten thousand in number, were
assembled at Aix-la-Chapelle. They were all
furnished with a complete suit of new clothing
in the uniform of their own regiments, and thoroughly
armed with weapons of the very best of
French manufacture. The officers were authorized
to organize them into battalions and regiments.
And thus triumphantly these battalions of armed
men were returned into the bosom of the ranks
of the multitudinous hosts, rushing down upon
France. It is gratifying to record that magnanimity
so extraordinary passed not away unappreciated.

The Emperor Paul was so disgusted with the
selfishness of Austria and England, and was so
struck with admiration in view of this unparalleled
generosity of Napoleon, that he immediately
abandoned the alliance. He attached himself
to Napoleon with that enthusiasm of constitutional
ardor which characterized the eccentric
monarch. In a letter to the First Consul, written
with his own hand, he said, “Citizen First Consul!—I
do not write to you to discuss the rights
of men or citizens. Every country governs itself
as it pleases. Wherever I see at the head of a
nation a man who knows how to rule and how
to fight, my heart is attracted toward him. I
write to acquaint you with my dissatisfaction
with England, who violates every article of the
law of nations, and has no guide but her egotism
and her interest. I wish to unite with you to
put an end to the unjust proceedings of that
government.”

Russia was thus detached from the alliance,
and sending a minister to Paris, recognized the
new government. Napoleon now sent an embassador
to Prussia to establish, if possible, friendly
relations with that power. Duroc, the only one
whom Napoleon ever admitted to his ultimate
friendship, was selected for this mission, in consequence[Pg 754]
of his graceful address, his polished
education, and his varied accomplishments.—Frederick
William was a great admirer of military
genius. Duroc, who had been in the campaigns
of Italy and of Egypt, could interest him with
the recital of many heroic enterprises. The first
interview of Duroc with the Prussian monarch
was entirely private, and lasted two hours. The
next day Duroc was invited to dine with the
king, and the Prussian court immediately recognized
the consular government.

Notwithstanding Napoleon’s vast exaltation,
he preserved personally the same simple tastes
and habits, the same untiring devotion to the
details of business, and the same friendships as
when he was merely a general of the Republic.
He rose at seven o’clock, dressed with scrupulous
neatness, during which time the morning journals
were read to him. He then entered his
cabinet, where he read letters, and wrote or dictated
answers until ten. He then breakfasted
with Josephine and Hortense, usually some of his
aids and one or two literary or scientific friends
being invited. At the close of this frugal meal,
he attended the meetings of the Council, or paid
visits of ceremony or business to some of the
public offices. At five o’clock he returned to dinner,
on ordinary occasions not allowing himself
more than fifteen minutes at the table. He then
retired to the apartments of Josephine, where he
received the visits of ministers, and of the most
distinguished persons of the metropolis.

In the organization of his court Napoleon was
unalterably determined to suppress that licentiousness
of manners, which for ages had disgraced
the palaces of the French monarchs, and
which, since the overthrow of Christianity, had
swept like a flood of pollution over all France.
He was very severe upon those females, often
of the highest rank, who endeavored to attract
attention by freedom of dress or behavior. It
was expected that men and their wives should
appear in society together—a thing hitherto unprecedented,
and contrary to all ideas of fashionable
life. The court had hitherto taken the lead
in profligacy, and the nation had followed. Napoleon
thought that by enforcing purity of morals
in the palace, he could draw back the nation to
more decorum of manners. “Immorality,” said
he, “is, beyond a doubt, the worst of all faults
in a sovereign; because he introduces it as a
fashion among his subjects, by whom it is practiced
for the sake of pleasing him. It strengthens
every vice, blights every virtue, and infects all
society like a pestilence. In short, it is a nation’s
scourge.”

On one occasion a courtier, very high in rank
and office, one of the imperial chamberlains, requested
permission to present his daughter-in-law
at court. She was extremely beautiful, and
though distinguished by a captivating air of simplicity,
was one of the most artful of the daughters
of Eve. She joined the imperial parties on
all occasions, and wherever she went threw herself
in the way of Napoleon. Her soft and languishing
eyes were riveted upon him. She
sighed, blushed, and affected bashfulness, while,
at the same time, she constantly placed herself
in situations to attract his notice. Sometimes she
would stand, for a long time, apparently lost in
reverie, gazing and sighing before the portraits
of Napoleon. Her father-in-law affected displeasure
at her conduct, and complained of the
unfortunate but resistless passion which she had
imbibed. Her husband, who was infamously in
the intrigue, regarded the matter with the most
philosophic indifference. The mother-in-law also
made herself busy to help the matter along, saying
that, after all, it was hard to blame her for
loving Napoleon. For some time Napoleon paid
no attention to the intrigue, and appeared not to
notice it. At length the affair became a subject
of court gossip, and it was necessary that it
should be noticed.

One evening, at the close of a sitting of the
Council of State, at which Napoleon had presided,
conducting Cambaceres into the recess of
one of the windows, he said, “Madame B—— is
rendering herself quite intolerable to me. The
conduct of her relations is still more odious. The
father-in-law is an infamous man, her husband a
mean-spirited wretch, and her mother a vile intriguing
woman, by whose arts, however, I am
not to be duped. The abandoned female, who
unreservedly puts up her virtue to sale, is preferable
to the hypocrite who, for motives equally
mercenary, affects a sentimental attachment. I
wish you to call on my chamberlain, and inform
him that I dispense with his services for the space
of a year. Inform his wife that I forbid her appearance
at court for six years. And make known
to the affectionate married couple, that, to afford
them an opportunity of duly appreciating each
other’s excellent qualities, I give them leave to
spend six months in Naples, six months in Vienna,
and six months in any other part of Germany.”

On another occasion a lieutenant-colonel sent
a petition to Napoleon, soliciting promotion. In
accordance with the corruptions of those paganized
times, he added, “I have two beautiful
daughters, who will be too happy to throw themselves
at the feet of the good Emperor, and thank
him for the benefit conferred on their father.”
Napoleon was indignant at this atrocious proposal.
He said, “I know not what withholds
me from having this infamous letter inserted in
the order of the day of the writer’s regiment.”
Napoleon made inquiries respecting this officer,
and found that he had been one of the assassins
during the reign of terror, and an intimate friend
of Robespierre. He immediately dismissed him
from service. He found that the daughters were
amiable and interesting young ladies, totally
unconscious of the infamous project entertained
by their father. That they might not suffer the
penalty of their father’s baseness, he settled a
small pension on each of them, on condition of
their leaving Paris, and retiring to their native
city.

Napoleon effectually enthroned himself in the
hearts of the common people of France. They believed[Pg 755]
him to be their friend and advocate. They
still cherish the same belief. At this hour there
is no ruler, enthroned or entombed, who is regarded
with the enthusiastic veneration with
which the people of France now cherish the
memory of their emperor. Napoleon stands
alone in that glory. He has no rival.

THE BEDOUEEN, MOHAMMAD ALEE, AND THE BAZAARS.[5]

AMONG THE BEDOUEEN.

The pleasant tales of Sultans’ pilgrimages are
only the mirage of memory.

The poor and pious Muslim, which is not the
title of Caliphs, when he undertakes a long desert
journey, does not carry nine hundred camels
for his wardrobe, but he carries his grave-linen
with him. Stricken by fatigue, or privation, or
disease, when his companions can not tarry for
his recovery or death, he performs the ablution
with sand, and digging a trench in the ground,
wraps himself in his grave-clothes, and covering
his body with sand, lies alone in the desert to
die, trusting that the wind will complete his
burial.

In the Arabs around you, you will mark a
kindred sobriety. Their eyes are luminous and
lambent, but it is a melancholy light. They do
not laugh. They move with easy dignity, and
their habitual expression is musing and introverted,
as that of men whose minds are stored with
the solemn imagery of the desert.

You will understand that your own party of
Arabs is not of the genuine desert breed. They
are dwellers in cities, not dwellers in tents.
They are mongrel, like the population of a sea-port.
They pass from Palestine to Egypt with
caravans of produce, like coast-traders, and are
not pure Bedoueen. But they do not dishonor
their ancestry. When a true Bedoueen passes
upon his solitary camel, and with a low-spoken
salaam, looks abstractedly and incuriously upon
the procession of great American Moguls, it is
easy to see that his expression is the same as
that of the men around you, but intensified by the
desert.

Burckhardt says that all Orientals, and especially
the Arabs, are little sensible of the beauty
of nature. But the Bedoueen is mild and peaceable.
He seems to you a dreamy savage. There
is a softness and languor, almost an effeminacy
of impression, the seal of the sun’s child. He
does not eat flesh—or rarely. He loves the white
camel with a passion. He fights for defense, or
for necessity; and the children of the Shereefs,
or descendants of the Prophet, are sent into the
desert to be made heroes. They remain there
eight or ten years, rarely visiting their families.

The simple landscape of the desert is the symbol
of the Bedoueen’s character; and he has little
knowledge of more than his eye beholds. In
some of the interior provinces of China, there is
no name for the ocean, and when in the time of
Shekh Daheir, a party of Bedoueen came to Acre
upon the sea, they asked what was that desert of
water.

A Bedoueen after a foray upon a caravan, discovered
among his booty several bags of fine
pearls. He thought them dourra, a kind of grain.
But as they did not soften in boiling, he was
about throwing them disdainfully away, when a
Gaza trader offered him a red tarboosh in exchange,
which he delightedly accepted.

Without love of natural scenery, he listens forever
to the fascinating romances of the poets, for
beautiful expressions naturally clothe the simple
and beautiful images he every where beholds. The
palms, the fountains, the gazelles, the stars, and
sun, and moon, the horse, and camel—these are
the large illustration and suggestion of his poetry.

Sitting around the evening fire and watching
its flickering with moveless melancholy, his heart
thrills at the prowess of El-Gundubah, although
he shall never be a hero, and he rejoices when
Kattalet-esh-Shugan says to Gundubah, “Come
let us marry forthwith,” although he shall never
behold her beauty, nor tread the stately palaces.

He loves the moon which shows him the way
over the desert that the sun would not let him
take by day, and the moon looking into his eyes,
sees her own melancholy there. In the pauses
of the story by the fire, while the sympathetic
spirits of the desert sigh in the rustling wind, he
says to his fellow, “Also in all true poems there
should be palm-trees and running water.”

For him in the lonely desert the best genius of
Arabia has carefully recorded upon parchment its
romantic visions, for him Haroun El Rashid lived
his romantic life, for him the angel spoke to Mohammad
in the cave, and God received the Prophet
into the seventh heaven.

Some early morning a cry rings through the
group of black square tents. He springs from his
dreams of green gardens and flowing waters, and
stands sternly against the hostile tribe which has
surprised his own. The remorseless morning secretes
in desert silence the clash of swords, the
ring of musketry, the battle-cry. At sunset the
black square tents are gone, the desolation of
silence fills the air that was musical with the recited
loves of Zul-Himmeh, and the light sand
drifts in the evening wind over the corpse of a
Bedoueen.

—So the grim Genius of the desert touches
every stop of romance and of life in you as you
traverse his realm and meditate his children. Yet
warm and fascinating as is his breath, it does not
warp your loyalty to your native West, and to
the time in which you were born. Springing
from your hard bed upon the desert, and with wild
morning enthusiasm pushing aside the door of
your tent, and stepping out to stand among the
stars, you hail the desert and hate the city, and
glancing toward the tent of the Armenian Khadra,
you shout aloud to astonished MacWhirter,

But as the day draws forward, and you see the
same forms and the same life that Abraham saw,[Pg 756]
and know that Joseph leading Mary into Egypt
might pass you to-day, nor be aware of more
than a single sunset since he passed before, then
you feel that this germ, changeless at home, is
only developed elsewhere—that the boundless
desert freedom is only a resultless romance.

The sun sets and the camp is pitched. The
shadows are grateful to your eye, as the dry air
to your lungs. But as you sit quietly in the
tent-door, watching the Armenian camp and the
camels, your cheeks pales suddenly as you remember
Abraham, and that “he sat in the tent-door
in the heat of the day.” Saving yourself,
what of the scene is changed since then? The
desert, the camels, the tents, the turbaned Arabs,
they were what Abraham saw when “he lifted
up his eyes and looked, and, lo! three men stood
by him.”

You are contemporary with the eldest history.
Your companions are the dusky figures of vaguest
tradition. The “long result of Time,” is not for
you. In that moment you have lost your birthright.
You are Ishmael’s brother. You have
your morning’s wish. A child of the desert, not
for you are Art, and Poetry, and Science, and the
glowing roll of History shrivels away.

The dream passes as the day dies, and to the
same stars which heard your morning shout of
desert praise, you whisper as you close the tent-door
at evening,

MOHAMMAD ALEE.

I do not wonder that Mohammad Alee burned
to be master of Syria, and struck so bravely for it.

His career was necessarily but a brilliant bubble,
and his success purely personal. That career
was passed before the West fairly understood
it. It was easier for the Jews to believe
good from Nazareth than for us to credit genius
in Egypt, and we should as soon have dreamed
of old mummied Cheops throned upon the great
pyramid and ruling the Pharaohs’ realm anew,
as of a modern king there, of kingliness unsurpassed
in the century, except by Napoleon,
working at every disadvantage, yet achieving
incredible results.

He was the son of a fisherman—made his way
by military skill—recognized the inherent instability
of the Mameluke government then absolute
in Egypt, and which was only a witless tyranny,
sure to fall before ambitious sense and skill. He
propitiated the Sublime Porte, whose Viceroy in
Egypt was only a puppet of state, practically
imprisoned by the Mamelukes in the citadel—and
he gained brilliant victories in the Hedjaz,
over the Wahabys, infidel and schismatic Muslim.

In 1811, he accomplished the famous massacre
of the Mamelukes in the court of the citadel, of
which Horace Vernet has painted so characteristic
a picture, and for which Mohammad Alee
has been much execrated.

But in Turkish politics, humanity is only a
question of degree. With Mohammad Alee and
the Mamelukes it was diamond cut diamond.
They were a congregation of pestilent vapors, a
nest of hoary-headed tyrants, whom it was a
satisfaction to Humanity and Decency to smoke
out and suffocate in any way. Mohammad Alee
had doubtless little enough rose-water in his
policy to satisfy the grimmest Carlyle. The
leader of sanguinary Albanians and imbruted
Egyptians against wild Arab hordes is not likely
to be of a delicate stomach.

But he was clear-eyed and large-minded. He
had the genius of a statesman rather than the
shrewdness of a general, although as a soldier
he was singularly brave and successful. Of all
his acts the massacre of the Mamelukes was perhaps
the least bloody, because, by crushing the
few heads he had won the victory. A sudden
and well-advised bloodshed is often sure to issue
in a peace which saves greater misery. It was
Cromwell’s rule and it was Napoleon’s—it was
also Mohammad Alee’s, and the results usually
proved its wisdom.

Moreover, in the matter of this massacre, the
balance of sympathy is restored by the fact that
only a short time previous to the Mamelukes’
Banquet of Death in the citadel, they had arranged
Mohammad Alee’s assassination upon his
leaving Suez. By superior cunning he ascertained
the details of this pleasant plan, and publicly
ordered his departure for the following
morning, but privately departed upon a swift-trotting
dromedary in the evening. There was
great consequent frustration of plan and confusion
of soul among the Mamelukes, who had
thought, in this ingenious manner, to cut the
knot of difficulty, and they were only too glad
to hurry with smooth faces to the Pacha’s festival—too
much in a hurry, indeed, to reflect upon
his superior cunning and to be afraid of it. They
lost the game. They were the diamond cut, and
evidently deserve no melodious tear.

Mohammad Alee thus sat as securely in his seat
as a Turkish Pacha can ever hope to sit. He
assisted the Porte in the Greek troubles, perpetrating
other massacres there; and afterward,
when Abdallah, Pacha of Acre, rebelled against
“the Shadow,” Mohammad Alee was sent to subdue
him. He did so, and then interceded with
the Porte for Abdallah’s safety.

Meanwhile, Mohammad Alee had ascertained
his force, and was already sure of the genius to
direct it. He had turned the streams of French
and English skill into the agriculture, manufactures,
and military discipline of Egypt. His
great aim for years had been to make Egypt independent—to
revive the ancient richness of the
Nile valley, and to take a place for Egypt among
the markets of the world. He accomplished this
so far, that, restoring to the plain of Thebes the
indigo which was once famous there, he poured
into the European market so much and so good
indigo that the market was sensibly affected.
His internal policy was wrong, but we can not
here consider it.

Watching and waiting, in the midst of this internal
prosperity and foreign success and amazement,
while Egyptian youth were thronging to
the Parisian Universities, and the Parisian youth
looked to Egypt as the career of fame and fortune—as[Pg 757]
the young Spaniards of a certain period
looked to the diamond-dusted Americas—in the
midst of all the web Mohammad Alee sat nursing
his ambition and biding his time.

Across the intervening desert, Syria wooed
him to take her for his slave. Who was there
to make him afraid? Leaning on Lebanon, and
laving her beautiful feet in the sea, she fascinated
him with love. He should taste boundless
sway. Eastward lay Bagdad and Persia, thrones
of Caliphs who once sat in his seat—why should
not he sit in theirs? Then with softer whispers
she pointed to the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus,
and looked what she dared not speak.

I do not wonder that he was enchanted. I do
not wonder that he burned to be master of the
superb slave that lay so lovely and fair in the
sun, dreaming, as now we see her dream, under
the vines and olives. His peer, Napoleon Bonaparte,
against whom, in Egypt, his maiden sword
was fleshed, whom he loved to name and to hear
that they were born in the same year, had thus
seen from Elba the gorgeous Fata-Morgana of
European empire. How could Mohammad Alee
reflect that sallying forth to grasp it, that peer
had bitten the dust? That fate deterred the
Pacha, as the experience of others always deters
ourselves—as a blade of grass stays the wind.
Shall not you and I, my reader, swim to our
Heros, though a thousand Leanders never came
to shore?

It was this Syria through which we plod, this
brilliant morning, that seduced Mohammad Alee.

A land of glorious resources and without a
population. Here grow wheat, rye, barley, beans
and the cotton plant. Oats are rare; but Palestine
produces sesame and dourra, a kind of pulse
like lentils. Baalbec grows maize. Sugar and
rice are not unknown at Beyrout. Lebanon is
wreathed with vines. Indigo flourishes without
cultivation on the banks of the Jordan. The
Druses cultivate the white mulberry. Gaza has
dates like those of Mecca, and pomegranates as
fine as those of Algiers. Figs and bananas make
the gardens of Antioch tropical. From Aleppo
come pistachio-nuts. The almond, the olive and
the orange thrive in the kindly air; and Damascus
revels in twenty kinds of apricot, with all the
best fruits of France.

Many of the inhabitants pass us, and we can
see what they are. They are repulsive in appearance,
the dregs of refuse races. They look
mean and treacherous, and would offer small resistance
to determination and skill. Mohammad
Alee had little fear of the Syrians.

He could not resist the song of the Siren;
and suddenly “the Eastern Question” agitated
political Europe, and the diplomatic genius of
the three greatest states—England, France and
Russia—was abruptly challenged by the alarming
aspect of the Syrian war, which threatened,
with a leader despising the political stagnation
and military imbecility of the vast realm of “the
Shadow of God on Earth,” to issue in a new
empire.

Mohammad Alee having subdued Abdallah,
Pacha of Acre, and saved his life and throne by
intercession with the Porte, was surprised that
Abdallah harbored all fugitives from Egypt. He
observed that, following his own example, Abdallah
was introducing the European discipline
into his army, and was enticing into his service
many young officers who had been Europeanly
instructed at his own expense. He expostulated
with Abdallah, and appealed to the Porte. The
Sublime Porte, like other political Sublimities,
hesitated, meditated—

Mohammad Alee, with expectant eyes fixed
upon Syria, sat silent, his hand trembling with
eagerness and ready to grasp the splendid prize.
“The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces”
of a new oriental empire rose, possible in the
light of hope.

His army was carefully disciplined. The fame
of its tried officers had been won upon the battle-fields
of the Empire. He had a fleet and all
the resources of the latest military and marine
science. Over all, he had his son Ibrahim, already
proved in Arabia and Greece, of a military
genius peculiarly Oriental, swift and stern, rude
in thought, but irresistible in action—the slave
of his father’s ambition, the iron right-hand of
his will. Internal prosperity and external prestige
sealed Mohammad Alee’s hope and determination.

Against him was arrayed the worldly magnificence
of the Ottoman Porte. But the bannered
Muslim lance that had thundered at the gates of
Constantinople, and entering, had planted itself
upon the earliest Christian church, and flapped
barbaric defiance at civilization, was rusty and
worm-eaten. Its crimson drapery fluttering, rent,
upon an idle wind, would be inevitably shivered
by the first rough blow of modern steel.

And the great Powers?—

Their action was, of course, doubtful. There
was a chance of opposition, a probability of interference.
But the grandeur of the stroke was
its safety. From the universal chaos what new
combinations might not be educed!

No sooner, therefore, had the Porte “put the
question by,” than Mohammad Alee proceeded
to answer it. The Egyptian army, headed by
Ibrahim Pacha, advanced into Syria, and sat down
before Acre. Cherishing the old grudge against
Abdallah, the Porte, now that a decided part had
been taken, smiled faintly in approval. But the
conduct of the war betrayed resources of ability
and means which kindled terrible suspicions.
The firman came from Stamboul, commanding
the Pacha of Egypt to withdraw into his own
province. He declined, and was declared a rebel.

The bridge thus fell behind him, and only victory
or death lay before.

For six months Ibrahim Pacha lay before
Acre, and on the 27th May, 1832, he entered by
bloody assault the city which Richard Cœur de
Lion and Philip Augustus had conquered before
him, and from which Napoleon Bonaparte had
retired foiled. The Syrian war began.

[Pg 758]
The victorious army advanced, triumphing.
The Syrian cities fell before it. The stream of
conquest swept northward, overflowing Damascus
as it passed. The war was no longer a quarrel
of two Pachas, it was a question of life or death
for the Turkish Empire. Vainly the Sultan’s
choicest generals struggled to stem the torrent.
The proud walls along the Golden Horn trembled,
lest their pride should be for the third time
humbled, and this time, as the last, from the
Asian shore.

Northern and Western Europe stared amazed
at the wonderful spectacle, listening across the
hushed Mediterranean to the clang of arms resounding
in the effete East, as the appalled Romans
heard the gusty roar of the battle of the
Huns high over them, and invisible in the air.

Surely it was only the interference of the three
Powers that saved the Sultan’s throne. That
alone deprived us of the pageant of another
oriental military romance, so rapid in inception,
so entire in execution, that we should have better
comprehended those sudden, barbaric descents
of the middle ages, which changed in a moment
the political aspect of the invaded land:—in a
moment, because the mighty appearance of life
and power was but a mummy, which a blow
would pulverize.

One man, however strong and skillful, could
not withstand the force of Europe, and Mohammad
Alee retired, baffled, before the leaders of
the political Trinity that a few years before had
dethroned Napoleon.

The crisis of his life was passed, and unfavorably
for his hopes and aims. At the age of
sixty-five he relinquished the struggle with Fate,
and still one of the great men of a century, rich
in great men, with no hope before him, and none
behind—for since kingly genius is not hereditary,
your divine right is a disastrous fiction—he sank
slowly away into dotage.

Before the end, however, both he and his son
Ibrahim showed themselves to the Europeans
who had watched with such astonished interest
the culmination and decay of their power. Ibrahim
Pacha, with his fangs removed, shook his
harmless rattle, for the last time in the world’s
hearing, at a dinner given him by young Englishmen,
at the Reform Club in Pall Mall, and the
wreck of Mohammad Alee, driveling and dozing,
took a hand at whist with young Americans in a
hotel at Naples.

Father and son returned to Egypt and died
there. A vast mosque of alabaster, commenced
by Mohammad Alee, and now finished, crowns
Cairo, “the delight of the imagination.” He
wished to be ‘buried there; but he lies without
the city walls, in that suburb of tombs, upon the
cracked sides of one of which a Persian poet has
written—”Each crevice of this ancient edifice is
a half-opened mouth, that laughs at the fleeting
pomp of royal abodes.”

All the winds that blow upon Cairo, laugh
that mocking laughter, and in any thoughtful
mood, as you listen to them and look over the
city, you will mark the two alabaster minarets
of Mohammad Alee’s mosque, shafts of snow in
the rich blue air, if you will, but yet pointing
upward.

Leaning on Lebanon, and laving her beautiful
feet in the sea, the superb slave he burned to
possess, still dreams in the sun. We look from
the tent door and see her sleeping, and the remembrance
of this last, momentary interest which
disturbed the slumber, reminds us that it will
one day be broken. So fair is the prize, that,
knowing all others desire her as ardently, no
single hand feels strong enough to grasp it, and
the conflict of many ambitions secures her peace.

Yet it is clear that nerve and skill could do
what they have done, and so spare is the population,
so imbecile the government, and so rich
the soil, that a few thousand determined men
could march unresisted through Syria, and possess
the fair and fertile land.

BAZAARS.

Christians and Saracens agree in reprobating
the black hat. But the Damascenes declare open
war against it. In 1432, Bertrandon de la Brocquière
entered the city with a “broad beaver
hat,” which was incontinently knocked off his
head. Naturally his first movement was “to lift
my fist,” but wisdom held his hand, and he desisted,
content to revenge himself by the questionable
inference that it was “a wicked race.”

But if it be “wicked” to malign the black hat,
who shall be justified?

This was only a gentle illustration of the bitter
hatred of Christians and all infidels, cherished
by the Damascenes, who are the most orthodox
of Muslim. Indeed, it is only within twenty
years that an accredited English representative
could reside in Damascus, and he maintains an
imposing state. At present, some hundred European
tourists visit the city yearly, and the devout
faithful find reasons for toleration in infidel
gold, which they never found in argument.

Here, too, as every where in Syria, Ibrahim
Pacha has been our ally. He permitted infidels
to ride horses through the streets. “O, Allah!”
exclaimed the religious Damascenes, who are
termed by the Turks Shami-Shoumi, cursed rascals.
“Your Highness suffers Christians to sit
as high as the faithful.”

“No, my friends,” responded Ibrahim, “you
shall ride dromedaries, which will put you much
above them.”

We went into the bazaars to encounter these
enemies of the black hat, and ex-officio riders of
dromedaries. We had a glimpse of their beauty
as we entered the city. But Eastern life is delightful
in detail. It is a mosaic to be closely
studied.

You enter, and the murmurous silence blends
pleasantly with the luminous dimness of the
place. The matting overhead, torn and hanging
in strips along which, gilding them in passing,
the sun slides into the interior, is a heavy tapestry.
The scene is a perpetual fair, not precisely
like Greenwich Fair, or that of the American
Institute, but such as you frequent in Arabian
stories.

[Pg 759]
Bedoueen glide spectrally along, with wild,
roving eyes, like startled deer. Insane Dervishes
and Santons meditate the propriety of braining
the infidel Howadji. Shekhs from distant Asia,
pompous Effendi from Constantinople, Bagdad
traders, cunning-eyed Armenian merchants meet
and mingle, and many of our old friends, the
grizzly-bearded, red-eyed fire-worshipers, somnolently
curled among their goods, eye us, through
the smoke they emit, as perfect specimens of the
proper sacrifice they owe their Deity. All strange
forms jostle and crowd in passing, except those
which are familiar; and children more beautiful
than any in the East, play in the living mazes of
the crowd.

Shopping goes actively on. The merchant
without uncrossing his legs, exhibits his silks
and coarse cottons to the long draped and vailed
figures that group picturesquely about his niche.
Your eye seizes the bright effect of all the gay
goods as you saunter on. Here a merchant lays
by his chibouque and drinks, from a carved glass,
sweet liquorice water, cooled with snow from
Lebanon. Here one closes his niche and shuffles
off to the mosque, followed by his boy-slave
with the chibouque. Here another rises, and
bows, and falls, kissing the floor, and muttering
the noon prayer. Every where there is intense
but languid life.

The bazaars are separated into kinds. That
of the jewelers is inclosed, and you see the Jews,
swarthy and keen-eyed servants of Mammon,
busily at work. Precious stones miserably set,
and handfuls of pearls, opals, and turquoises are
quietly presented to your inspection. There is
no eagerness of traffic. A boy tranquilly hands
you a ring, and another, when you have looked
at the first. You say “la,” no, and he retires.

Or you pause over a clumsy silver ring, with
an Arabic inscription upon the flint set in it.
Golden Sleeve ascertains that it is the cipher
of Hafiz. You reflect that it is silver, which is
the orthodox metal, the Prophet having forbidden
gold. You place it upon your finger, with the
stone upon the inside, for so the Prophet wore
his upon the fore-finger, that he might avoid
ostentation. It is a quaint, characteristic, oriental
signet-ring. Hafiz is a common name, it is probably
that of the jeweler who owns the ring. But
you have other associations with the name, and
as you remember the Persian poet, you suffer it
to remain upon your finger, and pay the jeweler
a few piastres. You do not dream that it is enchanted.
You do not know that you have bought
Ala-ed-deen’s lamp, and as a rub of that evoked
omnipotent spirits, so a glance at your ring, when
Damascus has become a dream, will restore you
again to the dim bazaar, and the soft eyes of the
children that watch you curiously as you hesitate,
and to the sweet inspiration of Syria.

You pass on into the quarter where the pattens
are made, inlaid with pearl, such as you
remarked upon the feet of the kohl-eyebrowed
houris. Into the shoemakers, where the brilliant
leathers justify better poetry than Hans
Sach’s interminable rhymes, though here is only
their music, not their moral. You climb crumbling
steps, and emerge from darkness upon the
top of the bazaar, on a ledge of a Roman ruin,
and look down into the sunny greenness of the
great mosque, which you can not more nearly
approach. Then down, and by all the beautiful
fabrics of the land, hung with the tin-foiled letters
that surround pieces of English prints, and
which the color-loving eye of the Oriental seizes
as an ornament for his own wares, you pass into
the region of drugs and apothecaries, and feel
that you are about visiting that Persian Doctor
in Mecca who dealt in nothing but miraculous
balsams and infallible elixirs, whose potions were
all sweet and agreeable, and the musk and aloe
wood which he burned, diffused a delicious odor
through the shop. Surely he was court-physician
to Zobeide.

Golden Sleeve pauses before an old figure
curled among the bottles and lost in reverie,
saturated, it seems, with opium, and dreaming
its dreams. This is Zobeide’s doctor. He had
evidently the elixir of life among those sweet
potions, and has deeply drunk. Life he has preserved;
but little else that is human remains, except
the love that is stronger than life. For as
he opens his vague eyes and beholds us, they
kindle with an inward fire, as if they looked upon
the Philosopher’s Stone. That stone is in our
purses; the old magician knows it, and he knows
the charm to educe it. He opens a jar, and a
dreamy odor penetrates our brains. It is distilled
of flowers culled from the gardens of the
Ganges: or is this delicate perfume preferable—this
zatta, loved of poets and houris, which
came to the doctor’s grandfather from Bagdad?

Attar of roses did Golden Sleeve suggest?
Here is the essence of that divinest distillation
of the very heart of summer. But, O opulent
Howadji! no thin, pale, Constantinople perfume
is this, but the viscous richness of Indian roses.
As many wide acres of bloom went to this jar as
to any lyric of Hafiz. It lies as molten gold in
the quaint glass vase. The magician holds it
toward the Syrian sun, and the shadow of a
smile darkens over his withered features. Then,
drop by drop, as if he poured the last honey that
should ever be hived from Hymettus, he suffers
it to exude into the little vials. They are closely
stopped, and sealed, and wrapped in cotton.
And some wintry Christmas in the West the
Howadji shall offer to a fairer than Zobeide those
more than drops of diamond.

Nor this alone—but the cunning of Arabian
art has sucked the secret of their sweetness from
tea and coffee, from all the wild herbs of Syria,
and from amber. In those small jars is stored
the rich result of endless series of that summer
luxuriance you saw in the vale of Zabulon. Sandal-wood
to burn upon your nargileh, mystic bits
to lay upon your tongue, so that the startled
Bedoueen, as you pass into the bazaar, and
breathe upon him in passing, dreams that you
came from Paradise, and have been kissed by
houris.

Was it not the magic to draw from your purse[Pg 760]
the Philosopher’s Stone? The court-physician
of Zobeide, relapsing into reverie, smiles vaguely
as he says salaam; as if the advantage were his—as
if you were not bearing away with you in
those odors the triumphs of the rarest alchemy.

Breathing fragrance, you enter a khan opening
upon the bazaar, that of Assad Pacha, a
stately and beautiful building, consisting of a
lofty domed court, the dome supported by piers,
with a gallery running quite around it. Private
rooms for the choicest goods open out of the
gallery. The court is full of various merchandise,
and merchants from every region sit by
their goods, and smoke placidly as they negotiate.

But we have received visits in our hotel from
an Armenian merchant, young and comely—why
not Khadra’s cousin?—and he brought with him
silks and stuffs at which all that was feminine
in our nature swelled with delight. Tempted
by his odors, we have come to his garden. The
room is small and square, and rough-plastered.
Upon the floor are strewn long deep boxes, and
the comely young Armenian, in a flowing dark
dress, reveals his treasures.

Scarfs, shawls, stuffs for dresses, morning
gowns and vests, handkerchiefs, sashes, purses,
and tobacco-bags are heaped in rich profusion.
They are of the true Eastern richness, and in
the true Eastern manner they rely upon that
richness for their effect, and not upon their intrinsic
tastefulness. The figures of the embroideries,
for instance, are not gracefully designed,
but the superb material suffices. They
imply that there are none but beautiful women
in the world, and that all women are brunettes.
As the quiet merchant unfolds them, they have
the mysterious charm of recalling all the beautiful
brunettes who have reigned Zenobias, and
Queens of Sheba, and Cleopatras, in the ruined
realm of your past life.

But, Northerners and Westerners, we remember
another beauty. We remember Palma Vecchio’s
golden-haired daughter, and the Venetian
pictures, and the stories of angels with sunny
locks, and the radiant Preziosa. The astute
Armenian knows our thoughts. From the beginning
was not the Oriental merchant a magician?

For while we sit smoking and delighted, the
merchant, no less wily than the court-physician
of Zobeide, opens the last box of all, and gradually
unfolds the most beautiful garment the
Howadji have ever seen. The coronation robes
of emperors and kings, the most sumptuous
costumes at court-festivals, all the elaboration
of Western genius in the material and in the
making of dresses, pale and disappear before the
simple magnificence of this robe.

It is a bournouse or Oriental cloak, made of
camel’s hair and cloth of gold. The material
secures that rich stiffness essential in a superb
mantle, and the color is an azure turquoise, exquisite
beyond words. The sleeves are cloth of
gold, and the edges are wrought in gold, but
with the most regal taste. It is the only object
purely tasteful that we have seen. Nor is it of
that negative safety of taste, which loves dark
carriages and neutral tints in dress; but magnificent
and imperial, like that of Rachel when
she plays Thisbe, and nets her head with Venetian
sequins. If the rest imply that all women
are beautiful and brunettes, this proclaims the
one superb Blonde, Queen of them all.

“Take that, Leisurlie, it was intended from
the beginning of the world for an English beauty.”

“Oh! Kooltooluk! there is not a woman in
England who could wear it.”

Through the dewy distances of memory, as
you muse in the dim chamber upon all who
might worthily wear the garment, passes a figure
perfect as morning, crowned with youth, and
robed in grace, for whose image Alpine snows
were purer and Italian skies more soft. But
even while you muse, it passes slowly away out
of the golden gates of possibility into the wide
impossible.

As we stroll leisurely homeward, it is early
afternoon. But the shops are closed—strange
silence and desertion reign in the Bazaars—a
few dark turbaned Christians and Jews yet linger,
and a few children play.

“They are gone to the cafés and gardens,”
says Golden Sleeve.

—And we follow them.

TIGER ROCHE.—AN IRISH CHARACTER.

Among the characters distinguished for unbridled
indulgence and fierce passions, who
were, unfortunately, too frequently to be met
with in Ireland in the last century, was one
whose name attained so much celebrity as to
become a proverb. “Tiger Roche,” as he was
called, was a native of Dublin, where he was
born in the year 1729. He received the best
education the metropolis could afford, and was
instructed in all the accomplishments then deemed
essential to the rank and character of a gentleman.
So expert was he in the various acquirements
of polite life, that at the age of sixteen he
recommended himself to Lord Chesterfield, then
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, who offered him,
gratuitously, a commission in the army; but his
friends having other views for him, they declined
it. This seems to have been a serious misfortune
to the young man, whose disposition and
education strongly inclined him to a military life.
His hopes were raised, and his vanity flattered, by
the notice and offer of the viceroy; and in sullen
resentment he absolutely refused to embark in
any other profession his friends designed for him.
He continued, therefore, for several years among
the dissipated idlers of the metropolis, having no
laudable pursuit to occupy his time, and led into
all the outrages and excesses which then disgraced
Dublin.

One night, in patrolling the city with his drunken
associates, they attacked and killed a watch-man,
who, with others, had attempted to quell a
riot they had excited. He was, therefore, compelled
to fly from Dublin. He made his way to
Cork, where he lay concealed for some time, and[Pg 761]
from thence escaped to the plantations in North
America. When the war broke out between
France and England, he entered as a volunteer
in one of the provincial regiments, and distinguished
himself in several engagements with the
Indians in the interest of the French, during
which he seems to have acquired those fierce
and cruel qualities by which those tribes are distinguished.

He was now particularly noticed by his officers
for the intrepidity and spirit he displayed,
and was high in favor with Colonel Massy, his
commander; but an accident occurred of so
humiliating and degrading a nature, as to extinguish
at once all his hopes of advancement. An
officer of Massy’s regiment was possessed of a
very valuable fowling-piece which he highly
prized. He missed it from his tent, and made
diligent inquiry after it, but it was nowhere to
be found. It was, however, reported that it was
seen in the possession of Roche, and an order
was made to examine his baggage. On searching
among it the lost article was found. Roche
declared that he had bought it from one Bourke,
a countryman of his own, and a corporal in his
regiment. Bourke was sent for and examined.
He solemnly declared on oath that the statement
of Roche was altogether false, and that he himself
knew nothing at all of the transaction.
Roche was now brought to a court-martial, and
little appearing in his favor, he was convicted of
the theft, and, as a lenient punishment, ordered
to quit the service with every mark of disgrace
and ignominy. Irritated with this treatment,
Roche immediately challenged the officer who
had prosecuted him. He refused, however, to
meet him, on the pretext that he was a degraded
man, and no longer entitled to the rank and consideration
of a gentleman. Stung to madness,
and no longer master of himself, he rushed to
the parade, insulted the officer in the grossest
terms, and then flew to the picket-guard, where
he attacked the corporal with his naked sword,
declaring his intention to kill him on the spot.
The man with difficulty defended his life, till his
companions sprung upon Roche and disarmed
him. Though deprived of his weapon, he did
not desist from his intention; crouching down
like an Indian foe, he suddenly sprung, like
Roderick Dhu, at his antagonist, and fastened
on his throat with his teeth, and before he could
be disengaged nearly strangled him, dragging
away a mouthful of flesh, which, in the true Indian
spirit, he afterward said was “the sweetest
morsel he had ever tasted.” From the fierce
and savage character he displayed on this occasion,
he obtained the appellation of “Tiger,” an
affix which was ever after joined to his name.

A few days after, the English army advanced
to force the lines of Ticonderoga. Unfortunate
Roche was left desolate and alone in the wilderness,
an outcast from society, apparently abandoned
by all the world. His resolution and fidelity
to his cause, however, did not desert him.
He pursued his way through the woods till he
fell in with a party of friendly Indians, and by
extraordinary exertions and forced marches, arrived
at the fortress with his Indians, to join in
the attack. He gave distinguished proofs of his
courage and military abilities during that unfortunate
affair, and received four dangerous wounds.
He attracted the notice of General Abercrombie,
the leader of the expedition; but the stain of
robbery was upon him, and no services, however
brilliant, could obliterate it.

From hence he made his way to New York,
after suffering incredible afflictions from pain,
poverty, and sickness. One man alone, Governor
Rogers, pitied his case, and was not satisfied
of his guilt. In the year 1785, Roche received
from his friends in Ireland a reluctant supply of
money, which enabled him to obtain a passage
on board a vessel bound for England, where he
arrived shortly afterward. He reserved part of
his supply of money for the purchase of a commission,
and hoped once more to ascend to that
rank from which he had been, as he thought,
unjustly degraded; but just as the purchase was
about to be completed, a report of his theft in
America reached the regiment, and the officers
refused to serve with him. With great perseverance
and determined resolution, he traced the
origin of the report to a Captain Campbell, then
residing at the British Coffee-house, in Charing-cross.
He met him in the public room, taxed
him with what he called a gross and false calumny,
which the other retorted with great spirit.
A duel immediately ensued, in which both were
desperately wounded.

Roche now declared in all public places, and
caused it to be every where known, that, as he
could not obtain justice on the miscreant who
had traduced his character in America, he would
personally chastise every man in England who
presumed to propagate the report. With this
determination, he met one day, in the Green Park,
his former colonel, Massy, and another officer, who
had just returned home. He addressed them, and
anxiously requested they would, as they might,
remove the stain from his character. They treated
his appeal with contempt, when he fiercely
attacked them both. They immediately drew
their swords, and disarmed him. A crowd of
spectators assembled round, and being two to
one they inflicted severe chastisement on Roche.
Foiled in his attempt, he immediately determined
to seek another occasion, and finding that one
of them had departed for Chester, Roche set out
after him with the indefatigable perseverance
and pursuit of a bloodhound. Here Roche again
sought him, and meeting him in the streets,
again attacked him. Roche was, however, again
defeated, and received a severe wound in the
sword-arm, which long disabled him.

But that redress to his character now came
accidentally and unexpectedly, which all his activity
and perseverance could not obtain. Bourke,
the corporal, was mortally wounded by a scalping
party of Indians, and on his death-bed made a
solemn confession that he himself had actually
stolen the fowling-piece, and sold it to Roche,
without informing him by what means he had[Pg 762]
procured it, and that Roche had really purchased
it without any suspicion of the theft. This declaration
of the dying man was properly attested,
and universally received, and restored the injured
Roche at once to character and countenance.
His former calumniators now vied with each
other in friendly offers to serve him; and as a
remuneration for the injustice and injury he had
suffered, a lieutenancy in a newly-raised regiment
was conferred upon him gratuitously. He
soon returned to Dublin with considerable eclat;
the reputation of the injuries he had sustained,
the gallant part he had acted, and the romantic
adventures he had encountered among the Indians,
in the woods of America, were the subject
of every conversation. Convivial parties were
every where made for him. Wherever he appeared,
he was the lion of the night. A handsome
person, made still more attractive by the
wounds he had received, a graceful form in the
dance, in which he excelled, and the narrative
of “his hair-breadth ‘scapes,” with which he
was never too diffident to indulge the company,
made him at this time “the observed of all observers”
in the metropolis of Ireland.

But a service which he rendered the public in
Dublin deservedly placed him very high in their
esteem and good-will. It was at this time infested
with those miscreants who were known by
the names of “sweaters,” or “pinkindindies,”
and every night some outrage was perpetrated
on the peaceable and unoffending inhabitants.
One evening late, an old gentleman with his son
and daughter, were returning home from a friend’s
house, when they were attacked on Ormond-quay
by a party of them. Roche, who was accidentally
going the same way at the same time, heard
the shrieks of a woman crying for assistance,
and instantly rushed to the place. Here he did
not hesitate singly to meet the whole party. He
first rescued the young woman from the ruffian
who held her, and then attacking the band, he
desperately wounded some, and put the rest to
flight. His spirited conduct on this occasion
gained him a high and deserved reputation, and
inspired others with resolution to follow his example.
He formed a body, consisting of officers
and others of his acquaintance, to patrol the dangerous
streets of Dublin at night, and so gave
that protection to the citizens which the miserable
and decrepit watch were not able to afford.

But he was not fated long to preserve the high
character he had acquired. His physical temperament,
impossible to manage, and his moral
perceptions, hard to regulate, were the sport of
every contingency and vicissitude of fortune.
The peace concluded in 1763 reduced the army,
and he retired in indigent circumstances to London,
where he soon lived beyond his income. In
order to repair it, he paid his addresses to a Miss
Pitt, who had a fortune of £4000. On the
anticipation of this, he engaged in a career of
extravagance that soon accumulated debts to a
greater amount, and the marriage portion was
insufficient to satisfy his creditors. He was arrested
and cast into the prison of the King’s
Bench, where various detainers were laid upon
him, and he was doomed to a confinement of
hopeless termination. Here his mind appears
to have been completely broken down, and the
intrepid and daring courage, which had sustained
him in so remarkable a manner through all the
vicissitudes of his former life, seemed to be totally
exhausted. He submitted to insults and indignities
with patience, and seemed deprived not
only of the capability to resent, but of the sensibility
to feel them.

On one occasion he had a trifling dispute with
a fellow-prisoner, who kicked him, and struck
him a blow in the face. There was a time when
his fiery spirit would not have been satisfied but
with the blood of the offender. He now only
turned aside and cried like a child. It happened
that his countryman, Buck English, a personage
of some notoriety, was confined at the same time
in the Bench; with him also he had some dispute,
and English, seizing a stick, flogged him in a
savage manner. Roche made no attempt to retaliate
or resist, but crouched under the punishment.
But while he shrunk thus under the
chastisement of men, he turned upon his wife,
whom he treated with such cruelty, that she was
compelled to separate from him, and abandon
him to his fate.

At length, however, an act of grace liberated
him from a confinement under which all his
powers were fast sinking; and a small legacy,
left him by a relation, enabled him once more to
appear in the gay world. With his change of
fortune a change of disposition came over him;
and in proportion as he had shown an abject
spirit in confinement, he now exhibited even a
still more arrogant and irritable temper than he had
ever before displayed. He was a constant frequenter
of billiard tables, where he indulged in
insufferable assumption, with sometimes a shrewd
and keen remark. He was one day driving the
balls about with the cue, and on some one expostulating
with him that he was not playing
himself, but hindering other gentlemen from their
amusement; “Gentlemen!” said Roche, “why,
sir, except you and I, and one or two more, there
is not a gentleman in the room.” His friend afterwards
remarked that he had grossly offended
a large company, and wondered some of them
had not resented the affront. “Oh!” said Roche,
“there was no fear of that. There was not a
thief in the room that did not consider himself
one of the two or three gentlemen I excepted!”

Again his fortune seemed in the ascendant,
and the miserable, spiritless, flogged and degraded
prisoner of the King’s Bench, was called on
to stand as candidate to represent Middlesex in
Parliament. So high an opinion was entertained
of his daring spirit, that it was thought by some
of the popular party he might be of use in intimidating
Colonel Luttrell, who was the declared
opponent of Wilkes at that election. In April,
1769, he was put into nomination at Brentford
by Mr. Jones, and seconded by Mr. Martin, two
highly popular electors. He, however, disappointed
his friends, and declined the poll, induced,[Pg 763]
it was said, by promises of Luttrell’s friends to
provide for him. On this occasion he fought
another duel with a Captain Flood, who had offended
him in a coffee-house. He showed no
deficiency of courage, but on the contrary even a
larger proportion of spirit and generosity than had
distinguished him at former periods.

Returning at this time one night to his apartments
at Chelsea, he was attacked by two ruffians,
who presented pistols to his breast. He
sprang back, and drew his sword, when one of
them fired at him, and the ball grazed his temple.
He then attacked them both, pinned one to the
wall, and the other fled. Roche secured his prisoner,
and the other was apprehended next day.
They were tried at the Old Bailey, and capitally
convicted; but at the humane and earnest intercession
of Roche, their punishment was mitigated
to transportation.

All the fluctuations of this strange man’s character
seemed at length to settle into one unhappy
state, from which he was unable ever again to
raise himself. He met with a young person,
walking with her mother in St. James’s Park, and
was struck with her appearance. He insinuated
himself into their acquaintance, and the young
lady formed for him a strong and uncontrollable
attachment. She possessed a considerable fortune,
of which Roche became the manager. His
daily profusion and dissipation soon exhausted
her property, and the mother and daughter were
compelled to leave London, reduced to indigence
and distress, in consequence of the debts in which
he had involved them.

He was soon after appointed captain of a company
of foot in the East India service, and embarked
in the Vansittart, for India, in May, 1773.
He had not been many days on board, when such
was his impracticable temper that he fell out with
all the passengers, and among the rest with a
Captain Ferguson, who called him out as soon as
they arrived at Madeira. Roche was again seized
with a sudden and unaccountable fit of terror,
and made submission. The arrogance and cowardice
he displayed revolted the whole body of
the passengers, and they unanimously made it a
point that the captain should expel him from the
table. He was driven, therefore, to the society
of the common sailors and soldiers on board the
ship. With them he endeavored to ingratiate
himself, by mixing freely with them, and denouncing
vengeance against every gentleman and
officer on board the ship; but his threats were
particularly directed against Ferguson, whom he
considered the origin of the disgrace he suffered.
On the arrival of the ship at the Cape, after all
the passengers were disembarked, Roche came
ashore, in the dusk of the evening, and was seen
about the door of the house where Ferguson
lodged. A message was conveyed to Ferguson,
who went out, and was found soon afterward
round the corner of the house, weltering in his
blood, with nine deep wounds, all on his left side;
and it was supposed they must have been there
inflicted, because it was the unprotected side, and
the attack was made when he was off his guard.

Suspicion immediately fixed on Roche as the
murderer; he fled during the night, and took refuge
among the Caffres. It was supposed that
he ended his strange and eventful life soon after.
The Cape was at that time a colony of the Dutch,
who, vigilant and suspicious of strangers, suffered
none to enter there, but merely to touch for
provisions and pass on. The proceedings, therefore,
of their colonial government were shut up
in mystery. It was reported at the time, that
Roche was demanded and given up to the authorities
at the Cape, who caused him to be broken
alive upon the wheel, according to the then Dutch
criminal law of the Cape, which inflicted that
punishment on the more atrocious murderers, and
the uncertainty that hung about the circumstance
assorted strangely with the wild character of the
man.

It appears, however, he was tried by the Dutch
authorities at the Cape, and acquitted. He then
took a passage in a French vessel to Bombay;
but the Vansittart, in which he had come from
England to the Cape, had arrived in India before
him; information had been given to the British
authorities, charging Roche with Ferguson’s murder;
and Roche was arrested as soon as he landed.
He urged his right to be discharged, or at
least bailed, on the grounds that there was not
sufficient evidence against him; that he had been
already acquitted; and that as the offense, if any,
was committed out of the British dominions,
he could only be tried by special commission,
and it was uncertain whether the Crown would
issue one or not, or, if the Crown did grant a
commission, when or where it would sit. He argued
his own case with the skill of a practiced
lawyer. The authorities, however, declined either
to bail or discharge him, and he was kept in custody
until he was sent a prisoner to England, to
stand his trial.

An appeal of murder was brought against him,
and a commission issued to try it. The case
came on at the Old Bailey, in London, before
Baron Burland, on the 11th December, 1775. The
counsel for Roche declined in any way relying on
the former acquittal at the Cape of Good Hope;
and the case was again gone through. The fact
of the killing was undisputed, but from the peculiar
nature of the proceedings, there could not be,
as in a common indictment for murder, a conviction
for manslaughter; and the judge directed
the jury, if they did not believe the killing to be
malicious and deliberate, absolutely to acquit the
prisoner. The jury brought in a verdict of acquittal.

The doubt about Roche’s guilt arose on the
following state of facts. On the evening of their
arrival at the Cape, Ferguson and his friends
were sitting at tea, at their lodgings, when a
message was brought into the room; on hearing
which Ferguson rose, went to his apartment, and,
having put on his sword and taken a loaded cane
in his hand, went out. A friend named Grant
followed him, and found Roche and him at the
side of the house, round a corner, and heard the
clash of swords, but refused to interfere. It was[Pg 764]
too dark to see what was occurring; but in a few
moments he heard Roche going away, and Ferguson
falling. Ferguson was carried in, and died
immediately. All his wounds were on the left
side. The most violent vindictive feelings had
existed between them; and there was proof of
Roche’s having threatened “to shorten the race
of the Fergusons.” The message, in answer to
which Ferguson went out, was differently stated,
being, according to one account, “Mr. Mathews
wants Mr. Ferguson,” and to the other, “a gentleman
wants Mr. Mathews.” The case for the
prosecution was, that this message was a trap to
draw Ferguson out of the house, and that, on his
going out, Roche attacked him; and this was
confirmed by the improbability of Roche’s going
out for an innocent purpose, in a strange place,
on the night of his landing, in the dark, and in
the neighborhood of Ferguson’s lodgings; and
particularly by the wounds being on the left side,
which they could not be if given in a fair fight
with small swords. Roche’s account was, that
on the evening of his arrival he went out to see
the town, accompanied by a boy, a slave of his
host; that they were watched by some person
till they came near Ferguson’s, when that person
disappeared, and immediately afterward,
Roche was struck with a loaded stick on the
head, knocked down, and his arm disabled; that
afterward he succeeded in rising, and; perceiving
Ferguson, drew his sword, and, after a struggle,
in which he wished to avoid bloodshed,
killed his assailant in self-defense. This was, to
some extent, corroborated by the boy at the Dutch
trial, and by a sailor in England, but both these
witnesses were shaken a little in their testimony.
According to this account, the message was a
concerted signal to Ferguson, who had set a watch
on Roche, intending to assassinate him. The locality
of Ferguson’s wounds was accounted for
by his fighting both with cane and sword, using
the former to parry. If the second version of the
message was correct, it would strongly confirm
this account. There was no proof that Ferguson
knew any one named Mathews.

A writer of the last century, in speaking of the
Irish character, concludes with the remark: “In
short, if they are good, you will scarcely meet a
better: if bad, you will seldom find a worse.”
These extremes were frequently mixed in the
same person. Roche, at different periods, displayed
them. At one time, an admirable spirit, great
humanity, and unbounded generosity; at another,
abject cowardice, ferocity, treachery, and brutal
selfishness. The vicissitudes of his fortune were
as variable as his character: at times he was exposed
to the foulest charges, and narrowly escaped
ignominious punishment; at others, he
was the object of universal esteem and admiration.

WIVES OF GREAT LAWYERS.

Lawyers do not marry with the impulsiveness
of poets. For they are a prudent class—mostly
shrewd, practical men—any thing but
dreamers; and though they may admire a handsome
figure, and like a pretty face as other men
do, they have not usually allowed those adventitious
gifts of nature to divert their attention
from the “main chance” in choosing a wife.
Lawyers are, take them as a whole, a marrying
class, and they not unfrequently enjoy that
“lawyer’s blessing,” a large family. Take the
Lord Chancellors, for instance. Lord Clarendon,
Lords-Keeper Coventry, Lyttleton, Bridgeman,
Judge Jeffries, Lord York, Lord Bathurst,
Lord Loughborough, and Lord Erskine, were
twice married; Lord Shaftesbury, Lord Maynard,
and Lord Harcourt, were three times married.
The wives whom they chose were usually heiresses,
or rich widows; those who remained
bachelors, or who married “for love,” seem to
have formed the exceptions. And yet, on the
whole, the married life of the Lord Chancellors,
judging from Lord Campbell’s Lives, seems to
have been comfortable and happy.

The great Lord Bacon, when a young man
plodding at the bar, but with a very small practice,
cast about his eyes among the desirable
matches of the day, and selected the handsome
widow of Sir William Hutton (nephew and heir
of Lord Chancellor Hutton), who had a large
fortune at her own disposal. But another legal
gentleman had been beforehand with him; and
when he proposed he was rejected. His favored
rival was Sir Edward Coke, a crabbed widower,
but attorney-general, rich and of large estate, as
well as of large family. The widow who valued
wealth as much as Bacon did, married the old
man, running off with him, and entering into an
irregular marriage, for which they were both
prosecuted in the Ecclesiastical Court. Bacon
had reason to rejoice at his escape, for the widow
was of capricious and violent temper, and led
Coke a most wretched life, refusing to take his
name, separating from him, doing every thing
to vex and annoy him, and teaching his child to
rebel against him. Bacon was however shortly
after consoled by a rich and handsome wife, in
the daughter of Alderman Barnham, whom he
married. But the marriage seems at best to have
been one of convenience on his part. They did
not live happily together; she never was a companion
to him; and not long before his death, a
final separation took place, and the great Lord
Chancellor died without the consolations of female
tenderness in his last moments. When
the separation took place, “for great and just
causes,” as he expresses it in his will, he “utterly
revoked” all testamentary dispositions in
her favor. But she lost nothing by this, for his
costly style of living during his official career
left him without a penny, and he died insolvent.

Sir Thomas More, when twenty-one, married
the eldest daughter of one “Maister Coult, a
gentleman of Essex,” a country girl, very ill-educated,
but fair and well-formed. Erasmus
says of the marriage—”He wedded a young girl
of respectable family, but who had hitherto lived
in the country with her parents and sisters; and
was so uneducated, that he could mould her to
his own tastes and manners. He caused her to[Pg 765]
be instructed in letters; and she became a very
skillful musician, which peculiarly pleased him.”
The union was a happy one, but short, the wife
dying, and leaving behind her a son and three
daughters; shortly after which, however, More
married again, this time a widow named Alice
Middleton, seven years older than himself, and
not by any means handsome. Indeed, More indulged
himself in a jest on her want of youth
and beauty—”nec bella nec puella.” He had
first wooed her, it seems, for a friend, but ended
by marrying her himself. Erasmus, who was
often an inmate of the family, speaks of her as
“a keen and watchful manager.” “No husband,”
continues Erasmus, “ever gained so much
obedience from a wife by authority and severity,
as More won by gentleness and pleasantry.
Though verging on old age, and not of a yielding
temper, he prevailed on her to take lessons
on the lute, the viol, the monochord, and the
flute, which she daily practiced to him.” Her
ordinary and rather vulgar apprehension could
not fathom the conscientious scruples of her
husband in his refusal to take the oath dictated
to him by Henry VIII.; and when he was at
length cast by that bad monarch into the Tower,
then the grave of so many royal victims, his wife
strongly expostulated with him on his squeamishness.
“How can a man,” she said to him on
one occasion, “taken for wise, like you, play the
fool in this close filthy prison, when you might
be abroad at your liberty, if you would but do as
the bishops have done?” She dilated upon his
fine house at Chelsea, his library, gallery, garden,
and orchard, together with the company of
his wife and children. But to all he opposed
the mild force of his conscience and religious
feelings. “Is not this house,” he asked, “as
nigh heaven as my own?” to which her contemptuous
ejaculation was—”Tilly vally, tilly
vally!” He persisted in his course, and was executed,
after which we hear no more of his wife.

Among the few great lawyers who have married
“for love,” Hyde, Lord Clarendon, deserves
a place. While yet a young man, he became
desperately enamored of the daughter of Sir
George Aycliffe, a Wiltshire gentleman of good
family, though of small fortune. A marriage
was the result, but the beautiful young wife died
only six months after, of the malignant small-pox
(then a frightful scourge in this country),
and Hyde was for some time so inconsolable, that
he could scarcely be restrained from throwing up
his profession and going abroad. Two years
after, however, he married again into a good
family, his second wife being the daughter of
Sir Thomas Aylesbury, Master of the Mint; and
the marriage proved highly auspicious. This
worthy lady was his companion in all his vicissitudes
of fortune—lived with him for many years
in exile—shared all his dangers and privations,
when at times the parents could with difficulty
provide food and raiment for their children; but
the wife was yet preserved to see her husband
Earl of Clarendon, Lord Chancellor and Prime
Minister of England. As an instance of the
straits to which the family was occasionally reduced,
we may quote the following extract from
a letter written by Hyde to a friend, when at
Madrid in 1650, in which he says: “All our
money is gone, and let me never prosper, if I
know or can imagine how we can get bread a
month longer;” and again, “Greater necessities
are hardly felt by any men than we for the present
undergo, such as have almost made me foolish.
I have not for my life been able to supply
the miserable distress of my poor wife.”

Francis North, afterward Lord-Keeper Guildford,
went about marrying in a business-like
way. He was a reader at Lincoln’s Inn, but
much desired to wed, because he had “grown
tired of dining in the hall, and eating a costelet
and salad at Chateline’s in the evening with a
friend.” Besides, he wished to mend his fortune
in the most summary way. He first tried
a rich, coquettish young widow, but she jilted
him. Then he found out an alderman who was
reputed to be rich, and had three marriageable
daughters with a fortune of £6000 each. He
made his approaches, was favorably received,
and proceeded to broach the money question to
the alderman. The sum named as the young
lady’s portion was £5000; but as North had
set his heart on the £6000, he was disappointed,
and at once took his leave. The alderman, running
after him (at least so relates Lord Campbell),
offered him to boot £500 on the birth of
the first child. But North would not take a
penny under the sum he had fixed upon, and
the match fell through. At last he found a lady
with £14,000, one of the daughters of the Earl
of Devon, whom he courted in a business style,
and ultimately married.

Judge Jeffries, when a dissolute youth, courted
an heiress, and in spite of her father’s interdict,
the young lady encouraged Jeffries, and
corresponded with him. The father fell upon
a heap of love-letters which had passed between
Jeffries and his daughter, and in a savage manner
turned the young lady from his doors. She
was suffering great distress in some house in
Holborn, in which she had taken shelter, and
where Jeffries sought her out. Perhaps his marrying
her under such circumstances was the one
generous act of that infamous man’s life. She
made him an excellent wife while she lived, but
before she died, Jeffries was already courting another
wife, and married her three months after;
and in about three months after that, his new
wife presented him with certain marital fruits
rather prematurely. This woman caused much
scandal during her life, and seems to have been
as great a disgrace to the domestic conditions
of life, as her husband was to the bench he occupied.

Neither Lord Somers nor Lord Thurlow were
married—both having been disappointed in attachments
in their younger years. The latter
proposed to a young Lincolnshire lady, a Miss
Gouch, but she protested “she would not have
him—she was positively afraid of him;” so he
forswore matrimony thenceforward. We do not[Pg 766]
remember any other of the Lord Chancellors who
have led a single life.

Strange that Lord Chancellor Eldon—a man
of so much caution and worldly providence, should
have been one of the few great lawyers who married
“for love;” but it was so. His choice was
nearly a penniless beauty, and he had nothing;
she was only eighteen, and he twenty-one. Scott
induced the fair damsel to elope with him; she
stole away from her father’s home by night, descending
from her window by a ladder planted
there by her impatient lover; they fled across
the border, and got married at Blackshiels. The
step was an important one for Scott—fraught
with great consequences; for it diverted him
from the church, for which he had been studying,
and forced him to the bar, thus compelling
him to enter upon a career which ended in the
highest honors. William Scott, his elder brother,
afterward Lord Stowell, helped the young couple
on, and the young lawyer worked with a will.
“I have married rashly,” said he, in a letter to
a friend, “and I have neither house nor home to
offer to my wife; but it is my determination to
work hard to provide for the woman I love, as
soon as I can find the means of so doing.” He
was shortly after engaged by Sir Robert Chambers,
as his deputy, to read lectures on law at
Oxford; and in after years he used to relate the
following story respecting his first appearance in
the character of a lecturer. “The most awkward
thing that ever occurred to me was this:
immediately after I was married, I was appointed
Deputy Professor of Law, at Oxford; and
the law professor sent me the first lecture, which
I had to read immediately to the students, and
which I began without knowing a word that was
in it. It was upon the statute of young men
running away with maidens. Fancy me reading,
with about one hundred and forty boys and young
men giggling at the professor! Such a tittering
audience no one ever had.”

It remains for us to notice the wives of two
other great lawyers, who, though not equal in
rank to those we have named, were equal to any
of them in professional merit, and in true nobility
of character. We allude to the late Sir
Samuel Romilly and Sir James Mackintosh, both
of whom were blessed in their married state, and
have left behind them memorials of the most
touching kind in memory of their wives.

“For fifteen years,” says Sir Samuel Romilly,
writing in 1813, “my happiness has been the
constant study of the most excellent of wives;
a woman in whom a strong understanding, the
noblest and most elevated sentiments, and the
most courageous virtue, are united to the warmest
affection, and to the utmost delicacy of mind
and tenderness of heart; and all these intellectual
perfections are graced and adorned by the
most splendid beauty that human eyes ever beheld.
She has borne to me seven children, who
are living, and in all of whom I persuade myself
that I discover the promise of them, one day,
proving themselves not unworthy of such a
mother.”

The noble woman here referred to was Anne,
the eldest daughter of Francis Garbett, Esq., of
Knill Court, Herefordshire, whom Romilly married
in January, 1798. He first accidentally met
the young lady when on a visit to the Marquis
of Lansdowne, at Bowood. He gives the following
charming account of the circumstance in
his diary: “The amiable disposition of Lord
and Lady Lansdowne always renders the place
delightful to their guests. To me, besides the
enjoyment of the present moment, there is always
added, when I am at Bowood, a thousand
pleasing recollections of past times; of the happy
days I have spent, of the various society of
distinguished persons I have enjoyed, of the
friendships I have formed here; and above all,
that it was here that I first saw and became
known to my dearest Anne. If I had not chanced
to meet with her here, there is no probability
that I should ever have seen her; for she had
never been, nor was likely, unmarried, to have
been in London. To what accidental causes are
the most important occurrences of our lives sometimes
to be traced! Some miles from Bowood
is the form of a white horse, grotesquely cut out
upon the downs, and forming a landmark to
wide extent of country. To that object it is that
I owe all the real happiness of my life. In the
year 1796 I made a visit to Bowood. My dear
Anne, who had been staying there some weeks,
with her father and her sisters, was about to
leave it. The day fixed for their departure was
the eve of that on which I arrived; and if nothing
had occurred to disappoint their purpose,
I never should have seen her. But it happened
that, on the preceding day, she was one of an
equestrian party which was made to visit this
curious object; she overheated herself by her
ride; a violent cold and pain in her face was
the consequence. Her father found it indispensably
necessary to defer his and her journey for
several days, and in the mean time I arrived. I
saw in her the most beautiful and accomplished
creature that ever blessed the sight and understanding
of man—a most intelligent mind, an
uncommonly correct judgment, a lively imagination,
a cheerful disposition, a noble and generous
way of thinking, an elevation and heroism of
character, and a warmth and tenderness of affection,
such as is rarely found even in her sex,
were among her extraordinary endowments. I
was captivated alike by the beauties of her person,
and the charms of her mind. A mutual
attachment was formed between us, which, at
the end of a little more than a year, was consecrated
by marriage. All the happiness I have
known in her beloved society, all the many and
exquisite enjoyments which my dear children
have afforded me, even my extraordinary success
in my profession, the labors of which, if my life
had not been so cheered and exhilarated, I never
could have undergone—all are to be traced to
this trivial cause.”

Lady Romilly died on the 29th of October,
1818, and the bereaved husband was unable to
bear up under this terrible loss. The shock occasioned[Pg 767]
by her death deprived him of his senses,
and in his despair he committed the fatal act
which laid him in the same grave with his devoted
wife. In life they were united, and in
death they would not be separated.

Mackintosh married when only a young man
in great pecuniary straits. He was living in the
family of Dr. Fraser, London, where Miss Catherine
Stuart, a young Scotch lady, was a frequent
visitor. She was distinguished by a rich fund of
good sense, and an affectionate heart, rather than
for her personal attractions. An affection sprang
up between them, and they got privately married
at Marylebone Church, on February 18th, 1789,
greatly to the offense of the relatives of both
parties.

When composing his Vindiciæ Gallicæ at Little
Ealing, his wife sat by him in the room; he could
tolerate no one else, and he required her to be
perfectly quiet—not even to write or work—as
the slightest movement disturbed him. In the
evening, by way of recreation, he walked out
with his wife, reading to her as he went along.
This amiable wife died in 1797, when slowly recovering
from the birth of a child, and she left
three daughters behind her. Mackintosh thus
spoke of his departed wife, in a letter to Dr. Parr,
written shortly after his sad bereavement, and
we do not remember ever to have met with a
more beautiful testimony to a deceased wife than
this is:

“In the state of deep, but quiet melancholy,
which has succeeded to the first violent agitations
of my sorrow, my greatest pleasure is to look
back with gratitude and pious affection on the
memory of my beloved wife; and my chief consolation
is the soothing recollection of her virtues.
Allow me, in justice to her memory, to tell you
what she was, and what I owed her. I was guided
in my choice only by the blind affection of my
youth. I found an intelligent companion and a
tender friend, a prudent monitress, the most faithful
of wives, and a mother as tender as children
ever had the misfortune to lose. I met a woman
who, by the tender management of my weaknesses,
gradually corrected the most pernicious
of them. She became prudent from affection;
and though of the most generous nature, she was
taught frugality and economy by her love for me.
During the most critical period of my life, she
preserved order in my affairs, from the care of
which she relieved me. She gently reclaimed me
from dissipation; she propped my weak and irresolute
nature; she urged my indolence to all
the exertions that have been useful and creditable
to me; and she was perpetually at hand to admonish
my heedlessness or improvidence. To her
I owe whatever I am; to her, whatever I shall
be. In her solicitude for my interest, she never
for a moment forgot my feelings, or my character.
Even in her occasional resentment, for
which I but too often gave her cause (would to
God I could recall those moments), she had no
sullenness nor acrimony. Her feelings were
warm and impetuous, but she was placable, tender,
and constant. Such was she whom I have
lost; and I have lost her when her excellent
natural sense was rapidly improving, after eight
years of struggle and distress had bound us fast
together, and moulded our tempers to each other,—when
a knowledge of her worth had refined my
youthful love into friendship, before age had deprived
it of much of its original ardor. I lost her,
alas! (the choice of my youth, the partner of my
misfortunes) at a moment when I had the prospect
of her sharing my better days. If I had lost
the giddy and thoughtless companion of prosperity,
the world could easily repair the loss; but I
have lost the faithful and tender partner of my
misfortunes, and my only consolation is in that
Being, under whose severe, but paternal chastisement,
I am bent down to the ground.”

Mackintosh married, about a year after the
death of his first wife, Catherine, the second
daughter of John Allen, of Cresselly, Co. Pembroke.
She was an amiable and accomplished
woman, and greatly contributed to his happiness
in after life. She died in 1830, at Chêne, near
Geneva, after a short illness; and her husband,
speaking of her afterward, “in the deep sincerity
of deliberate conviction,” calls her “an upright
and pious woman, formed for devoted affection,
who employed a strong understanding and resolute
spirit in unwearied attempts to relieve every
suffering under her view.”

CRIME DETECTED.—AN ANECDOTE OF THE PARIS POLICE.

Previously to the year 1789, but at what
precise date can not say, the city of Paris
possessed as guardian of its safety, and chief
minister of police, a man of rare talent and integrity.
At the same period, the parish of St.
Germais, in the quarter of the Rue St. Antoine,
had for its curé a kind venerable old man, whose
whole life was spent in doing good to both the
souls and bodies of his fellow-creatures, and
whose holy consistency and dignified courage
caused him to be loved by the good, and respected
by even the most abandoned characters. One
cold dark winter’s night, the bell at the old curé’s
door was rung loudly, and he, although in bed,
immediately arose and opened the door, anticipating
a summons to some sick or dying bed.

A personage, richly dressed, with his features
partly concealed by a large false beard, stood
outside. Addressing the curé in a courteous and
graceful manner, he apologized for his unseasonable
visit, which, as he said, the high reputation
of monsieur had induced him to make.

“A great and terrible, but necessary and inevitable
deed,” he continued, “is to be done.
Time presses; a soul about to pass into eternity
implores your ministry. If you come you must
allow your eyes to be bandaged, ask no questions,
and consent to act simply as spiritual consoler
of a dying woman. If you refuse to accompany
me, no other priest can be admitted, and her
spirit must pass alone.”

After a moment of secret prayer, the curé answered,
“I will go with you.” Without asking
any further explanation, he allowed his eyes to[Pg 768]
be bandaged, and leaned on the arm of his suspicious
visitor. They both got into a coach,
whose windows were immediately covered by
wooden shutters, and then they drove off rapidly.
They seemed to go a long way, and make many
doublings and turnings ere the coach drove under
a wide archway and stopped.

During this time, not a single word had been
exchanged between the travelers, and ere they
got out the stranger assured himself that the
bandage over his companion’s eyes had not been
displaced, and then taking the old man respectfully
by the hand, he assisted him to alight and
to ascend the wide steps of a staircase as far as
the second story. A great door opened, as if of
itself, and several thickly-carpeted rooms were
traversed in silence. At length, another door
was opened by the guide, and the curé felt his
bandage removed. They were in a solemn-looking
bed-chamber; near a bed, half-vailed by thick
damask curtains, was a small table, supporting
two wax lights, which feebly illuminated the cold
death-like apartment. The stranger (he was the
Duke de ——), then bowing to the curé, led him
toward the bed, drew back the curtains, and said
in a solemn tone:

“Minister of God, before you is a woman who
has betrayed the blood of her ancestors, and
whose doom is irrevocably fixed. She knows
on what conditions an interview with you has
been granted her; she knows too that all supplication
would be useless. You know your
duty, M. le Curé; I leave you to fulfill it, and
will return to seek you in half an hour.”

So saying he departed, and the agitated priest
saw lying on the bed a young and beautiful girl,
bathed in tears, battling with despair, and calling
in her bitter agony for the comforts of religion.
No investigation possible! for the unhappy
creature declared herself bound by a terrible
oath to conceal her name; besides, she
knew not in what place she was.

“I am,” she said, “the victim of a secret
family tribunal, whose sentence is irrevocable!
More, I can not tell. I forgive mine enemies, as
I trust that God will forgive me. Pray for me!”

The minister of religion invoked the sublime
promises of the gospel to soothe her troubled
soul, and he succeeded. Her countenance, after
a time, became composed, she clasped her hands
in fervent prayer, and then extended them toward
her consoler.

As she did so, the curé perceived that the
sleeve of her robe was stained with blood.

“My child,” said he, with a trembling voice,
“what is this?”

“Father, it is the vein which they have already
opened, and the bandage, no doubt, was
carelessly put on.”

At these words, a sudden thought struck the
priest. He unrolled the dressing, allowed the
blood to flow, steeped his handkerchief in it, then
replaced the bandage, concealed the stained handkerchief
within his vest, and whispered:

“Farewell, my daughter, take courage, and
have confidence in God!”

The half-hour had expired, and the step of
his terrible conductor was heard approaching.

“I am ready,” said the curé, and having allowed
his eyes to be covered, he took the arm
of the Duke de ——, and left the awful room,
praying meanwhile with secret fervor.

Arrived at the foot of the staircase, the old
man, succeeded, without his guide’s knowledge,
in slightly displacing the thick bandage so as to
admit a partial ray of lamp light. Finding himself
in the carriage gateway, he managed to
stumble and fall, with both hands forward toward
a dark corner. The duke hastened to raise him,
both resumed their places in the carriage, and,
after repassing through the same tortuous route,
the curé was set down in safety at his own door.

Without one moment’s delay, he called his
servant.

“Pierre,” he said, “arm yourself with a stick,
and give me your support; I must instantly go
to the minister of police.”

Soon afterward the official gate was opened to
admit the well-known venerable pastor.

“Monseigneur,” he said, addressing the minister,
“a terrible deed will speedily be accomplished,
if you are not in time to prevent it. Let
your agents visit, before daybreak, every carriage
gateway in Paris; in the inner angle of one of
them will be found a blood-stained handkerchief.
The blood is that of a young female, whose
murder, already begun, has been miraculously
suspended. Her family have condemned their
victim to have her veins opened one by one, and
thus to perish slowly in expiation of a fault, already
more than punished by her mortal agony.
Courage, my friend, you have already some
hours. May God assist you—I can only pray.”

That same morning, at eight o’clock, the minister
of police entered the curé’s room.

“My friend,” said he, “I confess my inferiority,
you are able to instruct me in expedients.”

“Saved!” cried the old man, bursting into
tears.

“Saved,” said the minister, “and rescued from
the power of her cruel relations. But the next
time, dear abbé, that you want my assistance in
a benevolent enterprise, I wish you would give
me a little more time to accomplish it.”

Within the next twenty-four hours, by an express
order from the king, the Duke de —— and
his accomplices were secretly removed from Paris,
and conveyed out of the kingdom.

The young woman received all the care which
her precarious state required; and when sufficiently
recovered, retired to a quiet country village
where the royal protection assured her
safety. It is scarcely needful to say, that next
to her Maker, the curé of St. Germais was the
object of her deepest gratitude and filial love.
During fifteen years, the holy man received from
time to time the expression of her grateful affection;
and at length, when himself, from extreme
old age, on the brink of the grave, he
received the intelligence that she had departed
in peace.

Never until then, had a word of this mysterious[Pg 769]
adventure passed the good curé’s lips. On
his deathbed, however, he confided the recital to
a bishop, one of his particular friends; and from
a relation of the latter, I myself heard it.
This is the exact truth.

ZOOLOGICAL STORIES.

Travelers’ tales have a peculiar reputation
for the marvelous, and many travelers have
been accused of fiction. Whether zoologists’
tales are in all cases to be trusted, we have, now
and then, a doubt. They are true in the main;
but sometimes, possibly, the first narrator of an
unusually good story has judiciously abstained
from sifting it; and once in the Zoological Story-book,
the pleasant tale has stood on its own merits,
and been handled tenderly, as is the way with
ornaments; no man too roughly scratching at
them to find out of what materials they are composed.

Of course we accept legends as legends. It
was once believed of crocodiles, that, after they
had eaten a man comfortably, and left only his
skull, at the sweet kernel of which—the brain—they
could not get, their tears were shed over
the bone until they softened it, and so the skull
was opened, and the brain devoured. When
that is told us as a legend, we say, certainly, it
was a very quaint thing to believe of the tears
of crocodiles. Then, travelers’ tales of the proverbial
kind are next of kin to legends. Here is
a very marvelous one, and yet, let us be bold and
say that we believe it. It is this. An Indian,
having tamed a rattlesnake, carried it about in a
box with him, and called it his great father. M.
Pinnisance met with him as he was starting for
his winter hunt, and saw him open the box-door
and give the snake his liberty, telling it to be
sure and come back to meet him, when he returned
to the same spot next May. It was then
October. M. Pinnisance laughed at the man,
who immediately saw his way clearly to a speculation
in rum, and betted two gallons that his
snake would keep the appointment. The wager
was made; the second week in May arrived;
the Indian and the Frenchman were on the appointed
spot. The great father was absent, and
the Indian, having lost his wager, offered to repeat
it, doubled, if the snake did not return within
the next two days. That wager the Frenchman
took and lost. The snake, who (had he
speech) might have apologized for being rather
behind his time, appeared, and crawled into his
box. We believe this. Rattlesnakes are teachable;
and, in this instance, the keeping of the
appointment seems to us only an apparent wonder.
Snakes are not given to travel in the winter,
and the Indian’s father, turned out of the
box, made himself snug at no great distance
from the place of his ejectment. Winter over,
the Indian came back. His great father may
have been dining heartily, and indisposed to stir;
but, as he grew more brisk, the accustomed invocation
of his little son became effectual, and
brought the tame snake to the box as usual.

Disjonval knew a spider (such a spider was a
person to know) who regularly placed himself
upon the ceiling over a young lady’s head whenever
she played the harp, and followed her if
she changed her position. The celebrated violinist,
Berthome (it is our shame never to have
heard of him), when a boy, saw a spider habitually
come out to hear when he was practicing:
this creature at last became familiar, and took a
seat upon the desk. Lenz tells of a goose who
followed a harp-player wherever he performed,
probably to hiss him out of self-respect. Bingley
tells of a pigeon in the neighborhood of a
young lady who played brilliantly on the harpsichord;
the pigeon did not greatly care about her
playing, except when she played the song of
“Speri si,” from Handel’s opera, Admetus: then
it would come and sit by the window, testifying
pleasure; when the song was over, it would fly
back to its dovecote, for it had not learnt the art
of clapping wings for an encore.

In the matter of experience, we can believe
the story of a dog who either was not blessed
with a love of music, or had a master given to
the perpetration of atrocities against his canine
ear; the dog whose peace was broken by his
master’s practice on the violin, took every opportunity
to hide the stick. Plutarch’s story of the
mule we are at liberty, we hope, to set down in
the list of pleasant fables. The mule laden with
salt blundered, by chance, into a stream; on
coming out it found its load to be so agreeably
lightened, that it afterward made a point of taking
a bath upon its travels. To cure it of this
trick, the panniers were filled with sponge, and
then when the mule came out of the water with
the sponges saturated, it felt a load that it had
reason to remember.

Dr. Pelican saw a party of rats around the
bunghole of a cask of wine dipping their tails in
and then licking them. Mr. Jesse tells of rats
who performed a similar feat with an oil-bottle.
But this is nothing in comparison with the acuteness
of Degrandpre’s monkey. Left with an
open bottle of aniseed brandy, he sucked what
he could from it with tongue and fingers, and
then poured sand into the bottle till the rest ran
over. Le Vaillant, the African traveler, had with
him dogs and a monkey. When the monkey
was weary he leapt on a dog’s back for a ride.
One dog on such occasions quietly stood still.
The monkey, fearing to be left behind, would
presently jump off and hasten to the caravan:
the dog, with studious politeness, took good care
to give him precedence. An elephant—we must
at once append one tale about the elephant, whose
great sagacity makes him the hero of a thousand
and one—an elephant belonging to an officer in
the Bengal army, was left during the long absence
of his master to a keeper; who, as even
elephant-ostlers will do, cheated him of his rations.
When the master came back, the poor
half-starved elephant testified the greatest joy,
the keeper, in his master’s presence, put, of
course, the full allowance of food before the elephant,
who immediately divided it into two parts,
one representing his short commons, which he[Pg 770]
devoured greedily; the other representing the
amount to which he had been defrauded in his
dinners, he left. The officer of course understood
the hint, and the man confessed his breach
of trust.

We must get rid of another story of an elephant;
like the last, perfectly credible. Elephants
have more sagacity than dogs, and of
dogs few tales that are current are doubtful.
This is the tale of an elephant in the Jardin des
Plantes. A painter used to study from the animals
in the garden, and was minded once to
paint the elephant. But of course he must paint
him in an attitude; and even the sagacity of an
elephant failed to understand that the artist
wished him to keep his mouth open, and hold
up his trunk. The artist therefore got a little
boy, and intrusted to his care a bag of apples,
which he was to throw into the elephant’s mouth
one by one, obliging him in this way to keep his
trunk uplifted. “The apples,” says Mr. Broderip,
“were numerous, but the painter was not a
Landseer, and as he had not the faculty of seizing
and transferring character with Edwin’s
magical power and rapidity, the task was tedious.
By the master’s directions, the boy occasionally
deceived the elephant by a simulated chuck, and
thus eked out the supply. Notwithstanding the
just indignation of the balked expectant, his
gourmandise checked his irritable impatience;
and, keeping his eye on the still well-filled bag,
he bore the repeated disappointment, crunching
an apple, when it chanced to come, with apparent
glee. At length the last apple was thrown
and crunched, the empty bag was laid aside, and
the elephant applied himself to his water-tank
as if for the purpose of washing down his repast.
A few more touches would have completed the
picture, when an overwhelming douche from his
well-adjusted trunk obliterated the design, and
drenched the discomfited painter. Having, by
this practical application of retributive justice,
executed judgment on the instigator, the elephant,
disdaining the boy, whom he regarded as the
mere instrument of wrong, marched proudly
round his inclosure, loudly trumpeting forth his
triumph.”

We have left that story in the pleasant words
of its accomplished narrator. Mr. Thomson now
shall tell us one in his way, which illustrates the
faculty of imitation: “An oran-otan, brought up
by Père Carbasson, became so fond of him, that
wherever he went, it always seemed desirous of
accompanying him; whenever, therefore, he had
to perform the service of his church, he was under
the necessity of shutting him up in a room.
Once, however, the animal escaped, and followed
the father to the church, where, silently mounting
the sounding-board above the pulpit, he lay
perfectly still till the sermon commenced. He
then crept to the edge, and overlooking the
preacher, imitated all his gestures in so grotesque
a manner, that the whole congregation
were unavoidably urged to laugh. The father,
surprised and confounded at this ill-timed levity,
severely rebuked their inattention. The reproof
failed in its effect; the congregation still laughed,
and the preacher, in the warmth of his zeal, redoubled
his vociferations and actions; these the
ape imitated so exactly, that the congregation
could no longer restrain themselves, but burst
out into a loud and continued laughter.” Of
course a friend stepped up to acquaint the preacher
with the existence of a second person above
the sounding-board, co-operating with him zealously.
And of course the culprit was taken out
by the servants of the church with a face expressive
of insulted innocence.

There was a dog trained to run on errands for
his master, who was trotting home one evening
along a by-road, with a basket containing hot
pies for his master’s supper, when two highwaymen
dogs burst out upon him, and while he dogfully
fought one, the other burglariously broke
into his basket. The dog who was waylaid saw
instantly that fighting would not save the pies;
the pies must go, and it resolved itself into a
question who should eat them. He at once gave
up his contest with the adversary; if the pies
were to be eaten—among dogs, at least—his
right was the best, so he immediately darted on
the basket and devoured all that remained.

A story of an elephant again comes to the surface.
At Macassar, an elephant-driver had a
cocoa-nut given him, which he wantonly struck
twice against the elephant’s forehead to break it.
The next day, they were passing by some cocoa-nuts
in the street exposed for sale. The elephant
took up one, and began to knock it on the
driver’s head; the result, unhappily, was fatal.
Elephants commonly discriminate so well, as to
apportion punishment to the offense against them:
they are considerate, merciful, and magnanimous.
Another story of an elephant, we think, occurs in
one of Mr. Broderip’s books. A visitor to an
elephant at a fair, having given to him one by one
a number of good ginger-bread nuts, thought it a
good joke to end by giving him at once a bag full
of the hottest kind. The elephant, distressed
with pain, took bucket-full after bucket-full of
water, and the joker, warned of his danger, had
barely escaped over the threshold before the bucket
was flung violently after his departing figure. A
year afterward, the foolish fellow came again,
with gingerbread in one pocket and hot spice in
the other. He began with his donations of gingerbread,
and then modestly substituted one hot
nut. The moment it was tasted by the elephant,
the offender was remembered, and caught up
into the air by his clothes; his weight tore them,
and he fell, leaving the elephant his tails and
some part of his trousers. The animal putting
them on the floor set his foot upon them, and
having deliberately picked out of the pockets and
eaten all the gingerbread that he considered orthodox,
he trod upon the rest, and threw the tails
away.

The Cape baboons appear to have a tact for
battle, like the Caffres. Lieutenant Shipp headed
twenty men, to recapture sundry coats and trowsers
stolen by a Cape baboon. He made a circuit,
to cut off the marauders from their caverns; they[Pg 771]
observed him, and detaching a small troop, to
guard the entrance, kept their posts. They could
be seen collecting large stones, under the active
superintendence of an old gray-headed baboon,
who appeared to be issuing his orders as a general.
The soldiers rushed to the attack, when
down came an avalanche of enormous stones, and
Britons left baboons the masters of the situation.

Of monkey-tricks, the Indians have an amusing
fable. A man went on a journey with a
monkey and a goat, and he took with him, for his
refreshment, rice and curds. Arrived at a tank,
the man resolved to bathe and dine. While he
was in his bath, the monkey ate his dinner, and,
having wiped his mouth and paws on the goat’s
beard, he left the goat to settle his account. When
the man came out of the bath, and found his dinner
gone, it was quite easy to see, by the goat’s
beard, who had stolen it.

The monkey was no ass. The sense of asses
is not rated very high; but that is a mistake about
them. They are shrewder people than we take
them for, and kind-hearted as well. A poor higgler,
living near Hawick, had an ass for his only
companion and partner in the business. The
higgler being palsied, was accustomed to assist
himself often upon the road, by holding to the
ass’s tail. Once, on their travels, during a severe
winter, man and ass were plunged into a snow-wreath,
near Rule Water. After a hard struggle,
the ass got out; but, knowing that his helpless
master was still buried, he made his way to him,
and placed himself so that his tail lay ready to
his partner’s hand. The higgler grasped it, and
was dragged out to a place of safety. Zoologically
speaking, it ought not to be thought disrespectful
in a man to call his friend “an ass.”

Elephants, again. They show their good taste,
and are very fond of children. Dr. Darwin says:
The keeper of an elephant, in his journey in India,
sometimes leaves him fixed to the ground by
a length of chain, while he goes into the woods
to collect food for him; and, by way of reciprocal
attention, asks the elephant to mind his child—a
child unable to walk—while he is gone. The
animal defends it; lets it creep about his legs;
and, when it creeps to the extremity of the chain,
he gently wraps his trunk about the infant’s body,
and brings it again into the middle of the circle.

And now we can not clear our minds of elephants
without unburthening a story, which we
have from a tale-teller with Indian experience,
and which we imagine to be now first told in
print. It causes us to feel that in a Parliament
of animals, elephants would have divided in favor
of a ten-hours’ bill. There was a large ship’s
rudder to be floated; men were busy about it
one evening, when a file of elephants were passing,
on the way home from work, and it was
proposed and carried that an elephant might as
well save them their pains, and push the thing
into the water for them. So an elephant was
brought, and put his head down, and appeared to
push with might, but not a beam stirred. Another
was brought to help him, with the same
result; and finally, as many elephants as the
rudder would allow, seemed to be busy and did
nothing. So the elephants went home. They
had struck, and declined working but of business
hours: Next morning, on the way to work, one
elephant was again brought, and pushed the rudder
down into the water, almost as a man might
push a walking-stick.

Stories illustrative of the kindness, gratitude,
and kindred feelings of which animals are capable,
have no end; one follows on another; for in
fact, the animals, bird, beast, and fish, are all
good fellows, if you come to know them properly.
A rat tamed by a prisoner at Genf slept in his
bosom. Punished for some fault, it ran away,
but its anger or its fear died and its love lived on:
in a month it returned. The prisoner was released,
and in the joy of liberty it did not come into
his mind to take his old companion with him.
The rat coiled itself up in some old clothes left
by his friend, all that was left of him, abstained
from food, and died in three days.

A surgeon at Dover saw in the streets a wounded
terrier, and like a true man took it home with
him, cured it in two days, and let it go. The
terrier ran home, resolved to pay the doctor by
installments. For many succeeding weeks he paid
a daily visit to the surgery, wagged his tail violently
for some minutes and departed. Tailwagging
is dog’s money, and when this dog
thought that he had paid in his own coin a proper
doctor’s bill, the daily visit to the surgery was
discontinued.

AN EPISODE OF THE ITALIAN REVOLUTION.

During my residence at London in the early
part of 1848, I became acquainted with Count —— and
his friend Del Uomo, both Italians. They
had settled at London about two years previously,
and were remarkable for the strength of attachment
subsisting between them. I believe it
was four years since they had left Lombardy, and
they had clung together in exile closer than
brothers. Del Uomo was several years the senior.
His age might be about thirty; and a nobler
looking Italian I never met with. There was a
majesty in his fine manly form, and a dignity in
his bearing, that impressed every body at first
sight. His countenance was peculiarly handsome,
yet shaded with an expression of habitual
melancholy. His piercing black eyes, and long
black hair, and flowing beard, added to the interest
of his aspect. His influence over his young
companion was most extraordinary. Count —— regarded
him as friend, brother, father. Whatever
Del Uomo did or said was right in his eyes;
and yet on the vital subject of religion the two
were diametrically opposed.

At the time in question, Italy was in a flame
of war, and refugee Italians were hurrying from
all parts of the world to fight in what they deemed
a righteous cause. For reasons not necessary
to be named, Count —— could not himself join
his fellow-patriots; but his pen and his purse
were devoted to the cause. Del Uomo, however,
at once prepared to leave for the seat of war. “I[Pg 772]
have a father, mother, and sisters,” said he, “who
are exposed to all the horrors of war, and for
them, as well as for my poor bleeding country,
my sword must be drawn.” His friend was almost
heartbroken to part with him, but there was
no alternative. Well do I remember the morning
when Del Uomo left London. Numbers of Italians
assembled to bid him farewell, and the parting
scene was deeply affecting. When I myself
wrung his hand, and bade God speed him, I felt
the subtle involuntary presentiment that he would
be shot, and mentioned it to my friends at the
time. Little, however, did I think in what manner
he would meet his end.

Many months rolled on, with varying success
to the arms of Italy. I frequently heard tidings
of Del Uomo from his friend. The gallant fellow
had obtained a commission in a regiment of cavalry,
and was said to have distinguished himself
in every action. Ere the close of the campaign,
his regiment was almost annihilated, but he himself
escaped, I believe, without a wound. Austria
triumphed, and Italy was bound in chains
heavier than ever.

One morning, Count —— received a parcel of
letters from Italy, the perusal of which threw
him into a state of distraction. It was two or
three days ere I learned their full import—detailing
the following intelligence of the betrayal of
Del Uomo to his enemies, and his cruel death.

The parents and family of Del Uomo remained
in Lombardy—he himself being in security in
some other part of Italy. He was seized with an
intense desire to see them once more, and at all
hazards determined to indulge in this natural
yearning. He had fought openly and manfully
against the Austrians, and, however merciless
they might be, he did not think they would have
sufficient colorable excuse to put him to death,
even if he were recognized and seized. Probably
he was correct in this, but he had not reckoned
on the depths of perfidy to which they would descend.

Hardly had he set foot in the Lombard territory,
ere he was recognized by a creature of
Austria, who instantly planned his destruction.
Accosting Del Uomo, this spy inquired whether
he were not about to visit such a town? (I believe,
the very town where his parents dwelt.)
The unsuspicious fellow replied in the affirmative.
“Then,” said the other, “would you do
me the favor to deliver this letter to a friend of
mine, there resident? I have no other opportunity
to send it, and shall be infinitely obliged.”
Del Uomo, with his usual kindliness of disposition,
instantly consented, and put the letter into
his pocket, without even looking at the superscription.
From that moment his doom was
sealed, and he went as a victim to the slaughter.

No sooner had he embraced his family than the
bloodhounds of Austria were on his track, and to
his amazement, he was seized, and accused of
being engaged in a traitorous design. He indignantly
denied it. “I fought in open battle against
you, man to man, sword to sword,” replied he;
“but the war is over, and never since have I
done aught against Austria.” He was searched,
and the letter given him to deliver found in his
pocket. It was opened, and proved to be a treasonable
correspondence addressed to one known
as a conspirator. Vain all explanation of the
manner in which it came into his possession—vain
all the frantic prayers for mercy by his
agonized family. The ruthless Austrians only
required a fair-seeming pretext to put so distinguished
an enemy to death, and here it was.
Whether the general in command did or did not
believe Del Uomo guilty, admits of some doubt;
but that mattered not, so far as his doom was
concerned. Little respite—no mercy. He was
condemned to be shot on the spot. The priest, his
confessor, was so satisfied of his innocency, that
he even knelt to the Austrian general, imploring
pardon, or at least a respite till the truth could
be investigated; but the general only answered,
“He dies!”

Del Uomo behaved like a Christian and a hero.
He prayed fervently to God to receive his soul.
Death he feared not in itself, but the bitterness
of such a death as this to his poor family was indeed
an awful trial. He was led out to the fatal
spot, and there he embraced his relatives for the
last time. He gave his watch to his father, his
handkerchief to a sister, and bequeathed other little
mementoes to his friends. His poor mother
swooned away, but his father and one or two sisters
stood by him till all was over. They offered
to bind his eyes, but he refused. “No,” said
he, “I am not afraid to look upon death. I will
enter eternity with open eyes.” And he looked
his farewell at his friends, at the glorious orb of
day, at the landscape, at the soil of Italy, so soon
to be watered with his blood; then he drew himself
to his full height, bared his breast, and, with
flashing eyes, cried, “Fire, soldiers! Long live
Italy!” Nine balls pierced him, and he ceased
to breathe. Peace to the memory of Del Uomo!

THE MIGHTY MAGICIAN.

[Pg 773]

TWO KINDS OF HONESTY.

Some few years ago, there resided in Long
Acre an eccentric old Jew, named Jacob
Benjamin: he kept a seed shop, in which he
likewise carried on—not a common thing, we
believe, in London—the sale of meal, and had
risen from the lowest dregs of poverty, by industry
and self-denial, till he grew to be an affluent
tradesman. He was, indeed, a rich man; for as
he had neither wife nor child to spend his money,
nor kith nor kin to borrow it of him, he had a
great deal more than he knew what to do with.
Lavish it on himself he could not, for his early
habits stuck to him, and his wants were few.
He was always clean and decent in his dress,
but he had no taste for elegance or splendor in
any form, nor had even the pleasures of the table
any charms for him; so that, though he was no
miser, his money kept on accumulating, while it
occurred to him now and then to wonder what
he should do with it hereafter. One would think
he need not have wondered long, when there
were so many people suffering from the want of
what he abounded in; but Mr. Benjamin, honest
man, had his crotchets like other folks. In the
first place, he had less sympathy with poverty
than might have been expected, considering how
poor he had once been himself; but he had a
theory, just in the main, though by no means
without its exceptions—that the indigent have
generally themselves to thank for their privations.
Judging from his own experience, he believed
that there was bread for every body that would
take the trouble of earning it; and as he had
had little difficulty in resisting temptation himself,
and was not philosopher enough to allow for
the varieties of human character, he had small
compassion for those who injured their prospects
by yielding to it. Then he had found, on more
than one occasion, that even to the apparently
well-doing, assistance was not always serviceable.
Endeavor was relaxed, and gratuities, once
received, were looked for again. Doubtless, part
of this evil result was to be sought in Mr. Benjamin’s
own defective mode of proceeding; but
I repeat, he was no philosopher, and in matters
of this sort he did not see much farther than his
nose, which was, however, a very long one.

To public charities he sometimes subscribed
liberally; but his hand was frequently withheld
by a doubt regarding the judicious expenditure
of the funds, and this doubt was especially fortified
after chancing to see one day, as he was
passing the Crown and Anchor Tavern, a concourse
of gentlemen turn out, with very flushed
faces, who had been dining together for the
benefit of some savages in the Southern Pacific
Ocean, accused of devouring human flesh—a
practice so abhorrent to Mr. Benjamin, that he
had subscribed for their conversion. But failing
to perceive the connection betwixt the dinner
and that desirable consummation, his name appeared
henceforth less frequently in printed lists,
and he felt more uncertain than before as to what
branch of unknown posterity he should bequeath
his fortune.

In the mean time, he kept on the even tenor
of his way, standing behind his counter, and
serving his customers, assisted by a young
woman called Leah Leet, who acted as his shop-woman,
and in whom, on the whole, he felt more
interest than in any body else in the world, insomuch
that it even sometimes glanced across
his mind, whether he should not make her the
heiress of all his wealth. He never, however,
gave her the least reason to expect such a thing,
being himself incapable of conceiving that, if he
entertained the notion, he ought to prepare her
by education for the good fortune that awaited
her. But he neither perceived this necessity,
nor, if he had, would he have liked to lose the
services of a person he had been so long accustomed
to.

At length, one day a new idea struck him. He
had been reading the story of his namesake, Benjamin,
in the Old Testament, and the question
occurred to him, how many among his purchasers
of the poorer class—and all who came to his shop
personally were of that class—would bring back
a piece of money they might find among their
meal, and he thought he should like to try a few
of them that were his regular customers. The
experiment would amuse his mind, and the money
he might lose by it he did not care for. So he
began with shillings, slipping one among the
flour before he handed it to the purchaser. But
the shillings never came back—perhaps people
did not think so small a sum worth returning;
so he went on to half-crowns and crowns, and
now and then, in very particular cases, he even
ventured a guinea; but it was always with the
same luck, and the longer he tried, the more he
distrusted there being any honesty in the world,
and the more disposed he felt to leave all his
money to Leah Leet, who had lived with him so
long, and to his belief, had never wronged him
of a penny.

“What’s this you have put into the gruel,
Mary?” said a pale, sickly-looking man, one
evening, taking something out of his mouth,
which he held toward the feeble gleams emitted
by a farthing rush-light standing on the mantle-piece.

“What is it, father?” inquired a young girl,
approaching him. “Isn’t the gruel good?”

“It’s good enough,” replied the man; “but
here’s something in it: it’s a shilling, I believe.”

“It’s a guinea, I declare!” exclaimed the girl,
as she took the coin from him and examined it
nearer the light.

“A guinea!” repeated the man; “well, that’s
the first bit of luck I’ve had these seven years or
more. It never could have come when we wanted
it worse. Show it us here, Mary.”

“But it’s not ours, father,” said Mary. “I
paid away the last shilling we had for the meal,
and here’s the change.”

“God has sent it us, girl! He saw our distress,
and He sent it us in His mercy!” said the
man, grasping the piece of gold with his thin,
bony fingers.

“It must be Mr. Benjamin’s,” returned she.[Pg 774]
“He must have dropped it into the meal-tub that
stands by the counter.”

“How do you know that?” inquired the man
with an impatient tone and a half-angry glance.
“How can you tell how it came into the gruel?
Perhaps it was lying at the bottom of the basin,
or at the bottom of the sauce-pan. Most likely
it was.”

“Oh, no, father,” said Mary: “it is long since
we had a guinea.”

“A guinea that we knew of; but I’ve had
plenty in my time, and how do you know this is
not one we had overlooked?”

“We’ve wanted a guinea too much to overlook
one,” answered she. “But never mind, father;
eat your gruel, and don’t think of it: your cheeks
are getting quite red with talking so, and you
won’t be able to sleep when you go to bed.”

“I don’t expect to sleep,” said the man, peevishly;
“I never do sleep.”

“I think you will, after that nice gruel!” said
Mary, throwing her arms round his neck, and
tenderly kissing his cheek.

“And a guinea in it to give it a relish, too!”
returned the father, with a faint smile and an expression
of archness, betokening an inner nature
very different from the exterior which sorrow and
poverty had encrusted on it.

His daughter then proposed that he should go
to bed; and having assisted him to undress, and
arranged her little household matters, she retired
behind a tattered, drab-colored curtain which
shaded her own mattress, and laid herself down
to rest.

The apartment in which this little scene occurred,
was in the attic story of a mean house,
situated in one of the narrow courts or alleys
betwixt the Strand and Drury-lane. The furniture
it contained was of the poorest description;
the cracked window-panes were coated with dust;
and the scanty fire in the grate, although the
evening was cold enough to make a large one
desirable—all combined to testify to the poverty
of the inhabitants. It was a sorry retreat for
declining years and sickness, and a sad and
cheerless home for the fresh cheek and glad
hopes of youth; and all the worse, that neither
father nor daughter was “to the manner born;”
for poor John Glegg had, as he said, had plenty
of guineas in his time; at least, what should
have been plenty, had they been wisely husbanded.
But John, to describe the thing as he
saw it himself, had always “had luck against
him.” It did not signify what he undertook, his
undertakings invariably turned out ill.

He was born in Scotland, and had passed a
great portion of his life there; but, unfortunately
for him, he had no Scotch blood in his veins, or
he might have been blessed with some small
modicum of the caution for which that nation is
said to be distinguished. His father had been a
cooper, and when quite a young man, John had
succeeded to a well-established business in Aberdeen.
His principal commerce consisted in furnishing
the retail-dealers with casks, wherein to
pack their dried fish; but partly from good-nature,
and partly from indolence, he allowed them to
run such long accounts, that they were apt to
overlook the debt altogether in their calculations,
and to take refuge in bankruptcy when the demand
was pressed and the supply of goods withheld—his
negligence thus proving, in its results,
as injurious to them as to himself. Five hundred
pounds embarked in a scheme projected by a too
sanguine friend, for establishing a local newspaper,
which “died ere it was born;” and a fire,
occurring at a time that John had omitted to renew
his insurance, had seriously damaged his
resources, when some matter of business having
taken him to the Isle of Man, he was agreeably
surprised to find that his branch of trade, which
had of late years been alarmingly declining in
Aberdeen, was there in the most flourishing condition.
Delighted with the prospect this state
of affairs opened, and eager to quit the spot
where misfortune had so unrelentingly pursued
him, John, having first secured a house at Ramsay,
returned to fetch his wife, children, and
merchandise, to this new home. Having freighted
a small vessel for their conveyance, he expected
to be deposited at his own door; but he had unhappily
forgotten to ascertain the character of
the captain, who, under pretense that, if he entered
the harbor, he should probably be wind-bound
for several weeks, persuaded them to go
ashore in a small boat, promising to lie-to till
they had landed their goods; but the boat had
no sooner returned to the ship, than, spreading
his sails to the wind, he was soon out of sight,
leaving John and his family on the beach, with—to
recur to his own phraseology—”nothing
but what they stood up in.”

Having with some difficulty found shelter for
the night, they proceeded on the following morning
in a boat to Ramsay; but here it was found
that, owing to some informality, the people who
had possession of the house refused to give it up,
and the wanderers were obliged to take refuge
in an inn. The next thing was to pursue, and
recover the lost goods; but some weeks elapsed
before an opportunity of doing so could be found;
and at length, when John did reach Liverpool,
the captain had left it, carrying away with him
a considerable share of the property. With the
remainder, John, after many expenses and delays,
returned to the island, and resumed his
business. But he soon discovered to his cost,
that the calculations he had made were quite
fallacious, owing to his having neglected to inquire
whether the late prosperous season had
been a normal or an exceptional one. Unfortunately,
it was the latter; and several very unfavorable
ones that succeeded reduced the family
to great distress, and finally to utter ruin.

Relinquishing his shop and his goods to his
creditors, John Glegg, heart-sick and weary,
sought a refuge in London—a proceeding to
which he was urged by no prudential motives,
but rather by the desire to fly as far as possible
from the scenes of his vexations and disappointments,
and because he had heard that the metropolis
was a place in which a man might conceal[Pg 775]
his poverty, and suffer and starve at his ease,
untroubled by impertinent curiosity or officious
benevolence; and, above all, believing it to be
the spot where he was least likely to fall in with
any of his former acquaintance.

But here a new calamity awaited him, worse
than all the rest. A fever broke out in the
closely-populated neighborhood in which they
had fixed their abode, and first two of his three
children took it, and died; and then himself and
his wife—rendered meet subjects for infection by
anxiety of mind and poor living—were attacked
with the disease. He recovered; at least he survived,
though with an enfeebled constitution, but
he lost his wife, a wise and patient woman, who
had been his comforter and sustainer through all
his misfortunes—misfortunes which, after vainly
endeavoring to avert, she supported with heroic
and uncomplaining fortitude; but dying, she left
him a precious legacy in Mary, who, with a fine
nature, and the benefit of her mother’s precept
and example, had been to him ever since a treasure
of filial duty and tenderness.

A faint light dawned through the dirty window
on the morning succeeding the little event with
which we opened our story, when Mary rose
softly from her humble couch, and stepping lightly
to where her father’s clothes lay on a chair, at
the foot of his bed, she put her hand into his
waistcoat-pocket, and, extracting therefrom the
guinea which had been found in the gruel the
preceding evening, she transferred it to her own.
She then dressed herself, and having ascertained
that her father still slept, she quietly left the
room. The hour was yet so early, and the streets
so deserted, that Mary almost trembled to find
herself in them alone; but she was anxious to
do what she considered her duty without the
pain of contention. John Glegg was naturally
an honest and well-intentioned man, but the
weakness that had blasted his life adhered to him
still. They were doubtless in terrible need of the
guinea, and since it was not by any means certain
that the real owner would be found, he saw
no great harm in appropriating it; but Mary
wasted no casuistry on the matter. That the
money was not legitimately theirs, and that they
had no right to retain it, was all she saw; and
so seeing, she acted unhesitatingly on her convictions.

She had bought the meal at Mr. Benjamin’s,
because her father complained of the quality of
that she procured in the smaller shops, and on
this occasion he had served her himself. From
the earliness of the hour, however, though the
shop was open, he was not in it when she arrived
on her errand of restitution; but addressing Leah
Leet, who was dusting the counter, she mentioned
the circumstance, and tendered the guinea; which
the other took and dropped into the till, without
acknowledgment or remark. Now Mary had not
restored the money with any view to praise or
reward: the thought of either had not occurred
to her; but she was, nevertheless, pained by the
dry, cold, thankless manner with which the restitution
was accepted, and she felt that a little
civility would not have been out of place on such
an occasion.

She was thinking of this on her way back,
when she observed Mr. Benjamin on the opposite
side of the street. The fact was, that he
did not sleep at the shop, but in one of the suburbs
of the metropolis, and he was now proceeding
from his residence to Long Acre. When
he caught her eye, he was standing still on the
pavement, and looking, as it appeared, at her, so
she dropped him a courtesy, and walked forward;
while the old man said to himself:
“That’s the girl that got the guinea in her meal
yesterday. I wonder if she has been to return
it!”

It was Mary’s pure, innocent, but dejected
countenance, that had induced him to make her
the subject of one of his most costly experiments.
He thought if there was such a thing as honesty
in the world, that it would find a fit refuge in
that young bosom; and the early hour, and the
direction in which she was coming, led him to
hope that he might sing Eureka at last. When
he entered the shop, Leah stood behind the
counter, as usual, looking very staid and demure;
but all she said was, “Good-morning;”
and when he inquired if any body had been there,
she quietly answered: “No; nobody.”

Mr. Benjamin was confirmed in his axiom;
but he consoled himself with the idea, that as
the girl was doubtless very poor, the guinea
might be of some use to her. In the mean time,
Mary was boiling the gruel for her father’s breakfast,
the only food she could afford him, till she
got a few shillings that were owing to her for
needle-work.

“Well, father, dear, how are you this morning?”

“I scarce know, Mary. I’ve been dreaming,
and it was so like reality, that I can hardly believe
yet it was a dream;” and his eyes wandered
over the room, as if looking for something.

“What is it, father? Do you want your
breakfast? It will be ready in five minutes.”

“I’ve been dreaming of a roast fowl and a
glass of Scotch ale, Mary. I thought you came
in with the fowl, and a bottle in your hand, and
said: ‘See, father, this is what I’ve bought with
the guinea we found in the meal!'”

“But I couldn’t do that, father, you know.
It wouldn’t have been honest to spend other
people’s money.”

“Nonsense!” answered John. “Whose money
is it, I should like to know? What belongs
to no one, we may as well claim as any body
else.”

“But it must belong to somebody; and, as I
knew it was not ours, I’ve carried it back to Mr.
Benjamin.”

“You have?” said Glegg, sitting up in bed.

“Yes, I have, father. Don’t be angry. I’m
sure you won’t when you think better of it.”

But John was very angry indeed. He was
dreadfully disappointed at losing the delicacies
that his sick appetite hungered for, and which,
he fancied, would do more to restore him than all[Pg 776]
the doctors’ stuff in London; and, so far, he was
perhaps right. He bitterly reproached Mary for
want of sympathy with his sufferings, and was
peevish and cross all day. At night, however,
his better nature regained the ascendant; and
when he saw the poor girl wipe the tears from
her eyes, as her nimble needle flew through the
seams of a shirt she was making for a cheap
warehouse in the Strand, his heart relented,
and, holding out his hand, he drew her fondly
toward him.

“You’re right, Mary,” he said, “and I’m
wrong; but I’m not myself with this long illness,
and I often think if I had good food I should get
well, and be able to do something for myself. It
falls hard upon you, my girl: and often when I
see you slaving to support my useless life, I wish
I was dead and out of the way; and then you
could do very well for yourself, and I think that
pretty face of yours would get you a husband
perhaps.” And Mary flung her arms about his
neck, and told him how willing she was to work
for him, and how forlorn she should be without
him, and desired she might never hear any more
of such wicked wishes. Still, she had an ardent
desire to give him the fowl and the ale he had
longed for, for his next Sunday’s dinner; but,
alas!—she could not compass it. But on that
very Sunday, the one that succeeded these little
events, Leah Leet appeared with a smart new
bonnet and gown, at a tea-party given by Mr.
Benjamin to three or four of his intimate friends.
He was in the habit of giving such small inexpensive
entertainments, and he made it a point
to invite Leah; partly because she made the tea
for him, and partly because he wished to keep
her out of other society, lest she should get married
and leave him—a thing he much deprecated
on all accounts. She was accustomed to his
business, he was accustomed to her, and, above
all, she was so honest!

But there are various kinds of honesty. Mary
Glegg’s was of the pure sort; it was such as
nature and her mother had instilled into her; it
was the honesty of high principle. But Leah
was honest, because she had been taught that
honesty is the best policy; and as she had her
living to earn, it was extremely necessary that
she should be guided by the axiom, or she might
come to poverty and want bread, like others she
saw, who lost good situations from failing in this
particular.

Now, after all, this is but a sandy foundation
for honesty; because a person who is not actuated
by a higher motive, will naturally have no
objection to a little peculation in a safe way—that
is, when they think there is no possible
chance of being found out. In short, such honesty
is but a counterfeit, and, like all counterfeits,
it will not stand the wear and tear of the
genuine article. Such, however, was Leah’s,
who had been bred up by worldly-wise teachers,
who neither taught nor knew any better. Entirely
ignorant of Mr. Benjamin’s eccentric method
of seeking what, two thousand years ago, Diogenes
thought it worth while to look for with a
lantern, she considered that the guinea brought
back by Mary was a waif, which might be appropriated
without the smallest danger of being
called to account for it. It had probably, she
thought, been dropped into the meal-tub by some
careless customer, who would not know how he
had lost it; and, even if it were her master’s, he
must also be quite ignorant of the accident that
had placed it where it was found. The girl was
a stranger in the shop; she had never been there
till the day before, and might never be there
again; and, if she were, it was not likely she
would speak to Mr. Benjamin. So there could
be no risk, as far as she could see; and the
money came just apropos to purchase some new
attire that the change of season rendered desirable.

Many of us now alive can remember the beginning
of what is called the sanitary movement,
previous to which era, as nothing was said about
the wretched dwellings of the poor, nobody thought
of them, nor were the ill consequences of their
dirty, crowded rooms, and bad ventilation at all
appreciated. At length the idea struck somebody,
who wrote a pamphlet about it, which the
public did not read; but as the author sent it to
the newspaper editors, they borrowed the hint, and
took up the subject, the importance of which, by
slow degrees, penetrated the London mind. Now,
among the sources of wealth possessed by Mr.
Benjamin were a great many houses, which, by
having money at his command, he had bought
cheap from those who could not afford to wait;
and many of these were situated in squalid
neighborhoods, and were inhabited by miserably
poor people; but as these people did not fall under
his eye, he had never thought of them—he
had only thought of their rents, which he received
with more or less regularity through the
hands of his agent. The sums due, however,
were often deficient, for sometimes the tenants
were unable to pay them, because they were so sick
they could not work; and sometimes they died,
leaving nothing behind them to seize for their
debts. Mr. Benjamin had looked upon this evil
as irremediable; but when he heard of the sanitary
movement, it occurred to him, that if he did
something toward rendering his property more
eligible and wholesome, he might let his rooms
to a better class of tenants, and that greater certainty
of payment, together with a little higher
rent, would remunerate him for the expense of
the cleaning and repairs. The idea being agreeable
both to his love of gain and his benevolence,
he summoned his builder, and proposed that he
should accompany him over these tenements, in
order that they might agree as to what should be
done, and calculate the outlay; and the house
inhabited by Glegg and his daughter happening
to be one of them, the old gentleman, in the natural
course of events, found himself paying an
unexpected visit to the unconscious subject of
his last experiment; for the last it was, and so
it was likely to remain, though three months had
elapsed since he made it; but its ill success had
discouraged him. There was something about[Pg 777]
Mary that so evidently distinguished her from
his usual customers; she looked so innocent, so
modest, and withal so pretty, that he thought
if he failed with her, he was not likely to succeed
with any body else.

“Who lives in the attics?” he inquired of Mr.
Harker, the builder, as they were ascending the
stairs.

“There’s a widow, and her daughter, and son-in-law,
with three children, in the back-room,”
answered Mr. Harker. “I believe the women
go out charring, and the man’s a bricklayer. In
the front, there’s a man called Glegg and his
daughter. I fancy they’re people that have been
better off at some time of their lives. He has
been a tradesman—a cooper, he tells me; but
things went badly with him; and since he came
here, his wife died of the fever, and he’s been so
weakly ever since he had it, that he can earn
nothing. His daughter lives by her needle.”

Mary was out; she had gone to take home
some work, in hopes of getting immediate payment
for it. A couple of shillings would purchase
them coal and food, and they were much
in need of both. John was sitting by the scanty
fire, with his daughter’s shawl over his shoulders,
looking wan, wasted, and desponding,

“Mr. Benjamin, the landlord, Mr. Glegg,”
said Harker.

John knew they owed a little rent, and was
afraid they had come to demand it. “I’m sorry
my daughter’s out, gentlemen,” he said. “Will
you be pleased to take a chair.”

“Mr. Benjamin is going round his property,”
said Harker. “He is proposing to make a few
repairs, and do a little painting and whitewashing,
to make the rooms more airy and comfortable.”

“That will be a good thing, sir,” answered
Glegg—”a very good thing; for I believe it is
the closeness of the place that makes us country
folks ill when we come to London. I’m sure
I’ve never had a day’s health since I’ve lived
here.”

“You’ve been very unlucky, indeed, Mr.
Glegg,” said Harker. “But you know, if we
lay out money, we shall look for a return. We
must raise your rent.”

“Ah, sir, I suppose so,” answered John, with
a sigh; “and how we’re to pay it, I don’t know.
If I could only get well, I shouldn’t mind; for
I’d rather break stones on the road, or sweep a
crossing, than see my poor girl slaving from
morning to night for such a pittance.”

“If we were to throw down this partition, and
open another window here,” said Harker to Mr.
Benjamin, “it would make a comfortable apartment
of it. There would be room, then, for a
bed in the recess.”

Mr. Benjamin, however, was at that moment
engaged in the contemplation of an ill-painted
portrait of a girl, that was attached by a pin over
the chimney-piece. It was without a frame, for
the respectable gilt one that had formerly encircled
it, had been taken off, and sold to buy bread.
Nothing could be coarser than the execution of
the thing, but as is not unfrequently the case
with such productions, the likeness was striking;
and Mr. Benjamin, being now in the habit of
seeing Mary, who bought all the meal they used
at his shop, recognized it at once.

“That’s your daughter, is it?” he said.

“Yes, sir; she’s often at your place for meal;
and if it wasn’t too great a liberty, I would ask
you, sir, if you thought you could help her to
some sort of employment that’s better than sewing;
for it’s a hard life, sir, in this close place
for a young creature that was brought up in the
free country air; not that Mary minds work, but
the worst is, there’s so little to be got by the
needle, and it’s such close confinement.”

Mr. Benjamin’s mind, during this address of
poor Glegg’s, was running on his guinea. He
felt a distrust of her honesty—or rather of the
honesty of both father and daughter; and yet,
being far from a hard-hearted person, their evident
distress and the man’s sickness disposed
him to make allowance for them. “They couldn’t
know that the money belonged to me,” thought
he; adding aloud: “Have you no friends here
in London?”

“No, sir, none. I was unfortunate in business
in the country, and came here hoping for
better luck; but sickness overtook us, and we’ve
never been able to do any good. But, Mary, my
daughter, doesn’t want for education, sir; and a
more honest girl never lived!”

“Honest, is she?” said Mr. Benjamin, looking
Glegg in the face.

“I’ll answer for her, sir,” answered John, who
thought the old gentleman was going to assist
her to a situation. “You’ll excuse me mentioning
it, sir; but perhaps it isn’t every body, distressed
as we were, that would have carried
back that money she found in the meal: but
Mary would do it, even when I said perhaps it
wasn’t yours, and that nobody might know
whose it was; which was very wrong of me, no
doubt; but one’s mind gets weakened by illness
and want, and I couldn’t help thinking of the
food it would buy us; but Mary wouldn’t hear
of it. I’m sure you might trust Mary with untold
gold, sir; and it would be a real charity to
help her to a situation, if you knew of such a
thing.”

Little deemed Leah that morning, as she handed
Mary her quart of meal and the change for
her hard-earned shilling, that she had spoiled
her own fortunes, and that she would, ere night,
be called upon to abdicate her stool behind the
counter in favor of that humble customer; and
yet so it was. Mr. Benjamin could not forgive
her dereliction from honesty; and the more he
had trusted her, the greater was the shock to
his confidence. Moreover, his short-sighted
views of human nature, and his incapacity for
comprehending its infinite shades and varieties,
caused him to extend his ill opinion further than
the delinquent merited. In spite of her protestations,
he could not believe that this was her first
misdemeanor; but concluded that, like many
other people in the world, she had only been[Pg 778]
reputed honest because she had not been found
out. Leah soon found herself in the very dilemma
she had deprecated, and the apprehension
of which had kept her so long practically honest—without
a situation, and with a damaged character.

As Mary understood book-keeping, the duties
of her new office were soon learned; and the
only evil attending it was, that she could not
take care of her father. But determined not to
lose her, Mr. Benjamin found means to reconcile
the difficulty by giving them a room behind the
shop, where they lived very comfortably, till
Glegg, recovering some portion of health, was
able to work a little at his trade.

In process of time, however, as infirmity began
to disable Mr. Benjamin for the daily walk from
his residence to his shop, he left the whole management
of the business to the father and daughter,
receiving every shilling of the profits, except the
moderate salaries he gave them, which were sufficient
to furnish them with all the necessaries
of life, though nothing beyond. But when the
old gentleman died, and his will was opened, it
was found that he had left every thing he possessed
to Mary Glegg; except one guinea, which,
without alleging any reason, he bequeathed to
Leah Leet.

A FORGOTTEN CELEBRITY.

“Time and chance,” as King Solomon says,
“happen to all;” and this is peculiarly the
case in the matter of fame and reputation. Many
who have done much, and have enjoyed a fine
prospect of a name that should survive them,
have scarcely earned an epitaph; while others,
by a mere accident, have rolled luxuriously down
to posterity, like a fly on the chariot-wheels of
another’s reputation. “The historic muse” is a
very careless jade, and many names with which
she has undertaken to march down to latest times,
have been lost by the way, like the stones in the
legend that fell through the devil’s apron when
he was carrying them to build one of his bridges.
The chiffonniers of literature pick up these histories
from time to time; sometimes they are valuable,
sometimes only curious. Mademoiselle
de Gournay’s story is a curiosity.

Marie de Jars, Demoiselle de Gournay, was
born at Paris in 1566. She was of a noble and
ancient family; her father, at his death, left what
in those days was a handsome fortune; but Mademoiselle
de Gournay, his widow, had an unfortunate
mania for building, which devoured it.
When she took her place beside her husband in
his grave, she left little but mortgages behind
her.

Judging from the portraits prefixed to her
works, Marie de Jars must in her youth have
possessed some personal attractions, in spite of
her detractors: her figure was of middle height,
her face rather round than oval, but with a pleasing
expression, and adorned with a pair of large
black eyes and a pretty little mouth. Her own
account of herself, in a copy of verses, addressed
to her friend Mademoiselle de Ragny, is, that she
was of a very lively and obliging disposition.
That she was obliging and kind-hearted, many
circumstances of her life could prove; but for
liveliness, we are inclined to think that she flattered
herself: nothing can be further removed
from liveliness than her works—they are pompously
serious.

Her father died when she was very young,
leaving five children: two elder and two younger
than Marie. The eldest daughter married; the
son entered the army; and Marie, the eldest of
the remaining three, seems to have been left
pretty much to follow her own devices. From
her earliest years she had a passion for reading,
and showed a wonderful sagacity in the choice of
books: her favorites were Amyot, Ronsard, and
Montaigne; to these authors she afterward added
Racan. She was so faithfully exclusive in her
taste, that she never cared to read any others. It
was in 1580 that Montaigne published the two
first volumes of his Essays. Marie de Jars was
scarcely fourteen when they fell accidentally in
her way, and her admiration amounted to enthusiasm:
she sent a friend to tell Montaigne, who
was then in Paris, how much she admired him,
and the esteem in which she held his book. This
proceeding from so young a person, who was
moreover “fort demoiselle,” flattered Montaigne
very sensibly. He went the very next day to pay
a visit to Mademoiselle de Gournay: her conversation
and enthusiasm won the heart of the philosopher.
In their first interview Montaigne offered
her the affection of a father for a daughter
and Mademoiselle de Gournay proudly assumed
the title of the adopted daughter of Montaigne;
and in a letter addressed to him, which is still to
be seen, she says, “that she feels as proud of that
title as she should be to be called the mother of
the Muses themselves.” This friendship never
failed or diminished; it was the best thing Marie
ever achieved in this life, and is her chief claim
on the sympathy and interest of posterity. But
Marie de Jars became possessed by the demon of
wishing to become a distinguished woman on her
own account. To accomplish this, she set to
work to learn Greek and Latin, and though she
brought more zeal than method to her studies, she
worked with so much perseverance as to obtain
a good insight into both languages.

Montaigne, in the next edition of his Essays,
added the following passage to the seventeenth
chapter of the second book: “I have taken a delight
to publish in many places the hopes I have
of Marie de Gournay de Jars, my adopted daughter,
beloved by me with more than a paternal
love, and treasured up in my solitude and retirement
as one of the best parts of my own being.
I have no regard to any thing in this world but
to her. If a man may presage from her youth,
her soul will one day be capable of very great
things; and, among others, of that perfection of
friendship of which we do not read that any of
her sex could yet arrive at; the sincerity and
solidity of her manners are already sufficient for
it; her affection toward me more than superabundant,
and such as that there is nothing more[Pg 779]
to be wished, if not that the apprehension she
has of my end from the five-and-fifty years I had
reached when she knew me, might not so much
afflict her.

“The judgment she made of my first Essays,
being a woman so young, and in this age, and
alone in her order, place, and the notable vehemence
with which she loved and desired me, upon
the sole esteem she had of me before ever she saw
my face, are things very worthy of consideration.”

Any woman might justly have been proud of
such a tribute, and one feels to like Montaigne
himself all the better for it. In 1588 Montaigne
went with Mademoiselle de Gournay and her
mother to their château at Gournay-sur-Aronde,
and spent some time with them.

In the year following she published her first
book, calling it “Proumenoir de M. de Montaigne.”
She dedicated it to him, and sent a copy
to him at Bordeaux, where he was then residing.
That must have been a very proud day for
Marie! This “Proumenoir” was not, as its title
might suggest, any account of Montaigne, or
relics of his conversation, but only a rambling
Arabian story, which if gracefully told by Marie
herself, might perhaps have been interesting during
the course of a walk, but which, set down
upon paper, is insipid to a degree, and of an interminable
length. Montaigne is answerable for
the sin of having encouraged her to write it, thus
adding to the weary array of books that nobody
is able to read.

At her mother’s death, Mademoiselle de Gournay
did something much better: she took charge
of her younger brother and sister, and administered
the affairs of the family (which, as we have
said, Madame de Gournay had left in great embarrassment)
with so much discretion and judgment,
that she redeemed all the mortgages, paid
off all the debts, and was in possession of about
two thousand pounds in money.

Montaigne died in 1592, at Bordeaux. Enthusiastic
and devoted, Mademoiselle de Gournay
set off as soon as she was informed of it, and,
providing herself with passes, crossed almost the
whole kingdom of France alone, to visit his widow
and daughter, to console them as best she might—and
to weep with them the loss they had sustained.

Madame de Montaigne gave her the Essays,
enriched with notes in her husband’s hand-writing,
in order that she might prepare a new and
complete edition of them. This was a labor of
love to Marie: she revised all the proofs, which
were executed with so much correctness, that she
is well entitled to call it, as she does, “le bon et
vieux exemplaire.” It remains to this day the
principal edition as regards authenticity of text,
and one of the handsomest as regards typography.
It appeared in 1595 (Paris, Abel Langlier). Mademoiselle
de Gournay wrote a preface, which is
not without eloquence. She vigorously repels all
the objections that had been raised against the
work, and alludes to her adoption by Montaigne
with genuine feeling. We translate the passage:
“Reader, having the desire to make the best of
myself to thee, I adorn myself with the noble title
of this adoption. I have no other ornament, and
I have a good right to call him my true father,
from whom all that is good or noble in my soul
proceeds. The parent to whom I owe my being,
and whom my evil fortune snatched from me in
my infancy, was an excellent father, and a most
virtuous and clever man—and he would have felt
less jealousy in seeing the second to whom I gave
this title of father, than he would have felt pride
in seeing the manner of man he was.” The good
lady’s style is of the most intractable to render
into common language.

With Montaigne’s death, the whole course of
Mademoiselle de Gournay’s life seemed to be arrested.
Henceforth all her strength and enthusiasm
were expended in keeping herself exactly
where he had left her. She resolutely set her
face against all the improvements and innovations
which were every day being brought into the
French language, which was making rapid progress;
but Mademoiselle de Gournay believed
that she had seen the end of all perfection when
Montaigne died. Not only in her style of writing,
but also in her mode of living, she remained
obstinately stereotyped after the fashion of the
sixteenth century, during the first half of the
seventeenth. While still young, she became a
whimsical relic of a by-gone mode—a caricature
out of date. She resided in Paris, where there
was at that time a mania for playing practical
jokes; and Mademoiselle de Gournay, with her
pedantry and peculiarities, was considered as lawful
game; many unworthy tricks were played
upon her by persons who, nevertheless, dreaded
the explosions of her wrath on discovery, which
on such occasions were of an emphatic simplicity
of speech, startling to modern ears. The word
“hoaxing” was not then invented, but the thing
itself was well understood. A forged letter was
written, purporting to come from King James the
First of England, requesting Mademoiselle de
Gournay to send him her portrait and her life.
She fell into the snare, and sat for her picture,
and spent six weeks in writing her memoirs,
which she actually sent to England—where, of
course, no one knew what to make of them. But
when Marshal Lavardin, who was the French
embassador in England, returned to Paris, the
parties who forged the letter did not fail to tell
Mademoiselle de Gournay that the King of England
had spoken most highly of her to the embassador,
and had shown him her autograph,
which occupied a distinguished place in his cabinet.
As M. de Lavardin died almost directly
after his return, Mademoiselle de Gournay ran no
risk of being undeceived.

For a short time she abandoned literature and
the belles-lettres to plunge into alchemy, for
which she had a mania. Her friends remonstrated
in vain; they told her how many other
people alchemy had ruined, but she not the less
persisted in flinging the remains of her fortune
into the crucible. Like all who have been bewitched
by this science, Marie fancied that her[Pg 780]
experiments were arrested by poverty at the moment
of success. She retrenched in every way;
in food, in clothing; reduced herself to barest
necessaries; and sat constantly with the bellows
in her hand, hanging over the smoke of her furnace.
Of course, no gold rewarded her research,
and she was at length absolutely obliged to abandon
her laboratory, and betake herself afresh to
literature. As generous in adversity as she had
been in prosperity, Mademoiselle de Gournay
was not hindered by her poverty from adopting
an orphan child, the daughter of Jamyn, the
poet, and friend of Ronsard. In the society of
this young girl, and of a cat which she celebrated
in verse, Marie de Gournay allowed every thing
in the world to change and progress as they
might, fully persuaded that the glory of French
literature had died with her adopted father, and
that she had had the honor of burying it.

This cat deserves a special mention, as it was
a very noticeable animal in its day. It rejoiced
in the name of Piallion, and during the twelve
years it lived with Mademoiselle de Gournay, it
never once quitted the apartments of its mistress
to run with other cats upon the roofs and gutters
of the neighboring houses; it was, in all respects,
discreet and dignified, as became a cat of quality,
and above all, as became the cat of such a mistress
as Mademoiselle de Gournay. If Mademoiselle
de Gournay had been young and handsome,
Piallion would, no doubt, have been as
celebrated as Leslie’s sparrow; as it was, however,
it only shared in the satires and caricatures
that were made upon its mistress. When Mademoiselle
de Gournay renounced alchemy, and
began again to busy herself in literature, she unfortunately
mixed herself up in some controversy
of the day where the Jesuits were in question;
we forget what side she took, but she brought
down upon herself much abuse and scandal;
among other things, she was accused of having
led an irregular life, and being even then, “une
femme galante!” This charge distressed her
greatly, and she appealed to a friend to write
her vindication. He told her by way of consolation,
that if she would publish her portrait, it
would be more effectual than a dozen vindications!
Poor Mademoiselle de Gournay had long
since lost whatever good looks she had possessed
in early life, and her alchemical pursuits had
added at least ten years to her appearance.

In the midst of all the disagreeable circumstances
of her lot, she was not without some
consolation. She kept up her relation with the
family of Montaigne, and went on a visit to them
in Guyenne, where she remained fifteen months.
In all her distress, Mademoiselle Montaigne and
her daughter, Mademoiselle de Gamaches, never
deserted her. There is a touching passage in
one of her works, in which the name of the
“bonne amye” is mentioned. There is little
doubt but that it refers to one of these ladies; it
is as follows:

“If my condition be somewhat better than
could have been expected, from the miserable
remnant of fortune that remained to me after the
quittance of all my debts, liabilities, and losses,
it is the assistance of a good friend, who took
pleasure to see me keep up a decent appearance,
which is the cause of it.”

Mademoiselle de Gournay also brightened the
dull realities of her existence with brilliant ideas
of the fame she was laying up for herself with
posterity—hopes which neither Mademoiselle
Jamyn nor Piallion were likely to damp. In
1626, she published a collection of her works, in
prose and verse, which she entitled “L’Ombre
de Mademoiselle de Gournay,” and sat in her
retirement expecting the rebound of the sensation
she had no doubt of producing throughout
Europe.

The book was written in imitation of Montaigne’s
“Essays”—all manner of subjects treated
of, without any regard to order or arrangement;
long dissertations, rambling from topic to
topic in every chapter, without any rule but her
own caprice. It may be imagined what advantage
such a work would give to those disposed to
find matter for ridicule; the spirit of mystification
and love of hoaxing were not extinct. There
was a pitiless clique of idle men attached to the
Court, and circulating in society, who were always
on the watch for victims, at whose expense
they might make good stories, or whom they
might make the subjects of a practical jest.
Mademoiselle de Gournay had fallen into their
snares years before, and she seemed a still more
tempting victim now. A regular conspiracy of
wicked wits was formed against the poor old
woman, who was then not much under sixty
years of age. Her vanity had grown to enormous
magnitude; her credulity was in proportion;
while her power of swallowing and digesting
any flattery, however gross, was something
fabulous. No tribute that could be offered exceeded
her notion of her own deserts. She certainly
offered fair game for ridicule, and she was
not spared.

Louis the Thirteenth, who labored under the
royal malady of ennui, enjoyed the accounts of
the mystifications that were constantly put upon
the poor old lady.

They told her (and she believed them) that
there was nothing talked about at Court but her
book; and that his Majesty, Louis the Thirteenth,
was her warm admirer. Mademoiselle
de Gournay not unnaturally expected that some
solid proof of the royal admiration would follow;
but nothing came. Louis, well content to be
amused by absurd stories about her, never dreamed
of rewarding her for them. She was made to
believe that her portrait adorned the galleries of
Brussels and Antwerp; that in Holland her
works had been published with complimentary
prefaces; that, in Italy, Cæsar Carpaccio and
Charles Pinto had celebrated her genius in their
own tongue, and spread the glory of her name
from one end of the peninsula to the other; and
that no well-educated person in Europe was ignorant
of her name and works. Marie de Gournay,
after having been adopted by Montaigne,
found all these marvels quite probable and easy[Pg 781]
of belief. These splendid visions of fame and
success were quite as good as reality; they gilded
her poverty, and invested her privations with a
dignity more than regal. Among many other
mystifications played off upon her, there was
one which has since, in different forms, made
the plot of farces and vaudevilles without number;
but it was for the behoof of Mademoiselle de
Gournay that it was originally made and invented.
The poet Racan, whose works were some
of the few Mademoiselle de Gournay condescended
to read, had received a copy of “L’Ombre,”
and prepared to pay her a visit to return thanks.
It must be borne in mind that they had never
seen each other; the conspirators chanced to
hear of his intentions. Such a fine occasion was
not to be neglected; having ascertained the time
appointed for the interview they took care to be
beforehand. The first who presented himself
was the Chevalier de Bresire; he caused himself
to be announced by Mademoiselle Jamyn
(the orphan she had adopted; now her friend
and companion), as M. Racan. He was clever
and agreeable, and flattered Mademoiselle de
Gournay with so much grace, that she was enchanted
with him. He had scarcely departed,
when M. Yvrande arrived: “Announce M. Racan,”
said he to Mademoiselle Jamyn.

“M. Racan has only this moment left us.”

“Some vile trick!” said he, with indignation.

Mademoiselle de Gournay, seeing a young
man, still handsomer and more agreeable than
the other, and whose compliments were still
more poetical, was easily pacified, and received
him graciously. A few moments after he had
left, the poet himself made his appearance. He
was absent, nervous, shabbily dressed, awkward,
and had, moreover, a ridiculous pronunciation.
He called himself “Lacan.”

The old lady was now out of all patience.

“Must I, then, see nothing but Racans all the
days of my life!” she exclaimed, and taking off
her slipper, she flung it at his head, abusing him
vehemently for daring to impose upon her; and
drove him out of the house.

Of course this story was much too good not
to have a great success; it circulated not only
through the Court, but all over Paris, and came
at last to the ears of poor Mademoiselle de Gournay
herself, who could not be consoled, as it revealed
all the tricks to which she had been a
victim. The illusions thus rudely destroyed
were far more precious than the philosopher’s
stone she had so vainly sought, and involved a
disappointment infinitely more painful. Who
can help sympathizing with the poor woman,
who thus saw all her fairy treasures resolved
into their intrinsic worthlessness?

However, good came out of evil. Cardinal
Richelieu—who had been especially delighted
with the story of the three Racans, and was
never weary of hearing it repeated—took the
fancy of wishing to see her that he might try to
make a good story out of her himself. He sent
for her, and indulged in some very clumsy pleasantry,
of which he had the grace to feel afterward
ashamed. Willing to make her some
amends, he settled a pension upon her, in order
that for the rest of her days, she, and her friend,
and her cat, might live on something better than
dry bread.

Under the influence of this gleam of sunshine,
Mademoiselle de Gournay edited another edition
of Montaigne’s work, with an abridgment of her
former preface. She also published a fresh work
of her own, entitled, “Avis et Présens de Mademoiselle
de Gournay,” which had a moderate
success. Another edition of “L’Ombre” was
also called for. All this, in some measure, consoled
her for past humiliations.

Her prosperity lasted until the death of Cardinal
Richelieu. Mademoiselle de Gournay, then
in extreme old age, still survived him. When
the list of pensions granted by the Cardinal was
submitted to the king, her name caught his eye.
Louis the Thirteenth—who might have had some
grateful recollection of the many hearty laughs
his royalty had enjoyed at her expense—declared
that the Cardinal must have been mad
to grant such a woman a pension, and ordered
it to be suppressed! Mademoiselle de Gournay
passed the few remaining years of her life in a
state of poverty painful to reflect upon. She
died somewhere about 1646, at the age of eighty.

Poor as she was, she made her will as became
a person of her birth. She bequeathed her clothes
to Mademoiselle Jamyn, who, old and infirm,
survived her; a few books she left to different
friends; and a curious old Map of the World,
to the poet Gombauld—a personage as eccentric
as herself, and one who lived and died in still
greater penury, but who valued her legacy, and
transmitted it to his heirs as the most precious
treasure in the world.

DILIGENCE IN DOING GOOD.

Thomas Wright, of Manchester, is a worn
but not a weary man of sixty-three, who has
for forty-seven years been weekly servant in a
large iron foundry, of which he is now the foreman.
His daily work begins at five o’clock in
the morning, and closes at six in the evening;
for forty-seven years he has worked through
twelve hours daily, to support himself and those
depending on him. Those depending on him
are not few; he has had nineteen children; and
at some periods there have been grandchildren
looking to him for bread. His income never has
attained two hundred pounds a year. This is
a life of toil. Exeter Hall might plead for him
as a man taxed beyond the standard limit; but
he had bread to earn, and knew that he had
need to work for it: he did work with great zeal
and great efficiency, obtaining very high respect
and confidence from his employers. A man so
laboring, and leading in his home an exemplary,
pious life, might be entitled to go to bed betimes,
and rest in peace between these days of industry
and natural fatigue. What could a man do, in
the little leisure left by so much unremitting
work? Poor as he was—toiling as he did, a
modest man of humble origin, with no power[Pg 782]
in the world to aid him but the wonderful spiritual
power of an earnest will—Thomas Wright
has found means, in his little intervals of leisure,
to lead back, with a gentle hand, three hundred
convicted criminals to virtue; to wipe the blot
from their names and the blight from their prospects;
to place them in honest homes, supported
by an honest livelihood.

Fourteen years ago Mr. Wright visited, one
Sunday, the New Bailey Prison, at Manchester,
and took an earnest interest in what he saw.
He knew that, with the stain of jail upon them,
the unhappy prisoners, after release, would seek
in vain for occupation; and that society would
shut the door of reformation on them, and compel
them, if they would not starve, to walk on
in the ways of crime. The jail-mark branding
them as dangerous, men buttoned up their pockets
when they pleaded for a second trial of their
honesty, and left them helpless. Then, Thomas
Wright resolved, in his own honest heart, that
he would visit in the prisons, and become a friend
to those who had no helper.

The chaplain of the New Bailey, Mr. Bagshawe,
recognized in the beginning the true
practical benevolence of the simple-minded visitor.
On his second visit a convict was pointed
out, on whom Mr. Wright might test his power.
It was certain power. From the vantage-ground
of a comparative equality of station, he pleaded
with his fellow workman for the wisdom of
a virtuous and honest life. Heaven does, and
Earth should, wipe out of account repented evil.
Words warm from the heart, backed with a deep
and contagious sense in the hearer of the high-minded
virtue shown by his companion, were
not uttered, like lip-sympathy, in vain. Then
Thomas Wright engaged to help his friend, to
get employment for him; and, if necessary, to
be surety with his own goods for his honorable
conduct. He fulfilled his pledge; and that man
has been ever since, a prosperous laborer, and an
upright member of society.

So the work began. So earnest, so humble;
yet, like other earnest, humble efforts, with a
blessing of prosperity upon it. In this way,
during the last fourteen years, by this one man,
working in the leisure of a twelve hours’ daily
toil, hundreds have been restored to peace. He
has sent husbands repentant to their wives; he
has restored fathers to the fatherless. Without
incurring debt, supporting a large family on little
gains, he has contrived to spare out of his
little; contenting himself with a bare existence,
that he might have clothes to give and bits of
money, where they were required to reinstate an
outcast in society.

Mr. Wright is a dissenter—free, of course,
from bigotry; for bigotry can never co-exist with
charity so genuine. Although a dissenter working
spiritually in the prison, he never comes into
jarring contact with the chaplain. He makes a
point of kindling in his outcast friends a religious
feeling; but that is not sectarian; he speaks
only the largest sentiments of Christianity, and
asks only that they attend, once every week, a
place of worship, leaving them to choose what
church or chapel it may be. And, in the chapel
he himself attends, wherever his eye turns, he
can see decent families who stand by his means
there; men whom he has rescued from the vilest
courses, kneeling modestly beside their children
and their wives. Are not these families substantial
prayers?

Very humbly all this has been done. In behalf
of each outcast in turn, Mr. Wright has
pleaded with his own employer, or with others,
in a plain, manly way. Many now work under
himself, in his own place of occupation; his
word and guarantees having been sufficient recommendation.
Elsewhere, he has, when rebuffed,
persevered from place to place, offering
and laying down his own earnings as guarantee;
clothing and assisting the repentant unemployed
convict out of his own means, as far as possible;
speaking words, or writing letters, with a
patient zeal, to reconcile to him his honest relatives,
or to restore lost friends. Bare sustenance
for his own body by day, that he might screw
out of himself little funds in aid of his good
deeds—and four hours’ sleep at night, after his
hard work, that he might screw out of his bed
more time for his devoted labor—these tell their
tale upon the body of the man, who still works
daily twelve hours for his family, and six or
eight hours for his race. He is now sixty-three
years old, and working forward on his course
worn, but unwearied.

No plaudits have been in his ear, and he has
sought none. Of his labor, the success was the
reward. Some ladies joined; and working quietly,
as he does, in an under-current of society,
after a while, he had from them the aid of a
small charitable fund, to draw upon occasionally
in the interest of the poor friends for whom he
struggled. Prison Inspectors found him out,
and praised him in reports. At first there were
a few words, and a note told of “this benevolent
individual. His simple, unostentatious, but earnest
and successful labors on behalf of discharged
prisoners are above all praise.” After a few
years, the reports grew in their enthusiasm, and
strung together illustrations of the work that has
been done so quietly. Let us quote from this
source one or two examples:

“Five years ago I was,” owns a certain G.J.,
“in the New Bailey, convicted of felony, and
sentenced to four months’ imprisonment. When
I was discharged from prison, I could get no employment.
I went to my old employer, to ask
him to take me again. He said, I need not apply
to him, for if he could get me transported he
would; so I could get no work until I met with
Mr. Wright, who got me employed in a place,
where I remained some time, and have been in
employment ever since. I am now engaged as
a screw-cutter—a business I was obliged to learn—and
am earning nineteen shillings and twopence
a week. I have a wife and four children,
and but for Mr. Wright, I should have been a
lost man.”

Others tell how they were saved by the timely[Pg 783]
supplies of Mr. Wright’s money, which “kept
their heads above water” till they obtained the
trust of an employer. Another, after telling his
career, adds: “I am now, consequently, in very
comfortable circumstances; I am more comfortable
now than ever I was in my life; I wish
every poor man was as comfortable as I am. I
am free from tippling, and cursing, and swearing;
have peace of mind, and no quarreling at
home as there used to be. I dare say I was as
wicked a man as any in Manchester. I thought
if I could once get settled under such a gentleman
as Mr. Wright, I would not abuse my opportunity,
and all I expected I have received.
I have got Bibles, hymn-book, prayer-book, and
tracts; and those things I never had in my house
since I have been married before. My wife is
delighted. My boy goes to school, and my girl
also.”

Were the spirit of Mr. Wright diffused more
generally through society, the number of fallen
men—who, being restored with all due prudence
to a generous confidence, “would not abuse their
opportunity”—would tell decidedly on the statistics
of our criminal courts and prisons. To labor
as Mr. Wright has done, must be the prerogative
of few, though all the indolent may
note, by way of spur, how much a man, even
like Thomas Wright, poor, humble, scantily instructed,
may beget of good out of an earnest will.

THE NIGHT TRAIN.

The curate and his daughter sat before the
fire. Both had been for some time silent, for
the father had fallen into that listless dreaminess
to which nothing is so conducive as gazing on
the glowing caverns in the coals, and pretty little
Faith cared not to disturb a rest that he was
not likely to be long suffered to enjoy unmolested.
And so the flamelets rose and sank, lighting their
thoughtful faces, and glittering on the gold-embossed
backs of the treasured volumes on
the shelves—the curate’s most constant friends.
Twilight saddened into night. Up from behind
the gray church tower came the moon.
But still not a word broke the silence in the
parsonage parlor. The gaunt arms of the trees
waved drearily without. A streak of white
moonshine crept across the carpet like a silver
snake. Still he gazed fixedly on the bright pagoda
‘mid the flame: it totters, but before it falls
we will track his wandering musings for a moment.
All men, he thinks, have as children gazed
on the burning coals, and fashioned castles,
figures, mountains in them, but though the elements
are all the same, no two men ever have
presented to them exactly the same position or
difficulty in life, and so only general rules of conduct
can be laid down; but yet—the minaret
crumbles to nothing, and changes to a strange
fantastic face, then into something like a funeral
plume; his dreams are all dispersed; the pensive
damsel looks up hurriedly, for high above the
muttering wind, fierce as the summons at the gates
of Cawdor, he hears a knocking loud and long.

It was a farmer’s boy from the village. His
message was soon told. A poor man had been
seized with sudden illness at the wayside public-house,
and the clergyman’s presence was required
immediately. He lingered to tell Faith not to
wait up for him, then rose without a murmur, and
prepared for his long dreary walk. A moment
after he was crossing the neatly-kept garden,
where the hydrangeas showed like piles of skulls
in the pale moonshine, and the chestnut leaves
were falling thick and fast. Then out into the
deep-rutted road, through miry lanes, across stark
scraps of common, and paths covered with fern
and marsh-mallow, till at last the glimmering candle
in the hostelry window came in sight, and he
stood under the creaking signboard of the White
Horse. The inn was of the humblest description,
and the room into which he was shown very
wretched indeed. The plaster had peeled off the
walls in great odd shapes, like the countries on a
map; the shutters had as many cracks as an ill-fitting
dissecting puzzle; the flooring was damp
and broken, there was a tracery of spiders’ webs
about the bed-furniture, and the only sounds were
the groans of the occupant of the bed, and the
drowsy ticking of the death-watch. Thinking he
was asleep, the curate prepared to sit down and
wait for him to wake of himself, but the noise of
a drinking-song, shouted by some laborers in the
bar, startled him from his uneasy slumber, and
when Mr. F. next looked up, the ghastly face of
the sick man confronted his own—an eery nightmare
face, such as meets one in the outlines of
Retzsch, or peering out of the goblin scenes and
witches’ caves of Peter Breughel. But if the face
was terrible, the voice that asked him “Why he
came!” and bade him take away the light that
glared and hurt his eyes, was more unearthly
still. But when he recognized him as the clergyman,
his manner altered. In a comparatively
tranquil state he listened to the minister’s earnest
warnings and blessed consolations; then suddenly
the pain seized him; he screamed and groaned
awhile in wild delirium; a deep calm followed.
Raising himself in the bed, he drew a roll of torn
and discolored papers from under the pillow, and
put it into the curate’s hand. His senses never
returned. A few more throbbings and struggles—a
wandering of the eyes about the room, first
to the ceiling, where the death-watch ticked on
drearily, then to the Arcadian scene on the tattered
patchwork counterpane—a clutching at the
bed-clothes—a shuddering—a film—and then—death!

The curate did not sleep that night until he
had read the stranger’s diary to an end. It began
thus:

“August 3d.—Brian Marcliffe came to me
again; the same odd, mysterious air that I have
noticed so long. What can it mean? He can
not have found—But no, it’s worse than useless
having dark forebodings. I shall soon be
able to put the sea between me and this cursed
golden inferno, Brazil, and with my darling Bertha
forget all these fears in the paradise of full purses—England.

“August 4th.—I met him by chance again,[Pg 784]
coming from the overseer’s. Confound it, how
demon-like he looked! I will speak to him myself,
rather than be in suspense much longer. I
should then know the worst, at least.

“August 5th.—Ruin! The worst has come.
He does know all about my being behindhand in
my accounts, and hints—I can’t write down
what. Bertha will never marry him but as the
only chance of saving me from exposure. Can he
be devil enough to propose it?

“August 20th.—Am I the same man I was a
month ago! Farewell forever, land of diamonds,
slaves, and late summers. Farewell lust of gold
and dread of disgrace. It is over, I hope, forever.
My Bertha—my own now—is sleeping like a lily
near me, and the only sound is the splashing of
the sea that is bearing me every moment further
from my fear. But stay; what have I left behind
me! What is there in that glen of mimosas?
A rotting corpse. What in men’s mouths?
The name of murderer. Pray God it be not. Let
me think.

“On the Monday when I was leaving the office,
Brian came again, and asked me to go as far as
old Olivenza’s coffee plantation. I said I would
come, and we set out an hour past sunset. It
was a beautiful evening; the skies as pure as
the robe of seraphim; the clouds like curls of incense,
now hiding, now revealing the dazzling
glory of the rising moon—all, save one black
streak right across her face, like a spread eagle.
Well, we had nearly got to the plantation before
Brian spoke; but I saw he was preparing something
by the villainous look of his eyes. He began: