in arm with some servant, seemingly of the Runner or Courier sort; he
also issues through Villequier's door; starts a shoebuckle as he passes
one of the sentries, stoops down to clasp it again; is however, by the
Glass-coachman, still more cheerfully admitted. And _now_, is his fare
complete? Not yet; the Glass-coachman still waits.--Alas! and the
false Chambermaid has warned Gouvion that she thinks the Royal Family
will fly this very night; and Gouvion, distrusting his own glazed eyes,
has sent express for Lafayette; and Lafayette's Carriage, flaring with
lights, rolls this moment through the inner arch of the
Carrousel,--where a Lady shaded in {126} broad gypsy-hat, and leaning
on the arm of a servant, also of the Runner or Courier sort, stands
aside to let it pass, and has even the whim to touch a spoke of it with
her _badine_,--light little magic rod which she calls _badine_, such as
the Beautiful then wore. The flare of Lafayette's carriage rolls past:
all is found quiet in the Court-of-Princes; sentries at their post;
Majesties' Apartments closed in smooth rest. Your false Chambermaid
must have been mistaken? Watch thou, Gouvion, with Argus' vigilance;
for of a truth treachery is within these walls.
But where is the Lady that stood aside in gypsy-hat, and touched the
wheel-spoke with her _badine_? O Reader, that Lady that touched the
wheel-spoke was the Queen of France! She has issued safe through that
inner arch, into the Carrousel itself; but not into the Rue de
l'Echelle. Flurried by the rattle and rencounter, she took the right
hand, not the left; neither she nor her Courier knows Paris; he is
indeed no Courier, but a loyal stupid _ci-devant_ Body-guard disguised
as one. They are off, quite wrong, over the Pont Royal and River;
roaming disconsolate in the Rue du Bac; far from the Glass-coachman,
who still waits. Waits, with flutter of heart; with thoughts--which he
must button close up, under his jarvie-surtout!
Midnight clangs from all the City-steeples; one precious hour has been
spent so; most mortals are asleep. The Glass-coachman waits; and in
what mood! A brother jarvie drives up, enters into conversation; is
answered cheerfully in jarvie-dialect: the brothers of the whip
exchange a pinch of snuff; decline drinking together; and part with
good-night. Be the Heavens blest! here at length is the Queen-lady, in
gypsy-hat; {127} safe after perils; who has had to enquire her way.
She too is admitted; her Courier jumps aloft, as the other, who is also
a disguised Bodyguard, has done; and now, O Glass-coachman of a
thousand,--Count Fersen, for the Reader sees it is thou,--drive!
Dust shall not stick to the heels of Fersen: crack! crack! The
Glass-coach rattles, and every soul breathes lighter. But is Fersen on
the right road? North-eastward, to the Barrier of Saint-Martin and
Metz Highway, thither were we bound: and lo, he drives right Northward!
The royal Individual, in round hat and peruke, sits astonished; but
right or wrong, there is no remedy. Crack, crack, we go incessant,
through the slumbering City. Seldom, since Paris rose out of mud, or
the Longhaired Kings went in bullock-carts, was there such a drive.
Mortals on each hand of you, close by, stretched out horizontal,
dormant; and we alive and quaking! Crack, crack, through the Rue de
Grammont; across the Boulevard; up the Rue de la Chaussée
d'Antin,--these windows, all silent, of Number 42, were Mirabeau's.
Towards the Barrier, not of Saint-Martin, but of Clichy on the utmost
north! Patience, ye royal Individuals; Fersen understands what he is
about. Passing up the Rue de Clichy, he alights for one moment at
Madame Sullivan's: "Did Count Fersen's Coachman get the Baroness de
Korff's new Berline?"--"Gone with it an hour and a half ago," grumbles
responsive the drowsy Porter.--"_C'est bien_." Yes, it is
well;--though had not such hour-and-half been _lost_, it were still
better. Forth therefore, O Fersen, fast, by the Barrier de Clichy;
then eastward along the Outer Boulevard, what horses and whipcord can
do!
{128} Thus Fersen drives, through the ambrosial night. Sleeping Paris
is now all on the right-hand of him; silent except for some snoring
hum: and now he is eastward as far as the Barrier of Saint-Martin;
looking earnestly for Baroness de Korff's Berline. This Heaven's
Berline he at length does descry, drawn up with its six horses, his own
German coachman waiting on the box. Right, thou good German: now
haste, whither thou knowest!--And as for us of the Glass-coach, haste
too, O haste; much time is already lost! The august Glass-coach fare,
six Insides, hastily packs itself into the new Berline; two Body-guard
Couriers behind. The Glass-coach itself is turned adrift, its head
towards the City, to wander where it lists,--and be found next morning
tumbled in a ditch. But Fersen is on the new box, with its brave new
hammer-cloths; flourishing his whip; he bolts forward towards Bondy.
There a third and final Bodyguard Courier of ours ought surely to be,
with post-horses ready ordered. There likewise ought that purchased
Chaise, with the two Waiting-maids and their bandboxes, to be; whom
also her Majesty could not travel without. Swift, thou deft Fersen,
and may the Heavens turn it well!
Once more, by Heaven's blessing, it is all well. Here is the sleeping
hamlet of Bondy; Chaise with Waiting-women; horses all ready, and
postilions with their churn-boots, impatient in the dewy dawn. Brief
harnessing done, the postilions with their churn-boots vault into the
saddles; brandish circularly their little noisy whips. Fersen, under
his jarvie-surtout, bends in lowly silent reverence of adieu; royal
hands wave speechless inexpressible response; Baroness de Korff's
Berline, with {129} the Royalty of France, bounds off; for ever, as it
proved. Deft Fersen dashes obliquely northward, through the country,
towards Bougret; gains Bougret, finds his German coachman and chariot
waiting there; cracks off, and drives undiscovered into unknown space.
A deft active man, we say; what he undertook to do is nimbly and
successfully done.
And so the Royalty of France is actually fled? This precious night,
the shortest of the year, it flies, and drives! _Baroness de Korff_
is, at bottom, Dame de Tourzel, Governess of the Royal Children: she
who came hooded with the two hooded little ones: little Dauphin; little
Madame Royale, known long afterwards as Duchesse d'Angoulême. Baroness
de Korff's _Waiting-maid_ is the Queen in gypsy-hat. The royal
Individual in round hat and peruke, he is _Valet_ for the time being.
That other hooded Dame, styled _Travelling-companion_, is kind Sister
Elizabeth; she had sworn long since, when the Insurrection of Women
was, that only death should part her and them. And so they rush there,
not too impetuously, through the Wood of Bondy;--over a Rubicon in
their own and France's history.
Great; though the future is all vague! If we reach Bouillé? If we do
not reach him? O Louis! and this all round thee is the great
slumbering Earth (and overhead, the great watchful Heaven); the
slumbering Wood of Bondy,--where Longhaired Childeric Do-nothing was
struck through with iron; not unreasonably, in a world like ours.
These peaked stone-towers are Raincy; towers of wicked d'Orleans. All
slumbers save the {130} multiplex rustle of our new Berline.
Loose-skirted scarecrow of an Herb-merchant, with his ass and early
greens, toilsomely plodding, seems the only creature we meet. But
right ahead the great North-east sends up evermore his grey brindled
dawn: from dewy branch, birds here and there, with short deep warble,
salute the coming sun. Stars fade out, and galaxies; street-lamps of
the City of God. The Universe, O my brothers, is flinging wide its
portals for the levee of the GREAT HIGH KING. Thou, poor King Louis,
farest nevertheless, as mortals do, towards Orient lands of Hope; and
the Tuileries with _its_ levées, and France and the Earth itself, is
but a larger kind of dog-hutch--occasionally going rabid.
(_The French Revolution_.)
LORD MACAULAY 1800-1859
THE TRIAL OF THE SEVEN BISHOPS
It was dark before the jury retired to consider of their verdict. The
night was a night of intense anxiety. Some letters are extant which
were despatched during that period of suspense, and which have
therefore an interest of a peculiar kind. "It is very late," wrote the
Papal Nuncio; "and the decision is not yet known. The Judges and the
culprits have gone to their own homes. The jury remain together.
To-morrow we shall learn the event of this great struggle."
The solicitor for the Bishops sate up all night with a body of servants
on the stairs leading to the room {131} where the jury was consulting.
It was absolutely necessary to watch the officers who watched the
doors; for those officers were supposed to be in the interest of the
crown, and might, if not carefully observed, have furnished a courtly
juryman with food, which would have enabled him to starve out the other
eleven. Strict guard was therefore kept. Not even a candle to light a
pipe was permitted to enter. Some basins of water for washing were
suffered to pass at about four in the morning. The jurymen, raging
with thirst, soon lapped up the whole. Great numbers of people walked
the neighbouring streets till dawn. Every hour a messenger came from
Whitehall to know what was passing. Voices, high in altercation, were
repeatedly heard within the room: but nothing certain was known.
At first nine were for acquitting and three for convicting. Two of the
minority soon gave way; but Arnold was obstinate. Thomas Austin, a
country gentleman of great estate, who had paid close attention to the
evidence and speeches, and had taken full notes, wished to argue the
question. Arnold declined. He was not used, he doggedly said, to
reasoning and debating. His conscience was not satisfied; and he
should not acquit the Bishops. "If you come to that," said Austin,
"look at me. I am the largest and strongest of the twelve; and before
I find such a petition as this a libel, here I will stay till I am no
bigger than a tobacco pipe." It was six in the morning before Arnold
yielded. It was soon known that the jury were agreed: but what the
verdict would be was still a secret.
{132} At ten the Court again met. The crowd was greater than ever.
The jury appeared in their box; and there was a breathless stillness.
Sir Samuel Astry spoke. "Do you find the defendants, or any of them,
guilty of the misdemeanour whereof they are impeached, or not guilty?"
Sir Roger Langley answered, "Not guilty." As the words passed his
lips, Halifax sprang up and waved his hat. At that signal, benches and
galleries raised a shout. In a moment ten thousand persons, who
crowded the great hall, replied with a still louder shout, which made
the old oaken roof crack; and in another moment the innumerable throng
without set up a third huzza, which was heard at Temple Bar. The boats
which covered the Thames gave an answering cheer. A peal of gunpowder
was heard on the water, and another, and another; and so, in a few
moments, the glad tidings went flying past the Savoy and the Friars to
London Bridge, and to the forest of masts below. As the news spread,
streets and squares, market places and coffee-houses, broke forth into
acclamations. Yet were the acclamations less strange than the weeping.
For the feelings of men had been wound up to such a point that at
length the stern English nature, so little used to outward signs of
emotion, gave way, and thousands sobbed aloud for very joy. Meanwhile,
from the outskirts of the multitude, horsemen were spurring off to bear
along all the great roads intelligence of the victory of our Church and
nation. Yet not even that astounding explosion could awe the bitter
and intrepid spirit of the Solicitor. Striving to make himself heard
above the {133} din, he called on the Judges to commit those who had
violated, by clamour, the dignity of a court of justice. One of the
rejoicing populace was seized. But the tribunal felt that it would be
absurd to punish a single individual for an offence common to hundreds
of thousands, and dismissed him with a gentle reprimand.
It was vain to think of passing at that moment to any other business.
Indeed the roar of the multitude was such that, for half an hour,
scarcely a word could be heard in court. Williams got to his coach
amidst a tempest of hisses and curses. Cartwright, whose curiosity was
ungovernable, had been guilty of the folly and indecency of coming to
Westminster in order to hear the decision. He was recognised by his
sacerdotal garb and by his corpulent figure, and was hooted through the
hall. "Take care," said one, "of the wolf in sheep's clothing." "Make
room," cried another, "for the man with the Pope in his belly."
The acquitted prelates took refuge from the crowd which implored their
blessing in the nearest chapel where divine service was performing.
Many churches were open on that morning throughout the capital; and
many pious persons repaired thither. The bells of all the parishes of
the City and liberties were ringing. The jury meanwhile could scarcely
make their way out of the hall. They were forced to shake hands with
hundreds. "God bless you," cried the people; "God prosper your
families; you have done like honest good-natured gentlemen; you have
saved us all to-day." As the noblemen who had appeared to support the
good cause drove off, they flung from their carriage windows {134}
handfuls of money, and bade the crowd drink to the health of the King,
the Bishops, and the jury.
The attorney went with the tidings to Sunderland, who happened to be
conversing with the Nuncio. "Never," said Powis, "within man's memory,
have there been such shouts and such tears of joy as to-day." The King
had that morning visited the camp on Hounslow Heath. Sunderland
instantly sent a courier thither with the news. James was in Lord
Feversham's tent when the express arrived. He was greatly disturbed,
and exclaimed in French, "So much the worse for them." He soon set out
for London. While he was present respect prevented the soldiers from
giving a loose to their feelings; but he had scarcely quitted the camp
when he heard a great shouting behind him. He was surprised, and asked
what that uproar meant. "Nothing," was the answer. "The soldiers are
glad that the bishops are acquitted." "Do you call that nothing?" said
James. And then he repeated, "So much the worse for them."
(_History of England_.)
{135}
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN 1801-1890
THE UNIVERSITY OF ATHENS
If we would know what a University is, considered in its elementary
idea, we must betake ourselves to the first and most celebrated home of
European literature and source of European civilization, to the bright
and beautiful Athens,--Athens, whose schools drew to her bosom, and
then sent back again to the business of life, the youth of the Western
World for a long thousand years. Seated on the verge of the continent,
the city seemed hardly suited for the duties of a central metropolis of
knowledge; yet, what it lost in convenience of approach it gained in
its neighbourhood to the traditions of the mysterious East, and in the
loveliness of the region in which it lay. Hither, then, as to a sort
of ideal land, where all archetypes of the great and the fair were
found in substantial being, and all departments of truth explored, and
all diversities of intellectual power exhibited, where taste and
philosophy were majestically enthroned as in a royal court, where there
was no sovereignty but that of mind, and no nobility but that of
genius, where professors were rulers, and princes did homage, hither
flocked continually from the very corners of the _orbis terrarum_, the
many-tongued generation, just rising, or just risen into manhood, in
order to gain wisdom.
Pisistratus had in an early age discovered and nursed the infant genius
of his people, and Cimon, after the {136} Persian war, had given it a
home. That war had established the naval supremacy of Athens; she had
become an imperial state; and the Ionians, bound to her by the double
chain of kindred and of subjection, were importing into her both their
merchandize and their civilization. The arts and philosophy of the
Asiatic coast were easily carried across the sea, and there was Cimon,
as I have said, with his ample fortune, ready to receive them with due
honours. Not content with patronizing their professors, he built the
first of those noble porticos, of which we hear so much in Athens, and
he formed the groves, which in process of time became the celebrated
Academy. Planting is one of the most graceful, as in Athens it was one
of the most beneficent, of employments. Cimon took in hand the wild
wood, pruned and dressed it, and laid it out with handsome walks and
welcome fountains. Nor, while hospitable to the authors of the city's
civilization, was he ungrateful to the instruments of her prosperity.
His trees extended their cool, umbrageous branches over the merchants,
who assembled in the Agora, for many generations.
Those merchants certainly had deserved that act of bounty; for all the
while their ships had been carrying forth the intellectual fame of
Athens to the western world. Then commenced what may be called her
University existence. Pericles, who succeeded Cimon both in the
government and in the patronage of art, is said by Plutarch to have
entertained the idea of making Athens the capital of federated Greece:
in this he failed, but his encouragement of such men as Phidias and
Anaxagoras led the way to her acquiring a far more lasting {137}
sovereignty over a far wider empire. Little understanding the sources
of her own greatness, Athens would go to war: peace is the interest of
a seat of commerce and the arts; but to war she went; yet to her,
whether peace or war, it mattered not. The political power of Athens
waned and disappeared; kingdoms rose and fell; centuries rolled
away,--they did but bring fresh triumphs to the city of the poet and
the sage. There at length the swarthy Moor and Spaniard were seen to
meet the blue-eyed Gaul; and the Cappadocian, late subject of
Mithridates, gazed without alarm at the haughty conquering Roman.
Revolution after revolution passed over the face of Europe, as well as
of Greece, but still she was there,--Athens, the city of mind,--as
radiant, as splendid, as delicate, as young, as ever she had been.
Many a more fruitful coast or isle is washed by the blue Aegean, many a
spot is there more beautiful or sublime to see, many a territory more
ample; but there was one charm in Attica, which in the same perfection
was nowhere else. The deep pastures of Arcadia, the plain of Argos,
the Thessalian vale, these had not the gift; Boeotia, which lay to its
immediate north, was notorious for its very want of it. The heavy
atmosphere of that Boeotia might be good for vegetation, but it was
associated in popular belief with the dulness of the Boeotian
intellect: on the contrary, the special purity, elasticity, clearness,
and salubrity of the air of Attica, fit concomitant and emblem of its
genius, did that for it which earth did not;--it brought out every
bright hue and tender shade of the landscape over which it was {138}
spread, and would have illuminated the face even of a more bare and
rugged country.
A confined triangle, perhaps fifty miles its greatest length, and
thirty its greatest breadth; two elevated rocky barriers, meeting at an
angle; three prominent mountains, commanding the plain,--Parnes,
Pentelicus, and Hymettus; an unsatisfactory soil; some streams, not
always full;--such is about the report which the agent of a London
company would have made of Attica. He would report that the climate
was mild; the hills were limestone; there was plenty of good marble;
more pasture land than at first survey might have been expected,
sufficient certainly for sheep and goats; fisheries productive; silver
mines once, but long since worked out; figs fair; oil first-rate;
olives in profusion. But what he would not think of noting down, was,
that that olive tree was so choice in nature and so noble in shape,
that it excited a religious veneration; and that it took so kindly to
the light soil, as to expand into woods upon the open plain, and to
climb up and fringe the hills. He would not think of writing word to
his employers, how that clear air, of which I have spoken, brought out,
yet blended and subdued, the colours on the marble, till they had a
softness and harmony, for all their richness, which in a picture looks
exaggerated, yet is after all within the truth. He would not tell, how
that same delicate and brilliant atmosphere freshened up the pale
olive, till the olive forgot its monotony, and its cheek glowed like
the arbutus or beech of the Umbrian hills. He would say nothing of the
thyme and thousand fragrant herbs which carpeted Hymettus; he would
hear nothing of the hum {139} of its bees; nor take much account of the
rare flavour of its honey, since Gozo and Minorca were sufficient for
the English demand. He would look over the Aegean from the height he
had ascended; he would follow with his eye the chain of islands, which,
starting from the Sunian headland, seemed to offer the fabled
divinities of Attica, when they would visit their Ionian cousins, a
sort of viaduct thereto across the sea: but that fancy would not occur
to him, nor any admiration of the dark violet billows with their white
edges down below; nor of those graceful, fan-like jets of silver upon
the rocks, which slowly rise aloft like water spirits from the deep,
then shiver, and break, and spread, and shroud themselves, and
disappear, in a soft mist of foam; nor of the gentle, incessant heaving
and panting of the whole liquid plain; nor of the long waves, keeping
steady time, like a line of soldiery, as they resound upon the hollow
shore,--he would not deign to notice that restless living element at
all, except to bless his stars that he was not upon it. Nor the
distinct detail, nor the refined colouring, nor the graceful outline
and roseate golden hue of the jutting crags, nor the bold shadows cast
from Otus or Laurium by the declining sun;--our agent of a mercantile
firm would not value these matters even at a low figure. Rather we
must turn for the sympathy we seek to yon pilgrim student, come from a
semi-barbarous land to that small corner of the earth, as to a shrine,
where he might take his fill of gazing on those emblems and
coruscations of invisible unoriginate perfection. It was the stranger
from a remote province, from Britain or from Mauritania, who in a scene
so different from that of his chilly, woody swamps, or of {140} his
fiery choking sands, learned at once what a real University must be, by
coming to understand the sort of country which was its suitable home.
(_Historical Sketches_.)
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 1804-1864
THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES
A descriptive paragraph or two, treating of the seven-gabled mansion in
its more recent aspect, will bring this preliminary chapter to a close.
The street in which it upreared its venerable peaks has long ceased to
be a fashionable quarter of the town; so that, though the old edifice
was surrounded by habitations of modern date, they were mostly small,
built entirely of wood, and typical of the most plodding uniformity of
common life. Doubtless, however, the whole story of human existence
may be latent in each of them, but with no picturesqueness, externally,
that can attract the imagination or sympathy to seek it there. But as
for the old structure of our story, its white-oak frame, and its
boards, shingles, and crumbling plaster, and even the huge clustered
chimney in the midst, seemed to constitute only the least and meanest
part of its reality. So much of mankind's varied experience had passed
there,--so much had been suffered, and something, too, enjoyed,--that
the very timbers were oozy, as with the moisture of a heart. It was
itself like a great human heart, with a life of its own, and full of
rich and sombre reminiscences.