_The Swiss Heiress; or The Bride of Destiny—A Tale. Baltimore: Joseph
Robinson._
The Swiss Heiress should be read by all who have nothing better to do.
We are patient, and having gone through the whole book with the most
dogged determination, are now enabled to pronounce it one of the most
solemn of farces. Let us see if it be not possible to give some idea
of the plot. It is the year 1780, and “the attention of the reader is
directed, first, to a Castle whose proud battlements rise amidst the
pines and firs of the Swiss mountains, while, at its base, roll the
waters of Lake Geneva,” and, second, to the sun which is setting
somewhat more slowly than usual, because he is “unwilling to terminate
the natal day of the young heiress of the Baron de Rheinswald, the
wealthy proprietor of Montargis castle, and its beautiful environs.”
We are thus left to infer—putting the two sentences and circumstances
in apposition—that the Montargis Castle where dwells the young heiress
of the Baron de Rheinswald, is neither more nor less than the
identical castle “with the proud battlements” et cetera, that “rises
amid the pines and firs” and so forth, of the “Swiss Mountains and the
Lake of Geneva” and all that. However this may be, the Baron de
Rheinswald is a “Catholic of high repute” who “early in life marries a
lady of great wealth, a member of his own church, actuated by
ambition”—that is to say, there was either something or somebody
“actuated by ambition,” but we shall _not_ say whether it was a lady
or a church. The lady (or perhaps now the church) “lived but five
years after the union, and at her death earnestly and solemnly
implored that her only son might be devoted to the priesthood.” The
lady, or the church (let us reconcile the difficulty by calling the
thing “Mother Church”) being thus deceased, the bereaved Baron marries
a second wife. She being a protestant however, the high contracting
parties sign an instrument by which it is agreed “that the eldest
child shall be educated by the mother's direction, a protestant, the
second be subject to the father's will and a catholic, and thus
alternately with all their children.” This, it must be allowed is a
contrivance well adapted for effect. Only think of the interesting
little creatures all taking it “turn about!” What fights, too, they
will have, when breeched, over their prayer-books and
bread-and-butter! Our author pauses in horror at anticipated
consequences, and takes this excellent opportunity of repeating what
“a late writer” (a great friend of his by the bye) says in regard to
“chemical combinations” and “opposite properties.”
The first child is a son, and called William. The second is a
daughter, Miss Laura, our heroine, the “Swiss Heiress,” and the “Bride
of Destiny.” She is the “Swiss Heiress” in virtue of a certain
“dispensation from the church of Rome, by which the estates of the
Baron were to descend to his first catholic child by his second
marriage” and she becomes the “Bride of Destiny” because the Baron has
very properly selected for her a husband, without consulting her
Heiress-ship about the matter. This intended husband is one Count
Laniski, young, good-looking, noble, valiant, wise, accomplished,
generous, amiable, and possessed of a thousand other good
qualities—all of which, of course, are just a thousand better reasons
why the Bride of Destiny, being a heroine, will have nothing to do
with him. Accordingly, at eight years old, she grows melancholy and
interesting, patronizes the gipsies, curses the Count Laniski, talks
about “fate, fore-knowledge, and free-will,” and throws aside her
bread-and-butter for desperation and a guitar. In spite of all she can
do, however, the narrative gets on very slowly, and we are upon the
point of throwing the lady (banjo and all) into the street, when the
Count himself makes his appearance at the Castle, and thereby
frightens her to such a degree that, having delivered a soliloquy, she
runs off with her “Brother William” to America.
“Brother William,” however, is luckily killed at the siege of
Yorktown, and the “Bride of Destiny” herself is recaptured by her
family, the whole of whom, having nothing better to do, have set out
in pursuit of her—to wit—her half brother Albert, (who is now Baron de
Rheinswald, the old Baron being dead) Clermont a croaking old monk,
and Madam de Montelieu a croaking old somebody else. These good
people, it seems, are still determined that the “Swiss Heiress” shall
be the “Bride of Destiny”—that is to say, the bride of the Count
Laniski. To make matters doubly sure too on this head, the old Baron
has sworn a round oath on his death-bed, leaving the “Swiss Heiress”
his “eternal curse” in the event of her disobedience.
Having caught and properly secured the young lady, the new Baron de
Rheinswald takes up his residence for a time “on the borders of
Vermont and Canada.” Some years elapse, and so forth. The “Bride of
Destiny” is nearly one and twenty; and the Count Laniski makes his
appearance with a view of urging his claim. The Heiress, we are forced
to say, now behaves in a very unbecoming and unaccountable manner. She
should have hung herself as the only rational course, and—heigho!—it
would have saved us a world of trouble. But, not having forgotten her
old bad habits, she persists in talking about “fate, foreknowledge,
and free will,” and it is not therefore to be wondered at that matters
in general assume a truly distressing complexion. Just at this crisis,
however, a Mr. Frederick Mortimer makes his interesting debût. Never
certainly was a more accomplished young man! As becomes a gentleman
with such an appellation as Frederick Mortimer, he is more beautiful
than Apollo, more sentimental than De Lisle, more distingué than
Pelham, and, positively, more mysterious than the “mysterious lady.”
He sympathizes with the woes of the “Bride of Destiny,” looks
unutterable threats at the Count Laniski, beats even the “Swiss
Heiress” at discoursing of “free will,” and the author of the “Swiss
Heiress” at quoting paragraphs from a “late writer.” The heart of the
“Bride of Destiny” is touched—sensibly touched. But Love, in romance,
must have impediments, and the Loves of the “Bride of Destiny” and Mr.
Frederick Mortimer have two. The first is some inexpressible mystery
connected with a certain gold ring, of which the Heiress is especially
careful, and the second is that rascally old Baron {716} Rheinswald's
“eternal curse.” Nothing farther therefore can be done in the
premises, but as we have now only reached Chapter the Sixth, and there
are to be seventeen chapters in all, it is necessary to do
something—and what better can be done than to talk, until Chapter the
Fifteenth, about “fate, foreknowledge, and free will?” Only imagine a
string of delightful sentences, such as the following, for the short
space of three hundred and ninety-six pages!
“How rapidly time flies,” said the Count, “I have been here weeks, and
they seem but days.”
“I am not surprised, my lord,” said Mrs. Falkner, smiling.
“Nor I,” he returned, also smiling. “This place, such society, wraps
the senses in such blissful illusion that I ‘take no note of time.’
The clock strikes unheeded, unheard.”
“Why do you smile, Miss Montargis?” asked Mrs. Falkner.
“I was just thinking,” she replied, “that Count Laniski had
unconsciously given a ‘local habitation and a name’ to the fabled
region where cold is so intense as to congeal sound.”
Mrs. Falkner bowed, but could not comprehend what such a region had to
do with Count Laniski's compliment to the heiress.
“Take care, Mr. Mortimer,” said Miss Montargis, still smiling, “you
are in dangerous vicinity. Have you no fear of cold?”
“It is not sufficiently _positive_,” he replied, “to destroy my belief
that it exists with much _latent_ warmth, which it requires but a
little address to render quite _sensible_.”
Mortimer spoke with mingled playfulness and seriousness, but the
latter prevailed, and Miss Montargis felt it a reproof, and blushed,
she scarcely knew why.
“To be sensible,” she said, “it must affect others. Who ever felt its
influence? not _she_ at least who has painfully realized its
_negativeness_.”
“I am sure you speak mysteries to me,” said Mrs. Falkner, laughing,
“what can you mean?” &c. &c.
We would proceed, but are positively out of patience with the gross
stupidity of Mrs. Falkner, who cannot understand what the other ladies
and gentlemen are talking about. Now we have no doubt whatever they
are discoursing of “fate, foreknowledge, and free will.”
About chapter the fifteenth it appears that the Count Laniski is not
the Count Laniski at all, but only Mr. Theodore Montelieu, and the son
of that old rigmarole, Madam Montelieu, the housekeeper. It now
appears, also, that even that Count Laniski whose appearance at
Montargis Castle had such effect upon the nerves of our heroine, was
not the Count Laniski at all, but only the same Mr. Theodore
Montelieu, the same son of the same old rigmarole. The true Count, it
seems, in his younger days, had as little partiality for the match
ordained him by fate and the two fathers, as the very “Bride of
Destiny” herself, and, being at college with Mr. Theodore Montelieu at
the time appointed for his visit to Montargis Castle, had no scruple
in allowing the latter gentleman to personate his Countship in the
visit. By these means Mr. M. has an opportunity of seeing his mother,
the old rigmarole, who is housekeeper, or something of that kind, at
the Castle. The precious couple (that is to say the old rigmarole and
her son) now get up a plot, by which it is determined that the son
shall personate the Count to the end of the chapter, and so marry the
heiress. It is with this end in view, that Mr. Theodore Montelieu is
now playing Count at the residence of the Baron in Vermont. Mr.
Frederick Mortimer, however, is sadly in his way, and torments the
poor fellow grievously, by grinning at him, and sighing at him, and
folding his arms at him, and looking at him asquint, and talking him
to death about “fate and foreknowledge and free will.” At last Mr.
Mortimer tells the gentleman flatly that he knows very well who he is,
leaving it to be inferred that he also knows very well who he is not.
Hereupon Mr. Theodore Montelieu calls Mr. Frederick Mortimer a liar, a
big liar, or something to that effect, and challenges him to a fight,
with a view of either blowing out his already small modicum of brains,
or having the exceedingly few blown out, which he himself (Mr.
Theodore Montelieu) possesses. Mr. Mortimer, however, being a hero,
declines fighting, and contents himself, for the present, with looking
mysterious.
It will now be seen that matters are coming to a crisis. Mr. Mortimer
is obliged to go to Philadelphia; but, lest Mr. Montelieu should whisk
off the heiress in his absence, he insists upon that gentleman bearing
him company. Having reached, however, the city of brotherly love, the
ingenious young man gives his keeper the slip, hurries back to
Vermont, and gets every thing ready for his wedding. Miss Montargis is
very angry and talks about the inexplicable ring, fate, fore-knowledge
and free will—but old Clermont, the Baron, and Mr. Montelieu, on the
other hand, get in an absolute passion and talk about nothing less
than the old Baron Rheinswald and his “eternal curse.” The ceremony
therefore proceeds, when just at the most proper moment, and all as it
should be, in rushes—Mr. Frederick Mortimer!—it will be seen that he
has come back from Philadelphia. He assures the company that the Count
Laniski, (that is to say Mr. Theodore Montelieu,) is not the Count
Laniski at all, but only Mr. Theodore Montelieu; and moreover, that he
himself (Mr. Frederick Mortimer) is not only Mr. Frederick Mortimer,
but the bonâ fide Count Laniski into the bargain. And more than this,
it is very clearly explained how Miss Laura Montargis is not by any
means Miss Laura Montargis, but only the Baroness de Thionville, and
how the Baroness de Thionville is the wife of the Baron de Thionville,
and how, after all, the Baron de Thionville is the Count Laniski, or
else Mr. Frederick Mortimer, or else—that is to say—how Mr. Frederick
Mortimer is'nt altogether the Count Laniski, but—but only the Baron de
Thionville, or else the Baroness de Thionville—in short, how every
body concerned in the business is not precisely what he is, and is
precisely what he is not. After this horrible development, if we
recollect, all the dramatis personæ faint outright, one after the
other. The inquisitive reader may be assured, however, that the whole
story ends judiciously, and just as it ought to do, and with a very
excellent quotation from one of the very best of the “late writers.”
Humph! and this is the “Swiss Heiress,” to say nothing of the “Bride
of Destiny.” However—it is a valuable “work”—and now, in the name of
“fate, fore-knowledge and free will,” we solemnly consign it to the
fire.