CHAPTER I.

Transcriber's Notes:

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(https://books.google.com/books?id=2HRo7SbNiJoC)

COLLECTION

OF ANCIENT AND MODERN

BRITISH

NOVELS AND ROMANCES.

VOL. CXLVII.

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THE DESULTORY MAN.

THE

DESULTORY MAN.

BY THE AUTHOR OF

"RICHELIEU," "THE GYPSY," ETC.

PARIS:

BAUDRY'S EUROPEAN LIBRARY,

RUE DU COQ ST. HONORE.

SOLD ALSO BY AMYOT, RUE DE LA PAIX; TRUCHY,

BOULEVARD DES ITALIENS;

THEOPHILE BARROIS, JUN., RUE RICHELIEU;

LIBRAIRIE DES ETRANGERS,

RUE NEUVE SAINT AUGUSTIN.

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1836

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PRINTED BY A. BELIN, 55, RUE STE. ANNE.

DEDICATION.

TO MISS M. L. BOYLE.

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MY DEAR MISS BOYLE,

I dedicate to you a work, the greater part of which was written many

years ago, and long before I had the slightest intention of submitting

anything I wrote to public criticism. It was intended originally for

the amusement of some of my personal friends; but many of the papers

got beyond that limited circle, and some I published myself

anonymously in various periodicals [1]. Those which were so published,

received from persons whom I believed to be competent judges, so much

praise that I determined to attempt a longer and more laboured

composition, and to strive without concealment for the approbation of

the public. Many of my friends attempted to dissuade me from so doing;

and, while they assured me that they doubted not my capability of

acquitting myself well, endeavoured to make me look upon literary

efforts in a light in which such ennobling pursuits could never appear

to my eyes.

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[Footnote 1: N.B.--Many more of the tales contained

in these volumes have since been published in periodicals, and I

believe I may say without presumption that they have been uniformly

favourably received, though the author's name was withheld. Thus, as

near as possible, two-thirds of the work have been already before the

public.]

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Suspecting, notwithstanding their praises, that their view was, to

save me from a disappointment which they saw that my own want of

abilities would inevitably call upon me, I induced a friend to lay the

first volume of a romance I had begun, before one to whose judgment I

might well look with full reliance. The opinion which was pronounced

upon that volume led me to proceed at once, without hesitation; but

still I had many a voice raised, amongst my friends, against my

purposes. The dread of criticism was endeavoured to be instilled into

me, the difficulty of calling public attention was displayed to deter

me, the slight foundation for my hopes of fame, the anxiety of

suspense, and the bitterness of disappointment. But still, supported

by the opinion of a few in whom I had greater confidence, I

persevered; and never have regretted that I did so.

You, my dear young friend, are about to try the same adventure; and I

cannot do better than dedicate to you these pages, from the success of

which my first literary hopes were derived. At the same time I cannot

help feeling in regard to your forthcoming romance, a considerable

share of responsibility, as it is upon my opinion, given after having

read it through, and thought of it in every point of view, that you

are about to send it forth to seek the favour of the world. The

feeling of that responsibility has of course been increased by hearing

persons for whom we both entertain a high esteem, address to you the

same dissuasions which were employed towards myself at the outset of

my literary career, and by having been asked whether, with the deep

and sincere regard which my wife and myself feel towards you and all

the members of your immediate family circle, I can judge impartially

of your book. I feel the responsibility however without apprehension,

for I know that I am impartial: and the sincerity of my regard for you

and yours, instead of taking from my impartiality, has only rendered

it more stern and severe. I say to you now, as I said when first I

read the work, "Go on and fear not." I will stake any small literary

reputation I may possess upon your success. Whether the work may have

the vogue of some romances written upon the fashionable _coteries_ of

the day, I do not know; but I think it may have more; and I do not

scruple to assert that every one who can estimate genius guided by

high principles, and the poetry of the heart inspired by noble

feelings and guided by pure taste, will read that work (especially the

second volume) with delight and approbation. This is the best success

which can attend any work: those who are worthy of loving what is

good, and capable of appreciating what is beautiful, will admire and

approve; and a long line of illustrious ancestors, may--if such things

be permitted--look down on you with applause, as you send into the

world a book which contains so much of which you may be justly proud.

I say again, go on to success; and I may add, in the words of Francis

the First, "_Ma lance contre un écu d'Espagne, vous gagnerez la

partie_."

To you then I dedicate the following pages, not because I think them

at all worthy of your acceptance, but because they contain those

things from which I first obtained an augury of future success. May my

auguries in your favour be verified even more fully than in my own

case; but that they will be verified to the full extent of your

expectations, is the strongest conviction of,

My dear Miss Boyle,

Yours most truly,

G. P. R. JAMES.

_The Cottage, Great Marlow_,

26th September, 1836.

THE

DESULTORY MAN.

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Ven dulce soledad, y al alma mia

Libra del mar horrisono agitado

Del mundo corrompido

Y benign la paz y la alegria

Vuelve al dolcente corazon.--MELENDEZ.

I sit alone, with time sufficient before me to put down a record of

the last year of my existence, and with the desire, if be possible, to

gather together into one view, all the thoughts and feelings, and

incidents and anecdotes, which have filled up one of the most painful

periods of my existence. Of the many acts which went before that epoch

I must speak, though briefly, in order that others may comprehend how

I am what I am; but I will not dwell thereon, for the detail might be

tedious to others, and in some degree would be painful to myself,

although, in looking back upon the occurrences of those earlier years,

I already begin to experience that sort of interest which clings in

general to the past. Time acts upon events as upon fine pictures,

softening every harshness, mellowing every tint, and blending all into

richness and harmony. It is true that sometimes he takes away the

brighter colours, and leaves but the darker shades, and in the end is

sure to obliterate all entirely: but even to the last, there is a

pleasure in tracing the faint remains of things once bright, as we

gaze upon an old painting, and seek out, amidst the wreck of beauties,

those that the waves of time have not yet swept away.

The very mention of those days calls up again to view the events they

brought with them, almost as vividly as at the time. In solitude and

silence the images of a thousand things, gone for ever, come back upon

my mind. The past alone is ours; it is our grand possession in the

wilderness of time; it is all that we call our own. Memory fixes her

eyes ever upon it, like a miser watching his treasure, and culls out

the brightest recollections, to place them at the top of her store.

Fancy seeks there for many of the materials for the gay fabrics of

imagination; and wisdom, too, borrows from the past to provide against

the future. Pilgrims as we are, wandering on towards a distant shrine,

over a rough and painful road, let us pluck the wild blossoms that

grow by the road to deck our pillow, ere we lay down to rest; and

though perhaps we can neither give to our own tale, or to that of

others, the same interest with which we have felt or have listened,

still let us gather up, ere it fades into forgetfulness, all that the

old reaper Time lets fall upon our path.

I know not well whether I write for myself or others: whether these

pages will alone serve to recall to my own mind, in after years,

events and tales that are now vivid, but may then be partly effaced

from the tablet of memory; or whether they will afford some amusement

and some instruction to persons who neither know the writer nor are

acquainted with his history. Lest the latter should be the case, I

write the following sketch of my early years:

My name, then, is James Young, and I was born the second son of an

officer in the navy, who had fought in the battle which destroyed the

fleet of Llangara, and in that which immortalized the name of Rodney,

who gained honour and glory, but little worldly wealth; and died in

battle when I had reached the age of eight years, leaving an income of

about twelve hundred per annum for the support of his widow and two

children. I remember well, even at this moment, the people telling me

that my father was dead, and endeavouring to explain to me what death

is. But though I could understand that I should never see my parent

again, and wept bitterly to think that it was so, yet I could not get

my mind to grasp the meaning of being dead, till an accidental

occurrence, which took place a few weeks after the news of my father's

death had reached England, gave me the first tangible idea of death,

and filled me with awe and horror. I had gone out with my brother, who

was five or six years older than myself, and was walking on with him

rapidly towards Hyde Park, when at the corner of Grosvenor Square we

saw a crowd gathered round the step of a door, which I think at that

time belonged to the house of Admiral Berkeley. With boyish curiosity

we pressed near, and I heard some one say as we approached, "Oh! the

man is dead, quite dead, you had better get a shutter, and carry the

body to the workhouse."

The idea of death had never ceased to occupy my mind and excite my

curiosity since I had been told that my father was dead; and I

instantly cried out, "Is he dead? Oh, let me look at him--let me look

at him!" The sound of my childish voice uttering such an exclamation

caught the attention of those around, and whether they believed that I

might be related to the dead person, or were actuated merely by a

sudden impulse, I cannot tell, but they made way instantly, and

letting me into the circle, stood round with a part of their attention

now withdrawn from the former object of their contemplations to

myself, as I stood habited in deep mourning, gazing upon the body,

with all the simplicity, but more than the feelings, of childhood. The

dead man was dressed like a respectable tradesman, and had, I suppose,

fallen down in a fit of apoplexy; but there he lay with his jaw

dropping upon his throat, his glassy eyes wide open, and his limbs

stretched out in all the rigidity of death. People may say what they

please on the similarity of sleep and death, but, even to a child, the

awful difference of the two was so conspicuous, that it seemed to

freeze the blood in my young heart, and I never asked what death is

again.

My brother was destined for the navy, and my father had fancied that

his family interest was sufficiently good to obtain for me the post of

_attaché_ to some embassy, by which means he hoped that I might be

enabled to make my way in the diplomatic world. Four hundred a-year,

three on my reaching one-and-twenty, and one hundred in reversion,

after my mother's death, he had calculated would be sufficient to

procure me the proper education for that mode of life to which I was

destined, and to support me during the toils and privations of the

probationary state of unpaid _attachéship_. The rest of his fortune,

sooner or later, was willed to my brother; and, joined to my mother in

our guardianship and the execution of his will, was his banker and old

friend, Mr. Somers, of whom I shall have to speak much more hereafter.

Within a year after my father's death my brother went to sea, and I

was sent to school, in order to gain so much Latin and Greek as are

needful to an _attaché_, but with especial injunctions to my master to

bestow far more attention upon the living than upon the dead

languages. I was at this time a gay and lively boy, full of fun,

daring, and impudence, but with what neither I nor any one else

suspected, namely, a wild and ungovernable imagination, which was

constantly leading me into scrapes during my youth, and which has

been, by turns, my bane and my consolation since I reached the days of

manhood. The French master at the school was an emigrant and a

gentleman, both by birth and habits; and as the instructions which he

had to bestow upon me were more extended than those which he was

called on to give the rest of the boys, it very naturally happened,

that a closer intimacy and regard took place between us than existed

between himself and the others. I liked his language, too, and his

manners; and soon finding out that my imagination was of a very

irritable nature, he kindly, but perhaps injudiciously, supplied it

with plenty of food, either by telling me tales of the wars of La

Vendée, or by lending me books which he received from a circulating

library to which he subscribed. Although French notions of delicacy

and morality are very different from our own, it is but fair to say,

that in every other respect but that of furnishing excitement to a

fancy already too excitable, he showed much care and prudence in the

books which he selected for me. Poetry he gave me abundantly, both

French and English, but it was of the best kind, and with books of

travels he also supplied me, which sometimes certainly raised my

curiosity on points that might as well have been left to elucidate

themselves, but which had no tendency to weaken my mind or corrupt my

morals. I was idle enough, certainly, but I was tolerably quick in

intellect, and consequently contrived to please all the different

masters in a certain degree, though those I liked best were certain

both to command more of my attention and respect than the others.

At the end of six months I returned home for the holidays, and, on the

very first interrogation in reference to my progress at school,

established, to my mother's full satisfaction, the fact of my being a

miracle of genius and application. Mr. Somers, the banker, had come

down himself to bring me home in his carriage, and after leaving me

some hours with my mother he returned to dine, bringing with him his

little daughter as a playfellow for me. He was a kind good-hearted

man; and, after asking we several questions, to satisfy himself that I

had not misused my time, _he_ also declared himself perfectly

satisfied. I remarked, that both he himself, his servants, and his

daughter, who was then about six years old, were all in mourning, and

I afterwards found that he had lost his wife some months before.

I need dwell no further on my life at school, though the mixed

character of the studies which I there pursued, and the nature of the

books with which the good-natured Frenchman supplied me, gave that

desultory character to my mind which it has never lost. I had a great

greediness for information, without much regularity of arrangement or

steadiness of pursuit; and when I left that school, which was at the

end of two years and a half, I knew a great many things that other

boys did not know, and a great deal less of many things than they did

know.

What was the occasion of my quitting the school remains to be told.

About half a year before I did quit it, my mother became Mrs. Somers,

and my brother, whose ship was at Deal, was present, as well as

myself, at the wedding, which was to give us a new father and a new

home. Mr. Somers was very kind, and looked very happy; my mother was

serious, but her vanity was flattered in various respects, and she

easily found means to persuade herself that she was doing what was

quite right and expedient. My brother, as smart as a naval uniform

could make him, was as gay as a lark, and in robust health; and little

Emily Somers, who was now a sweet girl of about eight years old,

looked all delight, and was only too sure that she should love her new

mamma most dearly. Strange enough to say, I was the only person who

did not fully participate in the gaiety of the occasion. I had been, I

am afraid, a spoilt child; my mother had seemed to love me better than

any thing on earth; and certain it is that, even at that early age, I

felt a degree of jealousy when I thought of any one else except my

brother sharing in her affection. My poor brother was soon destined to

leave me alone in her love. He returned to his ship as soon as the

wedding breakfast was over, and shortly after sailed for the coast of

Spain. One epistle, dated Gibraltar, informed us that he was well and

happy, but the next ship-letter my mother received was written in the

hand of the captain--an old comrade of my father--and its purport was

to inform her, that her eldest son had fallen a victim to one of the

severe fevers which occasionally visit the Peninsula.

My worldly prospects were of course greatly changed by this event. I

was far too young myself--even if at any time of life I could have

known such feelings--to derive the smallest portion of consolation for

the loss of my brother from the acquisition of fortune which thus

befell me: but my mother and Mr. Somers saw the affair both in an

affectionate and in a worldly light. They both grieved sincerely, I am

sure, for my brother, who was, as Mr. Somers declared, a very good lad

indeed; but they both agreed also, that there was a considerable

difference between four hundred and twelve hundred per annum; and my

mother was delighted to believe, and Mr. Somers well pleased to

suggest, that a private tutor might now very well be kept for me at

home, instead of putting Mrs. Somers to the pain of having me always

at a distance from her maternal eye. Thus I at once received the news

of my brother's death and a summons to return to Portland Place, which

was destined to be my home till I set out in the world for myself.

On my arrival I found my mother installed mistress of a splendid

mansion, furnished newly from the garrets to the cellars, with a very

kind and affectionate husband, and a lovely little girl for her

companion in the person of his daughter. Her affection for myself,

however, seemed to have increased rather than diminished, and it was

easy to perceive that my will was to be her law. Two years before,

such a perception would have ruined my disposition for ever, but I had

already been some time at a school with, a great many boys older than

myself. I had been drilled into some kind of discipline by the

masters, and beaten into some knowledge of myself by my elders in the

school. I had learned also a habit of scrutinizing my own thoughts and

feelings, as well as those of other people, very unusual at that

period of life, which has never left me, though I acknowledge that I

have but too often been wrong in my conclusions, not only in regard to

others, but even respecting myself. If our fellows in society can, for

purposes of their own, throw a veil over their actions which we can

seldom penetrate, surely vanity, passion, interest, and every other

modification of selfishness, can, with art a thousand-fold more

specious, still conceal from us the springs and motives of what is

passing in our own bosom. It is only long-confirmed habit, dear-bought

experience, and strong determination, which can tear away the mask

successfully in either case. However, I had a strong sense of what is

just and right also, and I was not long in perceiving that my mother

not only loved me a great deal better than little Emily

Somers--which I should not have objected to, because it seemed

natural--but she also contrived to show that partiality in a manner

which was not fair towards Emily. What Emily did was seldom

right--what Emily said was always nonsense with her stepmother--and

many and many a time have I had to fight Emily's battles, and defend

Emily's cause, and petition in Emily's behalf, when the dear little

creature neither did, nor said, nor desired, any thing but what was

right. Emily felt the change, and as yet remembered her own mother

sufficiently to weep over that change; but she was of a gay and happy

disposition, bearing no malice, forgetting injuries, retentive of

kindness, frank, true, and gentle; yet, withal, with a firmness of

determination on points where some internal principle of rectitude

told her that she should be firm, which contrasted strangely enough

with the general mildness and placidity of her character. I could,

were I so inclined, write down a thousand examples of this peculiar

trait in her character; but as I intend merely to give a sketch of

those years, it will be unnecessary. Suffice it, that when Emily had

positively pledged herself to do or not to do any particular thing, no

one attempted to turn her from it, for we all learned to know that it

would be in vain.

It must be added, however, that these firm resolves were but seldom

taken, and then only upon great occasions, when we were sure, sooner

or later, to discover that Emily was right, for they were the

offspring of firmness and not obstinacy, and I have often seen her

execute her resolve with tears, so great was the struggle between her

inclination and her sense of right.

Soon after my arrival in London, a tutor was found for me, and brought

with him to our family a strong recommendation. Yet, although he was a

learned and clever man, I am not sure that he was exactly the person

best calculated to bring up a youth of a fiery temperament and an

erratic imagination like myself. He had been long in Germany, it

seems, where his mind had become strongly tinged with a sort of

mysticism, a small portion of which soon communicated itself to me,

and which only served to set my fancy wandering more wildly still. But

that was not alone the evil which his residence in foreign lands had

wrought in him. His moral principles had become strangely twisted, and

though he advocated most eloquently the strictest adherence to truth,

and was most rigorous and exact in his notions of justice and equity,

yet, upon many other points, his notions were sadly relaxed. He was a

tall uncouth man, too; by no means thin, but with no breadth of bone,

and only gifted with a considerable quantity of muscle and fat,

covering a frame originally long and narrow. Nor were his manners

peculiarly pleasant, though they were by no means harsh or rude, but

he was extremely fond of a joke, and knew no limit in pursuing it:

often too, before the joke was apparent to other people, his fancy,

tickled by some internal movement of his own mind, would set him off

into long fits of laughter, during which his eyes would stream and his

shoulders shake as if he were actually in convulsions.

Under his care and instructions I remained seven years, reading when

it pleased me, for my mother took care that my own will was the only

measure of my studies. Nevertheless, I read a great deal; for when I

was fatigued by great corporal exercise, the craving of my mind for

constant employment always returned, and I sat down with greediness to

whatever was presented to me. A good deal of Latin, a very little

Greek, an immensity of French, and a certain portion of Italian and

Spanish, were thus run through, with, perhaps, little benefit; but the

whole system of my studies, if that can be called system which had no

regularity, was altered from what it had been when I was at school. It

was my tutor's maxim that a man was born to know every thing, and

consequently, no expurgated editions were put into my hand. The

warmest of the Latin poets, and the least chaste of the French and

Italian, were given to me without ceremony; and where I wanted notes

or interpretations, my worthy tutor supplied them fully, sometimes in

a grave and scientific manner, sometimes laughing till he was ready to

fall from his chair. Immense quantities of English also did I read,

ancient and modern, good and bad--Milton's purity and Rochester's

filth; Southey's inimitable poetry, and the novels of Maria Regina

Roche. Four books especially took possession of my imagination, and

remain to the present time amongst those in which I can read every

day. They were the Arabian Nights, Don Quixote, Gil Blas, and

Southey's Curse of Kehema. My love for Shakspeare, Milton, and

Wordsworth, came at an after period; and towards the age of seventeen,

I began to read the romances of Sir Walter Scott--works which were

calculated to do my mind the most infinite service, to blend the love

of virtue with the spirit of adventure, and tame wild imagination to

the uses of the world.

Fencing, riding, cudgel-playing, varied the time with mathematics,

geometry, and astronomy. History came in for a great portion of my

attention, and books of travels maintained their share. Thus did I

become one of the most desultory beings that the world ever produced;

so that, before I was eighteen years of age, my mind was literally

like a pawnbroker's shop, full of an odd assemblage of unconnected

things, huddled together in the storehouses of memory, unmarked and

disarranged, and difficult to be got at. Many of these stores also

were calculated to be injurious to me in various ways; they did prove

so, certainly, in some degree; but that they did not become more so, I

owe, I believe, to two causes--first, my early fondness for the

writings of Southey, where virtue, robed in poetry and eloquence, is

splendid enough to catch even imagination; and next, my having fallen

in love before I was much exposed to the temptations of the world.

The reader--if any one do read these pages--will easily divine the

object of that early, but not less permanent, affection. Emily Somers

had become, from the circumstances which I have related, my little pet

and protégée. I loved her because I protected and defended her even

against one whom I loved also. But soon I began to take an interest in

the development of her mind, and I used to write out the purest and

most beautiful passages of all I read, to read to her again; and

learned to love her from the sympathy and the reciprocation of mutual

ideas which this produced: but, by the time I was eighteen and she was

sixteen, other feelings began to make themselves felt in my bosom.

Then came the period when, from a very pretty child, she burst forth

into one of the loveliest girls that it was possible to behold, and I

soon learned to love with all the ardent and thrilling passion of

manhood. Such is the history of my affection for her, and it is hardly

necessary to say that it was returned. She had known me from infancy;

she had never met with any thing but kindness at my hands; she had

made me on all occasions her protector and her confidant; and she had

found something even in the faults and foibles of which my character

was composed to excite her interest. Neither did she see much of any

one who was likely to compete with me in any respect. Our society,

though large, was rather general than intimate; my mother was very

averse to the idea of introducing Emily, what she called, _too soon_;

and thus, before she mingled with the world, her heart was given never

to be recalled.

Roving over the earth as I did, from time to time, I had made some

friends and a good many acquaintances; but I did not give them great

facilities of rivalling me in Emily's affection. At Mr. Somers's house

I had my own apartments, where I received my own visitors--not indeed

with any confessed purpose of keeping them away from Emily, but

perhaps with some latent feeling of jealousy, which endured till I

felt certain that I possessed her love in return. In such matters I

was much more learned than she was, and soon found out the state of my

own heart, but I did not so easily convince myself of the state of

her's; for sisterly affection was too cold a return to satisfy so

ardent a nature as mine, and I feared that the feelings which she

entertained towards me might be of no warmer a kind. Perhaps, indeed,

if I had always remained near her, her feelings might have remained

such as I feared they might be; but I was absent from time to time,

and returned from a long visit to Paris, just at that period of

Emily's life when a woman's heart is most open to the more powerful

affections. That she would marry me if I asked her, I felt sure, but I

wished her to love me with all that thrilling ardour which I felt

towards her, and I only learned to believe that she did so by one of

those sudden glimpses which accident sometimes gives us into the

best-concealed feelings. I was accustomed to treat her in every

respect as a sister, to employ every endearing term towards her, and

to use all those kind familiarities which one does to a dear and near

relative. Thus one day, when I was in my twentieth year, and she was

approaching eighteen, I returned from some visits I had been paying,

and, finding her alone in the drawing-room at work, I sat down beside

her, and threw my arm lightly round her.

"I have been spending part of the morning, Emily," I said, "with your

friend Helen ----" (naming a very lovely girl, who was a frequent

visitor at our house); and, as I spoke, I could see the colour come

and go in Emily's cheek in a manner that excited my curiosity.

After a moment, however, she raised her eyes, and said, "She is a very

charming girl indeed, James, and I dare say will make an amiable

wife."

"I dare say she will, Emily," I answered with a smile; "pray do you

know who is to be the happy man?"

"Oh, James, James," she said, shaking her head in a manner that she

meant to be wholly playful, but which certainly had a touch of sadness

in it, "do not try to be mysterious with me, my dear brother. I heard

papa and mamma talking about it this morning, and saying what a good

thing it would be for you and her."

"And did you believe it, Emily?" I exclaimed. "Could you be so

mistaken? But I am glad you have told me, dear girl, for certainly I

will never set my foot in that house again alone, till Helen ---- is

married."

"Dear me! I have forgot something up stairs," cried Emily, starting up

and going towards the door with her face turned entirely from me. But

she passed two looking-glasses ere she reached the end of the room,

and the first showed me something very bright swimming in her eyes and

reflecting the light from the windows; the second displayed those

bright drops running rapidly over her eyelashes, and rolling down her

cheeks. I was by her side in a moment, and, closing the door she had

partly opened, I drew her gently back to the sofa, where, holding her

fondly to my heart, I kissed away the tears from that beloved cheek.

"Dear Emily," I said, "never believe that I am going to marry any one

in the whole world, if Emily Somers will not accept me herself."

It were tedious, perhaps, to detail all that followed. I soon gained a

confession that I was loved as I could desire, but I could not make

Emily promise to be mine positively, till I had spoken both to her

father and my mother, and as we knew that neither would consent to our

union before I had reached one-and-twenty years of age, and judged

that they might make us spend the interval apart if we mentioned the

matter before, we determined--or rather I determined both for Emily

and myself--to say nothing upon the subject till that period had

arrived. The familiarity which had already existed between us gave us

every opportunity of expressing our feelings to each other, and I

promised Emily to claim her hand without further concealment, on the

very day that should see me the master of my own actions.

I knew Emily too well to feel one doubt from the moment that she told

me her heart was mine, and I even took no small pleasure in seeing the

attention and admiration she excited when, at my wish, my mother took

her out into society, and gave several large parties at our own house,

for the purpose of introducing her. At these parties I paid her

ordinary attentions, but no more; and left her entirely to her own

guidance in regard to her conduct towards other men: and yet I cannot

but say, that amongst all who flattered, and courted, and sought the

beautiful heiress of the rich banker, I never saw her give the

slightest encouragement to any one but myself.

I was thus perfectly at my ease; but there was one person that

frequented our house, who was apparently far from being pleased at the

attentions which Emily received. This was the son of a man almost

omnipotent on the stock exchange. His father, born a Jew, and

converted to nominal Christianity by the revelations of self-interest,

had been early connected with Mr. Somers in large pecuniary

transactions, and Alfred Wild, the son, had, in consequence, always

been a privileged visitor in the family. He had received a good

education, was gentlemanly in his manners when no violent passion was

called into action, and often proved a pleasant companion to myself,

when I had nothing else to do. His face was fine, showing the

features of the Hebrew softened and refined by a considerable

admixture of Teutonic blood; his grandmother having been a German, and

his mother an Englishwoman; but at the same time, there were moments

when it assumed an expression both of cunning and of malice which was

any thing but agreeable. To me he was always excessively kind and

civil, and although from very early years he saw more of Emily than

any one else except myself, it never entered my thoughts to be jealous

of him, nor indeed to fancy that he had any particular affection

towards her, till I saw the uneasiness which he could not conceal,

when at any of our parties she was singled out as an object of

attention and admiration by other men. Even when I did perceive this

fact, it gave me no apprehension, for of Emily I was sure; and with

the rest of the family, it was the tale of the village schoolmaster

over again: my mother I had commanded all my life, and she completely

commanded Mr. Somers.

At length my twenty-first birthday arrived, and upon it had been fixed

three great events by the members of our family. Mr. Somers had

previously reserved that morning for winding up his accounts with me

as executor to my father. I had appointed it in my own mind as the day

for demanding Emily's hand, and my mother had issued cards both for a

great dinner-party and for a ball at night. My first meeting on that

morning was with Emily, and a dear and tender meeting it was. I next

visited my mother in her bed-room, where she always breakfasted, and to

her I first told my purpose with regard to Emily. At first she seemed

very much surprised and a little vexed; but Emily had grown

wonderfully in her good graces since she came out, and after a little

while, she told me, only to make my proposal to Mr. Somers, and then

to refer him to her, when she would settle every thing with him as I

wished it.

Poor Emily I could see was in a terrible state of agitation during

breakfast; but I gained a moment ere I followed her father to the

library, to tell her that I had spoken with my mother and obtained her

full consent. Nothing could have afforded her more relief; for towards

her, when my mother did not interfere, Mr. Somers was indulgence

itself, and she had no doubt of his approbation, as soon as she heard

that my mother's had been obtained. The first part of my business with

Mr. Somers was somewhat tedious; for he insisted upon my looking over

the executorial and guardianship accounts, item by item, and then,

taking me to the bank, put me in possession of my own property,

amounting now, by his excellent management, to more than twelve

hundred per annum, independent of my mother's jointure, which was

settled upon a small landed estate.

When this was all done, and we had returned to the house in Portland

Place, I shook my good step-father by the hand, and thanked him warmly

for all the kindness he had shown me, as well as for the prudence and

skill with which he had managed to increase so largely my little

patrimony. "And now, my dear sir," I added, "you very well know that

one favour done always brings on a demand for another; so I am going

to ask you for a present."

"What is that? what is that?" demanded Mr. Somers. "Very happy I am

sure, my dear boy, to give you any thing I have. What is it? Oh, I

guess! The chestnut mare! Well, you may have her. Take her, take her;

she is too gay for me--getting old and heavy, James, now. Take her,

take her!"

"You mistake me, my dear sir," I replied. "The gift I ask is much more

valuable than that. It is neither more nor less than the hand of your

daughter Emily."

The idea had evidently never crossed Mr. Somers's mind till that

moment; and from some cause my application seemed to embarrass him.

"Dear me! Dear me!" he exclaimed, walking up and down the library; "I

declare I do not know what to do--I have not committed myself,

certainly--but yet--well, it does not signify--but what will your

mother say?"

"My mother gives us her full consent, my dear sir," I replied, "and

desired me to beg that you would speak with her on the subject."

"Certainly, certainly! Of course I shall," replied Mr. Somers. "But

what says poor little Emily?--You have taken care to secure her, you

dog, I am sure? What says the poor dear girl?"

"Secured her affection I hope I have, my dear sir," I replied; "but

still she has bound herself by no promises."

"No, no! quite right," replied Mr. Somers; "nor I either, luckily. But

I'll go and speak with your mother, James--I'll go and speak with your

mother;" and he walked towards the door. Ere he reached it, however,

he turned, and, holding out his hand to me, added, "I'm sure you know,

my dear boy, that I will never oppose any thing that may be conducive

to the happiness of Emily and yourself. There may have been a little

talk between me and an old friend about her marriage with some one

else; but I have not committed myself, and I will not oppose your

wishes; so go and tell her so, and make her mind easy, poor girl."

The consultation between Mr. Somers and my mother was soon brought to

a close, and I was called to hear the result. After a sort of half

explanation, by which I found that Mr. Somers, as he had before

hinted, had embarrassed himself by speaking of Emily's marriage to

somebody else, I was told that if I would consent to go abroad again

for half a year, we should be united on my return; but that in the

mean time, I was to leave matters exactly as they were, so that if any

one else made their proposal, Emily might be able to say that it was

from her own free will that she rejected him. As far as I was

concerned this was quite satisfactory, feeling as sure of Emily's

conduct as if she had been already my wife; but to guard her from

troublesome importunity, I made it a stipulation that no one else was

to be suffered to press their suit upon her after the first proposal,

and that in all cases her rejection was to be considered definite.

This was agreed to; and when Mr. Somers was gone, my mother informed

me that this arrangement had been made solely to give him time to

extricate himself from his embarrassment, in order that no persons

might say he had been misleading them with false hopes. She herself,

however, undertook to guard Emily for me, and if possible to keep all

other suitors from teasing her during my absence.

I soon found that she instantly employed the surest means of obtaining

that object by spreading the report of a positive engagement between

Emily and myself. Her maid was first made the depositary of the

secret, and thence it proceeded upwards and downwards in all

directions, so that, ere dinner-time, it had reached my own servant,

who, while I was dressing, congratulated me on the occasion in all due

form. From him also I first learned positively who was the rival

aspirant to the hand of my sweet Emily; for my mother (I suppose from

fears of my violence) had refused to tell me; but my servant had been

recommended to me by no other than my worthy acquaintance, Alfred

Wild, and now with tender malevolence, while he offered me his

felicitations upon my approaching happiness, he took an opportunity of

commiserating the disappointment of his late master and patron.

The day ended happily, Albert Wild did not make his appearance,

Emily's mind was calm, and mine was full of hope and delight. The idea

of visiting the continent was not at all disagreeable to me. I would

certainly rather have taken Emily with me, but I had a great deal of

the boy still in my nature, and many and marvellous were the pleasures

which I anticipated from my short tour. Whither I was to direct my

steps, became the first question, but that was soon decided. I was not

disposed to wander far from home. Emily besought me not to go to

Paris, which I had visited twice before, and which was somewhat

disturbed at the time, and I determined to cross from Brighton to

Dieppe, and roam about Normandy and Brittany till the long six months

were expired. Amongst the desultory stores of information which I

possessed, I knew a good deal of those two provinces of Old France,

and looked forward with much pleasure to exploring a part of the

country, which at that time had not been so much betravelled as the

rest of the country; and as both Emily's heart and my own were

rendered more accessible than ever to all the wiles of imagination, I

willingly promised her to collect every tale and anecdote of the lands

through which I passed, and on my return to make her a sharer in all

the thoughts and feelings that my visit to a foreign country, under

such circumstances, called up in my bosom.

I will not dwell upon the pain I felt in quitting, even for a short

period, one so deeply beloved; for no one, with an imagination less

exciteable than mine was then, can conceive all the vague and whirling

visions of sorrow and misfortune which assailed me in bidding her

adieu for the first time since our affection for each other had grown

into maturity. At Brighton I met with an acquaintance who was bound

also to France, and we agreed to travel together as far as our roads

lay in the same direction. The passage took place without any

occurrence worthy of note, and late in the evening, or rather in the

beginning of the night, we arrived at Dieppe, and took up our abode in

the dwelling of Monsieur Petit, who, at that time, kept the only

tolerable inn which the place possessed.

Notwithstanding love, and the pain of quitting my native land, and the

somewhat sickening feeling of hope delayed, I slept as soundly as it

is possible for man to sleep, and woke late the next morning to see as

bright a sun as ever shone, pouring his rays in at the window. As soon

as I was dressed, I took out pencils and paper to sketch landscapes

and houses, and pen and ink to sketch men and events, and I seldom

ceased to employ either the one or the other for several months. I was

busily preparing them for use when in walked Monsieur Petit to wish me

good morning, and my meeting with him is the first sketch of that

year, the course of which I am about to detail.

THE RAMBLE.

Let them think as they will, so I might be at liberty to act as I

will, and spend my time in such a manner as is most agreeable to

me.--DR. ATTERBURY.

"Had I been you, Monsieur Petit," said I, pointing to the great black

rafters overhead, "when I built this house, I would have spared all

that useless wood in the _plafond_, and put it under my feet."

Monsieur Petit assured me, that he had nothing to do with it; for that

the house had been built a hundred years before he was born.

"I forgot," said I, looking at him, and drawing in my own mind a

comparison between the fat well-looking landlord, in his green

_redingote_, and the French innkeeper of a century ago, with his

powdered wig, sallow cheeks and long pigtail, "I forgot, you are

certainly of a newer make." It is truly a different animal, the breed

has changed amazingly.

"But the salon!" added the aubergiste, "the salon, where my friend

waited me to breakfast. He had arranged that himself, and I would

perceive that it was _d'un goût unique_."

I went down to the salon. It was indeed _d'un goût unique_. The walls

were painted in imitation of porphyry, with niches containing the

Venus and Apollo; but the floor was still of brick, the doors had no

idea of shutting, and Venus, with the true spirit of a _ci-devant_,

seemed more ashamed of the straw chairs and dirty deal table for ever

under her nose, than even of her nudity.

"What a strange nation this is!" thought I. Here you will find the

arts and sciences in a cottage, and the loves and graces in a kitchen;

and yet one is often obliged to pick one's steps in the corridor of

princes.

To my friend, France possessed more novelty than to me: and as we

sallied forth to examine the town, the first step in this _terra

incognita_, perhaps he thought me rather cold and uninquisitive; but

what was new to him was old to me, and it had thus lost a part of its

bright freshness. It is wonderful how soon the gilded outside of the

world tarnishes by use.

We wandered through the streets some time, and at length arrived at

the faubourg, called _le Pollet_, the only part of the ancient city of

Dieppe, which escaped the bombardment of 1694. The dress and customs

of its amphibious denizens begin to be somewhat adulterated with the

common modes of the day; but still they are a people quite distinct

from the rest of the inhabitants, and on their _fêtes_ may yet be seen

the red or blue close-fitting coat, with all the seams covered with a

broad white lace, and the black velvet cap, and the immeasurable

garment which clothes their nether man. Their language is also totally

unintelligible to the uninitiated, and there are many among them who

can scarcely speak a word of French.

It is not extraordinary that such people as the Welsh, the Highlanders

of Scotland, and the Bas Bretons, should maintain their ancient

habits; for they may be considered as separate nations; but it _is_

singular that the Polletais, surrounded by the French of Dieppe, and

in constant communication with them, inhabiting alone a petty suburb

of a petty town, should have preserved, from age to age, a total

separation in manner, dress, and language.

Besides the Pollet, the only object we met of any great interest was

the shop of an ivory-worker. In former days the Dieppois had a station

on the coast of Africa, called also Dieppe, which supplied France with

great quantities of spice, but more particularly with ivory; and it

is, perhaps, from this circumstance, that the people of this country

have carried the art of working in ivory to such a high degree of

perfection.

If I remember rightly, Ovid describes the statue of Pygmalion as of

ivory, and the beautiful copies we saw here of several celebrated

figures made me easily conceive how the Greek fell in love with his

own work. Indeed, so much in love were we with the work even of other

people (which never comes half so near our affections as our own),

that it was with some difficulty we got away from the shop, and did

not even do that, until our purses were lighter by several napoleons.

I would advise every one, in entering a foreign country, to remember

that he cannot buy everything, however cheap it may appear. Many a man

has ruined himself by such economy. The ivory we bought was certainly

well worth the money, but we acquired, in addition, a little anecdote

of Napoleon's wars. While we were occupied with our purchases, a young

Frenchman, with but one arm and a red ribbon at his button, looked in

and spoke a few words to the turner, who, after he was gone, told us

his history, with a mixture of fun and sentiment which is peculiarly

French. I afterwards passed through the country in which the scene was

laid, but will tell the story here.

THE RECOMPENSE[2]

The sun was shining as fair as the sun could shine in a beautiful May

morning; bright, yet gentle; warm, but fresh; midway between the

watering-pot of April and the warming-pan of June, when, in the

beautiful valley of Vire--every body knows Vire--but, lest there

should be anybody in the wide world who does not, I will point out the

means of arriving at it.

--------------------

[Footnote 2: Such was the original title of this tale, though it was

altered without my being consulted, when It first appeared, to that of

The Lovers of Vire.]

--------------------

Get into the stage-coach, which journeyeth diurnally between London

and Southampton; enjoy the smoothness of the road, bless Mr. M'Adam,

put up at the Dolphin, and yield yourself to the full delights of an

English four-post bed, for no such sweets as stage-coach, smooth road,

or four-post bed, shall you know from the moment you set your foot on

board the steam-boat for Havre, till the same steam-boat, or another,

lands you once more on the English strand.

Supposing you then arrived at Havre--get out of it again as fast as

you can; rush across the river to Honfleur; from Honfleur dart back to

Caen; and after you have paused five minutes to think about William

the Conqueror, put yourself into the diligence for St. Maloe, and when

you have travelled just twelve leagues and a half, you will come to a

long steep hill, crowned by a pretty airy-looking town, whose

buildings, in some parts gathered on the very pinnacle, in others

running far down the slope, seem as if coquetting with the rich

valleys that woo them from below.

Go to bed; and should you bathe your feet

beforehand--which if you are of our faction you will do--walk over the

tiled floor of the inn bed-room, that you may have a fit opportunity

of abusing tiled floors, and of relieving yourself of all the spleen

in your nature before the next morning. Then, if both your mood and

the day be favourably disposed, sally forth to the eastern corner of

the town, and you will have a fair view over one of the loveliest

valleys that nature's profuse hand ever gifted with beauty; the soft

clear stream of the Vire too, is there, winding sweetly along between

the green sloping hills and the rich woods, and the fields and

chateaux, and hamlets, and the sunshine catching upon all its

meanderings, and the birds singing it their song of love, as its calm

waters roll bountifully by them. Look upon it, and you will not find

it difficult to imagine how the soul, even of an obscure artisan in a

remote age, warmed into poetry and music in the bosom of that valley,

and by the side of that stream.

It, then, in that beautiful Vale of Vire, not many years agone at

Francois Lormier went out to take his last May walk with Mariette

Duval, ere the relentless conscription called him from his happy home,

his sweet valleys, and his early love. It was a sad walk, as may well

be imagined; for though the morning was bright, and nature, to her

shame be it spoken, had put on her gayest smiles as if to mock their

sorrow, yet the sunshine of the scene could not find its way to their

hearts, and all seemed darkened and clouded around them. They

talked a great deal, and they talked a long time; but far be

it from me to betray their private conversation. I would

not, for all the world--especially as I know not one word about

it--except, indeed, that François Lormier vowed the image of Marietta

should remain with him for ever; should inspire him in the battle, and

cheer him in the bivouac; and that Mariette protested she would never

marry anybody except François Lormier, even if rich old Monsieur

Latoussefort, the great Foulan, were to lay himself and fortune at her

feet; and in short, that when his "seven long years were out,"

François would find her still a spinster, and very much at his

service.

"Mais si je perdais une jambe?" said François Lormier.--"Qu'est ce

que c'a fait?" replied Mariette.

They parted--and first to follow the lady. Mariette wept a great deal,

but soon after got calm again, went about her ordinary work, sang her

song, danced at the village fête, talked with the talkers, laughed

with the laughers, and won the hearts of all the youths in the place,

by her unadorned beauty and her native grace. But still she did not

forget François Lormier; and when any one came to ask her in marriage,

the good dame her mother referred them directly to Mariette, who had

always her answer ready, and with a kind word and gentle look sent

them away refused, but not offended. At length good old Monsieur

Latoussefort presented himself with all his money-bags, declaring that

his only wish was to enrich his _gentile_ Mariette; but Mariette was

steady, and so touchingly did she talk to him about poor François

Lormier, that the old man went away with the tears in his eyes. Six

months afterwards he died, when, to the wonder of the whole place, he

left his large fortune to Mariette Duval!

In the mean while François joined the army, and, from a light handsome

conscript, he soon became a brave, steady soldier. Attached to the

great Northern army, he underwent all the hardships of the campaigns

in Poland and Russia, but still he never lost his cheerfulness, for

the thought of Mariette kept his heart warm, and even a Russian winter

could not freeze him. All through that miserable retreat, he made the

best of every thing. As long as he had a good tender piece of saddle,

he did not want a dinner; and when he met with a comfortable dead

horse to creep into, he found board and lodging combined. His courage

and his powers of endurance called upon him, from the first, the eyes

of one whose best quality was the impartiality of his recompense.

François was rewarded as well as he could be rewarded; but at length,

in one of those unfortunate battles by which Napoleon strove in vain

to retrieve his fortunes, the young soldier, in the midst of his

gallant daring, was desperately wounded in the arm. The star of

Napoleon went down, and foreign armies trod the heart of France.

Pass we over the rest.--Mutilated, sick, weary, and ragged, François

approached his native valley, and doubtful of his reception--for

misery makes sad misanthropes--he sought the cottage of Madame Duval.

The cottage was gone; and on inquiring for Madame Duval, he was

directed to a fine farm-house by the banks of the stream. He thought

there must be some mistake, but yet he dragged his heavy limbs

thither, and knocked timidly against the door.

"Entrez!" cried the good-humoured voice of the old dame. François

entered, and unbidden tottered to a chair. Madame Duval gazed on him

for a moment, and then rushing to the stairs called loudly, "Come

down, Marlette, come down, here is François returned!" Like lightning,

Mariette darted down the stairs, saw the soldier's old great-coat, and

flew towards it--stopped--gazed on his haggard face, and empty sleeve,

and, gasping, fixed her eyes upon his countenance. 'Twas but for a

moment she gaz12ed on him thus in silence; but there was no

forgetfulness, nor coldness, nor pride about her heart--there was

sorrow, and joy, and love, and memory in her very glance.

"Oh François, François!" cried she, at length, casting her arms round

his neck, "how thou hast suffered!" As she did so, the old great-coat

fell back, and on his breast appeared the golden cross of the legion

of honour. "_N'importe!_" cried she, as she saw it, "_Voilà ta

récompense_." He pressed her fondly to his bosom. "My recompense is

here," said he, "my recompense is here!"

THE PAINTINGS.

A painter must raise his ideas beyond what he sees, and form a model

of perfection in his own mind, which is not to be found in reality,

but yet such a one as is probable and rational.--RICHARDSON.

When I was a child, nothing pleased me so much as the woodcuts in

Gay's fables, and my nurse could do any thing with me if she promised

me a pretty picture. The taste has grown up with me, and I have as

much difficulty in passing a printseller's window without looking in,

as some people have in passing a book-stall. In returning from our

ramble, we fell upon a shop of the kind; but that which most amused us

was an engraving of the departure of Louis XVIII., on the return of

Napoleon from Elba. In truth, there was little to be represented,

except the good old king getting into his carriage in a great fright.

But the object of the painter was to represent the sorrow of the

people of Paris; and for this purpose he has drawn the two sentinels

in tears, one hiding his eyes with his hand, and the other on his

knees, not a little embarrassed with his musket, while a great many

other tragic attitudes were expended in the background. Frenchmen in

many of their undertakings seem striving to do better than nature,

and, consequently, nine times out of ten they caricature what they

attempt. Their most glaring efforts of this kind are in painting and

engraving, and there they appear to have totally forgotten that the

_beau ideal_ does not consist in generating what nature never

produced, but in assembling the most beautiful objects which naturally

harmonize together.

Painting is one of the most purely imitative of the arts, and the

utmost licence which its greatest masters have allowed it, is simply

the power of choosing and combining what is pleasing to the eye, and

rejecting all that can offend it. This, however, does not content the

present school of painting in France. They must have something such as

never was, and never will be, and in their colouring especially they

have succeeded to a miracle.

David's naked Spartans are brilliant instances of how far art can go

beyond nature; for certainly never was any thing seen under heaven

like the skins of those polished gentlemen. Take away the shields and

helmets, and a very slight alteration would convert the three hundred

arming for Thermopylæ, into Diana and her nymphs bathing; and even

then they would be somewhat too pretty, for without doubt the

goddess's hunting-parties, gave her a much more russet tint than David

has thought proper to bestow upon the hardy warriors of Greece.

Perhaps the great corrector of all things, time, may deprive these

pictures of their adventitious glare of colouring; but even then,

though they may be admired for their fine bold outline, one violent

defect can never be banished, the forced and extravagant attitudes of

some of the principal figures. David had certainly a strange penchant

for sans-culotteism; he never missed an opportunity of leaving his

heroes without any apparel except a helmet, which sits rather

preposterously on a naked man.

The grand and dignified simplicity of the ancient masters forms a most

striking contrast with the laboured and overcharged productions of the

present French school. A modern painter, certainly possessing very

great talent, has attempted a picture of the deluge. He has crowded

into it great many horrors, all very horrible; but the principal group

will be sufficient. It consists of a family vainly endeavouring to

escape from the surrounding destruction by climbing a rock in the

foreground. The agonies of such a moment might have been expressed

most touchingly, had the artist chosen to keep within the bounds of

moderation: but no, he must out-herod Herod; and, consequently, he has

contrived to make one of the most dreadful situations the human mind

can conceive actually ludicrous.

The principal figure is that of a man, who, like pious Æneas,

carries his father on his back, certainly not in the most elegant or

picturesque attitude possible, while with one hand he pulls his wife

up after him rather unceremoniously. The wife for her part suffers

considerable inconvenience from a young gentleman behind, who, having

a mortal aversion to being drowned, has got his mother fast hold by

the hair, by means of which he almost pulls her head off her

shoulders.

The whole family are certainly not very comfortably situated; and, in

fact, the old gentleman who is riding on his son's shoulders is the

only one at all at his ease, and he appears to have a very good seat,

and not to care much about it. Yet I have heard this picture lauded to

the skies both in France and England.

Poussin painted a picture on the same subject. It scarcely could be

surpassed. The scene is a wild mountainous desert, which the

ever-rising waters have nearly covered. The ark is seen floating in

the distance, and a solitary flash of lightning, shown dimly through

the thick rain, breaks across the lurid clouds in the background.

Amongst the dull bleak rocks in front, a monstrous serpent winds its

way slowly up, to avoid the growing waves. The sky lowers upon the

earth, and the earth looks heavily back to the sky: all is wild,

silent, and solemn; one awful gloom, and mighty desolation.

In every art but that of music, and perhaps even there in a degree,

nature furnishes us with a standard by which to regulate our taste. In

judging of what is most beautiful in nature herself, there may be many

opinions; but that which is out of nature altogether must always be in

bad taste. The same Being which formed every thing in this beautiful

world formed equally our minds to enjoy and admire it. He made nature

for man, and man for nature, with perfect harmony between his soul and

all that surrounds it; and the least deviation from those forms, to

which the great Artist restrained his work is discord to the human

mind. Whenever we see any thing distorted from its original shape, or

represented in circumstances in which it could not have been placed,

without thinking, of why, our taste revolts as from something

impossible and untrue.

With respect to engraving I can say but little, as I have no knowledge

of the art; but it strikes me that in modern French prints, at least,

there is hardness without force, and feebleness without softness; nor

have I ever seen the beautiful roundness of flesh well represented.

A French, artist of some merit assured me, one morning, that the arts

had now migrated from Italy to receive their highest degree of

perfection in France. In that point, I believe, every other nation on

the face of the earth will be found to differ from this favoured

people.

But there is, however, one observation to be made, not only with

respect to painting, but to all other arts. They are far more

generally diffused in France than in England. The French have always

conceived perfection in the arts to be a part of the national glory.

Their king and statesmen have thought the encouragement of arts and

sciences at home, to be as much a part of their duty, as the defence

of their country in the field, or the maintenance of its interests in

the cabinet; and the wise spirit which has actuated them of course has

produced its result upon the minds of the people. The taste for what

is beautiful--one great step to the taste for what is good--is general

throughout France, and every one strives to gratify it in its degree.

Amongst us it is the wealthy and the great alone, who have the

inclination to seek, or the power to patronize, the arts; and

paintings or statues are found almost solely in their collections. In

France, every second person is taught to draw, whether he succeeds or

not. Every little town has its gallery and museum; all the world are

admitted to study if they like, and improve if they can; and the

chimney-sweep and the peer stand side by side to criticise or admire.

THE LOVER'S LEAP.

Hei milli quod nullis amor est medicabilis herbis.

A walk through a strange town after dark possesses fully as much

interest as a walk in the day-time, if it be but well timed and

properly conducted. There is a pleasure in the very act of exploring,

which can never be so fully enjoyed as when we find our way through

any unknown place half hidden in the obscurity of night. But it is

necessary that it should not be all darkness. We should choose our

time when the greater part of the people have shaken off the load of

cares which weigh them down in the light, and when national character

walks forth freed from the bonds of daily drudgery: yet it should be

long before man has extinguished his mimicry of heaven's best gift,

and whilst most of the shops are lighted up, shining out like diamonds

in the gloom around.

I had been preaching this doctrine to my friend after dinner, till I

fairly persuaded him to turn theory into practice, and try a night

ramble in the town of Dieppe; though our landlord, Monsieur Petit,

who, looking upon us as true Englishmen, doubtless counted upon our

drinking another bottle if we stayed at home, informed us that there

was absolutely _nothing_ to be seen in Dieppe, for that the _theatre_

was closed.

However, forth we sallied, like the Knight of La Mancha and his

Squire, in quest of adventures. At first we tumbled over some posts,

and then hid nearly fallen into the basin; but after this we found our

way into some of the principal streets, which were all filled with a

sauntering do-nothing crowd, and ringing with the idle merry laugh

which always springs from the careless heart of a Frenchman as soon as

he is free from labour or pain. There is no medium with him; merriment

or melancholy, and as much of the first with as little of the last as

Heaven chooses to send.

At the bottom of one of the streets was a low Gothic archway, with a

swinging door, which we saw move backwards and forwards to admit

several persons of a more serious demeanour than the rest. After

considering whether it was love or religion made them look so grave,

we concluded that it was the latter, and determined to attempt, in

person, the adventure of the swinging door, which soon admitted us

into a long high aisle. All was darkness except, where, at the further

extremity, appeared an illuminated shrine, from which sundry rays

found their way down the far obscurity of the church, catching, more

and more faintly, as they came upon the tall columns and the groins of

the arches, and throwing out the dark figures of the devotees who

knelt before the altar. The side aisles and more remote parts of the

building were scarcely at all affected by the light; but passing up in

the shadow of the arches to the right, we came suddenly upon a young

couple engaged in earnest conversation. Probably two of the many whose

open communion is barred by the hand of circumstance, and who had

chosen that spot to tell the feelings they were forced elsewhere to

hide.

The facility which the ceremonies of the Roman Catholic religion lend

to intrigue, requires no comment. But too often the ever-open churches

on the Continent are made a place of rendezvous; frequently with

thoughts which such a sacred spot should scare, but often also for

more pardonable purposes.

I remember a circumstance of the kind which happened under my own

eyes; but ere I begin to tell it or any other story, let me premise

that, as most of my tales are true tales, and as many of the people

who figure in them are still acting their part upon life's busy stage,

I must bargain for one concealment throughout, and take care not to

give the name of the particular person who played this or that part on

this or that occasion. Indeed, most frequently, I shall not even put

down, with any degree of accuracy, the name of the town or place in

which the various events occurred, for this very simple reason; that,

making no pretensions to novelty or invention, and all that I relate

being simple matter of fact, well known in the place where it

occurred, the anecdotes I relate would be easily attached to those who

were the principal actors therein.

Under this discreet view of the case, then, the distinctive

appellation of the town, city, or burgh, in which the following

circumstances occurred, shall be as tightly sealed up in silent

secrecy as a bottle of Hervey's sauce, Ball's patent mustard, or any

other savoury thing which it is difficult to open. However, though I

do not give the name, I may at least give the description, which,

indeed, is necessary to the right understanding of my story.

In a part of France, not a hundred miles from the fine port of St.

Malo, stands a town containing some eight thousand inhabitants;

anciently a fortified place of considerable strength. It is pitched on

the pinnacle of a high hill, with its antique battlements, covered

with time's livery, the green ivy and the yellow lichen, still

frowning over the peaceful valleys around, and crowning the rocky

ridge which confines the river Rance. That valley of the Rance is as

lovely as any in Europe; now spreading out for miles, it offers a wide

basin for the river, which, extending in proportion; looks like a

broad lake; now contracting to a narrow gorge, it confines the stream

between gigantic rocks that rise abruptly from its edge, and sombre

woods that dip their very branches in its waters. But it is where the

town, which I have just mentioned, first bursts upon the sight, that

the scenery is peculiarly picturesque. Winding through a deep defile

of rocks, which cut off the neighbouring view and throw a dark shadow

over the river, the stream suddenly turns a projecting point of its

shores, and a landscape of unequalled beauty opens on the sight. Rich

wooded valleys, with soft green slopy sides, broken with crags, and

diversified with hamlets, are seen diverging in every direction, with

the Rance winding forward in the midst of them; while high in air,

lording it over all around, rises the stately rock on which the town

is placed, with wall and battlement and tower hanging over its extreme

verge. In front, and apparently immediately under the town, though in

reality at about two miles distant from it, lies a high craggy piece

of ground, which the water would completely encircle were it not for a

narrow sort of isthmus which joins it to its parent chain of hills.

This is called the _Courbúre_, from the turn which the river makes

round it; and I notice it more particularly from being the exact scene

of my story's catastrophe.

In the town which I have above described, lived, sometime ago, a very

pretty girl, whom I shall designate by the name of Laure. Her mother

was well to do in the world; that is to say, as things go in Brittany,

where people can live splendidly for nothing at all, and do very well

for half as much. However, _Madame_ could always have her _pot au feu_

and her _poulet à la broche_, kept two nice country lasses, one as

cook and the other as _fille de chamber_, and had once a-year the new

fashions from Paris to demonstrate her gentility. Laure's father, too,

had left the young lady a little property of her own, amounting to

about eighty pounds per annum; so that, being both a fortune and a

belle, all the youth of the place, according to the old Scotch song,

were

Wooing at her,

Pu'ing at her,

Wanting her but could nae get her.

However, there was something about Laure which some called pride, and

others coldness; but which, in truth, was nothing more nor less than

shyness, that served for some time as a complete safeguard to her

maiden heart. At length the angel, who arranges all those sort of

things, singled out a young man at Rennes, called Charles ---- and

gave him a kick with his foot, which sent him all the way from Rennes

to the town in which Laure abode. It is but thirty miles, and angels

can kick much farther, if we may believe the Normans. (I cannot stop

for it now; but some other time, when the reader is in the mood, I may

relate that Breton story of Saint Michael and the Fiend, and you shall

hear how the saint kicked him from hill to hill for forty leagues or

more.)

However, Charles's aunt lived not far from Laure's mother, and many a

time had she vaunted the graces of her nephew's person. According to

her account he was as tall and as straight as a gas-lamp-post, as rosy

as a Ribston pippin; with eyes as brilliant as a red-hot poker, teeth

as white as the inside of a turnip, and his hair curling like the

leaves of a Savoy cabbage; in short, he was an Adonis, after her idea

of the thing: and Laure, having heard all this, began to feel a sort

of anxious palpitating sort of sensation when his coming was talked

of, together with sundry other symptoms of wishing very much to fall

in love.

At length his arrival was announced, and Madame ---- and Mademoiselle

Laure were invited to a _soirée_ at the house of Charles's aunt. Laure

got ready in a very great hurry, resolving, _primo_, to be frightened

out of her wits at him; and, _secondo_, not to speak a word to him.

However, the time came, and when she got into the room, she found

Monsieur Charles quite as handsome as his aunt had represented: but,

to her great surprise, she found him to be quite as timid as herself

into the bargain. So Laure took courage upon the strength of his

bashfulness; for though it might be very well for _one_, she saw

plainly it would never do for _two_. The evening passed off gaily, and

Laure, as she had determined from the first, went away over head and

ears in love, and left the poor young man in quite as uncomfortable a

condition.

I need not conduct the reader through all the turnings and windings of

their passion. Suffice it to say, that both being very active, and

loving each other very hard, they had got on so far in six weeks, that

their friends judged it would be necessary to marry them. Upon this

Laure's mother and Charles's aunt met in form to discuss

preliminaries. They began a few compliments, went on to arrange the

money matters, proceeded to differ upon some trivial points, grew a

little warm upon the subject, turned up their noses at each other,

quarrelled like Turks, and abused each other like pickpockets.

Charles's aunt called Laure's mother an old cat, or something

equivalent! and Laure's mother vowed that Charles should never have

her daughter, "she'd be hanged if he should!"

The two young people were in despair. Laure received a maternal

injunction never to speak to that vile young man again: together with

a threat of being locked up if she were restive. However, the Sunday

after Pâques, Laure's mother was laid up with a bad cold, and from

what cause does not appear, but Laure never felt so devout as on that

particular day. She would not have staid away from mass for all the

world. So to church she went, when, to her surprise and astonishment,

she beheld Charles standing in the little chapel of the left aisle.

"Laure," said he, as soon as he saw her, "ma chère Laure, let us get

out of the town by the back street, and take a walk in the fields."

Laure felt a good deal too much agitated to say her prayers properly,

and, looking about the church, she perceived that, as she had come

half an hour before the time, there was nobody there, so slipping her

arm through that of her lover, she tripped nimbly along with him down

the back street, under the Gothic arch and high towers of the old town

gate, and in five minutes was walking with him in the fields

unobserved.

Now what a long sad pastoral dialogue could one produce between

Laure and Charles as they walked along, setting forth, in the language

of Florian, and almost in the language of Estelle, the poetical

sorrows of disappointed love. It would be too long, however; and the

summary of the matter is, that they determined that they were very

unhappy--the most miserable people in existence--now that they were

separated from each other, there was nothing left in life worth living

for. So Laure began to cry, and Charles vowed he would drown himself.

Laure thought it was a very good idea, and declared that she would

drown herself too. For she had been reading all Saturday a German

romance, which taught such things; and she thought what a delightful

tale it would make, if she and Charles drowned themselves together;

and how all the young ladies would cry when they read it, and what a

pretty tomb they would have, with "Ci gissent Charles et Laure, deux

amans malheureux!" written upon it in large black letters; and, in

short, she arranged it all so comfortably in her own mind, that she

resolved she would not wait a minute.

As ill luck would have it, they had just arrived at that rocky point

which I have before described, called the _Courbúre_, when Charles and

Laure had worked each other up to the necessary pitch of excitement

and despair. The water was before them, and the only question was, who

should jump in first, for the little landing-place from which they

were to leap would hold but one at a time. Charles declared that he

would set the example. Laure vowed it should be no one but herself:

Charles insisted, but Laure, being nearest the water, gained the

contested point and plunged over.

At that moment the thought of what he was going to do came over

Charles's mind with a sad qualm of conscience, and he paused for an

instant on the brink. But what could he do? He could not stand by and

see the girl he loved drowned before his face, like an intruding rat

or a supernumerary kitten. Forbid it heaven! Forbid it love! So in he

went too--not at all with the intention of drowning himself, but with

that of bringing Laure out; and, being a tolerable swimmer he got hold

of her in a minute.

By this time Laure had discovered that drowning was both cold and wet,

and by no means so agreeable as she had anticipated, so that when

Charles approached, she caught such a firm hold of him as to deprive

him of the power of saving her. It is probable that under these

circumstances, her very decided efforts to demonstrate her change of

opinion might have effected her original intention, and drowned them

both, had not a boat come round the _Courbure_ at that very moment.

The boatman soon extricated them from their danger, and carried them

both hone, exhausted and dripping, to the house of Laure's mother. At

first the good lady was terrified out of her wits, and then furiously

angry; but ended, however, by declaring, that if ever they drowned

themselves again, it should not be for love, and so she married them

out of hand.

THE CHÂTEAU.

A naked subject to the weeping clouds,

And waste for churlish Winter's tyranny.

--King Henry IV. _Second Part_.

We intended to proceed on our journey the following morning, but our

valet-de-place, who had a longing for more five-franc pieces, put in

the claims of the old château of Arques, and we went to visit it next

day.

I am fond of ruins and old buildings in general, not alone for their

picturesque beauty, but for the various trains of thought they excite

in the mind. Every ruin has its thousand histories; and could the

walls but speak, what tales would they not tell of those antique times

to which age has given an airy interest, like the misty softness with

which distance robes every far object.

No one ought to pass by Dieppe, without visiting the old castle and

town of Arques. It is but a short ride, and the road is far from

uninteresting. The fields are rich, highly cultivated, and decked with

a thousand flowers, and at some distance before reaching Arques, the

ruin is seen on the height above, standing in the solitary pride of

desolation.

A ruin ought always to be separate from other buildings. Its beauties

are not those which gain by contrast. The proximity of human

habitations takes from its grandeur. It seems as if it leant on them

for support in its age. But when it stands by itself in silence and in

solitude, there is a dignity in its loneliness, and a majesty even in

its decay.

Passing through Arques, the château is at some distance, on the height

which domineers the town. The hand of man has injured it more than

that of time. Many of the peasants' houses are built of the stone

which once formed its walls; and the government has, on more than one

occasion, sanctioned this gradual sort of destruction.

What remains of it has, I believe, been either sold or granted to some

one in the town: but, however, a gate has been placed, and some other

precautions taken to prevent its further dilapidation.

A pale interesting boy, with large blue Norman eyes, brought the keys

and admitted us within the outer walls; but a weak castellan for those

gates which once resisted armies! for in truth he could scarcely push

them open. A few more years, and the château d'Arques will be nothing.

It, is, however, still an interesting sight, and so many remembrances

hang by it, that one is forced to dream. Memory is like the ivy which

clothes the old ruin with a verdure not its own.

The county of Talou, of which Arques was the capital, was given by

William the Conqueror to his uncle, in order to attach him more

sincerely to the crown, but the gift had not that effect. Revolt

against his benefactor was the first project that entered into his

head, and he built the castle of Arques, in order to fortify himself

in his new possessions. There he for some time resisted the forces of

the king, and yielded not until his troops were little better than

skeletons with hunger and fatigue.

William revenged himself by clemency, and again loaded his ungrateful

uncle with favours, wishing, as his historians say, rather to attach

him by benefits, than to pursue him as a rebel.

It was here also that the faithful Helie de Saint Saen resisted the

endeavours of Henry I. to carry off the young heir of Normandy, and

from hence he fled with his protégé, demanding from the neighbouring

powers assistance for the child of his dead benefactor.

During the various wars of England and France, sieges and battles

innumerable passed by the château d'Arques, like waves beating against

a rock. But the last most splendid deed it looked on before its ruin,

was the defeat of the armies of the Ligue by Henry IV. of France, the

last chevalier. In the life, in the words, in the actions, even in the

faults of Henry IV., there is the grand generosity of a bright and

ardent spirit, that mingling of great and amiable qualities which

excites interest as well as admiration.

The Ligueurs were ten to one, but; as he said, he had God and his good

right, and he conquered. The same free spirit that bore him through

the battle dictated the manner in which he announced it to his friend

in the well-known words: "Pends toi, brave Crillon, nous avons

combattu à Arques; et tu n'y étais pas!" Had he written pages he could

not have expressed half so much!

One of those same happy speeches of Henry IV. would appear to have

been dexterously borrowed by an Italian poet. In those days of peril,

when no regal distance could exist between the king and his subjects,

Bassompierre's bed lay next to that of the monarch, and Aubigny's next

to him--and both fancied that Henry slept. "Our master is ungrateful,"

said Bassompierre; "he casts all good things at the feet of the

Ligueurs, and we, who have served him with our fortunes and our blood,

are in absolute want."

"What say ye, there?" cried the king. "Do you not know that I am

obliged to _buy_ these Ligueurs? but you are my own."

"Pardon, pardon, Sire!" exclaimed Bassompierre, alarmed for the

effects of his indiscretion.

"Parle donc! parle donc!" replied Henry. "Le roi dort, c'est un ami

qui t'écoute."

Very nearly the same idea is expressed by Metastasio, in the Clemenza

di Tito--

_Tito_-- Odimi! O Sesto!

Siam soli i. Il tuo Sovrano,

Non è presente. Apri il tuo core a Tito,

Confedati all' amico. Io ti prometto,

Che Augusto nol saprâ.

It is possible, however, that Metastasio never thought of Henry IV.

when he made Titus speak thus; add, even if he did, the idea was well

adapted, for both in the character of Henry and that of Sully, there

is an antique simplicity which seems essential to grandeur of mind. I

know not how it is, but one naturally looks upon Sully as a Roman. He

too fought at Arques by the side of his master; and it is impossible

to gaze over the plain without feeling that it is a place where great

deeds might be well performed.

From the edge of the hill, about a hundred yards from the château, is

seen the whole field of battle. It is a beautiful scene, with the wide

plain, below, and the river meandering through it; the heights of St.

Étienne, beyond, and the valley narrowing towards Dieppe. On the other

hand rises a high woody hill, with a road winding down to the town,

and the ruins of the castle standing solitary in the midst.

It was at a beautiful time, too, that I saw it. One of those bright

autumn days when the clouds, and the sunshine, and the blue sky seem

all interwoven together. A heavy black storm came sweeping upon the

wind, and for a minute or two involved every thing in mist and in

darkness, and then passed away, leaving behind a rich rainbow, and

nature more beautiful for her tears, and the sun shining out on the

gray ruin, seeming to smile at the decay of man's fabrics, while the

works of Heaven remain unchanged and ever new.

LA GALETTE.

Hunger, that most domineering of all tyrants, took advantage of our

ramble to bully us sadly; and though we had not neglected to satisfy

his morning demands, before we set out from Dieppe, he contrived to

force us into a dirty little cottage at Arques, which the people

called "l'Auberge!" It was the strangest combination of kitchen, and

pig-sty, and hen-roost, that ever I saw.

Cooking and cackling and grunting were all going on at once when we

arrived, and some of the joint produce was offered for our luncheon,

in form of a dish of eggs and onions, swimming together in lard. The

people of the house seemed to consider this mess as the acme of

cookery; but in spite of sundry epithets bestowed upon it, such as

_charmant_, _délicieux_, etc., we had bad taste enough to prefer some

plain boiled eggs, whose friendly shells had kept them from all

contamination.

I suppose that particular dishes become as it were national property,

because they are so nasty that no one can eat them, except those who

are brought up to it; but certainly when our mouths have been seasoned

to any of these national messes in our youth, every thing else seems

flat, stale, and unprofitable. They are so intimately combined with

all our early recollections, that, in after years, they form no small

link in that bright chain of memory which binds our affection so

strongly to the days of our infancy.

It is all very bathotic and gross, I know; but, nevertheless, salt

salmon and peas to a Fleming, gruyere to a Swiss, or barley broth and

oatmeal porridge to a Scot, will do more to call up old and sweet

remembrances of home and happiness, and early days, than the most

elaborate description. But all this is nothing to the power which a

_galette_ has morally and physically upon a native of Brittany.

I do not mean to speak any thing profanely, but had Eve been a

Bretonne, Satan might have offered her an apple to all eternity. She

would not have said _thank you_ for it. Nay, had it been a whole

apple-pie, she would but have turned up her nose, and we might all

have been in Paradise up to this present one thousand eight hundred

and twenty-seven. He might have prated about knowledge too, as long as

he liked; it would not have made any difference, for the Bretonnes

have seen no bluestockings since Madame de Sévigné's time, and I never

could find ten of them that knew the difference between London and

Pekin, or that wished to know it. But if the tempter had offered her a

_galette_, good bye Paradise! She could never have withstood it. She

would but have bargained for a little milk, and a piece of butter, and

gone out as quietly as my fire is doing at this moment.

But it may be necessary to explain what sort of a thing a _galette_

is; the receipt is as follows:

Take a pint of milk or a pint of water, as the case may be, put it

into a dirty earthen pan, which has never been washed out since it was

made; add a handful of oatmeal, and stir the whole round with your

hand, pouring in meal till it be of the consistency of hog-wash. Let

the mess stand till next morning, then pour it out as you would do a

pancake upon a flat plate of heated iron, called a _galettier_;

ascertain that it be not too hot, by any process you may think fit. In

Brittany they spit upon it. This, being placed over a smoky wood fire,

will produce a sort of tough cake called a _galette_, which nothing

but a Breton or an ostrich can digest.

In this consists the happiness of a Breton, and all his ideas somehow

turn upon this. If you ask a labouring man where he is going, he

answers, "Manger de la galette;" If it rains after a drought, they

tell you, "Il pleut de la galette;" and the height of hospitality is

to ask you in "pour manger de la galette."

I remember a curious exemplification of what I have said above, which

occurred to, me, during a former residence in Brittany. All orders of

monks, except that of La Trappe, having been long abolished in France,

it is very rare ever to meet with any, except when some solitary old

devotee is seen crossing the country upon a pilgrimage, and then he is

always distinguished by the "cockle hat and staff," under which

insignia he passes unquestioned; being considered _in bond_, as

mercantile folks would say. However, as I was passing one day through

Evran, I was surprised to see a regular Capuchin, walking leisurely

through the streets without any symptoms of pilgrimage about him. He

was a very reverend-looking personage, clad in his long dark robes,

with his cowl thrown back upon, his shoulders, and his high forehead

and bald head meeting the sun unshrinkingly, as an old friend whom

they had been accustomed to encounter every day for many a year. His

long beard was as white as snow, and a single lock of hair on his

forehead marking where the tonsure had ended, made him look like an

old Father Time turned Capuchin.

He was a native of Brittany, I learnt, and had quitted his convent

during the revolution; not, indeed; with any intention of breaking the

vow he had taken, or of abandoning the mode of life he had chosen: but

it was in order to seek an asylum in some foreign country for himself

and his expelled brethren. This he found in Italy, and now, after a

thirty years' absence, he had returned under a regular passport to

sojourn for a while in his own land.

The motives for such a man's return puzzled me not a little. The ties

between him, and the world were broken. Memory and early affections, I

thought, could but have small hold on him: or was it because the past

was so contrasted with the present, that it had become still dearer to

remembrance?

It was not long before I found means to introduce myself to him, and

discovered him to be both an amiable and intelligent man. After some

conversation, my curiosity soon led me to the point. "It is a long way

to travel hither from Italy, father," said I, "and on foot."

"I have made longer journeys, and for a less object," replied he.

"True," I went on, "this is your native land, and whither will not the

love of our country lead us."

The Capuchin smiled. "I did not come for that," said he.

"Probably you had relations or friends whom you remembered with

affection," I added; my curiosity more excited than ever.

"None that I know of," replied the monk.

"You think me very inquisitive," said I.

"Not in the least," he answered; "I am very willing to satisfy you."

"Then let me ask you," I continued, "if you came hither for some great

religious object."

"Alas! no, my son," he replied. "You give me credit for more zeal or

more influence than I possess."

"Yet, surely, you had some motive for coming all this way on foot,"

said I, putting it half as a question, half as an established

position.

"Oh, certainly," he replied, "I had a motive for my journey, and one

that is all-sufficient to a native of Brittany. But it was not from

any great religious or any great political motive; nor was it either

to see my country, my family, or my friends."

"Then for what, in the name of heaven, did you come?" exclaimed I.

"Pour manger de la galette," replied the monk.

ENGLISH TRAVELLERS ON THE CONTINENT.

C[oe]lum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt.--HORACE.

It was late ere we returned to Dieppe, and we were sauntering quietly

up stairs towards our own apartments, when a waiter, carrying in a

portion of the evening meal to some guests in the public room, showed

just sufficient of the well-lighted _salon_, to tempt us in. On

entering we learned that the table d'hôte supper was over, but we

found seated at the hospitable board of Monsieur Petit, who never

suffered any one to go away empty who was inclined to eat, an English

traveller, who, like ourselves, had arrived too late. A man who wishes

to make any thing of travelling ought to put all his prejudices in the

lumber-room before he sets out, and if he finds them musty when he

comes back, so much the better. On the road they are the most

inconvenient part of his baggage, never useful, and always in the way.

There are few people who adhere to their prejudices more strongly than

the English. We are insular in more than geographical situation, and

amongst the multitude of our countrymen, with the multitude of their

feelings, character, and pursuits, one out of a thousand is not to be

met with on the continent, who is not just as prejudiced as when he

set out--perhaps more so, for finding a strong confirmation of many of

his pre-conceived ideas, he takes it as a confirmation of _all_, and

intrenches himself the more firmly in his original opinions.

It may seem like heresy to say it, but, after having visited many

countries, I am still inclined to think that France in its various

parts, notwithstanding its proximity to our own country, retains more

points of interest, more of the _couleur locale_, than any other land.

But an Englishman, who travels to see France and French people, ought

always to dine at the table d'hôte, wherever he finds one. The higher

classes of all nations are too nearly alike to offer any very striking

points of difference to a casual observer, for the general principle

of all is to conceal what they feel and what they think, at least in

public; but the mixture of a table d'hôte affords almost always

something worth studying. It is in such circumstances that we find the

most legible pages in the book of human nature. The classes of

Englishmen travelling in France are somewhat altered since Sterne's

time. The economical traveller is not so simple as he was then: there

are also travellers who go for luxury; there are travellers for

novelty; there are travellers for information; and there are

travellers who journey forth into the world from the mere necessity of

locomotion. These last are very numerous amongst the English. One of

this class, finding the disease coming on violently, builds himself a

low carriage, with very substantial wheels, and plenty of room for his

feet. He furnishes it with all the peculiar luxuries of London, strews

the left-hand seat with novels, and, placing himself in the interior,

with his servant behind, draws up the windows, and fancies he is

travelling through Europe. The profound meditations which he enjoys in

the inside of his painted box are seldom if ever interrupted, except

when the carriage stops, and he asks, "John, where am I?" The servant

holds open the door, touches his hat, and replies, "At Rome, sir!" and

the traveller, yawning, walks into the inn.

There are several varieties of this class merging into others. One

morning a party of them came into the aisle, when I was in the

cathedral at Rouen (a very beautiful specimen of Gothic building, let

criticism say what it will). The only attention they gave it was one

vacant stare, which wandered heedlessly over the rich ornaments and

the most magnificent combination of arches that architecture can

produce--swore it was _fine_, _very fine_, and walked out. I asked the

valet-de-place who accompanied us, how long English travellers staid

in general, when they visited the cathedral. He said, "About five

minutes; but if they staid longer at all, they generally made it

nearly as long as we had been."

I am not particularly given to cathedral hunting, nor am I fond of

what Forsyth calls "picking the bare bone of antiquity," but when I

meet with any thing either beautiful in itself, or which awakens in my

mind a pleasing train of ideas, I am apt to give it more than five

minutes.

At ---- I met with another traveller, still more decidedly locomotive.

He was a very gentlemanly young man, and I think might have been

something better, but habit had given his mind a sad twist. I asked

him what he thought of the Pyrenees, from whence he had just arrived.

He replied that "the roads were very fine;" he had gone nine miles an

hour up and down hill. I inquired if he had been at Bagnères de

Luchon. "Oh, yes," answered he, "I rode there from Bagnères de Bigorre

in six hours." Such seemed to have been the amount of his observations

on one of the most beautiful countries of Europe. He was travelling

against time.

Many who travel for health, without the command of a very large

fortune, lose, I am convinced, as much by the want of those comforts

they are accustomed to at home, as they gain by change of air.

However, I am equally certain that the mind has far greater power over

the body than we generally imagine; and that the mere rapid change of

scene and incident acts as powerfully as any medicine in the

Pharmacop[oe]ia.

Those who come abroad for economy may certainly now find it either in

France or Germany. In almost all parts of Italy they will find

themselves deceived. There is one thing, however, to be observed,

which is, that English people on the continent do not save by the

cheapness of the country only, but they economize by living as

foreigners do.

There is another class of travellers who come abroad to procure

greater luxuries than they can in England on the same income. I should

be sorry to censure a large portion of my countrymen, but I think that

those are scarcely excusable, who have neither curiosity nor desire of

information, nor limited means, nor ill-health to plead, but who, with

sufficient to maintain their rank in society at home, habitually spend

their fortune in a foreign country. Their virtue at all events is not

patriotism.

DIEPPE--THE EVENING.

Certes he was a most engaging wight,

Of social glee and wit humane tho' keen,

Turning the night to day and day to night.

CASTLE OF INDOLENCE.

The traveller we met at Dieppe could be included in none of the

classes I have just mentioned. He was a young officer of artillery

returning from the Ionian Isles. He had travelled much in Italy and

Greece, had a great deal of information, was willing to communicate

it, and communicated it well.

I feel myself under a debt to every one who gives me an agreeable

half-hour; and certainly the evening we spent in his society left a

very pleasant impression behind it. For the first few days after we

have quitted our native land, we feel a certain degree of loneliness,

which makes us creep closer to any stray countryman we may happen to

meet, than our national reserve would permit us to do under any other

circumstance. On our part, therefore, there was no backwardness, and

our young officer had been travelling so long, that I dare say he

never remembered what the word _stranger_ meant. In a foreign country,

knowing no one, we were thrown upon each other for amusement, and we

were not long in finding it. Each told his anecdote and his tale. We

peopled the little salon at Dieppe with characters from every quarter

of the globe. We forgot the place, and the time, and more than one

hour had waned after midnight before we retired to rest.

Much of what passed is gone from my recollection, but, amongst other

questions, I remember asking what was the state of a college which had

been founded in a distant country, by a noble countryman of ours?

"The matter," replied he, "is rather oddly ordered at present, for you

must know that, when I saw it, there were eleven professors and three

scholars; but the most singular part of the whole is, that the

professor of theology is a reputed atheist, and the professor of

languages stutters so as to be unintelligible in any. We went from

anecdotes to tales, and one which he said he had heard while crossing

the country from Marseilles towards ---- made an impression on my mind

that will not easily be effaced. He called it"

THE STORY OF THE BEAUTY OF ARLES.

Ah chi mi taglie la mia pace antica,

E Amore? Io nol distinguo, Alcun mel' dica.

--METASTASIO.

With a frame of iron, a strong fixed mind, and a dauntless determined

spirit, Armand Villars went forth into the world, seemingly well

calculated to sustain its sorrows, and to repel its dangers. There was

a likeness in his mind and person; the beauty of his countenance was

of that stern grave cast which suited his character, and his form was

of the same powerful nature as his spirit.

In youth he was unlike the rest. It was not that his mind was

brighter, but it was that it never bent: and the very energy of his

calmness gave him command amongst his companions, if companions they

may be called, for there is little companionship where there is no

similarity. Yet still they courted him to be amongst them, and might

have taught him to fancy himself above the common level of his kind,

but Villars was proud, not vain. A vain man acts for others, a proud

man for himself. And Villars thought of his own opinion, scarcely

dreaming that others would judge of him at all.

It was remarked of him, even as a boy, that his passions were

difficult to move; but that, like a rock hanging on a mountain's brow,

their tranquillity once disturbed, they carried all before them in

their course; and years, as they passed over his head, by teaching him

greater endurance, rendered his anger, when excited, but the more

dangerous. It was not like the quick flash of the lightning, hasty and

vehement, but as short-lived as it is bright; but it was that calm,

considerate, sweeping vengeance, which, like the snow that gathers

silently on the edge of the precipice, descends to overwhelm all that

is beneath.

He was unrelenting too, for he never dreamed that mercy might be

combined with justice. He would never have pleaded for himself, and he

could not be expected to feel for others.

His youth passed away as the flowing of some undiscovered river, whose

strange waters are never fretted by the barks of far-exploring man. He

knew nothing of any world but the world of his own mind; and his only

commune was with his own feelings, which were as things apart.

And yet there was a bitterness in standing thus alone. There was a

pain even in, the solitude of his own thoughts: and he strove to

assimilate them to something which at least _had been_. He was fond to

pore over the records of ancient virtue, and the history of those firm

inflexible beings, who rooted out from their bosom all the soft

verdure of the heart's kinder feelings, and raised in its place a cold

shrine to unrelenting justice. Here only he seemed to have

imagination: and here would he ponder and dream, till he wondered that

such a state of things did not still exist. He would fain have thought

that virtues like these contained within themselves the principles of

immortality.

He forgot that historians, even when they do not augment the worth of

what they relate, to render it the more worthy of relation, do not

seek to commemorate what is petty. So that the _few great actions_

alone are recorded, while the multitude of meannesses are forgotten.

Like the fabled eagle, that is fond to gaze upon the sun, he fixed his

eyes alone on what was bright. He would ask himself, Why might not

France produce a Brutus or a Cato? Was the soul of man degenerate? Had

it lost that power which sustained it in the inspiring days of ancient

glory? No! He felt the same spirit stirring within _his_ bosom, and he

resolved that he, at least, would live a Roman.

Such were the aspirations of his youth; but they were mixed with

little of that wild warm glow which animates the enthusiast. His

feelings, like the waters of a deep mountain-lake, were calm and cold,

though they were clear and profound. When he did feel, he felt

strongly; but the lighter things of the world passed him by as if they

had not been.

In the same old ill-fashioned town of Arles, which gave birth to

Armand Villars, lived another youth, somewhat elder in point of years,

but far younger in character. We will call him Durand. He was one out

of the many--a gay, brave, thoughtless boy, with a touch of pride, a

good deal of vanity, and an infinity of good-nature. He was one of

those pieces of unmoulded clay, which the world forms and hardens. He

might have been any thing; but in that same school of the world, he

that at first may be any thing generally, at last, learns to be bad. I

have said he was thoughtless; but he was by no means without talents,

and those which he had were suited to his character. He was

penetrating, but not profound; he was active but not industrious; he

had more quickness than wit; more imagination than judgment.

As we generally over-estimate that which we do not possess, we are

inclined to admire qualities opposite to our own. Durand had early

fallen into society with Armand Villars. Habit did much to unite them,

but the very difference of their minds did more; and dissimilar tastes

often led them to the same pursuits.

They would wander together through all the remains of antiquity, with

which the neighbourhood of Arles is enriched. Sometimes they would

linger for hours in the _Champs Élysées_, poring over the tombs and

sarcophagi: sometimes they would, stray near St. Jean, along the banks

of the Rhone, trying to trace out the ancient palace of Constantine;

and sometimes they would stand and gaze upon the river itself, and

almost worship it, as it rolled on in proud magnificence towards the

ocean.

But still the objects which led them, and the combinations produced in

the mind Of each, were very very different. Durand did not look upon

the Rhone merely as an object of picturesque beauty. He loved it as a

mountaineer loves his mountains: he loved it with that instinctive

affection which we feel towards all objects associated with the

earlier and brighter hours of our existence, connected with the first

expansion of our feelings, and commingled with all our youngest ideas.

The grand and the great, in nature, are always matter for remembrance.

They are the landmarks in the waste of years, that guide our memory

back to every thing that is pleasing in the past.

The scene where it happened is still intimately mixed with every

circumstance of happiness, and we love the spot, even when the

pleasure has passed away. The Rhone was the grandest object connected

with any of his infant recollections, and as such he loved it, without

any further combination, or any endeavour to know why.

Villars would not have been satisfied to feel, without knowing why he

felt. The Rhone was nothing to him, without its name in history; but

it recalled to him the days of Cæsar, and every struggle the ancient

Gauls made for the independence of their country: and there was a

feeling of pride mixed with the remembrance, which seemed, in a

degree, to transfer itself to the object that excited it; and he

became almost proud of the Rhone, because he admired the deeds which

its banks had witnessed.

It is a country fertile in ruins. It seems as if time had taken a

barbarous pleasure in leaving there the wreck of mighty works as

trophies of his all-destroying power; and in wandering amidst them,

Durand would mark the elegance of the capital, or the fair proportion

of the architrave which had once adorned some palace or some temple,

whose lord and his parasites, whose idol and its worshippers, had long

been forgotten in the silence of things that are no more; and he would

point out the beauties to his companion who, for his part, would carry

his thoughts back to the days of Rome; to the mind, whose energy had

conceived, and to the men, whose labour had perfected, those giant

fabrics that shame the pigmy efforts of our later times; and while

Durand would laughingly contend, that the Romans were neither braver;

wiser, nor better than the race of modern men, Villars would exclaim

against the degeneracy of mankind, and grieve that he had not lived in

those days of glory and of liberty.

They were at that period of life when passion is strongest, and

imagination most vivid, and when judgment; like a young monarch,

forgets his painful duties and leaves his throne vacant, while he

wanders amongst the pleasures and diversions of his new estate. They

were at this period of life, when the revolution began to throw a new

and too strong light upon the world. In the enthusiasm of republican

spirit, the revival of ancient institutions, and all the brilliant

fantasies which rapidly succeeded each other, many of the wisest and

the best got bewildered; nor was Durand one of the last to adore this

phantasmagoria of antique forms. _His course_ is soon told. He quitted

his native city; but before he went he embraced Villars with all the

ardour of his new sect. He called him "_citizen_" and "_brother_," he

vowed that their friendship should be everlasting.

He joined the army formed for the defence of the republic. His

talents, his daring courage, and some of those accidental

circumstances of fortune which decide not only the fate of men but of

empires, combined to raise him above his compeers. His mind readily

embraced every thing that was brilliant. He was naturally witty, and

shrewdly perceiving that a jest would often pass where a reason would

not, he raised up for himself a sort of philosophy which taught him to

laugh at every thing, good or bad, and with this he passed safely and

honourably through all the vicissitudes of a changing state, and found

himself in the end even as he could have wished to have been--selfish,

heartless, rich, respected, and in power.

The life of Armand Villars was different. For a while he looked upon

the grand scene which was playing before him, and rejoiced at the

revival of ancient virtues--for he hoped that it was so--but yet there

was something in it that he distrusted. He looked for the great

independence of soul, the generous self-devotion, the steady purpose

of right, and the stern patriotism which sacrificed all private

feeling to public good. He looked for Roman laws and Roman spirit, and

he found but a wild chaos of idle names, and an empty mockery of

ancient institutions; and, unwilling to yield the favourite illusion,

he turned his eyes away.

It was then that every Frenchman was called to bleed for his country,

and Villars willingly quitted the ungrateful scenes that were passing

in France, to place himself in the ranks of her defenders. In the

field as in the city, the same calm firm spirit still animated him. He

fought as if life had for him no charms, nor death any terrors. But it

was not the courage of romance. There was none of the headlong ardour

of enthusiasm; there was none of the daring of thoughtless temerity;

there was none of the reckless valour of despair. There was in his

bosom alone the one fixed remembrance that he was doing his duty--that

he was fighting for his country--together with that calm reasoning

courage which knows danger and despises it.

He rose in command, but he rose slowly, and it was not till late in

the campaign of Italy that he attained the rank of colonel. Italy was

a land which had long been the theme of his thoughts. He was now

there, amongst the ruins of that stupendous fabric, the record of

whose ancient glory had been his admiration and delight. He was on the

spot where Romans had dwelt, and he fought where Romans had bled; and

if any thing like ardour ever entered into his nature, it was then.

The habits, too, of his boyish days seemed here to resume their

empire. He would wander, as he had done in youth, among the wreck of

ages past, and indulge in long and deep meditations in the midst of

empty palaces and neglected fanes. He would re-people them with the

generations gone, and conjure up the great and wise of other days. The

first and second Brutus seemed to rise before him--the men who had

expelled a Tarquin, and had slain a Cæsar--he that had sacrificed his

children, and he that had sacrificed his friend to his country.

Virginius, too, and his daughter; and Manlius, and, in short, all the

train of those whose deeds gave a splendour to the times in which they

lived, and whose names history has for ever consecrated.

Italy teems with recollections of every kind: for courage, and wisdom,

and power, and arts and sciences, and beauty, and music, and

desolation, have all in turn made it their favourite dwelling-place;

and though the train of thought which Villars followed was but of one

description, there was matter enough for that; and he might have

indulged it for ever, but that the more busy and Warlike occupation of

the present gave him but little time to ponder over the past. Another

fate too awaited him--a fate which he little dreamt of.

In a skirmish, which took place near Bologna, he was severely wounded,

and carried to the house of an old Bolognese lady, whose rank was

rather at variance with her fortune. For though she prized illustrious

birth, as the purest and most permanent species of wealth, and perhaps

valued it the more, inasmuch as it was the only sort of riches that

remained to her, she nevertheless found it very difficult to make this

refined treasure supply the place of that coarser material, gold; at

least in the opinion of others, who obstinately continued to think,

that rank must have fortune to support its pretensions, or else it is

worse than nothing.

It is supposed, that sometimes their pertinacity almost persuaded her

of this also: but as the old countess had not the one, she endeavoured

to make the other do: and like a poor man, ostentatious of his last

guinea, she contrived to render every one well aware of her rank and

family. However, she was a kind-hearted woman, and though she would

talk of her cousin the prince, and her nephew the duke, the poor and

the sick would always share of what little she had, and when she had

nothing else she would give them a tear.

She received the wounded soldier with all the kindness of her nature.

It mattered not to her of what party or of what country he was. She

was happy enough to have no politics, and as to country, the sick were

always of her own. She received Colonel Villars, therefore, as her

son--she nursed him herself--she did more, she made her daughter nurse

him: and it never seemed to enter into the head of Beatrice, or her

mother, or Villars, that there could be any thing dangerous in it to

either. Yet Villars was handsome, strikingly handsome, and Beatrice

was an Italian beauty, dark, and soft, and graceful; and it was not

long before the touch of her small hand, as she fastened the bandages

on his arm, made a thrill pass through the soldier's breast, which he

did not understand. He fancied that Beatrice must have touched his

wound, and yet her fingers went so softly, that they seemed to tremble

lest they should press it too roughly. Still Villars attributed the

strange thrill that passed across his bosom to that cause. "Or else

what could it be?" he would ask himself. And yet by some odd

perversion of reasoning, Villars always preferred that Beatrice should

fasten the bandages, rather than her mother; although the old countess

went so dexterously to work, that she produced no thrill at all.

Such were his feelings. Now this was the first time that Villars had

ever been tended by female hands. But though this was not the first

time that Beatrice had given her aid to the wounded--for a long war

and its consequent miseries, bringing many calls upon their kindness,

and their hearts being naturally benevolent towards all mankind, the

two ladies had learnt to act almost the part of dames of romance,

and unblushing to assist to their utmost all those who needed

it--though this, I say, was not the first time that Beatrice had lent

her aid to the wounded, it was the first time that she had ever felt

that anxiety for any one, which she now experienced towards Villars.

The loss of blood had weakened him much. His heart was all the softer

for it, and his manner more gentle; and Beatrice began to feel pity,

and admiration, and love; especially when she perceived that the being

so cold and stern to all others was softened towards her. But it went

on in silence in her heart, and in that of Villars, till the assurance

gradually crept upon him that he loved: and he wondered at his

weakness, and then he asked himself, "was it possible that his

affection could be returned?" and sometimes he would hope, and

sometimes he would doubt, till his feelings became too painful for

endurance; and he resolved that he would conquer the passion which

unmanned him, and fly for ever from the object that excited it.

Women are taught to keep their affection, like a rare gem, hidden from

all eyes in the casket of their heart; and it is not till, by some

mishap, the key is lost or stolen, that man finds out what a treasure

there is within. Beatrice heard Villars name the day of his departure

without an apparent emotion. She saw that day approach, too, as calmly

as she had heard it appointed. It is true, that her cheek grew a

little paler, and that her eyes would often rest upon the ground; that

in singing her voice would tremble, and that she did not seem so fond

of music as she had been formerly. But she would laugh when any one

called her thoughtful, and assured her mother that she had never been

in better health.

Villars, as I have said, had made a firm resolution to depart; but,

like most other resolutions in this changeable world, it was not

destined to be kept. The day previous to that which he had fixed for

his departure, the mother of Beatrice was struck with apoplexy, and in

two hours after, the fair creature that he loved was an orphan, alone

in the wide world, drooping in sorrow, and clinging to him for support

in her affliction. Could he leave her? He never asked himself the

question. He stayed, and after a time Beatrice became the bride of

Armand Villars.

New feelings now began to spring up in his heart. The sweeter, gentler

associations of existence now began to cling round him, and mellow the

harshness of his character, like the green ivy twining round the

rugged bark of the oak, and softening its rude majesty. Life took a

new aspect. A brighter sun seemed to have risen over the world. He

forgot the past, and in the delight of the present found a boundless

store of anticipation for the future.

There are few whose fate has been so desolate, that one clear day has

not, at some time, shone through and brightened their existence. Oh,

it is like being in a boat upon a summer sea! Every circumstance of

joy dances round us, like the ripple of the waves in the morning sun.

Heaven seems to smile upon us like the clear blue sky, and the breath

of time wafts us gently, but swiftly, on our course, while hope points

onwards to the far faint line of the horizon, and tells us of a bright

and golden shore beyond.

And who is there, that, when all seems sunshine, would look around him

for a cloud?

Villars dreamed; but that dream of joy was soon to be broken. The tie

which linked him to social being was soon to be rent. Beatrice died,

and with her every gentler feeling of his bosom; and his heart became

their sepulchre, never to be opened again.

Villars became old in an hour. There is no such thing as time. It is

but space occupied by incident. It is the same to eternity as matter

is to infinite space--a portion out of the immense, occupied by

something within the sphere of mortal sense. We ought not to calculate

our age by the passing of years, but by the passing of feelings and

events. It is what we have done, and what we have suffered, makes us

old.

Beatrice died, and the heart of her husband became as a thing of

stone. To any other, perhaps, the daughter she had left him would have

recalled, in a tenderer manner, the joys he had lost, and re-illumined

the bright affections which her death had extinguished. There are some

persons in whose bosom the necessity of affection seems placed by

nature, never to be eradicated. But with Villars it was not so. He

cursed the weakness which had enthralled his heart, and made it either

a prey to love or sorrow; and he fortified himself against the assault

of any mortal feeling. He would do his duty strictly, fully, towards

his child; but that was all which he ever proposed to his own mind.

There was, indeed, one tribute he paid to the memory of Beatrice. She

had loved music. Her mind had been attuned to all harmony; and she had

delighted in all that was bright and sweet in every art which softens

the asperities of human existence. And Villars resolved, he scarcely

knew why, to give his daughter all her mother's accomplishments. It

was like writing her epitaph on the heart of her child. This only

seemed to show the least spark of feeling yet unextinguished in his

breast; for there was now a degree of bitterness mixed with the

original sternness of his character. He looked upon the world with

disappointed eyes, and gladly turned away from the view, for there was

nothing but a desert round about him.

France no longer needed defenders. His duty to his country was done;

and, quitting the army, he collected together his little property, and

retired to dwell near his native town of Arles.

It was more probably chance than any taste for picturesque beauty,

which directed him in the situation he chose for his future residence;

but of all the neighbourhood it was the most lovely and the most

retired. It was surrounded by wood, with the Rhone sparkling through

the trees beyond, and the remains of an antique Roman arch crowning

the hill above. The country was covered with olive-grounds and

vineyards, and scattered with small villages: but there was not for a

considerable distance round--indeed, nowhere near, except in the town

of Arles--a house of any consequence, whose proximity might have

disturbed the solitude of his retirement; and here, for fifteen years,

lived Armand Villars, secluded from a world he despised, seeking no

commune but with his own thoughts, and dividing his time between the

cultivation of his ground, solitary study, and the education of the

daughter which Beatrice had left him.

On their first arrival at their new dwelling, little Julie offered no

particular promise of beauty. Her large, wild, Italian eyes, and the

dark hair which clustered round her forehead, were all that could have

saved her from being called a very plain child. But as years passed

over her head, and she grew towards womanhood, a thousand latent

charms sprang up in her face and person. Like a homely bud that

blossoms into loveliness, her beauties expanded with time, and she

became one of the fairest of nature's works.

Beauty can scarcely be well described. I know not how it is; whether

imagination far exceeds nature, or whether remembrance is ever busy to

recall what love once decked in adventitious charms, but every one has

raised an ideal standard in his own mind, which is fairer to him than

all that painter or statuary ever portrayed. Description, therefore,

must fall far short of what Julie really was. Let all men, then, draw

from their own mind. She was lovely as imagination can conceive; and

there were few of those who, by any chance, beheld her, that were so

critical or so fastidious as to find or fancy a fault in her beauty;

and as the strangers who did see were ever sure to ask, among the

neighbouring peasantry, who she was, and to describe her by her

loveliness, she soon acquired the name of the Beauty of Arles.

It seldom happens that many perfections cluster together. If beauty be

granted, wit is often denied; and if wit and beauty unite, vanity, or

some other deteriorating quality, is generally superadded. But it is

not always so. Nature had dealt liberally to Julie of all her stores.

She might know that she was lovely, for where is the woman that is not

conscious of it; but in her solitude there was none to tell her of her

charms, and she was not vain of them. The bright wild genius, the warm

vivid imagination, that revelled in her breast, and sparkled in the

dark flashes of her eye, was guided and tempered by the softest,

gentlest, heart that ever beat within a woman's bosom. She had no

means of comparing her own mind with that others, and she did not know

that it was superior; and all the accomplishments and knowledge that

her father had taken care she should acquire appeared to her what all

human knowledge really is--but little to that which may be known.

In the mean time, the mind of Armand Villars had undergone scarce any

change; his feelings were the same; but, if at all altered, they were

only the harder and the more inflexible. If his daughter possessed his

affection, it was seldom that any trait of gentleness betrayed it;

and, as if fearful of again loving any human thing, he passed the

greater part of his time in utter solitude, from which even his child

was excluded.

Julie feared her father, but she loved him too. Her heart, like a

young plant, clung to that which it grew beside, however rugged and

unbending; and in those hours which she was allowed to spend with her

parent, she strove to win him from the sternness of his nature, and

draw from him a smile of affection or approbation; and if she

succeeded, it was a source of joy to her for many an after hour.

Her pleasures, indeed, were so few, that she was obliged to husband

them well, and even to seek new ones for herself. She lost none of

those unheeded blessings which nature scatters on the way of

ungrateful man. She had joy in every fair sight and every sweet sound.

To her the breathing of the spring air was a delight, the warbling

maze of the brook a treasure. The notes of the forest birds--nature's

own melody--was to her the sweetest concert; and, thankful for all

that a good God had given, she would long for the wings of the lark to

soar into the blue air and sing her gratitude at the gates of heaven.

She would wander for hours through the fair lonely scenes around, when

the prime of morning glittered over the earth, or when the calm

evening, like a gentle mother, seemed soothing nature to repose; and

her life passed like the waters of the broad Rhone, glittering on in

one sunshiny course amidst all that is beautiful in nature.

Thus went hour after hour, and day after day, in peaceful solitude and

undisturbed repose; ignorant of a corrupted world and all its arts,

and blessed in her ignorance. It was one bright evening in autumn,

when the world was full of luxuriance, before the grape was plucked

from its branch, or the olives began to fall, and the robe of nature,

though somewhat embrowned by the sun of many a summer's day, had not

yet lost all its verdure. Her father had shut himself up in his

solitude, and Julie wandered out towards the ruined Roman arch that

crowned the hill above their dwelling. From the height the whole

country round was exposed to her view. It was a gay scene, where all

the rich gifts of generous nature were spread out at large. The green

foliage of the vine covered all the slopes; and olive-grounds, with

their white leaves glistening in the sun, skirted the vineyards, and

sheltered the peasants' houses and villages that were thickly

scattered over the landscape, while the bright waters of the Rhone

bordered it along, and formed a glittering boundary to the very edge

of the horizon.

Julie gazed on the scene for a moment, and contemplated all its wide

luxuriance. But there was something too general in it. She knew not

why, but she turned away with a sigh, and, descending into the valley,

seated herself under some almond-trees, watching the lapse of a small

brook that wound murmuring along towards the Rhone.

She was buried in contemplation, it matters not of what, when she was

roused by quick footfall coming down the little path that led from the

hill. It was a stranger whom she had never before seen, and one that

she would have fain looked at again if it had not been for modesty's

sake, for he was a sort of being not often beheld in that nook of

earth. In the glance she had of him, when the sound of his footsteps

first called her attention, she saw that he was young and handsome.

But it was not that; there was something more. There was the grace;

the elegance, the indescribable air of the high and finished

gentleman; and Julie, as I have said, would fain, from curiosity, have

taken another look: but, however, she turned away her eyes, and fixed

them again upon the brook, as if deeply interested in the current of

its waters. The stranger passed close by her, and whether he turned to

look at her or not, matters little, but somehow it happened that

before he had got ten yards, he stopped and returned, and, pulling off

his hat with a low inclination of the head, asked her the way to

Arles.

The direction was very simple, and Julie gave it as clearly as she

could; but, nevertheless, the stranger seemed not quite to comprehend,

and lingered as if for further information. So, seeing his

embarrassment, she told him if he would come to the top of the hill,

she would show him the line of the high road, and then he could not

mistake; and accordingly she led the way, and the stranger followed:

and, as he went, he told her that he had sent forward his carriage to

Arles, intending to walk straight on, but he had been induced to quit

the high road, in order to see the beauties of the country.

It was but a few steps to the top of the hill, and could but afford

time for a conversation of five minutes; but, for some reasons which

he did not very well stop to analyze, the stranger would not have lost

them for all the world; therefore he had begun at once, and he

continued with ease, but with a diffidence of manner which showed he

was afraid of offending. He spoke rapidly, as if he feared to lose a

moment, but with that smooth eloquence which wins its way direct to

the sources of pleasure within us; and to Julie's timid and simple

replies he listened as if they contained his fate. When he spoke, in

turn, there was something in his manner perhaps too energetic, but yet

it was pleasing, and Julie attended with no small degree of admiration

and surprise; and before they had reached the top of the hill, she had

settled it in her own mind that he was a being of a superior order.

The high road lay at a little distance, and she pointed it out to him.

The stranger thanked her for the kindness she had shown him again and

again, and still he was inclined to linger; but there was no excuse

for it. Julie afforded him none, and, taking his leave, he bent his

steps towards the road. When he reached it, he turned his head to take

one more glance of the object that had so much interested him, but

Julie was no longer there.

The stranger hurried on to the town, and his first question on

reaching it was directed to ascertain who it was that he had seen.

"Oh!" cried the aubergiste, half interrupting the stranger, though

respectfully, for he had sent forward a splendid Parisian carriage,

with servants and saddle-horses, and more travelling luxuries than

visited that part of the country in a hundred years--"Oh, it must have

been Mademoiselle Villars, the beauty of Arles."--"It could be no one

less," echoed the garçon.

"Villars!" said the stranger--"Villars! It is very extraordinary!"

Now; why it was extraordinary nobody at the inn knew. But it so

happened that early the next morning the young stranger ordered his

horses to be saddled, and his groom to attend him, and setting of with

that kind of ardour which characterized all he did, galloped along the

road towards the spot where he had seen Julie the day before. He gave

a glance towards the hill. She was not there; and, turning his horse

into a road which led down towards the Rhone, he rode straight to the

dwelling of Armand Villars. It had been an old French country-seat, or

château; one of the smaller kind, indeed, but still it possessed its

long avenue of trees, its turrets with their conical slated roofs, and

a range of narrow low building in front, with small loophole windows,

through the centre of which _avant-corps_ was pierced the low dark

arch that admitted into the court-yard. The stranger contrived to make

himself heard, by striking his riding-whip several times against the

gate, which was at length opened by an old man who had long served

with Colonel Villars in Italy, and had followed him to his solitude.

"Could he see Colonel Villars?" the stranger asked. The old grenadier

glanced him over with his eye, and seemed half inclined to refuse him

admittance; but on the young stranger's breast hung several crosses,

which told of deeds done against the enemy, and the heart of the old

soldier warmed at the sight. "Colonel Villars," he said, "was not much

given to seeing strangers, but if Monsieur would ride into the court

he would ask."

The young stranger turned his horse to pass in, but his horse was not

so well inclined to go through the low dark arch as his master, and

showed symptoms of resistance. The stranger again reined him round,

and spurred him towards the gate. The beast became restive, and,

plunging furiously, endeavoured to throw his rider; but the stranger

was too good a horseman, and, angry at his obstinacy, he urged him on

with whip and spur. Unfortunately he did so. The horse plunged,

reared, and threw himself over to the ground, with his master under

him.

His own servant and the old grenadier came immediately to his

assistance, and disengaged him from his horse; but it seemed as if

their aid had been too late. The stranger was wholly insensible. At

first they thought him dead, and it was some minutes before the yet

lingering animation again made itself visible; but as soon as the old

grenadier saw it, he went into the apartment where Villars and his

daughter were, and simply told them that a young gentleman had been

thrown from his horse at the gate, and he believed he was dying.

Pity's purest dwelling is in a woman's breast. Without thinking, Julie

started up, and in a moment had flown to the assistance of the

stranger. Villars followed more slowly. It was a duty to aid a

fellow-citizen, and he proceeded to obey it.

Every man who has fallen off a horse, stunned himself, and broken his

arm, must, or at least ought to, undergo the same treatment. Let us

suppose, then, the duties of humanity paid; let us also imagine that

the stranger, in some degree recovered from his fall, had told that

his name was Charles Durand, the only son of Villars's old friend and

early companion,--and there was a softness even in the memory of those

young days which melted, in a degree, the sternness of the old

soldier. It was more so when he found that Durand, though in place and

in power, and basking in the beams of courtly favour, had not

forgotten him, and had directed his son in passing by Arles to inquire

for his former companion--and _offer him his services at court_, the

young man added, but his voice, rather faltered as he said it. It

might be that he knew the emptiness of such promises in general, or

perhaps that he was too well acquainted with his father's character,

or it might be that his hurt pained him at the moment. But however it

was, when he saw Julie standing by the couch on which he was

stretched, and attending him with the kindness of a sister, he almost

blessed the accident which had given him a title to her care.

I know not how it is, but amongst all the wild theories and dreams

that have been formed about the human heart and its passions, none

ever suited itself to my fancy so well as that--it is an eastern one,

I believe--which supposes the hearts of two persons destined to love

each other formed, by the angel whose task it is, out of the same

clay: so that in whatever regions they may be placed, and in whatever

different state of life, when they do meet, there is always a world of

undefinable sympathies between them, and affections apart from all the

rest of the earth. Perhaps it is only a few, and those by especial

favour, that the angel forms of these twin hearts; all the rest must

wander about the world without any soft companionship of feeling. Be

that as it may, from the very first moment that Charles Durand had met

Julie Villars new sensations had been born in his bosom. She was

lovely, the loveliest perhaps he had ever seen, though he had been

long accustomed to mingle with the bright and the fair; but in her

there was the beauty of simplicity, the charm of native unaffected

innocence, and that was what he had seldom met with at all, and

certainly never before so rarely combined. There were many more----

But what is the use of searching any further for that which made him

love her from the first. Grant but the eastern supposition to be true,

that their hearts were formed of one clay, and the matter is settled

at once. A little superstition, and a few good broad theories, save

man a great deal of trouble and research, and, perhaps, lead him as

right as any of the hundred roads which philosophers and moralists are

always busy paving for him.

During his illness, which was severe from the accident he had met

with, his attachment had time to become fixed; and he did not lose the

opportunity of endeavouring to excite a return. In truth, it was not

very difficult; Julie's heart was cast in nature's gentlest mould, and

this was the first time that any thing like affection had approached

it. From her infancy she had formed for herself companionship from

whatever was near her. She had watched each individual flower as it

blossomed, till she loved it, and loved it only to mourn the fall of

its fragile beauty! She had taught the birds to know her, and to sing

their wild notes in her path without fear. But now, it was something

far far beyond anything she had ever felt or ever dreamt of. What a

new bright state of existence became hers, when Charles Durand's love

first flashed upon her mind. She painted to herself all the charms of

reciprocal attachment in its brightest state. She knew nothing of the

world and its falsehood. She knew nothing of human nature and its

weakness, and she fancied it all without a cloud. She invested every

thing in the verdant colouring of her own heart, and lighted it up

with the sunshine of her own mind, and it made a picture she could

have gazed on for ever.

Before she was aware of his affection, she had looked forward to his

recovery with mingled emotions. There was certainly a good deal of

pleasure, on his account, in the speculation; but she did not like to

think of his departure, which would be the natural consequence. Now

that she knew herself loved, and that she could look upon her own

attachment for him without feat or shame, she never dreamt that a

separation was possible; she yielded her whole soul to the delight of

the moment, and saw nothing before her but one bright interminable

track.

Durand's mind was not so much at ease. There were some blighting

thoughts would come and wither his opening happiness. He knew his

father's ambitious nature, and feared to ask himself how, it would

brook his union with the simple girl of Arles. Brought up amidst

scenes of profligacy and vice, though with a heart naturally good and

pure, Charles might have formed some less honourable scheme for

obtaining Julie, but there was a purity in her every thought that

spread a holy light around her, and he felt that the very idea was

profanation.

In youth, we seldom let foresight give us much annoyance, and Charles

Durand's resource was not to think upon the subject at all. He loved

Julie as deeply as man can love. The idea of losing her was

insupportable, and while the hours slipped away in her society, he

would not debase such unalloyed happiness by one sordid care for the

future.

Whether he heeded not or saw it not, or, from his long seclusion from

the world and natural slowness of affection, did not perceive its

consequences, Armand Villars took no notice of the growing intimacy

between his daughter and the young Durand, probably he never saw it;

for, continuing to live in the same retirement, he suffered the

presence of Charles to make scarce any change in his conduct. He had

merely accorded him a dwelling in his house because he considered it a

duty, and once in the course of each day he paid him a calm, cold

visit, inquired after his health, and recommended him to the care of

his daughter; for, he said, "that was more a woman's task than a

man's;" and the rest of the day he passed in utter solitude.

In the mean time, Durand's health rapidly improved, and he was soon

enabled to accompany Julie in her rambles along the banks of the

Rhone. Oh, what a new world was now opened to her! Nature had acquired

a brighter hue, pleasure a richness it never owned before. All, all

delight was doubled by having some one to participate. There was a new

state of being sprung up for her--the existence of mutual

affection--an existence totally apart from every thing else of earth.

A great change, too, had taken place in all the feelings of Charles

Durand. As he wandered on with Julie, he wondered that the beauties of

nature had never before struck him as they did now. He asked himself

what madness could have taught him to enjoy the false brightness, the

unmeaning whirl, the lying gaiety of such a place as Paris; and, as he

looked at the fair simple girl by his side, he learnt heartily to

despise the artificial beings with whom he had been accustomed to

mingle.

One bright summer evening, they passed by the spot where they had

first met. The same colouring was on the trees, the same bright hues

were glowing in the west, but every thing was richer and lovelier in

their eyes.

"Oh, Julie," said Charles, "how I shall ever bless this spot! I

remember standing by yon old triumphal arch on the hill, and looking

over the wide scene of abundance displayed below. It was rich, it was

beautiful; but as I descended into this valley there was a sweet

calmness, a lovely repose, which left the heart nothing to wish for,

and far more than compensated for the expanse of the other landscape.

Surely it was a type of what I was to feel after having seen you.

Before, the gay world of the capital and its wide indistinct society

seemed to offer a life of delight not to be met with any where else.

But now, to be with you thus constantly, and separated from all the

world but you, is a happiness far beyond my brightest dreams. It has

made me a miser. I would admit none to share it with me for worlds."

Julie answered nothing, but she looked up in Charles's face with a

glance that he had no difficulty in translating. A moment after the

beam in her eye passed away, and was followed by a slight sigh.

Charles would needs have it translated too, and as he could not do it

himself, he applied, to its author. Julie said that she did not know

that she had sighed. Charles assured her that she certainly had.

"I was thinking at that moment," answered Julie, "that I ought as soon

as possible to communicate this to my father. Perhaps it was that

which made me sigh; for though I am sure he loves me, yet he is

naturally so stern that sometimes he frightens me."

A cloud came over Charles Durand's brow, for she forcibly recalled his

thoughts to the point from which he had long essayed to banish them,

and he begged that she would delay the communication she proposed

until he had time to write to his father and ask his consent to their

union. Julie looked down, and contending emotions called the blood

into her cheek. There was something in the idea of the least

concealment repugnant to the bright candour of her mind; and she told

Charles that she was sure it never could be right.

Concealment! Charles assured her that he never proposed such a thing.

No, let their affection be as open as day. If her father himself

perceived it, it was at once avowed; but if he did not, it would be

better to wait till his authorized him to demand her hand. He added

several reasons, to which Julie replied nothing. She was not used to

contend with any one, much less with one she loved; but her heart was

not at ease. It was the first cloud which had obscured the morning of

her life, and it cast a deeper shadow than she had fancied any thing

could throw over her mind! They walked up the hill to the ruined arch

of triumph, and gazed for a moment on the plain below; but Julie's

heart did not expand to the scene. They turned again and wandered down

to the brook, but the valley hid lost a portion of its peace.

Charles expressed a wish to rest there ere they returned. Julie seated

herself in silence where she had been placed when first they met, and

Charles, casting himself down by her side, tried to convince her that

he was right, for he saw that she was not yet satisfied.

"I suppose," said she, turning to him with a smile, though it was

rather a melancholy one--"I suppose I ought to be convinced, for I

have nothing to say in reply. But, at all events, be it as you think

fit. Of course I shall say nothing to my father until you approve of

it. I have never yet wanted confidence in any one."

If the last sentence implied any thing reproachful, Charles did not or

would not perceive it. He took Julie's hand and pressed it to his

lips, while the colour mounted more deeply in her cheek, and her dark

eyes were bent down upon the ground. What she had said, however, was

overheard by another, whose presence neither Julie nor Charles had

observed. Her father, by some chance, had that night, turned his steps

in the same direction that they had, and he now stood before them.

Charles was the first who raised his eyes, and they instantly

encountered the fixed stern glance of Villars.

"Well, young man," said he, in a deep, bitter tone of voice, "you have

rested with me long enough. You have accepted of my care, you have

betrayed my hospitality, you have recovered from your illness, and now

begone."

Charles exculpated himself boldly, but to one that did not attend. He

declared again and again that his every intention was most pure and

honourable.

"Honourable!" repeated Villars, with a scoff. "Whatever were your

intentions, he who could teach a child to deceive her father is

unworthy of my daughter. Begone, sir! I hear no more; never let me see

your face again. Come, weak girl," he added, turning to Julie, down

whose cheeks the tears were rolling in silent bitterness, "wipe away

those tears, and do not let me think you unworthy of your race;" and

he led her back to the château; passing on straight to his own

library.

Julie covered her face with her hands. The tears were still running

down her cheeks, and though she knew her father's inflexible nature,

there was a remonstrance struggling in her heart, to which she would

have fain given utterance, but the stern glance of Villars, which

never left her for a moment, frightened her and took away her words.

An instant after the old servant came in, and told them that M. Durand

desired to see him. Julie clasped her hands and extended them with an

imploring look towards her father. "Silence, child!" cried he; "Julie,

not a word!" and followed the servant from the room.

Whatever might have passed between him and Charles, when he returned

there was a deeper spot upon his brow, and his step had something of

angry haste in it as he advanced to where his daughter sate.

"Julie," said he, "on your duty to me as your father, I command you

never to see that young man again." Julie paused.

"Do you hesitate? Disobedient girl! Mark me, one moment more, and I

cast you off for ever. Julie, you know me. I am not used to say what I

do not perform. Promise me instantly never again willingly to see

Charles Durand, or we are no longer father and child."

It was a dreadful alternative, and Julie promised.

How blighting is the loss of what we love! Affection is as the

sunshine of existence, and when it is gone, the rest is all darkness.

The flowers of life, the beauties of being, are all obscured, and we

wander blindly on through an unseen world, which might as well be a

desert as a garden, in the deep shadow of that starlight night.

It is not so much that which we have not as that which we lose, that

we sigh for. Had Julie never known the charm of mutual affection, all

would still have been bright, but now day after day went by, the blank

of passing existence.

At length the news reached her father that Charles had left Arles,

and, sinking into his usual habits, he permitted Julie to pursue the

rambles she had been accustomed to take. But nature to her had lost

its loveliness. The flowers seemed withered, the song of the lark

sounded harsh, and she wandered slowly on, occupied with sad thoughts.

She raised her eyes to the arch of triumph on the hill above. There

was a figure standing by it, which passed quickly away, but it

recalled to Julie the time she had first seen Charles Durand, and the

hours they had spent there together, and, placing the past happiness

with the present sorrow, the contrast was too strong, and she wept

bitterly.

Though she found no pleasure in the scenes she had formerly loved, yet

she had no inducement to return home. All there was cold, and she

wandered on farther than had been her wont. She had proceeded nearly

an hour, when she heard a quick step behind her. She knew not why, but

it caused her an emotion of fear, and she hurried her pace. "Julie!"

said a voice she could not mistake; "Dear Julie! It is I." She turned,

and Charles caught her in his arms, and pressed her fondly but gently

to his bosom.

Julie said nothing, but hid her eyes upon his shoulder and wept; but

the dreadful promise she had made her father was to be told; and at

length, summoning all her resolution, she did so.

Charles did not appear so much surprised as she expected. "Julie,"

said he, "after the promise you have made, if we part, we part for

ever. Let us never part!"

It was a scheme he had formed immediately on quitting her father's

house, and he now displayed it to Julie in the brightest colours it

would admit of. He had been wandering about the country ever since, he

said. His carriage had been always on the road prepared for a journey.

He had counted much upon his Julie's love. He had procured a passport

for Paris. The moment they arrived she should give him her hand at the

altar. His father should use all means to soften hers, and there could

be no doubt that Villars would soon relent. He pleaded with all the

eloquence of love and hope. Even despair lent him arguments. He had

strong allies, too, in Julie's own breast: her love for him, her fear

of her father, and the dreadful overwhelming thought, that if she once

parted from him she should never see him again. A doubt of him never

entered into her mind; but there was something in the idea of

accompanying him alone to Paris, which made the blood rush into her

cheek. All the delicacy of a pure mind, and the fear of doing wrong,

caused her to shrink from the very thought: a thousand opposing

feelings came one after another through her breast, and gazing

anxiously in the face of her lover, "Oh no, no, Charles!" she replied,

"do not ask me;" and, striving to call up all her sense of duty, she

added, more firmly, "Impossible!"

A deep settled gloom came over Charles's

countenance--a calm impressive look of despair. He took both Julie's

hands in his, and pressed them twice to his lips. "Cruel girl!" he

said, in a low voice, which He strove to command to steadiness; "you

love me less than I thought. Hear me," he continued, seeing her about

to speak, "hear me to the end; for your reply will be my doom. I am

not rash, but I can never live without you. My fate is on your lips.

Am I to live or die? for within an hour after you have quitted me, I

shall have ceased to exist. Speak, Julie! Do you bid me die? for that

is the alternative."

Julie gazed on him for a moment, as if she scarcely comprehended the

import of his words; and then again hid her eyes upon his shoulder and

wept. "Speak, speak, Julie!" cried Charles.

"What would you have me say?" she asked. "You force me to do what I

think wrong. How can I refuse what you wish, when such is the

alternative? Oh! Charles, it is you that are cruel now!"

Charles caught eagerly at the concession. He thanked her again and

again; and he seemed so happy, that Julie could scarce repent that she

had yielded. Yet still she would have lingered; and as Charles led her

gently on towards the spot where his carriage stood, he was obliged to

display a thousand reasons to prove to her that she was doing right;

for, at every step she hung back; and though she wished much to

believe herself justified, yet still the tears trickled down her

cheeks, and her eyes dared not rise from the ground. But hesitation

was now too late, and in a few minutes she was on the way to Paris.

During their whole journey, Charles's conduct was a course of quiet

respectful attention. He strove to soothe Julie's mind; he sought to

amuse it, but he never suffered any gaiety to jar with the sorrowful

tone of her feelings. He seemed to feel, as painfully as she did, the

want of her father's approbation, but he endeavoured to oppose to that

the bright prospect of their future happiness. He spoke of quitting

all the luxuries of Paris for the sole delight of her society; to let

their lives glide away in some beautiful part of the country, love

gilding with its sunshine even the winter of their days. In short, he

called up all the dreams that man is wont to form in the brighter

stage of his existence, when young imagination fashions out every

distant object into some fair shape of its own; and so well did he

image his wishes as hopes, and paint his hopes as certainties, that

Julie suffered her mind to be carried a stage beyond reality, and

forgot the uncomforts of the present in the bright future which he

depicted.

It was night when they arrived in Paris, and an undefinable feeling of

terror and loneliness spread over Julie's mind as she felt herself a

stranger amongst the multitude. Charles seemed instinctively to enter

into her feelings, and gently pressed her hand to his lips, as if he

wished to tell her that there was at least one heart that beat warmly

with hers.

After passing along several long dimly-lighted streets, the carriage

stopped at the hotel to which it had been directed, and Charles

applied himself to make all those arrangements for Julie's comfort,

which she was hardly able to do for herself.

"And now, Julie," said he, "there remains but one thing more; I will

instantly go to my father's hotel, end bring you his consent to our

union."

"Oh, Charles! wait a moment, do not leave me yet," cried Julie; "I can

bear any thing but solitude."

Charles pressed her to his bosom, and, sitting down beside her, gazed

fondly over every lovely feature as she sat with her eyes bent upon

the ground. She saw that he waited merely to gratify her, and that his

mind was fixed upon the interview with his father, and at length,

conquering her feelings, she bade him go.

Charles promised that he would instantly return, and left her, but at

the same time he ordered his servant to stay at the hotel. "Show

Mademoiselle Villars," he said, "the same service as if she were your

mistress, and my wife, which she will soon become."

As soon as Charles was gone, Julie burst into tears. She knew not why,

but there was a deep depression of spirits hung over her which she

could not dissipate, and she wept profusely. She had scarcely reasoned

herself out of giving way to her grief, when Charles returned.

"My father," said he, "is absent a few leagues, from Paris, but he

comes back to-morrow evening. So, dear Julie, my hopes must be

delayed."

Charles saw that she had been weeping, but he took no notice, and

applied himself, during the evening, to wean her thoughts from every

subject of sorrow, and he succeeded, if not in entirely calming, at

least in greatly soothing, her mind. The journey had much fatigued

her, and Charles left her at an early hour. "For your sake, Julie," he

said, "I must not stay in the same hotel with you, but I will be with

you early to-morrow."

It was Charles's task, during the whole succeeding day, to occupy

Julie's thoughts by various subjects of interest, so as to prevent

them ever recurring to her own situation. He gave her mind no time to

fall back upon itself. Neither did he himself wish to think the

approaching interview with his father offered much that he dreaded,

and he would not let his thoughts rest upon it.

At length, however, the evening came, and he again left Julie upon the

same errand that he had done the night before. In going to his

father's hotel, he, walked with extraordinary rapidity, as if he were

afraid that reflection should intrude upon him by the way; but, on

being informed that his father had returned some time, he paused to

collect his thoughts, took two or three turns in the court, and then

entered the room where his parent was.

Far different from the sprightly lad that long ago consorted with

Armand Villars, old Durand, in passing through life, had lost many of

the better qualities which had distinguished him in boyhood:

circumstances had so often induced him to glide from one opinion to

another, that he had but small pretensions to sincerity. Fortune had

made him proud, and the lesser points of morality had gradually become

effaced, in mingling with corrupted society. He was still a man of

courage, of wit, of talent, and, as he had never cried very loud for

any particular party, his changes in political opinion had never been

criticised very severely. He was also a man of pleasure, an Epicurean,

but one that forgot some of the best tenets of his sect. Every thing

was to be sacrificed to pleasure except interest; and all was to yield

to that. His affection for his son was strong, but there was much of

it pride; and though on his return he received him kindly, it was more

like the reception of an old companion than a son.

"Well, Charles," said he, after the first few minutes, "so your broken

arm is whole again: and what has become of the beautiful little nurse

you wrote to me about? You owe her a good deal, in truth."

"I owe her everything, sir," replied Charles, "and as to what has

become of her, she is at this moment in Paris, and----"

"Ha, ha, ha! so that is the way you repay her," interrupted his

father, laughing. "Charles, Charles, you, are a sad libertine. But

take care what you are about; you will certainly get your throat cut.

That sulky old Roman, her father, will not take it quietly, depend

upon it. I remember him when a boy; his anger was not easily moved,

but, when once excited, his vengeance was not like that of a child."

"I rather think, sir, that you mistake me," replied Charles. "Julie is

purity itself. I love her beyond everything on earth, and I have now

come to ask you to sanction my immediate union with her."

The astonishment, the anger, the scorn, which gradually gathered over

old Durand's countenance while his son was speaking, is beyond

expression. "Young man!" cried he, "are you mad? Have you become a

driveller and a fool?"

Charles had expected opposition, and now he used all the eloquence he

possessed, all the entreaties most likely to move. He expressed

himself firm in his resolution of marrying Julie; but declared that he

never could be happy without his father's approbation. But it was in

vain. His father listened to him for a moment, and then, without any

answer whatever, but a look of mingled pity and contempt, left the

room. Charles's heart burned with indignation, and, darting from the

house, he passed rapidly to the hotel. He did not, he would not think,

and he had entered the room where Julie sat, before the first

irritation had passed from his mind.

She was sitting directly opposite, and as he entered she raised her

eyes with such a look of glad expectation, that it quite overwhelmed

him, and, striking his hand against his forehead, he walked up and

down the room for a moment, without speaking.

"In the name of heaven, Charles!" exclaimed Julie, "what is the

matter?"

Charles took her hand, and led her back to the sofa from which she had

risen. "Julie," said he, "my father is as cruel as yours. He refuses

his consent to our union; but be assured----"

At that moment the deadly paleness, the wild despair, of Julie's

countenance, stopped him as he spoke. Charles had deceived himself,

and still more deceived her, with respect to his father. She had never

imagined the possibility of his refusing, and now it came like the

stroke of death. All the horror, all the desolation of her situation

flashed upon her mind. It stunned, it stupified her. Every sense,

every thought was overwhelmed in the wild tempest of her disappointed

hopes, and she sat gazing in the face of her lover in dumb inanimate

despair.

Charles at first attempted to call her to herself, but in vain. She

sat like marble. At length, starting up, "Julie," he cried, "I go

again to my father, and be sure I will bring you his consent, or I

will die at his feet!"--and he quitted the room.

But Julie heard him not. She sat with her hands clasped, and her eyes

fixed upon the door. Her senses were bewildered. A sudden panic seized

her, she knew not of what. She started up, and, as if she flew from

something which pursued her, she ran down the stairs of the hotel into

the street. She passed rapidly along the Rue Royale to the Place Louis

Quinze. The cool air revived her, and thought began to return, when

some one caught her by the arm with a grasp of iron; she turned and

cast herself at his feet.

"My father! Oh heaven, my father!" cried Julie. Villars answered

nothing, but held her tight by the wrist, while he drew a poniard from

his bosom.

"Disgrace your father's name!" said he at length. "If you have a

prayer to offer to heaven, offer it now, for the blood of Villars

shall never flow in impure veins!"

Julie strove to speak, but terror left her no voice. At length she

cried, "Indeed, indeed, I am innocent!"

"Art thou a _liar_ too?" cried Villars, casting his cloak over her

head, and raising his hand. "Thus I wipe out your infamy!"

He plunged the dagger in her bosom--he raised it again, but no--he

could not repeat it--there was a faint smothered cry--a shudder like

the flutter of a dying bird, and then it lay a cold inanimate weight

upon his bosom--It was done! But then the implacable unyielding spirit

which had thus far sustained him forsook him for a moment, and he

stood stupified, without thought, without feeling, without

remembrance.

"I have done my duty!" he cried at last, and hurrying down to the

banks of the river, descended to the very edge, and laid his lifeless

burden in the water--gently, and cautiously, as if he were afraid of

waking her. He gazed upon her--smote his hand upon his breast. "I have

done my duty!" he said, "I have done my duty!" But hell was in his

heart, and he fled.

---------------

When the Union American merchantman was lost on her passage from Havre

to Charleston, there was one man who refused to enter any of the

boats. He had taken his passage at Havre the very day the ship sailed,

and, during the five days which elapsed between her leaving the port

and her being wrecked, he was never heard to proffer a word to any

one. He passed the days and the greater part of the nights, in walking

backwards and forwards, with his eyes fixed upon the deck, and at that

awful moment, when tempest and destruction surrounded them all, the

deadly strife within his own bosom seemed to have rendered him

insensible to the war of elements without.

Some one kindly pressed him to enter one of the boats. "Leave me,

leave me," said he in French; "my grave is made!"

God knows whether it was he, but the passengers who escaped represent

him as of the same age and form as Armand Villars.

---------------

On entering the cemetery of Père la Chaise, proceed directly to the

foot of the first hill, and, turning into the alley to the left, you

will find a plain obelisk of white marble, without epitaph or

inscription, except the simple name "Julie!" It stands in a little

garden of flowers, enclosed with a fence of iron; and I have myself

seen a young officer, with more than one decoration on his breast,

removing those that were withered, and binding fresh wreaths round its

little boundary. It never wanted flowers in any season, for he came

every day to deck it himself, though the colour gradually forsook his

cheek, and pale corroding care was marked in every feature. One day he

came no more, and shortly after he was laid in the earth beside her he

loved. But before he died, he expressly forbade _his_ name also to be

inscribed on the monument which he had raised to his lost Julie.

Such was the tale of our new acquaintance, nearly in his own words;

but as he spoke rapidly and fluently, the time it occupied in telling

was not, or at least did not seem, long. We felt that he had a good

right to call upon us for a return, and finding myself, as usual, when

I wish to recollect a good story, totally bankrupt of memory, I turned

to the friend who had accompanied me from England--a gentleman in

every sense of the word, a man of refined taste and excellent heart. I

was very sure that, if he could so far conquer his laziness as to

begin, whatever he told would prove interesting; but idleness was

predominant, and he was endeavouring to push back the burden to my

shoulders, when Monsieur Petit, who seemed to divine the spirit which

held us so long together, glided into the room, and told us, that if

we were curious in wine, he had some Burgundy so perfect in its kind

that he would beg us just to try it.

We nodded the universal head; and while our worthy host was producing

his nectar, my friend, stimulated by the very anticipation, gave me

one reproachful look for stirring him from his repose, and said,

"Well, well, since it must be so, I will try if I can remember a story

I once heard of our own country, and give you _Two Scenes from the

Civil Wars_."

TWO SCENES FROM THE CIVIL WARS.

SCENE I.

It was late on the night of an early day in spring--perhaps about two

hours past midnight--and yet the inhabitants of a small lonely

dwelling on the edge of a large piece of common-ground, lying about

ten miles from Farringdon House, were all awake and up, and, with

anxious eyes, gazing from the small long windows upon the blank

darkness that hung over the world. A single candle stood upon a plain

oaken table in the midst of the room, by the light of which might be

seen, at one of the windows, a small finely-formed female figure,

which still preserved all the lines of exquisite beauty, though a

certain degree of stiffness, corresponding well with some deep

wrinkles on the cheek, and with the white hair that was braided from

the forehead, spoke the passing of many years under the petrifying

power of Time, since that form had been in its prime, and the beauty,

which still lingered, had known its first expansion. Leaning over her

shoulder was a second figure so like the first--but with every grace

which time had nipped in the other, just blown; with the cheek

unwithered, and the brow unseared--that it seemed a living picture of

what the other had been some twenty years before--a portrait in a

family picture-gallery, where human loveliness may see and moralize on

all the graces that the eternal reaper has gathered as he flew.

At the second window was a somewhat untidy maid-servant, contrasting

strongly, in her slatternly disarray, with the plain neatness which

decked the two other figures, whose garb I shall not pause to

describe; let it suffice that it was of white, and fashioned in the

mode of the time, A. D.164-, though either poverty, simplicity of

taste, or deference to the puritanical mania of the day, had deprived

it of every extraneous ornament.

The night upon which the whole party looked out was dark and sad; for

the moon had gone down, and the clouds over head, though not

particularly heavy, were quite sufficiently so to hide every star, and

cast a deep gray shadow over the wide extent of undulating moorland

which, in the day-time, stretched away for many a mile within view. A

few faint streaks of pale light upon the edge of sky separated the

darkness of the heavens from the darkness of the earth, and marked

where the prospect ended; and thitherward were turned the eyes of all,

watching with strained and anxious gaze a particular point on the dim

horizon, where, every now and then, bright red flashes, sudden and

sharp, but circumscribed and momentary, broke upon the night, followed

by a distant report as quick and transitory.

No one spoke while those flashes continued; but the silence itself

seemed to show the intense anxiety which was felt, by the tenants of

that chamber, in regard to the events of which they obtained so dim

and unsatisfactory a view. At the end of five minutes, however, the

sudden bursts of light entirely ceased; the reports were no longer

heard; and the elder of the two ladies, turning away from the window,

said, in a low voice, "It is over: God's will is wrought by this

time!"

The younger said nothing; but, clasping her fair hands together,

raised her eyes towards the dark, heavens, while her full sweet lips

moved silently, offering up a petition to that never-closed ear which

hears the still voice of the heart's thoughts as plainly as the

loudest-tongued appeal.

In a moment after, the clattering sound of horses' feet was heard

coming quickly down the road. At first it was faint and distant--the

dull heavy tramp of several fleet steeds galloping over moist

ground; but soon it came nearer and nearer--left the turf of the

common--clanged over the firm and stony road--came close to the

house--passed it--and died away in the distance.

"They are flying!" said the younger lady. "Oh, my mother, they are

flying! Surely some of the dark powers of the air must assist those

bloodthirsty fanatics. They are flying; do you not hear the horses

galloping on?"

"Nay, nay, Margaret," replied the other, "it may be the roundheads who

fly. Though Goring and his cavaliers marched by here, we cannot tell

what way the struggle may have turned, or on what side he attacked the

rebels. So it may well be the traitors that fly themselves. But look

out, look out; your eyes are younger than mine, and less dimmed with

tears; perchance you may catch a passing glimpse that will give us

glad news."

The younger lady pressed her eyes close to the window; and though, by

this time, the first party of fugitives had passed the house, yet the

distant sound of others coming nigh met her ear; and she continued to

gaze upon the faint line of the road towards a spot where the yellow

glare of the gravel, which distinguished it from the ground about it,

was lost in the general darkness of the common. At length three dark

figures came forward with tremendous speed; at first so near together,

and so hidden by the night, that she could hardly distinguish them

from each other; but gradually the forms became more and more clear;

and, as they darted past the house, she exclaimed in a glad tone,

"They are the rebels, they are the rebels flying for life! I see their

great boots, and their morions without crest or plume!"

"But they may be pursuing those who went before," said her mother,

with a less elated tone; "they may be the followers, and not the

flyers, Margaret."

"No, no, they are flying, in good sooth!" replied the young lady; "for

ever and anon they turn their heads to look behind, and still they

urge their horses faster each look. But they are gone! And now pray

God that victory may not cost us dear! I would that my brother were

come back, and Henry Lisle."

"Fie, Margaret, fie!" said her mother; "give God undivided thanks; for

if my son and your lover be both left upon the field of battle, we

ought still to feel that their lives were well-bestowed to win a

victory for their royal master."

Margaret covered her eyes with her hands, but made no answer; and, in

a moment after, fresh coming sounds called her again to the window. It

was a single horseman who now approached; and though he rode at full

speed, with his head bent over the saddle, yet he continued his course

steadily, and neither turned his look to the right or left. As he

approached the house, his horse started suddenly from some object left

by the road-side, plunged, and fell; and the rider, cast with

frightful violence from his seat, was thrown on his head upon the

ground. A deep groan was, at first, the only sound; but, the moment

after, the horse, which had borne him, starting up, approached close

to the body of its master, and, putting its head to where he lay, by a

long wild neigh, seemed at once, to express its sorrow and to claim

assistance.

"If it be Essex or Manchester, Fairfax or Cromwell, we must render him

aid, Margaret," said the mother; "never must it be said that friend or

enemy needed help at my door, and did not meet it. Call up the hind's

boy, Bridget; open the door, and bring in yon fallen man."

Her commands were speedily fulfilled; for though brought low in her

estate, the Lady Herrick was not one to suffer herself to be

disobeyed. The stranger was lifted from the ground, placed in a chair,

and carried into the house. His eyes were closed; and it was evident

to the elder lady, as she held the candle to his face, that, if not

killed, he was completely stunned by his fall. He was a hard-featured

man, with short grizzled hair, and a heavy determined brow, on which

the lines of habitual thought remained, even in the state of stupor

into which he had fallen. He was broadly made and muscular, though not

corpulent; and was above the middle size without being tall. His dress

consisted of a dark gray coat, which clove to him with the familiar

ease of an old servant; and a brown cloak, which, in truth, had lost

much of its freshness in his service. Above his coat had been placed a

complete cuirass, the adjustment of which betrayed great symptoms of

haste; and by his side he wore one of those long heavy blades of plain

steel which had often been the jest of the cavaliers.

His head was uncovered either by hat or morion; and the expanse of his

forehead, the only redeeming point in his countenance, was thus fully

displayed. The rest of his face was not only coarse in itself, but bad

in its expression; and when, after some cold water had been thrown

over it, he revived in a degree and looked around, the large, shrewd,

unsatisfactory eyes which he turned upon those about him had nothing

in them to prepossess the mind in his favour.

The moment that consciousness had fully returned, he made an effort to

start upon his feet, but instantly sunk back again into the chair,

exclaiming--"The Lord has smitten me, yet must I gird up my loins and

go, lest I fall into captivity."

"Fear not, fear not!" replied Lady Herrick, whose humanity was

somewhat chivalrous, "you are in safety here; wait for a while till

you are better able to mount, and then get you gone, in God's name,

for I seek not to foster roundheads more than may be. Yet stay till

you can ride," she added, seeing his hand again grasp the chair as if

to rise; "women should know no enemies in the hurt and wounded."

"Nay, but, worthy lady," replied the parliamentarian, "should the crew

of the Moabitish General Goring follow me even here, to smite me hip

and thigh, as they have vowed to do to all who bear arms for godliness

sake, or to bear me away captive--"

"Fear not, fear not!" answered the lady; "none should dare, by my

hearth's side, to lay hands on one that common mercy bade me take in

and shelter--fear not, I say. That is right, Margaret," she added

seeing her daughter pour some wine into a glass for the use of the

stranger; "take that, it will revive you, and give you strength to

speed on."

"Nast thou caught the stranger's horse, Dickson?". she demanded,

turning to the boy who had aided in bringing in the commonwealth man,

and who now re-entered the room after a momentary absence.

"He is caught and made fast below," replied the lad; "and here are my

young master and Master Henry Lisle coming up from the court. They

have beaten the roundheads, and killed Colonel Cromwell, and taken his

whole army prisoners!" Scarcely had he time to pour forth this rapid

tide of news when the door was thrown open, and two young cavaliers,

in broad hats and plumes, followed one another rapidly in, each taking

with the lips of the two ladies that dear liberty consecrated to

intimacy and affection. "Welcome, welcome, my gallant son!" cried the

mother, as she held the first to her bosom.

"My own dear Margaret!" whispered the young gentleman who had

followed, as he took the unresisted kiss which welcomed him back from

danger and strife. But further congratulations of every kind were

suddenly stopped, as the eyes of the two cavaliers fell upon the

stranger; who had now recovered strength to rise from his seat, and

was anxiously looking towards the door beyond them.

"Who, in the devil's name, have we here?" cried Sir George Herrick.

"What cropped-eared villain is this?"

In vain his mother explained, and strove to pacify him. The sight of

one of the rebels raised again in his bosom all the agitating fury of

the fight in which he had been just engaged; and neither the prayers

of his mother or his sister, the promises they had made to the

stranger, or their remonstrances to himself, had any effect. "Ho,

boy!" he exclaimed, "bid your father bring a rope. By the Lord of

heaven, I will hang this roundhead cur to the oak before the door?

Bring a rope, I say!" and, unsheathing his sword, he advanced upon the

parliamentarian, calling upon his companion to prevent his escape by

the door.

The stranger said not a word, but bit his nether lip; and, calmly

drawing his tuck, retreated into one corner of the room, keeping a

keen fixed eye upon the young cavalier, who strode on towards him.

Margaret, seeing that all persuasion was vain with her brother, turned

her imploring eyes to Henry Lisle, who instantly laid his hand upon

his companion's cloak, "What now?" exclaimed the other, turning sharp

upon him.

"This must not be, George," replied the other cavalier.

"Must not be!" thundered Sir George Herrick; "but it shall be! Who

shall stay me?"

"Your own better reason and honour, I trust," replied the other. "Hear

me--but hear me, Herrick! Your lady mother promised this fellow safety

to stay and to go; and upon her promise alone, she says, he staid. Had

that promise not been given, we should not have found him here. Will

you slay a man by your own hearth, who put confidence in your mother's

word? Fie, fie; let him go! We have slain enough this night to let one

rebel escape, were he the devil himself."

Sir George Herrick glared round for a moment, in moody silence, and

then put up his sword. "Well," said he, at length, "if he staid but on

her promise, let him take himself away. He will grace the gibbet some

other day. But do not let me see him move across the room," he added,

with a look of disgust, "or I shall run my blade through him whether I

will or not."

"Come, fellow, get thee gone!" said Henry Lisle, "I will see thee

depart;" and while his companion fixed his eyes with stern intensity

upon the fireplace, as if not to witness the escape of the roundhead,

he led him out of the chamber to the outer door.

The stranger moved forward with a firm calm step, keeping his naked

sword still in his hand, and making no comment on the scene in which

he had been so principal a performer.

As he passed through the room, however, he kept a wary glance upon Sir

George Herrick; but the moment he quitted it, he seemed more at ease,

and paused quietly at the door while the boy brought forward his

charger. During that pause, he turned no unfriendly look upon Henry

Lisle; and seemed as if about to speak more than once. At length he

said in a low voice, "Something I would fain say--though God knows we

are poor blinded creatures, and see not, what is best for us--of

thanks concerning that carnal safety which it may be doubted

whether----"

"No thanks are needed," interrupted Henry Lisle, cutting across what

promised to be one of the long harangues habitual with the fanatics of

that day, "no thanks are needed for safety that is grudgingly awarded.

I tell thee plainly, that, had it not been for the lady's promise, I

would willingly have aided in hanging thee with my own hands; and,

when next we two meet face to face, we shall not part till the

life-blood of one or other mark our meeting-place!"

"It may be so, if such be God's will," replied the parliamentarian,

"and I pray the Lord to give me strength that I may never be found

slack to do the work appointed me."

"Thou hast never been so yet, though it be the work of the evil one,"

answered Henry Lisle, and then added, "I know thee, though none else

here does, or it had fared harder with thee in despite of all

promises."

"Thou knowest me!" said the stranger, without testifying any great

surprise, "then thou doest the better deed in Israel; and I will

trust, notwithstanding thy present malignancy, that the day of grace

may yet come to thee. Farewell!"

Thus saying, he put his foot in the stirrup, and mounting somewhat

heavily the horse which was now brought up for him, rode away across

the common.

Time flew--years passed--the temporary success obtained by General

Goring over the forces of Oliver Cromwell was swept away and forgotten

in a tide of brilliant triumphs won by the parliamentary general, who

trod upon steps of victory to the government of an empire. He had

conquered his opponents by the sword; he had conquered his partisans

by hypocrisy; he had subdued all to his will, and, under the name of

Lord General, ruled with more power than a king.

In the mean while, Sir George Herrick and Henry Lisle had fought to

the last in the cause of their ancient monarchs; and their zeal--like

that noblest of human energies, hope--had grown but the stronger under

the pressure of misfortune and distress. Amongst the various chances

of the civil war, five times had the day been appointed for the union

of Henry Lisle with Margaret Herrick, and five times had some

unforeseen mishap intervened to delay what all so much desired. Each

day that went by, Lady Herrick, with means quite exhausted and hopes

quite depressed, longed more and more to see her child united to a man

of talent, and firmness, and resource; and each battle that passed by,

Sir George Herrick, struck with a presentiment of approaching fate,

thanked God that he had lived to place his sister's hand in that of

his friend.

The last time the marriage was suspended, was on the fatal-call to

Worcester field, where Sir George Herrick fell; and Henry Lisle only

escaped to bear his companion's last request to Margaret, that without

further pause or delay, without vain ceremonies or useless tears, she

would give herself, at once, to her promised protector. Their wedding

was a sad one--no glad peal, no laughing train, announced the union of

the two lovers; and, ere the day of their bridal was spent, Henry

Lisle was a prisoner, journeying towards the tower of London. His

trial was delayed some time; but when it took place it was soon

decided. No evidence was wanting to his full conviction of loyalty to

his king; and the block and axe was the doom pronounced upon him. A

brief three days lay between him and death; and Margaret, who was

permitted to see him, clung in agony to her husband's bosom. Lady

Herrick to whom he had been more than a son, gazed, for some time,

with equal agony, upon his fine, but faded countenance, which, worn by

toil, and anxiety, and long imprisonment, was still more clouded by

the hopeless despair of her he loved. But suddenly, without a word,

the mother turned away, and left the prison.

SCENE II.

It was in that great and unequalled hall, whose magnificent vault has

overhung so many strange and mighty scenes in English history, and

whose record of brief and gorgeous pageants reads as sad a homily on

human littleness, as even the dark memorials of the tomb. It was in

Westminster Hall, on the 16th day of December, that, with the clangour

of trumpets and all the pomp and splendour both of military and civil

state, a splendid procession moved forward to a chair or throne,

raised on some ornamented steps at the further extremity of the

building, Judges, in those solemn robes intended to give dignity to

the judgments they pronounce, and officers, dressed in all that

glittering panoply destined to deck and hide the rugged form of war,

moved over the echoing pavement between two long ranks of soldiers,

who kept the space clear from the gazing and admiring multitude. But

the principal figure of the whole procession, the one on which all

eyes were turned, was that of a stout, broad-built man, with a dingy,

weather-beaten countenance, shaggy eyebrows, and a large red nose. His

countenance was as unprepossessing as can be conceived; nor was his

dress, which consisted of plain black velvet, at all equal to those

which surrounded him: But there was something in his carriage and his

glance not to be mistaken. It was the confidence of power, not the

extraneous power of circumstance and situation, but of that contracted

internal strength which guides and rules the things around it. Each

step, as he planted it upon the pavement, seemed destined to be rooted

there for ever; and his eye, as it encountered the glances of those

around, fell upon them with a calm strength which beat them to the

dust before its gaze. Passing onward, through the hall, he ascended

the steps which raise the chair of state; and, turning round, stood

uncovered before the people. The two keepers of the great seal,

standing on his right and left, read a long paper called the Institute

of Government, by which, amongst other things, the Lord General,

Oliver Cromwell, was named Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of

England. The paper was then signed, an oath was administered, and,

putting on his hat, the figure which had advanced to the chair sat

down, amidst the acclamations of the people, while all the rest

continued to stand around uncovered.

Various other ceremonies were performed; and then the great usurper,

rising from his seat, led back the precession towards the door of the

hall; but scarcely had he traversed one half of its extent, when a

woman, who had been whispering to one of the soldiers that lined the

way, pushed suddenly past, and cast herself at Cromwell's feet. "An

act of grace, Lord Protector!" she exclaimed, "an act of grace, to

bring a much needed blessing on the power you have assumed!"

"What wouldst thou, woman?" demanded Cromwell "somewhere I have seen

thy face before, what wouldst thou? If thy petition be conceived in

godliness, and such as may be granted with safety to these poor

disturbed realms, it shall not be refused on such a day as this."

"When Colonel Cromwell failed in his attack on Farring-House;" said

Lady Herrick--for it was she who knelt before him: "and when General

Goring surprised and cut to pieces his troops at night near Warnham

common"--Cromwell's, brow darkened, but still she went on--"he fled

from a disaster he could not prevent, and was cast from his horse,

stunned, at the door of a widow woman, who gave him shelter. He was

the enemy of her and hers, and flying from a battle in which her own

son had fought; and yet she gave him rest and comfort, and opposed

that very son, who would have shed his blood by her hearth. There,

too, Henry Lisle interposed to save his life, and was successful;

otherwise, Lord Protector, I tell thee, thou wouldst never have sat in

that seat which thou hast taken this day. Condemned by, your judges

for acting according to his conscience, I now ask the life of Henry

Lisle, in return for the life he saved. Grant it--oh, grant it, as you

are a man and a Christian!"

Cromwell's brow was as dark as thunder; and after gazing on her for a

moment in silence, his only reply was, "Take her away; the woman is

mad--take her away and put her forth; but gently--gently--bruise not

the bruised--so--now--let us pass on; for, in truth, we have been

delayed too long."

Put out of the hall by the soldiers; her last hope gone; her heart

nearly broken for her child and her child's husband, Lady Herrick

wandered slowly on towards that sad place where she had left all that

was dear to her. The gay and mighty cavalcade, which conveyed the

usurper back to his palace, passed her by like one of those painful

dreams which mock us with sights of splendour in the midst of some

heavy woe; and before she had threaded many more of the solitary

streets, robbed of their population by the attractive ceremony of the

day, a single trooper galloped up, gazed on her for a moment, and rode

on. At the tower, no formalities were opposed to her immediate

entrance of the prisoner's chamber--she was led to it at once; the

door was itself open; an unsealed paper lay upon the table; Henry held

Margaret in his arms; and tears, which she never before had seen in

his eyes, now rolled pitifully down his cheeks, and mingled with those

of his bride; but, strange to say, smiles were shining through those

tears, and happiness, like the rainbow sun, beamed through the drops

Of sorrow.

"Joy, mother, joy!" were the first and only words. "Joy, mother,

joy!--Henry is pardoned!"

---------------

By the time the second scene was over, the bottle was out and the

clock struck one. The lamps, too, were burning low and dim, and it

would have been an excellent moment for a ghost story to wind up the

evening. But our dear new-found friend was about to set out by the

steam-packet for England, early the next morning; our horses were

ordered for Rouen at six o'clock, and we were forced to say good

night.

The next morning we were punctual to our hour, and reached the fine

old city of the Seine, whilst day was still shining bright upon it.

The place itself is too well known to need description, and nothing

occurred of any interest that is not comprised in a single letter

which I wrote thence to a friend now dead. It was never sent, and is

only worth preserving as a memorial of the first suspicion that

entered my mind, that my servant might not be dealing fairly with me,

a suspicion which; if it had been then confirmed, might have saved me

many a long hour of misery.

TO W. H----, ESQ.

_Rouen_, 1824.

My dear H----,

You will be surprised to find that we have got no farther on our

pilgrimage than Rouen, but my desultory habit of never proceeding

straight to any object, and suffering myself to be tempted always by

the collateral; makes our progress slow. We arrived here, through some

beautiful valleys, filled with manufactories of cotton: and after

passing by a long alley of fine trees, wound through a number of

narrow dull streets, to the Hotel----, which, though one of the best

in the town, still offers that mixture of finery and filth which

pervades all French inns. The _salle à manger_, I am convinced, has

never been swept or cleaned since its construction. The dirt may

sometimes have been kicked out by accident, but can never have been

removed intentionally.

Our breakfast was served to us on very handsome plate; but a pig,

followed by some turkeys, walked in from the court with a cabbage-leaf

in his mouth, and with true French urbanity, seemed very much inclined

to keep us company at our meal. Although we explained to him in the

clearest manner that we wished to be alone, we had some difficulty in

keeping him out, as the door would not shut, and he appeared to have

right prescriptive to a free entrance. Shortly after, we had the

company of our landlady, who, though much more _élégante_ than a

person of the same class in England, has the most tremendous tongue

that ever woman was blessed with. She began upon her own history, and

went through it from the beginning even unto the end. She informed us

that her husband was _bête_, but _bon_, explained to us her opinions

upon various points of morality which did not exactly coincide with

our own, and was then going to enter upon another story--when, as we

could not get rid of her as we had got rid of the pig--we wished her

good morning, and took a ramble through the town.

The general appearance of Rouen is dull, but there is an air of

antiquity about it which I have often found wanting as a

characteristic in places considerably older than this. One of the

first things which attracted our notice was the beauty of the women:

certainly never did I see such a number of pretty faces, as there are

here framed and glazed at shop windows, with their large dark eyes

glancing at us like diamonds as we pass by. But this is no subject for

you, Sir Stoic; old mouldering monuments, and crumbling ruins, will

better suit your musty, antiquarian soul. You would revel were you

with us here. This place is one great museum of ancient buildings:

every thing smacks of old days; and memory has plenty of occupation in

raking up all the histories that each object recall.

I have seen good paintings of the Cathedral as it appeared some years

ago, before the spire was burnt; and though the people lament very

much its fall, I cannot say that I think the building has lost by the

accident. The spire was light and elegant certainly, but it did not

seem to me to harmonize well with the rest of the church. I believe

that we wore out the patience of our valet-de-place, staying nearly

three hours to examine every part of it, and admiring and re-admiring

the beautiful combinations which the light Gothic arches present at

every step you take along the aisles. Round some of the principal

columns there is a curious sort of open balcony, which I do not

remember to have seen any where else, and which has a very pleasing

effect.

After remaining so long in the interior we mounted the tower, and

proceeding through a little door which led to the outside, found

ourselves amongst all the grotesque figures with which our good Norman

ancestors ornamented their churches. There were monkeys, and bears,

and parrots, and dragons, and devils, and saints; all pellmell,

jostling against each other, without any respect for persons.

It was singular to remark, that the iconoclastic spirit of the French

revolution had found out the statues of the saints and martyrs even up

here, and chopped their heads off without mercy, leaving the devils as

the proper images of the spirit of the time. It certainly was the most

ridiculous fury that ever seized a mad nation, to think of beheading

blocks of marble. When the sans-culottes entered the town of Nancy in

Alsace, they found, amongst other things, the statues of Apollo and

the nine muses; these they immediately christened the King and the

royal family, and proceeded to guillotine them on the spot. The busts

of Voltaire and Rousseau were about to undergo the same fate, but the

librarian of the town saved them, by announcing them as the very

patriarchs and apostles of the revolution.

Immediately after the Cathedral, we saw the Abbey church of St. Ouen.

It wants the vast solemnity of the other, but more than makes up for

it, by the correctness of the proportions, and the minute elegance of

all the parts. A very beautiful effect is produced by the disposition

of the font, which is so placed as to reflect almost the whole

interior of the building.

From St. Ouen we went to the Library, whose principal curiosity seems

to be an old illuminated psalm-book, which must have cost a world of

useless labour to the monk who, as the librarian informed us with no

small emphasis, occupied fifty years of his life in painting it.

Afterwards, in rambling through the town, we came to the spot where

poor Jeanne d'Arc was burnt. It is called La Place de la Pucelle; and

in a neighbouring house we were shown the cabinet in which, it is

said, her judges deliberated their cruel sentence. It is a dark,

gloomy, octagonal room, lined with black oak; and one naturally

repeoples it with the merciless countenances of those who once sat

there, to gratify their bloodthirsty malice on the poor enthusiast who

had been the means of their overthrow. There can be little doubt that

the Maid of Orleans was nothing but a visionary, and as such became

the tool of Agnes Sorrel and her party, to whom the delivery of France

front the English yoke is really to be ascribed.

A great part of the common dwelling-houses in Rouen bear evident marks

of their ancient construction, but the one I have just mentioned, in

the Place de la Pucelle, is particularly worthy of remark, on account

of a curious relief on one of the pavilions, representing the famous

meeting of Henry VIII. and Francis I. between Guisnes and Ardres. Most

of the figures are very perfect, and on various parts of the building

there are some curious sculptures and arabesques. Before the

revolution, the number of churches in Rouen, must have been immense;

at every step the vestiges of some of these edifices present

themselves, converted into workshops or storehouses: and there remain

a great many, still appropriated to the purposes of religion. The

French possess an infinity of monuments of this kind, but they are not

careful of them. It is truly disgusting to see quantities of dirty

stalls and outhouses raised against their finest buildings, and all

sorts of nuisances practised against them in midday. The interior is

also often spoiled by the bad taste of those who have the charge of

them; frequently we find the fine stonework painted all sorts of

colours; no qualm of conscience opposes itself to adding a Greek

doorway or skreen to a Norman church; and the horrid daubs of pictures

which are to be met in the finest churches in France, would disgrace a

barber's shop.

The churches in Rouen, are, I believe, without exception Gothic, which

appears to me to be far better suited than any other architecture to

the character of the Christian religion. There is that pensive kind of

shade which invites the mind to thought. The grandeur of the objects,

and the vastness of the proportions, make us feel our own littleness:

we find ourselves as nothing in the temples we ourselves have made;

and our thoughts naturally turn to Him who created all.

Certain it is, that the purer the religion, the less is it connected

with external appearances; but so little have we the power of

abstracting our ideas from the immediate matter of our senses, that

there are few who have not, at some time, felt that a great degree of

solemnity in all which surrounds us, is absolutely necessary, when we

would turn the whole current of our thoughts towards the sublime

object of our devotion. Pomp and show, and stage effect, are beneath

the dignity of religion; but when under a dispensation which guides

the heart and its feelings, as well as the body and its actions, the

creature kneels to adore its Creator, the solemnity of every object

around can never be too great for such an awful occasion.

The religion of the Greeks, in harmony with their climate, their

customs, and their minds, was one of striking and brilliant

ceremonies, formed to excite the passions and dazzle the imagination;

with more show than feeling, more elegance than solemnity.

The architecture of their temples was consonant both to the nature of

the people and their religion, light, rich, and graceful, and full of

forms more calculated to excite pleasure and admiration, than thought

or devotion, it had far more grace but less grandeur than the Gothic.

Its very perfection is the cause of its wanting solemnity. The pillars

are exactly proportioned to the building, and the ornaments to the

parts which they adorn; every thing is gradual and easy; but in Gothic

architecture, all is abrupt and striking. The minute ornaments which

are too small to distract the attention from general effect, give, by

contrast, an additional vastness to the high pointed arches, and

enormous columns. The very disproportion of the parts makes the whole

appear larger than it really is, the soul of man seems to have power

to expand amidst the gigantic vaults, under which he walks as an

insect; and his mind naturally takes a tone from the solemn vastness

of the building.

To you, who are almost as great a Goth as myself in these points, I am

not afraid to express my opinions; although I have no architectural

knowledge to support them. I am apt to judge alone from my feelings,

and certainly I never experience the same sensation of awe in any

other building that I do in a Gothic cathedral.

Nothing has occurred to myself worth commemorating since our arrival

in this city, if I except some suspicions which have assailed me

regarding my worthy servant Essex. You remember the fellow and his

extreme plausibility. Amongst other points of his character he

affected no slight dislike to his former master, your acquaintance

Wild; representing him as the most violent and malevolent of human

beings. On going to the post-office myself, the other day, I saw fixed

up amongst the letters which have not been forwarded for want of

postage, one addressed to no other person than Alfred Wild, Esquire,

and that address, too, written in the precise hand which delivers me

my weekly accounts. What, this means I do not know; but I mentioned to

my friend B----, while the fellow was in the room, the fact of having

seen a letter addressed to Wild, but not forwarded for want of

postage. The next day the letter was no longer there. This, however,

might be nothing, did I not feel very sure that--at whose instigation

I know not--the rascal gives himself the trouble of watching me in my

various rambles through the town. If I detect him, he will return to

England with a broken head, although he can find out but little in my

goings forth which can injure

Your's ever,

J---- Y----

THE JOURNEY.

Quatuor hinc rapimur viginti et millia rhedis

Mansuri oppidulo quod versu dicere non est

Signis perfacile est. Venit vilissima rerum

Hic aqua. HORACE.

What can it be? It can not be food, nor climate, nor customs, which

make two races of people, living side by side, so very different from

each other. Certain it is, that beauty stops short at the gates of

Rouen; and that from thence to Berney, they are the ugliest,

ill-looking generation that ever I beheld. Not a pretty face was to be

seen for love or money. Nature seemed to have expended all her beauty

upon the scenery.

About three leagues from Rouen we stopped at the foot of a high hill,

and climbing amongst some fine oaks to the left, arrived at the top of

a pinnacle, which commanded the whole country round. It was as

beautiful a view as can be conceived. One vast forest, with

innumerable valleys winding away towards the horizon covered with rich

wood; but as the withering touch of time had not affected all the

trees alike, the thousand autumnal tints of the foliage, and the

various shadows thrown by the undulations of the country, offered a

variety and richness of colouring seldom to be equalled.

The height where we stood had anciently been fortified, and some parts

of the walls are still remaining, which bear the name of _The Château

of Robert le Diable_. Whence the celebrated legend of that personage

derives its origin I know not. The only account I could obtain of him

in this part of the country was from an old woman not to be relied on.

"In the old times," she said, "when Normandy was separate from France,

the lord of that castle, _The Comte Robert_, was a bold, wild young

man, rather famous for doing what he ought not to have done. His lady

mother had been a strange, solitary being, living separate from all

the world after her husband's death, only entertaining herself with

books, which the people judged to be of sorcery, because nobody but

herself understood them, and only talking with spirits; so the people

said, though nobody had ever been present at any of these ghostly

_conversazione_. Be that as it may--in her last moments she was

attended by a capuchin of the neighbouring monastery, who was so

horrified (it appeared) at the confession of her monstrous sins, that

he was seen to stagger out of the castle like one distracted; and when

one of the servants, entirely from love to his mistress, and without

any curiosity whatever, ran after him to ask, what was the matter, he

replied, like a man out of his senses, swearing that he would not

drink the other bottle and crying out that the young count was _the

devil_, and his mother not a whit better. Now the valet, who was a

very religious man, and believed every thing a capuchin said to him,

returned to the castle and told all the people that, his young master

was _the devil_.

"'_C'est le diable_,' said the valet. '_Le diable!_' cried the butler,

laying his finger on his proboscis. '_Le Diable!_' exclaimed the

écuyer, pulling up his boots. '_Le Diable!_' said the countess's maid,

getting closer to the écuyer. 'Do not be frightened, Jeannette,'

whispered he, 'the devil himself shan't hurt you--' What he said more

was lost in a buzz. 'Fie! don't be blasphemous, Roger,' cried

Jeannette, 'who knows what may happen?' and so they talked it all

over, and agreed that it was very possible that the young count might

be _the devil_.

"When the old lady was safely dead and buried, Count Robert ordered

his cellar to be replenished, for it had fallen much to decay; and

getting together a great company of young knights and nobles, they

fell into all manner of excesses; hunting till they were tired, eating

till they were full, and drinking till they were drunk, bespattering

the _old_ women with dirt from their horses' feet, and kissing the

_young_ ones in a very unbecoming manner. So that every body cried out

that Count Robert was--_le diable_.

"Now it so happened that the Count fell in love with the abbess of the

convent of Beauchamp, whom her brother, the Marquis of Millemonte, had

caused to take the veil. He having some religious scruples and qualms

of conscience to paying the dower her father had left her, in case she

entered into the state of matrimony. Nevertheless, the count, who

cared little about religious matters, set his brains to work; and

taking the method of the famous Count Orry, he obtained admission to

the convent; so that every body cried out more than ever, that Count

Robert was certainly--_le diable_.

"The news of this occurrence was not very palatable to the Marquis of

Millemont, but Count Robert heeded not whether he liked it or no, and

went on in revelry and feastings, till one night, the marquis, with a

large company, suddenly broke in upon him, and began to lay about him

without mercy. Now, though the count was as drunk as the sow of a

certain celebrated personage, he fought so hard, that every one swore

Count Robert was _le diable_; till, overpowered by numbers, he was

driven, with the few of his followers who remained alive, from chamber

to chamber, even to the outer wall; whence, sooner than be taken, he

threw himself down into the ditch of the castle; and all those who

were by vowed and averred, that the water where he fell hissed and

fizzed, as if a piece of hot iron had tumbled into it, which

completely convinced all the world that Count Robert was really

nothing but _le diable_.

"From that time to this," said the old woman, "the château has gone

gradually to decay. I remember it, standing high above every thing

around, but now the upstart trees measure their height against it, and

in the greenness of their youth seem to mock its forlorn old age,

forgetting that they shall decay and fall like it, and like me. Every

year robs it of something; and it is only wonderful that it has not

fallen before, as for many a century it has never been inhabited: for

who would dwell in the château of _Robert le Diable?_"

I hated sentiment at that time of my life; and as the _old_ woman was

beginning to grow somewhat sentimental on the old castle, we wished

her good morning, and proceeded as fast as we could to Berney. The

postmaster, or rather the post-mistress, for it was a women, was very

civil and good-tempered, and as she kept an hotel into the bargain, we

should have lodged with her, had it not been for a wet court-yard

between the inn and the street. It had been originally carpeted with

straw, which had since been beaten into a mash and wetted with a

fortnight's rain, so that with the assistance of a number of oxen,

horses, goats, and pigs, it had been rendered quite impassable. We

went then to _l'Equerre_ where we were shown through the kitchen into

a single room with two beds. I hinted to the landlady, that we should

require two rooms, and here began our first battle. She had no idea,

it appears, of people occupying two rooms, when one would do. But I

kept to my point, and told her that an Englishman always required a

room to himself. She said that it was very extraordinary. I agreed to

that, but told her that the English were an extraordinary nation, and

when they could not get two rooms they always went away. Thereupon,

she instantly gave us what we required, though she had vowed fifty

times before that she had but that one apartment vacant.

While dinner was preparing we went out to visit the churches, and

walked through the beautiful valley of Charentonne. We staid a moment

in the cemetery, but there was only one tomb to be distinguished from

the routine of epitaphs commonplace. On the one I speak of appeared a

broken rose, rudely sculptured in the stone, and below were written

some lines, the idea of which was better than the versification.

"Flower of a day, that blossom'd but to die,

In native earth thine earth-born beauties lie:

Not so thine odour, tho' thy stem be riven,

It, on the blast that broke thee, rose to heaven."

On our return to the inn, our dinner was placed before us. It

consisted of some soup and bouilli, some abortive trout, that I

believe on my conscience were originally intended for gudgeons, a

stewed hare, or _civet de lièvre_ (which probably was some poor

unfortunate cat, for I never could get a sight of the hare-skin), and

some plates of vegetables. I saw by this that our bill would be high;

for, on the same principle that "he ne'er forgives who does the

wrong," an innkeeper who serves you ill always makes you pay for it.

I was not disappointed. Our charges, next morning, were at least twice

as much as by any reasonable calculation they ought to have been; and,

consequently, I struck off one half of the bill. The landlady vowed

that she would not take one sous less than she demanded, and I vowed

that I would not give her one sous more than I offered. She swore I

should not quit the house till I had paid it. I informed her that the

carriage was at the door and that I was going. She said she would go

to the maire. I told her to make haste, then, for that I was in a

hurry. She flew into a violent passion, and I affected to fly into

another. I counted out the half of the bill upon the table; she took

it up and put it in her pocket, and the matter being thus settled, we

both recomposed our faces. I wished her good morning and perfect

health; and she expressed hope, that if we again passed through

Bernal, she should have _le plaisir infini de notre pratique_.

Happy, happy, happy people! An English landlady would have growled for

two hours afterwards.

There is more of the _beau ideal_ of cottage life in France than in

England. One meets with more of those bright and striking points of

original character among the peasantry of France in a day, than one

would find in England in a month. All over the world cultivation has

put nature out of fashion, and man is all the smoother but none the

brighter for it; but, however, it sometimes happens that in our

wanderings we find little bits of pure unadulterated nature that are

worth any price; and when I meet with such, I ask Memory to pick them

up and put them in her pocket for me. It is true that she, careless

slut, often drops what is good, and hoards up what she had better cast

away; but still I have a little treasure in her hands, consisting

simply of bright pictures that I have gathered together as I journey

on. Things seen for a moment and passed by. A group of children

playing; a girl drawing water, a striking effect of light and shade,

or the passing away of a storm, will give me more pleasure and remain

longer upon my memory than all the graces and attitudes even of a

Taglioni.

In passing through Normandy alone, a painter, who could sketch

rapidly, with taste and imagination to guide him, might soon fill his

portfolio with groups that would set him above all the artists in the

world. I remember as we drove out of Bernay, there was a girl standing

at the window of a cottage by the road-side; she was young, and her

form had all the loveliness of youth, the wild grace of nature, and

the richness of simplicity. Her hands leaned upon the bar of the

window, and she seemed watching the progress of a cloud that flitted

across the blue sky, with her eyes raised towards heaven, and her

brown hair falling back from her face. She was worth all the Magdalens

that ever were painted.

The gardens of the Guinguettes, too, are prodigal of undisguised

nature. In the evening of a summer Sunday, all the youth of the

neighbourhood assemble there to dance away the afternoon, and all is

harmony and joy. Nature has full room to act, and she always does it

beautifully.

I know not well which is the cause and which the effect--whether a

French peasant's peculiar amusements render him a better tempered

animal than an Englishman of the same class, or whether it is a

disposition naturally gentler, that leads him to those amusements.

Certain it is, that his amusements are generally milder in their kind,

and more good-humoured in their execution than an Englishman's; and I

cannot help thinking, that if our country magistrates would but

encourage and revive the nearly forgotten rural sports of our

ancestors, many good feelings which have been lost; would come back

with those innocent pastimes.

The object of all mankind is happiness; and the object of all good

lawgivers is to secure the greatest possible portion of it to those

they govern. Every thing that renders the people gentler among

themselves, renders them happier; and there is no greater bond of

union amongst a whole nation, than general attachment to ancient

customs.

In France, every thing is done for the people's amusement. The

government aid it; the magistrates encourage it; and the rich, look on

with pleasure, while the poor enjoy themselves. It unites all classes

of society by the strongest ties; and while an Englishman sits

drinking before a public-house, abusing the laws he neither knows nor

understands, a Frenchman dances away his hours, contented with himself

and all the world.

Among the lower classes of the peasantry (I do not, speak of the

inhabitants of cities) the evils of the revolution were little felt.

The conscription was the only thing that affected them; and whilst

almost every other class lost the better part of their character they

remained the same. They may be savage in their resentments, but it

needs real injury to excite them; and in their amusements they are

mild, cheerful, and orderly. At the fairs and at different fêtes,

where there are various sports and prizes supplied at the expense of

government, it is truly astonishing to see the general good humour and

regularity which prevails; and, in spite of the gensdarmes who stand

looking on like the ushers of a school on a half-holiday, nature is

not at all checked to produce it. On the contrary, she is always

breaking forth; and it is the very spirit of happiness which she

breathes, well pleased with herself and with all around her. I have

often wished for the pencil of a Wilkie to sketch the faces, I have

seen grinning at a merry-andrew, or watching the efforts of a poor

devil on a tourniquet,[3] striving to keep the unsteady machine on the

balance, till he arrives at the prizes within his view; and just when

he fancies that he grasps success, round flies the tourniquet and down

he falls amongst the people--and what then? Why the people laugh, and

he laughs too; and takes his place at the end of the file to try his

luck again.

--------------------

[Footnote 3: The tourniquet consists of two triangular pieces of wood

fixed at about three yards distance from each other on a horizontal

pole, which serves for an axle-tree; from each angle of the one to the

corresponding angle of the other is drawn a rope; and the whole

machine is suspended at about four feet from the ground. At one end is

placed a pole, on which hang the prizes; and at the other is a ladder

for the aspirant to mount. The tourniquet is held steady till he is

firmly fixed, with each of his feet resting on one of the side ropes,

and his hands clasping the centre one; and then he is left to make his

way to the prizes at the other end. As long as he can keep himself

exactly balanced all is well; but the least pressure more to one side

than the other, destroys the equilibrium, and round goes the

tourniquet.]

---------------

I once saw a country girl watching her lover trying hard to win a

tempting mouchoir, which no doubt they had both determined to be the

finest thing in the world to deck her out next Sunday at mass. She

looked timidly round her every now and then, as if she feared that the

eagerness she felt in her heart should shine out before the world, and

then she fixed her eyes upon her lover again, while he got on by

degrees, till at last the mischievous tourniquet turned him and his

hopes upside down together. The long compressed breath burst from the

girl's lips in a deep sigh, but the lad gave a gay look through the

crowd, and a smile to where his mistress stood, as much as to say--"I

am not beaten yet;" and took his place again. But there were half a

dozen to try their fortune before him; and as they came nearer and

nearer the poll on which the prizes hung, he regarded them anxiously;

and I could see that it was not he hoped they would fall, but that he

feared they would take the very mouchoir he had fixed his heart upon.

I do not know why, but something had made me determine that one way or

another the girl should not go away without a mouchoir; and so now,

having an interest in the matter, when it came to his turn again I

watched him as eagerly as any one. But he managed well, and proceeding

slowly and cautiously came near the prizes, gave a spring at the

mouchoir, and brought it to the ground. In the triumph of his heart he

could not help holding it up to his mistress, which called a laugh

from the people. But it mattered little; the girl paid for her

mouchoir with a blush; and taking the arm of her lover walked away as

happy as a princess--nay a great deal happier.

WORDS AND THINGS.

And all the rest is leather and prunella.

As we rolled on at a very tolerable pace, towards le Mans, we met a

troop of conscripts on the road; forced from their homes, torn from

all early and dear associations--and there they were, as gay as larks,

singing and laughing till the welkin rang. Yet the French people do

not like the conscription. The government of Napoleon had become

intolerable from it; and the irksome taxes comprised under the title

of _droits réunis_, was another source of discontent. It is a very

general mistake to suppose that words are merely the representatives

of ideas, when every day experience shows us that a change in words is

often of much more consequence than a change in things. The Bourbon

family, on their restoration, promised that the _conscription_ should

be abolished, and that the _droits réunis_ should no longer exist; and

consequently their names were expelled from the catalogue of

government terms: but as it was found absolutely necessary that the

king should be supplied with soldiers, and the state with money, the

name of _jeunes soldats_ was substituted for _conscrits_, and

_contributions indirectes_ for that of _droits réunis_. This proved

highly satisfactory to all; and there were only a few weak-minded

individuals, who took snuff, and pretended that, in reality, things

remained just as they were.

We rolled on.--One little act of kindness, one smile from a warm and

benevolent heart, is worth all the cant and politeness in the world.

It was a changeable autumn day, and as we came to the top of the hill

which overlooks the rich valley of Gacé, a dark heavy storm, which had

obscured the sky for more than an hour, suddenly broke away, and left

the whole scene beaming in light and loveliness. My friend was much

fatigued, and as we were about to change horses here, we agreed to

stay and dine. The post-house was the inn, and, on driving up to the

door, a fine portly old man, and two black-eyed blooming girls, came

out to greet the travellers on their arrival with so much frankness

and good-nature in their faces that, had we been travelling on life

and death, we must even have stayed to dinner there. The first room in

all Norman inns is the kitchen, and thither Monsieur Butet led us, and

introduced us in form to _Madame sa femme_, who was the counterpart of

her husband--the same age and size for a woman as he was for a man,

with the same look of hilarity and health, and the same frank open

countenance that bade you welcome before she spoke. Every thing, too,

around them was clean and neat, and bespoke a family of cheerful

regularity. My feet were very wet with getting in and out of the

carriage to pay the postboys, so the two girls took me under their

special protection, and setting me by the side of the large chimney,

blew up the fire to dry me, while Madame Butet got, the dinner ready,

and her husband showed my friend to a room where he could lie down. I

will not say they were civil--civil seems a mercenary word--they were

kind.

At dinner they gave us the best of every thing they had; and if we

required any little change, it was done with alacrity and good humour.

The two girls served us, and laughed and talked, and showed their

white teeth, as if they had known us for a hundred years; and the

father came in to ask if we had every thing we wished. After dinner he

begged to know if he should put to the horses, for, if we intended to

go to Alençon that night it was growing late; but we told him that we

intended to spend the night with him. He made us a low bow, and said

that we did him too much honour, that his was a poor, little inn, and

they had nothing to offer us but good will. The _bourg_, too, had

nothing curious or interesting to amuse us, he added; yet he must say,

that though he had visited many places, he had never seen a sweeter

valley, or a neater little town than Gacé.

The next morning was market-day, and before the windows we had all the

women of the country round, in their high white caps and bright gowns

either of blue or red. Amongst other commodities, one which had a

great sale was the sabot, or wooden shoe; and Mademoiselle Butet

advising me to buy a pair to put on in getting out of the carriage, I

begged her to send for some to let me see. When they came, she tried

them on for me herself, showed me how to wear them, chaffered the

vender down five or six sous in the price, and carried them off to

show her father what a pretty pair of sabots she had bought for

Monsieur.

We had every reason to be contented at Gacé; we were well lodged, and

fed, and treated, and the bill was but a trifle. It contained only one

word--"bonne chère," good cheer; and was not more simple than the

people themselves.

I was almost afraid that some little thing might lower these good

souls in my opinion; but no, it went on to the last in the same kind,

good-humoured, unpretending way. They had welcomed us like friends,

and so they bade us farewell; and coming all out to the door, they

wished us a pleasant journey, and many happy years, and looked after

us long as we drove away.

Several circumstances amused me much in passing from Alençon to le

Mans: but I gradually got tired of my position, and was not at all

sorry when the carriage drove up to the inn. It was a cold, cheerless,

drizzly night, as one could wish for; and as I hate to take the worst

view of a place, by looking at it through a mist of any kind, I turned

my eyes obstinately towards the large arched entry of the inn, without

regarding whether the town was black, white, or gray. There was, a

little sort of bureau on the left hand, and at the door was standing

one of the most interesting beings I ever beheld. It was altogether a

picture we seldom meet with. The light fell sideways, and showed as

beautiful a face as any in the world, in that deep relief of light and

shade which Rembrandt only knew how to manage. It was very fair, and

very pale; the hair was simply braided on the forehead under a cap

shaped like a nun's; and the long dark eyes, as they were turned

towards the spot where we stood, caught the light, but seemed more to

absorb than to reflect it. There was a degree of quiet peace in the

attitude, and a tranquil calmness in the countenance, which expressed

a thoughtful mind, and a gentle unperturbed spirit, better than any

eloquence could have done it; and the silver cross which hung by a

black ribbon round her neck and rested on her hand, seemed to point

out more particularly the bent of her thoughts. I know not why (for I

never scrutinize my motions), but as I passed by, I instinctively

pulled off my hat. My companion was equally struck with myself; and

one of our first questions went to obtain further information. "She

was daughter (they told us) of the mistress of the house, and intended

to become _religieuse_."

I asked if there was any reason. Perhaps some sorrow had given her

mind that bent--some disappointment of that kind which rests on

woman's heart like a blight, till the whole tree withers? but they

told us no; that she had always been thus. She was, it seems, one of

those calm, quiet spirits, which are as strangers in the midst of the

busy world, taking no part in its cares and its joys, and looking

sorrowfully upon all the evil that is done and suffered, She was very

good, the people said, and very charitable, and every body loved her;

and for the moment I felt a degree of grief that her heart had never

met any one that was worthy of its affection. But no, it was better

not; for love is but a brighter name for pain; and God forbid that a

spirit which turned towards heaven, should be weighed down by any of

the passions of earth.

In the evening I missed my friend for half an hour; and when he

rejoined me, "I have been talking with our nun," said he, "over the

fire." But I begged him not to tell me any thing about it. "I would

not have done it for the world," said I.

"Why not?" demanded he:--and as some one else may ask the same

question, and think I meant differently from that which I did, I will

give the reasons now, as I gave them then. I would not have done it

for the world; for I never like to compare the paintings of fancy with

the originals. Realities are seldom the pleasantest parts of life.

Hope, memory, and, even enjoyment, are more than half imagination.

Every thing is mellowed by distance; and when we come too near, the

airy softness is lost, and the hard lines of truth are offered harshly

to the eye. Half our sorrows are the breaking of different illusions:

sometimes they must be broken; but when, without danger to himself, or

injury to others, man can enrich the scene before him with ideal

beauties, he is foolish to examine minutely the objects of which

it is composed. The cottage, with its broken thatch and shining piece

of water in the foreground, is picturesque and beautiful in a

landscape;--but what is the reality? The dwelling of misery, decorated

with a horse-pond! The splendid pageants, that dazzle the lesser

children at a theatre, are but dirty daubs of paint and tinsel; and it

is the same with the stage of the world. It never answers to be behind

the scenes. In life, I have met with but two things equal to what I

fancied them--sunrise from a mountain, and a draught of water when I

was thirsty.

----------------

A FRENCH COOK.

There is no man on earth, I believe, who has not figured to himself a

sort of animal totally distinct from every thing else in nature, and

called it in his own mind a _French cook_.

It is, in a manner, an historical character; and from the very nursery

we accustom ourselves to picture him with a long pigtail and a

nightcap, skinning cats and fricasseeing frogs. But the breed is

nearly extinct: I had sought for one of the true race all over France

with the zeal and fervour of an antiquary, and long had only the

mortification of finding every kitchen filled with plump, greasy

professors (who for fat and solemnity, might have occupied any chair

in a Dutch university), skimming their dirty saucepans, and

mercilessly compounding mutton and beef to supply the cravings of a

nation who have nearly abandoned frogs,[4] snails and vipers, to feed

upon the same gross aliments as the English. As I have said, much had

been my mortification; but there was a reward in store for me, Le

Valliant could not have been more gratified when he first met with the

giraffe than was I, when, on entering the kitchen at le Mans, my eyes

fell upon the minister of the culinary department. It was the _beau

ideal_ of a French cook! and had Hogarth seen him, he would have made

him immortal.

--------------------

[Footnote 4: Be it remarked, that this is not entirely the case. In

all parts at France frogs are still in high repute. The snail,

_escargot_, is a favourite food of the people of Lorraine; and, in the

south of France, I have been asked whether I liked _anguille de haie_

or _anguille de rivière_; meaning, whether I preferred eels or

snakes.]

--------------------

He was about sixty, and as thin as could be well desired. His

complexion was _café au lait_, set off by a pair of small eyes, high

up in his head, as black as jet, and sparkling like the charcoal under

his saucepans; while his hair, as white as snow, stuck out in full

friz, like a powder-puff, and supported a candid nightcap, which,

leaning slightly to one side, let the tassel sway peacefully over his

left ear.

Whether it was from constantly leaning to the side of royalty (for he

had been an _émigré_), or from some accident, I do not know, but one

of his legs was rather shorter than the other. This, however, nothing

deteriorated the dignity of his deportment; and when he appeared in

the midst of stews and sauces, with his gray jacket, his snowy apron,

and his knife by his side, my imagination became exalted: his nightcap

assumed the appearance of a wreath; his jacket transformed itself into

pontifical robes; his knife became the instrument of sacrifice; the

_b[oe]uf au naturel_ changed to the bellowing victim; the kitchen to

the porch of the temple; and I began to fancy myself in ancient

Greece, when suddenly he advanced towards us with a smiling air, and

placed chairs for us by the fire. "Sit down English gentlemans," said

he, in a barbarous corruption of my native language; "sit down, sit

down. Oh! I go make you nice dinner. I be in England; I make the

kitchen to Lord Salisbury. Do you understand Lord Salisbury?

_Connaissez-vous_ Lord Salisbury."

What between himself and his English, I have seldom met any thing

equal to him. He had all the importance, too, of his profession; there

was a gravity in his emptiness, and a politeness in his gravity. When

he cooked, his whole soul seemed in the dish; but when any one

addressed him, his face relaxed into a smile, and the dish was forgot.

The pride of his heart was in his saucepans, which hung up in

innumerable shining rows above our heads, burnished like the armour of

Achilles, and from those saucepans he produced fare worthy the great

Lucullus. Indeed, he was the best cook I ever met; but that is easily

accounted for. He had been cook to a seminary of Catholic priests, and

quitted it upon some quarrel. The good father directors, soon finding

how much their palates lost by his absence, wished him to return; and

he showed with no small triumph a letter he had received to that

effect. I copied, and give it word for word. The colouring might be

heightened, but it is better as it is; and, as a specimen of an

epistle from a priest to a cook, it is unique:--

"MON CHER MONSIEUR, "_Paris_, 8 _Juillet_ 1823.

"Voici ce que Monsieur le Supérieur m'a dit de vous répondre. 'Si vous

voulez être bien raisonnable, bien gentil, être bon chrétien, vous

conformer en tout aux règles de la maison, vous n'avez qu'à revenir au

plus tôt. Je ferai votre affaire.' Voilà ses propres paroles.

"Je me réjouis de cette heureuse nouvelle que je vous apprends. Je dis

que c'est pour vous une heureuse et très-heureuse nouvelle, car où

peut-on être mieux que dans une maison où, si l'on veut, l'on peut se

sanctifier si facilement et mériter le bonheur du paradis? Venez donc

au plus vite, venez dans ce saint séminaire, où vous vous rendrez

digne du ciel, j'en suis sûr. Je suis avec amitié votre très-devoué,

"JEAN-BAPTISTE C----."

"P. S. Je me porte beaucoup mieux."

THE TABLE D'HÔTE.

If our landlord supplies us with beef and with fish,

Let each guest bring himself, and he brings the best dish.

--RETALIATION.

The table d'hôte of the Boule d'Or at le Mans was like an _olla

podrida_. There was a little of every thing; all the odd ends and

scraps of society bashed up in one dish. Next to me, on the left, was

an old noble, Grand Cordon of one of the orders of merit, who had come

to put his son to the college at la Flèche. He had seen much of the

world--had been an emigrant and a wanderer. There were the traces of

many sorrows, dangers, and cares, on his countenance; but if ever the

heart finds an interpreter in the eye, his had not been hardened by

the trials of life. He had that sort of urbanity in his face, which

probably in youth had been accompanied by a gayer and a quicker

spirit, though years had left nothing but the calm placidity of

demeanour, which, if it does not spring from benevolence, at least

appears to do so.

On my other hand was a young travelling linen draper--a good example

of French education. He had been brought up at a college, but that had

not spoiled him for trade. He would talk with equal learning of Horace

and cambric, and spoke as scientifically of the measurement of angles

as the measuring of ribbons. He had scraps of Latin and samples of

cloth, and added, moreover, a political system, which was certainly of

his own manufacture. Neat my friend sat a very elegant old man, with a

long-waisted Windsor gray coat, and ruffles, in the mode of 17--, to

his shirt, which peeped timidly out from under the cuffs of his coat,

like a ci-devant ashamed to show himself amongst the upstarts of

fashion. They were kept in countenance, however, by a powdered wig,

with two long rows of curls on each side, and a tapering pigtail that,

like a ship, furrowing its way through the sea, marked the coat with a

white track all down the centre of his back. Towards the end of the

meal, a priest, newly arrived, came in with his servant, and they both

sat down to table together. Each was as dirty as can well be imagined,

but the master was, in this respect, pre-eminent. Nature had kneaded

him with a round, fat, copper-coloured face, which had evidently

little acquaintance with soap and water, and his black rugged beard

apparently went from Sunday to Sunday without the touch of innovating

steel. His hands, which probably fate had originally designed for

pig-driving, were now as dirty as if they still followed that

employment, and these he thrust unmannerly into the dish, without

vouchsafing a word or a look to those around him.

It is the poetry of life to see a man superior to his station, and

rising above his fate; but it is distressing to find the station thus

degraded by the man. However, he and his servant sat together; and

talked together, and ate together; and, most probably, the servant

would have been very ill pleased if he had dined on meaner fare than

his master. A Frenchman of this class can live upon any thing. If he

cannot get better, a galette and butter-milk, or soupe maigre and a

beurrée, will content him. But, if they be within reach, two services

and a dessert are not at all too much for him. An Englishman of the

same rank never aspires to more than a piece of meat and a mug of ale;

but he must have that, or he cries starvation.

The French have a kind of irritable jealousy towards the English;

which sometimes makes them forget their general politeness; Give them

but a civil word, make the least advance, and they receive you with

open arms; but show them that cold reserve, with which an Englishman

generally treats all strangers, and every Frenchman's hand is on his

sword.

I believe we had been rather silent during dinner, but the young

traveller on my right soon commenced snarling against the English. He

began about manufacturers, as something in his own line; saying that

we pretended to rival the French, but if we lowered our duties we

should soon find how far we were surpassed by the taste and elegance

of French productions. The émigré on my right, said that he was not

quite convinced of that. The superiority of our machines, the industry

of our population; and the vastness of our resources, he said gave us

infinite advantages over every competitor; and he was afraid that

France would be obliged to call forth all her energies before she

could equal us, without thinking of going beyond.

The gentleman in the ruffles observed mildly, that England must have a

very unproductive climate. He had lived long, he said, upon the coast

of Brittany, and remarked constant boat-loads of fruit, vegetables,

and eggs, embarked for England. The fruit and vegetables he could

understand; for that entirely depended upon the atmosphere, but he

could not imagine why we had no eggs. I replied that it was, probably,

because our hens being naturally of colder constitutions than the

French fowls, had a greater penchant for celibacy.

"The truth is," said the old nobleman, "that those who have never been

in England, do not know what England is. Her productions are perfectly

capable of supplying her population, but her immense wealth giving her

the means of excess, she is not content with what she absolutely

wants, but drains other countries of their necessaries to furnish her

with luxuries, and the least check throws the burden on the lower

orders.

"True," said the young traveller, "England is glad enough to drain

other countries; and without doubt, she now only proposes to open her

ports, to overburden us with her useless gold, in exchange for our

substantial commodities. England talks of her liberal policy, but it

is her own interest only she consults, and would gladly ruin the world

to enrich herself with its spoils."

There was something very warm came rising into my cheek, but the old

emigrant made a slight inclination, as much as to say, "let me answer

him," so I said nothing.

"You are very wrong, sir;" replied he to the young man. "You are

wrong, and unjust. At a period too unhappy to France for a Frenchman

willingly to recal, did England take any unhandsome advantage of her

position? Who would have refused her, if she had demanded ten times

more than she required? And since then, of what has she defrauded the

nations? Of what has she robbed the world? Her only object has been to

guard and protect her commerce which, is her existence; and this she

has scarcely done as much as her able policy and successful arms gave

the title to expect, and the power to exact. So much for her

government; now for her people. No one shall say one word against them

before me. When I was an exile and a wanderer, without a country, and

without a friend, the English received me, protected me, supported me.

The nation gave me the means of existence, and individuals made that

existence happy. France is the country of my youth and of my love: in

my young days I drew my sword for her, but have never unsheathed it

against her. France shall have my bones when I die, and my affection

while I live; but England shall ever have my gratitude, and Englishmen

my esteem."

He spoke, and the fire that had animated him, passed away, and left

his countenance as mild and tranquil as it had been before.

At Tours I parted from the friend who had hitherto accompanied me, as

he intended to visit Blois and Orleans, while I was bent upon

wandering awhile in Brittany, which to my mind, filled as it was with

the memories of La Vendée and of the war of loyalty was quite a new

land of romance. To Rennes I first bent my steps, and there

accidentally made some acquaintances who proved very serviceable in

directing my steps aright to the various places of interest in the

province. I shall not, however, pause to narrate all my excursions, as

I am not writing an itinerary of Brittany--though to say the truth I

know few parts of the world which present more points of interest.

There is a frankness and good humour, too, about the people, which is

very agreeable. They want perhaps a part of the refinement of the

Parisians; but they make up in sincerity for all deficiencies in

polish. I cannot, indeed, say that their morality is very rigid, nor

can I boast that while I remained amongst them I avoided the ordinary

errors into which youth and inexperience are but too apt to fall. The

thought of Emily Somers, however, as well as still holier thoughts,

kept me from any very reprehensible conduct, and I took care by

constantly writing to her to prevent her from fancying that I had

forgotten her even for a moment.

I had been absent from England between four and five months when some

occurrences took place which must be mentioned. After various

expeditions to different parts of the country, I was thinking of

turning my steps towards my native land, and had returned to Rennes

with that view, when I was again called back half way to Nantes by a

tale which I may call

THE PEASANT OF BRITTANY.

CHAPTER I.

There is, in a wild and unfrequented part of Brittany, a small

farm-house, which I was now led to visit with as much reverence as many

a devout worshipper has felt, at the shrine of his saint. It is

situated at the distance of about a league from the small town of

Nozay, and is within sight of a solitary windmill on the hill beyond

that place, called the _Moulin à vent de Bolhalard_. Around it are

about thirty acres of arable land, sheltered by the slopes that sweep

down towards it on three sides; but beyond that little patch of

cultivation, the hills around are, as every one knows who has visited

that part of France, covered with heath, which, on the table-land at

the summit, ends in the sandy unproductive sort of track called

_landes_. It is a bleak and desolate scene, and, even when the sun

shines in all his summer brightness, its aspect is wild and solitary;

but when, as is frequently the case, the sky above is covered with

cold gray clouds, or when the chill easterly wind sweeps over the

unprotected plains, there are few places that I know which offer an

appearance of more cheerless dreariness than the farm of Dervais.

Early one day in the beginning of the month of June, and in the year

1794, the old farmer, who at that time cultivated the little spot of

productive land which I have mentioned, and fed his sheep upon the

neighbouring heaths, stood before his door gazing up towards the sky,

as if to ascertain what sort of weather was to predominate during the

day. I may be permitted to describe him; for the name of La Brousse

should live for ever, where honour, and good faith, and generous

devotion, are valued amongst men. Like the generality of Breton

peasants, he was tall, bony, and powerful, with long arms and muscular

hands, which, even at that period of his life, would have performed

many a feat of extraordinary strength. He must have been more than

sixty years of age, and the long curling locks of white hair, which,

like every Breton, he preserved with reverential care, hung down upon

his shoulders, and over a forehead high and broad as that of Milton.

Persons who had been accustomed to mark the features common to

particular counties in England, would have taken him for a Cornish

man, by the peculiar cast of his countenance; and it is more than

probable that his blood was derived from the same stock. His eye was

of a clear dark blue, beneath a marked overhanging eyebrow; and his

long straight pose, and rounded chin, offered traces of beauty which

had survived even the ruinous effects of time. His dress was simply

that of a peasant of the province. The expression of his countenance

at the time I speak of, was stern and melancholy. Well, indeed, might

it be so; for, in the Vendean wars of the preceding year, his two

sons, his only children, had fallen in fighting gallantly against the

revolutionary tyranny; and, childless in his old age, he stood and saw

his country each day accumulating crimes, and drowning her best hopes

in blood.

As he paused before his cottage-door on the day I mention, and gazed

up to the sky, he saw nothing but thin gray clouds drifting slowly

over the wide awful expanse of heaven, promising one of those warm wet

days which so often serve as a link between the summer and the spring;

but, when he let his glance sink to the side of the hill, he beheld a

young woman descending towards him by a little path, which traced its

wavy line amongst the heath and fern, till both heath and fern were

lost in arid _landes_ beyond.

"Some one seeking milk," he thought at first, as his eye rested on the

figure; and he was about to turn into his house, to see whether he had

any to spare; but there was something in the form of the approaching

visitor, something in the step and in the air, that made him pause,

and watch her coming more closely, while a strong expression of

anxiety gradually, appeared in his straining eye.

She came on rapidly, as if in haste, and yet with a wavering and

uncertain step, like one much wearied. When nearer, too, he saw that

her clothes were not those of a peasant girl, and through haste, and

terror, and fatigue, there shone an air of grace and dignity not to be

mistaken. La Brousse took an involuntary step to meet her; and, as if

he understood it all at once--as if he saw that she was the wife

or child of some Vendean chief, flying from the revolutionary

butchers--the words, "Poor thing!" were murmured ere he asked a

question.

When she came near, the spectacle she offered was a sad one. She was

young and graceful, and exquisitely beautiful, but weariness, sorrow,

and terror were written in every line of her countenance, while her

dress was soiled and torn, and dabbled in many parts with blood. Her

story was soon told; for none of those attached to the cause of

royalty, even in the times of the bitterest persecution, ever

hesitated to rely entirely upon the loyalty and honour of the Breton

peasantry; so that Clara de la Roche, the daughter of the unhappy

marquis of that name, who fell in the route of Mans, related her tale

to the ears of the good farmer La Brousse, with as much confidence, of

sympathy, protection, and good faith, as if she had been relating it

to the ears of a parent. After her father's death she had followed the

fortunes of her only brother, through all the horrors of the Vendean

war, till he also had fallen about a week before; and from that time

she had wandered on, without companion or home, friend or protector,

through a country in which famine was fast treading upon the steps of

war; where her only food was obtained from charity; and where some of

the many horrible deaths which had been invented by the diabolical

cruelty of revolutionary tyranny, awaited her the moment she set her

foot within the walls of a town. Good old La Brousse had once given

shelter to her brother after some unsuccessful effort in the royal

cause; and she had now sought him out, and besought him with tears, to

let her live even as a servant in his house, till some of those dreams

of triumphant loyalty, in which the Vendeans still indulged, should at

length be realized.

The old man led her in as tenderly, and as affectionately, as if she

had been his own child, set before her all his cottage afforded,

soothed her sorrow, and spoke the sweet hope of better days, and

happier fortunes. "She could not act as his servant," he said, looking

at her small beautiful hands; "for her appearance would at once betray

her; but the daughter of a noble royalist, and especially a child of

the house of La Roche, should never want bread or protection, while

old La Brousse could give it, though the very act might cost his life.

Mademoiselle, however, must consent to lie concealed," he added; and

he showed her how the back of one of those _armoires_, which are so

common in that country, had been contrived to act as a door to a

little room beyond, which was lighted by a concealed window, and

which, though extremely small, was neat and comfortable. Here, La

Brousse told her, she must spend the greater part of her day, as her

brother had done while he lay concealed in his house; but that, at

night, when the doors and windows were all closed, she might come

forth in security, and towards dusk might even venture to take a walk

across the _landes_.

The prospect of such a state of existence would have been horrible

enough to most people; but to Clara de la Roche it offered that

blessed repose and security--that temporary cessation of terror, and

horror, and fatigue--which had filled every hour of her being during

the months just past; and with joy she took up her abode in the

chamber, which, indeed, was little different from a prison in any

thing but the name. While the good old peasant was still in the act of

showing her how to open and to close the door at will, a step was

heard behind them; and, turning quickly round, Clara beheld a pretty

peasant girl, of about eighteen or twenty, entering the cottage; while

old La Brousse told her not to be afraid, as it was only Ninette, a

cousin's child, who kept his house for him, and who might be trusted

as much as himself. Clara had no fears when she beheld a peasant, and

she felt too, as most women would feel, that although she might see

but little of Ninette, yet there was great comfort in having one other

of her own sex constantly near her. The peasant girl too, habituated

to such scenes, seemed to understand her situation at once, and came

forward to speak to her with much kindness; but the tidings that she

had seen horsemen upon the hill, riding about as if in search of some

one, abridged all ceremony, and Clara at once took up her abode in her

place of concealment.

Scarcely was the door in the back of the _armoire_ closed, and the

interior of the cottage restored to its usual aspect, when Clara, as

she listened anxiously, heard the tramp of horse--to her ears a sound

accursed--and the shouting voice of soldiery disturbing the quiet

solitude in which she had taken refuge. In another moment they entered

the cottage, and she soon found that she herself together with several

other royalists, was the object of their search. With breathless

anxiety she continued to listen while the whole house was examined,

with the exception of the very spot in which she lay concealed. Nor

was her fear to end, even when the soldiers had satisfied themselves

that she was not there; for, having given the farm of Dervais as a

rendezvous to several of their comrades scattered over the hill, the

dragoons remained for several hours, drinking, singing, and mingling

together in a foul strain, which they called conversation, blasphemy,

ferocity, boasting, and ribaldry. At length, however, after many a

weary moment spent by Clara in intense anxiety, the soldiers were

joined by their their companions; and, mounting their horses, they

once more rode away, leaving her to a longer interval of peace and

security than she had known for many months.