CHAPTER VI.

Sunday was a great day in Innisfield; for there, as in all Puritan

communities, religion was the central and engrossing idea. As the bell

rang for service, every ear in town heard it, and all who were not sick or

kept at home by the care of young children turned their steps towards the

house of God. The idea that there could be any choice between going to

hear preaching and remaining at home was so preposterous, that it never

entered into the minds of any but the openly wicked. Whatever might be

their inclinations, few had the hardihood to absent themselves from

meeting, still less to ride out for pleasure, or to stroll through the

woods or upon the bank of the river. A steady succession of vehicles--

"thorough-braced" wagons, a few more stylish carriages with elliptic

springs, and here and there an ancient chaise--tended from all quarters to

the meeting-house. The horses, from the veteran of twenty years' service

down to the untrimmed and half-trained colt, knew what the proprieties of

the day required. They trotted soberly, with faces as sedate as their

drivers', and never stopped to look in the fence-corners as they passed

along, to see what they could find to be frightened at. Nor would they

often disturb worship by neighing, unless they became impatient at the

length of the sermon.

Mr. Hardwick and his family, as we have before mentioned, went regularly

to meeting; Lizzy and Mark sat with him in the singers' seats, the others

in a pew below. The only guardian of the house on Sundays was a large

ungainly cur, named Caesar. The habits of this dog deserve a brief

mention. On all ordinary occasions he followed his master or others of the

family, seeming to take a human delight in their company. Whenever it was

desirable to have him remain at home, nothing short of tying him would

answer the purpose. After a time he came to know the signs of preparation,

and would skulk. Upon setting out, Mr. Hardwick would tell one of the boys

to catch Caesar so that he should not follow, but he was not to be found;

and in the course of ten minutes he would be trotting after his master as

composedly as if nothing had ever happened to interrupt their friendly

relations. It was impossible to resist such persevering affection, and at

length Mr. Hardwick gave up the contest, and allowed Caesar to travel when

and where he chose. But on Sunday he sat on the front-door step, erect

upon his haunches, with one ear dropping forward, and the other upright

like the point of a starched shirt-collar; and though on week-days he was

fond of paying the usual courtesies to his canine acquaintances, and (if

the truth must be told) of barking at strange horses occasionally, yet

nothing could induce him either to follow any of the family, or accost a

dog, or chase after foreign vehicles, on the day of rest. Once only he

forgot what was due to his character, and gave a few yelps in holy time.

But James, with a glance at his father, who was stoutly orthodox, averred

that Caesar's conduct was justifiable, inasmuch as the man he barked at

was one of a band of new-light fanatics who worshipped in the school-

house, and the horse, moreover, was not shod at a respectable place, but

at a tinker's shop in the verge of the township. A dog with such powers of

discrimination certainly merits a place in this true history.

The services of Sunday were finished. Those who, with dill and caraway,

had vainly struggled against drowsiness, had waked up with a jerk at the

benediction, and moved with their neighbors along the aisles, a slow and

sluggish stream. The nearest friends passed out side by side with meekly

composed faces, and without greeting each other until they reached the

vestibule. So slow and solemn was the progress out of church, that merry

James Hardwick averred that he saw Deacon Stone, a short fat man, actually

dozing, his eyes softly shutting and opening like a hen's, as he was borne

along by the crowd. The Deacon had been known to sleep while he stood up

in his pew during prayer, but perhaps James's story was rather apocryphal.

Mark Davenport, of course, had been the object of considerable attention

during the day, and at the meeting-house-door numbers of his old

acquaintances gathered round him. No one was more cordial in manner than

Squire Clamp. His face was wrinkled into what were meant for smiles, and

his voice was even smoother and more insinuating than usual. It was only

by a strong effort that Mark gulped down his rising indignation, and

replied civilly.

Sunday in Innisfield ended at sunset, though labor was not resumed until

the next day; but neighbors called upon each other in the twilight, and

talked over the sermons of the day, and the affairs of the church and

parish. That evening, while Mr. Hardwick's family were sitting around the

table reading, a long growl was heard from Caesar at the door, followed by

an emphatic "Get out!" The growls grew fiercer, and James went to the door

to see what was the matter. Squire Clamp was the luckless man. The dog had

seized his coat-tail, and had pulled it forward, so that he stood face to

face with the Squire, who was vainly trying to free himself by poking at

his adversary with a great baggy umbrella. James sent away the dog with a

reprimand, but laughed as he followed the angry man into the house. He

always cited this afterwards as a new proof of the sagacity of the grim

and uncompromising Caesar.

"S-sorry you've had such a t-time with the dog," said Mr. Hardwick; "he

don't g-ginerally bark at pup-people."

"Oh, no matter," said the Squire, contemplating the measure of damage in

the skirt of his coat. "A good, sound sermon Mr. Rook gave us to-day. The

doctrines of the decrees and sovereignty, and the eternal destruction of

the impenitent, were strongly set forth."

"Y-yes, I sp-spose so. I d-don't profit so m-much by that inst-struction,

however. I th-think more of the e-every-day religion he u-usually

preaches."--Mr. Hardwick trotted one foot with a leg crossed and with an

air which showed to his children and to Mark plainly enough how impatient

he was of the Squire's beginning so far away from what he came to say.

"Why, you don't doubt these fundamental points?" asked Mr. Clamp.

"No, I don't d-doubt, n-nor I don't th-think much about 'em; they're t-too

deep for me, and I ler-let 'em alone. We shall all un-know about these

things in God's goo-good time. I th-think more about keepin' peace among

n-neighbors, bein' kuh-kindly to the poor, h-helpin' on the cause of

eddication, and d-doin' ginerally as I would be done by."--Mr. Hardwick's

emphasis could not be mistaken, and Squire Clamp was a little uneasy.

"Oh, yes, Mr. Hardwick," he replied, "all the town knows of your practical

religion." Then turning to Mark, he said, blandly, "So you came home

yesterday. How long do you propose to stay?"

The young man never had the best control of his temper, and it was now

rapidly coming up to the boiling-point. "Mr. Clamp," said he, "if you had

asked a pickerel the same question, he would probably tell you that you

knew best how and when he came on shore, and that for himself he expected

to get back into water as soon as he got the hook out of his jaws."

"I am sorry to see this warmth," said Mr. Clamp; "I trust you have not

been put to any trouble."

"Really," said Mark, bitterly, "you have done your best to ruin me in the

place where I earn my living, but 'trust I have not been put to any

trouble'! Your sympathy is as deep as your sincerity."

"Mark," said Mr. Hardwick, "you're sa-sayin' more than is necess-ssary."

"Indeed, he is quite unjust," rejoined the lawyer. "I saw an alteration in

his manner to-day, and for that reason I came here. I prefer to keep the

friendship of all men, especially of those of my townsmen and brethren in

the church whose piety and talents I so highly respect."

"S-sartinly, th-that's right. I don't like to look around, wh-when I take

the ker-cup at the Sacrament, and see any man that I've wronged; an' I

don't f-feel comf'table nuther to see anybody der-drinkin' from the same

cup that I think has tried to w-wrong me or mine."

"You can save yourself that anxiety about Mr. Clamp, Uncle," said Mark.

"He is not so much concerned about our Christian fellowship as he is about

his fees. He couldn't live here, if he didn't manage to keep on both sides

of every little quarrel in town. Having done me what mischief he could, he

wants now to salve the wound over."

"My young friend, what is the reason of this heat?" asked Mr. Clamp,

mildly.

"I don't care to talk further," Mark retorted. "I might as well explain

the pathology of flesh bruises to a donkey who had maliciously kicked me."

Mr. Clamp wiped his bald head, on which the perspiration was beginning to

gather. His stock of pious commonplaces was exhausted, and he saw no

prospect of calming Mark's rage, or of making any deep impression on the

blacksmith. He therefore rose to depart. "Good evening," said he. "I pray

you may become more reasonable, and less disposed to judge harshly of your

friend and brother."

Mark turned his back on him. Mr. Hardwick civilly bade him good-night.

Lizzy and Anna, who had retreated during the war of words, came back, and

the circle round the table was renewed.

"Yer-you'll see one thing," said Mr. Hardwick. "He'll b-bring you, and

p'r'aps me, too, afore the church for this talk."

"The sooner, the better," said Mark.

"I d'no," said Mr. Hardwick. "Ef we must live in f-fellowship, a der-

diffi-culty in church isn't per-pleasant. But 'tis uncomf'table for

straight wood to be ker-corded up with such ker-crooked sticks as him."

[To be continued.]

A PERILOUS BIVOUAC.

It is a pleasant June morning out on the Beauport slopes; the breeze comes

laden with perfume from shady Mount Lilac; and it is good to bask here in

the meadows and look out upon the grand panorama of Quebec, with its

beautiful bay sweeping in bold segments of shoreline to the mouth of the

River St Charles. The king-bird, too lazy to give chase to his proper

quarry, the wavering butterfly, sways to and fro upon a tall weed; and

there, at the bend of the brook, sits an old kingfisher on a dead branch,

gorged with his morning meal, and regardless of his reflected image in the

still pool beneath. The _goguelu_[1] rises suddenly up from his tuft of

grass, and, having sung a few staves of his gurgling song, drops down

again like a cricket-ball and is no more seen. Smooth-plumaged wax-wings

are pruning their feathers in the tamarac-trees; and high up over the

waters of the bay sails a long-winged fish-hawk, taking an extended and

generally liberal view of sundry important matters connected with the

fishery question.

[Footnote 1: This name is given by the French Canadians to the bobolink or

rice bunting. It is an old, I believe an obsolete, French word, and means

"braggart."]

Many a year has gone by since I last looked upon this picture, and then it

was a winter scene; for it was near the end of March, which is winter

enough in this region, and the blue water of the bay there was flagged

over with a rough white pavement of crisp snow. I think I see it now,

faintly ruled with two lines of _sapins_, or young fir saplings,--one

marking out the winter road to the Island of Orleans, and the other that

from Quebec to Montmorency; and this memory recalls to me how it fell upon

a certain day, the incidents of which are expanding upon my mind like

those dissolving views that come up out of the dark, I set up a camp-fire

just where that wood-barge nods drowsily at anchor, about a mile this side

of the town. It was a sort of bivouac a man is not likely to forget in a

hurry; not that it makes much of a story, after all,--but a trifling

scratch will sometimes leave its mark on a man for life. I was quartered

in Quebec then; didn't go much into society, though, because I devoted

much of my young energies to shooting and fishing, which were worth any

expenditure of energy in those days. And so I restricted my evening rounds

of duty to one or two houses which were conducted on the always-at-home

principle, walking in and hanging up my wide-awake when it suited me, and

staying away when it didn't,--which was about the oftener.

In the winter of eighteen hundred and no matter what, I got three months'

leave of absence, with the intention of devoting a great portion of it to

a long-planned expedition, an invasion of the wild mountain-region lying

north of Quebec, towards the head-waters of the Saguenay,--a district

seldom disturbed by the presence of civilized man, but abandoned to the

semi-barbarous hunter and trapper, and frequented much by that prince of

roving bucks, the shy but stately caribou. I need not go into the details

of my two-months' hunt. It was like any other expedition of the sort,

about which so much information has already been given to the world in the

pleasant narratives of the wandering family of MacNimrod. I succeeded in

procuring many hairy and horned trophies of trap and rifle, as well as in

converting myself from some semblance of respectability into the veriest

looking cannibal that ever breakfasted on an underdone enemy. The return

from the chase furnished the little adventure I have alluded to,--a very

small adventure, but deeply impressed upon a memory now a good deal cut up

with tracks and traces of strange beasts of accidents, quaint "vestiges of

creation," ineffaceably stamped upon what poor Andrew Romer used to call

the "old red sandstone," in playful allusion to what his friends well knew

was a heart of hearts.

The snow lay heavy in the woods, wet and heavy with the breath of coming

spring, as I tramped out of them one March morning, and found myself on

the queen's highway, within short rifle-shot of the rushing Montmorency,

whose roar had reached us through the forest an hour or two before. In the

early days of our hunt I had been so lucky as to run down and kill a large

moose, whose antlered head was a valuable trophy; and so I confided it to

the especial charge of my faithful follower, Zachary Hiver, a _brulé_ or

half-breed of the Chippewa nation, who had hunted buffaloes with me on the

plains of the Saskatchewan and gaffed my salmon in the swift waters of the

Mingan and Escoumains. I had promised him powder and lead enough to

maintain his rifle for the probable remainder of his earthly hunting-

career, if he succeeded in safely conveying to Quebec the hide and horns

of the mammoth stag of the forest. These he had concealed, accordingly, in

a safe hiding-place, or _cache_, to be touched at on our return; and now

as he emerged from the dark pine copse, with his ropy locks tasselling his

flat skull, and a tattered blanket-coat fluttering in ribbons from his

brown and brawny chest, his interest in the venture appeared in the

careful manner in which he drew after him a long, slender _tobaugan_,

heavily packed with the hard-won proceeds of trap and gun. Foremost among

these were displayed the broad antlers of the moose of my affections,

whose skin served as a tarpaulin for the remainder of the baggage, round

which it was snugly tucked in with thongs of kindred material.

We halted on a broad ledge of rock by the western verge of the bay of the

Falls, glad of an opportunity of enjoying my independence to the last,

unfettered by the conventionalities for which I was beginning to be imbued

with a savage contempt. Here we set up a primitive kitchen-range, and,

having feasted upon cutlets of the caribou, scientifically treated by a

skewer process with which Zach was familiar, we lounged like "lazy

shepherds" in the sun, and the eye of the Indian flashed as I produced

from the folds of my sash a leather-covered flask which did not look as if

it was meant to contain water. During the weeks of the chase I had been

very careful to conceal this treasure from Zach, knowing how helpless an

Indian becomes under the influence of the "fire-water"; and as I had had a

pull at it myself only two or three times, under circumstances of unusual

adversity and hardship, there still remained in it a very respectable

allowance for two, from which I subtracted a liberal measure, handing over

the balance to Zach, who gulped down the _skiltiwauboh_ with a fiendish

grin and a subsequent inhuman grunt. As I lit my pipe after this

satisfactory arrangement, the roar of the mighty Montmorency, whirling

down its turbulent perpendicular flood behind a half-drawn curtain of

green and azure ice, sounded like exquisite music to my ears, and I looked

towards Quebec and blinked at its fire-flashing tin spires and house-tops

burning through the coppery morning fog, until my mind's eye became

telescopic, and my thoughts, unsentimental though I be, reverted to

civilized society and its _agréments_, and particularly to a certain

steep-roofed cottage situated on a suburban road, in the boudoirs of which

I liked to imagine one pined for my return. If memory has its pleasures,

has it not also its glimpses of regret?--and who can say that the former

compensate for the latter? Even now I see her as she used to step out on

the veranda,--the lithe Indian girl, rivalling the choicest "desert-

flower" of Arabia in the rich darkness of her eyes and hair, and in the

warm mantling of her golden-ripe complexion,--unutterably graceful in the

thorough-bred ease of her elastic movements,--Zosime MacGillivray, perfect

type and model of the style and beauty of the _brulée_. She was the only

child of a retired trader of the old North-West Fur Company and his Indian

wife; had been partly educated in England; possessed rather more than the

then average Colonial allowance of accomplishments; and was, altogether,

so much in harmony with my roving forest-inclinations, that I sometimes

thought, half seriously, how pleasant and respectable it would be to have

one such at the head of one's camp-equipage, and how much nicer a

companion she would be on a hunt than that disreputable old scoundrel,

Zach Hiver.

"Pack the _tobaugan_, Zach! The sun will come out strong by and by, and

the longer we tarry here, the heavier the snow will be for our stretch to

the Citadel. Up, there! _lève-toi, cochon!_" shouted I, in the elegant

terms of address which experience had taught me were the only ones that

had any effect upon the stolid sensibilities of the half-breed,--at the

same time administering to him a kick that produced a _thud_ and a grunt,

as if actually bestowed on the unclean quadruped to which I had just

likened him. The ragamuffin was very slow this time in getting the traps

together on the _tobaugan_, and, if I had not attended to the matter

myself, the moose trophy, at least, would in all probability have been

left to perish, and would never have pointed a moral and adorned a tale,

as it now does, in its exalted position among the reminiscences of things

past. At length we got under way, and, as a walk over the open plain

offered a pleasing variety to a man who had been feeling his way so long

through the dim old woods, I determined to descend from the ridge of

Beauport, and proceed over the snow-covered surface of the bay, in a

bird's-eye line, to our point of destination. Winding down the almost

perpendicular declivity, sometimes sliding down on our snow-shoes, with

the _tobaugan_ running before us, "on its own hook," at a fearful pace,

and sometimes obliged to descend, hand under hand, by the tangled roots

and shrubs, we soon found ourselves on the great white winter-prairie of

the grand St. Lawrence, upon which I strode forward with renewed energy,

steering my course, like the primitive steeple-chasers of my boyhood's

home, upon the highest church-tower looming up from the heterogeneous

huddle of motley houses that just showed their gable-tops over the low

ring of mist which mingled with the smoke of the Lower Town.

After a progress of about five miles, I found I had very materially

widened the distance between myself and Zach, who, encumbered by the

baggage, and by the spring snow which each moment accumulated in wet heavy

cakes upon his snow-shoes, was now a good mile in my rear. This I was

surprised at, as he generally outwalked me, even when carrying on his back

a heavy load, with perhaps a canoe on his head, cocked-hat fashion, as he

was often obliged to do in our fishing-excursions to the northern lakes.

It now occurred to me, however, that I had incautiously left the brandy-

flask in his charge, and when he came up with me I gathered from his fishy

eye, and the thick dribblings of his macaronic gibberish,--which was

compounded of sundry Indian dialects and French-Canadian _patois_,

coarsely ground up with bits of broken English,--that the modern Circe,

who changes men into beasts, had wrought her spells upon him; a

circumstance at which I was terribly annoyed, as foreboding an ignominious

entry into the city by back-lane and sally-port, instead of my long-

anticipated triumphal progress up St. Louis Street, bearded in splendor,

bristling with knife and rifle, and followed by my wild Indian _coureur-

des-bois_, drawing my antlered trophies after him upon the _tobaugan_ as

upon a festival car.

"Kaween nishishin! kaw-ween!" howled the big monster, in his mixed-pickle

macaronio,--"je me sens saisi du mal-aux-raquettes, je ne pouvons plus.

Why you go so dam fast, when hot sun he make snow for tire, eh? Sacr-r-ré

raquettes! il me semble qu'ils se grossissent de plus en plus à chaque

démarche. Stop for smoke, eh?--v'là! good place for camp away there,

kitchee hogeemaus endaut, big chief's house may-be!" grinned he, as he

indicated with Indian instinct and a wavering finger a structure of some

kind that peered through the fog at a short distance on our left.

We were now within about a mile of Quebec. The Indian's intoxication had

increased to a ludicrous extent, so that to have ventured into the town

with him must have resulted in a reckless exposure of myself to the just

obloquy and derision of the public; while, on the other hand, if I left

him alone upon the wide world of ice, and dragged the _tobaugan_ to town

myself, the unfortunate _brulé_ must inevitably have stepped into some

treacherous snow-drift or air-hole, and thus miserably perished. So I made

up my mind for a camp on the ice; and, diverging from our course in the

direction pointed out by the Indian, we soon arrived at the object

indicated by him, which proved to be a stout framework about twelve feet

square, constructed of good heavy timber solidly covered with deal

boarding, and conveying indubitable evidence, to my thinking, of the

remains of one of the _cabanes_ or shanties commonly erected on the ice by

those engaged in the "tommy-cod" fishery,--portable structures, so fitted

together as to admit of being put up and removed piecemeal, to suit the

convenience of their proprietors. I blessed mentally the careless

individual who had thus unconsciously provided for our especial shelter;

and as the wind had now suddenly arisen sharp from the west, driving the

fog before it with clouds of fine drifting snow, I was glad to get under

the lee of the providential wall, in the hospitable shelter of which,

before two minutes had elapsed, "Stephano, my drunken butler," was snoring

away like a phalanx of bullfrogs, with his head bolstered up somehow

between the great moose-horns, and his brawny limbs rolled carelessly in

the warm but somewhat unsavory skin of the dead monarch of the forest. I

gloried in his calm repose; for the day was yet young, and I flattered

myself that a three-hours' snooze would restore his muddled intellects to

their normal mediocrity of useful instinct, and that I might still achieve

my triumphal entry into the city,--a procession I had been so much in the

habit of picturing to myself over the nocturnal camp-fire, that it had

become a sort of nightmare with me. Indeed, I had idealized it roughly in

my pocket-book, intending to transfer the sketches, for elaboration on

canvas, to Tankerville, the regimental Landseer, whose menagerie of living

models, consisting of two bears, one calf-moose, one _loup-cervier_, three

bloated raccoons, and a bald eagle, formed at once the terror and delight

of the rising generation of the barracks.

Having got up a small fire with the assistance of the chips and scraps of

wood that were plentifully scattered around, I placed my snow-shoes one on

top of the other, and sat down on them,--a sort of preparatory step in my

transition to civilization, for they had somewhat the effect of a cane-

bottomed chair minus the legs and without a back. Then I filled my short

black pipe from the seal-skin tobacco-pouch, the contents of which had so

often assuaged my troubled spirit when I brooded over griefs which _then_

were immature, if not imaginary. It was a very pleasant smoke, I

recollect,--so pleasant, that I rather congratulated myself upon my

position; the only drawback to it being that I was shut out from a view of

the town, as the wind and drift rendered it indispensable for comfort in

smoking that I should keep strictly to leeward of my bulwark. Tobacco is

notoriously a promoter of reflection; there must be something essentially

retrospective in the nature of the weed. I retired upon the days of my

boyhood, my legs and feet becoming clairvoyant of the corduroys and

highlows of that happy period of my existence, as the revolving curls of

pale smoke exhibited to me, with marvellous fidelity, many quaint

successive _tableaux_ of the old familiar scenes of home,--sentimental,

some of them,--comic, others,--like the domestic incidents revealed with

exaggerations on the hazy field of a magic-lantern. I thought of my poor

mother, and of the excellent parting advice she gave me,--but more

particularly of the night-caps with strings, which she extracted such a

solemn promise from me to wear carefully every night in all climates, and

which, on the second evening of my sojourn in barracks, were so

unceremoniously reduced to ashes in a noisy _auto-da-fé_. These

retrospective pictures were succeeded by others of more modern date,

coming round in a progressive series, until I had painted myself up to

within a few weeks of my present position, the foreground of my existence.

Then I remembered promises made by me of contributions to a certain

album,--further contributions,--for I had already furnished several pages

of it with food for mind and eye in the form of melancholy verses and

"funny" sketches, with brief dramatic dialogues beneath the latter, to

elucidate the "story." I particularly recollected having volunteered a

translation or imitation of a pretty song in Ruy Blas; and as the fit was

upon me, I produced my pocketbook, to commit to paper a version of it

which I had mentally devised. The leaves of my book were all filled,

however; some with memoranda,--a sort of savage diary it was,--some with

sketches of scenes in the wilderness: there was not a corner vacant.

Turning towards the planking of my bulwark, I perceived that it was

smoothly planed and clean, and to work on it I went, pencil in hand. First

I wrote "Zosime MacGillivray," in several different styles of chirography,

flourished and plain, and even in old text. Then I sketched out a rough

design for an ornamental heading, with a wreath of flowers encircling the

words "To Zozzy," and beneath this work of Art I inscribed the effort of

my muse, which ran thus:--

Fields and forests rejoice

In their silver-toned throng;

_I_ hear but the voice

Of the bird in thy song!

In April's glad shower

Flash petals and leaves,

Less bright than the flower

Round thy heart that weaves!

Stars waken, stars slumber,

Stars wink in the sky,

Bright numberless number;

But none like thine eye!

For bird-song and flower

And star from above

Combine in thy bower;

Their union is love!

My mind being considerably relieved by this gush of sentiment, I felt

myself entitled to unbend a little, and, turning my attention to artistic

pursuits, principally of a humorous character, I developed successively

many long-pent-up imaginings in the way of severe studies of sundry

garrison notables. There was "Bendigo" Phillips, with boxing-gloves

fearfully brandished, appearing in the attitude in which he polished off

young Thurlow of the R.A., under the pretence of giving him a lesson in

the noble art of self-defence, but in reality to revenge himself upon him

for an ill-timed interference in a certain _affaire du coeur_. The agony

of young Thurlow, pretending to look pleased, was depicted by a very

successful stroke of Art. To the extreme right you might have beheld

Vegetable Warren, the staff-surgeon, slightly exaggerated in the semblance

of a South-Down wether nibbling at a gigantic Swedish turnip. Written

lampoons of the fiercest character accompanied the illustrations. But my

boldest effort was an atrocious and libellous cartoon of the commandant of

the garrison, popularly known as "Old Wabbles,"--I believe from the

preternatural manner in which his wide Esquimaux boots vacillated about

his long, lean shanks. This _chef d'oeuvre_ was executed upon a rather

large scale, and I imparted considerable force and breadth to the design

by "coaling in" the shadows with a charred stick. Then calling color to my

aid, as far as my limited means admitted, I scraped from the edges of the

moose-hide a portion of the red-streaked fat, and, having impasted

therewith the bacchanalian nose of my subject, I stepped back a few paces

to contemplate the effect. So ludicrous was the resemblance, that I

laughed outright in the pride of my success,--a transient hilarity, nipped

suddenly in the bud by the loud boom of a cannon, accompanied rather than

followed by a rushing sound a few feet above my head, and a thundering

bump and splutter upon the ice some thirty or forty yards beyond me, as

the heavy shot skipped and ricochetted away with receding bounds to its

vanishing-point somewhere in the neighborhood of the Island of Orleans.

Two strides to the front, and a glance at the broad, black ring emblazoned

on the hitherto disregarded face of my bulwark, and the truth flashed upon

my staggering senses.

I was encamped in the lee of the bran-new artillery target, and they were

just commencing practice, on this fine bright afternoon, by pitching

thirty-two-pound shot into and about it, at intervals--as I pretty well

knew--of distressingly uncertain duration. With frantic strength I grasped

the Indian by the neck, and, plunging madly through the snow, dragged him

after me a few paces in the direction of our former track; but, hampered

as he was by the moose-trappings, the weight was too much for me, and I

dropped him, instinctively continuing to run with breathless speed, until,

having gained a considerable distance away from any probable line of fire,

I flung myself down upon the snow, and was somewhat startled at finding

Zach very close upon my tracks, tearing along on all fours with a vague

sense of danger of some kind, and looking, in his strange envelope, like

an infuriated bull-moose in the act of charging a hunter. A shot struck

the corner of the target just as we got away from it, slightly splintering

it, so as to give the bewildered Indian a pleasant practical lesson in the

science of gunnery and fortification.

Two minutes elapsed,--three minutes,--five minutes,--not another shot; but

it might commence again at any moment, and I stood at a respectful

distance from the danger, uncertain what course to pursue for the recovery

of my traps, all of which, rifle, snow-shoes, and _tobaugan_ loaded with

spoils, lay in pledge with the two-faced friend whose treacherous shelter

had no longer any charm for me, when I beheld several sleighs approaching

us from the town at a fearful pace, in the foremost of which, when within

range of rifle, I recognized Old Wabbles, the commandant.

"Who the Devil are you?" shouted he, as he drove right at us. "Two

Indians, ha!--somebody said it was _one_ Indian with a moose after him, a

man and a moose. Where's Thurlow?--_he_ had the telescope, and asserted

there was a man running round the target and a moose after him. I don't

see the moose." Zach had dropped the hide and horns from his "recreant

limbs," and was seated solemnly upon the snow, in all the majesty of his

native dirt.

"By Jove, it's Kennedy!" cried Tankerville, whose artistical eye detected

me through my hirsute and fluttering disguise. "What a picturesque

object!--I congratulate you, old fellow!--easiest and pleasantest way in

the world of making a living!--lose no time about it, but send in your

papers at once!--continue assiduously to neglect your person, and you're

worth a guinea an hour for the rest of your prime, as a living model on

the full pay of the Academies!"

I was soon bewildered by a torrent of inquiries from all sides: as to how

I came behind the target,--what success I had had in the woods,--how many

miles I had come to-day,--whether I had got the martin-skin I had promised

to this one, and the silver fox I undertook to trap for that,--when,

suddenly, a diversion was created by a roar from Phillips, who had

proceeded to inspect my spoils behind the target, and now stood looking at

my portrait-gallery of living celebrities, his great chest heaving with

laughter; and before I could satisfy my inquiring friends, the whole crowd

had rushed pell-mell to the exhibition.

"Caught, by all that's lovely!" shouted Phillips, repeating my verses at

the top of his voice,--

"The bird-song and flower

And star from above

Combine in thy bower;

Their union is love!"

"Ritoorala loorala loorala loo, ritoorala loorala loorala loo!" chorused

everybody, as he sang the last verse to the vulgar melody of 'Tatter Jack

Welch,' knocking the poetry out of my constitution at once and forever,

like the ashes out of a pipe. "Hooray for Miss Mac! Who should have

thought it, Darby?"--That was _my_ pet name in the regiment.

"How like!--how very like!--That's Warren there, nibbling the turnip. And

there's Thurlow,--ha! ha! ha! how good! And that--that--that's me, by

Jingo!--he he! he! he!--not so good that, somehow,--neck too long by half

a foot. But the Colonel!--only look at his boots!--He must'n't see this,

though, by Jove!--Choke the Colonel off, boys!--take him round to the

front!--do something!" whispered good-natured Symonds, anxious to keep me

clear of the scrape.

But it was too late. The last objects that met my view were the ghastly

legs of the Commandant, as he strode through the circle in front of my

Art-exhibition. I saw no more. A soldier is but a mortal man. Rushing to

the nearest cariole,--it was the Commandant's,--I leaped into it, and,

lashing the horse furiously towards the town, never pulled rein until I

got up to my long-deserted quarters in the Citadel. There I barricaded

myself into my own room, directing my servant to proceed to the target

for my scattered property. I had still a month's leave of absence before

me, availing myself of which, I started next morning for New York,

subsequently obtained an extension of leave, sailed for England, and

there negotiating an exchange from a regiment whose facings no longer

suited my taste for colors, I soon found myself gazetted into a less

objectionable one lying at Corfu.

I have never seen Tankerville's famous picture of my triumphal entry into

Quebec.

I.--NOVEMBER.

The dead leaves their rich mosaics,

Of olive and gold and brown,

Had laid on the rain-wet pavements,

Through all the embowered town.

They were washed by the Autumn tempest,

They were trod by hurrying feet,

And the maids came out with their besoms

And swept them into the street,

To be crushed and lost forever

'Neath the wheels, in the black mire lost,--

The Summer's precious darlings,

She nurtured at such cost!

O words that have fallen from me!

O golden thoughts and true!

Must I see in the leaves a symbol

Of the fate which awaiteth you?

II.--APRIL.

Again has come the Spring-time,

With the crocus's golden bloom,

With the smell of the fresh-turned earth-mould,

And the violet's perfume.

O gardener! tell me the secret

Of thy flowers so rare and sweet!--

--"I have only enriched my garden

With the black mire from the street."

THE GAUCHO.

What _is_ a Gaucho?

That is precisely what I am going to tell you.

Take my hand, if you please. Shod with the shoes of swiftness, we have

annihilated space and time. We are standing in the centre of a boundless

plain. Look north and south and east and west: for five hundred miles

beyond the limit of your vision, the scarcely undulating level stretches

on either hand. Miles, leagues, away from us, the green of the torrid

grass is melting into a misty dun; still further miles, and the misty dun

has faded to a shadowy blue; more miles, it rounds at last away into the

sky. A hundred miles behind us lies the nearest village; two hundred in

another direction will bring you to the nearest town. The swiftest horse

may gallop for a day and night unswervingly, and still not reach a

dwelling-place of man. We are placed in the midst of a vast, unpeopled

circle, whose radii measure a thousand miles.

But see! a cloud arises in the South. Swiftly it rolls towards us; behind

it there is tumult and alarm. The ground trembles at its approach; the air

is shaken by the bellowing that it covers. Quick! let us stand aside! for,

as the haze is lifted, we can see the hurrying forms of a thousand cattle,

speeding with lowered horns and fiery eyes across the plain. Fortunately,

they do not observe our presence; were it otherwise, we should be trampled

or gored to death in the twinkling of an eye. Onward they rush; at last

the hindmost animals have passed; and see, behind them all there scours a

man!

He glances at us, as he rushes by, and determines to give us a specimen of

his only art. Shaking his long, wild locks, as he rises in the stirrup and

presses his horse to its maddest gallop, he snatches from his saddle-bow

the loop of a coil of rope, whirls it in his right hand for an instant,

then hurls it, singing through the air, a distance of fifty paces. A jerk

and a strain,--a bellow and a convulsive leap,--his lasso is fast around

the horns of a bull in the galloping herd. The horseman flashes a

murderous knife from his belt, winds himself up to the plunging beast,

severs at one swoop the tendon of its hind leg, and buries the point of

his weapon in the victim's spinal marrow. It falls dead. The man, my

friend, is a Gaucho; and we are standing on the Pampas of the Argentine

Republic.

Let us examine this dexterous wielder of the knife and cord. _He, Juan de

Dios!_ Come hither, O Centaur of the boundless cattle-plains! We will not

ask you to dismount,--for that you never do, we know, except to eat and

sleep, or when your horse falls dead, or tumbles into a _bizcachero_; but

we want to have a look at your savage self, and the appurtenances

thereunto belonging.

And first, you say, the meaning of his name. The title, Gaucho, is applied

to the descendants of the early Spanish colonists, whose homes are on the

Pampa, instead of in the town,--to the rich _estanciero_, or owner of

square leagues of cattle, in common with the savage herdsman whom he

employs,--to Generals and Dictators, as well as to the most ragged Pampa-

Cossack in their pay. Our language is incapable of expressing the idea

conveyed by this term; and the Western qualification "backwoodsman" is

perhaps the nearest approach to a synonyme that we can attain.

The head of our swarthy friend is covered with a species of Neapolitan

cap, (let me confess, in a parenthesis, that my ideas of such head-

coverings are derived from the costume of graceful Signor Brignoli in

"Masaniello,") which was once, in all probability, of scarlet hue, but now

almost rivals in color the jet-black locks which it confines. His face--

well, we will pass that over, and, on our return to civilized life, will

refer the curious inquirer for a fac-simile to the first best painting of

Salvator, there to select at pleasure the most ferocious bandit

countenance that he can find. And now the remainder of his person. He

wears an open jacket of dirt-crusted serge, covered in front with a

gorgeous eruption of plated buttons, and a waistcoat of the same material,

adorned with equal profuseness, and showing at the neck a substratum of

dubious crimson, supposed to be a flannel shirt. So far, you may say,

there is nothing suspicious or very outlandish about his rig; but

_turpiter desinit formosus superne_,--there is something highly remarkable

_á continuacion_. Do you see that blanket which is drawn tightly up, fore

and aft, toward his waist, and, there confined by means of a belt which

his _querida_ has richly ornamented for him, falls over in uneven folds

like an abbreviated kilt? That is the famous _chiripá_, or Gaucho

petticoat, which, like the _bracae_ of the Northern barbarians some

nineteen hundred years ago, distinguishes him from the inhabitants of

civilized communities. Below the _chiripá_, his limbs are cased in

_calzoncillos_, stout cotton drawers or pantalets, which terminate in a

fringe (you should see the elaborate worsted-work that adorns the hem of

his gala-pair) an inch or two above the ankle. His feet are thrust into a

pair of _botas de potro_, or colt's-foot boots, manufactured from the hide

of a colt's fore-leg, which he strips off whole, chafes in his hand until

it becomes pliable and soft, sews up at the lower extremity,--and puts on,

the best riding-boot that the habitable world can show. Add a monstrous

spur to each heel of this _chaussure_, and you will have fully equipped

the worthy Juan de Dios for active service.--But stay! his accoutrements!

We must not forget that Birmingham-made butcher-knife, which, for a dozen

years, has never been for a moment beyond his reach; nor the coiling

lasso, and the _bolas_, or balls of iron, fastened at each end of a thong

of hide, which he can hurl a distance of sixty feet, and inextricably

entangle around the legs of beast or man; nor the _recado_, or saddle, his

only seat by day, and his pillow when he throws himself upon the ground to

sleep under the canopy of heaven. Neither must we omit the _mate_ gourd

which dangles at his waist, in readiness to receive its infusion of

_yerba_, or Paraguay tea, which he sucks through that tin tube, called

_bombilla_, and looking for all the world like the broken spout of an oil-

can with a couple of pieces of nutmeg-grater soldered on, as strainers, at

the lower end; nor the string of sapless _charque_ beef, nor the pouchful

of villanous tobacco, nor the paper for manufacturing it into

_cigarritos_, nor the cow's-horn filled with tinder, and the flint and

steel attached. Thus mounted, clothed, and equipped, he is ready for a

gallop of a thousand leagues.

He is a strange individual, this Gaucho Juan. Born in a hut built of mud

and maize-stalks somewhere on the superficies of these limitless plains,

he differs little, in the first two years of his existence, from peasant

babies all the world over; but so soon as he can walk, he becomes an

equestrian. By the time he is four years old there is scarcely a colt in

all the Argentine that he will not fearlessly mount; at six, he whirls a

miniature lasso around the horns of every goat or ram he meets. In those

important years when our American youth are shyly beginning to claim the

title of young men, and are spending anxious hours before the mirror in

contemplation of the slowly-coming down upon their lip, young Juan (who

never saw a dozen printed books, and perhaps has only _heard_ of looking-

glasses) is galloping, like a portion of the beast he rides, over a

thousand miles of prairie, lassoing cattle, ostriches, and guanacos,

fighting single-handed with the jaguar, or lying stiff and stark behind

the heels of some plunging colt that he has too carelessly bestrid.

At twenty-one he is in his glory. Then we must look for him in the

_pulperías_, the bar-rooms of the Pampas, whither he repairs on Sundays

and _fiestas_, to get drunk on _aguardiente_ or on Paraguay rum. There you

may see him seated, listening open-mouthed to the _cantor_, or Gaucho

troubadour, as he sings the marvellous deeds of some desert hero,

persecuted, unfortunately, by the myrmidons of justice for the numerous

_misfortunes_ (_Anglicé_, murders) upon his head,--or narrates in

impassioned strain, to the accompaniment of his guitar, the circumstances

of one in which he has borne a part himself,--or chants the frightful end

of the Gaucho Attila, Quiroga, and the punishment that overtook his

murderer, the daring Santos Perez. When the song is over, the cards are

dealt. Seated upon a dried bull's-hide, each man with his unsheathed knife

placed ostentatiously at his side, the jolly Gauchos commence their game.

Suddenly Manuel exclaims, that Pedro or Estanislao or Antonio is playing

false. Down fly the cards; up flash the blades; a ring is formed. Manuel,

to tell the truth, has accused his friend Pedro only for the sake of a

little sport; he has never _marked_ a man yet, and thinks it high time

that that honor were attained. So the sparks fly from the flashing blades,

and Pedro's nose has got another gash in it, and Manuel is bleeding in a

dozen places, but he will not give in just yet. Unfortunate Gaucho! Pedro

the next moment slips in a sticky pool of his own blood, and Manuel's

knife is buried in his heart! "He is killed! Manuel has had a misfortune!"

exclaim the ring; "fly, Manuel, fly!" In another minute, and just as the

_vigilantes_ are throwing themselves upon their horses to pursue him, he

has galloped out of sight.

Twenty miles from the _pulpería_ he draws rein, dismounts, wipes his

bloody knife on the grass, and slices off a collop of _charque_, which he

munches composedly for his supper. Very likely this _misfortune_ will make

him a _Gaucho malo_. The _Gaucho malo_ is an outlaw, at home only in the

desert, intangible as the wind, sanguinary, remorseless, swift. His

brethren of the _estancia_ pronounce his name occasionally, but in lowered

tones, and with a mixture of terror and respect; he is looked up to by

them as a sort of higher being. His home is a movable point upon an area

of twenty thousand square miles; his horse, the finest steed that he can

find upon the Pampas between Buenos Ayres and the Andes, between the Gran

Chaco and Cape Horn; his food, the first beef that he captures with his

lasso; his dainties, the tongues of cows which he kills, and abandons,

when he has stripped them of his favorite titbit, to the birds of prey.

Sometimes he dashes into a village, drinks a gourdful of _aguardiente_

with the admiring guests at the _pulpería_, and spurs away again into

obscurity, until at length the increasing number of his _desgracias_

tempts the mounted emissaries of justice to pursue him, in the hope of

extra reward. If suddenly beset by seven or eight of these desert police,

the _Gaucho malo_ slashes right and left with his redoubted knife,--kills

one, maims another, wounds them all. Perhaps he reaches his horse and is

off and away amid a shower of harmless balls;--or he is taken; in which

case, all that remains, the day after, of the _Gaucho malo_, is a lump of

soulless clay.

Then there is the guide, or _vaqueano_. This man, as one who knows him

well informs us, is a grave and reserved Gaucho, who knows by heart the

peculiarities of twenty thousand leagues of mountain, wood, and plain! He

is the only _map_ that an Argentinian general takes with him in a

campaign; and the _vaqueano_ is never absent from his side. No plan is

formed without his concurrence. The army's fate, the success of a battle,

the conquest of a province, is entirely dependent upon his integrity and

skill; and, strange to say, there is scarcely an instance on record of

treachery on the part of a _vaqueano_. He meets a pathway which crosses

the road upon which he is travelling, and he can tell you the exact

distance of the remote watering-place to which it leads; if he meet with a

thousand similar pathways in a journey of five hundred miles, it will

still be the same. He can point out the fords of a hundred rivers; he can

guide you in safety through a hundred trackless woods. Stand with him at

midnight on the Pampa,--let the track be lost,--no moon or stars; the

_vaqueano_ quietly dismounts, examines the foliage of the trees, if any

are near, and if there are none, plucks from the ground a handful of

roots, chews them, smells and tastes the soil, and tells

you that so many hours' travel due north or south will bring you to your

destination. Do not doubt him; he is infallible.

A mere _vaqueano_ was General Rivera of Uruguay,--but he knew every tree,

every hillock, every dell, in a region extending over more than 70,000

square miles! Without his aid, Brazil would have been powerless in the

Banda Oriental; without his aid, the Argentinians would never have

triumphed over Brazil. As a smuggler in 1804, as a custom-house officer a

few years later, as a patriot, a freebooter, a Brazilian general, an

Argentinian commander, as President of Uruguay against Lavalleja, as an

outlaw against General Oribe, and finally against Rosas, allied with

Oribe, as champion of the Banda Oriental del Uruguay, Rivera had certainly

ample opportunities for perfecting himself in that study of which he was

the ardent devotee.

Cooper has told us how and by what signs, in years that have forever

faded, the Huron tracked his flying foe through the forests of the North;

we read of Cuban bloodhounds, and of their frightful baying on the scent

of the wretched maroon; we know how the Bedouin follows his tribe over

pathless sands;--and yet all these are bunglers, in comparison with the

_Gaucho rastreador_!

In the interior of the Argentine every Gaucho is a trailer or

_rastreador_. On those vast feeding-grounds of a million cattle, whose

tracks intersect each other in every direction, the herdsman can

distinguish with unerring accuracy the footprints of his own peculiar

charge. When an animal is missing from the herd, he throws himself upon

his horse, gallops to the spot where he remembers having seen it last,

gazes for a moment upon the trampled soil, and then shoots off for miles

across the waste. Every now and then he halts, surveys the trail, and

again speeds onward in pursuit. At last he reaches the limits of another

_estancia_, and the pasturage of a stranger herd. His eagle eye singles

out at a glance the estray; rising in his stirrup, he whirls the lasso for

a moment above his head, launches it through the air, and coolly drags the

recalcitrant beast away on the homeward trail. He is nothing but a common,

comparatively unskilled, _rastreador_.

The official trailer is of another stamp. Like his kinsman, the

_vaqueano_, he is a personage well convinced of his own importance; grave,

reserved, taciturn, whose word is law. Such a one was the famous Calébar,

the dreaded thief-taker of the Pampas, the Vidocq of Buenos Ayres. This

man during more than forty years exercised his profession in the Republic,

and a few years since was living, at an advanced age, not far from Buenos

Ayres. There appeared to be concentrated in him the acuteness and keen

perceptions of all the brethren of his craft; it was impossible to deceive

him; no one whose trail he had once beheld could hope to escape discovery.

An adventurous vagabond once entered his house, during his temporary

absence on a journey to Buenos Ayres, and purloined his best saddle. When

the robbery was discovered, his wife covered the robber's trail with a

kneading-trough. Two months later Calébar returned, and was shown the

almost obliterated footprint. Months rolled by; the saddle was apparently

forgotten; but a year and a half later, as the _rastreador_ was again at

Buenos Ayres, a footprint in the street attracted his notice. He followed

the trail; passed from street to street and from _plaza_ to _plaza_, and

finally entering a house in the suburbs, laid his hand upon the begrimed

and worn-out saddle which had once been his own _montura de fiesta_!

In 1830, a prisoner, awaiting the death-penalty, effected his escape from

jail. Calébar, with a detachment of soldiers, was put upon the scent.

Expecting this, and knowing that the gallows lay behind him, the fugitive

had adopted every expedient for baffling his pursuers: he had walked long

distances upon tiptoe; had scrambled along walls; had walked backwards,

crawled, doubled, leaped; but all in vain! Calébar's blood was up; his

reputation was at stake; to fail now would be an indelible disgrace. If

now and then he found himself at fault, he as often recovered the trail,

until the bank of a water-course was reached, to which the flying criminal

had taken. The trail was lost; the soldiers would have turned back; but

Calébar had no such thought. He patiently followed the course of the

_acequia_ for a few rods, and suddenly halting, said to his companions,

"Here is the spot at which he left the canal; there is no trail,--not a

footprint,--but do you see those drops of water upon the grass?" With this

slight clue they were led towards a vineyard. Calébar examined it at every

side, and bade the soldiers enter, saying, "He is there!" The men obeyed

him, but shortly reported that no living being was within the walls. "He

is there!" quietly reiterated Calébar; and, in fact, a second more

thorough examination resulted in the capture of the trembling fugitive,

who was executed on the following day.--There can be no doubt regarding

the literal exactness of this anecdote.

At another time, we are told, a party of political prisoners, incarcerated

by General Rosas, had contrived a plan of escape, in which they were to be

aided by friends outside. When all was ready, one of the party suddenly

exclaimed,--

"But Calébar! you forget him!"

"Calébar!" echoed his friends; "true, it is useless to escape while he can

pursue us!"

Nor was any flight attempted until the dreaded trailer had been bribed to

fall ill for a few days, when the prisoners succeeded in making good their

escape.

He who would learn more of Calébar and his brother-trailers, let him

procure a copy of the little work that now lies before us,[1] in the shape

of a tattered duo-decimo, which has come to us across the Andes and around

Cape Horn, from the most secluded corner of the Argentine Confederation.

Badly printed and barbarously bound, this "Life of Juan Facundo Quiroga"

is nevertheless replete with the evidence of genius, and bears the stamp

of a generously-cultivated mind. Its author, indeed, the poet-patriot-

philosopher, Don Domingo F. Sarmiento, may be called the Lamartine of

South America, whose eventful career may some day invite us to an

examination. Suffice it now to say, that he was expelled by Rosas in 1840

from Buenos Ayres, and that he took his way to Chile, with the intention

in that hospitable republic of devoting his pen to the service of his

oppressed country. At the baths of Zonda he wrote with charcoal, under a

delineation of the national arms: _On ne tue point les idées_! which

inscription, having been reported to the Gaucho chieftain, a committee was

appointed to decipher and translate it. When the wording of the

significant hint was conveyed to Rosas, he exclaimed,--"Well, what does it

mean?" The answer was conveyed to him in 1852; and the sentence serves as

epigraph to the present life of his associate and victim, Facundo Quiroga.

[Footnote 1: _Vida de Juan Facundo Quiroga_, etc., por Domingo F.

Sarmiento. Santiago, 1845.]

In this extraordinary character we see the quintessence of that desert-

life some types of which we have endeavored to delineate. As one who,

rising from the lowest station to heights of uncontrolled power, as a

representative of a class of rulers unfortunately too common in the

republics that descend from Spain, and as a remarkable instance of brutal

force and barbaric stubbornness triumphing over reason, science,

education, and, in a word, civilization, he is admirably portrayed by Sr.

Sarmiento. Ours be the task to condense into a few pages the story of his

life and death.

The Argentine province of La Rioja embraces vast tracts of sandy desert.

Destitute of rivers, bare of trees, it is only by means of artificial and

scanty irrigation that the peasant can cultivate a narrow strip of land.

Inclosed by these arid wastes lies, nevertheless, a fertile region

entitled the Plains, which, in despite of its name, is broken by ridges of

hills, and supports a luxuriant vegetation with pastures trodden by

unnumbered herds. The character of the people is Oriental; their

appearance actually recalls, as we are told, that of the ancient dwellers

about Jerusalem; their very customs have rather an Arabic than a Spanish

tinge.

Somewhere upon these _Llanos_, and toward the close of the eighteenth

century, Don Prudencio Quiroga, as a well-to-do _estanciero_ or grazier,

was gladdened (doubtless) by the birth of a lusty son. He called him Juan

Facundo. For the first few years of his existence, we may safely believe,

the future general was scarcely distinguishable from a common baby.

Obstinate he doubtless was, and fierce and cruel in his tiny way; were his

mother still alive, the good woman could doubtless tell us of many a

bitter moment spent in lamenting her infant's waywardness; but we hear

nothing of him until the year 1799, when he was sent to San Juan, a town

then celebrated for its schools and learning, to acquire the rudiments of

knowledge. At the age of eleven the boy already manifested the character

of the future man. Solitary, disdainful, rebellious, his intercourse with

his schoolfellows was limited to the interchange of blows, his only

amusement lay in the annoyance of those with whom he was brought in

contact. He is already a perfect Gaucho; can wield the lasso, and the

_bolas_, and the knife; is a fearless _ginete_, a consummate horseman. One

day at school, the master, irritated beyond endurance, exhibits a new rod,

bought expressly, so he says, "for flogging Facundo." When the boy is

called up to recite, he blunders, stammers, hesitates, on purpose. Down

comes the rod; with a vigorous kick Facundo upsets the pedagogue's rickety

throne, and takes to his heels. After a three-days' search, he is

discovered secreted in a vineyard outside the town.

This little incident, of so trifling import at the time, was remembered

in after years as an early indication of the ferocious and uncontrollable

_caudillo's_ character. But it was soon eclipsed by the reckless deeds

that followed each other in quick succession between his fifteenth and

twentieth years. He speedily became notorious in the little town for his

wild moroseness, for his savage ferocity when excited, for his inordinate

love of cards. Gaming, a passion with many, was a necessary of life to

him; it was the only pursuit to which he was ever constant; it gave rise

to the quarrel in which, while yet a schoolboy, he for the first time

spilt blood.

By and by we lose sight of the student of San Juan. He has absolutely

_sunk_ out of sight. Yet, if we peer into filthy _pulperías_ here and

there between San Luis and San Juan, we may catch a glimpse of a shaggy,

swarthy savage, gambling, gambling as if for life; and we may also hear of

more than one affray in which his dagger has "come home richer than it

went." A little later, the son of wealthy Don Prudencio has become--not a

common laborer--but a comrade of common laborers. He chooses the most

toilsome, the most unintellectual, but, at the same time, the most

remunerative handicraft,--that of the _tapiador_, or builder of mud

walls. At San Juan, in the orchard of the Godoys,--at Fiambalá, in La

Rioja, in the city of Mendoza,--they will show you walls which the hands

of General Facundo Quiroga, _Comandante de Campaña_, etc., etc., put

together. Wherever he works, he is noted for the ascendency which he

maintains over the other peons. They are entirely subject to his will;

they do nothing without his advice; he is worth, say his employers, a

dozen overseers. Ah, he is yet to rule on a larger scale!

Did these people ever think,--as they watched the sombre, stubborn Gaucho

sweating over a _tapia_, subjecting a drove of peons to his authority, or,

stretched upon a hide, growing ferocious as the luck went against him at

cards,--that here was one of those forces which mould or overturn the

world? Could it ever have occurred to the Godoys of San Juan, to the

worthy municipality of Mendoza, that this scowling savage was yet to place

his heel upon their prostrate forms, and most thoroughly to exhibit,

through weary, sanguinary years, the reality of that tremendous saying,--

"The State? _I_ am the State!"?

Doubtless no. Little as the comrades of Maximin imagined that the

truculent Goth was yet to wear the blood-stained purple, little as the

clients of Robespierre dreamed of the vortex toward which he was being

insensibly hurried by the stream of years, did the men, whose names are

thrown out from their obscurity by the glare of his misdeeds, conceive

that their fortunes, their lives, all things but their souls, were shortly

to depend upon the capricious breath of this servant who so quietly pounds

away upon their mud inclosures.

He does not long, however, remain the companion of peons. Eighteen hundred

and ten has come, bringing with it liberty, and bloodshed, and universal

discord. The sun of May beams down upon a desolated land. For the mild,

although repressive viceregal sway is substituted that of a swarm of

military chieftains, who, fighting as patriots against Liniers and his

ill-fated troops, as rivals with each other, or as _montanero_-freebooters

against all combined, swept the plains with their harrying lancers from

the seacoast to the base of the Cordillera.

In this period of anarchy we catch another glimpse of Juan Facundo. He has

worked his way down to Buenos Ayres, nine hundred miles from home, and

enlists in the regiment of _Arribeños_, raised by his countryman, General

Ocampo, to take part in the liberation of Chile. But even the

infinitesimal degree of discipline to which his fellow-soldiers had been

reduced was too much for his wild spirit; already he feels that command,

and not obedience, is his birthright; there is soon a vacancy in the

ranks.

With three companions Quiroga took to the desert. He was followed and

overtaken by an armed detachment, or _partida_; summoned to surrender; the

odds are overpowering. But this man bids defiance to the world; he is yet,

in this very region, to rout well-appointed and disciplined armies with a

handful of men; and he engages the _partida_. A sanguinary conflict is the

result, in which Quiroga, slaying four or five of his assailants, comes

off victorious, and pursues his journey in the teeth of other bands which

are ordered to arrest him. He reaches his native plains, and, after a

flying visit to his parents, we again lose sight of the _Gaucho malo_.

Blurred rumors of his actions have, indeed, been preserved; accounts of

brutality toward his gray-haired father, of burnings of the dwelling in

which he first saw the light, of endless gaming, and plentiful shedding of

blood; but we hear nothing positive concerning him until the year 1818.

Somewhere in that year he determines to join the band of freebooters under

Ramirez, which was then devastating the eastern provinces. And here--O

deep designs of Fate!--the very means intended to check his mad career

serve only to accelerate its development. Dupuis, governor of San Luis,

through which province he is passing on his way to join Ramirez, arrests

the _Gaucho malo_, and throws him into the common jail, there to rot or

starve as Fortune may direct.

But she had other things in store for him. A number of Spanish officers,

captured by San Martin in Chile, were confined within the same walls.

Goaded to the energy of despair by their sufferings, and convinced that

after all they could die no more than once, the Spaniards rose one day,

broke open the doors of their prison, and proceeded to that part of the

building where the common malefactors, and among them Juan Facundo, were

confined. No sooner was Facundo set at liberty, than he snatched the bolt

of the prison-gate, from the very hand which had just withdrawn it to set

him free, crushed the Spaniard's skull with the heavy iron, and swung it

right and left, until, according to his own statement, made at a later

date, no less than fourteen corpses were stiffening on the ground. His

example incited his companions to aid him in subduing the revolt of their

fellow-prisoners; and, as a reward for "loyal and heroic conduct," he was

restored to his privileges as a citizen.

Thus, in the energetic language of his biographer, was his name ennobled,

and cleansed, but with _blood_, from the stains that defiled it.

Persecuted no longer, nay, even caressed by the government, he returned to

his native plains, to stalk with added haughtiness and new titles to

esteem among his brother Gauchos of La Rioja.

Having in this manner taken a rapid survey of the most salient points in

his private career up to the year 1820, we may pause for a moment, before

studying his public life, to glance at the condition of his native country

in the first decade of its independence. The partial separation from

Spain, which was effected on the 25th May, 1810, was followed by a long

and bloody struggle, in all the southern provinces, between the royal

forces and the adherents of the Provisional Junta. Such framework of

government as had been in existence was practically annihilated, and the

various provinces of the late Viceroyalty of Buenos Ayres fell a prey to

the military chieftains who could attract around them the largest number

of Gaucho cavalry,--while civilization, commerce, and every peaceful art,

declined at a rapid rate. No alteration in this state of affairs was

effected by the final Declaration of Independence, made at Tucuman, July

9, 1816; and in 1820, Buenos Ayres, the seat of the government which

claimed to be supreme, was seized by a confederacy of the provincial

chiefs, who secured, by the destruction of the Directorial Government,

complete and unchallenged independence for themselves. During this

anarchical period, the famous Artigas was harrying the Banda Oriental;

Rosas and Lopez were preparing for their blood-stained careers; Bustos,

Ibarra, and a host of other _caudillos_, ruled the interior provinces; and

Juan Facundo Quiroga was raised to irresponsible power.

In his native province of La Rioja the mastery had for many years been

disputed by two powerful houses, the Ocampos and the Dávilas, both

descended from noble families in Spain. In the year 1820 the former were

triumphant, and possessed all the authority then wielded in the province.

From them Facundo received the appointment of Sergeant-Major of Militia,

with the powers of _Comandante de Campaña_, or District Commandant.

In any other country the nomination to such a post of a man rendered

notorious by his contempt for authority, who already boasted of no less

than thirty murders, and who had voluntarily placed himself in the lowest

ranks of society, would be a thing absolutely incredible; but the Ocampos

probably felt the insecurity of their authority, and were sufficiently

sagacious to attempt, at least, to render that man a useful adherent or

ally, who might, if allured by their foes, prove a terrible weapon against

them. But they found in Quiroga no submissive servant. So openly did he

disregard the injunctions of his superiors, that a corps of the principal

officers in the army entreated their general, Ocampo, to seize upon and

execute the rebellious Gaucho, but failed in inducing him to adopt their

advice. It was not long before he had occasion to repent his leniency, or

his weakness.

A mutiny having occurred among some troops at San Juan, a detachment was

sent against them, and with it Quiroga and his horsemen. The mutineers

proved victorious, and, headed by their ringleaders, Aldao and Corro,

continued their line of march towards the North. While Ocampo with his

beaten troops fell back to wait for reinforcements, Quiroga pursued the

retreating victors, harassed their rear, clogged their every movement, and

proved so formidable to the enemy, that Aldao, abandoning his companion,

made an arrangement with the government of La Rioja, by which he was to be

allowed free passage into San Luis, whither Quiroga was ordered to conduct

him. He joined Aldao.

And here, close upon the summit of the steep he has so easily ascended, we

cannot help pausing for an instant to reflect upon the singular

manifestation of _destiny_ in his life. History acquaints us with no

similar character who displayed so little forethought with such

astonishing results. He premeditated nothing, unless now and then a

murder. He took no trouble to form a plan of government, yet his authority

was unquestioned during many years in Mendoza, Córdova, and San Juan. Even

his most monstrous acts of perfidy appear to have been committed on the

spur of the moment, with less calculation than he gave to a game at cards.

Thrown upon the world with brutal passions scarcely controlled by a

particle of reason, whirled hither and thither in a general and fearful

cataclysm, he shows us preëminently the wonderful designs of Providence

carried into effect, as it were, by a succession of blind and sudden

impulses. In a community of established order the gallows would have put a

speedy check upon his misdeeds; in the Argentine Confederation of 1820 he

was gradually lifted, by an ever-rising tide of blood, to the eminence of

lawless power.

Only for a while, however; for the stream did not cease to rise. The flood

that had elevated him alone disregarded his commands. For a few moments he

might maintain his footing upon the fearful peak; and then--

But as yet he is only _Comandante de Campaña_, escorting the rebel Aldao

into San Luis. He took no pains to conceal his discontent with the

government of Ocampo, nor was Aldao slow in noticing or availing himself

of his disaffection. He offered Quiroga a hundred men, if he chose to

overturn the government and seize upon La Rioja. Quiroga eagerly accepted,

marched upon the city, took it by surprise, threw the Ocampos and their

subordinates into prison, and sent them confessors, with the order to

prepare for death. The remainder of Aldao's force was subsequently induced

to join his cause, and, on the intercession of some of its leaders, the

incarcerated Ocampos were suffered to escape with their lives.

Their banished enemy, Don Nicolas Dávila, was called from Tucuman to the

nominal governorship of La Rioja, while Quiroga retained, with his old

title, the actual rule of the province. But Dávila was not long content

with this mere semblance of authority. During the temporary absence of

Quiroga, he concerted with Araya, one of the men of Aldao, a plan for the

capture of their master. Quiroga heard of it,--he heard of everything,--

and his answer was the assassination of Captain Araya! Summoned by the

government which he himself had created to answer the accusation of

instigated murder, he advanced upon the Dávilas with his Llanista

horsemen. Miguel and Nicolas Dávila hastily assembled a body of troops,

and prepared for a final struggle. While the two armies were in presence

of each other, a commissioner from Mendoza endeavored to effect a

peaceable arrangement between their chiefs. Passing from one camp to the

other with propositions and conditions, he inspired the soldiers of the

Dávilas with a fatal security. Quiroga, falling suddenly upon them in the

midst of the negotiations, routed them with ease, and slew their general,

who, with a small body of devoted followers, made a fierce onslaught upon

him personally, and succeeded in inflicting upon him a severe wound before

he was shot down. Thenceforth,--from the year 1823,--Quiroga was despot

of La Rioja.

His government was simple enough. His two engrossing objects--if objects,

indeed, he may be said to have possessed--were extortion and the

uprooting of the last vestiges of civilization and law; his instruments,

the dagger and the lash; his amusement, the torture of unwitting

offenders; his serious occupation, the shuffling of cards. For gambling

the man had an insatiable thirst; he played once for forty hours without

intermission; it was death to refuse a game with him; no one might cease

playing without his express commands; no one durst win the stakes; and as

a consequence, he accumulated at cards in a few years almost all the

coined money then existing in the province.[2] Not content with this

source of revenue, he became a farmer of the _diezmo_ or tithes,

appropriated to himself the _mostrenco_ or unbranded cattle, by which

means he speedily became proprietor of many thousand head, even

established a monopoly of beef in his own favor,--and woe to the luckless

fool who should dare to infringe upon the terrible barbarian's

prerogative!

[Footnote 2: Thus the Monagas, the late rulers of Venezuela, are accused

of denuding their country of specie in order to accumulate a vast treasure

abroad in expectation of a rainy day.]

What was the state of society, it will undoubtedly be inquired, in which

the defeat of a handful of men could result in such a despotism? We have

already glanced at the people of La Rioja,--at their dreamy, Oriental

character, at their pastoral pursuits. A community of herdsmen, scattered

over an extensive territory, and deprived at one blow of the two great

families to whom they had been accustomed to look up, with infantine

submission, as their God-appointed chiefs,--these were not the men to

stand up, unprompted by a single master-mind, to rid themselves of one

whose oppression was, after all, only a new form of the treatment to

which, for an entire generation, they had been subjected. La Rioja and San

Juan were the only two provinces in which Quiroga's heavy hand was felt

continuously; in the others he ruled rather by influence than in person;

and the Gauchos, as a matter of course, were enthusiastic for a man who

exalted the peasant at the expense of the citizen, whose exactions were

actually burdensome only to the wealthy, and who permitted every license

to his followers, with the single exception of disobedience to himself.

He was not without--it is impossible that he should have lacked--some of

those instinctive and personal attributes with which almost every savage

chieftain who has maintained so extraordinary an ascendency over his

fellows has been endowed. Sarmiento tells us that he was tall, immensely

powerful, a famous _ginete_ or horseman, a more adroit wielder of the

lasso and the _bolas_ than even his rival, Rosas, capable of great

endurance, and abstinent from intoxicating drinks.

His eye and voice were dreaded more by his soldiers than the lances of

their antagonists. He could wring a Gaucho's secret from his breast; it

was useless to attempt a subterfuge before him. Some article, we are told,

was once stolen from a company of his troops, and every effort for its

recovery proved fruitless. It was reported to Quiroga. He paraded the men,

and, having procured a number of sticks, exactly equal in length, gave to

each man one, proclaiming that the soldier whose stick should be found

longer than the others next morning had been the thief. Next morning he

again drew up his troops. The sticks were mustered by Quiroga himself. Not

one had grown since the previous day; but there was one which was shorter

than the rest. With a terrible roar, Quiroga seized the trembling Gaucho

to whom the stick belonged. "Thou art the thief!" he exclaimed. It was so;

the fellow had cut off a portion of the wood, hoping thus to escape

detection by its growth![3]--

[Footnote 3: Since the above was written, we have heard of the adoption of

an expedient identical with that of Quiroga, under similar circumstances,

and with the same result. The detector was, however, an English seaman,

now captain of a well-known steam-vessel, who forming part of a crew one

of whom had lost a sum of money, broke off ten twigs of equal length from

a broom, and distributed them among his shipmates, with the same

observation as was used by the Argentine chief. Two hours later he

examined them, and found that the negro steward had _shortened_ his

allotted twig. The money was restored.--The coincidence is instructive.]

Another time, one of his soldiers had been robbed of some trappings, and

no trace of the thief could be discovered. Quiroga ordered the detachment

to file past him, one by one. He stood, himself, with folded arms and

terrible eyes, perusing each man as he passed. At length he darted

forward, pounced upon one of the soldiers, and shouted, "Where is the

_montura_?" "In yonder thicket!" stammered out the self-convicted thief.

"Four musketeers this way!" and the commander was not out of sight before

the wretched Gaucho was a corpse. In these instinctive qualities, so awful

to untutored minds, lay the secret of the power of Quiroga,--and of how

many others of the world's most famous names!

Already in 1825 he was recognized as a lawful authority by the government

of Buenos Ayres, and invited to take part in a Congress of Generals at

that city. At the same time, however, he received a military errand. The

Province of Tucuman having been seized by a young Buenos Ayrean officer,

Colonel Madrid, Quiroga was requested to march against the successful

upstart, and to restore the cause of law and order,--an undertaking

scarcely congruous with his own antecedents. The chief of La Rioja,

however, eagerly accepted the mission, marched with a small force into

Tucuman, routed Madrid, (and this literally, for his army ran away,

leaving the Colonel to charge Quiroga's force alone, which he did,

escaping by a miracle with his life,) and returned to La Rioja and San

Juan. Into the latter town he made a triumphal entry, through streets

lined on both sides with the principal inhabitants, whom he passed by in

disdainful silence, and who humbly followed the Gaucho tyrant to his

quarters in a clover-field, where he allowed them to stand in anxious

humiliation while he conversed at length with an old negress whom he

seated by his side. Not ten years had elapsed since these very men might

have beheld him pounding _tapias_ on this spot!

We do not propose following the blood-stained career of Juan Facundo

through all its windings and episodes of cruelty and blood. Suffice it to

say, that, with the title of _Comandante de Campaña_, he retained in La

Rioja every fraction of actual power,--nominating, nevertheless, a shadowy

governor, who, if he attempted any independent action, was instantly

deposed. His influence gradually extended over the neighboring provinces;

thrice he encountered and defeated Madrid; while at home he gambled,

levied contributions, bastinadoed, and added largely to his army. He

excelled his contemporary, Francia, in the art of inspiring terror; he

only fell short of Rosas in the results. A wry look might at any time call

down upon a luckless child a hundred lashes. He once split the skull of

his own illegitimate son for some trifling act of disobedience. A lady,

who once said to him, while he was in a bad humor, _Adios, mi General_,

was publicly flogged. A young girl, who would not yield to his wishes, he

threw down upon the floor, and kicked her with his heavy boots until she

lay in a pool of blood. Truly, a ruler after the Russian sort!

Dorrego, meanwhile, was at the head of affairs at Buenos Ayres. Opposed to

the "Unitarianism" of Lavalle and Paz, who would have made of their

country, not a republic "one and indivisible," but a confederation after

the model in the North, Dorrego was chiefly anxious to consolidate his

power in the maritime state of Buenos Ayres, leaving the interior

provinces to their own devices, and to the tender mercies of Lopez,

Quiroga, Bustos, with a dozen other Gaucho chiefs. Rosas, the incarnation

of the spirit which was then distracting the entire Confederation, was

made Commandant General by Dorrego, who, however, frequently threatened to

shoot "the insolent boor," but who, unfortunately for his country, never

fulfilled the threat. As for himself, he, indeed, met with that fate at

the hands of Lavalle, who landed with an army from the opposite coast of

Uruguay, defeated Dorrego and Rosas in a pitched battle at the gates of

Buenos Ayres, and entered the city in triumph a few hours later.

With the ascendency of Lavalle came the inauguration--and, alas! only the

inauguration--of a new system. Paz, one of the few Argentinians who really

deserved the name of General that they bore, was sent to Córdova, with

eight hundred veterans of his old command. He defeated Bustos, the tyrant

of Córdova, took possession of the city, (one of the most important

strategic points upon the Pampas,) and restored that confidence and

security to which its inhabitants had so long been strangers. This action

was at the same time a challenge to Quiroga in his neighboring domain. It

was a warning that right was beginning to assert its supremacy over might;

nor was the hero of La Rioja slow to understand it. Collecting a band of

four thousand Gaucho lancers, he marched upon Córdova with the assurance

of an easy victory. The _boleado_ General! The idea of _his_ opposing the

Tiger of the Plains!

What followed this movement is a matter of general history. The battle of

the Tablada has had European, and therefore American, celebrity. It is

known to those who think of Chacabuco and Maipú, of Navarro and Monte

Caseros, only as of spots upon the map; let it, therefore, suffice to say

that Quiroga was beaten decisively, unmistakably, terribly. The serried

veterans of Paz, schooled in the Brazilian wars, stood grimly to the death

before the fiery onslaught of Quiroga; in vain did his horsemen shatter

themselves against the Unitarian General's scanty squares; the tactics of

civilized warfare proved for the first time successful on these plains

against wild ferocity and a larger force; Quiroga was driven back at

length with fearful slaughter, with the loss of arms, ammunition,

reputation, and of seventeen hundred men. He returned to La Rioja, with

the disorganized remnant of his band, marking his path with blood and the

infliction of atrocious chastisements. Even in adversity he is terrible

and is obeyed.

For nearly two years he divided his time between the provinces of San

Juan, Tucuman, and La Rioja, engaged in the prosecution of his designs,

chief among which was the destruction of Paz, who remained at Córdova,

intending to act only on the defensive. At length, in 1830, he considered

himself sufficiently strong for an attack on his recent conqueror. Paz was

unwilling to shed blood a second time; he offered advantageous terms to

Quiroga; but the boastful Gaucho, full of confidence in his savage

lancers, refused to negotiate, and marched against his skilful but

unpresuming antagonist. Paz secretly evacuated Córdova, and, moving

westward, hazarded a feat which is alone sufficient to establish his

character as the best tactician of the New World,--San Martin alone,

perhaps, excepted. Splitting his little army into a dozen brigades, he

occupied the entire mountain-range behind the town, operated, with scarce

five thousand men, upon a front of two hundred miles in extent, held in

his own unwavering grasp the reins which controlled the movements of every

division, and gradually inclosed, as in a net, the forces of Quiroga and

Villafañe. In vain they struggled and blindly sought an exit; every door

was closed; until, finally, after a campaign of fifteen days, the

narrowing battalions of Paz surrounded, engaged, and utterly defeated at

Oncativo the bewildered army on whose success Quiroga had staked his all.

The Gaucho himself again escaped. After seven years of dictatorial power,

he is once more reduced to the level upon which we saw him standing in

1818, a vagabond at Buenos Ayres, although from that level he may raise

his head a trifle higher.

And here we might conclude, having seen his rocket-like ascent, and the

swiftly-falling night of his career,--having seen him a laborer, a

deserter, a General, a Dictator, a fugitive; but much remains to be

narrated. Passing over, with the barest mention, his temporary return to

power, which he accomplished by one of those lightning-like expeditions

that even among Gaucho horsemen rendered him conspicuous, let us hasten on

to the great dramatic crisis of his history; and taking no notice of the

five years of marching and countermarching, scheming, fighting, and

negotiating, that intervened between his defeat at the Laguna Larga and

1835, draw to a close our hasty sketch.

In that year, after taking part in a disorderly and fruitless expedition

planned by Rosas to secure the southern frontier against Indian attacks,

he suddenly made his appearance at Buenos Ayres, with a body of armed

satellites, who inspired the newly-seated Dictator--the famous Juan Manuel

de Rosas, who has been already so often mentioned in these pages--with

vivid apprehensions. Rosas, Quiroga, Lopez--the Triumvirate of La Plata--

were bound together, it is true, by a potent tie,--by the strongest,

indeed,--that of self-interest; but as each of the three, and especially

Rosas, was in continual dread lest that consideration in his colleagues

should clash with his own intentions, the presence of Quiroga at Buenos

Ayres was far from satisfactory to the remaining two. His influence over

half a dozen of the despotic governors in the interior was still immense;

the Pampa was his own, after all his defeats; and it was shrewdly

suspected that his indifference to power in La Rioja, and his mysterious

visit to the maritime capital, were indications of a design to seize upon

the government of Buenos Ayres itself. Nor were the actions of Quiroga

suited to remove these apprehensions. The sanguinary despot of the

interior bloomed in the Buenos Ayrean _cafés_ into a profound admirer of

Rivadavia, Lavalle, and Paz, his ancient Unitarian enemies; Buenos Ayres,

the Confederation, he loudly proclaimed, must have a Constitution;

conciliation must supplant the iron-heeled tyranny under which the people

had groaned so long; the very jaguar of the Pampa, said the Porteño wits,

--not yet wholly muzzled by the dread _Mazorca_, or Club, of Rosas,--was

to be stripped of his claws, and made to live on _matagusano_ twigs and

thistles! _Redeunt Saturnia regna!_ The reign of blood, according to

Quiroga, its chief evangelist, was approaching its termination.

In order to form a conception of the effect produced by these

transactions, we must imagine Pelissier or Walewski entertaining, twenty-

three years later, the _cercles_ at Paris with discourses from the beauty

of the last _régime_, with eulogies of Lamartine, and apotheoses of Louis

Blanc; sneering at Espinasse, and eulogizing Cavaignac; vowing that France

can be governed only under a liberal constitution, and paying a visit to

his Majesty, the Elect of December, with a rough-and-tumble suite of

Republican bravos. Assuredly, were such a thing possible in Paris, the

gentlemen in question would very shortly be reviling English hospitality

under its protecting aegis, if not dying of fever at Cayenne. Nor could

Rosas, who was at that time far less firmly seated on his throne than is

at present the man who wields the destinies of France, endure so powerful

a rival in his vicinity. But how to get rid of him? Assassination, by

which a minor offender was so speedily put out of the way, could not

safely be attempted with a man who yet retained a singular mastery over

the minds of thousands of brutal and strong-armed horsemen; a false step

would result in inevitable destruction; and many anxious days were spent

by the gloomy tyrant ere he could decide upon a plan for disposing of his

inconvenient friend.

In the midst of this perplexity intelligence was received of a

disagreement between the governments of Salta, Tucuman, and Santiago,

provinces of the interior, which threatened to expand into warlike

proceedings. Rosas sent for Quiroga. No one but the hero of La Rioja, he

insinuated, had sufficient influence to bring about a settlement of these

disputes; no one but he had power to prevent a war; would he not,

therefore, hasten to Tucuman, and obviate so dire a calamity? Quiroga

hesitated, refused, consented, wavered, and again declined the task. With

a vacillation to which he had hitherto been a stranger, he remained for

many days undecided; a suspicion of deceit appears to have presented

itself to his mind; but at length he resolved to accept the commission.

His hesitation, meanwhile, had completed his ruin; it had given time for

the maturing of deadly plans.

In midsummer, 1835, (December 18th,) the Gaucho chieftain commenced his

fateful journey. As he entered the carriage which was to be his home for

many days, and bade farewell to the adherents who were assembled to

witness his departure, he turned toward the city with a wild expression

and words that were remembered afterwards. _Si salgo bien_, he said, _te

volevré á ver; si no, adios para siempre!_ "If I succeed, I shall see thee

again; if not, farewell forever!" Was it a presentiment of the truth which

came upon him, like that which clouded the great mind of the first

Napoleon as he left the Tuileries when the Hundred Days were running out?

One hour before his departure, a mounted messenger had been dispatched

from Buenos Ayres in the same direction as that he was about to follow;

and the city was scarcely out of sight when Quiroga manifested the most

feverish anxiety to overtake this man. His travelling companions were his

secretary, Dr. Ortiz, and a young man of his acquaintance, bound for

Córdova, to whom he had given a seat in his vehicle. The postilions were

incessantly admonished to make haste. At a shallow stream which they

forded, in the mud of which the wheels became imbedded, resisting every

effort for their release, Quiroga actually hooked the postmaster of the

district, who had hastened to the spot, to the carriage, and made him join

his exertions to those of the horses until the vehicle was extricated,

when he sped onward with fearful velocity, asking at every post-station,

"When did the _chasquí_ from Buenos Ayres pass? An hour ago! Forward,

then!" and the carriage swept onward, on unceasingly, across the lonely

Pampa,--racing, as it afterwards proved, with Death.

At last, Córdova, nearly six hundred miles from his starting-point, was

reached, just one hour after the arrival of the hunted courier. Quiroga

was besought by the cringing magistracy to spend the night in their city.

His only answer was, "Give me horses!" and two hours before midnight he

rolled out of Córdova, having _beaten_ in the grisly race.

Beaten, inasmuch as he was yet alive. For Córdova was ringing with the

details of his intended assassination. Such and such men were to have done

the deed; at such a shop the pistol had been bought; at such a spot it was

to have been fired;--but the marvellous swiftness of the intended victim

had ruined all.

Meanwhile, Quiroga sped onward more at ease toward Tucuman. Arrived there,

he speedily arranged the matters in dispute, and was entreated by the

governors of that province and of Santiago to accept of an escort on his

return; he was besought to avoid Córdova, to avoid Buenos Ayres; he was

counselled to throw off the mask of subservience, and to rally his

numerous adherents in La Rioja and San Juan;--but remonstrance and advice

were alike thrown away upon him. In vain was the most circumstantial

account of the preparations for his murder sent by friends from Córdova;

he appeared as foolhardy now in February as in December he had been panic-

stricken. "To Córdova!" he shouted, as he entered his _galera_; and for

Córdova the postilions steered.

At the little post-hut of Ojos del Agua, in the State of Córdova, Quiroga,

with his secretary, Ortiz, halted one night on the homeward journey.

Shortly before reaching the place, a young man had mysteriously stopped

the carriage, and had warned its hurrying inmates that at a spot called

Barranca Yaco a _partida_, headed by one Santos Perez, was awaiting the

arrival of Quiroga. There the massacre was to take place. The youth, who

had formerly experienced kindness at the hands of Ortiz, begged him to

avoid the danger. The unhappy secretary was rendered almost insane with

terror, but his master sternly rebuked his fears.--"The man is not yet

born," he said, "who shall slay Facundo Quiroga! At a word from me these

fellows will put themselves at my command, and form my escort into

Córdova!"

The night at Ojos del Agua was passed sleeplessly enough by the unhappy

Ortiz, but Quiroga was not to be persuaded into ordinary precautions.

Confident in his mastery over the minds of men, he set out unguarded, on

the 18th of February, at break of day. The party consisted of the

chieftain and his trembling secretary, a negro servant on horseback, two

postilions,--one of them a mere lad,--and a couple of couriers who were

travelling in the same direction.

Who that has been on the Pampas but can picture to himself this party as

it left the little mud-hut on the plain? The cumbrous, oscillating

_galera_, with its shaggy, straggling four-in-hand,--the caracoling Gaucho

couriers,--the negro pricking on behind,--the tall grass rolling out on

every side,--the muddy pool that forms the watering-place for beasts and

men scattered over a hundred miles of brookless plain,--the great sun

streaming up from the herbage just in front, awakening the voices of a

million insects and the carols of unnumbered birds in the thickets here

and there! Look long, Quiroga, on that rising sun! listen to the well-

known melody that welcomes his approach! gaze once more upon the rolling

Pampa! look again upon those flying hills! Thou who hast said, "There is

no life but this life," who didst "believe in nothing," shalt know these

things no more! five minutes hence thy statecraft will be over, thy long

apprenticeship will have expired! thou shalt be standing--where thou mayst

learn the secret that the wisest man of all the bookworms thou despisest

will never know alive!

Barranca Yaco is reached. The warning was well founded. A crack is heard,

--there is a puff of smoke,--and two musket-balls pass each other in the

carriage, yet without inflicting injury on its occupants. From either side

the road, however, the _partida_ dashes forth. In a moment the horses are

disabled, the postilions, the negro, and the couriers cut down. Ortiz

trembles more violently than ever; Quiroga rises above himself. Looking

from the carriage while the butchery is going on, he addresses the

murderers with a few unfaltering words. There is glamour in his speech;

the ensanguined assassins hesitate,--another instant, only one moment

more, and they will be on their knees before him; but Santos Perez, who

was at one side, comes up, raises his piece,--and the body of Juan Fecundo

Quiroga falls in a soulless heap with a bullet in the brain! Ortiz was

immediately hacked to pieces; and the tragedy of Córdova is at an end.

Such were the life, misdeeds, and death of the Terror of the Pampas.

Having in the most rapid and imperfect manner sketched the career of this

extraordinary Fortune's-child, his rise from the most abject condition to

unbridled power, his ferocious rule, and his almost heroic end, we may

surely exclaim, that "nothing in his life became him like the leaving of

it," and, presenting this bare _résumé_ of facts as a mere outline, a mere

pen-and-ink sketch of the terrible chieftain, refer the curious student to

the impassioned narrative whence our facts are mainly derived.

It may be well to add, that Santos Perez, who was actively pursued by the

government of Buenos Ayres, which itself had instigated him to the

commission of the crime, was finally, after many hairbreadth escapes,

betrayed by his mistress to the agents of Rosas, and suffered death at

Buenos Ayres with savage fortitude. The Lord have mercy on his soul!

MADEMOISELLE'S CAMPAIGNS.

THE SCENE AND THE ACTORS.

The heroine of our tale is one so famous in history that her proper name

never appears in it. The seeming paradox is the soberest fact. To us

Americans, glory lies in the abundant display of one's personal

appellation in the newspapers. Our heroine lived in the most gossiping of

all ages, herself its greatest gossip; yet her own name, patronymic or

baptismal, never was talked about. It was not that she sank that name

beneath high-sounding titles; she only elevated the most commonplace of

all titles till she monopolized it, and it monopolized her. Anne Marie

Louise d'Orléans, Souveraine de Dombes, Princesse Dauphine d'Auvergne,

Duchesse de Montpensier, is forgotten, or rather was never remembered; but

the great name of MADEMOISELLE, _La Grande Mademoiselle_, gleams like a

golden thread shot through and through that gorgeous tapestry of crimson

and purple which records for us the age of Louis Quatorze.

In May of the year 1627, while the Queen and Princess of England lived in

weary exile at Paris,--while the slow tide of events was drawing their

husband and father to his scaffold,--while Sir John Eliot was awaiting in

the Tower of London the summoning of the Third Parliament,--while the

troops of Buckingham lay dying, without an enemy, upon the Isle of Rhé,--

while the Council of Plymouth were selling their title to the lands of

Massachusetts Bay,--at the very crisis of the terrible siege of Rochelle,

and perhaps during the very hour when the Three Guardsmen of Dumas held

that famous bastion against an army, the heroine of our story was born.

And she, like the Three Guardsmen, waited till twenty years after for a

career.

The twenty years are over. Richelieu is dead. The strongest will that ever

ruled France has passed away; and the poor, broken King has hunted his

last badger at St. Germain, and meekly followed his master to the grave,

as he had always followed him. Louis XIII., called Louis Le Juste, not

from the predominance of that particular virtue (or any other) in his

character, but simply because he happened to be born under the

constellation of the Scales, has died like a Frenchman, in peace with all

the world except his wife. That beautiful and queenly wife, Anne of

Austria, (Spaniard though she was,)--no longer the wild and passionate

girl who fascinated Buckingham and embroiled two kingdoms,--has hastened

within four days to defy all the dying imprecations of her husband, by

reversing every plan and every appointment he has made. The little prince

has already shown all the Grand Monarque in his childish "Je suis Louis

Quatorze," and has been carried in his bib to hold his first parliament.

That parliament, heroic as its English contemporary, though less

successful, has reached the point of revolution at last. Civil war is

impending. Condé, at twenty-one the greatest general in Europe, after

changing sides a hundred times in a week, is fixed at last. Turenne is

arrayed against him. The young, the brave, the beautiful cluster around

them. The performers are drawn up in line,--the curtain rises,--the play

is "The Wars of the Fronde,"--and into that brilliant arena, like some

fair circus equestrian, gay, spangled, and daring, rides Mademoiselle.

Almost all French historians, from Voltaire to Cousin, (St. Aulaire being

the chief exception,) speak lightly of the Wars of the Fronde. "La Fronde

n'est pas sérieuse." Of course it was not. If it had been serious, it

would not have been French. Of course, French insurrections, like French

despotisms, have always been tempered by epigrams; of course, the people

went out to the conflicts in ribbons and feathers; of course, over every

battle there pelted down a shower of satire, like the rain at the Eglinton

tournament. More than two hundred pamphlets rattled on the head of Condé

alone, and the collection of _Mazarinades_, preserved by the Cardinal

himself, fills sixty-nine volumes in quarto. From every field the first

crop was glory, the second a _bon-mot_. When the dagger of De Retz fell

from his breast-pocket, it was "our good archbishop's breviary"; and when

his famous Corinthian troop was defeated in battle, it was "the First

Epistle to the Corinthians." While, across the Channel, Charles Stuart was

listening to his doom, Paris was gay in the midst of dangers, Madame de

Longueville was receiving her gallants in mimic court at the Hôtel de

Ville, De Retz was wearing his sword-belt over his archbishop's gown, the

little hunchback Conti was generalissimo, and the starving people were

pillaging Mazarin's library, in joke, "to find something to gnaw upon."

Outside the walls, the maids-of-honor were quarrelling over the straw beds

which annihilated all the romance of martyrdom, and Condé, with five

thousand men, was besieging five hundred thousand. No matter, they all

laughed through it, and through every succeeding turn of the kaleidoscope;

and the "Anything may happen in France," with which La Rochefoucauld

jumped amicably into the carriage of his mortal enemy, was not only the

first and best of his maxims, but the key-note of French history for all

coming time.

But behind all this sport, as in all the annals of the nation, were

mysteries and terrors and crimes. It was the age of cabalistic ciphers,

like that of De Retz, of which Guy Joli dreamed the solution; of

inexplicable secrets, like the Man in the Iron Mask, whereof no solution

was ever dreamed; of poisons, like that diamond-dust which in six hours

transformed the fresh beauty of the Princess Royal into foul decay; of

dungeons, like that cell at Vincennes which Madame de Rambouillet

pronounced to be "worth its weight in arsenic." War or peace hung on the

color of a ball-dress, and Madame de Chevreuse knew which party was coming

uppermost, by observing whether the binding of Madame de Hautefort's

prayer-book was red or green. Perhaps it was all a little theatrical, but

the performers were all Rachels.

And behind the crimes and the frivolities stood the Parliaments, calm and

undaunted, with leaders, like Molé and Talon, who needed nothing but

success to make their names as grand in history as those of Pym and

Hampden. Among the Brienne Papers in the British Museum there is a

collection of the manifestoes and proclamations of that time, and they are

earnest, eloquent, and powerful, from beginning to end. Lord Mahon alone

among historians, so far as our knowledge goes, has done fit and full

justice to the French parliaments, those assemblies which refused

admission to the foreign armies which the nobles would gladly have

summoned in,--but fed and protected the banished princesses of England,

when the court party had left those descendants of the Bourbons to die of

cold and hunger in the palace of their ancestors. And we have the

testimony of Henrietta Maria herself, the only person who had seen both

revolutions near at hand, that "the troubles in England never appeared so

formidable in their early days, nor were the leaders of the revolutionary

party so ardent or so united." The character of the agitation was no more

to be judged by its jokes and epigrams, than the gloomy glory of the

English Puritans by the grotesque names of their saints, or the stern

resolution of the Dutch burghers by their guilds of rhetoric and

symbolical melodrama.

But popular power was not yet developed in France, as it was in England;

all social order was unsettled and changing, and well Mazarin knew it. He

knew the pieces with which he played his game of chess: the king

powerless, the queen mighty, the bishops unable to take a single

straightforward move, and the knights going naturally zigzag; but a host

of plebeian pawns, every one fit for a possible royalty, and therefore to

be used shrewdly, or else annihilated as soon as practicable. True, the

game would not last forever; but after him the deluge.

Our age has forgotten even the meaning of the word Fronde; but here also

the French and Flemish histories run parallel, and the Frondeurs, like the

Gueux, were children of a sarcasm. The Counsellor Bachaumont one day

ridiculed insurrectionists, as resembling the boys who played with slings

(_frondes_) about the streets of Paris, but scattered at the first glimpse

of a policeman. The phrase organized the party. Next morning all fashions

were _à la fronde_,--hats, gloves, fans, bread, and ballads; and it cost

six years of civil war to pay for the Counsellor's facetiousness.

That which was, after all, the most remarkable characteristic of these

wars might be guessed from this fact about the fashions. The Fronde was

preëminently "the War of the Ladies." Educated far beyond the Englishwomen

of their time, they took a controlling share, sometimes ignoble, as often

noble, always powerful, in the affairs of the time. It was not merely a

courtly gallantry which flattered them with a hollow importance. De Retz,

in his Memoirs, compares the women of his age with Elizabeth of England. A

Spanish ambassador once congratulated Mazarin on obtaining temporary

repose. "You are mistaken," he replied, "there is no repose in France, for

I have always women to contend with. In Spain, women have only love-

affairs to employ them; but here we have three who are capable of

governing or overthrowing great kingdoms: the Duchess de Longueville, the

Princess Palatine, and the Duchess de Chevreuse." And there were others as

great as these; and the women who for years outwitted Mazarin and

outgeneralled Condé are deserving of a stronger praise than they have yet

obtained, even from the classic and courtly Cousin.

What men of that age eclipsed or equalled the address and daring of those

delicate and highborn women? What a romance was their ordinary existence!

The Princess Palatine gave refuge to Mme. de Longueville when that alone

saved her from sharing the imprisonment of her brothers Condé and Conti,--

then fled for her own life, by night, with Rochefoucauld. Mme. de

Longueville herself, pursued afterwards by the royal troops, wished to

embark in a little boat, on a dangerous shore, during a midnight storm so

wild that not a fisherman could at first be found to venture forth; the

beautiful fugitive threatened and implored till they consented; the sailor

who bore her in his arms to the boat let her fall amid the furious surges;

she was dragged senseless to the shore again, and, on the instant of

reviving, demanded to repeat the experiment; but as they utterly refused,

she rode inland beneath the tempest, and travelled for fourteen nights

before she could find another place of embarkation.

Madame de Chevreuse rode with one attendant from Paris to Madrid, fleeing

from Richelieu, remaining day and night on her horse, attracting perilous

admiration by the womanly loveliness which no male attire could obscure.

From Spain she went to England, organizing there the French exiles into a

strength which frightened Richelieu; thence to Holland, to conspire nearer

home; back to Paris, on the minister's death, to form the faction of the

Importants; and when the Duke of Beaufort was imprisoned, Mazarin said,

"Of what use to cut off the arms while the head remains?" Ten years from

her first perilous escape, she made a second, dashed through La Vendée,

embarked at St. Malo for Dunkirk, was captured by the fleet of the

Parliament, was released by the Governor of the Isle of Wight, unable to

imprison so beautiful a butterfly, reached her port at last, and in a few

weeks was intriguing at Liège again.

The Duchess de Bouillon, Turenne's sister, purer than those we have named,

but not less daring or determined, after charming the whole population of

Paris by her rebel beauty at the Hôtel de Ville, escaped from her sudden

incarceration by walking through the midst of her guards at dusk,

crouching in the shadow of her little daughter, and afterwards allowed

herself to be recaptured, rather than desert that child's sick-bed.

Then there was Clémence de Maille, purest and noblest of all, niece of

Richelieu and hapless wife of the cruel ingrate Condé, his equal in daring

and his superior in every other high quality. Married a child still

playing with her dolls, and sent at once to a convent to learn to read and

write, she became a woman the instant her husband became a captive; while

he watered his pinks in the garden at Vincennes, she went through France

and raised an army for his relief. Her means were as noble as her ends.

She would not surrender the humblest of her friends to an enemy, or suffer

the massacre of her worst enemy by a friend. She threw herself between the

fire of two hostile parties at Bordeaux, and, while men were falling each

side of her, compelled them to peace. Her deeds rang through Europe. When

she sailed from Bordeaux for Paris at last, thirty thousand people

assembled to bid her farewell. She was loved and admired by all the world,

except that husband for whom she dared so much,--and the Archbishop of

Taen. The respectable Archbishop complained, that "this lady did not prove

that she had been authorized by her husband, an essential provision,

without which no woman can act in law." And Condé himself, whose heart,

physically twice as large as other men's, was spiritually imperceptible,

repaid this stainless nobleness by years of persecution, and bequeathed

her, as a life-long prisoner, to his dastard son.

Then, on the royal side, there was Anne of Austria, sufficient unto

herself, Queen Regent, and every inch a queen, (before all but Mazarin,)--

from the moment when the mob of Paris filed through the chamber of the

boy-king, in his pretended sleep, and the motionless and stately mother

held back the crimson draperies, with the same lovely arm which had waved

perilous farewells to Buckingham,--to the day when the news of the fatal

battle of Gien came to her in her dressing-room, and "she remained

undisturbed before the mirror, not neglecting the arrangement of a single

curl."

In short, every woman who took part in the Ladies' War became heroic,--

from Marguerite of Lorraine, who snatched the pen from her weak husband's

hand and gave De Retz the order for the first insurrection, down to the

wife of the commandant of the Porte St. Roche, who, springing from her bed

to obey that order, made the drums beat to arms and secured the barrier;

and fitly, amid adventurous days like these, opened the career of

Mademoiselle.

II.

THE FIRST CAMPAIGN.

Grandchild of Henri Quatre, niece of Louis XIII., cousin of Louis XIV.,

first princess of the blood, and with the largest income in the nation,

(500,000 livres,) to support these dignities, Mademoiselle was certainly

born in the purple. Her autobiography admits us to very gorgeous company;

the stream of her personal recollections is a perfect Pactolus. There is

almost a surfeit of royalty in it; every card is a court-card, and all her

counters are counts. "I wore at this festival all the crown-jewels of

France, and also those of the Queen of England." "A far greater

establishment was assigned to me than any _fille de France_ had ever had,

not excepting any of my aunts, the Queens of England and of Spain, and the

Duchess of Savoy." "The Queen, my grandmother, gave me as a governess the

same lady who had been governess to the late King." Pageant or funeral, it

is the same thing. "In the midst of these festivities we heard of the

death of the King of Spain; whereat the Queens were greatly afflicted, and

we all went into mourning." Thus, throughout, her Memoirs glitter like the

coat with which the splendid Buckingham astonished the cheaper chivalry of

France: they drop diamonds.

But for any personal career Mademoiselle found at first no opportunity, in

the earlier years of the Fronde. A gay, fearless, flattered girl, she

simply shared the fortunes of the court; laughed at the

festivals in the palace, laughed at the ominous insurrections in the

streets; laughed when the people cheered her, their pet princess; and when

the royal party fled from Paris, she adroitly secured for herself the best

straw-bed at St. Germain, and laughed louder than ever. She despised the

courtiers who flattered her; secretly admired her young cousin Condé, whom

she affected to despise; danced when the court danced, and ran away when

it mourned. She made all manner of fun of her English lover, the future

Charles II., whom she alone of all the world found bashful; and in general

she wasted the golden hours with much excellent fooling. Nor would she,

perhaps, ever have found herself a heroine, but that her respectable

father was a poltroon.

Lord Mahon ventures to assert, that Gaston, Duke of Orléans, was "the most

cowardly prince of whom history makes mention." A strong expression, but

perhaps safe. Holding the most powerful position in the nation, he never

came upon the scene but to commit some new act of ingenious pusillanimity;

while, by some extraordinary chance, every woman of his immediate kindred

was a natural heroine, and became more heroic through disgust at him. His

wife was Marguerite of Lorraine, who originated the first Fronde

insurrection; his daughter turned the scale of the second. But,

personally, he not only had not the courage to act, but he had not the

courage to abstain from acting; he could no more keep out of parties than

in them; but was always busy, waging war in spite of Mars, and negotiating

in spite of Minerva.

And when the second war of the Fronde broke out, it was in spite of

himself that he gave his name and his daughter to the popular cause. When

the fate of the two nations hung trembling in the balance, the royal army

under Turenne advancing on Paris, and almost arrived at the city of

Orléans, and that city likely to take the side of the strongest,--then

Mademoiselle's hour had come. All her sympathies were more and more

inclining to the side of Condé and the people. Orléans was her own

hereditary city. Her father, as was his custom in great emergencies,

declared that he was very ill and must go to bed immediately; but it was

as easy for her to be strong as it was for him to be weak; so she wrung

from him a reluctant plenipotentiary power; she might go herself and try

what her influence could do. And so she rode forth from Paris, one fine

morning, March 27, 1652,--rode with a few attendants, half in enthusiasm,

half in levity, aiming to become a second Joan of Arc, secure the city,

and save the nation. "I felt perfectly delighted," says the young girl,

"at having to play so extraordinary a part."

The people of Paris had heard of her mission, and cheered her as she went.

The officers of the army, with an escort of five hundred men, met her half

way from Paris. Most of them evidently knew her calibre, were delighted to

see her, and installed her at once over a regular council of war. She

entered into the position with her natural promptness. A certain grave M.

de Rohan undertook to tutor her privately, and met his match. In the

public deliberation, there were some differences of opinion. All agreed

that the army should not pass beyond the Loire: this was Gaston's

suggestion, and nevertheless a good one. Beyond this all was left to

Mademoiselle. Mademoiselle intended to go straight to Orléans. "But the

royal army had reached there already." Mademoiselle did not believe it.

"The citizens would not admit her." Mademoiselle would see about that.

Presently the city government of Orléans sent her a letter, in great

dismay, particularly requesting her to keep her distance. Mademoiselle

immediately ordered her coach, and set out for the city. "I was naturally

resolute," she naïvely remarks.

Her siege of Orléans is perhaps the most remarkable on record. She was

right in one thing; the royal army had not arrived: but it might appear at

any moment; so the magistrates quietly shut all their gates, and waited to

see what would happen.

Mademoiselle happened. It was eleven in the morning when she reached the

Porte Bannière, and she sat three hours in her state carriage without

seeing a person. With amusing politeness, the governor of the city at last

sent her some confectionery,--agreeing with John Keats, who held that

young women were beings fitter to be presented with sugar-plums than with

one's time. But he took care to explain that the bonbons were not

official, and did not recognize her authority. So she quietly ate them,

and then decided to take a walk outside the walls. Her council of war

opposed this step, as they did every other; but she coolly said (as the

event proved) that the enthusiasm of the populace would carry the city for

her, if she could only get at them.

So she set out on her walk. Her two beautiful ladies-of-honor, the

Countesses de Fiesque and de Frontenac, went with her; a few attendants

behind. She came to a gate. The people were all gathered inside the

ramparts. "Let me in," demanded the imperious young lady. The astonished

citizens looked at each other and said nothing. She walked on,--the crowd

inside keeping pace with her. She reached another gate. The enthusiasm was

increased. The captain of the guard formed his troops in line and saluted

her. "Open the gate," she again insisted. The poor captain made signs that

he had not the keys. "Break it down, then," coolly suggested the daughter

of the House of Orléans; to which his only reply was a profusion of

profound bows, and the lady walked on.

Those were the days of astrology, and at this moment it occurred to our

Mademoiselle, that the chief astrologer of Paris had predicted success to

all her undertakings, from the noon of this very day until the noon

following. She had never had the slightest faith in the mystic science,

but she turned to her attendant ladies, and remarked that the matter was

settled; she should get in. On went the three, until they reached the bank

of the river, and saw, opposite, the gates which opened on the quay. The

Orléans boatmen came flocking round her, a hardy race, who feared neither

queen nor Mazarin. They would break down any gate she chose. She selected

one, got into a boat, and sending back her terrified male attendants, that

they might have no responsibility in the case, she was rowed to the other

side. Her new allies were already at work, and she climbed from the boat

upon the quay by a high ladder, of which several rounds were broken away.

They worked more and more enthusiastically, though the gate was built to

stand a siege, and stoutly resisted this one. Courage is magnetic; every

moment increased the popular enthusiasm, as these highborn ladies stood

alone among the boatmen; the crowd inside joined in the attack upon the

gate; the guard looked on; the city government remained irresolute at the

Hôtel de Ville, fairly beleaguered and stormed by one princess and two

maids-of-honor.

A crash, and the mighty timbers of the Porte Brûlée yield in the centre.

Aided by the strong and exceedingly soiled hands of her new friends, our

elegant Mademoiselle is lifted, pulled, pushed, and tugged between the

vast iron bars which fortify the gate; and in this fashion, torn,

splashed, and dishevelled generally, she makes entrance into her city. The

guard, promptly adhering to the winning side, present arms to the heroine.

The people fill the air with their applauses; they place her in a large,

wooden chair, and bear her in triumph through the streets. "Everybody came

to kiss my hands, while I was dying with laughter to find myself in so odd

a situation."

Presently our volatile lady told them that she had learned how to walk,

and begged to be put down; then she waited for her countesses, who arrived

bespattered with mud. The drums beat before her, as she set forth again,

and the city government, yielding to the feminine conqueror, came to do

her homage. She carelessly assured them of her clemency. She "had no doubt

that they would soon have opened the gates, but she was naturally of a

very impatient disposition, and could not wait." Moreover, she kindly

suggested, neither party could now find fault with them; and as for the

future, she would save them all trouble, and govern the city herself,--

which she accordingly did.

By confession of all historians, she alone saved the city for the Fronde,

and, for the moment, secured that party the ascendency in the nation. Next

day the advance-guard of the royal forces appeared,--a day too late.

Mademoiselle made a speech (the first in her life) to the city government;

then went forth to her own small army, by this time drawn near, and held

another council. The next day she received a letter from her father,

(whose health was now decidedly restored,) declaring that she had "saved

Orléans and secured Paris, and shown yet more judgment than courage." The

next day Condé came up with his forces, compared his fair cousin to

Gustavus Adolphus, and wrote to her that "her exploit was such as she only

could have performed, and was of the greatest importance."