Hither have lately been transported a number of the works of French

artists which formerly covered the walls of the Luxembourg (death only

entitles the French painter to a place in the Louvre); and let us

confine ourselves to the Frenchmen only, for the space of this letter.

I have seen, in a fine private collection at St. Germain, one or two

admirable single figures of David, full of life, truth, and gaiety. The

colour is not good, but all the rest excellent; and one of these so much

lauded pictures is the portrait of a washerwoman. ‘Pope Pius,’ at the

Louvre, is as bad in colour, and as remarkable for its vigour and look

of life. The man had a genius for painting portraits and common life,

but must attempt the heroic;--failed signally, and, what is worse,

carried a whole nation blundering after him. Had you told a Frenchman

so, twenty years ago, he would have thrown the _démenti_ in your teeth;

or, at least, laughed at you in scornful incredulity. They say of us

that we don’t know when we are beaten; they go a step farther, and swear

their defeats are victories. David was a part of the glory of the

Empire; and one might as well have said, there, that ‘Romulus’ was a bad

picture, as that Toulouse was a lost battle. Old-fashioned people, who

believe in the Emperor, believe in the Théâtre Français, and believe

that Ducis improved upon Shakespeare, have the above opinion. Still, it

is curious to remark, in this place, how art and literature become party

matters, and political sects have their favourite painters and authors.

Nevertheless, Jacques Louis David is dead. He died about a year after

his bodily demise in 1825. The romanticism killed him. Walter Scott,

from his castle of Abbotsford, sent out a troop of gallant young Scotch

adventurers, merry outlaws, valiant knights, and savage Highlanders,

who, with trunk hosen and buff jerkins, fierce two-handed swords, and

harness on their back, did challenge, combat, and overcome the heroes

and demigods of Greece and Rome. _Notre Dame à la rescousse!_ Sir Brian

de Bois Guilbert has borne Hector of Troy clean out of his saddle.

Andromache may weep; but her spouse is beyond the reach of physic. See!

Robin Hood twangs his bow, and the heathen gods fly, howling. _Montjoie

Saint Denis!_ down goes Ajax under the mace of Dunois; and yonder are

Leonidas and Romulus begging their lives of Rob Roy Macgregor.

Classicism is dead. Sir John Froissart has taken Dr. Lemprière by the

nose, and reigns sovereign.

Of the great pictures of David, the defunct, we need not, then, say

much. Romulus is a mighty fine young fellow, no doubt; and if he has

come out to battle stark naked (except a very handsome helmet), it is

because the costume became him, and shows off his figure to advantage.

But was there ever anything so absurd as this passion for the nude,

which was followed by all the painters of the Davidian epoch? And how

are we to suppose yonder straddle to be the true characteristic of the

heroic and the sublime? Romulus stretches his legs as far as ever nature

will allow; the Horatii, in receiving their swords, think proper to

stretch their legs too, and to thrust forward their arms, thus--

[Illustration: Romulus. The Horatii.]

Romulus’s is the exact action of a telegraph; and the Horatii are all in

the position of the lunge. Is this the sublime? Mr. Angelo, of Bond

Street, might admire the attitude; his namesake, Michael, I don’t think

would.

The little picture of ‘Paris and Helen,’ one of the master’s earliest, I

believe, is likewise one of his best: the details are exquisitely

painted. Helen looks needlessly sheepish, and Paris has a most odious

ogle; but the limbs of the male figure are beautifully designed, and

have not the green tone which you see in the later pictures of the

master. What is the meaning of this green? Was it the fashion, or the

varnish? Girodet’s pictures are green; Gros’s emperors and grenadiers

have universally the jaundice. Gerard’s ‘Psyche’ has a most decided

green sickness; and I am at a loss, I confess, to account for the

enthusiasm which this performance inspired on its first appearance

before the public.

In the same room with it is Girodet’s ghastly ‘Deluge,’ and Géricault’s

dismal ‘Medusa.’ Géricault died, they say, for want of fame. He was a

man who possessed a considerable fortune of his own; but pined because

no one in his day would purchase his pictures, and so acknowledge his

talent. At present, a scrawl from his pencil brings an enormous price.

All his works have a grand _cachet_: he never did anything mean. When he

painted the ‘Raft of the Medusa,’ it is said he lived for a long time

among the corpses which he painted, and that his studio was a second

Morgue. If you have not seen the picture, you are familiar, probably,

with Reynolds’s admirable engraving of it. A huge black sea; a raft

beating upon it; a horrid company of men dead, half dead, writhing and

frantic with hideous hunger or hideous hope; and, far away, black,

against a stormy sunset, a sail. The story is powerfully told, and has a

legitimate tragic interest, so to speak,--deeper, because more natural,

than Girodet’s green ‘Deluge,’ for instance; or his livid ‘Orestes,’ or

red-hot ‘Clytemnestra.’

Seen from a distance, the latter’s ‘Deluge’ has a certain awe-inspiring

air with it. A slimy green man stands on a green rock, and clutches hold

of a tree. On the green man’s shoulders is his old father, in a green

old age; to him hangs his wife, with a babe on her breast, and, dangling

at her hair, another child. In the water floats a corpse (a beautiful

head); and a green sea and atmosphere envelops all this dismal group.

The old father is represented with a bag of money in his hand; and the

tree, which the man catches, is cracking, and just on the point of

giving way. These two points were considered very fine by the critics;

they are two such ghastly epigrams as continually disfigure French

tragedy. For this reason I have never been able to read Racine with

pleasure,--the dialogue is so crammed with these lugubrious good

things--melancholy antitheses--sparkling undertakers’ wit; but this is

heresy, and had better be spoken discreetly.

The gallery contains a vast number of Poussin’s pictures; they put me in

mind of the colour of objects in dreams,--a strange, hazy, lurid hue.

How noble are some of his landscapes! What a depth of solemn shadow is

in yonder wood, near which, by the side of a black water, halts

Diogenes! The air is thunder-laden and breathes heavily. You hear

ominous whispers in the vast forest gloom.

Near it is a landscape, by Carol Dujardin, I believe, conceived in quite

a different mood, but exquisitely poetical too. A horseman is riding up

a hill, and giving money to a blowsy beggar-wench. _O matutini rores

auræque salubres_! in what a wonderful way has the artist managed to

create you out of a few bladders of paint and pots of varnish! You can

see the matutinal dews twinkling in the grass, and feel the fresh

salubrious airs (‘the breath of Nature blowing free,’ as the Corn-law

man sings) blowing free over the heath; silvery vapours are rising up

from the blue lowlands. You can tell the hour of the morning and the

time of the year: you can do anything but describe it in words. As with

regard to the Poussin above mentioned, one can never pass it without

bearing away a certain pleasing dreamy feeling of awe and musing; the

other landscape inspires the spectator infallibly with the most

delightful briskness and cheerfulness of spirit. Herein, lies the vast

privilege of the landscape painter: he does not address you with one

fixed particular subject of expression, but with a thousand never

contemplated by himself, and which only arise out of occasion. You may

always be looking at a natural landscape as at a fine pictorial

imitation of one; it seems eternally producing new thoughts in your

bosom, as it does fresh beauties from its own. I cannot fancy more

delightful, cheerful, silent companions for a man than half a dozen

landscapes hung round his study. Portraits, on the contrary, and large

pieces of figures have a painful, fixed, staring look, which must jar

upon the mind in many of its moods. Fancy living in a room with David’s

sansculotte Leonidas staring perpetually in your face!

There is a little Watteau here, and a rare piece of fantastical

brightness and gaiety it is. What a delightful affectation about yonder

ladies flirting their fans, and trailing about in their long brocades!

What splendid dandies are those, ever smirking, turning out their toes,

with broad blue ribands to tie up their crooks and their pigtails, and

wonderful gorgeous crimson satin breeches! Yonder, in the midst of a

golden atmosphere, rises a bevy of little Cupids, bubbling up in

clusters as out of a champagne-bottle, and melting away in air. There

is, to be sure, a hidden analogy between liquors and pictures: the eye

is deliciously tickled by these frisky Watteaus, and yields itself up to

a light, smiling, gentlemanlike intoxication. Thus, were we inclined to

pursue further this mighty subject, yonder landscape of Claude,--calm,

fresh, delicate, yet full of flavour,--should be likened to a bottle of

Chateau Margaux. And what is the Poussin before spoken of but Romanée

Gelée?--heavy, sluggish,--the luscious odour almost sickens you; a

sultry sort of drink; your limbs sink under it; you feel as if you had

been drinking hot blood.

An ordinary man would be whirled away in a fever, or would hobble off

this mortal stage, in a premature gout-fit, if he too early or too often

indulged in such tremendous drink. I think in my heart I am fonder of

pretty third-rate pictures than of your great thundering first-rates.

Confess how many times you have read Béranger, and how many Milton? If

you go to the Star and Garter, don’t you grow sick of that vast luscious

landscape, and long for the sight of a couple of cows, or a donkey, and

a few yards of common? Donkeys, my dear MacGilp, since we have come to

this subject,--say not so; Richmond Hill for them. Milton they never

grow tired of; and are as familiar with Raphael as Bottom with exquisite

Titania. Let us thank Heaven, my dear sir, for according to us the power

to taste and appreciate the pleasures of mediocrity. I have never heard

that we were great geniuses. Earthy are we, and of the earth; glimpses

of the sublime are but rare to us; leave we them to great geniuses, and

to the donkeys; and if it nothing profit us, _aërias tentâsse domos_

along with them, let us thankfully remain below, being merry and humble.

I have now only to mention the charming ‘Cruche Cassée’ of Greuze, which

all the young ladies delight to copy; and of which the colour (a thought

too blue, perhaps) is marvellously graceful and delicate. There are

three more pictures by the artist, containing exquisite female heads and

colour; but they have charms for French critics which are difficult to

be discovered by English eyes; and the pictures seem weak to me. A very

fine picture by Bon Bollongue, ‘Saint Benedict resuscitating a Child,’

deserves particular attention, and is superb in vigour and richness of

colour. You must look, too, at the large, noble, melancholy landscapes

of Philippe de Champagne; and the two magnificent Italian pictures of

Léopold Robert: they are, perhaps, the very finest pictures that the

French school has produced,--as deep as Poussin, of a better colour, and

of a wonderful minuteness and veracity in the representation of objects.

Every one of Lesueur’s church-pictures are worth examining and admiring;

they are full of ‘unction’ and pious mystical grace. ‘Saint Scholastica’

is divine; and the ‘Taking down from the Cross’ as noble a composition

as ever was seen; I care not by whom the other may be. There is more

beauty, and less affectation, about this picture than you will find in

the performances of many Italian masters, with high-sounding names (out

with it, and say RAPHAEL at once). I hate those simpering Madonnas. I

declare that the ‘Jardinière’ is a puking, smirking miss, with nothing

heavenly about her. I vow that the ‘Saint Elizabeth’ is a bad

picture,--a bad composition, badly drawn, badly coloured, in a bad

imitation of Titian,--a piece of vile affectation. I say, that when

Raphael painted this picture, two years before his death, the spirit of

painting had gone from out of him; he was no longer inspired; _it was

time that he should die_!!

There,--the murder is out! My paper is filled to the brim, and there is

no time to speak of Lesueur’s ‘Crucifixion,’ which is odiously coloured,

to be sure; but earnest, tender, simple, holy. But such things are most

difficult to translate into words;--one lays down the pen, and thinks

and thinks. The figures appear, and take their places one by one:

ranging themselves according to order, in light or in gloom, the colours

are reflected duly in the little camera obscura of the brain, and the

whole picture lies there complete; but can you describe it? No, not if

pens were fitch-brushes, and words were bladders of paint. With which,

for the present, adieu.--Your faithful

M. A. T.

_To_ MR. ROBERT MACGILP, _Newman Street, London_.

THE PAINTER’S BARGAIN

Simon Gambouge was the son of Solomon Gambouge; and, as all the world

knows, both father and son were astonishingly clever fellows at their

profession. Solomon painted landscapes, which nobody bought; and Simon

took a higher line, and painted portraits to admiration, only nobody

came to sit to him.

As he was not gaining five pounds a year by his profession, and had

arrived at the age of twenty, at least, Simon determined to better

himself by taking a wife,--a plan which a number of other wise men

adopt, in similar years and circumstances. So Simon prevailed upon a

butcher’s daughter (to whom he owed considerably for cutlets) to quit

the meat-shop and follow him. Griskinissa--such was the fair creature’s

name--‘was as lovely a bit of mutton,’ her father said, ‘as ever a man

would wish to stick a knife into.’ She had sat to the painter for all

sorts of characters; and the curious who possess any of Gambouge’s

pictures will see her as Venus, Minerva, Madonna, and in numberless

other characters: Portrait of a Lady--Griskinissa; Sleeping

Nymph--Griskinissa, without a rag of clothes, lying in a forest;

Maternal Solicitude--Griskinissa again, with young Master Gambouge, who

was by this time the offspring of their affections.

The lady brought the painter a handsome little fortune of a couple of

hundred pounds; and as long as this sum lasted no woman could be more

lovely or loving. But want began speedily to attack their little

household; bakers’ bills were unpaid; rent was due, and the reckless

landlord gave no quarter; and, to crown the whole, her father, unnatural

butcher! suddenly stopped the supplies of mutton-chops; and swore that

his daughter, and the dauber her husband, should have no more of his

wares. At first they embraced tenderly, and, kissing and crying over

their little infant, vowed to Heaven that they would do without: but in

the course of the evening Griskinissa grew peckish, and poor Simon

pawned his best coat.

When this habit of pawning is discovered, it appears to the poor a kind

of Eldorado. Gambouge and his wife were so delighted, that they, in the

course of a month, made away with her gold chain, her great warming-pan,

his best crimson plush inexpressibles, two wigs, a washhand basin and

ewer, fire-irons, window-curtains, crockery, and arm-chairs. Griskinissa

said, smiling, that she had found a second father in _her uncle_,--a

base pun, which showed that her mind was corrupted, and that she was no

longer the tender simple Griskinissa of other days.

I am sorry to say that she had taken to drinking: she swallowed the

warming-pan in the course of three days, and fuddled herself one whole

evening with the crimson plush breeches.

Drinking is the devil--the father, that is to say, of all vices.

Griskinissa’s face and her mind grew ugly together; her good-humour

changed to bilious bitter discontent; her pretty, fond epithets to foul

abuse and swearing; her tender blue eyes grew watery and blear, and the

peach colour on her cheeks fled from its old habitation, and crowded up

into her nose, where, with a number of pimples, it stuck fast. Add to

this a dirty draggle-tailed chintz; long matted hair, wandering into her

eyes and over her lean shoulders, which were once so snowy, and you have

the picture of drunkenness and Mrs. Simon Gambouge.

Poor Simon, who had been a gay lively fellow enough in the days of his

better fortune, was completely cast down by his present ill luck, and

cowed by the ferocity of his wife. From morning till night the

neighbours could hear this woman’s tongue, and understand her doings;

bellows went skimming across the room, chairs were flumped down on the

floor, and poor Gambouge’s oil and varnish pots went clattering through

the windows, or down the stairs. The baby roared all day; and Simon sat

pale and idle in a corner, taking a small sup at the brandy-bottle, when

Mrs. Gambouge was out of the way.

One day, as he sat disconsolately at his easel, furbishing up a picture

of his wife, in the character of Peace, which he had commenced a year

before, he was more than ordinarily desperate, and cursed and swore in

the most pathetic manner. ‘Oh, miserable fate of genius!’ cried he, ‘was

I, a man of such commanding talents, born for this--to be bullied by a

fiend of a wife; to have my masterpieces neglected by the world, or sold

only for a few pieces? Cursed be the love which has misled me; cursed be

the art which is unworthy of me! Let me dig or steal, let me sell myself

as a soldier, or sell myself to the Devil, I should not be more wretched

than I am now!’

‘Quite the contrary,’ cried a small cheery voice.

‘What!’ exclaimed Gambouge, trembling and surprised. ‘Who’s

there?--where are you?--who are you?’

‘You were just speaking of me,’ said the voice.

Gambouge held, in his left hand, his palette; in his right a bladder of

crimson lake, which he was about to squeeze out upon the mahogany.

‘Where are you?’ cried he again.

‘S-q-u-e-e-z-e!’ exclaimed the little voice.

Gambouge picked out the nail from the bladder, and gave a squeeze, when,

as sure as I am living, a little imp spirted out from the hole upon the

palette, and began laughing in the most singular and oily manner.

When first born he was little bigger than a tadpole; then he grew to be

as big as a mouse; then he arrived at the size of a cat; and then he

jumped off the palette, and, turning head over heels, asked the poor

painter what he wanted with him.

* * * * *

The strange little animal twisted head over heels, and fixed himself at

last upon the top of Gambouge’s easel,--smearing out, with his heels,

all the white and vermilion which had just been laid on to the allegoric

portrait of Mrs. Gambouge.

‘What!’ exclaimed Simon, ‘is it the----’

[Illustration]

‘Exactly so; talk of me, you know, and I am always at hand: besides, I

am not half so black as I am painted, as you will see when you know me a

little better.’

‘Upon my word,’ said the painter, ‘it is a very singular surprise which

you have given me. To tell truth, I did not even believe in your

existence.’

The little imp put on a theatrical air, and, with one of Mr. Macready’s

best looks, said:

‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Gambogio,

Than are dreamed of in your philosophy.’

Gambouge, being a Frenchman, did not understand the quotation, but felt

somehow strangely and singularly interested in the conversation of his

new friend.

Diabolus continued: ‘You are a man of merit, and want money: you will

starve on your merit; you can only get money from me. Come, my friend,

how much is it? I ask the easiest interest in the world: old Mordecai,

the usurer, has made you pay twice as heavily before now: nothing but

the signature of a bond, which is a mere ceremony, and the transfer of

an article which, in itself, is a supposition,--a valueless, windy,

uncertain property of yours, called, by some poet of your own, I think,

an _animula vagula blandula_--bah! there is no use beating about the

bush--I mean _a soul_. Come, let me have it: you know you will sell it

some other way, and not get such good pay for your bargain!’--and,

having made this speech, the Devil pulled out from his fob a sheet as

big as a double _Times_, only there was a different _stamp_ in the

corner.

It is useless and tedious to describe law documents: lawyers only love

to read them; and they have as good in Chitty as any that are to be

found in the Devil’s own; so nobly have the apprentices emulated the

skill of the master. Suffice it to say, that poor Gambouge read over the

paper and signed it. He was to have all he wished for seven years, and

at the end of that time was to become the property of the----: Provided

that, during the course of the seven years, every single wish which he

might form should be gratified by the other of the contracting parties;

otherwise the deed became null and non-avenue, and Gambouge should be

left ‘to go to the ---- his own way.’

‘You will never see me again,’ said Diabolus, in shaking hands with poor

Simon, on whose fingers he left such a mark as is to be seen at this

day--‘never, at least, unless you want me; for everything you ask will

be performed in the most quiet and every-day manner: believe me, it is

best and most gentlemanlike, and avoids anything like scandal. But if

you set me about anything which is extraordinary, and out of the course

of nature, as it were, come I must, you know; and of this you are the

best judge.’ So saying, Diabolus disappeared; but whether up the

chimney, through the keyhole, or by any other aperture or contrivance,

nobody knows. Simon Gambouge was left in a fever of delight, as, Heaven

forgive me! I believe many a worthy man would be, if he were allowed an

opportunity to make a similar bargain.

‘Heigho!’ said Simon. ‘I wonder whether this be a reality or a dream. I

am sober, I know; for who will give me credit for the means to be drunk?

and as for sleeping, I’m too hungry for that. I wish I could see a capon

and a bottle of white wine.’

‘MONSIEUR SIMON!’ cried a voice on the landing-place.

‘C’est ici,’ quoth Gambouge, hastening to open the door. He did so; and

lo! there was a restaurateur’s boy at the door, supporting a tray, a

tin-covered dish, and plates on the same; and, by its side, a tall

amber-coloured flask of sauterne.

‘I am the new boy, sir,’ exclaimed this youth, on entering; ‘but I

believe this is the right door, and you asked for these things.’

Simon grinned, and said, ‘Certainly, I did _ask_ for these things.’ But

such was the effect which his interview with the demon had had on his

innocent mind, that he took them, although he knew that they were for

old Simon, the Jew dandy, who was mad after an opera girl, and lived on

the floor beneath.

‘Go, my boy,’ he said; ‘it is good: call in a couple of hours, and

remove the plates and glasses.’

The little waiter trotted downstairs, and Simon sat greedily down to

discuss the capon and the white wine. He bolted the legs, he devoured

the wings, he cut every morsel of flesh from the breast;--seasoning his

repast with pleasant draughts of wine, and caring nothing for the

inevitable bill, which was to follow all.

‘Ye gods!’ said he, as he scraped away at the backbone, ‘what a dinner!

what wine!--and how gaily served up too!’ There were silver forks and

spoons, and the remnants of the fowl were upon a silver dish. ‘Why, the

money for this dish and these spoons,’ cried Simon, ‘would keep me and

Mrs. G. for a month! I wish’--and here Simon whistled, and turned round

to see that nobody was peeping--‘I wish the plate were mine.’

Oh, the horrid progress of the Devil! ‘Here they are,’ thought Simon to

himself; ‘why should not I _take them_?’ And take them he did.

‘Detection,’ said he, ‘is not so bad as starvation; and I would as soon

live at the galleys as live with Madame Gambouge.’

So Gambouge shovelled dish and spoons into the flap of his surtout, and

ran downstairs as if the Devil were behind him--as, indeed, he was.

He immediately made for the house of his old friend the pawnbroker--that

establishment which is called in France the Mont de Piété. ‘I am obliged

to come to you again, my old friend,’ said Simon, ‘with some family

plate, of which I beseech you to take care.’

The pawnbroker smiled as he examined the goods. ‘I can give you nothing

upon them,’ said he.

‘What!’ cried Simon; ‘not even the worth of the silver?’

‘No; I could buy them at that price at the “Café Morisot,” Rue de la

Verrerie, where, I suppose, you got them a little cheaper.’ And, so

saying, he showed to the guilt-stricken Gambouge how the name of that

coffee-house was inscribed upon every one of the articles which he had

wished to pawn.

The effects of conscience are dreadful indeed. Oh! how fearful is

retribution, how deep is despair, how bitter is remorse for crime--_when

crime is found out!_--otherwise, conscience takes matters much more

easily. Gambouge cursed his fate, and swore henceforth to be virtuous.

‘But, hark ye, my friend,’ continued the honest broker, ‘there is no

reason why, because I cannot lend upon these things, I should not buy

them: they will do to melt, if for no other purpose. Will you have half

the money?--speak, or I peach.’

Simon’s resolves about virtue were dissipated instantaneously. ‘Give me

half,’ he said, ‘and let me go.--What scoundrels are these pawnbrokers!’

ejaculated he, as he passed out of the accursed shop, ‘seeking every

wicked pretext to rob the poor man of his hard-won gain.’

When he had marched forwards for a street or two, Gambouge counted the

money which he had received, and found that he was in possession of no

less than a hundred francs. It was night, as he reckoned out his

equivocal gains, and he counted them at the light of a lamp. He looked

up at the lamp, in doubt as to the course he should next pursue: upon it

was inscribed the simple number, 152. ‘A gambling-house,’ thought

Gambouge. ‘I wish I had half the money that is now on the table

upstairs.’

He mounted, as many a rogue has done before him, and found half a

hundred persons busy at a table of _rouge et noir_. Gambouge’s five

napoleons looked insignificant by the side of the heaps which were

around him; but the effects of the wine, of the theft, and of the

detection by the pawnbroker, were upon him, and he threw down his

capital stoutly upon the 0 0.

It is a dangerous spot that 0 0, or double zero; but to Simon it was

more lucky than to the rest of the world. The ball went spinning

round--in ‘its predestined circle rolled,’ as Shelley has it, after

Goethe--and plumped down at last in the double zero. One hundred and

thirty-five gold napoleons (louis they were then) were counted out to

the delighted painter. ‘Oh, Diabolus!’ cried he, ‘now it is that I begin

to believe in thee! Don’t talk about merit,’ he cried; ‘talk about

fortune. Tell me not about heroes for the future--tell me of _zeroes_.’

And down went twenty napoleons more upon the 0.

The Devil was certainly in the ball: round it twirled, and dropped into

zero as naturally as a duck pops its head into a pond. Our friend

received five hundred pounds for his stake; and the croupiers and

lookers-on began to stare at him.

There were twelve thousand pounds on the table. Suffice it to say, that

Simon won half, and retired from the Palais Royal with a thick bundle of

bank-notes crammed into his dirty three-cornered hat. He had been but

half an hour in the place, and he had won the revenues of a prince for

half a year!

Gambouge, as soon as he felt that he was a capitalist, and that he had a

stake in the country, discovered that he was an altered man. He repented

of his foul deed, and his base purloining of the restaurateur’s plate.

‘O honesty!’ he cried, ‘how unworthy is an action like this of a man who

has a property like mine!’ So he went back to the pawnbroker with the

gloomiest face imaginable. ‘My friend,’ said he, ‘I have sinned against

all that I hold most sacred: I have forgotten my family and my religion.

Here is thy money. In the name of Heaven, restore me the plate which I

have wrongfully sold thee!’

But the pawnbroker grinned, and said, ‘Nay, Mr. Gambouge, I will sell

that plate for a thousand francs to you, or I never will sell it at

all.’

‘Well,’ cried Gambouge, ‘thou art an inexorable ruffian, Trois-boules;

but I will give thee all I am worth.’ And here he produced a billet of

five hundred francs. ‘Look,’ said he, ‘this money is all I own; it is

the payment of two years’ lodging. To raise it, I have toiled for many

months; and, failing, I have been a criminal. O Heaven! I _stole_ that

plate that I might pay my debt, and keep my dear wife from wandering

houseless. But I cannot bear this load of ignominy--I cannot suffer the

thought of this crime. I will go to the person to whom I did wrong. I

will starve, I will confess; but I will, I _will_ do right!’

The broker was alarmed. ‘Give me thy note,’ he cried; ‘here is the

plate.’

‘Give me an acquittal first,’ cried Simon, almost broken-hearted; ‘sign

me a paper, and the money is yours.’ So Trois-boules wrote according to

Gambouge’s dictation: ‘Received, for thirteen ounces of plate, twenty

pounds.’

‘Monster of iniquity!’ cried the painter, ‘fiend of wickedness! thou art

caught in thine own snares. Hast thou not sold me five pounds’ worth of

plate for twenty? Have I it not in my pocket? Art thou not a convicted

dealer in stolen goods? Yield, scoundrel, yield thy money, or I will

bring thee to justice!’

The frightened pawnbroker bullied and battled for a while; but he gave

up his money at last, and the dispute ended. Thus it will be seen that

Diabolus had rather a hard bargain in the wily Gambouge. He had taken a

victim prisoner, but he had assuredly caught a tartar. Simon now

returned home, and, to do him justice, paid the bill for his dinner, and

restored the plate.

* * * * *

And now I may add (and the reader should ponder upon this, as a profound

picture of human life) that Gambouge, since he had grown rich, grew

likewise abundantly moral. He was a most exemplary father. He fed the

poor, and was loved by them. He scorned a base action. And I have no

doubt that Mr. Thurtell, or the late lamented Mr. Greenacre, in similar

circumstances, would have acted like the worthy Simon Gambouge.

There was but one blot upon his character--he hated Mrs. Gam. worse than

ever. As he grew more benevolent, she grew more virulent: when he went

to plays, she went to Bible societies, and _vice versâ_: in fact, she

led him such a life as Xantippe led Socrates, or as a dog leads a cat in

the same kitchen. With all his fortune--for, as may be supposed, Simon

prospered in all worldly things--he was the most miserable dog in the

whole city of Paris. Only on the point of drinking did he and Mrs. Simon

agree: and for many years, and during a considerable number of hours in

each day, he thus dissipated, partially, his domestic chagrin. O

philosophy! we may talk of thee: but, except at the bottom of the

wine-cup, where thou liest like truth in a well, where shall we find

thee?

He lived so long, and in his worldly matters prospered so much, there

was so little sign of devilment in the accomplishment of his wishes, and

the increase of his prosperity, that Simon, at the end of six years,

began to doubt whether he had made any such bargain at all as that which

we have described at the commencement of this history. He had grown, as

we said, very pious and moral. He went regularly to mass, and had a

confessor into the bargain. He resolved, therefore, to consult that

reverend gentleman, and to lay before him the whole matter.

‘I am inclined to think, holy sir,’ said Gambouge, after he had

concluded his history, and shown how, in some miraculous way, all his

desires were accomplished, ‘that, after all, this demon was no other

than the creation of my own brain, heated by the effects of that bottle

of wine, the cause of my crime and my prosperity.’

The confessor agreed with him, and they walked out of church comfortably

together, and entered afterwards a _café_, where they sat down to

refresh themselves after the fatigues of their devotion.

A respectable old gentleman, with a number of orders at his button-hole,

presently entered the room, and sauntered up to the marble table, before

which reposed Simon and his clerical friend. ‘Excuse me, gentlemen,’ he

said, as he took a place opposite them, and began reading the papers of

the day.

‘Bah!’ said he, at last,--‘sont-ils grands ces journaux Anglais? Look,

sir,’ he said, handing over an immense sheet of the _Times_ to Mr.

Gambouge, ‘was ever anything so monstrous?’

Gambouge smiled politely, and examined the proffered page. ‘It is

enormous,’ he said; ‘but I do not read English.’

‘Nay,’ said the man with the orders, ‘look closer at it, Signor

Gambouge; it is astonishing how easy the language is.’

Wondering, Simon took the sheet of paper. He turned pale as he looked at

it, and began to curse the ices and the waiter. ‘Come, M. l’Abbé he

said; ‘the heat and glare of this place are intolerable.’

* * * * *

The stranger rose with them. ‘Au plaisir de vous revoir, mon cher

monsieur,’ said he; ‘I do not mind speaking before the Abbé here, who

will be my very good friend one of these days; but I thought it

necessary to refresh your memory, concerning our little business

transaction six years since; and could not exactly talk of it _at

church_, as you may fancy.’

Simon Gambouge had seen, in the double-sheeted _Times_, the paper signed

by himself, which the little Devil had pulled out of his fob.

* * * * *

There was no doubt on the subject; and Simon, who had but a year to

live, grew more pious, and more careful than ever. He had consultations

with all the doctors of the Sorbonne and all the lawyers of the Palais.

But his magnificence grew as wearisome to him as his poverty had been

before; and not one of the doctors whom he consulted could give him a

pennyworth of consolation.

Then he grew outrageous in his demands upon the Devil, and put him to

all sorts of absurd and ridiculous tasks; but they were all punctually

performed, until Simon could invent no new ones, and the Devil sat all

day with his hands in his pockets doing nothing.

One day Simon’s confessor came bounding into the room with the greatest

glee. ‘My friend,’ said he, ‘I have it! Eureka!--I have found it. Send

the Pope a hundred thousand crowns, build a new Jesuit College at Rome,

give a hundred gold candlesticks to St. Peter’s; and tell his Holiness

you will double all, if he will give you absolution!’

Gambouge caught at the notion, and hurried off a courier to Rome,

_ventre à terre_. His Holiness agreed to the request of the petition,

and sent him an absolution, written out with his own fist, and all in

due form.

‘Now,’ said he, ‘foul fiend, I defy you! arise, Diabolus! your contract

is not worth a jot: the Pope has absolved me, and I am safe on the road

to salvation.’ In a fervour of gratitude he clasped the hand of his

confessor, and embraced him: tears of joy ran down the cheeks of these

good men.

They heard an inordinate roar of laughter, and there was Diabolus

sitting opposite to them, holding his sides, and lashing his tail about

as if he would have gone mad with glee.

‘Why,’ said he, ‘what nonsense is this! do you suppose I care about

_that_?’ and he tossed the Pope’s missive into a corner. ‘M. l’Abbé

knows,’ he said, bowing and grinning, ‘that though the Pope’s paper may

pass current _here_, it is not worth twopence in our country. What do I

care about the Pope’s absolution? You might just as well be absolved by

your under-butler.’

‘Egad,’ said the Abbé, ‘the rogue is right--I quite forgot the fact,

which he points out clearly enough.’

‘No, no, Gambouge,’ continued Diabolus, with horrid familiarity, ‘go thy

ways, old fellow, that _cock won’t fight_.’ And he retired up the

chimney, chuckling at his wit and his triumph. Gambouge heard his tail

scuttling all the way up, as if he had been a sweeper by profession.

Simon was left in that condition of grief in which, according to the

newspapers, cities and nations are found when a murder is committed, or

a lord ill of the gout--a situation, we say, more easy to imagine than

to describe.

To add to his woes, Mrs. Gambouge, who was now first made acquainted

with his compact, and its probable consequences, raised such a storm

about his ears, as made him wish almost that his seven years were

expired. She screamed, she scolded, she swore, she wept, she went into

such fits of hysterics, that poor Gambouge, who had completely knocked

under to her, was worn out of his life. He was allowed no rest, night or

day: he moped about his fine house, solitary and wretched, and cursed

his stars that he ever had married the butcher’s daughter.

It wanted six months of the time.

A sudden and desperate resolution seemed all at once to have taken

possession of Simon Gambouge. He called his family and his friends

together--he gave one of the greatest feasts that ever was known in the

city of Paris--he gaily presided at one end of his table, while Mrs.

Gam., splendidly arrayed, gave herself airs at the other extremity.

After dinner, using the customary formula, he called upon Diabolus to

appear. The old ladies screamed, and hoped he would not appear naked;

the young ones tittered, and longed to see the monster; everybody was

pale with expectation and affright.

A very quiet gentlemanly man, neatly dressed in black, made his

appearance, to the surprise of all present, and bowed all round to the

company. ‘I will not show my _credentials_,’ he said, blushing, and

pointing to his hoofs, which were cleverly hidden by his pumps and

shoe-buckles, ‘unless the ladies absolutely wish it; but I am the person

you want, Mr. Gambouge; pray tell me what is your will.’

‘You know,’ said that gentleman, in a stately and determined voice,

‘that you are bound to me, according to our agreement, for six months to

come?’

‘I am,’ replied the new-comer.

‘You are to do all that I ask, whatsoever it may be, or you forfeit the

bond which I gave you?’

‘It is true.’

‘You declare this before the present company?’

‘Upon my honour, as a gentleman,’ said Diabolus, bowing, and laying his

hand upon his waistcoat.

A whisper of applause ran round the room: all were charmed with the

bland manners of the fascinating stranger.

‘My love,’ continued Gambouge, mildly addressing his lady, ‘will you be

so polite as to step this way? You know I must go soon, and I am

anxious, before this noble company, to make a provision for one who, in

sickness as in health, in poverty as in riches, has been my truest and

fondest companion.’

Gambouge mopped his eyes with his handkerchief--all the company did

likewise. Diabolus sobbed audibly, and Mrs. Gambouge sidled up to her

husband’s side, and took him tenderly by the hand. ‘Simon!’ said she,

‘is it true? and do you really love your Griskinissa?’

Simon continued solemnly: ‘Come hither, Diabolus; you are bound to obey

me in all things for the six months during which our contract has to

run; take, then, Griskinissa Gambouge, live alone with her for half a

year, never leave her from morning till night, obey all her caprices,

follow all her whims, and listen to all the abuse which falls from her

infernal tongue. Do this, and I ask no more of you; I will deliver

myself up at the appointed time.’

Not Lord G----, when flogged by Lord B---- in the House,--not Mr.

Cartlitch, of Astley’s Amphitheatre, in his most pathetic passages,

could look more crestfallen, and howl more hideously, than Diabolus did

now. ‘Take another year, Gambouge,’ screamed he; ‘two more--ten

more--a century; roast me on Lawrence’s gridiron, boil me in holy water,

but don’t ask that: don’t, don’t bid me live with Mrs. Gambouge!’

[Illustration: A PUZZLE FOR THE DEVIL]

Simon smiled sternly. ‘I have said it,’ he cried; ‘do this, or our

contract is at an end.’

The Devil, at this, grinned so horribly that every drop of beer in the

house turned sour; he gnashed his teeth so frightfully that every person

in the company well-nigh fainted with the colic. He slapped down the

great parchment upon the floor, trampled upon it madly, and lashed it

with his hoofs and his tail: at last, spreading out a mighty pair of

wings as wide as from here to Regent Street, he slapped Gambouge with

his tail over one eye, and vanished, abruptly, through the keyhole.

* * * * *

Gambouge screamed with pain and started up. ‘You drunken, lazy

scoundrel!’ cried a shrill and well-known voice, ‘you have been asleep

these two hours:’ and here he received another terrific box on the ear.

It was too true, he had fallen asleep at his work; and the beautiful

vision had been dispelled by the thumps of the tipsy Griskinissa.

Nothing remained to corroborate his story except the bladder of lake,

and this was spirted all over his waistcoat and breeches.

‘I wish,’ said the poor fellow, rubbing his tingling cheeks, ‘that

dreams were true;’ and he went to work again at his portrait.

* * * * *

My last accounts of Gambouge are, that he has left the arts, and is

footman in a small family. Mrs. Gam. takes in washing; and it is said

that her continual dealings with soap-suds and hot water have been the

only things in life which have kept her from spontaneous combustion.

CARTOUCHE

I have been much interested with an account of the exploits of Monsieur

Louis Dominic Cartouche, and as Newgate and the highways are so much the

fashion with us in England, we may be allowed to look abroad for

histories of a similar tendency. It is pleasant to find that virtue is

cosmopolite, and may exist among wooden-shoed Papists as well as honest

Church-of-England men.

Louis Dominic was born in a quarter of Paris called the Courtille, says

the historian whose work lies before me;--born in the Courtille, and in

the year 1693. Another biographer asserts that he was born two years

later, and in the Marais;--of respectable parents, of course. Think of

the talent that our two countries produced about this time: Marlborough,

Villars, Mandrin, Turpin, Boileau, Dryden, Swift, Addison, Molière,

Racine, Jack Sheppard, and Louis Cartouche,--all famous within the same

twenty years, and fighting, writing, robbing, _à l’envi_!

Well, Marlborough was no chicken when he began to show his genius; Swift

was but a dull, idle college lad; but if we read the histories of some

other great men mentioned in the above list--I mean the thieves,

especially--we shall find that they all commenced very early: they

showed a passion for their art, as little Raphael did, or little Mozart;

and the history of Cartouche’s knaveries begins almost with his

breeches.

Dominic’s parents sent him to school at the college of Clermont (now

Louis le Grand); and although it has never been discovered that the

Jesuits, who directed that seminary, advanced him much in classical or

theological knowledge, Cartouche, in revenge, showed, by repeated

instances, his own natural bent and genius, which no difficulties were

strong enough to overcome. His first great action on record, although

not successful in the end, and tinctured with the innocence of youth, is

yet highly creditable to him. He made a general swoop of a hundred and

twenty nightcaps belonging to his companions, and disposed of them to

his satisfaction; but as it was discovered that of all the youths in the

college of Clermont, he only was the possessor of a cap to sleep in,

suspicion (which, alas! was confirmed) immediately fell upon him: and by

this little piece of youthful _naïveté_, a scheme, prettily conceived

and smartly performed, was rendered naught.

Cartouche had a wonderful love for good eating, and put all the

apple-women and cooks, who came to supply the students, under

contribution. Not always, however, desirous of robbing these, he used to

deal with them, occasionally, on honest principles of barter; that is,

whenever he could get hold of his schoolfellows’ knives, books, rulers,

or playthings, which he used fairly to exchange for tarts and

gingerbread.

It seemed as if the presiding genius of evil was determined to patronise

this young man; for before he had been long at college, and soon after

he had, with the greatest difficulty, escaped from the nightcap scrape,

an opportunity occurred by which he was enabled to gratify both his

propensities at once, and not only to steal, but to steal sweetmeats. It

happened that the principal of the college received some pots of

Narbonne honey, which came under the eyes of Cartouche, and in which

that young gentleman, as soon as ever he saw them, determined to put his

fingers. The president of the college put aside his honey-pots in an

apartment within his own; to which, except by the one door which led

into the room which his reverence usually occupied, there was no outlet.

There was no chimney in the room; and the windows looked into the court,

where there was a porter at night, and where crowds passed by day. What

was Cartouche to do?--have the honey he must.

Over this chamber, which contained what his soul longed after, and over

the president’s rooms, there ran a set of unoccupied garrets, into which

the dexterous Cartouche penetrated. These were divided from the rooms

below, according to the fashion of those days, by a set of large beams,

which reached across the whole building, and across which rude planks

were laid, which formed the ceiling of the lower story and the floor of

the upper. Some of these planks did young Cartouche remove; and having

descended by means of a rope, tied a couple of others to the neck of the

honey-pots, climbed back again, and drew up his prey in safety. He then

cunningly fixed the planks again in their old places, and retired to

gorge himself upon his booty. And, now, see the punishment of avarice!

Everybody knows that the brethren of the order of Jesus are bound by a

vow to have no more than a certain small sum of money in their

possession. The principal of the college of Clermont had amassed a

larger sum, in defiance of this rule: and where do you think the old

gentleman had hidden it? In the honey-pots! As Cartouche dug his spoon

into one of them, he brought out, besides a quantity of golden honey, a

couple of golden louis, which, with ninety-eight more of their fellows,

were comfortably hidden in the pots. Little Dominic, who, before, had

cut rather a poor figure among his fellow-students, now appeared in as

fine clothes as any of them could boast of; and when asked by his

parents, on going home, how he came by them, said that a young nobleman

of his schoolfellows had taken a violent fancy to him, and made him a

present of a couple of his suits. Cartouche the elder, good man, went to

thank the young nobleman; but none such could be found, and young

Cartouche disdained to give any explanation of his manner of gaining the

money.

Here, again, we have to regret and remark the inadvertence of youth.

Cartouche lost a hundred louis--for what? For a pot of honey not worth a

couple of shillings. Had he fished out the pieces, and replaced the pots

and the honey, he might have been safe, and a respectable citizen all

his life after. The principal would not have dared to confess the loss

of his money, and did not, openly; but he vowed vengeance against the

stealer of his sweetmeat, and a rigid search was made. Cartouche, as

usual, was fixed upon; and in the tick of his bed, lo! there were found

a couple of empty honey-pots! From this scrape there is no knowing how

he would have escaped, had not the president himself been a little

anxious to hush the matter up; and accordingly, young Cartouche was made

to disgorge the residue of his ill-gotten gold pieces, old Cartouche

made up the deficiency, and his son was allowed to remain

unpunished--until the next time.

This, you may fancy, was not very long in coming; and though history has

not made us acquainted with the exact crime which Louis Dominic next

committed, it must have been a serious one; for Cartouche, who had borne

philosophically all the whippings and punishments which were

administered to him at college, did not dare to face that one which his

indignant father had in pickle for him. As he was coming home from

school, on the first day after his crime when he received permission to

go abroad, one of his brothers, who was on the look-out for him, met him

at a short distance from home, and told him what was in preparation;

which so frightened this young thief, that he declined returning home

altogether, and set out upon the wide world to shift for himself as he

could.

Undoubted as his genius was, he had not arrived at the full exercise of

it, and his gains were by no means equal to his appetite. In whatever

professions he tried,--whether he joined the gypsies, which he did;

whether he picked pockets on the Pont Neuf, which occupation history

attributes to him,--poor Cartouche was always hungry. Hungry and ragged,

he wandered from one place and profession to another, and regretted the

honey-pots at Clermont, and the comfortable soup and _bouilli_ at home.

Cartouche had an uncle, a kind man, who was a merchant, and had dealings

at Rouen. One day, walking on the quays of that city, this gentleman saw

a very miserable, dirty, starving lad, who had just made a pounce upon

some bones and turnip-peelings, that had been flung out on the quay, and

was eating them as greedily as if they had been turkeys and truffles.

The worthy man examined the lad a little closer. Oh, heavens! it was

their runaway prodigal--it was little Louis Dominic! The merchant was

touched by his case; and forgetting the nightcaps, the honey-pots, and

the rags and dirt of little Louis, took him to his arms, and kissed and

hugged him with the tenderest affection. Louis kissed and hugged too,

and blubbered a great deal; he was very repentant, as a man often is

when he is hungry; and he went home with his uncle, and his peace was

made; and his mother got him new clothes, and filled his belly, and for

a while Louis was as good a son as might be.

But why attempt to balk the progress of genius? Louis’s was not to be

kept down. He was sixteen years of age by this time--a smart, lively

young fellow, and, what is more, desperately enamoured of a lovely

washerwoman. To be successful in your love, as Louis knew, you must have

something more than mere flames and sentiment;--a washer, or any other

woman, cannot live upon sighs only; but must have new gowns and caps,

and a necklace every now and then, and a few handkerchiefs and silk

stockings, and a treat into the country or to the play. Now, how are all

these things to be had without money? Cartouche saw at once that it was

impossible; and as his father would give him none, he was obliged to

look for it elsewhere. He took to his old courses, and lifted a purse

here, and a watch there; and found, moreover, an accommodating

gentleman, who took the wares off his hands.

This gentleman introduced him into a very select and agreeable society,

in which Cartouche’s merit began speedily to be recognised, and in which

he learnt how pleasant it is in life to have friends to assist one, and

how much may be done by a proper division of labour. M. Cartouche, in

fact, formed part of a regular company or gang of gentlemen, who were

associated together for the purpose of making war on the public and the

law.

Cartouche had a lovely young sister, who was to be married to a rich

young gentleman from the provinces. As is the fashion in France, the

parents had arranged the match among themselves, and the young people

had never met until just before the time appointed for the marriage,

when the bridegroom came up to Paris with his title-deeds, and

settlements, and money. Now, there can hardly be found in history a

finer instance of devotion than Cartouche now exhibited. He went to his

captain, explained the matter to him, and actually, for the good of his

country, as it were (the thieves might be called his country),

sacrificed his sister’s husband’s property. Informations were taken, the

house of the bridegroom was reconnoitred, and, one night, Cartouche, in

company with some chosen friends, made his first visit to the house of

his brother-in-law. All the people were gone to bed; and, doubtless, for

fear of disturbing the porter, Cartouche and his companions spared him

the trouble of opening the door, by ascending quietly at the window.

They arrived at the room where the bridegroom kept his great chest, and

set industriously to work, filing and picking the locks which defended

the treasure.

The bridegroom slept in the next room; but however tenderly Cartouche

and his workmen handled their tools, from fear of disturbing his

slumbers, their benevolent design was disappointed, for awaken him they

did; and quietly slipping out of bed, he came to a place where he had a

complete view of all that was going on. He did not cry out, or frighten

himself sillily; but, on the contrary, contented himself with watching

the countenances of the robbers, so that he might recognise them on

another occasion; and, though an avaricious man, he did not feel the

slightest anxiety about his money-chest; for the fact is, he had removed

all the cash and papers the day before.

As soon, however, as they had broken all the locks, and found the

nothing which lay at the bottom of the chest, he shouted with such a

loud voice, ‘Here, Thomas!--John!--officer!--keep the gate, fire at the

rascals!’ that they, incontinently taking fright, skipped nimbly out of

window, and left the house free.

Cartouche, after this, did not care to meet his brother-in-law, but

eschewed all those occasions on which the latter was to be present at

his father’s house. The evening before the marriage came; and then his

father insisted upon his appearance among the other relatives of the

bride’s and bridegroom’s families, who were all to assemble and make

merry. Cartouche was obliged to yield; and brought with him one or two

of his companions, who had been, by the way, present in the affair of

the empty money-boxes; and though he never fancied that there was any

danger in meeting his brother-in-law, for he had no idea that he had

been seen on the night of the attack, with a natural modesty, which did

him really credit, he kept out of the young bridegroom’s sight as much

as he could, and showed no desire to be presented to him. At supper,

however, as he was sneaking modestly down to a side-table, his father

shouted after him, ‘Ho, Dominic, come hither, and sit opposite your

brother-in-law:’ which Dominic did, his friends following. The

bridegroom pledged him very gracefully in a bumper; and was in the act

of making him a pretty speech, on the honour of an alliance with such a

family, and on the pleasures of brother-in-lawship in general, when,

looking in his face--ye gods! he saw the very man who had been filing at

his money-chest a few nights ago! By his side, too, sat a couple more of

the gang. The poor fellow turned deadly pale and sick, and, setting his

glass down, ran quickly out of the room, for he thought he was in

company of a whole gang of robbers. And when he got home, he wrote a

letter to the elder Cartouche, humbly declining any connection with his

family.

Cartouche the elder, of course, angrily asked the reason of such an

abrupt dissolution of the engagement; and then, much to his horror,

heard of his eldest son’s doings. ‘You would not have me marry into

such a family?’ said the ex-bridegroom. And old Cartouche, an honest old

citizen, confessed, with a heavy heart, that he would not. What was he

to do with the lad? He did not like to ask for a _lettre de cachet_, and

shut him up in the Bastile. He determined to give him a year’s

discipline at the monastery of St. Lazare.

But how to catch the young gentleman? Old Cartouche knew that, were he

to tell his son of the scheme, the latter would never obey, and,

therefore, he determined to be very cunning. He told Dominic that he was

about to make a heavy bargain with the fathers, and should require a

witness; so they stepped into a carriage together, and drove

unsuspectingly to the Rue St. Denis. But, when they arrived near the

convent, Cartouche saw several ominous figures gathering round the

coach, and felt that his doom was sealed. However, he made as if he knew

nothing of the conspiracy; and the carriage drew up, and his father

descended, and, bidding him wait for a minute in the coach, promised to

return to him. Cartouche looked out; on the other side of the way half a

dozen men were posted, evidently with the intention of arresting him.

Cartouche now performed a great and celebrated stroke of genius, which,

if he had not been professionally employed in the morning, he never

could have executed. He had in his pocket a piece of linen, which he had

laid hold of at the door of some shop, and from which he quickly tore

three suitable stripes. One he tied round his head, after the fashion of

a nightcap; a second round his waist, like an apron; and with the third

he covered his hat, a round one with a large brim. His coat and his

periwig he left behind him in the carriage; and when he stepped out from

it (which he did without asking the coachman to let down the steps), he

bore exactly the appearance of a cook’s boy carrying a dish; and with

this he slipped through the exempts quite unsuspected, and bade adieu to

the Lazarists and his honest father, who came out speedily to seek him,

and was not a little annoyed to find only his coat and wig.

With that coat and wig, Cartouche left home, father, friends,

conscience, remorse, society, behind him. He discovered (like a great

number of other philosophers and poets, when they have committed

rascally actions) that the world was all going wrong, and he quarrelled

with it outright. One of the first stories told of the illustrious

Cartouche, when he became professionally and openly a robber, redounds

highly to his credit, and shows that he knew how to take advantage of

the occasion, and how much he had improved in the course of a very few

years’ experience. His courage and ingenuity were vastly admired by his

friends; so much so, that, one day, the captain of the band thought fit

to compliment him, and vowed that when he (the captain) died, Cartouche

should infallibly be called to the command-in-chief. This conversation,

so flattering to Cartouche, was carried on between the two gentlemen, as

they were walking, one night, on the quays by the side of the Seine.

Cartouche, when the captain made the last remark, blushingly protested

against it, and pleaded his extreme youth as a reason why his comrades

could never put entire trust in him. ‘Psha, man!’ said the captain, ‘thy

youth is in thy favour; thou wilt live only the longer to lead thy

troops to victory. As for strength, bravery, and cunning, wert thou as

old as Methuselah, thou couldst not be better provided than thou art

now, at eighteen.’ What was the reply of Monsieur Cartouche? He

answered, not by words, but by actions. Drawing his knife from his

girdle, he instantly dug it into the captain’s left side, as near his

heart as possible: and then, seizing that imprudent commander,

precipitated him violently into the waters of the Seine, to keep company

with the gudgeons and river-gods. When he returned to the band, and

recounted how the captain had basely attempted to assassinate him, and

how he, on the contrary, had, by exertion of superior skill, overcome

the captain, not one of the society believed a word of his history; but

they elected him captain forthwith. I think his Excellency Don Rafael

Maroto, the pacificator of Spain, is an amiable character, for whom

history has not been written in vain.

Being arrived at this exalted position, there is no end of the feats

which Cartouche performed; and his band reached to such a pitch of

glory, that if there had been a hundred thousand, instead of a hundred

of them, who knows but that a new and popular dynasty might not have

been founded, and ‘Louis Dominic, premier Empereur des Frances,’ might

have performed innumerable glorious actions, and fixed himself in the

hearts of his people, just as other monarchs have done, a hundred years

after Cartouche’s death.

A story similar to the above, and equally moral, is that of Cartouche,

who, in company with two other gentlemen, robbed the _coche_, or

packet-boat, from Melun, where they took a good quantity of

booty,--making the passengers lie down on the decks, and rifling them at

leisure. ‘This money will be but very little among three,’ whispered

Cartouche to his neighbour, as the three conquerors were making merry

over their gains; ‘if you were but to pull the trigger of your pistol in

the neighbourhood of your comrade’s ear, perhaps it might go off, and

then there would be but two of us to share.’ Strangely enough, as

Cartouche said, the pistol _did_ go off, and No. 3 perished. ‘Give him

another ball,’ said Cartouche: and another was fired into him. But no

sooner had Cartouche’s comrade discharged both his pistols, than

Cartouche himself, seized with a furious indignation, drew his: ‘Learn,

monster,’ cried he, ‘not to be so greedy of gold, and perish, the victim

of thy disloyalty and avarice!’ So Cartouche slew the second robber; and

there is no man in Europe who can say that the latter did not merit well

his punishment.

I could fill volumes, and not mere sheets of paper, with tales of the

triumphs of Cartouche and his band: how he robbed the Countess of O----,

going to Dijon, in her coach, and how the Countess fell in love with

him, and was faithful to him ever after; how, when the lieutenant of

police offered a reward of a hundred pistoles to any man who would bring

Cartouche before him, a noble Marquess, in a coach-and-six, drove up to

the hôtel of the police; and the noble Marquess, desiring to see

Monsieur de la Reynie, on matters of the highest moment, alone, the

latter introduced him into his private cabinet; and how, when there, the

Marquess drew from his pocket a long curiously shaped dagger: ‘Look at

this, Monsieur de la Reynie,’ said he; ‘this dagger is poisoned!’

‘Is it possible?’ said M. de la Reynie.

‘A prick of it would do for any man,’ said the Marquess.

‘You don’t say so!’ said M. de la Reynie.

‘I do, though; and, what is more,’ says the Marquess, in a terrible

voice, ‘if you do not instantly lay yourself flat on the ground, with

your face towards it, and your hands crossed over your back, or if you

make the slightest noise or cry, I will stick this poisoned dagger

between your ribs, as sure as my name is Cartouche!’

At the sound of this dreadful name, M. de la Reynie sunk incontinently

down on his stomach, and submitted to be carefully gagged and corded;

after which Monsieur Cartouche laid his hands upon all the money which

was kept in the lieutenant’s cabinet. Alas! and alas! many a stout

bailiff, and many an honest fellow of a spy, went, for that day, without

his pay and his victuals.

There is a story that Cartouche once took the diligence to Lille, and

found in it a certain Abbé Potter, who was full of indignation against

this monster of a Cartouche, and said that when he went back to Paris,

which he proposed to do in about a fortnight, he should give the

lieutenant of police some information, which would infallibly lead to

the scoundrel’s capture. But poor Potter was disappointed in his

designs; for, before he could fulfil them, he was made the victim of

Cartouche’s cruelty.

A letter came to the lieutenant of police, to state that Cartouche had

travelled to Lille, in company with the Abbé de Potter, of that town;

that, on the reverend gentleman’s return towards Paris, Cartouche had

waylaid him, murdered him, taken his papers, and would come to Paris

himself, bearing the name and clothes of the unfortunate Abbé, by the

Lille coach, on such a day. The Lille coach arrived, was surrounded by

police agents; the monster Cartouche was there, sure enough, in the

Abbé’s guise. He was seized, bound, flung into prison, brought out to be

examined, and, on examination, found to be no other than the Abbé Potter

himself! It is pleasant to read thus of the relaxations of great men,

and find them condescending to joke like the meanest of us.

Another diligence adventure is recounted of the famous Cartouche. It

happened that he met, in the coach, a young and lovely lady, clad in

widow’s weeds, and bound to Paris, with a couple of servants. The poor

thing was the widow of a rich old gentleman of Marseilles, and was going

to the capital to arrange with her lawyers, and to settle her husband’s

will. The Count de Grinche (for so her fellow-passenger was called) was

quite as candid as the pretty widow had been, and stated that he was a

captain in the regiment of Nivernois; that he was going to Paris to buy

a colonelcy, which his relatives, the Duke de Bouillon, the Prince de

Montmorenci, the Commandeur de la Trémoille, with all their interest at

Court, could not fail to procure for him. To be short, in the course of

the four days’ journey, the Count Louis Dominic de Grinche played his

cards so well, that the poor little widow half forgot her late husband;

and her eyes glistened with tears as the Count kissed her hand at

parting--at parting, he hoped, only for a few hours.

Day and night the insinuating Count followed her; and when, at the end

of a fortnight, and in the midst of a _tête-à-tête_, he plunged, one

morning, suddenly on his knees, and said, ‘Leonora, do you love me?’ the

poor thing heaved the gentlest, tenderest, sweetest sigh in the world;

and, sinking her blushing head on his shoulder, whispered, ‘Oh, Dominic,

je t’aime! Ah!’ said she, ‘how noble is it of my Dominic to take me with

the little I have, and he so rich a nobleman!’ The fact is, the old

Baron’s titles and estates had passed away to his nephews; his dowager

was only left with three hundred thousand livres, in _rentes sur

l’état_,--a handsome sum, but nothing to compare to the rent-roll of

Count Dominic, Count de la Grinche, Seigneur de la Haute Pigre, Baron de

la Bigorne; he had estates and wealth which might authorise him to

aspire to the hand of a duchess, at least.

The unfortunate widow never for a moment suspected the cruel trick that

was about to be played on her; and, at the request of her affianced

husband, sold out her money, and realised it in gold, to be made over to

him on the day when the contract was to be signed. The day arrived; and,

according to the custom in France, the relations of both parties

attended. The widow’s relatives, though respectable, were not of the

first nobility, being chiefly persons of the _finance_ or the _robe_;

there was the President of the Court of Arras, and his lady; a

farmer-general; a judge of a court of Paris; and other such grave and

respectable people. As for Monsieur le Comte de la Grinche, he was not

bound for names; and, having the whole peerage to choose from, brought a

host of Montmorencies, Créquis, De la Tours, and Guises at his back. His

_homme d’affaires_ brought his papers in a sack, and displayed the plans

of his estates, and the titles of his glorious ancestry. The widow’s

lawyers had her money in sacks; and between the gold on the one side and

the parchments on the other, lay the contract which was to make the

widow’s three hundred thousand francs the property of the Count de

Grinche. The Count de la Grinche was just about to sign, when the

Marshal de Villars, stepping up to him, said, ‘Captain, do you know who

the President of the Court of Arras, yonder, is? It is old Manasseh, the

fence, of Brussels. I pawned a gold watch to him, which I stole from

Cadogan, when I was with Malbrook’s army in Flanders.’

Here the Duc de la Roche Guyon came forward, very much alarmed. ‘Run me

through the body!’ said his Grace, ‘but the Comptroller-General’s lady,

there, is no other than that old hag of a Margoton who keeps the----’

Here the Duc de la Roche Guyon’s voice fell.

Cartouche smiled graciously, and walked up to the table. He took up one

of the widow’s fifteen thousand gold pieces;--it was as pretty a bit of

copper as you could wish to see. ‘My dear,’ said he politely, ‘there is

some mistake here, and this business had better stop.’

‘Count!’ gasped the poor widow.

‘Count be hanged!’ answered the bridegroom sternly; ‘my name is

CARTOUCHE!’

[Illustration: CARTOUCHE]

ON SOME FRENCH FASHIONABLE NOVELS

WITH A PLEA FOR ROMANCES IN GENERAL

There is an old story of a Spanish court painter, who, being pressed for

money, and having received a piece of damask, which he was to wear in a

state procession, pawned the damask, and appeared, at the show, dressed

out in some very fine sheets of paper, which he had painted so as

exactly to resemble silk. Nay, his coat looked so much richer than the

doublets of all the rest, that the Emperor Charles, in whose honour the

procession was given, remarked the painter, and so his deceit was found

out.

I have often thought that, in respect of sham and real histories, a

similar fact may be noticed; the sham story appearing a great deal more

agreeable, lifelike, and natural than the true one: and all who, from

laziness as well as principle, are inclined to follow the easy and

comfortable study of novels, may console themselves with the notion that

they are studying matters quite as important as history, and that their

favourite duodecimos are as instructive as the biggest quartos in the

world.

If, then, ladies, the bigwigs begin to sneer at the course of our

studies, calling our darling romances foolish, trivial, noxious to the

mind, enervators of intellect, fathers of idleness, and what not, let us

at once take a high ground, and say,--Go you to your own employments,

and to such dull studies as you fancy; go and bob for triangles, from

the Pons Asinorum; go enjoy your dull black-draughts of metaphysics; go

fumble over history-books, and dissert upon Herodotus and Livy; _our_

histories are, perhaps, as true as yours; our drink is the brisk

sparkling champagne drink, from the presses of Colburn, Bentley, and

Co.; our walks are over such sunshiny pleasure-grounds as Scott and

Shakespeare have laid out for us; and if our dwellings are castles in

the air, we find them excessively splendid and commodious;--be not you

envious because you have no wings to fly thither. Let the bigwigs

despise us; such contempt of their neighbours is the custom of all

barbarous tribes; witness, the learned Chinese: Tippoo Sultaun declared

that there were not in all Europe ten thousand men: the Sclavonic

hordes, it is said, so entitled themselves from a word in their jargon

which signifies ‘to speak;’ the ruffians imagining that they had a

monopoly of this agreeable faculty, and that all other nations were

dumb.

Not so: others may be _deaf_; but the novelist has a loud, eloquent,

instructive language, though his enemies may despise or deny it ever so

much. What is more, one could, perhaps, meet the stoutest historian on

his own ground, and argue with him; showing that sham histories were

much truer than real histories; which are, in fact, mere contemptible

catalogues of names and places, that can have no moral effect upon the

reader.

As thus:

Julius Cæsar beat Pompey, at Pharsalia.

The Duke of Marlborough beat Marshal Tallard, at Blenheim.

The Constable of Bourbon beat Francis the First, at Pavia.

And what have we here?--so many names, simply. Suppose Pharsalia had

been, at that mysterious period when names were given, called Pavia; and

that Julius Cæsar’s family name had been John Churchill;--the fact would

have stood, in history, thus:

‘Pompey ran away from the Duke of Marlborough at Pavia.’

And why not?--we should have been just as wise. Or it might be stated,

that:

‘The tenth legion charged the French infantry at Blenheim; and

Cæsar, writing home to his mamma, said, “Madame, tout est perdu

fors l’honneur.”’

What a contemptible science this is, then, about which quartos are

written, and sixty-volumed _Biographies Universelles_, and Lardner’s

_Cabinet Cyclopædias_, and the like! the facts are nothing in it, the

names everything; and a gentleman might as well improve his mind by

learning Walker’s _Gazetteer_, or getting by heart a fifty-years-old

edition of the _Court Guide_.

Having thus disposed of the historians, let us come to the point in

question--the novelists.

* * * * *

On the title-page of these volumes the reader has, doubtless, remarked,

that among the pieces introduced, some are announced as ‘copies’ and

‘compositions.’ Many of the histories have, accordingly, been neatly

stolen from the collections of French authors (and mutilated, according

to the old saying, so that their owners should not know them); and, for

composition, we intend to favour the public with some studies of French

modern works, that have not as yet, we believe, attracted the notice of

the English public.

Of such works there appear many hundreds yearly, as may be seen by the

French catalogues; but the writer has not so much to do with works

political, philosophical, historical, metaphysical, scientifical,

theological, as with those for which he has been putting forward a

plea--novels, namely; on which he has expended a great deal of time and

study. And, passing from novels in general to French novels, let us

confess, with much humiliation, that we borrow from these stories a

great deal more knowledge of French society than from our own personal

observation we ever can hope to gain: for, let a gentleman who has dwelt

two, four, or ten years in Paris (and has not gone thither for the

purpose of making a book, when three weeks are sufficient)--let an

English gentleman say, at the end of any given period, how much he knows

of French society, how many French houses he has entered, and how many

French friends he has made? He has enjoyed, at the end of the year, say:

At the English Ambassador’s, so many soirées.

At houses to which he has brought letters, so many tea-parties.

At cafés, so many dinners.

At French private houses, say three dinners, and very lucky too.

He has, we say, seen an immense number of wax-candles, cups of tea,

glasses of orgeat, and French people, in best clothes, enjoying the

same; but intimacy there is none; we see but the outsides of the people.

Year by year we live in France, and grow grey, and see no more. We play

écarté with Monsieur de Trèfle every night; but what know we of the

heart of the man--of the inward ways, thoughts, and customs of Trèfle?

If we have good legs, and love the amusement, we dance with Countess

Flicflac, Tuesdays and Thursdays, ever since the Peace: and how far are

we advanced in acquaintance with her since we first twirled her round a

room? We know her velvet gown, and her diamonds (about three-fourths of

them are sham, by the way); we know her smiles, and her simpers, and her

rouge--but no more: she may turn into a kitchen-wench at twelve on

Thursday night, for aught we know; her _voiture_, a pumpkin; and her

_gens_, so many rats: but the real, rougeless, _intime_ Flicflac, we

know not. This privilege is granted to no Englishman: we may understand

the French language as well as Monsieur de Levizac, but never can

penetrate into Flicflac’s confidence: our ways are not her ways; our

manners of thinking not hers; when we say a good thing, in the course of

the night, we are wondrous lucky and pleased; Flicflac will trill you

off fifty in ten minutes, and wonder at the _bêtise_ of the Briton, who

has never a word to say. We are married, and have fourteen children, and

would just as soon make love to the Pope of Rome as to any one but our

own wife. If you do not make love to Flicflac, from the day after her

marriage to the day she reaches sixty, she thinks you a fool. We won’t

play at écarté with Trèfle on Sunday nights; and are seen walking,

about one o’clock (accompanied by fourteen red-haired children, with

fourteen gleaming prayer-books), away from the church. ‘Grand Dieu!’

cries Trèfle, ‘is that man mad? He won’t play at cards on a Sunday; he

goes to church on a Sunday; he has fourteen children!’

[Illustration: HOW TO ASTONISH THE FRENCH

AN ENGLISH FAMILY IN THE TUILERIES]

Was ever Frenchman known to do likewise? Pass we on to our argument,

which is, that with our English notions and moral and physical

constitution, it is quite impossible that we should become intimate with

our brisk neighbours; and when such authors as Lady Morgan and Mrs.

Trollope, having frequented a certain number of tea-parties in the

French capital, begin to prattle about French manners and men--with all

respect for the talents of those ladies, we do believe their information

not to be worth a sixpence: they speak to us, not of men, but of

tea-parties. Tea-parties are the same all the world over; with the

exception that, with the French, there are more lights and prettier

dresses; and with us a mighty deal more tea in the pot.

There is, however, a cheap and delightful way of travelling, that a man

may perform in his easy-chair, without expense of passports or

post-boys. On the wings of a novel, from the next circulating library,

he sends his imagination a-gadding, and gains acquaintance with people

and manners whom he could not hope otherwise to know. Twopence a volume

bears us whithersoever we will--back to Ivanhoe and Cœur de Lion, or

to Waverley and the Young Pretender, along with Walter Scott; up to the

heights of fashion with the charming enchanters of the silver-fork

school; or, better still, to the snug inn-parlour, or the jovial

tap-room, with Mr. Pickwick and his faithful Sancho Weller. I am sure

that a man who, a hundred years hence, should sit down to write the

history of our time, would do wrong to put that great contemporary

history of _Pickwick_ aside as a frivolous work. It contains true

character under false names; and, like _Roderick Random_, an inferior

work, and _Tom Jones_ (one that is immeasurably superior), gives us a

better idea of the state and ways of the people than one could gather

from any more pompous or authentic histories.

We have, therefore, introduced into these volumes one or two short

reviews of French fiction-writers, of particular classes, whose Paris

sketches may give the reader some notion of manners in that capital. If

not original, at least the drawings are accurate; for, as a Frenchman

might have lived a thousand years in England, and never could have

written _Pickwick_, an Englishman cannot hope to give a good description

of the inward thoughts and ways of his neighbours.

To a person inclined to study these, in that light and amusing fashion

in which the novelist treats them, let us recommend the works of a new

writer, Monsieur de Bernard, who has painted actual manners, without

those monstrous and terrible exaggerations in which late French writers

have indulged; and who, if he occasionally wounds the English sense of

propriety (as what French man or woman alive will not?), does so more by

slighting than by outraging it, as, with their laboured descriptions of

all sorts of imaginable wickedness, some of his brethren of the press

have done. M. de Bernard’s characters are men and women of genteel

society--rascals enough, but living in no state of convulsive crimes;

and we follow him in his lively malicious account of their manners,

without risk of lighting upon any such horrors as Balzac or Dumas have

provided for us.

Let us give an instance:--it is from the amusing novel called _Les Ailes

d’Icare_, and contains what is to us quite a new picture of a French

fashionable rogue. The fashions will change in a few years, and the

rogue, of course, with them. Let us catch this delightful fellow ere he

flies. It is impossible to sketch the character in a more sparkling,

gentlemanlike way than M. de Bernard’s; but such light things are very

difficult of translation, and the sparkle sadly evaporates during the

process of _decanting_.

A FRENCH FASHIONABLE LETTER

‘MY DEAR VICTOR--It is six in the morning: I have just come from the

English Ambassador’s ball, and as my plans for the day do not admit of

my sleeping, I write you a line; for, at this moment, saturated as I am

with the enchantments of a fairy night, all other pleasures would be too

wearisome to keep me awake, except that of conversing with you. Indeed,

were I not to write to you now, when should I find the possibility of

doing so? Time flies here with such a frightful rapidity, my pleasures

and my affairs whirl onwards together in such a torrentuous galopade,

that I am compelled to seize occasion by the forelock; for each moment

has its imperious employ. Do not, then, accuse me of negligence: if my

correspondence has not always that regularity which I would fain give

it, attribute the fault solely to the whirlwind in which I live, and

which carries me hither and thither at its will.

‘However, you are not the only person with whom I am behindhand: I

assure you, on the contrary, that you are one of a very numerous and

fashionable company, to whom, towards the discharge of my debts, I

propose to consecrate four hours to-day. I give you the preference to

all the world, even to the lovely Duchess of San Severino, a delicious

Italian, whom, for my special happiness, I met last summer at the Waters

of Aix. I have also a most important negotiation to conclude with one of

our Princes of Finance: but _n’importe_, I commence with thee:

friendship before love or money--friendship before everything. My

despatches concluded, I am engaged to ride with the Marquis de

Grigneure, the Comte de Castijars, and Lord Cobham, in order that we may

recover, for a breakfast at the Rocher de Cancale, that Grigneure has

lost, the appetite which we all of us so cruelly abused last night at

the Ambassador’s gala. On my honour, my dear fellow, everybody was of a

_caprice prestigieux_ and a _comfortable mirobolant_. Fancy, for a

banquet-hall, a Royal orangery hung with white damask; the boxes of the

shrubs transformed into so many sideboards; lights gleaming through the

foliage; and, for guests, the loveliest women and most brilliant

cavaliers of Paris. Orleans and Nemours were there, dancing and eating

like simple mortals. In a word, Albion did the thing very handsomely,

and I accord it my esteem.

Here I pause, to ring for my valet-de-chambre, and call for tea; for my

head is heavy, and I’ve no time for a headache. In serving me, this

rascal of a Frédéric has broken a cup, true Japan, upon my honour--the

rogue does nothing else. Yesterday, for instance, did he not thump me

prodigiously, by letting fall a goblet, after Cellini, of which the

carving alone cost me three hundred francs? I must positively put the

wretch out of doors, to ensure the safety of my furniture; and, in

consequence of this, Eneas, an audacious young negro, in whom wisdom

hath not waited for years--Eneas, my groom, I say, will probably be

elevated to the post of valet-de-chambre. But where was I? I think I was

speaking to you of an oyster breakfast, to which, on our return from the

Park (du Bois), a company of pleasant rakes are invited. After quitting

Borel’s, we propose to adjourn to the Barrière du Combat, where Lord

Cobham proposes to try some bull-dogs, which he has brought over from

England--one of these, O’Connell (Lord Cobham is a Tory), has a face in

which I place much confidence: I have a bet of ten louis with Castijars

on the strength of it. After the fight, we shall make our accustomed

appearance at the Café de Paris (the only place, by the way, where a man

who respects himself may be seen),--and then away with frocks and spurs,

and on with our dress-coats for the rest of the evening. In the first

place, I shall go doze for a couple of hours at the Opera, where my

presence is indispensable; for Coralie, a charming creature, passes this

evening from the rank of the _rats_ to that of the _tigers_, in a

_pas-de-trois_, and our box patronises her. After the Opera, I must show

my face at two or three _salons_ in the Faubourg St. Honoré; and having

thus performed my duties to the world of fashion, I return to the

exercise of my rights as a member of the Carnival. At two o’clock all

the world meets at the Théâtre Ventadour; lions and tigers--the whole of

our menagerie, will be present. Enoc! off we go! roaring and bounding

Bacchanal and Saturnal; ‘tis agreed that we shall be everything that is

low. To conclude, we sup with Castijars, the most “furiously

dishevelled” orgy that ever was known.’

* * * * *

The rest of the letter is on matters of finance, equally curious and

instructive. But pause we for the present, to consider the fashionable

part: and, caricature as it is, we have an accurate picture of the

actual French dandy. Bets, breakfasts, riding, dinners at the Café de

Paris, and delirious Carnival balls: the animal goes through all such

frantic pleasures at the season that precedes Lent. He has a wondrous

respect for English ‘gentlemen-sportsmen;’ he imitates their

clubs--their love of horse-flesh: he calls his palefrenier a groom,

wears blue bird’s-eye neckcloths, sports his pink out hunting, rides

steeplechases, and has his Jockey Club. The ‘tigers and lions’ alluded

to in the report have been borrowed from our own country, and a great

compliment is it to Monsieur de Bernard, the writer of the above amusing

sketch, that he has such a knowledge of English names and things, as to

give a Tory lord the decent title of Lord Cobham, and to call his dog

O’Connell. Paul de Kock calls an English nobleman, in one of his last

novels, _Lord Boulingrog_, and appears vastly delighted at the

verisimilitude of the title.

For the ‘rugissements et bondissements, bacchanale et saturnale, galop

infernal, ronde du sabbat, tout le tremblement,’ these words give a most

clear untranslatable idea of the Carnival ball. A sight more hideous can

hardly strike a man’s eye. I was present at one where the four thousand

guests whirled screaming, reeling, roaring, out of the ballroom in the

Rue St. Honoré, and tore down to the column in the Place Vendôme, round

which they went shrieking their own music, twenty miles an hour, and so

tore madly back again. Let a man go alone to such a place of amusement,

and the sight for him is perfectly terrible: the horrid frantic gaiety

of the place puts him in mind more of the merriment of demons than of

men: bang, bang, drums, trumpets, chairs, pistol-shots, pour out of the

orchestra, which seems as mad as the dancers; whizz, a whirlwind of

paint and patches, all the costumes under the sun, all the ranks in the

empire, all the he and she scoundrels of the capital, writhed and

twisted together, rush by you. If a man falls, woe be to him: two

thousand screaming menads go trampling over his carcass; they have

neither power nor will to stop.

A set of Malays, drunk with bang, and running the muck, a company of

howling dervishes, may possibly, at our own day, go through similar

frantic vagaries; but I doubt if any civilised European people but the

French would permit and enjoy such scenes. But our neighbours see little

shame in them; and it is very true that men of all classes, high and

low, here congregate and give themselves up to the disgusting worship of

the genius of the place. From the dandy of the Boulevard and the Café

Anglais, let us turn to the dandy of ‘Flicoteau’s’ and the Pays

Latin--the Paris student, whose exploits among the grisettes are

celebrated, and whose fierce republicanism keeps gendarmes for ever on

the alert. The following is M. de Bernard’s description of him:

‘I became acquainted with Dambergeac when we were students at the

École de Droit; we lived in the same hotel on the Place du

Panthéon. No doubt, madam, you have occasionally met little

children dedicated to the Virgin, and, to this end, clothed in

white raiment from head to foot: my friend Dambergeac had received

a different consecration. His father, a great patriot of the

Revolution, had determined that his son should bear into the world

a sign of indelible republicanism; so, to the great displeasure of

his godmother and the parish curate, Dambergeac was christened by

the pagan name of Harmodius. It was a kind of moral tricolour

cockade, which the child was to bear through the vicissitudes of

all the revolutions to come. Under such influences, my friend’s

character began to develop itself, and, fired by the example of his

father, and by the warm atmosphere of his native place, Marseilles,

he grew up to have an independent spirit, and a grand liberality of

politics, which were at their height when first I made his

acquaintance.

‘He was then a young man of eighteen, with a tall slim figure, a

broad chest, and a flaming black eye, out of all which personal

charms he knew how to draw the most advantage; and though his

costume was such as Staub might probably have criticised, he had,

nevertheless, a style peculiar to himself--to himself and the

students, among whom he was the leader of the fashion. A tight

black coat, buttoned up to the chin, across the chest, set off that

part of his person; a low-crowned hat, with a voluminous rim, cast

solemn shadows over a countenance bronzed by a southern sun: he

wore, at one time, enormous flowing black locks, which he

sacrificed pitilessly, however, and adopted a Brutus, as being more

revolutionary: finally, he carried an enormous club, that was his

code and digest: in like manner, De Retz used to carry a stiletto

in his pocket, by way of a breviary.

‘Although of different ways of thinking in politics, certain

sympathies of character and conduct united Dambergeac and myself,

and we speedily became close friends. I don’t think, in the whole

course of his three years’ residence, Dambergeac ever went through

a single course of lectures. For the examinations, he trusted to

luck, and to his own facility, which was prodigious: as for

honours, he never aimed at them, but was content to do exactly as

little as was necessary for him to gain his degree. In like manner

he sedulously avoided those horrible circulating libraries, where

daily are seen to congregate the “reading men” of our schools. But,

in revenge, there was not a milliner’s shop, or a _lingèré’s_, in

all our Quartier Latin, which he did not industriously frequent,

and of which he was not the oracle. Nay, it was said that his

victories were not confined to the left bank of the Seine; reports

did occasionally come to us of fabulous adventures by him

accomplished in the far regions of the Rue de la Paix and the

Boulevard Poissonnière. Such recitals were, for us less favoured

mortals, like tales of Bacchus conquering in the East; they excited

our ambition, but not our jealousy; for the superiority of

Harmodius was acknowledged by us all, and we never thought of a

rivalry with him. No man ever cantered a hack through the Champs

Élysées with such elegant assurance; no man ever made such a

massacre of dolls at the shooting-gallery; or won you a rubber at

billiards with more easy grace; or thundered out a couplet of

Béranger with such a roaring melodious bass. He was the monarch of

the Prado in winter; in summer of the Chaumière and Mont Parnasse.

Not a frequenter of those fashionable places of entertainment

showed a more amiable _laisser-aller_ in the dance--that peculiar

dance at which gendarmes think proper to blush, and which squeamish

society has banished from her salons. In a word, Harmodius was the

prince of _mauvais sujets_, a youth with all the accomplishments of

Göttingen and Jena, and all the eminent graces of his own country.

‘Besides dissipation and gallantry, our friend had one other vast

and absorbing occupation--politics, namely, in which he was as

turbulent and enthusiastic as in pleasure. _La Patrie_ was his

idol, his heaven, his nightmare; by day he spouted, by night he

dreamed, of his country. I have spoken to you of his coiffure à la

Sylla; need I mention his pipe, his meerschaum pipe, of which

General Foy’s head was the bowl; his handkerchief with the Charte

printed thereon; and his celebrated tricolour braces, which kept

the rallying sign of his country ever close to his heart? Besides

these outward and visible signs of sedition, he had inward and

secret plans of revolution: he belonged to clubs, frequented

associations, read the _Constitutionnel_ (Liberals, in those days,

swore by the _Constitutionnel_), harangued peers and deputies who

had deserved well of their country; and if death happened to fall

on such, and the _Constitutionnel_ declared their merit, Harmodius

was the very first to attend their obsequies, or to set his

shoulder to their coffins.

‘Such were his tastes and passions: his antipathies were not less

lively. He detested three things: a Jesuit, a gendarme, and a

claqueur at a theatre. At this period, missionaries were rife about

Paris, and endeavoured to re-illume the zeal of the faithful by

public preachings in the churches. “Infâmes jésuites!” would

Harmodius exclaim, who, in the excess of his toleration, tolerated

nothing; and, at the head of a band of philosophers like himself,

would attend with scrupulous exactitude the meetings of the

reverend gentlemen. But, instead of a contrite heart, Harmodius

only brought the abomination of desolation into their sanctuary. A

perpetual fire of fulminating balls would bang from under the feet

of the faithful; odours of impure asafœtida would mingle with

the fumes of the incense; and wicked drinking choruses would rise

up along with the holy canticles, in hideous dissonance, reminding

one of the old orgies under the reign of the Abbot of Unreason.

‘His hatred of the gendarmes was equally ferocious: and as for the

claqueurs, woe be to them when Harmodius was in the pit! They knew

him, and trembled before him, like the earth before Alexander; and

his famous war-cry, “La Carte au chapeau!” was so much dreaded,

that the “entrepreneurs de succès dramatiques” demanded twice as

much to _do_ the Odéon Theatre (which we students and Harmodius

frequented) as to applaud at any other place of amusement: and,

indeed, their double pay was hardly gained; Harmodius taking care

that they should earn the most of it under the benches.’

This passage, with which we have taken some liberties, will give the

reader a more lively idea of the reckless, jovial, turbulent Paris

student, than any with which a foreigner could furnish him: the grisette

is his heroine; and dear old Béranger, the cynic-epicurean, has

celebrated him and her in the most delightful verses in the world. Of

these we may have occasion to say a word or two anon. Meanwhile let us

follow Monsieur de Bernard in his amusing descriptions of his

countrymen somewhat farther; and, having seen how Dambergeac was a

ferocious republican, being a bachelor, let us see how age, sense, and a

little Government pay--that great agent of conversions in France--nay,

in England--has reduced him to be a pompous, quiet, loyal supporter of

the _juste milieu_: his former portrait was that of the student, the

present will stand for an admirable lively likeness of

THE SOUS-PRÉFET

‘Saying that I would wait for Dambergeac in his own study, I was

introduced into that apartment, and saw around me the usual furniture of

a man in his station. There was, in the middle of the room, a large

bureau, surrounded by orthodox arm-chairs; and there were many shelves

with boxes duly ticketed; there were a number of maps, and, among them,

a great one of the department over which Dambergeac ruled; and, facing

the windows, on a wooden pedestal, stood a plaster cast of the “Roi des

Français.” Recollecting my friend’s former republicanism, I smiled at

this piece of furniture; but before I had time to carry my observations

any farther, a heavy rolling sound of carriage-wheels, that caused the

windows to rattle and seemed to shake the whole edifice of the

sub-prefecture, called my attention to the court without. Its iron gates

were flung open, and in rolled, with a great deal of din, a chariot

escorted by a brace of gendarmes, sword in hand. A tall gentleman, with

a cocked-hat and feathers, wearing a blue-and-silver uniform coat,

descended from the vehicle; and having, with much grave condescension,

saluted his escort, mounted the stair. A moment afterwards the door of

the study was opened, and I embraced my friend.

‘After the first warmth and salutations, we began to examine each other

with an equal curiosity, for eight years had elapsed since we had last

met.

‘“You are grown very thin and pale,” said Harmodius, after a moment.

‘“In revenge I find you fat and rosy: if I am a walking satire on

celibacy,--you, at least, are a living panegyric on marriage.”

‘In fact, a great change, and such an one as many people would call a

change for the better, had taken place in my friend: he had grown fat,

and announced a decided disposition to become what French people call a

_bel homme_: that is, a very fat one. His complexion, bronzed before,

was now clear white and red: there were no more political allusions in

his hair, which was, on the contrary, neatly frizzed, and brushed over

the forehead, shell-shape. This headdress, joined to a thin pair of

whiskers, cut crescent-wise from the ear to the nose, gave my friend a

regular bourgeois physiognomy, wax-doll-like: he looked a great deal too

well; and, added to this, the solemnity of his prefectoral costume gave

his whole appearance a pompous, well-fed look, that by no means pleased.

‘“I surprise you,” said I, “in the midst of your splendour: do you know

that this costume and yonder attendants have a look excessively awful

and splendid? You entered your palace just now with the air of a pasha.”

‘“You see me in uniform in honour of Monseigneur the Bishop, who has

just made his diocesan visit, and whom I have just conducted to the

limit of the arrondissement.”

‘“What!” said I, “you have gendarmes for guards, and dance attendance on

bishops? There are no more janissaries and Jesuits, I suppose?” The

sub-prefect smiled.

‘“I assure you that my gendarmes are very worthy fellows; and that among

the gentlemen who compose our clergy there are some of the very best

rank and talent: besides, my wife is niece to one of the

vicars-general.”

‘“What have you done with that great Tasso beard that poor Armandine

used to love so?”

‘“My wife does not like a beard; and you know that what is permitted to

a student is not very becoming to a magistrate.”

‘I began to laugh. “Harmodius and a magistrate?--how shall I ever couple

the two words together? But tell me, in your correspondences, your

audiences, your sittings with village mayors and petty councils, how do

you manage to remain awake?”

‘“In the commencement,” said Harmodius gravely, “it _was_ very

difficult; and, in order to keep my eyes open, I used to stick pins into

my legs: now, however, I am used to it; and I’m sure I don’t take more

than fifty pinches of snuff at a sitting.”

‘“Ah! _à propos_ of snuff: you are near Spain here, and were always a

famous smoker. Give me a cigar,--it will take away the musty odour of

these piles of papers.”

‘“Impossible, my dear; I don’t smoke; my wife cannot bear a cigar.”

‘His wife! thought I: always his wife; and I remember Juliette, who

really grew sick at the smell of a pipe, and Harmodius would smoke,

until, at last, the poor thing grew to smoke herself, like a trooper. To

compensate, however, as much as possible for the loss of my cigar,

Dambergeac drew from his pocket an enormous gold snuff-box, on which

figured the self-same head that I had before remarked in plaster, but

this time surrounded with a ring of pretty princes and princesses, all

nicely painted in miniature. As for the statue of Louis Philippe, that,

in the cabinet of an official, is a thing of course; but the snuff-box

seemed to indicate a degree of sentimental and personal devotion, such

as the old Royalists were only supposed to be guilty of.

‘“What! you are turned decided _juste milieu_?” said I.

‘“I am a sous-préfet,” answered Harmodius.

‘I had nothing to say, but held my tongue, wondering, not at the change

which had taken place in the habits, manners, and opinions of my friend,

but at my own folly, which led me to fancy that I should find the

student of ‘26 in the functionary of ‘34. At this moment a domestic

appeared.

‘“Madame is waiting for Monsieur,” said he: “the last bell has gone, and

mass beginning.”

‘“Mass!” said I, bounding up from my chair. “You at mass, like a decent

serious Christian, without crackers in your pocket, and bored keys to

whistle through?”--The sous-préfet rose, his countenance was calm, and

an indulgent smile played upon his lips, as he said, “My arrondissement

is very devout; and not to interfere with the belief of the population

is the maxim of every wise politician: I have precise orders from

Government on the point, too, and go to eleven-o’clock mass every

Sunday.”’

* * * * *

There is a great deal of curious matter for speculation in the accounts

here so wittily given by M. de Bernard: but, perhaps, it is still more

curious to think of what he has _not_ written, and to judge of his

characters, not so much by the words in which he describes them, as by

the unconscious testimony that the words all together convey. In the

first place, our author describes a swindler imitating the manners of a

dandy: and many swindlers and dandies be there, doubtless, in London as

well as in Paris. But there is about the present swindler, and about

Monsieur Dambergeac the student, and Monsieur Dambergeac the

sous-préfet, and his friend, a rich store of calm internal _debauch_,

which does not, let us hope and pray, exist in England. Hearken to M. de

Gustan, and his smirking whispers about the Duchess of San Severino, who

_pour son bonheur particulier_, etc. etc. Listen to Monsieur

Dambergeac’s friend’s remonstrances concerning _pauvre Juliette_, who

grew sick at the smell of a pipe; to his _naïve_ admiration at the fact

that the sous-préfet goes to church: and we may set down, as axioms,

that religion is so uncommon among the Parisians, as to awaken the

surprise of all candid observers; that gallantry is so common as to

create no remark, and to be considered as a matter of course. With us,

at least, the converse of the proposition prevails: it is the man

professing _ir_religion who would be remarked and reprehended in

England; and, if the second-named vice exists, at any rate it adopts the

decency of secrecy, and is not made patent and notorious to all the

world. A French gentleman thinks no more of proclaiming that he has a

mistress than that he has a tailor; and one lives the time of Boccaccio

over again, in the thousand and one French novels which depict the state

of society in that country.

For instance, here are before us a few specimens (do not, madam, be

alarmed, you can skip the sentence if you like) to be found in as many

admirable witty tales, by the before-lauded Monsieur de Bernard. He is

more remarkable than any other French author, to our notion, for writing

like a gentleman: there is ease, grace, and _ton_ in his style, which,

if we judge aright, cannot be discovered in Balzac, or Soulié, or Dumas.

We have then--_Gerfaut_, a novel: a lovely creature is married to a

brave, haughty Alsacian nobleman, who allows her to spend her winters at

Paris, he remaining on his _terres_, cultivating, carousing, and hunting

the boar. The lovely creature meets the fascinating Gerfaut at Paris;

instantly the latter makes love to her; a duel takes place; baron

killed; wife throws herself out of window; Gerfaut plunges into

dissipation, and so the tale ends.

Next, _La Femme de Quarante Ans_, a capital tale, full of exquisite fun

and sparkling satire: La femme de quarante ans has a husband and _three_

lovers; all of whom find out their mutual connection one starry night;

for the lady of forty is of a romantic poetical turn, and has given her

three admirers _a star apiece_, saying to one and the other, ‘Alphonse,

when yon pale orb rises in heaven, think of me;’ ‘Isidore, when that

bright planet sparkles in the sky, remember your Caroline,’ etc.

_Un Acte de Vertu_, from which we have taken Dambergeac’s history,

contains him, the husband--a wife--and a brace of lovers; and a great

deal of fun takes place in the manner in which one lover supplants the

other. Pretty morals truly!

If we examine an author who rejoices in the aristocratic name of Le

Comte Horace de Viel-Castel, we find, though with infinitely less wit,

exactly the same intrigues going on. A noble Count lives in the Faubourg

St. Honoré, and has a noble Duchess for a mistress: he introduces her

Grace to the Countess, his wife. The Countess, his wife, in order to

_ramener_ her lord to his conjugal duties, is counselled, by a friend,

_to pretend to take a lover_: one is found, who, poor fellow! takes the

affair in earnest: climax--duel, death, despair, and what not! In the

_Faubourg St. Germain_, another novel by the same writer, which

professes to describe the very pink of that society which Napoleon

dreaded more than Russia, Prussia, and Austria, there is an old husband,

of course; a sentimental young German nobleman, that falls in love with

his wife; and the moral of the piece lies in the showing up of the

conduct of the lady, who is reprehended--not for deceiving her husband

(poor devil!)--but for being a flirt, _and taking a second lover_, to

the utter despair, confusion, and annihilation of the first.

Why, ye gods, do Frenchmen marry at all? Had Père Enfantin (who, it is

said, has shaved his ambrosial beard, and is now a clerk in a

banking-house) been allowed to carry out his chaste, just, dignified,

social scheme, what a deal of marital discomfort might have been

avoided:--would it not be advisable that a great reformer and lawgiver

of our own, Mr. Robert Owen, should be presented at the Tuileries, and

there propound his scheme for the regeneration of France?

He might, perhaps, be spared, for our country is not yet sufficiently

advanced to give such a philosopher fair-play. In London, as yet, there

are no blessed _Bureaux de Mariage_, where an old bachelor may have a

charming young maiden--for his money; or a widow of seventy may buy a

gay young fellow of twenty, for a certain number of bank-billets. If

_mariages de convenance_ take place here (as they will wherever avarice,

and poverty, and desire, and yearning after riches are to be found), at

least, thank God, such unions are not arranged upon a regular organised

_system_: there is a fiction of attachment with us, and there is a

consolation in the deceit (‘the homage,’ according to the old _môt_ of

Rochefoucauld, ‘which vice pays to virtue’); for the very falsehood

shows that the virtue exists somewhere. We once heard a furious old

French colonel inveighing against the chastity of English _demoiselles_:

‘Figurez-vous, sir,’ said he (he had been a prisoner in England), ‘that

these women come down to dinner in low dresses, and walk out alone with

the men!’--and, pray Heaven, so may they walk, fancy-free in all sorts

of maiden meditations, and suffer no more molestation than that young

lady of whom Moore sings, and who (there must have been a famous

lord-lieutenant in those days) walked through all Ireland, with rich and

rare gems, beauty, and a gold ring on her stick, without meeting or

thinking of harm.

Now, whether Monsieur de Viel-Castel has given a true picture of the

Faubourg St. Germain, it is impossible for most foreigners to say; but

some of his descriptions will not fail to astonish the English reader;

and all are filled with that remarkable _naïf_ contempt of the

institution called marriage, which we have seen in M. de Bernard. The

romantic young nobleman of Westphalia arrives at Paris, and is admitted

into what a celebrated female author calls _la crême de la crême de la

haute volée_ of Parisian society. He is a youth of about twenty years of

age. ‘No passion had as yet come to move his heart, and give life to

his faculties; he was awaiting and fearing the moment of love; calling

for it, and yet trembling at its approach; feeling, in the depths of his

soul, that that moment would create a mighty change in his being, and

decide, perhaps, by its influence, the whole of his future life.’

Is it not remarkable that a young nobleman, with these ideas, should not

pitch upon a _demoiselle_, or a widow, at least? but no, the rogue must

have a married woman, bad luck to him; and what his fate is to be is

thus recounted by our author, in the shape of

A FRENCH FASHIONABLE CONVERSATION

‘A lady, with a great deal of _esprit_, to whom forty years’ experience

of the great world had given a prodigious perspicacity of judgment, the

Duchess of Chalux, arbitress of the opinion to be held on all new-comers

to the Faubourg St. Germain, and of their destiny and reception in

it;--one of those women, in a word, who make or ruin a man--said, in

speaking of Gerard de Stolberg, whom she received at her own house, and

met everywhere, “This young German will never gain for himself the title

of an exquisite, or a man of _bonnes fortunes_, among us. In spite of

his calm and politeness, I think I can see in his character some rude

and insurmountable difficulties, which time will only increase, and

which will prevent him for ever from bending to the exigencies of either

profession; but, unless I very much deceive myself, he will, one day, be

the hero of a veritable romance.”

‘“He, madam?” answered a young man, of fair complexion and fair hair,

one of the most devoted slaves of the fashion:--He, Madame la Duchesse?

Why, the man is, at best, but an original, fished out of the Rhine: a

dull heavy creature, as much capable of understanding a woman’s heart as

I am of speaking bas-Breton.”

‘“Well, Monsieur de Belport, you will speak bas-Breton. Monsieur de

Stolberg has not your admirable ease of manner, nor your facility of

telling pretty nothings, nor your--in a word, that particular something

which makes you the most _recherche_ man of the Faubourg St. Germain;

and even I avow to you that, were I still young, and a coquette, _and

that I took it into my head to have a lover_, I would prefer you.”

‘All this was said by the Duchess with a certain air of raillery and

such a mixture of earnest and malice, that Monsieur de Belport, piqued

not a little, could not help saying, as he bowed profoundly before the

Duchess’s chair, “And might I, madam, be permitted to ask the reason of

this preference?”

‘“Oh, mon Dieu, oui,” said the Duchess, always in the same tone;

“because a lover like you would never think of carrying his attachment

to the height of passion; and these passions, do you know, have

frightened me all my life. One cannot retreat at will from the grasp of

a passionate lover; one leaves behind one some fragment of one’s moral

_self_, or the best part of one’s physical life. A passion, if it does

not kill you, adds cruelly to your years; in a word, it is the very

lowest possible taste. And now you understand why I should prefer you,

M. de Belport--you, who are reputed to be the leader of the fashion.”

‘“Perfectly,” murmured the gentleman, piqued more and more.

‘“Gerard de Stolberg _will_ be passionate. I don’t know what woman will

please him, or will be pleased by him” (here the Duchess of Chalux spoke

more gravely); “but his love will be no play, I repeat it to you once

more. All this astonishes you, because you, great leaders of the _ton_

that you are, never can fancy that a hero of romance should be found

among your number. Gerard de Stolberg--but look, here he comes!”

‘M. de Belport rose, and quitted the Duchess, without believing in her

prophecy: but he could not avoid smiling as he passed near the _hero of

romance_.

‘It was because M. de Stolberg had never, in all his life, been a hero

of romance, or even an apprentice-hero of romance.’

* * * * *

‘Gerard de Stolberg was not, as yet, initiated into the thousand secrets

in the chronicle of the great world: he knew but superficially the

society in which he lived; and, therefore, he devoted his evening to the

gathering of all the information which he could acquire from the

indiscreet conversations of the people about him. His whole man became

ear and memory; so much was Stolberg convinced of the necessity of

becoming a diligent student in this new school, where was taught the art

of knowing and advancing in the great world. In the recess of a window

he learned more on this one night than months of investigation would

have taught him. The talk of a ball is more indiscreet than the

confidential chatter of a company of idle women. No man present at a

ball, whether listener or speaker, thinks he has a right to affect any

indulgence for his companions, and the most learned in malice will

always pass for the most witty.

‘“How!” said the Viscount de Mondragé: “the Duchess of Rivesalte arrives

alone to-night, without her inevitable Dormilly!” and the Viscount, as

he spoke, pointed towards a tall and slender young woman, who, gliding

rather than walking, met the ladies, by whom she passed, with a graceful

and modest salute, and replied to the looks of the men _by brilliant

veiled glances, full of coquetry and attack_.

“Parbleu!” said an elegant personage standing near the Viscount de

Mondragé, “don’t you see Dormilly ranged behind the Duchess, in quality

of train-bearer, and hiding, under his long locks and his great screen

of moustaches, the blushing consciousness of his good luck?--They call

him _the fourth chapter_ of the Duchess’s memoirs. The little Marquis

d’Alberas is ready to die out of spite; but the best of the joke is,

that she has only taken poor de Vendre for a lover in order to vent her

spleen on him. Look at him against the chimney yonder: if the

Marchioness do not break at once with him by quitting him for somebody

else, the poor fellow will turn an idiot.”

‘“Is he jealous?” asked a young man, looking as if he did not know what

jealousy was, and as if he had no time to be jealous.

‘“Jealous!--the very incarnation of jealousy; the second edition,

revised, corrected, and considerably enlarged; as jealous as poor

Gressigny, who is dying of it.”

‘“What! Gressigny too? why, ‘tis growing quite into fashion: egad! _I_

must try and be jealous,” said Monsieur de Beauval. “But see! here comes

the delicious Duchess of Bellefiore,”’ etc. etc. etc.

* * * * *

Enough, enough; this kind of fashionable Parisian conversation, which

is, says our author, ‘a prodigious labour of improvising,’ a

‘chef-d’œuvre,’ a ‘strange and singular thing, in which monotony is

unknown,’ seems to be, if correctly reported, a ‘strange and singular

thing’ indeed; but somewhat monotonous, at least to an English reader,

and ‘prodigious’ only, if we may take leave to say so, for the wonderful

rascality which all the conversationists betray. Miss Neverout and the

Colonel, in Swift’s famous dialogue, are a thousand times more

entertaining and moral; and, besides, we can laugh _at_ those worthies

as well as with them; whereas the ‘prodigious’ French wits are to us

quite incomprehensible. Fancy a duchess as old as Lady ---- herself, and

who should begin to tell us ‘of what she would do if ever she had a mind

to take a lover;’ and another duchess, with a fourth lover, tripping

modestly among the ladies, and returning the gaze of the men by veiled

glances, full of coquetry and attack!--Parbleu, if Monsieur de

Viel-Castel should find himself among a society of French duchesses, and

they should tear his eyes out, and send the fashionable Orpheus floating

by the Seine, his slaughter might almost be considered as justifiable

_Counticide_.

A GAMBLER’S DEATH

Anybody who was at C---- school some twelve years since, must recollect

Jack Attwood: he was the most dashing lad in the place, with more money

in his pocket than belonged to the whole fifth form in which we were

companions.

When he was about fifteen, Jack suddenly retreated from C----, and

presently we heard that he had a commission in a cavalry regiment, and

was to have a great fortune from his father, when that old gentleman

should die. Jack himself came to confirm these stories a few months

after, and paid a visit to his old school chums. He had laid aside his

little school-jacket and inky corduroys, and now appeared in such a

splendid military suit as won the respect of all of us. His hair was

dripping with oil, his hands were covered with rings, he had a dusky

down over his upper lip which looked not unlike a moustache, and a

multiplicity of frogs and braiding on his surtout, which would have

sufficed to lace a field-marshal. When old Swishtail, the usher, passed

in his seedy black coat and gaiters, Jack gave him such a look of

contempt as set us all a-laughing: in fact it was his turn to laugh now;

for he used to roar very stoutly some months before, when Swishtail was

in the custom of belabouring him with his great cane.

Jack’s talk was all about the regiment and the fine fellows in it: how

he had ridden a steeplechase with Captain Boldero, and licked him at the

last hedge; and how he had very nearly fought a duel with Sir George

Grig, about dancing with Lady Mary Slamken at a ball. ‘I soon made the

baronet know what it was to deal with a man of the N--th,’ said Jack.

‘Dammee, sir, when I lugged out my barkers, and talked of fighting

across the mess-room table, Grig turned as pale as a sheet, or as----’

‘Or as you used to do, Attwood, when Swishtail hauled you up,’ piped out

little Hicks, the foundation-boy.

It was beneath Jack’s dignity to thrash anybody now but a grown-up

baronet; so he let off little Hicks, and passed over the general titter

which was raised at his expense. However, he entertained us with his

histories about lords and ladies, and So-and-so ‘of ours,’ until we

thought him one of the greatest men in his Majesty’s service, and until

the school-bell rung; when, with a heavy heart, we got our books

together, and marched in to be whacked by old Swishtail. I promise you

he revenged himself on us for Jack’s contempt of him. I got that day at

least twenty cuts to my share, which ought to have belonged to Cornet

Attwood, of the N--th Dragoons.

When we came to think more coolly over our quondam school-fellow’s

swaggering talk and manners, we were not quite so impressed by his

merits as at his first appearance among us. We recollected how he used,

in former times, to tell us great stories, which were so monstrously

improbable that the smallest boy in the school would scout them; how

often we caught him tripping in facts, and how unblushingly he admitted

his little errors in the score of veracity. He and I, though never great

friends, had been close companions: I was Jack’s form-fellow (we fought

with amazing emulation for the _last_ place in the class); but still I

was rather hurt at the coolness of my old comrade, who had forgotten all

our former intimacy, in his steeplechases with Captain Boldero and his

duel with Sir George Grig.