_Ilium Fuit_
There is a radical change of opinion with regard to the Iliad. Those who
have regarded Homer as a mere myth-collector, and the story of the siege
of Troy as a figment of a fertile fancy, have learned that not only do
the later critics concede that Homer was a true poet, but that Dr.
Schliemann has conclusively proved that he sang of a real Troy and an
actual war. How comprehensive the work of critical research has been may
be seen in a single incident. A Glasgow surgeon, named Wolfe, reinforced
by Mr. Gladstone, has shown that Homer had an ocular defect, that form
of amblyopia known as color-blindness, the evidence of which is gathered
from the treatment of colors in the Iliad.
_A Marred Destiny_
At Pevensey is the beach on which the Norman Conqueror landed. The
castle on the cliff of Hastings marks the spot where he first planted
his standard. From that place it is easy to trace his line of march till
he saw Harold with the English army facing him on the fatal hill of
Senlac. The battle-field is as well-marked as that of Waterloo, and
fancy can recall the charges of the Norman cavalry up the hillside
against the solid formation and the shield wall of the Saxon precursors
of the British infantry. The ruins of Battle Abbey, the religious trophy
of the Conqueror, are still seen, and the site of the high altar exactly
marks the spot where the fatal arrow entering Harold’s brain slew not
only a king, but a kingdom, and marred the destiny of a race. We are on
the scene of one of the great catastrophes of history. Had that arrow
missed its mark, Anglo-Saxon institutions would have developed in their
integrity, the Anglo-Saxon tongue would have perfected itself in its
purity, Anglo-Norman aristocracy would never have been, or have left its
evil traces on society, the fatal connection of England and France, and
the numerous French wars of the Plantagenets would have been blotted out
of the book of fate.
_Robinson Crusoe_
Dr. Edward Everett Hale has observed a curious feature in “Robinson
Crusoe.” He says: “Readers who are curious in English history must not
fail to observe that Robinson Crusoe was shipwrecked on his island on
September 30, 1659. It was in that month that the English Commonwealth
ended and Richard Cromwell left the palace at Whitehall. Robinson lived
in this island home for twenty-eight years. These twenty-eight years
covered the exact period of the second Stuart reign in England. Robinson
Crusoe returned to England in June, 1687; the Convention Parliament
which established William III. met in London at the same time. All this
could not be an accidental coincidence. Defoe must have meant that the
‘true-born Englishman’ could not live in England during the years while
the Stuarts reigned. Robinson Crusoe was a ruler himself on his own
island, and was never the subject of Charles II. or James II.”
_Macaulay in the Role of a Pickpocket_
In clever sketches of social life in Rome, Mr. T. Adolphus Trollope
repeats a story that was told during “A Moonlight Visit to the
Coliseum,” showing how Lord Macaulay had once robbed a man there of his
watch. One night, while strolling under the dark arches, all of a sudden
a man in a large cloak brushed past him rather rudely, as Macaulay
thought, and passed on into the darkness. Macaulay’s first impulse was
to clasp his hand to his watch-pocket; and sure enough he found that his
watch was not there. He looked after the man, who he doubted not had
stolen his watch as he brushed past him, and peering into the darkness
could just distinguish the outline of a figure moving farther away.
Macaulay without the loss of a second rushed after him, overtook him,
and seizing him by the collar demanded his watch. Macaulay could at that
time speak very little Italian, and understood none when spoken. So he
was obliged to limit his attack on the thief to a violent shaking of him
by the collar and an angry repetition of the demand, “Orologio!
orologio!” The man thus attacked poured forth a torrent of
rapidly-spoken words, of which Macaulay understood not one syllable. But
he again administered a severe shaking to his captive, stamping his foot
angrily on the ground, and again vociferating “Orologio! orologio!”
Whereupon the detected thief drew forth a watch and handed it to his
captor. Macaulay, satisfied with his prowess in having thus recaptured
his property, and not caring for the trouble of pursuing the matter any
further, turned on his heel as he pocketed the watch, and saw nothing
more of the man. But when he returned to his apartment at night, his
landlady met him at the door, holding out something in her hand, and
saying, “Oh, sir, you left your watch on the table, so I thought it
better to take care of it. Here it is.” “Good gracious! What is this,
then? What is the meaning of it?” stammered Macaulay, drawing from his
pocket the watch he had so gallantly recovered in the Coliseum. It was a
watch he had never seen before. The truth was plain: he had been the
thief! The poor man he had so violently attacked and apostrophized in
the darkness and solitude of the Coliseum arches had been terrified into
surrendering his own watch to the resolute ruffian who, as he conceived,
had pursued him to rob him. The next morning Macaulay, not a little
crestfallen, hastened to the office of the _questor_ with the watch and
told his story. “Ah, I see,” said the _questor_; “you had better leave
the watch with me. I will make your excuses to the owner of it; he has
already been here to denounce you.”
_A Minister’s Messenger and What He Saw_
At the moment when his soldiers were entering Strasburg, the _Roi
Soleil_ started out from Fontainebleau to take possession in person of
his new conquest. The day before—that is to say, on the 29th of
September, 1681—Louis XIV. had announced to his court in the presence of
the German Ambassador that he had made up his mind to go to Strasburg,
in order to receive the oath of fealty which the treaty of Nimègue gave
him the right to exact from the city. It was a _coup de théatre_ and no
mistake. But how happened it that the king was so well informed as to
the actual condition of affairs at so distant a point? Well, the story
runs as follows:
One evening the Minister Louvois sent for a young man who had been
recommended to his good graces and said,—“Sir, you will get into a
post-carriage which you will find at my door. My servants have exact
instructions what to do. You will proceed to Bâle without stopping and
you will reach there about two o’clock to-morrow. You will proceed
immediately to the bridge which crosses the Rhine. You will remain there
until four o’clock. You will carefully notice all that you may see
there. You will then again get into the carriage, and without losing a
minute will return and report to me what you may have seen.” The young
man bowed and started at once. The day after the next day at two o’clock
he reached Bâle, and at once hastened to take up his station on the
bridge. Nothing extraordinary attracted his attention. It was
market-day, and some peasants were passing and repassing, bringing
vegetables and taking back their empty carts. A squad of militia passed.
Townfolk crossed the bridge, talking of the news of the day, and a
little man, wearing a yellow coat, leaned over the railing and amused
himself by dropping stones into the water, as if to create circling
eddies, which he watched with a satisfied look. Four o’clock struck, and
the Minister’s messenger started on his return to Paris. Very late in
the evening the young man, greatly disappointed at the result of his
mission, arrived at the house of Louvois. The Minister was still awake
and rushed to meet his protégé.
“What did you see?” he asked.
“I saw peasants going and coming; a squad of militia passed over the
bridge; citizens who walked along discussing the day’s news, and a
little man wearing a yellow coat, who was amusing himself by dropping
stones into the water.”
The Minister had heard enough, and he hurried to the king. The little
man in yellow was a secret agent, and the stones dropped into the water
was a signal that all difficulties had been overcome, and that Strasburg
belonged to France.
_Tobacco in Diplomacy_
The “herb of peace” has played an important rôle in politics and
diplomacy during the last two hundred years in the history of the world,
and its influence upon the course of public events has been almost
invariably of a beneficial character. Not only have its narcotic
properties tended to soothe the angry passions of those intrusted with
the conduct of international relations, but it has also afforded them
the opportunity of thinking before they spoke, and allowed time for
those second thoughts which in statecraft, at any rate, are always best.
People are often disposed to make fun of the so-called “pipe of peace”
and to regard it as a mere form of speech originating with the red
Indians. But tobacco, whether taken in the form of a pipe, a cigar, a
cigarette or snuff, has proved a powerful and effective aid to peace,
and as such its use deserves to be fostered and propagated by all
patriotic and law-abiding citizens, in lieu of being condemned as
noxious. The value placed by people in the eighteenth century and in the
early part of the nineteenth upon snuff as a preventive of violence is
shown by the German historian Jacoby, who, writing of his times,
declares: “Whenever any one displays signs of temper the snuff-box is
handed to him, and we all have too much self-control, even under the
most trying circumstances, ever to resist the power.”
Even women in those days who did not take snuff kept boxes for the
purpose of averting quarrels among their admirers, and it was
universally regarded as one of the most efficacious aids to the
maintenance of friendly and agreeable intercourse. Nowadays snuff has
gone out of fashion, and, as a rule, cigarettes have supplanted tobacco
in its powdered form in what has been described as “diplomatic
machinery.” The statesman or the ambassador who could formerly conceal
his embarrassment and collect his thoughts for an appropriate answer
during the slow and stately process of taking a “prise,” is now enabled
to do so while breathing out nicely distanced rings of fragrant Turkish
tobacco. Indeed, the cigarette proves perhaps a more effective ally in a
moment of difficulty than the pinch of snuff. For whereas you cannot
indefinitely prolong the process of inhaling the latter, it is always
possible to gain time with a cigarette by letting it go out and then
having to relight it. To-day there is scarcely any foreign minister or
diplomat who is not provided with his cigarette-box, which he regards,
not in the light of an object of personal luxury, but as part and parcel
of the most indispensable paraphernalia of his office. It is worthy of
note that the Russians, who devote more attention and importance to the
study of diplomacy than any other Western nation, are always provided
with finer cigarettes than any of their foreign colleagues, while one of
the reasons why the late Khedive was subject to so much bullying and
badgering by the various ministers and consuls accredited to his court
was because his cigarettes were so execrable that it required the
strongest dose of courtesy possible to make even a pretence of smoking
them, the result being that he had to bear the full brunt of every
disagreeable first thought that came into the mind of his foreign
visitors, his cigarettes offering no inducement for them to reflect
before speaking, and tending, moreover, to irritate rather than to
soothe their tempers.
It is a peculiar fact that all women who have achieved fame in
diplomacy, such as Princess Pauline Metternich, Princess Lise
Troubetskoi, the late Princess Leopold Croy, Mme. de Novikoff, etc.,
have all been inveterate consumers of cigarettes, and each of those just
mentioned has availed herself with signal advantage of the opportunity
afforded by toying with a fragrant papilletto to reflect before
speaking, which women, as a rule, alas! so seldom do. Apparently it is
with the hope of encouraging women who are not, like Mme. de Novikoff
and Princess Lise Troubetskoi, professed diplomats, to think before
speaking, and thereby avert a goodly portion of the trouble which
befalls man, that several of the governments of Continental Europe are
encouraging the use of tobacco among the fair sex by providing smoking
apartments for women on all the state railroads. And we even find that
solemn and august functionary, the Speaker of the British House of
Commons, the living embodiment of all that is most time-honored,
old-fashioned, and ultra-respectable in the English Parliament, turning
a deaf ear to the protest raised of late years in certain of the London
newspapers against the now frequent spectacle offered on summer nights
of women in full evening dress sitting out on the riverside terrace of
the palace of Westminster puffing at their post-prandial cigarette. “The
First Commoner of the Realm” is, like his predecessor, Lord Peel,
apparently of the opinion that the weed, first dedicated to England’s
“Virgin Queen,” is infinitely more effective and less injurious to
high-strung feminine nerves than chloral, morphine or alcohol. The
easiest-tempered and most tractable women of the universe are those of
the Orient, who smoke all day long, and the same may be said of the
women of Southern Europe. With the exception of the present Czarina of
Russia, Queen Alexandra, and the Queen of the Netherlands, nearly all
the women of the reigning houses of the Old World smoke.
_The Mystery of the Dauphin_
The story, according to which the Dauphin, son of King Louis XVI. and
Queen Marie Antoinette, was done to death in the Temple prison by his
brutal jailer Simon and the latter’s wife, has long since been exploded.
It has been definitely established on the most incontrovertible evidence
that the Dauphin did not die in the Temple at the hands of the Simons.
The latter were not ignorant brutes, but well-to-do people, Simon being
a member of the “Conseil Général” of the Seine, and, moreover, he
resigned his guardianship of the Dauphin in January, 1794, eighteen
months before the royal lad’s alleged death. There is abundant evidence
to show that the Prince escaped, and that several members of the
Royalist party were concerned in his flight.
The Dauphin eventually, after all sorts of adventures, when the star of
Napoleon was on the wane, went to Berlin—he was about twenty-nine years
old at the time—with a view of putting forward his claims for
recognition as a member of the house of Bourbon. His uncles, the Comte
de Provence (afterward King Louis XVIII.) and the Comte d’Artois
(subsequently King Charles X.) were in receipt of handsome allowances
from the Prussian, Russian, and English governments, and the Dauphin
hoped that he, too, might be provided for in a similar way. The Prussian
government, however, was committed to the Comte de Provence, and the
chief of the Berlin police forced the Dauphin to surrender to him all
the papers establishing his identity, and then furnished him with a
passport describing him as a native of Weimar. These papers were never
returned to him, in spite of all his efforts to recover them, and they
remain at Berlin to this day. Eventually he made his way to Holland. The
Dutch authorities, who are the most strict in the world in all matters
relating to the assumption of unauthorized names and titles, not only
permitted him to figure on the marriage and death registry at Delft as
“Louis of Bourbon, son of King Louis XVI. and Queen Marie Antoinette,”
but likewise allowed his sons and grandsons to serve under the royal
name of Bourbon in the Dutch Army.
True, the Duke of Orleans, like his father before him, denounces the
claims of these Dutch Bourbons, now established at Paris in the wine
business, as ridiculous, and stigmatizes the alleged Dauphin as having
been an impostor. Yet, in spite of all the efforts, and the large amount
of money spent by Louis XVIII., Charles X., King Louis Philippe, and the
Comte de Paris, no one has ever succeeded in finding out who the alleged
Dauphin could possibly have been, if not the son of the ill-fated Queen
Marie Antoinette.
It was natural that the brothers of Louis XVI. refused to recognize the
alleged Dauphin as their nephew, since by their recognition he would
have become an obstacle in the way of their accession to the throne of
France on the restoration of the Bourbon dynasty. Moreover, they had
always been among the most bitter enemies of Marie Antoinette, insisting
that her children were the offspring of another man instead of their
eldest brother. There is, however, evidence to the effect that they
provided for the lad’s maintenance after his escape from the Temple, on
the understanding that he should be kept in the background, being
unwilling that any personage should be appealed to in the matter. But
when he grew up, they denounced him as a fraud.
It may be remembered that the Vatican, when asked in 1826 for a permit
of consecration of the Chapelle Expiatoire at Paris, erected over what
was understood to be the remains of King Louis XVI., of his queen, and
of their son, only granted it on the condition that the name of the
Dauphin was removed, taking the ground, set forth in an official
dispatch, which is on record, that it could not lend itself to the
comedy of consecrating a memorial chapel to a living person.
That the Prussian government or the Prussian crown have among their
archives papers proving the usurpation of the French throne by Louis
XVIII., the escape from prison of the Dauphin, and his identity with
that Louis Bourbon who died at Delft, and to whom the president of the
Berlin police had given a passport as “Naundorff,” a citizen of Weimar,
where, by the by, no such person had ever been born or lived, has long
been known. The Russian imperial archives and those of the Vatican are
likewise known to possess equally conclusive documentary evidence upon
the subject, and the attitude of the papacy toward the Dutch Bourbons
has always been particularly considerate.
_The Sistine Madonna and La Fornarina_
People who are not content to accept the old-fashioned traditions
concerning pictures and artists will be pleased with some recent
discoveries about Raphael made by the art critics. These ingenious
persons have practically exhausted Leonardo da Vinci, who for many years
was their favorite quarry, having proved to their own satisfaction that
nearly every picture ascribed to him was painted by some one else. They
have now turned upon Raphael, and in the merciless but scientific
dissection of his works and his life not only the authenticity but the
fame of his Sistine Madonna has been placed in question. The chain of
circumstantial evidence, it is true, seems incomplete in parts, but the
missing links will be supplied by that faith which science often demands
no less than legend.
Raphael has the unusual distinction of having had an excellent
reputation among his contemporaries. He was a hard worker, and his
private life was so uneventful as to excite no comment. This was hardly
artistic, so, fifty years after his death, Vasari supplied him with a
nameless mistress, a baker’s daughter, “La Fornarina,” whom the painter
saw and loved in her father’s garden, near the Church of Santa Cecilia,
in the Trastevere quarter at Rome. In another fifty years this story had
grown into the well known tale of the painter’s passionate love bringing
about his early death, and the beautiful, sensuous face of “La
Fornarina” in the Uffizi Gallery at Florence made it credible.
Sentimental persons looked on her portrait and then on Raphael’s own,
and had no doubts.
Then came the critics. They proved that it was not Raphael but Sebastian
del Piombo who had painted the portrait, and that it represented not “La
Fornarina” but an entirely different woman, a beauty of Bologna. Their
scepticism, however, stopped short of rejecting the whole story. They
cling to that in all its details, and one of them, Signor Valeri, of
Rome, has just confirmed it by discovering “La Fornarina’s” name. His
method is interesting.
First, he found in somebody’s manuscript life of Goethe that “La
Fornarina’s” Christian name was Margarita; next, in a census of Rome
made in 1518, two years before Raphael’s death, kept in the Vatican
library, he discovered that a baker named Francesco, from Siena, kept a
bakery near the Church of Santa Cecilia; finally, he searched in the
registers of the nunnery of Santa Apollonia, and found there under the
date August 18, 1520, four months after Raphael’s death, the name of
“Margarita, daughter of the late Francesco Luti of Siena,” as having
been received into the convent as a nun. Therefore this Margarita Luti
or Luzzi must necessarily be “La Fornarina.”
This demonstration was hardly needed by the art critics, whose faith in
the existence of the Fornarina was unshaken. Having discredited the
Uffizi portrait, they looked around among Raphael’s other paintings for
her features. For a time they inclined to the “Veiled Woman” in the
Pitti Gallery, but finally settled on the Sistine Madonna as
representing the painter’s beloved. The evidence for the identification
is of the slightest, and surely the simple peasant girl, whose innocence
and loveliness alone the painter has transmitted to us, might have been
left unsmirched. Such as it is, however, the identification is shaken by
another art critic. A lynx-eyed young German iconoclast has cast doubts
on the authenticity of the Dresden Gallery’s treasure, and declares
boldly that the picture is not the “Madonna di San Sisto,” and that in
all likelihood Raphael never painted it. His attack is backed by such a
display of erudition that the director of the gallery went to Italy to
find out if there might not be some foundation of truth in it.
While critics wrangle over unessentials, however, the Sistine Virgin,
the loveliest creation of Raphael’s genius, will grace our homes, the
most overpowering figure known to the tablets of art.
_The Letter M_
Napoleon I. was a fatalist, and among his superstitions was a
firmly-rooted notion that places and persons whose names began with the
letter M possessed immense power over his fortunes for good or for evil.
An ingenious Frenchman, evidently inclined to believe that there was
some good ground for Napoleon’s faith, makes up the following strange
list of M’s: Six Marshals—Massena, Mortier, Marmont, Macdonald, Murat,
and Moncey—without counting twenty-six division Generals. Moreau
betrayed him. Marseilles was the place where he encountered the greatest
difficulties at the commencement of his career. Marbœuf was the first to
suspect his genius and to shove him ahead. His most brilliant battles
were Montenotte, Mantua, Millesimo, Mondovi, Marengo, Malta, Mont
Thabor, Montmirvil, Mormans, Montereau, Méry, Montmartre (assault),
Mont-Saint-Jean, the last at Waterloo. At the siege of Toulon his first
point of attack was Fort Malbousquet. There he singled out Muiron, who
covered him with his body on the bridge of Arcole. Milan was the capital
of his new kingdom. Moscow was the last town that he took. Menon made
him lose Egypt. Miollis was selected to capture Pius VII. Malet
conspired against him. Metternich beat him diplomatically. Maret was his
secretary and his confidant. Montalivet was his Minister, and Montesquin
his first Chamberlain. In March, 1796, he married Josephine, and in
March, 1810, he married Marie Louise. In March, 1811, the King of Rome
was born. Malmaison, a well-named unlucky house, was his last residence
in France. He surrendered to Captain Maitland. At Saint Helena,
Montholon was his companion in captivity and Marchand his valet de
chambre. He died in May, 1821. The letter M also comes to the front in
the career of Napoleon III. He married the Countess de Montijo. Morny is
not forgotten. In the war of the Crimea we find Malakoff and Mamelon. In
the Italian campaign we find Montebello, Marignon, Magenta, Milan,
Mazzini. Toward the close of his career Mexico appears with Maximilian,
Méjia, and Miramon. In the war with Germany he pinned his faith upon the
mitrailleuse, and the names of Moltke and Metz are conspicuous enough in
the history of that campaign.
_The Iron Maiden_
The “Torture Chamber” in the five-sided tower of the old burgh was for
many years one of the show-places of Nuremberg. The collection of
instruments of fiendishness, made by a Franconian nobleman, numbered
between five and six hundred. There were all sorts of repulsive
contrivances,—racks, wedges, hammers, clubs, pulleys, thumb-screws, iron
boots to crush the limbs, metal collars for the neck, brass masks for
the head, copper boilers for scalding water, and headsmen’s axes. Their
removal, by purchase, has served as a reminder of the wisdom of the
clause in the Constitution of the United States (Art. viii.) forbidding
the infliction of “cruel and unusual punishments.”
The central jewel, the Kohinoor of the relics of barbarism and
diabolism, is one of the most awful graven images it ever entered into
the heart of men to conceive, the world-infamous _Eiserne Jungfrau_, the
“Iron Maiden,” of Nuremberg. This monstrous invention was an improvement
in ferocity upon the brazen bull into which the ancient tyrant, after
heating it red hot, was wont to thrust his naked victims. Many Americans
have seen the Iron Maiden; all Americans ought to see her. The sight of
the hideous figure is an excellent tonic for young Yankees of both sexes
suffering from “over-culture,” and seduced into a fit of moonlit
mediævalism by the picturesque and romantic attractions of such “quaint
old towns of art and song” as the city of Hans Sachs and Albert Dürer.
For the Iron Maiden was no ingenious toy devised to amuse the idle and
frighten the thoughtless into good behavior. Clasped in her stifling
embrace, pierced in all parts of the human body not absolutely vital by
the sharpened spikes set into the steel valves which had closed upon
him, a living man, many a wretch yielded up the ghost in torments not to
be conceived of adequately save by the imagination of an Edgar Poe. And
this not by the edict of a despot mad with unbridled power, but in the
normal course of justice, or of religious persecution, as justice and
religion were understood and administered during the “good old times.”
_The Value of Practical Knowledge_
In the piazza before St. Peter’s, at Rome, stands the most beautiful
obelisk in the world. It was brought from the circus of Nero, where it
had lain buried for many ages. It was one entire piece of Egyptian
marble, seventy-two feet high, twelve feet square at the base, and eight
feet square at the top, and is computed to weigh above four hundred and
seventy tons, and it is supposed to be three thousand years old. Much
engineering skill was required to remove and erect this piece of art;
and the celebrated architect, Dominico Fontane, was selected and engaged
by Pope Sixtus V. to carry out the operation. A pedestal thirty feet
high was built for its reception, and the obelisk brought to its base.
Many were the ingenious contrivances prepared for the raising of it to
its last resting place, all of which excited the deepest interest among
the people. At length everything was in readiness, and a day appointed
for the great event. A great multitude assembled to witness the
ceremony; and the Pope, afraid that the clamor of the people might
distract the attention of the architect, issued an edict containing
regulations to be kept, and imposing the severest penalties on any one
who should, during the lifting of the gigantic stone, utter a single
word. Amidst suppressed excitement of feelings and breathless silence
the splendid monument was gradually raised to within a few inches of the
top of the pedestal, when its upward motion ceased; it hung suspended,
and could not be lifted further; the tackle was too slack, and there
seemed to be no other way than to undo the great work already
accomplished. The annoyed architect, in his perplexity, hardly knew how
to act, while the silent people were anxiously watching every motion of
his features to discover how the problem would be solved. In the crowd
was an old British sailor, who saw the difficulty and how to overcome
it, and with stentorian lungs he shouted, “Wet the ropes!” The vigilant
police pounced on the culprit and lodged him in prison; the architect
caught the magic words; he put this proposition in force, and the cheers
of the people proclaimed the success of the great undertaking. Next day
the British criminal was solemnly arraigned before his Holiness; his
crime was undeniably proved, and the Pope, in solemn language,
pronounced his sentence to be—that he should receive a pension annually
during his lifetime.
_The Marseillaise_
Rouget de l’Isle wrote only six of the seven verses of the
“Marseillaise,” the last being the work of the Abbé Antoine Pessonneaux,
in a moment of patriotic ecstacy. In its completed form the hymn was
first sung at the opera in Paris, the members of the Convention being
present. After the verses of Rouget de l’Isle had been sung a group of
children appeared on the stage and gave the last verse, beginning “Nous
entrerons dans la carrière,” which was wildly applauded. Not long after
this the Abbé came near being guillotined at Lyons. One of the
historians relates the event as follows: “The committee met in the Town
Hall, which resembled a ‘funeral chapel,’ and sat round a table covered
with black cloth. There was the president, who had three judges on each
side of him. They all wore a little silver hatchet round the
neck,—terrible emblem of their functions. There was a stool for the
prisoner, and behind this a rank of armed soldiers awaiting the sign
which decided the fate of the accused. If the judges spread out their
hands on the black cloth, that signified acquittal; if they raised their
hands to their foreheads, that meant that the prisoner was to be shot;
if they touched the silver hatchet, he was to be guillotined. Few
questions were asked, and the fate of the accused was generally known
beforehand. The sentence of the court was immediately executed amid
cries of anguish, despair, ‘Vive la République,’ and the howling of the
‘Marseillaise.’ A citizen, pale, but calm, in presence of almost certain
death, had just been brought before the tribunal. His crime was
flagrant; he was a priest. The president asked, ‘Who art thou?’ The
accused drew himself proudly up, and said, ‘I am the Abbé Pesonneaux,
author of the last stanza of the ‘Marseillaise.’’ There was a good deal
of commotion in the court, and after some hesitation the judges
stretched their hands out on the black cloth, which was the _pollice
verso_ of the Republic. Without saluting or thanking, the Abbé slowly
withdrew. Forty years afterwards the Government of Louis Philippe gave
Rouget de l’Isle a pension of £4 a month, and the Abbé Pessonneaux had
some idea of applying also for aid, but he changed his mind, and died
peacefully in Dauphiny in 1835.”
_Shakespeare and Burbage_
In that old book, “A General View of the Stage,” we are told that one
evening when Richard III. was to be performed, Shakespeare observed a
young woman delivering a message to Burbage in so cautious a manner as
to excite his curiosity, and prompt him to listen. It imported that her
master was gone out of town that morning, and her mistress would be glad
of his company after the play; and to know what signal he would appoint
for admittance. Burbage replied, “Three taps at the door, and, it is I,
Richard the Third.” She immediately withdrew and Shakespeare followed
till he observed her go into a house in the city; and inquiring in the
neighborhood he was informed that a young lady lived there, the favorite
of a rich old merchant. Near the appointed time of meeting, Shakespeare,
anticipating Burbage, went to the house, and was introduced by the
concerted signal. The lady was very much surprised at Shakespeare’s
presuming to act Burbage’s part, but as he who had written Romeo and
Juliet, we may be certain, did not want wit or eloquence to apologize
for the intrusion, she was soon pacified, and they were mutually happy,
till Burbage came to the door, and repeated the same signal; but
Shakespeare, popping his head out of the window, bade him begone; for
that William the Conqueror had reigned before Richard III.
_A Circassian Legend_
A man was walking along one road, and a woman along another. The roads
finally united, and the man and woman reaching the junction at the same
time, marched on from there together. The man was carrying a large iron
kettle on his back; in one hand he held by the legs a live chicken, in
the other a cane, and he was leading a goat. Just as they were coming to
a deep, dark ravine, the woman said to the man,—
“I am afraid to go through that ravine with you; it is a lonely place
and you might overpower me and kiss me by force.”
“If you were afraid of that,” said the man, “you shouldn’t have talked
with me at all. How can I possibly overpower and kiss you by force when
I have this great iron kettle on my back, and a cane in one hand, and a
live chicken in the other, and am leading this goat? I might as well be
tied hand and foot.”
“Yes,” replied the woman, “but if you should stick your cane into the
ground and tie the goat to it, and turn the kettle bottom side up and
put the chicken under it, then you might wickedly kiss me in spite of my
resistance.”
“Success to thy ingenuity, oh, woman!” said the rejoicing man to
himself. “I should never have thought of this expedient.”
And when he came to the ravine he stuck his cane into the ground and
tied the goat to it, gave the chicken to the woman, saying, “Hold it
while I cut some grass for the goat;” and then, lowering the kettle from
his shoulders, imprisoned the fowl under it, and wickedly kissed the
woman, as she was afraid he would.
_General Grouchy at Waterloo_
The question, “What part had Grouchy in Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo?”
or, “was his failure to arrive in time the reason why the battle was
lost?” is not satisfactorily answered in “Grouchy’s Memoirs.” The battle
of Ligny was fought June 16, between the French and the Prussians under
Blücher; on the same day the French manfully engaged the English at
Quatre Bras; June 18, the battle of Waterloo was fought, which ended, by
the timely arrival of Blücher on the battle-field, in the total rout of
the French. It is claimed that Grouchy, who commanded the French right
wing of 32,000, might either, by engaging the Prussians, have prevented
them from appearing in time on the battle-field and wresting the
hard-fought victory from the hands of Napoleon, or that he might have
appeared on the battle-field himself in time to crush Wellington before
Blücher could possibly be on the battle-field. Let us hear now what the
French General says in his “Memoirs,” which is, in substance, as
follows: “The French victory over the Prussians at Ligny had filled
Napoleon with the greatest joy and a false feeling of security. He
looked on the Belgian campaign as virtually won. Instead of turning his
victory at Ligny to account and preparing for all eventualities, he rode
to Fleure, about three miles back of Ligny, and went to bed, leaving
Grouchy, the commander of the right wing, behind, without any positive
orders. Grouchy followed Napoleon to Fleure, in order to call his
attention to the critical state of affairs. He arrived early in the
morning of the 17th in Fleure, but as Napoleon had given the strictest
orders not to awaken him under any circumstances, he was not admitted to
an audience of the Emperor before 1 o’clock P. M. of that day. The
Emperor paid no attention to the General’s protestations, but repeated
his orders to pursue and watch the Prussians. But this was simply
impossible, because Blücher was ahead of him by a sixteen hours’ march,
and had an array of 80,000 fresh troops. Moreover, in order to pursue
Blücher, it would have been necessary for the right wing of the French
army to withdraw far from the point where a conflict might come at every
moment. All these reasons were strongly urged by the Marshal, but to no
purpose; the Emperor repeated his orders to march toward Namour, saying
that he knew that the Prussians would take their position on the Muse
(_Maas_). With these instructions the Marshal retired, and the roar of
cannon the next day satisfied him that a great battle was in progress.
To hasten to the field of action was actually impossible, as his
positive instructions had taken him to Namour, southeast of Ligny and
farther off from Waterloo or Belle Alliance by fifteen English miles.
Moreover, the terrain between Namour and Waterloo was marshy and without
any passable roads, so that he could not have arrived on the
battle-field before the action was over. Again, his avant guard had
already engaged the Prussians, and to attempt to pass with 32,000 men,
worn out by long marches, an enemy of 80,000 fresh troops, seemed to the
Marshal too hazardous an enterprise; hence he did not make the attempt.”
So far the Marshal. If he tells the truth, if every statement made by
him is according to facts, every unprejudiced reader will readily admit
that the Marshal’s reasons for non-action were sufficient to justify his
conduct, even in the absence of treasonable designs.
But where did the real fault lie? Who committed it? Even if the battle
of Waterloo had remained indecisive, or even if it had been won by
Napoleon, it might have retarded the sinking of his star, but would not
have prevented it. Napoleon had taught the nations of Europe his own
tactics; the French Republicans had filled all Europe with an abhorrence
of their professed principles, and Napoleon had shown himself during his
whole reign an unmitigated despot, whose only god was ambition, and who
stooped short of nothing in order to carry out his designs.
But if the battle of Waterloo was lost through any one’s fault, that
fault was Napoleon’s. He overrated his own victory, looking upon the
Prussian army as crippled, disabled for the time being, while it had
merely been pushed by sheer force from the battle-field. The French army
was as much used up as the Prussian, being unable to pursue, while the
Prussian army took all its baggage and wounded away and retired with
such dispatch and order that Napoleon, sixteen hours after the close of
the battle, did not even know which direction Blücher had taken.
Napoleon had said of the Bourbons that they had not learned anything nor
forgotten anything; the same remark may be applied to himself with equal
justice. He knew neither the newly awakened spirit of the different
German peoples nor the wants and desires of France. All the battles he
fought after his Russian campaign, even those he won, were hotly
contested, for him bare of fruits; had he understood the signs of the
times, he would have known that a nation manifesting such patriotism as
the Prussians did in 1813 could, indeed, be annihilated, but not
conquered; he would have known that Blücher was his most formidable
opponent, and as a wise man he would neither have called him the drunken
huzzar nor treated him as such. Of all Generals that fought Napoleon,
Blücher seems to have been the only one that was not afraid of him; this
Napoleon either knew not or was too proud to admit, hence his defeat and
ruin.
Victor Hugo settles the question in very laconic and magisterial
fashion. After his glowing description of Waterloo in “Les Misérables,”
he says,—
“Was it possible that Napoleon should win this battle? We answer no.
Why? Because of Wellington? Because of Blücher? No. Because of God.
“For Bonaparte to be conqueror at Waterloo was not in the law of the
nineteenth century. Another series of facts were preparing in which
Napoleon had no place. The ill-will of events had long been announced.
It was time that this vast man should fall.
“Napoleon had been impeached before the Infinite, and his fall was
decreed.
“He vexed God.
“Waterloo is not a battle; it is the change of front of the universe.”
_Acadia_
The first successful attempt at colonization in Nova Scotia was made in
1633, when Isaac de Razilly and Charnisay brought out some families from
France. These were the progenitors of the Acadian race. Very capable
people they were,—though for a time they suffered much during the
winters. Yet they kept up bravely, and barred out the sea, and felled
the forests, and cultivated the marshes. They increased and multiplied,
so that by-and-by we find them holding all the valley from Port Royal to
Piziquid. They spread also round the head of the Bay of Fundy. Their
great achievement was reclaiming thousands of acres where formerly the
salt waves ranged at will. Their system of dike-building was remarkable
for strength and durability. They did not pay much attention to things
extraneous, and could not at all understand the inexorable law of
race-conflict which brought the English against them.
This struggle, and the events connected therewith, forms the most
striking period of Nova Scotian history. The whole subject is shrouded
with a mist of controversy, of which the end is not yet. But this is of
small consequence to the romancer. Of course we have had the great
romance of the Acadians,—the tale of “love that hopes, and endures, and
is patient.” Evangeline is a very charming (if very unhistorical)
heroine, and the poem shows how much can be made by an artist out of
good material. Yet Longfellow’s work has by no means exhausted the
possibilities of that exciting period. There is a strong dramatic value
in the opposition of the Acadians and English, and the vast background
of the Anglo-French war.
That war presents many opportunities to the story-writer. The time was
pregnant with fate; the destiny of three nations hinged upon the
outcome. A striking work of fiction lies in the power of him who can
read and weigh musty archives, who has an eye for effective incident and
the skill of a literary craftsman. Beauséjour, Grand Pré and Louisbourg
call up memories that loom large and are lit with battle-fires.
Francis Parkman, in his account of the Acadian exile, says:
“In one particular the authors of the deportation were disappointed in
its results. They had hoped to substitute a loyal population for a
disaffected one; but they failed for some time to find settlers for the
vacated lands. The Massachusetts soldiers, to whom they were offered,
would not stay in the province, and it was not till five years later
that families of British stock began to occupy the waste fields of the
Acadians. This goes far to show that a longing to become their heirs had
not, as has been alleged, any considerable part in the motives for their
removal.
“New England humanitarianism, melting into sentimentality at a tale of
woe, has been unjust to its own. Whatever judgment may be passed on the
cruel measure of wholesale expatriation, it was not put in execution
until every resource had been tried in vain. The agents of the French
court—civil, military, and ecclesiastical—had made some act of force a
necessity. With their vile practices they produced in Acadia a state of
things intolerable and impossible of continuance. They conjured up the
tempest, and when it burst on the heads of the unhappy people, they gave
no help. The government of Louis XV. began with making the Acadians its
tools, and ended with making them its victims.”
_Wolfe at Quebec_
On the 12th of September, 1759, General Wolfe’s plans for the investment
and attack of Quebec were complete, and he issued his final orders. One
sentence in them curiously anticipates Nelson’s famous signal at
Trafalgar. “Officers and men,” wrote Wolfe, “will remember what their
country expects of them.” A feint on Beauport, five miles to the east of
Quebec, as evening fell, made Montcalm mass his troops there; but it was
at a point four miles west of Quebec the real attack was directed.
This point, near the village of Sillery, was a ravine, since called
Wolfe’s Cove, running from the shore of the St. Lawrence up to the
Plains of Abraham, and guarded on the heights by a company of
Bougainville’s men. It was selected under the advice of Major Robert
Stobo (the name given by Gilbert Parker, in “The Seats of the Mighty,”
is Moray), who, five years before, as Parkman says, in “Montcalm and
Wolfe,” had been given as a hostage to the French at the capture of Fort
Necessity, arrived about this time in a vessel from Louisbourg. He had
long been a prisoner at Quebec, not always in close custody, and had
used his opportunities to acquaint himself with the neighborhood. In the
spring of this year he and an officer of rangers named Stevens had made
their escape with extraordinary skill and daring; and he now returned to
give General Wolfe the benefit of his local knowledge.
At two o’clock at night two lanterns appeared for a minute in the
main-top shrouds of the “Sunderland.” It was the signal, and from the
fleet, from the Isle of Orleans and from Point Levis, the English boats
stole silently out, freighted with some three thousand seven hundred
troops, and converged towards the point in the wall of cliffs agreed
upon. Wolfe himself was in the leading boat of the flotilla. Suddenly,
from the great wall of rock and forest to their left, broke the
challenge of a French sentinel: “Qui vive?” A Highland officer of
Fraser’s regiment, who spoke French fluently, promptly answered the
challenge: “France.” “A quel regimént?” “De la Reine,” answered the
Highlander.
On the day before, two deserters from the camp of Bougainville had given
information that at ebb tide a night convoy of provisions for Montcalm,
to meet the necessities of the camp at Beauport, would be sent down the
river. As the men stationed at the various outposts were expecting fresh
supplies, it was easy to deceive the guard at Sillery, and, after a
little further dialogue, in which the cool Highlander completely blinded
the French sentries, the British were allowed to slip past in the
darkness. The cove was safely reached, the boats stole silently up,
twenty-four volunteers from the Light Infantry leaped from their boat
and led the way in single file up the path, that ran like a thread along
the face of the cliff. Wolfe sat eagerly listening in his boat below.
Suddenly from the summit he saw the flash of the muskets and heard the
stern shout which told him his men were up. A clear, firm order, and the
troops sitting silent in the boats leaped ashore, and the long file of
soldiers, like a chain of ants, went up the face of the cliff, Wolfe
amongst the foremost, and formed in order on the plateau, the boats
meanwhile rowing back at speed to bring up the remainder of the troops.
Wolfe was at last within Montcalm’s guard!
When the morning of the 13th dawned, the British army, in line of
battle, stood facing the citadel. Montcalm quickly learned the news, and
came riding furiously across the St. Charles and past the city to the
scene of danger. He rode, as those who saw him tell, with a fixed look,
and uttering not a word. The vigilance of months was rendered worthless
by that amazing night escalade. When he reached the slopes Montcalm saw
before him the silent red wall of British infantry, the Highlanders with
waving tartans and wind-blown plumes—all in battle array. It was not a
detachment, but an army.
The discord and jealousies of divided authority were at once apparent.
Vaudreuil, the governor, failed to send reinforcements to the support of
Montcalm, to meet the crisis, and the struggle was soon ended. Fifteen
minutes of decisive fighting transformed New France into British
territory.
_The Chien d’Or_
On the Rue Buade, a street commemorative of the gallant Frontenac—says
Kirby, in his “Romance of the Days of Louis Quinze in Quebec”—stood the
large imposing edifice newly built by the Bourgeois Philibert, as the
people of the colony fondly called Nicholas Jaquin Philibert, the great
and wealthy merchant of Quebec, and their champion against the odious
monopolies of the Grand Company favored by the Intendant. The edifice
was of stone, spacious and lofty; it comprised the city residence of the
Bourgeois, as well as suites of offices and ware-rooms connected with
his immense business. On its façade, blazing in the sun, was the gilded
sculpture that so much piqued the curiosity of every seigniory in the
land. The tablet of the _Chien d’Or_—the Golden Dog—with its enigmatical
inscription, looked down defiantly upon the busy street beneath, where
it is still to be seen, perplexing the beholder to guess its meaning,
and exciting our deepest sympathies over the tragedy of which it remains
the sole, sad memorial.
Above and beneath the figure of a couchant dog, gnawing the thigh bone
of a man, is graven the weird inscription, cut deeply in the stone, as
if for all future generations to read and ponder over its meaning,—
Je suis un chien qui ronge l’os,
En le rongeant je prends mon repos;
Un temps viendra, qui n’est pas venu,
Que je mordrai qui m’aura mordu.
1736.