"Taillefer, qui moult bien cantait,

Sur un cheval qui tost allait,

Devant as (eux) s'en alait cantant

De Carlemanne et de Rollant,

Et d'Olivier et des vassaus

Qui moururent à Raincevaus."[131]

Although we are not about to give a translation of the whole poem of

four thousand lines, we will present the reader with an abridgment

containing not only the thread of the narrative, but also all the

principal parts of the poem, without change or abbreviation; commencing

with the first stanza in the original French, as a specimen of the rest:

LA CHANSON DE ROLAND.

I.

Carles li reis, nostre emperère magne,

Set ans tuz pleins ad ested en Espaigne,

Tresqu'en la mer cunquist la tere altaigne,

Ni ad kastel ki devant lui remaigne,

Mur ne citet n'i est remes à fraindre

Fors Sarraguce, k'i est en une muntaigne.

Li reis Marsilie la tient, ki Deu n'enaimet;

Mahummet sert e Apollin recleimet

Ne s'poet guarder que mals ne li ateignet, AOI.[132]

ABRIDGED TRANSLATION OF THE SONG OF ROLAND.

Charles the king, our great emperor, has been for seven full years in

Spain, where he has conquered the mountainous land even to the sea. Not

a castle which has held out before him, not a town which he has not

forced to open its gates; Saragossa on the height of its mountain alone

excepted. King Marsilion holds it, who loves not God, serves Mahomet,

and invokes Apollo(!) Nor can he hinder that evil shall befal him.

King Marsilion is reclining in his orchard, on a marble terrace, in

the shade of the trees, and surrounded by more than twenty thousand

men. He takes counsel of his dukes and of his counts how to escape

death or an affront; his army not being strong enough to give battle.

He asks, What shall be done?

No one answers. One only, the subtle Blancandrin, then ventures to

speak. "Feign submission," he says; "send chariots, laden with gold, to

this proud emperor. Promise that, if he will return to France, you will

there join him in his chapel at Aix on the great feast of S. Michael;

that there you will become his vassal, and receive his Christian law.

Does he demand hostages, we will give them. We will send our sons.

At the risk of his life I will send mine. When the French shall have

returned to their homes far away, the day will arrive, the term will

pass by; Charles will have no word from us, no news of us. Should the

cruel one cut off the heads of our hostages, better is it that they

should lose their heads than we our fair Spain."

And the pagans answered, He is in the right.

King Marsilion has broken up his council. He commands that six

beautiful white mules be brought, with saddles of silver and bridles of

gold. To Blancandrin and nine others who are faithful to him he says:

"Present yourselves before Charles, carrying olive branches in your

hands in token of peace and submission. If by your skill you compass

my deliverance from him, what gold, what silver, what lands will I not

bestow upon you!"

The messengers mount their mules, and set forth upon their journey.

The scene changes. We are at Cordova. There it is that Charles holds

his court. He also is in an orchard. At his side are Roland, Oliver,

Geoffrey of Anjou, and many others, sons of sweet France; fifteen

thousand are there. Seated upon silken stuffs, they pass their time

in playing; the oldest and wisest exercise themselves in the game of

chess, the young knights in fencing.

The emperor is seated in a chair of gold, in the shade of a pine-tree

and an eglantine. His beard has the brightness of snow, his figure is

tall and nobly formed, and his countenance majestic. Any man seeking

him has no need to be told which is he.

The pagan messengers, alighting from their mules, humbly salute the

emperor. Blancandrin then addresses him, showing the rich treasures

which his master sends him, and saying: "Are you not weary of remaining

in this land? Should you return to France, the king, our lord, promises

to follow you thither." Thereupon the emperor raises his hands towards

God; then, bending down his head, he begins to reflect. This was his

wont, never hasting to speak. Presently raising himself, he says to the

messengers, "You have spoken well; but your king is our great enemy.

What shall be a pledge to me for the fulfilment of your words?"

"Hostages," replies the Saracen. "You shall have ten, fifteen, or even

twenty, and among them my own son. What more noble hostage could be

given? When you shall have returned to your royal palace, on the great

feast of S. Michael my master will follow you thither. There, in those

baths which God has made for you, he desires to become a Christian."

And Charles made answer, "He may, then, yet be saved!"

The day was bright, the sun shining in full splendor. Charles caused a

large tent to be prepared in the orchard for the ten messengers. There

they passed the night.

The emperor rises betimes. He hears Mass and Matins, and thence going

forth, under the shadow of a tall pine-tree prepares to take counsel

with his barons; for without them he will do nothing.

Soon they are all before him: the duke Oger, the archbishop Turpin,

Roland, the brave Oliver, and Ganelon, the one who would betray them

all.

The council opens. Charles repeats to his barons the words of

Blancandrin. "Will Marsilion come to Aix," he asks. "Will he there make

himself a Christian? Will he be my vassal? I know not what to deem of

his words."

And the French reply, Beware of him.

Roland rises, saying: "Trust not Marsilion. Seven years have we been

in Spain, and during all that time naught have you had from him but

treachery. Fifteen thousand of his pagans have already been to you,

bringing olive branches and the same words as to-day. Your counsellors

advised you to allow a truce. What did Marsilion? Did he not behead two

of your counts, Basan and his brother Basil? Continue the war. Continue

it as you have begun it: lead your army to Saragossa, besiege the city,

and avenge those whom the felon has caused to perish."

While listening to him, the emperor's countenance darkens. He strokes

his beard, and answers nothing. All the French keep silence. Ganelon

alone rises, and, advancing to the emperor with a haughty air, thus

addresses him: "Heed not the headstrong! Heed not me nor any other, but

your own advantage. When Marsilion declares to you with joined hands

that he desires to be your liege-man, to hold Spain from your hand,

to receive your sacred law, are there those who dare to counsel you to

reject his offers? Such have scant regard to the sort of death they are

to die. It is a counsel of pride which ought not to prevail. Let us

leave fools to themselves, and hold to the wise."

After Ganelon rises the duke Naymes. In the whole court there is no

braver warrior. He says to Charles: "You have heard Count Ganelon.

Weigh well his words. Marsilion is conquered; you have razed his

castles, overthrown his ramparts; his towns are in ashes, his soldiers

scattered abroad. When he gives himself up to your mercy, offering you

hostages, wholly to overwhelm him would be a sin. There ought to be an

end to this terrible war."

And the French said, The duke has well spoken.

"Lords barons," resumes Charlemagne, "whom, then, shall we send to

Saragossa to King Marsilion?"

"By your favor, I will go," answers Naymes. "Give me, therefore, the

gauntlet and the staff."

"No," says the emperor. "No, by my beard! A sage like you go so far

away? You will in nowise go. Sit down again." ... "Well, my lords

barons, whom, then, shall we send?"

"Send me," says Roland.

"You!" cries Oliver. "Your courage is too fiery. You would not fail to

get yourself into some difficulty. If the king permits it, I can very

well go."

"Neither you nor he," answers the emperor; "both of you hold your

peace. In that place not one of my twelve peers shall set his foot!"

At these words, every one keeps silence. However, Turpin rises from his

seat--Turpin, Archbishop of Rheims. He, in turn, asks for the glove

and staff; but Charles commands him to sit down, and not say another

word. Then addressing himself once more to his barons, he says, "Free

knights, will you not, then, tell me who shall carry my message to

Marsilion?"

And Roland answers: "Let it be my father-in-law, Ganelon." And the

French agreed, saying: "He is the man you want; for a more skilful one

you could not find."

Ganelon at these words falls into a horrible anguish. He lets slip from

his shoulders his great mantle of marten; his figure is imposing, and

shows well under his coat of silk. His eye sparkles with anger. "Fool!"

he says to Roland, "whence this madness? If God permits me to return,

the gratitude I owe thee shall end but with thy life!"

"I heed not your threatenings," answers Roland. "Pride takes away your

reason. A wise messenger is needed. If the emperor gives me leave, I

set out in your stead."

"Nay," replies Ganelon, "I go. Charles commands me, and I must obey

him; but I would fain delay my departure for a little season, were it

but to calm my anger."

Whereupon Roland began to laugh. Ganelon perceived it, and his fury

was redoubled, insomuch that he was well-nigh out of his senses. He

darted words of wrath at his son-in-law, and then, turning towards the

emperor, said: "Behold me ready to do your bidding. I see well that I

must go to Saragossa; and he who goes thither returns not. Sire, forget

not that I am the husband of your sister. Of her I have a son, the most

beautiful that could be seen. Baldwin will one day be brave. I leave to

him my fiefs and my domains. Watch over him, for never shall I see him

more!"

And Charles made answer: "You have too tender a heart. When I command

it, you must go. Draw near, Ganelon; receive the staff and gauntlet.

You have heard that our Franks have chosen you."

"No, sire, but it is Roland's work; therefore, I hate him--him and his

dear Oliver, and the twelve peers likewise, who love him so well! I

defy them all before your eyes!"

The emperor silences him, and commands him to depart. Ganelon

approaches to take the gauntlet from the hand of Charlemagne, but it

falls to the ground. Heavens! cry the French; what may this forebode?

"My lords," says Ganelon, "you will know by the tidings." He then turns

to the emperor for his dismissal, saying, "Since I must go, wherefore

delay?" Charles with his right hand makes him a sign of pardon, and

places in his hands a letter and the staff.

Ganelon, retiring, equips himself in preparation to depart, fastening

on his heels his beautiful gold spurs; and with his good sword Murgleis

at his side, he mounts his horse Tachebrun, while his uncle Guinemer

holds his stirrup. The knights of his house entreat him with tears to

let them accompany him. "God forbid!" he answers. "Better that I alone

should perish than cause the death of so many brave knights. Go home to

sweet France. Salute on my behalf my wife, and Pinabel, my friend and

comrade; likewise, Baldwin, my son. Aid him, serve him, and hold him

for your lord." Having said thus, he departed on his way.

He had not ridden far before he came up with the Saracen messengers;

Blancandrin, in order to wait for him, having slackened his pace. Then

began between them cautious words. It is Blancandrin who speaks first:

"What a marvellous man is this Charles! He has conquered Apulia,

Calabria, passed the sea, and acquired at St. Peter's the tribute of

the English; but what comes he to seek in our land of Spain?"

And Ganelon makes answer: "Thus his courage wills it. Never will any

man hold out before him!"

"The French," replies the other, "are an exceedingly brave people;

but these dukes and counts who give council to overturn and desolate

everything do great wrong to their lord."

"Of such I know but one," says Ganelon; "it is Roland, and he shall

repent him yet." Thereupon he relates that on a certain day, before

Carcassone, the emperor being seated in a shady meadow, his nephew came

to him, clad in his cuirass, and holding in his hand a rosy apple,

which he presented to his uncle, saying: "Behold, fair sire, of all the

kings in the world I offer you the crowns!" "This mad pride will end in

his ruin, seeing that every day he exposes himself to death. Welcome

will be the stroke that shall slay him! What peace would then be ours!"

"But," said Blancandrin, "this Roland, who is so cruel--this Roland,

who would have every king at his mercy, and take possession of their

dominions--by whose aid will he accomplish his design?"

"By the aid of the French," answered Ganelon. "They so greatly love

him that never will they suffer any fault to be laid at his door. All

of them, even to the emperor, march but at his will. He is a man to

conquer the world from hence to the far East."

By dint of talking as they rode along, they made a compact to work the

death of Roland. By dint of riding, they arrived at Saragossa, and

under a yew-tree they got down.

King Marsilion is in the midst of his Saracens. They keep a gloomy

silence, anxious to learn what news the messengers may bring.

"You are saved!" exclaims Blancandrin, advancing to the feet of

Marsilion, and holding Ganelon by the hand--"saved by Mahomet and

Apollo, whose holy laws we observe. Charles has answered nothing; but

he sends this noble baron, by whose mouth you shall learn whether you

will have peace or war."

"Let him speak," said the king.

Ganelon, after considering a moment, thus begins: "May you be saved

by the God whom we are all bound to adore! The will of the puissant

Charlemagne is this: you shall receive the Christian law; the half of

Spain will be given you in fief. If you refuse to accept these terms,

you shall be taken and bound, led to Aix, and condemned to a shameful

death."

At this discourse the king grows pale, and trembles with fury. His

golden javelin quivers in his hand; he is about to cast it at Ganelon,

but is held back. Ganelon grasps his sword, drawing it two fingers'

length out of the scabbard, and saying, "My beautiful sword! while you

gleam at my side, none shall tell our emperor that I fell alone in this

strange land; with the blood of the best you shall first pay for me."

The Saracens cry out: Let us hinder the combat. At their entreaties,

Marsilion, calming himself, resumed his seat. "What evil possesses

you?" said his uncle, the caliph, "that you would strike this Frenchman

when you ought to hear him?" And Ganelon, meanwhile, composed his

countenance, but kept his right hand still on the hilt of his sword.

The beholders said to themselves, "Truly, he is a noble baron!"

Gradually he draws nearer to the king, and resumes his discourse: "You

are in the wrong to be angry. Our king bestows upon you the half

of Spain; the other half being for his nephew Roland, an insolent

companion I admit; but if you do not agree to this, you will be

besieged in Saragossa, taken, bound, judged, and beheaded. Thus says

the emperor himself in his message to you." So saying, he places the

letter in the pagan's hands.

Marsilion, in a fresh access of rage, breaks the seal, and rapidly

glances over the contents. "Charles talks to me of his resentment!

He calls to mind this Basan, this Basil, whose heads flew off at my

bidding! To save my life, I am to send him my uncle, the caliph;

otherwise he listens to no terms!"

Upon this the king's son exclaims: "Deliver Ganelon to me, that I may

do justice upon him." Ganelon hears him, and brandishes his sword,

setting his back against a pine.

The scene suddenly changes. The king has descended into his garden; he

is calm, and walks with his son and heir, Jurfalen, in the midst of his

vassals. He sends for Ganelon, who is brought to him by Blancandrin.

"Fair Sire Ganelon," says the king, "it may be that I received you

somewhat hastily, and made as if I would have stricken you just now.

To make amends for this mistake, I present you with these sable furs.

Their value is more than five hundred pounds of gold. Before to-morrow,

still more costly ones shall also be yours."

"Sire, it is impossible that I should refuse, and may it please Heaven

to recompense you!"

Marsilion continues: "Hold it for certain, Sir Count, that it is my

desire to be your friend. I would speak with you of Charlemagne. He is

very old, it appears to me. I give him at least two hundred years; how

worn out, therefore, he needs must be! He has spent his strength in so

many lands, when will he be weary of warfare?"

"Never," said Ganelon, "so long as his nephew lives. Roland has not his

equal in bravery from hence to the far East. He is a most valiant man,

and so, likewise, is Oliver, his companion, and these twelve peers, so

dear to the emperor, who march at the head of twenty thousand knights.

Can you expect that Charles should know fear? He is more powerful than

any man here below!"

"Fair sire," replies Marsilion, "I, also, have my army, than which a

finer cannot be found. I have four hundred thousand knights wherewith

to give battle to Charles and his French."

"Trust it not at all," the other answers; "it will cost you dear,

as well as your men. Lay aside this rash boldness, and try a little

management instead. Give the emperor riches so great that our French

will be dazzled by them, and give him twenty hostages. He will then

return into the sweet land of France, leaving the rear-guard to follow,

in which, I trust, may be Count Roland and the valiant Oliver. Only

listen to my counsel, and, believe me, they are dead."

"Show me, fair sire (and may Heaven bless you for it!), how I may slay

Roland."

"I am well able to tell you. When once the emperor shall be in the

great defiles of Cisaire, he will be at a great distance from his

rear-guard. He will have placed in it his beloved nephew and Oliver,

in whom he so greatly confides, and with them will be twenty thousand

French. Send, then, a hundred thousand of your pagans. I do not in

any wise promise that in a first conflict, murderous as it will be to

those of France, there will not also be great slaughter of your men;

but a second engagement will follow, and, no matter in which, Roland

will there remain. You will have done a deed of exceeding bravery, and

through all the rest of your life you will have no more war. What could

Charles do without Roland? Would he not have lost the right arm of his

body? What would become of his wonderful army? He would never assemble

it more. He would lose his taste for warfare, and the great empire

would be restored to peace."

Scarcely has he done speaking, when Marsilion throws his arms round his

neck, and embraces him; then offers, without more delay, to swear to

him that he will betray Roland.

"Be it so, if so it please you," answers Ganelon; and upon the relics

of his sword he swears the treason, and completes his crime.

Marsilion, on his part, causes to be brought, on an ivory throne, the

book of his law, even the book of Mahomet, and swears upon it that, if

he can find Roland in the rear-guard, he will not cease fighting until

he has slain him.

Thereupon Valdabron, a Saracen, who was formerly the king's guardian,

draws near, and, presenting his sword, the best in the world, to

Ganelon, says: "I give you this for friendship's sake; only help us to

get rid of Roland, the baron."

"With all my heart." And they embrace.

Another, Climorin, brings him his helmet: "I never saw its like. Take

it, to aid us against Roland, the marquis."

"Most willingly," says Ganelon; and they also embrace.

Comes at last the queen, Bramimonde. She says to the count, "Sire, I

love you well, seeing that you are very dear to my lord and to all

his subjects. Take these bracelets to your wife. See what gold, what

amethysts and jacinths! Your emperor has none like these; they are

worth all the treasures of Rome!"

And Ganelon takes the jewels.

Marsilion then summons Mauduit, his treasurer. "Are the gifts prepared

for Charlemagne?"

"Sire, they are in readiness. Seven hundred camels laden with gold and

silver, and twenty hostages of the noblest under heaven."

Then, with his hand on Ganelon's shoulder, the king says to him:

"You speak fair and fine; but, by this law which you hold to be the

best, beware of changing purpose towards us." After this, he promises

that every year he will send him, as rent, ten mules laden with

gold of Arabia; he gives him the keys of Saragossa to be carried to

Charlemagne. "But, above all, see that Roland be in the rear-guard,

that we may surprise him, and give him mortal combat."

Ganelon replies, "It seems to me that I have already tarried here too

long." And he mounts his steed and departs.

At daybreak he reaches the emperor's quarters. "Sire," says he, "I

bring you the keys of Saragossa, twenty hostages, and great treasure;

let them be guarded well. It is Marsilion who sends them. As to the

caliph, marvel not because he does not come. With my own eyes I saw

him embark on the sea with three hundred thousand armed men; they were

all weary of the rule of Marsilion, and were going forth to dwell in

the midst of Christians; but at four leagues from the coast a furious

tempest overwhelmed them, so that all were drowned. If the caliph had

been living, I would have brought him hither. Believe me, sire, before

a month is over, Marsilion will have joined you in France; he will

receive the Christian law, and will, as your vassal, do you homage for

the kingdom of Spain."

"Then God be praised!" said Charles. "You have well delivered your

message, and it shall profit you well."

The clarions sound. Charles proclaims the war at an end. The soldiers

raise the camp; they load the sumpter horses; the army is in motion,

and on its way towards the sweet land of France. Nevertheless, the

day closes; the night is dark. Charlemagne sleeps. In a dream he sees

himself in the great defiles of Cisaire, with his lance of ash-wood in

his hand. Ganelon seizes hold of it, shaking it so violently that it

flies in pieces, and the splinters are scattered in the air.

TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT MONTH.

FOOTNOTES:

[131] "Taillefer, who excellently sang, Mounted upon a charger swift,

Before them went forth singing Of Charlemagne and Roland, Of Oliver and

of the vassals Who died at Roncevaux."

[132] The ancient MS. of Versailles, now in the possession of M.

Bourdillon, begins,

"Challes li rois à la barbe grifaigne

Sis ans toz plens a este en Espaigne," etc.,

the thirteen lines of the stanza all ending with the same rhyme.

LAUS PERENNIS.[133]

In the early days of emigration, before the industry of the Old World

had cut down the forests and muddied the streams of the New, a young

man sat at noontide by the banks of a river, an insignificant tributary

of one of those mighty veins that intersect the continent from Canada

to Florida. His face was a study. He had the features of the North,

with thick, fair hair and glittering blue eyes, but his form was

slighter, though not less sinewy, than a Saxon's. Nerves of steel

and a will of iron, generosity and self-sacrifice, the bravery of an

Indian and the fidelity of a dog--such was the tale revealed by his

exterior. His history was simple. He was the son of a petty farmer in

Normandy, and the foster-brother of the Baron de Villeneuve. He had

been brought up with the young baron, an only child, and had been his

companion in his studies as well as his sports. Every one noticed how

refined his manner was, how noble his bearing; and yet his village

friends never had reason to complain of any superciliousness in his

deportment towards them. His mother, feeling that his superiority

would be wasted if he remained in the groove in which it seemed his

natural destiny to travel, earnestly wished for a different career for

her favorite, and urged him to enter the priesthood. This he was too

conscientious to do, feeling no call to so high an office; and his

foster-brother, in his turn, warmly recommended the army. Napoleon was

then in the full blaze of his military glory, and merit might win the

metaphorical spurs of what remained as the substitute of knighthood,

without the weary delays of official routine. But the young Norman was

insensible to military glory. There was no fair damsel, with high cap

and ancestral gold necklace, with spinning-wheel and a dowry of snowy,

homespun linen, who had made his heart beat one second faster than

it had in childhood. If his foster-brother had had a sister, Robert

Maillard would have been the very man to have loved her as the knights

of old loved the lady of their dreams, hoping for no reward save a

knot of ribbon and a pitying glance of faint approval. He had read of

such love, and of fairies, elves, and witches, of impossible quests,

and of princely donations; but he felt that the world had changed,

and that these things could never be again. Strong and brave as he

was, he began life with a secret hopelessness, knowing that it could

never give him the only things he longed for. One day, in the midst

of his irresolution as to what work he should undertake, knowing all

work to be but a _passe-temps_ until eternity gave him the life he

coveted, an old sea captain made his appearance in the inland village,

and electrified the inhabitants by tales of discovery and adventure,

of which curious proofs were not wanting in the shape of carved idols

two inches long, mineral lumps of diminutive size, a string of wampum,

etc., etc., and, above all, a tame monkey. Robert listened to the

"ancient mariner" with delight, and, never having seen the ocean, was

suddenly fired by a wild wish to try his fortune across the Atlantic.

Here was a land as wild as the Armorican forests in the old tales

of chivalry and legends of monasticism--a virgin land of practical

freedom, where new empires might be carved by the strong and willing

hand, and new mines of knowledge laid open by the daring intellect. It

was not money that the simple Norman thought of; it was excitement,

adventure, vague possibilities, limitless solitudes where hermits and

hunters might live and dream. To leave Normandy was not exile to him;

to leave all those he loved was not separation; but do not think he was

heartless. He only lived in a shadow-world of high, heroic deeds, and

the commonplaces of bucolic life palled upon him. Instinct bade him

seek something beyond home, with its petty interests; and never slow to

execute his resolutions, once they were formed, he bargained with the

old sailor to take him to America as soon as he recrossed the ocean.

From his father he received his portion of the scanty inheritance due

to him, and left home as the prodigal--so said his weeping mother. His

foster-brother loaded him with weapons of all kinds, and forced upon

him clothes enough to last a lifetime in a country where fashion seldom

changed. The first sight of the ocean was a poem to Robert. He thought

of the galleys of the Crusaders, as they sailed to the Land of Promise;

of Columbus and his unbelieving crew on their perilous way to the land

of faith. The glorious western sunsets awoke a new feeling in the heart

of the adventurer; he felt that this new "Ultima Thule" was the land of

the poet as well as of the warrior, and that its majesty, its serene

massiveness, should be, not the prey of murderous passion, but the

field of a new-born art. Here was a land whose history, if it had any,

had been blotted out, but whose immortal beauty was a picture of the

lost Eden--the true home of enthusiasm, the virgin parchment on which

to write a new hymn to the God whom its beauty revealed almost in a new

light. Such were not the thoughts of most pilgrims to the New World; if

they had been, people would have said that the millennium had come.

A Sir Galahad walks the earth but once in a century, and he has no

compeers. Such was our Robert. Why does the world call those men

_dreamers_ whose ideal is the only true reality, while the life of the

world around them is one long nightmare?

Robert's life, after he had landed in one of the old sea-coast cities,

was a checkered one. He fled from the civilization that had stifled

him at home, and which he saw with dismay roughly reproduced in the

communities of the sea-board; he found few men whose talk did not jar

upon him; even in the wilderness, when he came to a log-cabin, he

heard the oaths of low city haunts; in pastoral settlements, he found

no pastoral innocence; and even among the friendly Indians they asked

him for spirits, when he would have spoken of God. Discouraged and

oppressed, he persisted in setting his face ever westward, till at last

he came to a river, as it seemed to him; a brook, as it would figure

on the map. He wondered if man had ever been here before, but smiled

to himself the moment after, knowing that the red man, the natural

possessor of this princely inheritance, must have often breathed his

prayer to the Great Spirit by the banks of this stream. He began to

think how useless the discovery of this new continent had been, since

hitherto the country had been but a new field for the white man's sins,

a new theatre for the red man's sorrows. He fell to thinking of his own

far-off ancestors, roaming morass and forest, like these sturdy men

of bronze, hunting the deer, and wolf, and bear, like them, painting

their bodies like them, worshipping bloody gods of war, rearing

children indefatigable on sea and land--Scandinavian vikings, fair,

and ruddy, and golden-haired, each man a chief in stature, and their

chiefs giants. How like the race that still lorded it over these new

realms! But God's messengers had come among the Norsemen and daunted

their fierceness, turned their vices into virtues, and leavened, with a

true and manly, a Christian, civilization, their hardy, freedom-loving

tribes. Robert knew of the many efforts of the missionaries among the

Indians; but he knew, also, that it was the evildoing of the whites

that made these efforts so fruitless. It seemed as if wherever the

human race set foot it must disturb God's working; and in sudden

disgust at his kind, he vowed never willingly to enter again any

community of whites. Commerce was imposition, respectability was

hypocrisy, civilization was cruelty. "God and my dreams alone remain,"

he cried; "with them I will walk, and forget that any other building

exists save a church; that there is any language save prayer; any human

beings save God's worthy ministers!" Before long, the scent of the

pines and cedars lulled him to sleep, and, happy in his isolation, he

did not resist the drowsiness that, by the banks of Norman streamlets,

had often preceded the sweetest moments of his life.

Soon the pines began to sing in the strong wind that rocked them, and

the song shaped itself into a hymn of praise, the words seeming to

echo the form of David's psalm: "Then shall all the trees of the wood

rejoice before the face of the Lord, for he cometh.... Praise him, ye

strong winds that fulfil his word; ... fruitful trees and all cedars."

A voice came out of the rocks, as if wafted over miles of space,

and, mingling with the song of the pines, chanted with it, "The

treasure-house of the Lord is in the stones of the earth; from my

bosom flow the rivers of life-giving waters"; and gently the sound

of tinkling rivulets was added to the deep song of praise. It seemed

as if all creation, bent upon doing the task respectively allotted

to each of its parts, had met in conclave round that obscure Western

river, before the tribunal of a sleeping mortal. As the shadows grew

darker, the howl of wild beasts was heard, inexplicably free from

the impression of terror, and strangely fitting in with the hymn of

inanimate nature. At twilight, a concert of sweet scents rose from the

earth, and vaporous clouds bore up the prayer of the fruitful soil, a

gentle sound, as of crystal bells, accompanying the sacrifice.

"Let your prayer arise before me as an evening offering," came faintly

from somewhere, and the cry of myriads of insects rose to greet

the echo. Nothing seemed discordant. Robert, as it were, heard the

world-pulse beat, and yet was neither appalled nor astonished; it was

the same voice, whose whispers he knew, which was speaking to him now,

only it spoke aloud. A moaning sound, muffled and sad, but grave as the

voice of a teacher, now rose above the others, and the sleeper knew

that it was that of the ocean:

"The floods have lifted up their waves with the voices of many waters.

Wonderful are the surges of the sea; wonderful is the Lord on high."

Robert thought how true and how grand was this remorseless servant of

the Almighty will. It does its work though fleets brave its decrees,

and science peers into its secrets like a child feebly grasping a

two-edged sword. It obeys God, and its work, not its voice, is its hymn

of praise. But there is another mighty angel at work in the heavens,

and the trumpet-tones of his voice ring in the thunder behind those

fast-coming clouds. Tawny gold and ashen gray, like the shroud of a

fallen world, those clouds sweep up on the horizon; blades of light

rend them for a moment, and a livid radiance darts into every crevice

of the forest; the song of the pines is hushed, and the hymn of the

storm peals out:

"Holy and terrible is thy name.... Fire shall go forth before

thee; ... thy lightnings shine upon the world; ... for thou art

fearfully magnified!"

A cathedral of ice seems to grow suddenly out of the pine forest; the

trees are turned to crystal pinnacles, a world of untrodden snow lies

all around, and within the silence of the grave. Rose-colored lights

play on the fairy turrets, and turn the ice-pillars to amber and topaz.

More sublime than any dream of mediæval enchantment, Robert gazes

spellbound on this crowning marvel, and, though no articulate words

strike his ear, he is conscious of a life permeating this realm of

silence; of a link with all other creatures of God, which, if it spoke,

would utter the words that well spontaneously from his own heart:

"Thy knowledge is become too wonderful for me.... Whither shall I go

from thy spirit, and whither shall I flee from thy face?"

But he is no idle gazer, treating the world as a show; he is a

disciple--the Dante of Nature, led by her to the song-halls of her

everlasting concert, taught by her that all things have a voice to

glorify God and a mission to execute for him. He may not stay in the

heart of the pole, for other lessons are all around him, and the time

to learn them is so short--never more than a hundred years, seldom even

the third of that time!

The silent world melts from sight, and the earth seems to recede;

the blue vault of heaven is nearer; a rushing sound, so awful that

his humanity shudders at it, yet so beautiful that it deadens the

remembrance of the gentle sounds of the pine-trees, the crystal

flower-bells, the wind, and even the rolling of the sea, wraps his

being into itself, and holds him in its mighty spell. Worlds of light

flash by him; of their size he knows naught, of their qualities less;

but their radiance seems to him the face of God, "which no man can look

upon and live," while their voice is as that of a thousand cataracts,

each ringing forth a separate and harmonious note. "The heavens

declare the glory of God, and the firmament proclaimeth the works of

his hands." Did these words come out of the sound, or were they in

his own heart, and did the sound draw them into itself, as the great

ocean would draw back to its bosom some lonely fragment of its realm,

stranded for a moment by the last wave that kissed the shore? Robert

could not tell. He scarcely breathed. He would fain have kept this

vision for ever; he trembled at the idea of leaving a world after which

his own would look like a hive of bees, and whose sounds were so potent

that all the sounds of earth, massed together in one, would barely

seem a whisper in comparison. But his pilgrimage was not a reward,

not even a trial; it was only an apprenticeship. Hardly a transition,

save the coming of dawn and a consciousness of some void, and again

Robert gazed upon familiar scenes of earth. The sun's forerunner was

flushing the sky, and a wall of living water stood before him. He

watched intently; no sound came to his ears. Yet he could see the

coronal of rainbow-tinted foam rising at the feet of the cataract, and

felt as if this must be the very passage through which God's people

of old had come dry-shod in the bed of the sea. As he stood below,

breathlessly waiting, the crown of the waterfall quivered with a new

light, and the sun a crimson disk, rose slowly into sight. It seemed

as though a bleeding Host were lifted up to heaven in a chalice of

living jewels. A murmur began to rise from the clouds of spray; it grew

louder and stronger, and Robert knew that the voice of the cataract had

reached his ears at last. It was but a faint echo of that ineffable

hymn of the spheres which rang yet in his memory, but it was none the

less the sublimest sound he had heard on earth. Vaguely came to his

understanding a fragment of its meaning:

"Glory to the Power whose breath has built us into a wall, and whose

breath could hurl us like a flood over the corn-fields of man."

When Adam disobeyed God in Eden, this cataract was already thousands

of years old, and for ages had done God's bidding, calm as eternity,

regular as the course of the planets. Robert pondered on this sublime

obedience of all strong things to the law of the Creator, while man,

the weakest of creation, thought it a shame to follow any will but

his own. But even as he stood thinking, the earth seemed to tremble

beneath him, and he sank gently into its heaving bosom. A darkness that

bred more awe than terror encompassed him, and he felt that he was in

the presence of one of God's most dreaded ministers. Strange thunders

echoed around him, and a bewildered consciousness of some mysterious

agency being about him came to his wondering spirit. Out of the

darkness grew a twilight, in which objects began to be distinguishable;

precious ore glistened on the face of the rocks; metals and jewels,

heaped in confusion, met his eye; silver daggers hung within reach of

his hand, like bosses from a Gothic roof; columns of sparkling minerals

shot up like enchanted trees by his side; while the plashing of

fountains, the rushing of lava-rivers, and the dull, perpetual thunder

of ascending flames reached his ear--a dusky kingdom, awful in the

force it suggested, but hushed and chained by a power greater still;

a silent kingdom, the workshop of nature, where our dreamer feared

but to tread, lest a volcano might be set in motion on the earth, or

an earthquake overwhelm a score of cities. But not before hearing the

_credo_ of this mighty world could he leave its regions; it smote upon

him from out the roar of a furnace, whence a stream of blinding light

ran slowly into a rocky channel. Molten iron flowed at his feet, and a

voice sang in his ear:

"The earth is the Lord's; the compass of the world, and all that dwell

therein."

Like hammer-blows came the dread words; no spirit in living shape was

near, yet a living presence seemed to glow in each fiery stream or

glittering rock: the guidance of a will that, millions of ages ago,

spoke one creative word, was enough to lead the revolutions and point

the unerring road of this grim realm till time should be no more.

Slowly the walls of darkness dissolved, and the hard floor of metals

turned to a fine white powder, soft yet firm; trees grew up, but they

were white as with hoar-frost; and a marvellous vegetation sprang into

being, the mosses swaying to and fro, the flowers moving from rock to

rock, the fields of greenest grass swaying as if with animal life.

Jewels hung from the fairy rocks, but they closed a strong grip on the

finger that touched them; pearls lay scattered on the sandy floor, and

back and forth fled swift creatures all lace and film, like animated

cobwebs. Robert felt, by instinct, that as he had visited the bowels of

the earth, so now he was roaming the garden of the ocean. In reverent

wonder he paused, looking upward as if to the sky; and in the liquid

firmament wandering stars of fitful radiance shone out upon him. They

came now singly, now in strings like the milky way, or again in fields,

as if a flag had been studded with glow-worms. As he could not tell

why in the heart of volcanic fires he had been neither stifled nor

consumed, so now he knew not why he was not drowned; but with the water

veiling everything around, dripping in the coral caves, beating against

the rocks, stirring the living petals of millions of sea-flowers, he

stood upright, waiting for the voice that must swell the everlasting

song. It rose at first, as though muffled by the water, grew stronger

and clearer, till, in a tone of triumph, it gave forth its glad pæan:

"Bless the Lord, all ye seas and floods; ... all that move in the

waters; ... ye dragons of the deep."

"Is man, then, the only rebel in creation," Robert thought sadly, "the

only ungrateful one, who thinks it a loss of time to sing the praises

of God?" And an answer seemed to knock at his heart, saying:

"Work is prayer, work is song."

Again the sea-walls broke, the jewel-flowers disappeared, and a change

came over the dreamer. Snowy mountains; fleecy peaks, purple-shadowed

where the sunset light caught their sides; level horizons of gold,

suggesting far lands of miraculous radiance; banks of crimson by dun

oceans, seeming the grave of a thousand worlds; a solitude oppressive

and sublime; a silence which not even the riving asunder of the gray

mountain or dissolving of the tawny shore into the ocean of blue can

break--such was the new scene on which Robert gazed. Entranced with

its beauty, he told himself that this was lovelier than even the

ice-cathedral amid the soundless world of snow; and here would he

fain build him a home, and wander out his pilgrimage; for "this is the

threshold of heaven." Now the sun came from behind the translucent

masses, and left streaks of opal and amethyst where his footprints had

pressed the fleecy snow; and the dreamer started as the device of this

world of amazing beauty and absolute obedience flashed into his eyes

from out the great, golden heart of the sun. Here there was no voice,

as elsewhere; but the words were burned into Robert's mind as he gazed

at the mighty orb:

"He has set his tabernacle in the sun; hereafter ye shall see the Son

of man sitting at the right hand of the power of God, and coming in the

clouds of heaven."

No sooner had the dreamer gathered this new verse of the world-song

into his memory, than the mountains and plains, the valleys and the

sea, began to dissolve in mist. He stretched out his hands imploringly,

as if to stay the wondrous vision in its flight; but he struck at empty

air, and sank gently towards the earth. An echo from afar wafted him an

answer, which seemed a promise that the cloud-land would receive him

once more at some distant day, but the words were rather a command than

an encouragement:

"Work is prayer, work is song."

And now a scene broke upon his sight, which made him think he was back

among the apple-orchards and smiling farms of Normandy--a fair and

tranquil scene: wide meadows, with flocks of kine grazing, fields of

corn ripe for the sickle, and orchards, round which girls and boys

were frolicking in holiday costume. Beyond that was a village of white

huts and a church all of wood, its porch hung with evergreens, and a

wedding-party grouped beneath; and through the landscape the same

river on whose banks Robert thought he had fallen asleep once years

ago, when it flowed through the heart of the primeval forest. Higher

up in the distance were still the old pine-woods; but there was much

timber felled, and great rafts were paddled down the stream, laden with

the wealth of the forest. Robert knew that civilization had come to

this spot with a cross in its hand instead of a sword, and baptismal

dews instead of "fire-water." He saw the bronzed, athletic men of

the New World working like brothers side by side with the stalwart,

golden-haired pilgrims from the Old; and he looked around to see who

had thus brought about that which his former experience had sadly told

him was an impossibility. Just then there rose a chant from the village

church:

"Sing to the Lord a new song. Offer up the sacrifice of justice and

hope in the Lord, ... who showeth us good things.... By the fruit

of their corn, and wine, and oil are they multiplied"; while from

the fields where the red man and the white toiled together rose an

answering chorus: "Behold how good and pleasant it is for brethren

to dwell together in unity." Then from the church came a long file

of dark-robed men, with cowls of ancient make, like those that the

Norman boy had seen carved on the monuments of the abbots in his own

land--nay, his own village (for Villeneuve had once belonged to the

Benedictines)--and they marched in slow procession to a spot of ground

a mile beyond the gathering of white huts.

Here a large area was marked out in the shape of a cross, the outline

being drawn in wreaths of gaily-colored autumn leaves. Many Indians

stood round the enclosure, and one old chief kept in his hands a

quantity of wampum belts. Opposite him was a man of athletic build,

nearly seventy years old, in whom Robert thought he saw a great

likeness to himself as he might become in a happy and prosperous old

age. The chief of the dark-robed men lifted up his voice, and addressed

this figure:

"Robert Maillard"--and the dreamer started to hear his own name--"this

day you end a noble work; you crown a life worthy to be held in

remembrance for ever. You came to this spot a wanderer without an aim,

at war with man, almost despairing of God. You stand here, after half

a century has gone over your head, the father of your people, the

benefactor of two races, the founder, so to speak, of a new kingdom.

You crown the sacrifice of a lifetime used in God's service by a free

gift of your choicest possession to his everlasting majesty. To all

ages will a school of holy discipline and of sacred song plead for

you at the throne of God, and the _laus perennis_ of holy lives shall

represent the ceaseless hymn of inanimate creation to its Lord."

Then the old man turned to the Indian chief, and called him. "My

brother," he said, "I have only given to God what you gave me; without

a fair title to your land, I durst not have offered it to the God whose

eldest child on this side of the sea is the red man; and half the

blessing which this reverend minister of our Lord has promised me falls

to your share."

"My pale-faced brother speaks words of justice and of wisdom," answered

the chief; "his God shall be my God, and his people my people, because

his faith has taught him truth and honesty towards his red brother. The

black-robe hath spoken well, and Great Eagle is glad to hear him praise

the friend of his people, and he who hath taught the Indian maidens to

sing the song of the stars and the clouds."

So saying, he laid at the priest's feet a wampum belt; and as each

ceremony of the laying of a first stone was completed, he laid down

another, as if ratifying the compact after the manner of his people.

The dreamer stood apart in silent wonder; the dark-robed choir intoned

the psalm _Lauda Jerusalem_:

"Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem! Praise thy God, O Sion!"

"For he hath strengthened the bars of thy gates; he hath blessed thy

children within thee.

"He hath made peace within thy borders, and filleth thee with the

fatness of corn."

At last the procession turned back towards the white church, and all

the people, Indians as well as white men, joined its ranks. Robert

followed last of all, and an echo to the song of joy and praise rose

from his enlightened heart, whispering:

"Work is prayer, work is song."

He looked around; he knew the spot well; a little higher up the stream

was the place where he had rested at noontide, before his eyes were

opened to the true mission allotted him in life. He knew that this was

the warning, which, if he neglected it, would make of him no longer an

innocent dreamer, but a useless vagabond, a rebellious creature of God.

If poetry and beauty, truth and honesty, were things of the past, it

was at least the duty of every Christian to do what he could to make

them once more things of the present. No man who owed allegiance to the

great Maker of all things could go idly through life, a vain mourner

over an impossible ideal; he must bear his share of work, and do his

utmost to build up anew the spiritual temple of truth. And he, above

all, who had been led through the secret treasure-houses of nature,

and had listened to the ceaseless hymn of praise which the creatures of

God sang as they followed the immutable laws set down for them by their

Lord--he, above all, dared not stand still nor refuse the tribute of

his voice. He would not be an alien among his brethren, the children

of God. With these thoughts, he slowly followed the crowd as it filled

the little church, and broke out again into strains of solemn gladness,

singing:

"Now dost thou dismiss thy servant in peace, O Lord, according to thy

word; for my eyes have seen thy salvation."

The song grew fainter, and the multitude seemed to dissolve before his

eyes, as Robert, standing up, gazed around him. Everywhere the primeval

forest hemmed him in; the river flowed at his feet, clogged with mossy

boulders, and fringed with delicate fern; the squirrels rattled in the

trees with a sound like castanets; and the silvery disk of the moon was

just visible over the tree-tops. The young wanderer knew that he had

slept for many hours; but he awoke a new being. Reverently he gazed

upon the silent landscape, to which a fellowship beyond the expression

of human tongues now bound him; and, as he repeated slowly the prayers

that he had said at his mother's knee in the old Norman homestead,

he felt that at last his life's work had been pointed out to him.

He had read the pages of a book more wonderful than the romances of

troubadours, the tales of the Minnesingers, and even the chronicles

of olden abbeys; he had heard how the world was bound by a chain of

song, never ceasing, never wearying; and henceforth his frail human

life must not mar this awe-inspiring harmony; his heart must throb with

the world's heart, his voice sing in unison with the great voice of

creation. Night passed, and he scarcely slept; morning came, and found

him still in his holy rapture. Before long, an Indian approached him--a

tall and stately son of the forest, one still uncorrupted by the thinly

veiled heathenism of the white "children of the sun." He had never seen

a white man, though he had often heard of them. Robert knew a little

of some of the Indian tongues, but not that of the new-comer. What

with signs and a few words akin to those which the Indian spoke, they

gradually made friends; but the red man still gazed upon Robert with an

awe not unmixed with terror. He handled his weapons and his garments,

touched reverentially his fair and tangled locks, and at intervals drew

long breaths of astonishment and admiration. He then led him to the

assembly of his tribe, and Robert soon learnt enough of their language

to be able to speak fluently with them. He told them how he came there,

and spoke to them of the true God; and, though at first they listened

quietly, they soon grew grave. They had heard of the cruelty and

treachery of white men, who all professed to believe in this true God,

and they dared not trust to this teaching.

Then Robert had a happy inspiration. He told them of his dream, and

they brightened up at once; this was language such as they loved to

hear; these were parables such as they instinctively understood. He

told them of his life in Normandy, of his journey across the great salt

water, of his longings after a beautiful land of brotherly love, such

as had been shown to him in his dream. He asked them to help him in his

work for God.

We cannot dwell longer on the details of the story of this settlement

in the wilderness, but some things must be briefly touched upon. In

due time, the Indian tribe gave Robert a grant of many miles of land,

and he, in return, promised them protection, justice, equality, and

peace. One priest at first, then gradually others, came to preach the

Gospel; and the path of truth was exceptionally smooth in this strange

oasis. Robert called his settlement by a name which few at first

could understand--Perpetual Praise. Parts of the forest were cleared;

a thriving lumber trade was established; cottages sprang up; many

emigrants from fair Normandy flocked in, yet settlers of other lands

were all welcomed as brothers; a civilization that was rather that of

the monastery than of the factory sprang up, and Indians and whites

worshipped God side by side in joy and peace.

As years went by, Robert took an Indian wife, and loved her as

faithfully as though she had been the princess of some chivalric

romance: he had found his ideal at last. Sometimes--it was impossible

that it should be otherwise--there would be a ripple of adversity over

the smooth waters of this pastoral life; crime might throw a shadow

on the settlement; but peace was promptly restored, and Robert became

known as the justest and most merciful judge for hundreds of miles

around. He was the arbiter and referee of every feud, the father of

his colony, the terror of evil-doers. Over his house-door--a wide,

open-armed porch where his Indian sons, with locks of bronze, played

the games of infant Samsons at his feet--was carved in crimson letters

this brave motto:

"Work is prayer, work is song."

As his years advanced, he grew more thoughtful yet. One idea remained

unrealized; and now that the settlement had had a life almost as long

as the third of a century, he felt that it was time to begin the new

and crowning work. He negotiated with the Benedictine abbeys of France,

and held out hopes to them of the free gift of at least five hundred

acres of land for the foundation of a priory of their order, together

with a school of missionaries for the Indians, and for the revival of

sacred chant--a study Robert had greatly at heart. He received very

favorable answers and, before he died, he saw the wish of his heart in

a fair way to be accomplished.

The day of the arrival of the first Benedictine monks was a festival

throughout the settlement. Indian and European decorations vied with

each other; beads, feathers, flags, lanterns of painted birch-bark,

flowers strewn on the paths, wreaths hung from tree to tree, all

represented but poorly the heartfelt enthusiasm of the people. In a few

months, the old chant of the church in the early ages echoed through

the woods and corn-fields of the New World; the Divine Office was sung

in the intervals of agricultural labor; seven times a day did the bells

utter their summons to prayer, yet the fields and flocks thrived none

the less for this continuous intercession. The boys of red and white

race mingled their locks of black and gold, poring over the books of

church psalmody; the maidens and matrons joined in from their seats in

the body of the church. The wilderness became populous, great artists

came to sketch the stately figures of the monks and the innocent faces

of the choristers as they moved from choir to ploughed field, from

school to pasture; curious folks came to visit the little spot of land

where a great experiment had been tried and had not failed; musicians

came to seek rest for their minds and inspiration for their art; poets

came to describe the new Arcadia, and holy men to praise God in the

temple where such great graces had been conferred.

Robert Maillard began to fear that such publicity would endanger the

very perfection which was the theme of admiration, and with redoubled

fervor did he pray for his beloved work. As last came a day when

he knew that his earthly task was over; like a patriarch among his

people, he gathered the heads of the little community around him, and

blessed them, exhorting them to persevere in the happy and innocent

life of "Perpetual Praise." His wife knelt at his feet, his sons stood

around him, and one of them led by the hand a young child, whose eyes

were Indian eyes, but whose skin was nearly as fair as that of her

grandfather.

The Benedictine monks stood around Robert's bedside, chanting the

Divine Office; but suddenly the dying man raised his hands to heaven,

and, mingling his voice with the song of Compline, called out clearly

and joyously, as if in answer to some interior voice: "I come, O Lord!

Work has been prayer; be it now song."

FOOTNOTES:

[133] It was the custom in many of the monasteries of the VIth and

VIIth centuries, especially those of the rule of S. Columba, for

the monks to be divided into choirs, alternately officiating in the

church, and by means of which the divine praises were uninterruptedly

sung during the whole twenty-four hours. The "Perpetual Adoration"

is the only similar institution in our day, and the small number of

communities accounts for the discontinuance of the custom.

ENGLISH SKETCHES.

II.

RUINS OF AN OLD ABBEY.

In the year of grace 1121, Henry I. was reigning in England. On the

sudden death of his brother, William Rufus, he had seized the crown,

which devolved by right on the next elder brother, Robert of Normandy,

Robert being just then absent in the Holy Land, where, by military

exploits of high renown and sweet courtesy of manner, he was winning

the hearts of his soldiers and of Christendom. Hearing how things

were going in England, he set sail in haste for Normandy; and there

calling a fleet together, he steered towards Dover, where the usurper,

apprised of his arrival, stood with an army drawn up upon the shore

awaiting him. For three days and nights the brothers stood at bay,

like two tigers ready to fly at one another's throats, but neither

daring to strike the first blow in their fratricidal war. Presently

we see gliding high up along the cliffs a venerable figure, clad in

priestly garb, and bearing an olive branch in his hand. His name is

Anselm. He has been roughly handled by Rufus, and has little kindness

to expect from his successor. But Anselm heeds not his own interest or

his life; he goes boldly forward, and with outstretched hand entreats

the brothers to desist from their bloody intent, to exchange the kiss

of peace, and settle their quarrel as became men and Christians. They

hearkened to the voice of the saintly primate. This was his first

service to Henry, and it was quickly followed by others so numerous

and so important that the scholarly king, moved partly by gratitude,

and partly by a desire to atone for certain of his own and his

predecessor's misdemeanors towards the church, resolved, in 1121, to

build a monastery which should be one of the glories of his reign, and

bear witness to the end of time to his devout allegiance to the faith.

With this view he built the Benedictine Abbey of Reading. It was on

so royal a scale, both of magnitude and architectural splendor, that

even now, in their utter dilapidation, the fragments of the cyclopean

ruins give us no inadequate idea of what it must have been in the days

of its strength and glory. The gigantic skeleton walls, as they stand

out gaunt and ragged against the sky, resemble rather rocks than the

remains of the work of puny human hands. The style was in the massive

and lofty Norman Gothic of the period, as may be seen from the few bold

arches that have withstood alike the ravages of time, the artillery of

Cromwell, and modern depredations. The abbey was one of the wealthiest

in the kingdom, and the mitred abbot was counted among the notable

authorities of the land. He not only took rank with the highest nobles,

but he enjoyed, likewise, many of the supreme prerogatives of royalty;

he was privileged to coin money, and to confer the honor of knighthood.

He exercised hospitality to kings and princes, and that right royally.

King Henry, the founder, was a frequent guest at the monastery with

his court, who were entertained there for weeks at a time with regal

magnificence. The king was extremely fond of the abbey and the monks,

and made it his custom to spend Holy Week there every year. After

performing his Paschal duties in company with his family and his court,

and passing the solemn week in fasting and prayer, he celebrated the

joyful Easter dawn with a festive merriment, in which all the town was

invited to join. Bonfires blazed on every surrounding hill, ale ran

in the gutters, the poor were clad and fed, and all within reach of

the royal bounty felt the joy of the Paschal alleluia. Queen Adeliza

shared her husband's partiality for this lordly monastic retreat, and

at various festivals through the year repaired to it, sometimes with

her son, sometimes only with her women-in-waiting. When Henry died of

overindulgence in his favorite dish of lampreys, at Rouen, he directed

that his heart should remain there, but that his body should rest

under the roof of his beloved Benedictine abbey. After his demise, it

still continued to be a royal residence, and was often frequented by

Henry II., who held a parliament there for the first time in 1184--an

example which was followed repeatedly in the course of the succeeding

reigns; the calm of the cloister offering a fitter atmosphere for grave

deliberation to the law-makers than the hall of Westminster, disturbed

as it was by courtly intrigues and political agitations. In 1452,

Parliament was adjourned to Reading Abbey from Westminster, on account

of the sudden outbreak of the plague, and later, in 1466, for the same

reason. It was the scene of other meetings not devoid of historical

importance. Here the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Heraclius, visited Henry

II., and presented him with the keys of the Holy Sepulchre and the

royal banners of the city, in hopes of luring him to undertake another

crusade for the deliverance of the holy places.

Henry III. passed more of his time at Reading Abbey than at any of his

own palaces; here he convoked assemblies of the nobles, and received

brother princes and European guests of distinction. It was in the west

hall of the monastery that Edward IV. received his fair young queen,

Elizabeth Widville. In this same hall Longchamp, Bishop of Ely, who

had the regency in the absence of Richard Cœur de Lion in Palestine,

was put upon his trial. Two other ecclesiastical councils were held

here in the reign of John. When Richard II., through the intervention

of John of Gaunt, was reconciled to his nobles, he chose Reading Abbey

as the ground of meeting. So it continued, up to the reign of Henry

VIII., the resort of kings, and nobles, and prelates, until that

ruthless despoiler passed an act for the suppression of monasteries,

and converted the sacred precincts into a palace for his own sole

use. The monks were scattered, and their brave and loyal abbot, Hugh

Farringdon, having dared to denounce the iniquitous edict and defy

the king, was sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. With him

closes the line of the Benedictine abbots. It is curious to see Henry

VIII., after thus uprooting the church in his dominions, plundering

her treasure, and persecuting her in every way, leaving a large sum of

money in his will for "Masses to be said for the deliverance of his

soul." He had made it high treason to hold the doctrine of purgatory,

or to pray for the dead; and the act of saying Mass was punishable with

death. He had overturned altars and banished priests; yet, when he came

to die himself, he turned, in abject and cowardly fear, towards the

church that he had so outraged, and besought her help in his extremity.

Speaking of this act of Henry's, which throws such a sinister light on

his fanatical hatred to Catholicism, and his violent enforcement of

the "reformed religion," as it was styled, Hume, whose statements are

as accurate as his views are false, remarks naïvely that it is a proof

of the tenacity of superstition on the human mind, and says that it

was one amongst so many of "the strange contrarieties of his conduct

and temper," that he who had "destroyed those foundations made by his

ancestors for the deliverance of _their_ souls," should when it came to

be the hour of death "take care to be on the safer side of the question

himself." At the time of the dissolution, the revenues in money of this

royal abbey did not exceed the small sum of £675 a year. Its wealth

consisted not in accumulated riches, but in lands, and fisheries,

and flocks, and herds. Many English sovereigns had bequeathed their

dust to the consecrated shelter of Reading Abbey; amongst others, the

Empress Matilda, wife of Henry I., and mother of Henry II., had been

interred in its vaults. Their ashes found no mercy at the hands of

the infuriated fanatics, who seemed bent on erasing from the face of

the country every vestige of its ancient faith. The majestic pile,

which had witnessed so many royal marriages, and echoed to the dirges

of so many sovereigns, fell before the cannon of Cromwell, planted on

Caversham hill. The beautiful church of S. Thomas à Becket, where the

unfortunate Charles I., with a little band of his trusty cavaliers,

had halted and knelt in prayer for protection against the mad soldiery

before whom they fled, fared no better than the rest. The walls that

still exist bear traces at every point of this savage act of vandalism.

What the fury of the Roundheads left unfinished the more recent vandals

have completed. The ruins have been plundered of every vestige of

stone-facing; and those immense blocks that gave the old pile, even

in its decay, such an air of imperishable strength and grandeur were,

at great cost of labor and money, torn away and carried to Windsor,

to serve in building the Poor Knights' Hospital. Some were condemned

to the more ignoble use of erecting a bridge over the Wargrave Road.

It is difficult to go beyond mere speculation in fixing the spots

illustrated by so many memorable associations in the history of the

old abbey. There can be no mistake, however, about the Chapter Hall,

where the parliaments were held, and where kings and prelates feasted.

There is a tradition that after the battle of Newbury, Charles I. and

all his troops were daily fed for a considerable time in the refectory

of the monks, one wall alone of which is now standing, but which quite

justifies the supposition of this wholesale hospitality when we see the

area formerly occupied by the apartment. The site of the church is also

discernible, but the relative positions of the altars, transepts, and

nave are but dimly suggested by the broken bases of the four enormous

pillars that supported the towering dome. The present beautiful little

Catholic church, with its adjoining presbytery, is built entirely

from the ruins, so cruelly dismantled by successive goths. But all

their efforts have failed to obliterate the royal aspect of the

wreck, or to rob it of its air of immortality. The walls are built of

sharp, small flint, imbedded in mortar that has now become as hard as

iron--a circumstance which we may hope will put an end to any further

devastation, as the tools of the workmen break like glass in the effort

to penetrate it and dislodge the flint.

A fact that added to Reading Abbey a higher kind of interest than

any earthly privilege can convey was that it possessed the hand of

S. James the Apostle--a relic which had been brought from Germany

to France by the Empress Matilda, and given by her to her father,

Henry I., who presented it to the Benedictine monks encased in a rich

shrine of gold, where devout worshippers came from great distances to

venerate it. When the dissolution of monastic orders was decreed, the

sacred relics which each community possessed were secreted in secure

places, and often defended from outrage at the peril and sacrifice of

life; but no mention is anywhere to be found of similar precautions

being employed in the case of the famous Benedictine treasure. The

Roundheads desecrated the tombs of the kings, and threw to the winds

the bones of the monks who slept in the vaults around them; but we

find no trace of insult offered to the hand of S. James, nor is any

notice taken of it in the local chronicles of Reading from this time

forth. There was a vague rumor of its having been conveyed to a convent

in Spain; but no evidence of the slightest description supports this

notion. About seventy years ago, some workmen, employed in breaking

down a portion of the walls, came upon a small wooden box containing

a human hand; it was bought as a curiosity for a mere trifle by a

physician of the town, and after a while, we know not how or wherefore,

it found its way to the Museum of the Polytechnic, where it remained

until that institution was broken up; then the hand was transferred

to the Athenæum, in Friar Street. Meantime, the circumstance of the

discovery had travelled far beyond Berks, and some devout persons,

believing this could be none other than the lost relic of S. James,

offered considerable sums for it; but, for some reason that we can

neither discover nor surmise, these offers were declined, and the hand

remained "amongst other nick-nacks" to which some interest, historical

or otherwise, was attached. Finally, the vicissitudes of fortune

carried it to a shop-window, where it was long to be seen under a glass

case so insecurely guarded that any expert thief might easily have

purloined it. A Scotch Catholic gentleman saw it here, and offered

fifty pounds for it. It was sold to him for this sum, and he placed

it in the care of Canon B----, the dean of the church which is built

on the original resting-place of the real relic, and dedicated to S.

James. It was with the understanding, however, that he would claim the

hand as soon as he had a suitable place for it in his own house. Canon

B----himself was strongly inclined to disbelieve in the genuineness

of the relic. In the first place, the box in which it was found bore

no sign or symbol of its being a reliquary, and there was no mark or

seal attached to the contents indicating their character; then, again,

the hand was small and the fingers tapering, much more like the hand

of a woman than of a rude-limbed fisherman like the Apostle of Spain.

There was one way of ascertaining with certainty that it was _not_

the real hand, and this was by learning whether the body of S. James,

which is preserved in the Cathedral of Compostela, wanted one hand. If

the two were there, there was an end of the controversy, and it would

be clearly proved that the hand found at Reading Abbey had been, at

some unknown date, returned to its place. If one hand was missing, and

if that corresponded to the one in his possession, it was at least

a strong argument on the side of its genuineness, which other steps

should be thenceforth taken to prove. At the canon's request, Dr.

Grant, the late saintly Bishop of Southwark, wrote to the Archbishop

of Compostela, asking him to allow the shrine to be opened and the

necessary inspection of the relics made; but the archbishop replied

that he could on no pretext, however laudable, consent to such an act,

which, in his eyes, appeared like a desecration of their venerated

patron. The question fell back, therefore, into impenetrable doubt

as before. The hand remained at Reading, until at last the purchaser

arrived and claimed it. He was persuaded that it was the real hand

of S. James, and as such claimed to have it in his possession and

under his roof. Canon B---- gave it up at once; but it was remarked

by a pious Catholic at the time that if it was the real relic, the

act of _purchasing_ it for private possession, and removing it from a

church dedicated to the apostle to whom it was supposed to belong, to

a private house, could bring no blessing on those connected with it.

These warnings were laughed at as superstitious by the owner of the

relic; but they were strangely and fearfully fulfilled before long. He

and three clerical friends were one day seized at dinner with agonizing

pains, and, after a few hours' suffering, expired. One of the dishes

had, by some unaccountable accident, been poisoned by the cook, who

had employed some venomous root in mistake for horse-radish. We do not

attach for a moment any supernatural significance to the incident, but

merely give it as a strange coincidence. After this violent and sudden

death of its owner, the hand passed into the possession of a relative,

to whom he bequeathed it. Perhaps this short record of its recent

history may meet the eye of some one who may be induced to search out

the missing limb, and clear away the mystery that still hangs over

the supposed relic of the apostle who warned us so solemnly against

the iniquity of idle words. Who knows? Perhaps we may yet live to see

a Benedictine monastery rise on the site of the ancient one where

his hand was so devoutly venerated; monks, wearing the dark cowl of

the inspired author of the _Regula Monachorum_, may again tread the

hallowed ground of the old abbey, where in bygone days their fathers

lived grand and awful lives under the serene and solemn shadow of

their mighty cloisters, adjusting the strife of nations and of kings,

teaching Christendom, feeding the poor, and taking the kingdom of

heaven by violence amidst long vigils, and fasting, and humiliation,

and the heroic practice of Christian sanctity; the old stones may yet

echo to the chant of psalms as in the days of our forefathers, and the

song of praise resound again in the desert--the same words, with other

voices; for God changes not, neither does his church; for, like her

Founder, she is immutable, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.

THE COURT OF FRANCE IN 1830.[134]

BY M. MENNECHET.

FROM PARIS, OU LE LIVRE DES CENT-ET-UN.

You think, my dear friend and editor, that the place occupied by the

Tuileries in the panorama of Paris is so prominent a one that you

desire to include a variety of accounts of it in the rich gallery of

description you are now giving to the world, and you ask me, unskilful

artist though I am, to draw you a faithful picture of its interior as

I once knew it. You say that, having for fifteen years inhabited this

palace, I must necessarily be well acquainted with all the details

of it, and you wish me to take upon myself the office of introducing

your numerous readers, and of giving them a nearer view of the chief

personages of this royal domain. I may, you add, imagine myself once

more at my bureau, distributing to curiosity or to attachment tickets

of admission for some _fête_ or ceremony, and that this will perhaps

prove, for the time being, a pleasant illusion for me. Dreams like

these, however, would possess no attraction for me. I have been too

near a spectator of the court for it to have any illusions for my mind.

In this respect, I may compare myself to an actor at the theatre,

over-familiar with the scenes of the green-room. I need realities now

to awaken my interest; and since the course of events has plunged me

again into my original obscurity, I can no longer abandon myself to

reveries of pride or of ambition. Nor had I risen so high that there

was any danger that my fall would distract my reason or shake my

philosophy. I had reached only that elevation which gives to objects

their due proportions. I was neither too near nor too far, neither too

high nor too low, not to be able to see and to judge calmly; and it

is in my former observatory that I am now about to replace myself, in

order to comply, as far as it may lie in my power, with your request.

Perhaps I ought to fear that it may be said of me, He served the exiled

family for fifteen years; he was indebted to them for his maintenance

and that of others connected with him; he is biassed by feelings of

gratitude; we cannot but distrust what he is about to tell us. God

forbid that the reproach of fidelity and gratitude should ever offend

me: these are virtues too rare for any one who is conscious in his own

heart of possessing them to be ashamed of the fact. If, therefore, I

should be accused of flattery, I shall not feel much grieved at the

charge; for at least I shall have flattered only the unfortunate. Had

not the sanguinary events of July shattered at one blow the crown of

Charlemagne, the sceptre of S. Louis, and the sword of Henri IV.; did

the family of Charles X. now reign at the Tuileries, I might be silent,

lest my encomiums should be deemed interested; or were I to take up

my pen, it would only be to demonstrate that the liberal ideas of the

youth of the present day were even then admitted to the court; there

was no exclusion, excepting for revolutionary principles.

Here might be a fine opportunity for me to enter upon a chapter of

politics. I might prove to the partisans of the sovereignty of the

people that they alone invoke the divine right, since the voice of the

people passes for the voice of God--_Vox populi, vox Dei_; or, on the

other hand, that their adversaries do well to range themselves on the

side of hereditary right, which is a principle of order and security,

as well for governments as for families--a right sacred and inviolable,

and which has existed unquestioned from the days of Adam until the

present time.

But I should find myself quite out of my sphere in the domain of

politics, having always withheld myself from its complications. I

therefore give your readers notice that I shall not introduce them into

the great cabinet in which the councils of the ministers were held. I

was not admitted there myself; and as I never listened at the doors,

it would be impossible for me to relate anything that took place. All

I know is that under the last ministry they used three sheets of paper

too much, since the latter kindled so deplorable a conflagration.

The exterior aspect of the Tuileries is doubtless well known to my

readers, at least from description, or through pictures or engravings.

But those who have never had the opportunity of penetrating further

I now invite to follow me into the interior, while I endeavor to

bring before them some of the _fêtes_ and ceremonies of the court

of Charles X. Unless you are in full dress, let us not enter by the

great staircase. There we should find a man, who is called a _Suisse_,

although he is a Frenchman, who would tell you that etiquette does not

permit you to enter the palace of the king wearing boots. You might

exclaim against etiquette, forgetting, however, that, at least, it

imposes upon vanity the obligation of enriching labor. The staircase by

which I shall introduce you is free from such restrictions. You will

find the steps much worn. They lead to the treasury of charities--a

treasury quite the opposite of the cask of the Danaïdes; for although

it be constantly drawn from, it is never empty.

Let us ascend another flight, and cross the _black gallery_, where, on

the right and left sides, are lodged, in narrow and inconvenient rooms,

the great lord and the _valet de chambre_, the _maître d'hotel_ and the

physician, the _aide-de-camp_ and the chaplain, the gentleman and the

plebeian. Here all ranks, all grades, all dignities, are confounded.

When we shall repair to the final judgment, I suppose we shall all pass

through a black gallery, in which, like that of the Tuileries, will

be mingled all social ranks. We will now descend a flight, and enter

the apartment of the first gentleman of the chamber, one of the great

officers of the household. Let us request of him tickets of admission

to the ceremony of the Supper; and, when we shall have obtained them

from his habitual complaisance, let us hope that there may not have

been, the night before, between him, the captain of the guards, and

the grand-master of ceremonies, any dispute regarding the rights,

privileges, and attributes of their respective offices. In that case

it is by no means certain that the life-guardsman would permit us to

enter, the password being frequently regulated by some petty revenge of

the chief. This time, however, all is harmonious; the life-guardsman

has made no objection, the usher has taken our tickets, and the

_valet de chambre_ has indicated our places behind the ladies. What

an interesting tableau is presented by this religious solemnity! The

chapel of the château being too small for the occasion, the gallery of

Diana has been arranged for the ceremony. I see you smile as you raise

your eyes to gaze upon the rich paintings which decorate the ceiling

of this gallery. Cupid and Psyche, Diana and Endymion, Hercules and

Omphale--all these gods and goddesses of paganism appear, little in

keeping with the scene of a Christian celebration. But lower your eyes;

look at this simple altar, at this pulpit, from which the minister of

God will shortly speak, and you will no longer be tempted to smile, for

you will have realized the distance which separates truth from error.

At one of the extremities of the gallery is laid an immense table, on

which thirteen dishes of different kinds are thirteen times repeated.

Each one of them is decorated with fragrant flowers, which exhale a

delicious perfume. Along the entire length of the gallery are placed,

right and left, three rows of benches. On one side are seated the

ladies, whose elegant costumes are, it is true, somewhat worldly;

but the books they hold in their hands attest, at least, their pious

intentions.

Facing the pews reserved for the royal family, and on more elevated

benches, are ranged thirteen poor young children, representing the

thirteen apostles; for, at the time of the Supper, Judas had not denied

his Master. Behind these are placed the musicians of the king, at their

head Cherubini and Lesueur, and directed by Plantade; this combination

of talent exhibiting a taste and power of execution unrivalled at that

period, and which will still be remembered by many who have had the

privilege of listening to them.

But suddenly a voice is heard--"The king." All advance, lean forward,

and endeavor to obtain a view of him. He salutes all with the grace so

natural to him; and respect alone represses the demonstration which

his kindness seems to encourage. The divine office begins; at its

conclusion comes the sermon; and finally, carrying out the pious custom

of the kings of France, he himself washes the feet of the thirteen

apostles as a token of Christian humility. The impious may smile at

these touching solemnities of the worship of their forefathers; had

they once assisted at a ceremony like this, they would smile no more.

Afterwards, the officers of the household advance in a procession,

holding in their hands the insignia of their office and bouquets. After

them marches the dauphin of France, followed by the high officers.

Thirteen times in succession they approach the table to seek the bread,

the wine, the different dishes intended for the representatives of the

apostles. They carry them to the king, who deposits them in baskets

at the feet of each child. To these gifts he adds a purse for each,

containing thirteen five-franc pieces. Then the ceremony is over, and

the king may say to himself, "I have not only fulfilled an act of

devotion and humility; I have also made thirteen families happy."

Having beheld the Most Christian King stooping from his royal majesty

to those whom Père Bridaine called the best friends of God, let us

now view him in that ceremony which alone, until lately, recalled the

ancient traditions of chivalry. Here he is not only King of France; he

is Grand Master of the Order of the Holy Ghost. This order, founded

by Henri III., and which all the sovereigns of Europe were proud and

happy to wear; this order, which decorated the breast of Henri IV., of

Louis XIV., and of all the great warriors and statesmen of the last two

centuries; this order, the most glorious recompense, and the one most

coveted by the celebrated personages of the beginning of the present

epoch, is at an end--the late revolution did not choose that it should

survive the monarchy.

The last ceremony of the Order of the Holy Ghost took place on May 30,

1830, at Whitsuntide. The most perfect taste and the greatest luxury

were displayed in the hangings which decorated the great vestibule and

the stone gallery that lead to the chapel; the ingenious and varied

talents of Hittorf, Lecointe, and Ciceri being brought into requisition

on this occasion. The chapter of the order was held at eleven o'clock

in the grand cabinet. There were assembled, in their rich costumes

of black velvet, embroidered with gold and faced with green silk,

the knights already received into the number, wearing crosswise

the collar of the order, and on their cloaks the silver plates--the

brilliant insignia of their dignity. The king, the natural nobility of

whose appearance was enhanced by this picturesque costume, opened the

assembled chapter; then the cortége took up their march to the chapel,

where the knights lately promoted were to be received. They marched in

double-file through rows, on either hand, of ladies elegantly dressed;

the bystanders gazed eagerly on the knights as they advanced, and many

satirical remarks were made upon the singular junction of the new

celebrities with the members of the old aristocracy.

There walked together the Duc la Tremouille and M. Lainè, M. Ravez and

the Duc de Montmorency.

To show how ambition may attain its ends by different paths, the Duc de

Décaze and the Comte de Villete, the Comte de Peyronnet and the Duc de

Dalmatie; and as if to demonstrate how differently two gentlemen may

comprehend the duties of their position, the Duc de Mortemart and the

Vicomte de Châteaubriand.

An especial circumstance added the attraction of curiosity while it

lent a more touching interest to this scene; the king received as

Chevalier of the Order of the Holy Ghost the young Duc de Nemours, in

the presence of all his family. All those who were present on this

occasion cannot fail to remember the noble and gracious air of the

young prince, and the deep emotion perceptible in the voice of the

august old man as he defined the duties of a true knight. One might

have supposed him a father, happy and proud to find in his son a heart

in which the seeds of honor and loyalty must necessarily germinate. All

the spectators were moved. A mother wept. Would that these had been

the last tears she was destined to shed!

Let us now pass from this grave and imposing ceremonial to those

animated and joyous _fêtes_ which took place every year at Saint-Cloud

on the day of S. Henri. Shall I show you the _Trocadere_, filled with

games of every description, shops of all kinds, in which the most

famous actors of the capital, transformed into foreign merchants,

distributed to all comers songs, toys, bonbons, and flowers, all for

the trifling remuneration of thanks? Will you assist with the whole

court at that brilliant representation of the heroic drama of _Bissen_,

in which Franconi and his actors, men and horses, give proofs of such

rare intelligence and address? At the conclusion of this spectacle, the

Duc de Bordeaux[135] assembles his little army of children, and before

the eyes of the astonished crowd causes them to manœuvre with all the

coolness and experience of a veteran captain; then he leads them to the

gymnastic games, in which he surpasses them all in strength, daring,

and skill. Then, mingling with the soldiers of a neighboring post, he

plays at quoits with the latter as if with comrades; but he takes care

to lose the game just as he is on the point of winning it, so as to be

generous without the appearance of it. Perhaps you might be interested

to know that this promising child likewise ardently devotes himself to

his studies under the care of his admirable instructors, MM. de Barande

and Colart, and more especially to the history of his country; he

obstinately refuses to call the Constable of Bourbon anything but the

_bad Constable_, asserting that he has forfeited his right even to his

name, having borne arms against his sovereign.

But whither have my reminiscences carried me? Here we are at

Saint-Cloud; the games of a child have made me forget the pomps of a

court, and, besides, I was only to speak to you of the Tuileries.

This court was not wanting in brilliancy; its luxury, however, was

by no means extreme. These three hundred gentlemen of the chamber,

these equerries, these officers of ceremony for the household and

hunting service, richly dressed in vestments embroidered in gold, were

tributaries to industry, and willingly paid the tax of vanity. We too

often forget that the bread of the poor is in the hands of the rich,

and that it is better for the former that this bread should be the

price of labor than the gift of charity.

In order to reconcile ourselves with this luxury, which many

unthinkingly condemned, let us assist at those _jeux du roi_, to which

all the social notabilities were invited.

A week before the invitations had been issued, it would be known in all

the workshops of Paris that a reception was to take place at the court,

and more orders would be received than could be executed. Tailors,

dressmakers, embroiderers, _modistes_, hair-dressers, jewellers, etc.,

all rejoiced; and the happiness of the invited guest, who repaired to

the _fête_ in a showy equipage, was shared by the workman who saw him

pass.

Let us hasten to follow the line of those thousand carriages which

advance in order towards the Tuileries some time before the hour

indicated by the card of invitation; for here it is quite different

from those balls of society where the fashion is to arrive late in

order to produce a sensation; on the contrary, every one desires to be

among the first to obtain a glance from the king. Already crowds are

pressing into these vast drawing-rooms, where innumerable wax candles

shed so favorable a light over the beauty of the women and their superb

dresses. It is impossible to imagine, without having seen it, the

magnificent spectacle presented by the throne-room and the Gallery of

Diana; on entering these, the dazzling _ensemble_ could be taken in

at a glance, and each one stops for a moment, lost in admiration, to

contemplate it.

Here are assembled the late minister, thinking how he may seize again

the reins of power; the present minister, absorbed in the fear of

losing them; and the future minister, musing over the chances he may

possess of obtaining them. All three salute each other, press each

other's hands affectionately: one might mistake them for friends. Here

are grouped peers of France, proud of their hereditary rights, and

confident in the stability of them, calculating how much the son of

a lord may be worth, and by what dowry the daughter of a banker may

purchase the title of countess and the _entrée_ to the court. Here

we behold the former senators of Napoleon, who have not, perhaps,

renounced their own ideas and illusions; see beside them old generals,

who, from the epoch of the Republic down to Charles X., have served all

the different governments. The banner has changed, but what does that

matter? Military honor has not suffered; that is to be placed only in

courage.

These officers, with their large epaulettes, appear to cast disdainful

glances on the crowd of men in blue coats, the collars of which,

embroidered in _fleur-de-lis_, designate civic functions. The

supporters of the ministry are surprised that so many members of the

opposition should have been invited; the latter complain that there are

so few of their own party present compared with the number of their

adversaries. There is, however, for the time being, neither Right side,

Left side, nor Centre--all appear harmonious; and should a vote now be

taken, the urn would be filled with white balls, so great in those days

was the influence of an invitation from the king--almost equal to that

of a ministerial dinner at the present time.

But to the hum of conversation suddenly succeeds a profound silence;

the king appears, followed by all the royal family. He circulates

slowly through the apartments, and his kindness of heart suggests to

him what to say, so as to please each one in turn. None are forgotten;

and in addressing himself to the ladies, he perfectly understands the

art of complimenting so as to flatter without embarrassing them. I must

not omit, in my description of these brilliant assemblies, to speak of

the members of the diplomatic corps, the richness and variety of whose

costumes enhanced the magnificence of the scene; nor can I conclude

without some mention of the courtiers of Charles X. I know it is a

usual thing on the stage, and perhaps elsewhere, to depict a gentleman

of the court as a low-minded, grasping, insolent imbecile. Those who

view them all in this light resemble the traveller who, passing rapidly

through a town, and seeing at a window a woman with red hair, came

to the conclusion, and wrote, that all the women of the place were

red-haired.

The gentleman of the court, such as I have usually known him, since the

Restoration, is proud of his birth and of his name; but he knows that

he has no more reason to pride himself upon their possession than a

singer has to boast of the voice with which nature has gifted him, or

a rich man of the fortune left him by his father. Devoted to the king,

he does not consider himself the humble servant of the ministers; and

when his conscience prescribes it, he places himself in the ranks of

the opposition. He is extremely polite, knowing that this is the surest

means of securing the recognition of his social superiority. He does

justice to merit, and admires it frankly and without envy; but should

this merit exist in a man of equal rank with himself, he would be

tempted to dispute it. He is generous, for he knows that generosity is

a great and noble virtue; and even should it not be a pleasure, it is a

duty, for him to exercise it. Without being learned, he is not ignorant

of any of the sciences, and he has a tact which enables him to appear

a connoisseur in art even when such is not the case; but he no longer

takes upon himself to be the protector of artists; he is their friend.

He understands that the empire of the white plume and of the red heel

is at an end, and that, in order to be respected, he must deserve to be

so.

Finally, his morals are good, and this is, perhaps, the greatest change

effected by the revolution.

Such, as a general rule, were the courtiers of my time, and amongst

them were men full of talent, courage, and energy, sincerely devoted

to the true interests of the people, who hated without knowing them;

men of noble and loyal souls, filled with devotion to their country,

and possessed of that strong, real, and passionate eloquence which

astonishes, moves, and persuades those who are resolved to oppose them;

men, in short, who, finding it impossible to do the good they desire,

and unwilling to participate in the evil which may be done, retire

into private life, carrying with them the regrets and the admiration

of their fellow-citizens. I do not need to name them. The days devoted

to _jeux du roi_ were not the only ones on which persons of various

stations were invited to the court. The birthday of the king was the

_fête_ of the people; on that day, every cottage was made happy, every

family was supplied with bread. But as this _fête_ was not celebrated

in the year of grace 1830, I will speak only of New Year's day, on

which, according to custom, all the different state corporations come

to renew to their sovereign, whoever he may be, their pledges of

fidelity and attachment, to pay their homage and proffer their good

wishes. To these uniform speeches, prescribed by etiquette, expressive

of sentiments more or less real, and couched in phrases more or less

high-sounding, according to the taste or ability of the orator, Charles

X. had the faculty of returning answers marked by kindness and good

sense, rendered with a grace and facility of execution which no one has

ever thought of disputing.

The custom which obliged the king to dine in public on New Year's day

was not an unpleasant one to Charles X. He had no reason to fear that

he might be compared to those Oriental monarchs who, when they have

dined well themselves, think that none of their subjects ought to feel

hungry. He knew that the wish of Henri IV. had been realized, and that

the chicken in the pot was wanting neither to the industrious artisan

nor to the hard-working laborers.

If, however, these state dinners were not destitute of charm for

him, how much more did he enjoy that family reunion on the _jour

des rois_, which, with its simple pleasures, is an inheritance of

past generations! The customs attending this festival, on which

royalty is freed from all cares or regrets, are of long standing. The

ancients, when they desired to render a feast an especially gay one,

always appointed a king, who was elected for the time. Neither is

the use of beans, as a distinctive mark of power, a modern idea. The

Greeks employed them in the nomination of their magistrates; and when

Pythagoras told his disciples to _abstain from beans_, he gave them a

wise counsel, of which every one does not comprehend the enigmatical

and mysterious meaning.

Amongst us, however, the bean is attended by none of the dangers

dreaded by Pythagoras. How happy is the king of the bean! He has

neither courtiers who flatter him nor ministers who betray him; his

subjects are his friends; he chooses his queen without regard to

political considerations; he eats, he drinks, and, fortunate man, his

reign is but for a moment!

The delights of this passing royalty were never more keenly experienced

than at the Tuileries on the 6th of January, 1830. All appeared

prosperous in the kingdom, and the descendants of Henri IV., assembled

at a family dinner, were united in opinion and in affection. It was

a _fête_ day for all, and especially for the children, who rejoiced

at the unwonted freedom from the restraints of etiquette. Around the

royal table were seated, first the august old man, whose goodness of

heart ever shone through the dignity of his character. On one side of

him was placed the Duchess of Orléans, the happy mother of a numerous

and handsome family; on the other the dauphiness, who endeavored to

console herself for the want of the same happiness by adopting all the

unfortunate--a woman sublime in misfortune, heroic in danger, and who,

passing through every stage of affliction, at length reached that

height of virtue before which all human glory must bow. Beside her

was the Duc d'Orléans,[136] who, when exiled in foreign lands at the

same period with Charles X., had given proofs of fidelity, affection,

and devotion; he had shared the same trials, and conceived the same

hopes. Then came the Duchess de Berri, handsome, happy, proud of her

son, imparting gaiety and vivacity to all around her, little dreaming

of the future which awaited her, and certainly very far from imagining

that, ere long, the poor and afflicted of her asylum at Poissy would

be obliged to petition for the charity of the public. We must not

forget to mention, in this family group, the dauphin, Mlle. d'Orléans,

the Ducs de Chartres, de Nemours, d'Aumale, the Prince de Joinville,

the two young and pretty Princesses of Orléans. The Duc de Bourbon is

not able to be present; his infirmities confine him to his château of

Saint-Leu, where he had, at least, expected to die in peace. But let us

reserve our attention for this child who is about to play so important

a part among the guests.

By this time, the first two courses have exhausted the patience of

these young hearts, but respect restrains any expression of this

feeling in them. At length, however, the wished-for moment has arrived,

and all eyes are turned towards an officer of the table, who carries

on a silver salver, covered with a napkin, fifteen cakes, one of which

contains the coveted bean. It falls to the lot of the Duc d'Aumale, as

being the youngest, to distribute them among the guests, taking care

to keep one for himself. Each one makes haste to ascertain his fate,

and exclamations of disappointed ambition are heard on all sides. One

child alone blushes and is silent; not that he is embarrassed by the

rank about to devolve upon him, but he does not wish to mortify his

competitors by giving vent to his innocent delight. His new majesty

cannot, however, long remain incognito, and the Duc de Bordeaux is

proclaimed king of the bean by universal acclamation. Then, following

the example of their new sovereign, the children all give way to an

extreme of gaiety, which the king encourages and partakes, and which

the dauphiness does not seek to restrain. Soon the choice of the queen

is made; it is the Duchess of Orléans, who willingly lends herself to

receive an honor which, perhaps, she might not have coveted; and the

dinner is concluded amidst shouts of laughter and cries of _The king

drinks! The queen drinks!_ frequently re-echoed.

The august personages seated around the royal table are not the only

ones who share the cakes of the king. Pieces of these cakes are

profusely distributed throughout France. Poets, authors, artists,

actors, artisans, old and infirm servants of the Republic and of the

Empire, destitute widows and orphans partake of the cake of the king

and the bounty of Charles X. on this occasion.

But the time has come to rise from table, and Charles X. requests a

moment of silence, which he succeeds with difficulty in obtaining.

"Sire," he says to his grandson, "your reign will be at an end in

about five minutes; has your majesty no orders to give me?"

"Yes, grandpapa. I wish...."

"You wish! Take care; in France the king always says _we wish_."

"Well, then, we wish that our governor would advance us three months of

our allowance."

"What will you do with so much money?"

"Grandpapa, the mother of a brave soldier of your guard has had her

cottage burned down, and this will not be too much to build it up

again...."

"Very well. I will undertake it...."

"No, grandpapa; because, if you do it, it will not be I."

"And how will you do without money for three months?"

"I shall try to gain some by the good marks I get from my teachers, and

for which you always pay me."

"Ah! you depend upon that?"

"Certainly; for I must dress my poor people. I have my poor people,

like you, like mamma, like my aunt.... Oh! I have made my calculations,

and I am quite satisfied. When I shall have given ten francs to the

poor woman in the Bois de Boulogne, who has a sick child, I shall still

have twenty sous left for the prince."

At these words Charles X. tenderly embraced his grandson, and

exclaimed, "Happy France, if ever he should be king!"

FOOTNOTES:

[134] We translate the following chapter from a work published in Paris

many years ago, on account of its historical interest, containing, as

it does, reminiscences of the youth of Comte de Chambord and other

characters since become prominent.--ED. C. W.

[135] Afterwards Comte de Chambord.

[136] Afterwards Louis Philippe.

THE FUR TRADER.

A TALE OF THE NORTHWEST.

Few men are now living who remember Montreal as it was in the beginning

of this century, when the Northwest Fur Company had reached the summit

of its prosperity, and the Frobishers, McGillivrays, McTavishes, and

McKenzies, with a host of their associates, were "names to conjure

withal"; so potent had they been made by a long and uninterrupted

series of successful adventures in the fur trade of the northwestern

wilds.

The princely hospitality exercised by the partners in their Montreal

homes, and the fitful deeds of profuse generosity with which they

delighted to surprise the people on both sides of the border, served

to spread their fame far and wide, and to keep their "memory green" by

many a sequestered hearthstone long after the Northwest Fur Company had

ceased to exist, and its members had all passed away.

For many years the fireside legends of rural hamlets on the frontier

were made up in a great measure from narratives of startling

adventures, hazards, fatigues, and privations encountered by the

clerks, agents, _voyageurs_, and _coureurs des bois_ employed by this

most energetic and enterprising, if at the same time most unscrupulous,

corporation. Its schemes were devised with masterly skill, and executed

with reckless daring. Not content to limit its transactions within

the extensive regions allotted to its sway, it extended them north

into territories over which the Hudson's Bay Company had long held

control, and south into a large domain belonging to the United States,

and occupied to some extent by traders under the protection of our

government.

These invasions of the rights of others brought the servants of the

company into frequent collision with its rivals; but the men appointed

to such posts were selected from a large band of trained and tried

veterans in the service, and the dashing promptitude with which they

met or evaded opposition and obstacles seemed like magic to the

opposing parties of trappers, free-traders, and half-breeds thus

encountered, and gained them the reputation, among that superstitious

class, of being in league with the father of all evil.

These collisions and outbreaks among the disciples of Mammon, as well

as the pernicious influence gained and exercised by them over the

savage tribes with whom they were engaged in traffic, were the occasion

of great grief and anxiety to a widely different class of men, who

had long occupied those territories, and braved the difficulties,

dangers, and hardships of those bleak and desolate regions, on a widely

different errand. Dauntless sons of Loyola, they had steadfastly

pursued their vocation, "in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in

perils of the wilderness, in labor and painfulness, in much watching,

in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness,"

proving their allegiance to the Prince of Peace and their claim to his

apostolic mission, while proclaiming the Gospel of salvation to the

native children of those boundless deserts.

And so it befell that the servants of lucre, who traversed the same

districts, at later periods, in pursuance of their vocation, not

unfrequently took advantage of the openings thus prepared, and pitched

their outposts side by side with the humble chapel and lodge of the

missionary. Then the conflict between good and evil, between avarice

and generosity, selfishness and benevolence, which had always agitated

the Old World, was renewed in the wilderness, and carried on as

earnestly as if rival crowns were striving for the mastery. An unequal

strife it must always prove, so long as poor human nature prefers to be

the victim of evil rather than the servant of virtue.

Many years ago--and long before Catholic missions interested us further

than to excite a certain vague admiration for the self-sacrificing

zeal with which they were prosecuted--we listened to the following

recital from the lips of an old clerk of the Northwest Company, which

we repeat as it was told to us, to set forth some of the difficulties

that encompassed the missionaries among the Indians of the Northwest,

tending to impede, if not frustrate, the object of their efforts.

On a fine day in the month of September, 18--, a fleet of canoes

was sweeping down one of the large rivers which flow through the

northwestern portion of our country. They were manned by Canadian

_voyageurs_, the plash of whose paddles kept time with the gay

_chansons_, which were borne in such unison upon their blended voices

as to seem, except for the volume of sound, the utterance of but one.

In the leading vessel of the little squadron, well enveloped in the

folds of a magnificent fur mantle, to shield from autumnal chills,

which settle early upon those regions, their commander reclined at his

ease. He was a person of imposing presence and stately manners, whose

face, grave and thoughtful for one from which the flush of youth had

scarcely passed, presented that fine type of manly beauty peculiar to

the Highland Scotch.

He seemed too entirely absorbed in his own thoughts to notice the songs

of his light-hearted companions, the merry chat with which they were

interspersed, or even the sly jokes that, with the freedom produced by

the lawless habits of the wilderness, were occasionally levelled at

himself and, the confidential clerk who was his inseparable attendant.

Nor did his reflections seem to be of an agreeable nature; for at times

his dark eye would flash fiercely, and his brow contract to an ominous

frown, and again his countenance would subside into its habitual and

somewhat pensive expression.

Twilight was closing around them as they approached a trading-post

of the Northwest Company, which had been recently opened near a

long-established missionary station, the spire of whose humble chapel

was lifted above the numerous huts that formed an Indian village of

considerable extent along the bank of the river.

Here their commander ordered them to land, and, after securing the

canoes for the night, to transfer their cargoes to the storehouse of

the company. He directed in person the removal of the most valuable

merchandise, and, entrusting the remainder to the care of his clerk,

proceeded with haughty strides toward the lodge of the resident

missionary.

He was met at the entrance by a reverend father in the habit of the

Society of Jesus, and saluted with a distant politeness which quite

unsettled his accustomed expression of composure and easy indifference.

An embarrassing silence followed his admission within the lodge--a

silence which the good father seemed in no haste to break--when the

gentleman began with a hesitating manner, as if his proud spirit

disdained what he was about to say in opening the conversation:

"I regret to hear, reverend father, that we have been so unhappy as

to incur your displeasure in the course of our transactions with the

natives; and I frankly confess that this regret is greatly increased

by our knowledge of your influence over them, the exercise of which we

would gladly have secured to promote the interests of our trade."

"It is not a question of my displeasure," the priest replied sadly. "To

my Master you must answer for the crying injustice you have practised

towards his children of the wilderness, and for the sinful courses

into which they have been beguiled. You have betrayed his cause with

those who trusted you on account of the name of Christian, which

you so unworthily bear, and to him you must answer for it. As to my

influence, it would have been easily secured, if your dealings with

these untutored natives had been governed by justice and integrity.

But I warn you, that unless you repent the wrongs you have inflicted

yourself, and by the hands of your agents, upon them, making such

requital as remains within your power, a fearful retribution awaits you

in this world, and eternal despair in the next. 'Vengeance is mine,

saith the Lord, and I will repay.'"

"Pardon me, good father; but I think you greatly exaggerate the wrongs

of which you speak. It is not possible for men of your calling to

estimate or understand the scope of vast commercial enterprises and the

course of great mercantile operations. Your imagination has brooded

over the transactions which you so sternly condemn, until it has given

them a false magnitude. They transpired in the ordinary course of

business, and though followed by results which I deplore as deeply as

yourself, I do not feel disposed to take blame to myself or our company

for them."

"You will not plead 'commercial enterprise' or 'mercantile

transactions' before the bar of the great Judge in excuse for eternal

interests which have been sacrificed to your greed for gain; for

confiding and innocent souls that have been betrayed and lost by your

fault. Through your iniquities and those of your servants in dealing

with these children, once so willing to be taught and to practise the

duties of our holy religion, they have been transformed into demons

of revenge; and, disregarding our remonstrances, have committed, and

will continue to commit, deeds of bloody vengeance at which the world

will stand aghast. Alas! the world will never know the provocations

that goaded them to madness; for who will tell the story for the poor

Indian? Merciless slaughter and extermination is all they have to look

for at the hands of men calling themselves Christians."

"Good father, your imagination or ambition, or both, have led you

astray in these matters, and hoodwinked your reason. You wish to be the

sole power among these people, and are jealous of intruders who may

endanger your sway. Your order, if it has not been greatly belied, has

more than once mistaken worldly ambition for zeal in the service of

God."

"One would think," the priest replied, smiling and casting his eyes

around the comfortless apartment and its meagre furniture--"one would

think that the scattered sons of a suppressed and persecuted order, who

must toil diligently with their own hands to procure their sustenance,

while they break the bread of life to these poor savages, might have

escaped such accusation, if any servant of their Master might; but I

thank him that he thus permits our enemies to set the seal of sacred

verity upon the bleakest altars of our sacrifice!"

"All this is foreign to the purpose of my visit. I do not wish to

dispute the glories of your exalted mission or to interfere with its

dominion, but simply to inquire if we may not in some way propitiate

your favor in the interests of our business. I am a man of few words,

more accustomed to command than to entreat, and go directly towards the

object at which I aim, instead of seeking out crooked paths. We will

furnish money, if that will gain your patronage, to build and decorate

temples and houses for your missions in these deserts that shall

dazzle the senses of their savage tribes, and allure their souls to

Christianity; for a master of the craft needs not to be told how easily

they are impressed by external splendor. You would be wise to accept

our proposal, were it only to promote the great ends for which you are

striving."

"Sell the flock to the wolf, for the purpose of building and

embellishing the fold! But in what direction do you wish our influence

with this people to be exercised?"

"To draw back to us the trade which they withheld at first through

dislike of our agents, and are now preparing to transfer to our

rivals, these newly established American companies, greatly to our

disadvantage. We have incurred enormous expense and labor to organize

and provide our trading-posts at points accessible to them on the

northern rivers, for their convenience as well as our own, to prevent

the necessity for frequent and tedious journeys to Montreal; and it

is unjust to deny us the benefit of them, and transfer it to rival

associations. Then, these Americans have interests opposed to ours in

every respect. I should think that you, who are a Canadian citizen,

from Montreal like myself, would naturally take our part against our

Protestant rivals."

"As befits my calling, I shall most approve those who deal most

justly with my flock, of whatever name or nation. As to religion, I

greatly fear it holds but feeble sway, by any name, among those who

are fighting the fierce battles of Mammon! The officers and agents

of the new establishments, like those of the Hudson's Bay Company,

have, however, given an example, which you would do well to follow,

by treating the missionaries and their cause with great respect, and

refraining from defrauding the natives or seducing them into evil

practices by the unlimited sale of liquors, by which they are changed

to demons. The persuasions and example of your _coureurs des bois_ have

done much to demoralize the Indians; but your own conduct has done

more, as your conscience must testify. Though you renounced the name

of Catholic when you turned your back upon the obligations it imposes,

your apostasy will not shield you from the consequences of your acts."

The gentleman started suddenly to his feet, as if stung by the words,

his voice trembling with agitation as he said: "I see I but waste time

and words in this parley, since you are resolved to magnify trifling

faults into enormous crimes. But remember, should these natives

persevere in their present savage schemes, and, from refusing to trade

with us, proceed in their senseless anger to deeds of blood, it will be

easy to fasten the odium of instigating their crimes upon you and your

fraternity, who have stubbornly refused our proffered friendship."

As he gathered his mantle about him to depart, the priest replied

meekly: "Your threats are vain; we have planted the grain of

mustard-seed in these wilds, and it will grow and flourish. It matters

not whether our hands or those of others shall carry on the work we

have begun. Our times are in the hands of God, and not of men."

As his visitor withdrew, the reverend father opened his Breviary, and,

pacing the apartment with measured steps, soon forgot the griefs,

annoyances, and discouragements of his position in the consoling

occupation of reading his Office, which now entirely absorbed him.

While he was thus engaged, the door was opened quietly, and a

singular-looking stranger entered without hesitation or ceremony,

depositing his rifle at the door. After peering inquisitively around

the room, and casting sundry furtive glances towards the deeply

abstracted priest from keen, gray eyes, which were deeply set under

shaggy eyebrows, he proceeded to divest himself of a large package

of furs and a miscellaneous assortment of traps that had been thrown

over his shoulder, and, taking the place lately occupied by the lordly

commander of the post, seated himself on one of the rude settles

which served as chairs in the simple furniture of the lodge, with the

careless ease of one accustomed to make himself quite at home wherever

he might chance to halt.

The appearance and dress of this free-and-easy guest were so peculiar

as to merit description. He was very tall, of lean and bony but

muscular frame. He wore a hunting-frock, made from the dressed skin of

the antelope, and confined at the waist by a leathern girdle buckled

firmly; from which depended, on his right side, a sheath, into which

a large hunting-knife was thrust, and on his left a shorter one for

another knife of smaller size, used in skinning the animals taken.

By the side of the latter hung a powder-horn and a large leathern

pouch for other ammunition. His nether gear was a compromise between

civilized and savage attire, as it served the united purposes of

trowsers, leggings, and hose, being laced on one side with thongs of

deer's tendons from the knees to his huge feet, which were encased in

stout moccasins made of buffalo-hide.

He sat very composedly, resting his elbows on his knees and his chin

on his clasped hands in a musing attitude, his battered, sunburnt, and

hardened face wearing an expression curiously compounded of shrewd

intelligence, simplicity, inquisitiveness, and good-humor, over which

a slight dash of veneration cast an unwonted gleam of bashful timidity

as he threw occasional sidelong glances towards the good father, who,

when he had finished his Office and closed the Breviary, noticed the

presence of his guest for the first time, and, approaching to greet

him, asked whom he had the pleasure to address.