ADIEU, SWEET FRANCE!
“And so you received the message from M. Albert?” said I to
Monte-Christo, as we walked together to the Hotel de Ville,
“I did; and, to say the truth, I was rather apprehensive about you.
Revolutions are all very well: but it is a frightful thing when the
dregs of the population get the upper hand.”
“I am glad to hear you acknowledge so much. For my part, Marquis, having
seen one revolution, I never wish to witness another.”
“We could not possibly avoid it,” said Monte-Christo. “It was a mere
question of time. No one doubts that a revolutionary spirit may be
carried too far.”
“Can’t you contrive to write it down?” said I.
“Unfortunately, the majority of gentlemen with whom you have lately been
associating, are not strongly addicted to letters. I question whether M.
Destripes has even read La Tour de Nêsle.”
“If he had,” said I, “it must have tended very greatly to his moral
improvement. But how is it with the Provisional Government?”
“Faith, I must own they are rather in a critical position. Had it not
been for Lamartine—who, I must confess, is a noble fellow, and a man of
undaunted courage—they would have been torn to pieces long ago. Hitherto
they have managed tolerably by means of the National Guard; but the
atmosphere is charged with thunder. Here we are, however, at the Hotel
de Ville.”
Not the least curious of the revolutionary scenes of Paris was the
aspect of the seat of government. At the moment I reached it, many
thousands of the lower orders were assembled in front, and one of the
Provisional Government, I believe Louis Blanc, was haranguing them from
a window. Immense crowds were likewise gathered round the entrance.
These consisted of the deputations, who were doing their very best to
exhaust the physical energies, and distract the mental powers, of the
men who had undertaken the perilous task of government.
Under conduct of my friend, I made my way to the room where the
mysterious _ouvrier_ was performing his part of the onerous duty. He
greeted me with a brief nod and a grim smile, but did not pretermit his
paternal functions.
The body which occupied his attention at this crisis of the
commonwealth, was a musical deputation, which craved sweet counsel
regarding some matter of crochets or of bars. It is not the first time
that music has been heard in the midst of stirring events. Nero took a
fancy to fiddle when Rome was blazing around him.
I could not but admire the gravity with which Albert listened to the
somewhat elaborate address, and the dexterity with which he contrived to
blend the subjects of pipes and patriotism.
“Citizens!” he said, “the Provisional Government are deeply impressed
with the importance of the views which you advocate. Republican
institutions cannot hope to exist without music, for to the sound of
music even the spheres themselves revolve in the mighty and illimitable
expanse of ether.
“At this crisis your suggestions become doubly valuable. I have listened
to them with emotions which I would struggle in vain to express. Oh,
that we may see the day when, with a glorious nation as an orchestra,
the psalm of universal freedom may rise in a swell of triumphant
jubilee!
“And it will come! Rely upon us. Return to your homes. Cherish
fraternity and music. Meantime we shall work without intermission for
your sake. Harmony is our sole object: believe me that, in reconstituted
France, there shall be nothing but perfect harmony!”
The deputation withdrew in tears; and another entered to state certain
grievances touching the manufacture of steel beads. I need not say that
in this, as in several other instances, the _ouvrier_ comported himself
like an eminent member of the Society of Universal Knowledge.
“That’s the last of them, praise be to Mumbo Jumbo!” said he, as the
representatives of the shoeblacks departed. “Faith, this is work hard
enough to kill a horse. So, Mr Dunshunner! you have been getting up a
counter-revolution at the Tuilleries, I see. How are Monsieur Potard and
all the rest of your colleagues?”
“I am afraid they are finally expelled from paradise,” said I.
“Serve them right! a parcel of democratic scum. And what has become of
Citizen Bagsby?”
“I have sent him to my hotel. He was in reality very near becoming an
actual child of France.” And I told the story of the nuptials, at which
the _ouvrier_ nearly split himself with laughter.
“And now, Mr Dunshunner,” said he at length, “may I ask the nature of
your plans?”
“These may depend a good deal upon your advice,” said I.
“I never give advice,” replied the _ouvrier_ with a nasal twitch.
“Sometimes it is rather dangerous. But tell me—what would you think of
the state of the British government, if Earl Grey at a cabinet-council
were to threaten to call in the mob, and if Lord Johnny Russell
prevented him by clapping a pistol to his ear?”
“I should think very badly of it indeed,” said I.
“Or if Incapability Wood should threaten, in the event of the populace
appearing, to produce from the Earl’s pocket a surreptitious order on
the treasury for something like twelve thousand pounds?”
“Worse still.”
“Well, then; I don’t think you’ll find _that_ sort of thing going on in
London, at all events.”
“Have you any commands for the other side of the Channel?”
“Oh, then, you are determined to leave? Well, perhaps upon the whole it
is your wisest plan. And—I say—just tell them that if things look worse,
I may be over one of these fine mornings. Good-bye.”
And so, with a cordial pressure of the hand, we parted.
“Monte-Christo,” I said, as that very evening I bundled Bagsby into a
_fiacre_ on our way to the railroad station—“Monte-Christo, my good
fellow, let me give you a slight piece of advice, which it would be well
if all of our craft and calling would keep in memory,—‘THINK TWICE
BEFORE YOU WRITE UP ANOTHER REVOLUTION.’”
THE CAXTONS—A FAMILY PICTURE.
CHAPTER I.
“Sir—sir—it is a boy!”
“A boy,” said my father, looking up from his book, and evidently much
puzzled; “what is a boy?”
Now, my father did not mean by that interrogatory to challenge
philosophical inquiry, nor to demand of the honest but unenlightened
woman who had just rushed into his study, a solution of that mystery,
physiological and psychological, which has puzzled so many curious
sages, and lies still involved in the question, “What is man?” For, as
we need not look farther than Dr Johnson’s Dictionary to know that a boy
is “a male child”—_i. e._, the male young of man; so he who would go to
the depth of things, and know scientifically what is a boy, must be able
first to ascertain “what is a man?” But, for aught I know, my father may
have been satisfied with Buffon on that score, or he may have sided with
Monboddo. He may have agreed with Bishop Berkeley—he may have contented
himself with Professor Combe—he may have regarded the genus spiritually,
like Zeno, or materially, like Epicurus. Grant that boy is the male
young of man, and he would have had plenty of definitions to choose
from. He might have said, “Man is a stomach—_ergo_, boy a male young
stomach. Man is a brain,—boy a male young brain. Man is a bundle of
habits—boy a male young bundle of habits. Man is a machine—boy a male
young machine. Man is a tail-less monkey—boy a male young tail-less
monkey. Man is a combination of gases—boy a male young combination of
gases. Man is an appearance—boy a male young appearance,” &c. &c., and
etcetera, _ad infinitum_! And if none of these definitions had entirely
satisfied my father, I am perfectly persuaded that he would never have
come to Mrs Primmins for a new one.
But it so happened that my father was at that moment engaged in the
important consideration whether the Iliad was written by one Homer—or
was rather a collection of sundry ballads, done into Greek by divers
hands, and finally selected, compiled, and reduced into a whole by a
Committee of Taste, under that elegant old tyrant Pisistratus; and the
sudden affirmation “It is a boy,” did not seem to him pertinent to the
thread of the discussion. Therefore he asked, “What is a boy?”—vaguely,
and, as it were, taken by surprise.
“Lord, sir!” said Mrs Primmins, “what is a boy? Why, the baby!”
“The baby!” repeated my father, rising. “What, you don’t mean to say
that Mrs Caxton is—eh—?”
“Yes I do,” said Mrs Primmins, dropping a curtsey; “and as fine a little
rogue as ever I set eyes upon.”
“Poor, dear woman!” said my father with great compassion. “So soon
too—so rapidly!” he resumed in a tone of musing surprise. “Why, it is
but the other day we were married!”
“Bless my heart, sir,” said Mrs Primmins, much scandalised, “it is ten
months and more.”
“Ten months!” said my father with a sigh. “Ten months! and I have not
finished fifty pages of my refutation of Wolfe’s monstrous theory! In
ten months a child!—and I’ll be bound complete—hands, feet, eyes, ears,
and nose!—and not like this poor Infant of Mind (and my father
pathetically placed his hand on the treatise)—of which nothing is formed
and shaped—not even the first joint of the little finger! Why, my wife
is a precious woman! Well, keep her quiet. Heaven preserve her, and send
me strength—to support this blessing!”
“But your honour will look at the baby?—come, sir!” and Mrs Primmins
laid hold of my father’s sleeve coaxingly.
“Look at it—to be sure,” said my father kindly; “look at it, certainly,
it is but fair to poor Mrs Caxton; after taking so much trouble, dear
soul!”
Therewith my father, drawing his dressing robe round him in more stately
folds, followed Mrs Primmins up stairs, into a room very carefully
darkened.
“How are you, my dear?” said my father, with compassionate tenderness,
as he groped his way to the bed.
A faint voice muttered, “Better now,—and so happy!” And, at the same
moment, Mrs Primmins pulled my father away, lifted a coverlid from a
small cradle, and, holding a candle within an inch of an undeveloped
nose, cried emphatically, “There—bless it!”
“Of course, ma’am, I bless it,” said my father rather peevishly. “It is
my duty to bless it;—BLESS IT! And this, then, is the way we come into
the world!—red, very red,—blushing for all the follies we are destined
to commit.”
My father sat down on the nurse’s chair, the women grouped round him. He
continued to gaze on the contents of the cradle, and at length said
musingly:—“And Homer was once like this!”
At this moment—and no wonder, considering the propinquity of the candle
to his visual organs—Homer’s infant likeness commenced the first
untutored melodies of nature.
“Homer improved greatly in singing as he grew older,” observed Mr
Squills, the accoucheur, who was engaged in some mysteries in a corner
of the room.
My father stopped his ears:—“Little things can make a great noise,” said
he, philosophically; “and the smaller the thing the greater noise it can
make.”
So saying, he crept on tiptoe to the bed, and, clasping the pale hand
held out to him, whispered some words that no doubt charmed and soothed
the ear that heard them, for that pale hand was suddenly drawn from his
own, and thrown tenderly round his neck. The sound of a gentle kiss was
heard through the stillness.
“Mr Caxton, sir,” cried Mr Squills, in rebuke, “you agitate my
patient—you must retire.”
My father raised his mild face, looked round apologetically, brushed his
eyes with the back of his hand, stole to the door, and vanished.
“I think,” said a kind gossip seated at the other side of my mother’s
bed, “I think, my dear, that Mr Caxton might have shown more joy,—more
natural feeling, I may say,—at the sight of the baby: and such a baby!
But all men are just the same, my dear—brutes—all brutes, depend upon
it.”
“Poor Austin!” sighed my mother feebly—“how little you understand him.”
“And now I shall clear the room,” said Mr Squills.—“Go to sleep, Mrs
Caxton.”
“Mr Squills,” exclaimed my mother, and the bed-curtains trembled, “pray
see that Mr Caxton does not set himself on fire;—and, Mr Squills, tell
him not to be vexed and miss me.—I shall be down very soon—shan’t I?”
“If you keep yourself easy you will, ma’am.”
“Pray say so;—and, Primmins,—”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Every one, I fear, is neglecting your master. Be sure,—(and my mother’s
lips approached close to Mrs Primmins’ ear,)—be sure that you—air his
nightcap yourself.”
“Tender creatures those women,” soliloquised Mr Squills, as, after
clearing the room of all present, save Mrs Primmins and the nurse, he
took his way towards my father’s study. Encountering the footman in the
passage,—“John,” said he, “take supper into your master’s room—and make
us some punch, will you?—stiffish!”
CHAPTER II.
“Mr Caxton, how on earth did you ever come to marry?” asked Mr Squills,
abruptly, with his feet on the hob, while stirring up his punch.
That was a home question, which many men might reasonably resent. But my
father scarcely knew what resentment was.
“Squills,” said he, turning round from his books, and laying one finger
on the surgeon’s arm confidentially,—“Squills,” said he, “I should be
glad to know myself how I came to be married.”
Mr Squills was a jovial good-hearted man—stout, fat, and with fine
teeth, that made his laugh pleasant to look at as well as to hear. Mr
Squills, moreover, was a bit of a philosopher in his way;—studied human
nature in curing its diseases;—and was accustomed to say, that Mr Caxton
was a better book in himself than all he had in his library. Mr Squills
laughed and rubbed his hands.
My father resumed thoughtfully, and in the tone of one who moralises:—
“There are three great events in life, sir; birth, marriage, and death.
None know how they are born, few know how they die. But I suspect that
many can account for the intermediate phenomenon—I cannot.”
“It was not for money,—it must have been for love,” observed Mr Squills;
“and your young wife is as pretty as she is good.”
“Ha!” said my father, “I remember.”
“Do you, sir?” exclaimed Squills, highly amused. “How was it?”
My father, as was often the case with him, protracted his reply, and
then seemed rather to commune with himself than to answer Mr Squills.
“The kindest, the best of men,” he murmured,—“_Abyssus Eruditionis_: and
to think that he bestowed on me the only fortune he had to leave,
instead of to his own flesh and blood, Jack and Kitty. All at least that
I could grasp _deficiente manu_, of his Latin, his Greek, his Orientals.
What do I not owe to him!”
“To whom?” asked Squills. “Good Lord, what’s the man talking about?”
“Yes, sir,” said my father rousing himself, “such was Giles Tibbets,
M.A., _Sol Scientiarum_, tutor to the humble scholar you address, and
father to poor Kitty. He left me his Elzevirs; he left me also his
orphan daughter.”
“Oh! as a wife—”
“No, as a ward. So she came to live here. I am sure there was no harm in
it. But my neighbours said there was, and the widow Weltraum told me the
girl’s character would suffer. What could I do?—Oh yes, I recollect all
now! I married her, that my old friend’s child might have a roof to her
head, and come to no harm. You see I was forced to do her that injury,
for after all, poor young creature, it was a sad lot for her. A dull
book-worm like me—_cochleæ vitam agens_, Mr Squills—leading the life of
a snail. But my shell was all I could offer to my poor friend’s orphan.”
“Mr Caxton, I honour you,” said Squills emphatically, jumping up and
spilling half a tumbler-full of scalding punch over my father’s legs.
“You have a heart, sir! and I understand why your wife loves you. You
seem a cold man; but you have tears in your eyes at this moment.”
“I dare say I have,” said my father, rubbing his shins: “it was
boiling!”
“And your son will be a comfort to you both,” said Mr Squills, reseating
himself, and, in his friendly emotion, wholly abstracted from all
consciousness of the suffering he had inflicted. “He will be a dove of
peace to your ark.”
“I don’t doubt it,” said my father ruefully, “only those doves, when
they are small, are a very noisy sort of birds—_non talium avium cantus
somnum reducunt_. However, it might have been worse. Leda had twins.”
“So had Mrs Barnabas last week,” rejoined the accoucheur. “Who knows
what may be in store for you yet? Here’s a health to Master Caxton, and
lots of brothers and sisters to him!”
“Brothers and sisters! I am sure Mrs Caxton will never think of such a
thing, sir,” said my father almost indignantly. “She’s much too good a
wife to behave so. Once, in a way, it is all very well; but twice—and as
it is, not a paper in its place, nor a pen mended the last three days:
I, too, who can only write ‘_cuspide duriusculâ_’—and the Baker coming
twice to me for his bill too! The Ilithyiæ are troublesome deities, Mr
Squills.”
“Who are the Ilithyiæ,” asked the accoucheur.
“You ought to know,” answered my father, smiling. “The female dæmons who
presided over the Neogilos or New-born. They take the name from Juno.
See Homer, book XI. By the bye, will my Neogilos be brought up like
Hector or Astyanax,—_videlicet_, nourished by its mother or by a nurse?”
“Which do you prefer, Mr Caxton?” asked Mr Squills, breaking the sugar
in his tumbler. “In this I always deem it my duty to consult the wishes
of the gentleman.”
“A nurse by all means, then,” said my father. “And let her carry him
_upo kolpo_, next to her bosom. I know all that has been said about
mothers nursing their own infants, Mr Squills; but poor Kitty is so
sensitive, that I think a stout healthy peasant woman will be best for
the boy’s future nerves, and his mother’s nerves, present and future
too. Heigh-ho!—I shall miss the dear woman very much; when will she be
up, Mr Squills?”
“Oh, in less than a fortnight!”
“And then the Neogilos shall go to school! _upo kolpo_—the nurse with
him, and all will be right again,” said my father, with a look of sly
mysterious humour, which was peculiar to him.
“School! when he’s just born?”
“Can’t begin too soon,” said my father positively; “that’s Helvetius’
opinion, and it’s mine too!”
CHAPTER III.
That I was a very wonderful child, I take for granted; but,
nevertheless, it was not of my own knowledge that I came into possession
of the circumstances set down in my former chapters. But my father’s
conduct on the occasion of my birth made a notable impression upon all
who witnessed it; and Mr Squills and Mrs Primmins have related the facts
to me sufficiently often, to make me as well acquainted with them as
those worthy witnesses themselves. I fancy I see my father before me, in
his dark-gray dressing-gown, and with his odd, half sly, half innocent
twitch of the mouth, and peculiar puzzling look, from two quiet,
abstracted, indolently handsome eyes, at the moment he agreed with
Helvetius on the propriety of sending me to school as soon as I was
born. Nobody knew exactly what to make of my father—his wife excepted.
Some set him down as a sage, some as a fool. As Hippocrates, in his
well-known letter to Damagetes, saith of the great Democritus, he was
_contemptu et admiratione habitus_—accustomed both to contempt and
admiration. The neighbouring clergy respected him as a scholar,
“breathing libraries;” the ladies despised him as an absent pedant, who
had no more gallantry than a stock or a stone. The poor loved him for
his charities, but laughed at him as a weak sort of man, easily taken
in. Yet the squires and farmers found that, in their own matters of
rural business, he had always a fund of curious information to impart;
and whoever, young or old, gentle or simple, learned or ignorant, asked
his advice, it was given with not more humility than wisdom. In the
common affairs of life, he seemed incapable of acting for himself; he
left all to my mother; or, if taken unawares, was pretty sure to be the
dupe. But in those very affairs—if _another_ consulted him—his eye
brightened, his brow cleared, the desire of serving made him a new
being: cautious, profound, practical. Too lazy or too languid where only
his own interests were at stake—touch his benevolence, and all the
wheels of the clockwork felt the impetus of the master-spring. No wonder
that, to others, the nut of such a character was hard to crack! But, in
the eyes of my poor mother, Augustine (familiarly Austin) Caxton was the
best and the greatest of human beings; and certainly she ought to have
known him well, for she studied him with her whole heart, knew every
trick of his face, and, nine times out of ten, divined what he was going
to say, before he opened his lips. Yet certainly there were deeps in his
nature which the plummet of her tender woman’s wit had never sounded;
and, certainly, it sometimes happened that, even in his most domestic
colloquialisms, my mother was in doubt whether he was the simple
straightforward person he was mostly taken for. There was, indeed, a
kind of suppressed subtle irony about him, too unsubstantial to be
popularly called humour, but dimly implying some sort of jest, which he
kept all to himself; and this was only noticeable when he said something
that sounded very grave, or appeared to the grave very silly and
irrational.
That I did not go to school—at least to what Mr Squills understood by
the word school—quite so soon as intended, I need scarcely observe. In
fact, my mother managed so well—my nursery, by means of double doors,
was so placed out of hearing—that my father, for the most part, was
privileged, if he so pleased, to forget my existence. He was once dimly
recalled to it on the occasion of my christening. Now, my father was a
shy man, and he particularly hated all ceremonies and public spectacles.
He became uneasily aware that a great ceremony, in which he might be
called upon to play a prominent part, was at hand. Abstracted as he was,
and conveniently deaf at times, he had heard significant whispers about
“taking advantage of the bishop’s being in the neighbourhood,” and
“twelve new jelly glasses being absolutely wanted,” to be sure that some
deadly festivity was in the wind. And, when the question of godmother
and godfather was fairly put to him, coupled with the remark that this
was a fine opportunity to return the civilities of the neighbourhood, he
felt that a strong effort at escape was the only thing left.
Accordingly, having, seemingly without listening, heard the day fixed,
and seen, as they thought, without observing, the chintz chairs in the
best drawing-room uncovered, (my dear mother was the tidiest woman in
the world,) my father suddenly discovered that there was to be a great
book sale, twenty miles off, which would last four days, and attend it
he must. My mother sighed; but she never contradicted my father, even
when he was wrong, as he certainly was in this case. She only dropped a
timid intimation that she feared “It would look odd, and the world might
misconstrue my father’s absence—had not she better put off the
christening?”
“My dear,” answered my father, “it will be _my_ duty, by-and-by, to
christen the boy—a duty not done in a day. At present, I have no doubt
that the bishop will do very well without me. Let the day stand, or, if
you put it off, upon my word and honour I believe that the wicked
auctioneer will put off the book sale also. Of one thing I am quite
sure, that the sale and the christening will take place at the same
time.”
There was no getting over this; but I am certain my dear mother had much
less heart than before in uncovering the chintz chairs, in the best
drawing-room. Five years later this would not have happened. My mother
would have kissed my father and said “Stay,” and he would have staid.
But she was then very young and timid; and he, wild man, not of the
woods but the cloisters, nor yet civilised into the tractabilities of
home. In short, the post-chaise was ordered and the carpet-bag packed.
“My love,” said my mother, the night before this Hegira, looking up from
her work—“my love, there is one thing you have quite forgot to settle—I
beg pardon for disturbing you, but it is important!—baby’s name; shan’t
we call him Augustine?”
“Augustine,” said my father, dreamily; “why, that name’s mine.”
“And you would like your boy’s to be the same?”
“No,” said my father, rousing himself. “Nobody would know which was
which. I should catch myself learning the Latin accidence or playing at
marbles. I should never know my own identity, and Mrs Primmins would be
giving me pap.”
My mother smiled; and, putting her hand, which was a very pretty one, on
my father’s shoulder, and looking at him tenderly, she said, “There’s no
fear of mistaking you for any other, even your son, dearest. Still, if
you prefer another name, what shall it be?”
“Samuel,” said my father. “Dr Parr’s name is Samuel.”
“La, my love! Samuel is the ugliest name—”
My father did not hear the exclamation, he was again deep in his books;
presently he started up:—“Barnes says Homer is Solomon. Read Omeros
backwards, in the Hebrew manner—”
“Yes, my love,” interrupted my mother. “But baby’s christian name?”
“Omeros—Soremo—Solemo—Solomo!”
“Solomo! shocking,” said my mother.
“Shocking, indeed,” echoed my father; “an outrage to common sense.”
Then, after glancing again over his books, he broke out musingly—“But,
after all, it is nonsense to suppose that Homer was not settled till
_his_ time.”
“Whose?” asked my mother, mechanically.
My father lifted up his finger.
My mother continued, after a short pause, “Arthur is a pretty name. Then
there’s William—Henry—Charles—Robert. What shall it be, love?”
“Pisistratus?” said my father, (who had hung fire till then,) in a tone
of contempt—“Pisistratus indeed!”
“Pisistratus! a very fine name,” said my mother joyfully—“Pisistratus
Caxton. Thank you, my love: Pisistratus it shall be.”
“Do you contradict me? Do you side with Wolf and Heyne, and that
pragmatical fellow Vico? Do you mean to say that the Rhapsodists?”—
“No, indeed,” interrupted my mother. “My dear, you frighten me.”
My father sighed, and threw himself back in his chair. My mother took
courage and resumed.
“Pisistratus is a long name too! Still, one could call him Sisty.”
“Siste, Viator,” muttered my father; “that’s trite!”
“No, Sisty by itself—short. Thank you, my dear.”
Four days afterwards, on his return from the book sale, to my father’s
inexpressible bewilderment, he was informed that “Pisistratus was
growing quite the image of him.”
When at length the good man was made thoroughly aware of the fact, that
his son and heir boasted a name so memorable in history as that borne by
the enslaver of Athens, and the disputed arranger of Homer—and it was
insisted that it was a name he himself had suggested—he was as angry as
so mild a man could be. “But it is infamous!” he exclaimed. “Pisistratus
christened! Pisistratus! who lived six hundred years before Christ was
born. Good heavens, madam! You have made me the father of an
anachronism.”
My mother burst into tears. But the evil was irremediable. An
anachronism I was, and an anachronism I must continue to the end of the
chapter.
CHAPTER IV.
“Of course, sir, you will begin soon to educate your son yourself?” said
Mr Squills.
“Of course, sir,” said my father, “you have read Martinus Scriblerus?”
“I don’t understand you, Mr Caxton.”
“Then you have _not_ read Martinus Scriblerus, Mr Squills!”
“Consider that I have read it, and what then?”
“Why then, Squills,” said my father familiarly, “you would know, that
though a scholar is often a fool, he is never a fool so supreme, so
superlative, as when he is defacing the first unsullied page of the
human history, by entering into it the commonplaces of his own pedantry.
A scholar, sir, at least one like me, is of all persons the most unfit
to teach young children. A mother, sir, a simple, natural, loving
mother, is the infant’s true guide to knowledge.”
“Egad, Mr Caxton, in spite of Helvetius, whom you quoted the night the
boy was born—egad, I believe you are right!”
“I am sure of it,” said my father; “at least as sure as a poor mortal
can be of any thing. I agree with Helvetius, the child should be
educated from its birth; but how?—there is the rub: send him to school
forthwith! Certainly he is at school already with the two great
principles, Nature and Love. Observe, that childhood and genius have the
same master organ in common—inquisitiveness. Let childhood have its way,
and as it began where genius begins, it may find what genius finds. A
certain Greek writer tells us of some man, who, in order to save his
bees a troublesome flight to Hymettus, cut their wings, and placed
before them the finest flowers he could select. The poor bees made no
honey. Now, sir, if I were to teach my boy, I should be cutting his
wings and giving him the flowers he should find himself. Let us leave
Nature alone for the present, and Nature’s living proxy, the watchful
mother.”
Therewith my father pointed to his heir sprawling on the grass and
plucking daisies on the lawn; while the young mother’s voice rose
merrily, laughing at the child’s glee.
“I shall make but a poor bill out of your nursery, I see,” said Mr
Squills.
Agreeably to these doctrines, strange in so learned a father, I thrived
and flourished, and learned to spell, and make pothooks, under the joint
care of my mother and Dame Primmins. This last was one of an old race
fast dying away—the race of old faithful servants—the race of old
tale-telling nurses. She had reared my mother before me; but her
affection put out new flowers for the new generation. She was a
Devonshire woman—and Devonshire women, especially those who have passed
their youth near the sea-coast, are generally superstitious. She had a
wonderful budget of fables. Before I was six years old, I was erudite in
that primitive literature, in which the legends of all nations are
traced to a common fountain—_Puss in Boots_, _Tom Thumb_, _Fortunio_,
_Fortunatus_, _Jack the Giant-killer_—tales like proverbs, equally
familiar, under different versions, to the infant worshipper of Budh and
the hardier children of Thor. I may say, without vanity, that in an
examination in such works of imagination, I could have taken honours!
My dear mother had some little misgivings as to the solid benefit to be
derived from such fantastic erudition, and timidly consulted my father
therein.
“My love,” answered my father, in that tone of voice which always
puzzled even my mother, to be sure whether he was in jest or earnest—“in
all these fables, certain philosophers could easily discover symbolical
significations of the highest morality. I have myself written a treatise
to prove that _Puss in Boots_ is an allegory upon the progress of the
human understanding, having its origin in the mystical schools of the
Egyptian priests, and evidently an illustration of the worship rendered
at Thebes and Memphis to those feline quadrupeds, of which they made
both religious symbols and elaborate mummies.”
“My dear Austin,” said my mother opening her blue eyes, “you don’t think
that Sisty will discover all those fine things in _Puss in Boots_!”
“My dear Kitty,” answered my father, “you don’t think, when you were
good enough to take up with me, that you found in me all the fine things
I have learned from books. You knew me only as a harmless creature, who
was happy enough to please your fancy. By-and-by you discovered that I
was no worse for all the quartos that have transmigrated into ideas
within me—ideas that are mysteries even to myself. If Sisty, as you call
the child, (plague on that unlucky anachronism! which you do well to
abbreviate into a dissyllable,) if Sisty can’t discover all the wisdom
of Egypt in _Puss in Boots_, what then? _Puss in Boots_ is harmless, and
it pleases his fancy. All that wakes curiosity is wisdom, if
innocent—all that pleases the fancy now, turns hereafter to love or to
knowledge. And so, my dear, go back to the nursery.”
But I should wrong thee, O best of fathers, if I suffered the reader to
suppose, that because thou didst seem so indifferent to my birth, and so
careless as to my early teaching, therefore thou wert, at heart,
indifferent to thy troublesome Neogilos. As I grew older, I became more
sensibly aware that a father’s eye was upon me. I distinctly remember
one incident, that seems to me, in looking back, a crisis in my infant
life, as the first tangible link between my own heart and that calm
great soul.
My father was seated on the lawn before the house, his straw hat over
his eyes (it was summer) and his book on his lap. Suddenly a beautiful
delf blue-and-white flower-pot, which had been set on the window-sill of
an upper storey, fell to the ground with a crash, and the fragments
spluttered up round my father’s legs. Sublime in his studies as
Archimedes in the siege, he continued to read “_Impavidum feriunt
ruinæ!_”
“Dear, dear!” cried my mother, who was at work in the porch, “my poor
flower-pot that I prized so much! Who could have done this? Primmins,
Primmins!”
Mrs Primmins popped her head out of the fatal window, nodded to the
summons, and came down in a trice, pale and breathless.
“Oh!” said my mother, mournfully, “I would rather have lost all the
plants in the greenhouse in the great blight last May,—I would rather
the best tea-set were broken! The poor geranium I reared myself, and the
dear, dear flower-pot which Mr Caxton bought for me my last birth-day!
That naughty child must have done this!”
Mrs Primmins was dreadfully afraid of my father—why, I know not, except
that very talkative social persons are usually afraid of very silent shy
ones. She cast a hasty glance at her master, who was beginning to evince
signs of attention, and cried promptly, “No, ma’am, it was not the dear
boy, bless his flesh, it was I!”
“You! how could you be so careless? and you knew how I prized them both.
Oh, Primmins!”
Primmins began to sob.
“Don’t tell fibs, nursey,” said a small shrill voice; and Master Sisty
(coming out of the house as bold as brass) continued rapidly—“don’t
scold Primmins, mamma: it was I who pushed out the flower-pot.”
“Hush!” said nurse, more frightened than ever, and looking aghast
towards my father, who had very deliberately taken off his hat, and was
regarding the scene with serious eyes wide awake.
“Hush! And if he did break it, ma’am, it was quite an accident; he was
standing so, and he never meant it. Did you, Master Sisty? Speak! (this
in a whisper) or Pa will be so angry.”
“Well,” said my mother, “I suppose it was an accident; take care in
future, my child. You are sorry, I see, to have grieved me. There’s a
kiss, don’t fret.”
“No, mamma, you must not kiss me, I don’t deserve it. I pushed out the
flower-pot on purpose.”
“Ha! and why?” said my father, walking up.
Mrs Primmins trembled like a leaf.
“For fun!” said I, hanging my head—“just to see how you’d look, papa;
and that’s the truth of it. Now beat me, do beat me!”
My father threw his book fifty yards off, stooped down, and caught me to
his breast. “Boy,” he said, “you have done wrong: you shall repair it by
remembering all your life that your father blessed God for giving him a
son who spoke truth in spite of fear! Oh! Mrs Primmins, the next fable
of this kind you try to teach him, and we part for ever!”
From that time I first date the hour when I felt that I loved my father,
and knew that he loved me; from that time too, he began to _converse_
with me. He would no longer, if he met me in the garden, pass by with a
smile and nod; he would stop, put his book in his pocket, and though his
talk was often above my comprehension, still somehow I felt happier and
better, and less of an infant, when I thought over it, and tried to
puzzle out the meaning; for he had a way of suggesting, not teaching,
putting things into my head, and then leaving them to work out their own
problems. I remember a special instance with respect to that same
flower-pot and geranium. Mr Squills, who was a bachelor, and well to do
in the world, often made me little presents. Not long after the event I
have narrated, he gave me one far exceeding in value those usually
bestowed on children,—it was a beautiful large domino-box in cut ivory,
painted and gilt. This domino-box was my delight. I was never weary of
playing at dominoes with Mrs Primmins, and I slept with the box under my
pillow.
“Ah!” said my father one day when he found me ranging the ivory squares
in the parlour, “ah! you like that better than all your playthings, eh?”
“Oh yes, papa.”
“You would be very sorry if your mamma was to throw that box out of the
window, and break it for fun.” I looked beseechingly at my father, and
made no answer.
“But perhaps you would be very glad,” he resumed, “if suddenly one of
these good fairies you read of could change the domino-box into a
beautiful geranium in a beautiful blue-and-white flower-pot, and that
you could have the pleasure of putting it on your mamma’s window-sill.”
“Indeed I would!” said I, half crying.
“My dear boy, I believe you; but good wishes don’t mend bad
actions,—good actions mend bad actions.”
So saying, he shut the door and went out. I cannot tell you how puzzled
I was to make out what my father meant by his aphorism. But I know that
I played at dominoes no more that day. The next morning my father found
me seated by myself under a tree in the garden; he paused and looked at
me with his grave bright eyes very steadily.
“My boy,” said he, “I am going to walk to —— (a town about two miles
off,) will you come? and, by the bye, fetch your domino-box: I should
like to show it to a person there.” I ran in for the box, and, not a
little proud of walking with my father upon the high-road, we set out.
“Papa,” said I by the way, “there are no fairies now.”
“What then, my child?”
“Why—how then can my domino-box be changed into a geranium and a
blue-and-white flower-pot?”
“My dear,” said my father, leaning his hand on my shoulder, “every body
who is in earnest to be good, carries two fairies about with him—one
here,” and he touched my heart; “and one here,” and he touched my
forehead.
“I don’t understand, papa.”
“I can wait till you do, Pisistratus! What a name!”
My father stopped at a nursery gardener’s, and, after looking over the
flowers, paused before a large double geranium. “Ah, this is finer than
that which your mamma was so fond of. What is the cost, sir?”
“Only 7s. 6d.,” said the gardener.
My father buttoned up his pocket.
“I can’t afford it to-day,” said he gently, and we walked out.
On entering the town, we stopped again at a china-warehouse. “Have you a
flower-pot like that I bought some months ago? Ah, here is one, marked
3s. 6d. Yes, that is the price. Well, when your mamma’s birth-day comes
again, we must buy her another. That is some months to wait. And we can
wait, Master Sisty. For truth, that blooms all the year round, is better
than a poor geranium; and a word that is never broken, is better than a
piece of delf.”
My head, which had drooped before, rose again; but the rush of joy at my
heart almost stifled me.
“I have called to pay your little bill,” said my father, entering the
shop of one of those fancy stationers common in country towns, and who
sell all kinds of pretty toys and nicknacks. “And by the way,” he added,
as the smiling shopman looked over his books for the entry, “I think my
little boy here can show you a much handsomer specimen of French
workmanship than that work-box which you enticed Mrs Caxton into
raffling for, last winter. Show your domino-box, my dear.”
I produced my treasure, and the shopman was liberal in his
commendations. “It is always well, my boy, to know what a thing is
worth, in case one wishes to part with it. If my young gentleman gets
tired of his plaything, what will you give him for it?”
“Why, sir,” said the shopman, “I fear we could not afford to give more
than eighteen shillings for it, unless the young gentleman took some of
these pretty things in exchange.”
“Eighteen shillings!” said my father; “you would give _that_. Well, my
boy, whenever you do grow tired of your box, you have my leave to sell
it.”
My father paid his bill, and went out. I lingered behind a few moments,
and joined him at the end of the street.
“Papa, papa!” I cried, clapping my hands, “we can buy the geranium—we
can buy the flower-pot.” And I pulled a handful of silver from my
pockets.
“Did I not say right?” said my father, passing his handkerchief over his
eyes—“You have found the two fairies!”
Oh! how proud, how overjoyed I was, when, after placing vase and flower
on the window-sill, I plucked my mother by the gown, and made her follow
me to the spot.
“It is his doing, and his money!” said my father; “good actions have
mended the bad.”
“What!” cried my mother, when she had learned all; “and your poor
domino-box that you were so fond of! We will go back to-morrow, and buy
it back, if it costs us double.”
“Shall we buy it back, Pisistratus?” asked my father.
“Oh no—no—no! It would spoil all,” I cried, burying my face on my
father’s breast.
“My wife,” said my father solemnly, “this is my first lesson to our
child—the sanctity and the happiness of self-sacrifice—undo not what it
should teach to his dying day!”
And that is the history of the broken flower-pot.
CHAPTER V.
When I was between my seventh and my eighth year, a change came over me,
which may perhaps be familiar to the notice of those parents who boast
the anxious blessing of an only child. The ordinary vivacity of
childhood forsook me; I became quiet, sedate, and thoughtful. The
absence of playfellows of my own age, the companionship of mature minds
alternated only by complete solitude, gave something precocious, whether
to my imagination or my reason. The wild fables muttered to me by the
old nurse in the summer twilight, or over the winter’s hearth—the effort
made by my struggling intellect to comprehend the grave, sweet wisdom of
my father’s suggested lessons—tended to feed a passion for reverie, in
which all my faculties strained and struggled, as in the dreams that
come when sleep is nearest waking. I had learned to read with ease, and
to write with some fluency, and I already began to imitate, to
reproduce. Strange tales, akin to those I had gleaned from
fairyland—rude songs, modelled from such verse-books as fell into my
hands, began to mar the contents of marble-covered pages, designed for
the less ambitious purposes of round text and multiplication. My mind
was yet more disturbed by the intensity of my home affections. My love
for both my parents had in it something morbid and painful. I often wept
to think how little I could do for those I loved so well. My fondest
fancies built up imaginary difficulties for them, which my arm was to
smoothe. These feelings, thus cherished, made my nerves over-susceptible
and acute. Nature began to affect me powerfully; and from that affection
rose a restless curiosity to analyse the charms that so mysteriously
moved me to joy or awe, to smiles or tears. I got my father to explain
to me the elements of astronomy; I extracted from Squills, who was an
ardent botanist, some of the mysteries in the life of flowers. But music
became my darling passion. My mother (though the daughter of a great
scholar—a scholar at whose name my father raised his hat, if it happened
to be on his head) possessed, I must own it fairly, less book-learning
than many a humble tradesman’s daughter can boast in this more
enlightened generation; but she had some natural gifts which had
ripened, Heaven knows how! into womanly accomplishments. She drew with
some elegance, and painted flowers to exquisite perfection. She played
on more than one instrument with more than boarding-school skill; and
though she sang in no language but her own, few could hear her sweet
voice without being deeply touched. Her music, her songs, had a wondrous
effect on me. Thus, altogether, a kind of dreamy yet delightful
melancholy seized upon my whole being; and this was the more remarkable,
because contrary to my earlier temperament, which was bold, active, and
hilarious. The change in my character began to act upon my form. From a
robust and vigorous infant, I grew into a pale and slender boy. I began
to ail and mope. Mr Squills was called in.
“Tonics!” said Mr Squills; “and don’t let him sit over his book. Send
him out in the air—make him play. Come here, my boy—these organs are
growing too large;” and Mr Squills, who was a phrenologist, placed his
hand on my forehead. “Gad, sir, here’s an ideality for you; and, bless
my soul, what a constructiveness!”
My father pushed aside his papers, and walked to and fro the room with
his hands behind him; but he did not say a word till Mr Squills was
gone.
“My dear,” then said he to my mother, on whose breast I was leaning my
aching ideality—“my dear, Pisistratus must go to school in good
earnest.”
“Bless me, Austin!—at his age?”
“He is nearly eight years old.”
“But he is so forward.”
“It is for that reason he must go to school.”
“I don’t quite understand you, my love. I know he is getting past me;
but you who are so clever—”
My father took my mother’s hand—“We can teach him nothing now, Kitty. We
send him to school to be taught—”
“By some schoolmaster who knows much less than you do—”
“By little schoolboys, who will make him a boy again,” said my father,
almost sadly. “My dear, you remember that, when our Kentish gardener
planted those filbert-trees, and when they were in their third year, and
you began to calculate on what they would bring in, you went out one
morning, and found he had cut them down to the ground. You were vexed,
and asked why. What did the gardener say? ‘To prevent their bearing too
soon.’ There is no want of fruitfulness here—put back the hour of
produce, that the plant may last.”
“Let me go to school,” said I, lifting my languid head, and smiling on
my father. I understood him at once, and it was as if the voice of my
life itself answered to him.
CHAPTER VI.
A year after the resolution thus come to, I was at home for the
holidays.
“I hope,” said my mother, “that they are doing Sisty justice. I do think
he is not nearly so quick a child as he was before he went to school. I
wish you would examine him, Austin.”
“I have examined him, my dear. It is just as I expected; and I am quite
satisfied.”
“What! you really think he has come on?” said my mother joyfully.
“He does not care a button for botany now,” said Mr Squills.
“And he used to be so fond of music, dear boy!” observed my mother with
a sigh. “Good gracious! what noise is that?”
“Your son’s pop-gun against the window,” said my father. “It is lucky it
is only the window; it would have made a less deafening noise, though,
if it had been Mr Squills’ head, as it was yesterday morning.”
“The left ear,” observed Squills; “and a very sharp blow it was, too.
Yet you are satisfied, Mr Caxton?”
“Yes; I think the boy is now as great a blockhead as most boys of his
age are,” observed my father with great complacency.
“Dear me, Austin—a great blockhead!”
“What else did he go to school for?” asked my father; and observing a
certain dismay in the face of his female audience, and a certain
surprise in that of his male, he rose and stood on the hearth, with one
hand in his waistcoat, as was his wont when about to philosophise in
more detail than was usual to him.
“Mr Squills,” said he, “you have had great experience in families.”
“As good a practice as any in the county,” said Mr Squills proudly:
“more than I can manage. I shall advertise for a partner.”
“And,” resumed my father, “you must have observed almost invariably
that, in every family, there is what father, mother, uncle and aunt,
pronounce to be one wonderful child.”
“One at least,” said Mr Squills, smiling.
“It is easy,” continued my father, “to say this is parental
partiality,—but it is not so. Examine that child as a stranger, and it
will startle yourself. You stand amazed at its eager curiosity, its
quick comprehension, its ready wit, its delicate perception. Often, too,
you will find some faculty strikingly developed; the child will have a
turn for mechanics, perhaps, and make you a model of a steamboat,—or it
will have an ear tuned to verse, and will write you a poem like that it
has got by heart from ‘The Speaker,’—or it will take to botany, (like
Pisistratus) with the old maid its aunt,—or it will play a march on its
sister’s pianoforte. In short, even you, Squills, will declare that it
is really a wonderful child.”
“Upon my word,” said Mr Squills thoughtfully, “there’s a great deal of
truth in what you say; little Tom Dobbs _is_ a wonderful child—so is
Frank Steppington—and as for Johnny Styles, I must bring him here for
you to hear him prattle on Natural History, and see how well he handles
his pretty little microscope.”
“Heaven forbid!” said my father. “And now let me proceed. These
_thaumata_ or wonders last till when, Mr Squills?—last till the boy goes
to school, and then, somehow or other, the _thaumata_ vanish into thin
air, like ghosts at the cockcrow. A year after the prodigy has been at
the academy, father and mother, uncle and aunt, plague you no more with
his doings and sayings; the extraordinary infant has become a very
ordinary little boy. Is it not so, Mr Squills?”
“Indeed you are right, sir. How did you come to be so observant; you
never seem to—”
“Hush!” interrupted my father; and then, looking fondly at my mother’s
anxious face, he said, soothingly—“be comforted: this is wisely
ordained—and it is for the best.”
“It must be the fault of the school,” said my mother, shaking her head.
“It is the necessity of the school, and its virtue, my Kate. Let any one
of these wonderful children—wonderful as you thought Sisty himself—stay
at home, and you will see its head grow bigger and bigger, and its body
thinner and thinner—Eh, Mr Squills?—till the mind take all nourishment
from the frame, and the frame, in turn, stint or make sickly the mind.
You see that noble oak from the window—if the Chinese had brought it up,
it would have been a tree in miniature at five years old, and at an
hundred, you would have set it in a flower-pot on your table, no bigger
than it was at five—a curiosity for its matureness at one age—a show for
its diminutiveness at the other. No! the ordeal for talent is school;
restore the stunted mannikin to the growing child, and then let the
child if it can, healthily, hardily, naturally, work its slow way up
into greatness. If greatness be denied it, it will at least be a man,
and that is better than to be a little Johnny Styles all its life—an oak
in a pill-box.”
At that moment I rushed into the room, glowing and panting, health on my
cheek, vigour in my limbs—all childhood at my heart. “Oh! mamma, I have
got up the kite—so high!—come and see. Do come, papa.”
“Certainly,” said my father; “only, don’t cry so loud—kites make no
noise in rising—yet, you see how they soar above the world. Come, Kate,
where is my hat? Ah—thank you, my boy.”
“Kitty,” said my father, looking at the kite which, attached by its
string to the peg I had stuck into the ground, rested calm in the sky,
“never fear but what our kite shall fly as high; only, the human soul
has stronger instincts to mount upward than a few sheets of paper on a
framework of lath. But, observe, that to prevent its being lost in the
freedom of space, we must attach it lightly to earth; and, observe
again, my dear, that the higher it soars, the more string we must give
it.”
_Printed by William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh._
-----
Footnote 1:
“On the French Revolutions,” Nos. I.–V. Jan.–May, 1831.
Footnote 2:
5,468,000 in 1836, which must be at least 6,000,000 in
1848.—_Statistique de la France_—(_Agriculture_, 84–89.)
Footnote 3:
_Democratie Pacifique_, 1st March 1848.
Footnote 4:
_Democratie Pacifique_, 1st March, 1848, p. 1.
Footnote 5:
Ibid.
Footnote 6:
_Democratie Pacifique_, March 1, 1848.
Footnote 7:
_Democratie Pacifique_, March 2, 1848.
Footnote 8:
The present state of the finances of France is thus explained by the
Finance Minister:—
“On the 1st of January 1841, the capital of the public debt, the
government stock belonging to the sinking fund being deducted, was
4,267,315,402 francs. On the 1st of January 1848, it amounted to
5,179,644,730 francs. Far from taking advantage of so long a peace to
reduce the amount of the debt, the last administration augmented it in
those enormous proportions,—912,329,328 francs in seven years.
“BUDGETS.
“The budgets followed the progression of the debt.
“Those of 1829 to 1830 amount to 1,014,914,000 francs. The entire of
the credits placed at the disposal of the fallen government to the
year 1847 amounts to 1,712,979,639f. 62c. Notwithstanding the
successive increase of the receipts, the budgets presented each year a
considerable deficit. The expenses from 1840 to 1847 inclusively,
exceeded the receipts by 604,525,000 francs. The deficit calculated
for the year 1848 is 48,000,000 francs, without counting the
additional chapter of supplementary and extraordinary credits, which
will raise the total amount of the budgets to the charge of the last
administration to 652,525,000 francs.
“PUBLIC WORKS.
“The public works heedlessly undertaken simultaneously, at all points
of the territory, to satisfy or to encourage electoral corruption, and
not with that reserve which prudence so imperiously commanded, have
raised the credits to 1,081,000,000 francs. From this sum are to be
deducted the sums reimbursed by the companies, amounting to
160,000,000 francs; the last loan, 82,000,000 francs, making together
242,000,000 francs, and leaving a balance of 839,000,000 francs. Out
of this sum, 435,000,000 francs has been expended out of the resources
of the floating debt, and 404,000,000 francs still remain to be
expended on the completion of the works.
“FLOATING DEBT.
“The floating debt increased in proportions not less considerable. At
the commencement of 1831 it reached an amount of about 250,000,000
francs. At the date of the 26th of February last it exceeded
670,000,000 francs, to which is to be added the government stock
belonging to the savings’ banks, 202,000,000 francs, making altogether
972,000,000 francs. Under such a system the position of the central
office of the Treasury could not often be brilliant. During the two
hundred and sixty-eight last days of its existence, the fallen
government expended more than 294,800,000 francs beyond its ordinary
resources, or 1,100,000 francs per day.”—_Report of Finance Minister_,
March 9, 1848.
Footnote 9:
Lamartine, “Histoire des Girondins,” iii. 244, 245.
Footnote 10:
“La plus grande erreur contre laquelle il faille premunir la
population de nos campagnes, c’est que pour être representant il soit
nécessaire d’avoir de l’éducation ou de la fortune.”—_Circulaire du
Ministre d’Instruction publique, Mars 9 et 6_, 1848.
Footnote 11:
Tacitus.
Footnote 12:
Burke’s _Works_.
Footnote 13:
“God is patient because eternal.”
Footnote 14:
De Tocqueville, _Democratie en Amerique_, ii. 268.
Footnote 15:
These lines were composed on the north coast of Scotland, in view of a
wild sea-cave, the extent of which has never been ascertained. The
Atlantic rolls into it with such fury during a tempest, that the spray
rises like smoke from an orifice in the rock resembling a chimney, at
some distance from the mouth of the cave. This singular and startling
effect has no doubt given rise to the popular name of this remarkable
cavern—_Hell’s Lum_. Scott would have been pleased with it, and its
romantic legends of mermaids, &c.
Footnote 16:
_Histoire de la Conquête de Naples par Charles d’Anjou, frère de St
Louis._ Par le Comte ALEXIS DE ST PRIEST, Pair de France. 4 vols. 8vo.
Paris, 1848. Vols. i. to iii.
Footnote 17:
“Plasmi el cavalier Frances
E la donna Catalana,” &c., &c.
A well-known song which Voltaire rightly attributes to Frederick II.,
and which Guinguené, who is here wrong in his criticism of Voltaire,
gives to Frederick Barbarossa.
Footnote 18:
“Der wart auch Chunrad genant
Doch ner alle Welhesche Lannd
Da nannten die Lewt in
Nicht anders denn Chunradin.”
Ottakher’s _Austriæ Chronicon Germanicum_.
Footnote 19:
In the middle ages remarried queens lost their title. Conradin, in his
edicts, never called his mother otherwise than _comitissa_.
Footnote 20:
_The Life of Lord Chancellor Hardwicke; with Selections from his
Correspondence, Diaries, Speeches, and Judgments._ By GEORGE HARRIS,
Esq., Barrister at Law. In 3 vols. London: Moxon.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
Page Changed from Changed to
439 when Conrad died, at the of when Conrad died, at the age of
twenty-six twenty-six
441 allowed our lord to enter our allow our lord to enter our
walls walls
442 with the Infante Don Pedro, with the Infante Don Pedro, son
daughter
497 intrépide! A la recousse!” was intrépide! A la rescousse!” was
504 Liberté—Fraternité—Egalité Liberté—Fraternité—Égalité
506 Ah traitre! monstre! polisson Ah traître! monstre! polisson
1. Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
2. Used numbers for footnotes, placing them all at the end of the last
chapter.
3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.