CHAPTER VII.

THE END OF THE BEGINNING.

Abraham Allcraft, with all his base and sordid habits, was a beggar. His

gluttony had been too powerful for his judgment, and he had speculated

beyond all computation. His first hit had been received in connexion with

some extensive mines. At the outset they had promised to realize a

princely fortune. All the calculations had been made with care. The most

wary and experienced were eager for a share in the hoped for _el dorado_,

and Abraham was the greediest of any. In due time the bubble burst,

carrying with it into air poor Abraham's hard-earned fifty thousand pounds,

and his hearty execrations. Such a loss was not to be repaired by the

slow-healing process of legitimate business. Information reached him

respecting an extensive manufactory in Glasgow. Capabilities of turning

half a million per annum existed in the house, and were unfortunately

dormant simply because the moving principle was wanting. With a

comparatively moderate capital, what could not be effected? Ah, what? Had

you listened to the sanguine manufacturer your head would have grown giddy

with his magnificent proposals, as Allcraft's had, to the cost of his

unhappy self, and still unhappier clients. As acting is said to be not a

bare servile exhibition of nature, but rather an exalted and poetic

imitation of the same, so likewise are the pictures of houses, the

portraits of geniuses, _the representations of business facts_, and other

works of art which undertake to copy truth, but only embellish it and

render it most grateful to the eye. Nothing could _look_ more substantial

than the Glasgow manufactory on paper. A prettier painting never charmed

the eye of speculating amateur. Allcraft was caught. Ten thousand pounds,

which had been sent out to bring the fifty thousand back, never were seen

again. The manufacturer decamped--the rickety house gave way, and failed.

From this period Allcraft entangled himself more and more in schemes for

making money rapidly and by great strokes, and deeper he fell into the

slough of difficulty and danger. His troubles were commencing when he

heard of Mildred's serious illness, and the certainty of his speedy death.

With an affectionate solicitude, he mentally disposed of the splendid

fortune which the sick man could not possibly take with him, and contrived

a plan for making it fill up the gaps which misfortune had opened in the

banking-house. This was a new speculation, and promised more than all the

rest. Every energy was called forth--every faculty. His plans we already

know--his success has yet to be discovered. Abraham did not die intestate.

He left a will, bequeathing to Michael, his son and heir, a rotten firm, a

dishonourable name, a history of dishonesty, a nest of troubles.

Accompanying his will, there was a letter written in Allcraft's hand to

Michael, imploring the young man to act a child's part by his unhappy

parent. The elder one urged him by his love and gratitude to save his name

from the discredit which an exposure of his affairs must entail upon it;

and not only upon _it_, he added, but upon the living also. He had

procured for him, he said, an alliance which he would never have aspired

to--never would have obtained, had not his father laboured so hardly for

his boy's happiness and welfare. With management and care, and a gift from

his intended wife, nothing need be said--no exposure would take place--the

house would retain its high character, and in the course of a very few

years recover its solvency and prosperity. A fearful list of the

engagements was appended, and an account of every transaction in which the

deceased had been concerned. Michael read and read again every line and

word, and he stood thunderstruck at the disclosure. He raved against his

father, swore he would do nothing for the man who had so shamefully

involved himself; and, not content with his own ruin, had so wickedly

implicated him. This was the outbreak of the excited youth, but he sobered

down, and, in a few hours, the creature of impulse and impetuosity had

argued himself into the expediency of adapting his conduct to existing

circumstances--of stooping, in short, to all the selfishness and meanness

that actuate the most unfeeling and the least uncalculating of mortals. If

there were wanting, as, thank Heaven, there is not, one proof to

substantiate the fact, that no rule of life is safe and certain save that

made known in the translucent precepts of our God--no species of thought

free from hurt or danger--no action secure from ill or mischief, except

all thoughts and actions that have their origin in humble, loving,

_strict_ obedience to the pleasure and the will of Heaven; if any one

proof, I say, were wanting, it would be easy to discover it in the natural

perverse and inconsistent heart of man. A voice louder than the

preacher's--the voice of daily, hourly experience--proclaims the

melancholy fact, that no amount of high-wrought feeling, no loftiness of

speech, no intensity of expression, is a guarantee for purity of soul and

conduct, when obedience, simple, childlike obedience, has ceased to be the

spring of every motion and every aim. Reader, let us grapple with this

truth! We are servants here on earth, not masters! subjects, and not

legislators! Infants are we all in the arms of a just father! The command

is from elsewhere--_obedience_ is with us. If you would be happy, I charge

you, fling away the hope of finding security or rest in laws of your own

making in a system which you are pleased to call a code of

_honour_--honour that grows cowardlike and pale in the time of trial--that

shrinks in the path of duty--that slinks away unarmed and powerless, when

it should be nerved and ready for the righteous battle. Where are the

generous sentiments--the splendid outbursts--the fervid eloquence with

which Michael Allcraft was wont to greet the recital of any one short

history of oppression and dishonesty? Where are they now, in the first

moments of real danger, whilst his own soul is busy with designs as base

as they are cowardly? Nothing is easier for a loquacious person than to

talk. How glibly Michael could declaim against mankind before the

fascinating Margaret, we have seen; how feelingly against the degenerate

spirit of commerce, and the back-slidings of all professors of religion.

Surely, he who saw and so well depicted the vices of the age, was prepared

for adversity and its temptations! Not he, nor any man who prefers to be

the slave of impulse rather than the child of reason. After a day's

deliberation, he had resolved upon two things--first, not to expose

himself to the pity or derision of men, as it might chance to be, by

proclaiming the insolvency of his deceased father and secondly, not to

risk the loss of Margaret, by acknowledging himself to be a beggar. His

father had told him--he remembered the words well that she was induced to

name the wedding-day, only upon receiving the assurance of his

independence. Not to undeceive her now, would be to wed her under false

pretences; but to free her from deception, would be to free her from her

plighted word, and this his sense of honour would not let him do. I will

not say that Michael grossly and unfeelingly proposed to circumvent--to

cheat and rob the luckless Margaret; or that his conscience, that mighty

law unto itself, did not wince before it held its peace. There were

strugglings and entreaties, and patchings up, and excuses, and all the

appliances which precede the commission of a sinful act. Reasons for

honesty and disinterestedness were converted for the occasion into

justifications of falsehood and artifice. A paltry regard for himself and

his own interests was bribed to take the shape of filial duty and

affection. The result of all his cogitation and contrivances was one great

plan. He would not take from his Margaret's fortune. No, under existing

circumstances it would be wrong, unpardonable; but at the same time he was

bound to protect his father's reputation. The engagement with the widow

must go on. He could not yield the prize; life without her would not be

worth the having. What was to be done, then? Why, to wed, and to secure

the maintenance of the firm by means which were at his command. Once

married to the opulent Mrs Mildred, and nothing would be easier than to

obtain men of the first consideration in the county to take a share of his

responsibilities. Twenty, whom he could name, would jump at the

opportunity and the offer. The house stood already high in the opinion of

the world. What would it be with the superadded wealth of the magnificent

widow? The private debts of his father were a secret. His parsimonious

habits had left upon the minds of people a vague and shadowy notion of

surpassing riches; Had he not been rich beyond men's calculation, he would

not have ventured to live so meanly. Michael derived support from the

general belief, and resolved most secularly to take a full advantage of it.

If he could but procure one or two monied men as partners in the house,

the thing was settled. Matters would be snug--the property secured. The

business must increase. The profits would enable him in time to pay off

his father's liabilities, and if, in the meanwhile, it should be deemed

expedient to borrow from his wife, he might do so safely, satisfied that

he could repay the loan, at length, with interest. Such was the outline of

Michael Allcraft's scheme. His spirit was quiet as soon as it was

concocted, and he reposed upon it for a season as tired men sleep soundly

on a bed of straw.

Whilst the bridegroom was distressed with his peculiar grievances, the

lovely bride was doomed to submit to annoyances scarcely less painful. Her

late husband's friend, Doctor Wilford, who had been abroad for many months,

suddenly returned home, and, in fulfilment of Mildred's dying wish,

repaired without delay to the residence of his widow. Wilford had seen a

great deal of the world. He did not expect to find the bereaved one

inconsolable, but he was certainly staggered to behold her busy in

preparations for a second marriage. Indignant at what he conceived to be

an affront upon the memory of his friend, he argued and remonstrated

against her indecent haste, and besought her to postpone the unseemly

union. Roused by all he saw, the faithful friend spoke warmly on the

deceased's behalf, and painted in the strongest colours he could employ,

the enormity of her transgression. Now Margaret loved Michael as she had

never loved before. Slander could not open its lying lips to speak one

word against the esteem and gratitude she had ever entertained for Mildred

but esteem and gratitude--I appeal to the best, the most virtuous and

moral of my readers--cannot put out the fire that nature kindles in the

adoring heart of woman. Her error was not that she loved Michael more, but

that she had loved Mildred less. Ambition, if it usurp the rights of love,

must look for all the punishment that love inflicts. Sooner or later it

must come. "Who are you?" enquires the little god of the greater god,

ambition, "that you should march into my realms, and create rebellion

there? Wait but a little." Short was the interval between ambition's crime

and love's revenge with our poor Margaret. Wilford might never know how

cruelly his bitter words wrung her smitten soul. She did not answer him.

Paler she grew with every reproach--deeper was the self-conviction with

every angry syllable. She wept until he left her, and then she wrote to

Michael. As matters stood, and with their present understanding--he was

perhaps her best adviser. Wilford called to see her on the following

day--but Margaret's door was shut against him, and she beheld her

husband's friend no more.

And the blissful day came on--slowly, at last, to the happy lovers--for

happy they were in each other's sight, and in their passionate attachment.

And the blissful day arrived. Michael led her to the altar. A hundred

curious eyes looked on, admired, and praised, and envied. He might be

proud of his possession, were she unendowed with any thing but that

incomparable, unfading loveliness. And he, with his young and vigorous

form, was he not made for that rare plant to clasp and hang upon? "Heaven

bless them both!" So said the multitude, and so say I, although I scarce

can hope it; for who shall dare to think that Heaven will grant its

benediction on a compact steeped in earthliness, and formed without one

heavenward view!

* * * * *

THE WRONGS OF WOMEN.

I knew, my dear Eusebius, how delighted you would be with that paper in

Maga on "Woman's Rights." It was balm to your Quixotic spirit. Though your

limbs are a little rheumatic, and you do not so often as you were wont,

when your hair was black as raven's wing, raise your hands to take down

the armour that you have long since hung up, you know and feel with pride

that it has been charmed by due night-watchings, and will yet serve many a

good turn, should occasion require your service for woman in danger. Then,

indeed, would you buckle on in defence of all or any that ever did, or did

not, "buckle to." Then would come a happy cure to aching bones--made whole

with honourable bruises, oblivious of pain, the "_bruchia livida_,"

lithesome and triumphant. Your devotion to the sex has been seasoned under

burning sun and winter frost, and has yet vital heat against icy age, come

on fast as it will. You would not chill, Eusebius, though you were hours

under a pump in a November night, and lusty arms at work watering your

tender passion.

I know you. Rebecca and her daughters had a good word, a soft word from

you, till you found out their beards. No mercy with them after that with

you--the cowardly disguise--pike for pike was the cry. It was laughable to

see you, and to hear you, as you brought a battery that could never reach

them--fired upon them the reproach of Diogenes to an effeminate--"If he

was offended with nature for making him a man, and not a woman;" and the

affirmation of the Pedasians, from your friend Herodotus, that, whenever

any calamity befell them, a prodigious beard grew on the chin of the

priestess of Minerva. You ever thought a man in woman's disguise a

profanation--a woman in man's a horror. The fair sex were never, in your

eyes, the weaker and the worse; how oft have you delighted in their

outward grace and moral purity, contrasting them with gross man,

gloriously turning the argument in their favour by your new

emphasis--"Give every _man_ his deserts, and who shall escape

whipping"--satisfying yourself, and every one else, that good, true,

woman-loving Shakspeare must have meant the passage so to be read. And do

you remember a whole afternoon maintaining, that the well-known song of

"Billy Taylor" was a serious, true, good, epic poem, in eulogy of the

exploits of a glorious woman, and in no way ridiculous to those whose

language it spoke; and when we all gave it against you, how you turned

round upon the poor author, and said he ought to have the bastinado at the

soles of his feet?

And if an occasional disappointment, a small delinquency in some feminine

character did now and then happen, and a little sly satire would force its

way, quietly too, out of the sides of your mouth, how happily would you

instantly disown it, fling it from you as a thing not yours, then catch at

it, and sport with it as if you could afford to sport with it, and thereby

show it was no serious truth, and pass it off with the passage from

Dryden--

"Madam, these words are chanticleer's, not mine;

I honour dames, and think their sex divine!"

No human being ever collected so many of the good sayings and doings of

women as you, Eusebius. I am not, then, surprised that, having read the

"Rights of Women," you are come to the determination to take up "The

Wrongs of Women." The wrongs of women, alas!

----"Adeo sunt multa loquacem

Delassare valent Fabium."

And so you write to me, to supply you with some sketches from nature,

instances of the "Wrongs of Woman." Ah me! Does not this earth teem with

them--the autumnal winds moan with them? The miseries want a good hurricane

to sweep them off the land, and the dwellings the "foul fiend" hath

contaminated. Man's doing, and woman's suffering, and thence even arises

the beauty of loveliness--woman's patience. In the very palpable darkness

besetting the ways of domestic life, woman's virtue walks forth loveliest--

"Virtue gives herself light, through darkness for to wade."

The gentle Spenser, did he not love woman's virtue, and weep for her

wrongs? You, Eusebius, were wont ever to quote his tender lament:--

"Naught is there under heaven's wide hollowness

That moves more clear compassion of mind

Than beauty brought to unworthy wretchedness

By envy's frowns or fortune's freaks unkind.

I, whether lately through her brightness blind,

Or through allegiance and fast fealty,

Which _I do owe unto all womankind_,

Feel my heart pierced with so great agony,

When such I see, that all for pity I could die."

This melting mood will not long suit your mercurial spirit. You used to

say that the fairies were all, in common belief, creatures feminine, hence

deservedly called "good people,"--that they made the country merry, and

kept clowns in awe, and were better for the people's morals than a justice

of the peace. They tamed the savage, and made him yield, and bow before

feminine feet. Sweet were they that hallowed the brown hills, and left

tokens of their visits, blessing all seasons to the rustic's ear,

whispering therein softly at nightfall--

"Go, take a wife unto thy arms, and see

Winter and brownie-hills shall have a charm for thee."

Such was your talk, Eusebius, passing off your discontent of things that

are, into your inward ideal, rejoicing in things unreal, breaking out into

your wildest paradox--"What is the world the better for all its boasted

truth! It has belied man's better nature. Faith, trust, belief, is the

better part of him, the spiritual of man; and who shall dare to say that

its creations, visible, or invisible, all felt, acknowledged as vital

things, are not realities?" All this--in your contempt for beadles and

tip-staves, even overseers and churchwardens, and all subdividing

machinery of country government, that, when it came in and fairly

established itself, drove away the "good people," and with them merriment

and love, and sweet fear, from off the earth--that twenty wheedling,

flattering Autolycuses did not do half the hurt to morals or manners that

one grim-visaged justice did--the curmudgeon, you called him, Eusebius,

that would, were they now on earth, and sleeping all lovely with their

pearly arms together, locked in leafy bower, have Cupid and Psychè taken

up under the Vagrant Act, or have them lodged in a "Union House" to be

disunited. You thought the superstition of the world as it was, far above

the knowledge it now brags of. You admired the Saxons and Danes in their

veneration of the predictions of old women, whom the after ungallantry of

a hard age would have burned for witches. Marriage act and poor act have,

as you believe, extinguished the holy light of Hymen's torch, and

re-lighted it with Lucifer matches in Register offices; and out it soon

goes, leaving worse than Egyptian darkness in the dwellings of the

poor--the smell of its brimstone indicative of its origin, and ominous of

its ending.

I verily believe, Eusebius, you would have spared Don Quixote's whole

library, and have preferred committing the curate to the flames. Your

dreams, even your day-dreams, have hurried you ever far off and away from

the beaten turnpike-road of life, through forests of enchantment, to

rescue beauty which you never saw, from knight-begirt and dragon-guarded

castles; and little thankful have you been when you have opened your eyes

awake in peace to the cold light of our misnamed utilitarian day, and

found all your enchantment broken, the knights discomfited, the dragon

killed, the drawbridge broken down, and the ladies free--all without your

help; and then, when you have gone forth, and in lieu of some rescued

paragon of her sex, you have met but the squire's daughter, in her trim

bonnet, tripping with her trumpery to set up her fancy-shop in Vanity-Fair,

for fops to stare at through their glasses, your imagination has felt the

shock, and incredulous of the improvement in manners and morals, and

overlooking all advancement of knowledge, all the advantages of their real

liberty, momentarily have you wished them all shut up in castles, or in

nunneries, to be the more adored till they may chance to be rescued. But

soon would the fit go off--and the first sweet, innocent, lovely smile

that greeted you, restored your gentleness, and added to your stock of

love. And once, when some parish shame was talked of, you never would

believe it common, and blamed the Overseer for bringing it to light--and

vindicated the sex by quoting from Pennant, how St Werberg lived

immaculate with her husband Astardus, copying her aunt, the great

Ethelreda, who lived for three years with not less purity with her good man

Tonberetus, and for twelve with her second husband the pious Prince Egfrid:

and the churchwarden left the vestry, lifting up his hands, and

saying--"Poor gentleman!"--and you laughed as if you had never laughed

before, when you heard it, and heartily shook him by the hand to convince

him you were in your senses; which action he nevertheless put to the

credit of the soundness of your heart, and not a bit to that of your head.

You saw it--and immediately, with a trifling flaw in the application quite

worthy yourself, reminded me of a passage in a letter from Lord

Bolingbroke to Swift, that "The truest reflection, and at the same time

the bitterest satire, which can be made on the present age, is this, that

to think as you think, will make a man pass for romantic. Sincerity,

constancy, tenderness, are rarely to be found. They are so much out of use,

that the man of mode imagines them to be out of nature." So insane and

romantic, you added, are synonymous terms to this incredulous, this

matter-of-fact world, that, like the unbelieving Thomas, trusts in,

believes in nothing that it does not touch and handle. Your partiality for

days of chivalry blinds you a little. The men were splendid--women shone

with their reflected splendour--you see them through an illuminated haze,

and, as you were not behind the curtain, imagine their minds as cultivated

as their beauty was believed to be great. The mantle of chivalry hid all

the wrongs, but the particular ones from which they rescued them. If the

men are worse, our women are far better--more like those noble Roman

ladies, intellectual and high-minded, whom you have ever esteemed the

worthiest of history. Then women were valued. Valerius Maximus gives the

reason why women had the upper-hand. After the mother of Coriolanus and

other Roman women had preserved their country, how could the senate reward

them?--"Sanxit uti foeminis semitâ viri cederent--permisit quoque his

purpureâ veste et aureis uti segmentis." It was sanctioned by the senate,

you perceive, that men should yield the wall to the sex, in honour, and

that they should be allowed the distinction of purple vests and golden

borders--privileges the female world still enjoy. Yet in times you love to

applaud, the paltry interference of men would have curtailed one of these

privileges. For a mandate was issued by the papal legate in Germany in the

14th century, decreeing, that "the apparel of women, which ought to be

consistent with modesty, but now, through their foolishness, is

degenerated into wantonness and extravagance, more particularly the

immoderate length of their petticoats, with which they sweep the ground,

be restrained to a moderate fashion, agreeably to the decency of the sex,

under pain of the sentence of excommunication." "Velamina etiam mulierum,

quæ ad verecundiam designandam eis sunt concessa, sed nunc, per

insipientiam earum, in lasciviam et luxuriam excreverunt, it immoderata

longitudo superpelliccorum quibus pulverem trahunt, ad moderatum usum,

sicut decet verecundiam sexus, per excommunicationis sententiam

cohibeantur."

Excommunication, indeed! Not even the church could have carried on that

war long. Every word of this marks the degradation to which those monkish

times would have made the sex submit, "velamina _concessa_ insipientiam

earum!" and pretty well for men of the cloth of that day's make, to speak

of women's "lasciviam et luxuriam," when, perhaps, the hypocritical

mandate arose from nothing but a desire in the coelibatists themselves to

get a sly peep at the neatly turned feet and ankles of the women. One

would almost think the old nursery song of

--"The beggar whose name was Stout,

He cut her petticoats all round about,

He cut her petticoats far above her knee, &c.,"

was written to perpetuate the mandate. Certainly a "Stout beggar was the

Papal church." "Consistent with modesty," "sicut decet verecundiam sexus;"

nothing can beat that bare-faced hypocrisy. So when afterwards the sex

shortened their petticoats, other Simon Pures start up and put them in the

stocks for immodesty. Poor women! Here was a wrong, Eusebius. Long or

short, they were equally immodest. Immodest, indeed! Nature has clad them

with modesty and temperance--their natural habit--other garment is

conventional. I admire what Oelian says of Phocion's wife.

"[Greek: Êmpeicheto de prôtê tê sôphrosunê,

deuterois ge mên tois parousi.]"

"She first arrayed herself in temperance, and then put on what was

necessary." Every seed of beauty is sown by modesty. It is woman's glory,

"[Greek: hê gar aidôs anthos epispeirei]" says Clearchus in his first

book of Erotics, quoting from Lycophronides. The appointment of

magistrates at Athens, [Greek: gunaikokosmoi], to regulate the dress of

women, was a great infringement on their rights--the origin of

men-milliners. You are one, Eusebius, who

"Had rather hear the tedious tales

Of Hollingshed, than any thing that trenches

On love."

I remember how, in contempt of the story of the Ephesian matron, you had

your Petronius interleaved, and filled it with anecdotes of noble virtue,

till the comment far exceeded the text--then, finding your excellent women

in but bad company, you tore out the text of Petronius, and committed it

to the flames. Preserve your precious catalogue of female worthies--often

have you lamented that of Hesiod was lost, of all the [Greek: Hoiai

megalai] Alcmena alone remaining, and you will not make much boast of her.

How far back would you go for the wrongs of women--do you intend to write

a library--a library in a series of novels in three volumes--what are all

that are published but "wrongs of women?" Could but the Lion have written!

Books have been written by men, and be sure they have spared

themselves--and yet what a catalogue of wrongs we have from the earliest

date! Even the capture of Helen was not with her consent; and how lovely

she is! and how indicative is that wondrous history of a high chivalrous

spirit and admiration of woman in those days! Old Priam and all his aged

council pay her reverence. Menelaus is the only one of the Grecian heroes

that had no other wife or mistress--here was devotion and constancy!

Andromache has been, and ever will be, the pride of the world. Yet the

less refined dramatist has told of her wrongs; for he puts into her mouth

a dutiful acquiescence in the gallantries of Hector. Little can be said

for the men. Poor old Priam we must pardon, if Hecuba could and did; for

Priam told her that he had nineteen children by her, and many others by

the concubines in his palace. He had enough, too, upon his hands--yet

found time for all things--"[Greek: hôrê eran, hôrê de gamein, hôrê de

pepausthai]." How lovely is Penelope, and how great her wrongs!--and the

lovely Nausicaa complains of scandal. But great must have been the

deference paid to women; for Nausicaa plainly tells Ulysses, that her

mother is every thing and every body. People have drawn a very absurd

inference to the contrary, from the fact of the princess washing the

clothes. That operation may have been as fashionable then as worsted work

now, and clothes then were not what clothes are now--there were no

Manchesters, and those things were rare and precious, handed down to

generations, and given as presents of honour. You have shed tears over the

beautiful, noble-hearted Iphigenia--wronged even to death. Glorious was

the age that could find an Alcestis to suffer her great wrong! Such women

honour human nature, and make man himself better. Oh, how infinitely less

selfish are they than we are--confiding, trusting--with a fortitude for

every sacrifice! We have no trust like theirs, no confidence--are jealous,

suspicious, even on the wedding-day. You quite roared with delight when

you heard of a fool, who, mistrusting himself and his bride, tried his

fortune after the fashion of the Sortes Virgilianæ, by dipping into

Shakspeare on his wedding-day and finding

"Not poppy nor mandragora,

Nor all the drowsy syrups of the East,

Shall ever med'cine to thee that sweet sleep

Which thou ow'dst yesterday."

You have rather puzzled me, Eusebius, by giving me so wide a field of

enquiry--woman's wrongs; of what kind--of ancient or modern times--general

or particular? You should have arranged your objects. It is you that are

going to write this "Family Library," not I. For my own part, I should

have been contented in walking into the next village, an unexpected guest,

to the houses of rich and poor--do you think you would have wanted

materials? But forewarned is forearmed--and few will "tell the secrets of

their prison-house," if you take them with a purpose. On your account, in

this matter, I have written to six ladies of my acquaintance, three

married and three single. Two of the married have replied that they have

nothing to complain of--not a wrong. The third bids me ask her husband. So

I put her down as ambiguous--perhaps she wishes to give him a hint through

me; I am wise, and shall hold my tongue. Of the unmarried, one says she

has received no wrong, but fears she may have inflicted some--another,

that as she is going to be married on Monday, she cannot conceive a wrong,

and cannot possibly reply till after the honeymoon. The third replies,

that it is _very wrong_ in me to ask her. But stay a moment--here is a

quarrel going on--two women and a man--we may pick up something. "Rat

thee, Jahn," says a stout jade, with her arm out and her fist almost in

Jahn's face, "I wish I were a man--I'd gie it to thee!" She evidently

thinks it a wrong that she was born a woman--and upon my word, by that

brawny arm, and those masculine features, there does appear to have been a

mistake in it. If you go to books--I know your learning--you will revert

to your favourite classical authorities. Helen of Troy calls herself by a

sad name, "[Greek: kuôn hôs eimi]," dog (feminine) as I am--her wrongs

must, therefore, go to no account. I know but of one who really takes it

in hand to catalogue them, and she is Medea. "We women," says she, "are

the most wretched of living creatures." For first--of women--she must buy

her husband, pay for him with all she has--secondly, when she has bought

him, she has bought a master, one to lord it over her very

person--thirdly, the danger of buying a bad one--fourthly, that divorce is

not creditable--fifthly, that she ought to be a prophetess, and is not to

know what sort of a man he is to whose house she is to go, where all is

strange to her--sixthly, that if she does not like her home, she must not

leave it, nor look out for sympathising friends--seventhly, that she must

have the pains and troubles of bearing children--eighthly, she gives up

country, home, parents, friends, for one husband--and perhaps a bad one.

So much for Medea and her list; had she lived in modern times it might

have been longer; but she was of too bold a spirit to enter into minutiæ.

Hers, too, are the wrongs of married life. Nor on this point the wise son

of Sophroniscus makes the man the sufferer. "Neither," he says, "can he

who marries a wife tell if he shall have cause to rejoice thereat." He had

most probably at that moment Xantippe in his eye. You remember how

pleasantly Addison, in the _Spectator_, tells the story of a colony of

women, who, disgusted with their wrongs, had separated themselves from the

men, and set up a government of their own. That there was a fierce war

between them and the men--that there was a truce to bury the dead on

either side--that the prudent male general contrived that the truce should

be prolonged; and during the truce both armies had friendly

intercourse--on some pretence or other the truce was still lengthened,

till there was not one woman in a condition, or with an inclination, to

take up her wrongs--not one woman was any longer a fighting man--they saw

their errors--they did not, as the fable says we all do, cast the burden

of their own faults behind them, but bravely carried them before

them--made peace, and were righted.

We would not, Eusebius, have all their wrongs righted--so lovely is the

moral beauty of their wonderful patience in enduring them. What--if they

were in a condition to legislate and impose upon us some of their burdens,

or divide them with us? What man of your acquaintance could turn

dry-nurse--tend even his own babes twelve hours out of the twenty-four?

A pretty head-nurse would my Eusebius make in an orphan asylum. I should

like to see you with twins in your arms, both crying into your sensitive

ears, and you utterly ignorant of their wants and language. And I do think

your condition will be almost as bad, if you publish your catalogue of

wrongs in your own name. By all means preserve an incognito. You will be

besieged with wrongs--will be the only "Defender of the Faithful"--not

knight-_errant_, for you may stay at home, and all will come to you for

redress. You will be like the author, or rather translator, of the Arabian

Tales, whose window was nightly assailed, and slumber broken in upon, by

successive troops of children, crying "Monsieur Galland if you are not

asleep, get up--come and tell us one of those pretty stories." Keep your

secret. Now, the mention of the Arabian Tales reminds me of

Sinbad--_there_ is a true picture of man's cowardice; what loathsome holes

did he not creep into to make his escape when the wife of his bosom was

sick, and he understood the law that he was to be buried with her. It is

all very well, in the sick chamber, for the husband to say to his

departing partner for life--"Wait, my dearest--I will go with you." She is

sure, as La Fontaine says in his satire, reversing the case, "to take the

journey alone." This is all talk on the man's side--but see what the

master of the slave woman has actually imposed upon her as a law. The

Hindoo widow ascends the funeral pile, and is burnt rejoicing. What male

creature ever thought of enduring this for his wife?--this wrong, for it

is a grievous wrong thus to tempt her superior fortitude. It was not

without reason that, in the heathen mythology, (and it shows the great

advancement of civilization when and wherever it was conceived,) were

deified all great and noble qualities in the image of the sex. What are

Juno, Minerva, and Venus, but acknowledgments of the strength, wisdom,

fortitude, beauty, and love, of woman, while their male deities have but

borrowed attributes and ambiguous characters? It is a deference--perhaps

unintentionally, unconsciously--paid to the sex, that in every language

the soul itself, and all its noblest virtues, and the personification of

all virtue, are feminine.

I supposed woman the legislatrix--what reason have we to say she would

enact a wrong? The story of the mother of Papirius is not against her; for

in that case there was only a choice of evils. It is from Aulus Gellius,

as having been told and written by M. Cato in the oration which he made to

the soldiers against Galba. The mother of young Papirius, who had

accompanied his father into the senate-house, as was usual formerly for

sons to do who had taken the _toga prætexta_, enquired of her son what

the senate had been doing; the youth replied, that he had been enjoined

silence. This answer made her the more importunate and he adopted this

humorous fallacy--that it had been discussed in the senate which would be

most beneficial to the state, for one man to have two wives, or for one

woman to have two husbands? Hearing this, she left the house in no small

trepidation, and went to tell other matrons what she had heard. The next

day a troop of matrons went to the senate-house, and implored, with tears

in their eyes, that one woman might be suffered to have two husbands,

rather than one man have two wives. The senate honoured the young Papirius

with a special law in his favour; they should rather have conferred honour

upon his mother and the other matrons for their disinterested virtue, who

were content to submit themselves to so great an evil, I may say _wrong_,

as to have imposed upon them two masters instead of one. Not that you,

Eusebius, ever entertained an idea that women are wronged by not being

admitted to a share of legislation. I will not suppose you to be that

liberal fool. But you are aware that such a scheme has been, and is still

entertained. I believe there is a Miss Somebody now going about our towns,

lecturing on the subject, and she is probably worthy to be one of the

company of the "Ecclesiagusæ." This idea is not new. The other day I hit

upon a letter in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for the year 1740 on the

subject, by which you will see there was some amusement about it a century

ago:--

"TO CALEB D'ANVERS, Esq.

"Sir,--I am a mournful relict of _five husbands_, and the happy mother of

_twenty-seven_ children, the tender pledges of our chaste embraces. Had

_old Rome_, instead of _England_, been the place of my nativity and abode,

what honours might I not have expected to my person, and immunities to my

fortune? But I need not tell you that virtue of this sort meets with no

encouragement in our northern climate. _Children_, instead of freeing us

from _taxes_ increase the weight of them, and matrimony is become the jest

of every coxcomb. Nor could I allow, till very lately, that an old

bachelor, as you profess yourself to be, had any just pretence to be

called a patriot. Don't think that I mean to offer myself to you; for I

assure you that I have refused very advantageous proposals since the

decease of my _last poor spouse_, who hath been dead near _five months_. I

have no design at present of altering my condition again. Few women are so

happy as to meet with _five good husbands_, and therefore I should be glad

to devote the remaining part of my life to the good of my country and

family, in a more public and active station than that of a _wife_,

according to your late scheme for _a septennial administration of women_.

But I think you ought to have enforced your project with some instances of

_illustrious females_, who have appeared in the foremost classes of life,

not only for heroic valour, but likewise for several branches of learning,

wisdom, and policy--such as _Joan of Naples_, the _Maid of Orleans,

Catherine de Medicis, Margaret of Mountfort, Madame Dacier, Mrs Behn, Mrs

Manly, Mrs Stephens_, Doctor of Physic, _Mrs Mapp_, Surgeon, the valiant

_Mrs Ross_, Dragoon, and the learned _Mrs Osborne_, Politician. I had

almost forgot the present Queen of _Spain_, who hath not only an absolute

ascendant over the counsels of her _husband_, but hath often outwitted the

_greatest statesmen_, as they fancy themselves, of _another kingdom_,

which hath already felt the effects of her _petticoat government_.

"If we look back into history, a thousand more instances might be brought

of the same kind; but I think those already mentioned sufficient to prove,

that the best capacities of _our sex_ are by no means inferior to the best

capacities _of yours_; and the triflers of _either sex_ are not designed

to be the subject of this letter. But much as _our sex_ are obliged to you,

in general, for your proposal, I have one material objection against it;

for I think you have carried the point a little too far, by excluding _all

males_ from the enjoyment of any office, dignity, or employment; for as

they have long engrossed the public administration of the government to

themselves, (a few women only excepted,) I am apprehensive that they will

be loth to part with it, and that if they give us power for _seven years_,

it will be very difficult to get it out of our hands again. I have,

therefore, thought of the following expedient, which will almost answer

the same purpose--viz. that all power, both _legislative and executive,

ecclesiastical and civil_, may be divided among _both sexes_; and that

they may be equally capable of sitting in Parliament. Is it not absurd

that _women_ in _England_ should be capable of inheriting _the crown_, and

yet not intrusted with the representation of a _little borough_, or so

much as allowed to vote for a representative? Is this consistent with the

rights of a _people_, which certainly includes both _men and women_,

though the latter have been generally deprived of their privileges in all

countries? I don't mean that the people should be obliged to choose

_women_ only, as I said before, for that would be equally hard upon the

_men_--but that the _electors_ should be left at their own liberty; for it

is certainly a restraint upon the _freedom of elections_, that whatever

regard a _corporation_ may have for a _man of quality's family_, if he

happened to have no _sons_ or _brothers_, they cannot testify their esteem

for it by choosing his _daughters_ or _sisters_. I am for no restraint

upon the _members of either sex_; for if the honour, integrity, or great

capacity of a _fine lady_ should recommend her to the intimacy or

confidence of a _Prime Minister_, in consequence of which he should get

her a _place_--would it not be very hard that this very act of mutual

friendship must render her incapable of doing either _him_ or _her

country_ any real service in the _senate-house_? Is _freedom_ consistent

with _restraint_? or can we propose to serve our country by obstructing

the natural operations of _love and gratitude_? I would not be understood

to propose increasing the number of members. Let every county or

corporation choose _a man or a woman_, as they think proper; and if either

of the members should be married, let it be in the power of the

_constituents_ to return both _husband and wife as one member_, but not to

sit at the same time; from whence would accrue great strength to our

constitution, by having the _house_ well attended, without the present

disagreeable method of _frequent calls_, and putting several _members_ to

the expense and disgrace of being brought up to town in the custody of

_messengers_; for if a _country gentleman_ should like _fox-hunting_, or

any other _rural diversion_, better than attending his _duty in

Parliament_, let him send up his _wife_. Or if an _officer in the army_

should be obliged to be at his post in _Ireland_, the _Mediterranean_, the

_West Indies_, or aboard the _fleet_, a thousand leagues off, or upon any

_public embassy_, if his _wife_ should happen to be chosen, never fear

that she would do the _nation's business_, full as well. Besides, in

several affairs of great consequence, the resolutions might perhaps be

much more agreeable to the tenderness of _our sex_ than the roughness of

_yours_. As, for instance, it hath often been thought unnatural for

_soldiers_ to promote _peace_. When a debate, therefore, of that sort

should be to come on, if the _soldiers_ staid at home, and their _wives_

attended, it would very well become the softness of _the female sex_ to

show a regard for their _husbands_; especially if they should be such

_pretty, smart, young fellows_, as make a most considerable figure at a

review." The lady writer goes on at some length, that she has a borough of

her own, and will be certainly returned whether she marries or not, and

will act with inflexible zeal, naïvely adding--"If, therefore, I should

hereafter be put into a _considerable employment_, and _fourteen of my

sons_ be advanced in the _army_; should _the ministry_ provide for the

_other seven_ in the _Church_, _Excise Office_, or _Exchequer_; and my

poor _girls_, who are but tender infants at the boarding-school, should

have places given to them in the _Customs_, which they might officiate by

_deputy_--don't imagine that I am under any _undue influence_ if I should

happen always to vote with the _Ministry_." We do not quote further. The

letter is signed "MARGERY WELDONE."

It is needless to tell you the wrong done to the sex by the rigour of

modern law. You have stamped the foot at it often enough. I mean, not so

much the separation in the whimsically-called _union_ houses, for, as

husbands go, they may have little to complain of on that score; but that

dire injustice which throws upon woman the whole penalty of a mutual crime,

of which the instigator is always man. Then, is she not injured by the

legislative removal of the sanctity of marriage, by which the man is less

bound to her--thinks less of the bond--the _vinculum matrimoniæ_ being,

in his mind, one of straw, to her one of iron. And here, Eusebius, a

difficulty presents itself which I do not remember ever to have seen met,

no, nor even noticed. How can a court _ecclesiastical_, which from its

very constitution and formula of marriage which it receives and

sanctions--that marriage is a Divine institution, that man shall not put

asunder those by this matrimony made one--I ask, how can such a court deal

with cases where the people have not been put together by the only bond of

matrimony which the church can allow? But these are painful subjects, and

I feel myself wading in deeper water than will be good for one who can't

swim without corks, though he be _levior cortice_; and lighter than cork,

too, will be the obligation on the man's side, who has taken trusting

woman to one of these registry houses, leaped over a broomstick and called

it a marriage. It will soon come to the truth of the old saying, "The

first month is the honeymoon or smick-smack, the second is hither and

thither; the third is thwick-thwack; the fourth, the devil take them that

brought thee and I together."

"Love, light as air, at sight of _human_ ties,

Spreads his light wings, and in a moment flies."

The great walking monster that does the great wrong to women is, depend

upon it, Eusebius, the "brute of a husband," called, by courtesy, in

higher life, "_Sir_ John Brute." Horace says wittily, that Venus puts

together discordant persons and minds with a bitter joke, "sævo mittere

cum joco;" it begins a jest, and ends a _crying_ evil. We name the thing

that should be good, with an ambiguous sound that gives disagreement to

the sense. It is marry-age, or matter o' money. And let any man who is a

euphonist, and takes omens from names, attend the publication of banns, he

will be quite shocked at the unharmonious combination. Now, you will laugh

when I tell you positively, that within a twelvemonth I have heard called

the banns of "John Smasher and Mary Smallbones;" no doubt, by this time

they are "marrow bones and cleaver," what else could be expected? Did you

never note how it has puzzled curates to read the ill-assorted names?

"Serpentes avibus geminantur, tigribus agni."

Then to look at the couples as they come to be bound for life. One would

think they had been shaken together hap-hazard, each in a sack. I have met

with a quotation from Hermippus who says--"There was at Lacedæmon a very

retired hall or dwelling, in which the unmarried girls and young bachelors

were confined, till each of the latter, in that obscurity which precluded

the possibility of choice, fixed on one, which he was obliged to take as a

wife, without portion. Lysander having abandoned that which fell to his

lot, to marry another of greater beauty, was condemned to pay a heavy

fine." Is there not in the _Spectator_ a story or dream, where every man

is obliged to choose a wife unseen, tied up in a sack? At this said

Lacedæmon, by the by, women seem to have somewhat ruled the roast, and

taken the law, at least before marriage, into their own hands; for

Clearchus Solensis, in his adages, reports, that "at Lacedæmon, on a

certain festival, the women dragged the unmarried men about the altar, and

beat them with their hands, in order that a sense of shame at the

indignity of this injury might excite in them a desire to have children of

their own to educate, and to choose wives at a proper season for this

purpose." Mr Stephens, in his _Travels in Yucatan_, shows how wives are

taken and treated in the New World. "When the Indian grows up to manhood,

he requires a woman to make him tortillas, and to provide him warm water

for his bath at night. He procures one sometimes by the providence of the

master, without much regard to similarity of tastes or parity of age; and

though a young man is mated to an old woman, they live comfortably

together. If he finds her guilty of any great offence, he brings her up

before the master or the alcalde, gets her a whipping, and then takes her

under his arm, and goes quietly home with her." This "whipping" the

unromantic author considers not at all derogatory to the character of a

kind husband, for he adds--"The Indian husband is rarely harsh to his wife,

and the devotion of the wife to her husband is always a subject of remark."

Some have made it a grave question whether marriages should not be made by

the magistrate, and be proclaimed by the town-crier. To imagine which is a

wrong and tyranny, and arises from the barbarous custom that no woman

shall be the first to tell her mind in matters of affection. Men have set

aside the privilege of Leap year; it is as great a nickname as the

church's "convocation." We tie her tongue upon the first subject on which

she would speak, then impudently call woman a babbler. There is no end,

Eusebius, to the _wrongs_ our tongues do the sex. We take up all old, and

invent new, proverbs against them. Ungenerous as we are, we learn other

languages out of spite, as it were, to abuse them with, and cry out, "One

tongue is enough for a woman." We _rate_ them for every thing and at

nothing--thus: "He that loseth his wife and a farthing, hath a great loss

of his farthing." There's not a natural evil but we contrive to couple

them with it. "Wedding and ill-wintering tame both man and beast." I heard

a witty invention the other day--it was by a lady, and a wife, and perhaps

in her pride. It was asked whence came the saying, that "March comes in

like a lion, and goes out like a lamb." "Because," said she, "he meets

with Lady Day, and gets his quietus." Whatever we say against them,

however, lacks the great essential--truth, and that is why we go on saying,

thinking we shall come to it at last. We show more malice than matter.

Birds ever peck at the fairest fruit; nay, cast it to the ground, and a

man picks it up, tastes it, and says how good is it. He enjoys all good in

a good wife, and yet too often complains. He rides a fast mare home to a

smiling wife, pats them both in his delight, and calls them both jades--he

unbridles the one, and bridles the other. There is no end to it; when one

begins with the injustice we do the sex, we may go on for ever, and stick

our rhapsodies together "with a hot needle, and a burnt thread," and no

good will come of it. It is envy, jealousy--we don't like to see them so

much better than ourselves. We dare not tell them what we really think of

them, lest they should think less of us. So we speak with a disguise. Sir

Walter Scott forgot himself when he spoke of them:--

"Oh woman, in our hours of ease,

Uncertain, coy, and hard to please;"

as if they were stormy peterals, whose appearance indicated shipwreck and

troubled waters on the sea of life. Woman's bard, and such he deserves to

be entitled, should only have thought of her as the "fair and gentle maid,"

or the "pleasing wife," _placens uxor_--the perfectness of man's nature,

by whom he is united to goodness, gentleness, the two, man and woman

united, making the complete one--as "_Mulier est hominis

confusio_"--malevolent would he be that would mistranslate it "man's

confusion," for--

"Madam, the meaning of this Latin is,

That womankind to man is sovereign bliss."--_Dryden_.

By this "mystical union," man is made "Paterfamilias," that name of truest

dignity. See him in that best position, in the old monuments of James's

time, kneeling with his spouse opposite at the same table, with their

seven sons and seven daughters, sons behind the father, and daughters

behind the mother. It is worth looking a day or two beyond the turmoil or

even joys of our life, and to contemplate in the mind's eye, one's own

_post mortem_ and monumental honour. Such a sight, with all the loving

thoughts of loving life, ere this maturity of family repose--is it not

enough to make old bachelors gaze with envy, and go and advertise for

wives?--each one sighing as he goes, that he has no happy home to receive

him--no best of womankind his spouse--no children to run to meet him and

devour him with kisses, while secret sweetness is overflowing at his heart

and so he beats it like a poor player, and says, that is, if he be a

Latinist--

"At non domus accipiet te læta, neque uxor

Optima, nec dulces occurrent oscula nati

Præripère, et tacitâ pectus dulcedine tangent."--_Lucret_.

But leaving the "gentle bachelor" to settle the matter with himself as he

may, I will not be hurried beyond bounds--not bounds of the subject, or

what is due to it, but of your patience, Eusebius, who know and feel, more

sensibly than I can express, woman's worth. You want to know her

wrongs--and you say that I am a sketcher from life. Well, that being the

case, though it is painful to dwell upon any case, accept the following

sketch from nature; it is a recent event--you may not question the

truth--the names I conceal. A sour, sulky, cantankerous fellow, of some

fortune, lean, wizened, and little, with one of those parchment

complexions that indicate a cold antipathy to aught but self, married a

fine generous creature, fair and large in person; neither bride nor

bridegroom were in the flower of youth--a flower which, it is hard to say

why, is supposed to shed "a purple light of love." After the wedding, the

"happy couple" departed to spend the honeymoon among their relations. In

such company, the ill-tempered husband is obliged to behave his best--he

coldly puts on the polite hypocrite in the presence of others--but, every

moment of _tête-à-tête_, vents maliciously his ill-temper upon his spouse.

It happened, that after one day of more remarkably well-acted sweetness,

he retired in more than common disgust at the fatigue he had been obliged

to endure, to make himself appear properly agreeable. He gets into bed,

and instantly tucks up his legs with his knees nigh to his chin,

and--detestable little wretch!--throws out a kick with his utmost power

against his fair, fat, substantial partner. What is the result? He did not

calculate the "_vis inertiæ_," that a little body kicking against the

greater is wont to come off second best--so he kicks himself out of bed,

and here ends the comedy of the affair; the rest is tragic enough. Some

how or other, in his fall, he broke his neck upon the spot. This was a

very awkward affair. The bell is rung, up come the friends; the story is

told, nor is it other than they had suspected. It does not end here, for,

of course, there must be an inquest. It is an Irish jury. All said it

served him right--and so what is the verdict?--Justifiable _felo-de-se_."

Here, Eusebius, you have something remarkable;--one happier at the

termination than the commencement of the honeymoon--a widow happier than a

bride. She might go forth to the world again, with the sweet reputation of

having smothered him with kisses, and killed him with kindness--if the

verdict can be concealed; if not, while the husband is buried with the

ignominy of "felonious intent," the widow will be but little disconsolate,

and universally applauded. To those of any experience, it will not be a

cause of wonder how such parties should come together. It is but an

instance of the too common "bitter jokes" of Love, or rather Hymen. I only

wish, that if ever man try that experiment again, he may meet with

precisely the same success; and that if any man marries, determined to

_fall out_ with his bride, he may _fall out_ in that very way, and at the

very first opportunity.

The next little incident from married life which I mean to give you, will

show you the wonderful wit and ingenuity of the sex. Here the parties had

been much longer wedded. The poor woman had borne much. The husband

thought he had a second Griselda. The case of his tyranny was pretty well

known; indeed, the poor wife too often bore marks, that could not be

concealed, of the "purple light" of his love--his passion. The gentleman,

for such was, I regret to say, his grade of life, invited a number of

friends to dine with him, giving directions to his lady that the dinner

should be a good one. Behold the guests assembled--grace said--and hear

the dialogue:--Husband--"My dear, what is that dish before you?" Wife--"Oh,

my dear, it is a favourite dish of yours--stewed eels." Husband--"Then, my

dear, I will trouble you." After a pause, during which the husband

endeavours in vain to cut through what is before him--Then--Husband--"Why,

my dear, what _is_ this--it is quite hard, I cannot get through it."

Wife--"Yes, my dear, it is _very_ hard, and I rather wished you to know

_how_ hard--it is the horse whip you gave me for breakfast this morning."

I will not add a word to it. You, Eusebius, will not read a line more; you

are in antics of delight--you cannot keep yourself quiet for joy--you walk

up and down--you sit--you rise--you laugh--you roar out. Oh! this is

better than the "taming of a shrew." And do you think "a brute of a

husband" is so easily tamed? The lion was a gentle beast, and made himself

submissive to sweet Una; but the brute of a husband, he is indeed a very

hideous and untameable wild-fowl. Poor, good, loving woman is happily

content at some thing far under perfection. In a lower grade of life, good

wife once told me, that she had had an excellent husband, for that he had

never kicked her but twice. On enquiry, I found he died young.--My dear

Eusebius, yours ever, and as ever,

------

* * * * *

MARSTON; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN.

PART V.

"Have I not in my time heard lions roar?

Have I not heard the sea, puft up with wind,

Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat?

Have I not heard great ordinance in the field,

And heaven's artillery thunder in the skies?

Have I not in the pitched battle heard

Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets clang?"

SHAKESPEARE.

I found the Jew in his den as usual, and communicated my object, like a

man of business, in as few words as possible, and in that tone which

showed that I had made up my mind. To my surprise, and, I must own, a

little to the chagrin of my vanity, he made no opposition to it whatever.

I afterwards ascertained that, on the day before, he had received a

proposal of marriage for his daughter from a German _millionaire_ of his

own line; and that, as there could be no comparison between a penniless

son-in-law, if he came of the blood of all the Paleologi, and one of the

tribe of Issachar with his panniers loaded with guineas, the sooner I took

my flight the better.

"You are perfectly right," said he, "in desiring to see the Continent; and

in Paris you will find the Continent all gathered into a glance, as a

French cook gives you a dozen sauces in compounding one fricassee. It

happens, curiously enough, that I can just now furnish you with some

opportunities for seeing it in the most convenient manner. A person with

whom I have had occasional business in Downing Street, has applied to me

to name an individual in my confidence, as an _attaché_ to our embassy in

France, though, be it understood, without an actual appointment."

I started at this dubious diplomacy.

"This," said he, "only shows that you have still to learn the trade. Let

me then tell you, that it is by such persons that all the real work of

diplomacy is carried on. Can you suppose that the perfumed and polished

young gentlemen who, under the name of secretaries and sub secretaries,

superior and inferior _attachés_, and so forth, haunt the hotels of the

embassy, are the real instruments? It is true, they are necessary to the

dinners and balls of the embassy. They are useful to drive out the

ambassador's horses to air, escort his wife, and dance with his daughters.

But the business is uniformly done by somebody of whom nobody knows any

thing, but that he is never seen loitering about the ambassador's

drawing-room though he has the _entrée_ of his closet; and that he never

makes charades, though he corresponds from day to day with the government

at home. Of course you will accept the appointment--and now, let me give

you your credentials."

He unlocked a cabinet, which, except for its dust and the coating of

cobwebs which time had wrought upon it, might have figured in the saloons

of the Medici. The succession of springs which he touched, and of secret

drawers which started at the touch, might have supplied a little history

of Italian intrigue. At last he found the roll of papers which he sought,

and having first thrown a glance round the room, as if a spy sat on every

chair, he began to unroll them; with a rapid criticism on each as the few

first lines met his eye. Every nerve of his countenance was in full play

as he looked over those specimens of the wisdom of the wise; It would have

been an invaluable study to a Laveter. He had evidently almost forgotten

that I was present; and the alternate ridicule and disdain of his powerful

physiognomy were assisted, in my comprehension, by notes from time to

time--certainly the antipodes of flattery--"paltry knave"--"pompous

fool"--"specious swindler." "Ambassador! ay, if we were to send one to a

nation of baboons." "Here," said he, throwing, the bundle on the table,

"if I did not despise mankind enough already, I have sufficient evidence

to throng the pillory. I deal in gold; well, it is only such that can know

the world. Hate, ambition, religion--all have their hypocrisies; but money

applies the thumbscrew to them all. Want, sir, want, is the master of

mankind. There have been men--ay, and women too--within this dungeon, as

you think it, whose names would astonish you. Oh! Father Abraham"--

I finished the quotation.--"What fools these Christians are!" He burst

into grim laughter. "Here you have the paper," said he, "and I must

therefore send you back to the secretary's office. But there you must not

be known. Secrecy is essential even to your life. Stabbing in Paris is

growing common, and the knowledge that you had any other purpose than

gambling, might be repaid by a poniard."

He now prepared his note, and as he wrote, continued his conversation in

fragments. "Three-fourths of mankind are mere blunderers, and the more you

know of them the more you will be of my opinion. I am by no means sure

that we have not some of them in Whitehall itself. Pitt is a powerful man,

and he alone keeps them together; without him they would be

potsherds.--Pitt thinks that we can go on without a war: he is mistaken.

How is it possible to keep Europe in peace, when the Continent is as

rotten as thatch, and France as combustible as gunpowder?--The minister is

a man of wonders, but he cannot prevent thirty millions of maniacs from

playing their antics until they are cooled by blood-letting; or a hundred

millions of Germans, Spaniards, Dutch, and Italians from being pilfered to

their last coin!--Old Frederick, the greatest genius that ever sat upon a

German throne, saw this fifty years ago. I have him at this moment before

my eyes, as he walked with his hands behind his bent back in the little

parterre of Sans Souci. I myself heard him utter the words--'If I were

King of France, a cannon-shot should not be fired in Europe without my

permission.'--France is now governed by fools, and is nothing. But if

ever she shall have an able man at her head, she will realize old

Frederick's opinion."

As no time was to be lost, I hurried with my note of introduction to

Whitehall, was ushered through a succession of dingy offices into a small

chamber, where I found, busily employed at an escrutoire, a young man of a

heavy and yet not unintelligent countenance. He read my note, asked me

whether I had ever been in Paris, from which he had just returned; uttered

a sentence or two in the worst possible French, congratulated me on the

fluency of my answer, rang his bell, and handed me a small packet,

endorsed--_most secret and confidential_. He then made the most awkward of

bows; and our interview was at an end. I saw this man afterwards prime

minister.

Till now, the novelty and interest of any new purpose had kept me in a

state of excitement; but I now found, to my surprise, my spirits suddenly

flag, and a dejection wholly unaccountable seize upon me. Perhaps

something like this occurs after all strong excitement; but a cloud seemed

actually to draw over my mind. My thoughts sometimes even fell into

confusion--I deeply repented having involved myself in a rash design,

which required qualities so much more experienced than mine; and in which,

if I failed, the consequences might be so ruinous, not merely to my own

character, but to noble and even royal lives. I now felt the whole truth

of Hamlet's description--the ways of the world "flat, stale, and

unprofitable;" the face of nature gloomy; the sky a "congregation of

pestilent vapours." It was not the hazard of life; exposed, as it might be,

in the midst of scenes of which the horrors were daily deepening; it was a

general undefined feeling, of having undertaken a task too difficult for

my powers, and of having engaged in a service in which I could neither

advance with hope nor retreat with honour.

After a week of this painful fluctuation, I received a note, saying that I

had but six hours before me, and that I must leave London at midnight.

I strayed involuntarily towards Devonshire House. It was one of its state

dinner-days, and the street rang with the incessant setting down of the

guests. As I stood gazing on the crowd, to prevent more uneasy thoughts,

Lafontaine stood before me. He was in uniform, and looked showily. He was

to be one of the party, and his manner had all the animation which scenes

of this order naturally excite in those with whom the world goes well. But

my countenance evidently startled him, and he attempted to offer such

consolation as was to be found in telling me that if La Comtesse was

visible, he should not fail to tell her of the noble manner in which I had

volunteered; and the happiness which I had thus secured to him and

Mariamne. "You may rely on it," said he, "that I shall make her sick of

Monsieur le Marquis and his sulky physiognomy. I shall dance with her,

shall talk to her, and you shall be the subject, as you so well deserve."

"But her marriage is inevitable," was my sole answer.

"Oh, true; inevitable! But that makes no possible difference. You cannot

marry all the women you may admire, nor they you. So, the only imaginable

resource is, to obtain their friendship, to be their _pastor fido_, their

hero, their Amadis. You then have the _entrée_ of their houses, the honour

of their confidence, and the favoured seat in their boxes, till you prefer

the favoured seat at their firesides, and all grow old together."

The sound of a neighbouring church clock broke off our dialogue. He took

out his diamond watch, compared it with the time, found that to delay a

moment longer would be a solecism which might lose him a smile or be

punished with a frown; repeated a couplet on the pangs of parting with

friends; and with an embrace, in the most glowing style of Paris, bounded

across the street, and was lost in the crowd which blocked up her grace's

portal.

Thus parted the gay lieutenant and myself; he to float along the stream of

fashion in its most sparkling current--I to tread the twilight paths of

the green park in helplessness and heaviness of soul.

This interview had not the more reconciled me to life. I was vexed with

what I regarded the nonchalance of my friend, and began to wish that I had

left him to go through his own affairs as he might. But reflection did

justice to his gallant spirit, and I mentally thanked him for having

relieved me from the life of an idler. At this moment my name was

pronounced by a familiar voice; it was Mordecai's. He had brought me some

additional letters to the leaders of the party in Paris. We returned to

the hotel, and sat down to our final meal together. When the lights were

brought in, I saw that he looked at me with some degree of surprise, and

even of alarm. "You are ill," said he; "the life of London is too much for

you. There are but three things that constitute health in this world--air,

exercise, and employment." I acknowledged to him my misgivings as to my

fitness for the mission. But he was a man of the world. He asked me, "Do

you desire to resign? If so, I have the power to revoke it at this moment.

And you can do this without loss of honour, for it is known to but two

persons in England--Lafontaine and myself. I have not concealed its danger

from you, and I have ascertained that even the personal danger is greater

than I thought. In fact, one of my objects in coming to you at this hour

was, to apprise you of the state of things, if not to recommend your

giving up the mission altogether."

The alternative was now plainly before me; and, stern as was the nature of

the Israelite, I saw evidently that he would be gratified by my abandoning

the project. But this was suddenly out of the question. The mission, to

escape which in the half hour before I should have gladly given up every

shilling I ever hoped to possess, was at once fixed in my mind as a

peculiar bounty of fortune. There are periods in the human heart like

those which we observe in nature--the atmosphere clears up after the

tempest. The struggle which had shaken me so long had now passed away, and

things assumed as new and distinct an aspect as a hill or a forest in the

distance might on the passing away of a cloud. Mordecai argued against my

enthusiasm; but when was enthusiasm ever out-argued? I drove him horse and

foot from the field. I did more, enthusiasm is contagious--I made him my

convert. The feverish fire of my heart lent itself to my tongue, and I

talked so loftily of revolutions and counter-revolutions; of the

opportunity of seeing humankind pouring, like metal from the forge, into

new shapes of society, of millions acting on a new scale of power, of

nations summoned to a new order of existence, that I began to melt even

the rigid prepossessions of that mass of granite, or iron, or whatever is

most intractable--the Jew. I could perceive his countenance changing from

a smile to seriousness; and, as I declaimed, I could see his hollow eye

sparkle, and his sallow lip quiver, with impressions not unlike my own.

"Whether you are fit for a politician," said he, "I cannot tell; for the

trade is of a mingled web, and has its rough side as well as its smooth

one. But, young as you are, and old as I am, there are some notions in

which we do not differ so much as in our years. I have long seen that the

world was about to undergo some extraordinary change. That it should ever

come from the rabble of Paris, I must confess, had not entered into my

mind; a rope of sand, or a mountain of feathers, would have been as fully

within my comprehension. I might have understood it, if it had come from

John Bull. But I have lived in France, and I never expected any thing from

the people; more than I should expect to see the waterworks of Versailles

turned into a canal, or irrigating the thirsty acres round the palace."

"Yes," I observed; "but their sporting and sparkling answers their purpose.

They amuse the holiday multitude for a day."

"And are dry for a week.--If France shall have a revolution, it will be as

much a matter of mechanism, of show, and of holiday, as the '_grand

jet-d'eau_.'" He was mistaken. We ended with a parting health to Mariamne,

and his promise to attend to my interests at the Horse-guards, on which I

was still strongly bent. The Jew was clearly no sentimentalist; but the

glass of wine, and the few words of civility and recollection with which I

had devoted it to his pretty daughter, evidently touched the father's

heart. He lingered on the steps of the hotel, and still held my hand. "You

shall not," said he, "be the worse for your good wishes, nor for that

glass of wine. I shall attend to your business at Whitehall when you are

gone; and you might have worse friends than Mordecai even there." He

seemed big with some disclosure of his influence, but suddenly checked

himself. "At all events," he added, "your services on the present occasion

shall not be forgotten. You have a bold, ay, and a broad career before you.

One thing I shall tell you. We shall certainly have war. The government

here are blind to it. Even the prime minister--and there is not a more

sagacious mind on the face of the earth--is inclined to think that it may

be averted. But I tell you, as the first secret which you may insert in

your despatches, that it will come--will be sudden, desperate, and

universal."

"May I not ask from what source you have your information; it will at

least strengthen mine?"

"Undoubtedly. You may tell the minister, or the world, that you had it

from Mordecai. I lay on you only one condition--that you shall not mention

it within a week. I have received it from our brethren on the Continent,

as a matter of business. I give it to you here as a flourish for your

first essay in diplomacy."

We had now reached the door of the post-chaise. He drew out another letter.

"This," said he, "is from my daughter. Before you come among us again, she

will probably be the wife of one of our nation, and the richest among us.

But she still values you as the preserver of her life, and sends you a

letter to one of our most intimate friends in Paris. If he shall not be

frightened out of it by the violence of the mob, you will find him and his

family hospitable. Now, farewell!" He turned away.

I sprang into the post-chaise, in which was already seated a French

courier, with despatches from his minister; whose attendance the Jew had

secured, to lighten the first inconveniences to a young traveller. The

word was given--we dashed along the Dover road, and I soon gave my last

gaze to London, with its fiery haze hanging over it, like the flame of a

conflagration.

My mind was still in a whirl as rapid as my wheels. Hope, doubt, and

determination passed through my brain in quick succession, yet there was

one thought that came, like Shakspeare's "delicate spirit," in all the

tumult of soul, of which, like Ariel in the storm, it was the chief cause,

to soothe and subdue me. Hastily as I had driven from the door of my hotel,

I had time to cast my eye along the front of Devonshire House. All the

windows of its principal apartments shone with almost noonday

brightness--uniforms glittered, and plumes waved in the momentary view.

But in the range above, all was dark; except one window--the window of

the boudoir--and there the light was of the dim and melancholy hue that

instinctively gives the impression of the sick-chamber. Was Clotilde still

there, feebly counting the hours of pain, while all within her hearing was

festivity? The answers which I had received to my daily enquiries were

cheerless. "She had not quitted the apartment where she had been first

conveyed."--"The duchess insisted on her not being removed."--"Madame was

inconsolable, but the doctor had hopes." Those, and other commonplaces of

information, were all that I could glean from either the complacent

chamberlains or the formal physician. And now I was to give up even this

meagre knowledge, and plunge into scenes which might separate us for ever.

But were we not separated already? If she recovered, must she not be in

the power of a task-master? If she sank under her feebleness, what was

earth to me?

In those reveries I passed the hours until daybreak, when the sun and the

sea rose together on my wearied eyes.

* * * * *

The bustle of Dover aroused me to a sense of the world. All was animation

on sea and shore. The emigration was now in full flow, and France was

pouring down her terrified thousands on the nearest shore. The harbour was

crowded with vessels of every kind, which had just disgorged themselves of

their living cargoes; the streets were blocked up with foreign carriages;

the foreign population had completely overpowered the native, and the town

swarmed with strangers of every rank and dress, with the hurried look of

escaped fugitives. As I drove to the harbour, my ear rang with foreign

accents, and my eyes were filled with foreign physiognomies. From time to

time the band of a regiment, which had furnished a guard to one of the

French blood-royal, mingled its drums and trumpets with the swell of sea

and shore; and, as I gazed on the moving multitude from my window, the

thunder of the guns from the castle, for the arrival of some ambassador,

grandly completed the general mass and power of the uproar.

* * * * *

Three hours carried me to the French shore. Free from all the vulgar

vexations of the road, I had the full enjoyment of one of the most

pleasant of all enjoyments--moving at one's ease through a new and

interesting country. The road to Paris is now like the road to Windsor, to

all the higher portions of my countrymen; but then it was much less known

even to them than in later days, and the circumstances of the time gave it

a totally new character. It was the difference between travelling through

a country in a state of peace and in a state of war; between going to

visit some superb palace for the purpose of viewing its paintings and

curiosities, and hurrying to see what part of its magnificence had escaped

an earthquake. The landscape had literally the look of war; troops were

seen encamped in the neighbourhood of the principal towns; the national

guards were exercising in the fields; mimic processions of children were

beating drums and displaying banners in the streets, and the popular songs

were all for the conquest of every thing beneath the moon.

But I was to have a higher spectacle. And I shall never forget the mixture

of wonder and awe which I felt at the first distant sight of the capital.

It was at the close of a long day's journey, while the twilight gave a

mysterious hue to a scene in itself singular and stately.--Glistening

spire on spire; massive piles, which in the deepening haze might be either

prisons or palaces; vast ranges of buildings, gloomy or glittering as the

partial ray fell on them; with the solemn beauty of the Invalides on one

wing, the light and lovely elegance of the St Genevieve on the other, and

the frowning majesty of Notre-Dame in the midst, filled the plain with a

vision such as I had imaged only in an Arabian tale. Yet the moral reality

was even greater than the visible. I felt that I was within reach of the

chief seat of all the leading events of the Continent since the birth of

monarchy; every step which I might tread among those piles was historical;

within that clouded circumference, like the circle of a necromancer, had

been raised all the dazzling and all the disturbing spirits of the world.

There was the grand display of statesmanship, pomp, ambition, pleasure,

and each the most subtle, splendid, daring, and prodigal ever seen among

men. And, was it not now to assume even a more powerful influence on the

fates of mankind? Was not the falling of the monarchical forest of so many

centuries, about to lay the land open to a new, and perhaps a more

powerful produce; where the free blasts of nature were to rear new forms,

and demand new arts of cultivation? The monarchy was falling--but was not

the space, cleared of its ruins, to be filled with some new structure,

statelier still? Or, if the government of the Bourbons were to sink for

ever from the eyes of men, were there to be no discoveries made in the

gulf itself in which it went down; were there to be no treasures found in

the recesses thus thrown open to the eye for the first time; no mines in

the dissevered strata--no founts of inexhaustible freshness and flow

opened by thus piercing into the bowels of the land?

There are moments on which the destiny of a nation, perhaps of an age,

turns. I had reached Paris at one of those moments. As my calèche wound

its slow way round the base of Montmartre, I perceived, through the

deepening twilight, a long train of flame, spreading from the horizon to

the gates of the city. Shouts were heard, with now and then the heavy

sounds of cannon. This produced a dead stop in my progress. My postilion

stoutly protested against venturing his calèche, his horses, and, what he

probably regarded much more than either, himself, into the very heart of

what he pronounced a counter-revolution. My courier, freighted with

despatches, which might have been high treason to the majesty of the mob,

and who saw nothing less than suspension from the first lamp-post in their

discovery, protested, with about the same number of _sacres_; and my

diplomatic beams seemed in a fair way to be shorn.

But this was the actual thing which I had come to see: Paris in its new

existence; the capital of the populace; the headquarters of the grand army

of insurgency; the living centre of all those flashes of fantasy, fury,

and fire, which were already darting out towards every throne of Europe. I

determined to have a voice on the occasion, and I exerted it with such

vigour, that I roused the inmates of a blockhouse, a party of the National

Guard, who, early as it was, had been as fast asleep as if they had been a

_posse_ of city watchmen. They clustered round us, applauded my resolve,

to see what was to be seen, as perfectly national, _vraiment Français_;

kicked my postilion till he mounted his horse, beat my sulky courier with

the flats of their little swords, and would have bastinadoed, or probably

hanged him, if I had not interposed; and, finally, hoisting me into the

calèche, which they loaded with half a dozen of their number before and

behind, commenced our march into Paris. This was evidently not the age of

discipline.

It may have been owing to this curious escort that I got in at all; for at

the gate I found a strong guard of the regular troops, who drove back a

long succession of carriages which had preceded me. But my cortège were so

thoroughly in the new fashion, they danced the "_carmagnole_" so

boisterously, and sang patriotic rhymes with such strength of lungs, that

it was impossible to refuse admission to patriots of such sonorousness.

The popular conjectures, too, which fell to my share, vastly increased my

importance. In the course of the five minutes spent in wading through the

crowd of the rejected, I bore fifty different characters--I was a state

prisoner--a deputy from Marseilles, a part of the kingdom then in peculiar

favour; an ex-general; a captain of banditti, and an ambassador from

England or America; in either case, an especially honoured missionary, for

England was then pronounced by all the Parisian authorities to be on the

verge of a revolution. Though, I believe, Jonathan had the preference, for

the double reason, that the love of Jean Français for John Bull is of a

rather precarious order, and that the American Revolution was an egg

hatched by the warmth of the Gallic bird itself; a secondary sort of

parentage.

As we advanced through the streets, my noisy "compagnons de voyage"

dropped off one by one, some to the lowest places of entertainment, and

some tired of the jest; and I proceeded to the Place de Vendome, where was

my hotel, at my leisure. The streets were now solitary; to a degree that

was almost startling. As I wound my way through long lines of houses,

tortuous, narrow, and dark as Erebus, I saw the cause of the singular

success which had attended all Parisian insurrections. A chain across one

of these dismal streets, an overturned cart, a pile of stones, would

convert it at once into an impassable defile. Walls and windows, massive,

lofty, and nearly touching each other from above afforded a perpetual

fortification; lanes innumerable, and extending from one depth of darkness

and intricacy into another, a network of attack and ambush, obviously gave

an extraordinary advantage to the irregular daring of men accustomed to

thread those wretched and dismal dens, crowded with one of the fiercest

and most capricious populations in the world. Times have strikingly

changed since. The "fifteen fortresses" are but so many strong bars of the

great cage, and they are neither too strong nor too many. Paris is now the

only city on earth which is defended against itself, garrisoned on its

outside, and protected by a perpetual Praetorian band against a national

mania of insurrection.

But, on turning into the Boulevards, the scene changed with the rapidity

of magic. Before me were raging thousands, the multitude which I had seen

advancing to the gates. The houses, as far as the eye could reach, were

lighted up with lamps, torches, and every kind of hurried illumination.

Banners of all hues were waving from the casements, and borne along by the

people; and in the midst of the wild procession were seen at a distance a

train of travelling carriages, loaded on the roofs with the basest of the

rabble. A mixed crowd of National Guards, covered with dust, and drooping

under the fatigue of the road, poissardes drunk, dancing, screaming the

most horrid blasphemies, and a still wider circle, which seemed to me

recruited from all the jails of Paris, surrounded the carriages, which I

at length understood to be those of the royal family. They had attempted

to escape to the frontier, had been arrested, and were now returning as

prisoners. I caught a glimpse, by the torchlight, of the illustrious

sufferers, as they passed the spot where I stood. The Queen was pale, but

exhibited that stateliness of countenance for which she was memorable to

the last; she sat with the Dauphiness pressed in her arms. The King looked

overcome with exhaustion; the Dauphin gazed at the populace with a child's

curiosity.

At the moment when the carriages were passing, an incident occurred

terribly characteristic of the time. A man of a noble presence, and with

an order of St Louis at his breast, who had been giving me a hurried and

anxious explanation of the scene, excited by sudden feeling, rushed

forward through the escort, and laying one hand on the royal carriage,

with the other waved his hat, and shouted, "Vive le Roi!" In another

instant I saw him stagger; a pike was darted into his bosom, and he fell

dead under the wheel. Before the confusion of this frightful catastrophe

had subsided, a casement was opened immediately above my head, and a woman,

superbly dressed, rushed out on the balcony waving a white scarf, and

crying, "Vive Marie Antoinette!" The muskets of the escort were turned

upon her, and a volley was fired at the balcony. She started back at the

shock, and a long gush of blood down her white robe showed that she had

been wounded. But she again waved the scarf, and again uttered the loyal

cry. Successive shots were fired at her by the monsters beneath; but she

still stood. At length she received the mortal blow; she tottered and fell;

yet, still clinging to the front of the balcony, she waved the scarf, and

constantly attempted to pronounce the words of her generous and devoted

heart, until she expired. I saw this scene with an emotion beyond my power

to describe; all the enthusiasm of popular change was chilled within me;

my boyish imaginations of republicanism were extinguished by this plunge

into innocent blood; and I never felt more relieved, than when the whole

fearful procession at length moved on, and I was left to make my way once

more, through dim and silent streets, to my dwelling.

* * * * *

I pass by a considerable portion of the time which followed. The

Revolution was like the tiger, it advanced couching; though, when it

sprang, its bound was sudden and irresistible. My time was occupied in my

official functions, which became constantly more important, and of which I

received flattering opinions from Downing Street. I mingled extensively in

general society, and it was never more animated, or more characteristic,

than at that period in Paris. The leaders of faction and the leaders of

fashion, classes so different in every other part of the world, were there

often the same. The woman who dazzled the ball-room, was frequently the

_confidente_ of the deepest designs of party. The coterie in a _salon_,

covered with gilding, and filled with _chefs-d'oeuvre_ of the arts, was

often as subtle as a conspiracy in the cells of the Jacobins; and the

dance or the masquerade only the preliminary to an outbreak which

shattered a ministry into fragments All the remarkable men of France

passed before me, and I acknowledge that I was frequently delighted and

surprised by their extra ordinary attainments. The age of the

_Encyclopédie_ was in its wane, but some of its brilliant names still

illustrated the Parisian _salons_. I recognised the style of Buffon and

Rousseau in a crowd of their successors; and the most important knowledge

was frequently communicated in language the most eloquent and captivating.

Even the mixture of society which had been created by the Revolution, gave

an original force and freshness to these assemblies, infinitely more

attractive than the most elaborate polish of the old _régime_. Brissot,

the common printer, but a man of singular strength of thought, there

figured by Condorcet, the noble and the man of profound science. St

Etienne, the little bustling partizan, yet the man of talent, mingled with

the chief advocates of the Parisian courts; or Servan fenced with his

subtle knowledge of the world against Vergniaud, the romantic Girondist,

but the most Ciceronian of orators. Talleyrand, already known as the most

sarcastic of men, and Maury, by far the most powerful debater of France

since Mirabeau--figured among the chief ornaments of the _salons_ of De

Staël. Roland, and the showy and witty Theresa Cabarrus, and even the

flutter of La Fayette, the most tinsel of heroes, and the sullen

sententiousness of Robespierre, then known only as a provincial deputy,

furnished a background which increased the prominence of the grouping.

But the greatest wonder of France still escaped the general eye. At a ball

at the Hotel de Staël, I remember to have been struck with the energetic

denunciation of some rabble insult to the Royal family, by an officer whom

nobody knew. As a circle were standing in conversation on the topic of the

day, the little officer started from his seat, pushed into the group, and

expressed his utter contempt for the supineness of the Government on those

occasions, so strongly, as to turn all eyes upon him. "Where were the

troops, where the guns?" he exclaimed. "If such things are suffered, all

is over with royalty; a squadron of horse, and a couple of six pounders,

would have swept away the whole swarm of scoundrels like so many flies."

Having thus discharged his soul, he started back again, flung himself into

a chair, and did not utter another word through the evening. I little

dreamed that in that meagre frame, and long, thin physiognomy, I saw

Napoleon.

I must hasten to other things. Yet I still cast many a lingering glance

over these times. The vividness of the collision was incomparable. The wit,

the eccentricity, the anecdote, the eloquence of those assemblages, were

of a character wholly their own. They had, too, a substantial nutriment,

the want of which had made the conversation of the preceding age vapid,

with all its elegance.--Public events of the most powerful order fed the

flame. It was the creation of a vast national excitement; the rush of

sparks from the great electrical machine, turned by the hands of thirty

millions. The flashes were still but matters of sport and surprise. The

time was nigh when those flashes were to be fatal, and that gay lustre was

to do the work of conflagration.

I had now been a year in Paris, without returning, or wishing to return,

to London. A letter now and then informed me of the state of those who

still drew my feelings towards England. But I was in the centre of all

that awoke, agitated, or alarmed Europe; and, compared with the glow and

rapidity of events in France, the rest of Europe appeared asleep, or to

open its eyes solely when some new explosion shook it from its slumber.

My position, too, was a matchless school for the learner in diplomacy.

France shaped the politics of the Continent; and I was present in the

furnace where the casting was performed. France was the stage to which

every eye in Europe was turned, whether for comedy or tragedy; and I was

behind the scenes. But the change was at hand.

One night I found an individual, of a very marked appearance, waiting for

me at my hotel. His countenance was evidently Jewish, and he introduced

himself as one of the secret police of the ministry. The man handed me a

letter--it was from Mordecai, and directed to be given with the utmost

secrecy. It was in his usual succinct and rapid style.

"I write this in the midst of a tumult of business. My friend Mendoza will

give you such knowledge and assistance as may be necessary. France is on

the point of an explosion. Every thing is prepared. It is impossible that

it can be delayed above a week or two, and the only origin of the delay is

in the determination to make the overthrow final. Acquaint your English

officials with this. The monarchy of the Bourbons has signed its

death-warrant. By suffering a legislature to be formed by the votes of the

mere multitude, it has put property within the power of all beggars; rank

has been left at the mercy of the rabble; and the church has been

sacrificed to please a faction. Thus the true pillars of society have been

cut away; and the throne is left in the air. Mendoza will tell you more.

The train is already laid. A letter from a confidential agent tells us

that the day is fixed. At all events, avoid the mine. There is no pleasure

in being blown up, even in company with kings."

A postscript briefly told me--that his daughter sent her recollections;

that Clotilde was still indisposed; La Fontaine giddier than ever; and, as

the proof of his own confidence in his views, that he had just sold out

100,000 three per cent consols.

My first visit next morning was to the British embassy. But the ambassador

was absent in the country, and the functionary who had been left in charge

was taking lessons on the guitar, and extremely unwilling to be disturbed

by matters comparatively so trifling as the fate of dynasties. I explained,

but explained in vain. The hour was at hand when his horses were to be at

the door for a ride in the Bois de Boulogne. I recommended a ride after

the ambassador. It was impossible. He was to be the escort of a duchess;

then to go to a dinner at the Russian embassy, and was under engagements

to three balls in the course of the evening. Nothing could be clearer than

that such duties must supersede the slight concerns of office. I left him

under the hands of his valet, curling his ringlets, and preparing him to

be the admiration of mankind.

I saw Mendoza secretly again; received from him additional intelligence;

and, as I was not inclined to make a second experiment on the "elegant

extract" of diplomacy, and escort of duchesses, I went, as soon as the

nightfall concealed my visit, to the hotel of the Foreign Minister. This

was my first interview with the celebrated Dumourier.

He received me with the courtesy of a man accustomed to high life; and I

entered on the purport of my visit at once. He was perfectly astonished at

my tidings. He had known that strong resolutions had been adopted by the

party opposed to the Cabinet; but was startled by the distinct avowal of

its intention to overthrow the monarchy. I was struck with his appearance,

his quickness of conception, and that mixture of sportiveness and depth,

which I had found characteristic of the higher orders of French society.

He was short in stature, but proportioned for activity; his countenance

bold, but with smiling lips and a most penetrating grey eye. His name as a

soldier was at this period wholly unknown, but I could imagine in him a

leader equally subtle and daring;--he soon realized my conjecture.

We sat together until midnight; and over the supper-table, and cheered by

all the good things which French taste provides and enjoys more than any

other on earth, he gave full flow to his spirit of communication. The

Frenchman's sentences are like sabre-cuts--they have succession, but no

connexion.

"I shall always converse with you, M. Marston," said he, "with ease; for

you are of the noblesse of your own great country, and I am tired of

_roturiers_ already.--The government has committed dangerous faults. The

king is an excellent man, but his heart is where his head ought to be, and

his head where his heart.--His flight was a terrible affair, but it was a

blunder on both sides; _he_ ought never to have gone, or the government

ought never to have brought him back.--However, I have no cause to

complain of its epitaph. The blunder dissolved that government. I have to

thank it for bringing me and my colleagues into power. Our business now is

to preserve the monarchy, but this becomes more difficult from day to day."

I adverted to the personal character of the royal family.

"Nothing can be better. But chance has placed them in false position.--If

the king were but the first prince of the blood, his benevolence without

his responsibility would make him the most popular man in France.--If the

queen were still but the dauphiness, she would be, as she was then, all

but worshipped. As the leader of fashion in France, she would be the

leader of taste in Europe.--Elegant, animated, and high-minded, she would

have charmed every one, without power. If she could but continue to move

along the ground, all would admire the grace of her steps; but, sitting on

a throne, she loses the spell of motion."

"Yet, can France ever forget her old allegiance, and adopt the fierce

follies of a republic?"