From HOLT & WILLIAMS, New York: Fly Leaves by C. S. C. 12mo, pp. vi., 233.

From the AUTHOR: Key to the Massoretic Notes, Titles, and Index generally

found in the margin of the Hebrew Bible. Translated from the Latin of A.

Hahn. With many additions and corrections. By Alex. Merowitz, A.M.,

Professor of the Hebrew language and literature in the University of New

York. New York: J. Wiley & Son. 8vo, paper, pp. 22.

From ELDREDGE & BROTHER, Philadelphia: A French Verb Book. By E. Lagarde,

A.M. 12mo, pp. 130.

From P. O’SHEA, New York: Month of the Holy Rosary. By Rev. P. M. Chery,

O.P. 18mo, pp. iv., 200—The Scapular of Mount Carmel. By Rev. P. Tissot,

S.J. 24mo, pp. 105.

From the AUTHOR: The Irish Republic. A Historical Memoir of Ireland and

her Oppressors. By P. Cudmore, Counsellor‐at‐Law. St. Paul: Pioneer

Printing Company, 1871.

THE CATHOLIC WORLD. VOL. XVI., NO. 94.—JANUARY, 1873.

A Son Of The Crusaders.

... “On his breast a bloodie crosse he bore,

The deare remembrance of his dying Lord,

For whose sweete sake that glorious badge he wore,

And dead, as living, ever him ador’d:

Upon his shield the like was also scor’d.

For soveraine hope which in his helpe he had,

Right faithful true he was in deede and word.”—SPENSER.

One day in the month of November, 1833, a stranger descended from the

lumbering _Schnellpost_ at the little town of Marburg (Electoral Hesse),

on the pleasant banks of the Lahn. Looking around him, he discovered but a

single object of interest—the old cathedral of the place, a noble Gothic

edifice, which, although stripped and cold in its modern dedication to the

Lutheran service, still preserved the salient features of its inalienable

beauty and majesty of form.

The traveller, a young man of twenty‐three, a Catholic, and an enthusiast

in his intelligent and cultivated admiration of the grand architecture of

his church, recognized in the building a monument celebrated at once for

its pure and perfect beauty, and the first in Germany in which the pointed

arch prevailed over the round in the great renovation of art in the XIIIth

century.

Contrary to Lutheran observance, the church happened on that day to be

open, in compliance with a traditional custom, for the cathedral bore the

name of S. Elizabeth, and this was S. Elizabeth’s Day. The stranger

entered. There was no religious service. There were no worshippers, and

children were at play among the old tombs. He wandered through the vast

and desolate aisles, which not even the devastation and neglect of

centuries had robbed of their marvellous elegance. Naked altars from which

no ministering hand now wiped the dust, pillars, defaced statues, nearly

obliterated paintings, broken and defaced wood carvings, successively

struck his eye and attracted his attention. All these remains of Christian

art, even in their ruin telling the story of their origin in days of fresh

and fervent faith, appeared also to picture in a certain sequence the

events of some devout life. Here was the statue of a young woman in the

dress of a widow; further on, in painting, a frightened girl showing to a

crowned warrior her robe filled with roses; yet further, these two, the

young woman and the warrior, tearing themselves in anguish from a parting

embrace. Again, the lady is seen stretched on her bed of death amidst

weeping attendants, and, later, an emperor lays his crown on her freshly

exhumed coffin.

It was explained to the traveller that these pictured incidents were

events in the life of S. Elizabeth, queen of that country, who, that very

day six hundred years ago, had died in Marburg and lay buried in the

church. A silver shrine, richly sculptured, was shown to him. It had once

enclosed the relics of the saint, but one of her descendants, turned

Protestant, had torn them from it, and scattered them to the winds. The

stone steps approaching the shrine were deeply hollowed by the countless

pilgrims who, more than three centuries agone, had come here to kneel in

prayer. “Alas!” thought the stranger, “the faith which left its impress on

the cold stone has left none upon human hearts!”

He desired to know more of the saintly patroness of Marburg’s cathedral,

and leaving the church sought out a bookseller, and asked for a life of S.

Elizabeth. The man stared at him, bethought himself a moment, and then

went up into a garret, from which he presently emerged with a dust‐covered

pamphlet. “Here it is,” he said, “the only copy I have: no one ever asked

for it before.”

The traveller resumed his journey, reading his pamphlet to beguile the

tedium of his way. Although written by a Protestant in a cold,

unsympathizing, matter‐of‐fact way, the essential charm of its mere record

of youthful self‐devotion laid a powerful spell upon him. His artistic

enthusiasm, his heart, his piety, were all touched and aroused. Just

emerging in sorrow from one of the most trying ordeals of the battle of

life, with repelled longings and disappointed hopes, his pent‐up youthful

energies were now seeking some outlet for escape, some fresh field of

action. Uncertain what this field, this outlet, might be, he had vowed

that, with the choice before him of several different objects to pursue,

he would decide for that which was the most Catholic. He had found it. “To

S. Elizabeth he would,” in his own words, “sacrifice his fatigue and his

hopes.” He would write her life, and strive to place on record its

touching story—at once a tender love‐legend, a page of mediæval romance,

and the hallowed tradition of a saintly career. At the first stopping‐

place he left the diligence, and, taking a return carriage, went

immediately back to Marburg.

This traveller, this young stranger, was Charles, Count de Montalembert,

peer of France. His sudden impulse, his enthusiastic vow, were not as

words written in water. To what would at this day seem to many an

inconsiderate, quixotic rashness, succeeded the deliberate realization of

an undertaking full of labor and difficulty. He ransacked libraries,

sought out chronicles, legends, and popular traditions, read old books and

long‐forgotten manuscripts, and travelled far and wide throughout Germany,

wherever a locality offered the attraction of the slightest association

with the name of S. Elizabeth. The charm and fascination of his theme grew

upon him with every additional fact he learned regarding her. Beginning at

the famous old castle of Wartburg, where Elizabeth came a child, the

daughter of a race of kings, from distant Hungary, he made a veritable

pilgrimage, taking for his route the itinerary of his heroine’s life—to

Kreuzburg; to Reinhartsbrünn, where, a young wife and mother of twenty,

she parted in anguish from her husband, a crusader setting out for

Palestine; to Bamberg, where she was driven by persecution; to Andechs, to

Erfurth, and finally to Marburg, “whither,” as he says, “he returned to

pray by her desecrated tomb, and to gather with pain and difficulty some

remembrance of her from the mouths of a people who have renounced with the

faith of their fathers the regard due to their benefactress.”

Bow down your heads, O generation of stockbrokers and speculators in

provisions and railway shares, to the memory of this Montalembert, who, in

the flower of his youthful manhood, for years went up and down the world

with an idea in his head and heart!

But this book, this life of S. Elizabeth. you object, was, after all, a

mere pious legend of dubious trustworthiness? On the contrary, it was a

work of the highest value, even judged by the severest canons of

historical criticism. Its introduction alone is sufficient to make the

work classic. Sainte‐Beuve, high academic and critical authority, calls it

majestic,(186) and reviewers of all nations have contributed their

verdicts of approval.

This was Montalembert’s first literary production—a success, as it

deserved to be, worthy forerunner of his yet greater work, _The Monks of

the West_, and the first‐fruit of a splendid literary and oratorical

career, whose main inspiration was always drawn from the sources of

Catholic truth and Catholic faith.

Montalembert died in March, 1870, leaving a name and a reputation which

for all time to come will remain one of the proudest illustrations of

France.

We are fortunate in already having an admirable memoir of his life,(187)

written by one of the most distinguished women of England. It cannot but

be gratifying to all who cherish the memory of Montalembert that the task

should have fallen into the hands of one so eminently capable as Mrs.

Oliphant. Personally intimate with his family and on terms of friendship

with his wife (_née_ Comtesse de Merode), thoroughly familiar with the

language, modern history, and politics of France, and the successful

translator of _The Monks of the West_, it would have been difficult to

find a writer better fitted, in knowledge and in sympathy, to record the

life of Charles de Montalembert. Let us add here that, for reasons which

the intelligent reader may easily divine, we are glad that the biography

has been written by a Protestant. Although to a Catholic reader it would

be more pleasant to read a life in which nothing could be found which is

not in perfect harmony with the spirit of faith and loyalty toward the

church, yet, for the public generally, the testimony of a fair and candid

Protestant in respect to certain very important events in the career of

Montalembert will be more free from the suspicion of bias, and therefore

of more value in establishing the fact of his essential devotion to the

Holy See to the end of his life.

We trust that the ladies of Sorosis and of the various wings and vanguards

of the grand army of “The Rights of Women” will not take offence if we

endeavor to compliment Mrs. Oliphant by saying that we especially admire

the style in which her memoir is written, for a tone and quality

which—turn whither we may—we cannot otherwise describe than as “manly.”

Making due allowance for the almost inevitable partiality of the

biographer for his hero, there is a directness, a solidity, a sound

common‐sense view of practical questions, and an absence of mere

sentimentality, all eminently to her credit and in admirable keeping with

the dignity of her subject. Mrs. Oliphant’s modesty, too, equals her

ability. Referring to her translation of _The Monks of the West_, she

tells us: “We are sorry to add, to our personal humiliation, that

Montalembert was by no means so much satisfied with at least the first

part of the translation. He acknowledged that the meaning was faithfully

rendered; ‘but,’ he wrote, ‘I cannot admire the constant use of French or

Latin words instead of your own vernacular. My Anglo‐Saxon feelings are

wounded to the quick by the useless admission of the article _the_ or _a_;

and by such words as _chagrin_ instead of _grief_, _malediction_ instead

of _curse_, etc.’ The proofs of the translation came back from him laden

with corrections in red ink—a circumstance which communicated to them a

certain additional sharpness, at least to the troubled imagination of the

translator; and the present writer may be perhaps allowed here to avow in

her own person that up to this present moment, when she happens to have

the smallest French phrase to translate, she pauses with instinctive

alarm, hastily substituting _freedom_ for _liberty_ when the word occurs;

and will cast about in her mind, with a certain sensation of fright, how

to find words for _authority_, _corruption_, _intelligence_, etc., in

other than the French form.”

Charles Forbes René de Montalembert was born in London on the 15th of May,

1810. His father was a noble French _emigré_; his mother, the daughter of

James Forbes, an Englishman of distinction. The first nine years of his

life were spent principally in England under the immediate care and in the

personal companionship of his maternal grandfather, and, dating from this

period, the English language was always to him a second mother tongue. At

the age of fourteen we find him at the college of S. Barbe in Paris. The

fact may be discouraging to many young gentlemen of the present day now at

school and in sad possession of a class of ideas too generally accepted,

to the effect that men become useful and distinguished by reason of the

possession of some unaided special gift rather than by study and the

laborious acquisition of knowledge—we say the fact may be discouraging to

them, but nevertheless it remains a fact that the young Montalembert laid

the foundation of his future distinction as a man of letters, an

archæologist, a great orator, a great writer, an eminent political leader,

and the ornament of the Chamber of Peers, in close, unremitting, laborious

application to his studies while at school. After he had completed his

college course and entered society, we find him writing to a friend: “It

is usual to say that youth is the time for the pleasures of society. I

look upon this opinion as a complete paradox. It seems to me, on the

contrary, that youth should be given up with ardor to study, or to

preparation for a profession. When a young man has paid his tribute to his

country; when he can appear in society crowned with the laurels of debate

or of the battle‐field, or at least of universal esteem; when he feels

entitled to command respect, if not admiration—then is the time to enter

society with satisfaction.”

Soon there came for him the period of _illusions perdues_, which,

commencing with the entrance into life of every intelligent and ambitious

young man, accompanies him with more or less persistence to the edge of

the grave. Young Montalembert spent some time in Sweden, at whose court

his father was the ambassador of Charles X. On his return to France, he

wrote an article upon that country which M. Guizot, the editor of the

_Revue Française_, advised him to cut down to half its length. He

complied, sent in his abbreviated article, and the editor suppressed the

best portion of what remained!

About this time he met Lamartine, became intimate with Victor Hugo, “then

the poet of all sweet and virtuous things,” and numbered among his friends

Sainte‐Beuve, who then shared Montalembert’s religious enthusiasm and his

belief that Europe was to be regenerated by the church. Ireland, too, came

in for a full share of his sympathy. He wrote an article on that country

which Guizot allowed to go in entire. A friend tells him that his article

on Sweden is dull, and that on Ireland commonplace. “Disappointing,”

writes the young author in his diary, “but better than if my friend had

praised me insincerely.” O’Connell, then in the fulness of his powers and

his popularity, greatly attracted him. He would go all the way to Ireland

to see him. And he did. Crossing the two channels, and traversing England,

he made the journey over the mountains of Kerry on horseback, with a

little Irish boy for his guide. He visited O’Connell at Derrynane,

prepared and anxious to discuss with him the great subjects which filled

his mind. The Liberator received him kindly, and after dinner—looking at

the ingenuous face of twenty before him—did what he thought precisely the

proper thing to do—ushered him at once into the drawing‐room, where the

young count was thrown on the tender mercies of a crowd of pretty and gay

young Irish women. _Encore une illusion perdue!_ He had crossed seas and

mountains to discuss freedom, the church, English rule and Irish

emancipation, with Ireland’s greatest man, who, without listening to a

word from him, thrust him into another room amid a bevy of laughing girls!

After Montalembert’s return from Ireland came his intimacy with Lacordaire

and Lamennais, and the joint literary enterprise of the three in the

establishment of the _Avenir_, whose motto was “God and Liberty.” Its

first number was issued Oct. 15, 1830. We will not dwell on its history,

so familiar to all Catholics, except to refer to the holy war waged by it

and its friends against the monopoly of education by the government. Under

the law, every private school, every educational institution not licensed

and regulated by the University of Paris, was absolutely forbidden. Utter

irreligiousness then pervaded the colleges and schools of France. The

generation which passed through those schools bears witness to their evil

influences, and confirms Lacordaire’s own record, who says that he left

college “with religion destroyed in his soul,” and that he, like almost

all the youths of his period, “lost his faith at school.”

Montalembert’s picture of these evil influences was everywhere recognized

as truthful. “Is there a single establishment of the university where a

Christian child can live in the exercise of faith? Does not a contagious

doubt, a cold and tenacious impiety, reign over all these young souls whom

she pretends to instruct? Are they not too often either polluted, or

petrified, or frozen? Is not the most flagrant, the most monstrous, the

most unnatural immorality inscribed in the records of every college, and

in the recollections of every child who has passed as much as eight days

there?”

To test the law forbidding freedom in education, Lacordaire and

Montalembert opened a free school for poor children at Paris in the Rue

des Arts. They were indicted for the offence, and tried at the bar of the

Chamber of Peers. The audience, as may well be imagined, was made up from

the nobility and intelligence of the land. The prisoners defended their

cause in person. Lacordaire, who spoke first, referred to the fact that

the government had lately impeached the previous ministers by virtue of

power in the charter not reduced to a special law. “If they could do it,

so could I,” said the brave priest, “with this difference, that they asked

blood, while I desired to give a free education to the children of the

poor.” He ended by recalling to his judges the example of Socrates “in the

first struggle for freedom to preach.” “In that _cause célèbre_ by which

Socrates fell,” said Lacordaire, “he was evidently culpable against the

gods, and in consequence against the laws of his country. Nevertheless,

posterity, both pagan and Christian, has stigmatized his judges and

accusers; and of all concerned have absolved only the culprit and the

executioner—the culprit, because he had failed to keep the laws of Athens

only in obedience to a higher law; and the executioner, because he

presented the cup to the victim with tears.”

With this proud and plain warning ringing in their ears, the judges next

heard Montalembert. He was just twenty‐one, and by the recent death of his

father but a few weeks in his place as a peer of France. Sainte‐Beuve saw

that his youth, his ease and grace, the elegant precision of his style and

diction, veiled the fact that it was a prisoner—not a peer—who spoke, and

his judges were the first to forget it.

“The entire chamber listened with a surprise which was not without

pleasure to the young man’s bold self‐justification. From that day M. de

Montalembert, though formally condemned, was borne in the very heart of

the peerage—he was its Benjamin.” The sentence was a gentle reprimand and

a mild fine of a hundred francs.

The _Avenir_, it will be remembered, had incurred no censure from Rome.

Nevertheless, it had not prospered, and it was resolved by its founders

that they would appeal to the head of the church for his explicit

approval. Accordingly, the publication of the paper was suspended, and its

last number announced “with pomp,” as Lacordaire says, that “the purpose

of its editors was to suspend it until they had gone to Rome to seek

sanction and authority for its continuation.” The biographer well remarks

that “neither from primitive Ireland nor romantic Poland had such an

expedition set forth.” They asked the head of the church “to commit

himself, to sanction a new and revolutionary movement, to bless the very

banners of revolt, and acknowledge as pioneers of his army the

ecclesiastical Ishmaels who had carried fire and flame everywhere during

their brief career.” There could, of course, be but one result—failure.

The _Avenir_ was condemned. Lacordaire and Montalembert at once submitted

to the decision. Poor de Lamennais did not, and unhappily persisted in his

sad mistake. In connection with this subject, we cannot here refrain from

repeating at length some reflections which, coming as they do from an

intelligent Protestant, have a peculiar force and value.

They are from the pen of Montalembert’s biographer, and present so

admirable, so eloquent a _résumé_ of the question of apostasy, that we

have not the heart to curtail the passage containing them by so much as

the omission of a single word:

“Except at the Reformation, when the great overflow of spiritual

rebellion was favored by such a combination of circumstances as

has never occurred since, no man or group of men have succeeded in

rebelling against Rome, and yet continued to keep up a religious

character and influence. No man has been able to do it, whatever

the excellence of his beginning might be, or the purity of the

motives with which he started. Even in the Church of England the

career of a man who separates himself from her communion is

generally a painful one. He makes a commotion and excitement in

the world for a time before he has fully made up his mind; and at

the moment of his withdrawal he is sure of remark and notice, at

all events, from certain classes. But after that brief moment he

sinks flat as the spirits do in the _Inferno_, and the dark wave

pours over him, and he is heard of no more. All that sustained and

strengthened and gave him a fictitious importance as the member of

a great corporation has fallen away from him. He has dropped like

a stone into the water—like a foundered ship into the sea. In

England, however, after all has been done, there is a sea of

dissent to drop into, and though his new surroundings may please

him little, yet he will come out of the giddiness of his downfall

to take some comfort in them—will accustom himself by degrees to

the lower social level, the different spiritual atmosphere. But he

who dissents from the Church of Rome has no such refuge. The

moment he steps outside her fold he finds himself in outer

darkness, through which awful salutations are shrieked to him by

the enemies of religion, by those whom he has avoided and

condemned all his life, and with whom he can agree only on the one

sole article of rebellion. If he ventures to hold up his head at

all after what all his friends will call his apostasy, the best

that he can hope for is to be courted by heretics, professed

enemies of the church which he has been born in, and which

probably he loves most dearly still, notwithstanding his

disobedience. To quarrel with your home is one thing—to find its

domestic laws hard, and its prejudices insupportable; but to

plunge into the midst of the enemies of that home, and to hear it

assailed with the virulence of ignorance—to join in gibes against

your mother, and mockery of her life and motives—is a totally

different matter. Yet this is almost all that a contumacious

priest has to look forward to. A recent and striking example, to

which we need not refer more plainly, will occur to every one who

has watched the contemporary history of the Roman Catholic Church.

In this case a brilliant and remarkable preacher—a man supposed

the other day to be one of the most eminent and promising sons of

Rome—after wavering and falling away in some points from

ecclesiastical obedience, suddenly appeared in an admiring circle

of gentle Anglicanism, surrounded by a fair crowd of worshipping

Protestants, ready to extend to him all that broad and universal

sympathy which he had no doubt been trained to regard as vilest

latitudinarianism, or the readiness of Pilate to make friends with

Herod. This prospect must chill the very soul of a man who has

received the true priestly training, and who has been educated in

that love of his church which is of itself a noble and generous

sentiment. The best thing that can happen to him is to fall among

heretics; the other alternative, and the only one, so far as

events have yet made it apparent, to fall among infidels: and as

his education has taught him to make but small distinction between

them, and the infidels are nearer at hand, and his own countrymen,

what wonder if it is into their hands that the miserable man, torn

from all his ancient foundations, ejected from his natural place,

heart‐weary with the madness which is wrought by anger against

those we love, should fall—what wonder if he should rush to the

furthest extremity, hiding what he feels to be his shame, and

endeavoring to take some dismal comfort in utter negation of that

past from which he has been torn! Whether there are new

developments in the future for the new Protesters whom a recent

decision has raised up, we cannot tell. But such has been the case

in the past. Life is over for the rebellious priest who breaks

with his church; his possibility of service in his vocation has

come to an end; even the most careless peasant in his parish will

turn from him. He is a deserter from his regiment in the face of

the enemy, false to his colors, a man no longer of any human use.”

It was during Montalembert’s sojourn in Italy, on his remarkable _Avenir_

pilgrimage, that he became the intimate friend of Albert de la Ferronays,

the hero of Mrs. Craven’s beautiful _Récit d’une Sœur_. He appears in the

book designated under the name of Montal. From the same period, also,

dates his intimacy with Rio, the future historian of Christian art. The

young peer’s taste for art, always strong, and his enthusiastic admiration

of the glorious remains of mediæval architecture, were both developed and

strengthened under the teaching and influence of Rio. In March, 1833, he

published an article in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, in which he

energetically denounced the desecration and ruin of the grand old

architectural monuments of France. It was addressed in the form of a

letter to Victor Hugo, then leader of the Romantic school, who strongly

sympathized with him on this subject, and whose _Notre Dame de Paris_ had

been reviewed in the _Avenir_ by Montalembert with enthusiastic praise for

the grand historical framework of the story. During the autumn of that

year, Montalembert went to Germany, and, as we have seen, accidentally

stopped at Marburg. Travel, research, and the collection of materials for

the life of Elizabeth now engrossed all his time, until, attaining the

legal age, twenty‐five, he took his seat in the Chamber of Peers. His

first appearance at the bar of this chamber had been in defence of the

liberty of teaching, and his first speech was in defence of the liberty of

the press. These two discourses prefigured his parliamentary career. He

was always the ardent advocate of liberty; rarely heard on the side of the

government; and generally the leader of a conscientious and loyal

opposition: which, well considered, would have been found the most prudent

adviser of the administration in power.

Strongly imbued with English ideas, he fully appreciated the conservative

power of an energetic opposition, ever ready to criticise, to question, to

challenge, or to expose whatever might seem arbitrary or unconstitutional

in the acts of the government. But this idea of an opposition at once

loyal and law‐loving, was unfamiliar to his countrymen. To them, as a

general thing, opposition meant revolution, and to many the spectacle of a

peer of France, a Catholic, and a _proprietaire_, who was at once the

friend of the proletaire, the dissenter, the oppressor, and the slave, was

a paradox. And yet paradox there was none, for his declaration of

principles was always clear and bold. Thus, in striving to cull from the

Chamber of Peers a public expression of sympathy for the Poles, he

insisted that it was their right and their duty to make an avowal of

national sentiments, an expression of national opinion, that it was an

obligation imposed by humanity and required by wise policy. “What is it,”

he asked, “that has raised the British parliament to so high a degree of

popularity and moral influence in Europe? Is it not because for more than

a century no grave event has happened in any country without finding an

echo there? Is it not because no right has been oppressed, no treaty

broken anywhere, without a discussion on both sides of the question before

the peers and commons of England, whose assemblies have thus become, in

the silence of the world, a sort of tribunal where all the great causes of

humanity are pleaded, and where opinion pronounces those formidable

judgments which, sooner or later, are always executed?”

And his independence was that of the man as well as of the orator. He was

committed to no policy, sought no party ends, but always, and at all cost,

maintained the good, the just, the honorable. A lost or desperate cause,

if equitable, was always sure of his support. The three oppressed nations

of the earth, Poland under Russia, Ireland under England, and Greece under

Turkey, were his most cherished clients. The weaker side ever strongly

attracted him. “Penetrated by the conviction that just causes are

everlasting,” says M. Cochin, “and that every protest against injustice

ends by moving heaven and convincing men, he sought out, so to speak,

every oppressed cause when at its last breath, to take its burden upon

himself, and to become its champion. There is a suffering race, a race

lost in distant isles, the race of black slaves, which has been oppressed

for centuries. He took its cause in hand, and from the year 1837 labored

for its emancipation. There are in all manufacturing places a crowd of

hollow‐cheeked children, with pale faces and worn eyes, and the sight of

them made a profound impression upon him; he took their cause also in

hand. If you run over the mere index of his speeches, you will find all

generous efforts contained in it.”

The year 1836 brought two notable events in the life of Montalembert—the

publication of his first work, his _Life of S. Elizabeth_, and his

marriage to a daughter of the noble house of de Merode in Belgium.

Meantime, he continued his attacks on vandalism in art and his

parliamentary labors, and was mainly instrumental in the creation of the

committee of historical art and the commission on historical monuments,

from both of which he was excluded under the Empire, which no more

sympathized with his pure conceptions of Christian art than it did with

his conception of Christian morals.

Rio has recorded the result of the impression made by Montalembert upon

the English poet Rogers, which admirably illustrates the fact that

Montalembert’s religion was not a sort of moral “Sunday suit” to be put

off and on as occasion might require, and at the same time reveals to us

the old poet in an entirely new aspect. The Montalemberts had spent the

evening with Rogers, “and after their departure,” Rio relates, “when I

found myself alone with Rogers, the expression of his countenance, which

up to that moment had been smiling and animated, changed so suddenly that

I feared I had offended him by some word of doubtful meaning which I might

not altogether have understood. He paced about the room without saying

anything, and I did not know whether I might venture to break this

incomprehensible silence. At last he broke it himself, and said to me

that, if he had the power of putting himself in the place of another, he

would choose that of Montalembert, not on account of his youth and his

beautiful wife, but because he possessed that immovable and cloudless

faith that seemed to himself the most enviable of all gifts.”

Mr. Neale advised Montalembert that he had been elected an honorary member

of the Cambridge Camden Society. On receipt of the news of this

“unsolicited and unmerited honor,” Montalembert replied in a letter

protesting against the usurpation of the title “Catholic” by the Camden

Society. Here are some of its trenchant passages:

“The attempt to steal away from us, and appropriate to the use of

a fraction of the Church of England, the glorious title of

Catholic, is proved to be an usurpation by every monument of the

past and present, by the coronation oath of your sovereigns, by

all the laws that have _established_ your church. The name itself

is spurned with indignation by the greater half at least of those

who belong to the Church of England, just as the Church of England

itself is rejected with scorn and detestation by the greater half

of the inhabitants of the United Kingdom. The judgment of the

whole indifferent world, the common sense of humanity, agrees with

the judgment of the Church of Rome, and with the sense of her 150

millions of children, to dispossess you of this name. The Church

of England, who has denied her mother, is rightly without a

sister. She has chosen to break the bonds of unity and obedience.

Let her therefore stand alone before the judgment‐seat of God and

man. Even the debased Russian Church—that church where lay‐

despotism has closed the church’s mouth and turned her into a

slave—disdains to recognize the Anglicans as Catholics. Even the

Eastern heretics, although so sweetly courted by Puseyite

missionaries, sneer at this new and fictitious Catholicism. That

the so‐called Anglo‐Catholics, whose very name betrays their

usurpation and their contradiction, whose doctrinal articles,

whose liturgy, whose whole history, are such as to disconnect them

from all mankind except those who are born English and speak

English—that they should pretend on the strength of their private

judgment alone to be what the rest of mankind deny them to be,

will assuredly be ranked among the first follies of the XIXth

century.... You may turn aside for three hundred years to come, as

you have done for three hundred years past, from the fountain of

living waters; but to dig out a small channel of your own, for

your own private insular use, wherein the living truth will run

apart from its own docile and ever obedient children—_that_ will

no more be granted to you than it has been to the Arians, the

Nestorians, the Donatists, or any other triumphant heresy. I

protest, therefore, against the usurpation of a sacred name by the

Camden Society as iniquitous; and I next protest against the

object of this society, and all such efforts in the Anglican

Church, as absurd.”

We now have before us a period of seven years in the life of Montalembert,

the record of which may be said to be the history of the great public

questions which then agitated France; so intimately was his entire

parliamentary career bound up with their development. The first and most

important of these questions was that of education. Then, as now, the

examination for the degree of A.B. (_baccalaureat_) was the key to all

public occupations.

But at that time, from 1830 to 1848, no one had a right to present himself

for this examination unless he had been educated in one of the public

_lycées_, or some school licensed by the university, into whose hands the

government had placed the monopoly of education. A wealthy parent might

educate a boy under his own supervision in the best universities of

England or Germany, or by private tutors, yet the youth would not be

permitted to present himself for examination, although able to pass it

with ease. And the degree resulting from this examination was the

essential condition upon which the possibility of a public career was

opened to every young Frenchman. Without it he could by no possibility be

admitted to any public employment, the bench or the bar. Ability,

accomplishments, acquirements, had nothing to do with the question. The

young man must pass through a state school, or he was for ever debarred

from a public career in his own country. But to pass through a state

school, as all Christian parents, both Catholic and Protestant, then well

knew in France, was to leave it with the loss of his religious principles.

The biographer may well find it “equally incredible that such restrictions

should have been borne by any people, and that a government founded upon

liberal principles and erected by revolution should have dared to maintain

them; but so it was.”

The parliamentary campaign on the educational question opened in 1844.

Discussion soon reached a point of warmth. “There is one result given

under the auspices of the university,” said Montalembert, “which governs

every other, and which is as clear as daylight. It is that children who

leave their family with the seed of faith in them, to enter the

university, come out of it infidels.” The contradictions and _mouvement_

incited by this statement pushed the orator to more emphatic statement. “I

appeal,” he said, “to the testimony of all fathers and mothers. Let us

take any ten children out of the schools regulated by the university, at

the end of their studies, and find one Christian among them if you can.

One in ten! and that would be a prodigy. I address myself not to such or

such a religious belief, but to all. Catholics, Protestants, Jews, all who

believe humbly and sincerely in the religion which they possess, it is to

them I appeal, whom I recognize as my brethren. And all those who have a

sincere belief, and practise it, will confirm what I have said of the

religious results of the education of the university. Let us hear the

testimony of the young and eloquent defender of French Protestantism, the

son of our colleague M. Agenor de Gasparin.... ‘Religious education,’ he

says, ‘has no existence in the colleges.... I bethink myself with terror

what I was when I issued forth from this national education. I recollect

what all my companions were. Were we very good citizens? I know not, but

certainly we were not Christians; we did not possess even the weakest

beginnings of evangelical faith.’ ”

The results of the French compulsory anti‐Christian education may be read

in current history. “The men it has brought up are the men who allowed

France to be bound for eighteen years in the humiliating bondage of the

Second Empire; who have furnished excuses to all the world for calling her

the most socially depraved of nations; who have filled her light

literature with abominations, and her graver works with blasphemy; and who

have finally procured for her national downfall and humiliation.”

Montalembert planted his little band in battle array against the compact

and overwhelming forces of the government, under the inspiration and

trumpet‐tongued tones of his admirable _fils des croisés_ speech in the

Chamber of Peers. Here, with its memorable termination, are a few passages

from it. We regret we cannot give it entire. “Allow me to tell you,

gentlemen, a generation has arisen among you of men whom you know not. Let

them call us Neo‐Catholics, sacristans, ultramontanes, as you will; the

name is nothing; the thing exists. We take for our motto that with which

the generous Poles in the last century headed their manifesto of

resistance to the Empress Catherine: ‘We, who love freedom more than all

the world, and the Catholic religion more than freedom,’ ... are we to

acknowledge ourselves so degenerated from the condition of our fathers,

that we must give up our reason to rationalism, deliver our conscience to

the university, our dignity and our freedom into the hands of law‐makers

whose hatred for the freedom of the church is equalled only by their

profound ignorance of her rights and her doctrines?... You are told to be

_implacable_. Be so; do all that you will and can against us. The church

will answer you by the mouth of Tertullian and the gentle Fénelon. ‘You

have nothing to fear from us; but we do not fear you.’ And I add in the

name of Catholic laymen like myself, Catholics of the XIXth century: We

will not be helots in the midst of a free people. WE ARE THE SUCCESSORS OF

THE MARTYRS, AND WE DO NOT TREMBLE BEFORE THE SUCCESSORS OF JULIAN THE

APOSTATE. WE ARE THE SONS OF THE CRUSADERS, AND WE WILL NEVER YIELD TO THE

PROGENY OF VOLTAIRE!”

“_Mouvements divers_” might well—according to the reported proceedings of

the day—follow this burst of indignant eloquence. The words made the very

air of France tingle; they defined at once the two sides with one of those

happy strokes which make the fortune of a party, and which are doubly dear

to all who speak the language of epigram—the most brilliantly clear,

incisive, and distinct of tongues. Henceforward the _fils des croisés_

were a recognized power, but they were only known and heard by and through

Montalembert, and, so far as the public struggle was concerned, might be

said to exist in him alone. Montalembert fought almost single‐handed. “The

attitude of this one man between that phalanx of resolute opponents and

the shifty mass of irresolute followers, is as curious and interesting as

any political position ever was. He stands before us turning from one to

the other, never wearied, never flagging, maintaining an endless brilliant

debate, now with one set of objectors, now with another, prompt with his

answers to every man’s argument, rapid as lightning in his sweep upon

every man’s fallacy: now proclaiming himself the representative of the

Catholics in France, and pouring forth his claim for them as warm, as

urgent, as vehement as though a million of men were at his back: and now

turning upon these very Catholics with keen reproaches, with fiery

ridicule, with stinging darts of contempt for their weakness. Thus he

fought single‐handed, confronting the entire world. Nothing daunted him,

neither failure nor abuse, neither the resentment of his enemies, nor the

languor of his friends, ... not always parliamentary in his language, bold

enough to say everything, as his adversaries reproached him, yet never

making a false accusation or imputing a mean motive. No one hotter in

assault, none more tremendous in the onslaught; but he did not know what

it was to strike a stealthy or back‐handed blow.”

Time has strange revenges. In April, 1849, came up the important question

of the _inamovibilité de la magistrature_—the appointment for life of

magistrates. His old enemies were delighted to find that Montalembert

declared himself unreservedly in the affirmative, and none more than M.

Dupin, the very man who uttered the memorable “_Soyez implacables_.” Again

he had the government to contend with, for under the law magistrates were

no longer irremovable. Montalembert proposed, as an amendment, that all

magistrates in office should be reappointed, and that all new appointments

should be made for life. He pointed out the evils of a system which made

judgeships tenable only from one revolution to another, and made a noble

office the object of a “hunt” for promotion dishonoring to all parties. He

spoke of the magistracy as the priesthood (_sacerdoce_) of justice, and

added: “Allow me to pause a moment upon the word priesthood, which I have

just employed. Of all the weaknesses and follies of the times in which we

live, there is none more hateful to me than the conjunction of expressions

and images borrowed from religion with the most profane facts and ideas.

But I acknowledge that our old and beautiful French language, the immortal

and intelligent interpreter of the national good sense, has, by a

marvellous instinct, assimilated religion and justice. It has always said:

_The temples of the law, the sanctuary of justice, the priesthood of the

magistracy_.” The cause was won by his eloquence, and thus the first

political success he ever gained was not for himself or his friends, but

for his enemies. Truly a fitting triumph for a son of the crusaders.

The peerage now being abolished, Montalembert was returned as deputy to

the National Assembly by the Department of Doubs. Here his career was, if

possible, yet more brilliant than in the Chamber of Peers. It would

require a volume fitly to record them. Soon came the presidency of Louis

Bonaparte. Himself the soul of honor, with an eye single to the welfare of

France, deceived by solemn assurances which he unfortunately credited,

unsuspicious of a depth of treachery which he could not conceive, and

alarmed by the horrible spectre of socialism, just arising from its native

blood and mire, Montalembert became the dupe and the victim of Louis

Napoleon. When power had been fully secured, the new president offered him

the position of senator, along with the _dotation_ of 30,000 francs, which

was refused without hesitation. A second and a third time the offer was

renewed, the last offer being urged by De Morny in person. The only

position he held under the government of Louis Napoleon was the nominal

one of a member of the Consultative Commission, which he resigned on the

publication of the decree for the confiscation of the property of the

House of Orleans. He had already begun to suffer from the attacks of the

disease to which he finally succumbed; and it was from his sick‐bed that

he went to receive at the hands of the French Academy the highest and most

dearly prized reward of French talent and genius. Montalembert was elected

to the seat in the Academy vacated by the death of M. Droz, and his

reception was an event. Being now freed from the absorbing engagements of

life, he made several journeys to England, and travelled into Hungary,

Poland, and Spain. His work entitled _L’Avenir Politique de l’Angleterre_

was the fruit of his English visits; and was well received both in France

and England. In October, 1858, the Paris _Correspondant_ published a

remarkable letter from Montalembert, describing a debate in the English

Parliament. Its every paragraph was so full of a subtle and powerful

contrast between political liberty in England and the absence of it in

France that the Imperial government and its adherents were stung to the

quick. He speaks of leaving “an atmosphere foul with servile and

corrupting miasma (_chargée de miasmes serviles et corrupteurs_) to

breathe a purer air and to take a bath of free life in England.” Referring

to a former French colony, he says: “In Canada, a noble race of Frenchmen

and Catholics, unhappily torn from our country, but remaining French in

heart and habits, owes to England the privilege of having retained or

acquired, along with perfect religious freedom, all the political and

municipal liberties which France herself has repudiated.” A criminal

prosecution was immediately begun against the count for this letter. Four

separate accusations were brought. Among them were “exciting the people to

hate and despise the government of the emperor, and of attempting to

disturb the public peace.” The legal penalties were imprisonment from

three months to five years, fine from 500 to 6,000 francs, and expulsion

from France. According to French custom, the prisoner on trial was

interrogated concerning the obnoxious passages, and, when Montalembert

answered, it was discovered that the emperor and his government, not the

prisoner at the bar, was on trial. With calm gravity he acknowledged each

damning implication as an historical fact not to be denied, “enjoying,

there can be no doubt,” says his biographer, “to the bottom of his heart,

this unlooked‐for chance of adding a double point to every arrow he had

launched, and planting his darts deliberately and effectually in the

joints of his adversaries’ armor.”

The foundation of Montalembert’s great work, _The Monks of the West_, was

laid in his studies for the life of S. Elizabeth, and the remainder of his

active life was now devoted to its completion. It is sufficient to refer

to it. We need not dwell upon this greatest production of his literary

genius. Besides this, two other remarkable productions came from his pen

toward the close of his career. These were the long and eloquent

addresses, _L’Eglise libre dans l’Etat libre_, delivered before the

Congress of Malines, and his _Victoire du Nord aux Etats‐Unis_, which,

says his biographer, “is little else than a hymn of triumph in honor of

that success which to him was a pure success of right over wrong, of

freedom over slavery.”

It is well known that Montalembert was one of those who opposed the

proclamation of the dogma of infallibility. On this point, his biographer

gives us this interesting information.

One of his visitors said to him, while lying on what proved to be his

death‐bed: “If the Infallibility is proclaimed, what will you do?” “I will

struggle against it as long as I can,” he said; but when the question was

repeated, the sufferer raised himself quickly, with something of his old

animation, and turned to his questioner. “What should I do?” he said. “We

are always told that the pope is a father. _Eh bien!_—there are many

fathers who demand our adherence to things very far from our inclination,

and contrary to our ideas. In such a case, the son struggles while he can;

he tries hard to persuade his father; discusses and talks the matter over

with him; but when all is done, when he sees no possibility of succeeding,

but receives a distinct refusal, he submits. I shall do the same.”

“You will submit so far as form goes,” said the visitor. “You will submit

externally. But how will you reconcile that submission with your ideas and

convictions?”

Still more distinctly and clearly he replied: “I will make no attempt to

reconcile them. I will submit my will, as has to be done in respect to all

the other questions of faith. I am not a theologian; it is not my part to

decide on such matters. And God does not ask me to understand. He asks me

to submit my will and intelligence, and I will do so.” “After having made

this solemn though abrupt confession of faith,” says the witness whom we

have quoted, “he added, with a smile, ‘It is simple enough; there is

nothing extraordinary in it.’ ”

The last years of the life of this distinguished man were one long

protracted agony of physical suffering. The symptoms of disease that first

manifested themselves in 1852 had gone on increasing in severity until in

1869, more than a year before his death, he speaks of himself as _vivens

sepulcrum_. “I am fully warranted in saying that the death of M. de

Montalembert was part of his glory,” writes M. Cochin, in describing his

constancy and resignation. He died on the 13th of March, 1870.

At The Shrine.

I.

The sunset’s dying radiance falls

On chancel‐gloom and sculptured shrine,

A splendor wraps the pictured walls,

Where painted saints in glory shine!

And blent with sweet‐tongued vesper‐bells,

Through echoing aisles and arches dim

The organ’s solemn music swells,

The sweetly chanted evening hymn.

II.

Low at Our Lady’s spotless feet

A white‐robed woman kneels in prayer:

The _Deus Meus_ murmurs sweet,

While _Glorias_ throb on perfumed air;

Before the circling altar‐rail

She breathes her _Aves_ soft and low—

The golden hair beneath her veil

Wreathed like a glory on her brow.

III.

The sunset’s purple splendors fade,

The dark’ning shades of twilight fall,

The moonbeam’s silver touch is laid

On sculptur’d saint and pictur’d wall;

And while the weeping watcher kneels,

And silence weaves her magic spells,

The gray dawn thro’ the oriel steals,

And morning wakes the matin‐bells.

ADVENT, 1872.

A Christmas Recognition.

We were old‐fashioned people at Aldred, and Christmas was our special

holiday. The house was always filled with guests, not such as many of our

grander neighbors asked to their houses, but such as cared for good old‐

fashioned cheer and antiquated habits. Not all were relations, for we

never asked relations merely on account of their kinship, according to the

regulation mixing of a conventional Christmas party, but among our own

people were many whose presence at our Christmas gatherings was as certain

as the recurrence of the festival itself. Among them was a great‐aunt, a

soft, mild old lady, always dressed in widow’s weeds, but with a face as

fresh as a girl’s, and hair white as the snowy cap she wore to conceal it.

She had not come alone, for her adopted son was with her, the promised

husband of her only child, dead years ago. He had left his own home and

people, like Ruth, for the lonely, childless woman whom he was to have

called mother, and remained her inseparable companion through her

beautiful and resigned old age. There were, besides these, a young girl

whose aspect was peculiar and attractive, and whose manner had in its

mixture of modesty and self‐reliance a piquancy that added to the

fascination of her person. She had come with a distant cousin of hers, a

widow of a different type from our dear old relative, and whose object in

chaperoning Miss Houghton must have been mixed. She was small, blonde,

coquettish, and thirty‐two, though no one would have taken her for more

than twenty‐five. She looked soft, pliable, irresolute, and tender, and

men often found in her a repose which was a soothing contrast to her

cousin’s energetic, peculiar, somewhat eccentric ways; only it was the

repose yielded by a downy cushion, and people wearied of it after a while.

The secret of the apparent partnership between these two opposite natures

was perhaps this: the widow had a rich jointure, and was an excellent

_parti_, while her cousin was portionless. Miss Houghton was thus doubly a

foil to Mrs. Burtleigh.

I shall not speak of the other guests in detail, with the exception of one

whom it would be impossible to overlook. He was a man nearer forty than

thirty‐five, good‐humored and careless to all appearance, a hard worker in

the battle of life, a cosmopolitan philosopher, and one of those handy,

useful men who can sew on a button, cook an omelet, and kiss a bride as

easily and unconcernedly as they gallop across country or horsewhip a

villain. He had been in Mexico, surveying and engineering for an English

railroad company, and he had spent some years in the East as the land‐

agent of a progress‐loving pacha. Europe he knew as well as we knew

Aldred, while the year he had been absent from us had been filled by new

and stirring experiences in Upper Egypt. But I forget; we have yet to

speak of many little details of Christmas‐tide which preceded the

gathering in of the whole party.

The kitchen department was, of course, conspicuous on this occasion. This

included the village poor, who were regularly assembled every day for soup

until Christmas eve, when each household received a joint of beef and a

fine plum‐pudding. Some of us went round the village in a sleigh, and

distributed tea and sugar as supplementary items. It was a traditional

Yule‐tide, for the snow lay soft, even, and thick over the roads, as it

but seldom does in England; then, the school was visited and solidly

provisioned, the children were invited to a monster tea with accompaniment

of a magic‐lantern show, after which the prizes were to be distributed, as

well as warm clothing for the winter season. Nothing was said of the

Christmas‐tree, as that was kept as a surprise.

The decoration of house and chapel was a wonderful and prolonged business,

and afforded great amusement. Holly grew in profusion at Aldred, and a

cart‐load of the bright‐berried evergreen was brought to the house the day

preceding Christmas eve. The people we have made acquaintance with were

already with us, and vigorously helped us on with the preparations. Such

fun as there was when Miss Houghton insisted upon crowning the marble bust

of the Indian grandee, Rammohun Roy, with a holly wreath, and when Mrs.

Burtleigh gave a pretty, ladylike little cry as she pricked her fingers

with the glossy leaves! The children of the house and those of another

house in the neighborhood (orphan children whose gloomy home made them a

perpetual source of pity to us) were helping as unhelpfully as ever, but

what of that? It was a joyous, animated scene, and, still more, a romantic

one; for the traveller, who had claimed a former acquaintance with Miss

Houghton, now seemed to become her very shadow—or knight, let us say; it

is more appropriate to the spirit of a festival so highly honored in

mediæval times. The chapel, a beautiful Gothic building, small but

perfect, was decorated with mottoes wrought in leaves, such as “Unto us a

Son is born, unto us a Child is given,” and _Gloria in excelsis Deo_,

etc., while festoons of evergreens hung from pillar to pillar, and draped

the stone‐carved tribune at the western end with a living tapestry. Round

the altar were heaped in rows, placed one higher than another, evergreens

of every size and kind, mingled with islands of bright camellias, the

pride of the renowned hothouses of Aldred. White, red, and streaked, the

flowers seemed like stars among dark masses of clouds; and, when we lit a

few of the tall candles to see the effect, it was so solemn that we longed

for the time to pass quickly, till the midnight Mass should call forth all

the beauty of which we had seen but a part.

These decorations had been mainly the work of the traveller (whom, in our

traditional familiarity, we called “Cousin Jim”) and of our other friend,

the adopted son of our old aunt; but, though their brains had conceived,

it was Miss Houghton’s deft fingers that executed the work best. The last

touch had just been put to an immense cross of holly which was to be swung

from the ceiling, to supply the place of the rood that in old times

guarded the choir‐screen. A star of snow‐white camellias was to be poised

just above it, and a tall ladder had been put in readiness to facilitate

the delicate task. Miss Houghton stood at the foot, one arm leaning on the

ladder, the other holding aloft the white star. Her friend was halfway up,

bearing the great cross, when he suddenly heard a low voice, swelling

gradually, intoning the words of the Christmas hymn:

Adeste fideles,

Læti triumphantes;

Venite, venite in Bethlehem:

Natum videte

Regem angelorum:

Venite adoremus,

Venite adoremus,

Venite adoremus Dominum.

Startled and touched, he began the repeating words of the chorus, pausing

with his green cross held high in his arms. The others who, scattered

about the chapel, heard his deep tones, answering, took up the chorus, and

chanted it slowly to the end, Miss Houghton looking round with tears in

her eyes, at this unexpected response to the suppressed and undefinable

feelings of her heart. It was an impressive scene, the guests, servants,

gardeners, and a few of the choir‐boys, all mingling in the impromptu

worship so well befitting the beautiful work they had in hand. At the end

of the verse, the traveller hastily gained the top of the ladder, and,

having fastened the holly cross in its place, intoned a second verse, in

which Miss Houghton immediately joined, and the harmonious blending of

their voices had, if possible, a still more beautiful effect than the

unaccompanied chant of the first verse. Again the chorus chimed in,

Venite adoremus,

Venite adoremus,

Venite adoremus Dominum.

in full, solemn tones, and all sang from their places, their festoons in

their hands, so that at the end of the hymn the traveller said

thoughtfully to his companion: “_Laborare est orare_ should be our motto

henceforth. I wish all our work were as holy as this.”

“And why not?” she answered quickly; “only _will_ it so, and so it shall

be. We are our own creators.”

“What a rash saying!” he exclaimed, with a smile; “but I know what you

mean. God gives us the tools and the marble; it is ours to carve it _into_

an angel or a fiend.”

At last the chapel decoration was over, and a few of the more venturesome

among us went out in the snow for a walk.

Meanwhile, in the corridor (so we called our favorite sitting‐room), the

Yule‐logs were crackling cheerfully on the wide hearth, and the fitful

tongues of flame shot a red glimmer over the old‐fashioned furniture. One

of the chairs was said to have belonged to Cardinal Wolsey, and there was

another, a circular arm‐chair, that looked as if it also should have had a

history connected with the great and learned. Full‐length portraits of the

old possessors of Aldred covered the walls, and on the stained‐glass upper

compartments of the deep bay‐window at one end were depicted the arms and

quarterings of the family. The Yule‐logs were oak, cut from our own trees,

and perforated all over with large holes through which the flames shot up

like fire‐sprites.

The Christmas‐tree and magic‐lantern also had to be put in order to save

time and trouble, and a stage for tableaux occupied the rapt attention of

the amateur mechanician (our great‐aunt’s son) and of “Jim,” the traveller

and practised factotum. Miss Houghton was never very far from the scene of

these proceedings, and, when she was not quite so near, “Cousin Jim” was

not quite so eager. Almost all our guests had brought contributions for

the Christmas‐tree, of which our children had the nominal charge, and with

these gifts and our own it turned out quite a royal success. Presents of

useful garments, flannels, boots, mittens, woollen shirts, petticoats, and

comforters, were stowed away beneath the lower branches, while all visible

parts were hung with the toys and fruits, lights and ribbons, that so

delight children. Gilt walnut‐shells were a prominent decoration, and

right at the apex of the tree was fixed a “Christ‐child,” that thoroughly

German development, an image of the Infant Saviour, holding a starred

globe in one hand and a standard in the other. A _crèche_ had also been

prepared in the Lady‐chapel, a lifelike representation of those beautiful

Christmas pictures seen to such perfection in the large churches of Italy.

Munich figures supplied the place of wax models, however, and were a

decided improvement.

Many people from the village had asked leave to come in and look at these

peculiar decorations; but, as few of them were Catholics, it had been

thought better to wait till the third Mass on Christmas day to open the

chapel to the public. Christmas eve was a very busy day, and towards five

o’clock began the great task of welcoming the rest of the expected guests.

This was done in no modern and languid fashion; the servants, clad in fur

caps and frieze greatcoats, stood near the door with resinous torches

flaring in the still night air—it was quite dark at that early hour—and

the host and hostess welcomed them at the very threshold. The children

helped them to take off their wraps, and held mistletoe sprigs over their

bended heads as they reached up to kiss them. Indeed, mistletoe was so

plentifully strewn about the house that it was impossible to avoid it, but

we had so far eschewed the freedom of the past as to consider this custom

more honored in the breach than in the observance. The children and the

servants, however, made up for our carelessness.

Very little toilet was expected for a seven o’clock dinner (we were not

fashionable people), but we found that our well‐meant injunctions had

hardly been obeyed. For the sake of the picturesque, so much the better, I

thought. One of our friends had actually donned a claret‐colored velvet

suit, with slippers to match, embroidered with gold; and, when we looked

at each other in silent amusement, the wearer himself smiled round the

circle, saying pleasantly:

“Oh! I do not mind being noticed. In fact, I rather like it—this was a

lady’s fancy, you see.”

“How, how?” we asked eagerly.

“Well,” answered the Londoner, a regular drawing‐room pet, and a very

clever society jester, “I was challenged to a game of billiards by a fair

lady, the Duchess of ——. She said to me, ‘And pray _do_ wear something

picturesque.’ I bowed and said, ‘Your grace shall be obeyed.’ I happened

to have some loose cash about me. I could not wear uniform, because I did

not belong even to the most insignificant of volunteer regiments, and I

went to my tailor. His genius was equal to the occasion, and this was the

result. I played with the duchess, and she won,”—the hero of the velvet

coat was an invincible billiard champion.—“As I have the dress by me, I

take the liberty of wearing it occasionally in the country. It is too good

to be hidden, isn’t it?”

So he rattled on till dinner was announced. It was a merry but frugal

meal. The mince‐pies and plum‐pudding crowned with blue flame, the holly‐

wreathed boar’s head of romance, were not there; they were reserved for

to‐morrow. So with the “wassail‐bowl,” the fragrant, spirituous beverage

of which each one was to partake, his two neighbors standing up on each

side of him, according to the old custom intended as a defence against

treachery; for once it had happened that a guest whose hands were engaged

holding the two‐handled bowl to his lips was stabbed from behind by a

lurking enemy, and ever after it became _de rigueur_ that protection

should be afforded to the drinker by his neighbor on either side.

The fare to‐night was still Advent fare, but, after dinner, Christmas

insisted upon beginning. We were told that the “mummers” from the village

were come, and waited for leave to begin their play. They were brought

into the hall, and the whole company stood on the steps leading up to the

drawing‐rooms. The scenery was not characteristic—a broad oaken staircase,

a Chinese gong, the polished oak flooring, the massive hall‐door. The

actors themselves, seven or eight in number, dressed in the most fantastic

and extemporized costume, now began the performance; and but for the

venerable antiquity of the farce, it was absurd and obscure enough to

excite laughter rather than interest. The children were wild with delight,

and were with difficulty restrained from leaping the “pit” and mingling

with the actors on the “stage.” Indeed, for many days after nothing was

heard among them but imitations of the “mummers.” There was a grave

dialogue about “King George,” then a scuffle ensued, and one man fell down

either wounded or in a fit. The doctor is called; the people believe the

man dead, the doctor denies this, and says, “I will give him a cordial,

mark the effect.” The resuscitated man afterwards has a tooth drawn by the

same quack, who then holds up the tooth (a huge, unshapely equine one

provided for the occasion), and exclaims: “Why, this is more like a

horse’s tooth than a man’s!” I never could make out the full meaning of

the “mummers’” play; but, whether it was a corruption of some older and

more complete dramatic form, or the crude beginning of an undeveloped one,

it certainly was the characteristic feature of our Christmas at Aldred. It

took place regularly every year, without the slightest deviation in

detail, and always ended in a mournful chorus, “The Old Folks at Home.”

After the actors had been heartily cheered, and the host had addressed to

them a few kind words of thanks and recognition, they were dismissed to

the kitchen, to their much coveted entertainment of unlimited beer. There

they enacted their performance once more for the servants, who then

fraternized with them on the most amiable terms.

Meanwhile, our party were gradually collecting round the wood‐fire in the

corridor. It was a bitter cold night, the snow was falling noiselessly and

fast, and the wind howled weirdly through the bare branches of the distant

trees. Our old aunt remarked, in her gentle way:

“One almost feels as if those poor owls were human beings crying with

cold.”

“We look like a picture, mother,” somewhat irrelevantly answered her son

after a slight pause; “the antique dresses of many of us are quite worth

an artist’s study.”

Mrs. Burtleigh, whose blonde beauty was coquettishly set off by a slight

touch of powder on the hair, and a becoming Marie Antoinette style of

_négligé_, here pointedly addressed the traveller.

“Sir Pilgrim,” she said, “did you ever think of home when you had to spend

a Christmas in outlandish countries?”

“Sometimes,” answered “Jim” absently, his eyes wandering towards Miss

Houghton, who stood resting her head against a carved griffin on the tall

mantel‐piece.

She caught his glance, and said half saucily:

“Now, if it was not too commonplace, I should claim a story—Christmas eve

is not complete without a story, at least so the books say.”

“If it were required, I know one that is not quite so hackneyed as the

grandmothers’ ghosts and wicked ancestors we are often surfeited with at

Christmas,” replied her friend quickly. The whole circle drew closer

around the fire, and imperiously demanded an explanation.

“But that will be descending to commonplace,” pleaded the traveller.

“Who knows? It may turn out the reverse, when you have done,” heedlessly

said Mrs. Burtleigh.

“Well, if you will have it, here it is. Mind, now, I am not going to give

you a three‐volume novel, full of padding, but just tell you one incident,

plain and unadorned. So do not look forward to anything thrilling or

sensational.

“Some years ago, I was in Belgium, hastening home for Christmas, and spent

three or four days in Bruges. I will spare you a description of the grand

old city, and come to facts. I was just on the point of leaving, and had

got to the railway station in order to catch the tidal train for Ostend,

when a man suddenly and hurriedly came up to me, an old servant in faded

livery, who, without breathing a word, placed a note in my hand, and was

immediately lost to sight in the crowd. The waiting‐room was dimly

lighted, but I could make out my own name, initials and all, on the

envelope. In my confusion, I hurried out of the station, and, stepping

into a small _hôtellerie_, I opened the mysterious note. It was very

short: ‘Come at once to No. 20 Rue Neuve.’ The signature was in initials

only. The handwriting was small and undecided. I could hardly tell if it

were a man’s or a woman’s. I knew my way to the Rue Neuve, not a really

new street, but one of Bruges’ most interesting old thoroughfares. No gas,

a narrow street, great gaunt _portes‐cochères_, and projecting windows on

both sides, the pavement uneven, and a young moon just showing her

crescent over the crazy‐looking houses—such was the scene. I soon got to

No. 20. It was a large, dilapidated house, with every sign about it of

decayed grandeur and diminished wealth. Two large doors, heavily barred,

occupied the lower part of the wall; above were oriels and dormers whose

stone frames were tortured into weird half‐human faces and impossible

foliage. No light anywhere, and for bell a long, hanging, ponderous weight

of iron. I pulled it, and a sepulchral sound answered the motion. I

waited, no one came; I thought I must have mistaken the number. Taking out

the letter, however, I made sure I was right. I pulled the bell again a

little louder, and heard footsteps slowly echoing on the stone flags of

the court within. _Sabots_ evidently; they made a rattle like dead men’s

bones, I thought. A little _grille_, or tiny wicket, was opened, and an

old dame, shading her candle with one brown hand, peered suspiciously out.

Apparently dissatisfied, she closed the opening with a bang, muttering to

herself in Flemish. It was cold standing in the street, and, as the

portress of this mysterious No. 20 made no sign of opening the door for

me, I was very nearly getting angry, and going away in no amiable mood at

the unknown who had played me this too practical joke. Suddenly I heard

the _grille_ open again, very briskly this time, and a voice said in

tolerably good French:

“ ‘Monsieur’s name is—?’

“ ‘Yes,’ I replied rather impatiently.

“ ‘Then will monsieur wait an instant, till I undo the bars?’ A great

drawing of chains and bolts on the inside followed her speech, and a

little gate, three‐quarters of a man’s height, was opened in the massive

and immovable _porte‐cochère_. I stepped quickly in, nearly overturning

the old dame’s candlestick. She wore a full short petticoat of bright yet

not gaudy blue, and over it a large black circular cloak which covered all

but her clumsy sabots. Her cap was a miracle of neatness, and her brown

face, wrinkled but cheery, reminded me of S. Elizabeth in Raphael’s

pictures. She said glibly and politely:

“ ‘Will monsieur give himself the trouble to wait a moment?’

“She disappeared with her candle, leaving me to peer round the courtyard,

where the moon’s feeble rays were playing at hide‐and‐seek behind the many

projections. Almost as soon as she had left, she was with me again,

bidding me follow her up‐stairs. ‘My master is bed‐ridden,’ she explained.

‘Since he got a wound in the war of independence against Holland, he has

not been able to move. Monsieur will take care, I hope, not to excite him;

he is nervous and irritable since his illness,’ she added apologetically.

“I confess I was rather disappointed. I had expected that everything would

happen as it does in a play—it had looked so like one hitherto. I thought

I was going to meet a woman—young, beautiful, in distress, perhaps in want

of a champion—but it was only a bed‐ridden old man after all! Well, it

might lead to an act of charity, that true chivalry of the soul, higher

far than mere personal homage to accidental beauty. I entered a darkened

room, scantily and shabbily furnished, and the old woman laid the

candlestick on the table. The bed was in a corner near the fire; the

uneven _parquet_ floor was covered here and there with faded rugs, and

books and papers lay on a desk on the old man’s bed. At first I could

hardly distinguish his features, but, as my eyes grew accustomed to the

gloom, I saw that he was a martial‐looking man, with eyes so keen that

sickness could hardly dull them, and a bearing that indicated the stern

will, the clear intellect, and the lofty _bonhomie_ of an old Flemish

_gentilhomme_. He looked at me with curious and prolonged interest, then

said, in a voice full of bygone courtesy:

“ ‘Will monsieur be seated? I have made no mistake in the name?’

“ ‘No,’ I answered, wondering what the question meant.

“ ‘Then, monsieur, I have important news for you. The daughter of your

brother—’

“I was already bewildered, and looked up. He continued, taking my surprise

for interest: ‘The daughter of your poor brother is now a great heiress,

and I hold her fortune in trust for her—do not interrupt me,’ he said,

eagerly preventing me from speaking, ‘it tires me, and I must say all this

at once. I do not know if you knew of her being taken from her parents

when a child; of course you recollect that, after her mother’s marriage

with your brother, there was a great fracas, and poor Marie’s father

disinherited her at once. When the child was born—I was her god‐father, by

the bye—her parents being in great poverty, I begged of the grandfather to

help and forgive them, the more so as your brother was making his poor

wife very unhappy. He refused, and, though he generally took my advice (he

was an an old college friend of mine), he was obstinate on this point. The

child grew, and the parents were on worse terms every year. Marie’s father

held out against every inducement; your poor brother—forgive me,

monsieur!—fell into bad company, and made his home a perfect hell; his

wife was broken‐hearted, but would not hear of a separation, and her only

anxiety was for her child. I proposed to her to take the responsibility

myself of putting the little one out of reach of this dreadful example of

a divided household, and she consented. The father stormed and raved when

he found the child was gone, but for once his wife opposed him, and

refused to let him know her whereabouts. Every year I interceded with the

grandfather, who consented to support the little girl, but would never

promise to leave her a competency at his death. One day, suddenly, your

poor brother died.’

“I could not help starting; he saw my surprise.

“ ‘Oh!’ he resumed, ‘did you not know how he died? Pardon me, monsieur, I

remember now that none of his English kin followed him to the grave, but I

had heard your name before.’

“ ‘Monsieur,’ I began, fearing that he might be led on to talk of family

secrets such as he might not wish to share with a stranger, ‘you have told

me a strange tale; but allow me to undeceive you—’

“ ‘How did you deceive me?’ he asked impatiently, and I, remembering the

old dame’s warning not to excite him, was puzzled how to act. In the

meanwhile, he went on.

“ ‘_Eh bien!_ The mother then went to England, to the school where her

child was, and saw her, but she did not long survive the wear and tear of

her wretched life, and the grief her husband’s death caused her—for, poor

woman, she loved him, you see.’

“ ‘Just like a woman, God bless her!’ I murmured involuntarily. The old

man bent his head in cordial assent, but immediately resumed: ‘Her father

blessed her before she died, and promised to care for the little girl. He

then drew up this will’—here he laid his hand on a thick packet on the

desk—‘and entrusted it me. The child was nine years old then, and that was

fifteen years ago. She was to be told nothing till her twenty‐first

birthday, and to be brought up in England, unconscious of anything save

that she was the child of honest parents. This went on for some years, and

then my old friend died. I continued to send regular remittances to the

little girl’s temporary guardians; the bulk of the fortune I kept in the

house—there in that chest; perhaps it was a foolish fancy, but I did not

care to have it in a common bank. The war came and passed over the flower

of our land, and you see, monsieur, what it has left of my former self.

Well, after a time, five or six years ago, I ceased hearing from my little

ward; I was unable to get up and search for her; all that advertisements

and correspondence could do I did, and my chief endeavor was to find you.

I thought, if anything were likely, this was; she would go to you, her

father’s step‐brother, a different man, as I always heard her mother say,

from what her own unhappy parent had been.’

“ ‘But,’ I said, ‘allow me to correct a mistake, monsieur; I never had a

step‐brother, or a brother either.’

“ ‘What!’ the old man exclaimed nervously—‘what do you mean? Do not joke

about such things. Your name is ——. Your hair is fair and wavy, your

figure tall and stalwart—that was the portrait of my poor little ward’s

uncle, a different man, of different blood, as well as different name,

from her father.’

“ ‘Do not tell me any names, monsieur,’ I here insisted, ‘until I have

told you who I am.’

“He looked at me, still agitated, his brows knitted, and his lips

quivered. I told him my name, birth, country, profession, and assured him

that I, an only son, had never heard of any story like his. He seemed

thunderstruck, and could hardly take in the idea; but, recollecting

himself, said: ‘Pardon me, monsieur, but I have, then, caused you great

inconvenience.’

“His politeness now seemed overwhelming; he was in despair; he was

_désolé_. What could he do? How could he apologize? I quieted him as best

I could by professing the utmost indifference about the delay, and begged

him, though I would solicit no further confidence, to consider my lips as

sealed, and, if he wished it, my services as entirely at his disposal.

“He smiled curiously, then said: ‘The best apology I can make is to tell

you the whole. Your name and initials misled me. Having heard that you

were in Bruges, I sent my messenger, who, it seems, only reached you as

you were on the point of starting for Ostend. I thought it was my ward’s

uncle I had found, and, never having seen him, I could not tell if you

were the wrong man. I must continue to try and find him; if I fail—never

mind, I want to tell you her name. She is Philippa Duncombe, and, when I

saw her last, she was a dark child, quick, peculiar, and resolute. It is

so long ago that I could give you no idea of her exterior as she is now. I

think she must have suspected her dependence upon a supposed charity, and

have left school without the knowledge of any one. Anyhow, I must still

try to find your namesake; as for you, monsieur, I cannot thank you enough

for your forbearance.’

“I left Bruges the next day, but, as you may suppose, the story of the

Baron Van Muyden never ceased to haunt me, and a few months after I was

glad and flattered to receive a letter from the old veteran saying that he

had now ascertained that my namesake, the child’s half‐uncle, had been

dead some years, and that he felt that to none other but myself would he

now wish to transfer the task of searching for the lost heiress. Of course

I accepted.”

Our friend paused here, and looked thoughtfully at the fire. The Yule‐logs

were burning so merrily that a ruin seemed imminent, and while the silence

was yet unbroken a sound of distant singing came towards the house. It was

the gay company of Christmas carollers, singing their old, old ditties

through the frosty night, in commemoration of the Angel‐songs heard by the

watching shepherds so many long centuries ago on the hills of Judæa. But

the company was too much absorbed in the traveller’s tale to heed the

faint echo. Miss Houghton sat with her dark eyes fixed on the speaker, and

every vestige of color gone in the intensity of her excitement; Mrs.

Burtleigh, tapping the fender with her tiny gray satin slipper, seemed

strangely excited, and glanced uneasily at her cousin; the rest of us were

clasping our hands in our unrestrainable curiosity, and the provoking

narrator actually had the coolness to hold his peace!

At last some one spoke, unable to control his goaded curiosity.

“Well?”

“Well?” repeated the artful “Jim.”

“Did you find her?” was the question that now broke from all lips, in a

gamut of increasing impatience.

“I told you a story, as we agreed,” he answered; “but, if I tell you the

_dénoûment_, we shall fall into what we wish to avoid—the commonplace.”

“Never mind, go on,” was shouted on all sides. Miss Houghton was silent,

but she seemed to hang on his words. He had calculated on this emotion,

the wretch, and was making the most of his points!

At last he resumed in a slow, absent way:

“Yes, I accepted the search; I made it; I did all I could think of—but I

failed.”

The bomb had burst, but we all felt disappointed. This was _not_

commonplace, not even enough to our minds. “He had cheated us,” we cried.

“I can only tell you the truth; remember this was all real, no got‐up

Christmas tale, to end in a wedding, bell‐ringing, and carol‐singing.

Hark! do you hear the carollers outside?”

No one spoke, and he went on, still meditatively: “I do not mean to give

it up, though.”

Miss Houghton, who, till now, had said nothing, opened a small locket

attached to one of her bracelets, and, keeping her eyes fixed on “Cousin

Jim,” passed it to him, saying:

“Did you ever see this face before?”

He took it up, and looked puzzled. “No,” he said; “why do you ask?”

We all looked at her as if she had been a young lunatic, her interest in

the story being apparently of no very lasting nature. She then unfastened

a companion bracelet, the hanging locket of which she opened and handed to

her friend again.

“This face you have seen?” she asked confidently.

He started, and a rush of color came over his bronzed cheeks.

“Yes, yes, that is the Baron Van Muyden—younger, but the same. And here is

his writing, ‘To Marie Duncombe, her sincere and faithful friend.’ Miss

Houghton?”

“Yes,” she answered calmly, as if he had asked her a question.

“Then what I have been looking for for three years I have found tonight?”

he said, looking up at her, while we were all stupefied and silent.

“And what I have never dreamt of,” she answered in a low voice, “I have

suddenly learned to‐night.”

The carollers were now close under the windows, and the words of a simple

chorus came clearly to our hearing—

The snow lay on the ground,

The stars shone bright,

When Christ our Lord was born

On Christmas night.

After a few moments’ silence, our curiosity, like water that has broken

through thin ice, flowed into words again. Many questions and a storm of

exclamations rang through the room, and the concussion was such that the

Yule‐logs crashed in two, and broke into a race across the wide hearth,

splinters flying to the side, and sparks flying up the chimney. Then Miss

Houghton spoke with the marvellous self‐possession of her nature.

“I knew my own name and my mother’s from the beginning,” she said, “and

Monsieur Van Muyden, and the old house, and the Flemish _bonne_ in the Rue

Neuve. I remember them all when a child. I used often to sleep there, and

the night before I left Bruges I still remember playing with the baron’s

old sword. I remember my mother coming to see me at school in England, a

convent‐school, where I was very happy, and giving me these bracelets. She

told me never to part with them; she said she would not be with me long.

They told me of her death some months afterwards. The other portrait is

that of my grandfather, given by him to my mother on her _fête_ day, just

before her marriage, with a lock of his hair hidden behind. She always

wore it. M. Van Muyden’s was done for her when I was born, and was meant

to be mine some day, as he was my god‐father. The remittances he spoke of

used to come regularly; but, when I grew older, my pride rebelled (just as

he guessed, you say), and I hated to be dependent on those who, kind as

they were, were not my blood‐relations. I ran away from school, and lived

by myself for a long time in poverty, yet not in absolute need, for I

worked for my bread, and worked hard. I had a great deal to go through

because I dared not refer any one to the school where I had lived. Mrs.

Burtleigh was very kind to me; I told her my story, as far as I knew it,

and somehow she found out that we were cousins through my father; so she

made me take her maiden name, Houghton, instead of the one I had adopted

before. She, of course, thought as I did, that the child of the

disinherited Marie Duncombe and the unhappy Englishman, my poor father,

could be naught but a beggar. She was kindness itself to me, and, though I

was too proud to accept all she offered me, I _did_ accept her

companionship and her home. Many little industries of my own, pleasant now

because no longer imperatively necessary, help me to support myself, as

far as pecuniary support can be called such; my _home_ has been a generous

gift—the gift I prize most.”

She stopped, and Mrs. Burtleigh looked up in impatient confusion, perhaps

conscious that her feelings and motives had been too mixed to warrant such

frank, unbounded gratitude. “Jim” said nothing, and Miss Houghton seemed

so calm that it was almost difficult to congratulate her. She was asked if

she had recognized herself from the first in the story.

“Yes,” she said; “I knew it must be me.”

“You took it coolly,” some one ventured to observe.

“I have seen too much of the _revers de la médaille_ to be much excited

about this,” she said; but, if she was outwardly calm, her feelings were

certainly aroused, for her strange eyes had a far‐away look, and the color

came and went in her cheek.

Our friend seemed almost crestfallen; we thought he would have been

elated. Presently she said to him, giving him the bracelets:

“You must take these to Bruges, and I think you had better take me, too.”

He stared silently at her. Just then the bell began to ring for the

midnight Mass. What followed Miss Houghton told us herself.

The guests hurried to the chapel, rather glad to get rid of their

involuntary embarrassment. Those two remained behind alone. She was the

first to speak.

“I think you are sorry you have found me.”

“Yes,” he answered slowly, “sorry to find it is you: Miss Houghton was

poor, and Miss Duncombe is an heiress.”

“What matter! If you like, Miss Duncombe will give up the fortune, or, if

you want it, she will give it to you.”

He looked offended and puzzled.

“You do not understand me,” she said, half laughing: “Miss Duncombe will

let you settle everything for her, and say anything you like to Miss

Houghton.”

“You do not mean—” he began excitedly.

“I do,” she answered composedly.

And they were engaged then and there. He wanted to be married before they

left England, but she refused, saying their wedding must be in a Flemish

cathedral, and their wedding breakfast in a Flemish house. And so it was;

and No. 20 Rue Neuve is now their headquarters, while the household of the

Belgian heiress is under the control of the old Flemish woman who once

shut that door in the face of the heiress’ husband.

M. Van Muyden is happy and contented, and a merrier Christmas day was

never spent at Aldred than the day of this unexpected recognition.

Midnight Mass, Christmas‐tree, school‐feast, and all succeeded each other

to our perfect satisfaction; the health of the heroine of “Cousin Jim’s”

tale was drunk in the “wassail‐bowl” on Christmas night, and, as the

happy, excited, and tired Christmas party separated on the day following

New Year’s day, every one agreed that it was a pity such things so very

seldom happened in real life.

Fleurange.

By Mrs. Craven, Author Of “A Sister’s Story.”

Translated From The French, With Permission.

Part IV.—The Immolation.

L.

While our travellers are completing the last stage of their journey, we

will precede them to St. Petersburg, and transport our readers for a short

time among scenes very different from those in which the incidents of our

story have hitherto occurred.

The sentence of condemnation has been pronounced, and for some days the

names of the five persons who were to suffer death have been known and

privately circulated; privately, for the trials which excited universal

interest were seldom discussed in society. At that epoch (different in

this respect from a subsequent one, when liberty to say anything was

allowed in Russia before anywhere else), whether through prudence,

servility, or a fear resulting from the reign of the Emperor Paul, rather

than the one just ended, every one refrained with common accord from any

public expression of opinion whatever respecting the acts of the

government. Flattery itself was cautious not to excite discussions that

might give rise to criticism. The sovereign authority did not require

approval, but only to be obeyed, not judged. This was generally

understood, and the consequence was a general silence respecting forbidden

topics; whereas, on every other subject, as if by way of indemnification,

Russian wit was unrestrained, and so keen that the nation which prides

itself on being the most _spirituelle_ in the world found a rival, and

only consoled itself by saying Russian wit was borrowed. It is

incontestably certain that, though there were still some survivors of the

time of Catherine’s reign, the French language was now so universally used

in society at St. Petersburg, that people of the highest rank, of both

sexes, spoke it to the exclusion of their own tongue, and wrote it with

such uncommon perfection as to enrich French literature; whereas they

would have been very much embarrassed if required to write the most

insignificant note, or even a mere business letter, in the Russian

language.

There is no intention of discussing here the causes that led to this

engrafting of foreign habits, or of examining whether the Russians at that

period, in imitating the French, were always mindful that when others are

copied it should be from their best side. Still less would it be suitable

to consider whether the people who possess the faculty of assimilation to

such a degree are the most noble, the most energetic, and the most

sincere. This would lead us far beyond our modest limits, to which we

return by observing that, in spite of a splendor and magnificence almost

beyond conception, in spite of a tone of good taste and a courtesy now

almost extinct in France, in spite of hospitality on a grand scale,

characteristic of Slavonic countries, an indefinable restraint, felt by

all, prevailed in this attractive and brilliant circle, insinuating itself

everywhere like an invisible spectre, modifying and directing the current

of conversation—even the most trifling—and affecting not only the

intercourse of fashionable life, but the freedom of friendly converse and

the very outpourings of affectionate confidence.

The Marquis Adelardi had had several opportunities of mingling in this

society, and found it congenial. It was a society in which he was

specially adapted to shine, for he, too, as we are aware, had passed his

life in a school of enforced silence; and, if he was formerly numbered

among those who revolt under such restrictions, he had now renounced all

efforts to break through them, and learned to turn his attention

elsewhere. He understood, better than any other foreigner at St.

Petersburg, how to navigate amid the shoals of conversation; to be

entertaining, agreeable, interesting, and even apparently bold without

ever causing embarrassment by an inadvertent remark; and if, in the ardor

of discourse, he approached a dangerous limit, the promptness with which

he read an unexpressed thought sufficed to make him change, with easy

nonchalance, the direction of a conversation in which he seemed to be the

most interested.

He was not, however, disposed to talk with any one the day, or rather the

evening, we meet him again—this time at the Countess de G——’s, a woman of

superior intellect, already advanced in years, whose salon was one of the

most brilliant and most justly popular in St. Petersburg. Everything,

indeed, was calculated to facilitate social intercourse of every degree,

and, if there was a place where the bounds we have just referred to were

invisible, though never forgotten, it was here. What could not be said

aloud here, more than elsewhere, had a thousand facilities for private

utterance. On the other hand, for the benefit of prudent people who

preferred to say nothing at all, there were tables where they could play

whist or a game of chess. A piano at one end of the spacious salon was

always open to attract amateur performers, then more numerous than now,

when no one ventures, even in the family circle, to play without unusual

ability.

In this friendly atmosphere, our marquis, generally so social, was silent

and preoccupied. Seated in a corner on a sofa where no one else was

sitting, he took no part in the general conversation. And yet, as the room

filled, and various groups were formed, here and there foreigners, and

especially the members of the diplomatic corps who frequented the house,

broached the great topic, and by degrees were heard on various sides the

names of Mouravieff, Ryleieff, Pestel, and two others likewise condemned

to death, as well as the names of those who were to be exiled—a punishment

almost as terrible.

A young German attaché, perceiving Adelardi, approached, and took a seat

beside him. “And Walden,” said he in a low voice, “have you not had

permission to see him twice?”

“Yes.”

“Have you seen him since he was informed of his fate?”

“No; but I have reason to hope I shall obtain that favor.”

“He is not sorry, I imagine, to escape the gibbet.”

“Not the gibbet; but as to death, I am sure he thinks it preferable to the

fate that awaits him.”

“Poor fellow! but then, _qu’allait‐il faire_?”—

“_Dans cette galère?_” interrupted the marquis with displeasure. “The

question is certainly apropos, and I would ask him if I could obtain a

reply that would avail him anything.”

“By the way,” said the other, “I suppose you know who has just arrived at

St. Petersburg?”

The marquis questioned him with a look of uncertainty, for he was

expecting more than one arrival that day.

“Why, the fair Vera, who has returned to her post.”

“Really!” exclaimed Adelardi eagerly. “In that case perhaps we shall see

her here, for I am told she comes every evening when in the city.”

“Yes, but not till the empress dispenses with her services. It is nearly

ten o’clock. She will probably be here soon. Our agreeable hostess is one

of her relatives.”

“I was not aware of it. I know the Countess Vera but little. She was not

at court when I was here three years ago. I only saw her two or three

times at the Princess Lamianoff’s, who was then here, but was not

presented to her.”

“At the Princess Catherine’s? I believe you. It is said she wished Vera to

marry her son, who was indeed very assiduous in his attentions. The young

countess did not appear wholly insensible to them at that time. Do you

suppose she is still attached to him?”

“I do not know.”

“Poor girl! I pity her, in that case, but it is not very probable she will

long be infatuated about a convict. Besides, she will find others to

console her, if she makes the effort.”

At that moment the piano was heard. The young diplomatist was requested to

take a part in a trio, and the music put an end to the conversation that

was becoming too ardent on every side, through the interest caused, not by

the offence, but by the misfortunes of the criminals. Every one knew them,

and several of them belonged to the same coterie which now scarcely dared

utter their names aloud.

Adelardi remained in the same place, his head resting on his hand, more

absorbed than ever. He pretended to be listening to the music, and was

mechanically beating time. But he was thinking of something very

different, and only started from his reverie whenever the bell announced a

new arrival. Then he eagerly raised his head and looked towards the door,

but only to resume his former position at the entrance of each new

visitor—as if not the one whom he desired to see.

LI.

At the beginning of the same evening a different scene was occurring, not

far distant, in a salon still more elegant and magnificent than the one we

have just visited. It was not, however, intended, like that, for the

reception of visitors, but solely for the pleasure and comfort of her who

occupied it—a lady, as was evident, though there was no profusion of

useless trifles or superfluous ornaments. But it seemed as if her hands

could only touch what was rare and costly. Gold, silver, and precious

stones gleamed from every object destined to her constant use, from the

open _cassette_ that contained her work to the sumptuous bindings of the

books scattered over the embroidered covering of the table, or lying on a

small _étagère_ of malachite near a large arm‐chair. This chair, intended

for reading, was also adapted to repose by the soft cushion covered with

the finest lace for the head of the reader to rest upon in an attitude at

once convenient and graceful. On all sides were flowers of every season in

as great abundance as if they grew in the open air at the usual time. They

gave out an exquisite odor, which, with perfumes more artificial but not

less sweet, embalmed the apartment.

If, as some think, and we have already remarked, places resemble those who

inhabit them, the reader may be eager to know the owner of this. We will

endeavor to describe her as she appeared to those who knew her at the time

of our story: a woman of that age when beauty is in all its freshness; who

was truly said to have the dignity of a goddess and the form of a nymph; a

face sweet and pale, but with noble, delicate features; a complexion of

charming purity; a look and smile that were captivating; and the whole

picture was framed by hair floating in long curls over graceful white

shoulders.

Such was the person who, at the sound of a manly and sonorous voice,

entered the salon just described, and threw herself into the arms of him

who had called her by name. Their first words were expressive of joy at

seeing each other again after a long separation of some hours, and for a

time they seemed only to think of each other. Their glances, their smiles

met, and it might have been supposed they had nothing in the world to do

but love each other and tell each other so.

But the tone of conversation gradually changed. She grew earnest and he

became uneasy. He made an effort to reply to the questions she addressed

him and sometimes persistently repeated, but he appeared to do so

unwillingly, as if he yielded out of condescension, and with difficulty

resisted a desire of imposing silence on her. Once he rose and left her,

but she followed him, softly placed her arm within his, and, drawing

herself up to her utmost height (for, though she was quite tall, he was a

whole head taller) whispered in his ear. He bent down to listen, but while

she was talking a frightful change suddenly came over his face. She

perceived it, and looked at him with surprise and an anxiety she had never

felt before, as he leaned against the mantel‐piece and remained there

grave and silent with folded arms.

He was then twenty‐nine years old, and in the brilliancy of that manly

beauty which suffering, care, the violent passions of a later age, and

time itself, scarcely altered. Besides his lofty, noble stature, and

features so regular that no sculptor could idealize them, there was a

charm in the expression of his face and the tone of his voice which

inspired attachment as well as admiration. Hitherto resentment or anger

had seldom been known to flash from his eyes or cause his voice to

tremble, and perhaps this was the first time she had ever seen his blue

eyes light up with so threatening a gleam. She did not dare persist in her

request, but waited for him to break the silence. By degrees his ominous

aspect gave place to profound and bitter melancholy. “Ah!” said he at

length, “this is a sad beginning!” Then after a short silence, he looked

around as he continued: “Cherished home! we shall perhaps often regret the

happy days passed here!”—

“We will not leave it,” replied she with a quickness that betrayed how

unused she was to contradiction. “We will keep it as it is, and always

come back to it. Our _grand_ days shall be passed, if need be, in the

gloomy Winter Palace, but our _happiest_ days shall be spent here, and

they shall be in the future what they have been in the past.”

He shook his head: “The past was ours: the future does not belong to us.

We must henceforth devote ourselves to our great country, and sacrifice

all—all! God requires it of us.”

“All!” repeated she with alarm. “What! even happiness and mutual

confidence? Oh! no, that portion of the past nothing shall infringe upon!

And there is still another right I shall never renounce—that of imploring

favor and pardon for the guilty.” She hesitated, and then went on,

clasping her hands and fixing her eyes on him with a supplicating

expression: “Will you no longer listen to me?”

“Always in favor of the unfortunate, but never for the ungrateful!”

He frowned as he said these words, and turned towards the door, but she

stopped him.

She felt it would not do to persist, and with the _adresse_ which is the

lawful diplomacy of love, she at once changed the subject, and obliged him

to listen while she discussed projects she knew he had at heart. She spoke

of herself, of him, of the happy past, their brilliant future, of a

thousand things, and indeed of everything except her whispered petition

which she now wished him to forget.

The reader has already discovered himself to be in the presence of the

young emperor and empress, whose unexpected accession took place in the

midst of a storm. They were in the habit of meeting thus in the palace

where they lived during the happy days of their early married life, when

no thought of the throne disturbed their youthful love!(188) Both

hesitated a long time about leaving this charming palace for the sovereign

residence, and, when constrained to do so by the necessity of their

position, they kept it as it was, without allowing anything to be changed,

as a witness of the days that, in spite of the imperial purple, they

continued to call the happiest of their life.

After the empress was left alone, she remained thoughtful a moment, then,

approaching the malachite _étagère_, hastily rang a small gold bell. A

door concealed beneath the hangings instantly opened, and a young girl

appeared. She stopped without speaking, awaiting an order or some

observation. But there was nothing in her attitude to indicate the

timidity that might have been expected in a maid of honor answering the

bell of her sovereign. On the contrary, there was a majestic beauty and an

air about her which might have seemed haughty had it not been modified

when she spoke. Then, there was a caressing glance in her eyes, though

they sometimes sparkled as if betraying more passion than tenderness; but

her fine form, her black eyes, her thick fair hair, and the delicacy of

her complexion, rendered her at once striking and imposing. She waited

some moments in silence—then, seeing her mistress did not address her, she

advanced and spoke first: “Did your majesty venture to plead his cause?”

said she.

The empress started from her reverie and sadly shook her head. “My poor

Vera,” she replied, “you must renounce all hope.”

The young girl turned pale. “Renounce all hope!” exclaimed she. “O madame!

can that be your advice? Can it be there is no hope?”

The empress, without replying, seated herself in her arm‐chair, took a

book from the _étagère_, and began turning over the leaves as if she

wished to put an end to the conversation. Vera’s eyes flashed for an

instant, and it was with difficulty she repressed an explosion of grief or

irritation. She remained silent, however, and stood beside the table

absently plucking the petals from the flowers in a crystal vase before

her.

The empress meanwhile kept her eyes fastened on her book, but presently

she raised them and looked at the clock. “I do not need you any longer,

Vera. It is ten o’clock. You are going to the Countess G——’s this evening,

I think.”

“Yes, madame, if your majesty has no further orders to give me.”

“No, I have nothing more.—Ah! I forgot. Open that drawer,” pointing to the

other end of the apartment. “You will find a letter there.”

Vera obeyed, and brought the letter to her mistress.

“Be sure to forward it to the address,” said the latter. “It is the

permission for the Princess —— to accompany her husband to Siberia. I am

happy to be able to render that heroic woman this sad service. But she is

not the only one.”

“What a fate those women are bringing on themselves!” said Vera,

shuddering with horror.

“Yes, it is indeed fearful,” said the empress; “but I admire them, and

will serve them every way in my power.”

Vera was silent, and after a moment, seeing the empress had nothing more

to say, she gravely approached to take leave of her. As she bent down to

kiss her hand, the empress pressed her lips to her forehead.

“Come, Vera,” said she, “look a little more cheerful, I beg you. To

satisfy you, I promise to make one more effort. But I think, my dear, you

are very generous to express so much anxiety about him, for it is not the

emperor alone who has reason to call him ungrateful!”

At this, Vera’s face crimsoned, and she drew herself up at once. “Your

majesty has a right to say anything to me,” said she in a trembling voice,

“but this right has generally been used with kindness.”

“Whereas you now find me cruel. Well, be it so; we will let the subject

drop. Good‐night, and without any ill‐feeling, my dear.”

She dismissed her maid of honor with a motion of the head. Vera bowed, and

without another word left the room.

LII.

“The Countess Vera de Liningen!”

At this name the Marquis Adelardi looked up, but this time he did not

resume his former attitude, for the person he had so impatiently awaited

at last appeared. It was she! The cause of this impatience, if we would

know it, was a resolution to make an effort that evening in behalf of his

friend through the Countess Vera, but it was first indispensable to be

sure of her feelings towards him. He wondered if he should discover any

traces of the ill‐concealed passion she once manifested for George, or if

time and indignation, aided by the influence of the court, had done their

work? Or had his inconstancy inspired an indifference which had not been

disarmed by his misfortunes? All this Adelardi flattered himself he should

discover in a single conversation, provided she consented to an interview.

As to any fear of her eluding his penetration, he had too good an opinion

of himself in that respect.

As soon as she appeared, he looked at her with lively interest, and an

attention which he indulged in without scruple. Having seen her only twice

some years before, without speaking to her, he thought she would not

recognize him till he was formally presented.

Vera crossed the salon without embarrassment, and with the ease and grace

of a person accustomed to high life and the sensation she produced. She

was dressed in black, the court, and even the citizens, still wearing

mourning for the Emperor Alexander. This made the dazzling whiteness of

her complexion and her golden hair the more striking, and suited her form

of perfect symmetry, though noble rather than slender. The only ornament

she wore was a knot of blue ribbon on her left shoulder, to which was

attached the _chiffre_ of diamonds (her badge as maid of honor), in which

were woven together the initials of the three empresses: Alexandrine, then

reigning; Mary, the empress‐mother; and Elizabeth, Alexander’s

inconsolable widow, who was so soon to follow him to the tomb.

Recent emotion still flushed the young girl’s cheeks, and the tears of

wounded pride, hastily wiped away, gave her a mingled expression of

melancholy and haughtiness which at once inspired a desire to pity and a

fear of offending her.

She first approached the table where the lady of the house was playing

whist. The latter raised her eyes, and merely smiled as she gave her a

friendly nod of the head. Vera, without offering her hand, bowed, and made

a salutation at once graceful and respectful, which was customary in that

country when one lady is much younger than the other; she pressed her lips

to the edge of the black lace shawl which the elderly lady wore; then she

remained standing a moment near the card‐table, looking around the room.

There was in this look neither eagerness, nor curiosity, nor coquetry: it

was a mere survey of the room and its occupants, and it was easy to see

she was seeking no one and expecting no one. She only replied to the

salutations addressed her by a slight inclination of the head, sometimes

by a smile.

Presently, seeing a vacant seat, she went to take possession of it, and

thus found herself near the _canapé_ occupied by the Marquis Adelardi. She

was scarcely seated when the young diplomatist who had so recently spoken

of her approached with lively eagerness, to which she only responded by a

look of indifference and giving him two fingers of her gloved hand.

The Marquis Adelardi took advantage of this favorable opportunity to

approach the young German and beg to be presented to the Countess Vera.

Adelardi’s name was no sooner pronounced than it awoke a remembrance, at

first vague, then distinct enough to make her blush. This lively

embarrassment was quite evident for a moment. She bowed without speaking

as he was presented, and, turning her face immediately away, continued for

some moments to converse with the other, but only long enough to recover

from her confusion. She speedily put an end to this trifling conversation,

and, suddenly turning towards Adelardi, she said, without any trace of her

recent embarrassment: “I remember very well, Monsieur le Marquis, your

visit at St. Petersburg three years ago, but I was so young then you had

probably forgotten me.”

Adelardi replied, as he would have done in any case, but in this instance

with truth, that such a supposition was inadmissible.

“And as for me,” he continued, “never having had the honor of a personal

acquaintance, I necessarily thought myself wholly unknown to you.”

“Your friends have so often spoken of you that your name was familiar, but

your features, I acknowledge, were somewhat effaced from my memory.”

“Yours naturally clung to mine. Besides, I also heard you constantly

spoken of.”

There was a moment’s silence.

“Have you seen the Princess Catherine lately?” said she.

“No, I left Florence at the beginning of December.”

“For St. Petersburg?”

“Yes.”

“And have you been here ever since?”

“Yes. You were absent at my arrival, otherwise I should not have waited

till the present time to solicit the favor I have just obtained.”

There was another momentary pause. The young girl looked around, and

continued, in a lower tone: “You were here, then, the twenty‐fourth of

December?”

“I was.”

She hesitated an instant, then, lowering her voice still more, said: “And

have you seen your friend since that fatal day?”

“Yes, and I hope to see him once more—alas! for the last time.”