“By St. Waltheof?”

“By St. Waltheof!”

“Promise me, then,” gasped Rowena, staring wildly at him, “that you

never will marry a Jewess?”

“By St. Waltheof,” cried Ivanhoe, “this is too much, Rowena!”--But he

felt his hand grasped for a moment, the nerves then relaxed, the pale

lips ceased to quiver--she was no more!

CHAPTER VI.

IVANHOE THE WIDOWER.

Having placed young Cedric at school at the hall of Dotheboyes, in

Yorkshire, and arranged his family affairs, Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe

quitted a country which had no longer any charms for him, and in which

his stay was rendered the less agreeable by the notion that King John

would hang him, if ever he could lay hands on the faithful follower of

King Richard and Prince Arthur.

But there was always in those days a home and occupation for a brave and

pious knight. A saddle on a gallant war-horse, a pitched field against

the Moors, a lance wherewith to spit a turbaned infidel, or a road

to Paradise carved out by his scimitar,--these were the height of the

ambition of good and religious warriors; and so renowned a champion as

Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe was sure to be well received wherever blows were

stricken for the cause of Christendom. Even among the dark Templars,

he who had twice overcome the most famous lance of their Order was a

respected though not a welcome guest: but among the opposition company

of the Knights of St. John, he was admired and courted beyond measure;

and always affectioning that Order, which offered him, indeed, its first

rank and commanderies, he did much good service; fighting in their ranks

for the glory of heaven and St. Waltheof, and slaying many thousands of

the heathen in Prussia, Poland, and those savage Northern countries. The

only fault that the great and gallant, though severe and ascetic Folko

of Heydenbraten, the chief of the Order of St. John, found with the

melancholy warrior, whose lance did such good service to the cause, was,

that he did not persecute the Jews as so religious a knight should. He

let off sundry captives of that persuasion whom he had taken with his

sword and his spear, saved others from torture, and actually ransomed

the two last grinders of a venerable rabbi (that Roger de Cartright,

an English knight of the Order, was about to extort from the elderly

Israelite,) with a hundred crowns and a gimmal ring, which were all the

property he possessed. Whenever he so ransomed or benefited one of this

religion, he would moreover give them a little token or a message (were

the good knight out of money), saying, “Take this token, and remember

this deed was done by Wilfrid the Disinherited, for the services whilome

rendered to him by Rebecca, the daughter of Isaac of York!” So among

themselves, and in their meetings and synagogues, and in their restless

travels from land to land, when they of Jewry cursed and reviled all

Christians, as such abominable heathens will, they nevertheless excepted

the name of the Desdichado, or the doubly-disinherited as he now was,

the Desdichado-Doblado.

The account of all the battles, storms, and scaladoes in which Sir

Wilfrid took part, would only weary the reader; for the chopping off

one heathen's head with an axe must be very like the decapitation of any

other unbeliever. Suffice it to say, that wherever this kind of work was

to be done, and Sir Wilfrid was in the way, he was the man to perform

it. It would astonish you were you to see the account that Wamba kept of

his master's achievements, and of the Bulgarians, Bohemians, Croatians,

slain or maimed by his hand. And as, in those days, a reputation for

valor had an immense effect upon the soft hearts of women, and even

the ugliest man, were he a stout warrior, was looked upon with favor by

Beauty: so Ivanhoe, who was by no means ill-favored, though now becoming

rather elderly, made conquests over female breasts as well as over

Saracens, and had more than one direct offer of marriage made to him

by princesses, countesses, and noble ladies possessing both charms and

money, which they were anxious to place at the disposal of a champion so

renowned. It is related that the Duchess Regent of Kartoffelberg offered

him her hand, and the ducal crown of Kartoffelberg, which he had rescued

from the unbelieving Prussians; but Ivanhoe evaded the Duchess's offer,

by riding away from her capital secretly at midnight and hiding himself

in a convent of Knights Hospitallers on the borders of Poland. And it

is a fact that the Princess Rosalia Seraphina of Pumpernickel, the most

lovely woman of her time, became so frantically attached to him, that

she followed him on a campaign, and was discovered with his baggage

disguised as a horse-boy. But no princess, no beauty, no female

blandishments had any charms for Ivanhoe: no hermit practised a more

austere celibacy. The severity of his morals contrasted so remarkably

with the lax and dissolute manner of the young lords and nobles in the

courts which he frequented, that these young springalds would sometimes

sneer and call him Monk and Milksop; but his courage in the day of

battle was so terrible and admirable, that I promise you the youthful

libertines did not sneer THEN; and the most reckless of them often

turned pale when they couched their lances to follow Ivanhoe. Holy

Waltheof! it was an awful sight to see him with his pale calm face, his

shield upon his breast, his heavy lance before him, charging a squadron

of heathen Bohemians, or a regiment of Cossacks! Wherever he saw the

enemy, Ivanhoe assaulted him: and when people remonstrated with him, and

said if he attacked such and such a post, breach, castle, or army,

he would be slain, “And suppose I be?” he answered, giving them

to understand that he would as lief the Battle of Life were over

altogether.

While he was thus making war against the Northern infidels news was

carried all over Christendom of a catastrophe which had befallen the

good cause in the South of Europe, where the Spanish Christians had met

with such a defeat and massacre at the hands of the Moors as had never

been known in the proudest day of Saladin.

Thursday, the 9th of Shaban, in the 605th year of the Hejira, is known

all over the West as the amun-al-ark, the year of the battle of Alarcos,

gained over the Christians by the Moslems of Andaluz, on which fatal day

Christendom suffered a defeat so signal, that it was feared the Spanish

peninsula would be entirely wrested away from the dominion of the

Cross. On that day the Franks lost 150,000 men and 30,000 prisoners.

A man-slave sold among the unbelievers for a dirhem; a donkey for

the same; a sword, half a dirhem; a horse, five dirhems. Hundreds of

thousands of these various sorts of booty were in the possession of the

triumphant followers of Yakoobal-Mansoor. Curses on his head! But he

was a brave warrior, and the Christians before him seemed to forget

that they were the descendants of the brave Cid, the Kanbitoor, as the

Moorish hounds (in their jargon) denominated the famous Campeador.

A general move for the rescue of the faithful in Spain--a crusade

against the infidels triumphing there, was preached throughout Europe

by all the most eloquent clergy; and thousands and thousands of valorous

knights and nobles, accompanied by well-meaning varlets and vassals of

the lower sort, trooped from all sides to the rescue. The Straits of

Gibel-al-Tariff, at which spot the Moor, passing from Barbary, first

planted his accursed foot on the Christian soil, were crowded with the

galleys of the Templars and the Knights of St. John, who flung succors

into the menaced kingdoms of the peninsula; the inland sea swarmed

with their ships hasting from their forts and islands, from Rhodes and

Byzantium, from Jaffa and Ascalon. The Pyrenean peaks beheld the pennons

and glittered with the armor of the knights marching out of France into

Spain; and, finally, in a ship that set sail direct from Bohemia, where

Sir Wilfrid happened to be quartered at the time when the news of the

defeat of Alarcos came and alarmed all good Christians, Ivanhoe landed

at Barcelona, and proceeded to slaughter the Moors forthwith.

He brought letters of introduction from his friend Folko of

Heydenbraten, the Grand Master of the Knights of Saint John, to the

venerable Baldomero de Garbanzos, Grand Master of the renowned order of

Saint Jago. The chief of Saint Jago's knights paid the greatest respect

to a warrior whose fame was already so widely known in Christendom; and

Ivanhoe had the pleasure of being appointed to all the posts of danger

and forlorn hopes that could be devised in his honor. He would be called

up twice or thrice in a night to fight the Moors: he led ambushes,

scaled breaches, was blown up by mines; was wounded many hundred times

(recovering, thanks to the elixir, of which Wamba always carried a

supply); he was the terror of the Saracens, and the admiration and

wonder of the Christians.

To describe his deeds, would, I say, be tedious; one day's battle was

like that of another. I am not writing in ten volumes like Monsieur

Alexandre Dumas, or even in three like other great authors. We have no

room for the recounting of Sir Wilfrid's deeds of valor. Whenever he

took a Moorish town, it was remarked, that he went anxiously into the

Jewish quarter, and inquired amongst the Hebrews, who were in great

numbers in Spain, for Rebecca, the daughter of Isaac. Many Jews,

according to his wont, he ransomed, and created so much scandal by this

proceeding, and by the manifest favor which he showed to the people of

that nation, that the Master of Saint Jago remonstrated with him, and

it is probable he would have been cast into the Inquisition and

roasted, but that his prodigious valor and success against the Moors

counterbalanced his heretical partiality for the children of Jacob.

It chanced that the good knight was present at the siege of Xixona

in Andalusia, entering the breach first, according to his wont, and

slaying, with his own hand, the Moorish lieutenant of the town, and

several hundred more of its unbelieving defenders. He had very nearly

done for the Alfaqui, or governor--a veteran warrior with a crooked

scimitar and a beard as white as snow--but a couple of hundred of the

Alfaqui's bodyguard flung themselves between Ivanhoe and their chief,

and the old fellow escaped with his life, leaving a handful of his beard

in the grasp of the English knight. The strictly military business being

done, and such of the garrison as did not escape put, as by right, to

the sword, the good knight, Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe, took no further part

in the proceedings of the conquerors of that ill-fated place. A scene

of horrible massacre and frightful reprisals ensued, and the Christian

warriors, hot with victory and flushed with slaughter, were, it is to be

feared, as savage in their hour of triumph as ever their heathen enemies

had been.

Among the most violent and least scrupulous was the ferocious Knight of

Saint Jago, Don Beltran de Cuchilla y Trabuco y Espada y Espelon.

Raging through the vanquished city like a demon, he slaughtered

indiscriminately all those infidels of both sexes whose wealth did not

tempt him to a ransom, or whose beauty did not reserve them for more

frightful calamities than death. The slaughter over, Don Beltran took

up his quarters in the Albaycen, where the Alfaqui had lived who had so

narrowly escaped the sword of Ivanhoe; but the wealth, the treasure,

the slaves, and the family of the fugitive chieftain, were left in

possession of the conqueror of Xixona. Among the treasures, Don Beltran

recognized with a savage joy the coat-armors and ornaments of many brave

and unfortunate companions-in-arms who had fallen in the fatal battle

of Alarcos. The sight of those bloody relics added fury to his cruel

disposition, and served to steel a heart already but little disposed to

sentiments of mercy.

Three days after the sack and plunder of the place, Don Beltran was

seated in the hall-court lately occupied by the proud Alfaqui, lying

in his divan, dressed in his rich robes, the fountains playing in the

centre, the slaves of the Moor ministering to his scarred and rugged

Christian conqueror. Some fanned him with peacocks' pinions, some danced

before him, some sang Moor's melodies to the plaintive notes of a guzla,

one--it was the only daughter of the Moor's old age, the young Zutulbe,

a rosebud of beauty--sat weeping in a corner of the gilded hall: weeping

for her slain brethren, the pride of Moslem chivalry, whose heads were

blackening in the blazing sunshine on the portals without, and for her

father, whose home had been thus made desolate.

He and his guest, the English knight Sir Wilfrid, were playing at chess,

a favorite amusement with the chivalry of the period, when a messenger

was announced from Valencia, to treat, if possible, for the ransom of

the remaining part of the Alfaqui's family. A grim smile lighted up Don

Beltran's features as he bade the black slave admit the messenger. He

entered. By his costume it was at once seen that the bearer of the

flag of truce was a Jew--the people were employed continually then as

ambassadors between the two races at war in Spain.

“I come,” said the old Jew (in a voice which made Sir Wilfrid start),

“from my lord the Alfaqui to my noble senor, the invincible Don Beltran

de Cuchilla, to treat for the ransom of the Moor's only daughter, the

child of his old age and the pearl of his affection.”

“A pearl is a valuable jewel, Hebrew. What does the Moorish dog bid for

her?” asked Don Beltran, still smiling grimly.

“The Alfaqui offers 100,000 dinars, twenty-four horses with their

caparisons, twenty-four suits of plate-armor, and diamonds and rubies to

the amount of 1,000,000 dinars.”

“Ho, slaves!” roared Don Beltran, “show the Jew my treasury of gold. How

many hundred thousand pieces are there?” And ten enormous chests were

produced in which the accountant counted 1,000 bags of 1,000 dirhems

each, and displayed several caskets of jewels containing such a treasure

of rubies, smaragds, diamonds, and jacinths, as made the eyes of the

aged ambassador twinkle with avarice.

“How many horses are there in my stable?” continued Don Beltran;

and Muley, the master of the horse, numbered three hundred fully

caparisoned; and there was, likewise, armor of the richest sort for as

many cavaliers, who followed the banner of this doughty captain.

“I want neither money nor armor,” said the ferocious knight; “tell this

to the Alfaqui, Jew. And I will keep the child, his daughter, to serve

the messes for my dogs, and clean the platters for my scullions.”

“Deprive not the old man of his child,” here interposed the Knight

of Ivanhoe; “bethink thee, brave Don Beltran, she is but an infant in

years.”

“She is my captive, Sir Knight,” replied the surly Don Beltran; “I will

do with my own as becomes me.”

“Take 200,000 dirhems,” cried the Jew; “more!--anything! The Alfaqui

will give his life for his child!”

“Come hither, Zutulbe!--come hither, thou Moorish pearl!” yelled

the ferocious warrior; “come closer, my pretty black-eyed houri of

heathenesse! Hast heard the name of Beltran de Espada y Trabuco?”

“There were three brothers of that name at Alarcos, and my brothers slew

the Christian dogs!” said the proud young girl, looking boldly at Don

Beltran, who foamed with rage.

“The Moors butchered my mother and her little ones, at midnight, in our

castle of Murcia,” Beltran said.

“Thy father fled like a craven, as thou didst, Don Beltran!” cried the

high-spirited girl.

“By Saint Jago, this is too much!” screamed the infuriated nobleman; and

the next moment there was a shriek, and the maiden fell to the ground

with Don Beltran's dagger in her side.

“Death is better than dishonor!” cried the child, rolling on the

blood-stained marble pavement. “I--I spit upon thee, dog of a

Christian!” and with this, and with a savage laugh, she fell back and

died.

“Bear back this news, Jew, to the Alfaqui,” howled the Don, spurning the

beauteous corpse with his foot. “I would not have ransomed her for all

the gold in Barbary!” And shuddering, the old Jew left the apartment,

which Ivanhoe quitted likewise.

When they were in the outer court, the knight said to the Jew, “Isaac of

York, dost thou not know me?” and threw back his hood, and looked at the

old man.

The old Jew stared wildly, rushed forward as if to seize his hand, then

started back, trembling convulsively, and clutching his withered

hands over his face, said, with a burst of grief, “Sir Wilfrid of

Ivanhoe!--no, no!--I do not know thee!”

“Holy mother! what has chanced?” said Ivanhoe, in his turn becoming

ghastly pale; “where is thy daughter--where is Rebecca?”

“Away from me!” said the old Jew, tottering. “Away Rebecca is--dead!”

*****

When the Disinherited Knight heard that fatal announcement, he fell to

the ground senseless, and was for some days as one perfectly distraught

with grief. He took no nourishment and uttered no word. For weeks he

did not relapse out of his moody silence, and when he came partially to

himself again, it was to bid his people to horse, in a hollow voice, and

to make a foray against the Moors. Day after day he issued out against

these infidels, and did nought but slay and slay. He took no plunder

as other knights did, but left that to his followers; he uttered no

war-cry, as was the manner of chivalry, and he gave no quarter, insomuch

that the “silent knight” became the dread of all the Paynims of Granada

and Andalusia, and more fell by his lance than by that of any the most

clamorous captains of the troops in arms against them. Thus the tide of

battle turned, and the Arab historian, El Makary, recounts how, at

the great battle of Al Akab, called by the Spaniards Las Navas, the

Christians retrieved their defeat at Alarcos, and absolutely killed

half a milllion of Mahometans. Fifty thousand of these, of course, Don

Wilfrid took to his own lance; and it was remarked that the melancholy

warrior seemed somewhat more easy in spirits after that famous feat of

arms.

CHAPTER VII.

THE END OF THE PERFORMANCE.

In a short time the terrible Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe had killed off

so many of the Moors, that though those unbelieving miscreants poured

continual reinforcements into Spain from Barbary, they could make no

head against the Christian forces, and in fact came into battle quite

discouraged at the notion of meeting the dreadful silent knight. It was

commonly believed amongst them, that the famous Malek Ric, Richard

of England, the conqueror of Saladin, had come to life again, and was

battling in the Spanish hosts--that this, his second life, was a

charmed one, and his body inaccessible to blow of scimitar or thrust of

spear--that after battle he ate the hearts and drank the blood of

many young Moors for his supper: a thousand wild legends were told of

Ivanhoe, indeed, so that the Morisco warriors came half vanquished into

the field, and fell an easy prey to the Spaniards, who cut away among

them without mercy. And although none of the Spanish historians whom

I have consulted make mention of Sir Wilfrid as the real author of the

numerous triumphs which now graced the arms of the good cause, this is

not in the least to be wondered at, in a nation that has always been

notorious for bragging, and for the non-payment of their debts of

gratitude as of their other obligations, and that writes histories

of the Peninsular war with the Emperor Napoleon, without making the

slightest mention of his Grace the Duke of Wellington, or of the part

taken by BRITISH VALOR in that transaction. Well, it must be confessed,

on the other hand, that we brag enough of our fathers' feats in those

campaigns: but this is not the subject at present under consideration.

To be brief, Ivanhoe made such short work with the unbelievers, that

the monarch of Aragon, King Don Jayme, saw himself speedily enabled to

besiege the city of Valencia, the last stronghold which the Moors had in

his dominions, and garrisoned by many thousands of those infidels

under the command of their King Aboo Abdallah Mahommed, son of

Yakoobal-Mansoor. The Arabian historian El Makary gives a full account

of the military precautions taken by Aboo Abdallah to defend his city;

but as I do not wish to make a parade of my learning, or to write a

costume novel, I shall pretermit any description of the city under its

Moorish governors.

Besides the Turks who inhabited it, there dwelt within its walls great

store of those of the Hebrew nation, who were always protected by the

Moors during their unbelieving reign in Spain; and who were, as we very

well know, the chief physicians, the chief bankers, the chief statesmen,

the chief artists and musicians, the chief everything, under the Moorish

kings. Thus it is not surprising that the Hebrews, having their money,

their liberty, their teeth, their lives, secure under the Mahometan

domination, should infinitely prefer it to the Christian sway; beneath

which they were liable to be deprived of every one of these benefits.

Among these Hebrews of Valencia, lived a very ancient Israelite--no

other than Isaac of York before mentioned, who came into Spain with

his daughter, soon after Ivanhoe's marriage, in the third volume of the

first part of this history. Isaac was respected by his people for

the money which he possessed, and his daughter for her admirable good

qualities, her beauty, her charities, and her remarkable medical skill.

The young Emir Aboo Abdallah was so struck by her charms, that though

she was considerably older than his Highness, he offered to marry her,

and install her as Number 1 of his wives; and Isaac of York would not

have objected to the union, (for such mixed marriages were not uncommon

between the Hebrews and Moors in those days,) but Rebecca firmly yet

respectfully declined the proposals of the prince, saying that it was

impossible she should unite herself with a man of a creed different to

her own.

Although Isaac was, probably, not over-well pleased at losing this

chance of being father-in-law to a royal highness, yet as he passed

among his people for a very strict character, and there were in his

family several rabbis of great reputation and severity of conduct, the

old gentleman was silenced by this objection of Rebecca's, and the young

lady herself applauded by her relatives for her resolute behavior. She

took their congratulations in a very frigid manner, and said that it was

her wish not to marry at all, but to devote herself to the practice of

medicine altogether, and to helping the sick and needy of her people.

Indeed, although she did not go to any public meetings, she was as

benevolent a creature as the world ever saw: the poor blessed her

wherever they knew her, and many benefited by her who guessed not whence

her gentle bounty came.

But there are men in Jewry who admire beauty, and, as I have even heard,

appreciate money too, and Rebecca had such a quantity of both, that all

the most desirable bachelors of the people were ready to bid for her.

Ambassadors came from all quarters to propose for her. Her own uncle,

the venerable Ben Solomons, with a beard as long as a cashmere goat's,

and a reputation for learning and piety which still lives in his nation,

quarrelled with his son Moses, the red-haired diamond-merchant of

Trebizond, and his son Simeon, the bald bill-broker of Bagdad, each

putting in a claim for their cousin. Ben Minories came from London

and knelt at her feet; Ben Jochanan arrived from Paris, and thought to

dazzle her with the latest waistcoats from the Palais Royal; and Ben

Jonah brought her a present of Dutch herrings, and besought her to come

back and be Mrs. Ben Jonah at the Hague.

Rebecca temporized as best she might. She thought her uncle was too old.

She besought dear Moses and dear Simeon not to quarrel with each other,

and offend their father by pressing their suit. Ben Minories from

London, she said, was too young, and Jochanan from Paris, she pointed

out to Isaac of York, must be a spendthrift, or he would not wear those

absurd waistcoats. As for Ben Jonah, she said, she could not bear the

notion of tobacco and Dutch herrings: she wished to stay with her papa,

her dear papa. In fine, she invented a thousand excuses for delay, and

it was plain that marriage was odious to her. The only man whom she

received with anything like favor, was young Bevis Marks of London, with

whom she was very familiar. But Bevis had come to her with a certain

token that had been given to him by an English knight, who saved him

from a fagot to which the ferocious Hospitaller Folko of Heydenbraten

was about to condemn him. It was but a ring, with an emerald in it, that

Bevis knew to be sham, and not worth a groat. Rebecca knew about the

value of jewels too; but ah! she valued this one more than all the

diamonds in Prester John's turban. She kissed it; she cried over it;

she wore it in her bosom always and when she knelt down at night and

morning, she held it between her folded hands on her neck. . . . Young

Bevis Marks went away finally no better off than the others; the rascal

sold to the King of France a handsome ruby, the very size of the bit of

glass in Rebecca's ring; but he always said he would rather have had her

than ten thousand pounds: and very likely he would, for it was known she

would at once have a plum to her fortune.

These delays, however, could not continue for ever; and at a great

family meeting held at Passover-time, Rebecca was solemnly ordered to

choose a husband out of the gentlemen there present; her aunts pointing

out the great kindness which had been shown to her by her father,

in permitting her to choose for herself. One aunt was of the Solomon

faction, another aunt took Simeon's side, a third most venerable old

lady--the head of the family, and a hundred and forty-four years of

age--was ready to pronounce a curse upon her, and cast her out, unless

she married before the month was over. All the jewelled heads of all the

old ladies in council, all the beards of all the family, wagged against

her: it must have been an awful sight to witness.

At last, then, Rebecca was forced to speak. “Kinsmen!” she said, turning

pale, “when the Prince Abou Abdil asked me in marriage, I told you I

would not wed but with one of my own faith.”

“She has turned Turk,” screamed out the ladies. “She wants to be a

princess, and has turned Turk,” roared the rabbis.

“Well, well,” said Isaac, in rather an appeased tone, “let us hear what

the poor girl has got to say. Do you want to marry his royal highness,

Rebecca? Say the word, yes or no.”

Another groan burst from the rabbis--they cried, shrieked, chattered,

gesticulated, furious to lose such a prize; as were the women, that she

should reign over them a second Esther.

“Silence,” cried out Isaac; “let the girl speak. Speak boldly, Rebecca

dear, there's a good girl.”

Rebecca was as pale as a stone. She folded her arms on her breast, and

felt the ring there. She looked round all the assembly, and then at

Isaac. “Father,” she said, in a thrilling low steady voice, “I am not of

your religion--I am not of the Prince Boabdil's religion--I--I am of HIS

religion.”

“His! whose, in the name of Moses, girl?” cried Isaac.

Rebecca clasped her hands on her beating chest and looked round with

dauntless eyes. “Of his,” she said, “who saved my life and your honor:

of my dear, dear champion's. I never can be his, but I will be no

other's. Give my money to my kinsmen; it is that they long for. Take the

dross, Simeon and Solomon, Jonah and Jochanan, and divide it among you,

and leave me. I will never be yours, I tell you, never. Do you think,

after knowing him and hearing him speak,--after watching him wounded on

his pillow, and glorious in battle” (her eyes melted and kindled again

as she spoke these words), “I can mate with such as you? Go. Leave me

to myself. I am none of yours. I love him--I love him. Fate divides

us--long, long miles separate us; and I know we may never meet again.

But I love and bless him always. Yes, always. My prayers are his; my

faith is his. Yes, my faith is your faith, Wilfrid--Wilfrid! I have no

kindred more,--I am a Christian!”

At this last word there was such a row in the assembly, as my feeble pen

would in vain endeavor to depict. Old Isaac staggered back in a fit,

and nobody took the least notice of him. Groans, curses, yells of men,

shrieks of women, filled the room with such a furious jabbering, as

might have appalled any heart less stout than Rebecca's; but that brave

woman was prepared for all; expecting, and perhaps hoping, that death

would be her instant lot. There was but one creature who pitied her, and

that was her cousin and father's clerk, little Ben Davids, who was but

thirteen, and had only just begun to carry a bag, and whose crying and

boo-hooing, as she finished speaking, was drowned in the screams and

maledictions of the elder Israelites. Ben Davids was madly in love with

his cousin (as boys often are with ladies of twice their age), and he

had presence of mind suddenly to knock over the large brazen lamp on the

table, which illuminated the angry conclave; then, whispering to Rebecca

to go up to her own room and lock herself in, or they would kill her

else, he took her hand and led her out.

From that day she disappeared from among her people. The poor and the

wretched missed her, and asked for her in vain. Had any violence been

done to her, the poorer Jews would have risen and put all Isaac's family

to death; and besides, her old flame, Prince Boabdil, would have also

been exceedingly wrathful. She was not killed then, but, so to speak,

buried alive, and locked up in Isaac's back-kitchen: an apartment into

which scarcely any light entered, and where she was fed upon scanty

portions of the most mouldy bread and water. Little Ben Davids was the

only person who visited her, and her sole consolation was to talk to

him about Ivanhoe, and how good and how gentle he was; how brave and how

true; and how he slew the tremendous knight of the Templars, and how

he married a lady whom Rebecca scarcely thought worthy of him, but with

whom she prayed he might be happy; and of what color his eyes were, and

what were the arms on his shield--viz, a tree with the word “Desdichado”

written underneath, &c. &c. &c.: all which talk would not have

interested little Davids, had it come from anybody else's mouth, but to

which he never tired of listening as it fell from her sweet lips.

So, in fact, when old Isaac of York came to negotiate with Don Beltran

de Cuchilla for the ransom of the Alfaqui's daughter of Xixona, our

dearest Rebecca was no more dead than you and I; and it was in his rage

and fury against Ivanhoe that Isaac told that cavalier the falsehood

which caused the knight so much pain and such a prodigious deal of

bloodshed to the Moors: and who knows, trivial as it may seem, whether

it was not that very circumstance which caused the destruction in Spain

of the Moorish power?

Although Isaac, we may be sure, never told his daughter that Ivanhoe

had cast up again, yet Master Ben Davids did, who heard it from his

employer; and he saved Rebecca's life by communicating the intelligence,

for the poor thing would have infallibly perished but for this good

news. She had now been in prison four years three months and twenty-four

days, during which time she had partaken of nothing but bread and water

(except such occasional tit-bits as Davids could bring her--and these

were few indeed; for old Isaac was always a curmudgeon, and seldom had

more than a pair of eggs for his own and Davids' dinner); and she was

languishing away, when the news came suddenly to revive her. Then,

though in the darkness you could not see her cheeks, they began to

bloom again: then her heart began to beat and her blood to flow, and

she kissed the ring on her neck a thousand times a day at least; and

her constant question was, “Ben Davids! Ben Davids! when is he coming to

besiege Valencia?” She knew he would come: and, indeed, the Christians

were encamped before the town ere a month was over.

*****

And now, my dear boys and girls, I think I perceive behind that

dark scene of the back-kitchen (which is just a simple flat, painted

stone-color, that shifts in a minute,) bright streaks of light flashing

out, as though they were preparing a most brilliant, gorgeous, and

altogether dazzling illumination, with effects never before attempted on

any stage. Yes, the fairy in the pretty pink tights and spangled

muslin is getting into the brilliant revolving chariot of the realms of

bliss.--Yes, most of the fiddlers and trumpeters have gone round from

the orchestra to join in the grand triumphal procession, where the whole

strength of the company is already assembled, arrayed in costumes of

Moorish and Christian chivalry, to celebrate the “Terrible Escalade,”

the “Rescue of Virtuous Innocence”--the “Grand Entry of the Christians

into Valencia”--“Appearance of the Fairy Day-Star,” and “Unexampled

displays of pyrotechnic festivity.” Do you not, I say, perceive that we

are come to the end of our history; and, after a quantity of rapid and

terrific fighting, brilliant change of scenery, and songs, appropriate

or otherwise, are bringing our hero and heroine together? Who wants a

long scene at the last? Mammas are putting the girls' cloaks and boas

on; papas have gone out to look for the carriage, and left the

box-door swinging open, and letting in the cold air: if there WERE any

stage-conversation, you could not hear it, for the scuffling of the

people who are leaving the pit. See, the orange-women are preparing to

retire. To-morrow their play-bills will be as so much waste-paper--so

will some of our masterpieces, woe is me: but lo! here we come to Scene

the last, and Valencia is besieged and captured by the Christians.

Who is the first on the wall, and who hurls down the green standard of

the Prophet? Who chops off the head of the Emir Aboo What-d'ye-call'im,

just as the latter has cut over the cruel Don Beltran de Cuchillay &c.?

Who, attracted to the Jewish quarter by the shrieks of the inhabitants

who are being slain by the Moorish soldiery, and by a little boy by the

name of Ben Davids, who recognizes the knight by his shield, finds Isaac

of York egorge on a threshold, and clasping a large back-kitchen key?

Who but Ivanhoe--who but Wilfrid? “An Ivanhoe to the rescue,” he bellows

out; he has heard that news from little Ben Davids which makes him sing.

And who is it that comes out of the house--trembling--panting--with

her arms out--in a white dress--with her hair down--who is it but dear

Rebecca? Look, they rush together, and Master Wamba is waving an immense

banner over them, and knocks down a circumambient Jew with a ham, which

he happens to have in his pocket. . . . As for Rebecca, now her head

is laid upon Ivanhoe's heart, I shall not ask to hear what she is

whispering, or describe further that scene of meeting; though I declare

I am quite affected when I think of it. Indeed I have thought of it

any time these five-and-twenty years--ever since, as a boy at school, I

commenced the noble study of novels--ever since the day when, lying on

sunny slopes of half-holidays, the fair chivalrous figures and beautiful

shapes of knights and ladies were visible to me--ever since I grew to

love Rebecca, that sweetest creature of the poet's fancy, and longed to

see her righted.

That she and Ivanhoe were married, follows of course; for Rowena's

promise extorted from him was, that he would never wed a Jewess, and a

better Christian than Rebecca now was never said her catechism. Married

I am sure they were, and adopted little Cedric; but I don't think they

had any other children, or were subsequently very boisterously happy. Of

some sort of happiness melancholy is a characteristic, and I think these

were a solemn pair, and died rather early.

THE HISTORY OF THE NEXT FRENCH REVOLUTION.

[FROM A FORTHCOMING HISTORY OF EUROPE.]

CHAPTER I.

It is seldom that the historian has to record events more singular than

those which occurred during this year, when the Crown of France was

battled for by no less than four pretenders, with equal claims, merits,

bravery, and popularity. First in the list we place--His Royal Highness

Louis Anthony Frederick Samuel Anna Maria, Duke of Brittany, and son

of Louis XVI. The unhappy Prince, when a prisoner with his unfortunate

parents in the Temple, was enabled to escape from that place of

confinement, hidden (for the treatment of the ruffians who guarded

him had caused the young Prince to dwindle down astonishingly) in the

cocked-hat of the Representative, Roederer. It is well known that,

in the troublous revolutionary times, cocked-hats were worn of a

considerable size.

He passed a considerable part of his life in Germany; was confined there

for thirty years in the dungeons of Spielberg; and, escaping thence

to England, was, under pretence of debt, but in reality from political

hatred, imprisoned there also in the Tower of London. He must not be

confounded with any other of the persons who laid claim to be children

of the unfortunate victim of the first Revolution.

The next claimant, Henri of Bordeaux, is better known. In the year 1843

he held his little fugitive court in furnished lodgings, in a forgotten

district of London, called Belgrave Square. Many of the nobles of France

flocked thither to him, despising the persecutions of the occupant of

the throne; and some of the chiefs of the British nobility--among whom

may be reckoned the celebrated and chivalrous Duke of Jenkins--aided the

adventurous young Prince with their counsels, their wealth, and their

valor.

The third candidate was his Imperial Highness Prince John Thomas

Napoleon--a fourteenth cousin of the late Emperor; and said by some

to be a Prince of the House of Gomersal. He argued justly that, as the

immediate relatives of the celebrated Corsican had declined to compete

for the crown which was their right, he, Prince John Thomas, being next

in succession, was, undoubtedly, heir to the vacant imperial throne. And

in support of his claim, he appealed to the fidelity of Frenchmen and

the strength of his good sword.

His Majesty Louis Philippe was, it need not be said, the illustrious

wielder of the sceptre which the three above-named princes desired

to wrest from him. It does not appear that the sagacious monarch was

esteemed by his subjects, as such a prince should have been esteemed.

The light-minded people, on the contrary, were rather weary than

otherwise of his sway. They were not in the least attached to his

amiable family, for whom his Majesty with characteristic thrift had

endeavored to procure satisfactory allowances. And the leading statesmen

of the country, whom his Majesty had disgusted, were suspected of

entertaining any but feelings of loyalty towards his house and person.

It was against the above-named pretenders that Louis Philippe (now

nearly a hundred years old), a prince amongst sovereigns, was called

upon to defend his crown.

The city of Paris was guarded, as we all know, by a hundred and

twenty-four forts, of a thousand guns each--provisioned for a

considerable time, and all so constructed as to fire, if need were,

upon the palace of the Tuileries. Thus, should the mob attack it, as in

August 1792, and July 1830, the building could be razed to the ground in

an hour; thus, too, the capital was quite secure from foreign invasion.

Another defence against the foreigners was the state of the roads. Since

the English companies had retired, half a mile only of railroad had been

completed in France, and thus any army accustomed, as those of Europe

now are, to move at sixty miles an hour, would have been ennuye'd to

death before they could have marched from the Rhenish, the Maritime, the

Alpine, or the Pyrenean frontier upon the capital of France. The French

people, however, were indignant at this defect of communication in their

territory, and said, without the least show of reason, that they would

have preferred that the five hundred and seventy-five thousand billions

of francs which had been expended upon the fortifications should have

been laid out in a more peaceful manner. However, behind his forts, the

King lay secure.

As it is our aim to depict in as vivid a manner as possible the strange

events of the period, the actions, the passions of individuals and

parties engaged, we cannot better describe them than by referring to

contemporary documents, of which there is no lack. It is amusing at the

present day to read in the pages of the Moniteur and the Journal des

Debats the accounts of the strange scenes which took place.

The year 1884 had opened very tranquilly. The Court of the Tuileries had

been extremely gay. The three-and-twenty youngest Princes of England,

sons of her Majesty Victoria, had enlivened the balls by their presence;

the Emperor of Russia and family had paid their accustomed visit; and

the King of the Belgians had, as usual, made his visit to his royal

father-in-law, under pretence of duty and pleasure, but really to demand

payment of the Queen of the Belgians' dowry, which Louis Philippe of

Orleans still resolutely declined to pay. Who would have thought that

in the midst of such festivity danger was lurking rife, in the midst of

such quiet, rebellion?

Charenton was the great lunatic asylum of Paris, and it was to this

repository that the scornful journalist consigned the pretender to the

throne of Louis XVI.

But on the next day, viz. Saturday, the 29th February, the same journal

contained a paragraph of a much more startling and serious import; in

which, although under a mask of carelessness, it was easy to see the

Government alarm.

On Friday, the 28th February, the Journal des Debats contained a

paragraph, which did not occasion much sensation at the Bourse, so

absurd did its contents seem. It ran as follows:--

“ENCORE UN LOUIS XVII.! A letter from Calais tells us that a strange

personage lately landed from England (from Bedlam we believe) has been

giving himself out to be the son of the unfortunate Louis XVI. This is

the twenty-fourth pretender of the species who has asserted that his

father was the august victim of the Temple. Beyond his pretensions, the

poor creature is said to be pretty harmless; he is accompanied by one

or two old women, who declare they recognize in him the Dauphin; he

does not make any attempt to seize upon his throne by force of arms, but

waits until heaven shall conduct him to it.

“If his Majesty comes to Paris, we presume he will TAKE UP his quarters

in the palace of Charenton.

“We have not before alluded to certain rumors which have been afloat

(among the lowest canaille and the vilest estaminets of the metropolis),

that a notorious personage--why should we hesitate to mention the name

of the Prince John Thomas Napoleon?--has entered France with culpable

intentions, and revolutionary views. The Moniteur of this morning,

however, confirms the disgraceful fact. A pretender is on our shores;

an armed assassin is threatening our peaceful liberties; a wandering,

homeless cut-throat is robbing on our highways; and the punishment of

his crime awaits him. Let no considerations of the past defer that just

punishment; it is the duty of the legislator to provide for THE FUTURE.

Let the full powers of the law be brought against him, aided by the

stern justice of the public force. Let him be tracked, like a wild

beast, to his lair, and meet the fate of one. But the sentence has,

ere this, been certainly executed. The brigand, we hear, has been

distributing (without any effect) pamphlets among the low ale-houses and

peasantry of the department of the Upper Rhine (in which he lurks); and

the Police have an easy means of tracking his footsteps.

“Corporal Crane, of the Gendarmerie, is on the track of the unfortunate

young man. His attempt will only serve to show the folly of the

pretenders, and the love, respect, regard, fidelity, admiration,

reverence, and passionate personal attachment in which we hold our

beloved sovereign.”

“SECOND EDITION!

“CAPTURE OF THE PRINCE.

“A courier has just arrived at the Tuileries with a report that after

a scuffle between Corporal Crane and the 'Imperial Army,' in a

water-barrel, whither the latter had retreated, victory has remained

with the former. A desperate combat ensued in the first place, in a

hay-loft, whence the pretender was ejected with immense loss. He is now

a prisoner--and we dread to think what his fate may be! It will warn

future aspirants, and give Europe a lesson which it is not likely to

forget. Above all, it will set beyond a doubt the regard, respect,

admiration, reverence, and adoration which we all feel for our

sovereign.”

“THIRD EDITION.

“A second courier has arrived. The infatuated Crane has made common

cause with the Prince, and forever forfeited the respect of Frenchmen.

A detachment of the 520th Leger has marched in pursuit of the pretender

and his dupes. Go, Frenchmen, go and conquer! Remember that it is our

rights you guard, our homes which you march to defend; our laws which

are confided to the points of your unsullied bayonets;--above all, our

dear, dear sovereign, around whose throne you rally!

“Our feelings overpower us. Men of the 520th, remember your watchword is

Gemappes,--your countersign, Valmy.”

“The Emperor of Russia and his distinguished family quitted the

Tuileries this day. His Imperial Majesty embraced his Majesty the King

of the French with tears in his eyes, and conferred upon their RR. HH.

the Princes of Nemours and Joinville, the Grand Cross of the Order of

the Blue Eagle.”

“His Majesty passed a review of the Police force. The venerable monarch

was received with deafening cheers by this admirable and disinterested

body of men. Those cheers were echoed in all French hearts. Long, long

may our beloved Prince be among us to receive them!”

CHAPTER II.

HENRY V. AND NAPOLEON III.

Sunday, February 30th.

We resume our quotations from the Debats, which thus introduces a third

pretender to the throne:--

“Is this distracted country never to have peace? While on Friday we

recorded the pretensions of a maniac to the great throne of France;

while on Saturday we were compelled to register the culpable attempts

of one whom we regard as a ruffian, murderer, swindler, forger, burglar,

and common pickpocket, to gain over the allegiance of Frenchmen--it

is to-day our painful duty to announce a THIRD invasion--yes, a third

invasion. The wretched, superstitious, fanatic Duke of Bordeaux has

landed at Nantz, and has summoned the Vendeans and the Bretons to mount

the white cockade.

“Grand Dieu! are we not happy under the tricolor? Do we not repose under

the majestic shadow of the best of kings? Is there any name prouder than

that of Frenchman; any subject more happy than that of our sovereign?

Does not the whole French family adore their father? Yes. Our lives, our

hearts, our blood, our fortune, are at his disposal: it was not in vain

that we raised, it is not the first time we have rallied round, the

august throne of July. The unhappy Duke is most likely a prisoner by

this time; and the martial court which shall be called upon to judge one

infamous traitor and pretender, may at the same moment judge another.

Away with both! let the ditch of Vincennes (which has been already fatal

to his race) receive his body, too, and with it the corpse of the other

pretender. Thus will a great crime be wiped out of history, and the

manes of a slaughtered martyr avenged!

“One word more. We hear that the Duke of Jenkins accompanies the

descendant of Caroline of Naples. An ENGLISH DUKE, entendez-vous! An

English Duke, great heaven! and the Princes of England still dancing in

our royal halls! Where, where will the perfidy of Albion end?”

“The King reviewed the third and fourth battalions of Police. The usual

heart-rending cheers accompanied the monarch, who looked younger than

ever we saw him--ay, as young as when he faced the Austrian cannon at

Valmy and scattered their squadrons at Gemappes.

“Rations of liquor, and crosses of the Legion of Honor, were distributed

to all the men.

“The English Princes quitted the Tuileries in twenty-three

coaches-and-four. They were not rewarded with crosses of the Legion of

Honor. This is significant.”

“The Dukes of Joinville and Nemours left the palace for the departments

of the Loire and Upper Rhine, where they will take the command of the

troops. The Joinville regiment--Cavalerie de la Marine--is one of the

finest in the service.”

“Orders have been given to arrest the fanatic who calls himself Duke

of Brittany, and who has been making some disturbances in the Pas de

Calais.”

“ANECDOTE OF HIS MAJESTY.--At the review of troops (Police) yesterday,

his Majesty, going up to one old grognard and pulling him by the ear,

said, 'Wilt thou have a cross or another ration of wine?' The old hero,

smiling archly, answered, 'Sire, a brave man can gain a cross any day

of battle, but it is hard for him sometimes to get a drink of wine.' We

need not say that he had his drink, and the generous sovereign sent him

the cross and ribbon too.”

On the next day, the Government journals began to write in rather a

despondent tone regarding the progress of the pretenders to the throne.

In spite of their big talking, anxiety is clearly manifested, as appears

from the following remarks of the Debats:--

“The courier from the Rhine department,” says the Debats, “brings us the

following astounding Proclamation:--

“'Strasburg, xxii. Nivose: Decadi. 92nd year of the Republic, one and

indivisible. We, John Thomas Napoleon, by the constitutions of the

Empire, Emperor of the French Republic, to our marshals, generals,

officers, and soldiers, greeting:

“'Soldiers!

“'From the summit of the Pyramids forty centuries look down upon you.

The sun of Austerlitz has risen once more. The Guard dies, but never

surrenders. My eagles, flying from steeple to steeple, never shall droop

till they perch on the towers of Notre Dame.

“'Soldiers! the child of YOUR FATHER has remained long in exile. I have

seen the fields of Europe where your laurels are now withering, and I

have communed with the dead who repose beneath them. They ask where are

our children? Where is France? Europe no longer glitters with the

shine of its triumphant bayonets--echoes no more with the shouts of

its victorious cannon. Who could reply to such a question save with a

blush?--And does a blush become the cheeks of Frenchmen?

“'No. Let us wipe from our faces that degrading mark of shame. Come,

as of old, and rally round my eagles! You have been subject to fiddling

prudence long enough. Come, worship now at the shrine of Glory! You have

been promised liberty, but you have had none. I will endow you with the

true, the real freedom. When your ancestors burst over the Alps, were

they not free? Yes; free to conquer. Let us imitate the example of

those indomitable myriads; and, flinging a defiance to Europe, once

more trample over her; march in triumph into her prostrate capitals,

and bring her kings with her treasures at our feet. This is the liberty

worthy of Frenchmen.

“'Frenchmen! I promise you that the Rhine shall be restored to you; and

that England shall rank no more among the nations. I will have a marine

that shall drive her ships from the seas; a few of my brave regiments

will do the rest. Henceforth, the traveller in that desert island shall

ask, “Was it this wretched corner of the world that for a thousand years

defied Frenchmen?”

“'Frenchmen, up and rally!--I have flung my banner to the breezes; 'tis

surrounded by the faithful and the brave. Up, and let our motto be,

LIBERTY, EQUALITY, WAR ALL OVER THE WORLD!

“'NAPOLEON III.

“'The Marshal of the Empire, HARICOT.'

“Such is the Proclamation! such the hopes that a brutal-minded and

bloody adventurer holds out to our country. 'War all over the world,' is

the cry of the savage demon; and the fiends who have rallied round him

echo it in concert. We were not, it appears, correct in stating that a

corporal's guard had been sufficient to seize upon the marauder, when

the first fire would have served to conclude his miserable life. But,

like a hideous disease, the contagion has spread; the remedy must be

dreadful. Woe to those on whom it will fall!

“His Royal Highness the Prince of Joinville, Admiral of France, has

hastened, as we before stated, to the disturbed districts, and takes

with him his Cavalerie de la Marine. It is hard to think that the blades

of those chivalrous heroes must be buried in the bosoms of Frenchmen:

but so be it: it is those monsters who have asked for blood, not we. It

is those ruffians who have begun the quarrel, not we. WE remain calm

and hopeful, reposing under the protection of the dearest and best of

sovereigns.

“The wretched pretender, who called himself Duke of Brittany, has been

seized, according to our prophecy: he was brought before the Prefect of

Police yesterday, and his insanity being proved beyond a doubt, he has

been consigned to a strait-waistcoat at Charenton. So may all incendiary

enemies of our Government be overcome!

“His Royal Highness the Duke of Nemours is gone into the department

of the Loire, where he will speedily put an end to the troubles in

the disturbed districts of the Bocage and La Vendee. The foolish young

Prince, who has there raised his standard, is followed, we hear, by

a small number of wretched persons, of whose massacre we expect every

moment to receive the news. He too has issued his Proclamation, and our

readers will smile at its contents:

“'WE HENRY, Fifth of the Name, King of France and Navarre, to all whom

it may concern, greeting:

“'After years of exile we have once more unfurled in France the banner

of the lilies. Once more the white plume of Henri IV. floats in the

crest of his little son (petit fils)! Gallant nobles! worthy burgesses!

honest commons of my realm, I call upon you to rally round the oriflamme

of France, and summon the ban arriereban of my kingdoms. To my faithful

Bretons I need not appeal. The country of Duguesclin has loyalty for

an heirloom! To the rest of my subjects, my atheist misguided subjects,

their father makes one last appeal. Come to me, my children! your errors

shall be forgiven. Our Holy Father, the Pope, shall intercede for you.

He promised it when, before my departure on this expedition, I kissed

his inviolable toe!

“'Our afflicted country cries aloud for reforms. The infamous

universities shall be abolished. Education shall no longer be permitted.

A sacred and wholesome inquisition shall be established. My faithful

nobles shall pay no more taxes. All the venerable institutions of our

country shall be restored as they existed before 1788. Convents and

monasteries again shall ornament our country, the calm nurseries

of saints and holy women! Heresy shall be extirpated with paternal

severity, and our country shall be free once more.

“'His Majesty the King of Ireland, my august ally, has sent, under the

command of His Royal Highness Prince Daniel, his Majesty's youngest son,

an irresistible IRISH BRIGADE, to co-operate in the good work. His Grace

the Lion of Judah, the canonized patriarch of Tuam, blessed their green

banner before they set forth. Henceforth may the lilies and the harp

be ever twined together. Together we will make a crusade against the

infidels of Albion, and raze their heretic domes to the ground. Let our

cry be, Vive la France! down with England! Montjoie St. Denis!

“'BY THE KING.

“'The Secretary of State and Grand Inquisitor. . . LA ROUE. The

Marshal of France. . . POMADOUR DE L'AILE DE PIGEON. The General

Commander-in-Chief of the Irish Brigade in the service of his Most

Christian Majesty. . . DANIEL, PRINCE OF BALLYBUNION.

'HENRI.”'

“His Majesty reviewed the admirable Police force, and held a council

of Ministers in the afternoon. Measures were concerted for the instant

putting down of the disturbances in the departments of the Rhine and

Loire, and it is arranged that on the capture of the pretenders, they

shall be lodged in separate cells in the prison of the Luxembourg: the

apartments are already prepared, and the officers at their posts.

“The grand banquet that was to be given at the palace to-day to the

diplomatic body, has been put off; all the ambassadors being attacked

with illness, which compels them to stay at home.”

“The ambassadors despatched couriers to their various Governments.”

“His Majesty the King of the Belgians left the palace of the Tuileries.”

CHAPTER III.

THE ADVANCE OF THE PRETENDERS.--HISTORICAL REVIEW.

We will now resume the narrative, and endeavor to compress, in a few

comprehensive pages, the facts which are more diffusely described in the

print from which we have quoted.

It was manifest, then, that the troubles in the departments were of a

serious nature, and that the forces gathered round the two pretenders to

the crown were considerable. They had their supporters too in Paris--as

what party indeed has not? and the venerable occupant of the throne was

in a state of considerable anxiety, and found his declining years by no

means so comfortable as his virtues and great age might have warranted.

His paternal heart was the more grieved when he thought of the fate

reserved to his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, now

sprung up around him in vast numbers. The King's grandson, the Prince

Royal, married to a Princess of the house of Schlippen-Schloppen, was

the father of fourteen children, all handsomely endowed with pensions

by the State. His brother, the Count D'Eu, was similarly blessed with

a multitudinous offspring. The Duke of Nemours had no children; but the

Princes of Joinville, Aumale, and Montpensier (married to the Princesses

Januaria and Februaria, of Brazil, and the Princess of the United States

of America, erected into a monarchy, 4th July, 1856, under the Emperor

Duff Green I.) were the happy fathers of immense families--all liberally

apportioned by the Chambers, which had long been entirely subservient to

his Majesty Louis Philippe.

The Duke of Aumale was King of Algeria, having married (in the first

instance) the Princess Badroulboudour, a daughter of his Highness

Abd-El-Kader. The Prince of Joinville was adored by the nation, on

account of his famous victory over the English fleet under the command

of Admiral the Prince of Wales, whose ship, the “Richard Cobden,” of 120

guns, was taken by the “Belle-Poule” frigate of 36; on which occasion

forty-five other ships of war and 79 steam-frigates struck their colors

to about one-fourth the number of the heroic French navy. The

victory was mainly owing to the gallantry of the celebrated French

horse-marines, who executed several brilliant charges under the orders

of the intrepid Joinville; and though the Irish Brigade, with their

ordinary modesty, claimed the honors of the day, yet, as only three of

that nation were present in the action, impartial history must award the

palm to the intrepid sons of Gaul.

With so numerous a family quartered on the nation, the solicitude of

the admirable King may be conceived, lest a revolution should ensue, and

fling them on the world once more. How could he support so numerous a

family? Considerable as his wealth was (for he was known to have amassed

about a hundred and thirteen billions, which were lying in the caves

of the Tuileries), yet such a sum was quite insignificant, when divided

among his progeny; and, besides, he naturally preferred getting from the

nation as much as his faithful people could possibly afford.

Seeing the imminency of the danger, and that money, well applied, is

often more efficacious than the conqueror's sword, the King's Ministers

were anxious that he should devote a part of his savings to the carrying

on of the war. But, with the cautiousness of age, the monarch declined

this offer; he preferred, he said, throwing himself upon his faithful

people, who, he was sure, would meet, as became them, the coming

exigency. The Chambers met his appeal with their usual devotion. At a

solemn convocation of those legislative bodies, the King, surrounded by

his family, explained the circumstances and the danger. His Majesty,

his family, his Ministers, and the two Chambers, then burst into tears,

according to immemorial usage, and raising their hands to the ceiling,

swore eternal fidelity to the dynasty and to France, and embraced each

other affectingly all round.

It need not be said that in the course of that evening two hundred

Deputies of the Left left Paris, and joined the Prince John Thomas

Napoleon, who was now advanced as far as Dijon: two hundred and

fifty-three (of the Right, the Centre, and Round the Corner,) similarly

quitted the capital to pay their homage to the Duke of Bordeaux. They

were followed, according to their several political predilections, by

the various Ministers and dignitaries of the State. The only Minister

who remained in Paris was Marshal Thiers, Prince of Waterloo (he had

defeated the English in the very field where they had obtained formerly

a success, though the victory was as usual claimed by the Irish

Brigade); but age had ruined the health and diminished the immense

strength of that gigantic leader, and it is said his only reason for

remaining in Paris was because a fit of the gout kept him in bed.

The capital was entirely tranquil. The theatres and cafes were open as

usual, and the masked balls attended with great enthusiasm: confiding in

their hundred and twenty-four forts, the light-minded people had nothing

to fear.

Except in the way of money, the King left nothing undone to conciliate

his people. He even went among them with his umbrella; but they were

little touched with that mark of confidence. He shook hands with

everybody; he distributed crosses of the Legion of Honor in such

multitudes, that red ribbon rose two hundred per cent in the market (by

which his Majesty, who speculated in the article, cleared a tolerable

sum of money). But these blandishments and honors had little effect

upon an apathetic people; and the enemy of the Orleans dynasty, the

fashionable young nobles of the Henriquinquiste party, wore gloves

perpetually, for fear (they said) that they should be obliged to shake

hands with the best of kings; while the republicans adopted coats

without button-holes, lest they should be forced to hang red ribbons in

them. The funds did not fluctuate in the least.

The proclamations of the several pretenders had had their effect. The

young men of the schools and the estaminets (celebrated places of public

education) allured by the noble words of Prince Napoleon, “Liberty,

equality, war all over the world!” flocked to his standard in

considerable numbers: while the noblesse naturally hastened to offer

their allegiance to the legitimate descendant of Saint Louis.

And truly, never was there seen a more brilliant chivalry than that

collected round the gallant Prince Henry! There was not a man in his

army but had lacquered boots and fresh white kid-gloves at morning and

evening parade. The fantastic and effeminate but brave and faithful

troops were numbered off into different legions: there was the

Fleur-d'Orange regiment; the Eau-de-Rose battalion; the Violet-Pomatum

volunteers; the Eau-de-Cologne cavalry--according to the different

scents which they affected. Most of the warriors wore lace ruffles; all

powder and pigtails, as in the real days of chivalry. A band of heavy

dragoons under the command of Count Alfred de Horsay made themselves

conspicuous for their discipline, cruelty, and the admirable cut of

their coats; and with these celebrated horsemen came from England the

illustrious Duke of Jenkins with his superb footmen. They were all six

feet high. They all wore bouquets of the richest flowers: they wore

bags, their hair slightly powdered, brilliant shoulder-knots, and

cocked-hats laced with gold. They wore the tight knee-pantaloon of

velveteen peculiar to this portion of the British infantry: and their

legs were so superb, that the Duke of Bordeaux, embracing with tears

their admirable leader on parade, said, “Jenkins, France never saw such

calves until now.” The weapon of this tremendous militia was an immense

club or cane, reaching from the sole of the foot to the nose, and

heavily mounted with gold. Nothing could stand before this terrific

weapon, and the breast-plates and plumed morions of the French

cuirassiers would have been undoubtedly crushed beneath them, had they

ever met in mortal combat. Between this part of the Prince's forces and

the Irish auxiliaries there was a deadly animosity. Alas, there always

is such in camps! The sons of Albion had not forgotten the day when the

children of Erin had been subject to their devastating sway.

The uniform of the latter was various--the rich stuff called

corps-du-roy (worn by Coeur de Lion at Agincourt) formed their lower

habiliments for the most part: the national frieze* yielded them

tail-coats. The latter was generally torn in a fantastic manner at the

elbows, skirts, and collars, and fastened with every variety of button,

tape, and string. Their weapons were the caubeen, the alpeen, and

the doodeen of the country--the latter a short but dreadful weapon of

offence. At the demise of the venerable Theobald Mathew, the nation had

laid aside its habit of temperance, and universal intoxication betokened

their grief; it became afterwards their constant habit. Thus do men ever

return to the haunts of their childhood: such a power has fond memory

over us! The leaders of this host seem to have been, however, an

effeminate race; they are represented by contemporary historians as

being passionately fond of FLYING KITES. Others say they went into

battle armed with “bills,” no doubt rude weapons; for it is stated that

foreigners could never be got to accept them in lieu of their own arms.

The Princes of Mayo, Donegal, and Connemara, marched by the side of

their young and royal chieftain, the Prince of Ballybunion, fourth son

of Daniel the First, King of the Emerald Isle.

* Were these in any way related to the chevaux-de-frise on

which the French cavalry were mounted?

Two hosts then, one under the Eagles, and surrounded by the republican

imperialists, the other under the antique French Lilies, were marching

on the French capital. The Duke of Brittany, too, confined in the

lunatic asylum of Charenton, found means to issue a protest against his

captivity, which caused only derision in the capital. Such was the state

of the empire, and such the clouds that were gathering round the Sun of

Orleans!

CHAPTER IV.

THE BATTLE OF RHEIMS.

It was not the first time that the King had had to undergo misfortunes;

and now, as then, he met them like a man. The Prince of Joinville was

not successful in his campaign against the Imperial Pretender: and that

bravery which had put the British fleet to flight, was found, as might

be expected, insufficient against the irresistible courage of native

Frenchmen. The Horse Marines, not being on their own element, could not

act with their usual effect. Accustomed to the tumult of the swelling

seas, they were easily unsaddled on terra firma and in the Champagne

country.

It was literally in the Champagne country that the meeting between the

troops under Joinville and Prince Napoleon took place! for both armies

had reached Rheims, and a terrific battle was fought underneath the

walls. For some time nothing could dislodge the army of Joinville,

entrenched in the champagne cellars of Messrs. Ruinart, Moet, and

others; but making too free with the fascinating liquor, the army at

length became entirely drunk: on which the Imperialists, rushing into

the cellars, had an easy victory over them; and, this done, proceeded to

intoxicate themselves likewise.

The Prince of Joinville, seeing the deroute of his troops, was compelled

with a few faithful followers to fly towards Paris, and Prince Napoleon

remained master of the field of battle. It is needless to recapitulate

the bulletin which he published the day after the occasion, so soon as

he and his secretaries were in a condition to write: eagles, pyramids,

rainbows, the sun of Austerlitz, &c., figured in the proclamation, in

close imitation of his illustrious uncle. But the great benefit of the

action was this: on arousing from their intoxication, the late soldiers

of Joinville kissed and embraced their comrades of the Imperial army,

and made common cause with them.

“Soldiers!” said the Prince, on reviewing them the second day after the

action, “the Cock is a gallant bird; but he makes way for the Eagle!

Your colors are not changed. Ours floated on the walls of Moscow--yours

on the ramparts of Constantine; both are glorious. Soldiers of

Joinville! we give you welcome, as we would welcome your illustrious

leader, who destroyed the fleets of Albion. Let him join us! We will

march together against that perfidious enemy.

“But, Soldiers! intoxication dimmed the laurels of yesterday's glorious

day! Let us drink no more of the fascinating liquors of our native

Champagne. Let us remember Hannibal and Capua; and, before we plunge

into dissipation, that we have Rome still to conquer!

“Soldiers! Seltzer-water is good after too much drink. Wait awhile, and

your Emperor will lead you into a Seltzer-water country. Frenchmen! it

lies BEYOND THE RHINE!”

Deafening shouts of “Vive l'Empereur!” saluted this allusion of the

Prince, and the army knew that their natural boundary should be restored

to them. The compliments to the gallantry of the Prince of Joinville

likewise won all hearts, and immensely advanced the Prince's cause. The

Journal des Debats did not know which way to turn. In one paragraph it

called the Emperor “a sanguinary tyrant, murderer, and pickpocket;” in a

second it owned he was “a magnanimous rebel, and worthy of forgiveness;”

and, after proclaiming “the brilliant victory of the Prince of

Joinville,” presently denominated it a “funeste journee.”

The next day the Emperor, as we may now call him, was about to march on

Paris, when Messrs. Ruinart and Moet were presented, and requested to be

paid for 300,000 bottles of wine. “Send three hundred thousand more to

the Tuileries,” said the Prince, sternly: “our soldiers will be thirsty

when they reach Paris.” And taking Moet with him as a hostage, and

promising Ruinart that he would have him shot unless he obeyed, with

trumpets playing and eagles glancing in the sun, the gallant Imperial

army marched on their triumphant way.

CHAPTER V.

THE BATTLE OF TOURS.

We have now to record the expedition of the Prince of Nemours against

his advancing cousin, Henry V. His Royal Highness could not march

against the enemy with such a force as he would have desired to bring

against them; for his royal father, wisely remembering the vast amount

of property he had stowed away under the Tuileries, refused to allow

a single soldier to quit the forts round the capital, which thus

was defended by one hundred and forty-four thousand guns

(eighty-four-pounders), and four hundred and thirty-two thousand

men:--little enough, when one considers that there were but three men

to a gun. To provision this immense army, and a population of double the

amount within the walls, his Majesty caused the country to be scoured

for fifty miles round, and left neither ox, nor ass, nor blade of grass.

When appealed to by the inhabitants of the plundered district, the

royal Philip replied, with tears in his eyes, that his heart bled for

them--that they were his children--that every cow taken from the meanest

peasant was like a limb torn from his own body; but that duty must be

done, that the interests of the country demanded the sacrifice, and

that in fact, they might go to the deuce. This the unfortunate creatures

certainly did.

The theatres went on as usual within the walls. The Journal des Debats

stated every day that the pretenders were taken; the Chambers sat--such

as remained--and talked immensely about honor, dignity, and the glorious

revolution of July; and the King, as his power was now pretty nigh

absolute over them, thought this a good opportunity to bring in a bill

for doubling his children's allowances all round.

Meanwhile the Duke of Nemours proceeded on his march; and as there

was nothing left within fifty miles of Paris wherewith to support his

famished troops, it may be imagined that he was forced to ransack the

next fifty miles in order to maintain them. He did so. But the troops

were not such as they should have been, considering the enemy with whom

they had to engage.

The fact is, that most of the Duke's army consisted of the National

Guard; who, in a fit of enthusiasm, and at the cry of “LA PATRIE EN

DANGER” having been induced to volunteer, had been eagerly accepted

by his Majesty, anxious to lessen as much as possible the number of

food-consumers in his beleaguered capital. It is said even that he

selected the most gormandizing battalions of the civic force to send

forth against the enemy: viz, the grocers, the rich bankers, the

lawyers, &c. Their parting with their families was very affecting. They

would have been very willing to recall their offer of marching, but

companies of stern veterans closing round them, marched them to the

city gates, which were closed upon them; and thus perforce they were

compelled to move on. As long as he had a bottle of brandy and a couple

of sausages in his holsters, the General of the National Guard, Odillon

Barrot, talked with tremendous courage. Such was the power of his

eloquence over the troops, that, could he have come up with the enemy

while his victuals lasted, the issue of the combat might have been very

different. But in the course of the first day's march he finished

both the sausages and the brandy, and became quite uneasy, silent, and

crest-fallen.

It was on the fair plains of Touraine, by the banks of silver Loire,

that the armies sat down before each other, and the battle was to take

place which had such an effect upon the fortunes of France. 'Twas a

brisk day of March: the practised valor of Nemours showed him at once

what use to make of the army under his orders, and having enfiladed

his National Guard battalions, and placed his artillery in echelons,

he formed his cavalry into hollow squares on the right and left of

his line, flinging out a cloud of howitzers to fall back upon the

main column. His veteran infantry he formed behind his National

Guard--politely hinting to Odillon Barrot, who wished to retire under

pretence of being exceedingly unwell, that the regular troops would

bayonet the National Guard if they gave way an inch: on which their

General, turning very pale, demurely went back to his post. His men were

dreadfully discouraged; they had slept on the ground all night; they

regretted their homes and their comfortable nightcaps in the Rue St.

Honore: they had luckily fallen in with a flock of sheep and a drove

of oxen at Tours the day before; but what were these, compared to the

delicacies of Chevet's or three courses at Vefour's? They mournfully

cooked their steaks and cutlets on their ramrods, and passed a most

wretched night.

The army of Henry was encamped opposite to them for the most part in

better order. The noble cavalry regiments found a village in which they

made themselves pretty comfortable, Jenkins's Foot taking possession of

the kitchens and garrets of the buildings. The Irish Brigade, accustomed

to lie abroad, were quartered in some potato fields, where they sang

Moore's melodies all night. There were, besides the troops regular and

irregular, about three thousand priests and abbes with the army, armed

with scourging-whips, and chanting the most lugubrious canticles: these

reverend men were found to be a hindrance rather than otherwise to the

operations of the regular forces.

It was a touching sight, on the morning before the battle, to see the

alacrity with which Jenkins's regiment sprung up at the FIRST reveille

of the bell, and engaged (the honest fellows!) in offices almost

menial for the benefit of their French allies. The Duke himself set the

example, and blacked to a nicety the boots of Henri. At half-past ten,

after coffee, the brilliant warriors of the cavalry were ready; their

clarions rung to horse, their banners were given to the wind, their

shirt-collars were exquisitely starched, and the whole air was scented

with the odors of their pomatums and pocket-handkerchiefs.

Jenkins had the honor of holding the stirrup for Henri. “My faithful

Duke!” said the Prince, pulling him by the shoulder-knot, “thou art

always at THY POST.” “Here, as in Wellington Street, sire,” said

the hero, blushing. And the Prince made an appropriate speech to his

chivalry, in which allusions to the lilies, Saint Louis, Bayard

and Henri Quatre, were, as may be imagined, not spared. “Ho!

standard-bearer!” the Prince concluded, “fling out my oriflamme. Noble

gents of France, your King is among you to-day!”

Then turning to the Prince of Ballybunion, who had been drinking

whiskey-punch all night with the Princes of Donegal and Connemara,

“Prince,” he said, “the Irish Brigade has won every battle in the French

history--we will not deprive you of the honor of winning this. You will

please to commence the attack with your brigade.” Bending his head until

the green plumes of his beaver mingled with the mane of the Shetland

pony which he rode, the Prince of Ireland trotted off with his

aides-de-camp; who rode the same horses, powerful grays, with which a

dealer at Nantz had supplied them on their and the Prince's joint bill

at three months.

The gallant sons of Erin had wisely slept until the last minute in

their potato-trenches, but rose at once at the summons of their beloved

Prince. Their toilet was the work of a moment--a single shake and it

was done. Rapidly forming into a line, they advanced headed by their

Generals,--who, turning their steeds into a grass-field, wisely

determined to fight on foot. Behind them came the line of British

foot under the illustrious Jenkins, who marched in advance perfectly

collected, and smoking a Manilla cigar. The cavalry were on the right

and left of the infantry, prepared to act in pontoon, in echelon, or in

ricochet, as occasion might demand. The Prince rode behind, supported by

his Staff, who were almost all of them bishops, archdeacons, or abbes;

and the body of ecclesiastics followed, singing to the sound, or rather

howl, of serpents and trombones, the Latin canticles of the Reverend

Franciscus O'Mahony, lately canonized under the name of Saint Francis of

Cork.

The advanced lines of the two contending armies were now in

presence--the National Guard of Orleans and the Irish Brigade. The white

belts and fat paunches of the Guard presented a terrific appearance; but

it might have been remarked by the close observer, that their faces were

as white as their belts, and the long line of their bayonets might be

seen to quiver. General Odillon Barrot, with a cockade as large as

a pancake, endeavored to make a speech: the words honneur, patrie,

Francais, champ de bataille might be distinguished; but the General was

dreadfully flustered, and was evidently more at home in the Chamber of

Deputies than in the field of war.

The Prince of Ballybunion, for a wonder, did not make a speech. “Boys,”

said he, “we've enough talking at the Corn Exchange; bating's the word

now.” The Green-Islanders replied with a tremendous hurroo, which sent

terror into the fat bosoms of the French.

“Gentlemen of the National Guard,” said the Prince, taking off his hat

and bowing to Odillon Barrot, “will ye be so igsthramely obleeging as

to fire first.” This he said because it had been said at Fontenoy,

but chiefly because his own men were only armed with shillelaghs, and

therefore could not fire.

But this proposal was very unpalatable to the National Guardsmen: for

though they understood the musket-exercise pretty well, firing was the

thing of all others they detested--the noise, and the kick of the gun,

and the smell of the powder being very unpleasant to them. “We won't

fire,” said Odillon Barrot, turning round to Colonel Saugrenue and his

regiment of the line--which, it may be remembered, was formed behind the

National Guard.

“Then give them the bayonet,” said the Colonel, with a terrific oath.

“Charge, corbleu!”

At this moment, and with the most dreadful howl that ever was heard,

the National Guard was seen to rush forwards wildly, and with immense

velocity, towards the foe. The fact is, that the line regiment behind

them, each selecting his man, gave a poke with his bayonet between the

coat-tails of the Nationals, and those troops bounded forward with an

irresistible swiftness.

Nothing could withstand the tremendous impetus of that manoeuvre. The

Irish Brigade was scattered before it, as chaff before the wind. The

Prince of Ballybunion had barely time to run Odillon Barrot through

the body, when he too was borne away in the swift rout. They scattered

tumultuously, and fled for twenty miles without stopping. The Princes of

Donegal and Connemara were taken prisoners; but though they offered to

give bills at three months, and for a hundred thousand pounds, for their

ransom, the offer was refused, and they were sent to the rear; when the

Duke of Nemours, hearing they were Irish Generals, and that they had

been robbed of their ready money by his troops, who had taken them

prisoners, caused a comfortable breakfast to be supplied to them, and

lent them each a sum of money. How generous are men in success!--the

Prince of Orleans was charmed with the conduct of his National Guards,

and thought his victory secure. He despatched a courier to Paris with

the brief words, “We met the enemy before Tours. The National Guard has

done its duty. The troops of the pretender are routed. Vive le Roi!”

The note, you may be sure, appeared in the Journal des Debats, and the

editor, who only that morning had called Henri V. “a great prince,

an august exile,” denominated him instantly a murderer, slave, thief,

cut-throat, pickpocket, and burglar.

CHAPTER VI.

THE ENGLISH UNDER JENKINS.

But the Prince had not calculated that there was a line of British

infantry behind the routed Irish Brigade. Borne on with the hurry of

the melee, flushed with triumph, puffing and blowing with running, and

forgetting, in the intoxication of victory, the trifling bayonet-pricks

which had impelled them to the charge, the conquering National Guardsmen

found themselves suddenly in presence of Jenkins's Foot.

They halted all in a huddle, like a flock of sheep.

“UP, FOOT, AND AT THEM!” were the memorable words of the Duke Jenkins,

as, waving his baton, he pointed towards the enemy, and with a

tremendous shout the stalwart sons of England rushed on!--Down went

plume and cocked-hat, down went corporal and captain, down went grocer

and tailor, under the long staves of the indomitable English Footmen.

“A Jenkins! a Jenkins!” roared the Duke, planting a blow which broke the

aquiline nose of Major Arago, the celebrated astronomer. “St. George for

Mayfair!” shouted his followers, strewing the plain with carcasses. Not

a man of the Guard escaped; they fell like grass before the mower.

“They are gallant troops, those yellow-plushed Anglais,” said the Duke

of Nemours, surveying them with his opera-glass. “'Tis a pity they will

all be cut up in half an hour. Concombre! take your dragoons, and do

it!” “Remember Waterloo, boys!” said Colonel Concombre, twirling his

moustache, and a thousand sabres flashed in the sun, and the gallant

hussars prepared to attack the Englishmen.

Jenkins, his gigantic form leaning on his staff, and surveying the havoc

of the field, was instantly aware of the enemy's manoeuvre. His people

were employed rifling the pockets of the National Guard, and had made a

tolerable booty, when the great Duke, taking a bell out of his pocket,

(it was used for signals in his battalion in place of fife or bugle,)

speedily called his scattered warriors together. “Take the muskets of

the Nationals,” said he. They did so. “Form in square, and prepare to

receive cavalry!” By the time Concombre's regiment arrived, he found a

square of bristling bayonets with Britons behind them!

The Colonel did not care to attempt to break that tremendous body.

“Halt!” said he to his men.

“Fire!” screamed Jenkins, with eagle swiftness; but the guns of the

National Guard not being loaded, did not in consequence go off. The

hussars gave a jeer of derision, but nevertheless did not return to the

attack, and seeing some of the Legitimist cavalry at hand, prepared to

charge upon them.

The fate of those carpet warriors was soon decided. The Millefleur

regiment broke before Concombre's hussars instantaneously; the

Eau-de-Rose dragoons stuck spurs into their blood horses, and galloped

far out of reach of the opposing cavalry; the Eau-de-Cologne lancers

fainted to a man, and the regiment of Concombre, pursuing its course,

had actually reached the Prince and his aides-de-camp, when the

clergymen coming up formed gallantly round the oriflamme, and the

bassoons and serpents braying again, set up such a shout of canticles,

and anathemas, and excommunications, that the horses of Concombre's

dragoons in turn took fright, and those warriors in their turn broke and

fled. As soon as they turned, the Vendean riflemen fired amongst them

and finished them: the gallant Concombre fell; the intrepid though

diminutive Cornichon, his major, was cut down; Cardon was wounded a la

moelle, and the wife of the fiery Navet was that day a widow. Peace to

the souls of the brave! In defeat or in victory, where can the soldier

find a more fitting resting-place than the glorious field of carnage?

Only a few disorderly and dispirited riders of Concombre's regiment

reached Tours at night. They had left it but the day before, a thousand

disciplined and high-spirited men!

Knowing how irresistible a weapon is the bayonet in British hands, the

intrepid Jenkins determined to carry on his advantage, and charged the

Saugrenue light infantry (now before him) with COLD STEEL. The Frenchmen

delivered a volley, of which a shot took effect in Jenkins's cockade,

but did not abide the crossing of the weapons. “A Frenchman dies, but

never surrenders,” said Saugrenue, yielding up his sword, and his whole

regiment were stabbed, trampled down, or made prisoners. The blood of

the Englishmen rose in the hot encounter. Their curses were horrible;

their courage tremendous. “On! on!” hoarsely screamed they; and a second

regiment met them and was crushed, pounded in the hurtling, grinding

encounter. “A Jenkins, a Jenkins!” still roared the heroic Duke: “St.

George for Mayfair!” The Footmen of England still yelled their terrific

battle-cry, “Hurra, hurra!” On they went; regiment after regiment

was annihilated, until, scared at the very trample of the advancing

warriors, the dismayed troops of France screaming fled. Gathering

his last warriors round about him, Nemours determined to make a last

desperate effort. 'Twas vain: the ranks met; the next moment the

truncheon of the Prince of Orleans was dashed from his hand by the

irresistible mace of the Duke Jenkins; his horse's shins were broken by

the same weapon. Screaming with agony the animal fell. Jenkins's hand

was at the Duke's collar in a moment, and had he not gasped out, “Je me

rends!” he would have been throttled in that dreadful grasp!

Three hundred and forty-two standards, seventy-nine regiments, their

baggage, ammunition, and treasure-chests, fell into the hands of the

victorious Duke. He had avenged the honor of Old England; and himself

presenting the sword of the conquered Nemours to Prince Henri, who now

came up, the Prince bursting into tears, fell on his neck and said,

“Duke, I owe my crown to my patron saint and you.” It was indeed a

glorious victory: but what will not British valor attain?

The Duke of Nemours, having despatched a brief note to Paris, saying,

“Sire, all is lost except honor!” was sent off in confinement; and in

spite of the entreaties of his captor, was hardly treated with decent

politeness. The priests and the noble regiments who rode back when the

affair was over, were for having the Prince shot at once, and murmured

loudly against “cet Anglais brutal” who interposed in behalf of the

prisoner. Henri V. granted the Prince his life; but, no doubt misguided

by the advice of his noble and ecclesiastical counsellors, treated the

illustrious English Duke with marked coldness, and did not even ask him

to supper that night.

“Well!” said Jenkins, “I and my merry men can sup alone.” And, indeed,

having had the pick of the plunder of about 28,000 men, they had

wherewithal to make themselves pretty comfortable. The prisoners

(25,403) were all without difficulty induced to assume the white

cockade. Most of them had those marks of loyalty ready sewn in their

flannel-waistcoats, where they swore they had worn them ever since 1830.

This we may believe, and we will; but the Prince Henri was too politic

or too good-humored in the moment of victory, to doubt the sincerity of

his new subjects' protestations, and received the Colonels and Generals

affably at his table.

The next morning a proclamation was issued to the united armies.

“Faithful soldiers of France and Navarre,” said the Prince, “the saints

have won for us a great victory--the enemies of our religion have

been overcome--the lilies are restored to their native soil. Yesterday

morning at eleven o'clock the army under my command engaged that which

was led by his SERENE Highness the Duke de Nemours. Our forces were but

a third in number when compared with those of the enemy. My faithful

chivalry and nobles made the strength, however, equal.

“The regiments of Fleur-d'Orange, Millefleur, and Eau-de-Cologne covered

themselves with glory: they sabred many thousands of the enemy's troops.

Their valor was ably seconded by the gallantry of my ecclesiastical

friends: at a moment of danger they rallied round my banner, and

forsaking the crosier for the sword, showed that they were of the church

militant indeed.

“My faithful Irish auxiliaries conducted themselves with becoming

heroism--but why particularize when all did their duty? How remember

individual acts when all were heroes?” The Marshal of France,

Sucre d'Orgeville, Commander of the Army of H.M. Christian Majesty,

recommended about three thousand persons for promotion; and the

indignation of Jenkins and his brave companions may be imagined when it

is stated that they were not even mentioned in the despatch!

As for the Princes of Ballybunion, Donegal, and Connemara, they wrote

off despatches to their Government, saying, “The Duke of Nemours is

beaten, and a prisoner! The Irish Brigade has done it all!” On which

his Majesty the King of the Irish, convoking his Parliament at the

Corn Exchange Palace, Dublin, made a speech, in which he called Louis

Philippe an “old miscreant,” and paid the highest compliments to his son

and his troops. The King on this occasion knighted Sir Henry Sheehan,

Sir Gavan Duffy (whose journals had published the news), and was so

delighted with the valor of his son, that he despatched him his order

of the Pig and Whistle (1st class), and a munificent present of five

hundred thousand pounds--in a bill at three months. All Dublin was

illuminated; and at a ball at the Castle the Lord Chancellor Smith

(Earl of Smithereens) getting extremely intoxicated, called out the Lord

Bishop of Galway (the Dove), and they fought in the Phoenix Park. Having

shot the Right Reverend Bishop through the body, Smithereens apologized.

He was the same practitioner who had rendered himself so celebrated in

the memorable trial of the King--before the Act of Independence.

Meanwhile, the army of Prince Henri advanced with rapid strides towards

Paris, whither the History likewise must hasten; for extraordinary were

the events preparing in that capital.

CHAPTER VII.

THE LEAGUER OF PARIS.

By a singular coincidence, on the very same day when the armies of Henri

V. appeared before Paris from the Western Road, those of the Emperor

John Thomas Napoleon arrived from the North. Skirmishes took place

between the advanced-guards of the two parties, and much slaughter

ensued.

“Bon!” thought King Louis Philippe, who examined them from his tower;

“they will kill each other. This is by far the most economical way of

getting rid of them.” The astute monarch's calculations were admirably

exposed by a clever remark of the Prince of Ballybunion. “Faix, Harry,”

says he (with a familiarity which the punctilious son of Saint Louis

resented), “you and him yandther--the Emperor, I mane--are like the

Kilkenny cats, dear.”

“Et que font-ils ces chats de Kilkigny, Monsieur le Prince de

Ballybunion?” asked the Most Christian King haughtily.

Prince Daniel replied by narrating the well-known apologue of the

animals “ating each other all up but their TEELS; and that's what you

and Imparial Pop yondther will do, blazing away as ye are,” added the

jocose and royal boy.

“Je prie votre Altesse Royale de vaguer a ses propres affaires,”

answered Prince Henri sternly: for he was an enemy to anything like a

joke; but there is always wisdom in real wit, and it would have been

well for his Most Christian Majesty had he followed the facetious

counsels of his Irish ally.

The fact is, the King, Henri, had an understanding with the garrisons of

some of the forts, and expected all would declare for him. However, of

the twenty-four forts which we have described, eight only--and by

the means of Marshal Soult, who had grown extremely devout of late

years--declared for Henri, and raised the white flag: while eight

others, seeing Prince John Thomas Napoleon before them in the costume

of his revered predecessor, at once flung open their gates to him, and

mounted the tricolor with the eagle. The remaining eight, into which the

Princes of the blood of Orleans had thrown themselves, remained

constant to Louis Philippe. Nothing could induce that Prince to quit the

Tuileries. His money was there, and he swore he would remain by it. In

vain his sons offered to bring him into one of the forts--he would not

stir without his treasure. They said they would transport it thither;

but no, no: the patriarchal monarch, putting his finger to his aged

nose, and winking archly, said “he knew a trick worth two of that,” and

resolved to abide by his bags.

The theatres and cafes remained open as usual: the funds rose three

centimes. The Journal des Debats published three editions of different

tones of politics: one, the Journal de l'Empire, for the Napoleonites;

the Journal de la Legitimite another, very complimentary to the

Legitimate monarch; and finally, the original edition, bound heart

and soul to the dynasty of July. The poor editor, who had to write all

three, complained not a little that his salary was not raised: but the

truth is, that, by altering the names, one article did indifferently for

either paper. The Duke of Brittany, under the title of Louis XVII., was

always issuing manifestoes from Charenton, but of these the Parisians

took little heed: the Charivari proclaimed itself his Gazette, and was

allowed to be very witty at the expense of the three pretenders.

As the country had been ravaged for a hundred miles round, the

respective Princes of course were for throwing themselves into the

forts, where there was plenty of provision; and, when once there, they

speedily began to turn out such of the garrison as were disagreeable to

them, or had an inconvenient appetite, or were of a doubtful fidelity.

These poor fellows turned into the road, had no choice but starvation;

as to getting into Paris, that was impossible: a mouse could not have

got into the place, so admirably were the forts guarded, without having

his head taken off by a cannon-ball. Thus the three conflicting parties

stood, close to each other, hating each other, “willing to wound and

yet afraid to strike”--the victuals in the forts, from the prodigious

increase of the garrisons, getting smaller every day. As for Louis

Philippe in his palace, in the centre of the twenty-four forts, knowing

that a spark from one might set them all blazing away, and that he and

his money-bags might be blown into eternity in ten minutes, you may

fancy his situation was not very comfortable.

But his safety lay in his treasure. Neither the Imperialists nor

the Bourbonites were willing to relinquish the two hundred and fifty

billions in gold; nor would the Princes of Orleans dare to fire upon

that considerable sum of money, and its possessor, their revered father.

How was this state of things to end? The Emperor sent a note to his Most

Christian Majesty (for they always styled each other in this manner in

their communications), proposing that they should turn out and decide

the quarrel sword in hand; to which proposition Henri would have

acceded, but that the priests, his ghostly counsellors, threatened to

excommunicate him should he do so. Hence this simple way of settling the

dispute was impossible.

The presence of the holy fathers caused considerable annoyance in the

forts. Especially the poor English, as Protestants, were subject to much

petty persecution, to the no small anger of Jenkins, their commander.

And it must be confessed that these intrepid Footmen were not so

amenable to discipline as they might have been. Remembering the usages

of merry England, they clubbed together, and swore they would have four

meals of meat a day, wax-candles in the casemates, and their porter.

These demands were laughed at: the priests even called upon them to fast

on Fridays; on which a general mutiny broke out in the regiment; and

they would have had a FOURTH standard raised before Paris--viz., that

of England--but the garrison proving too strong for them, they were

compelled to lay down their sticks; and, in consideration of past

services, were permitted to leave the forts. 'Twas well for them! as you

shall hear.

The Prince of Ballybunion and the Irish force were quartered in the fort

which, in compliment to them, was called Fort Potato, and where they

made themselves as comfortable as circumstances would admit. The Princes

had as much brandy as they liked, and passed their time on the ramparts

playing at dice, or pitch-and-toss (with the halfpenny that one of

them somehow had) for vast sums of money, for which they gave their

notes-of-hand. The warriors of their legion would stand round delighted;

and it was, “Musha, Master Dan, but that's a good throw!” “Good luck to

you, Misther Pat, and throw thirteen this time!” and so forth. But this

sort of inaction could not last long. They had heard of the treasures

amassed in the palace of the Tuileries: they sighed when they thought

of the lack of bullion in their green and beautiful country. They panted

for war! They formed their plan.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE BATTLE OF THE FORTS.

On the morning of the 26th October, 1884, as his Majesty Louis Philippe

was at breakfast reading the Debats newspaper, and wishing that what

the journal said about “Cholera Morbus in the Camp of the

Pretender Henri,”--“Chicken-pox raging in the Forts of the Traitor

Bonaparte,”--might be true, what was his surprise to hear the report

of a gun; and at the same instant--whiz! came an eighty-four-pound ball

through the window and took off the head of the faithful Monsieur de

Montalivet, who was coming in with a plate of muffins.

“Three francs for the window,” said the monarch; “and the muffins of

course spoiled!” and he sat down to breakfast very peevishly. Ah, King

Louis Philippe, that shot cost thee more than a window-pane--more than

a plate of muffins--it cost thee a fair kingdom and fifty millions of

tax-payers.

The shot had been fired from Fort Potato. “Gracious heavens!” said the

commander of the place to the Irish Prince, in a fury, “What has your

Highness done?” “Faix,” replied the other, “Donegal and I saw a sparrow

on the Tuileries, and we thought we'd have a shot at it, that's all.”

“Hurroo! look out for squalls,” here cried the intrepid Hibernian; for

at this moment one of Paixhans' shells fell into the counterscarp of the

demilune on which they were standing, and sent a ravelin and a couple of

embrasures flying about their ears.

Fort Twenty-three, which held out for Louis Philippe, seeing Fort

Twenty-four, or Potato, open a fire on the Tuileries, instantly replied

by its guns, with which it blazed away at the Bourbonite fort. On seeing

this, Fort Twenty-two, occupied by the Imperialists, began pummelling

Twenty-three; Twenty-one began at Twenty-two; and in a quarter of an

hour the whole of this vast line of fortification was in a blaze of

flame, flashing, roaring, cannonading, rocketing, bombing, in the most

tremendous manner. The world has never perhaps, before or since, heard

such an uproar. Fancy twenty-four thousand guns thundering at each

other. Fancy the sky red with the fires of hundreds of thousands of

blazing, brazen meteors; the air thick with impenetrable smoke--the

universe almost in a flame! for the noise of the cannonading was heard

on the peaks of the Andes, and broke three windows in the English

factory at Canton. Boom, boom, boom! for three days incessantly the

gigantic--I may say, Cyclopean battle went on: boom, boom, boom, bong!

The air was thick with cannon-balls: they hurtled, they jostled each

other in the heavens, and fell whizzing, whirling, crashing, back into

the very forts from which they came. Boom, boom, boom, bong--brrwrrwrrr!

On the second day a band might have been seen (had the smoke permitted

it) assembling at the sally-port of Fort Potato, and have been heard

(if the tremendous clang of the cannonading had allowed it) giving

mysterious signs and countersigns. “Tom,” was the word whispered,

“Steele” was the sibilated response. (It is astonishing how, in the

roar of elements, THE HUMAN WHISPER hisses above all!) It was the

Irish Brigade assembling. “Now or never, boys!” said their leaders; and

sticking their doodeens into their mouths, they dropped stealthily into

the trenches, heedless of the broken glass and sword-blades; rose from

those trenches; formed in silent order; and marched to Paris. They

knew they could arrive there unobserved--nobody, indeed, remarked their

absence.

The frivolous Parisians were, in the meanwhile, amusing themselves

at their theatres and cafes as usual; and a new piece, in which Arnal

performed, was the universal talk of the foyers: while a new feuilleton

by Monsieur Eugene Sue, kept the attention of the reader so fascinated

to the journal, that they did not care in the least for the vacarme

without the walls.

CHAPTER IX.

LOUIS XVII.

The tremendous cannonading, however, had a singular effect upon the

inhabitants of the great public hospital of Charenton, in which it may

be remembered Louis XVII. had been, as in mockery, confined. His majesty

of demeanor, his calm deportment, the reasonableness of his pretensions,

had not failed to strike with awe and respect his four thousand comrades

of captivity. The Emperor of China, the Princess of the Moon, Julius

Caesar, Saint Genevieve, the patron saint of Paris, the Pope of Rome,

the Cacique of Mexico, and several singular and illustrious personages

who happened to be confined there, all held a council with Louis XVII.;

and all agreed that now or never was the time to support his legitimate

pretensions to the Crown of France. As the cannons roared around

them, they howled with furious delight in response. They took counsel

together: Dr. Pinel and the infamous jailers, who, under the name of

keepers, held them in horrible captivity, were pounced upon and overcome

in a twinkling. The strait-waistcoats were taken off from the wretched

captives languishing in the dungeons; the guardians were invested in

these shameful garments, and with triumphant laughter plunged under the

Douches. The gates of the prison were flung open, and they marched forth

in the blackness of the storm!

*****

On the third day, the cannonading was observed to decrease; only a gun

went off fitfully now and then.

*****

On the fourth day, the Parisians said to one another, “Tiens! ils sont

fatigues, les cannoniers des forts!”--and why? Because there was no more

powder?--Ay, truly, there WAS no more powder.

There was no more powder, no more guns, no more gunners, no more forts,

no more nothing. THE FORTS HAD BLOWN EACH OTHER UP. The battle-roar

ceased. The battle-clouds rolled off. The silver moon, the twinkling

stars, looked blandly down from the serene azure,--and all was

peace--stillness--the stillness of death. Holy, holy silence!

Yes: the battle of Paris was over. And where were the combatants? All

gone--not one left!--And where was Louis Philippe? The venerable Prince

was a captive in the Tuileries; the Irish Brigade was encamped around

it: they had reached the palace a little too late; it was already

occupied by the partisans of his Majesty Louis XVII.

That respectable monarch and his followers better knew the way to the

Tuileries than the ignorant sons of Erin. They burst through the feeble

barriers of the guards; they rushed triumphant into the kingly halls

of the palace; they seated the seventeenth Louis on the throne of his

ancestors; and the Parisians read in the Journal des Debats, of the

fifth of November; an important article, which proclaimed that the civil

war was concluded:--

“The troubles which distracted the greatest empire in the world are at

an end. Europe, which marked with sorrow the disturbances which agitated

the bosom of the Queen of Nations, the great leader of Civilization,

may now rest in peace. That monarch whom we have long been sighing for;

whose image has lain hidden, and yet oh! how passionately worshipped,

in every French heart, is with us once more. Blessings be on him;

blessings--a thousand blessings upon the happy country which is at

length restored to his beneficent, his legitimate, his reasonable sway!

“His Most Christian Majesty Louis XVII. yesterday arrived at his palace

of the Tulleries, accompanied by his august allies. His Royal Highness

the Duke of Orleans has resigned his post as Lieutenant-General of the

kingdom, and will return speedily to take up his abode at the Palais

Royal. It is a great mercy that the children of his Royal Highness, who

happened to be in the late forts round Paris, (before the bombardment

which has so happily ended in their destruction,) had returned to their

father before the commencement of the cannonading. They will continue,

as heretofore, to be the most loyal supporters of order and the throne.

“None can read without tears in their eyes our august monarch's

proclamation.

“'Louis, by &c.--

“'My children! After nine hundred and ninety-nine years of captivity, I

am restored to you. The cycle of events predicted by the ancient Magi,

and the planetary convolutions mentioned in the lost Sibylline books,

have fulfilled their respective idiosyncrasies, and ended (as always in

the depths of my dungeons I confidently expected) in the triumph of the

good Angel, and the utter discomfiture of the abominable Blue Dragon.

“'When the bombarding began, and the powers of darkness commenced their

hellish gunpowder evolutions, I was close by--in my palace of Charenton,

three hundred and thirty-three thousand miles off, in the ring of

Saturn--I witnessed your misery. My heart was affected by it, and I

said, “Is the multiplication-table a fiction? are the signs of the

Zodiac mere astronomers' prattle?”