“I think you will,” replied Westover, musing. “I think you will. I

remember some conversation with the king, which makes me judge so. He

can have had no reason to change his opinion since; but at all events I

will see him first and ascertain.”

He spoke very thoughtfully, and gave no explanation of the strange fact,

that he should have had a conversation, referring to myself, with Louis

the Eighteenth, before he ever saw me. But during the last two or three

months, one circumstance after another, fact following fact, incident

coming after incident, had accumulated a mass of little proofs which

brought conviction to my mind, that there was some strong, though secret

bond between Westover’s family and myself. However, I agreed to his

proposal at once. He sent a servant to take places in the coach for the

following day, and ere another night fell we were in Yarmouth.

We found that the king, with his small suite, was lodging in the same

hotel with ourselves, and Westover at once sent to request an interview

on the following morning, which was immediately promised, with a very

courteous message in reply.

At the hour appointed he went, and I remained with some impatience,

thinking him very long. Not more than half an hour, however, passed in

reality, before he returned, saying, “Quick, De Lacy, his majesty will

see you at once. Go to him, go to him. He is prepared for you.”

I went away accordingly, leaving him there, as he did not seem inclined

to accompany me, and was introduced by a mere servant who was stationed

at the door, into the poor, small drawing-room of the inn, which had

been assigned to the French prince. I found an ordinary looking man,

somewhat inclined to corpulence—though he was not so fat as he

afterward became—standing near a table. His manners, however, if not

his appearance, at once displayed the prince. He took one step forward,

as if to meet me, and held out his hand to me, saying, “Monsieur De

Lacy, I am very happy to see you. It is most grateful to me to receive

such kind visits from my countrymen and fellows in misfortune. The

attachment of some of the noblest hearts of France, is no slight

compensation for all the ills I have suffered.”

I bent my head to his hand and kissed it, saying, “I trust, sire, that

you never will find any of my name, or race, without that warm

attachment which I am sure your majesty deserves.”

I had no intention whatsoever in this reply, of leading up to any thing;

but the king seemed to think I had some particular allusion, and

answered at once. “I am sure of it, Monsieur De Lacy. I always was quite

sure of it. In your poor father’s case I never entertained a doubt. I

was certain all through—to the very end, and am now—that he was the

victim of a foul conspiracy. Kings can but act, you know, according to

the lights that are permitted them, and I mean not to throw the

slightest blame upon my poor brother. He acted by the advice of

ministers whom he loved and respected. The judgment of a regularly

constituted court had been pronounced, and he cannot be censured for

having suffered it to be carried into execution, contrary to all the

impulses of his own heart. I could not have done so; for I was fully

convinced of your father’s innocence; but his judgment was misled by a

very artful knave.”

I was greatly agitated, but I replied, “I am so little aware, sire, of

my father’s fate and history, that I hardly comprehend your majesty’s

meaning. With the mistaken motive of sparing me pain, I believe, I have

been kept in ignorance of what I know must be a very sorrowful history.”

“Your friends were wrong, Monsieur De Lacy. Very wrong, I think,”

replied the king. “It is but right and necessary that you should know

the whole; for the vindication of your father’s name may be a task which

you have still to fulfill. Pray sit down, and I will give you a brief

account of the matter—Only let me hint, in the first place, that, for

the present, you must drop the title of majesty with me. I am here only

the Count de Lille.”

“I, at least, can never forget that you are a king, and my king,” I

replied.

“Spoken like your father’s son,” said Louis, seating himself, and

pointing to a chair, and he then proceeded thus: “Your father, Monsieur

De Lacy, was a very gallant and distinguished officer, of an Irish

family long settled in France. He was employed in England, for some

time, in a diplomatic capacity; and a few years after, was appointed to

a command in one of our East Indian possessions. War had by this time

broken out between France and England, and the great preponderance of

the latter country in the East, rendered the maintenance of our

territories there very difficult. The derangement of the finances, and

the daily increasing embarrassments of the government, prevented our

commanding officers, in distant parts of the world, from receiving

sufficient support. Your father was besieged by the English, in a

fortress, naturally very strong, but ill-furnished with provisions,

ammunition, or men. He made, what was considered by all at the time, a

very gallant defense, but in the end, was forced to surrender the place

upon an honorable capitulation. On his return to France, he was well

received; but his friends, rather than himself, sought for some

distinguishing mark of his sovereign’s favor and approval, and demanded

for him a high office at the court, which I happened to know, was an

object of eager ambition to a personage called the Marquis de

Carcassonne—indeed, he applied to me for my interest in the matter,

which I refused. Your father would certainly have obtained it; but there

began to be spread rumors about the court, which soon assumed

consistence and a very formidable aspect, to which various

circumstances, and especially the fact of your father having married an

English lady, gave undue weight. It was said that he had sold the

fortress to the English; that he had surrendered long before it was

necessary; that he had not obtained so favorable a capitulation as he

might have done. The charges in the end became so distinct, that your

father himself, demanded to be tried. He was accordingly, what we call,

put in accusation, and the cause was heard. One little incident I must

not forget. This Marquis de Carcassonne said, in the hearing of several

persons who were sure to repeat his words, that it mattered not what was

the result of the trial, as your father was sure to be pardoned, even if

he were condemned. This observation was reported to the king, who said,

with some warmth, that nothing should induce him to interfere with the

sentence of the court, whatever it might be. At the trial, overpowering

evidence, as it seemed to me, was brought forward to show the state of

the fortress, and the utter impossibility of defending it longer than

had been done; but on the other hand, to the surprise of every one, two

letters were produced, purporting to be part of the correspondence

between your father and the English general. Your father loudly declared

that they were forgeries; but then came forward the Marquis de

Carcassonne, who had had some correspondence with your father when in

India, and swore distinctly that the letter purporting to be the

prisoner’s, was verily in his handwriting. Many doubted—few believed,

this assertion. Various differences were pointed out between your

father’s hand and that in which the letter was written, and your father

might probably have escaped. But two circumstances combined to destroy

him. Public clamor was, at that time, raised to the highest pitch, in

regard to the loss of our possessions in India; it was necessary that

there should be some victim to atone for the faults of a feeble and

inefficient ministry, and at the same time, a man was brought forward to

account for the discovery of these letters, by swearing that he had

found them in your father’s own cabinet. He was a mean apothecary of

Paris, who was accustomed to go a good deal to the house, in attendance

upon the servants. But he acknowledged the base act of having privately

read and possessed himself of these documents. The man had been born

upon the estates of the Marquis de Carcassonne, and brought up by his

father. This rendered his evidence suspicious, at least to me; but it

weighed with the judges, and the result was that your father was

condemned. I need not dwell upon all the horrible events that followed.

Suffice it to say, that a man as brave and honorable, I believe, as ever

lived, was executed unjustly, that a stain was cast upon a high and

distinguished name, and that the whole of the fine estates of the family

were confiscated.”

I need hardly say with what emotion I listened to this detail, and I

remained for several moments in silence, with my head bent down, and

full of indignation and grief which I could not venture to express. The

king saw how greatly I was affected, and very kindly strove to soothe

me. “If it will be any comfort to you, Monsieur De Lacy,” he said, “I

give you the most solemn assurance, that I never for a moment believed

your father guilty, and that should fortune ever restore us to our own

country, I shall take the necessary steps for having your father’s

sentence reversed, and his memory justified. I am not singular in my

opinions upon this subject; for when the people recovered their senses,

after your father’s death, the indignation excited against his accusers

was so great, that the apothecary who had produced the letters was

forced to quit France.”

“Was his name Giraud, sire?” I asked.

The king bowed his head, and went on, “Perhaps if he is still living,”

he said, “the man might be induced to tell the truth. Monsieur de

Carcassonne is still living, I know, but he also found it convenient to

travel, and never obtained the post for which he played so deep a game.

I am inclined to think the forgery was his; for I know that he forged

the letters of a woman, and we therefore may well suppose he would not

scruple to forge the letters of a man.”

In the midst of all the many thoughts to which this account gave rise,

one idea presented itself prominently to my mind. The king had mentioned

that my mother was an English-woman. Might he not tell me who she was?

But just as I was about to put the question, three other French

gentlemen were introduced, and I was obliged to refrain for the time,

although I determined to seek another opportunity of making the inquiry.

I retired then with an expression of my gratitude, and rejoined Westover

in our little sitting-room.

He inquired eagerly into the particulars of my interview with the king,

and I related to him the whole.

“Is that all,” he said. “Did he tell you nothing more?”

“Nothing, Westover,” I answered, “but we were interrupted before my

audience was fairly at an end. He told me,” I added, somewhat

emphatically, “who my father was, and what was his unhappy fate. He did

not tell me who my mother was, but that I will soon know, Westover.”

My friend mused in silence for some minutes, and then said, “Let us

first see what can be made of this Marquis de Carcassonne. I have great

hopes in the skill and policy of your good old Jeanette, and the priest.

If we could but get the old reprobate to die a little faster, the whole

thing might be settled very soon.”

“He looked very much like a dying man when I left him,” I replied.

“Nay, that would be too quick,” said Westover. “We must leave them time

to work upon him. Don’t you go near him again, De Lacy, for fear you

should blow the candle out when you most need the light. And now, let us

go and take a sail upon the sea, and then away to London by the early

coach to-morrow.”

I followed his guidance, with the full and strong conviction that he

wished me well, and at an early hour on the following day, we were once

more rolling on our way toward the capital. We arrived after dark, and

Westover went to dine with me at my hotel. The people of the house, with

the usual care and promptitude of hotel keepers, suffered the dinner to

be placed upon the table, and half-eaten, before they informed me that

that the old French lady whom I had seen on the day of my arrival, had

been three times there to inquire for me.

“News, news, certainly,” cried Westover. “Bring me a sheet of paper,

waiter. We will soon have Jeanette with us;” and writing a hurried note

to the good old dame, he sent it off by a porter to his grandfather’s

house. An hour, however, elapsed without any intelligence, and then the

same waiter appeared, saying, with a half-suppressed grin, “She is here

again, sir, asking if you have returned.”

“Show her in,” I said impatiently; “show her in directly.”

The man retired with some surprise, I believe, at my anxiety to see an

ugly old woman, and certainly he did not hurry himself, for full five

minutes passed before Jeanette was in the room, and the eagerness of her

face showed when she entered that the delay had not been on her part.

THE CONFESSION.

“Get your hat, get your hat, Louis,” exclaimed Jeanette, rubbing her

little hands, “and come away directly, or it will be too late. He will

tell all, he will tell all; but he has been in a dying state since this

morning. His speech seems failing, so make haste, make haste—he will

tell all as soon as he sees you, he says, if you will but forgive him.”

I darted to the sideboard and took my hat. Westover started up at the

same moment, exclaiming in French, “May I go with you?”

“Yes, yes,” cried Jeanette. “Come with him, come with him; the more the

better; every one is a witness, and that is something.”

We darted down the stairs and away. How we got through the streets, I do

not know, but we all hurried separately through the crowds, running

against half a dozen people, and getting hearty benedictions for our

pains. I arrived first at the apothecary’s shop, and saw at a glance as

I entered, the villain himself deliberately packing up something at the

counter. He looked at me with a cold, sneering expression, but said

nothing, and without asking any questions I ran up the stairs at once,

to the miserable room of the Marquis de Carcassonne. I opened the door

unceremoniously, and went in. The sight was one full of awful

solemnity—at least to me, who had never seen any one die, except by a

sudden and violent death, or by a gentle, yet quick transition from the

life of this world to the life of another.

On the wretched pallet bed, without a rag of curtain round it, lay the

ghastly figure of the dying man. All living color had passed from his

face; the swollen, bloated appearance, too, was gone. The features were

sharpened and pinched; the eyes sunk; the temples collapsed; the white

hair, wild and ragged. One ashy hand was stretched over the bed-clothes,

holding a crucifix which lay upon his breast, and his eyes, which seemed

glassy and almost immovable, were directed to the symbol of salvation.

On the table stood a large wax-taper, and between the table and the bed

stood the old priest, Father Noailles, who had come in at the end of my

last interview with the Marquis. His head was slightly bent, as if

watching the face of the dying man, while a younger man, with a white

robe on, stood at the other side of the bed, holding a small, chased

silver vessel in his hands.

There was a dead silence in the room when I entered; but at the sound of

my steps the priest turned round, and exclaimed, as soon as he saw me,

“He is here, he is here! Henri de Carcassonne, he has come to you at

length!”

The eyes of the dying man turned faint and feebly toward me, and the

priest advanced a step, and grasped my hand with a tight and eager

pressure.

“Forgive him,” he said; “tell him you forgive him!—if you be a man, if

you be a Christian—tell him you forgive him!”

I paused with my eyes fixed upon the face of the Marquis, and some

feeling of compassion entered into my heart. But I could not speak the

words he wanted to draw from me—I could not pronounce forgiveness to

the murderer of my father. I remained silent, while the priest repeated,

more than once, “Forgive him, oh forgive him, and let him part in

peace!” I heard the steps of Westover and Jeanette approaching, and I

said, at length, “Has he done justice to my father’s memory? Will

he—can he now do justice to it?”

The priest drew back from me and let go my hand. “Young man,” he said,

in a solemn and reproving tone, “make no bargain with God! Trifle not

with the command of your Saviour. It is Christ who bids you to forgive,

if you would be forgiven, to love your enemies, to pray for those who

hate you. Forgive him! On your soul’s salvation, I call upon you to

pronounce your forgiveness of that wretched, dying old man while the

words can still reach his ear, and console him at this last, dark,

terrible moment—forgive him, I say!”

“Speak, De Lacy, speak,” said the voice of Westover, “for God’s sake

tell him you forgive him!”

At the same moment, the hand of the dying man made a feeble movement on

the cross as if he would have raised it, and an expression of imploring

anxiety came into his fading eyes that touched me. I took a step forward

to the side of the bed, and said, “Marquis de Carcassonne, I do forgive

you, and I pray that God Almighty, for his Son’s sake, may forgive you

also!”

The light of joy and relief came for an instant into the old man’s eyes,

but faded away instantly; and I thought that he was a corpse.

“Stand back!” said Father Noailles, with inconceivable energy, and

placing himself right before the dying man, and clasping his hands

together, he swung them up and down as if he had a censer in

them—whether it was to rouse his attention or not, I cannot tell—and

then he exclaimed aloud, “If any fiend prevents your utterance, I

command him hence in the name of the Blessed Trinity—of the Father, the

Son, and the Holy Ghost.

“Henri de Carcassonne, I adjure you, as you hope for pardon and life

eternal, answer me before these present—Is all you have told me

concerning the death of the Count de Lacy true?—and do you fully and

freely consent to my making it public, without any reservation on the

plea of confession? If so, say yes, or die in your sins!”

There was something inexpressibly grand and awful in his look, his tone,

his manner; but something more awful was to come.

As we may suppose one would rise from the dead, the Marquis de

Carcassonne suddenly raised himself in the bed, and in a clear, distinct

tone replied—“It is true, so help me God—I do consent.”

The last word rattled in his throat. The effort was over. It was the

flash of the expiring lamp, and the words were hardly uttered, when he

fell over on his side with a ghastly swimming of his eyes.

“It is done!” said Father Noailles, solemnly, and raising the poor

wretch’s head he put it on the pillow. There was now a fixed stare, a

meaningless, vacant look in those glassy orbs, the moment before turned

upon the confessor, which showed that “it was done” indeed. The next

instant the jaw dropped, and we stood in silence round a corpse.

I thanked God at that moment, that I had pronounced the words of

forgiveness; and I stood by with Westover and Jeanette, while Father

Noailles, and the young man who was with him, sprinkled some holy water

on the dead man’s face, and performed one or two little offices

according to the customs of France and the Roman Catholic church. I

would not have interrupted by a word for the world; but when the priest

had done, and turned toward us with a deep sigh, I advanced and took his

hand, saying, “I thank you, sir, most sincerely, for having led me to

cast away the evil passion in my heart, and show some charity at last—I

rejoice that I have done it, whatever be the confession that this man

has made.”

“We must forgive, Monsieur de Lacy,” replied Father Noailles, mildly,

“or how can we expect Christ to mediate for us. I have now to tell you,

that this poor man acknowledged to me this morning, that your father had

been accused unjustly, that the letters which had been brought forward

at his trial were indeed forged, as many suspected, and that the count

died an innocent and injured man. I took his words down, and he signed

them as best he could, giving me full permission to place the statement

in your hands. There was no one present but ourselves, however, and a

confessor must be very cautious. It was therefore absolutely necessary

that I should obtain his consent to the publication of the statement in

the presence of witnesses. Here it is. It is brief, but sufficient for

all purposes. He was not in a state to give full details, but there is

no point unnoticed which can tend to clear the memory of your father.”

“Join me at my lodgings in half an hour,” said Westover, quietly

speaking over my shoulder. “I have business which calls me away just

now.”

I simply nodded assent; for my whole thoughts were occupied for a time

with the subject before me, and turning to the priest I said, “I

presume, Monsieur de Noailles, that this precious document will be made

over to me?”

“Beyond all doubt, Monsieur de Lacy,” he said, “to you it properly

belongs, but I must request you to allow me to take an attested copy of

it, and must beg all here present to join in a certificate that this

unhappy man authorized me fully to make the statement public.”

“That we will all willingly do,” I replied. “Perhaps you had better draw

up the paper you require, yourself.”

That he declined to do, however, and with a pen and ink and paper, which

had remained upon the table since the morning, I quickly wrote an

attestation of the fact that Henri, Marquis de Carcassonne, had, in the

presence of the subscribers, fully authorized the Reverend Pere Noailles

to make known and publish all the facts which he had stated on his

deathbed, in regard to the trial and execution of the late Count Louis

de Lacy, as matters communicated to him, freely, and for the relief of

his conscience, and not in the form of penitential confession, or under

the seal of secrecy.

“I undertake,” I said, when I had signed the paper myself, and Jeanette

and the young assistant had signed it also, “that Captain Westover, who

has been obliged to leave us on business, shall put his name to it

likewise. Now, Monsieur de Noailles, will you permit me to look at that

paper? We will make a copy of it immediately; but, of course, my anxiety

to see the contents is great.”

The old man placed the paper in my hands, and seated at the table beside

him, I read as follows:

“I, Henri Marquis de Carcassonne, do hereby acknowledge and certify,

that by various false and iniquitous charges, set on foot for objects

and motives of my own, I did, many years ago, to wit in the year of our

Lord 178-, cause and procure Louis, Count de Lacy, to be brought to

trial for treason and dereliction of duty in the government of the

possessions of the French crown in the East Indies: that I have every

reason to believe the said Count de Lacy to have been totally and

entirely innocent of the crimes thus laid to his charge, and, moreover,

that two letters produced in court at the trial of the said count, and

purporting to be parts of a correspondence between himself and Sir E.

C—— were, to my certain knowledge, and with my cognizance, forged; not

by myself, but a certain Giraud, apothecary to the household of the said

count, for the purpose of procuring his condemnation; and that I

prompted and encouraged the said Giraud to counterfeit the count’s hand,

and forge the above mentioned documents, inasmuch as I found that the

charges could not be sustained without them, and I feared the vengeance

of the said Count de Lacy, if acquitted, on account of certain previous

passages between us. I bitterly regret and repent of the crime I thus

committed in procuring the death of an innocent man; and now finding

that it pleases God to take me from this world, and that I have not many

hours to live, I make this acknowledgment and confession solely to do

justice to the memory of the said Count de Lacy, and to make atonement,

as far as is in my power, for the evil and misery I have brought upon

him and his family, trusting that God will accept my tardy repentance,

through the merits of my Saviour Christ, I have hereunto, in my perfect

senses, and with full knowledge and recollection of all the facts, set

my hand, in witness of the truth of all the particulars contained

herein, the above having been previously read over by me, in presence of

the Reverend Pere de Noailles, having been taken down by him from my own

lips.”

It seemed as if a mountain had been removed from my breast. I thought

not of any advantages which might result to myself. I carried not my

thoughts at all into the future. My father’s memory was cleared. His

honor, his fair name was reëstablished. No crime now blackened the

annals of my race, and when I turned and looked at the corpse of his

murderer, I said with a free heart, and a sincere spirit, “May God

forgive you, unhappy man.”

Poor Jeanette, who was by my side, and had been weeping a good deal

during all these transactions, took me by the hand, saying, joyfully—

“All will go well now, Louis—all will go well. More depends upon that

paper than you know. Keep it safe, keep it safe, and all will go well.”

It was necessary, however, in the first instance, to give a copy to

Monsieur de Noailles, and when that was done, some further conversation

ensued between us, in regard to the funeral of the Marquis de

Carcassonne. I found that he had few, if any, friends in London; for

long previous to his illness, he had been suspected by the principal

emigrants in England of being a spy in the pay of the existing French

government.

“I shall be willing to bear the expense,” I said; “if I can get any one

to superintend the management.”

“From what I know,” replied Monsieur de Noailles, “I think that both the

expense and trouble should fall upon the man below stairs. I have reason

to believe that, for the last year, during which the Marquis has been in

feeble health, Giraud has both ill-treated and plundered him, to a very

great extent. The man is a hardened sinner, a scoffer, and an atheist;

but the facts revealed in that document may, perhaps, frighten him into

doing what is right, and I see no reason why you should be called upon,

Monsieur de Lacy, to pay for that which he himself, I’m sure, is bound

to do.”

I agreed perfectly in this view of the case; but we found ourselves

deceived.

On descending to the shop, there was nobody in it but the boy whom I had

seen there once before. He told us that Monsieur Giraud had called an

hackney-coach, and had gone away in it, with three trunks. He never

returned, and I conclude that, alarmed at the revelations likely to be

made by the Marquis de Carcassonne in his dying moments, he fled from

England, and died somewhere in obscurity. The boy told us that, before

he went, he had cursed the old fool up stairs, and had said, that as he

seemed determined to die with a cow’s tail in his hand, he should absent

himself for a day or two, as he did not like such mummeries.

This afforded sufficient indication of his intention to induce me to

request Monsieur de Noailles to make all the arrangements of the funeral

in my name, and after having obtained his promise to that effect, and

given him my address at Blackheath, I took my departure.

Jeanette went upon her way to Berkeley square, while I hurried on toward

the lodgings of Westover, the hour of meeting which he had named having

long passed.

I found a chariot, with flaming lamps, at his door, and was admitted

immediately by a servant in livery, who seemed to be waiting in the

hall; but before I could mount the stair-case, I was met by Westover

himself, coming down with his hat on.

“Come with me, Louis,” he said; “come with me. Thank God for this

night’s work.”

“Where are you going to take me?” I asked.

“Never mind at present,” he answered, “to a house where you have never

been.”

My heart beat with very strange sensations; but I followed him to the

carriage, and got in with him. When the door was closed, the servant

touched his hat, inquiringly, and Westover said, “home.”

It was the only word he spoke during the drive, which was short enough.

At length, the carriage drew up at the door of a large house, a

thundering knock resounded through the square, and we both got out and

entered a hall, in which several powdered servants were standing.

Westover passed them all, without a word, and I followed. We went up a

magnificent stair-case, lined with old portraits, till my companion

paused suddenly, laying his hand upon the lock of a door upon the first

floor.

“Go in, Louis,” he said, in a low voice, “go in.”

“Will you not come in to introduce me?” I said.

“Not for the world,” he answered, “go in, Louis,” and he opened the door

for me to pass.

The next moment, I found myself in a large drawing-room but faintly

lighted; but there was a smaller one beyond, with a better light, and

seated on a sofa there, I beheld a lady, with her handkerchief lying on

the table beside her, and her eyes buried in her hands. The opening door

made her look up, and I saw the beautiful but faded face of Lady

Catharine covered with tears. The moment she beheld me, she sprang up

from the sofa, ran forward, cast her arms round my neck, and I heard the

words—“My son, my son!”

THE COLOPHON.

I must not pause to describe emotions, nor can I indeed narrate

regularly, or distinctly, all that occurred during the next half hour. I

had found a parent—a mother. O, how dear, how charming that name. Those

who have gone on from childhood to manhood under a loved mother’s eye,

and have only parted with her at the threshold of that gate which we

must all pass, can form no idea of the sensations experienced by one who

has never known a mother’s care, when he hears the very word

mentioned—the longing, the yearning, the never-to-be satisfied desire

to see the face, to hear the voice, to press the lips of her who gave us

birth.

I had found a mother, and I sat beside her, with her hand clasped in

mine, her head leaning on my shoulder, her eyes turned toward my face,

speaking short words of love, often silent, but with a silence full of

affection. For that half-hour there were no explanations, no connected

conversation. All was wild and strong emotion, the first overflowings of

love between parent and child, after a separation of twenty years.

We might have gone on much longer in the same way, but then there came a

light knock at the door. It opened, and Westover’s voice said—

“May I come in?”

“O, yes, come in, come in, Charles,” said my mother. “Come in, my second

son; my noble, my generous boy. I should not be half-happy if you did

not share in the joy you have aided to bring about.”

Westover entered, and sat down by us, saying—with a smile, while he

shook me warmly by the hand—

“Now, Louis, you know all.”

“No, no, he does not,” said my mother, “he knows nothing, Charles, but

that his father’s name is clear, and that he has found his mother. I

must tell him, as best I can, but I am afraid I shall be very confused.”

“I will help you, dear aunt,” said Westover. “It is right that he should

know how it is he has been so long deprived of a mother’s care, and I am

sure that in explaining, you will explain all, gently.”

“Fear not, Charles, fear not,” said Lady Catharine. “Though I have

undergone much that was hard to bear, yet all is forgiven now in the joy

of recovering my son—let me see how I can best tell my story—I must

begin far back.”

“Some seven or eight and twenty years ago, I was a gay, wild girl,

Louis, in the fashionable world of London. I had a fond and affectionate

mother, who spoiled me, perhaps. A sister, next in age to myself, and a

dear brother—Charles Westover’s father. There was a younger sister,

too. All these were gay, light hearted, and easy in disposition, like

myself; but my father was made of somewhat sterner materials. You have

seen him—you know him—and I need say little more; except, that then he

was moving a good deal in political life, and he had found it perhaps

necessary to adopt a rigidity of principle, and a stern inflexibility of

resolution, which has always kept his name high and pure in the world,

but has not made one unfortunate child very happy.

“About that time, my mother died, and I was left much to my own

guidance, as the eldest of the family, and I met in society a young

French nobleman, the Count de Lacy, who was then Secretary of Legation

here. He was wealthy, had served in the army with distinction, and my

father was fond of him, often invited him to this house, and I have sat

with him here, where now we sit, a hundred times, receiving feelings

which I little knew were creeping into my breast. At length, he told me

he loved me, and he very soon found out that I loved him. He expressed

fears, however, that our affection would meet with opposition on my

father’s part, and assured me that he would not have ventured to breathe

his love, till he had made more progress in the earl’s regard, if he had

not been suddenly recalled to France, as well as the ambassador. It was

necessary, however, that my father should be immediately informed of our

wishes, and De Lacy went to him for that purpose. He received a

peremptory, and immediate refusal. My father said that he esteemed and

liked the Count de Lacy, but that his daughter should never marry a

foreigner, and a Roman Catholic.

“We both knew that my father’s resolutions were unchangeable, and those

resolutions were expressed very harshly to me, who had never been

accustomed to hear an unkind word from any one. They engendered feelings

which they ought not to have produced—feelings almost of

anger—something more than disappointment—a spirit of resistance. I

felt that I could never love any one but De Lacy—that I should be

miserable when he was gone—that I could only be happy as his wife. We

found means to see each other. Our first object was only to say

farewell, but in a moment of rash passion, he asked me to fly with him,

and I fled. In every thing, he behaved with the utmost tenderness,

delicacy, and honor. We reached Paris—unpursued, as I afterward

found—and were immediately married by good Father Bonneville, who had

been the chaplain to the embassy, and then by a Protestant clergyman.

“I wrote to my father immediately, begging forgiveness; but my letter

was returned unopened, and I found that my father had given strict

orders in his family, that my name should be never mentioned to

him—that if ever I was inquired for by others, the reply should be

simply, that I was abroad, and that no notice whatsoever should be taken

in public, or in private, of my being the wife of the Count de Lacy. One

is soon forgotten in a great world like this, Louis. There was some

little rumor and gossiping when I first went away, but my father’s

perfect calmness and reserve, his appearance of utter indifference and

easy bearing, soon quelled all idle talk, and, except by my brother and

my sisters, I was soon lost to remembrance. I had three children, of

whom you were the second, Louis. My other lost darlings were girls. One

died in the East, where De Lacy was appointed to a high command. The

other died a day before her father—

She put her hand over her eyes, and paused for several moments; but then

resuming her discourse, she said—

“I cannot dwell upon that terrible time. My senses left me for several

weeks, and when I awoke to a consciousness of my situation, I found

myself a widow, nearly penniless, stripped of all the fine estates which

my husband had possessed, with one dear boy, between four and five years

old, fatherless, and marked out by the terrible curse of a black stain

upon his father’s name.

“Rank, station, fortune, love, hope, were all gone. The world seemed a

blank void to me, and the waking from that frenzied sleep, like the

recovery of a half-drowned man, was far more terrible than the

death-like state which had preceded. I found, however, that besides good

Father Bonneville, who had flown to me immediately, there was an English

gentleman in the house, and as soon as I could bear it, I was told that

he had been sent to me with a message from my father. When I could see

him, I found that he was a stiff, dry, old man, but not altogether

unkind, and he did not venture to give me the message he was charged to

deliver for two or three days. He then, however, told me that he had a

proposal to make to me, which had been reduced to writing, in my

father’s own hand. It was this—”

She paused again, unable to proceed, and Westover interposed, saying—

“Let me tell him, my dear aunt?”

“The case was this, Louis, my grandfather had watched anxiously the

proceedings against your father, and when he found him condemned and

executed, his whole estates confiscated, and his very name attainted, he

sent over to offer my Aunt Catharine a refuge in her former home—but it

was only for herself,” he added, in a slow and sorrowful tone. “He

exacted that you should be left behind in France—that she should resume

her maiden name—that you should be brought up in utter ignorance of

your connection with his family, and, as far as possible, in ignorance

also of your father’s history.”

“It was a hard measure,” I said, somewhat bitterly, but Westover went

on.

“On these conditions, he promised to provide for you amply—to pay for

your support and education, during youth, and to settle a sufficient

property upon you at his death. The reason he assigned for these harsh

measures—as you will call them—was, that his name had come down

unstained for many generations, and that he would never admit or

acknowledge any connection with a family, which had the taint of treason

upon it.”

“At first,” said my mother, taking up the tale again, “I rejected the

proposal with horror, and declared that nothing would induce me to part

with my child; but the good gentleman who had been sent to me, urged

strongly, that by my presence and persuasions, I might induce my father

to mitigate somewhat of his severity. He did not know his inflexible

nature; and before I yielded, I attempted by letter to move my father. I

represented humbly that, although condemned by a corrupt court, my poor

husband was certainly innocent—that I knew every thing that had passed

between him and the British officers—that the letters produced were

forgeries—and that the time would come, when De Lacy’s name would stand

out pure and clear. All I could obtain was contained in the following

words of his reply: ‘If the time should ever come which you anticipate,

and when your late husband’s character shall be fully justified, I will

acknowledge you as his wife with pride, and receive your son as one of

my own race. But till that time, I will never see him. You must never

meet him voluntarily; and I beg it to be remembered, that if by a want

of good faith, or even an indiscretion upon your part, he is made

acquainted with his connection with myself, or is brought to England,

under any false expectations from me, I will immediately stop the

allowance that I propose to make him, and strike his name out of my

will.’

“At first this seemed to me but little gained, but both the English

gentleman, who had remained with me, and Father Bonneville, thought that

it was much. They represented to me that opinion was already changing in

France with regard to my husband’s case, that multitudes asserted his

innocence and deplored his fate; and that the time must soon come, when

he would be fully justified. My own hopes and convictions seconded their

arguments, and I resolved, at length, to submit. Beggary and starvation

were before me, Louis, not only for myself, but for you. I was bribed,

in short, by the hope of your happiness, to sacrifice all a mother’s

affections and enjoyments. Father Bonneville undertook the task of

educating you; my maid Jeanette agreed to go with him to his little

cure, and watch over you as a mother; and with a bitterness worse than

that of death, I parted from you, and returned to England. Father

Bonneville and Jeanette both solemnly bound themselves to the secrecy

required—and well did they keep their word. God’s will brought you to

England, no act of mine; and by a blessed chance you became acquainted

with your dear Cousin Charles, who has been to me in my long widowhood

and privation, the greatest comfort and consolation.”

“But how did you know Charles,” I inquired, “so much of my fate and

history, if the subject was forbidden in your grandfather’s house.”

“The prohibition was not well kept toward me at all events,” replied

Westover; “my father told me the whole story long ago. My Aunt Maude,

whom you have seen, talked of it frequently. My grandfather himself,

even, of late years—when he found out that I knew it—mentioned the

matter once or twice himself. I am a great favorite of his, and when I

discovered that you were in England, and perceived what sort of a person

you were, I used to dash at the subject with him often; for with these

stern old gentlemen, Louis, there is nothing like a little careless,

rattling independence. Never do any thing that is wrong toward

them—never be insolent or impertinent, but go gayly on your own way,

and they learn very soon to take it as a matter of course. Every one

helped me, too, I must say; for we would have done any thing in the

world to comfort dear Aunt Kate. It was with this purpose that I

persuaded her to go down to Blackheath on the day of the review, not

intending that she should know who you were till afterward, but just

that she might see you, and learn that she had seen her son; but I even

persuaded the earl himself to come meet you at dinner; and he was very

much pleased with you there, especially when he found that you were

perfectly ignorant of your own history. The fact of your having become a

Protestant, increased his good feeling toward you, and he began to take

a good deal of interest in you, so that I doubt not in the least, we

should have got round his lordship in the end, even if we had not

obtained this important proof of your father’s innocence. As soon as he

heard the facts, however, and I assured him that there could be no

possible doubt, he consented at once to my bringing you here, said that

his objections were at an end, that the conditions were fulfilled, and

he was quite ready to acknowledge you as his grandson. In fact, Louis,

he only wished for a good excuse to abandon his stern determination—and

he caught at it eagerly enough.”

“Shall I not see him?” I asked.

“Not to-night, I think,” replied Westover. “He was obliged to go to the

House, he said, and was gone before you arrived. The fact is, he hates

what he calls scenes, and fearing there might be one here, he went away.

Take my advice, therefore, and when you see him to-morrow, just shake

him by the hand, as quietly as if you had been his grandson all your

life, and had just come back from Buxton. He will then take the

initiative himself, and make all the arrangements that are necessary.”

“But your father, Westover,” I said.

“Alas! we have lost him,” replied my mother, “but we have no second

title in our family, Louis, and therefore Charles is merely Captain

Westover; but you have some explanations to give, I think he told me.”

“They will be better given to-morrow, dear aunt,” said Westover. “Let us

finish one volume of the book first. Jeanette has just been telling me,

Louis, that you have got the precious document signed by the Marquis de

Carcassonne’s own hand—show it to her, show it to her—it will do her

good to see it.” My mother read it with eyes blinded by tears, and then

pressed it to her lips. “Thank God, thank God!” she said. “I cannot help

sometimes thinking, Louis, that the dead can see us, and if so, it must

give even greater joy to the spirit of your father in glory, to see his

name thus justified by the efforts of his son.”

I disclaimed much of the credit she attributed to me, and acknowledged

that the principal honor was due to good Jeanette.

Jeanette was then called in and embraced us all round, kissed Charles

Westover on each side of the face, and me twice on each side, called him

an _excellent garçon_, and me her _chèr Louis_, and then danced for a

minute for very joy, and then ran out of the room to weep, from the same

cause.

We protracted our sitting till nearly midnight, and I retired with a

heart lightened of its heaviest load. The next morning, I went, as had

been arranged by Westover, to call upon my grandfather at his breakfast

hour. I found him alone—for my mother had not come down to breakfast

for years—but he received me very kindly, gave me his whole hand, and

made me sit down to breakfast with him. For the first five minutes he

called me Monsieur de Lacy, but it very soon got to Louis, and he talked

of the news of the day, and of Charles Westover, and of the state of his

health, and of his own anxiety to prevent him from joining his regiment

again, while that ball was in his chest.

I followed his lead, and replied, “I dare say, sir, you might find a

means, if you wished it.”

He shook his head, saying, “I don’t think it. Boys and girls are all

obstinate—what means?”

“If you were to persuade some fair lady to ask him, sir,” I said, “he

would never refuse her.”

“Ha—what do you mean, Miss ——?”

“I really do not know who the lady is,” I answered; “but I dare say your

lordship is well aware.”

“Oh yes, I know quite well. He has been engaged to Miss —— two years;

I wonder why they have not married before now.”

“I really cannot tell,” I answered; “but perhaps they do not know that

you would approve—or Westover may think that he has not sufficient to

keep his position as your grandson.”

“Ay, that old uncle of his, Westover,” he said, “left his fortune

charged with such a jointure that nothing will come in from that till

the old lady dies—”

He thought for a moment, and then added, “But all that will be speedily

arranged. Why did he not speak to me about it himself?”

“I only speak myself by guess, my lord,” I answered, “and am conscious I

am taking an unwarrantable liberty in mentioning the subject to you at

all.”

“Not at all, not at all,” said the earl, “I’m obliged to you; but I

cannot be expected to think of all these things for everybody. He only

told me that he intended to marry Miss ——; and I said, very well, I

had no objection; for she is a very good girl, and of a very old family,

though poor, desperate poor. Go and tell him, Louis, that if he likes to

stay here and marry, I will make every arrangement to render him

comfortable. Don’t let fortune stand in the way a moment. He shall be

put at ease.”

I had a great inclination to say a good word for myself; but I forbore,

and as I rose to go, the earl asked, in an ordinary tone, “Have you seen

your mother this morning?”

I replied as nearly as I could in the same manner, that I had not yet;

and he rejoined, “Well, go and see her before you go to Charles. You

will find her in her dressing-room—you know where it is.”

I had not the most distant idea; but I did not tell him so, and merely

bade him good morning.

Thus ended my first interview with the Earl of N—— as his acknowledged

grandson.

Very few words more will suffice to close my little history. Charles

Westover was delighted with the news I brought him, and readily agreed

to retire upon half pay, and to remain in England. He insisted upon

knowing how it had been brought about that I was sent with this message

to him, and I gave him, half jestingly, half seriously, an account of my

interview with the earl.

“I understand you, Louis, I understand you,” he said, wringing my hand

hard, “and I thank you from my very heart. Nothing on earth would have

induced me to ask the earl for a penny. My mother’s jointure, of course,

diminishes greatly the income that descended to me from my father, and

perhaps some youthful imprudences may have diminished it still more; but

the earl, I dare say, did not think of either. Now all will go well; for

there is not a more generous man living, when he acts spontaneously. And

so you really did not speak one word about your own engagement? Well,

that must be managed for you.”

“No, no,” I replied, “I will do it myself. I begin to understand his

character, I think, and trust I can manage it.”

However, when I came to talk with my mother on the subject, she was

terrified at the very idea—a Frenchwoman—a Roman Catholic—the

daughter of a poor emigrant—she thought it would drive the earl mad.

I went down to see Mariette, nevertheless, that same day, rejoiced the

heart of the Count de Salins with the news of my father’s complete

exculpation, and returned the next morning to London, taking Father

Bonneville with me; but I took especial care not to say one word to any

one, of there being even a chance that the earl would disapprove of my

choice. Some five or six days after, the earl wrote me a note to come

with Westover and breakfast with him. We found him in the best humor;

for some changes had taken place in the ministry which satisfied him,

and toward the close of breakfast, a servant announced that Mr. Holland

was in the library.

“I will be with him directly,” said the earl; and when he had finished

his cup of coffee, and read a paragraph in the newspaper, to show that

he was in no hurry, he rose, saying, “Now, young men, come with me.”

We followed him to the library, where we found a tall, thin lawyer, with

a shaggy head of hair, and two parchments spread out upon the table. A

few words passed between the earl and his man of business, and then the

former took up a pen, and signed the parchment at a spot pointed out.

“This, Charles,” he said, turning to my cousin, “is a deed settling the

sum of five thousand per annum upon you, till my death puts you in

possession of the family estates.”

“This, Louis,” he continued, turning to me with the pen still in his

hand, “is a deed, settling two thousand per annum upon you for life, and

you will find yourself further remembered in my will.”

He stooped to sign the parchment, but I laid my hand upon it saying,

boldly, but in a commonplace tone, “Stop, my lord, if you please.”

“Why?” he exclaimed, looking up.

“First,” I answered, “because it is quite an honor, and pleasure enough

for me to be your acknowledged grandson; and secondly, because I think

it right to inform you, before you do what I could in no degree expect,

that I am about to be married. The engagement was formed before I had

the slightest idea that I was in any way related to you, otherwise I

should certainly have consulted you before I entered into it.”

I could see by Westover’s face that he thought I was going wrong, but I

was not. The old man laughed, and said, “Well, boy, I have no objection

to your marrying.”

“And any one I like?” I asked.

“And any one you like,” he answered. “I do not carry my superintendence

beyond one generation. That is more than enough for any one.”

“Then, my dear and noble lord,” I replied, “let me add, that the one I

like, is I am sure, one you will like, too, for she is as generous and

as noble-minded as yourself—noble, by birth and by character—a lady in

every respect—and well fitted to be admitted into your family.”

“A French-woman!” he said—“a French-woman?”

I think it was a sort of instinct dictated my reply, “One of my own

countrywomen, my lord,” I answered, “the companion of my childhood, the

friend of my youth. I know that you judge it best for every one to marry

one of his own country—she is the daughter of the Comte de Salins, and

a nobler or a purer name is not to be found for five hundred years—is

not to be found in the pages of French history.”

“Well, well,” said the old earl, “I shall be very happy to see her;” and

he signed the parchment, adding, “Bring her here, my good boy, bring her

here. You will soon know if I like her. If I do I shall kiss her, and

don’t you be jealous; if I do not I shall give her three fingers, and

call her Mademoiselle;” and he laughed gayly.

Two days afterward, my mother and I brought up Mariette to visit the old

earl. She was looking exquisitely lovely, her eyes full of the light of

hope and happiness, her face glowing with sweet emotions, and her frame

tremulous with feelings which added grace to all her graces. She leaned

upon my mother’s arm, as we entered the room where the old earl received

us, and I could perceive as he gazed at her, that he was surprised and

struck with her extraordinary beauty. It was impossible to look upon

that face and form and not be captivated. He rose from his chair at

once, advanced and took her in his arms, and kissing her with more

tenderness than I ever saw him display, he said, “Welcome, welcome, my

dear child. If Louis does not make you a good husband, I will strike him

out of my will, so see that you keep him in order.”

Westover and I were married on the same day. I have no reason to doubt

that he was happy, and of my own fate I am very sure.

* * * * *

By a decree of the Cour de Cassation in the first year of the reign of

Louis XVIII., by the grace of God King of France, the sentence passed

upon Louis, Comte de Lacy, was, after a great many _vus_, and

_interrogés_ broken, and annulled, the memory of the said count

_rehabilitee_, and his family, restored to all their estates and honors.

Nevertheless, we find a Count and Countess De Lacy still living in

England in 1830, and there are strong and cogent reasons to believe that

the very numerous family bearing that name, had by some means or

another, sprung up around them.

* * * * *

=MY FOREFATHERS.=

=BY J. HUNT, JR.=

When soft falls the moonlight, and tranquil the hour,

Which holds by a spell the dear scenes of the Past,

How touchingly tender that mystical power

Which throws o’er existence its love to the last.

On the wings of Remembrance, forgetting, forgot

Are the dreams of the Present, as onward we fly,

To place our affections on that hallowed spot

Where the bones of our forefathers mouldering lie.

Deep, pure, in the bosom’s bright innermost shrine,

Are treasured the loves we inherit in Youth;

E’en Age, with its weakness, serves but to refine

Our early impressions of Virtue and Truth.

Those silent Instructors—God grant them a Rest

In mansions prepared for the holy in heart—

For oft do they come from the Land of the Blest,

And to us their kindly monitions impart.

* * * * *

=CLEOPATRA.=

=BY HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT,=

=TRANSLATOR OF=

=THE PROMETHEUS AND AGAMEMNON OF ÆSCHYLUS, ETC. ETC.=

Deliberatâ morte ferveior

Lævis liburnis scilicet invideus

Prevata deduci superbo,

Non humilis mulier, triumpho.

Horace, _Lib. I. Ode 37_.

Away! away! I would not live,

Proud arbiter of life and death,

Although the proffered boon of breath,

Which fain thou wouldst, but canst not, give,

Were Immortality.

Though all, that poets love to dream,

Of bright and beautiful were blent

To flow in one delicious stream,

Till time itself were spent;

Though glories, such as never met

In mortal monarch’s coronet,

Were poured in one unclouded blaze

On Cleopatra’s deathless days,

I would not bear the wretched strife,

The feverish agony of life,

The little aims, the ends yet less,

The hopes bud-blighted era they bloom,

The joys that end in bitterness,

The race that rests but in the tomb,

These, these, not death, are misery.

Nay! tell not me of pomp or pleasure,

Of empire, or renown, or treasure,

Of friendship’s faith or love’s devotion—

Things treacherous as the wind-rocked ocean—

For I have proved them all.

Away! If there be ought to bless

In rapture’s goblet, I have drained

That draught misnamed of happiness,

Till not a lurking drop remained

Of honey-mantled gall.

Oh! who would live, that once hath seen

The Lamia Pleasure’s mask removed;

That once hath learned how false the sheen

Of all he erst so madly loved?

And I have seen, have learned, the whole;

Till, for the passions fierce and wild

That torrent-like defied control,

A wretched apathy of soul,

Exhausted rapture’s gloomy child,

Hath crept into my very blood,

Chilling the tides that wont to flow

Like lava in their scorching flood—

An apathy more dull than care,

More sad than pain, more still than wo—

Twin sister to despair.

And thinkest thou I would stoop to live

On mercy such as Rome might give—

Or what is Rome, and what am I,

That I should bend a servile knee,

The free-born daughter of the free,

To her, whose victor lords have thrown

Their sceptre-swords before my throne,

And lost their empires at my frown?

Or deemest thou, impotent and base,

That I, of eldest earthly race,

Will thread in slow procession pace

Rome’s proud triumphal way—

A crownless queen, a shameless slave,

Beside thy golden chariot’s nave,

With fettered heads supine to crave

Plebeian pity—Roman ruth—

And with unroyal tears, forsooth!

“To make a Roman Holyday?”

An emperor thou! and I—no more!

My foot is on life’s latest shore.

Away! even now I die.

I feel it coursing through my veins,

The peace that soon shall still my pains,

And calm my ceaseless wo.

Away, proud chief! I would not yield

My empire for the conquered world

O’er which thine eagle wing is furled—

My empire in the grave.

Hades shall rise my steps to greet,

Ancestral kings my advent meet,

Sesostris, of the man-drawn car,

And Rhamses, thunderbolt of war,

Amenophis, of giant frame,

And Tathrak, of immortal name.

The mighty Ptolemies shall rise

With greeting in their glorious eyes,

And cry from lips no longer dumb—

“Hail, sister queen, for thou hast come

Right royally thy feres among.

Our thousand thrones have tarried long,

Till thou shouldst mount thine own.

Last, loveliest, frailest of our line,

By this immortal death of thine

Thou hast outdared all daring—thou

Art first among us. Lo! we bow—

We kneel—before thee! Sister queen,

The end of fortune here is seen,

Ascend thy fated throne.”

And now my woman-heart is steeled;

Call forth the bravest of the brave,

Your reapers of the crimson field,

To whom the battle-cry is breath,

To look upon a woman’s death.

I have outlived my love, my power,

My country’s freedom, people’s name,

My flush of youth, my beauty’s flower,

But not, oh not! my thirst of fame.

The Pyramids before me lie,

Piercing the deep Egyptian sky,

Memorials of the nameless dead,

To build whose glory thousands bled—

And I, the latest of their race,

A captive in their dwelling place,

Die, yet survive them all.

I tell thee, when no trophies shine

Upon the proud Capitoline,

When Julius’ fame is all forgot,

Even where his honored relics rot,

Ages shall sing my fall.

Proud Roman, thou hast won. But I,

More gladly than thou winnest, die.

Away! when crowns were on my brow,

And nations did my rising greet,

And Cæsar groveled at my feet,

I lived not—never lived till now.

* * * * *

=REMINISCENCE.=

Not every man, I believe, takes the trouble to look back occasionally to

his very earliest recollections, recalling what he may, with a view to

learn how much of his character was formed by the trivial incidents of

his spring-time, how much, and what, is of later origin. It would

surprise one to see accurately the proportion of his habit of thought,

his sensibility, his ideas of right and wrong, his reverence and his

affections, how much of the underlying sympathies and poetry of his

nature is associated with this early period.

Some book I was reading, or some friend I was talking with the other

day, suggested the matter and left me in a revery of reminiscence.

There came back to me the memory of pleasant dreams which I was

perplexed to divorce from dream-like reality, of presents and promises,

of nursery tales and melodies, of first disappointments, punishments,

and altercations, of all the scenery between babyhood and boyhood, and

of the constant wonder amid which my mind wrought its first essays.

The quiet village street between my father’s house and place of

business, was the only one I was in the custom of seeing, and at such

times generally in charge of an attendant, unless, with soiled face and

apron full of toys, I adventured alone to run the hazard of the

occasional carriages, and finally to be found asleep beside the fence

and carried home to my anxious mother. When taken to another street, I

seemed to pass to another realm. I roamed admiringly through the _terra

incognita_; “the Bank,” with its brick walls and slated roof, I believed

the castle of Giant Despair; the huge, white, fast-closed meeting-house

seemed like a desolate prison; the drivers shouted to their teams in

unknown tongues; the confectioners’ windows recognized me with smiles of

dazzling invitation, and sometimes a benign old man would pat my head

and ask me how old I was. The bustle and business, the shops and

sign-boards, all I saw and met were wondrous discoveries, identified

with histories of men and things which I had spelled out from my

story-books, or had heard my father read at morning-prayer.

Once or twice I wandered off there alone. But to turn the corner of Mill

street was like rounding the Cape of Storms. Men in a hurry tumbled over

me, rude boys threatened to swallow me, dirty-faced and ragged children

of my own age eyed me in mute surprise, that almost equaled mine, or

with precocious malignity and a jealousy that, I trust, did not ripen in

them, plucked my clothes or my hair, or threw mud on me. And one

boy—and a twinge of my sometime indignation now comes across me—I

remember took away the ten-cent piece which hung on a red ribbon around

my neck, and spent it for India crackers.

There was a stump fence opposite our house, where I sometimes stood for

long together, looking at the great, spangling roots and dead fibres

twisted in fantastic shapes, to conjure up dragons, hydras, and all

grotesque and horrible creations. And the old swamp of rank, slim

hemlocks, that I used to shudder at passing, with their gnarled, naked

trunks, dry limbs and mossy beards. And the tangled, dark thickets and

unpathed woods with cawing rooks; these all filled my mind with

shapeless shadows of strange myths. How I remember the first time I

clambered up the hill and looked out upon the miles of forest, like a

great, green, waving ocean, while the winds strode over it, as then my

heart knew its first unutterable grasping, and swelled with vague

emotions that I could not fit with words.

My reverence was sincere for “big boys twelve years old,” of intrepid

courage, who talked slightingly of the maternal authority, owned

jack-knives, and emulated the “mouth-filling oaths” of larger men. I

considered it great condescension in them to let me go with them after

their cows, or when they made journeys to the pine groves after

“sliver,” or the alder swamps for whistles. These were the delightful

music of this period, and from such excursions I returned inflated with

the consciousness of travel, my torn shoes and clayey garments telling

how dear I paid for the instrument in whose possession I exulted as

those whom Jubal taught erewhile. Particularly I remember my paragon of

chivalry, and the Mr. Great Heart of my erudition—Bill Thayer. How I

hung upon his words of daring; how I admired the gasconade with which he

threatened the “Shad-Laners,” between whom and the urchins at our end of

the town fierce feud existed; and how he fell from the pinnacle of my

veneration when I saw him return vanquished and limping from a foray

upon the Shad-Lane district.

There were two or three places about the premises which I used to love

to steal into and ransack. One of these was the garret of the house. We

went up through a trap-door into a space just under the roof, its bare

rafters within my touch at the sides, and through which the chimneys

passed. Here were white hats and faded or unfashionable garments. Here

were boxes with bedding in them; barrels of feathers, both boxes and

barrels of old pamphlets and newspapers—behind a chimney leaned an old

“king’s arms” musket, which at length familiarity encouraged me to lay

hands upon, and near it hung a cartridge-box, a knapsack, and a bayonet

in its sheath. These told me all sorts of tales. I shuddered and dropped

the steel when I thought of its purpose and what might have been its

deeds, and of all the Bible stories of Goliath with his sword and spear,

and Samson slaying Philistines. I inquired strangely of myself what war

was, and the mystery of conflict and enmity enveloped my young thought,

as it has many an older. To tumble those old books and papers was

delightful. Sometimes a rare waif came to hand, a print or a toy-book,

or something equally valuable.

Thus do I rummage the neglected attics of my own memory; thus trace the

concretion of that character which I must bear forever, and the gradual

development of my reason and volition in the sunlight of home and

innocence.

“God help thee, Elia,” said Charles Lamb, “how art thou changed!”

B. B.

* * * * *

=TO THE PICTURE OF MY CHILD.[1]=

=BY META LANDER.=

Oh! is it not a dream, my child?

Is not my yearning heart beguiled?

And have not then my longings wild

Disturbed my wildered brain?

Ah, no! the wish that night and day

Hath never, never passed away—

It stirred me not in vain.

Full many a dreary month has passed,

Since o’er me swept that chilling blast,

When on thee, child, I looked my last.

Oh! since that mournful hour,

How have I longed for some charmed art

To trace thine image from my heart

With thy rich beauty’s dower.

I see thee once again, my dove!

Thy face all radiant with love—

Thy parted rose-bud lips—they _move_—

Oh! will they _never speak_?

I list in vain, my warbling bird;

There gushes forth no loving word,

And tears steal down my cheek.

Thou puttest up thy month to kiss;

My heart is thrilled with wildest bliss—

And yet—and yet—_something_ I miss—

Thought’s ever changeful play—

The variant, passing moods of life—

Its lights and shades in pleasant strife—

A dash of Sorrow’s spray.

I look upon thy morning face,

Enrapt with its sun-lighted grace—

But seek in vain the faintest trace

Of some o’ershadowing cloud.

Alas! dear child! _it is not thou_—

Sunshine laughed never on thy brow

When grief did mine enshroud.

I miss thy winsome tenderness—

Thy music-tones, so charmed to bless;

I miss thy soothing, fond caress—

Thy sweet lips on mine own.

Carrie, my child! _thou_ wouldst not be

Thus mute in my keen agony.

_Again I am alone!_

Then hide that face from out my sight!

Its radiant smile and eyes of light

But mock me in my sorrow’s night—

I cannot bid it stay.

Too like it is, sweet one, to thee—

And oh! I cannot bear to see

That smile’s unbroken ray.

But hush, my heart! And would I, then,

Make thee a child of grief again,

And shroud thy boundless, starry ken

In Time’s bewildering night.

Ah, no! I would rejoice that now

Ray ever round thy cherub-brow

Beams of celestial light.

Freed from the cankering cares of life,

Its tears—its bitterness—its strife—

From all the ills with which is rife

This changing, mortal coil;

Oh! sweet forever be thy rest

In that Elysium of the blest—

Fair Eden’s genial soil.

How could I bear that thou shouldst weep?

That the sad angel, Grief, should keep

The key to thy dear heart, or sweep

O’er thee her storm-clouds wild!

Oh! let me weep my tears alone!

Ne’er shall thy lips breathe sorrow’s moan,

My own, my angel child!

Then while my aching heart is riven,

I lift it weeping up to heaven,

Exulting that to thee is given

Eternal sunlight sweet!

A sunlight imaged on thy brow,

Which doth not mock my misery now,

As thy love-glance I meet.

I look into thy moonlit eyes,

Wherein thy soul clear mirrored lies,

As heaven looks through the star-lit skies,

The wintry night to bless.

In their deep light is earnest thought—

Visions with inward beauty fraught

No language can express.

I gaze upon thy forehead fair,

Shadowed by thy brown, clustering hair,

And joy that is not written there

One line of grief or pain.

From that clear brow there beams a smile,

Which sweetly utters all the while

_Mother, we meet again!_

Oh! blest forever be that art

Which hath reversed the words—_to part_,

And back unto my yearning heart

My darling child hath given.

Around that face, in radiance bright,

Circleth an aureole of light—

Adumbrant sweet of heaven.

-----

[1] By the poet-painter, T. Buchanan Read.

* * * * *

=PAQUETA.=

=BY. H. DIDIMUS.=

CHAPTER I.

“Paqueta, Paqueteta, Paquete,” I called, throwing the Italian and

English diminutives together to express more strongly the smallness,

and, I may add, prettiness, of the little being whom I knew was

listening for my voice. Paqueta sprang into the room with a shower of

laughter, and rolled at my feet, and took them in her hands, and

embraced them, and said that she was, indeed, very happy. Paqueta was

one of those “pets” to be found in every creole family of Louisiana; and

which seem to be as necessary to the completeness of the establishment,

as was the fool among the nobler of our ancestors, some three centuries

past. The pet is ever a slave, a little slave, sometimes full-blooded

and jetty black, and sometimes so near upon white, as to puzzle the eye

to find a trace of the African sun in its complexion. It is adopted from

chance, or whim, and grows daily into the affections, until it becomes

the most indulged, pampered, spoiled, cared-for, and idolized thing

about the house. With the widest liberty, its chains hang in the air, or

are made of those roses which the good people of Geneva put into Jean

Jaque’s hands when they raised a monument to his Emile. Paqueta was a

quateronne—a light quateronne, of exquisite features, and most fragile

make; and, at the time of which I write, had eight years—eight years of

happiness to her; for she knew not of her condition, knew not of any

thing, save petting, from her birth to that hour. Thus it is that

liberty is a breath, an airy something to be talked of, rather than

enjoyed. What liberty have the poor? Are they not bound to labor, to a

toil which is ceaseless, by the will of God, even to the grave! And what

liberty have the rich? A change of place, and their own wills. Better it

were that their own wills were bound about with clamps of iron

three-fold deep. Paqueta was born upon the feast of Easter, and thence

took her name—for the French call Easter-day “Paque;” and a paque it

was, or a festival it was, from her birth unto her death. Her hair was

long and straight, and black as night; while her eyes, ox-eyes, too,

were deeply blue; as if nature, knowing her mixed race, were willing to

carry out the mixture by a strange compound of opposing colors. Nothing

could be more delicate and tapering than her fingers; and her tiny feet

were a joy to the sight. And there she lay, rolling at my feet, and

looking up archly, and laughing—for she knew what was to come next; so

I put out my hand, and commenced the daily lesson, counting upon the

digits.

“_Un_, _deux_, _trois_, _quatre_, _cinq_.” I had undertaken to teach

Paqueta to count five—and a mighty task it was; for she was a very

little witch, and knew me better than I knew myself, and feared lest,

the lesson ended, she might lose her interest to be whistled down the

wind. Oh, nature, nature! thou knowest full well what thou art about;

and dost put into our breasts, even in the beginning, the ways and means

of winning all our desires.

“_Un_, _deux_, _trois_, _quatre_, _cinq_.” Paqueta crooked her little

fingers, and commenced; “_Un_, _deux_, _quatre_—_non, ce n’est pas

juste_; _un_, _quatre_, _cinq_”—and then, with a fillip upon her ear,

the one hundred and ninety-ninth, she sprang away, and shouted, and

laughed, and crept back again, and rolled at my feet, and took them in

her hands, and said that indeed she must learn, and thought that she

should do so, if she could but try again. And thus we went on, from day

to day, Paqueta’s little head refusing to hold more than three numerals

at once, and even those three not in the right relative position. And

when Paqueta became weary of her counting, and I became weary of the

fillip, she would steal up behind my chair, and comb out my hair—which

I then wore foolishly long, having enough of it—and fumble in my

pockets for paper, and roll my locks up tightly to the skin, saying that

they must curl, and that, as I was a good man, I must buy her, and she

would be my nice little barber forever. Buy her! And so she knew that

she was a thing of barter—a thing to be bought and sold! And what if

she did know it—was she the less happy for her knowledge—and was she

other than we all are, in this broad world? Who buys the maid, trained

to all luxury, sighing for position! And who buys the youth, in science

well instructed, ambitious of a name! The poor are bought daily, under

every sum that civilization acknowledges, and the rich, when in want of

other purchasers, sell themselves to their own vices. Small difference

is it, whether the price be pounds, shillings, and pence, or a promise

of ease, or power, or bread, or pleasures, forbidden in this life, to be

accounted for in the next. So Paqueta was not so unfortunate, after all.

Paqueta loved dress above all things, and had the taste to wear it—the

French part of her composition—and when, on a gala day, she appeared

tricked out with ribbons, her joy ran over, and sparkled in her eyes,

and lighted up her face, and babbled from her tongue, and played in her

feet, so airily, that she seemed to tread upon nothing. She loved

admiration, too; and no punishment could be devised, for any of her

faults, so effective as the forbidding her to appear before the company

which visited her mistress’ house. She took to music from nature, for

she was born amid the sound of bells; and at the Opera, where she held

her mistress’ handkerchief, or arranged her mistress’ train, kept time

with her head, and with her hands, and with her whole body—certainly

Paqueta was not unhappy. I much doubt whether she ever saw a more

miserable hour than that to which I once subjected her, in an honest

attempt to teach her English. She began with a right good will, for she

knew that the lesson was to be a long one, and would not be got over

with the counting of five; but the guttural and teeth sounds so grated

upon her ear, that, like the whetting of a saw, they made her sick, and

I gave up my project—the more readily, since we all know that one

language is enough for anybody; and more than enough for most of us.

Next to dress, in a woman, comes religion; and since nature is ever

true, and ever holds to her first types, Paqueta was religious all over.

She kept the fast-days every one, eat no meat upon a Friday, and with

the coming of the Sabbath, and on most week days, walked at her

mistress’ side to matins. If she came away with little knowledge, she

came away with much wisdom; for true wisdom is a getter of happiness,

and her happiness flowed from her religion as one of its main sources.

She ever wore about her neck, hanging to a narrow ribbon, a small medal

of the size, if you are a lady, of your thumb nail; it was of bronze,

and bore upon one side an impress of the cross, and upon the other a

raised figure of the Virgin. One day I took it between my fingers, and

asked her what it was; she said it was her God, and began with much

earnestness to tell me how it came into her possession. She said that it

had been given to her a long time before, so long before that her little

memory could not run back to the precise year, and month, and day, by

the good Father Joseph, who told her that if she kept it safely she

should never die. Never die; _pauvre petite!_ What could Paqueta know of

death, except as a place where there was no dressing, no eating and no

drinking, no counting of five, and, more than all, no petting? Yet the

good father had spoken to her of death, and had told her further, that

if she did but pray to her God morning and night, she would in return,

receive whatever she asked.

“And did the good father tell you what to ask for, Paqueta?”

“_Oui, monsieur_; he said that I must ask for health, and nothing more,

for every thing else I could get myself.”

A right good father, and a right sensible father was Joseph, according

to my thinking; for the little Paqueta throve well under his

instructions. Every morning and every night she took the medal from her

neck, and placed it upon her bed and knelt before it and asked for

health, and rose with the consciousness of possessing what she asked

for. Her religion was a reality, and if it went not far, it at least

went some way; and there was an earnestness about it which sometimes

made me wish it my own. I have many neighbors, and perhaps you are

slightly acquainted with others, who would show another and a better

face with one half of Paqueta’s faith.

CHAPTER II.

Little Paqueta, nice Paqueta, sweet Paqueta, slave Paqueta, my pen runs

riot when speaking of Paqueta, heaven bless her soul. Thus Paqueta

lived, and breathed, and was happy during two whole years under my eyes,

when a great change came over her life, and she put off the bonds of

servitude never to resume them more. Her mistress, who had wealth, and

who, with all of her sex among the creole French of Louisiana, looked

forward to a translation to Paris with much of the expectation that

fills the breast of a devotee who travels toward a “city out of sight,”

removed to La Belle France. As the law then stood, it was the practice

of those who went abroad to add a favorite slave to their train, as a

readier and earlier means of manumission than the statute gave. All who

touched la belle France returned free; so Paqueta’s mistress, knowing

full well that her little maid-in-waiting, whom she had spoilt, and whom

everybody had spoilt, was too white for servitude, was too white for any

thing except one long Easter-day, as the pagans kept it, put her among

her baggage. I saw Paqueta on shipboard, and there, standing upon the

deck which was to take her forever from the clime of which she was a

most true child, the wind whistling through her hair, and her tongue

garrulous of the joy which childhood ever finds in all things new. I

gave her my last lesson.

“Paqueta,” said I, “never trouble yourself about counting five; if you

should ever arrive at the counting of a hundred, you would be none the

better for it; but remember always the good Father Joseph’s gift and his

instructions—good bye.”

And again the little slave-girl, so happy and so beautiful, rolled at my

feet, and took them in her hands, and looked up, and was silent; for the

long lesson of two years was ended, and was to be washed out by the

wetting of a passing sorrow which I saw hanging upon her eyelids.

Ten years had rolled away since Paqueta’s emigration, and in the course

of them I had grown more than ten years older under this hot,

quick-racing sun. I had forgotten the long-haired, blue-eyed,

Easter-born quateronne, with her mistress, and ten thousand other things

beside, when, one long vacation, having nothing else to do, and having

just got through a dull history of Paris in twelve big volumes, I

resolved to see that great heart of the world. It was in King Philippe’s

day, when the Parisians enjoyed more rational liberty than they ever

enjoyed before, or will ever enjoy again, except they very much mend

their ways. Now any thing may take place in Paris, as we know very well;

and one who has lived there a long time must have long since ceased

wondering. Paris is the mother of civilization, and civilization is a

Proteus which turns itself inside-out, and upside-down, every day

throughout the week. Paris is a citizen of the world, and has the good

and the bad qualities of all the earth beside; so that no one, wherever

born, is at a loss in its streets, but at once feels at home, and

leaving it, leaves it with regret. Paris, therefore, is as infinite in

its incident as the earth is; and although it might be hard to find,

elsewhere in Europe, the manners of two widely-separated people in close

and harmonious juxtaposition, yet, in Paris, you tread upon the four

continents every step you take. In Paris man’s intellect is stretched to

the utmost, the best fencer takes the prize, the hardest fends off, and

no false coin passes for true metal; real merit is recognized, and mind,

polished, sharp, ready for effective use, is the only nobility which

ranks one higher than another. Therefore, sir, you need not open your

eyes very wide when I tell you of Paqueta’s transformation in Paris.

I had been in the city a whole month, running about in every quarter to

see the world of art collected within its walls—and twelve months, and

twice twelve-months would not have been sufficient for the Louvre

alone—when, one early eve, the light yet hanging upon the house-tops

and dropping down upon the passengers below, I discovered in the Champs

Elysées, moving in a direction opposite to my own, a gentleman and lady

whose manner, whose comeliness, whose air of full content, strongly

fixed my attention. As we drew near to each other, I saw that the lady

was possessed of a rare beauty, and as Frenchwomen are proverbially

plain, and as her complexion was of the deeper olive, I at once said

that she was from the Peninsula, perhaps Cadiz, of whose excellence in

that way we have all read so much.

The lady and her companion were engaged in earnest conversation, when,

just as we were about to cross, her eye caught mine; she hesitated,

stopped, moved on, hesitated, stopped again, and then, her whole face

lighting up with a burst of joy, sprang forward, and seizing both my

hands in hers—

“Ah, have you forgotten me!” she exclaimed; “mon cher ami, mon ancien

ami; have you forgotten Paqueta—little Paqueta, who would not count

five!”

All of Paqueta, as I had taken leave of her upon the ship’s deck, came

back to me in a moment, and I wondered that I had not recognized her,

enlarged as she was, with the same beauty, the same heart, the same

child-character, raised and instructed to fill another and higher

condition in life. She was so warm, so truthful, so full of

recollections of the early years which she still loved, that I half

feared she might again roll at my feet, and take them in her hands, and

say, “_non, ce n’est pas juste; un, trois, quatre_”—and I told her so.

“And now, you must know my husband, my Charles,” said she, turning to

her companion who stood making big eyes at the scene which was enacted

before him. Charles received me with the polished courtesy of a

Frenchman, asked for my address, gave me his own, and said that his wife

received her friends every Thursday. We parted; Paqueta, a being of

impulse, all the girl again, laughing until her eyes ran over at my

perplexity, which I could not wholly conceal, and I promising that she

should see me on the morrow, although Thursday was yet two days off.

On ascending to my rooms, at the head of four flights of French stairs,

dark, odorous, and which comfort never visited but to die, I opened my

note book, and commenced the journal of the day. I am now writing from

it, and the page is marked with a flourish, a sort of out-breaking

animal spirits, to show that it commemorates one of the happiest

incidents of my life. “Charles R——; so; I have heard of that name

before. He is something already, and is young enough to become in the

end a great deal more. Charles R——; he must be a feuilletonist or a

politician, an attaché to some one of the innumerable parties with which

this miserable country is cursed; for these are the only names that get

over to the other side of the water. Very well, he has won Paqueta—and

she was worth the winning. Into what a noble woman the little minx has

grown! And who can discover a trace of her former servitude about her! I

hope he knows her beginning; and certainly Paqueta is too honest to have

concealed her life; how does an extreme civilization civilize away our

prejudices: and, after all, condition is but one of the positive laws of

men.”

On the morrow I called upon Paqueta, and found her living, with some

elegance, upon a second floor, or “flat,” as we call it in Edinbro’. To

those who have been in Paris, or to those who have read Parisian books,

or books written elsewhere of Parisian life, it is not necessary to say

what a “second floor” is; and all others may as well remain as they are.

She received me with her whole heart, with no show of her changed

condition—which was to me like the sudden shifting of a scene in some

melo-dramatic piece upon the stage—and sat me down, and at once

commenced talking of Louisiana, and of her early life, and of its

happiness, and sighed that it could not have so remained forever. She

then told me of her history since her coming into France; how that her

mistress, who was without children, after settling down in Paris treated

her more as a favorite daughter than otherwise; how that she had masters

given her, who taught her ten thousand things beside the counting of

five; how that her mistress had died two years before, bequeathing her

thirty thousand francs; and how Charles once met her, and loved her, and

they were married. And thus she ran on for one full hour, her eyes

sparkling with delight, the same Paqueta with whom I had trifled away

many a pleasant minute ten years before. _Cœlum, non animum mutant, qui

trans mare currant._ While we conversed, her husband entered, and took

my hand with much cordiality, and welcomed me, saying that his wife had

told him of her having known me in America.

“And did you tell him what a hard master I was?”

“Ah, I remember the fillips perfectly well, and sometimes think I feel

them burning upon my ears even now,” said Paqueta.

“And the little medal, your god; with the good Father Joseph’s advice?”

Paqueta’s face, for the first time, looked troubled; the sunlight left

it; and I felt sorry that I had asked the question.

“Charles made me lay the medal aside the second day after our marriage;

and as to praying for health, or aught else, Paris knows nothing of

that.”

Charles laughed, and said “that he had been long since convinced that a

priesthood was incompatible with Liberty.”

Charles R. was, as I had supposed, connected with the “press,” a

socialist, a believer in the perfectability of men—of Frenchmen at

least—and, in theory, an organizer of Labor. At that time the “press”

had no great liberty in France; but it had to the full as much as it

deserved, whatever the interested, or those who know nothing of the

matter, may say to the contrary. The French “press,” when it has had its

way, has done little else than to overturn a government, without the

power or the knowledge to set up another in its place. It is not best

that children, or the unskillful, should be entrusted with edge-tools;

and a people is to be educated, through long centuries, to a fitness for

the enjoyment of civil liberty, as man is educated, through long years,

to a fitness for becoming his own master. Such has been the pupilage of

our ancestry; but such has not been the pupilage of the ancestry of the

French. In France liberty is anarchy; and so it is upon the Continent,

in Germany, in Italy, and the Peninsula; and he who thinks it is to be

made otherwise in a day, might as well pour the contents of a library at

a fool’s feet, and bid him rise learned. But Charles R. and his friends,

among whom was Louis Blanc—who looked like a boy, as a boy indeed he

was, who had achieved something beyond his years—and Ledru Rollin—the

future leader of the Mountain, which he had neither the ability to

protect, nor the courage to fall with—and Proudhon—the plausible

corrupter of youth, who endeavored to persuade France that “property is

theft”—thought much and talked much of the liberty of the “press,”

until in the end they got it, and made such use of it as we all know. _A

las la presse._ I heard that cry once, and thought it the most

conservative and the best for France.

Such was the atmosphere which Paqueta now breathed, and I sometimes

thought that, for her soul’s health, it was no better than the servitude

from which she had escaped. I saw her often during another month that I

remained in Paris, and more than once with a deal of company at her

rooms. She had grown to her husband’s intellect, conversed freely upon

the lightest and gravest topics, and performed the duties of a hostess

with an ease and propriety which flowed directly from her native good

taste; it is so with French blood every where, and however small may be

the proportion to the whole mass. Her husband was a brilliant

feuilletonist; I had read something of his pen before seeing France; but

he found more excellence in his wife than his imagination ever limned;

and, as a proof of it, he himself told me that his friends said his

articles had more heart in them since his marriage.

CHAPTER III.

When Louis Philippe fled, Charles R. harangued the people. He would have

thrown the red flag of the old republic to the breeze, and have followed

it to the world’s end. The French have grown no wiser since

Robespierre’s day; and in Robespierre’s day they sat around Plutarch’s

Lives, and modeled government upon the anecdotal garrulity of an old

gentleman who lived some two thousand years ago. But Charles found that

his friends were in the Provisional Government—one of whom he hoped

soon to see stealing all power from his associates—so he acquiesced in

Lamartine’s well-turned sentences, and consented that the tricolor and a

poet should be uppermost for a time. Charles entered the National

Assembly, as a member from the department of the Seine, and took his

seat with the Mountain; that great party, whose history is more terrible

than that of any body of men, either of ancient or of modern days, which

has come down to us.

“The Mountain!” exclaimed Charles R., at a _conversazione_ which I

attended at his rooms; “how often do my thoughts run back to its great

leader. Extremely beautiful, extremely touching, too, are the chapters

which Michelet devotes to the history of the Purcelle. She, who had been

taught neither to read nor to write, but who had learned all her mother

knew of sacred things, left her sewing, and her spinning, and went forth

to give courage to men; to give a king to her country; to turn back the

tide of conquest; to smite victorious armies with ceaseless rout and

ruin, urged, sustained, by that certain knowledge of being called, which

God gives to all the chiefest instruments of his dispensations—by the

certain knowledge, too, of the quick coming of a martyr’s death. There

was another, of a sterner sex, appointed unto times more trying, who

equally saved France, when three-fifths of France were traitors unto

France; who alone, of all the faithful, never for a moment despaired of

the Republic; who assumed nothing, claimed nothing, asked for nothing

for himself, but all for his country; whose will, of a wonderful energy,

scattered the victorious arms, not of one nation, but of combined

Europe; who, from afar off, retired, sitting in his narrow chamber over

the cabinetmaker’s shop, blasted with the breath of his nostrils the

well-concerted plans, the strength of despotism, and delivered over

France, his great mother, into the hands of those who came after him,

triumphant, uncontaminated by the tread of a single foreign foe. He,

too, had the certain knowledge of being called and appointed to a

purpose; and the certain knowledge of the quick coming of death; for he

often spoke of it as a fit crowning of a great labor. Robespierre a

coward! He who spoke daily, as of old the Athenian spoke, at the gage of

life! Death was at all times treading hard upon his footsteps; and did

he shun it in that last hour when he put aside the proclamation which

was to give him the victory? Many have been the martyrs for opinion’s

sake. To die by the axe, all are equal to; to die by fire, most are

equal to; but to die misrepresented and misunderstood, cheated of fair

fame, with another’s crime fastened upon us—to die taken in the toils

of an enemy, who usurps our purposes, and gives to history a lie growing

with each new teller of the story—this is terrible. Pardon me; I could

not but say thus much. I judge men by their acts and words, and my

opinion hangs not upon another’s conclusions. I believe I have read all

that has been most ably written about the revolution; in all, the acts

are the same, and the words are the same, but the arrangement of the

acts, and the voice given to the words, change with each several

narrator. Neither Thiers, nor Allison, nor Miguet, nor Lamartine, shall

speak for me; the prejudices of the Englishman, and the prejudices of

the Frenchman color their vision—I am answerable for my own. When will

History listen to the defense which has not yet been heard!”

With such sentiments, it was not difficult to foresee what would be

Charles’ policy in the Assembly. When news of the Revolution of February

came, I thought at once of my friend, and expected to find him an actor

amid the events then transpiring. I watched, and saw him step forth

among the foremost. I listened—even at this distance—and was pleased

to hear his voice among the ablest in debate.

“Who knows,” said I, “what Paqueta—who rolled at my feet, and wished to

be my little barber forever—may become with a people who have been

democratic in their belief, and monarchical in their sentiments, since

eighty-nine? One has as much right to expect sudden promotion in France,

as in the East; and a slave may yet sit upon the throne of the Capets.”

Paqueta was equal to either fortune; or to a better, as her true

story—now drawing to its close—will tell you.

We all know the weak and vacillating policy of the Mountain during the

earlier stages of the later Republic—if that may be said to have had

any stage at all, which was born to die so soon. Violent—without

strength; headstrong—without wisdom; it moved—under the leadership of

Rollin—straight onward to an utter ruin. It had committed itself from

the beginning, to all the impracticabilities of the modern French mind.

The _ouvrier_ Albert was the type of its philosophy. Ignorant, stolid:

it thought that the poor were the only class in society to be cared for;

and that true government consisted in setting on foot, and in keeping up

an endless and inextinguishable warfare between the beggars and the

rich. The organization of labor, forsooth! Labor organizes itself; and

is best protected when the magistrate lets it alone. Charles might have

done better had he but followed his own counsels; and I believe he would

have done so, had he not entered upon his public life swayed by private

friendships and predilections. Certainly, he who reads the history of

his hero aright, will find no such half-measures, no such ideas of one

side alone, in his speculations. But the Mountain walked upon ashes; and

the fatal day came in that sweet month of June, which God made for love,

and its fruition; but which a son of the Republic—stern and honest, yet

weak as the rest, blind to the future, and driven by a necessity, much

of his own making—has marked with blood in his country’s calendar. I

was thinking of Paqueta, and what her part might be in her husband’s

ambitions, when the reverberations of the fusilade of Paris, the cries

of the massacred of the 25th, smote upon my ears, here, three thousand

miles from the scene of that tragedy. Thus fell the Mountain: and with

the Mountain, and through the Mountain fell the Republic; for the

Republic died with the coming in of the Dictatorship, and the Mountain

rested and must ever rest upon the shoulders of the poor.

As the smoke cleared away, amid the quietude of death, I looked around

for my friend; and I found him listed among those who—on either

side—had fought for a phantom, even unto the bitter end. Charles R——,

laid down his life at the barricades, a shame to that leader who now

eats of foreign bread.

CHAPTER IV.

In the summer of ’49, an old acquaintance of mine, who had grown fat

upon the Black Letter of the Profession; who, for twenty years, had

hardly seen the outside of our parish; and whom I had supposed a

fixture, so fixed, as no allurements of travel could draw beyond the

limit of his daily rounds about the courts, came to my rooms, with

wonder in his eyes, to tell me that he was about to leave for Europe; to

visit England, and France, and Germany, and Italy, and the Levant, and

the Holy Land, and heaven knew what horrid places beside; and, as it

might be that he should never get back, he had called to bid me

good-bye. I congratulated him on his new-born propensity to rove, and

said to myself, now here is an opportunity for learning something of

Paqueta, of whom I have dreamed so much since Charles’ sad fate. So, I

related her story; and when my friend became interested in it—for he

had a bit of romance beneath his Law—I asked him to call upon her in

Paris, giving him her residence, with a letter addressed to “Madame

Charles R——, Née Paqueta.” He put the letter in his pocket, saying,

that really—after what he had heard—he should himself like to know

what had become of the fair widow of the Deputy; then, charging him, in

case of her removal from the hotel in which I had found her, to inquire

for her of the wife of the commissaire, we joined hands and parted.

My fortunate brother went abroad, and saw a part of the countries he had

enumerated, and returned with this tale of the message I had confided to

him—mournful indeed, but which caused me to love Paqueta more and more.

He said that, on arriving in Paris, he soon found out the street, and

the number of the hotel I had given him, and put my letter into the

commissaire’s hands. The old servant read the address, shrugged his

shoulders, crossed himself, and was silent.

“Is Madame at home?”

“_Non_, Monsieur; she is dead!”

The wife of the commissaire, who stood near by, within the corridor,

hearing the question, came forward and asked, whom Monsieur would be

pleased to see?

“Madame Charles R——.”

“_Mon Dieu!_” exclaimed the little woman, also crossing herself, and

beginning to cry—“Madame is with the virgin in heaven; and is happier

now than she ever was with us; though Jean, my good man, knows she was

then the sweetest and happiest angel alive. Did you know her, Monsieur?”

My friend gave the kind woman my name, and said I had heard of the

Deputy’s death, and he had called, at my request, to learn something of

his widow.

“Eh, I remember him very well. He loved Madame a great deal, and Madame

loved him; I think he was her godfather. He was here in good King

Philippe’s time. _Mon Dieu, mon Dieu!_ we were well enough under good

King Philippe, but now it is _à bas_ this and _à bas_ that, and _vive_

this and _vive_ that, and we shall never have done until we have cut

every body’s throat. _A bas les émeutes_, say I; poor Monsieur Charles

and Madame were killed in an _émeute_.” And then, amid many crosses and

many sobs, she told how Paqueta had died.

“On the morning of the 25th of June, 1848, only four short months after

Lamartine had proclaimed the Republic, with liberty, equality and

fraternity as its watch-words—when the fight raged hottest at the Clos

St. Lazare, Paqueta called to her the wife of the commissaire. ‘You,’

said she, ‘were born in Paris, and know all its streets and blind,

crooked ways; be quick, put on that dress, and go with me.’ ‘I thought

my good lady mad,’ said the commissaire’s wife, ‘for she stood before me

habited in male attire, with a gentleman’s hat upon her head, and the

dress she offered me was like her own. But she looked so firm, and so

fearful, too, and her words were so hoarse and had such a command in

them, that I obeyed without knowing why. ‘Now, no one will know us,’

said Madame; ‘do you hear that terrible cannon! For two days it has

boomed in my ears, and in all that time Charles has not been with me. My

God! my God! they are slaughtering the people in the streets, and he is

in the battle!’ What could I do? The little creature, so soft, so

pretty, so mild, so loving to all about her, looked like a giant, and I

hastened after her, afraid to cry out, afraid to say any thing, as she

rushed ever forward in search of her husband. Where the noise was

greatest, where the shout was loudest, she ran to catch it, crying,

‘Come, quickly, quickly.’ Oh, monsieur, the poor people! Oh, monsieur,

the blood, the dying, and the dead! And Madame heeding nothing of all

that, but still crying, ‘Come, quickly, quickly.’ _Mon Dieu, Monsieur, à

bas les émeutes!_ The strife grew nearer every step we made, the

combatants fleeing and pursuing, grew thicker, and when we entered the

Clos St. Lazare, we saw the roar of the battle. ‘Ah, there is Monsieur

Charles!’ said I. Madame sprang from me at the word, and was soon at his

side fighting with the rest; _oui_, monsieur, fighting with a musket

which she snatched from a falling soldier’s grasp. Monsieur, _quel

horreur_! I could neither fly nor go forward, but stood where I was, and

watched the war, until I saw Charles go down—and then Madame, _comme un

tigre_, sprang upon the _ouvrier_ who struck him, and was avenged, and

sank not to rise any more. Oh, monsieur, _quel horreur_!”

When the fight was ended, and the smoke had cleared off, and quietude

had returned with death, the good wife of the commissaire reclaimed

Paqueta’s body. There was no hurt upon it, she said; and about her neck

she found, fastened by a little black ribbon, a very small bronze medal,

which she had never seen her wear before. And now she rests, side and

side with the one she loved so much, in the bosom of the Pere la Chaise.

Of all who fell upon that terrible day, Paqueta was among the noblest.

She fought on neither side; knew nothing of liberty, of despotism, of

forms of government; knew only her love, and the man who kept it, her

life and—her death. Generous Paqueta, noble Paqueta, brave Paqueta, my

pen shall ever run riot when speaking of thee—Heaven bless thy soul.

* * * * *

=RECOLLECTIONS.=

=BY MISS MATTIE GRIFFITH.=