CHAPTER V.

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BLACKWOOD’S

Edinburgh

MAGAZINE.

VOL. LXI.

JANUARY-JUNE, 1847.

[Illustration]

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, EDINBURGH;

AND

37, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.

1847.

BLACKWOOD’S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

NO. CCCLXXV. JANUARY, 1847. VOL. LXI.

CONTENTS.

THE COURT OF LOUIS PHILIPPE, 1

MILDRED; A TALE. Chaps. IV., V., VI., 18

EUGENE, MARLBOROUGH, FREDERICK, NAPOLEON, AND WELLINGTON, 34

LAYS AND LEGENDS OF THE THAMES, 49

PRUSSIAN MILITARY MEMOIRS, 65

LAPPENBERG’S ANGLO-SAXONS, 79

SCOTTISH MELODIES, BY DELTA, 91

GENERAL MACK--A CHRISTMAS CAROL, 92

REFLECTIONS SUGGESTED BY THE CAREER OF THE LATE PREMIER, 93

* * * * *

EDINBURGH:

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, 45, GEORGE STREET;

AND 37, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.

_To whom all Communications (post paid) must be addressed._

SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.

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PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.

BLACKWOOD’S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

No. CCCLXXV. JANUARY, 1847. VOL. LXI.

THE COURT OF LOUIS PHILIPPE.[1]

The schoolboy, agape at the tinsel splendour and seeming miracles of a

holiday pantomime, longs for a peep behind the pasteboard parapets that

limit his view. When the falling curtain puts a period to Clown’s

malicious buffoonery and to the blunders of persecuted and long

suffering Pantaloon, he marvels as to the subsequent proceedings of the

lithe and agile mimes who have so gloriously diverted him. He is tempted

to believe that Harlequin sleeps in his motley skin, that Columbine

perpetually retains her graceful rose-wreaths and diaphanous muslin. He

can hardly realize the relapse of such glittering apparitions into the

prosaic humdrum of every-day life, and would gladly penetrate the veil

of baize that shrouds from his eager eyes the mirth-provoking crew.

Better that he should not. Sadly would his bright illusions fade, sore

be his disenchantment, could he recognise the brilliant Harlequin in yon

shabby-genteel gentleman issuing from the stage door, and discern her of

the twinkling feet rewarding herself with a measure of Barclay for the

pirouettes and entrechats that lately ravished his youthful vision.

Not unlike the boy’s desire for a peep behind the scenes, is the popular

hankering after glimpses of royal privacy. The concealed is ever the

coveted, the forbidden the most desired. Keep an ape under triple lock,

and fancy converts her into a sylph; it was the small key, the last of

the bunch, that Bluebeard’s bride most longed to use. For the multitude,

the Chronicles of Courts have ever a strong and peculiar attraction.

With what avidity is swallowed each trivial detail concerning princes

and their companions; how anxious are the humble many to obtain an

inkling of the every-day life of the great and privileged few, to dive

into the recesses of palaces, and contemplate in the relaxation of the

domestic circle, those who in public are environed by an imposing

barrier of ceremony, pomp, and dignity. In the absence of more precise

and pungent particulars, even the bald and fulsome paragraphs of a court

circular find eager readers, who learn with strange interest the

direction and extent of a king’s afternoon ride, and the exact hour at

which some infant principule was borne abroad for an airing. Less meagre

and more satisfactory nourishment is afforded to popular inquisitiveness

by the writings of those who have lived in the intimacy of courts.

Seldom, however, do such appear during the lifetime both of the writer

and of the personages to whom they chiefly refer, and when they do they

are often valueless, further than as a sop to public curiosity. Truth is

rarely told of kings by those who enjoy, seek, or hope aught from their

favour. These split upon the reefs of flattery, as a disgraced courtier

does upon those of spite and disappointed ambition. And again, history

affords us examples of men, who, having, through misconduct or

misfortune, lost the countenance of their sovereign, resorted, to regain

his good graces, to shameless adulation and servile panegyric.

We do not include in any of the three categories just named, the author

of the book before us. We should not be justified in attributing to

interested motives his praises of his former patrons; but believe, on

the contrary, that, although familiar with courts, he is no mere

courtier. Had he been more of one, his fortunes might now be better.

From a very early age, Monsieur Appert devoted himself to the

prosecution of philanthropic plans and researches, having for their

chief objects the amelioration of the condition of the lower classes,

the reform of convicts, the education of the army, and that of children

who, by the desertion or vices of their parents, are left destitute and

unprotected. He has frequently been employed by the French government,

and has occupied various important posts. When only one-and-twenty, he

was appointed director of a model-school for the army. With reference to

his humane schemes, he has published many volumes on the education of

soldiers and orphans, on the prisons, schools, and other correctional

and benevolent institutions of France. With these we have nothing to do.

His present book is of a lighter and more generally interesting

character. For ten years he held the office of almoner to the Queen of

the French, and to her sister-in-law, Madame Adelaide. The charities of

these royal ladies are, as we shall presently show, on a truly princely

scale. To this almonership no salary was attached; M. Appert performed

its arduous duties gratuitously, and esteemed himself well rewarded by

the confidence and good opinion of the illustrious persons he served.

His income from other sources was ample; his position honourable, and

even distinguished; his friends, true or false, were reckoned by

hundreds. But misfortune, swift of foot, overtook him in the zenith of

his prosperity. Heavy pecuniary losses, chiefly resulting, as he implies

rather than informs us, from ill-advised loans and generous assistance

to unworthy persons, impaired his means. Concerning his disgrace at

court, he is more explicit. He attributes it to the envy and intrigues

of courtiers, against whom, as a class, he bitterly inveighs. That his

office was one well calculated to make him enemies, if he

conscientiously fulfilled its duties, is made evident by various

passages in his book. During ten years that he was in the daily habit of

seeing them, and of distributing the greater portion of their charities,

the queen and Madame Adelaide, he tells us, never made him the slightest

reproach; but, on the contrary, invariably approved his proposals and

requests, none of which, he adds, tended to his personal advantage. The

king, on various important occasions, showed great confidence in him,

and a strong sympathy with his philanthropic labours. Nevertheless, the

occult, but strong and persevering influence employed against M. Appert,

at last prevailed, and he was removed from the court, laden with costly

presents from the royal family, who assured him that they would never

forget, but always acknowledge, his long and devoted services. After his

disgrace, he sold a villa he possessed at Neuilly, and left Paris, with

the intention of founding an experimental colony of released convicts,

and of the children of criminals. Whether this experiment was carried

out, and how far it succeeded, he does not inform us. He is now

travelling in Germany, visiting the schools, prisons, and military

institutions, and writing books concerning them. The King of Prussia has

received him favourably, and given him every encouragement; the

sovereigns of Belgium, Denmark, Bavaria, Saxony, and Wurtemberg, have

written him flattering letters, and promised him all facilities and

assistance during the stay he proposes making in their respective

dominions.

It was at Berlin, in the spring of the present year, that M. Appert

completed, after very brief labour, his three volumes of Memoirs. He

confesses that they were written in haste, and whilst his mind was

preoccupied with the objects of his German tour. This is to be

regretted, for the result proves that the work was too quickly done to

be well done. The motive of his precipitation is unexplained, and we are

not told why it was necessary to complete, by the 15th of March, a book

destined to appear but in late autumn. Did the _snail-wagen_ pace of the

German _buchdruckerei_ need half a year for the printing of a thousand

pages? Surely not; and surely M. Appert might have given himself a

little more time,--have indulged us with more detail,--have produced,

instead of a hasty outline, a finished picture. His materials were

ample, his subject most interesting; he is no novice in the craft of

authorship. Besides his opportunities of observation at court, he has

enjoyed the acquaintance, in many cases the intimacy, of a vast number

of notable persons, military, diplomatic, scientific, literary.

Ministers and deputies, peers of France and nobles of the old regime,

generals of the empire and distinguished foreigners, were reckoned upon

his list of friends; many of them were regular partakers of his

periodical dinners at his Paris hotel and his Neuilly villa. It was in

his power, we are convinced, to have produced a first-rate book of its

class, instead of these hasty and unsatisfactory sketches. Each night,

he tells us, especially since the year 1826, when he was first attached

to the Orleans family, he wrote down, before retiring to rest, the

events of the day. And yet such is his haste to huddle over his work

that he cannot wait to receive his voluminous memoranda and

correspondence, but trusts entirely to his memory. As far as it goes,

this serves him pretty well. “Whilst correcting the last page of these

_souvenirs_, I have received the enormous mass of notes and autograph

letters which ought to have been of great utility in the composition of

the book; and, on referring to the various documents, I am surprised to

find that my memory has served me faithfully upon every subject of

interest, and that I have nothing to rectify in what I have written.”

Nothing, perhaps, to rectify, but much, we should think, to add.

Monsieur Appert’s notes, judging from one or two verbatim specimens,

were both copious and minute, and must include very many interesting

particulars and anecdotes of the remarkable persons with whom he came in

contact during the varied phases of a busy and bustling life. Could he

not, without indelicacy or breach of confidence, have given us more of

such particulars? His memoirs would have gained in value had he deferred

their publication some ten or fifteen years; for then many now living

would have disappeared from the scene, and he might have spoken freely

of things and persons concerning whom he now deems it prudent or proper

to be silent. But personal recollections of the present French court,

even when loosely and imperfectly set down, cannot fail to command

attention and excite interest. And much that is novel and curious may be

culled from M. Appert’s pages, although we regret, as we peruse them,

that they should have suffered from too great haste and an overstrained

discretion.

M. Appert opens his memoirs in the year 1807, in the prosperous days of

Napoleon, whose ardent admirer he is. The earlier chapters of his book,

relating to the Empire and the Restoration, have less to recommend them

than the later ones, and we shall pass them rapidly over. At the age of

fifteen he became a pupil of the imperial school of drawing. Here he

carried off the first prizes, was made sub-professor, and hopes were

held out to him that he should take a share in the education of the King

of Rome. But this was in 1812; the decline of the empire had begun,

Russia had given the first blow to Napoleon’s seemingly resistless

power;--the hopes of the young professor were never realized. Upon the

return of the Bourbons, after Waterloo, he lost his sub-professorship,

on account of his well-known Bonapartism; and because, whilst giving a

lesson in mathematics, he employed, to mark the curves and angles of a

geometrical figure, letters which made up the words “_vive l’Empereur!_”

Soon afterwards, however, he again obtained occupation, although of a

far humbler description than that to which he had once aspired. He was

employed in the organization of elementary and military schools, upon

the plan of mutual instruction. In this he was most successful, and his

reports to the Minister of war proved that, in three years, one hundred

thousand men might be taught to read, write, and cipher, at the small

expense of three hundred thousand francs, or half-a-crown per man. In

1820, although then only twenty-three years old, he was intrusted with

the inspection of the regimental schools of the royal guard and first

military division; and his connexion with the army brought him

acquainted with many of the Bonapartist plots at that time rife.

Although often confided in by the conspirators, who were aware of his

attachment to the Emperor, he took share in none of their abortive

schemes for placing Napoleon the Second on the throne of France; but,

nevertheless, he was looked upon with suspicion by the government of the

Bourbons. Still, however, he was permitted to become the director,

without a salary, of a school established in the prison at Montaigu,

appropriated to military criminals. To this prison, in the year 1822,

were sent two non-commissioned officers, by name Mathieu and Conderc,

implicated in the conspiracy for which General Berton lost his head.

Yielding to his sympathies and to the prayers of these two young men,

who were bent upon escape or suicide, M. Appert promised to assist their

flight. He did so, successfully, and the consequence was his own

imprisonment at La Force, where he was placed in the room subsequently

occupied by the poet Beranger. Pending his trial, he had for servant a

celebrated thief of the name of Doré, of whom Vidocq, the thief-taker,

more than once makes mention in his curious books. This Doré, who, for a

robber, was a very decent fellow, and who served M. Appert with the

greatest punctuality and fidelity, once had the audacity, alone and

unassisted, save by his own ingenuity, to stop a diligence full of

passengers. With a skill that would have made him an invaluable

confederate for a London or Paris _kite-flyer_, he constructed several

excellent men of straw, the size of life, and quite as natural--at least

in the dark. These he invested with the needful toggery--neither fresh

nor fashionable, we presume, but serving the purpose. Finally, he

fastened sticks, intended to represent muskets, to the shoulders of the

figures, which he posted in a row against trees bordering the high road.

Up came the diligence. “Halt!” shouted Doré, in the voice of a Stentor;

“Halt! or my men fire!” The frightened driver pulled up short; conductor

and passengers, seeing a row of figures with levelled fire-arms, thought

they had fallen into the power of a whole army of banditti, and begged

for mercy. Doré came forward in the character of a generous protector,

sternly ordered his men to abstain from violence and remain where they

were, and collected from the trembling and intimidated passengers their

purses, watches, and jewels. “I forbid you to fire,” he shouted to his

quaker gang, whilst pocketing the rich tribute; “they make no

resistance; I will have no useless blood-shed.” The conductor, delighted

to save a large sum of money secreted in a chest, quietly submitted: the

passengers were too happy to get off with whole skins, and the women

thanked the spoiler, called him a humane man, and almost kissed him, out

of gratitude for him sparing their lives. The plunder collected, the

driver received permission to continue his journey, which he did at full

speed, lest the banditti should change their minds and forget their

forbearance. Doré made his escape unmolested, leaving his straw regiment

on picket by the road side, a scarecrow, till daybreak, to the passing

traveller.

The few persons acquainted with M. Appert’s share in the escape of

Mathieu and Conderc, proved stanch upon his trial: nothing could be

proved against him, and he was acquitted. The affair gave rise to long

and bitter controversy between the Liberal and Royalist newspapers. Of

course M. Appert lost his place under government, and he now had full

leisure to busy himself with his philanthropic investigations. To these

he devoted his time; but the police looked upon him as a dangerous

character, and, in May, 1823, orders were again issued for his arrest.

Forewarned, he escaped by the garden-gate at the very moment that his

pursuers knocked at the front door. The cause for which he was

persecuted, that of Bonapartism and liberal opinions--the anti-Bourbon

cause, in short--made him many friends, and he had no difficulty in

concealing himself, although prudence compelled him frequently to change

his hiding-place. One of his first retreats was the house of Lafayette,

then looked upon as an arch conspirator, and closely watched by the

police, but who, nevertheless, afforded a willing shelter to young

Appert. A happy week was passed by the latter in the hotel and constant

society of the venerable general.

“I had his coachman’s room, and a livery in readiness to put on, in case

of an intrusion on the part of the police. I dined with him

_tête-a-tête_, and we spent the evenings together; the porter telling

all visiters, excepting relatives and intimate friends, that the general

was at his country house of La Grange.

“Monsieur de Lafayette’s conversation was most interesting, his language

well chosen, his narrative style simple and charming; his character was

gay and amiable, his physiognomy respectable and good. His tone, and

every thing about him, indicated good humour, kindness, and dignity, and

the habit of the best society. He had the exquisitely polished manners

of the old regime, blent with those of the highest classes of the

present day. His vast information, the numerous anecdotes of his

well-filled life, his immense acquaintance with almost all the

celebrated persons in the world, his many and curious voyages, the great

events in which he had borne a leading part, the historical details that

he alone could give on events not yet written down in history,

constituted an inexhaustible conversational treasure, and I look upon it

as one of the happiest circumstances of my life to have passed a week in

the intimacy of that excellent and noble general.”

All, however, that M. Appert thinks proper to record in print of these

anecdotes, historical details, &c., consists of a short conversation

with M. Lafayette, who predicted the final downfall of the Bourbons, and

the advent of a more liberal order of things. In 1828, many besides

Lafayette were ready with the same prophecy. M. Appert then asked the

general whether, in the event of a revolution, the Duke of Orleans, who

appeared sincerely liberal, who encouraged the progress of art and

science, sent his sons to the public colleges, cultivated the opposition

members, and was generally popular with the advocates of the progress,

might not become King of France.

“‘My dear Appert,’ replied the general, ‘what you say is very true, and

I myself greatly esteem the Duke of Orleans. I believe him sincere in

his patriotism, his children are very interesting, his wife is the best

of women. But one can answer for nothing in times of revolution.

Nevertheless, the Duke would have many chances in his favour; and for my

part, were I consulted, I should certainly vote for him.’

“Seven years after this curious conversation, which I wrote down at the

time, General Lafayette still entertained, and expressed at the Hotel de

Ville, the same opinion of the Duke of Orleans, now King of the French.”

From Lafayette, M. Appert transferred himself to the Duchess of

Montebello, the ex-lady of honour and confidential friend of the Empress

Maria Louisa. In her hotel he abode a month, and then went into the

country. After a while, the police, who, by not capturing him, had shown

great negligence or impotence, discontinued their persecutions, and he

was again able to appear in public.

To arrive the sooner at the reign of Louis Philippe, M. Appert does

little more than briefly recapitulate the principal events of the last

few years of the Restoration, introducing, however, here and there, a

remark or anecdote not unworthy of note. Take the following, as a

Frenchman’s opinion of the military promenade of 1823, and of its

leader, the Duke d’Angoulême.

“The battles were unimportant, our troops showed themselves brave as

ever; but, in order to flatter the prince, so much fuss was made about

the military feats of this campaign, about the passage of a bridge, for

instance, that all sensible men in France and throughout Europe,

laughed to hear so much noise for such small conquests. At last the Duke

of Angoulême returned to Paris; entertainments were given him, triumphal

arches erected, Louis XVIII. and the Count d’Artois told him he was the

greatest captain of the age; the old generals of the empire, now become

courtiers and flatterers, added the incense of their praise to the royal

commendations. The poor prince came to believe that he really was a

great warrior. A lie, by dint of repetition, acquires the semblance of a

truth, especially when it flatters our self-love, our vanity and pride.

Behold, then, Louis Antoine, _Fils de France_, a greater captain than

Bayard or Turenne. Napoleon I do not name; of him the Restoration had

made _a Corsican marquis, who had had the honour to serve, with some

distinction and bravery, in the French army under the orders of the

princes, during the reign H.M. Louis XVIII., King of France and

Navarre_.

“Before his departure for this famous war, the Duke of Angoulême’s

disposition was simple, modest, and good; when he returned he was

subject to absence of mind and to fits of passion, and his understanding

appeared weakened. Exaggerated praise, like a dizzy height, often turns

the head.

“Louis XVIII., long a sufferer from the gout, at last died, and MONSIEUR

became king under the title of Charles X. The priests and

ultra-royalists rejoiced; they thought their kingdom was come.”

In another place we find a description of the personal appearance of the

valiant commander, who, duly dry-nursed and tutored by his

major-general, Count Guilleminot, won imperishable laurels in the great

fight of the Trocadero. “Short in stature, and red in the face, his look

was absent, his gait and shape were ungraceful, his legs short and

thin.” M. Appert describes a visit paid by the duke, then dauphin, to

his cousins at the Palais Royal. “This visit, a rare favour, lasted

about twenty minutes, and when the Duchess of Orleans, according to

established etiquette, had replaced the dauphine’s cloak, the duke and

duchess conducted their illustrious visiters to the first step of the

grand staircase. Here the dauphin had a fit of absence, for, instead of

saying adieu, he repeated several times ‘word of honour, word of

honour.’ The dauphine took hold of his arm and they returned to their

carriage.” This absent man is next shown to us in a very unprincely and

unbecoming passion, for which, however, he received a proper wigging

from his royal dad. The anecdote is worth extracting.

“The sentries at the gates of the château of St. Cloud had orders to

allow no person in plain clothes and carrying a parcel, to enter the

private courts and gardens. One of the dauphin’s servants, not in

livery, wished to pass through a door kept by the Swiss guards. The

sentry would not allow it, and the servant appealed to the subaltern on

guard, who was pacing up and down near the gate. ‘You may be one of

Monseigneur’s servants,’ the officer politely replied, ‘and that parcel

may, as you say, belong to His Royal Highness, but I do not know you,

and I must obey orders.’ The lacquey got angry, was insolent, and

attempted to force a passage. Thereupon, the officer, a young man of

most estimable character, pushed him sharply away, and told him that if

he renewed the attempt he should be sent to the guard-house.

“From his window the dauphin saw admission refused to his servant.

Without reflection or inquiry, he ran down stairs like a madman, went up

to the lieutenant, abused him violently, without listening to his

defence, and at last so far forgot himself as to tear off his epaulets,

and threaten him with his sword. Then the officer, indignant at seeing

himself thus dishonoured in front of his men, when in fact he had done

no more than his duty, took two steps backwards, clapped hand on hilt,

and exclaimed, ‘Monseigneur, keep your distance!’ Just then, the

dauphine, informed of this scene, hurried down, and carried off her

husband to his apartments. ‘I entreat you, sir,’ said she to the

officer, ‘forget what has passed! You shall hear further from me.’

“The same evening the king was told of this affair, which might have

had very serious consequences, for all the officers of the Swiss guards

were about to send in their resignations. As ex-colonel-general of the

Swiss, Charles X. was too partial to them not to reprimand his son

severely for the scandal he had caused. To make the matter up, and give

satisfaction to the corps of officers, he desired the dauphine to send

for the insulted lieutenant, and, in presence of that princess, who

anxiously desired to see her husband’s unpardonable act atoned for and

forgotten, the king addressed the young officer with great affability.

‘Sir,’ he said, ‘my son has behaved most culpably towards you, and

towards me, your former colonel-general. Accept these captain’s

epaulets, which I have great pleasure in offering you, and forget the

past?’ With much emotion the dauphine added a few gracious words, and

the officer, not without reluctance, continued in the royal guard as

captain. The dauphin, who was good in the main, did not fail, the next

time he saw the new made captain, to offer him his hand in sign of

reconciliation, and, by a singular chance, this officer was one of the

last Swiss on duty with the royal family when it departed for Cherbourg

on its way into exile.”

How striking the picture of regal dignity here presented to us! The heir

to the French throne scuffling in his own palace yard with a subaltern

of foreign mercenaries, and rescued by his wife from possible

chastisement at the hands of his opponent. The king compelled to

apologize for his son’s misconduct, and almost to crave the acceptance

of a captain’s commission as plaster for the wounded honour of the Swiss

guardsman. There is an unmistakeable Bourbon character about the story.

And truly, both in great things and small, what a pitiful race of kings

were those older Bourbons! Fit only to govern some petty German state of

a few dozen square miles, where they might revel in etiquette, surround

themselves with priests and flatterers, and play by turns the tyrant and

the fool. High time was it that a more vigorous branch should oust them

from the throne of a Francis, a Henry, and a Napoleon. The hour of their

downfal was at hand, although they, as ever, were blind to the

approaching peril. And little thought the glittering train of gay

courtiers and loyal ladies who thronged to Rheims to the coronation of

Charles the Tenth, that this ceremony was the last sacrifice offered to

the last descendant of St. Louis, and that the corpse of Louis XVIII.

would wait in vain, in the regal vault at St. Denis, for that of his

successor.[2]

In 1826, M. Appert was elected member of the Royal Society of Prisons,

of which the Dauphin was president, and about the same time he became a

frequent visiter at the Palais Royal. The Duke of Orleans took much

notice of him, and begged him to pay particular attention to the schools

and prisons upon his extensive domains. Madame Adelaide (Mademoiselle

d’Orleans, as she was then styled) desired his assistance for the

establishment of a school near her castle of Randan; and the Duchess of

Orleans craved his advice in the distribution of her charities. He

passed some time at Randan, where the whole Orleans family were

assembled, and he describes their rational, cheerful, and simple manner

of life. It was that of opulent and well-educated country gentlemen,

hospitable, charitable, and intellectual. Kingly cares had not yet

wrinkled the brow of Louis Philippe; neither had sorrow, anxiety, and

alarm furrowed the cheeks of the virtuous Marie Amélie. “At that time,

both Mademoiselle and Monseigneur were gay and cheerful. Since royalty

has replaced that life of princely retirement, I have never seen them

enjoy such calm and tranquil days; I might say, never such happy ones.”

From Randan, M. Appert started on a tour to the south of France, and to

visit the galleys. When he returned to Paris, he undertook to assist the

Duchess of Orleans and Mademoiselle in their charities; and from that

time he saw them every two or three days, sometimes oftener. At last

came the July Revolution. The Orleans family were at Neuilly, and

whilst the result of the fight between king and people was still

uncertain, the duke, apprehensive of violence from the royalist party,

shut himself up in a little pavilion in the park. There his wife and

sister secretly visited him, and took him the news as it arrived from

Paris. From his retreat, he plainly heard the din of battle raging in

the streets of the capital. On the 28th of July, a cannon-ball, fired

from Courbevoye, fell near the palace, and at a short distance from the

duchess and her sister-in-law. There could be little doubt of the

intention of the shot. This circumstance made Mademoiselle think, that

in their fury the royalists might attack Neuilly, and carry off the

family. Accordingly, the duke, accompanied only by his faithful adherent

Oudard, left his retreat, and crossed the country on foot to Raincy,

another of his seats, situated near Bondy. This was on the 29th July;

the duke was dressed very simply, and wore a gray hat with a tri-colored

cockade. As soon as the cannon shot was fired from Courbevoye,

Mademoiselle said to the duchess, “My dear, we cannot stand by those

people any longer; they massacre the mob, and fire at us; we must take a

decided part.” Hastening to her wardrobe, she tore up several silk

dresses, white, blue, and red, made them into cockades, and distributed

them to the household. From that moment, it is evident, that if the

royalists had had the upper hand, the house of Orleans was ruined.

On their way to Raincy, the duke and Oudard fell in with a peasant,

digging his field as if nothing extraordinary was occurring. They asked

him the news. “_Ma foi, Monsieur_,” replied the man, “they say that the

people are thrashing the royal guard, that those stupid Bourbons have

run, and that liberty will once more triumph.”

“And the Duke of Orleans?” was the next question. “What do they say of

him?”

“No doubt he is with his cousins, since he has not shown himself at his

Palais Royal. He’s no better than the rest; a fine talker, and nothing

else.”

Not overpleased at the peasant’s reply, the duke asked no more

questions, but continued his pedestrian journey. Forty-eight hours

afterwards, however, he was at the Palais Royal, with the men of July

for his body-guard; and ten days later he was King of the French. How

far he owed his elevation to intrigues and manœuvres of his own--how far

he had aimed at the crown which thus suddenly settled upon his

brows--are questions that have been much discussed, but never

satisfactorily elucidated. M. Appert’s opinion is worth recording. To us

it appears a temperate and rational one.

“I consider it proved that the Duke of Orleans did not, as many believe,

work for the overthrow of his cousins. As a shrewd and clever man, he

could not forget the chances given to his family by the retrograde

policy of the Bourbons; he remembered that he had five sons, brought up

in the public colleges, partaking the intelligence and opinions of the

rising generation, and therefore secure of public sympathy; he bore in

mind also, that the Duke of Bordeaux, who alone stood above his sons, in

the sense of legitimacy, but far below them in the opinion of the

masses, was still very young, and liable to the diseases of childhood.

All these were so many motives for him to court that popularity which

the Tuileries each day lost. He did not omit to do so. He showed himself

cordial and affable with the popular members of the Chambers, adopted

and sustained the system of mutual instruction, which was protected by

the liberal section of the nation, in opposition to the priests, and

founded schools on that plan on his estates. A generous patron of

artists and men of letters, for political refugees, Poles, Greeks, and

Italians, he was ever ready to subscribe. In short, without conspiring,

the Duke of Orleans did as much to advance the royal destiny of his

family as the elder branch, by a completely contrary line of conduct,

did to compromise theirs.”

If these were the sole arts and conjurations used by Louis Philippe to

compass his ends, certainly no crown was ever more fairly come by than

his. And verily so uneasy a station, so thorny a seat as that of King

of the French, was scarce worth more active efforts; it would have been

dearly bought by a sacrifice of honour and principle. The life of Louis

Philippe, is one of incessant toil and anxiety; his leisure is less, his

work harder, than that of his meanest subject. Late to bed, he rises

early, rarely sleeping more than four hours; after a careful, but rapid

toilet, his day’s labour begins. He seldom breakfasts with his family;

it would take too much time; but has his frugal repast brought on a tray

to the room where he happens to be. When he was Duke of Orleans, he read

all the letters and petitions addressed to him, writing upon each an

opinion or an order for the guidance of his secretaries. This practice

he was of course obliged to discontinue when he became king. At the

commencement of his reign, the number of letters and applications of

various kinds, sent to the different members of the royal family,

amounted to the astonishing number of a thousand or twelve hundred

a-day. Although, upon an average, not above fifty of these possessed the

least interest, or deserved an answer, the mere reading and classing of

such a chaos of correspondence gave employment to several secretaries.

After a while, the flood of petitions abated, but M. Appert estimates

them, in ordinary times, at six to eight hundred daily. Of the letters,

only the important ones are laid before the King, who answers many of

them himself. He examines the reports, projects, and nominations brought

to him by his ministers, and, at least twice or thrice a-week, presides

at the council-board. Private audiences occupy much of his time; his

conferences with architects, with the intendants of the civil list and

of his private estates, are of frequent occurrence. The galleries of

Versailles, and the improvements at Fontainebleau--all made after his

plans, and in great measure under his personal

superintendence--court-balls and dinners, diplomatic audiences,

correspondence with foreign courts, journeys of various kinds, visits to

the castle of Eu and to military camps--such are a portion of the

innumerable claims upon the time of the King of the French. But, by a

clear-headed, active, and earnest man, endowed with the faculty of

order, which Louis Philippe possesses in a very high degree, much is to

be got through in a day of twenty hours; and, after doing all that has

been enumerated, and many other things of less importance, the king

still finds time to devote to his family, for the necessary healthful

exercise, and for the perusal of the principal newspapers and

publications, both English and foreign. “Each morning, either before or

after breakfast, _all_ the newspapers, political pamphlets, even

caricatures, were laid upon the table, and the king and the princes were

the first to read aloud the articles published against them. They

examined the caricatures, and passed them to the bystanders, saying,

‘What do you think of this?’”

The taunt of parsimony has ever been prominent amongst the weapons of

offence employed against the July monarchy by the French opposition

press. The avarice of the Civil List, the candle-end economies of the

Château, the _maigre chère_ of M. de Montalivet, have been harped upon

till they have become bywords in the mouths of the mob, always eager to

detect the petty failings of their superiors. They have been a fertile

subject of pun, sneer, and witticism for those pasquinading periodicals

which care little for truth or justice so long as they can tickle the

popular palate, and keep up their circulation; a perfect treasure for

such loose and ephemeral prints as the _Charivari_ and the _Corsaire_,

the _Figaro_ and the _Tintamarre_. Even graver journals, the dull and

fanatical organs of the Legitimatists, have, in a graver tone, made

scornful reference to degrading and unkingly avarice, whilst that witty

monomaniac, the editor of the “_Mode_,” has launched the keen shafts of

his unsparing ridicule against the _mesquinerie_ of the usurping

princes. It is easy to get up and sustain such a cry as this, against

which it would be beneath the dignity of the persons assailed, and of

their newspaper organs, to contend; and, when supported by a rattling

fire of squib and jeer, daily printed for the reading of a people who,

of all others, are most apt to prefer their jest to their friend, it is

any thing but surprising that a fabrication should acquire credit, a

falsehood be accepted as truth. We believe there is no ground for

accusing the Orleans family of avarice. True, they do not, in imitation

of some of their predecessors, indulge in a reckless prodigality, and

squander enormous sums upon profligate courtiers and lewd women. They

better understand the proper distribution of their great wealth. They do

not gamble, or maintain _petites maisons_, or establish a

_Parc-aux-cerfs_, or commit any other of the disgraceful extravagancies

for which so many Bourbons have made themselves conspicuous. In this

respect they have improved upon the traditions even of their own house.

Louis Philippe must be admitted to be a great improvement, both as a

private and public man, upon his dissolute and disreputable forefathers,

even by those bitter and malicious foes who convert his habits of order

and proper economy into a grave offence. We learn from M. Appert to what

extent he sins in these particulars. To preserve his health, which is

excellent, he lives very simply. At dinner, he rarely eats any thing but

soup and a solid slice of roast beef; but the twenty-five or thirty

persons who daily surround his board are subjected to no such frugal

diet. The royal table is perfectly well served; the wines, especially,

are old and delicious, and the king takes as much care of his guests as

if he were a private gentleman giving a dinner. The intendant of the

household submits each day’s bill of fare for the queen’s approval.

Such, at least, was the custom in the time of M. Appert, whose personal

experience of the court, as far as we can judge from his Memoirs,--for

he is sparing of dates,--extends up to the year 1837.

“The king takes particular care of his clothes; and I once saw him in a

very bad humour because he had torn his coat against a door. The papers

in his private study, the books in his library, are arranged with great

order, and he does not like to have their places changed in his absence.

Whilst conversing, his majesty amuses himself by making envelopes for

letters, and often makes those for the large despatches serve twice, by

turning them. He has the habit of wasting nothing, not even a thing of

small value, that can again be made available. He loves neither play nor

field-sports: of an evening, in his domestic circle, he sometimes amuses

himself with a game at billiards, but seldom for long together; for it

is very rare that he can get more than an hour to himself, uninterrupted

by the arrival of important despatches, by the visits of ministers or

foreign ambassadors.”

We discern nothing very reprehensible in the harmless little

peculiarities here enumerated. It may be stingy and unkingly to dislike

being robbed, and in that case Louis Philippe is to blame, for we are

told that he keeps a watchful eye over the expenses of his household. On

the other hand, he is generous to prodigality in the repairs and

embellishments of his palaces and domains; thus giving employment to

many, and preparing for posterity monuments of his magnificence and of

his princely encouragement of the artists and men of genius of his day.

He has no abstract love of gold, no partiality for gloating over

money-bags: his expenses, on the contrary, often exceed his income, and

entail debts upon his civil list and private fortune. He has an open

hand for his friends, a charitable heart for the poor. Party feeling

should not blind us to private virtue. Even those who least admire the

public conduct of Louis Philippe, who dislike his system of government,

and blame his tortuous foreign policy, may, whilst censuring the conduct

of the king, admit and admire the good qualities of the individual.

“I remember,” says M. Appert, when speaking of the subordinate officers

of the royal household, “that one of these gentlemen, having amassed, a

great deal too rapidly, a certain competency, asked the king’s

permission to leave his service, and return to his own province, where

an _aunt_, he said, had left him a pretty income. ‘I have not the least

objection,’ replied his majesty; ‘I only hope that I have not been your

_uncle_!’” And with this good-humoured remark, the heir, whether of dead

aunt or living uncle, was allowed to retire upon his new-found fortune.

Another anecdote, highly characteristic of him of whom it is told, may

here be introduced. The burial-place of the house of Orleans is at

Dreux. From an exaggerated feeling of regard or friendship, or whatever

it may be called, the dowager-duchess, mother of the king, inserted in

her will an earnest wish, indeed an injunction, that her intendant, M.

de Folleville, should be buried in the outer vault, which precedes that

of the Orleans family, and that a slab with his name and quality should

close his grave. The king duly complied with his mother’s wish, but

caused the inscribed side of the slab to be placed inwards, thus

fulfilling the desire of the duchess without exposing her to the

ill-natured comments of future generations.

M. Appert takes us even into the royal bed-chamber. He does so with all

proper discretion, and we will venture to follow him thither.

“The king and queen always occupy the same bed, which is almost as broad

as it is long, but whose two halves are very differently composed. On

one side is a plain horse-hair mattress, on the other an excellent

feather-bed. The latter is for the queen. The princes and princesses are

accustomed, like the king, to sleep on a single mattress. There is

always a light in their majesties’ apartment, _and two pistols are

placed upon a table near the king_.”

“Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown!” In this instance, however,

the pistol practice is the result probably of an old habit rather than

of any apprehension of a night attack upon the Tuileries. We have passed

the days when kings were stabbed in their beds or poisoned in their

cups; and the attempts of the Fieschis and Lecomtes do not appear to

prey upon the robust health or dwell upon the imagination of their

intended victim. With Marie Amélie it is very different. The anxieties

and sorrows she has experienced since 1830 have been terrible; and

doubtless she has wished many times that her husband had never exchanged

his retirement at Neuilly, his circle of friends at the Palais Royal,

for his present exalted but difficult and dangerous station. “Ah! M.

Appert,” she more than once exclaimed, “he who invented the proverb,

‘Happy as a king,’ had certainly never worn a crown!” When we

contemplate the careworn and suffering, but benevolent and interesting

countenance of the virtuous Queen of the French, and call to mind all

her trials during the last fifteen years, the constant attempts on the

king’s life, the death of the Princess Mary and of the much-loved Duke

of Orleans, and the perils incurred by her other sons in Africa, how can

we doubt the sincerity of this exclamation? In unaffected piety, and in

charity that blushes to be seen, this excellent princess finds

consolation. M. Appert becomes enthusiastic when he speaks of her

unassuming virtues, to which, however, his testimony was scarcely

needed. None, we believe, not even her husband’s greatest enemies, have

ever ventured to deny them.

“The queen disposes of five hundred thousand francs a-year for all her

personal expenses; and certainly she gives more than four hundred

thousand in charity of all kinds. ‘M. Appert,’ she would sometimes say

to me, ‘give those five hundred francs, we spoke of, but put them down

upon next month’s list, _for the waters are low, my purse is empty_.’”

Imposture, ingratitude, even the insolent form of the petitions

addressed to her, fail to discourage her in her benevolent mission.

“Madam,” an old Bonapartist lady one day wrote to her, “if the Bourbons

had not returned to France--for the misfortune of the nation--my beloved

mistress and protectress, the Empress Maria Louisa, would still be upon

the throne, and I should not be under the humiliating necessity of

telling you that I am without bread, and that the wretched mattress upon

which I sleep is about to be thrown out of the garret I inhabit, because

my year’s rent is unpaid! I dare not ask you for assistance, for my

heart is with my real sovereign, and I cannot promise you my gratitude.

If, however, you think proper to preserve a life which, since the

misfortunes of my country, has been so full of bitterness, I will accept

a loan: I should blush to receive a gift. I am, madam, your servant,

Ch----r.”

Here was a pretty letter to set before a queen; a mode of imploring alms

that might well have disgusted the most charitable. But what was Maria

Amélie’s reply to the precious epistle. She was accustomed to open all

the petitions addressed to her--and numerous indeed they were--with her

own hand, and to write upon many of them instructions for M. Appert.

When the impertinent missive of the Bonapartist reached that gentleman,

the following lines had been added to it:--“She must be very unhappy for

she is very unjust. A hundred francs to be sent to her immediately; and

I beg M. Appert to make inquiries concerning this lady’s circumstances.”

M. Appert, indignant at the tone of the letter, ventured to remonstrate;

but the queen insisted, and even tripled her intended donation, in case

it should be required by her singular petitioner, whom her almoner

accordingly proceeded to visit. “I knocked at a worm-eaten door, on the

fifth floor of a house in the Rue St. André des Arts, and a lady dressed

in black (it was her only gown,) opened it.

“‘Sir,’ said she, much agitated, ‘are you the commissary of police come

to arrest me for my shameful letter to the queen? You must forgive me: I

am so unhappy that at times I become deranged. I am sorry to have

written as I did to a princess whom all the poor call good and

charitable.’

“‘Be not alarmed, madam,’ I replied, taking her petition from my pocket.

‘Read her majesty’s orders; they will enable you to judge of her better

than any thing I could tell you.’

“Madame C. read the affecting words added by the queen; then, bursting

into tears, she pressed the paper to her lips. ‘Sir,’ she exclaimed,

‘give me nothing, but leave me this holy relic. I will die of hunger

with it upon my heart.’

“Madame C. proving in all respects worthy of the queen’s generosity, I

left her the three hundred francs, but had much difficulty in prevailing

on her to give up the petition, which I still preserve with respect and

veneration. This trait of the Queen of the French is only one of ten

thousand.”

Madame Adelaide d’Orleans vies in charity with her sister-in-law; and,

although she has no separate establishment at Paris, but lives always

with the king, her generosity and the expenses of frequent journeys, and

of a certain retinue which she is compelled to maintain, have sometimes

caused her temporary embarrassments. “Thus is it,” she one day said to

M. Appert, with reference to a loan she had contracted, “that royalty

enriches us. People ask what the king does with his money, and to

satisfy them, it would be necessary to publish the names of honourable

friends of liberty, who, in consequence of misfortunes, have solicited

and obtained from him sums of twenty, thirty, forty, and even of three

hundred thousand francs. They forget all the extraordinary expenses my

brother has had to meet, all the demands he has to comply with. Out of

his revenues he has finished the Palais Royal, improved the appanages of

the house of Orleans, and yet, sooner or later, all that property will

revert to the State. When we returned to France, our inheritance was so

encumbered, that my brother was advised to decline administering to the

estate; but to that neither he nor I would consent. For all these

things, people make no allowance. Truly, M. Appert, we know not how to

act to inspire the confidence which our opinions and our consciences

tell us we fully deserve.”

This was spoken on the 23d January, 1832, and written down the same

evening, by M. Appert. Madame Adelaide had then been too short a time a

king’s sister, to have become acquainted with the bitters as well as the

sweets of that elevated position,--to have experienced the thorns that

lurk amongst the roses of a crown. Doubtless she has since learned, that

calumny, misrepresentation, and unmerited censure, are inevitable

penalties of royalty, their endurance forming part of the moral tax

pitilessly levied upon the great ones of the earth.

So liberal an almsgiver as the Queen of the French, and one whose

extreme kindness of heart is so universally known, is of course

peculiarly liable to imposition; and the principal duty of M. Appert was

to investigate the merits of the claimants on the royal bounty, and to

prevent it, as far as possible, from passing into unworthy hands. For

this office his acquaintance with the prisons and galleys, with the

habits, tricks, and vices of the poor, peculiarly fitted him. He

discovered innumerable deceits, whose authors had hoped, by their

assistance, to extract an undeserved dole from the coffers of the queen.

Literary men, assuming that designation on the strength of an obscure

pamphlet or obscene volume, and who, when charity was refused them,

often demanded a bribe to exclude a venomous attack on the royal family

from the columns of some scurrilous journal; sham refugees from all

countries; old officers, whose campaigns had never taken them out of

Paris, and whose red ribbon, given to them by _l’Autre_, on the field of

Wagram or Marengo, was put into their button-hole on entering the house,

and hastily taken out on leaving it, lest the police should inquire what

right they had to its wear: such were a few of the many classes of

imposters detected by M. Appert. One insatiable lady sent, regularly

every day, two or three petitions to various members of the royal

family, considering them as so many lottery tickets, sure, sooner or

later, to bring a prize. She frankly confessed to M. Appert the

principle she went upon. “Petitions,” she said, “like advertisements in

the newspapers, end by yielding a profit to those who patiently

reiterate them. Persons who constantly see my name, and hear that I have

eighteen children, come at last to pity and relieve my distress, which

is real.” This woman was, as she said, in real difficulties, but

nevertheless it was impossible to comply with all her demands. When, by

M. Appert’s advice, the queen and Madame Adelaide refused to do so, this

pertinacious petitioner got up a melodramatic effect, borrowed from the

Porte St Martin, or some other Boulevard theatre. She wrote a letter,

announcing that if she did not receive immediate assistance she had made

every preparation to suffocate herself with charcoal that same evening.

“Then this good queen would send for me, and say, ‘Mon Dieu! M. Appert,

Madame R. is going to kill herself. It is a great crime, and we must

prevent it. Be so good as to send her forty francs.’ And to prevent my

raising objections to this too great goodness, her majesty would add

immediately, ‘I know what you are about to say: that she deceives me,

and will not kill herself; but if it did happen, God would not forgive

us. It is better to be deceived than to risk such a misfortune.’”

There exist regular joint-stock companies, composed of swindlers leagued

together for the plunder of the charitable. Some of the members feign

misfortune and misery, and send petitions to the queen, and ministers,

or to any one known as rich or benevolent; whilst others, well dressed

and decorated, assume the character of protectors of the unfortunate,

and answer for the respectability and deserts of the _protégés_. M.

Appert describes a lodging rented by one of these companies. It might

have furnished Eugene Sue with a chapter in his “Mysteries of Paris.”

“It consisted of two rooms. In one were a wretched truckle-bed, two

broken chairs, an old table; the other was well furnished with excellent

chairs, a mahogany table, and clean curtains. The door connecting the

rooms was carefully masked by a hanging of old paper, similar to that of

the outer one; the bed was a dirty straw mattress. The impostor who

occupied these lodgings received her visiters in the shabby room, and

there she looked so miserable, that it was impossible to help relieving

her. The charitable person or persons gone, she transferred herself to

the inner apartment, and led a joyous life with her confederates and

fellow-petitioners. There are in Paris as many as fifty of these immoral

associations, which the police does not interfere with, because it finds

most of their members serviceable as spies.” The suicide-dodge seems a

favourite resource of male as well as female impostors. “Mr. B.,

formerly in the army, now a gambler, always carried two loaded pistols

in his pocket, (the balls forgotten, very likely,) and when he came to

ask me for assistance, which was at least a hundred times a-year, he

invariably threatened to blow out his brains in my room; having left, he

said, a letter to a newspaper for which he wrote, publishing to Europe

the avarice of the royal family, and the baseness of those about them,

beginning, of course, with myself. When I refused to yield to his

threats, Mr. B. changed his mind, and consented to live, but with the

sole object of injuring me in every possible way; and, according to

promise, this worthy man of letters wrote against me in _his_ newspaper,

and sent anonymous letters to the Tuileries.”

Exiled Polish princes, Italian patriots, veterans of all possible armies

and services, moustached to the eyes, their coats covered with crosses,

their breasts, as they affirmed, with scars; aid-de-camps of half the

kings and generals in the world; wounded and fever-stricken soldiers

from Algeria;--these were a few of the false titles to charity

impudently advanced by the mob of rogues and impostors, who daily

crowded M. Appert’s anti-chamber, giving it the aspect of a guard-room

or of the depôt of some house of correction, and displaying in their

tales of wo astonishing address and ingenuity. And in spite of the

immense army of gendarmes and police-spies, who are supposed to envelop

France in the vast net of their vigilance--and who certainly succeed in

rendering it as unlike a land of liberty as a free country well can

be--in spite of the complicated passport system, having for one of its

chief objects the check of crime and fraud, we find that these

jail-birds “had always passports and certificates, and were often

provided with letters of recommendation from persons of rank and wealth,

who found it easier to sign their name than to draw their purse-strings.

I possess more than fifteen hundred letters and notes, large and small,

from peers of France, generals, ex-ministers, and others, recommending

petitioners; and sometimes, when I met these complaisant patrons, they

knew not even the name of those they had thus supported. The visits of

these illustrious persons often lost me a great deal of time; and what

astonished me beyond measure was, that the possession of a hundred or a

hundred and fifty thousand francs a-year did not prevent these rich

misers from tormenting me. They would lose two or three hours rather

than pay down a penny. The son-in-law of one of the richest proprietors

in France once wrote me a most humble and suppliant letter, begging me

to obtain from the Queen a grant of thirty francs to one of his

domestics, who, through old age, was compelled to leave his service.”

And many an enemy did M. Appert make by noncompliance with the requests

of the wealthy skin-flints, who sought to do a charitable act at

another’s expense. The Queen and the Princess Adelaide often received

petitions from ladies of the court, who expatiated on the interesting

and deserving character of those they recommended. Nevertheless, M.

Appert was always desired to inquire into the real merits of the case,

and frequently found that it was not one deserving of succour. Then the

queen or princess would say, when next they were importuned on the

subject, “My dear countess, M. Appert has been to see your _protégée_,

has made due inquiry, and finds that we have many upon our list in far

greater need of assistance. I am sorry, therefore, to be unable to

comply with your wishes.” Here, of course, was an enemy for poor M.

Appert, who certainly needs the approbation of his own conscience as

reward for having gratuitously held so thankless an office. His

functions were no light ones, and took up nearly his whole time. His

position relatively to the royal family compelled him to receive a vast

number of persons of all ranks and classes, some of them of no very

respectable description, but who were useful in procuring him

information. Once or twice a month the Phrenological Society held its

sittings at his house. During one of these meetings two heads were

brought into the room in a basket, and placed with great care upon the

table. “I thought they were in wax; the eyes were open, the faces

placid. Upon approaching, I recognised the features of the assassins,

Lacenaire and Avril, whom I had seen in their dungeons. ‘Do you find

them like, M. Appert?’ said the man who had brought them. I replied in

the affirmative. ‘No wonder,’ said he, ‘they are not more than four

hours off their shoulders.’ They were the actual heads of the two

murderers.” Not satisfied with having the heads, our philanthropical

phrenologist had the headsman. We have already referred to the less

scientific but more convivial meetings held at M. Appert’s house, in the

shape of dinners, given each Saturday, and at which the guests were

all, in some way or other, men of mark. Sometimes the notorious Vidocq,

and Samson, the executioner of Paris--son of the man who decapitated

Louis the Sixteenth, Marie Antoinette, and many other illustrious

victims--took their places at M. Appert’s table. When this occurred, all

his friends were anxious for an invitation. The only two who declined

meeting the thief-taker and the headsman, were the archbishop of

Malines, and M. Arnault, of the French Academy, brother-in-law of

Regnaut de St. Jean d’Angely, who was so influential a person in the

time of Napoleon. There were others, however, whom M. Arnault disliked

to meet. He had a great prejudice against writers of the romantic

school, and especially against Dumas, whom he called a washed-out negro.

If M. Appert wanted an abrupt refusal, he merely had to say to him,

“Dine with me on Saturday next. I shall have Balzac and Alexander

Dumas.” Caustic in manner, but good and amiable, M. Arnault cherished

the memory of Napoleon with a fidelity that did him honour. In the court

of his house grew a willow, sprung from a slip of that at St. Helena.

After 1830, misfortune overtook him, and M. Appert tried to interest the

king and Madame Adelaide in his behalf. He was successful, and a

librarian’s place was promised to his friend. But the promise was all

that M. Arnault ever obtained. The ill-will or obstinacy of the

minister, who had the power of nomination, is assigned by M. Appert as

the cause of the disappointment, which he hesitates to attribute to

lukewarmness on the part of his royal patrons. Louis Philippe is the

last man, according to our notion of him, to suffer himself to be

thwarted by a minister, whether in great or small things. Kings, whose

position exposes them to so much solicitation, should be especially

cautious in promising, strictly on their guard against the odious vice,

too common in the world, of lightly pledging and easily breaking their

word. They, above all men, should ever bear in mind that a broken

promise is but a lie inverted.

We return to M. Appert’s dinners. To meet Samson and Vidocq, he had

invited the late Lord Durham, Dr. Bowring, De Jouy the academician,

Admiral Laplace, and several others. The executioner sat on his right,

the policeman on his left, and both occasionally favoured him with a

confidential _a parte_. Samson was grave and serious, rather out of his

element amongst the _grand seigneurs_, as he called them; Vidocq, on the

contrary, was gay, lively, and quite at his ease.

“‘Do you know,’ said he, with a laugh, to the headsman, ‘I have often

sent you customers when I was chief of the brigade of safety?’

“‘I know you have, M. Vidocq,’ replied Samson. Then, in a low voice to

me, ‘Any where but in your house, sir, I should hardly like to dine in

company with that joker. He’s a queer one.’ Almost at the same moment,

Vidocq whispered, ‘He’s a worthy man, that Monsieur Samson; but all the

same, it seems odd to me to sit at the same table with him.’” Very good,

the spy; not bad, the hangman. In the conversation that followed, Lord

Durham and the accomplished Hermite de la Chaussée d’Antin took a share,

and Samson gave some curious details concerning his terrible profession.

He was on the scaffold when Louis XVI. was executed. “We all loved the

king in our family,” said he, “and when my father was obliged, according

to orders, to take up the head by the hair and show it to the people,

the sight of that royal countenance, which preserved all its noble and

gentle expression, so affected him that he nearly swooned away. Luckily

I was there, and being tall, I masked him from the crowd, so that his

tears and emotion, which in those days might have sufficed to bring us

to the guillotine in our turn, passed unobserved.” Presently Vidocq

ventured a joke, concerning the headsman’s office, which greatly

offended him of the axe, who muttered his displeasure in M. Appert’s

ear. “That man is as coarse as barley bread,” was his remark: “it is

easy to see he is not used to good society; _he does not behave himself

as I do_!” Poor Samson, who receives about five hundred a year for the

performance of his melancholy duties, was, in reality, very well

behaved. His appearance was so respectable, his black coat, gold chain,

and frilled shirt, so irreproachable, that on his first visit to M.

Appert, that gentleman’s secretary took him for some village mayor on

his way to a wedding, or about to head a deputation to the king. Upon

Lord Durham’s expressing a wish to see the guillotine, he obligingly

offered to show it to him. M. Appert gives an account of the visit. “On

the following Saturday, Lord Durham, accompanied by his nephew, heir, I

believe, to his title and vast fortune, came in his carriage to fetch

me. He had told so many English of our intended visit, that we were

followed by a string of vehicles, like the procession to a funeral. On

our way, Lord Durham asked me if it were not possible to buy a sheep to

try the guillotine upon. On my telling him that to do so would give just

grounds for severe criticisms, he did not press his wish. On reaching

the Rue du Marais, I went alone into Samson’s house. He was in a full

dress suit of black, waiting to receive us. He conducted our party, at

least fifty in number, to the banks of the Canal St. Martin, where, in a

coachmaker’s shed, the guillotine was kept. Here there was a fine

opportunity for the display of a genuine English characteristic. Every

body wished to touch every thing; to handle the hatchet and baskets, and

get upon the plank which supports the body when the head is fitted into

the fatal frame. Samson had had the guillotine repainted and put

together, and bundles of straw served to show its terrible power.”

At another dinner, to which Samson and Vidocq were invited, Balzac and

Dumas were present, and the talk was most amusing. For romance writers,

the conversation of such men must possess especial interest and value.

Of Vidocq, M. Appert speaks very highly, with respect both to his head

and heart. He began life as a soldier under Dumouriez, and was sent to

prison for forging a passport. Endowed with great intelligence and

physical strength, and with a restless activity of mind and body, he

made his escape, and opened a negotiation for a free pardon, on which

condition he promised to render great services to the police. His offer

was accepted and he kept his word. M. Appert considers his skill as a

police agent unsurpassable. It is perhaps in gratitude for that

gentleman’s good opinion that Vidocq has bequeathed him his head, should

he die first, for the purpose of phrenological investigations. We find

two or three interesting traits and anecdotes of the thief-catcher. A

report once got abroad that he had an only daughter to marry, and as he

was supposed to be rich, he immediately received a host of offers for

her hand, many of them from young men of excellent family, but in needy

circumstances. Vidocq, who had no children, was vastly amused at this

sudden eagerness for the honour of his alliance. Samson has two pretty

daughters, who are well brought up and even accomplished, and who will

probably marry the sons of the executioners of large towns. Hangmen,

like kings, can only wed in their own sphere. “Samson, who was grateful

for the politeness shown him by Lord Durham, thought it might please

that nobleman to possess the clothes worn by remarkable criminals, and

offered to send them to me. Thus I had for some time in my possession

the coats worn at their execution by Fieschi, Lacenaire, and Alibaud. It

was one of Samson’s assistants who brought them, and each time I gave

him fifteen francs as compensation, the clothes being his perquisites.”

M. Appert relates many other curious particulars concerning French

executioners, and gives a remarkable letter from Samson himself,

relating to the guillotine, to the punishment of branding, and to the

old tax called _navage_, which was formerly levied, to the profit of the

headsman, on all grain and fruits entering Paris. This tax gave rise to

many disputes and discussions between the country people and the men

appointed to collect it, who received from the peasants the title of

_valets de bourreau_. From that time dates the French proverb, “Insolent

as a hangman’s lacquey.”

Of the four sons of Louis Philippe, M. Appert speaks in terms of very

high praise. Doubtless they are well-informed and accomplished princes,

although, as yet, none of them have given indications of striking

talents or high qualities; possibly because they have lacked

opportunities for their display. Not one of them enjoys the prestige and

popularity of the late Duke of Orleans. The Prince de Joinville, by his

handsome person, and frank, off-hand manners, also by his antipathy,

real or supposed, to the English, and by his occasional indulgence in a

bit of harmless clap-trap and rhodomontade, has acquired the favour and

good opinion of certain classes of the French people, who behold in him

the man destined, at some future day, to humble the maritime power of

England, and to take the British fleet into Brest or Cherbourg, as

Gulliver towed the hostile men-of-war into the port of Liliput. We trust

it will be long before he has an opportunity of displaying his prowess,

or of disappointing the expectations of his admirers. The Duke of

Nemours, against whom nothing can be alleged, who has distinguished

himself in Algeria, and who is represented, by those who best know him,

as a man of sense and moderate views, zealous for the welfare of his

country, has been far less successful than his nautical brother, in

captivating the sympathies of the bulk of the nation. This can only be

attributed to his manners, which are reserved, and thought to indicate

pride; but this seeming haughtiness is said to disappear upon nearer

acquaintance. Of the two younger brothers, the characters have yet to be

developed. It has been affirmed that the natural abilities of the Duke

of Aumale are superior to those of either of his seniors. As far as can

be judged by the scanty opportunities they have hitherto had of

displaying them, the military talents of the French princes are

respectable. Their personal courage is undoubted. But for the opposition

of the king and of their anxious mother, they would, according to M.

Appert, be continually in Africa, heading and serving as examples to the

troops. Bravery, however, whose absence is accounted a crime in the

private soldier, can hardly be made a merit of in men whose royal blood

raises them, when scarcely beyond boyhood, to the highest ranks in the

service. And the best wish that can be formed on behalf of the princes

of France, of their country, and of Europe, is that their military

experience may ever be limited, as, with some slight exceptions, it has

hitherto been, to the superintendence of field-days, and the harmless

manœuvres of Mediterranean squadrons.

MILDRED;

A TALE.

CHAP. IV.

A few days afterwards the Bloomfields also and Miss Willoughby left

Brussels for Paris.

It is far from our purpose to follow them step by step upon their route.

The little love-affair we have undertaken to relate, leads us a dance

upon the Continent; but we have no disposition to play the tourist one

moment more than is necessary; and as no incidents connected with our

story occurred in Paris, we shall not loiter long even in that gayest

and most seductive of capitals. He who knows Paris--and who does

not?--and at all understands what sort of traveller Mildred was, will

easily conceive the delight she felt in visiting the public monuments,

ancient and modern; in observing its populace, so diversified and mobile

in their expression, so sombre and so gay; in traversing the different

quarters of a city which still retains in parts whatever is most

picturesque in the structures of the middle ages, whilst it certainly

displays whatever is most tasteful in modern architecture, and which, in

fact, in every sense of the word, is the most complete summary of human

life that exists upon the face of the earth.

What modern city can boast a point of view comparable to that which

bursts upon the stranger as he enters the _Place de la Concorde_! What

beautiful architecture to his right and to his left!--the _Palais

Bourbon_, the distant Madeleine, the Chamber of Deputies--whilst before

him runs the long avenue of the Champs Elysées, terminated by its

triumphal arch. No crowding in of buildings. No darkening of the air.

Here is open space and open sky, trees and fountains, and a river

flowing through the scene. There is room to quarrel, no doubt, with some

of its details. Those two beautiful fountains in the centre are

beautiful only at a certain respectful distance; you must not approach

those discoloured nymphs who are each squeezing water out of the body of

the fish she holds in her arms. Nor can we ever reconcile ourselves to

that Egyptian obelisk which stands between them; in itself admirable

enough, but as much out of place as a sarcophagus in a drawing-room. But

these and other criticisms of the like kind, are to be made, if worth

while, on after reflection and a leisure examination; the first view

which the scene, as a whole, presents to the eye, is like enchantment.

So at least Mildred thought, when, the morning after their arrival,

(while the breakfast was waiting for her uncle, who was compensating

himself for the fatigues of the journey,) she coaxed her aunt to put her

arm in hers, and just turn round the corner--she knew from the map where

she was--and take one look at it whilst the sun was shining so brightly

above them.

Nor are there many cities, however boastful of their antiquities, which

present more picturesque views than meet the eye as, leaving the garden

of the Tuileries, you proceed up the river; and the round towers, with

their conical roofs, of the _Palais de Justice_, rise on the opposite

banks, and you catch glimpses of _Notre Dame_. In London, the houses

have crowded down to the edge of the water, and are standing up to their

ankles in it, so that the inhabitants may walk about its streets all

their lives, and never know that a river is flowing through their city.

From the centre of one of its bridges they may indeed assure themselves

of the fact, and confirm, by their own observations, what they had

learned in the geographical studies of their youth, that London is built

on the river Thames; but, even from this position, it is more wood than

water they will see. The shipping, and the boats of all kinds, blot out

the river, and so crush and overcharge it that it is matter of wonder

how it continues to exist and move under such a burden. It is otherwise

in Paris. There one walks along the quay, and sees the river flowing

through the city.

In spite of its revolutions, of its innovations, of its impatient

progress, there is much still in Paris to carry back the thoughts of a

visitor to antiquated times. If the Madeleine is a Grecian temple, if he

finds that religious ceremonies are performed there with an elegance and

propriety which propitiate the taste of the profane, if they fail to

satisfy the fervour of the devout--a short walk will bring him to the

venerable church of St. Germain, hard by the Louvre, where he will

encounter as much solemnity and antiquity as he can desire; an

antiquity, however, that is still alive, that is still worshipping as it

used to worship. He will see at the further extremity of the church a

dark, arched recess, imitative of a cavern or sepulchre, at the end of

which lies the Christ, pale and bleeding, visible only by the light of

tapers; and, if he goes to matins there, he will probably find himself

surrounded by a crowd of kneeling devotees, kneeling on the stone

pavement before this mediæval exhibition. Two distant ages seem to be

brought together and made contemporaries.

But we will not be tempted to loiter on our way even at Paris; we take

post horses and proceed with our party to Lyons.

A long ride, what an exceptional state it is!--what a chapter

apart--what a parenthesis in life! The days we pass rolling along the

road are always dropped out of the almanack; we have lost them, not in

the sublime sense of the Roman emperor, but fairly out of the calendar;

we cannot make up the tale of days and weeks. We start--especially if it

is in a foreign country that we are travelling--with how much

exhilaration! Every thing is new, and this charm of novelty lends an

interest to the most trivial things we encounter. Not one of the least

amusements of travel is this passing, in easy and rapid review, the

wayside novelties which the road, the village, and the street that we

scamper through, present to us. The changing costume of the peasant--the

whimsical, traditionary head-dress of the women, which, whimsical as it

is, retains its geographical boundaries with a constancy rarely found in

any _flora_ of the botanist--the oddly constructed vehicles, carts

fashioned upon all conceivable plans, and drawn by horses, or mules, or

oxen harnessed and decorated in what seems quite a masquerading

attire--these, and a thousand other things, in their nature the most

common and familiar, claim for _once_ the power to surprise us. All the

common-place of daily life comes before us,

“Trick’d in this momentary wonderment.”

Here in the south of France, for instance, a cart-horse approaches you

with a collar surmounted by a large upright horn, and furnished,

moreover, with two long curving _antennæ_ branching from either side,

which, with the gay trappings that he wears, give to an old friend the

appearance of some monstrous specimen of entomology; you might expect

him to unfold a pair of enormous wings, and take flight as you advance,

and not pass you quietly by, as he soon will, nodding his head in his

old familiar style, and jingling his bells. While the mind is fresh,

there is nothing which does not excite some transitory pleasure. But

when the journey is felt to be growing long--very long--what a singular

apathy steals over us! We struggle against this encroaching torpor--we

are ashamed of it--we rouse the mind to thought, we wake the eye to

observation--all in vain. Those incessant wheels of the carriage roll

round and round, and we are rolling on as mechanically as they. The

watch, which we refrain from consulting too often, lest the interest of

its announcements should be abated, is our only friend; we look at it

with a secret hope that it may have travelled farther than we venture to

prognosticate; we proclaim that it is just two o’clock, and in reality

expect that it is three, and try to cheat ourselves into an agreeable

surprise. We look, and the hands point precisely at half-past one!

“What a _business-like_ looking thing,” said Mildred, as she roused

herself from this unwelcome torpor, “seems the earth when it is divided

into square fields, and cut into even furrows by the plough!--so

palpably a mere manufactory for grain. Oh, when shall I see it rise, and

_live_ in the mountain?”

“My dear Mildred,” said her aunt, gently jogging her, “do you know that

you are talking in your sleep?”

“I have been asleep, my dear aunt, or something very like it, I know;

but I thought just then I was quite awake,” was Mildred’s quiet reply.

When the party reached Lyons, there was some little discussion as to the

route they should take into Italy. Mildred had hoped to cross the Alps,

and this had been their original intention; but the easy transit down

the river, by the steam-boat, to Avignon, was a temptation which,

presenting itself after the fatigues of his long journey from Paris, was

irresistible to Mr. Bloomfield. He determined, therefore, to proceed

into Italy by way of Marseilles, promising his niece that she should

cross the Alps, and pass through Switzerland on their return home.

Accordingly, they embarked in the steamer. Here Mr. Bloomfield was more

at his ease. One circumstance, however, occasioned him a little alarm.

He was watching, with some curiosity, the movements of two men who were

sounding the river, with long poles, on either side of the vessel. The

reason of this manœuvre never distinctly occurred to him, till he heard

the bottom of the boat grating on the bed of the river. “No danger!”

cried the man at the helm, who caught Mr. Bloomfield’s eye, as he looked

round with some trepidation. “No danger!” muttered Mr. Bloomfield. “No

danger, perhaps, of being drowned; but the risk of being stuck here fast

in the midst of this river for four-and-twenty hours, is danger enough.”

After this, he watched the motions of these men with their long poles

with less curiosity, indeed, but redoubled interest.

It was in vain, however, that he endeavoured to communicate his alarm to

Mildred, who contented herself with hoping, that if the boat really

meant to stop, it would take up a good position, and where the view was

finest. With her the day passed delightfully. The views on the Rhone,

though not equal to those of the Rhine, form no bad introduction to the

higher order of scenery; and she marked this day in her calendar as the

first of a series which she hoped would be very long, of days spent in

that highest and purest excitement which the sublimities of nature

procure for us. On the Rhine, the hills rise from the banks of the

river, and enclose it, giving to the winding stream, at some of its most

celebrated points of view, the appearance of a lake. It is otherwise on

the Rhone. The heights are ruder, grander, but more distant; they

appertain less to the river; they present bold and open views, but lack

that charm of _tenderness_ which hangs over the German stream. In some

parts, a high barren rock rises precipitately from the banks, and, the

surface having been worn away in great recesses, our party was struck

with the fantastic resemblance these occasionally bore to a series of

vast architectural ruins. A beautiful sunset, in which the old broken

bridge, with its little watch-tower, displayed itself to great

advantage, welcomed them to Avignon.

Again, from Avignon to Marseilles, their route lay through a very

picturesque country. One peculiarity struck Mildred: they were not so

much _hills_ which rose before and around her, as lofty rocks which had

been built up upon the plain--abrupt, precipitous, isolated--such as

seem more properly to belong to the bottom of the sea than to the

otherwise level surface over which they were passing. As their most

expeditious conveyance, and in order to run no risk of the loss of the

packet, our travellers performed this stage in the _diligence_, and

Mildred was not a little amused by the opportunity this afforded of

observing her fellow-passengers. It is singular how much accustomed we

are to regard all Frenchmen as under one type; forgetting that every

nation contains all varieties of character within itself, however much

certain qualities may predominate. Amongst her travelling companions was

an artist, _not_ conceited, and neither a coxcomb nor an abominable

sloven, but natural in his manners, and, as the little incident we shall

have occasion to mention will prove, somewhat energetic in his

movements. In the corner opposite to him sat a rather elderly gentleman,

travelling probably in some mercantile capacity, of an almost infantine

simplicity of mind, and the most peaceable temperament in the world; but

who combined with these pacific qualities the most unceasing

watchfulness after his own little interests, his own comfort and

convenience. The manner in which he cherished himself was quite amusing;

and admirable was the ingenuity and perseverance he displayed in this

object; for whilst quietly resolved to have his own way in every thing,

he was equally resolved to enter into collision with no one. He was

averse to much air, and many were the manœuvres that he played off upon

the artist opposite, and on the controller of the other window, that he

might get them both arranged according to the idea which he had formed

of perfect comfort. Then, in the disposition of his legs, whilst he

seemed desirous only of accommodating his young friend opposite, he so

managed matters as to have his own limbs very comfortably extended,

while those of his “young friend” were cramped up no one could say

where. It greatly facilitated these latter manœuvres, that our elderly

gentleman wore large wooden shoes, painted black. No one could tread on

_his_ toes.

Sedulous as he was to protect himself against all the inconveniencies of

the road, he seemed to have no desire to monopolize the knowledge he

possessed requisite to this end, but, on the contrary, was quite willing

to communicate the results of his travelling experience. He particularly

enlarged on the essential services rendered to him by these very wooden

shoes--how well they protected him from the wet--how well from external

pressure! He was most instructive also and exact upon the sort of

garments one should travel in--not too good, for travel spoils them--not

too much worn, or too slight, for in that case they will succumb under

the novel hardships imposed upon them. Pointing to his own coat, he

showed how well it illustrated his principles, and bade the company

observe of what a stout and somewhat coarse material it was fabricated.

Warming upon his subject, he proceeded to give them an inventory of all

the articles of dress he carried with him in his portmanteau--how many

coats, shirts, pantaloons, &c. &c. All this he gave out in a manner the

most urbane and precise, filling up his pauses with a short dry cough,

which had nothing to do with any pulmonary affection, but was merely an

oratorical artifice--a modest plan of his own for drawing the attention

of his hearers.

Unfortunately he had not long succeeded in arranging matters to his

perfect satisfaction, when a little accident robbed him of the fruit of

all his labours. The artist, in his energetic manner of speaking, and

forgetting that he had been induced by the soft persuasions of his

neighbour to put up the window (an act which he had been led into almost

unconsciously) thrust his elbow through the glass. Great was the

consternation of our elderly traveller, and yet it was in the gentlest

tone imaginable that he suggested to the artist the propriety, the

absolute necessity, that he should get the window mended at the next

place where they would stop to change horses. Mended the window

accordingly was. When the new glass was in, and paid for, and they had

started again upon their journey, _then_ the friendly old gentleman

placed all his sympathies at the command of the young artist. He was of

opinion that he had been greatly overcharged for the window--that he had

paid twice as much as he ought. Nay, he doubted whether he ought to have

paid any thing at all--whether he could be said to have broken the

window--for, as he now began to remember, he thought _it was cracked

before_.

Mildred could hardly refrain from a hearty laugh at what she found to be

as amusing as a comedy.

First the town of Aix, then that of Marseilles, received our travellers.

Of Aix, Mildred carried away one impression only. As they entered into

the town with all the rattling vehemence which distinguishes the

diligence on such occasions, there stood before her an enormous

crucifix, a colossal, representation of the Passion; and underneath it a

company of showmen, buffoons of some description, had established their

stage, and were beating their drums, as French showmen can alone beat

them, and calling the crowd together with all manner of noise and

gesticulation. Strange juxtaposition! thought Mildred--the crucifix and

the mountebank! But not the fault of the mountebank.

What execrable taste is this which the Catholic clergy display! That

which is fit only for the sanctuary--if fit at all for the eye of man,

or for solitary and desolate spots--is thrust into streets and

market-places, there to meet with a perpetual desecration. That which

harmonizes with one mood only, the most sad and solemn of the human

mind, is dragged out into the public square, where every part of life,

all its comedy and all its farce, is necessarily transacted. If the most

revolting contrasts occur--no, it is not the fault of the profane

mountebank.

Marseilles, with all its dirt and fragrance, left almost as little

impression upon her mind. The only remembrance that outlived the day was

that of the peculiar dignity which seemed to have been conferred upon

the market-women of the town. At other places, especially at Brussels,

our party had been not a little amused by inspecting the countenances of

the old women who sat, thick as their own apples, round the _Grand

Place_, or on both sides of the street. What formidable physiognomies!

What preternatural length of nose! What terrific projection of chin! But

these sat upon the pavement, or on an upturned wicker basket; a stool or

a low chair that had suffered amputation in the legs, was the utmost

they aspired to. Here the market-women have not only possessed

themselves of huge arm-chairs, but these arm-chairs are elevated upon

the broad wooden tables that are covered with the cabbages, and carrots,

and turnips, over which they thus magisterially preside. Here they have

the curule chair. Manifestly they are the _Ædiles Cereales_ of the town.

Our travellers did not, however, see them in their glory; they saw only

down the centre of the street the row of elevated chairs, which, if

originally of ivory, had certainly lost much of their brightness and

polish since the time when the Roman Senate had presented them. The

Court was not sitting as they passed.

The following day saw them in the steam-boat bound for Genoa. In a few

hours they would be coasting the shores of Italy!

We cannot resist the opportunity which here occurs of showing, by an

example, how justly our Mildred may be said to have been a solitary

traveller, though in almost constant companionship. She was alone in

spirit, and her thoughts were unparticipated. The steam-boat had been

advertised to leave Marseilles at four o’clock in the afternoon. The

clock had struck six, and it was still stationary in the harbour,--a

delay by no means unusual with steam-boats in that part of the world.

Mildred stood on the deck, by the side of the vessel, watching the

movements of the various craft in the harbour. To her the delays which

so often vex the traveller rarely gave rise to any impatience. She

always found something to occupy her mind; and the passing to and fro of

men in their usual avocations was sufficient to awaken her reflection.

At a little distance from the steamer was a vessel undergoing some

repairs; for which purpose it was ballasted down, and made to float

nearly on one side. Against the exposed side of the vessel, astride upon

a plank, suspended by a rope, swung a bare-legged mortal most raggedly

attired, daubing its seams with some most disgusting-looking compound.

The man swinging in this ignominious fashion, and immersed in the filth

of his operation, attracted the notice of Mildred. What an application,

thought she, to make of a man! This fellow-creature of mine, they use

him for this! and perhaps for such as this only! They use his legs and

arms--which are sufficiently developed--but where is the rest of

him?--where is the man? He has the same _humanity_ as the noblest of us:

what a waste of the stuff, if it is worth any thing!

This last expression Mildred, almost unconsciously, uttered

aloud,--“What a waste of the stuff, if it is worth any thing!”

“My dear,” said Miss Bloomfield, who sat beside her, “it is nothing but

the commonest pitch or tar. How can you bear to look at it?”

“Dearest aunt,” said Mildred, “I was not thinking of the pitch, but the

man.”

“What _can_ you be talking of, my child?” said her aunt, in utter

amazement.

But there was one behind them who appeared to have understood what

Mildred was talking of, and who now, by some observation, made his

presence known to them. As she turned, she caught the eye of--Alfred

Winston.

They met this time as old acquaintances; and that glance of intellectual

freemasonry which was interchanged between them, tended not a little to

increase their feeling of intimacy.

“And you too are going into Italy?” she said. “But how is it that _you_

select this route?”

“I made an excursion,” he replied, “last summer into Switzerland and the

north of Italy, which accounts for my _turning_ the Alps on this

occasion.”

The vessel now weighed anchor. Departure--and a beautiful sunset--made

the view delightful. But daylight soon deserted them. Mr. Bloomfield

came to take the ladies down to the cabin, where a meal, which might be

called either dinner or supper, was preparing. Mildred would rather have

remained on deck; but as _he_ had expressed his intention of doing so,

she thought it better to descend with the rest.

Amongst the company in the cabin she immediately recognised one of her

fellow-travellers of the previous day. There was the elderly gentleman

with his black wooden shoes, and his short dry cough, gently but

strenuously chiding the _garçon_ for his delay. In these vessels the

passage-money includes provisions, so that, eat or not, you pay; and our

experienced traveller, having taken due precaution, as he soon

afterwards informed all the company, _not_ to dine, was very excusably

somewhat impatient. Mildred was amused to find him supporting his

character throughout with perfect consistency. Although every one but

himself was suffering from heat, he--anxious only for the public good,

and especially for the comfort of the ladies--maintained a strict watch

upon both door and, window, and would have kept both, if possible,

hermetically closed. And as the waiters handed round the soup, or any

thing that was, fluid, he, with a mild solemnity of manner, warned them

not to _arroser_ his coat, not to sprinkle that excellent garment which

was doubtless destined, under so considerate a master, to see many years

of service.

CHAPTER V.

The next morning Mildred had risen with the dawn, leaving her aunt and

the rest of the passengers locked in their slumbers. What a delightful

sensation awaited her as she rose from the close cabin of the steamer,

and, ascending upon deck, met the breeze, the sunrise, the dancing

waters of the Mediterranean, and hailed at her side the mountain coast

of Italy! It was the first time in her life she had seen the blue hill

crested with the snowy summits of the more distant and lofty

mountain,--a combination which the art of the painter is daily

attempting to imitate, but the etherial effect of which it never can at

all approach. What an enchantment is the first view of the greater

beauties of nature! The first lake--the first mountain--the first time

we behold the eternal snow, white as the summer cloud, but which passes

_not_ away--is an era in our existence,--a first love without its

disappointment. The inhabitant of a mountainous country, though he may

boast his greater intimacy with nature, though he may have linked all

the feelings of _home_ with her grandeur and sublimity, can never know

what the dweller in the plain and the city has felt, who, with matured

taste, with imagination cultivated by literature, stands, in all the

vigour of his mind, for the first time before the mountain! It was but a

distant view of the Alps that Mildred now obtained; but that snowy ridge

against the blue sky--that moved not, that was not cloud--exercised an

indescribable fascination over her.

Winston was also soon upon deck; but, observing how well she was

employed, he was careful not to disturb her. He well knew how essential

was solitude to the highest gratification which either art or nature

afford. It is but a secondary or declining excitement that we feel when

we are restless to communicate it to another. The heart is but half

full of its object, that, to complete its pleasure, craves for sympathy.

It was not till they were within sight of Genoa that he ventured to

approach the side of the vessel where she was sitting.

“Now,” said he, with a smile, “it is permissible to talk. We approach

the shore too near for picturesque effect; and the town of Genoa, seen

here from the bay, whatever tourists may assert, is neither more nor

less than what a sea-port town may be expected to be.”

“Yes,” said Mildred; “I was just observing to myself that a hilly coast,

delightful to him who is on it, and delightful to the distant spectator,

is at a certain mid-way station seen to great disadvantage. It has lost

the cerulean hue--that _colour laid in the air_--that visible poetry

which it had appropriated to itself; it has lost this enchantment of

distance, and it is still too remote for the natural beauty of its

several objects to be perceived. These are dwarfed and flattened. The

trees are bushes, mere tufts of green; the precipices and cliffs are

patches of gravel darker or lighter. For the charm of imagination it is

too near; for the effect of its own realities, too remote. And yet--and

yet--see what a _life_ is thrown over the scene by the shadow of that

passing cloud, moving rapidly over the little fields, and houses, and

the olive groves! How it _brightens_ all, by the contrast it forms with

the stream of light which follows as rapidly behind it! I retract--I

retract--Nature has a pencil which never is at fault; which has always

some touch in reserve to kindle every scene into beauty.”

“But the town----”

“Oh, I surrender the town. Certainly, if this is the view which tourists

admire, they shall never have the moulding of my anticipations. The sail

by the coast has been delightful; but it is precisely here, in presence

of this congregation of ordinary buildings, that the pleasure deserts

us.”

“People,” said Winston, “have described Genoa the Proud as if its

palaces stood by the sea. They have combined, I suspect, in one view all

that the exterior and the interior of the town had presented to them.

They have taken the little privilege of turning the city inside out;

just as if one should make up a picture of the approach to London by the

river Thames, by lining its banks with sections cut out of Regent’s

Park. But here we are at anchor, and shall soon be able to penetrate

into this city of palaces.”

They landed, and Alfred Winston assisted the ladies to disembark, but

showed no symptoms of any intention to attach himself to their party. He

did not even select the same hotel. But as all travellers are seeing the

same sights, visiting the same churches, the same palaces, the same

points of view, it was not possible for them to be long without meeting.

And these casual encounters seemed to afford to both parties an equal

pleasure.

We have seen that there was a strain of thought in Mildred’s mind, which

found neither sympathy nor apprehension with her companions. Mr.

Bloomfield was, indeed, more intelligent than his sister; but his

half-perceptions, coupled unfortunately with no distrust whatever of

himself, made him the more tedious companion of the two; for he would

either inflict upon her some misplaced flippancy, or some wearisome

common-place; which last he doubted not was extremely edifying to his

niece. Good man! he little suspected that the great difference between

himself and his niece consisted in this, that he was indeed incapable of

receiving any edification from her; whilst she, in her own silent way,

would often extract from the chaff he dealt in, some truth for herself.

Her responsive “Yes,” was, often yielded in assent to a meaning other

and higher than he was aware he had expressed. To her, therefore, the

intellectual sympathy which she found in their fellow-traveller was

peculiarly grateful; it was as novel as it was agreeable.

If she had refused to be pleased with the applauded view of the bay of

Genoa, she was unfeignedly interested in the interior of the town. Nor,

perhaps, is there any town in Italy, with the exception of Venice, which

makes a more striking impression upon the traveller. He walks through a

street of palaces, the painted fronts of many of which remind him of the

scenes of the theatre--so that he can hardly believe himself to be in a

real town; he sees the orange-tree upon the terrace above him, and its

veritable golden fruit hangs over his head--is hanging in the open air:

he feels he is now really in Italy! he sees the light arcade running by

the side of the palace, with its decorated arch, its statues, its vases;

and as he passes along the street, the open portico partly reveals the

branching staircase, and the inner court, with its deserted galleries,

and its now so solitary fountain. And as he walks on--in striking

contrast--narrow, very narrow streets, at his right or at his left,

descend upon him, dark and precipitous as a mountain gorge, bringing

down the clattering mule, laden ingeniously enough with whatever is

elsewhere stowed into a cart, or the antique sedan, the only vehicle in

which a living man could navigate those straits. Then the multitude of

priests and friars, black and brown--the white muslin veil thrown over

the heads of the women, or the gaudy scarf of printed cotton substituted

by the poorer sort (Miss Bloomfield exclaimed, and very naturally, that

they had got their bed furniture about their ears)--all this, and much

more, which it is not exactly our purpose to describe, give to the town

an air of complete originality. The very decay, in some parts, of its

antique state and grandeur, adds to its interest. One looks into the

deserted porch, deserted of all but that sleepy shoe-black, who has

installed himself in its shade with the necessary implements of his

calling; and one sees the fountain still bubbling up, still playing

there before its only companion, that stained and mutilated statue, who

looks on with how pensive, how altered, how deploring an aspect!

The young priests, with their broad hats and well draped vests of

spotless black cloth, Mildred thought the best dressed men she had any

where seen. The finished dandy looks contemptible by the side of these.

She could not pass the same compliment on the brown friar, corded and

sandeled, with his low brow and his bare shaven crown. In vain does he

proclaim that his poverty is voluntary, and most meritorious: he has a

sad, plebeian aspect; and even his saintly brother in black manifestly

looks down upon him, as they meet upon the pavement, as belonging to the

democracy of their sacred order. Voluntary poverty! the faith in the

existence of such a thing is rarer even than the thing itself; it is

worn out; and in this age a mendicant friar can be nothing more than a

legalised beggar, earning his subsistence (as the Church, we suppose,

would explain it) by the useful office of stimulating the charity of

men; there being in the natural constitution of society so few occasions

for the practice of benevolence.

Our fellow-travellers had met in the church of the _Annunciation_, one

of the most gorgeous structures which the Catholic religion has erected

for its worship. It would be almost impossible for gilding, and

painting, and all the decorative arts, to produce any thing more

splendid than the interior of this temple. Neither Versailles nor Rome

has any thing to compete with the sumptuous effect which is here

produced by these means. By drawing a red silk curtain across the upper

windows, there is thrown over the gilding so rich a hue, that the roof

and pillars glow as if with molten gold. High up, within the dome, there

stand, in pairs, one at each side of every window, gilded statues; and

these, in the red light thrown upon them, look as if invested with

flame. They reminded Mildred of some description she had read in

Southey’s _Curse of Kehama_.

Winston was disposed to quarrel with the building as being too gorgeous;

but Mildred, who resigned herself more readily to genuine and natural

impulses of pleasure, and who at all times expressed the unaffected

dictates of her taste, would not acquiesce in any censure of the kind.

“No,” she maintained, “if the artist aim at being gorgeous, he must stop

at no half measures. There is a higher aim, no doubt, where form and

proportion ought more strictly to predominate over colour, and all the

splendour of marble and of gilding. But if he is resolved to dazzle

us--if to be sumptuous is his very object, let him throw timidity to the

winds; let him build--as he has done here--in gold; let him paint--as on

this ceiling--in such glowing colours as even this roof of flame cannot

overpower. Look up the dome; see how these clouds are rolling down upon

us!”

“But,” said Winston, still disposed to be critical, “there is something

else in that dome which seems disposed to fall; and which, from its

nature, ought to manifest no such tendency. Do you remark those small

Corinthian pillars placed round the upper part of the dome--how they

lean inward? A pillar is the last thing which ought to look as if it

needed support; yet these evidently, unless fastened to the wall, would,

by their own gravity, fall down upon us. This is surely contrary to the

simplest rules of taste, yet it is not the first time I have observed in

Italy this species of ornament.”

“I acquiesce in your criticism,” said Mildred, with a smile; “now point

me out something to admire.”

They sat down quietly on one of the benches, placed there for the

service of the faithful, to survey at leisure this sumptuous edifice,

and let its impression sink into their memory. But this pleasure was not

a little interrupted by the devotees in their neighbourhood--dirty,

ragged, squalid men and women, mumbling and spitting--spitting and

mumbling. They were unreasonable enough to feel that the devotion of

these people was quite an intrusive circumstance. For such

worshippers!--such a temple!--thought Mildred. They were jabbering their

prayers, like idiocy, behind her. “Let us move away,” she whispered.

“After all,” said Winston, as they retired, “it is for their idiocy, and

not our admiration, that the temple is built.”

On leaving this building they directed their steps towards the suburbs

of the town, and entered a church which, in its modest appearance,

formed a strong contrast with the one they had just visited. A level

space before it, planted with trees, gave it the air of an English

parish church. Neither the interior nor the exterior presented any

architectural display. Whilst Mr. and Miss Bloomfield were walking up to

the altar, and taking, as in duty bound, a survey of the whole building,

Mildred and her companion lingered near the entrance, attracted by some

monumental tablets set up against the walls. The bas-reliefs on one, or

two of these were remarkable for their beauty, their elegance and

tenderness, and the inscriptions accorded with them, and seemed full of

feeling.

“I am glad,” she said, “we happened to enter here. I was beginning to be

a little out of humour with my catholic brethren; but these tablets

bring me back to a charitable and kindly mood.”

Winston joined her in reading some of the inscriptions.

“It is really,” said he, “the first time I can remember to have been

affected by monumental inscriptions, or to have read them with any

pleasure or patience. In an English churchyard, the tombstone either

_preaches_ at you--and that with such an offensive dogmatism as none but

a dead man would venture to assume--or it presents a fulsome collection

of laudatory phrases, shovelled upon the dead with as much thought and

consideration as were the dirt and clay upon his coffin. If verse is

added, it seems to have been supplied, with the stone, by the

stone-mason; the countrymen of Milton--and not alone the poor and

ignorant--select, to be engraved on the enduring marble, some pitiable

doggerel that ought never to have been heard beyond the nursery, so that

few persons stop to read the epitaphs in our churchyards, unless in a

spirit of mockery, and with the hope of extracting a jest from them.”

“For which reason, amongst others,” said Mildred, “I generally avoid

them. I would respect the dead,--and the living in their affliction. But

what a natural, humane, tender, and faithful spirit are some of these

written in! And this beautiful figure of a young girl ascending to the

skies, embracing the cross in her arms,--what a sweet piety it breathes!

How well it bears out the inscription underneath, the _conceit_ in which

might otherwise have at least failed to please,--

è fatta in cielo quale parve in terra

--un angelo.

“And here--how full of tenderness--how full of faith--seem these simple

words!--

Quì dorme in pace

la gentile e virtuosa giovine Maria, &c.

Voleva all’ amplesso di Dio.

“And this,--

O Ginevra,

Unico nostro tesoro!

Arridi a noi dal cielo

cara angioletta,

e ne prega da Dio

novella prole che ti somigli,

a rendere meno acerbo,

il dolore della tua partita.

“Earth and Heaven--how they mingle here!”

“Is it poetry or religion that we are reading?” said Winston. “It seems

to me as if these people had suddenly turned their poetry into faith.”

“Or have some of us been turning our faith into poetry? I believe,”

added Mildred, “that, in every mind, not utterly destitute of

imagination, the boundaries of the two are not very rigidly defined.

There is always something of faith in our poetry, and something of

poetry in our faith.”

They were now joined by Mr. and Miss Bloomfield, who had made their tour

of the church; and the whole party retraced their steps towards their

hotel. Winston felt that he had not once indulged Mr. Bloomfield in an

opportunity of venting his lamentations over the evils of travel, and

the discomforts of foreign parts; he therefore asked that gentleman how

he had found himself accommodated at the hotel at which he had

descended.

“Ay,” said Mr. Bloomfield, delighted to have a topic on which he could

feelingly expatiate, “_Descended!_--’tis the Frenchman’s phrase. I know

that I have _ascended_ to my hotel, and to no trivial elevation. Why,

the hotel itself does not begin till where another house might end, and

where it ends might be a problem for astronomers to calculate. The

ladies got deposited somewhere beneath the clouds; but for myself I am

really at a frightful altitude. I was conducted up a dark

stone-staircase with an iron-bannister; after some time my guide

branched off laterally through by-passages, with unglazed openings,

having the most cheerless look-out imaginable, and across damp

landing-places contiguous to sinks, and what seemed wash-houses, and

where you heard the perpetual dripping of water. All this lay in the

road to my bed-room; but the bed-room was not reached yet. I had again

to mount--to mount--till I was almost giddy. When at length I attained

the apartment destined for me--the only one, I was assured, vacant in

the hotel--and was left up there alone in it, I felt so removed from all

human fellowship, all succour or sympathy from the inhabitants of the

earth below, that I do declare, if I had not been a little initiated on

the journey--if I had come direct from my English home at Wimborne--and

if, moreover, I was not here in character of protector to two ladies,

and therefore bound to carry a bold face in all extremities--I do

declare that I should have thrown myself down in utter despair upon the

floor, and there lay till the undertaker should come and take me down

again!--it seemed the only mode of descent that was at all practicable.”

“Certainly it would be the easiest and the safest,” said Winston,

humouring his vein of exaggeration. “And yet it is hardly upon the

_floor_ that you would have thrown yourself--which being probably of

painted tiles, would have given you a cruel reception. You would rather

have chosen Captain Shandy’s attitude, when he was overwhelmed with

grief, and flung yourself face foremost upon the bed.”

“Very true. And as to that same bed, whether owing to the fatigue of my

toilsome ascent, or to some good properties of its own, I must confess I

never slept on any thing more agreeable. Yet, on examination, I found it

stuffed with the dried leaves of the Indian corn. Strange substitute for

a feather bed! It is inconceivable how comfortable I found it. And to be

the dried leaves of Indian corn--a sort of straw, in short. And the next

morning when I woke, and saw by daylight the light and elegant drapery

of my bed, and looked up at the gaily painted ceiling--I suppose in this

country the pigeon-houses have their ceilings painted--I could hardly

believe that I was in an attic--raised even to the fifth power of an

attic.”

When Alfred Winston mounted to _his attic_ that night--as Mr. Bloomfield

persisted in calling every elevated dormitory--he ought, if fatigue was

sufficient to ensure it, to have slept soundly too. But he did not. He

did not sleep at all. And the result of this sleepless night was a

resolution, which does not seem strictly consequent thereon,--a

resolution to rise with the dawn, and leave Genoa immediately.

The fact was, that this Mildred Willoughby was exercising over him, not,

as is often said, a fascination “for which he could not account,” but

one for which he could account too well. She realized all that he had

ever pictured to himself of feminine charms,--his ideal of

woman,--grace, beauty, tenderness, and a mind highly cultivated. But he

had not come to Italy to fall in love. Besides, what had he, in Italy or

elsewhere, to do with love? It was a thing out of his calculation at all

times and places, and just now more than ever. How could he see

Italy--see any thing--with this Mildred by the side of him? He would

escape from this dangerous party. It was their intention, he had heard,

to proceed to Pisa; he would start at once to Florence, and visit Pisa

on his return. By this means he should get the start of them, and he

would keep it.

By eight o’clock that morning he was travelling on the road to Florence.

The Bloomfields were a little surprised at not encountering their

agreeable companion again; and at length concluded that he had taken his

departure. Rather abruptly, to be sure, yet what claim had either on the

other to any of the ceremonies of social intercourse? They were mere

travellers, whom hazard had thrown together.

“After all,” said Mr. Bloomfield; “we have never been introduced.”

“Very true,” said Miss Bloomfield, “that never struck me.”

Mildred was silent.