up the Rue de la Paix was again stopped. After loitering about
for an hour, and unable to get anything in the shape of positive
information, I returned home. Shortly after three I saw the
General de Bourgon in full uniform, and on horseback. He proceeded
a few paces, stopped to have one of his stirrup-leathers adjusted,
and then, followed by an orderly, went off at a brisk trot. Soon
afterwards a guard was placed in the middle and at each end of
this street; no one was allowed to loiter, or to quit it but with
good reason, and only then was passed on by one sentinel to the
next, so from that moment I was not out of the house till Monday
morning.
"At about half-past six the street--usually a noisy one--being
perfectly still, I heard the measured tramp of feet approaching
from the direction of the boulevard. I went to the window, and saw
about fifteen or eighteen soldiers, some bearing, and the rest
guarding, a litter, on which was stretched a wounded officer.
He was bare-headed, his black stock had been removed, his coat
thrown wide open, and over his left thigh was spread a soldier's
grey greatcoat. To my horror the procession stopped at this door.
It was the General brought home desperately wounded! I ran down
and saw him brought up to his apartment, crying out with agony at
every shake he received on the winding, slippery staircase. On
the following Friday (the 30th), at eleven o'clock at noon, after
severe suffering, he died. In the course of the day I saw him; his
neck was uncovered, and the eyes open (a painter had been making
a sketch of him)--he looked like one in placid contemplation.
Previously to the fatal result, at one of my frequent visits of
inquiry, I saw Madame de Bourgon (the sister-in-law). She replied
mournfully, but without apparent emotion, 'We are in hopes they
will be able to perform the amputation to-morrow.' (They could
not.) 'But see! he has passed his life, as it were, on the field
of battle--twelve years in Africa--and to fall in this way! But it
was his duty to go out.'
"'And, madame, how is she?'
"'Eh, mon Dieu, monsieur! how would you have her be? But a
soldier's wife must be prepared for these things.'
"(She, the sister-in-law, is the wife of the general's brother,
Colonel de Bourgon.) His friend, General Korte, too, was wounded,
but not dangerously.
"In all the African campaigns only two generals were killed, in
these street fights six! But the insurgents fought at tremendous
advantage. On that said Saturday afternoon two incidents occurred,
trifling if you will, but they struck me. A large flight of crows
passed over, taking a direction towards the prison of St. Lazare,
showing that fighting was murderous; and a rainbow (one of the
most beautiful I ever saw) rested like an arch on the line of roof
of the opposite houses. Beneath it seemed to come the noise of the
fight; the sign of peace and the sounds of war and death. Mrs.
Norton could make a verse or two out of this. This was Midsummer's
Day!
"Our Midsummer Night's dreams were not pleasant, believe me.
No--there was no sleep on that night--a night of terrible
anxiety. Paris was in a state of siege--no one allowed to be
out of the house, nor a window permitted to be opened. All
night was heard in ceaseless round, from the sentinel under my
very window--'Sentinelle prenez garde à vous.' I can hardly
describe by words the peculiar tone in which this was uttered,
but the syllable 'nelle' was accented, and the word 'vous' was
uttered briskly and sharply, like a sort of bark. This was
given _fortissimo_--repeated by the next _forte_--beyond him,
_piano_--further on, _pianissimo_--till it returned, louder
and louder, and then died away again, and so on, and on, and
on till daybreak. Then was beat the '_rappel_'--then the
'_générale_'--then again the firing.
"This was Sunday morning, and from five o'clock till ten at
night was not the happiest, but the longest day of my life. Any
sort of occupation was out of the question. Each hour appeared a
day. Impossible to get out, or to receive a visit, or to send a
message, or to procure any reliable information as to what was
going on, or how or when these doings were likely to end. All
was doubt, uncertainty, dread and anxiety intolerable. The only
information to be procured was from the bearers of some wounded
men as they passed now and then to the Ambulance (the temporary
hospital established at the Church of the Assumption). But no two
accounts were alike. I was suffering deep anxiety concerning a
good kind French family of my acquaintance, living within a five
minutes' walk of this place. 'Could I by any possibility procure a
commissionaire to carry a note for me? I'll give him five francs
(the hire being ten sous).' 'Not, sir,' said my _concierge_, 'if
you would give a hundred!' The poor general wanted some soldiers
from the barracks (next to the Assumption) to carry an order
for him. After great difficulty the wife of the _concierge_ was
allowed to go and fetch one; but she was searched for ammunition
by the first sentinel, and then passed on thus and back again
from one to another. No post in--no letters--no newspapers.
At length, at a month's end, night came. That night like the
last--'Sentinelle prenez garde à vous,' &c. &c.
"On Monday morning (26th), after a sleepless night--for, for any
means we had of knowing to the contrary, the insurgents might at
any moment be expected to attack this quarter, a quarter marked
down by them for fire and pillage--at about eight o'clock, I
lay down on a sofa and slept soundly till ten; I awoke, and was
struck by the appalling silence! This is a noisy street. Always
from about seven in the morning till late in the day one's head
is distracted by the shrill cries of itinerant traders (to these
are now added the cries of the vendors of cheap newspapers),
the passage of carriages and carts of all descriptions,
street-singers, organ-grinders endless, the screeching of parrots
and barking of dogs exposed for sale by a _grocer_ on the
opposite side of the way, together with the swarming of his and
his neighbour's dirty children--all was hushed; not a footfall,
'not (a line that is not often applicable here) a drum was
heard.' Yes, I repeat it, this universal silence was appalling!
Not a person, save the still guards on duty, was to be seen. The
shops were all closed, and, but for this circumstance, it seemed
like a Sunday! Strange! (and I find it was the same with many
other persons to whom I have mentioned the circumstance) I was
uncertain during these anxious days as to the day of the week.
At about eleven o'clock the _concierge_ came to tell me that the
insurrection was at an end. In less than an hour there was heard
a sharp fusillade and a heavy cannonade in the direction of the
Faubourg-Saint-Antoine. The insurgents had strengthened themselves
at that point (she came to say), but that, so far as she could
learn, General Cavaignac had at length resolved, by bombarding the
_quartier_, to suppress the insurrection before the day should
end. _And he did!_
"Frequently during the day parties of tired soldiers, scarcely
able to walk, passed on their way from the scene of action to
their barracks or their bivouac; wounded men were every now and
then brought to the Ambulance close by--one a Cuirassier, who, as
the guard saluted him, smiled faintly, and just raised his hand
in sign of recognition, which fell again at his side; and, most
striking of all, bands of prisoners from among the insurgents!!
Among them such hideous faces! scarcely human! No one knows whence
they come. Like the stormy petrel, they only are seen in troubled
times. I saw some such in the days of February, but never before,
nor afterwards, till now. Imagine O. Smith, well "made-up"
for one of the bloodiest and most melodramatic of his bloody
melodramas--a Parisian dandy compared with some of these. Some of
them naked to the waist, smeared with blood, hair and beard matted
and of incalculable growth, bloodshot eyes, scowling ferocious
brutes, their tigers' mouths blackened with gunpowder--creatures
to look at and shudder! And into their hands was Paris and its
peaceable honest inhabitants threatened to fall. With this I end.
Ever, my dear Dickens,
Cordially and sincerely yours,
John Poole.
"I began this on Saturday, and have been writing it, as best as I
can, till now, Tuesday, three o'clock. Pray acknowledge the receipt
when or if you receive it. This is a general letter to you all. If
Forster thinks any paragraph of this worthy the _Examiner_, he may
use it. Why does not the rogue write to me? Has he, or can he have,
taken huff at anything? though I cannot imagine why or at what. But
_nobody_ writes to me. I can and will, some day, tell you a comic
incident connected with all this, but it would not have been in
keeping with the rest of this letter. Paris is now quiet, but very
dull."
Chat No. 11.
"_All round the house is the jet black night;
It stares through the window-pane;
It crawls in the corners, hiding from the light,
And it moves with the moving flame._
_Now my little heart goes a-beating like a drum,
With the breath of the Bogie in my hair;
And all round the candle the crooked shadows come
And go marching along up the stair._
_The shadow of the balusters, the shadow of the lamp,
The shadow of the child that goes to bed--
All the wicked shadows coming, tramp, tramp, tramp,
With the black night overhead._"
--R. L. Stevenson.
On the beautiful rocks of Red Head, near Arbroath, and surrounded by
the glamour of Sir Walter Scott's "Antiquary," which was written in
the alongside village of Auchmithie, and the plot and incidents of
which are principally placed here, stands Ethie Castle, the Scotch
home of the Earls of Northesk, and once one of the many residences of
Cardinal Beaton, whose portrait by Titian hangs in the hall.
Many of the quaint old rooms have secret staircases at the bed-heads
leading to rooms above or below, and forming convenient modes of
escape if the occupants of the middle chambers were threatened with
sudden attack. There are also some dungeon-like rooms below, with
walls of vast thickness, and "squints" through which to fire arrows
or musket-balls. The castle has been greatly improved and partly
restored by its last owner, without removing or destroying any of its
characteristic points.
Searching, when a guest there some years ago, amongst the literary and
other curious remains, which add a great charm to this most interesting
house, the writer was impressed with the following characteristic
letter from Charles II. to the then Lord Northesk, which he was
permitted to copy, and now to print. The letter is curious, as showing
the evident belief that the King held in his Divine right to interfere
with his subjects' affairs.
It is a holograph, beautifully written in a small clear hand --- not
unlike that of W. M. Thackeray --- and has been fastened with a seal,
still unbroken, no larger than a pea, but which nevertheless contains
the crown and complete royal arms, and is a most beautiful specimen
of seal-engraving. It would be interesting to know if this seal still
exists amongst the curiosities at Windsor Castle:---
Whitehall, _20 Nov. 1672_.
"My Lord Northesk,
I am so much concerned in my L^d Balcarriess that, hearing he
is in suite of one of your daughters, I must lett you know, you
cannot bestow her upon a person of whose worth and fidelity I
have a better esteeme, which moves me hartily to recommend to you
and your Lady, your franck compliance with his designe, and as I
do realy intend to be very kinde to him, and to do him good as
occasion offers, as well for his father's sake as his owne, so if
you and your Lady condescend to his pretension, and use him kindly
in it, I shall take it very kindly at your hands, and reckon it to
be done upon the accounte of
Your affectionate frinde,
Charles R."
_For the_ Earle of Northesk.
Looking at the fine portrait of the recipient of this royal request,
which hangs in the castle, and the stern, unrelenting expression of
the otherwise handsome face, it is not difficult to presume that he
somewhat resented this interference with his domestic plans. No copy of
Lord Northesk's reply exists, but its contents may be guessed by the
second letter from Whitehall, this time written by Lord Lauderdale:--
Whitehall, _18 Jany. 1673_.
"My Lord,
Yesterday I received yours of the 7th instant, and, according to
your desire, I acquainted the King with it. His Majesty commanded
me to signify to you that he is satisfied. For as he did recommend
that marriage, supposing that it was acceptable to both parties,
so he did not intend to lay any constraint upon you. Therfor he
leaves you to dispose of your daughter as you please. This is by
His Majesty's command signified to your Lordship by,
My Lord,
Your Lordship's most humble servant,
Lauderdale."
Earl Northesk.
As, however, the marriage eventually did take place, let us hope that
the young couple arranged it themselves, without any further expression
of Royal wishes by the evidently well-meaning, if somewhat imperative,
King.
Ethie has, of course, its family legends and ghosts--what old Scotch
house is without them?--but the following, which I am most kindly
permitted to repeat, is so curious in its modern confirmation, that it
is well worth adding to the store of such weird narratives.
Many years ago, it is said that a lady in the castle destroyed her
young child in one of the rooms, which afterwards bore the stigma of
the association. Eventually the room was closed, the door screwed up,
and heavy wooden shutters were fastened outside the windows. But those
who occupied the rooms above and below this gruesome chamber would
often hear, in the watches of the night, the pattering of little feet
over the floor, and the sound of the little wheels of a child's cart
being dragged to and fro; a peculiarity connected with this sound
being, that one wheel creaked and chirruped as it moved. Years rolled
by, and the room continued to bear its sinister character until the
late Lord Northesk succeeded to the property, when he very wisely
determined to bring, if possible, the legend to an end, and probe the
ghostly story to its truthful or fictitious base.
Consequently he had the outside window shutters removed, and the
heavy wall-door unscrewed, and then, with some members of his family
present, ordered the door to be forced back. When the room was open
and birds began to sing, it proved to be quite destitute of furniture
or ornament. It had a bare hearth-stone, on which some grey ashes still
rested, and by the side of the hearth was a child's little wooden
go-cart on four solid wooden wheels!
Turning to his daughter, my lord asked her to wheel the little carriage
across the floor of the room. When she did so, it was with a strange
sense of something uncanny that the listeners heard one wheel creak and
chirrup as it ran!
Since then the baby footsteps have ceased, and the room is once more
devoted to ordinary uses, but the ghostly little go-cart still rests at
Ethie for the curious to see and to handle. Many friends and neighbours
yet live who testify to having heard the patter of the feet and the
creak of the little wheel in former days, when the room was a haunted
reality, but now the
"Little feet no more go lightly,
Vision broken!"
[Illustration]
Chat No. 12
"_I work on,
Through all the bristling fence of nights and days,
Which hedge time in from the eternities._"
--Mrs. Browning.
The late Cardinal Manning always felt a great interest in our parish of
Brasted. In former times it formed part of Hever Chase, the property
of Sir Thomas Boleyn (the father of Queen Anne Boleyn), who lived at
Hever Castle, about four miles from Brasted, a fine Tudor specimen of
domestic architecture, which is now somewhat jealously shown to the
public on certain days. Hever Castle is the original of Bovor Castle,
immortalised by Mr. Burnand in his wonderful "Happy Thoughts."
The Cardinal's father, who was at one time an opulent city merchant,
and sometime Governor of the Bank of England, owned the estate of
Combe Bank, formerly the English location of the Argyll family, whose
Duke sat in the House of Lords, until quite a recent date, as Baron
Sundridge, the name of the adjacent village.
In Sundridge Church are some family busts of the Argylls by Mrs. Dawson
Damer, who stayed much at Combe Bank, and who lies buried with all her
graving and sculpting tools in Sundridge churchyard.
The Cardinal and his elder brother, Charles Manning, passed some
youthful years in this house, and when financial trouble overtook
their father, and he was obliged to part with the property, it became
the ever-present desire and day-dream of the elder son to succeed in
life and repurchase the place. He succeeded well in life, and enjoyed a
very long and happy one; but he never became the owner of Combe Bank,
the hope to do so only fading with his life.
He owned, or leased, a pleasant old house at Littlehampton; and if
his brother, the Cardinal, was in need of rest, he would lend it to
him, when the Cardinal's method of relaxation was to go to bed in a
sea-looking room, and, with window open, read, write, and contemplate
for some three or four days and nights, and then arise refreshed like a
giant, and return to the manifold duties waiting for him in town.
The Cardinal's home in London was formerly the Guard's Institute in
the Vauxhall Bridge Road, which, failing in its first intention, was
purchased as the palace for the then newly-elected Cardinal-Archbishop
of Westminster. It proved to be rather a dreary, draughty,
uncomfortable abode, but having the advantage of a double staircase and
some large reception rooms, was useful for the clerical assemblies he
used to invoke.
I had the privilege, without being a member of his church, of being
allowed to attend the meetings of the _Academia_ which the Cardinal
held every now and then during the London season. His friends would
gather in one of the big rooms a little before eight in the evening,
and sit in darkened circles around a small centre table, before which
a high-backed carved chair stood. The entire light for the apartment
proceeded from two big silver candlesticks on the table. As the clock
chimed eight, the Cardinal, clothed in crimson cassock and skull-cap,
would glide into the room, and standing before the episcopal chair,
murmur a short Latin prayer, after which the discussion of the evening
would begin; when all that wished had had their little say, the
Cardinal replied to the points raised by the various speakers, and
closed the debate; after which he held a sort of informal reception,
welcoming individually every guest.
No one but a Rembrandt could give the beautiful effect of the
half-lights and heavy black shadows of this striking gathering, with
its centre of colour and light in the tall red figure of the Cardinal,
his noble face and picturesque dress forming a mind-picture which can
never fade from the memory. The strong theatrical effect, combined
with the real simplicity of the scene, the personal interest of many of
those who took part in the discussion, the associations with the past,
the speculation whither the innovation of the installation of a Roman
Catholic Archbishop in Westminster was tending, giving the observer
bountiful food for much solemn thought.
Upon our book-shelves repose four volumes of the Cardinal's sermons,
preached when a member of the Church of England, and Archdeacon of
Chichester. They were bought at Bishop Wilberforce's sale, who was
the Cardinal's brother-in-law, and contain the autograph of William
Wilberforce, the bishop's eldest brother. Upon the same shelf will
be found a copy of "Parochial Sermons" by John Henry Newman, Vicar
of St. Mary the Virgin's, Oxford. This volume formerly belonged to
Bishop Stanley, and came from the library of his celebrated son, Arthur
Penrhyn Stanley, sometime Dean of Westminster.
* * * * *
A good book might be written by one who is duly qualified on "the Poets
who are not read." It would not be flattering to the ghosts of many
of the departed great, but there is so much assumption on the part of
the general reader, that he knows them all, has read them all, and
generally likes them all, which if examined into closely would prove
a snare and a delusion, that one is tempted to administer some gentle
interrogatories upon the subject. First and foremost, then, who now
reads Byron? His works rest on the shelves, it is true, but are they
ever opened, except to verify a quotation? Does the general reader
of this time steadily go through "Childe Harold," "Don Juan," and
his other splendid works. Not death but sleep prevails, from which
perchance one day he may awake and again enjoy his share of fame and
favour. It is the fashion with many persons to express the utmost
sympathy with and acute knowledge of the work of Robert Browning, but
we doubt if many of these could pass a Civil Service examination in the
very poems they name so glibly. He is so hard to understand without
time and close study, that few have the inclination to give either in
these days of pressure, worry, and rush.
Upon neglected shelves Cowper and Crabbe lie dusty and unopened--the
only person who read Crabbe in these days was the late Edward
FitzGerald; and it is a small class apart that still looks up to
Wordsworth. The stars of Keats and Shelley, it is true, are just now in
the ascendant, and may so remain for a little while.
It is difficult and dangerous, we are told, to prophesy unless we know,
but our private opinion is that Lord Tennyson's fame has been declining
since his death, and that a large portion of his poems and all his
plays will die, leaving a living residuum of such splendid work as
"Maud," "In Memoriam," and some of his short poems.
America has furnished us with Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, whose charm
and finish is likely to continue its hold upon our imagination;
then there is the Quaker poet Whittier, who will probably only live
in a song or two; and Longfellow, whose popularity has a long time
since declined. He once wrote a sort of novel or romance called
"Hyperion," which showed his reading public for the first time that he
was possessed of a gentle humour, which does not often appear in his
poems. For instance, one of his characters, by name Berkley, wishing to
console a jilted lover, says--
"'I was once as desperately in love as you are now; I adored, and was
rejected.'
"'You are in love with certain attributes,' said the lady.
"'Damn your attributes, madam,' said I; 'I know nothing of attributes.'
"'Sir,' said she, with dignity, 'you have been drinking.'
"So we parted. She was married afterwards to another, who knew
something about attributes, I suppose. I have seen her once since, and
only once. She had a baby in a yellow gown. I hate a baby in a yellow
gown. How glad I am she did not marry me."
The fate of most poets is to be cut up for Dictionaries of Quotations,
for which amiable purpose they are often admirably adapted.
Chat No. 13.
_"She will return, I know she will,
She will not leave me here alone._"
Staying many years ago in a pleasant country-house, whilst walking home
after evening church my host remarked, as we passed in the growing
darkness a house from which streamed a light down the path from the
front door, "Ah! Jane has not yet returned." The phrase sounded odd,
and when we were snugly ensconced in the smoking-room, he that evening
told me the following story, which, however, then stopped midway, but
to which I am now able to add the sequel.
A certain John Manson (the name is, of course, fictitious), an elderly
wealthy City bachelor, married late in life a young girl of great
beauty, and with no friends or relations.
She found her husband's country home, in which she was necessarily much
alone, very dull, and she thought that he was hard and unsympathising
when he was at home; whereas, although a curt, reserved manner gave
this impression, he was really full of love for, and confidence in his
young wife, and inwardly chafed at and deplored his want of power to
show what his real feelings were.
The misunderstanding between them grew and widened, like the poetical
"rift within the lute," and soon after the birth of her child, a girl,
she left her home with her baby, merely leaving a few lines of curt
farewell, and was henceforth lost to him. His belief in her honesty
never wavered; and night after night, with his own hand, he lighted and
placed in a certain hall-window a lamp which thus illuminated the path
to the door, saying, "Jane will return, poor dear; and it's sure to be
at night, and she'll like to see the light."