SHAKSPEARE.

Europe had never seen so complete or so powerful an army as that which

was now assembled within sight of Valenciennes. The city was already

regarded as in our possession; and crowds of military strangers, from

every part of the Continent, came day by day pouring into the allied

camp. Nothing could equal the admiration excited by the British troops.

The admirable strength, stature, and discipline of the men, and the

successes which they had already obtained, made them the first object of

universal interest; and the parades of our regiments formed a daily

levee of princes and nobles. It was impossible that soldiership could be

on a more stately scale. Other times have followed, which have shown the

still statelier sight of nations marching to battle; but the hundred

thousand men who marched under Cobourg to take up their positions in the

lines of Valenciennes, filled the eye of Europe; and never was there a

more brilliant spectacle. At length orders were sent to prepare for

action, and the staff of the army were busily employed in examining the

ground. The Guards were ordered to cover the operations of the pioneers;

and all was soon in readiness for the night on which the first trench

was to be opened. A siege is always the most difficult labour of an

army, and there is none which more perplexes a general. To the troops,

it is incessant toil--to the general, continual anxiety. The men always

have the sense of that disgust which grows upon the soldier where he

contemplates a six weeks' delay in the sight of stone walls; and the

commander, alive to every sound of hazard, feels that he yet must stand

still, and wait for the attack of every force which can be gathered

round the horizon. He may be the lion, but he is the lion in a

chain--formidable, perhaps, to those who may venture within its length,

but wholly helpless against all beyond. Yet those feelings, inevitable

as they are, were but slightly felt in our encampment round the frowning

ramparts of the city. We had already swept all before us; we had learned

the language of victory; we were in the midst of a country abounding

with all the good things of life, and which, though far from exhibiting

the luxuriant beauty of the British plains, was yet rich and various

enough to please the eye. Our camp was one vast scene of gaiety. War

had, if ever, laid aside its darker draperies, and "grim-visaged" as it

is, had smoothed its "wrinkled front." The presence of so many visitors

of the highest rank gave every thing the air of royalty. High manners,

splendid entertainments, and all the habits and indulgences of the life

of courts, had fled from France only to be revived in Flanders. Our army

was a court on the march; and the commander of the British--the honest,

kind-hearted, and brave Duke of York--bore his rank like a prince, and

gathered involuntarily round him as showy a circle as ever figured in St

James's, or even in the glittering saloons of the Tuileries. Hunting

parties, balls, suppers, and amateur theatrical performances, not merely

varied the time, but made it fly. Hope had its share too, as well as

possession. Paris was before us; and on the road to the capital lay but

the one fortress which was about to be destroyed with our fire, and of

which our engineers talked with contempt as the decayed work of "old"

Vauban.

But the course of victory is like the course of love, which, the poet

says, "never does run smooth." The successes of the Allies had been too

rapid for their cabinets; and we had found ourselves on the frontiers of

France before the guardian genii of Europe, in the shape of the

stiff-skirted and full-wigged privy councillors of Vienna and Berlin,

had made up their minds as to our disposal of the prize. Startling words

suddenly began to make their appearance in the despatches, and

"indemnity for the past and security for the future"--those luckless

phrases which were yet destined to form so large a portion of senatorial

eloquence, and give birth to so prolific an offspring of European

ridicule--figured in diplomacy for the first time; while our pioneers

stood, pickaxe in hand, waiting the order to break ground. We thus lost

day after day. Couriers were busy, while soldiers were yawning

themselves to death; and the only war carried on was in the discontents

of the military councils. Who was to have Valenciennes? whose flag was

to be hoisted on Lille? what army was to garrison Condé? became national

questions. Who was to cut the favourite slices of France, employed all

the gossips of the camp, in imitation of the graver gossips of the

cabinet; and, in the mean time, we were saved the trouble of the

division, by a furious decree from the Convention ordering every man in

France to take up arms--converting all the churches into arsenals,

anathematizing the German princes as so many brute beasts, and

recommending to their German subjects the grand republican remedy of the

guillotine for all the disorders of the government, past, present, and

to come.

Circumstances seldom give an infantry officer more than a view of the

movements in front of his regiment; but my intimacy with Guiscard

allowed me better opportunities. Among his variety of attainments he was

a first-rate engineer, and he was thus constantly employed where any

thing connected with the higher departments of the staff required his

science. He was now attached to the Prussian mission, which moved with

the headquarters of the British force, and our intercourse was

continued. I thus joined the reconnoitring parties under his command,

and received the most important lessons in my new art. But one of my

first questions to him, had been the mode of his escape on the night of

our volunteer reconnoisance.

"Escape? Why, I committed the very blunder against which I had cautioned

you, and fell into the hands of the first hussar patrole I could

possibly have met. But my story is of the briefest kind. I had not rode

forward above an hour, when my horse stumbled over something in that

most barbaric of highways, and lamed himself. I then ought to have

returned; but curiosity urged me on, and leading my unfortunate charger

by the bridle, I threaded my way through the most intricate mesh of

hedge and ditch within my travelling experience. The trampling of

horses, and the murmur of men in march, at last caught my ear; and I

began to be convinced that the movement which I expected from Dampier's

activity was taking place. I then somewhat questioned my own

_insouciance_ in having thrust you into hazard; and attempted to make my

way across the country in your direction. To accomplish this object I

turned my horse loose, taking it for granted that, lame as he was, he

was too good a Prussian to go any where but to his own camp. This

accounts for his being found at morn. I had, however, scarcely thus

taken the chance of losing a charger which had cost me a hundred and

fifty gold ducats, when I received a shot from behind a thicket which

disabled my left arm, and I was instantly surrounded by a dozen French

hussars. I was foolish enough to be angry, and angry enough to fight.

But as I was neither Samson, nor they Philistines, my sabre was soon

beaten down, and I had only to surrender. I was next mounted on the

croup of one of their horses, and after a gallop of half an hour reached

the French advanced guard. It was already hurrying on, and I must

confess that, from the silence of the march and the rapid pace of their

battalions, I began to be nervous about the consequences, and dreaded

the effects of a surprise on some of our camps. My first apprehension,

however, was for you. I thought that you must have been entangled in the

route of some of the advancing battalions, and I enquired of the colonel

of the first to whom I was brought, whether he had taken any prisoners.

"'Plenty,' was the answer of the rough Republican--'chiefly peasants and

spies; but we have shot none of them yet. That would make too much

noise; so we have sent them to the rear, where I shall send you. You

will not be shot till we return to-morrow morning, after having cut up

those _chiens Anglais_.'"

I could not avoid showing my perturbation at the extreme peril in which

this distinguished man had involved himself on my account; and expressed

something of my regret and gratitude.

"Remember, Marston," was his good-humoured reply, "that, in the first

place, the Frenchman was not under circumstances to put his promise in

practice--he having found the English _chien_ more than a match for the

French wolf; and, in the next, that twelve hours form a very important

respite in the life of the campaigner. I was sent to the rear with a

couple of hussars to watch me until the arrival of the general, who was

coming up with the main body. On foot and disarmed, I had only to follow

them to the next house, which was luckily one of the little Flemish

inns. My hussars found a jar of brandy, and got drunk in a moment; one

dropped on the floor--the other fell asleep on his horse. I had now a

chance of escape; but I was weary, wounded, and overcome with vexation.

It happened, as I took my last view of my keeper outside, nodding on his

horse's neck, that I glanced on a huge haystack in the stable-yard. The

thought struck me, that helpless as I was, I might contrive to give an

alarm to some of the British videttes or patroles, if your gallant

countrymen should condescend to employ such things. I stole down into

the yard, lantern in hand; thrust it into the stack, and had the

satisfaction of seeing it burst into a blaze. I made my next step into

the stable, to find a horse for my escape; but the French patroles had

been before me, and those clever fellows seldom leave any thing to be

gleaned after them. What became of my escort I did not return to

enquire; but I heard a prodigious galloping through the village, and

found the advantage of the flame in guiding me through as perplexing a

maze of thicket and morass as I ever attempted at midnight. The sound of

the engagement which followed directed me to the camp; and I remain, a

living example to my friend, of the advantage of twelve hours between

sentence and execution."

I had another wonder for him; and nothing could exceed his gratification

when he heard, that his act had enabled me to give the alarm of the

French advance. But for that blaze I should certainly have never been

aware of their movement; the light alone had led me into the track of

the enemy, and given me time to make the intelligence useful.

"The worst of all this," said he, with his grave smile, "is that the

officer in command of your camp on that night will get a red riband and

a regiment; and that you will get only the advantage of recollecting,

that in war, and perhaps in every situation of life, nothing is to be

despaired of, and nothing is to be left untried. A candle in a lantern,

properly used, probably saved both our lives, the lives of some

thousands of your brave troops, the fate of the campaign, and, with it,

half the thrones of Europe, trembling on the chance of a first campaign.

I shall yet have some of my mystical countrymen writing an epic on my

Flemish lantern."

During this little narrative, we had been riding over the bleak downs

which render the environs of Valenciennes such a barren contrast to the

general luxuriance of northern France; and were examining the approaches

to the city, when Guiscard called to his attendant for his telescope. We

were now in the great coal-field of France; but the miners had fled, and

left the plain doubly desolate. "Can those," said he, "be the miners

returning to their homes? for if not, I am afraid that we shall have

speedy evidence of the hazards of inactivity." But the twilight was now

deepening, and neither of us could discern any thing beyond an immense

mass of men, in grey cloaks, hurrying towards the city. I proposed that

we should ride forward, and ascertain the facts. He checked my rein.

"No! Amadis de Gaul, or Rolando, or by whatever name more heroic your

chivalry prefers being called, we must volunteer no further. My valet

shall return to the camp and bring us any intelligence which is to be

found there, while we proceed on our survey of the ground for our

batteries."

We had gone but a few hundred yards, and I was busily employed in

sketching the profile of the citadel, when we heard the advance of a

large party of British cavalry, with several of the staff, and the Duke

of York, then a remarkably handsome young man, at their head. I had seen

the Duke frequently on our parades in England; but even the brief

campaign had bronzed his cheek, and given him the air which it requires

a foreign campaign to give. He communicated the sufficiently interesting

intelligence, that since the victory over Dampier, the enemy had

collected a strong force from their garrisons, and after throwing ten

thousand men into Valenciennes, had formed an intrenched camp, which was

hourly receiving reinforcements. "But we must put a stop to that," said

the Duke, with a smile; "and, to save them trouble and ourselves time,

we shall attack them to-morrow." He then addressed himself to Guiscard,

with the attention due to his name and rank, and conversed for a few

minutes on the point of attack for the next day--examined my

sketch--said some flattering words on its correctness, and galloped off.

"Well," said Guiscard, as he followed with his glance the flying troop,

"war is a showy spectacle, and I can scarcely wonder that it should be

the game of princes; but a little more common sense in our camps would

have saved us to-morrow's battle. The delays of diplomacy are like the

delays of law--the estate perishes before the process is at an end. But

now to our work." We rode to the various points from which a view of the

newly arrived multitude could be obtained. Their fires began to blaze;

and we were thus enabled to ascertain at once their position, and, in

some degree, their numbers. There could not be less than thirty thousand

men, the arrival of the last few hours. "For this _contretemps_," said

Guiscard, as he examined their bivouac with his telescope, "we have to

thank only ourselves. Valenciennes ought to have been stormed within the

first five minutes after we could have cut down those poplars for

scaling ladders," and he pointed to the tapering tops of the large

plantations lining the banks of the Scheldt; "but we have been

quarreling over our portfolios, while the French have been gathering

every rambling soldier within a hundred miles; and now we shall have a

desperate struggle to take possession of those lines, and probably a

long siege as finale to the operation. There, take my glass, and judge

for yourselves." I looked, and if the novelty and singularity could have

made me forget the serious business of the scene, I might have been

amply amused. The whole French force were employed in preparing for the

bivouac, and fortifying the ground, which they had evidently taken up

with the intent of covering the city. All was in motion. At the distance

from which we surveyed it, the whole position seemed one huge ant-hill.

Torches, thickets burning, and the fires of the bivouac, threw an

uncertain and gloomy glare over portions of the view, which, leaving the

rest in utter darkness, gave an ominous and ghostly look to the entire.

I remarked this impression to Guiscard, and observed that it was strange

to see a "scene of the most stirring life so sepulchral."

"Why not?" was his reply. "The business is probably much the same."

"Yet sepulchral," I observed, "is not exactly the word which I would

have used. There is too much motion, too much hurried and eager

restlessness, too much of the wild and fierce activity of beings who

have not a moment to lose, and who are busied in preparations for

destruction."

"Have you ever been in the Sistine Chapel?" asked my companion.

"No; Italy has been hitherto beyond my flight; but the longing to see it

haunts me."

"Well, then, when your good fortune leads you to Rome, let your first

look be given to the noblest work of the pencil, and of Michael Angelo:

glance at the bottom of his immortal picture, and you will see precisely

the same wild activity, and the same strange and startling animation.

The difference only is, that the actors here are men--there, fiends;

here the scene is the field of future battle--there, the region of

final torment. I am not sure that the difference is great, after all."

At daybreak, the British line was under arms. I feel all words fail,

under the effort to convey the truth of that most magnificent display;

not that a simple detail may not be adequate to describe the movements

of a gallant army; but what can give the impression of the time, the

form and pressure of collisions on which depended the broadest and

deepest interests of the earth. Our war was then, what no war was since

the old invasions under the Edwards and Henrys--national; it was as

romantic as the crusades. England was fighting for none of the objects

which, during the last three hundred years, had sent armies into the

field--not for territory, not for glory, not for European supremacy, not

even for self-defence. She was fighting for a Cause; but that was the

cause of society, of human freedom, of European advance, of every

faculty, feeling, and possession by which man is sustained in his rank

above the beasts that perish. The very language of the great dramatist

came to my recollection, at the moment when I heard the first signal-gun

for our being put in motion.

"Now all the youth of England are on fire,

And silken dalliance in the wardrobe lies.

Now thrive the armourers; and honour's thought

Reigns solely in the breast of every man.

They sell the pasture now to buy the horse,

Following the mirror of all Christian kings

With winged heels, as English Mercuries."

Our troops, too, had all the ardour which is added even to the boldest

by the assurance of victory. They had never come into contact with the

enemy but to defeat them, and the conviction of their invincibility was

so powerful, that it required the utmost efforts of their officers to

prevent their rushing into profitless peril. The past and the present

were triumphant; while, to many a mind of the higher cast, the future

was, perhaps, more glittering than either. In the same imperishable

eloquence of poetry--

"For now sits expectation in the air,

And hides a sword, from hilt unto the point,

With crowns imperial, crowns and coronets,

Promised to Harry and his followers."

The ambition of the English soldier may be of a more modified order than

that of the foreigner; but the dream of poetry was soon realized in the

crush of the Republicans, who had trampled alike the crown and the

coronet in the blood of their owners. Twenty-seven thousand men were

appointed for the attack of the French lines; and on the first tap of

the drum, a general shout of exultation was given from all the columns.

The cavalry galloped through the intervals to the front, and parks of

the light guns were sent forward to take up positions on the few

eminences which commanded the plain; but the day had scarcely broke,

when one of those dense fogs, the customary evil of the country, fell

suddenly upon the whole horizon, and rendered action almost impossible.

Nothing could exceed the vexation of the army at this impediment; and if

our soldiers had ever heard of Homer, there would have been many a

repetition of his warrior's prayer, that "live or die, it might be in

the light of day."

But in the interval, important changes were made in the formation of the

columns. The French lines had been found of unexpected strength, and the

Guards were pushed forward to head a grand division placed under command

of General Ferrari. The British were, of course, under the immediate

orders of an officer of their own, and a more gallant one never led

troops under fire. I now, for the first time, saw the general who was

afterwards destined to sweep the French out of Egypt, and inflict the

first real blow on the military supremacy of France under Napoleon.

General Abercromby was then in the full vigour of life; a strongly

formed, manly figure, a quiet but keen eye, and a countenance of

remarkable steadiness and thought, all gave the indications of a mind

firm in all the contingencies of war. Exactly at noon, the fog drew up

as suddenly as it had descended, and we had a full view of the enemy's

army. No foreign force ever exhibits so showy and soldierly an

appearance as the British. The blue of the French and Prussians looks

black, and the white of the Austrian looks faded and feeble, compared

with the scarlet. As I cast my glance along our lines, they looked like

trails of flame. The French were drawn up in columns in front of their

camp, which, by the most extraordinary exertion, they had covered during

the night with numerous batteries, and fortified with a circle of

powerful redoubts; the guns of the fortress defended their flank and

rear, and their position was evidently of the most formidable kind. But

all view was lost, from the moment when the head of our brigade

advanced. Every gun that could be brought to bear upon us opened at

once, and all was enveloped in smoke. For a full hour we could see

nothing but the effect of the grape-shot on our own ranks as we poured

on, and hear nothing but the roar of the batteries. But at length shouts

began to arise in distant parts of the field, and we felt that the

division which had been appointed to assault the rear of the camp was

making progress. Walmoden, commanding a brigade under Ferrari, now

galloped up, to ascertain whether our men were ready to assault the

intrenchments. "The British troops are _always_ ready," was Abercromby's

expressive, and somewhat indignant, answer. In the instant of our

rushing forward, an aide-de-camp rode up, to acquaint the general that

the column under the Duke of York had already stormed three redoubts.

"Gentlemen," said Abercromby, turning to the colonels round him, "we

must try to save our friends further trouble--forward!" Within a quarter

of an hour we were within the enemy's lines, every battery was stormed

or turned, and the French were in confusion. Some hurried towards the

fortress, which now began to fire; a large body fled into the open

country, and fell into the hands of his royal highness; and some,

seizing the boats on the river, dropped down with the stream. All was

victory: yet this was to be my day of ill luck. In pursuing the enemy

towards the fortress, a battalion, which had attempted to cover the

retreat, broke at the moment when my company were on the point of

charging them. This was too tempting a chance to be resisted; we rushed

on, taking prisoners at every step, until we actually came within sight

of the gate by which the fugitives were making their escape into the

town. But we were in a trap, and soon felt that we were discovered, by a

heavy discharge of musketry from the rampart. We had now only to return

on our steps, and I had just given the word, when the firing was renewed

on a bastion, round which we were hurrying in the twilight. I felt a

sudden shock, like that of electricity, which struck me down; I made a

struggle to rise on my feet, but my strength wholly failed me, and I

lost all recollection.

On my restoration to my senses, in a few hours after, I found that I had

been carried into the town, and placed in the military hospital. My

first impulse was, to examine whether any of my brave fellows had shared

my misfortune; but all round me were French, wounded in the engagement

of the day. My next source of congratulation was, that I had no limb

broken. The shot had struck me in the temple, and glanced off without

entering; but I had lost much blood, had been trampled, and felt a

degree of exhaustion, which gave me the nearest conception to actual

death.

Of the transactions of the field I knew nothing beyond my own share of

the day; but I had seen the enemy in full flight, and that was

sufficient. Within a day or two, the roaring of cannon, the increased

bustle of the attendants, and the tidings that a black flag had been

erected on the hospital, told me that the siege had begun. I shall pass

over its horrors. Yet, what is all war but a succession of horrors? The

sights which I saw, the sounds which I heard from hour to hour, were

enough to sicken me of human nature. In the gloom and pain of my

sleepless nights, I literally began to think it possible that a fiendish

nature might supplant the human condition, and that the work before my

eyes was merely an anticipation of those terrors, which to name startles

the imagination and wrings the heart. Surrounded with agonies, the

involuntary remark always came to my mind with renewed freshness, in the

common occurrences of the hospital day. But, besides the sufferings of

the wounded, a new species of suffering, scarcely less painful, and

still more humiliating, began to be prominent. The provisions of the

people, insufficiently laid in at the approach of the besiegers, rapidly

failed, and the hospital itself was soon surrounded by supplicants for

food. The distress, at last, became so excessive, that it amounted to

agony. Emaciated figures of both sexes stole or forced their way into

the building, to beg our rations, or snatch them from our feeble hands;

and I often divided my scanty meal with individuals who had once been in

opulent trade, or been ranked among the _semi-noblesse_ of the

surrounding country. Sometimes I missed faces to which I had been

accustomed among those unfortunate beings, and I heard a still more

unhappy tale--shall I call it more unhappy? They had perished by the

cannon-shot, which now poured into the city day and night, or had been

buried in the ruins of some of the buildings, which were now constantly

falling under the heaviest bombardment in the annals of war. Of those

scenes I say no more. If the siege of a great fortress is the most

trying of all hazards to the soldier without, what must it be to the

wretches within? Valenciennes was once the centre of the lace

manufactories of France. The war had destroyed them at once. The

proprietors had fled, the thousands of young and old employed in those

delicate and beautiful productions, had fled too, or remained only to

perish of famine. A city of twenty thousand of the most ingenious

artists was turning day by day into a vast cemetery. As I tossed on my

mattress hour after hour, and heard the roar of the successive

batteries, shuddered at the fall of the shells, and was tortured by the

cries of the crowd flying from the explosions all night long--I gave the

deepest curses of my spirit to the passion for glory. It is true, that

nations must defend themselves; the soldier is a protector to the

industry, the wealth, and the happiness of the country. I am no disciple

of the theory, which, disclaiming the first instinct of nature,

self-preservation, invites injury by weakness, and creates war by

impunity; but the human race ought to outlaw the man who dares to dream

of conquest, and builds his name in the blood of man.

On my capture, one of my first wishes had been to acquaint my regiment

with the circumstances of my misfortune, and to relieve my friends of

their anxiety for the fate of a brother officer. But this object, which,

in the older days of continental campaigning, would have been acceded to

with a bow and a compliment by Monsiegneur le Comte, or Son Altesse

Royale, the governor, was sturdily refused by the colonel in charge of

the hospital--a firm Republican, and the son of a cobbler, who, swearing

by the Goddess of Reason, threatened to hang over the gate the first man

who dared to bring him another such proposal. I next sent my application

to the commandant, a brave old soldier, who had served in the royal

armies, and had the feelings of better times; but it was probably

intercepted, for no answer came. This added deeply to my chagrin. My

absence must give rise to conjecture; my fall had been unseen even by my

men; and while I believed that my character was above the scandal of

either pusillanimity or desertion, it still remained at the mercy of

all.

But chance came to my relief. It happened that I had unconsciously won

the particular regard of one of the Béguines who attended the hospital;

and my _tristesse_, which she termed 'effrayante,' one evening attracted

her peculiar notice. Let not my vanity be called in question; for my

fair admirer was at least fifty years old, and was about the figure and

form of one of her country churns, although her name was Juliet! Pretty

as the name was, the Béguine had not an atom of the poetic about her.

Romance troubled her not. Yet with a face like the full moon, and a pile

of petticoats which would have made a dowdy of the "Belvedere Diana,"

she was a capital creature. Juliet, fat as she was, had the natural

frolic of a squirrel; she was everywhere, and knew every thing, and did

every thing for every body; her tongue and her feet were constantly

busy; and I scarcely knew which was the better emblem of the perpetual

motion. My paleness was peculiarly distressing to her; "it hurt her

feelings;" it also hurt her honour; for she had been famous for her

nursing, and as she told me, with her plump hands upon her still plumper

hips, and her head thrown back with an air of conscious merit, "she had

saved more than the doctors had killed." I had some reluctance to tell

her the cause of my _tristesse_; for I knew her zeal, and I dreaded her

plunging into some hazard with the authorities. But who has ever been

able to keep a secret, where it was the will of the sex to extort it?

Juliet obtained mine before she left the ward for the night; and desired

me to give her a letter, which she pledged herself to transmit to my

regiment. But this I determined to refuse, and I kept my determination.

I had no desire to see my "fat friend" suspended from the pillars of the

portico; or to hear of her, at least, being given over to the mercies of

the provost-marshal. We parted, half in anger on her side, and with

stern resolution on mine.

During the day Juliet was not forthcoming, and her absence produced,

what the French call, a "lively sensation"--which, in nine instances out

of ten, means an intolerable sense of ennui--in the whole establishment.

I shared the general uneasiness, and at length began to cast glances

towards the gate, where, though I was not exactly prepared to see the

corpulent virtues of my friend in suspension, I had some tremblings for

the state, "_sain et sauf_;" of my Béguine. At last her face appeared at

the opening of the great door, flushed with heat and good-nature, and,

as it came moving through the crowd which gathered round her with all

kinds of enquiries, giving no bad resemblance to the moon seen through a

fog; whether distinct or dim, full and florid to the last. Her

good-humoured visage revived me, as if I had met a friend of as many

years standing as she numbered on her cradle. But all my enquiries for

the news of earth outside the hospital, were answered only by an "order"

to keep myself tranquil--prevent the discomposure of my pulse, and duly

drink my ptisan. All this, however, was for the general ear. The

feebleness which kept me confined to my bed during the day, had made my

nights wakeful. On this night, whether on the anxiety of the day, or the

heavier roar of the siege, for the bombardment was now at its height, I

exhibited signs of returning fever, and the Béguine remained in

attendance. But when the crowd had gone to such rest as they could find,

amid the thunder of batteries and the bursting of shells, Juliet

approached my pillow with a broad smile, which distended her

good-natured mouth from ear to ear, and thrust under my pillow a small

packet--the whole operation being followed by a finger pressed to her

lips, and a significant glance to every corner of the huge melancholy

hall, to see that all was secure. She then left me to my meditations!

The mysterious packet contained three letters; and, eager as I was for

their perusal, I almost shuddered at their touch; for they must have

been obtained with infinite personal peril, and if found upon the

Béguine they might have brought her under the severest vengeance of the

garrison. They were from Guiscard, Mariamne, and Mordecai. Thus to three

individuals, all comparatively strangers, was my world reduced. But they

were no common strangers; and I felt, while holding their letters in my

hand, and almost pressing them to my heart, how much more strongly

friendship may bind us than the ties of cold and negligent relationship.

I opened the soldier's letter first. It was like every thing that

Guiscard ever did; manly, yet kind. "Your disappearance in that

unfortunate rencontre has created much sorrow and surprise; but the

sorrow was all for your loss to _the_ 'corps of corps,' and the surprise

was, that no tidings could be heard of you, whether fallen or surviving.

The flag and trumpet sent in next morning to recover the remains of such

as had suffered in that mad rush to the gates of the town, came back

without being permitted to pass beyond the outworks, bringing a brutal

message from the officer on duty, 'that the next flag should be fired

on,' and that the 'brave soldiers of the Republic allowed of no

compromise with the slaves of tyranny!' The bravado might be laughed at,

but it left me in the dark relative to your fate; and if you are to be

flattered by the feelings of men who cannot get at you but by

cannon-shot, you may congratulate yourself on having had as many fine

things said of you as would make an epitaph for a duke--and, I believe,

with a sincerity at least equal to the best of them. I write all this

laughingly now, but suspense makes heaviness of heart, and you cost me

some uneasy hours, of course. I send you none of _our_ news; as you will

hear all in good time, and communications on public matters might bring

your messenger or yourself into difficulties. You are alive, and in good

hands; that is the grand point. Your character is now in _my_ hands, and

I shall take care of it; I shall see you a general officer yet, if you

have not the greater luck to retire and live an honest farmer, sitting

under your own fig-tree and your own vine, with an unromantic spouse,

and some half-dozen of red-cheeked children. Farewell, we shall _soon_

see each other."

The last line evidently meant more than met the eye, and I was now just

in the mind to indulge in the fantasies of my fair correspondent. They

were like herself--a curious mixture of mirth and melancholy.

"Why I wished to write to you, or why I write at all--which, however, I

do decorously at the side of my father--are questions which I have not

taken the trouble of asking until this moment. But I am in Switzerland,

where no one has time for any thing but worshipping mountain-tops, and

falling down at the feet of cataracts. Whether it would add to Mr

Marston's satisfaction I cannot presume to say, but I feel better, much

better, than when I first came into this land of fresh breezes and

beauty of all kinds--the population, of every rank, always excepted. If

I were, like you, a philosopher, I should probably say that nature gets

tired of her work, and after having struck off some part of it with all

the spirit of an Italian painter, disdains the trouble of finishing; or,

like a French 'fashionable,' coquettes with her own charms, and is

determined to make the world adore her, in spite of her slippers and her

shawl. Thus, nature, which gave the peacock a diadem on its head, and a

throne in its tail, has given it a pair of frightful legs. And on the

same charming principle, she has given Switzerland the finest of all

possible landscapes, and filled them with the most startling of all

possible physiognomies.

"But no more of theory. It has always made my head ache, and headachs

are, I know, contagious; so I spare you. Yet, have you a moment, among

your thousand and one avocations, to remember my father--or me? I beg

that I may not impede the march of armies, or shock the balance of

Europe, while I solicit you to give me a single line--no more; a mere

'annonce' of any thing that can tell me of your 'introuvable' friend

Lafontaine. This is _not_ for myself. The intelligence is required for a

sister of his whom I have lately met in this country--a showy

"citizeness" of Zurich, _embonpoint_ and matronly, married to one of the

portly burghers of the city, and exemplary in all the arts of

sheep-shearing, wool-spinning, and cheese-making; a mother, surrounded

_à la Française_ with a host of Orlandos, Hyacintes, Aristomenes, and

Apollos--pretty children, with the Frenchman developing in all its

gaudiness; the Switzer remaining behind, until it shall come forth in

cloudy brows, and a face stamped with money-making. Madame Spiegler is

still not beyond a waltz, and in the very whirl of one last night, she

turned to me and _implored_ that I should 'move heaven and earth,' as

she termed it--with her blue eyes thrown up to the chandelier, and her

remarkably pretty and well-_chaussé'd_ feet still beating time to the

dance--to bring her disconsolate bosom tidings of her '_frère, si bien

aimé, si malheureux_.' I promised, and she flew off instantly into the

very _core_ of a dance, consisting of at least a hundred couples.

"I have just returned from a drive along the shore of the Leman. The

recollection of Madame Spiegler, rolling and rushing through the waltz

like a dolphin through the waves; or like any thing caught in an

enormous whirlpool, sweeping round perpetually until it was swept out

of sight, had fevered me. The air here is certainly delicious. It has a

sense of life--a vivid, yet soft, freshness, that makes the mere act of

breathing it delightful. But I have mercy on you--not one word of

Clarens, not one word of Meillerie. Take it for granted that Ferney is

burnt down, as it well might be without any harm to the picturesque; and

that Jean Jacques never wrote, played the knave, or existed. If I were a

Swiss Caliph Omar, I should make a general seizure, to be followed by a

general conflagration, of every volume that has ever touched on the wit

and wickedness of the one, or the intolerable sensibility of the other.

I should next extend the flame to all tours, meditations, and musings on

hills, valleys, and lakes; prohibit all sunset 'sublimities' as an

offence against the state; and lay all raptures at the 'distant view of

Mont Blanc,' or the 'ascent of the Rhighi,' if not under penalty of

prison, at least under a bond never to be seen in the territory again.

But I must make my _adieux_. _Apropos_, if you _should_ accidentally

hear any thing of your _pelerin-à-pied_ friend Lafontaine--for I

conjecture that he has gone to discover the fountains of the Nile, or is

at this moment a candidate for the office of court-chamberlain at

Timbuctoo--let me hear it. Madame Spiegler is really uneasy on the

subject, though it has not diminished either her weight or her velocity,

nor will prevent her waltzing till the end of the world, or of herself.

_One_ sentence--nay, one syllable--will be enough.

"This light _is_ delicious, and it is only common gratitude to nature to

acknowledge, that she has done something in the scene before my casement

at this sweet and quiet hour, which places her immeasurably above the

_decorateurs_ of a French _salon_. The sun has gone, and the moon has

not yet come. There is scarcely a star; and yet a light lingers, and

floats, and descends over everything--hill, forest, and water--like the

light that one sometimes sees in dreams. All dream-like--the work of a

spell laid over a horizon of a hundred miles. I should scarcely be

surprised to see visionary forms rising from these woods and waters, and

ascending in bright procession into the clouds. I hear, at this moment,

some touches of music, which I could almost believe to come from

invisible instruments as they pass along with the breeze. Still, may I

beg of you, Mr Marston, not to suppose that I mean to extend this letter

to the size of a government despatch, nor that the mark which I find I

have left on my paper, is a tear? _I_ have no sorrow to make its excuse.

But here, one weeps for pleasure, and I can forgive even Rousseau

his--'Je m'attendrissais, je soupirais, et je pleurais comme un enfant.

Combien de fois, m'arrêtant pour pleurer plus à mon aise, assis sur une

grosse pierre, je me suis amusé à voir tomber mes larmes dans l'eau.'

Rousseau was lunatic, but he was _not_ lunatic when he wrote this, or

_I_ am growing so too. For fear of that possible romance, I say,

farewell.

"P.S.--Remember Madame Spiegler. _Toujours à vous_--MARIAMNE."

My third letter was Mordecai to the life--a bold, hurried, yet clear

view of the political bearings of the time. It more than ever struck me,

in the course of his daring paragraphs, what a capital leader he would

have made for a Jewish revolution; if one could imagine the man of a

thousand years of slavery grasping the sword and unfurling the banner.

Yet bold minds _may_ start up among a fallen people; and when the great

change, which will assuredly come, is approaching, it is not improbable

that it will be begun by some new and daring spirit throwing off the

robes of humiliation, and teaching Israel to strike for freedom by some

gallant example--a new Moses smiting the Egyptian, and marching from the

house of bondage, the fallen host of the oppressor left weltering in the

surge of blood behind.

After some personal details, and expressions of joy at the recovering

health of his idolized but wayward daughter, he plunged into politics.

"I have just returned," said he, "from a visit to some of our German

kindred. You may rely upon it, that a great game is on foot. _Your_

invasion is a jest. Your troops will fight, I allow, but your cabinets

will betray. I have seen enough to satisfy me, that, if you do not take

Paris within the next three months, you will not take it within ten

times the number of years. Of course, I make no attempt at prediction. I

leave infallibility to the grave fools of conclaves and councils; but

the French mob will beat them all. What army can stand before a

pestilence? When I was last in Sicily, I went to the summit of Etna

during the time of an eruption. On my way, I slept at one of the

convents on the slope of the mountain. I was roused from my sleep by a

midnight clamour in the court of the convent--the monks were fluttering

in all corners, like frightened chickens. I came down from my chamber,

and was told the cause of the alarm in the sudden turn of a stream of

the eruption towards the convent. I laughed at the idea of hazard from

such a source, when the building was one mass of stone, and, of course,

as I conceived, incombustible. '_Santissima Madre!_' exclaimed the

frightened superior, who stood wringing his hands and calling on all the

saints in his breviary; 'you do not know of what stone it is built. All

is lava; and at the first touch of the red-hot rocks now rolling down

upon us, every stone in the walls will melt like wax in the furnace.'

The old monk was right. We lost no time in making our escape to a

neighbouring pinnacle, and from it saw the stream of molten stone roll

round the walls, inflame them, scorch, swell, and finally melt them

down. Before daylight, the site of the convent was a gulf of flame. This

comes of sympathy in stones--what will it be in men? Wait a twelvemonth;

and you will see the flash and flame of French republicanism melting

down every barrier of the Continent. The mob has the mob on its side for

ever. The offer of liberty to men who have spent a thousand years under

despotism, is irresistible. Light may blind, but who loves utter

darkness? The soldier may melt down like the rest; he is a man, and may

be a madman like the rest; he, too, is one of the multitude.

"Their language may be folly or wisdom, it may be stolen from the

ramblings of romance writers, or be the simple utterance of

irrepressible instincts within; but it is the language which I hear

every where around me. Men eat and drink to it, work and play to it,

awake and sleep to it. It is in the rocks and the streams, in the

cradle, and almost on the deathbed. It rings in the very atmosphere; and

what must be the consequence? If the French ever cross the Rhine, they

will sweep every thing before them, as easily as a cloud sweeps across

the sky, and with as little power in man to prevent them. A cluster of

church steeples or palace spires could do no more to stop the rush of a

hurricane.

"You will call me a panegyrist of Republicanism, or of France. I have no

love for either. But I may admire the spring of the tiger, or even give

him credit for the strength of his tusks, and the grasp of his talons,

without desiring to see him take the place of my spaniel on the

hearth-rug, or choosing him as the companion of my travels. _I_ dread

the power of the multitude, _I_ despair of its discipline, and _I_

shrink from the fury of its passions. A republic in France can be

nothing but a funeral pile, in which the whole fabric is made, not for

use, but for destruction; which man cannot inhabit, but which the first

torch will set in a blaze from the base to the summit; and upon which,

after all, corpses alone crown the whole hasty and tottering erection.

But this I _shall_ say, that Germany is at this moment on the verge of

insurrection; and that the first French flag which waves on the right

bank of the Rhine will be the signal of explosion. I say more; that if

the effect is to be permanent, pure, or beneficial, it will _not_ be the

result of the tricolor. The French conquests have always been brilliant,

but it was the brilliancy of a soap-bubble. A puff of the weakest lips

that ever breathed from a throne, has always been enough to make the

nation conquerors; but the hues of glory no sooner began to colour the

thin fabric, than it burst before the eye, and the nation had only to

try another bubble. It is my impression, that the favouritism of

Revolution at this moment will even receive its death-blow from France

itself. All is well while nothing is seen of it but the blaze

ascending, hour by hour, from the fragments of her throne, or nothing

heard but the theatrical songs of the pageants which perform the new

idolatry of 'reason.' But when the Frenchman shall come among nations

with the bayonet in his right hand and with the proclamation in his

left--when he turns his charger loose into the corn-field, and robs the

peasant whom he harangues on the rights of the people--this republican

baptism will give no new power to the conversion. The German phlegm will

kick, the French _vivacité_ will scourge, and then alone will the true

war begin. Yet all this may be but the prelude. When the war of weapons

has been buried in its own ashes, another war may begin, the war of

minds--the struggle of mighty nations, the battle of an ambition of

which our purblind age has not even a glimpse--a terrible strife, yet

worthy of the immortal principle of man, and to be rewarded only by a

victory which shall throw all the exploits of soldiership into the

shade."

While I was meditating on the hidden meanings of this letter, in which

my Jewish friend seemed to have imbibed something of the dreamy spirit

of Germany itself, I was startled by a tremendous uproar outside the

hospital--the drums beat to arms, the garrison hastily mustered, the

population poured into the streets, and a strong and startling light in

all the casements, showed that some great conflagration had just begun.

The intelligence was soon spread that the Hotel de Ville, the noblest

building in the city, a fine specimen of Italian architecture of the

seventeenth century, and containing some incomparable pictures by the

Italian masters, and a _chef-d'oeuvre_ of Rubens, had been set on fire

by a bomb, and was now in a blaze from battlement to ground. The next

intelligence was still more painful. The principal convent of the city,

which was close in its rear, had taken fire, and the unfortunate nuns

were seen at the windows in the most imminent danger of perishing.

Feeble as I was, I immediately rose. The Béguine rushed in at the

moment, wringing her hands and uttering the wildest cries of terror at

the probable destruction of those unhappy women. I volunteered my

services, which were accepted, and I hurried out to assist in saving

them if possible. The spectacle was overwhelming.

The Hotel de Ville was a large and nearly insulated building, with a

kind of garden-walk round three of its sides, which was now filled with

the populace. The garrison exhibited all the activity of the national

character in their efforts to extinguish the flames. Scaling-ladders

were applied to the windows, men mounted them thick as bees;

fire-buckets were passed from hand to hand, for the fire-engines had

been long since destroyed by the cannonade; and there seemed to be some

hope of saving the structure, when a succession of agonizing screams

fixed every eye on the convent, where the fire had found its way to the

stores of wood and oil, and shot up like the explosion of gunpowder. The

efforts of the troops were now turned to save the convent; but the

intense fury of the flame defeated every attempt. The scaling-ladders no

sooner touched the casements than they took fire; the very walls were so

hot that none could approach them; and every new gust swept down a sheet

of flame, which put the multitude to flight in all directions. Artillery

was now brought out to breach the walls; but while there remained a

hundred and fifty human beings within, it was impossible to make use of

the guns. All efforts at length ceased; and the horror was deepened, if

such could be, by seeing now and then a distracted figure rush to a

casement, toss up her arms to heaven, and then rush back again with a

howl of despair.

I proposed to the French officers that they should dig under the

foundations, and thus open a way of escape through the vaults. The

attempt was made, but it had the ill success of all the rest. The walls

were too massive for our strength, and the pickaxe and spade were thrown

aside in despair. From the silence which now seemed to reign within, and

the volumes of smoke which poured from the casements, it began to be the

general impression that the fate of the nuns was already decided; and

the officers were about to limber up their guns and retire, when I

begged their chief to make one trial more, and fire at a huge iron door

which closed a lofty archway leading to the Hotel de Ville. He complied;

a six-pound ball was sent against the door, and it flew off its hinges.

To the boundless exultation and astonishment of all, we saw the effect

of this fortunate shot, in the emergence of the whole body of the nuns

from the smoking and shattered building. They had been driven, step by

step, from the interior to the long stone-built passage which in old

times had formed a communication with the town, and which had probably

not been used for a century. The troops and populace now rushed into the

Hotel de Ville to meet and convey them to places of safety. I followed

with the same object, yet with some unaccountable feeling that I had a

personal interest in the rescue. The halls and apartments were on the

huge and heavy scale of ancient times, and I was more than once

bewildered in ranges of corridors filled with the grim reliques of civic

magnificence, fierce portraits of forgotten men of city fame, portentous

burghers, and mailed captains of train bands. The unhappy women were at

length gathered from the different galleries to which they had scattered

in their fright, and were mustered at the head of the principal

entrance, or _grand escalier_, at whose foot the escort was drawn up for

their protection.

But the terrors of that fearful night were not yet at an end. The light

of the conflagration had caught the eye of the besiegers, and a whole

flight of shells were sent in its direction. Some burst in the street,

putting the populace to flight on every side; and, while the women were

on the point of rushing down the stair, a crash was heard above, and an

enormous shell burst through the roof, carrying down shattered rafters,

stones, and a cloud of dust. The batteries had found our range, and a

succession of shells burst above our heads, or tore their way downwards.

All was now confusion and shrieking. At length one fell on the centre of

the _escalier_, rolled down a few steps, and, bursting, tore up the

whole stair, leaving only a deep gulf between us and the portal. The

women fled back through the apartment. I now regarded all as lost; and

expecting the roof to come down every moment on my head, and hearing

nothing round me but the bursting and hissing of those horrible

instruments of havoc, I hurried through the chambers, in the hope of

finding some casement from which I might reach the ground. They were all

lofty and difficult of access, but I at length climbed up to one, from

which, though twenty or thirty feet from the path below, I determined to

take the plunge. I was about to leap, when, to my infinite surprise, I

heard my name pronounced. I stopped. I heard the words--"_Adieu, pour

toujours!_" All was dark within the room, but I returned to discover the

speaker. It was a female on her knees near the casement, and evidently

preparing to die in prayer. I took her hand, and led her passively

towards the window; she wore the dress of a nun, and her veil was on her

face. As she seemed fainting, I gently removed it to give her air. A

sheet of flame suddenly threw a broad light across the garden, and in

that face I saw--Clotilde! She gave a feeble cry, and fell into my arms.

Our escape was accomplished soon after, by one of the scaling-ladders

which was brought at my call; and before I slept, I had seen the being

in whom my very existence was concentrated, safely lodged with the

principal family of the town. Slept, did I say? I never rested for an

instant. Thoughts, reveries, a thousand wild speculations, rose, fell,

chased each other through my brain, and all left me feverish,

half-frantic, and delighted.

At the earliest moment which could be permitted by the formalities of

France, even in a besieged town, I flew to Clotilde. She received me

with the candour of her noble nature. Her countenance brightened with

sudden joy as she approached me. In the _salle de reception_ she sat

surrounded by the ladies of the family, still full of enquiries on the

perils of the night, congratulations on her marvellous escape, and no

slight approval of the effect of the convent costume on the contour of

her fine form and expressive features. My entrance produced a diversion

in her favour; and I was showered with showy speeches from the seniors

of the circle; the younger portion suddenly relapsing into that frigid

propriety which the Mademoiselle retains until she becomes the Madame,

and then flings off for ever like her girlish wardrobe. But their eyes

took their full share, and if glances at the "Englishman" could have

been transfered into words, I should have enjoyed a very animated

conversation on the part of the _Jeunes Innocenes_. But I shrank from

the panegyric of my "heroism," as it was pronounced in all the tones of

courtesy; and longed for the voice of Clotilde alone. The circle at last

withdrew, and I was left to the most exquisite enjoyment of which the

mind of man is capable--the full, fond, and faithful outpouring of the

heart of the woman he loves. Strange to say, I had never exchanged a

syllable with Clotilde before; and yet we now as deeply understood each

other--were as much in each other's confidence, and had as little of the

repulsive ceremonial of a first interview, as if we had conversed for

years.

"You saved my life," said she; "and you are entitled to my truest

gratitude to my last hour. I had made up my mind to die. I was exhausted

in the attempt to escape from that horrible convent. When at last I

reached the Hotel de Ville, and found that all the sisterhood had been

driven back from the great stair by the flames, I gave up all hope: and

may I acknowledge, unblamed, to you--but from _you_ what right have I

now to conceal any secret of my feelings?--I was not unwilling to lay

down a life which seemed to grow darker from day to day."

"You were wearied of your convent life?" said I, fixing my eyes on hers

with eager enquiry. "But you must not tell me that you are a nun. The

new laws of France forbid that sacrifice. My sweet Clotilde, while I

live, I shall never recognise your vows."

"You need not," she answered, with a smile that glowed.

'Celestial rosy red, love's proper hue.'

"I have never taken them. The superior of the convent was my near

relative, and I fled to her protection from the pursuit of one whom I

never could have respected, and whom later thoughts have made me all but

abhor."

"Montrecour! I shall pursue him through the world."

"No," said Clotilde; "he is as unworthy of your resentment as of my

recollection. He is a traitor to his king and a disgrace to his

nobility. He is now a general in the Republican service, Citizen

Montrecour. But we must talk of him no more."

She blushed deeply, and after some hesitation, said, "I am perfectly

aware that the marriages customary among our noblesse were too often

contracted in the mere spirit of exclusiveness; and I own that the

proposal of my alliance with the Marquis de Montrecour was a family

arrangement, perfectly in the spirit of other days. But my residence in

England changed my opinions on the custom of my country, and I

determined never to marry." She stopped short, and with a faint smile,

said, "But let us talk of something else." Her cheek was crimson, and

her eyes were fixed on the ground.

"No, Clotilde, talk of nothing else. Talk of your feelings, your

sentiments, of yourself, and all that concerns yourself. No subject on

earth can ever be so delightful to your friend. But, talk of what you

will, and I shall listen with a pleasure which no human being has ever

given me before, or ever shall give me again."

She raised her magnificent eyes, and fixed them full upon me with an

involuntary look of surprise, then grew suddenly pale, and closed them

as if she were fainting. "I must listen," said she, "to this language no

longer. I know you to be above deception. I know you to be above playing

with the vanity of one unused to praise, and to such praise. But I have

a spirit as high as your own. Let us be friends. It will give an

additional honour to my name; shall I say"--and she faltered--"an

additional interest to my existence. Now we must part for a while."

"Never!" was my exclamation. "The world does not contain two Clotildes.

And you shall never leave me. You have just told me that I preserved

your life. Why shall I not be its protector still? Why not be suffered

to devote mine to making yours happy?" But the bitter thought struck me

as I uttered the words--how far I was from the power of giving this

incomparable creature the station in society which was hers by right!

How feeble was my hope even of competence! How painfully I should look

upon her beauty, her fine understanding, and her generous heart, humbled

to the narrow circumstances of one whose life depended upon the chances

of the most precarious of all professions, and whose success in that

profession depended wholly on the caprice of fortune. But one glance

more drove all doubts away, and I took her hand.

She looked at me with speechless embarrassment, sighed deeply, and a

tear stole down her cheek. At length, withdrawing her hand, she said, in

almost a whisper, and with an evident effort, "This must not be. I feel

infinite honour in your good opinion--deeply grateful for your kindness.

But this must not be. No. I should rather wear this habit for my life,

than make so ungenerous a return to the noble spirit that can thus offer

its friendship to a stranger."

"No, Clotilde, no. Again, in my turn, I say, this must not be; you are

_no_ stranger. I know you at this hour as well as if I had known you

from the first hour of my being. I gave my heart to you from the moment

when I first saw you among your countrywomen in England. It required no

time to make me feel that you were my fate. It was an instinct, a spell,

a voice of nature, a voice of heaven within me!"

She listened and trembled. I again took the hand, which was withheld no

more. "From that day, Clotilde, you were my thought by day and my dream

by night. All my desires of distinction were, that it might be seen by

your eye; all my hopes of fortune, that I might be enabled to lay it at

your feet. If a throne were offered to me on condition of renouncing

you, I should have rejected it. If it were my lot to labour in the

humblest rank of life, with _you_ by my side I should have cheerfully

laboured; and, with your hand in mine, I should have said, I have found

what is worth the world--happiness!"

Tears flowed down her cheeks, which were now like marble. She feebly

attempted to smile, while, with eyelids drooping, and her whole frame

quivering with emotion, she murmured in broken accents, "It is

impossible--utterly impossible! leave me. I must not bring you a

portionless, a helpless, a nameless being--a mere dependent on your

kindness, a burden on your fortune, an obstacle to your whole advance in

the world!" A rich flush suddenly lighted up her lovely countenance, and

a new splendour flashed from her eyes. She threw back her head loftily,

and looking upwards, as if to draw thoughts from above--"Sir," said she,

"I am as proud as you. I have had noble ancestors; I have borne a noble

name. If that name has fallen, it is in the common wreck of my country.

Our fortunes have sunk, only where the monarchy has gone down along with

them; and I shall never degrade the memory of those ancestors, nor

humiliate still more the fallen name of our house, by imposing my

obscurity, my poverty, on one who has honoured me as you have done.

Now--farewell! My resolution is fixed. Farewell, my friend! I shall

never forget this day." She turned away her face, and wept abundantly;

then, fixing a deep look on me, she added--"I own that it would be a

consolation to Clotilde de Tourville to believe that she may be

sometimes remembered; but, until times change, we meet no more--if they

change not, we part for ever."

I was so completely startled, so thunderstruck, by this declaration,

that I could not utter a word. I stood gazing at her with open lips. I

felt a mist gathering over my eyes; a strange sensation about my heart

chilled my whole frame. I tottered to the sofa and pressed my hand in

pain upon my eyes; when I withdrew it, I was alone--Clotilde was gone,

she had vanished with the silence of a vision.

I left the house immediately, in a state of mind which seemed like a

dissolution of all my faculties. I could not speak--I could scarcely

see--I could only gasp for air, and retain sufficient power over my

limbs to guide my steps to my melancholy dwelling. There I threw myself

on my rough bed, and lingered throughout the day in an exhaustion of

mind and body, which I sometimes thought to be the approach of death.

How little could Clotilde have intended that I should suffer thus for

her high-toned delicacy! Still, in all my misery of soul, I did her

justice. I remembered the countenance of melancholy beauty with which

she announced her final determination. The accents of her impassioned

voice continually rose in my recollection, giving the deepest testimony

of a heart struggling at once with affection and a sense of duty. In my

wildest reveries during that day and night of wretchedness, I felt that,

if she could have spared me a single pang, she would have rejoiced to

cheer, to console, to tranquillize me. Those were strange feelings for a

rejected lover, but they were entirely mine. There was so lofty a spirit

in her glance, so true a sincerity in her language, so pure and

transparent a truth in her sighs, and smiles, and involuntary tears,

that I acquitted her, from my soul, of all attempts to try, or triumph

over, my devotion to her. More than once, during that night of anguish,

I almost imagined the scene of the day actually passing again before my

eyes. I saw her sorrows, and vainly endeavoured to subdue them; I heard

her convulsive tones, and attempted to calm them; I reasoned with her,

talked of our common helplessness, acknowledged the dignity and the

delicacy of her conduct, and even gave her lip the kiss of peace and

sorrow as I bade her farewell. Deep but exquisite illusion! which I

cherished, and strove to renew; until, suddenly aroused by some changing

of the sentinels, or passing of the attendants, I looked round, and saw

nothing but the gloomy roof, the old flickering of the huge lantern

hanging from the centre of the hall, and the beds where so many had

slept their last, and which so many of the sleepers were never to leave

with life. I then had the true experience of human passion. Love, in the

light and gay, may be as sportive as themselves; in the calm and grave,

it may be strong and deep; but in some, it is strong as tempest and

consuming as flame.

I should probably have closed my days in that place of all afflicting

sights and sounds, but for my good old Béguine. On her first visit at

dawn, she lectured me prodigiously on the folly of exposing myself to

the hazards of the night air, of which she evidently thought much more

than of the Austrian cannon-balls. "They might shower upon the buildings

as they pleased, but," said the Béguine, "if they kill, their business

is done. It is your cold, your damp, your night air, that carries off,

without letting any one know how," the perplexity of science on the

subject plainly forming the chief evil in poor Juliet's mind.

"See my own condition," said she, striving to bring her recollections in

aid of her advice. "At fifteen I was a barmaid at the Swartz Adler;

there I ran in and out, danced at all the family fêtes, and was as gay

as a bird on the tree. But that life was too good to last. At twenty, a

corporal of Prussian dragoons fell in love with me, or I with him--it is

all the same. His regiment was ordered to Silesia, and away we all

marched. But if ever there was a country of fogs, that was the one.

There are, now and then, a few even in our delightful France; but, in

Silesia, they have a patent for them, they have them _par privilège_; if

men could eat them, there would never be a chance of starving in

Silesia. So we all got sore throats. Cannon and musketry were nothing to

them. Our dragoons dropped off like flies at the end of summer; and,

unless we had been ordered away to keep the Turks from marching to

Berlin, or the saints know where, the regiment would have had its last

quarters in this world within a league of the marshes of Breslau. So I

say ever since--take care of damp."

Having thus relieved her good-natured spirit of its burden, she

proceeded to give me sketches of her history. The corporal had fallen a

victim--though whether to Silesian fog, brandy, or bullet, she left

doubtful--and she had married his successor in the rank. Love and

matrimony in the army are of a different order from either in civil

life; for the love is perpetual, the matrimony precarious. Juliet

acknowledged that she never left above a month's interval between her

afflictions as a widow and her consolations as a wife. In the course of

time she changed her service. A handsome Austrian sergeant won her heart

and hand, and she followed him to Hungary. There, between marsh fever

and Turkish skirmishing, various casualties occurred in the matrimonial

list; and Juliet, who evidently had been a handsome brunette, and whose

French vivacity distanced all the heavy charms of the Austrian

peasantry, was never without a husband. At length, like other veterans,

having served her country to the full extent of her patriotism, she was

discharged with her tenth husband, and of course induced the honest

Austrian to come to the only country on which, in a Frenchwoman's creed,

the sun shines. There the Austrian died.

"I loved him," said the Béguine, wiping her eyes. "He was an excellent

fellow, though dull; and I believe, next to smoking and schnaps, he

loved me better than any thing else in the world. But on his emperor's

birth-day, which he always kept with a bottle of brandy additional, he

rambled out into the fog, and came back with a cold. _Peste!_ I knew it

was all over with him; but I nursed him like a babe, and he died, like a

true Austrian, with his meerschaum in his mouth, bequeathing me his

snuff-box, the certificate of his pension, and his blessing. I buried

him, got pensioned, and was broken-hearted. What, then, was to be done?

I was born for society. I once or twice thought of an eleventh husband;

but I was rich. I had above a thousand francs, and a pension of a

hundred; this perplexed me. I was determined to be married for myself

alone. Yet, how could I know whether the hypocrites who clustered round

me were not thinking of my money all the while? So I determined to marry

no more--and became a Béguine."

In all my vexation, I could not help turning my eye upon the

sentimentalist. She interpreted it in the happy way of her country. "You

wonder at my self-denial," said she; "I perceive it in your

astonishment. I was _but_ fifty then. Yes," said she, clasping her hands

and looking pathetic; "I acknowledge that it _was_ cruel. What right had

I to break so many hearts? I have much to answer for--and I _but_ fifty!

I am even now but fifty-six. Yet, observe, I have taken no vows; remark

_that_, Monsieur le Capitaine. At this moment I am only a _Soeur de

Charité_. No, nothing shall ever induce me to make or keep the vows. _I_

am free to marry to-morrow; and I only beg, Monsieur le Capitaine, that

when you are well enough to go abroad again, whether in the town or in

the country, or in whatever part of Europe you may travel, you will have

the kindness to state positively, most positively, that Juliet

Donnertronk, _née_ Ventrebleu, has not taken, and never will take, any

vows whatever!"

"Not even those of marriage, Juliet?" asked I.

She laughed, and patted my burning head, with "_Ah, vous êtes bien bon!

Ah, moqueur Anglais!_" finishing with all the pantomine of blushing

confusion, and starting away like a fluttered pigeon.

As soon as I felt able to move, which was not till some days after, my

first effort was to reach the mansion in which Clotilde resided. But

there I received the intelligence, that on the evening of the day of my

first and last visit, she had left the town with the superior of the

convent. She had made such urgent entreaties to the governor to be

permitted to leave Valenciennes, that he had obtained a passport for her

from the general commanding the trenches; and not only for her, but also

for the nuns--the burning of whose convent had left them houseless.

Painful as it was thus to lose her, it was in some degree a relief to

find that she was under the protection of her relative; and when I saw,

from day to day, the ravage that was committed by the tremendous weight

of fire, I almost rejoiced that she was no longer exposed to its perils.

But it was my fate, or perhaps my good fortune, never to be suffered to

brood long over my own calamities. My life was spent in the midst of

tumults, which, if they did not extinguish--and what could

extinguish?--the sense of such mental trials, at least prevented the

echo of my complaints from returning to my ears. Before the midnight of

that very day in which I had flung myself on my couch with almost total

indifference as to my ever resting on another, the whole city was

alarmed by the intelligence that the besiegers were evidently preparing

for an assault. I listened undisturbed. Even this could scarcely add to

the horrors in which the inhabitants lived from hour to hour; and to me

it was the hope of a rescue, unless I should be struck by some of the

shells, which now were perpetually bursting in the streets, or should

even fall a victim to the wrath of the incensed garrison. But an order

came suddenly to the officer in charge of the hospital, to send all the

patients into the vaults, and throw all the beds on the roof, to deaden

the weight of the fire. He was a man of gentlemanlike manners, and had

been attentive to me, in the shape of many of those minor civilities

which a man of severe authority might have refused, but which mark

kindliness of disposition. On this night he told me, that he had orders

to put all the prisoners in arrest; but that he regarded me more as a

friend than a prisoner--and that I was at liberty to take any precaution

for my security which I thought proper. My answer was, "that I hoped, at

all events, not to be shut into the vaults, but to take my chance above

ground." In the end, I proposed to assist in carrying the mattresses to

the roof, and remain there until the night was over. "But you will be

hit," said my friend. "So be it," was my answer. "It is the natural fate

of my profession; but, at least, I shall not be buried alive."

"All will be soon over with us all, and with Valenciennes," said the

officer; "though whether to-night or not, is a question. We have seen

new batteries raised within the last twenty-four hours. The enemy have

now nearly three hundred heavy guns in full play; and, to judge from the

quantity of shells, they must have a hundred mortars besides. No

fortress can stand this; and, if it continues, we shall soon be ground

into dust." He took his leave; and, with my mattress on my shoulder, I

mounted the numberless and creaking staircases, until the door of the

roof and the landscape opened on me together.

The night was excessively dark, but perfectly calm; and, except where

the fire from the batteries marked their position, all objects beyond

the ramparts were invisible. The town around me lay silent, and looking

more like a vast grave than a place of human existence. Now and then the

light of a lantern gliding along the ruined streets, showed me a group

of wretched beings hurrying a corpse to the next churchyard, or a priest

seeking his way over the broken heaps to attend some dying soldier or

citizen. All was utter desolation.

But a new scene--a terrible and yet a superb one--suddenly broke upon

me. A discharge of rockets from various points of the allied lines,

showed that a general movement was begun. The batteries opened along the

whole extent of the trenches, and by their blaze I was able to discern,

advancing and formed in their rear, two immense columns, which, however,

in the distance and the fitfulness of the glare, looked more like huge

clouds than living beings. The guns of the ramparts soon replied, and

the roar was deafening; while the plunging of shot along the ramparts

and roofs made our situation perilous in no slight degree. But, in the

midst of this hurricane of fire, I saw a single rocket shoot up from the

camp, and the whole range of the batteries ceased at the instant. The

completeness of the cessation was scarcely less appalling than the roar.

While every telescope was turned intently to the spot, where the columns

and batteries seemed to have sunk together into the earth, a pyramid of

blasting flame burst up to the very clouds, carrying with it fragments

of beams and masonry. The explosion rent the air, and shook the building

on which I stood as if it had been a house of sand. A crowd of engineer

and staff-officers now rushed on the roof, and their alarm at the

results of the concussion was undisguised. "This is what we suspected,"

said the chief to me; "but it was impossible to discover where the

gallery of their mine was run. Our counter mine has clearly failed." He

had scarcely spoken the words, before a second and still broader

explosion tore up the ground to a great extent, and threw the

counterscarp for several hundred yards into the ditch. The drums of the

columns were now distinctly heard beating the advance; but darkness had

again fallen, and all was invisible. A third explosion followed, still

closer to the ramparts, which blew up the face of the grand bastion. The

stormers now gave a general shout, and I saw them gallantly dashing

across the ditch and covered way, tearing down the palisades, fighting

hand to hand, clearing the outworks with the bayonet, and finally making

a lodgement on the bastion itself. The red-coats, which now swarmed

through the works, and the colours planted on the rampart, showed me

that my countrymen had led the assault, and my heart throbbed with envy

and admiration. "Why am I not there?" was my involuntary cry; as I

almost wished that some of the shots, which were not flying about the

roofs, would relieve me from the shame of being a helpless spectator.

"_Mon ami_," said the voice of the brave and good-natured Frenchman, who

had overheard me--"if you wish to rejoin your regiment, you will not

have long to wait. This affair will not be decided to-night, as I

thought that it would be half an hour ago. I see that they have done as

much as they intended for the time, and mean to leave the rest to fright

and famine. To-morrow will tell us something. Pack up your valise. _Bon

soir!_"