Part 18

"_Some_ it may have caused undoubtedly; but much less than is imagined: the effect of it has been only to raise up an aristocracy of money, instead of one of birth: and, aristocracy for aristocracy, the former is infinitely more overbearing and tyrannical than the latter. Before the Revolution, the country was said to be in the hands of the nobles and the clergy: what has happened since? It has merely been transferred to those of the lawyers and the employés. Every third man you meet, holds some place or other under government: and you can hardly transact the commonest affairs of life without the aid of the notary or the advocate. We cannot boast much of our comparative improvement in morality: for in Paris, the prefect of police can inform you, from the registers of births, that one in three children now born there is always illegitimate."

"Of what good, then, has the Revolution been?"

"My young friend, ask not that question; it was one of those inscrutable arrangements of Providence, the aim and extent of which we do not yet know. You might as well ask what these puys and volcanoes have done to benefit the country, which, no doubt, they once devastated; they may even yet break out into activity again, and France may even yet have to pass through another social trial. Things have not yet found their level amongst us.--But we are getting into a long political and philosophical discussion that makes me forget my duties to my guest. I am at least of opinion that the volcanoes have done me personally some good; for they have formed this wonderful country, and they attract hither many of my friends, whom I might otherwise never have seen again. You will appreciate them when you arrive at the Baths; and, apropos of this, I am coming over there myself in a few days to consult my friend Dr Bertrand. This will give me the opportunity of introducing you to several of the visitors worth knowing. You will find a gay and gallant crowd there; and let me advise you, take care of your heart and your pockets."

"Monsieur, dinner is served," said a domestic, opening the door; so I followed the worthy Count into the salle-à-manger.

A SHANDRYDAN.

The top of the great plateau of Auvergne looked beautiful the evening I reached it--a fine July evening, when the sun had yet three hours to go down, and I was about a dozen miles from the village of the Baths. I had been vainly flattering myself that something or other might have detained M. de Mirepoix's carriage, and that I should have the pleasure of viewing this splendid scene in company with Madame. She had so strong a taste for the picturesque, that I knew her sympathies would be expressed, and I anticipated no small pleasure from eliciting her sentiments. To see what is magnificent in the society of one whose feelings of the sublime and beautiful emulate your own in intensity, multiplies the charm, and elevates the pleasure, by the mutual communication of the effects perceived and produced. So I looked out for their carriage anxiously.

Nothing met my eye but the long undulating plain stretching like a rounded wave or swell of the ocean to the feet of the mountains, and the distant blue horizon--to the west nearly as far off as the Garonne--to the east as far as the Saone. The plateau was covered with fine grass, pastured by large herds of small dark-coloured cattle, goats, and a few sheep; wild-flowers grew here and there of fragrant smell, and the tops of the vast pine forests peeped up from the ends of the deep ravines that run far into the bosom of the still hills. The sky was without a cloud, and the sun seemed to gain double glory as he fell towards his western bed.

My spirits rose with the scene; I was excited and yet happy; the full genial warmth of nature was before me, and around me, and in me. I could have danced and sung for joy. I could have stopped there for ever, and I wanted somebody to say all this to, and who should re-echo the same to me.

There stood the postilion--dull, senseless, brutal animal--he had got off his horses, for I was once more out of the cabriolet, and was bounding over the turf to look over the edge of a precipice on my right hand: there he stood, he had lighted another pipe, and was thinking only of a good chopine of wine out of his pour-boire, when he should arrive at the village.

"A fine view, mon ami!" said I, at last, in pure despair.

He gave a shrug with his shoulders.

"Very high mountains those," I went on.

He turned round and looked at them; and then tapped his pipe against his whip.

"What splendid forests!" I added.

"Monsieur! voyez-vous! it is the most villainous road I know; and if we do not push on, we shall not get to Mont Dor before dark. I would not go over the bridge at the bottom there in the dark, no Monsieur, not if I had the honour to be carrying M. Le Préfet himself. They were never found, Monsieur!"

"Who were never found?"

"Why, sir, when Petit-jean was driving M. le Commandant, the last year but one--he was going to the Baths for the gout, sir--he did not get down to the bridge till near ten at night; there was no parapet then, the horses did not know the road, and over they went, roll, roll, all the way into the Dor at the bottom; thirty feet, sir, and more, and then the cascade to add to that."

"Dreadful! and did no trace remain of the unfortunate traveller and your poor friend?"

"Oh, certainly yes! they got well wetted; but they rode the horses into the village the same evening."

"Who were lost, then?"

"Petit-jean's new boots, and 'twas the first time he had put them on."

I jumped into the cabriolet; "drive on," said I pettishly, "and go to the ----"

"Hi! hardi! Sacré coquin!" and crash went the whip over the off horse's flank, enough to cut a steak of his lean sides had there been any flesh to spare. In a quarter of an hour we found ourselves going down a steep rough road, such as might break the springs of the best carriage, chariot, britscha, &c., that ever came out of Long-Acre; and the thumps that I got against the sides of my own vehicle, light as it was, made me call out for a little less speed, and somewhat more care.

"Don't be afraid, Monsieur! Hi! hardi! heugh!"

I thought it was all over with me; so, holding in my breath, and firmly clenching the top of my apron, I looked straight a-head, and made up my mind for a pitch over the wall at the bottom, and down through the wood, like the commandant and Petit-jean.

Just as we got to the bottom of the hill, we turned a sharp corner, that I had not before perceived, and charged, full gallop, right into an old shandrydan, that had pulled up, and, with a single horse, was beginning to climb the ascent. Our impetus seemed to carry us over the poor animal that was straining against its load, for he fell under our two beasts, and the shafts of the cabriolet catching the shandrydan under the driver's seat, turned it completely topsy-turvy into the midst of the road.

Such a shriek, or rather such a chorus of confused cries, came forth from the dark sides of that small and closely-shut vehicle!

"Au secours!" "Jesus-Maria!" "Vite, vite!" "Relevez-nous!" "Pour l'amour de Dieu!"

They were women's voices:--

"Ah ça, j'étouffe!" said a deep, gruff voice, in the midst of the hubbub.

As neither the postilion nor myself were hurt, we were quickly on our legs: he trying to get the horses disentangled--for they were kicking each other to pieces--and I to aid a thin, meek-looking peasant lad, who had been driving the shandrydan, to right the crazy vehicle.

'Twas a square, black-looking thing, covered at top, with no opening whatever but a small window in the door behind. It might have been built some time in the reign of Louis le Bien-aimé, and its cracked leather sides and harness seemed as if they had been strangers to oil ever since. If people were not very corpulent, four might have squeezed into it--not that they would have been comfortable, but they could have got in, and would have sat on the opposite seats, without much room to spare.

Some honest old Frenchman, thought I to myself, with his wife and daughter, and perhaps their maid. Poor man! he is coming from the Baths, cured of some painful malady, and now has had the misfortune to run the risk of his life--if, indeed, his bones be not broken--and all through that étourdi of a postilion. "If I do not report him to the maître de poste!" said I to myself.

"For the love of God, messieurs," said a faint voice, "get us out!"

"The door! the door! open the door then!" said at least three other voices, one after the other and all together.

"Je meurs!" wept the bass-voice from the inmost recesses of the vehicle--or it might have been from under ground, so deep and sepulchral was its tone.

"Don't disturb yourself, monsieur," grumbled the postilion, who had now got one of his horses on its legs; "'tis nothing! Come along, you varmint!" said he to the poor young peasant, who stood wringing his hands and looking distractedly at his whip--'twas broken clean in half--"Arrive, te dis-je!--pousse bien là!--là bien! encore! hardi! houp!"

The door of the shandrydan burst open, and there emerged, in sadly rumpled state, a pitiable confusion of rustled petticoats and tumbled headgear, red as the roses on a summer's morn, and dewy as the grass on an autumn eve--_six soeurs-de-charité_, all white and black like sea-fowl thrown from the shooter's bag--and after them, slowly toiling forth and writhing through the door in unwieldy porpoise-guise--M. le Curé!

HONOUR TO THE PLOUGH.

Though clouds o'ercast our native sky, And seem to dim the sun, We will not down in languor lie, Or deem the day is done: The rural arts we loved before No less we'll cherish now; And crown the banquet, as of yore, With Honour to the Plough.

In these fair fields, whose peaceful spoil To faith and hope are given, We'll seek the prize with honest toil, And leave the rest to Heaven. We'll gird us to our work like men Who own a holy vow, And if in joy we meet again, Give Honour to the Plough.

Let Art, array'd in magic power, With Labour hand in hand, Go forth, and now in peril's hour Sustain a sinking land. Let never Sloth unnerve the arm, Or Fear the spirit cow; These words alone should work a charm-- All Honour to the Plough.

The heath redress, the meadow drain, The latent swamp explore, And o'er the long-expecting plain Diffuse the quickening store: Then fearless urge the furrow deep Up to the mountain's brow, And when the rich results you reap, Give Honour to the plough.

So still shall Health by pastures green And nodding harvests roam, And still behind her rustic screen Shall Virtue find a home: And while their bower the muses build Beneath the neighbouring bough, Shall many a grateful verse be fill'd With Honour to the Plough.

LUIGIA DE' MEDICI.

The study of literary history offers an extraordinary charm, when it tends to raise the veil, frequently thrown by inattention and forgetfulness, over noble and graceful forms, which deserved to excite the interest, or even to receive the active thanks of posterity. At such moments, we find the mysterious sources of inspiration admired, through a long period, for their fulness and sincerity: we go back to the forgotten or falsely interpreted causes of celebrated actions, of classic writings, of resolutions, whose renown rang through many ages; the vagueness of poetic pictures gives place to positive forms; and that which appeared but a brilliant phantom is sometimes transformed into a living reality.

Among the glorious titles which have borne the name of Michel Angelo Buonarotti to so high a pitch of celebrity, the least popular is that derived from the composition of his poetical works. The best judges, however, regard these productions not only with profound esteem, but yet more often with an ardent admiration. Michel Angelo lived during the _golden age_ of the Lingua Toscana. Among the poets who filled the interval between the publication of the _Orlando_ and that of the _Aminta_--first, in order of date, of the _chefs-d'o[eu]vres_ of Torquato--not one has raised himself above, nor, perhaps, to the level, of Buonarotti. In the study of his writings, we recognise all the essential characteristics of his genius, as revealed to the world in his marbles, frescos, and the edifices erected by his hand. It is a copious poetry--masculine and vigorous--fed with high thoughts--serious and severe in the expression. Berni wrote truly of it to Fra Sebastiano--"Ei dice cose: voi dite parole!" The poet exists always in entire possession of himself: enthusiasm elevates, carries him away, but seduces him never. We admire in his mind a constitution firm, healthful, and fertile--a constant equilibrium of passion, will, and conception--often of fervency--nowhere of delirium. The qualities necessary to the artist do no harm to those which make the thinker and good citizen--every where, as in the literary laws of ancient Greece, consonance, _sophrosyne_, moderation. Michel Angelo, amid the passions and illusions of his time, knew how to hold the helm of "that precious bark, which singing sailed."[50] Sincere and humble Christian, with a leaning to the austere, he succeeded in keeping himself free from all superstition; declared republican, he avoided all popular fanaticism, and bore, even during the siege of Florence, the _honourable_ hostility of the Arrabiati; admirer of Savonarola, he combated the sickly exaggerations of the _esprit piagnone_, and remained faithful to the worship of art; and last, guest of Leo X., favourite sculptor of Julius II., he never suffered himself to be seduced by the Pagan intoxication of the Renaissance; from his early youth, the frame, in which he was destined to form so many sublime conceptions, was irrevocably determined.

But, in the poetical works of Michel Angelo, as in his works of sculpture and design, there is a side of grace and delicacy; the fire of a masculine and profound tenderness circulates, so to speak, in all the members of this marvellous body. Angelo's regularity of morals was never altered by doubts; it acquired, even at an early period, the externals of a rigid austerity. But had he, in his youthful years, experienced the power of a real love? We have nothing to reply to those who, after an attentive perusal of his writings, see in them nothing more than a _jeu-d'esprit_ produced by a vain fantasy. But to those who think, with us, that truth and force of expression suppose reality and depth of sentiment--to those who discover the burning traces of a passion which has conquered the heart, and imprinted a new direction on the thoughts of the writer, in the precious metal of this classical versification, we propose to follow us for a few moments. We shall seek whatever historical vestiges have been left of the object of this affection, as durable as sincere: we shall afterwards examine the manner in which Michel Angelo has expressed it in his rhyme; what order of philosophical and religious ideas developed themselves in his mind, in intimate connexion with the ardour that penetrated his heart; whatever influences, in short, which a love, whose object quitted this life so early, appears to have exercised upon the whole duration of a career prolonged, with so great _eclat_, for more than sixty years afterwards.[51]

The smallest acquaintance with the character of Michel Angelo would lead to the belief that, according to the expression of his epoch, he could "have fixed his heart nowhere but in a lofty sphere. The conjectures which have been formed bore reference to the house of the first citizen of Florence and of Italy, at the period of Angelo's entrance on his career, to the family of the grandson of Cosmo Pater Patriæ," of the man to whom the disinterested voice of foreigners and of posterity has confirmed all that his contemporaries attributed to him, in the great work of the Italian Renaissance--scientific, literary, artistic even--namely, the chief and most brilliant honour.

Lorenzo the Magnificent, born in 1450, married Clarice Orsini in 1468. There were born from this alliance, besides the children who died in the cradle, three sons and four daughters. In 1492, Pietro succeeded to the offices and dignity of his father, and lost them in 1494; Giovanni mounted the Pontifical throne, and became the illustrious Leo X.; Giuliano died Duke of Nemours and "_prince du gouvernement_" of Florence. Of the four daughters, Maddalena became the wife of Francesco Cybo, Count dell Anguillara, Lucrezia married Giacopo Salviati; and Contessina, Piero Ridolfi. Luigia was the youngest, according to certain authorities; Count Pompeo Litta, however, in his _Illustri Famiglie Italiane_, places her in order of birth immediately after Maddalena. Whichever it may be, Clarice Orsini dying in 1488, Lorenzo contracted no other alliance, and, at the end of four years, followed his wife to the tomb. We have no means of determining the age Luigia had reached at the time of this melancholy event; but, as her marriage was then talked of, we cannot give her less than from fifteen to sixteen years. Michel Angelo, born the 6th March 1475,[52] wanted a month of his seventeenth year when he lost the generous protector of his early youth.

It was in 1490 that Angelo first went to live in the house of the Magnificent Lorenzo. Apprenticed, the 1st April 1488, to the "master of painting," Domenico di Tommasso del Ghirlandajo, he astonished the grave and learned artist by his rapid progress and fire of imagination. Ghirlandajo, finding his disposition more decided for sculpture than for the pencil, hastened to recommend him to Lorenzo, who, in his gardens, situated near the convent of Saint Mark, was exerting himself to create a school capable of restoring to Florence the glorious days of the Ghiberti and the Donatello. It was no easy task for the prince of the Florentine government to buy the child of genius from the timorous avarice of his father, Lodovico Buonarotti.[53] At length, an office in the financial administration of the state, conferred upon the father, and a provision of five ducats monthly settled on the son, but of which it was agreed that Lodovico should derive the profit, conquered the scruples of the old citizen; and Michel Angelo, adopted as it were, among the children of Lorenzo, was enabled, at his own pleasure, to divide his hours between the practice of his favourite art, and the lessons that Pietro, Giovanni, and Giuliano received at "the Platonic Academy," of which the illustrious Politiano was director.

This society, of which Lorenzo was the soul as well as the founder,[54] reckoned among its members certain individuals, whose names are still held in respect by posterity; and many others who, less distinguished or less fortunate, exercised, nevertheless, a useful influence on the regeneration of good studies, and the diffusion of the knowledge that may be derived from the works of antiquity. Among the former, the first rank was unanimously given to Politiano, Pico della Mirandola, Leon-Battista Alberti, and Marsilio Ficino. Lorenzo required that his sons should be present at the learned discourses of the academy. Michel Angelo listened to them in company with Pietro, and Cardinal Giovanni, and received most flattering consideration from Politiano. The subtilties of Grecian metaphysics, and the technical language of logic, discouraged Buonarotti's clear and free understanding; but the sublimity of conception, and majesty of expression of the Attic Bee, met with marvellous affinities in the disposition of the young Florentine. These studies developed in Michel Angelo, the poetical genius of which he has left admirable proofs in his marbles, his cartoons, and his writings.

It was not only the affectionate interest of Lorenzo, the intimacy with his sons, and the generous cares of Politiano, in the house of the Medici, which aided the progress, and inflamed the energy of Michel Angelo. At this same time, more profound lessons were repeated in an austere pulpit, not far from the delicious gardens of Valfondo. Girolamo Savonarola, the celebrated dominican of Saint Mark, was at the zenith of his reputation; and his influence over the people of Florence, without directly thwarting that of Lorenzo, began, nevertheless, to counterbalance it. Michel Angelo, says the most exact of his biographers, (Vasari, _Vite dei Pittori_,) read "with great veneration" the works written by the enthusiastic and eloquent monk. From him he learned to seek in the Holy Scriptures for the pure and direct source of the highest inspiration; and, during his whole life, Buonarotti had constantly in his hand the sacred volume, and the _Divina Comedia_ of Dante, which he regarded as a commentary at once philosophical, theological, and, above all, poetical upon the former. An ardent love of art confined within due bounds the effect which Savonarola's exhortations produced upon the true and serious soul of the young sculptor; he neither followed the Dominican in his fanatical hostility to the artistic and literary Renaissance, then displaying all the riches of its spring, nor in the political aberrations which Savonarola, after the death of Lorenzo, had the misfortune to display in the public squares of Florence, and even in the heart of her councils.

In the midst of a life so full and already fruitful, which the approach of a glory almost unequalled illuminated by a few precursive rays, Michel Angelo appears to have opened his heart to the sentiment of a love as true and elevated as the other emotions which swayed his soul, and directed his faculties: Luigia de' Medici seems to have been its object. It is, as already remarked, in the poetical compositions, forming the first part of Angelo's collection, that we must endeavour to find the imperishable memorials of this tenderness, to which the illusions even of early youth appear to have never lent, for a single moment, any hope of the union with which it might have been crowned. Michel Angelo's timid pride combined with his respect and gratitude to interdict to him all designation, even indirect, of the woman to whom his affections were bound by a chain whose embrace death alone could have relaxed. We shall see in the poetry of Buonarotti none of the artifice made use of by Petrarch to render the name of _Laura_ intelligible, which Camoëns afterwards employed to celebrate Donna _Caterina_, and from which, still later, the unhappy Torquato regretted, with much bitterness, to have wandered, when, in the intoxication of his illusions, he traced the fatal name of _Eleonora_.

"Quando sara che d'_Eleonora mia_ Potro goder in libertade amore." (_Verse stolen from Tasso and given to the Duke of Ferrara._)

It is but rarely, and with a light touch, that Angelo makes allusion to the extreme youth of her whom he loves,--

----"il corpo umano Mal segue poi ... d'un _angelletta_ il volo."--(_Sonnetto_ 15.)

Once only he speaks of light hair:--

"Sovra quel _biondo crin_" ...

(_Sonnetto ultimo._)