CHAPTER XX. AND LAST.

As victory had crowned our efforts, and my valuable services were now no longer required, I determined to look for Cousin Tom, and walked down the hill for that purpose. At its base, I entered a long thicket or shrubbery. There, amongst the trees, I found several wounded men, whom their comrades were removing off the ground. No one could give me the information that I sought; no one knew anything of Cousin Tom. Saw a sergeant sitting on a bank, who, I soon discovered, was also wounded. He knew no such officer; had seen no one answering the description. "What's your injury, sergeant?"

"A musket-ball in my ankle, sir."

"Well, but hadn't I better help you to a place of shelter?"

"Much obliged to you, sir; but I couldn't walk, even with your support. I'd rather wait till my turn comes to be carried, if you've no objections, sir. Much obliged to you, equally all the same, sir."

"As you please. Can I render you any assistance? What can I do for you?"

"If you'd have the kindness, sir, perhaps you'd be so good and take off my gaiter. I can't take it off myself, sir, though I've tried; it does hurt me so when I stoop forward. I'm afraid the bleeding will spoil it, sir; and then I shall be forced to take out a new pair."

Having performed this office, and administered a little brandy both topically and constitutionally, I once more ascended the hill, thinking it possible Cousin Tom might be somewhere nearer the scene of action. I inquired and looked in every direction, but without success. Where are you, Cousin Tom? This time my steps brought me into one of the redoubts, which had been carried by our troops. When I entered, there were not a dozen men in it. Sunset was near, and everything over for the day. Yet just at that moment, for what reason I know not, perhaps for a freak, the enemy thought fit to open upon this all but unoccupied post, from their own lines nearer the city, with a heavy fire of shot and shell. Bang went a shell, knocking up bushels of earth and mire. Plump came a round-shot, into the mud parapet of the redoubt. It was no use moving; one place was as hot as another. So we had nothing to do for it but to stand still and exchange grins till the pelting was over. I then took my leave for the evening. The day indeed was drawing to a close as I descended the hill; and happily I succeeded in reaching the village, and finding the cottage where Sancho had been left in charge, just after it became pitch-dark. A cheering light streamed through the cottage window; and, on entering, I found comfortably seated by the blazing hearth a veterinary surgeon, who was there in charge of wounded horses. He very civilly informed me there were two good beds, so all was right with respect to accommodation; and, more civilly still, invited me to partake of his supper, which was boiling on the fire. Not having eaten a morsel since my early breakfast at Grenade, and having just discovered that I was enormously hungry, I accepted the invitation with glee, took my seat, and cast many a glance at the boiling, bubbling, and steaming kettle. Presently the contents were turned out into a large, old-fashioned tureen, and displayed to my eager gaze a compound of various materials, the chief of which were a fowl, and--what d'ye think?--a pig's heart. Supper excellent. Bed ditto.

Next day early I resumed my search for Cousin Tom, but still, alas! without success. Went from village to village, inquired from house to house, searched the whole neighbourhood. Lots of wounded officers, but not the man I sought. Throughout the day my search was unsuccessful. Towards night I was passing through a street of scattered houses, a sort of hamlet, and was beginning to think of securing a lodging and a dinner. Wolves rouse at sunset; and I distinctly felt one gnawing at my stomach. At this painful juncture, much to my satisfaction, at the door of a cottage I discovered a jolly acquaintance, whom I beg to introduce as my "Fat Friend." He was one of the smartest clerks amongst our civilians, and probably the youngest; under, rather than over fifteen; in short, a chubby boy, who somehow or other had broken away from his mother's apron-strings, and obtained a post, which he filled in a way that did him credit. In one respect he was precocious; namely, that he soon proved himself up to all the waggery and villainy of headquarters. Moreover, he had a vast idea of maintaining his importance, and could take his own part; was touchy in anything that affected his manhood; and, if you offended him, punched your head; brushed up to fine women, with a marked preference for a bouncer. Yet, after all, he was but an overgrown boy, and often afforded us sport by his mannish airs. "Ah, Fatty, is that you? Glad to see you. Got any room?"

"Plenty, plenty," said Fatty; "good entertainment for man and horse. Glad to see you; and glad to see the pony. Here, Francisco, take Sancho, and give him some corn. Come in, old fellow. Sit down, and make yourself comfortable. Dreadful dull here--horrid! Left in charge of the departmental boxes."

"I say, Fatty; have you dined?"

"Dined? We dined an hour ago." Fatty saw his advantage, and was resolved to make the most of it.

"Well, what did you have for dinner? Got any cold beef?"

"Why, where have you been?" said Fatty; "haven't seen you these two days. Oh, I suppose you got into Toulouse. Lots of fine gals?"

"Answer my question, and I'll answer yours."

"Come out, old fellow. Let's take a turn through village before it gets dark. Dinner? Why, a turkey. Sorry you were not with us to partake. Not a morsel left. Picked the old gobbler clean, drumsticks and all."

"I wish you'd let me send your fellow for some beef."

"Oh yes," said Fatty, "send him by all means. Sorry to inform you it's no use, though. Not a morsel of rations to be had; not a biscuit. What, haven't you _dined_?" I saw he meant to have his joke, so made no reply.

There was a dodge, though; my remedy was in my pocket. Brought out a cigar, one of my choice grenadiers; struck a light, blew a fragrant cloud, took it easy. The rich odour diffused itself through the apartment.

Fatty, knowing in cigars, soon discovered that mine was no common weed. He first drew a sniff; then gave utterance to his emotions in a coaxing and admiring "Oh!" I took no notice.

"Come, old fellow," said Fatty; "hand out one of those."

"Lost your cigar-case?"

"No, no; nonsense. Come, give us one; that's a good chap."

Failing in his request, Fatty sat silent and fidgetty. The first finished, I lit a second.

Fatty watched his opportunity; made a vicious grab at the case. I was too quick for him--knew his ways. Down he sat again; tried all the varieties of entreating, threatening, bullying, wheedling, till cigar the second was burnt out. When I extracted the third, Fatty could stand it no longer; made a rush, and commenced a ferocious assault, pitching it in, right and left. The punches came so fierce and fast, I was at length compelled, in self-defence, to administer a slight persuader, and Fatty found it convenient to resume his seat. He sat awhile, sulky and all but blubbering; then hastily rose, and stalked out of the room in high dudgeon. I presently found him stationed at the front door with his hands in his pocket, very pensive and dignified. Shortly after, he slipped into the house; Francisco appeared with the tablecloth and a bottle of wine; then came half a turkey and the cold beef. After dinner we clubbed our resources, and closed the evening with whisky punch and prime cigars.

Next morning early, started afresh in search of Cousin Tom. Near Toulouse, fell in with Gingham--told him my difficulties. "Come up the hill," said Gingham; "I'll go with you. There, no doubt, we shall find your cousin's regiment." On reaching the summit of the heights, we found our way in the first instance into the Colombette redoubt; the same in which, on the day of the fight, the brave Forty-second had been suddenly overwhelmed by a superior force, and had lost four-fifths of its numbers. Within the redoubt were standing two or three privates; they belonged to the Forty-second. The uniform at once reminded me of Corporal Fraser, the trusty companion of my march to headquarters. I asked one of the privates, did he know the Corporal. "He joined about three weeks ago, sir."

"Hope he's well. Where is he now?"

"He's there, sir," said the man, pointing to the parapet of the redoubt. I looked, but saw no one.

"The earth," said Gingham, "seems to have been recently stirred there. That mound, I think, is not many days old." Then, addressing the soldier, "your regiment suffered a heavy loss. Is that where you buried after the action?"

"That's the place, sir." The man then walked away, as if little disposed for conversation.

We did not pause to calculate how many bodies would fill a space commensurate with the length, breadth, and altitude of the soil displaced. There lay the slain of a gallant regiment, in the redoubt they had so nobly won. There lay Corporal Fraser, who, in all the difficulties of our march, had shown himself trustworthy, fearless, intelligent, and energetic. He had longed to join ere the day of combat, and had found a soldier's grave.

We discovered at length the sergeant who had informed me of my cousin's wound. He now pointed to a large house, near the thicket at the bottom of the hill. While searching for Cousin Tom on the day of the fight, I was close to that same house, but without seeing it. From our present elevated position it was distinctly visible, though not from the low ground, amongst trees and underwood.

Our approach to the house led us through the thicket. While making our way among the trees, we both, Gingham and I, came to a halt at the same instant. The sight which arrested our steps was new to Gingham, not to me. I saw, on that spot, an object that I had seen two days before. The sergeant whom I had then found wounded was still sitting there, on the same bank, in the same attitude! There he had sat the whole time, overlooked by the bearers, and unable to move. Viewed at the distance of a few paces, his aspect scarcely appeared changed. It was the identical figure--I remembered him at once. But on a nearer inspection, the alteration was but too manifest. His eye was glazed, and half shut. His face was that of a corpse. He sat up, like a dead man galvanised. "What, still here, sergeant? Has nobody come to remove you yet."

He attempted to speak--paused--at length found utterance. "Sorry I didn't accept your offer, sir." His voice was low and husky, but distinct.

"Come," said Gingham, "you mustn't refuse this time. We'll soon carry you into the house just by."

"Thank you, sir; thank you, gentlemen. Would you have the kindness though--I should be sorry to lose my gaiter."

The gaiter secured, we prepared to lift the sufferer from his seat, and he on his part made a feeble effort to rise. The attempt brought on a gush of pain. For a moment, his features were distorted with intolerable anguish; the next, he fainted in our arms.

"Now then," said Gingham, thrusting back into his sidepocket a small flask which he had just drawn out. "Now then; away with him at once, before he recovers. Come, Mr Y----; you take his shoulders, I'll take his legs. It may save him further pain."

We bore the sufferer, still senseless, to the house. Gingham, not having a hand to spare, banged at the door with his foot. It was opened by Mr Staff-surgeon Pledget, who bowed on recognising us, but looked rather perplexed at the unexpected addition to his duties.

Pledget gave instant directions for the accommodation of the wounded man, and informed me, in reply to my inquiries for Cousin Tom, that he had an officer under his care, answering to my description. Pledget appeared bewildered, and stood with us in the passage a few moments, without speaking. At length he opened the door of a small chamber close by, and begged us to enter. He placed chairs for us, and seated himself on the bed. "I'm rather exhausted," said he.

"I fear after such a fight," said Gingham, "your duties must be heavy indeed."

"Oh yes," said Pledget, looking distressed and rather wild. "I have had much work, and little assistance; a long spell, too."

"Why, you began, I suppose," replied Gingham, "early on the day of the fight."

"Yes," said Pledget; "and I've been at it ever since. Let me see: two days and two nights, isn't it? Yes, and now going on for the third. Here have I been operating, bandaging, taking up arteries, taking off arms and legs, night and day, without time to lie down, almost without a moment to eat. In fact," said he, looking about the room like a man lost, "this is the first time I've sat down these eight-and-forty hours."

Pledget's look bore full testimony to his toils. Three weeks' illness could hardly have wrought a greater change. Nor was his appearance mended by his garb. He wore a sort of operating gown similar to that employed in dissecting; a long pinafore with sleeves, protecting the whole person from the chin to the feet, tied round the middle, and closing with a fold behind. The front was spotted in every part with jets of blood from wounded arteries. Some of the stains had dried on, and blackened where they dried; others, more recent, were still moist and crimson. Blood was on his unshaven and haggard face; and on his hands, too, wore marks of blood.

Gingham eyed him with a look of deep concern. "I really fear," said Gingham, "you've been quite overdone."

"I did hope, before this," replied Pledget, "to be relieved by other gentlemen of my own department. I have but one medical assistant, and he, at this moment, can afford me no help, for I have been forced to leave him sitting with his finger on a wounded artery; and if he takes it off but for a few seconds, the major's a dead man."

Pledget now looked like a man that can't remember what's next. "Oh," said he, in all absent tone, "so peace is really concluded. Come, Mr Y----, suppose we go and look for your cousin. His case, I'm happy to say, is not serious. The ball will be extracted this evening, and then, I hope, he will do well."

Pledget spoke, but did not stir. "By the bye," he added, "you know Captain Gabion? I think you do. Oh yes, I recollect; we were all three fellow-passengers from Lisbon to Falmouth. No, no, what am I saying? From Falmouth to Lisbon. His case is past hope. He can hardly live through the night."

Gingham and I rose at once from our seats. For the moment, the imminent danger of a man we so highly esteemed, expelled from my thoughts even Cousin Tom. Pledget also rose, as if to lead the way, but again lapsed into forgetfulness. His mind was evidently worn out, as well as his body. "Well," said he, "I'm glad we've got Toulouse.--Gentlemen, I beg your pardon. This way, if you please; up stairs."

He led the way. Every open door, as we passed through the spacious mansion, discovered a room crowded with wounded and dying men, in beds, or on the ground. Or, if we saw not into the apartment, sounds were heard, which told of anguish and laceration within. We were conducted by Pledget into a large room on the first floor, filled, like the others, with every form of suffering. Some, slightly wounded, sat round the fire, on which cookery was proceeding in kettles of every size and shape. One officer, bandaged round the head, had become delirious. He alternately laughed and whimpered, muttered and sang. Another sat near him, moaning, with his arm in a sling. A spent cannon ball had smashed the bones from the elbow to the wrist, without inflicting an external wound. Every bed had an occupant; and many lay upon the floor, with only a blanket under them. My eye glanced round the apartment, and lighted on the pinched features and pallid visage of Captain Gabion.

He lay on his back in bed. Death was legible in his aspect. His eyes were all but shut; but, from time to time, a convulsive twitching of the muscles suddenly expanded them to their full width. To all appearance, he was perfectly insensible. His breathing was irregular and laborious; but the expression of his countenance, except when disfigured by the spasms which occasionally shot through his frame, and jerked him from head to foot, was, as in health, calm and dignified. Strange indeed were the vicissitudes, strange was the contrast, between the rigid tranquillity of one moment, and the awful distortion of the next. Now, it was the quivering play of features pulled by muscular contraction; now, the monumental repose of marble.

"I fear," whispered Gingham to Pledget, "you view the case unfavourably." Pledget hopelessly raised his eyes.

"The Captain has been insensible," said Pledget, "ever since he was brought in; and probably will continue so till he expires."

We turned from this sad spectacle, without exchanging a syllable. A handkerchief was whisked in my face. I looked round; there was the man I wanted. In the next bed, tucked in, with smiling face, little changed since we parted, a splendid specimen of the ugly-handsome--those fellows that make the biggest holes in ladies' hearts--lay Cousin Tom. Gingham, my object attained, forthwith took a temporary leave--had urgent business in Toulouse--an appointment--would return as soon as possible.

"Fine fellow, that" said Cousin Tom, craning round, and nodding at Captain Gabion.

"Well, Tom," said I; "what's the matter with YOU? What brought YOU here?"

"Oh, not much; nothing," replied Tom, curling out his lips contemptuously, like a disappointed man; "only a musket-shot. It won't get me a step, I'm afraid; no, nor a pension neither."

"Well, but how was it? When was it? We lost you in a moment."

"I'll tell you just how it happened," said Tom. "You saw the old colonel knocked over. Ah! Don't touch the bed; that's a good fellow. Well. Directly after, you know, we charged. I was running on; felt a smart crack in the small of my leg. Thought it was a stone; took no notice. A few paces further, though, found I couldn't walk. The sergeant looked at my leg; said 'You're wounded, sir.' Wounded I was, sure enough; and disabled, too. Got carried to the rear; placed myself in the doctor's--"

Here Tom suddenly knit his brows. His colour changed in an instant from florid to livid; his whole face was distorted with pain. Clapping his handkerchief to his mouth, he chewed away at it with all his might, while big drops of sweat started out on his forehead, and he drew in breath till the bedclothes heaved. Next moment he was himself again.

Once more Tom nodded at the next bed. "Known him long? The doctor knows him."

"We came over from England, all three of us in a ship."

"Doctor was out, though, in one thing," said Cousin Tom. "Told you he was insensible ever since he came in. No such thing; this morning he revived; for about an hour seemed quite himself. Told me how he got hit."

"Then tell me. I must communicate with his friends in England."

"Well," replied Tom, "the Captain wasn't on duty here at headquarters; was doing some field-works on the left bank of the river, to be ready for Soult in case of his bolting again for the south. He heard, though, that the fight was coming off; so rode in on the morning. Found out there was to be a flank movement to the left; thought he might as well explore the line of march; went forward alone. Passed through the thicket on foot; made his way from one end to the other. When he reached the further extremity, just where our men got such a pounding afterwards from the guns on the heights, he looked out for the enemy's skirmishers; saw no one; thought he might as well go a little further. Just then our batteries at the right opened on the French position; some of our shots flew too high, and came clean over the hill into the lane, just exactly where he was standing."--Indeed! I thought of Captain Gabion's dream.--"Well; he saw one coming; didn't trouble himself; it seemed spent. Just when he thought it was going to stop, it fetched a pitch; took him in the side. He was found when our troops advanced, and brought in here." At this moment the pain returned. Tom again made wry faces, took another chew at his handkerchief, and soon recovered as before.

"Well, Tom; I'm a leisure man. What can I do for you? Is there anything you want?--anything I can get you?"

Cousin Tom looked very much as if there was something he did want, yet was backward to speak. "Why," said he, "I suppose by this time you can get into Toulouse. I wish you would make inquiries; try and find me some--But never mind; it's of no use. The ball will be extracted this evening, and to-morrow I shall go in myself."

"Nonsense, nonsense; I'll go this instant."

"Don't be too sure of that, though," said Tom. "Yesterday morning I tried it. Told the servant to have my mule ready; got my things on while the doctor was sawing away on the other floor; slipped down stairs; gave him the go-by. Mounted--rode to the top of the hill--was riding down into the city--almost rode into a French piquet."

"No fear of that now, Tom; the city is ours. I saw the French troops marching out. Come, tell us, old fellow. What is it you fancy? Anything the doctor sanctions, you know. A quarter of mutton?--a dozen of pigeons?--some prime French sausages?--a bushel or so of oysters? What do you say to a brace of biddies?"

"Oh, no!--oh, no!" said Tom, as if the very mention of biddies made him sick. "We were always in advance; got fowls and turkeys till we hated the sight of them."

"Any dish from a French cuisine, then?"

"Oh, no--oh, no! Nothing French, nothing Frenchified. What I want, if it's to be got at all, is not to be got good, except in England--or the West Indies."

"Well, but, you know, Bordeaux is open; West India produce has come into the country by ship-loads. What is it? Come, just tell us, old chap, and I'll go and get it for you at once, if it's to be had in Toulouse."

Tom was not so well as he looked; and there was evidently something for which, like other sick persons, he was inwardly pining. Now that I had held out a prospect of its attainment, his cheek flushed, and his eye gleamed with feverish eagerness.

"Well, then," said Tom, "I wish you would try and get me--but it's no use; it's a shame to bother you.--I say, though, can you spare the time? Have you really nothing to do? Upon your honour?--I've been longing for them, day and night, ever since I got here. Oh, if you could only get me--some tamarinds!"

His eye, while he spoke, fixed full on mine. He watched my countenance with the anxiety of a dying man when he makes his last request. "I'll be off and try this instant," said I, though really fearing there was little chance of success.

"Oh, thank you--thank you!" cried Cousin Tom. I was going. "Here--here! Come back! I want to speak to you!" I returned. "Old fellow," said Tom, with a coaxing, eager grin, "make haste now, will you? Bring 'em directly--that's a good chap."

"Well, but, you know--if tamarinds can't be had for love or money, is there nothing else?"

"No, stupid--no! Tamarinds, I say; get me some tamarinds. What did I tell you? Didn't I tell you tamarinds? Now then; what are you waiting for? Cut away, and be hanged to you! Be off!--be off!"

I entered the ancient and very interesting city of Toulouse, and rushed through streets choked with cars of wounded men, in search of tamarinds. The search was tedious, and far from satisfactory. I inquired at all the likeliest shops; found only two where they professed to sell tamarinds. The samples were similar: a made-up, sticky mess; a black, nauseous electuary, with a beastly pharmaceutical odour, and barely the flavour of tamarinds.

It was no pleasant thought returning to poor Tom with a big gallipot of this filthy compound stowed in each of my coat pockets. Yet, though bad thus to baulk him, it was worse to keep him in suspense; so I started on my return with all speed, and, in my speed, came full butt against a passenger, who hugged me like a wrestler, to prevent a mutual capsize.

"Well, Mr Y----! Glad to see you so active. Something of importance, no doubt: official duty, I suppose."

It was Gingham! I told him my troubles, my pursuit in behalf of Cousin Tom, and my disappointment. Had searched all Toulouse, and could find no good tamarinds.

"Shall be happy to supply you," said Gingham, "in any quantity your cousin can require. Got a whole kegful--capital. Always take some with me when I visit the Continent. Got them on Fish-street Hill." We walked off forthwith to Gingham's quarters.

I was speedily on my return to Cousin Tom, with Gingham for my companion, and a good jar of prime, sweet, wholesome, unsophisticated tamarinds. On approaching Tom's bed, I held up the jar in triumph. Tom raised himself without saying a word, tucked his handkerchief under his chin, and sat up, poor fellow, like a child, with eyes half-closed and mouth half-open, eager to be fed. In went a spoonful. The next instant--bolt!--it was gone! What a swallow! He sat as before, ready for another. A second allowance vanished with equal speed. Down it goes! Why, it's like feeding a young rook!--Tom now laid himself down again, exhausted. "Here," said he; and made me a present of a handful of tamarind stones. "Now put a good lot in that jug, and fill it up with water."

While the drink was mixing, an unusual sound called our attention to the adjoining bed. Captain Gabion was fast sinking. His respiration, laborious from the first, had now become painfully audible; in fact, he did not breathe, he gasped. The convulsive movements had ceased. His face retained its natural expression; but there was that in his look which told us he was a dying man. I felt at the moment an impression,--He is not insensible! His lips moved. Surely he is trying to speak! He strove to fix his eyes on us, but could not. I stooped down, observing his lips again in motion. Yes, he was speaking. I caught only the words--"On the platform."

"The Calvinet platform?" I whispered in reply. "Is that the spot where you wish--?"

Feebly, tremulously he pressed my hand, which had just before taken his. I had caught his last request, then; a grave on the summit of Mount Rave, the key of the French position, where the table-land, crowned with redoubts, had been carried by our troops. His breathing became gradually feebler and less perceptible. The moment when it ceased entirely, no one present could determine. This only was evident:--a minute before, he had given signs of life; and now, he had passed into another world!

Cousin Tom's bullet was extracted the same afternoon, with immediate relief to the patient. During the operation I was present, by Tom's request; and friendship, let me tell you, has more pleasing duties than that of attending on such emergencies. Tom, however, made it as agreeable as he could. Throughout the process he viciously stared me full in the face, grinning most horribly from time to time, half in agony, half in fun. When the forceps was produced, he caught a glimpse of that terrific implement, and twisted his ugly mug into such a comical grimace, that mine, spite of the solemnity of the occasion, was screwed into a smile. Tom thereupon clenched his fist, with a look that said ferociously, "Laugh again, and I'll punch your eye."

The bullet, doctor, had lodged between the bones of the leg, a little above the ankle, and, I need not inform you, came out rather flattened. Tom kept it as a bijou, in a red morocco case made express by an artist in Toulouse. Tom called it his pill-box. Neither bone was broken; but the strain of this disagreeable visitant wedged in between them, and rending them apart, had occasioned from time to time those awful twinges, which Tom assuaged by taking a chew at his handkerchief. The enemy removed, he not only found himself in a state of comparative ease, but was relieved from the constitutional irritation which had begun to manifest itself by hardness of pulse, dryness of the mouth, parched lips, a dull, hectic, brickdust-coloured patch on each cheek, a feverish lustre of the eye, and an enormous appetite for tamarinds.

The operation, though, I ought to have said, was not performed by Pledget, but by another army surgeon, who had arrived in the course of the day, not before he was wanted. Poor Pledget was quite done up. His powers, both mental and physical, had evidently been over-taxed. He looked haggard and wild. Yet still, though relieved, anxious about his cases, he wandered from room to room, and fidgeted from one patient to another; standing a while in silence, with his hands behind him, first by an amputation, then by a wounded artery, then by a contusion, then by a broken head; while his care-worn countenance expressed pleasure or pain, according to the symptoms. As Cousin Tom was now in a dreadful fuss to be off for Toulouse, Gingham and I applied to the newly-arrived surgeon, and consulted him as to the removal.

"I think, gentlemen," said he, "if no bad symptoms supervene in the night, it may safely be effected to-morrow; that is, of course, with proper care and precautions."

"You are not afraid, sir," said Gingham, "that to-morrow may be too early a day, then?"

"Why, sir, to say the truth," replied the doctor, "if we had more room here, better accommodations, and a less vitiated atmosphere, I should say a later day would be better. But, under existing circumstances, less evil, I think, is likely to arise from the patient's removal, than from his remaining. In his case, what we now have most to look to, is the general health. Keep that right, and the wound, I hope, will do well. Therefore the sooner he is withdrawn from the bad air, and the associations which surround him here, the better for him." The doctor paused.--"Pray, sir," said he, looking Gingham full in the face, as though intuitively knowing he spoke to a real good fellow, "pray, sir, if you will permit me to ask the question, is Mr Pledget a friend of yours?"

"There are few men, sir," replied Gingham, "for whom I have a higher regard, than for Mr Pledget."

"Well, sir," said the doctor, "I feel rather uneasy about him. It's a delicate thing to speak about. But you yourself must have noticed how changed he is, by the labours of the last three days. In short, to speak plainly, he requires to be looked after; and just at this time, with so many wounded upon our hands, I hardly know whether we could possibly give him the attention here which his case requires. If it is neglected now, it may become serious. Would it be asking too much, if I requested you to take charge of him into Toulouse?"

"Take him with us this instant, sir," said Gingham; "or when you please. If you approve, I'll have him with me in my own quarters."

"I really, sir, feel obliged to you," said the doctor. And the doctor looked as if he spoke from his heart. "Hope you understand, though, what it is you are taking on your shoulders. For a few days--not longer, I hope--he will require vigilant superintendence, and, possibly, slight control. His case demands firmness, and indulgence at the same time."

"Yes, sir, I understand," said Gingham. "Shall he go with us now?"

"I would rather have him under my eye," said the doctor, "till to-morrow morning. Perhaps a night's rest may effect a favourable change. In the interval, too, I shall have time to prepare his mind for the removal." So it was settled.

The next morning we returned to the chateau, for the purpose of bringing in Pledget and Cousin Tom. Tom's patience, though, had not lasted out till our arrival. At sunrise, again giving the doctor the go-by, he had got on his things, crept down stairs, mounted his mule, and taken himself off. In fact, he had got into Toulouse, obtained a billet, and, snugly located in a respectable French family, was prattling the vernacular, which he had at his fingers' ends, before we arrived at the chateau to fetch him.

It only remained, therefore, to remove Pledget. He, poor man, though all the better for a night's rest and a clean shirt, still looked very unlike himself. He had rested, indeed, but he had not slept; and his medical colleague hinted to Gingham, ere we departed, that the case still required vigilance and care. The state of Pledget's mind, at this time, was singular; he had all at once become excessively ceremonious. When we reached the garden gate he drew up; insisted that we should both precede him in going out. Had Gingham and I been equally punctilious, we should not have reached Toulouse by dinner-time.

Gingham had a matter upon his mind. Captain Gabion having expressed a last wish respecting his funeral, Gingham had undertaken the whole details, and some arrangements had been necessary at the chateau, or our departed friend would speedily have been consigned, on the spot, to a ready-made grave. Gingham mentioned the subject as we rode along, and began stating what steps he had taken. Pledget, who was ambling side by side with us on his mule, suddenly fell behind. Coosey, previously admonished by Gingham, kept still further in the rear. We waited till Pledget came up.

"Why, Mr Pledget," said Gingham, "I thought we had lost you, sir."

"Excuse me, sir," said Pledget, with gravity; "you are making a confidential communication. Part of it I unintentionally overheard. For this, an apology is due to both of you. Gentlemen, I most humbly beg your pardon."

We rode on. Presently, Pledget edged up alongside of me, as though he had something important to communicate.

"Mr Y----," said he, "I consider it the first duty which one gentleman owes another, to avoid giving him needless offence." Not exactly perceiving to what this observation tended, I could only bow my acquiescence.

"But if," continued Pledget, "an offence is actually given, then I conceive the next duty is to make reparation by a humble apology." Apology, it was evident, was now the uppermost idea in poor Pledget's mind.

"Well, sir," said I, seeking to divert his thoughts, "I think, in such a case, regard should be had to the feelings of both parties. And, judging by my own, I should say that, next to making an apology, there are few things one would more wish to avoid than receiving one."

"And accordingly," said Gingham, "in the intercourse of gentlemen, it rarely, very rarely occurs, that an actual apology is deemed requisite. To signify an intention, to express a willingness to apologise, is in most cases thought amply satisfactory. Manly feeling forbids the rest; and honour itself exacts no more." Pledget rode on awhile, absorbed in thought.

"Mr Y----," he said at last, "I appreciate your sentiments, as well as Mr Gingham's; and I perceive their drift. Allow me to say it, your conduct is most generous. I really feel that you have just cause to complain of mine; and, if it would pain you to receive the apology, which is your due, allow me at least to express my _willingness_, and, believe me, it was my _intention_, to apologise."

"Mr Pledget, my dear sir, what possible need of apology between you and me? What offence has been given or received? I know of none--never dreamt of any."

"Very handsome of you to say so, Mr Y----," replied Pledget. "But what could be more inconsiderate than my conduct yesterday morning? You _must_ have felt it; I know you did. You came to me with an anxious inquiry respecting your wounded cousin; I spoke to you of Captain Gabion. It was wrong, I own. Nay, not merely wrong, it was unfeeling. I trust you will bear in mind my peculiar circumstances at the time. I was overwhelmed, perplexed, bewildered, I----"

Gingham now saw it was high time to interpose, and with much adroitness gave a new turn to the conversation. But ere we were housed in Toulouse, Pledget, addressing us alternately, and continually discovering fresh grounds of self-accusation, had made two or three more apologies.

For a few days, sedulously and most kindly tended by Gingham, who managed him admirably, and evinced equal tact and delicacy, Pledget continued in a state of alternate depression and excitement, with occasional hallucinations. He made apologies to all who came near him; and, ere he quitted Gingham's quarters, had begged pardon, again and again, of every servant in the household. From my first conversation with Gingham on the steps of the hotel at Falmouth, I always valued his acquaintance. But when I had seen him in this his new character as Pledget's nurse, wise, thoughtful, vigilant, and indulgent, I really grew proud of such a friend.

Within a week Pledget was almost himself again; and long before he quitted Toulouse, to embark for England at Bordeaux, he was fully and permanently restored.

Cousin Tom's, though, was a business of more time. He begged or borrowed a formidable sapling, with a knob as big as his fist, and was soon able to hobble about Toulouse, very much to his own satisfaction. But the bones of his leg had been injured, though not broken; and it was long before the wound got well, if it ever did. I was with him many months after in London, when the Medical Board sat to award gratuities and pensions to the wounded and disabled officers of the Peninsular Army. Lucky, then, did the wight esteem himself who had lost a limb or an eye. Tom was waiting for his turn to go before the Board; I saw him two days previously. His, I feared, was only a case for a gratuity; but Tom was determined to go for a pension, and made sure of getting it. I ventured to express my doubts; Tom whipped off his half-boot, turned down his sock, and exclaimed triumphantly, "Look at that!" The wound was clean, but looked fresh; much, indeed, as it appeared two days after the fight when the bullet was extracted, and still big enough to re-admit it. "If the Board don't give me a pension," cried Tom, "for such a punch as that, why, all I can say is, they deserve to be punched themselves." Saw him again after the inspection. "It's no go," said Tom; "I tried hard for it, too. Got up early in the morning--slapped twice round the Park at a swinging pace. When I went before them it was red all about, a couple of inches. The flinty-hearted villains gave me only a gratuity, though it bled while they were looking at it."

At an early day after Pledget's and Tom's removal, we assembled at the chateau, on an occasion in which we all felt a melancholy interest--the funeral of Captain Gabion. The military arrangements, of course, did not rest with us; Gingham had made every provision which was left to his care with equal liberality and propriety. Gingham also, no chaplain being present, officiated at the grave. He read the service with great devoutness and solemnity. The procession was joined, as we ascended the hill, by a mounted officer, a major of the artillery, who, during the whole of the service, seemed lost in thought, and stood with his eyes fixed upon the coffin till it was lowered into the grave. The whole concluded, he approached and shook hands with Gingham and myself, spoke a few hurried words, took a hasty leave, mounted, and rode away. Gingham and I waited by the grave till all was filled in and made right; we then walked down together towards the city, both for some time silent. I spoke first.

"Wouldn't it be right to communicate with the friends? I think they ought to know the exact position of the grave, and also the particulars which I got from my cousin."

"Why, yes," said Gingham; "it would, I think, be as well to give them all the information you can. I have already written to the widow."

CHATEAUBRIAND'S MEMOIRS.

_Mémoires d'outre Tombe._ Par M. LE VICOMTE DE CHATEAUBRIAND. Tom. v. vi. vii. viii. et ix. Paris: 1849.

The great and honourable feature of Chateaubriand's mind, amidst some personal weaknesses, is its noble and disinterested character. It differs from what we see around us, but it differs chiefly in superior elevation. It united, to a degree which perhaps will never again be witnessed, the lofty feelings of chivalry, with the philanthropic visions of philosophy. In the tribune he was often a Liberal of the modern school; but in action he was always a paladin of the olden time. His fidelity was not to prosperity, but to adversity; his bond was not to the powerful, but to the unfortunate; reversing the revolutionary maxim, he brought the actions of public men to the test, not of success, but of disaster. He often irritated his friends when in power by the independence of his language, but he never failed to command the respect of his enemies when in adversity, by his constancy to misfortune. "Vive le roi quand-même," ever became his principle when the gales of adversity blew, and the hollow-hearted support of the world began to fail. Prosperity often saw him intrepid, perhaps imprudent in expression, but misfortune never failed to exhibit him generous and faithful in action; and his fidelity to the cause of royalty was never so strikingly evinced as when that cause in France was most desperate. He was the very antipodes of the hideous revolutionary tergiversation of Fontainebleau. A pilgrim in this scene of trial, he was ever ready, after having attained the summit of worldly grandeur, to descend at the call of honour; and, resuming his staff and scrip, to set out afresh on the path of duty. He was fitted to be the object of jealousy and spite to kings and ministers in power, whose follies he disdained to flatter or to overlook their vices, and of eternal admiration to the great and the good in every future age, whose hearts his deeds not less than his words will cause to throb. Such a character might pass for fabulous or imaginary, were it not clearly evinced, not only by words, but actions; not only in the thoughts of genius, but in the deeds of honour. His life, and the feelings by which it was regulated, are well worth examining, although we fear he will find but few imitators in these days, and is more likely, in a utilitarian and money-seeking age, to be classed with the mammoth and mastodon, as a species of existence never again to be seen in this world.

A character of this description naturally became enamoured of awful or heartstirring events, and was ever ready to find a friend in those capable of noble or heroic deeds in the ranks even of his enemies. Both qualities are evinced in the following graphic account of the appearance of the Grand Army when it arrived at Smolensko during the Moscow retreat:--

"On the 9th November, the troops at length reached Smolensko. An order of Buonaparte forbade any one to enter before the posts had been intrusted to the Imperial Guard. The soldiers on the outside were grouped in great numbers round the foot of the walls: those within were under cover. The air resounded with the imprecations of those who were shut out. Clothed in dirty Cossack cloaks, horse-cloths, and worn-out blankets, with their heads covered with old carpets, broken helmets, ragged shakos, for the most part torn by shot, stained with blood, or hacked in pieces by sabre-cuts--with haggard and yet ferocious countenances, they looked up to the top of the ramparts gnashing their teeth, with the expression of those prisoners who, under Louis the Fat, bore in their right hand their left cut off: you would have taken them for infuriated _masques_, or famished madmen escaped from Bedlam. At length the Old and Young Guard arrived, they were quickly admitted into the place which had been wasted by conflagration on occasion of our first passage. Loud cries of indignation were immediately raised against the privileged corps. 'Is the army to be left nothing but what it leaves?' was heard on all sides. Meanwhile the household troops, who had been admitted, rushed in tumultuous crowds to the magazines like an insurrection of spectres: the guards at the doors repulsed them; they fought in the streets: the dead, the wounded encumbered the pavements, the women, the children, the dying filled the waggons. The air was poisoned by the multitude of dead bodies; even old soldiers were seized with idiocy or madness; some whose hair stood on end with horror, blasphemed, or laughed with a ghastly air and fell dead. Napoleon let his wrath exhale in imprecations against a miserable commissary, none of the orders given to which had been executed.

"The army, a hundred thousand strong when it left Moscow, now reduced to thirty thousand, was followed by a band of fifty thousand stragglers; there were not eighteen hundred horsemen mounted. Napoleon gave the command of them to M. de Latour Maubourg. That officer, who had led the cuirassiers to the assault of the great redoubt of Borodino, had had his head almost cleft asunder by the stroke of a sabre; he afterwards lost a leg at Dresden. Perceiving his servant in tears when the operation was over, he said to him, 'Why do you weep? you will have only one boot to clean.' That general, who remained faithful to misfortune, became the preceptor of Henry V. in the first years of the exile of that prince. I lift my hat in his presence, as in that of the Incarnation of Honour."--_Memoirs_, vi. p. 116, 118.

As Chateaubriand had declined office, and narrowly escaped death in consequence, when Napoleon murdered the Duke d'Enghien, his life, from that period to the Restoration of the Bourbons, was one of retirement and observation. The important part which he took in the Restoration, by the publication of his celebrated pamphlet _De Buonaparte et des Bourbons_, restored him to political life. The effect produced by that work was immense, and the placing of the ancient race of monarchs on the throne was in a great degree owing to it; for, at a crisis when the intentions of the Allies were yet undecided, and Austria openly supported the strong party in France which inclined for a regency with Marie Louise at its head, it swelled immensely the numbers of the decided Royalists, and gave a definite and tangible object to their hitherto vague and divided aspirations. It was written with prodigious rapidity, and bears marks of the haste of its composition in the vehemence of its ideas and the occasional exaggeration of its assertions; but it was the very thing required for a national crisis of unexampled importance, when every hour was fraught with lasting consequences, and every effort of genius was required for laying the foundation of a new order in European society. Of the first conception and subsequent completion of this remarkable work he gives the following account:--

"I had been permitted to return to my solitary valley. The earth trembled under the footsteps of stranger armies: I wrote like the last Roman, amidst the din of barbarian invasion. During the day, I traced lines as agitated as the events which were passing: at night, when the roar of cannon was no longer heard in my solitary woods, I returned to the silence of the years which sleep in the tomb, and to the peace of my earlier life. The agitated pages which I wrote during the day, became, when put together, my pamphlet _On Buonaparte and the Bourbons_. I had so high an idea of the genius of Napoleon, and the valour of our soldiers, that the idea of a foreign invasion, successful in its ultimate results, never entered into my imagination; but I thought that such an invasion, by making the French see the dangers to which the ambition of Napoleon had exposed them, would lead to an interior movement, and that the deliverance of the French would be the work of their own hands. It was under that impression that I wrote my notes, in order that, if our political assemblies should arrest the march of the Allies, and separate themselves from a great man who had become their scourge, they should know to what haven to turn. The harbour of refuge appeared to me to be in the ancient authority, under which our ancestors had lived during eight centuries, but modified according to the changes of time. During a tempest, when one finds himself at the gate of an old edifice, albeit in ruins, he is glad to seek its shelter."--Vol. vi. p. 196, 197.

Madame de Chateaubriand, in a note, has described the circumstances under which this memorable pamphlet was written, and the morbid anxiety with which she was devoured during its composition:--

"Had the pages of that pamphlet been seized by the police, the result could not have been a moment doubtful: the sentence was the scaffold. Nevertheless the author was inconceivably negligent about concealing it. Often, when he went out, he left the sheets on the table: at night he only placed them under his pillow, which he did in presence of his valet--an honest youth, it is true, but who might have betrayed him. For my part, I was in mortal agonies: whenever M. de Chateaubriand went out, I seized the manuscript, and concealed it on my person. One day, in crossing the Tuileries, I perceived I had it not upon me, and being sure I had it when I went out, I did not doubt that I had let it fall on the road. Already I beheld that fatal writing in the hands of the police, and M. de Chateaubriand arrested. I fell down in swoon in the garden, and some kind-hearted person carried me to my house, from which I had only got a short distance. What agony I endured when, ascending the stair, I floated between terror, which now amounted almost to a certainty, and a slight hope that I might have forgot the pamphlet. On reaching my husband's apartment, I felt again ready to faint: I approached the bed--I felt under the pillow; there was nothing there: I lifted the mattress, and there was the roll of paper! My heart still beats every time I think of it. Never in my life did I experience such a moment of joy. With truth can I say, my joy would not have been so great if I had been delivered at the foot of the scaffold, for it was one who was more dear to me than life itself whom I saw rescued from destruction."--Vol. vi. p. 206, 207.

On the entrance of Louis XVIII. into Paris, on the 3d May 1814, the Allied sovereigns, from a feeling of delicacy to that monarch, gave orders that none but French troops should appear in the procession. The Old Guard lined the streets next the palace, and Chateaubriand gives the following account of the way in which they received him:--

"A regiment of infantry of the Old Guard kept the ground, from the Pont Neuf to Notre Dame, along the Quai des Orfures. I do not believe that human figures ever expressed anything so menacing and so terrible. These grenadiers, covered with wounds, so long the terror of Europe, who had seen so many thousand bullets fly over their heads, who seemed to smell of fire and powder--these very men, deprived of their leader, were forced to salute an old king, enfeebled by time and not combats, guarded by an army of Russians, Austrians, and Prussians, in the conquered capital of Napoleon! Some, shaking their heads, made their huge bearskins fall down over their eyes, so as not to see what was passing: others lowered the extremities of their mouths, to express their contempt and rage: others, through their mustaches, let their teeth be seen, which they gnashed like tigers. When they presented arms, it was with a gesture of fury, as if they brought them down to the charge. The sound they made with the recover was like thunder. Never, it must be admitted, had men been subjected to such a trial, or suffered such a punishment. If, in that moment, they had been called to vengeance, they would have exterminated the last man, or perished in the attempt.

"At the extremity of the line was a young hussar on horseback, with his drawn sabre in his hand; his whole body literally quivered with a convulsive movement of wrath. He was deadly pale; his eyes rolled round in the most frightful manner; he opened his mouth alternately and shut it, grinding his teeth, and uttering inarticulate cries of rage. He cast his eyes on a Russian officer: no words can express the look which he gave him. When the carriage of the King passed before him, he made his horse leap forward, it was easy to see that he withstood with difficulty the temptation to precipitate himself on his sovereign.[3]

"The Restoration, at its very outset, committed an irreparable fault. It should have disbanded the army, preserving only the marshals, generals, military governors, and officers, in their rank, pay, and appointments. The soldiers, in this manner, would have gradually re-entered their ranks, as they have since done into the Royal Guard; but they would have done so isolated from each other. The legitimate monarch would no longer have had arrayed against him the soldiers of the empire in regiments and brigades, as they had been during the days of their glory, for ever talking to each other of times past, and comparing the conquests of Napoleon with their inglorious inactivity under their new master.

"The miserable attempt to reconstruct the _Maison Rouge_, that mixture of the military men of the old monarchy and the soldiers of the new empire, only augmented the evil. To suppose that veterans famous on a hundred fields of battle should not be shocked at seeing young men--brave without doubt, but for the most part unaccustomed to the use of arms--to see them wear, without having earned or deserved, the marks of high military rank, was to be ignorant of the first principles of human nature."--Vol. vi. p. 311-313.

[3] Having ourselves seen the Old Guard on this trying occasion, we can vouch for the general fidelity of Chateaubriand's narrative.

These observations of Chateaubriand's are well founded, and the last, in particular, is very important; but it may well be doubted whether, by any measures that could have been adopted, the support of the army could have been secured, or the dynasty of the Bourbons established on a secure foundation. It was the fact of their having been replaced by the bayonets of the stranger which was the insurmountable difficulty; it was national subjugation, the capture of Paris, which had for ever stained the white flag. This original sin in its birth attended the Restoration through every subsequent year of its existence: it was the main cause of the revolution of 1830, and operated with equal force in bringing about the still more fatal one of 1848. Impatience of repose--a desire to precipitate themselves on foreign nations--an aversion to the employments and interests of peace, were the secret but principal causes of these convulsions. If either Louis XVIII. or Louis Philippe had been young and warlike princes, and the recollection of Leipsic and Waterloo, of the invasions of France, and the double capture of its capital, had not prevented them from engaging in the career of foreign warfare; if they had been enterprising and _victorious_, they would have secured the unanimous suffrages of the nation, and continued the honoured possessors of the throne of France. But this dazzling though perilous career was denied to Louis XVIII. To him there was left only the difficult, perhaps the impossible task, of reconciling irrevocable enmities, of closing irremediable wounds, of appeasing inextinguishable mortifications. They have been thus set forth in the eloquent words of genius:--

"The house of Bourbon was placed in Paris at the Restoration as a trophy of the European confederation. The return of the ancient princes was inseparably associated, in the public mind, with the cession of extensive provinces, with the payment of an immense tribute, with the occupation of the kingdom by hostile armies, with the emptiness of those niches in which the gods of Athens and Rome had been the objects of a new idolatry, with the nakedness of those walls on which the Transfiguration had shone with a light as glorious as that which overhung Mount Thabor. They came back to a land in which they could recognise nothing. The Seven Sleepers of the legend, who closed their eyes when the Pagans were persecuting the Christians, and woke when the Christians were persecuting the Pagans, did not find themselves in a world more completely new to them. Twenty years had done the work of twenty generations. Events had come thick; men had lived fast. The old institutions and the old feelings had been torn up by the roots. There was a new church founded and endowed by the usurper; a new nobility, whose titles were taken from the fields of battle, disastrous to the ancient line; a new chivalry, whose crosses had been won by exploits which seemed likely to make the banishment of the Emigrants perpetual; a new code, administered by a new magistracy; a new body of proprietors, holding the soil by a new tenure; the most ancient local distinctions effaced, the most familiar names obsolete. There was no longer a Normandy, a Brittany, or a Guienne. The France of Louis XVI. had passed away as completely as one of the Preadamite worlds. Its fossil remains might now and then excite curiosity; but it was as impossible to put life into the old institutions as to animate the skeletons which are imbedded in the depths of primeval strata. The revolution in the laws and the form of government was but an outward sign of that mightier revolution which had taken place in the minds and hearts of men, and which affected every transaction and feeling of life. It was as absurd to think that France could again be placed under the feudal system, as that our globe could be overrun by mammoths. Louis might efface the initials of the Emperor, but he could not turn his eyes without seeing some object which reminded him he was a stranger in the palace of his fathers."[4]

[4] MACAULAY'S _Essays_, ii. 230.

As a parallel to this splendid passage, though in an entirely different style, we gladly give place to a noble burst of Chateaubriand, on that most marvellous of marvellous events, the return of Napoleon from Elba. It was natural that so memorable a revolution should strongly impress his imaginative mind; but he seems to have exceeded himself in the reflections to which it gives rise. We know not whether to award the prize to the Englishman or the Frenchman, in these parallel passages. They are both masterpieces in their way. Perhaps the correct view is, that Macaulay is superior in graphic force and the accumulation of sarcastic images; Chateaubriand in lofty thought and imaginative images.

"On the 1st March, at three o'clock in the morning, Napoleon approached the coast of France in the Gulf of Juan; he disembarked, walked along the shore, gathered a few violets, and bivouacked in an olive wood. The inhabitants withdrew in a state of stupefaction. He left Antibes to his left, and threw himself into the Mountains of Grasse in Dauphiny. At Sisterone the road passes a defile where twenty men might have stopped him; he did not meet a living soul. He advanced without opposition among the inhabitants who the year before had wished to murder him. Into the void which was formed around his gigantic shade, if a few soldiers entered, they straightway yielded to the attraction of his eagles. His fascinated enemies seek him and find him not; he shrowds himself in his glory, as the lion in the Sahara desert conceals himself in the rays of the sun to dazzle the eyes of his pursuers. Enveloped in a burning halo, the bloody phantoms of Arcola, Marengo, Austerlitz, Jena, Friedland, Eylau, the Moskwa, Lützen, and Bautzen, form his cortege amidst a million of the dead. From the midst of that column of smoke and flame, issue at the gates of towns some trumpet-notes mingled with tricolor standards, and the gates fly open. When Napoleon passed the Niemen, at the head of four hundred thousand foot, and a hundred thousand horse, to blow into the air the palace of the Czars at Moscow, he was less wonderful than when, breaking his ban, casting his fetters as a gauntlet in the face of kings, he came alone from Cannes to Paris, to sleep peaceably in the palace of the Tuileries."--Vol. vi. p. 359, 360.

To a mind like that of Chateaubriand, reposing in solitude when Napoleon was acting with such marvellous effect in the world, the character and qualities of that wonderful man could not fail to be a constant object of solicitude and observation. It has been already noticed that he braved the Emperor in the plenitude of his power, and essentially contributed, in the crisis of his fate, to his dethronement, and the re-establishment of the ancient line of princes. But, as is not unusual with persons of his highly wrought and generous temper of mind, his hostility to the Emperor declined with the termination of his authority, and his admiration for his genius rose with the base desertion of the revolutionary crowd who had fawned upon him when on the throne. The following observations on the style of his writings, indicate the growth of this counter feeling, and are in themselves equally just and felicitous:--

"His partisans have sought to make of Buonaparte a perfect being; a model of sentiment, of delicacy, of morality, and of justice--a writer like Cæsar and Thucydides, an orator like Demosthenes, a historian like Tacitus. The public discourses of Napoleon, his sonorous phrases in the tent and at the council board, are the less inspired by the spirit of prophecy, that many of the catastrophes which he announced have not been accomplished, while the warlike Isaiah himself has disappeared. Prophecies of doom which follow without reaching states become ridiculous. It is their accomplishment which renders them sublime. During sixteen years, Napoleon was the incarnation of destiny. Destiny now is mute, and he, too, should be so. Buonaparte was not a Cæsar; his education had neither been learnedly nor carefully conducted: half a stranger, he was ignorant of the first rules of our language, and could hardly spell it; but what did it signify, after all, that his expression was defective?--he gave the law to the universe. His bulletins have the most thrilling of all eloquence--that of victory. Sometimes, during the intoxications of success, they affected to be written on a drum-head: in the midst of the most lugubrious accents, something emerged which excites a smile. I have read all that Napoleon has written--the first manuscripts of his infancy, his love-letters to Josephine, the five volumes of his discourses, bulletins, and orders; but I have found nothing which so truly portrays the character of that great man, when in adversity, as the following autograph note left at Elba:--

"'My heart refuses to share in ordinary joys as ordinary sorrows.

"'Not having given myself life, I am not entitled to take it away.

"'My bad genius appeared to me and announced my end; which I found at Leipsic.

"'I have conjured up the terrible spirit of innovation, which will overrun the world.'

"Certes, there is Napoleon to the very life. His bulletins and discourses have often great energy; but it was not his own; it belonged to the age; he only adopted it. It sprang from the revolutionary energy, which he only weakened by moving in opposition to it. Danton said, 'The metal is fused; if you do not watch over the furnace, you will be consumed.' St Just replied, '_Do it if you dare_.' These words contain the whole secret of our Revolution. Those who make revolutions by halves, do nothing but dig their own graves."--Vol. vii. p. 101.

Certes, there is Chateaubriand to the very life.

Chateaubriand, as all the world knows, was Minister for Foreign Affairs to Louis XVIII. at Ghent; adhering thus to his ruling maxim throughout life, "Fidelity to misfortune." So great were the services rendered by him to the cause of European freedom, by the energetic series of papers which he poured forth with unwearied vigour every week, that there were serious thoughts, after the battle of Waterloo, of promoting him to the dignity of Prime Minister. Louis XVIII. openly inclined to it; and if his advice had prevailed, the catastrophe which fifteen years afterwards befel his family, would probably have been prevented. But the insuperable difficulty lay here: the pure and honourable mind of Chateaubriand revolted from the idea of forming a Ministry in conjunction with Talleyrand and Fouché; and yet their influence was such that the monarch, in the first instance at least, was compelled to court their assistance. Expedience, at least immediate expedience, seemed to counsel it; but Chateaubriand, animated by higher principles, and gifted with a more prophetic mind, anticipated no lasting advantage, but rather the reverse, from an alliance with the arch-regicide of Nantes, and the arch-traitor who had sworn allegiance to and betrayed _twelve_ Governments in succession. But the chorus of "_base unanimities_," as he expresses it, with which the monarch was surrounded, proved too strong for any single individual, how gifted soever. Fouché and Talleyrand were taken into power, and Chateaubriand retired. Of the conversation with Louis XVIII., when this vital change was resolved on, he gives the following interesting account, which proves that that sagacious monarch at least was well aware of the consequences of the step to which he was thus involuntarily impelled:--

"Before quitting St Denis, on our way back to Paris, I had an audience of the King, and the following conversation ensued:

"'Well?' said Louis XVIII., opening the dialogue by that exclamation.

"'Well, sire, you have taken the Duke of Otranto,' (Fouché.)

"'I could not avoid it; from my brother to the bailie of Crussol, (and he at least is not suspected,) all said that we could not do otherwise--what think you?'

"'Sire! the thing is done; I crave permission to remain silent.'

"'No, no--speak out; you know how I resisted at Ghent.'

"'In that case, sire, I must obey my orders. Pardon my fidelity: I think it is all over with the monarchy.'

"The King remained some time silent. I began to tremble at my boldness, when his Majesty rejoined:--

"'In truth, M. de Chateaubriand, I am of your opinion.'

"I bowed and withdrew; and thus ended my connection with the Hundred Days."--Vol. vii. 70.

Manzoni has written an ode, known over all Europe, on the double fall of Napoleon: "The last poet," says Chateaubriand, "of the country of Virgil, sang the last warrior of the country of Cæsar.

Tutte ei provo, la gloria Maggior dopo il periglio, La fuga e la Vittoria, La reggia e il triste esiglio: Due volte nella polvere, Due volte sugli altar.

Ei se nomo: due secoli, L'un contro l'altro armato, Sommessi a lui se volsero, Come aspettando il fato: Ei fe silenzio ed arbitro S'assise in mezzo a loro.

"He proved everything; glory greater after danger, flight, and victory: Royalty and sad exile, twice in the dust, twice on the altar.

"He announced himself: two ages, armed against each other, turned towards him, as if awaiting their fate; he proclaimed silence, and seated himself as arbiter between them."

Notwithstanding the vehemence of Chateaubriand's dissension with Napoleon, it cannot be expected that a man of his romantic and generous temperament would continue his hostility after death. No one, accordingly, has awarded a more heartfelt or magnanimous tribute to his memory.

"The solitude of the exile and of the tomb of Napoleon has shed an extraordinary interest, a sort of prestige, over his memory. Alexander did not die under the eyes of Greece, he disappeared amidst the distant wonders of Babylon. Buonaparte has not died under the eyes of France: he has been lost in the gloomy edge of the southern horizon. The grandeur of the silence which now surrounds him equals the immensity of the noise which his exploits formerly made. The nations are absent: the crowd of men has retired: the bird of the tropics, 'harnessed,' in Buffon's words, 'to the chariot of the sun,' has precipitated itself from the star of light--where does it now repose? It rests on the ashes of which the weight has all but subverted the globe."

"Imposuerunt omnes sibi diademata post mortem ejus; et multiplicata sunt mala in terrâ."[5] "They all assumed diadems after his death, and evils were multiplied on the earth." Twenty years have hardly elapsed since the death of Napoleon, and already the French and Spanish monarchies are no more. The map of the world has undergone a change: a new geography is required: severed from their legitimate rulers, nations have been thrown against nations: renowned actors on the scene have given place to ignoble successors: eagles from the summits of the loftiest pines have plunged into the ocean, while frail shellfish have attached themselves to the sides of the trunk, which still stands erect.

[5] MACHABIES.

"As in the last result everything advances to its end, '_the terrible spirit of innovation which overruns the world_', as the Emperor said, and to which he had opposed the barrier of his genius, has resumed its course. The institutions of the conqueror fail: he will be the last of great existences on the earth. Nothing hereafter will overshadow society, parcelled out and levelled: the shadow of Napoleon alone will be seen on the verge of the old world which has been destroyed, like the phantom of the deluge on the edge of its abyss. Distant posterity will discern that spectre through the gloom of passing events still erect above the gulf into which unknown ages have fallen, until the day marked out by Providence for the resurrection of social man."--Vol. vii. 169-171.

Assuredly no one can say that Chateaubriand's genius has declined with his advanced years.

To a man viewing Napoleon with the feelings expressed in these eloquent words, the translation of his remains from their solitary resting-place under the willow at St Helena could not but be an object of regret. He thus expresses himself on that memorable event, and future ages will probably confirm his opinion:--

"The removal of the remains of Napoleon from St Helena was a fault against his renown. A place of sepulchre in Paris can never equal the Valley of Slanes. Who would wish to see the Pillar of Pompey elsewhere than above the grave dug for his remains by his poor freedman, aided by the old legionary? What shall we do with those magnificent remains in the midst of our miseries? Can the hardest granite typify the everlasting duration of Napoleon's renown? Even if we possessed a Michael Angelo to design the statue on the grave, how should we fashion the mausoleum? Monuments are for little men, for the great a stone and a name. At least they should have suspended the coffin from the summit of the triumphal arch which records his exploits: nations from afar should have beheld their master borne aloft on the shoulders of his victories. Was not the urn which contained the ashes of Trajan placed at Rome, beneath his column? Napoleon at Paris will be lost amidst the crowd of unknown names. God forbid he should be exposed to the vicissitudes of our political changes, surrounded though he is by Louis XIV., Vauban, and Turenne. Let a certain section of our revolutionists triumph, and the ashes of the conqueror will be sent to join the ashes which our passions have dispersed. The conqueror will be forgotten in the oppressor of our liberties. The bones of Napoleon will not reproduce his genius; they will only teach his despotism to ignoble soldiers."--Vol. vii. 184, 185.

The Restoration did not immediately employ Chateaubriand. His anticipations were realised. The chorus of baseness and selfishness with which the court was surrounded, kept him at a distance. They were afraid of his genius: they were jealous of his reputation. Above all, they dreaded his independence. He was not sufficiently manageable. They were actuated, perhaps not altogether without reason, by the same feeling which made Lord North say, when urged to bring Dr Johnson into Parliament, whose great powers in the political warfare of pamphlets had been so signally evinced on the side of Government, "No, sir, he is an elephant, but a wild one, as likely to trample under foot his friends as his enemies." The veteran statesman, so well versed in the ways of men, was right. Genius is the fountain of thought: it ultimately rules the councils and destinies of men; but it generally requires to be tempered by time before it can be safely introduced into practice.

Chateaubriand enlivens this period of his memoirs, which is neither signalised by political event nor remarkable literary effort, by a sort of biography of Madame Recamier, with whom he was on terms of intimate friendship. This remarkable person, who was beyond all question the most beautiful and attractive woman of her age in France, or perhaps in Europe, is now no more; and he appears to have obtained from her relatives, or perhaps from herself prior to her decease, not only many curious and highly interesting details concerning her early years and subsequent history, but a great variety of original letters from the most eminent men of the age, who were successively led captive by her charms, but none of whom appear to have impaired her reputation. In this country, where the lines of severance between the sexes are much more rigidly drawn, it would be impossible for a young and beautiful married woman to be in the habit of receiving the most ardent love-letters from a great variety of distinguished and fascinating admirers, without the jealousy of rivals being excited, and the breath of scandal fastening upon her as its natural prey. But it is otherwise on the Continent, where, although there is doubtless abundance of dissoluteness of manners in certain circles, yet in others such intimacies may exist, which are yet kept within due bounds, and cast no reflection on the fortunate fair one who sees all the world at her feet.

Such, at least, appears to have been the case with Madame Recamier, the intimate friend of Madame de Stael, who said "She would willingly give all her talents for one half of her beauty;" and whose powers of fascination were such, that she not only inspired a vehement passion nearly at the same time, in La Harpe, Lucien Buonaparte, Murat, Moreau, Bernadotte, Marshal Massena, Benjamin Constant, Prince Augustus of Prussia, Prince Metternich, Chateaubriand, and a vast many others, but attracted the particular notice of Napoleon, and did not escape the vigilant and practised eye of the Duke of Wellington. The Prince of Prussia would have married her, if he could have effected her divorce from M. Recamier. It is one of the worst traits of the Emperor Napoleon's character, that he was not only so envious of the celebrity of her beauty that he banished her from Paris to extinguish its fame, but was inspired with such malignant feelings towards her, from her having rejected his advances, that he got a law passed which rendered the wives of persons engaged in commerce responsible in their separate estates for their husbands' debts; the effect of which was to involve Madame Recamier, whose husband, a great banker in Paris, failed, in almost total ruin, in the latter years of her life.

Madame Recamier, whose birth, though respectable, gave her none of the advantages of rank or opulence, was bred up at the abbey of the _Desert_, near the confluence of the Rhone and the Saone at Lyons. Her parents, however, resided at Paris; and they having brought her home at the age of twelve years, she was at that tender age married to M. Recamier, a rich banker, almost four times her own age, whose immense transactions, which entirely absorbed his time and attention, left him no leisure to attend either to the education or occupations of his infantine and beautiful wife. But though thus left to herself, surrounded by admirers, and with every luxury which wealth could purchase at her command, she was never led astray. Benjamin Constant, who knew her well from her earliest years, has left the following interesting portrait of what may be called her infantine married life:--

"She whom I paint emerged pure and brilliant from that corrupted atmosphere, which elsewhere withered where it did not actually corrupt. Infancy was at first her safeguard. Libertinism shrunk from approaching the asylum of so much innocence. Removed from the world in a solitude embellished by the arts, she spent her time in the sweet occupation of those charming and poetical studies which usually constitute the delight of a more advanced age.

"Often, also, surrounded by her young companions, she abandoned herself to the amusements suited to her tender years. 'Swift as Atalanta in the race,' she outran all her companions: often, in playing Hide-and-seek, she bandaged those eyes which were destined one day to fascinate every beholder. Her look, now so expressive and penetrating, and which seems to indicate mysteries of which she herself is unconscious, then shone only with the animated and playful gaiety of childhood. Her beautiful hair, which could not be undone without causing emotion, fell in natural curls on her shoulders. A hearty and prolonged laugh often burst from these infantine circles, but already you could perceive in her that fine and rapid observation which seizes the salient points of ridicule--that sportive raillery which diverted itself without injuring any one: above all, that exquisite sense of elegance and propriety, of purity and taste, that true nobility of mind, which are given only to a few privileged beings.

"Nevertheless Madame Recamier emerged occasionally from her retreat, to go to the theatre or to the public promenades; and in those places of general resort her rare appearance was quite an event. Every other object in those immense assemblages was forgotten: every one precipitated himself upon her steps. The fortunate cavalier who attended her could scarcely make his way through the crowds which she collected: her steps were at every instant impeded by the spectators who crowded around her. She enjoyed that success with the gaiety of an infant combined with the timidity of a young woman; but the gracious dignity which at home restrained the overflowing gaiety of her companions, inspired respect in public in the admiring crowd with which she was constantly environed. You would say that her air imposed restraint equally on her companions and on the public. Thus passed the first years of the married life of Madame Recamier, between poetical occupation, infantine amusements, and the triumph of beauty in the world.

"But her expanding mind and capacious genius soon required other aliment. The instinctive love of the beautiful with which she was inspired from her earliest years, made her long for the society of men distinguished for the reputation of their talents or genius. M. de La Harpe was one of the first who appreciated the young woman, around whom were one day to be grouped all the celebrated characters of her age. The conversation of that young woman of fifteen had a thousand attractions for a man of his great acquirements, and whose excessive vanity, with the habit of conversing with the ablest men in France, had rendered exceedingly difficult to please. He delighted in being her guide: he was astonished at the rapidity with which her talent supplied the want of experience, and comprehended everything which he revealed to her of the world and of men. This was at the moment of his celebrated conversion to Christianity. The Revolution having rendered infidelity all-powerful, scepticism had lost the merit of being opposed to authority, and those whom vanity alone had rendered such could in good faith, and without compromising their reputation, avow their secret belief."--Vol. ix. 118, 121.

Of the unbounded devotion which Madame Recamier in a few years came to inspire in the breasts of the most distinguished men of her day, abundant proof is furnished in Chateaubriand's Memoirs. To give only a few examples, among a host of others which might be cited, Marshal Massena--a roturier by birth, and certainly not inheriting by descent any of the feelings of chivalry--yet even he asked a ribbon from Madame Recamier before he set out for the army of Italy, to take the command in Genoa, in the siege since so celebrated; and, having obtained it, he wrote to her the following note some weeks after:--

"The charming ribbon given by Madame Recamier has been borne by General Massena in the battles and the blockades of Genoa: it has never left him, and been, in every instance, the harbinger of victory."--Vol. viii. 167.

"There," as Chateaubriand justly observes "the ancient manners reappeared athwart the modern manners of which they formed the base. The gallantry of the noble chevalier shone forth in the plebeian soldier; the memory of the tournaments and of the crusades was concealed amidst the blaze of glory with which modern France has crowned its old victories."

Lucien Buonaparte, one of her first adorers, addressed her early in life in these terms:--

"Till within these few days, I knew you only by renown. I had seen you sometimes at church and in the theatres. I knew you were the most beautiful: a thousand voices repeated it; and your charms had struck without dazzling me. Why has the peace rendered me captive? it reigns in our families, but sorrow is in my heart.

"I have seen you since: Jove seemed to smile on your steps. Seated on the edge of a fountain, motionless and dreamy, you gathered a rose. I addressed you alone: I thought I heard a sigh. Vain illusion! I soon saw the tranquil front of indifference seated between us. The passion which devoured me expressed itself in my words; while yours bore the cruel yet amiable stamp of infancy and sport.

"Be severe, I implore you, for pity's sake. Banish me from your presence. Desire me to withdraw from your enchanting society: and if I can obey the order, remember only that my heart is for ever your own; that no one ever reigned over it as Juliette; and that he will ever live with her, at least in memory."--Vol. viii. 130.

"For a man of _sangfroid_," says Chateaubriand, "all that is a little ridiculous." He is right: it is gallantry without passion which always appears _fade_ and contemptible. It is vehemence and sincerity which makes sentiment interesting. The Buonapartes had nothing chivalrous in their breasts: Lucien's letter is very different from Massena wearing Madame Recamier's ribbon next his heart amidst the fire of the Austrian cannon. But Chateaubriand himself had the true spirit of chivalry in his bosom. He thus recounts one of the last moments which he spent in 1832, late in life, with Madame Recamier on the banks of the Lake of Constance:--

"We wandered as chance guided our steps, and sat down beside the lake. From a pavilion in the woods arose a concert of the harp and the German horns, which ceased as we began to listen to them. It was a scene in a fairy tale. As the music did not recommence, I read to Madame Recamier my description of the St Gothard. She asked me to write something in her pocket-book. Immediately below the last words of Rousseau, which were there inscribed, 'Open the windows, that I may again see the light of the sun,' I wrote, 'What I felt the want of on the Lake of Lucerne I have found on the Lake of Constance--the charm and the intelligence of beauty. I no longer wish to die like Rousseau; I wish, on the contrary, to live long, and behold the sun, if it is near you that I am to finish my life. May my days expire at your feet, as the waves of which you hear the murmur.' The azure light of the setting sun coloured the lake; on the horizon, to the south, the snowy alps of the Grisons reflected the ruddy glow; the breeze which swept the waves harmonised with their ceaseless murmur. We knew not where we were."--Vol. x. 246, 247.

With the accession of a more Liberal Administration under M. de Martignac, Chateaubriand was taken into power. In 1822 he was sent as ambassador to London; in 1823 he was made minister of foreign affairs, and directed the expedition into Spain in that year, which had so successful a result; and in 1824 he represented France at the Congress of Verona. He was again, however, chased from the helm by the jealousy of the Royalists, whose imbecility was rebuked by his genius; and it was not till 1828 that he was again taken into power, and appointed to the embassy at Rome. He was there when the Polignac Administration was appointed.

We must hasten to the most brilliant and honourable period of Chateaubriand's life, that in which he stood almost alone amidst a nation's defection, and singly opposed the revolutionary torrent by which nearly all others had been swept away. The spectacle is at once animating and mournful: animating as evincing of what high resolves, of what heroic constancy, noble minds are capable even in the extremity of disaster: mournful, as exhibiting so bright a contrast to the tergiversation of later times, and suggesting the mournful reflection that, in these days of economists and material enjoyment, the days of chivalry are gone for ever.

It is well known that Chateaubriand was esteemed not only a Liberal, but an ultra-Liberal, by the extreme Royalist party whom Charles X. summoned to his councils on his accession to the throne; and that, in consequence of his disagreement with Polignac and the leaders of that party, he retired from the ministry, and resigned his appointment as ambassador at Rome. His consternation was great on perceiving the extreme measures which the Polignac party were preparing to carry into execution, and the feeble preparations made for supporting them by military force, in the midst of a warlike and excited people. Of his first intelligence of the appointment of the Polignac Administration by the sovereign whom they were destined so soon to overthrow, he gives the following account:--

"Rumours of a change of Administration had already reached us at Rome. Well-informed persons had even gone so far as to speak of Prince Polignac, but I could not credit the reports. At length the journals arrive; I open them, and my eyes rest on the official ordinance calling him to the head of the ministry. I had experienced many vicissitudes of fortune in my journey through life, but never had I fallen from such an elevation. My evil destiny had again blown over my chimeras: that breath of fate had not only destroyed my illusions, but it had swept away the monarchy. The blow was fearful: for a moment I was in despair, but my part was soon taken. I felt that I must retire from power. The post brought me a multitude of letters; all recommended me to send in my resignation. Even persons to whom I was almost a stranger thought themselves obliged to counsel me to retire. I was in secret mortified at the officious interest thus evinced in my reputation. Thank God, I have never needed nor waited for counsels when the paths of honour and of interest lay before me. Falls from station have ever been to me ruin, for I possessed through life nothing but debts; so that when I resigned my appointments, I was reduced to live by my wits. In a word, I resigned a situation of 200,000 francs (£8000) a-year, and was reduced to nothing; but my choice was not doubtful. Cast to the winds, said I to myself, 200,000 francs (£8000) a-year of income, an appointment entirely suited to your taste, a high and magnificent office, the empire of the fine arts at Rome, the felicity, in fine, of having at length received the recompense for your long and laborious struggles. Honour is to be won, esteem preserved, at no other price."--Vol. ix. 141, 142.

On arriving at Paris after he had resigned his appointment as ambassador at Rome, Chateaubriand found that many of the kind and officious friends who had so strongly urged _him_ to resign, had themselves quietly accepted appointments under the Polignac Administration! He withdrew, however, in pursuance of his resolution, into private life; and in order to avoid the expenses of Paris, which exceeded what his reduced income could bear, he retired to Dieppe in June 1830. When there he received the stunning intelligence of the Ordinances of July. His part was immediately taken. He returned with the utmost expedition to Paris, resolved to share the fate of his country whatever it might be, and to exert himself to the utmost to mitigate the calamities which he foresaw awaited it. His first step on arriving in the capital was to write a letter to the King, making a tender of his services to negotiate with the popular leaders who had got the command in the capital. The only answer he received was a verbal one, that M. de Montemart had been appointed to the head of the Ministry, and a reference to him. But M. de Montemart could not be found; and even if he had been, affairs had gone too far to admit of any remedy by individual efforts, how powerful soever. The nation would have a Revolution with its consequences, and it was doomed to have a Revolution with its consequences. But although Louis Philippe was successful, Chateaubriand foresaw that his throne was established on a rotten foundation: that the _juste milieu_, resting neither on the attachment of a loyal, nor the passions of a conquering people, could not be of lasting endurance; and that, in default of all principles of honour whereon to rest a Government, those of interest alone remained. He has left the following memorable prophecy of the fate awaiting a monarchy cradled in treason and fostered by selfishness:--

"Louis Philippe, his Government, the whole of that impossible and contradictory combination, _will perish in a time more or less retarded by fortuitous events_, by complications of interests interior and exterior, by the apathy or corruption of individuals, by the levity of disposition, the indifference and want of nerve in characters. But be its duration long or short, the present dynasty will not exist long enough for the House of Orleans to strike its roots in the soil of France."--Vol. ix. 333.[6]

[6] M. de Chateaubriand died in 1847, before the Revolution of 1848.

It is not in public documents and actions that the real opinions of the actors on the stage of public events are to be discerned. It is their private conversation or correspondence that reveals their real sentiments; it is there that the mental struggles which preceded the most decisive steps, and the secret views by which they were actuated in adopting or rejecting them, are in truth disclosed. In this view, the following conversation between Chateaubriand and the Duchess of Orleans, immediately after the triumph of the Barricades, is peculiarly interesting--

"M. Arago spoke to me in the warmest terms of the intellectual superiority of Madame Adelaide; and the Count Analde de Montesquieu, having met me one morning at Madame Recamier's, informed me that the Duke and Duchess of Orleans would be charmed to see me. I went, accordingly, to the Palais Royal with the Chevalier d'Honneur of the future queen. I found the Duchess of Orleans and Madame Adelaide in their private boudoirs. I had previously had the honour of being presented to the duchess. She made me sit down near her, and immediately said--

"'Ah! M. de Chateaubriand, we are very unfortunate. If all parties would unite we might perhaps be saved, what think you of that?'

"'Madame,' I replied, 'nothing is so easy. Charles X. and the Dauphin have both abdicated; Henry V. is now king; the Duke of Orleans is now Lieutenant-general of the kingdom; let him be Regent during the whole minority of Henry V., and all is accomplished.'

"'But, M. de Chateaubriand, the people are extremely agitated; we should fall into anarchy.'

"'Madame, may I venture to ask you what is the intention of the Duke of Orleans? will he accept the throne if it is offered to him?'

"The two princesses hesitated to answer. After a short pause the Duchess of Orleans replied,--

"'Consider, M. de Chateaubriand, the disasters which may ensue--you and all other men of honour require to unite to save us from a republic. At Rome, M. de Chateaubriand, you might render us essential service--or even here, if you did not wish to quit France.'

"'Madame is not ignorant of my devotion to the young king and to his mother.'

"'Ah! M. de Chateaubriand, how well they have rewarded your fidelity.'

"'Your Royal Highness would not wish me to give the lie to my whole life.'

"'M. de Chateaubriand, you do not know my niece; she is so inconsiderate, poor Caroline. I will send for the Duke of Orleans; I hope he may succeed in persuading you better than me.'

"The princess gave her orders, and in a quarter of an hour Louis Philippe arrived. He was dressed in disorder, and looked extremely fatigued. I rose as he entered, and the Lieutenant-general of the kingdom said,--

"'The duchess has doubtless informed you how unfortunate we are.' And upon that he began a speech on the felicity which he enjoyed in the country, and the life, in the midst of his children, which was entirely according to his taste. I seized the opportunity of a momentary pause to repeat what I had said to the princess.

"'Ah!' he exclaimed, 'that is just what I desire. How happy should I be to become the tutor and support of that infant! I think exactly as you do, M. de Chateaubriand: to take the Duke of Bordeaux would unquestionably be the wisest course that could be adopted. I only fear events are too strong for us.'

"'Stronger than us, my Lord Duke! Are you not invested with all powers? Let us hasten to join Henry V. Summon the Chambers and the army to meet you out of Paris. At the first intelligence of your departure all that effervescence will subside, and all the world will seek shelter under your enlightened and protecting government.'

"While I yet spoke, I kept my eyes fixed on Louis Philippe. I saw that my counsels gave him annoyance: I saw written on his forehead the desire to be king. 'M. de Chateaubriand,' said he, _without looking me in the face_, 'the thing is not so easy as you imagine: things do not go as you imagine. A furious mob may assail the Chambers, and we have, as yet, no military force on which we can rely for its defence.'

"The last expression gave me pleasure, because it enabled me to bring forward a decisive reply. 'I feel the difficulty you mention, my Lord Duke; but there is a sure mode of obviating it. If you cannot rejoin Henry V., as I have just proposed, you may embrace another course. The session is about to open: on the first proposition made by the deputies, declare that the Chamber of Deputies has not the power to determine the form of government for France; that the _whole nation must be consulted_. Your Royal Highness will thus place yourself at the head of the popular party: the Republicans, who now constitute your danger, will laud you to the skies. In the two months which must elapse before the new legislature can assemble, you can organise a national guard; all your friends, and the friends of the young king, will exert themselves in the provinces. Let the deputies assemble, and let the cause I espouse be publicly pleaded before them. That cause, favoured in heart by you, supported by the great majority of the country electors, will be certain of success. The moment of anarchy being past, you will have nothing to fear from the violence of the Republicans. I even think you might win over, by such a course, General Lafayette and M. Lafitte to your side. What a part for you to play, my Lord Duke! You will reign fifteen years in the name of your young pupil; at the expiration of that time, repose will be a blessing to us all. You will earn the glory, unique in history, of having had the power to ascend the throne, and of having left it to the lawful heir. At the same time, you will have enjoyed the means of educating that heir abreast of the ideas of his age: you will have rendered him capable of reigning over France. One of your daughters may aid him to bear the weight of the crown.'

"Louis Philippe looked around with a wandering eye and an absent air. 'I beg your pardon, M. de Chateaubriand,' said he; 'I left a deputation to converse with you, and I must return to it.' With these words, he bowed and withdrew.

The advice thus given at the decisive moment by Chateaubriand was that of honour and loyalty; it dictated by the spirit of the chevalier _sans peur et sans reproche_. But it was not that of immediate or apparent interest; and therefore it was not adopted. The event has now proved, however, that in this, as in so many other instances in this world, the path of honour and duty would have been that of expedience. What Chateaubriand recommended to Louis Philippe was substantially what Louis Napoleon _did_; and the result proved that the great majority of the nation, differing widely from the revolutionary rabble of Paris, was not only Conservative, but Royalist in its dispositions. Had Louis Philippe followed this course, and taken only the regency till the majority of the Duke of Bordeaux, the two branches of the house of Bourbon would have been cordially united: no discord or jealousies would have weakened the Royalist party; the national will would have been decidedly pronounced for the monarchy before it had been rendered an object of contempt; the Revolution of 1848, with all its disastrous consequences, would probably have been prevented; and as the Duke de Bordeaux has no family, the Orleans dynasty, as the next heirs, would have ascended the throne in the natural order of succession--and not only without the bar sinister of treason on their escutcheon, but with a deed of unexampled magnanimity and honour to illustrate their accession!

Louis Philippe, bent on the immediate possession of the throne, made another attempt to gain M. de Chateaubriand; and for this purpose the Duchess of Orleans and Madame Adelaide again sent for him.

"Madame Adelaide was present as on the former occasion; and the duchess now described more specifically the favours with which the Duke of Orleans proposed to honour me. She dwelt on what she called my sway over public opinion; the sacrifices I had made, and the aversion which Charles X. and his family had always shown to me in spite of my services. She said to me, that if I would accept the portfolio of foreign affairs, his Royal Highness would be too happy to replace me in that situation; but that possibly I would prefer returning to Rome, and that she would greatly rejoice at that appointment, for the interests of our holy religion.

"'Madam,' I answered with some degree of vivacity, 'I see that his Royal Highness has taken his line; that he has weighed the consequences; that he is prepared to meet the years of misery and perils he will have to traverse. I have therefore nothing to say on that head--I come not here to fail in respect to the blood of the Bourbons; I owe besides nothing but gratitude and respect to _Madame_. Leaving apart, then, those great objections, founded on reason and principle, I pray her Royal Highness to allow me to explain what personally concerns myself.

"'She has had the condescension to speak of what she calls my power over general opinion. Well, if that power is well founded, on what is it founded? Is it on anything else but the public esteem: and should I not lose it the moment I changed my colours? The Duke of Orleans supposes he would in me acquire a support: instead of that he would gain only a miserable maker of phrases, whose voice would no longer be listened to--a renegade, on whom every one would have a right to throw dust and to spit in his face. To the hesitating words which he could pronounce in favour of Louis Philippe, they would oppose the entire volumes he had written in favour of the fallen family. Is it not I, Madam, who have written the pamphlet of _Buonaparte and the Bourbons_; the articles on the arrival of Louis XVIII. at Compiègne; the relation of the Royal Council at Ghent, and the _History of the Life and Death of the Duke de Berri_? I know not that I have written a single page where the name of our ancient kings is not either mentioned or alluded to, and where they are not environed by the protestations of my love and fidelity--a thing which marks strength of principle the more strongly, as _Madame_ knows that, as an individual, I put no faith in princes. At the thought even of desertion, the colour mounts to my cheeks. The day after my treachery, I should go to throw myself into the Seine. I implore _Madame_ to forgive the vehemence of my language: I am penetrated with her goodness: I shall ever preserve a profound and grateful remembrance of it; but she would not wish me to be dishonoured. Pity me, madam, pity me.'"

"I was still standing; and bowing, I retired. Mademoiselle de Orleans, (the Princess Adelaide,) had not yet said anything. She rose up, and retiring said, '_I do not pity you, M. de Chateaubriand; I do not pity you_.' I was forcibly struck with the mournful accent with which she pronounced these words."--Vol. ix. 361, 362.

"Pity not me," said the dying Chevalier Bayard to the traitor Constable de Bourbon; "pity those who fight against their king, their country, and their oath." The feelings of honour are the same in all ages.

We shall close this long line of honourable acts with an extract from Chateaubriand's noble speech in favour of Henry V., in the Chamber of Peers, on July 7, 1830.

"'Charles X. and his sons are dethroned or have abdicated; it signifies not which. The throne is _not vacant_--after them comes an infant; will you condemn the innocent?

"'What blood now cries out against him? Can you say it is that of his father? That orphan educated in the school of his country, in attachment to a constitutional throne, and in the ideas of his age, will become a king in harmony with the cravings of the future. It is to the guardian of his infancy that you would first tender the oath to be faithful to it. Arrived at mature years, he would himself renew it. The king at this moment, the real king for a time, would be the Duke of Orleans, the regent of the kingdom; a prince who has lived near the people, and who knows that the monarchy now can only be a monarchy of concession and reason. That combination, so natural, so obvious, appears a main element in reconciliation, and would save France from the convulsions which are the consequence of violent changes in a state.

"'To say that this infant, separated from his masters, would not have leisure to forget their precepts before becoming a man: to say that he would remain infatuated by certain dogmas of his birth, after a long popular education, after the terrible lesson which has discrowned two kings in two nights: is that reasonable?

"'It is neither from a sentimental devotion, nor the affection of a nurse for the cradle of Henry IV., that I plead a cause where all would turn against me if it triumphed. I am neither influenced by the ideas of romance nor of chivalry: I do not desire the crown of martyrdom. I do not believe in the divine right of kings: I am alive to the power of revolutions, and the evidence of facts. I do not even invoke the charter: I ascend to a higher source. I draw my principles from the philosophic ideas of the age in which my life expires: I propose the Duke of Bordeaux simply as a necessity preferable to the Duke of Orleans.

"'You proclaim the sovereignty of force. It is well. _Look carefully after it: guard it well; for, if it escapes you, who will pity your lot?_ Such is human nature. The most enlightened minds are not always raised above the temptations of success. The _esprits forts_ were the first to invoke the right of violence; they supported it by all the force of their talents; and at the moment when the truth of what they said is demonstrated by the abuse of that force, and its overthrow, the conquerors seize the weapon they have broken! Dangerous trophies, which may wound the hand which seized them.

"'A useless Cassandra, I have fatigued the throne and the country sufficiently with my disdained predictions: it remains for me only to seat myself on the remains of the wreck which I have so often predicted. I recognise in misfortune every power except that of absolving us from our oaths. I must render my life uniform: after all I have written, said, and done for the Bourbons, I should be the basest of the base if I deserted them when for the third time they bend their steps into exile.

"'Far from me be the thought of casting the seeds of division into France: thence it is that I have avoided in my discourse the language of the passions. If I had the firm conviction that an infant should be left in the obscure and tranquil ranks of life, to secure the repose of thirty-three millions of men, I should have regarded any opinion expressed against the declared wishes of the age as a crime. I have no such conviction. If I was entitled to dispose of the crown, I should willingly lay it at the feet of the Duke of Orleans. But I have no such right. I see no place vacant but a tomb at St Denis, and not a throne.

"'Whatever destinies may attend the lieutenant-general of the kingdom, I shall never be his enemy, if he acts for the good of his country. I only ask to be allowed to preserve the freedom of my conscience, and to go and leave my bones where I shall find independence and repose. I vote against the motion.'"--Vol. ix. 386-388.

Chateaubriand was as good as his word. He resigned all his appointments, even his pension of £600 a-year as Peer of France: he sold off all his effects, which scarcely paid his debts: he refused the offer of Charles X. to restore that pension out of the wreck of that Prince's own fortune: he set out again penniless on the pilgrimage of life: and till his death, in 1848, supported himself entirely by his literary talents.

Such was honour in the olden time. We do not say that it would not find imitators, on a similar crisis, on this side of the Channel: we believe it would find many. But this we do say, that it would find them only among those who are imbued with the ancient ideas, among whom, whether patrician or plebeian, the spirit of chivalry is not extinct. It will not be found among the worshippers of mammon, or the slaves of interest. Woe to the nation by whom such feelings are classed with the age of the mammoth and the mastodon! It has entered the gulf of destruction, for it deserves to be destroyed.

THE GREEN HAND.

A "SHORT" YARN.