Chapter XXVI.

Scarcely had the fight ceased, when, toward 8 o'clock, Marc-Dives, Gaspard, and some thirty mountaineers, bearing baskets of food, reached the peak of Falkenstein. What a spectacle awaited them there! The besieged, stretched on the earth, seemed dead. In vain they shook the bodies and shouted in their ears; no answer came. Gaspard Lefevre, seeing his mother and Louise lying motionless with teeth fast locked together, told Marc, in his agony, that unless they recovered he would blow out his brains with his own musket. Marc replied that every one was free to do as he pleased; but that for his part, he would do no such thing on Hexe-Baizel's account. At length, old Colon placed his basket on a stone. Kasper Materne suddenly sighed, opened his eyes, and, seeing the food, began clacking his teeth like a famished fox.

They knew what that meant, and Marc-Dives passed his flask under the nose of each one, which was sufficient to resuscitate them. They wanted to devour all the provisions at once; but Doctor Lorquin had sense enough remaining to warn Marc not to listen to them, for the least excess would be sure death. Each one received, therefore, only a small piece of bread, an egg, and a glass of wine, which restored their powers singularly. Then they placed Catherine, Louise, and the entire party on sleds, and descended to the village.

{766}

Who could describe the enthusiasm and emotion of their friends, when they saw them arrive, more meagre than Lazarus risen from his grave! They were gazed at, embraced, hugged, and every new-comer from Abreschwiller, Dagsberg, Saint-Quirin, or anywhere else, had to repeat the ceremony.

Marc-Dives was obliged twenty times to relate the story of his journey to Phalsbourg. Luck had been against the brave smuggler. After having almost by miracle escaped the bullets of the Kaiserliks, he fell, in the valley of Spartzprod, into the middle of a troop of Cossacks, who robbed him of every thing. Then for two weeks he had to roam about the Russian posts, which surrounded the city, drawing the fire of their sentries and running the risk dozens of times of being arrested as a spy, before he was able to enter the works. Then the commandant Meunier, fearing from the weakness of the garrison, at first refused all help, and it was only at the pressing entreaty of the inhabitants of the city that he at length consented to detach two companies for the purpose.

The mountaineers, listening to this recital, could not cease admiring the courage of Marc, and his perseverance amid so many perils.

"What would you have me do?" asked the tall smuggler of those loudest in their praises. "I only did my duty; would you have me leave my comrades to perish? I knew that the task was not an easy one; those rogues of Cossacks are sharper than custom-house officers; they scent you a league off like crows; but no matter, we got the better of them this time."

At the end of five or six days, all the lately besieged were on their feet again. Captain Vidal, from Phalsbourg, had left twenty-five men at Falkenstein, to guard the ammunition. Gaspard Lefevre was of the number, and the brave fellow came every morning down to the village. The allies had all passed into Lorraine; none were seen in Alsace, except around the fortresses. Soon the news came of the victories of Champ-Aubert and Montmirail; but the evil days had come upon us, and, in spite of the heroism of our army and the Emperor's genius, the Germans and Russians entered Paris.

This was a terrible blow for Jean-Claude, Catherine, Materne, Jerome, and all the mountaineers; but others have related the history of these events; they form no part of our story.

Peace concluded, the old farm-house of Bois-de-Chênes was rebuilt in the spring; wood-cutters, sabot-makers, masons, and all the workmen in the country round lent a hand in the work.

About the same time, the army having been disbanded, Gaspard trimmed his mustache, and his marriage with Louise took place.

The wedding-day was all the heroes of Falkenstein and Donon gathered, and the farm-house received them with open doors, and windows too. Each one brought a present to the couple--Jerome, a pair of little shoes for Louise; Dives, packages of smuggled tobacco for Gaspard; each one according to his means.

Tables were set even in the barns and sheds. How much wine, bread, and meat, how many pies and puddings were disposed of, I know not; but what I do know is that Jean-Claude, filled with gloom since the entry of the allies into Paris, cheered upon that day and sang the old song of his youth as gayly as when he set out, musket on shoulder for Valmy, Jemmapes and Fleurus. {767} The echoes of Falkenstein took up the old patriotic air--the grandest, noblest ever heard by man. Catherine Lefevre beat time on the table with the handle of her knife; and if it be true, as many maintain, that the dead come to listen when we speak of them, our slain must indeed have rejoiced, and the King of Diamonds foamed on his red beard.

Toward midnight, Hullin arose, and addressing the bridegroom and bride said:

"You will have brave children; I will dance them on my knees, and teach them this old song; and then I will follow those who have gone before me."

He embraced Louise, and linking arms with Marc-Dives and Jerome, went to his own little home, followed by all the wedding guests singing their grand old song. Never was a finer night known; millions of stars sparkled in the dark blue sky, and a low murmur arose from the bushes at the foot of the slope where so many brave hearts lay cold. All felt at once rejoiced and sad. At Jean-Claude's door they shook his hand and gave him good night; then, scattering in little parties to right and left, sought their villages.

"Good-night Materne, Jerome, Pivrette, Dives," cried the brave sabot-maker cheerily.

His old friends turned and waved their hats, and said among themselves:

"There are indeed days when it is a joy to be in this fair world. Ah! if there were no pestilence, nor war, nor famine; if men understood, loved, and helped one another; if wrongs and distrust were unknown--what a paradise would be ours!"

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Porter's Human Intellect. [Footnote 281]

[Footnote 281: _The Human Intellect; with an Introduction upon Psychology and the Soul_. By Noah Porter, D.D., Clark Professor of Moral Philosophy and Metaphysics in Yale College. New York: Scribner & Co. 1868. 8vo, pp. 673.]

In returning to consider this elaborate volume more in detail, we would remark that its author has designed it as a text-book for college students in the class of philosophy, and has proceeded, in writing, on the presumption that they for whom he writes have not the slightest knowledge of the subject. Hence his pages are filled with matters which those who have made some proficiency in the science of the human understanding, and are not wholly ignorant of philosophy, properly so called, are already masters of, and which they cannot even read without great weariness of the body, and do not deem it worth their while to read at all. They feel that to be able to understand the author, it is enough to consult his principles and method, and his definitions of the several topics he takes up and discusses. They have neither the patience to read carefully through a huge volume which is, nine-tenths of it, filled with what is for them mere baby-talk. But the author does not, in composing his work, begin by stating and defining his theses, and then proceeding to elucidate and prove them; but attempts to begin where he supposes the infant begins, and proceeds as a learner, not as a master. {768} Consequently, we are compelled to read his book from the beginning to the end, or not be sure of his doctrine on any one point.

It is true, the author sometimes attempts definitions, but they are seldom scientific, rarely embrace his whole thesis, and nothing else, and are pretty sure to mislead the unfortunate reviewer who relies on them. He seldom abides by his own definitions. In one place he defines consciousness a power, and in another he makes it an act. Sense-perception is defined to be the power by which the intellect gains the knowledge of material objects; then we are told that the object perceived is not the material existence, but "a joint product of the material agent and the sentient organism," a psychical transcript of the material object; while in another part of his work we find him denying that what the mind perceives is such transcript, and refuting, by plain and solid reasons, those who maintain that it is. A really scientific definition is a definition _per genus et per differentiam_; Dr. Porter sometimes gives the _genus_ and forgets the _differentia_, and sometimes gives the _differentia_ without giving the _genus_. He also adopts a terminology in many respects not familiar to us, though it may be to others, without the necessary explanation of the terms he uses: and even when the terms he uses are such as we are familiar with, they are used in a sense to which we are not accustomed. We cannot tolerate _subject-object_, for subject and object are distinct, and stand the one over against the other. The subject in thought is never the object, and the object is never the subject. Grammar teaches so much. _Object-object_ says no more than simply object. Every object is object, and no object is more or less than object. The object is always real; for it is causative, since in the act of thought it resists the subject, and becomes a counter-pressure. We dislike _percepts_ and _concepts_; for they are intended to imply that they exist, as it were, independent of the subject and the object, and that the product of subject and object may itself be object. We protest earnestly, in the name both of philology and philosophy, against calling existences, which are nothing except by the creative act of God, _beings_, and still more earnestly against so calling the products of second or third causes. This might pass with the Gentiles, who substituted generation for creation, but is inexcusable in a Christian philosopher. We know the schoolmen did so, but they are not to be commended for it. They speak of _ens simpliciter, ens secundum quid, ens reale_, and _ens possibile_, and even of _ens rationis_, as if being, the creations of being, mental abstractions, and the creations of fancy and imagination could be all of the same genus or placed in the same category! There is a philosophy in language which can never be disregarded without more or less injury to the philosophy of things.

The professor's method and technology render his work exceedingly difficult to be understood without as much study as would be necessary to construct the philosophy of the human mind without it; and therefore if we should happen at times to miss his meaning, he must blame himself. He is far more intent on explaining the processes of the mind in knowing than on setting forth what it knows. These processes have no interest for us; for they really throw no light on the power or fact of knowledge. We want to know what the author means by philosophy, and what is its value, and we therefore want him to speak as the professor, not as the pupil. {769} We have no disposition to waste our time and weary the flesh, even, in reading the mass of stuff which he writes and which tells us nothing we want to know. But enough of this.

The professor divides, not very scientifically, his work into four parts.