CHAPTER V.

It was a soft calm night, with the moon shining clear and sweet in the sky, and one or two planets wandering like boats of light over the surface of the profound blue ocean of the heavens. All the world, too, was hushed in sleep; and, as the young Vendean took his way toward the spot appointed for the exchange of the two prisoners, not a sound was to be heard but the steps of his own party. That party, however, was reduced to four; for, feeling that he had no right to peril lives which might be of infinite import to the noble cause he had espoused, in an enterprise which he could not but acknowledge was wholly inspired by personal attachment, Auguste had positively refused the company of any but old La Brousse, and one other attached friend who would take no refusal. Between them they led the young soldier who had remained in their hands as a hostage; and as they advanced through a winding dell, the tall trees of which hid the Loire from their sight, they paused at every aperture in the thick foliage, to gaze out anxiously over the waters. A thin light haze, however, was rising over the river, and though its course could be plainly discerned, yet the more minute objects which moved upon its bosom--if there were any--were hidden from their sight. At the low sandy landing-place, where they at length arrived, all was still obscure; and they remained till the wind brought upon their ears, the chime of the distant clocks of Nantes, striking the hour of midnight. Almost immediately afterwards, the dull sound of oars was heard from the water, and a small boat was seen shooting up the middle of the stream. In it there appeared but two persons, and one of them was evidently a female. The heart of the young Vendean beat quick, while the rower pulled on and then guided his boat direct to the landing-place. It glided rapidly through the water, touched the shore, and in a moment after the hand of Clara de la Roche was clasped in that of her deliverer.

The young soldier was immediately set at liberty; and, without the interchange of a word, sprang into the boat, and was dropping down the Loire with his father, while Clara, hardly believing her senses, was hurrying on with her new companions towards a spot where horses had been prepared to carry them away from pursuit.

"Oh, sir, I feel that I have to thank you for more than life!" she said at length, turning to him whom we have called Auguste.

"For nothing--nothing, dearest girl!" he answered. "Nay, do not start!" he added, marking the surprise which the expression he had used towards her called forth: "nay, do not start! Did not the man who set you at liberty tell you, that it was into the hands of Auguste de Beaumont he was about to deliver you? Did he not say, that it was to the care and guidance of your promised husband that he was about to yield you?"

Clara had no time to reply; for, ere she could express by one word any of the mingled emotions which such tidings might well call up in her heart, there was a rustle in the trees--a rush of many feet--a momentary struggle; and, in the end, she found herself once more a prisoner by the side of her lover, while a troop of revolutionary soldiers from Nantes insulted them by every sort of bitter mockery and coarse jest.

"Well, well! we have set the rat-trap to some purpose!" cried one. "So, brigand, you thought to carry a prisoner away from the town of Nantes without even paying the fees!" exclaimed another. "She is your promised wife, too, is she?" said a third. "Well, to-morrow you shall have a republican marriage of it!" Amidst such jeers, the prisoners were dragged on to Nantes, now understanding well that the brief liberation of Mademoiselle de la Roche had been but a trap to decoy the whole party. Few words were spoken amongst the prisoners. Consolation was in vain--hope there was none--Robespierre lived, and death was the only prospect. Auguste de Beaumont pressed the hand of Clara, and Clara whispered with a few bitter tears, "You have sacrificed yourself for me!"

This was all that passed, ere in separate dungeons they were left to wait their approaching fate--Clara enduring with the true fortitude of woman, and Auguste de Beaumont chafing at his chains, with the impetuosity of one who had never been aught but free.

It would be more harrowing than interesting to detail the passing of a night in the dungeons of a revolutionary prison. That night, however long and dreadful it might seem to Clara de la Roche, passed at length; and, by daylight, the minions of the grossest tyranny that ever darkened the earth, came to drag the unhappy girl to the fate reserved for all that was great and noble in France. Strange however to say, that fate did not seem in her eyes so appalling as one might suppose. Weary of persecution, and terror, and flight, and uncertainty, and grief, there was an anticipation very like a feeling of relief; in the thought of one brief step leading to immortality, and peace, and joy; and she advanced to the cart destined to drag her to the place of execution, with greater alacrity than her tyrants were accustomed or willing to behold. In the fatal vehicle were already placed Auguste de Beaumont, the friend who had accompanied him on his ill-starred expedition, and good old La Brousse, the farmer of Dervais. They waited but for her alone, and, when she was placed in the car, the word was given to march.

The procession moved forward through the streets of Nantes, towards the river, escorted by a small body of cavalry; and, though the hour was yet early, it was remarked that large crowds were collected to see a sight which certainly had not the advantage of novelty in that unhappy town. There was a deep solemn stillness, too, in the multitude, as the cart rolled through the midst of them, that had something in it portentous as well as awful; and a low murmur, like the rush of a receding wave, was heard as the history of the two younger victims was whispered amongst the people.

The tyrants, however, had no dread, and the vehicle went slowly on; when, in passing the end of a narrow street which led towards the Place d'Armes, the clatter of a horse's feet at full gallop was heard from a parallel avenue. The horse galloped on, but the street was filled with people, and for a moment there were heard loud murmurs at the further end. The next instant came a profound silence, during which nothing was distinguishable but the creaking of the heavy cartwheels, and the slow tramp of the soldiers' horses; but then, one loud stentorian voice shouted, with a sound that was heard through the whole street, "ROBESPIERRE IS DEAD!!! DOWN WITH THE TYRANTS!!!"

A cry of joy, and triumph, and encouragement, burst from the multitudes around. As if bound together by some secret arrangement--though none, in truth, existed, save detestation of the sanguinary tyranny of the Jacobins--As if animated by one spirit--though men of almost every party were present--the crowds rushed on from every quarter upon the cart, which was dragging new victims to immolation. The soldiers were overpowered in a moment; one or two were killed on the spot. The cords that tied the prisoners were cut--a thousand hands were held out to give them aid--a thousand voices cried, fly here, or fly there; but at length one more prudent than the rest, exclaimed, "To the gates! To the gates!" and in five minutes Auguste de Beaumont, bearing Clara in his arms, and followed by their fellow prisoners, was clear of the city of Nantes.

One of the heroes of the Bocage, Auguste was well experienced in every art for baffling a pursuing enemy. No sooner was the tumult in the city known, than Lamberty called forth the troops, and Carrier mounted his horse. But the news met them in the street, that on July the 27th just four days before--Robespierre, their patron and example, had ended his days upon the public scaffold.

Terror took possession of them; their measures for repressing the rising, or for overtaking the fugitives, were weak and vacillating; and ere night, Auguste de Beaumont and Clara de la Roche were far from all pursuit.

Time passed, and the struggle of loyalty and good faith against oppression, tyranny, and crime, continued in La Vendée for some months longer; but when, at length, the cause became desperate, and hope was at an end in France, a small fishing-boat conveyed Auguste de Beaumont and his bride to England. In regard to old La Brousse, he calmly returned to the house he had ever inhabited, and, strange to say, received no molestation therein, till death fell upon his eyelids as a tranquil sleep.

Carrier and Lamberty, it is true, had little time to think of the victims who had escaped them, or to point them out to others. Their fate is well known, and surely was well deserved. As for Ninette, who had betrayed to the revolutionary rulers the refuge of Mademoiselle de la Roche, she is said to have married a corporal in the guard, who afterwards rose to the rank of a general, and who displayed no great tenderness towards his lady in subsequent years, although her chief fault in his eyes was, that she did not bear her blushing honours with as much grace as he could have desired.

THE DISASTERS.

After visiting the cottage of old La Brousse, I proceeded by a cross road, and hired horses to the little town of Redon which I had never seen; and, arriving at night, I entered, as usual, the public room of the inn. A party of four French officers were there assembled; and amongst them one with whom I had been well acquainted at Rennes. He was a frank, gallant young fellow, somewhat hasty and irascible, but still generous and kind-hearted withal. It is the rarest thing in the world to see French officers drink too much; but, on the present occasion, the bottle had evidently been circulating rapidly, and my friend, whom I shall call Monsieur de la Grange, in order to cover his real name, rose and embraced me, on perceiving who it was, with a degree of enthusiasm proportioned to the quantity of wine he had imbibed. I, for my part, was affected by a sort of intoxication of another kind, and forgetting that many of the French officers were but the children of the revolution, I related my visit to the cottage of old La Brousse in very high-flown language. La Grange scarcely suffered me to come to an end before he called the object of my admiration. "A cursed old Chouan!" Words ensued of a sharp and angry nature, generating others bitterer still; and before I had tasted the supper which the aubergiste busied himself to prepare for me, a challenge had been given and received. The only difficulty was the time and place. I had no friends in that neighbourhood who could give me assistance on such an occasion, and I proposed to void our differences at Rennes. This, however, the French officers could not agree to, as they had been detached from the garrison of Rennes only two days before, and my want of a friend was removed by the kindness of an officer of infantry who was present; and who offered, if I would trust in him, to give me every aid in his power.

I accepted his proposal with pleasure; the meadows near the town were appointed for the meeting, and the hour named five o'clock the next morning. I will not dwell upon my feelings during that night, nor even upon the rencontre of the next morning, as the consequences were more important to me than the event itself. To say the truth, I felt less upon the subject than I ought to have done, and could scarcely get my mind to grasp the belief that I might be killed. I knew that such might be the case, but yet it did not come home to me; and though I sat down calmly to write to Emily in case of the worst, and to make my will in her favour, yet I did it but with little care, making sure that I should have to tear it next day. I was woke out of a sound sleep by my second, whose gentlemanly kindness and attention towards a foreigner, under such circumstances, well deserve my gratitude, and proceeded with him through a cold, damp, misty morning to the field. Leaving every thing of course to be settled by those around us, my adversary and myself soon brought our own part of the business to an end, I remaining severely wounded in my right arm, and he being led from the field with his hand so completely disabled, that I believe he has never yet recovered the use thereof.

We had not taken the precaution to take a surgeon with us from the town, and consequently, notwithstanding all our own efforts and those of our seconds also, we were both faint from the loss of blood by the time we reached the inn. To do my antagonist but justice, however, let me say, ere I go further, that ere we quitted the field, he grasped my left hand with his (for the right of each was disabled), and taking all the blame upon himself, expressed bitter sorrow for what had occurred. On arriving at the town, too, there was but one surgeon to be found: La Grange insisted upon his attending to me first, and my wounded arm was accordingly subjected to all the torture of surgical investigation. The man of healing, however, seemed really to understand his business; and according to his direction I went to bed, where I soon fell asleep. It was but, however, to wake with great fever, and when I proposed to go on to Rennes on the following day, the surgeon assured me that the consequences of my stirring from my bed for the next week might be the loss of my arm, the bone having been injured though not broken.

Thus was I kept in the little town of Redon for nearly a month, my wound seeming to get worse instead of better. One of the greatest annoyances which I suffered, was the not being able to write to various friends with whom my correspondence was already somewhat in arrear; but I still took measures to relieve the minds of those who were most dear to me from anxiety, by making my servant write twice under my dictation to Mr. Somers, giving a full account of all that had occurred, and begging him to assure Emily and my mother that I, was not seriously hurt.

I also directed Essex, for such was the servant's somewhat lordly name, to write to the director of the post at Rennes, begging him to forward all letters which might arrive at that place, to Redon; but no letters reached me, and at length my anxiety grew so great that, notwithstanding the damp heat of the weather, and my surgeon's strenuous opposition, I put horses to my carriage, and set out for Rennes.

I certainly had felt very feverish and ill for two or three days before I took this resolution, but that only strengthened me in it, as I attributed the feeling of general illness which I now experienced, to the air of the place, which was not particularly healthy. This view was perhaps right, but I had not acted upon it soon enough, for before I reached Rennes, I was in a state of delirium from typhus fever, and I have very little remembrance of any thing that occurred to me during the fortnight which followed.

When I recovered my consciousness, I found myself in the wretched inn at Rennes, in a state of the most deplorable weakness, mental and corporeal; and strength returned so slowly, that for several days the medical men would not even suffer me to speak, except to ask for what I wanted. My first inquiry, after this prohibition was removed, was for letters from England, but they would not suffer me to have those which had arrived, merely telling me that all my friends were well.

At the end of another fortnight, several letters were given me, and I looked over them eagerly to find the handwriting of Emily Somers. There were none from either my mother, Mr. Somers or Emily, and I hastily opened one which I saw was from the hand of my intimate friend B----, but how did it begin?

"My dear Young,

"I have anxiously, but hesitatingly, thought of writing, to offer you some words of consolation. Every day since your mother's death--"

The letter, dropped from my hand, and I fell back in the chair in a state of stupor, from which it required three or four days to rouse me. The letters, which had been sealed with red wax, had been given to me by the surgeons not anticipating such a result; but the sudden news which I then received, threw me back in my recovery, and ten days more elapsed before they would suffer me to read those sealed with black, which they had at first withheld, The first I now opened was from Mr. Somers. It consisted merely of a few lines, informing me drily that my mother had been taken ill in the night, and died before the following morning.

"Sir Henry Halford informs me," he went on to say, "that the disease which so speedily terminated her life, must have been long undermining her constitution; but I cannot help adding, that the reports she has heard of her son's conduct on the continent, had greatly affected her spirits, whatever effect they might produce upon her health."

I looked to the date, it was more than two months old; and I hurriedly turned to another letter, on which I recognised the handwriting of Emily. It was of a later date, not more than a month had elapsed since it had been written, and it began.

"Dearest, dearest James,

"I cannot--I will not--believe all they tell me of you, although your long and unaccountable silence would seem to give weight to what they say. I write to you by stealth, I confess, but I feel it my duty, after all that has passed, to beg you, if you still love Emily Somers, and would save her from misery, to come over to England without an hour's delay----"

The surgeon stood by me while I read, but the effect was very different now; my arm was nearly well, and in all respects I was better than I had been when I read the former letter. These, too, stirred up within me an energy to meet the exigency of the moment which communicated itself even to my corporeal frame. I saw that there was evil going on, and destruction to all my hopes hanging over my head, like the Persian's sword, by a single hair; but it raised a spirit to resist and to struggle, and, instead of yielding either to grief or apprehension, I called loudly for my servant. As soon as he appeared, I demanded if he had carefully sent the letters I had dictated to him at Redon, and I fixed my eye upon him with a firm conviction of having been deceived. His colour wavered like that of a love-sick girl, while he replied that he had; and I instantly answered, "Sir, you are a lying scoundrel, and no longer my servant!" He then proceeded to be insolent, but I begged the surgeon to send him out of the room, and in a few brief words explained to him, that matters even more important to me than life called me to England, and that I must set out the day after the subsequent one.

The worthy surgeon, who was both kind and skilful, seemed not a little astounded at my determination; but finding that it was immovable, he replied, "Well, then, you must make no exertion in the interim. Let me arrange the business of your passport, settle your affairs, and make all your preparations. I will then accompany you to the coast, and do all I can to prevent this dangerous necessity from producing your death."

I agreed to his proposal at once, and never had more cause to be thankful than I had for having confided in him. He, at my request, paid Master Essex, and sent him out of the house; engaged me another servant, who saved me all exertion; and, after taking a world of trouble, he not only got me safely started on my journey, but, by skilful management, contrived that the fatigue and change of air should not only not retard my convalescence, but should improve my health. At Havre I entered the steam-boat, and kept myself perfectly quiet on board till we landed, gaining strength from the sea air, and preventing myself even from thinking, lest I should take from myself the powers which I had a presentiment that I should need in their full activity. I slept a good deal on board the vessel, so that when we arrived at Southampton I felt myself quite sufficiently well to proceed at once to Louden. I arrived in town about five o'clock in the morning, and, forcing my way into the Clarendon, wrote a note to Mr. Somers, telling him of my arrival, alluding briefly, but firmly, to false reports having been spread of my conduct, and mentioning the fact of my having been ill for two months, and ignorant of all that had passed in London. This I left with the waiter, ordering it to be sent at eight o'clock, at which time Mr. Somers rose, and then lay down to rest myself till nine, When the servant called me at that hour, he put an answer to my letter into my hands. It was to the following effect:

"Dear Sir, I have just received your's, which requires great consideration, and in the course of the morning I will call upon you. In the mean time let me hint, that as my daughter Emily is at present engaged to Mr. Alfred Wild, your visits in Portland Place might be considered indecorous.

"Your's truly, CHARLES SOMERS."

The mystery, then, was solved. She was engaged to Alfred Wild; but that engagement, I well knew, could only have been brought about by some foul deceit; and I resolved, that, if I lived at least, it should never be executed. Indignation was now my best friend, for it kept me from feeling any thing else; and notwithstanding Mr. Somers's injunction to the contrary, I instantly, I instantly ordered a coach and proceeded to Portland Place. Mr. Somers, I found, had just gone out; and, without asking any further questions, I walked straight up stairs to the drawing-room, passing the servant who opened the door, and in whose demeanour I observed a degree of lazy carelessness very different from the smart activity which had reigned throughout the household during my mother's life. In the great drawing-room there was no one; but, pushing open the folding-doors, I entered the little drawing-room, and was at once in the presence of Emily Somers.

She was sitting gazing on an unfolded letter--it was the one I had sent her father in the morning--and the tears were still rolling rapidly down her cheeks. At the sound of my step she started up, gazed at me wildly for a moment, as if she hardly knew me--and well she might doubt whether it was the same person who had left her--and then at once cast herself into my arms and wept aloud.

It is scarcely possible to tell all that passed, but I found that her father, after showing her my letter, had gone out in a state of terrible agitation to the father of Alfred Wild, what to do she did not fully explain; but in her whole account there was a confusion and a wildness, which showed me that there was much, very much, that I did not comprehend; and I should have been naturally led to investigate all the facts in the first place, had not her reiterated exclamations of "Then you do love me still, James? You have not forgotten me? You have not acted as they said?" induced me first to vindicate myself. I told her all that had happened. I related the duel, my sickness, the conduct of my servant, and, with imprecations on the head of Alfred Wild, I told her that I believed, from the first, the man Essex had been bribed to furnish matter against me. She turned very pale at the language which I used towards my enemy, and certainly it was violent and improper; but, interrupting what she was about to say upon it, I eagerly entreated her to explain how she had been entrapped into an engagement with a man she neither loved nor esteemed, and to promise me solemnly to consider that engagement as nothing when compared with her troth plighted to myself.

"What could I do, James? What can I do?" she exclaimed, "when my own father besought, entreated, almost went on his knees to his own child--when they persuaded me that you loved me no longer, and that you were living with the wife of another man!"

"But surely, Emily," I cried, "you do not hesitate now which engagement is to be kept--the one obtained by fraud and falsehood, or the prior one, sealed by affection and esteem. You do not, you cannot hesitate, or you are not my Emily--not the Emily I left!"

"I am--I am your Emily," she replied, casting herself again upon my bosom, "and I do not hesitate, James; but indeed you do not know all, and I am afraid that I must not tell you all; but I will go on my knees to my father to beseech him to tell you the whole, and if he loves me as he says, to break all ties with that wretched man."

"Wretched indeed!" I cried; "but _I_ will find a means to break them, Emily, and in the mean time promise me--"

But at that moment there was a furious knock at the street-door. "It is he! It is he!" cried Emily, starting up as pale as death, "I cannot, I will not see him any more! But, oh! James, go home quick, for my father will be with you soon, and I would not have you miss him for the world."

I tried to detain her for one word more, but there was the sound of a hasty step running up stairs, and darting from me, she rushed out of the room. I followed to the door, and just caught a sight of her retreating figure as at the top of the great staircase she turned to enter her own room. Coming up the flight of steps below me, however, was an object which called all my thoughts into another direction. It was Alfred Wild himself, and never shall I forget the expression of his countenance as our eyes met. Rage, jealousy, disappointment, and fiendish malice, were all as plainly to be read there, as the thunder can be seen in the lurid cloud, even before it bursts: but feelings as bitter were in my heart, and as he came rapidly up the staircase I strode forward to meet him. We met at the top of the staircase. "What do you do here?" I cried. "How dare you ever to set your foot again in a house that you have made miserable by your falsehood and your baseness?"

"Beggarly puppy!" he began to reply; but I gave him no time to proceed further; for catching him by the collar and the back, with the momentary strength of overpowering indignation, I cast him from the top of the stairs to the bottom; and then following him, as he rose bewildered with his rapid descent, I spurned him with my foot into the hall. He did not offer to strike me again, but snatching his hat from the hands of one of the servants who had picked it up as he rolled down stairs, he shook his clenched fist at me, with his teeth set fast, and darting through the open door, sprang into his curricle and drove away.

For my part I hastened back to the Clarendon, and instantly wrote a now to my friend B----, begging him to come to me directly; and even while waiting his arrival, I sat down, I am sorry to say, with all the fierce feelings of a Cain in my heart, and penned a note to the man who had so bitterly injured me, calling upon him to meet me the next morning in order to atone with his blood for the calumnies he had uttered against me. In less than half an hour B---- was with me; and I put the note into his hands, telling him the fact which had given rise to such a measure. He read it over; but did not approve. It was so fierce, he said, and violent, that he could not let me send it. I then told him to dictate one to me, and I would write it, provided it admitted of no compromise; for I would accept no apology. He agreed, and I sat down to the task; but ere I had written the first words the waiter came in and put a note into my hand.

It was from Emily, and contained but a few words, but those few words were important. She wrote to me, she said, to warn me, lest I should madly hurry forward to destroy both her happiness and mine. From what I had let drop, she continued, while speaking with her, as well as from the noise she had heard after she had left me, she augured ill of my intentions towards the man who had injured me, and she wrote to prevent me from committing an act which would place an eternal bar between her and me. Her religion, she said, and all her feelings taught her to look upon the man who killed another in a duel as a murderer, and such a one should never have her hand. She could not, she added, and would not attempt to argue the matter at length with me, but she thought it right at once to inform me, however dearly she might love me, she would never, under any change of circumstances, become my wife if Alfred Wild were slain by my hand. A few words of tenderness were added, which went sweetly to my heart, but did not at all tend to make me suppose that Emily would fail in keeping her determination. I knew her too well to believe that she would change; and starting up, somewhat to B----'s surprise, I walked in much agitation once or twice up and down the room. I felt myself obliged, at length, to show him Emily's letter, and after some further explanation, he advised me kindly to let the matter rest for the present, as I had vindicated my own honour by inflicting personal chastisement upon my adversary.

While we were still talking over the matter, the waiter announced that a gentleman desired to speak with me, and I ordered him to be shown in, expecting to see Mr. Somers. The visitor, however, was a stranger, but his business was soon explained. He came on the part of Mr. Alfred Wild, he said, to ask the name of any friend with whom he could arrange the preliminaries of a meeting, which I must perceive was inevitable. I immediately pointed to my friend B----, and informed Captain Truro that we had been already talking over the matter, and then whispering to B---- not to let the meeting be deferred beyond the next morning, I left them together, retiring to my own bed-room.

In about ten minutes B---- called me, and informed me that the hour and place had been fixed for six, on Wandsworth Common. Captain Truro was gone, and my friend remained with me some time, making every sort of necessary arrangement, but he remarked my eye often resting upon Emily's letter, and kindly said, "You must not think of that letter, Young. I dare say Miss Somers will view the matter in a different light when she finds that you have not been the challenger."

"No, no!" replied I, "in her opinion it will be just the same. But as you say, I must not think of the letter, for I have but one course before me. I do not feel at all inclined to let such a scoundrel escape, and I cannot do so if I would; for not to fire at him would be tacitly to acknowledge that I felt myself in the wrong."

"I am afraid it might be so construed, indeed!" replied my friend; "but at all events take my advice, and make up your mind exactly how you are to act, for I have known very fatal consequences ensue from hesitation in such circumstances."

The rest of the day past much as may be imagined. I was agitated, undoubtedly; but it was with strong contending passions. I had some faint conviction that Emily was in the right, and that to kill another in a duel was as much murder as to slay a fellow-creature under the influence of any passion whatever. Against this thought I had nothing to support me but the world's opinion; and in order to feel as little like a murderer as possible, I strove to forget the injuries I had received, and to think that I was only acting in conformity to the code of honour; but still, whenever my mind dwelt upon Alfred Wild, and I thought of how nearly he had deprived me of Emily, or fancied that he might still bar my way to her I loved so deeply, I felt passions rising up in my bosom which I trembled to examine. I tried then to occupy my mind with the expectation of Mr. Somers's visit; but he never came, and at dinner my friend B---- returned, having determined to sleep at the Clarendon that night, that his early rising might not alarm his own family, and perhaps produce some interruption of our proceedings.

During the evening he strove to occupy my mind with other thoughts, after having satisfied himself that I was quite prepared, as far as worldly matters went, for any event which might occur on the following morning. At four o'clock the next day we were called, and breakfasted by candle-light, and in the gray of an autumnal morning got into the carriage with the case of pistols, and with my new French servant upon the box; wondering what it all could mean. We first drove to the house of the surgeon, who had been previously warned of our coming, and then rolled on to Wandsworth as fast as we could. Here we arrived a full quarter of an hour before our time, and leaving the carriage on the road we wandered about the common. I was very chilly from the morning air, and I could not but wonder at how differently I now felt, agitated as I was by violent and terrible passions, from what I had experienced on the former silly duel in Brittany, where I was agitated by no passions at all, and could almost have laughed at the whole business. Some five minutes before the time, also, my adversary appeared, and never did I see a countenance expressing more malevolent feelings than his did at the moment when we met. I could see his eye fixing fiercely upon me, and his lips muttering, as if he could scarcely refrain from giving utterance to all the hatred that was in his heart. I felt not much less towards him; but I had sufficient command over myself to prevent it from appearing, and waited with sufficient appearance of calmness while the ground was measured and the pistols loaded. The only words which were spoken by either my adversary or myself, were occasioned by the seconds measuring twelve paces.

"Twelve!" he exclaimed; "why the devil not make it eight?"

"Eight, by all means, gentlemen," I said. "I cannot be too near him."

"Over a handkerchief, if you like," he added; but B---- interfered, exclaiming, "Nonsense! Nonsense, gentlemen! You must leave all that to us, if you please."

The ground was accordingly measured, and B----, putting the pistol in my hand, said, in a low tone, "Keep your side to him, and your arm masking your side. The words will be, _One--two--three--Fire!_ You are a good shot, I know of old, and he is too angry to hit you; so, if you try, you may perhaps wound him without killing him."

Whether it was that he saw my eye upon him, marking him well, or what, I do not know; but while the seconds were taking their places, I saw a degree of agitation suddenly come over my adversary, and his knees rather bend and shake. At that moment, however, Captain Truro began to give the signals; and as he went on I raised my pistol, exactly at the word "Fire" pulling the trigger. It went off with a sharp, clear, ringing sound, and I evidently saw him reel. But he now slowly and deliberately raised his weapon, which he had not done before, and pointed it at me with a steady aim. We all looked on with some feeling of anxiety, no doubt; but at that moment his left knee began to bend. His hand seemed agitated with a convulsive jerk, and at the very instant that he pulled the trigger he fell back upon the turf. The ball passed through my hat, half an inch above my head; but I instantly ran forward with the other, to see what had occasioned his fall. Captain Truro and B---- raised him, and we found the ground beneath dyed with blood. The surgeon, who was at a little distance, now came up, and, aided by the rest, stripped off his coat and waistcoat. The bosom of his shirt was actually dripping with gore; and, pulling it down, there instantly appeared that small aperture through which the waters of life were flowing away so fast. For a moment the cold air seemed to revive him. At least he opened his eyes as the surgeon held his head upon his knees, and I am certain that he saw me, for the expression of his pale, ghastly features, which at first had been calm, became, for an instant, full of hatred. The next instant, his eyes rolled fearfully in his head ere they became fixed; and never will the sight of that countenance be obliterated from my memory.

The surgeon pointed with his finger to the carriage.

"Do you want your instruments?" demanded Captain Truro.

"There is no use of instruments here, sir," replied the surgeon in a low voice, "he is dead! What I mean is that you had all better get into the carriage, and be gone as fast as possible. Stop not till you are in France, for this seems to have been a bad business. Send me one of the servants, however, and bid the other carriage drive up as near as possible."

I would fain have lingered; but B---- and Captain Truro forced me away, and the former got into my carriage with me. The latter declared he would stay by the body of his friend, and take care of his own safety afterwards.

"On the road to Brighton!" cried B---- to the postilions, "As fast as you can go!"

They very well understood the cause, and set off at full gallop, while I sank back in the corner of the carriage, clasping my hands over my eyes, in the vain attempt to shut out the image of that dark ghastly countenance, with the rolling meaningless eyes, as they had glared upon me, ere the triumph of death was complete.

B---- was also very much affected, and for some way not a word was spoken. At length, fancying that he ought to attempt to console me, he spoke a few words, to which I replied, intending to answer as firmly as I could; but it was with the strangest sensation that I ever experienced that I found that I was talking incoherent nonsense; knowing what I ought to say, conscious that I was not saying it, and yet feeling it impossible so to rule my mind as to utter what I wished. B---- looked at me aghast, and I could just contrive to say "Wait a little! wait a little! I am confused and ill!" That was the last sensation and those the last words that I remember for some time.

It was hardly to be expected, that rising from a sick bed, I should take such a journey, undergo such agitations, and pass through such scenes without suffering in the end. I did not exactly what is called relapse, for the illness that followed bore but little analogy to that which I had suffered before. They called it a brain fever, which I suppose means inflammation of the brain, but at all events, it kept me for three weeks on a sick bed without the use of my senses; and, when I was restored to consciousness, it seemed only to be that I might suffer the more acutely; for what was I to wake to?--the consciousness of being a murderer, the knowledge that Emily was lost to me for ever!

I found myself in a small cottage at Worthing, with my French servant and my friend B---- attending me with the most devoted kindness. As soon as he found that I was able to comprehend him, B---- told me that before I reached Brighton, I had been in a state of furious delirium, raving incessantly of a hideous face that looked at me; and that consequently perceiving that it would be impossible to cross in the public steam-boat next morning, he had turned off with me from Brighton to Worthing, where he had taken the first cottage he could find.

"At first," he continued, "I assumed feigned names both for yourself and me; but I perceive already by the newspapers, that it was unnecessary, as the family have announced their intention not to prosecute."

My health now daily improved; but still it was very slowly, for the physician who attended me could in no way minister to the mind diseased, and in addition to deep remorse for what I had done--for sending a sinful fellow-creature to his long account, with all his worst failings hot about him--in addition to grief for the loss of her I loved, a loss which I felt to be as certain as if she no longer existed, there was yet another dreadful weight upon my mind, which overcame all powers of resistance in my heart, and rendered my recovery slow and imperfect. I never attempted to close my eyes at night without being visited by a horrid vision, the effect of an over-excited imagination, which kept me awake till two or three o'clock in the morning.

The ghastly countenance of him I had slain seemed gazing at me from between the curtains. Whichever way I turned, whichever way I looked, there it was, with the two dim rolling eyes fixed upon me, and that same look of inveterate hatred animating every pale feature. In vain I reasoned, in vain I struggled: there it was every night, and sometimes it haunted me in the day also. At first the torture was dreadful, for I tormented myself beforehand with the expectation of its appearance; but as my corporeal strength increased, and the powers of my mind in some degree returned, I struggled with the delusion, and so far conquered my own feelings, as to banish the sight from my thoughts when the object was not actually before me.

After I had been gradually recovering for about a week, however, I met with another blow, which not only threw me back, but embittered feelings which were sad enough before. Not being able to write myself, I had dictated to B---- a few lines to Emily, telling her how I had suffered, and that I was convalescent; trusting that, however firm she might be in her determination, she would be glad to hear of my recovery, and perhaps hoping, against my better knowledge of her character, that by gradually renewing our intercourse I might eventually lead her to break her resolution against me. At the end of three days, however, B----'s letter was returned to him, opened, indeed, and evidently read, but without a word of comment or reply. He found himself bound to tell me, and a dead sort of desolation, amounting to despair, fell upon my heart, which it is impossible to describe.

Nevertheless, my corporeal health continued to improve, and my mental health also; at least so far, that the wild and horrible vision of my dying adversary began to trouble me less frequently. If I fatigued myself severely, I could fall asleep without seeing that ghastly countenance; and, after discovering that it was so, I took means to produce that effect every night, so that in time I banished it from my pillow entirely. In the day, however, it would still sometimes intrude upon me; and though my mind had recovered a sufficient degree of vigour to struggle against my own feelings, though I revolved many a plan for conquering them altogether, and determined and re-determined to make some great effort in order to shake off the melancholy that hung upon me, yet for several weeks I failed to carry my schemes into effect, and remained in a state of hopeless despondency. All the morning I passed in walking along the sea-shore, gazing upon the rolling waves, or siting with my hands covering my eyes, and brooding over the past. Towards night I always endeavoured to fatigue myself as much as possible, but this was the only exertion I made. I never opened a book--I never wrote a line--and all my days passed in the same dull monotony.

B---- was very kind, endeavouring by all means to soothe me, and bring my mind back to some degree of tone. Almost all his time he devoted to me; once or twice, indeed, visiting London, and now and then going upon a fishing excursion, into which he endeavoured to tempt me, by many an eloquent description of the pleasures he derived from the sport. At length, one day when he returned from London, and found me still apparently in the same state, though in truth I had passed the two preceding days in fresh determinations to exert myself, he sat down and read me a homily on mental weakness, wilful repining, and self-abandonment, with so much kindness and feeling, joined to so much good sense and eloquence, that my often broken resolutions took a firmer character than they had ever yet done, and I replied, "Well, well, B----, do not suppose that I have not been thinking of all this; and I have determined to change my conduct, as far as possible to cast away thought, and to mingle again with the world, seeking in its noise and turbulence, distraction from my own thoughts. But I cannot do it here in England, B----. If you like to accompany me, I am ready now to set out for any part of the world. I will try to make you as good a companion as I can; and though I shall never again be what I have been, yet I feel now that I can cover over my melancholy from the eyes of the world, and may soon, perhaps, laugh the more loudly because it is all hollow within; and if I laugh, 'tis that I may not cry; but never mind, I am prepared to do it now. A few days ago I could not have done it; but I have been schooling and tutoring my own heart, and I find that I can play my unreal part in the world's drama like another; feeling that I am but acting all the time, it is true, but not without a hope, indeed, that I may sometimes deceive my own heart as well as the eyes of others. My plan now will be, to give my mind constant occupation--to leave no moment of the day unemployed--to see every thing--to mark every thing--to mingle with every thing, as I travel on. If the road offer nothing but stones, to examine every stone as I pass, sooner than let my mind rest even for one moment on itself; and, in short, to live as much out of myself as it be possible for man to do. You said, the other day, that you had no tie to England; and if such a plan suit you, let us set out together. Leave me when you are tired of me and my ways; but in the mean time be to me a companion and friend, and keep me, by your presence, from many of those evil actions into which I might otherwise perhaps be hurried, by the recklessness of bitter disappointment, and the hopeless, fearless dreariness of remorse."

My friend B---- willingly entered into my views. Few arrangements were necessary to either of us. I had but one letter to write, and it was merely a letter of business to my banker; for Mr. Somers, on settling his executorial accounts with me on my coming of age, had requested that I should bank with another house, as he thought it better in general for friends and relatives to keep all their money matters separate. Thus my first act in mingling again with the world was as simple and uninteresting as it well could be; but yet it was a trial, and I delayed a whole day before I could make up my mind to begin. When I did, the matter proved more easy than I had expected. The answer was merely one of business, written by a clerk; though in the banker's own hand appeared a postscript, saying, "Mr. Somers and Miss Emily are as well as can be expected."

Those few words had nearly overset all my firmness, but after a struggle I regained it again, and, two days afterwards, we left our cottage for Brighton. Three days had now elapsed since my imagination had called up again that dreadful countenance, and with a sort of fearful, anxious hope, I began to trust that I should see it no more. As the carriage drove up to "The York," however, it was dark; and there it was again before me, in the very passage, and it required every exertion of my reason to enable me to go on. B---- saw me shudder and hesitate, and in a low voice asked what was the matter. "Oh that face!" I answered with a groan. "Hush!" he said, understanding me in a moment, for I had before told him of this infirmity, "Hush! Conquer it always, and it will go of entirely in time. It is less frequent, you see, already!" The sight of the waiters hanging round stimulated me to exertion, and walking on I entered the inn, the face of course vanishing before me.

During the whole evening I hardly dared look round the room, however; and to begin at once with my plan of occupation, I made my servant give me my writing-desk, and sat down to write sketches of any thing on earth,--my own observations, my own feelings, the appearance of external objects, any thing in short that would engross my mind. I have preserved the first night's work of the pen even to the present moment; but it is wild, vague, and scarcely coherent. Nevertheless I pursued the same plan afterwards, with better success, whenever I had an evening unoccupied, writing down whatever I happened to recollect of occurrences last past. Those stray sheets give a better picture of my mind, and the progress which I made towards a better state of health and feeling, than any thing I could write at present; and I add them therefore to these pages, with no further alteration than may leave the narrative unbroken.

Late at night we embarked in the steam-boat for Dieppe, intending to follow nearly the same route which I had pursued on a former occasion, but instead of turning into Brittany, to go on from Tours into the south of France, the air of which provinces the physician at Worthing thought might be beneficial to me.

Of course there was much in England that I wished to forget. Sickness, and sorrow, and pain of every kind, and I felt sure that nothing would do me more general good, than to leave my own land, and all its remembrances behind me, according to the plan I have just mentioned, and to travel into France, where I had spent many happy days once before. As I pondered over my journey, the thought of those times had come back upon my heart like a gleam of sunshine in the midst of winter, and warmed me into energy to undertake it.

It was night, then, when we set out; and while the steam-boat cut her way through the darkness, I felt as if I were leaving sorrow behind me, but as day broke, and the far faint line of my native land appeared bright and soft between the waters and the sky, all the remembrance of my youth, all the hopes that had failed, and the pleasures that had fled, came rushing upon memory, and made it one of the most painful moments of existence. Thank God, there was no one to see me. I was alone upon the deck.

The rising of the sun is always one of the most superb sights in nature, but is never so splendid as when he comes over the sea. The very waves seemed emulous to catch his beams, and a flight of light feathery clouds in the zenith, met the rays even before they reached the earth, and kept blushing with brighter and brighter hues till the whole day burst upon the sky.

"El sol, velando en centellantes fuegos Su inaccessible magestad, preside Qual Rey al universo, esclarecido De un mar de luz, que de su treno corre."

It was one of the most magnificent mornings I ever beheld, and I tried to fix my whole mind upon it, and to call up every train of ideas that might occupy my attention. I brought to my remembrance a multitude of descriptions from various poets of the rising day, and wondered to what poetical fancy the ancients were indebted for the allegory of Aurora (one of the most splendid fictions which adorns their mythology), I tried to imagine that I saw the goddess of the morning opening the gates of light. I forced upon recollection the paintings of Marmontel, and Byron, and Shakspeare, and Milton, and Homer. But in vain--my thoughts still wandered to all I was leaving, and my eye still turned towards the lessening shores of England; till the far lumen of my native land grew fainter and fainter upon the sky, till one object after another, like every joy of existence, was gradually lost to the sight, and blue distance closing over all, I was in the midst of the ocean with nothing but waves around me. It was but too good an image of my own fate.

THE WAKING.

Ah! che non sol quelle, ch' io canto o scrivo Favole son; ma quanto temo, o spero, Tutto è menzogna, e delirando io vivo Sogno della mia vita è il corso intero. --METASTASIO.

It was one of the sweetest sleeps I had ever enjoyed. Fatigue had been bountiful to me, and given me back a blessing I had not known for many a weary night. It is only when we have lost them, for a time, that we learn to appreciate Heaven's gifts. The whole world is full of sweets that we taste not, till sickness teaches us that our very faculties are joys, or confinement makes us esteem the wooing of Heaven's free air, the choicest blessing of existence. God has loaded us with bounties, and yet man, the spoiled child of creation, whimpers for the toys he cannot gain.

It was one of the sweetest sleeps I had enjoyed for long, and when I woke and saw the sun shining through a window down to the floor, the massy black rafters of the ceiling, with wood enough to build twenty modern houses, the old-fashioned gilt chairs, and the cabinet with cherubim's heads at all the corners, the tiled floor, and wide vacant chimney, together with the looking-glass and its long frame, half occupied by the portrait of a lack-a-daisical shepherd piping behind a squinting shepherdess, and Cupid looking out from behind a bush, all sorts of recollections of a French seaport came crowding upon me.

From the window was a gay scene, with the people of the market jostling, bustling, and chattering, and flirting about, with a thousand lively colours in their garments. And there was the old lumbering diligence before the door, and the pump, and the beggars, and the shoe-blacks; those that will do any thing, and those that will do nothing, and all the hangers-on of a French inn. Wherever I turned, it was France all over; and for a moment I fancied that I had never quitted it, that I had never gone back to England, that I stood there still, where I had stood less than a year before, and that the interval, with all its sorrows, was but a dream, a melancholy dream.

I cherished the illusion: I called up every image of those days; I thought of all the gay scenes I had witnessed, and the bright, and the kind, and the happy with whom I had then mingled. I recalled the friends that had entwined themselves with the best feelings of my nature: those who had made me no stranger in a foreign land. I saw the smile with which I had always been welcomed, and the extended hand and the beaming eye. My thoughts were turned from every painful recollection. I dwelt for one moment in the temple of oblivion, and then busy craving memory, that "meddlesome officious ill," came in, and did it all away.

It was but a moment, but it was a moment snatched from pain. It was but an illusion, but it was a happy one. Passing on rapidly through the country, my mind seemed every day to recover its tone. I saw no more of the horrid countenance which had so fearfully haunted me, till one day entering the cathedral of Suez, in Normandy, while the horses were changing, we stopped near a new and handsome monument, the white stone of which shone out in strong contrast with the dim and gloomy aisles. B---- asked the sacristan who was with us, the name of the person to whom it was erected.

"It is raised by the family of Monsieur Guillon," he said. "Poor young gentleman! He was killed in a duel about three years ago!"

I started, and raised my eyes, and instantly from behind one of the large heavy pillars looked out the ghastly countenance of my dying enemy, with the same look of bitter hatred convulsing his pale features, that they had borne ere his eyes closed for ever.

THE PLACE OF DREAMS.

I suppose that all human beings feel alike on those points, but certainly when the sun shines I am materially happier; his brightness seems to penetrate into the heart, and to make it expand like a flower.

The first decidedly fine weather we had had since our arrival in France, began at Le Mans, and during our journey towards Tours, through a country that became richer and more rich as we advanced; scarcely a cloud overshadowed the sky, except occasionally one of those light summer vapours that, skimming along over the landscape, gave a partial shadow as it passed, enough to vary, but not darken, the scene.

At Château du Loir we began to meet with the abundance of Touraine. Fine peaches at six for four sous, and delicious pears at a price still lower, with grapes for a penny the cluster, all began to show that we progressed in a land of summer. It was here, too, that the first vineyards made their appearance, climbing up the sides of the hills on each side of the road, and giving a luxuriant colouring to the view, though not, indeed, offering half the picturesque beauties which are attributed to them by imagination.

Tours--I know not why, but it excited in my mind a sensation of melancholy. When I visited it before, was at the time of the unhappy and ill-contrived revolt of Berton at Saumur; and returning with the officers of a party of the troops that had been sent to disperse his undisciplined forces, we spent several agreeable days in the antique capital of Touraine. In general, we are fond of fixing upon some spot for building our castles in the air, and Tours and the Loire had yielded me many a foundation for those unsubstantial structures, which, as they so often do, had crumbled away, and left me nothing but the ruins behind.

Independent of individual associations, too, Tours is one of those places which has many recollections attached to it, especially since the Wizard of the North has raised again the fallen walls of Plessis les Tours, and conjured up the king of the people, Louis XI., the effects of whose hatred to the nobility were felt even in the eighteenth century. But his mulberry-trees are no more, and all that he did for the commerce of his favourite city is equally fallen to nothing. The abbey of St. Martin, whose abbots were once kings of France, is almost entirely destroyed, though there are two of the old towers still standing, at so great a distance from each other as to show the enormous extent of the ancient building. Besides all this, are there not a thousand shadowy visions come floating down the sea of time from the dreamy ages of chivalry and romance--Charles VII. and his knights, Alençon, Dunois, the Maid of Arc, and Agnes Sorrel? The beautiful Gabrielle d'Estrées too, owed her birth to Tours: but, unlike Agnes Sorrel, her best quality was her beauty, and for _that_ her countrywomen are still deservedly famed.

In many respects it is a magnificent town. The Rue Royale, the Cathedral, the bishop's palace, and a fine bridge over the river, are the first objects the eye falls upon in entering the city; but before all, is the Loire itself, flowing on in calm majesty through the richest part of one of the most fertile countries in the world. Its banks were covered with all nature's choicest gifts at the time we entered Touraine, and, as if feeling the loneliness of the scene, the stream seemed to linger amidst the beauty that surrounded it. Long, long ago, it was the song of the troubadours. The Langue d'Oc and the Langue d'Oil took its waters for a boundary, and many noble deeds have rendered it famous in history. It was the birth-place, too, of the Count of St. Maurice, whose fate, with all its curious turns of fortune, told over the glowing fruit and the sparkling wine of the land in which he dwelt, had deeper interest than it may have here. He who narrated the tale called it.

THE FATE OF THE DUC DE BIRON.

Francis, Count of St. Maurice, was born at Tours, in the year 1580. His father perished in battle before his eyes opened to the day, and his mother scarcely survived his birth a week. His patrimonial property had been wasted in the wars of the League, and his only inheritance was his father's sword, and a few trembling lines written by his dying mother to the famous Baron de Biron, with whom she was distantly connected by the ties of blood. A trinket or two, the remnant of all the jewels that had decked her on her bridal day, paid the expense of arraying the dead wife of the fallen soldier for the grave, and furnished a few masses for the repose of both their souls; and an old servant, who had seen her mistress blossom into woman's loveliness, and then so soon fade into the tomb, after beholding the last dread dear offices bestowed upon the cold clay, took up the unhappy fruit of departed love, and bore it in her arms, on foot, to the only one on whom it seemed to have a claim. Biron, though stern, rude, and selfish, did not resist the demand. Ambition had not yet hardened his heart wholly, nor poisoned the purer stream of his affections; and gazing on the infant for a moment, he declared it was a lovely child, and wondrous like his cousin. He would make a soldier of the brat, he said, and he gave liberal orders for its care and tending. The child grew up, and the slight unmeaning features of the infant were moulded by time's hand--as ready to perfect as to destroy--into the face of as fair a boy as ever the eye beheld. Biron often saw and sported with the child, and its bold, sweet, and fearless mood, tempered by all the graces of youth and innocence, won upon the soldier's heart. He took a pride in his education, made him his page and his companion, led him early to the battle-field, and inured him almost from infancy to danger and to arms.

Although occasionally fond of softer occupations--of music, of reading, and the dance--the young Count of St. Maurice loved the profession in which he was trained. Quick-sighted and talented, brave as a lion, and firm as a rock, he rose in his profession, and obtained several of those posts which, together with the liberality of his benefactor, enabled him, in some degree, to maintain the rank which had come down to him without the fortune to support it. Attaching himself more and more to Biron every year, he followed him in all his campaigns and expeditions, and paid him back, by many a service and many a care, the kindness he had shown him in his infancy: so that twice had he saved the marshal's life, and twice, by his active vigilance, had he enabled his leader to defeat the enemy, before he himself had reached the age of eighteen.

Gradually, however, a change came over the mind of Marshal Biron. Henry IV., his too good master, became firmly seated on the throne of France, and Biron, attributing all the king's success to his own support, thought no recompense sufficient for his services, no honours high enough for his merit and his deeds. Henry was anything but ungrateful, and though, in fact, he owed his throne to his birth, and to his own right-hand, more than to any man on earth, he, nevertheless, loaded Marshal Biron with all the honours in his power to bestow. He was created a duke and peer of France, high-admiral, and lieutenant-general of the king's armies; and many a post of distinction and emolument raised his revenues and his dignity together. But still he was not satisfied: pride, ambition, and discontent, took possession of his heart; and he meditated schemes of elevating himself, till the insanity of ambition led him to thoughts of treason. His manners, too, grew morose and haughty: he was reserved and distant to those he had formerly favoured, and his household became cold and stately.

At the same time, a change, but a very different change, had taken place in the bosom of the young St. Maurice; and to explain what that change was, a fact must be mentioned, which is in itself a key to all the new feelings and the new thoughts, the new speculations and the new hopes, which entered into the bosom of the young, but fortuneless count, about the end of the year 1600. About eight years before that period, there had been added to the family of the Duke de Biron a young niece, of about nine years old, a lively, gentle girl, with bright hair and soft blue eyes, and pretty childish features, that had no look but that of innocence when they were in repose, but which occasionally took a glance of warm, happy eagerness, with which we might suppose an angel to gaze on the completion of some bright and mighty work. In her childhood, she played with the young St. Maurice, till they loved each other as children love; and just at that age when such things become dangerous to a young girl's heart, fluttering between infancy and womanhood, the Duke de Biron was ordered to Brussels on the arrangements of the peace, and taking St. Maurice with him, he sent Mademoiselle de la Roche-sur-Marne to a convent, which she thought very hard, for her father and mother were both dead, and all that she loved on earth the Duke carried away with him.

St. Maurice was left behind at Brussels to terminate some business which Marshal Biron had not concluded, and when, after some lapse of time, he returned to France, and joined the Duke at the Citadel of Bourg, where that nobleman commanded for the King, he found Marie de la Roche no longer the same being he had left her. The bud had at once burst forth into a flower, and a flower of most transcendent loveliness. The form which his arm had encircled a thousand times, in boyish sport, had changed in the whole tone of its beauty. Every line, every movement, breathed a different spirit, and woke a different feeling. The features too, though soft as infancy, had lost the roundness of infancy, and in the still innocent imploring eyes, which yet called up all the memory of the past, there was an eloquent glance beaming from the woman's heart, in which childhood was all outshone.

The young Count felt no alteration in himself, but was dazzled and surprised with the change in her, and felt a sudden diffidence take possession of him, which the first warm unchanged welcome could hardly dispel. She seemed scarce to dream that there was a difference, for the time that she had spent in the convent was an unfilled blank, which afforded scarce a circumstance to mark the passage of a brief two years. The Duke de Biron received his young follower with rough kindness, but there were always various causes which kept him more from the society of St. Maurice than formerly. There were many strangers about him, some of whom were Italians, and St. Maurice saw that much private business was transacted, from a knowledge of which he was purposely excluded. The Duke would take long, and almost solitary rides, or go upon distant expeditions, to visit the different posts under his government, and then, instead of commanding at once the young soldier's company, he left him to escort Mademoiselle de la Roche to this fair sight or that beautiful view. In the pride and selfishness of his heart, he never dreamed it possible that the poor and friendless Count of St. Maurice would dare to love the niece of the great Duke de Biron, or that Marie de la Roche would ever feel towards him in any other way than as the dependent follower of her uncle.

But he knew not human nature. Mademoiselle de la Roche leaned upon the arm of St. Maurice as they strayed though the beautiful scenery near Bourg, or yielded her light form to his grasp, as he lifted her on horseback; or listened to him while he told of battles and dangers when he had followed her uncle to the field, or gazed upon his flashing features and speaking eye while he spoke of great deeds, till her heart beat almost to pain whenever his step sounded along the corridors, and her veins thrilled at the slightest touch of his hand. St. Maurice, too, for months plunged blindly into the vortex before him. He thought not--he hesitated not at the consequences. But one feeling, one emotion, one passion filled his bosom,--annihilated foresight, prudence, reflection, altogether,--took possession of heart and brain, and left the only object for his mind's conception--love!

It went on silently in the bosom of each; they spoke not what was in their hearts; they hardly dared to look in each other's eyes for fear the secret should find too eloquent a voice; and yet they each felt and knew, that loving, they were beloved. They could not but know it, for, constantly together, there were a thousand voiceless, unconscious modes of expression, which told again and again a tale that was but too dear to the heart of each. And yet there is something in the strong confirmation of language which each required for the full satisfaction of their mutual hopes, and there are moments when passion will have voice. Such a moment came to them. They were alone; the sun had just sunk, and the few gray minutes of the twilight were speeding on irrevocable wings. There was no eye to see, no ear to hear, and their love was at length spoken.

They had felt it--they had known it long; but the moment it was uttered--its hopelessness--its perfect hopelessness--seemed suddenly to flash upon their minds, and they stood gazing on each other in awe and fear, like the First Two, when they had tasted the fatal fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. But the never-to-be-recalled words had been breathed, and there was a dread, and a hope, and a tenderness, mingled with every glance that they turned upon one another.

Still the Duke de Biron did not see, for his mind was so deeply engrossed with the schemes of his mad ambition, and the selfishness of his pride, that nothing else rested in his thoughts for a moment. Messengers were coming and going between him and the Duke of Savoy, a known enemy to France, and whenever he spoke with St. Maurice, it was in terms of anger towards the good King Henry IV., and of praise and pleasure towards the cold-hearted monarch of Spain. Often, too, he would apparently strive to sound the disposition of his young follower, and would throw him into company with men of more art and cunning than himself, who would speak of the destruction of the Bourbon line as necessary for the good of France and the tranquillity of Europe, and insinuate that a time might be at hand when such a sacrifice would be completed. St. Maurice frowned, and was silent when the design was covered, as often happened, with much art, and boldly spoke his mind against traitors when the treason was apparent.

At length one day he was called to the presence of the Duke, whom he found alone. "Come hither, St. Maurice," said his friend; "I have brought you up, young Count, from your infancy to your manhood--I have been your friend in fair days and foul--I taught you the duty of a soldier, and the duty of an officer--I have raised you higher than any other man in France could do, or would do--and now tell me--whether do you love best Henry of Bearn or me?"

"Your words, my lord," replied St. Maurice, "taught me in early years to love the King, and your actions taught me to love yourself; but the honour of a French noble teaches me to love my duty, and that joins ever with my love towards my King."

"Ha!" exclaimed Biron, his dark brow burning, "must you teach me what is duty?--Begone, ungrateful boy!--leave me--thus, like the man in the fable, we nourish serpents in our bosom, that will one day sting us--begone, I say!"--St. Maurice turned to quit the cabinet, with feelings of sorrow and indignation in his heart: but grief to see his benefactor thus standing on the brink of dishonour and destruction, overcame all personal feeling, and he paused, exclaiming, "Oh! my lord, my lord! beware how you bring certain ruin on your own head ----." But remonstrance only called up wrath. Biron lost all command over himself. He stamped with his heavy boot till the chamber rang; he bade St. Maurice quit his presence and his dwelling; he stripped him, with a word, of all the posts and employments which he had conferred upon him, and bade him, ere two days were over, leave the castle of Bourg, and go forth from his family; a beggar as he had entered it. Nor alone, in his rash passion, did he content himself with venting his wrath upon his young follower, but he dropped words against the monarch and the state, which left his treasonable practices beyond a doubt.

The young Count heard as little as possible, but hurried from the presence of a man whom pride and anger had frenzied, and hastening to his chamber, he paused but to ponder over all the painful circumstances of his own situation. Nothing was before him but despair, and his brain whirled round and round with that vague, wild confusion of painful ideas, which no corporeal agony can equal. The predominant thought however, the idea that rose up with more and more frightful prominence every moment, was the necessity of parting from her he loved--and of parting for ever, without one hope, without one expectation to soothe the long cold blank of absence. He could have borne the unjust and cutting unkindness of the Duke--he could have borne the loss of fortune, and the prospect of that hard, fierce struggle which the world requires of men who would rise above their original lot--he could have borne the reverse of state and of station, comfort and fortune, without a murmur or a sigh; but to lose the object in which all the ardent feelings of an ardent heart had been concentrated, was more, far more than he could bear. Thus he pondered for near an hour, letting the bitter stream of thought flow on, while every moment added some new drop of sorrow, as reflection showed him more and more the utter hopelessness of all his prospects.

The setting out of a large train from before his window, first roused him from his painful dream, and though he knew not why, he felt relieved when he beheld the Duke de Biron himself lead the way, caparisoned as for a journey. The next moment found him beside Mademoiselle de la Roche. Her eyes were full of tears, and he instantly concluded she had heard his fate; but it was not so. She was weeping, she said, because her uncle had come to her apartments very angry on some account, and had harshly commanded her back to her convent the next day; and as she told her lover, she wept more and more. But when he in turn related the Duke's anger with him, and his commands to quit the citadel--when he told her all the destitution of his situation--and hopelessness of winning her when all his fortune on the earth was his sword and a thousand crowns, Marie de la Roche wept no more, but drying her bright eyes, she put her hand in his, saying, "St. Maurice, we will go together! We love each other, and nobody in the world cares aught about us--my uncle casts us both off--but my inheritance must sooner or later be mine, and we will take our lot together!"

Such words, spoken by such lips, were far more than a lover's heart could resist. Had he been absent when that scheme was proposed--had he not seen her--had he not held her hand in his--had her eyes not looked upon him, he might have thought of difficulties, and prudence, and danger, and discomfort to her. But now her very look lighted up hope in his heart, and he would not let fear or doubt for a single instant shadow the rekindled beams. He exacted but one thing--she should bring him no fortune. The Duke de Biron should never say that he had wedded his niece for her wealth--if she would sacrifice all, and share his fate, he feared not that with his name and with his sword, and her love to inspire him, he should find fortune in some distant land. Marie doubted not either and willingly agreed to risk herself with him upon the wide unknown ocean of events.

It seemed as if all circumstances combined to enable them more easily to make the trial. The Duke de Biron had gone to Fontainbleau, boldly to meet the generous master he had determined to betray, and the old chaplain of the citadel, whose life St. Maurice had saved at the battle of Vitry, after many an entreaty, consented to unite him that very night to his young sweet bride. Their horses were to be prepared in the gray of the morning, before the sun had risen, and they doubted not that a few hours would take them over the frontier, beyond the danger of pursuit.

The castle was suffered to sink into repose, and all was still; but at midnight a solitary taper lighted the altar of the chapel, and St. Maurice soon pressed Marie to his heart as his wife. In silence he led her forth, while the priest followed with trembling steps, fearful lest the lightest footfall should awaken notice and suspicion; but all remained tranquil--the lights in the chapel were extinguished, and the chaplain retreated in peace to his apartment.

There was scarcely a beam in the eastern sky when St. Maurice glided forth to see if the horses were prepared. He paused and listened--there was a noise below, and he thought he heard coming steps along some of the more distant corridors. A long passage separated him from his own chamber, and he feared to be seen near that of Marie, and be obliged at once to proclaim his marriage, lest her fair fame should be injured. He therefore determined to hasten forward, and strive to gain his own part of the building. He strode on like light, but at the top of the staircase a firm hand was laid upon his shoulder, and a loud voice demanded, "Who are you?" St. Maurice paused, undetermined whether to resist and still try to shake of the person who stopped him, or to declare himself at once; but the dim outline of several other figures against a window beyond, showed him that opposition was vain, and he replied, "I am the Count of St. Maurice; why do you stop me, sir?"

"In the King's name, I arrest you, Count of St. Maurice," replied the voice; "give me your sword."

"In the King's name, or in Marshal Biron's, gentlemen?" demanded St. Maurice, somewhat bitterly. "You jest with me, gentlemen; my lord the Duke I may have offended, but the King never."

"I said in the King's name, young gentleman," replied the other gravely, taking the sword, which St. Maurice yielded. "You, sirs," he continued, turning to those who stood near, "guard the prisoner closely, while I seek for the Baron de Lux."

St. Maurice was detained for a few minutes in the corridor, and then bade to prepare to journey to Fontainbleau. The whole castle was now in confusion, and all the principal officers of Marshal Biron, the Count found, were, like himself, under arrest. At his earnest entreaty, the Count de Belin, who commanded the party of royal troops, permitted him to take leave of her he had so lately wedded, though only in his presence. Marie de la Roche-sur-Marne was drowned in tears, but alarm for her uncle's safety easily accounted for that, and the few low words of comfort and assurance which St. Maurice spoke, betrayed not at all the secret of their union. She suffered him to speak uninterrupted but by her sobs; but when he bent over her hand he raise it to his lips, with the formal courtesy of the day, all was forgotten but her love and her despair, and casting herself into his arms, she hid her eyes upon his shoulder, and wept with the bitter agonizing tears of unavailing love.

The old Count de Belin gently unclasped her arms, and removed St. Maurice, who turned, and grasping his hand, said, with a meaning look, "Sir, you are a soldier and a gentleman--our confidence, I am sure, is safe?"

"Upon my honour," replied the officer; laying his hand upon his heart, and St. Maurice was satisfied. He was soon after put on horseback, and conducted with several others to Fontainbleau, from whence he was immediately carried to Paris, and lodged in the Bastile. But it may be now time to turn to him whose weak ambition had brought ruin on his own head.

As is well known, the Duke de Biron, summoned by the king to his presence on clear information of his treason, proceeded at once to Fontainbleau, depending fully on the fidelity of the very man who had betrayed him, and entered the gardens in which Henry was walking, at the very moment when the monarch was declaring, _that beyond all doubt he would not come_. He advanced at once towards the king, and Henry, whose frank and generous heart would fain have believed him less guilty than he really was, embraced him according to his custom, saying, "You did well to come, Lord Duke, otherwise I should have gone to seek you;" and, taking him by the hand, he led him into another garden, where he could speak with him unobserved. There Henry at once, with the noble candour of a noble heart, told him that good information had been received, of his having carried on a long correspondence with the enemies of the state. "Speak the truth, my lord," he added; "tell me all, and, good faith, no one shall know it; the matter shall go no further, and all it shall cost you shall be a sincere repentance."

The Marshal replied, proudly, that he had nothing to confess, and that his purpose in coming, was to meet his accusers. There was a rudeness in his answer, which was not the boldness of innocence; and Henry, turning away, rejoined the court. Still the king tried more than once during the day to win from the traitor one repentant word. He again and again solicited him to speak. He sent his friends to him, and his relations; and though urged by his council--before which full proofs of the Marshal's guilt had long been laid, and which had taken prompt measures, as we have seen, for securing his followers and dependents--still Henry's heart rebelled against his better judgment, and would not suffer him to order his arrest. "If this matter be tried, and proved against him," said the King, "justice must have its way, for the sake of public example; but I would fain avert the necessity." At length, even at midnight, Henry once more called his treacherous servant to his presence; and again begged him, for his own sake, to confess his fault. "Let me hear from your own mouth," said the monarch, "that which with great sorrow I have heard from too good authority; and on a frank acknowledgment, I promise to grant you pardon and kindness. Whatever crime you may have committed or meditated against my person, if you will but confess it, I will cover it over with the mantle of my protection, and forget it myself."[6]

[Footnote 6: These two remarkable speeches are upon record.]

"Sire!" replied the Marshal boldly, "I have nothing to say but what I have said. I did not come to your majesty to justify myself, but to beg you only to tell me my enemies, that I may seek justice against them, or render it to myself."

Henry turned away disgusted, and the Duke advanced through the door of the saloon into the antechambers beyond. At the door of that, however, which led out upon the staircase, he was met by the Count de Vitry, who, seizing his right hand in his own left, caught the hilt of Biron's sword with the other hand, exclaiming, "The King commands me to give an account of your person, sir. Yield me your sword."

Biron started, and a mortal paleness came over his face; for it would seem that he never dreamed for a moment, either that the monarch had accurate information of his treason, or would proceed to do justice against him. He suffered himself to be disarmed, however, and led to a secure apartment, where, after he had recovered from his first surprise, he passed the night in violent and intemperate language, injurious to his own cause, and indecent in itself. From thence he was conveyed to the Bastile, and his trial proceeded with great rapidity. A thousand efforts were made to save him, by his friends and relations; and Henry was besieged, wherever he appeared, with tears and petitions. But the day of mercy had gone by; and the same monarch who had almost supplicated his rebellious subject to say one word that might save himself, now sternly declared that justice must take its course; and that whatever the law awarded, without fail should be put in execution.

In the meanwhile, St. Maurice passed his time in bitter meditations, confined in a dull cell of the Bastile, which, though not absolutely a dungeon, contained nothing but one of those small narrow beds whose very look was like that of the grave, a crucifix, and a missal. The hours and the days wore on, and he saw no one but the people who brought him his daily food, and a few persons passing occasionally across the inner court of the Bastile; so that solitude and sad thoughts traced every day deeper and deeper lines upon his heart, and upon his brow. He thought of her whom he loved--of what her situation was, and what it might be; and when that was too painful, he turned his mind to his own fate, and tried to look it calmly in the face, but still the image of Marie rose up in every scene, and reduced all the native resolution of his heart to woman's weakness.

He was thus one day cast heedlessly on his bed, when the door of his cell opened, and the jailer desired him to follow. St. Maurice rose and obeyed, and a few minutes brought him to a larger chamber, which he was bade to enter. At the other side of the room there stood a middle-sized man, habited in a plain suit of rusty black velvet, with strongly marked aquiline features, and gray hair and beard. His eye was keen and quick, his forehead broad and high, and there was something peculiar in the firm rooted attitude with which he stood, bending his eyes upon the open door. Even had St. Maurice never seen him before, he could never have doubted that he was a King.

"Come hither, Sir Count," said Henry IV. abruptly; "tell me all you know of this treason of the Duke de Biron. Tell me all, tell me true, and, by my faith, you shall have full pardon."

"Sire," replied St. Maurice, "when my father died in the service of your majesty, and my mother left this world a few days after my birth, I was left a penniless orphan, for all our fortunes had been lost in your royal cause----" Henry knitted his brow--"I was a beggar," continued St. Maurice, "and the Duke de Biron took pity on me--brought me up--led me to the field--protected--provided for me----"

"Hold! hold! Hold!" cried the King. "Say no more! say no more--get you gone--yet stay--I seek not, sir, this unhappy man's death. Justice shall be done, but no more than justice--not severity. If you know anything which can mitigate his offence, speak it boldly, and the King will thank you; anything that may render his crime less black."

"I know little, Sire, of the Marshal's late conduct," replied the Count, "for in truth I have been less in his confidence than formerly; but this I know, and do believe, that he is one of those men to speak, aye, and to write, many base things in a hasty and a passionate mood, that he would be the last on earth to act."

Henry mused for a moment in silence, and then, without any farther observation, ordered St. Maurice back again to his cell.

Another long week passed, and day after day grew more weary and horrible than the last. Each hour, each moment, added to anxiety, uncertainty, and expectation, already beyond endurance. The rising and the setting of the sun, the heavy passing away of the long and tardy minutes, the wide vague infinity through which apprehension and care had leave to roam, overwhelmed his mind, and shook even his corporeal strength. Each noise, each sound, made him start; and the very opening of his cell door brought with it some quick indistinct fear. It is said that those long accustomed to solitary confinement, get inured to the dead, blank vacancy of existence without action, lose hope, and fear, and thought, and care; and exist, but hardly can be said to live. But St. Maurice had not yet had time to let one of the fresh pangs of his situation become lulled by the opiate of custom, and every moment of its endurance was a moment of new agony. He heard no tidings, he received no comfort, no hope from any one. The very joys that he had known, and the love he valued most, became a torture to him; his own heart was a burden, and while the future was all dark and lowering, the past was full of regret, and prolific of apprehension.

At length, one evening, an unusual number of footsteps traversing the court below, called him from the bed on which he usually cast himself in prostrate despondency, and he beheld, from the small window of his cell, a number of people gathered together in the open space, of a quality which showed at once that some great and formal act was about to take place within the walls of the prison. The Chancellor was there, and various judges and officers of the Parliament, and a number of the municipal body of Paris were on the spot, with clerks and serjeants, and the two chief _prévôts_. A small body of soldiers also guarded the different doors of the court, and on the side next to the garden was raised a scaffold, about five feet above the ground, at the foot of which a strong man in black stood, with two others of an inferior grade, examining the edge of a large heavy sword, which was suddenly put into the sheath on the sound of some voices at the other side of the court.

At that moment the Duke de Biron was brought in through the opposite door, accompanied by several of the officers of the prison. His dark swarthy countenance was not a shade paler than usual, and, with his hat and plume upon his head, he walked boldly forward with an erect and daring carriage; but as his eye first fell upon the scaffold, he paused a single instant, exclaiming, "Ha!" He then strode forward again, as if he had been marching against an enemy, and came to the foot of the ladder which led to the scaffold. There he paused and looked round him with furious and impatient eyes, as if he would fain have vented the wrath that was in his heart upon some of those around him.

"Sir Chancellor! Sir Chancellor!" he cried, "you have condemned a man more innocent than many you have suffered to escape, and that upon the evidence of two perjured villains. You have done injustice, sir, which you could have prevented, and you shall answer it before God.--Yes, sir, before Him to whose presence I summon you before a year pass over." Then turning to the commandant, he added, "Ah, Monsieur de Roissy, Monsieur de Roissy! had your father been alive, he would have aided me to quit this place. Fie! fie! is this a fate for one who has served his country as I have?"

"My Lord Duke," said the Chancellor, "you have heard the sentence of your peers, and it must now be executed. The King commands me to demand the insignia of that noble order to which you once belonged."

"There, sir, take it!" cried the Duke, giving him his star and riband. "Tell the King, that though he treat me thus, I have never broken one statute of the order to which my deeds in his service raised me. Pshaw!" he continued, turning from the priest, who now pressed him to confess--"I make my confession aloud. All my words are my confession.--Still," he added, as his eye rested for a moment on the scaffold and all the awful preparation for his fate, "still, I may as well think awhile of where I am going."

He then spoke for a few minutes with the priest who stood by his side. His countenance grew calmer and graver; and after having received absolution and the sacrament, he looked for a brief space up towards the sky, then knelt down before the scaffold, and prayed for same time, while a dead silence was maintained around--you might have heard a feather fall. As he still knelt, the sun broke out, and shone calmly and sweetly over the whole array of death, while a bird in the neighbouring garden, wakened by the sunshine and the deep stillness, broke into a clear, shrill, joyful song, with the most painful music that ever struck the ear.

The prisoner started on his feet, and, after looking round for an instant, mounted the scaffold with the same bold step wherewith he had approached it. His eyes, however, still had in them that sort of wild, ferocious gleam, which they had exhibited ever since his arrest; and though he seemed to strive for calmness, and displayed not a touch of fear, yet there was an angry spirit in his tone as he addressed those around him. "I have wronged the King," he said, sharply, "I have wronged the King. 'Tis better to acknowledge it. But that I ever sought his life is a lie and perjury. Had I listened to evil counsel, he would have been dead ten years ago. Ah! my old friends and fellow-soldiers," he added, turning to the guards, "why will none of you fire your piece into my heart, instead of leaving me to the vile hands of this common butcher?" And he pointed to the executioner. "Touch me not," he continued, seeing the other approach him with a handkerchief to bind his eyes--"touch me not with those hellish fingers, or, by heavens, I will tear you limb from limb! Give me the handkerchief."

He then cast his hat away from him, and bound his own eyes--knelt--prayed again for a moment--rose suddenly up as the executioner was about to draw the sword--withdrew the covering from his sight--gazed wildly round him for an instant, and beckoned one of the officers to tie up his long hair under the handkerchief. This was immediately done, and his eyes being covered, he called out, "Haste! haste!"

"Repeat the _In manus_, my lord," said the executioner, taking the heavy sword, which had hitherto been concealed by the attendants.

Biron began to repeat the psalm of the dying--the blade glittered in the air--swayed round the head of the executioner; and before the eye could trace the blow which ended the earthly career of the unfortunate but guilty soldier, his head was severed at once from his body, and Biron was no more.

A feeling of intense and painful interest had kept St. Maurice at the window till the moment that the unhappy soldier covered his own eyes with the handkerchief; but then a sensation of giddy sickness forced him away, and he cast himself down once more, with bitterer feelings than ever at his heart. The world seemed all a hell of cares and sorrows, and he could have died that moment with hardly a regret. After he had lain there for nearly two hours, he once more rose, and approached the window. The crowd were all gone, but the dark scaffold still remained, and the young soldier drew back again, saying to himself, "Who next? who next?" He lay down and tried to sleep, but his throbbing temples and his heated blood rendered the effort vain. Strange wild images rose up before his eyes. Fiends and foul shapes where grinning at him in the air. Fire seemed circling through his veins, and burning his heart; he talked; with no one to hear--he raved--he struggled--and then came a long term of perfect forgetfulness, at the end of which he woke as from a profound sleep.

He was weak as a child, and his ideas of the past were but faint and confused. The first thing, however, that returned to memory was the image of his cell, and he cast his heavy eyes around, in search of the bolts, and bars, and grated windows; but no such things were near. He was in a small but handsome room, with the open lattice admitting the breath of many flowers, and by his side sat an old and reverend dame, whom he had never seen before. A few faint but coherent words, and the light of intelligence re-awakened in his eye, showed the nurse, for such she was, that the fever had left him, and going out of the chamber, she returned with a soldier-like man, whom St. Maurice at once remembered as the old Count de Belin, who had arrested him at Bourg. Many words of comfort and solace were spoken by the old soldier, but St. Maurice was forbidden to utter a syllable, or ask a question, for several days. A physician, too, with grave and solemn face, visited him twice each day, and gave manifold cautions and warnings as to his treatment, which the young gentleman began soon to think unnecessary, as the firm calm pulse of health grew fuller and fuller in his frame. At length one day, as he lay somewhat weary of restraint, the door opened, and Henry IV. himself stood by his bed-side. "New, faith, my good young Count," said the monarch, "I had a hearty mind to keep you to silence and thin bouillon for some days longer, to punish certain rash words spoken in the Bastile, casting a stigma upon royal gratitude for leaving faithful friends, who had lost all in our behalf, to poverty and want. But I have lately heard all your story, and more of it than you thought I ever would hear; and therefore, though I shall take care that there be no more reproaches against my gratitude, as a punishment for your crimes, I shall sell you as a slave for ever. Come hither, sweet taskmaster," he added, raising his voice, "and be sure you do all that woman can--and that is no small power--to tease this youth through all his life to come."

As the King spoke, the flutter of a woman's robe--the bright, dear eyes--the sweet, all-graceful form,--the bland glad smile of her he loved, burst upon the young soldier's sight; and she, forgetting fear, timidity, the presence of royalty--all, all but love, sprang forward at once, and bedewed his bosom with her happy tears.

SAINT RADIGONDE.

It was fair-time when we arrived at Poitiers, and twelve o'clock at night, so that we had some difficulty in getting beds; but going into the kitchen, by dint of a little love, and a great deal of civility, I prevailed upon the chambermaid to give us two which had been reserved for a couple of gentlemen expected from Tours.

When I returned to the hall I found my friend with two Frenchmen, Now, under all circumstances, an Englishman generally keeps the distance of two yards between him and a stranger; but as I had determined to go through the world precisely as I would do through a menagerie, and to see all the strange beasts that are in it, I approximated myself, in general, to all those whom Heaven threw in my way. The two Frenchmen were waiting for supper, and so were we; therefore without more ado we all sat down together, and as I much wished to find out the famous field of Poitiers, I soon began to ask a great many questions. But they knew nothing about it. They had never heard of it; and they had lived in the neighbourhood for years, so that they were sure the battle I spoke of could not have happened in their day. "Most probably not," said I. "It must have been before the revolution," said the other Frenchman, who was a good, fat, substantial farmer, come into the town to buy and sell at the fair. "But as Monsieur was fond of curious things," he added, "he ought by all means to see the church of St. Radigonde, where the mark of the Saviour's foot was still to be beheld." And he set to tell me how it happened, and all about it. His story was somewhat after his own fashion, it is true, but it is not a whit the worse for that. "Saint Radigonde," he said, "was a Catholic, and the sister of _Clovis_; who was father to _Henri Quatre_." "I thought that they were more distantly related," said I. But he stuck to his biography, and continued. "Well, Clovis was a very warlike monarch as well as his son, and being engaged in a most tremendous battle, he sent to his sister to desire her prayers, which she very readily granted him; and while thus piously engaged, our Saviour appeared to her and promised her the victory for her brother, leaving the mark of his foot in the marble.

"Clovis triumphed over his enemy, and so great was his gratitude for this manifest interference of Heaven in his favour, that he instantly became a sincere Catholic. For you know," said the narrator, "that before that time he was a _Protestant_."

"I have heard," replied I, "that he was a Pagan."

"A Pagan or a Protestant," said he, "it is all the same thing."

I was well pleased with any absurdity. The memory of more poignant griefs had worn away so far as to permit my feeling amused with many things--pleasure I derived from but few! Under the attack of very severe griefs, imagination is the first of the mind's soldiers that yields or revolts to the enemy; but, as those griefs pass on, leaving us conquered, imagination, is the first to return to console us. Grief, when it grows fanciful, is in its first stage of amelioration. Then comes the power of laughing long before we learn again to enjoy.

THE CURIOSITIES.

I am as fond of seeing curiosities as any other grown child that ever existed; and as my companion was of the same mind as myself, the first thing we did the morning after our arrival at Poitiers, was to visit the ruins of the amphitheatre; which are very little worth seeing, except to those who love ruins for their own sake. The arena is filled up with gardens, and though the whole site is perfectly well marked out, but little of the walls exist at present. It was the son of the proprietor who showed us over the spot. He might be an idiot, or he might not, but he gave us no information, and kept grinning at us, and listening to our foreign dialect with evident marks of horror and astonishment. On our departure he followed us into the street, and still kept staring in our faces, till my friend appealed to my better knowledge of France to ascertain what he wanted. I answered, "_A franc_." My companion was incredulous, but I put my hand in my pocket, and drawing one out, I begged the young gentleman to give it to "_la domestique_." He took it immediately, with great satisfaction, and whether the servant ever received it or not, is between her young master and herself.

We went to the church of St. Radigonde too. It is really singular how prone the human mind is to lend itself to every sort of absurdity. We are made of odd clay certainly, of so soft a temper in our youth, that it takes the first form it happens to find, and then hardening there, would sooner break than quit it. There were a dozen old women at the church door, who make a livelihood by fixing themselves in the suite of Saint Radigonde, and we were instantly assailed by _la bonne Ste. Radigonde prie pour vous_, together with much counting of rosaries, and all the rest of Catholic begging. On entering the church we found an iron grating with a fine figure of the saint, dressed in a blue cloak powdered with _fleurs de lys_, not at all unlike one of the figures placed at the head of a ship. There, too, was what they are pleased to call the foot-mark of our Saviour, covered with some bars of iron, and an inscription above, to give authority to the falsehood. Round about it were scattered several pieces of money, from a sous to a franc, which my companion, in his fisherman's slang termed ground-bait.

Farther on is the tomb of the saint, with a silver lamp ever burning, the gift of Anne of Austria, in gratitude for the restored health of Louis XIV. after his illness at Metz, which the Queen attributes entirely to Saint Radigonde. In imitation of this royal credulity, multitudes of persons affected with various maladies have hung up at the shrine little effigies of the afflicted parts, modelled in wax: so that there are enough of waxen legs and arms to furnish the largest doll-shop in Europe. Passing through a low arch, we descended by a few steps to the sort of vault in which lies the stone coffin, supposed to contain the body of Saint Radigonde. This, the pious take care to adorn with large tapers, much to the gratification of the priests and the wax-chandlers.

THE BOTTLE OF SAUTERN.

Benedetto Quel claretto Che si spilla in Avignone.--BACCO IN TOSCANA.

We were tired with our ramble, for besides the amphitheatre and Saint Radigonde, we had been to the cathedral and the promenades, and had walked for two or three miles along the road towards Paris, to see the beautiful rocky scenery which flanks the entrance to the town, and which we had passed the night before by moonlight. Finding that we could actually eat no dinner at the inn, (they were all so occupied with the people of the fair,)we strolled out to a restaurateur's in the neighbourhood, before the door of whose house a woman, with a voice like a Stentor, and a face like Baron G----, was singing the acts of our Saviour, in a sort of little booth covered all over with gospel pictures, which the man who played the accompaniment pointed out with his fiddlestick, one by one, as she came to them in her song.

We went into the _restaurant_, and notwithstanding the multitude of the fair, met with a very good dinner, composed of heaven knows what. There is no use of inquiring into these things.

After dinner we ordered a bottle of Sautern, which was marked in the _carte_ at _two francs ten sous_. It was in a kind of despair that we did it, for the red wine was worth nothing. It came.--People may talk of Hocheim, and Burgundy, and Hermitage, and all the wines that ever the Rhone or the Rhine produced, but never was there wine like that one bottle of _Sautern_. It poured, out as clear as the stream of hope ere it has been muddied by disappointment, and it was as soft and generous as early joy ere youth finds out its fallacy. We drank it slowly, and lingered over the last glass, as if we had a presentiment that we should never meet with anything like it again. When it was done, quite done, we ordered another bottle. But no--it was not the same wine. We sent it away, and we had another--in vain--and another--there was no more of it to be had.

It was like one of those days of pure unsophisticated happiness, that sometimes break in upon life, and leave nothing to be desired; that comes unexpectedly--last their own brief space, like things apart--and are remembered for ever.

THE FIELD OF POITIERS.

"It is very strange," said I, "that no one can tell me where it lies."

But I forgot that the French, very wisely, never remember the battles they lose: and as here their kingdom was overthrown, and its king taken prisoner, they of course made the more haste to forget it. So I desired my guide to conduct me to the Pierre Levée, and resolved to seek the field of battle myself.

It is simply a Celtic monument, the Pierre Levée, and is only curious from its insulated situation; but as I always like to have the best information going, I asked the guide what he thought of it.

Common people have two ways of disposing of things that they would not else know what to do with. If they want to send them away, they send them to the devil; if they do not know where they come from, they bring them from heaven. This latter was the case with my guide and the Pierre Levée; so he told me, that it dropped from the skies four hundred thousand years ago.

As _this_ is a more probable account than any I have read or heard of, concerning these Celtic monuments; and as it fixes the date precisely, I feel myself bound not to withhold it from the world.

I sought the field of battle by myself, and a long and weary search it was. No one could give me any account of it, and many had never heard of any battle there at all. There was a spot struck me at length, as offering the most probable position. I pitched the Black Prince's camp on a small rising ground, and disposed King John's army round about him, so that he could not escape. There was a wood that covered the archers, just in front; and a wide open space, having the advantage of the field, which I filled up with horse. Then there was a body of strong men at arms resting on the village below, flanked by the spears of the guard; and down between the English and the river, was the whole division of Ribemont and Clermont. I drew it out in my own mind as clearly as possible. It was as fine a battle as ever was seen; and I set my heart upon its being just there.

There was a group of peasants playing at the door of a grange, and as I saw one whose face I liked. I went up and asked him whether there had not once been a famous battle there. But he made me half angry by telling me, "No, that it was farther on." He overthrew all my host, as completely as Edward did that of France. "Tenez, monsieur," said he "you see that high tree in the distance; if you walk straight towards it, about a quarter of a league on this side, you will find a heap of large stones which we call _les pierres brunes_. You are then on the field of battle." I asked if he was sure. "He was certain," he said, "for that he had ploughed there often; and many a large bone, and rusty piece of armour, had he turned up with the ploughshare."

They were almost the words of Virgil.

"Scilicet et tempus veniet cum finibus illis Agricola, incurvo terram molitus aratro, Exesa inveniet scabrâ rubigine pila, Aut gravibus rastris galeas pulsabit inanes, Grandiaque effossis mirabitur ossa sepulcris."

I followed the peasant's directions, and found myself certainly in the midst of that field, where the few struggled against the many, and conquered--where the mild warrior received his fallen enemy as a brother, and taught him, if not to forget, to bear his captivity. Were there many such adversaries, mankind would blush to draw a sword.

And it was here, that there were deeds of valour and of strength; of cruelty and generosity, and fury and calmness; of inconsiderate daring and cool calculating wisdom, and all that sum of good and evil which buys the bauble glory.

And for what did they bleed? For what did they fall?--the heroes of that splendid field of carnage?--to be forgotten! To have their bones turned up and ground by the iron of the plough, and their unhonoured dust trodden by the peasant's heel. The knight's sword rusting in peace beside his enemy's corslet, and the ashes of the coward and the brave amicably mingling in their native earth. To be forgotten! Their very burial-place unknown, but to the hind whose ground they fattened with their blood, and the pale antiquary who rakes amongst their bones for something ancient! The deeds that, even in dying, they fondly fancied would be immortal, overwhelmed beneath the lumber of history, or blotted out by fresher comments on the same bloody theme! The names they thought engraved deep in the column of Fame, erased by Time's sure destroying hand! The thrones they fought for and the realms they won, past unto other dynasties; and all the object of their mighty daring as unachieved as if they had not been!

Such is the history of every field of battle.[7]

[Footnote 7: I have left the above passage exactly as it was written many years ago, though I perceive that the same ideas have returned to me in writing another work, and have clothed themselves in very nearly the same language. I did not perceive the fact till one work was printed and the other in the press; but the accident was sufficiently interesting to me to leave the passage here, where I could blot it out.]

THE DILIGENCE.

By this time we had given up the system of posting, A man who does not travel in the diligence loses one half of what he ought to see. From Poitiers to Angoulême, we had two places in the _coupée_, or front part. Our companion was a tall, good-looking man, who at first did not make any great show of politeness. He had been a military man, and perhaps took us for what French soldiers were accustomed to call Pekins.

Marshal ---- once being invited to dine with Talleyrand, was much after the hour appointed.

"We have waited for you, sir," said Talleyrand, on his arrival. The marshal said he could not help it, that he had been detained by a Pekin, just as he was going out.

"What do you call a Pekin?" asked the statesman.

"Nous appelons Pekin," replied the marshal, "tout ce qui n'est pas militaire."

"C'est comme nous," said Talleyrand coolly: "nous appelons militaire, tout ce qui n'est pas civil."

Our companion, however, soon fell into conversation. It is a bait that Frenchmen cannot resist; and now he was polite and agreeable as he had at first been repulsive; but when he found that I was not only acquainted with many persons he himself knew, but was also fond of all field sports, his civility knew no bounds. Nothing would satisfy him but a promise that we would visit him at M----, where he was receiver-general: and there he would give us inexhaustible amusement both in hunting and shooting. Pardon me, my dear Count, if this ever falls into your hands; but when you can be so amiable a companion as you afterwards proved, you ought never to repel a poor stranger, who lies at your mercy for the comfort of a long journey.

We stayed but a day at Angoulême. Indeed there is nothing beautiful in the town, except the view from the height on which it is placed; and nothing amusing, except the marine school, which, the government have placed here, in the most inland position they could find.

On the arrival of the diligence, which was to carry us to Bordeaux, we found that all the places were taken but four, I forget who was in the _coupèe_: in the centre there was the strangest mixture that can be imagined. There appeared a Bordeaux merchant, three nuns, a libertine officer of dragoons, and two pointer dogs his companions.

In the _rotonde_ with us were the keeper of the _bureau des diligences_ (or stage-coach-office) and his daughter. If any were to draw her picture from the same class in England, how much mistaken they would be! She was everything that youth, and beauty, and simple elegance, could make her. Set her in a drawing-room and call her a princess, and there was nothing in her manners would give the lie to the appellation. She had never before been from her home, and was now going to see the great fair at Bordeaux; and she was full of the eagerness of youth, curiosity, and inexperience: but there was no inelegance about it: her sensations were always gracefully expressed, and seemed to amuse her as much as any one else.

As the sun rose next morning and shone in at the window of the diligence, the light fell upon her fair face and braided dark hair, as she lay asleep upon the shoulder of her father, who gazed upon her closed eyes and motionless features with that peculiar look of soft affection alone to be seen in the face of a parent. It was as lovely a picture as I ever saw. He caught my eyes fixed upon them; but there was nothing in my look that could give offence, and he smiled, looking back upon his child once more, and saying, "Pauvre enfant!" He spoke as if he felt at once that I could enter into all his sensations. Many a man--I am afraid many of my own countrymen--would conceal such feelings, simply from the fear of being laughed at; yet surely, of all sorts of _mauvaise honte_, that is the worst which makes us ashamed of what is pure and noble, and natural and beautiful. A few more leagues brought us to Bordeaux. But as I have a story to tell, I must not pause long even to give an idea of the town in which the scene is laid. I will allow myself two pages and a half.

Bordeaux is certainly one of the handsomest towns in France., The old city, like most other old cities, is narrow and confined. The builders of that day seem to have imagined that there was not room enough in the world for them, and have therefore packed their edifices into as small a space as possible. The finest parts of the town are beyond the old walls, the line of which is still to be distinguished by the appellation of Fossé, given to the new streets, now built upon their former site. The river, being, as it were, the wet-nurse of Bordeaux, the houses have accumulated upon the bank, following the bend of the Garonne, in one of the most splendid crescents that can be conceived; and a beautiful bridge of seventeen arches, with a fine simple triumphal gate, at the end of the Rue des Salinières, adds not a little to the beauty of the scene.

The town is formed, in general, of a light kind of stone, very easily worked, which, perhaps, is one cause why the private hotels and principal streets are so magnificently decorated in the upper stories--but it is in the upper stories alone, for the ground-floor is generally occupied by petty ill-contrived shops, and never by any means harmonizes with the higher parts of the building. I have seen the lower story of a princely habitation tenanted by a cobler, and a small pastry-cook's dirty shop below one of the finest houses in Bordeaux.

The theatre, too, which is a very superb piece of architecture, has its arcades crammed full of book-stalls and old-clothes shops. In short, the incongruity which mingles more or less in everything French, shows itself nowhere more strongly than in the buildings of this town, certainly one of the most beautiful in France.

Bordeaux occupies a much larger space than is absolutely necessary for its population. Long rows of trees, planted in the finest streets, magnificent public gardens, and promenades, now fill the ground, which in the city's earlier days would have been piled up with story above story, and warehouse over warehouse, till earth groaned under the load. But luxury follows commerce, and the great merchants of Bordeaux must have room to breathe; this, however, is not without its consequence,--the extent of the city makes it fatiguing to walk from one end to the other. As Doctor Pangloss would have said, "Men were made to be carried; in this best of all possible worlds, and therefore we have carriages." Now, those who have none of their own, are plentifully provided with _fiacres_, which are generally far superior to those of either London or Paris.

The cathedral is a fine gothic building, the towers, of which make a beautiful object in the view, when seen from the heights beyond the town, but in point of architecture it is far inferior to many others in France.

Bordeaux is highly susceptible of embellishment, which, indeed, it receives every day in the greatest degree. Formerly, between the _Quai des Chartrons_ and the _Chapeau Rouge_, stood a sort of citadel, called the _Château Trompette_. This has been thrown down since the peace, and the site, together with the glacis, has been levelled and portioned out for new buildings and promenades. Many a tale, however, is told in Bordeaux of the old citades, and amongst others one of a MISER'S STEP-SON.

When the army of the Duke of Wellington was marching upon Toulouse, a deputation was sent to him from the royalists of Bordeaux, promising that if he would detach a small force in that direction, the town should be given up to him for the king. Immediately Rumour, with her thousand tongues, sent about the town all manner of reports: lying here, and lying there, till she frightened all the peaceable inhabitants out of their wits. The commandant of the Château Trompette was resolved (they said) to defend it, for Napoleon, to the last; and there he lay, with a formidable force, keeping the tri-coloured flag flying continually, and threatening to turn his cannon on the town if it submitted to the English. On the other hand, came the news that the British and Spanish forces were marching upon Bordeaux, and that their general threatened, if a shot was fired in its defence, to give the town up to the fury of the soldiers; and immediately, murder, assassination, pillage, and rapine, got into all the old women's heads in the place; and nothing was thought of by every one of them but to find some hole in which to hide their daughters and their money, till the storm had blown over.

There was at that time living at Bordeaux, an old Welsh lady of the name of Jones; and, like Jephtha, judge of Israel, she was blessed with one fair daughter whom she loved passing well. She had continued to live on in France, through peace and war, without minding any one; and, as she said, had never been frightened at any thing, since her poor dear husband's death, till she heard that the English and Spaniards were going to take Bordeaux by 'sault.[8] For the Spaniards, she understood, were voracious savages; as to the English, she did not mind them.

[Footnote 8: She told me the story herself, heaven rest her soul! and I use her own phraseology as nearly as a faulty memory will permit.]

At the time of the French revolution, old monasteries were to be sold for an old song, and nunneries were to be had for the having. Thus it so happened, that in those days, Monsieur Emanuel Latouche (who had once been a Jew, and had become professionally a Christian, though he was strongly suspected of being of no religion at all,) had acquired, under a revolutionary sale, the property of the convent which lay on the one side of the Rue de l'Intendance, and the monastery which lay on the other. Now Monsieur Emanuel Latouche, for reasons best known to himself, espoused a certain French lady; his marriage with whom appeared to be the proximate cause of his Christianization; and having imbibed her fortune and bought the buildings aforesaid, he set up as a great dealer in marine stores. After a certain period of connubial felicity, the lady died; and left to the care and guidance of Emanuel Latouche, a certain remnant of herself, called a son, which she had had by a former marriage; and, as Monsieur Latouche was reputed to cheat all the world, he was by no means so inconsistent as not to cheat his own step-son, at least so it was generally supposed. Finding that it would be a much better speculation to let the monastery aforesaid, he prevailed upon old Mrs. Jones, whom we have heretofore mentioned, to take a great part of it, assuring her, as a further inducement, that, in case she should in future have any thing to hide, he could show her a place in that very house which would never be discovered by the keenest eyes.

It is not known whether Mrs. Jones was biassed by this information or not; but, however, she took up her abode in that part of the monastery which looks down on the Marché St. Dominique on the one hand, and on the Theâtre Français on the other; and Monsieur Emanuel Latouche, with his step-son, continued to live in the old convent on the other side of the Rue de l'Intendance. It was by these means that an intimacy first took place between pretty Lucy Jones and Edward Fontange, the step-son of Monsieur Emanuel Latouche.

There can be no doubt, since Horace says it, that the best plan is to begin in the middle of a story; but there is, notwithstanding, some trouble in working up one's lee way. Being arrived at the point we have now reached, however, all the rest is simple. Having put a handsome young man and a pretty girl together, what in the name of Heaven can they do but fall in love with each other? It is what they always do in novels, and poems, and plays, and I am afraid in real life too, for propinquity is a terrible thing; and, for my own part, I am a firm believer in animal magnetism, that is to say, as far as attraction and repulsion go. However that may be, Edward Fontange and Lucy Jones tried very hard to fall in love with each other, and, after a short time, succeeded to a miracle; so much so, indeed, that Mrs. Jones, perceiving what was going on, thought fit to speak to M. Latouche upon the subject, desiring to know if he intended to take his step-son into business with him; in which case she should not scruple, (she said,) to give him her daughter.

But M. Latouche informed her that he should do no such thing, that his step-son was no better than a beggar, whom he had educated out of affection for his dearly beloved wife deceased, and that, further, he would not give him a farthing, or do anything else for him in the world; whereupon Mrs. Jones quarrelled with Monsieur Emanuel Latouche, called him a miserly old curmudgeon; and, going home, turned young Fontange out of her house, and bade her daughter Lucy think no more of the young vagabond.

Now love being, as Mrs. Jones herself admitted, no better than a pig, the best way of making him go on is to pull him back by the hind-leg; and, consequently, Lucy Jones, who was the most obedient creature in the world, thought more than ever of Edward Fontange, saw him on every occasion that she could contrive, and, it is supposed, let him now and then take a stray kiss, without saying any thing but "Don't," which he, being a Frenchman, did not at all understand.

It was at this time that the Duke of Wellington's army crossed the Pyrenees; and fear took possession of Mrs. Jones, who was not only terrified for her daughter Lucy, but also for certain sums of money, which she had kept long under lock and key. What was to be done? She puzzled a long time; but, in a moment, the words of Monsieur Emanuel Latouche came to her remembrance. He could show her (he had said) a place in that very house which would never be discovered by the keenest eyes; and as she thought of it, her hopes became exalted; she seized a candle from the table, without saying a word, and rushed into the cellar. For where could it be, she asked herself, but in the cellar? Lucy, who beheld her mother so suddenly seized with the spirit of locomotion, naturally imagined she was mad, and followed her as fast as she could. Her first supposition appeared confirmed, when entering the cellar, she found her mother gazing fixedly upon a small iron cross in the wall. "There it is, sure enough," cried Mrs. Jones; "there it is!"

"Are you out of your senses, mama?" demanded Lucy, respectfully; "are you mad? There's what?"

"Why the terraqueous suppository, girl," answered Mrs. Jones, who had forgotten a considerable portion of her English during her residence in France. "The terraqueous suppository, which that old curmudgeon, Latouche, told me of when he attrapped me into taking this old conventicle."

"I do not see any repository at all," said Lucy; "I see nothing but the cellar wall and an iron stancheon to keep it up."

"Nonsense," said Mrs. Jones, "I'll have a mason this minute, and get to the bottom of it." So away she ran and brought a mason; but the first thing was to make him keep secresy; and having conducted him in pomp to the cellar, she shut the door, and made her daughter Lucy give him the Bible. "Swear!" said Mrs. Jones, in a solemn tone, like the Ghost in Hamlet--"Swear!"

The mason held up his hand.

"Swear never to reveal," etc. etc.

"_Je jure tout ce que vous voudrez_--I swear any thing you like," replied the mason; and Mrs. Jones, finding this oath quite comprehensive enough, set him forthwith to work upon the wall just under the iron cross; when, to the triumph of Mrs. Jones and the astonishment of Lucy and the mason, a strong plated door was soon discovered, which readily yielded them admission into a small chamber only ventilated by a round hole, which seemed to pass through the walls of the building and mount upwards to the outer air. Nothing else was to be found. The rubbish was then nicely cleared away, a chair and a table brought down, and the mason paid and sent about his business; when, after having looked in the dark to see that there were no sparks, for the chamber was all of wood, Mrs. Jones and her daughter mounted to upper air, and retired to bed, not to sleep, but to meditate over the _convent subterranean_.

It was about the middle of the next day that an officious neighbour came in to tell Mrs. Jones that the British forces were approaching the town. "There could be no danger," he said; "but nevertheless the tricolored flag still flew on the walls of the Château Trompette, and Lord Wellington had sworn he would deliver the town to the soldiery if there was a shot fired. It was very foolish to be afraid," he said, trembling every limb, "but the people were flying in all directions, and he should leave the town too, for he had no idea of being bayonetted by the Spaniards."

"Let us shut the street-door," said Lucy, as soon as he was gone, "and all go down together to the hole in the wall, and when it's all over we can come out."

"No," replied Mrs. Jones; "you, Lucy, and the maid, shall go down; but I will stop here, and take care of my property; perhaps I may be able to modulate their barbarosity."

"Lord, ma'am!" cried the maid, "you'll be killed--you'll be ill-treated."

Mrs. Jones replied, very coolly, that they never would think of killing an old woman like her, who had but a few years to live, and she was not afraid of anything else.

The maid then vowed if her mistress remained she would stay with her, and the tears rolled, down her cheeks at the idea her self-devotion. Lucy said, very quietly, that she also would stay with her mother. But Mrs. Jones would not hear of it, finding her daughter very much resolved to do as she said, she had recourse to a violent passion, which was aided by the noise of a drum in the street, and seizing Lucy by the arm, she snatched up the box that held her money, carried them both down stairs to the cellar, and pushing them into the dark chamber, shut the door with a bang; after which, she returned to the maid, for whose safety she had not the same maternal regard, and waited the event with "indomptible" fortitude.

In the mean time Lucy remained in the dark. The first thing she did, was to feel about for the chair, and sitting, down, she had a good opportunity of crying to her heart's content. She was still engaged in this agreeable occupation, when she heard a knocking as if somebody wished to come in. Lucy wiped her eyes and listened. It could not be her mother--she would have come in at once without any such ceremony; besides, it did not seem to come from that side. Lucy listened again; the knocking continued, but evidently came from the opposite part of the chamber, and appeared not so near as the cellar. Lucy now got upon her feet, trembling as if she had the palsy, and began to approach the sound. She knocked over the table, and almost fainted with the noise; she picked up the table and knocked over the chair, and then again, _vice versâ_, stopping awhile between each to take breath.

Having arranged all that, she tumbled over her mother's money-box, broke her shins, and hopped about the room on one foot with the pain for full five minutes; then not being able to find the chair, she leaned against the wainscot for support; but the wainscot gave way. with a crack as if it moved on hinges, and she had almost fallen headlong into another room as dark as the first.

Lucy now doubted whether she ought to be most surprised or frightened, but fright had decidedly the majority when she heard something move in this same dark chamber on the opposite side to that by which she herself had entered. Now Lucy, though she had never studied modern tactics was possessed of many of those principles which are supposed to constitute a good general, and in the present instance, not having an opportunity of reconnoitring her ground, and finding her forces totally inadequate to meeting an adversary of any kind, she resolved upon making a retreat under cover of darkness, but unfortunately she had neglected to observe which way she had advanced, and for a moment could not find the entrance into the other chamber. The noise which she had at first heard of something moving, increased; she became more and more bewildered, ran this way and that, till--ugh! she ran against something soft and warm, which caught fast hold of her, and in this interesting position she fainted. What could she do else?

O ye bards and "romanciers," give me some delicate description of a young lady recovering from a fainting fit! But no--when Lucy opened her eyes, she found herself sitting in the manner that European young ladies and gentlemen generally sit, with an engaging youth, no other than Edward Fontange, sitting beside her in mute despair, and from time to time, fanning her face with the tails of his coat, while a lamp, with its accompanying phosphorus-box, stood by with its dim light, showing in more gloomy horrors the walls of a dark vault, which, to the terrified eyes of Lucy, seemed interminable.

Forgetting all the "ohs!" and the "ahs!" of the two lovers, together with question and answer without end, be it briefly stated, that Edward Fontange had never contrived to forget Lucy Jones; and always remembering that it was his want of fortune which had broken his love-dream, he incessantly meditated the means of remedying that wherein fate had wronged him. But all ordinary plans demanded years, long years, to perfect, and love would brook no delay. He had heard, however, of hidden treasures, and of monks who had concealed immense sums during the revolution, and he bethought him of searching the cellars of the old convent where he lived, without ever dreaming that he should there, find a subterranean communication with the dwelling of his Lucy. Upon his first examination, he was struck, like Mrs. Jones, by an iron cross in the wall, and resolved, like her, to come to the bottom of it the first opportunity.

The first opportunity arrived with the arrival of the British troops, for his good step-father, not having the most courageous disposition, flew instantly to the country with his wealth, and left Edward to take care of the house. No sooner was he gone, than poor Edward descended to the cellar, and with a good pick-axe and a strong arm, set to work upon the cellar-wall. He soon, like Mrs. Jones, discovered a door, and a small chamber exactly similar to her's. Examining this more closely than she had done, he soon found his way to an extensive vault, and on narrowly viewing the walls with his lamp, he discovered another iron cross, smaller than the former. Here he set to work again with his pick-axe, when suddenly he thought he heard a noise as if something fell. He listened, and hearing it again, he blew out his lamp for fear of an intruder. Two or three subsequent clatters succeeded, then a creak as if of an opening door, and immediately after, he clearly heard some one move and breathe in the vault.

Whether it was curiosity, or one of those odd presentiments that sometimes come over us, or any other of the many motives by which we may conceive a man in such circumstances to be actuated, does not matter, but his prudence left him: he advanced to find out what it was that produced the noise; got hold of a woman's gown, and in a minute after, had his own fair Lucy fainting in his arms. As may be supposed, he lighted his lamp, and, on finding who it was, went through all the stages of surprises; consternation, and anxiety, He then tried several ways of bringing her to herself, amongst which was kissing her more than once, but that did not answer at all, for the more he kissed her the more dead she seemed to be. But at length, as I have said, after a reasonable time, she opened her eyes, and then she had violent fits of astonishment, etc., which were calmed and appeased by hearing an account very similar to that which has just been recited.

Lucy had no curiosity at all, she cared for nobody's affairs but her own; nevertheless, simply out of affection for Edward, she insisted on his going on with his researches under the little iron cross in the wall while she was present. She would not have it delayed a moment, and looked on as if she had been the most curious person in the world. Edward worked away. The wall was soon demolished, and behind it appeared no door, but a small cavity and a small wooden chest.

"Here it is! here it is!" cried Edward, in a transport of joy, taking it out and setting it on the ground. "Lucy, dear Lucy, you are mine at last. I would give nothing for the treasure if my dear Lucy did not share it."

Lucy could do nothing but cry, for the generosity of her lover's sentiments left her no other answer. However, she took the lamp and both knelt down to look what was written on the top, when, O horror! the only word which met their view was "Reliques." Edward, gazed on Lucy, and Lucy looked at Edward without saying anything.

"Well, let us see, at all events," said Edward at last, and taking up the pick-axe he very soon opened the case, when sure enough nothing presented itself but old bones and mouldering scraps of linen. "Sacre blue!" cried Edward. Lucy said nothing, but she thought, the same.

"Hark!" cried her lover, "there is your mother."

But no, they listened--there was nobody; and they again turned to gaze upon the box.

"Lucy," said Edward, "I am very unfortunate to lose you again in this manner."

"You do not lose me, Edward," said Lucy; "do you think it is money I care about."

Edward caught her to his breast, held her there a moment, then starting back, much to Lucy's surprise, "It's all nonsense," cried he, "old bones could never be so heavy." Then down he went upon his knees, and away with the relics; the first tier was bones, and the second tier was bones, but the third was of bright shining Louis d'ors, and Edward starting up, caught Lucy in his arms and kissed and re-kissed her till he had almost smothered the poor girl.

The next thing was, what was to be done with the money, for though Edward believed himself to be the legitimate owner thereof, yet he had some twinges as to its being found in the premises of his step-father; at length, after many pros and cons, "Go you back, Lucy," said her lover, "to the room where you were, and be not afraid, for there is no danger to the town or any one in it: for my part, I'll take the money and away to M. G----r, who was a good friend to my poor mother; he is the soul of honour, and will tell me what I can do honourably;--one more kiss, and then good-bye, but say nothing to anybody of what has happened till you hear from me."

It was two days after this that Monsieur Emanuel Latouche paid a visit to Mrs. Jones, for the apparent purpose of congratulating her upon the quiet and peaceable state of the town, but in reality to inform her that his scapegrace step-son had found a treasure in his cellar and run away with the same; "but," said Emanuel, "I will make him refund every sous, or send him to the galleys for a robber."

"Surely," said Mrs. Jones, "you would never think of sending your wife's child to the galleys, Monsieur Latouche!"

"I would send my own father," replied Emanuel. As he spoke, the door opened, and in walked no other than Edward Fontange and his mother's friend Monsieur G----.

Now Emanuel Latouche looked rather blank to see this accompaniment to the tune of his step-son, but thinking it probably best to attack rather than be attacked, he began upon poor Edward in most merciless terms, reproaching him with ingratitude, threatening him with the galleys, and asking him, if the house where he found the treasure was not his.

"I think not," replied Monsieur G---- to this last question--"I think not, Monsieur Latouche; it certainly is not, if you bought that house with the money of that young man's mother which was left to him at her death: take my advice, be content with what you have, for I am not very sure that if this matter were investigated, you yourself might not find your way to the galleys instead of sending him there."

There was something in the tone of Monsieur G---- that wonderfully calmed Emanuel Latouche, who at first had been inclined to fight it out strongly, but upon second thoughts; he swore he was ill treated--very much ill treated; but as "sufferance was the badge of all his tribe," he walked out of the room, grumbling as he went. And as for the rest--why, "Hey, for the wedding!"

A PARTY OF PLEASURE.

Every one knows that there is a vast tract of barren sand, called by the French people Landes, which, skirting the Bay of Biscay, extends for many hundred miles, from the mouth of the Gironde into the Spanish province of Biscay. The breadth of this sandy zone is from twenty to a hundred miles, all of which is wild, sterile, and desolate, the only relief to the bleakness of these moors being the shadow of several vast forests of pine, which have been planted at different times in the patriotic hope of winning the desert into cultivation. Such a tract is, of course, thinly peopled, but still it is so in a degree, and there are even to be found spots of luxuriant fertility, first cousins to the oasis of Ammon _côte de la mer_. One of the wildest parts, however, lies between Bordeaux and a little fishing town called La Teste, situated on the edge of the "Basin d'Arcachon," a large inlet from the Bay of Biscay, to which it is joined by a narrow channel of some leagues in length.

It had long been my wish to explore these Landes, and at length an advertisement appearing in one of the papers that a diligence would go to La Teste one day in the Christmas week, I instantly caught at the idea, and my travelling companion, a M. de B----, and myself, engaged places in this conveyance under the idea of seeing the Landes at our ease. However, one of the party cried off the night before, and De B---- and myself set out without him armed with a partridge-pie and a pair of pistols. The diligence was crowded with a company consisting of two Jew brokers, three pointer dogs, an exciseman, and two sportsmen, together with guns and brandy bottles, and having been drawn slowly for about two leagues through roads that would be a disgrace to the Sandwich Islands, our conductor made us get out to lighten the carriage.

The wildness of a desert now began to reign around us. Vast tracts of sand and uncultivated moor; with large, pine forests, were the only objects visible, except when a cart, exactly like a hog-trough covered with a gipsy's tent, was drawn past us by two dun oxen, while the master, stretched at his full length with his head out at the front, goaded them on with a long stick; the whole giving a very Hottentotish appearance to the scene. It also sometimes happened that we distinguished, moving across the distant sky, an elevated being, who from his long thin shanks and shapeless body, you might have taken for a large ostrich or a gigantic crane, but would never have fancied to be a human creature, until near inspection let you into all the machinery of stilts and sheepskins. Just after passing one of the forests, I was surprised to hear the first notes of Corelli's hymn to the Virgin, whistled clear and shrill in the distance; but it soon varied into a wilder air, and the musician approached us with immense strides, lifting his stilts high over every obstacle, without ever ceasing to knit a pair of stockings which he held half-finished in his hand. We wondered at his coming so near, for the Landois generally avoid all strangers, but on entering into conversation with him, we found that he had served in the army, spoke tolerable French, and was more civilized altogether than the rest of his countrymen. However, after an absence of seven years, old habits had resumed their empire; he came back to his deserts, once more mounted his stilts, and went whistling about, knitting stockings and tending sheep; as contentedly as if he had never seen fairer countries or mixed in more busy scenes.

After stopping here a minute or two, De B---- and myself walked merrily after the other travellers, who had gone on to a solitary little _auberge_ called the Croix de Hins, and on our arrival found the good woman busily engaged in slaying the cock which was to serve for our dinner. The diligence arrived half an hour after us, and having here imbibed a reasonable quantity of vinegar, by courtesy termed wine, together with garlic and other delectable savours, we once more entered our machine and again commenced our journey. I say commenced, for the diligence was never destined to finish it. About a hundred yards from the inn it plunged into a most profound rut, which, like the problem of the longitude, set all getting through it at defiance: and, in fine, after having spat, sworn, pushed, pulled, and stamped, damned the road, cursed the vehicle, and flogged the horses, the postilion informed us that he could go no farther, and was about to retread his steps towards Bordeaux.

The landlord of the _auberge_, seeing that we were poor wayfaring strangers, and most charitably wishing to take us in, was equally against our proceeding, either backwards or forwards, assuring us that we should be murdered if we went on, and frozen if we went back. The country before us, he said, was all under water, and filled with carniverous savages, who lived upon mutton and woodcocks, and if we returned it would be midnight before we arrived at Bourdi-ou, as he called it in his Gascon jargon.

All this tremendous description induced our fellow-travellers to return whence they came, but De B---- and myself, animated with the ancient spirit of chivalry, and fully prepared to encounter windmills and giants, procured a couple of guides, and proceeded on our journey on foot.

The first thing which excited my companion's attention, was the face of one of our guides, which, if it would not have furnished Salvator with a bandit, would have served Mrs. Radcliff very well for an assassin, which name we instantly bestowed upon him. De B---- pointed out to me also, that this good gentleman, with his dogged scowl and averted look, had a trick of whispering to the other guide the moment our eyes were off him, and ceased the moment we looked at him. Now as my friend had a considerable sum upon his person, which he had not thought fit to leave at his lodgings, all this made him regard the guides with a jealous eye; nor were his uncomfortable sensations at all diminished by our friend the assassin entering into conversation with us and entertaining us with a most terrific account of the robbers, murderers, troglodytes, and barbarians inhabiting the Landes. About four o'clock we came to the last house we were to meet with, and having gone in to get some refreshment, I took out one of my pistols, made the guide admire its exquisite workmanship, and boasted that I could kill a sparrow with it at twenty yards distance. This had rather an odd effect, his note was instantly changed. He told us that they were all honest people in the Landes, and swallowed all he had said before with wonderful facility.

The night was beginning to fall when we quitted this house, the country wilder and more deserted than before; and shortly after, our guide quitted every vestige of a path and led us into the depth of the forest, which consists entirely of enormous pines raising themselves singly out of the light sand, without any underwood whatever, except some scattered knots of heath, the only shrub which will grow in that ungrateful soil.

Night fell heavily without a star; we were walking up to our ancles in sand, (the most fatiguing thing one can imagine,) and on arriving at the ford of La Motte, we found it impassable from the quantity of rain which had fallen. We had now to wander along in the darkness seeking for another ford. We kept as near the river as we could, but the country was all under water, and at length the guide swore he had lost the way; he said, however, that he knew of a hut where he could get a lantern.

That a man who had lost his way, should know where to get a lantern, appeared so strange, that I now began to have serious doubts of his intentions, and insisted on his going on, following the course Of the river. After proceeding for a long and weary way, the sound of a water-mill caught my ear, and the guide running on crossed the little bridge and threw open the door of the mill. A broad glare of red light instantly burst forth upon the darkness, and the precise scene of "The Miller and his Men" presented itself in the interior. The hearth was occupied by a lighted pile of wood, fit to roast an ox, and round a table covered with dishes and immense large bottles, ten or twelve men were seated, whose rugged beards of many days' growth, dirty countenances and strange apparel, did not bespeak them of the orderly class of human beings. They had all been drinking hard, and round about were scattered carbines, pistols, and implements of all sorts that the least accorded with the peaceful trade of a miller.

Seeing that there was no retreating, I walked directly in, and though at first they did not seem well to understand the motives of our visit, the miller, who, though not drunk, was scarcely sober, came forward to speak to me. He had first, I must remark, been spoken to by our whispering guide, and now he vowed that we should stay there the night; that it was madness to go forward, the country was under water, and we had still five leagues to travel. On my expressing my intention of proceeding, he grew angry, swore, _Pardi_, I _should_ stop, and with a large oath asked what I was afraid of. I told him that I was afraid of nothing, but only intended to go on. His brow was getting more and more cloudy, but however, the guide drew him aside and spoke to him for a moment or two. What he said I do not know, but thereupon our miller snatched one of the large bottles from the table, and coming forward held out his hand to me. "_Eh bien!_" he exclaimed, "_touchez la! Nous sommes amis_." And filling a glass for himself and another for me, he knocked his hard against mine, drinking to our better acquaintance. He then opened the gate of the other bridge, and suffered us to depart in peace. Far be it from me to judge harshly of him, but I have since heard that he is generally suspected of carrying on more than one illicit trade, and all the people to whom I mentioned the subject at La Teste, did not seem to relish the idea of passing a night under his roof, though they all said he was _un brave homme! un fort brave homme!_[9]

[Footnote 9: Some circumstances were discovered afterwards in regard to a traveller for some mercantile house, who had been murdered in the Landes, which threw greater suspicion on my friend the miller, and caused him to betake himself elsewhere.]

We now recommenced our journey in utter darkness, and as we proceeded, found half the country underwater; but nevertheless, we went on, sometimes stumbling over the stumps of trees and bushes; sometimes jumping from sand-hill to sand-hill, sometimes over our ancles in sand, and sometimes up to our middles in water. I was extremely fatigued when we arrived at the mill, but now, hour after hour, and league after league, went by, and the weariness began to be insupportable. We all fell several times in the sand, from pure exhaustion. No one can have an idea of the overpowering sensation of fatigue which we experienced. My head turned giddy--all the powers of life seemed failing--and I firmly believe that another mile would have ended all; but at last we caught sight of a distant light. It gave us new courage, and with a strong effort we reached the village inn, from whence this ray of hope had proceeded. It was the last exertion I could make, and I fell into a chair by the fire without speech or motion.

But woman, gentle woman, came to my aid with the kindness of a ministering angel, although clothed in the form of a pippin-faced landlady, a cocoa-nut-headed chambermaid, and, half-a-dozen old Gascon women, who would have beaten any witch in Lapland out of the field. Blessed sleep succeeded, and I was idle enough to dream nothing all night. The morning had not long dawned, however, When I was woke by a variety of uncouth sounds in a sort of measured cadence, proceeding from before the window of the room in which I slept, and I was obliged to recollect that it was Christmas-day ere I could make anything of the noise.

But even when this was remembered, and I comprehended that the good folks of Guizan, where I then was, were singing Christmas carols, or, as they are called in France _Noels_, still the language was such a strange compound, that I had to summon all the Gascon in my brain to any aid, before I could gather anything like common sense. Let those try that like--

"Rebeillats bous, mainades Canten nadau alégremen, Lou Hillet de Marie Nous bau de saubement."

On getting up, the first thing that attracted my attention was a sight of the people's feet and legs passing by the top of the window without their bodies, the height of their stilts carrying the rest of their persons so high in air that the low window of the _auberge_ only afforded a view of half a man at a time. Be it remarked, however, that at Guizan the use of stilts is quite a work of supererogation. In the sandy parts of the Landes this contrivance is very necessary to enable the shepherds to follow their flock; but Guizan, situated upon a little oasis of extremely fertile land, by the side of Basin d'Arcachon, requires no such machinery. From the window of the _auberge_ nothing was to be seen but green meadows and vineyards, with large fields of maize; and a rose-tree growing against the house was even then, at Christmas, in full bloom. All this formed a strange contrast with the day before, when our eyes had been wearied from morning till night by the endless expanse of barren sand, or the sombre monotony of pine forests. Guizan seemed a little paradise; and The people, supposing our taste to be similar to that of Cowslip, who declares in the "Agreeable Surprise,"

"If I was a goddess, I'd have roast duck."

treated us with roast ducks for breakfast; dinner, and supper.

Here, in this secluded nook of earth, live about five hundred souls, cut off from free communication with their fellows by the broad sands on one side, and by the Bay of Biscay on the other; and yet I never saw a happier looking race. English gentlemen, it may easily be supposed, are rather rare animals in the famous city of Guizan, and, consequently, during the three days we stayed, at all our meals we had a large congregation to see the wild beasts eat. Our landlord set himself down at a small distance to tell us stories and amuse us between mouthfuls; his son and daughter lingered round with their fingers in their mouths; the pippin-faced landlady and the cocoa-nut-headed chambermaid bustled about with plates and dishes, while a whole host of Landois poked in their heads through the half-open door.

Strange to say, that amongst a people who thus crowded round two strangers with the curiosity of Esquimaux, were yet to be found a billiard-table and a ball-room--and stranger still; the village possessed both players and dancers who would not have disgraced the first city in Europe.

The original place of our destination, _La Teste_, lay at the distance of a few miles, and having procured horses and a guide, we set out the next day to pay it a visit. The way lay through a tract which seemed to consist of nothing but pathless wilds, but on looking nearer, we found that even here the careful hand of man was to be traced. The sand was in many places propped up with hurdles to give a fastening for the roots of trees; and we observed that large slips had been cut out from the bark of the various pines, to draw the turpentine, which was suffered to collect in little tanks at the foot of each tree.

Meeting with nothing at La teste particularly worthy of attention, we returned to our _auberge_ at Guizan, and it being Sunday evening, we found all the villagers assembled in the ball-room to conclude the day with a dance. It was really a delightful sight. In one corner of the room was a mountain of _sabots_ and stilts, and, in the centre, all the young people of the village were dancing in their wooden socks to the sound of a most infamous fiddle, with a degree of grace and agility that would have done credit to the opera. In the meantime, the elder persons were sitting round, holding back the children, and dandling the infants to the time of the dance. There was nothing harsh in the picture: it was all smiling good-nature and untaught native propriety of demeanour.

Our next day's trip was to explore the shores of the Basin d'Arcachon, which is a large inlet from the Bay of Biscay, of about thirty-eight leagues in circumference, joined to the main sea by a narrow channel less than a league in width. Nothing very curious presented itself, except the immense quantity of wild fowl by which the place is literally infested. The view, however, as the mist cleared away, became wild and singular. The indented shores of the bason--sometimes rising into high hills of light yellow sand, sometimes entered down to the very water's edge with large forests of black pine, over whose dark masses appeared occasionally glimpses of some far blue mountains--made up altogether a strange and sombre scene, which was not without the beauty of sublimity. Sailing on along the bason, we passed the end of a long avenue, cut in the heart of one of the deepest forests, which displayed at the extreme of its perspective a small white chapel, dedicated to _Notre Dame d'Arcachon_. This is a place of pilgrimage to which the deep-sea fishermen repair to offer up prayers for their success, before setting out on their voyage. If their fishing prove good, the Virgin probably hears no more of it, but if they meet with a bad cast, they come back and curse our Lady for her pains. We extended our excursion to the Bay of Biscay, and having enjoyed for a few minutes the contemplation of the vast unbounded ocean, we returned to Guizan, with a grand storm coming on from the north-west.

Such is an account of my first visit to that desolate tract of sand called the Landes, extending along the shores of the Bay of Biscay, from the mouth of the Gironde to Bayonne. Upon different occasions I have since crossed it in every direction; from Bordeaux to the Teste de Buch, from La Teste to Mont de Marson, and from Guizan to Bayonne.

It happened that I had once taken up my abode for a few days in one of the small cottages near the ford of Lubie, in the very heart of the Landes, where a few poor huts are huddled together, as if they sought protection, in their near companionship, against the encroaching enmity of the solitary desert. The occasion of my being there matters not to my present object--suffice it, that by a little kindness I had gained the good-will of the shrivelled old Parens and his wife, who owned the tenement, and that the said good-will had been mightily increased by a small donation of money, which, though a trifle to me, was more than they could have gained in many a month by their unprofitable occupation of gathering the resin or _goudron_ from the pines in the forest round about. From their youth to their age they had dwelt in the desolation, and withered in the solitude, of the bleak wastes that surrounded them; nor did they seem to have ever entertained a wish beyond the confines of that cheerless place, which, however solitary, however desert, had seen the birth and extinction of all their hopes and passions; had been the scene of all their cares and happiness, and was the spot where all their treasure of memory lay, now that Hope had spread her wings and fled to a world beyond.

Seldom had either of them visited Bordeaux, which they seemed to consider as the _ultima Thule_. Yet the old man was looked upon as a kind of oracle by the few Landois in the neighbourhood, many of whom were indeed the offspring of his own loins; and others, a second race beyond. But kindred was not his only right to reverence; he was learned in all the ancient superstitions of the Landes, and the depository of all the old customs and habits of his race--customs and habits always most sacred to people who live thus separate from their fellow-men.

I was often in the habit of walking out in the evening after it was dark, to enjoy that sort of perfect solitude which I had never seen but there; but I always remarked, when I made my preparations to that effect, a degree of uneasiness come over the countenance of my host, which he seemed to seek some opportunity of expressing in words. At length he ventured to remonstrate. It was dangerous, he said,--it was wrong. My first question was of course directed to ascertain in what the danger consisted. He said it was tempting Providence. The sands were full of bad spirits, and Heaven knows what might happen if they found me wandering about there alone after the sun had set and the moon had risen. The remembrance of the Arabian siltrims immediately crossed my mind, and, perhaps, caused me to smile; and the old man shook his head sadly, saying, that he had too much cause to know that such fears were just. The English, he said, being all Protestants, which he supposed meant atheists, did not believe in spirits, and that I would only laugh at him if he were to tell me all that he knew; but nevertheless, there were things which had happened not far from that spot which would make me tremble if I heard them.

My curiosity was now excited, and, giving up my walk, I begged him to tell me to what he alluded.

In reply, he told me a variety of tales, some approaching probability, some simply extravagant. But that which struck me most was the following. I give it in his own words, noted down immediately after.

---------------

THE STORY OF THE BAD SPIRIT.

Many years ago I lived at Guizan, and gained my bread as a fisherman, like most of the other inhabitants of the place. I had been married about five years, and had one child, which was the most beautiful in all the village, and my wife and I doted upon it; for it was so sweet and good-tempered that it was scarcely ever known to cry, and would play about the cottage all day without ever troubling any one. It so happened, that being out one time in a storm, my wife vowed an offering to our Lady at Arcachon, in case of my safe return; so that the next time I went upon the Basin d'Arcachon, I took her and our little girl into the boat, and sailing along the shore, I landed them just where the forest opens, and one can see the chapel of Notre Dame, at the end of the long avenue of pines. While I sailed on upon the bason (for I was not going that day to the high seas,) my wife went up to the chapel, with my little girl running by her side; and when she went in to say her prayers, she left the child playing about in the wood hard by. However, on coming out again she could not find her little girl, and was looking all round, when she suddenly heard something cry in the wood. You may judge how quick she ran, but nevertheless she was just in time, for when she came up, there was poor little Donine, lying on the ground, with her eyes almost starting out of her head, as if she had been strangled. It was a long time before her mother could bring her to herself; but when she could speak, she said that a great woman in white had come out of the wood, and had coaxed her to go along with her, but that when she got her so far from the chapel, she caught her by the throat, and squeezed her so tight that she forgot everything else till she found herself in her mother's arms. As this was evidently one of the bad spirits, we were very anxious about it; for these evil beings, when once they have resolved the destruction of any one, never quit their purpose till it is accomplished. So we got a cross which had been blessed, and tied it round Donine's neck, and bade her never to take it off, for fear of the white woman. Well, while she was young, several times when she had been out for a moment or two, after night had fallen, she would run into the cottage all panting with fear, and crying out that she had seen the white woman. But, as she grew up, we left Guizan, and came to live here, and we had three or four other children, so that the matter was forgotten. When she was about sixteen, however, she fell in company with the son of the miller at the Croix de Bury; and as she had grown up as beautiful as she was when she was a child, he persuaded his friends to come and ask her in marriage, though they were somewhat against it at first, for we were poor and they were rich; but the matter was soon settled on our part, and they were promised to each other.

One evening, a week or two before they were to be married, they went out together to a wedding at La Mothe, and he was to see her safe home at night. While they were there (as he told us afterwards,) he saw the cross hanging round her neck, and as it was of a peculiar shape, he made her take it off to let him look at it; which she did willingly enough, thinking of nothing but her lover, and having long forgotten all about the woman; so that she did not remember to get it back again. They went on dancing till it was dark, and then came away together; but before they had gone far, she asked him for the cross, and he then remembered that he had left it behind. So he said that he would run back and fetch it in a minute, if she would wait there for him; but she, fearing nothing, said she would walk on, and he would soon overtake her. Accordingly, away he went, and got the cross from the house, and ran off as hard as he could to overtake Donine. As he came into the little wood between this and La Mothe, his heart seemed to misgive him, he said, and he thought he heard some one cry; so he ran the faster, to come up with her; but suddenly his foot struck against what he thought a bush, and he fell. As he did so, his hand touched something that was smooth and soft, like a woman's cheek, and looking near, he found that it was Donine, lying senseless in the path. He called to her, but she made no answer; and taking her up in his arms, he ran with her, like a madman, till he came to our door.

The old man's voice became troubled, and his wife had been weeping silently for some time. All that I could gather further was, that Donine was gone for ever, and that her lover, reproaching himself both for having taken away the cross, and for having left her in the wood, soon fell into consumption; to which the inhabitants of the Landes are particularly subject.

"My wife and I," added the old man, "had other children, whom we loved as well as poor Donine, but he, poor fellow, had only her, and he did not remain long behind. So that the bad spirit had two victims to satisfy her instead of one."

---------------

In whatever country it has been my fate to sojourn, I have always accustomed myself to mingle with the people, and in doing so, I have observed, that a belief prevails in every part of the world, that there does exist another order of beings, distinct from the material creation.

I was one day talking over the subject with a friend who had been long in India, and his arguments as well as a tale he told me of an apparition, not unlike that which had appeared to poor Donine, though of a more beneficent character, struck me forcibly. He was in general a very still, quiet man, listening attentively, speaking little, and never entering into long discussion; but upon the first mention of a doubt regarding the existence of spirits between the mortal beings of earth and the Deity, he roused himself in a way that I had never seen before, and in the somewhat sonorous language which he always used even in his shortest speeches, poured forth opinions which were evidently the result of long and intense thought.

"In every land to which fate has conducted my footsteps," he said, amongst every nation with whom it has been my lot to sojourn, I have uniformly found a belief in the existence of intermediate beings, forming a link in the grand chain of nature, between man and the Deity, The foolish pride of philosophy, believing nought but what is brought within the immediate range of its circumscribed vision, would fain establish that the great Creator has stayed his omnipotent hand at that strange compound of spirit and matter called man; or else would seek to prove that God has only employed the grosser part of existing things, and that man himself was totally material. Analogy, however, (which is the only means of argument within our power,) totally opposes itself to both of these two theories. In regard to the last, the thousand varied forms which we every day behold, and the thousand beautiful and minute grades by which matter is led from the simple clod to the most perfect of our conceptions, proves evidently the will of the Deity to vary and employ all that which is within the immensity of his power. To admit that there is a God, is to admit that there is a spirit. I have ever held a disbelief in the existence of such a thing as a rational atheist, and if there is spirit, analogy teaches us that. God would somewhere and in some way link it with matter: as we find that every class of things are connected with each other, so that it is often difficult to distinguish the bird, the beast, the fish, and the reptile, from the approximating being in another class, so that it is even difficult to say where animation begins, and where the vegetable or mineral ceases. Thus we have every reason to suppose that the Almighty would continue the chain of his creation without a gap; and link the earthly part of man to that essence which approximates more nearly to himself. In regard to the second theory: how it has pleased Omniscience to carry on the system beyond this world, its denizens cannot hope here to know; but it is analogical to conclude, that God has not limited himself to the variations of matter, but has equally willed the existence of other classes of beings, continuing the same grand gradations throughout the whole of his sublime creation.

"It has always appeared to me, that some latent truth will ever be found in opinions, which are held by all nations. There are hidden chains of reasoning perfectly undefinable, which go on in the minds of all men, and convince them of particular facts, with a certainty beyond demonstration which no argument can overthrow, and no sophistry can materially shake. Of this nature is man's persuasion of his own existence, and of the existence of a material world. But there are also other convictions, which, though not so perfectly established, and equally incapable of proof, may be considered almost certainties by the general conclusion of all nations to that effect.

"I have just said, that in all the countries in which it has been my fate to reside, I have ever found a conviction prevail of the existence of a class of beings, (if I may use the expression), just beyond the limits of clay; in fact, our next link in the chain of existence. This belief was of course expressed under the form of a thousand superstitions, but still the foundation was the same; and as I always make it a point of sparing even prejudices, when I cannot remove them, instead of jesting at the tales which I have at different times heard upon the subject, I have always listened with attention, and given way to the feelings of those who recited them. So often has this occurred to me, and so great a wanderer have I been, that I have at present by me sufficient notes of the various vague forms which this belief takes in different countries, to compile an epitome of the superstitions of almost all nations.

"When a part of the English troops," he continued, "marched from India, to co-operate with our army in Egypt, I eagerly seized the opportunity thus offered of visiting in safety several interesting countries, which I might never again have the means of seeing. I easily obtained permission to accompany the army, and set out as upon a party of pleasure; but before our landing, I was seized with a violent fever; and all that my friend Colonel M---- could do for me, was to leave me in charge of a respectable Arab, at Cossier, while the army pursued its march towards the Nile. I need not repeat all that has been said upon Arab hospitality; it is a well known fact, that the highest degree of that virtue is to be found amongst a people, the business of whose life is rapine and plunder. But my host was of a very superior description: and having broken bread and eaten salt together, I was, as he expressed himself, his brother, and truly as a brother, did he treat me. He was a merchant, carrying on a considerable trade in gums and spices, and every year he made a journey into Egypt, where the luxury of the Mamelukes offered a ready mart for his merchandize. It wanted but a short time to his annual expedition, and when I had recovered from my illness, I was glad enough to wait a few weeks, till such time as I could cross the desert under the protection of his escort. When the time for our departure arrived, we sat out, guarded by a tribe of the Arabs of the desert, whom my friend and his companions hired as a protection to their caravan. On our journey, as there was not water wherewith to perform the ablutions prescribed by the Mahommedan religion, the dry sand of the desert was used as a substitute; and observing my host, or, as I may call him, my protector, for such indeed he was on every occasion, I remarked, that with particular prayers, he took care to bare his arms, and rub the sand from the tip of his little finger to the joint of the elbow; but what most attracted my curiosity, was the appearance of a leathern thong, serving to bind upon his arm a small leaden tablet thickly engraved with a peculiar character, which I immediately perceived to be neither Arabic nor Persian.

"During my residence in his house, that degree of intimacy had arisen between us, which warranted my asking the meaning, of what I had seen. He was a man of much simplicity of character, though possessing very considerable information; and the innumerable questions which he was in the habit of asking me relative to England and India, had induced me to inquire much into the various customs of his country, on which subject he had been uniformly frank and explicit, to a degree not common among the Arabs. On the present occasion, however, no sooner had I demanded what was the reason he wore a piece of lead bound upon his arm, after the fashion that I had seen, than I perceived the blood rising high in his dark cheek; and he replied, with no small hesitation, that it was nothing particular. My curiosity was still mere strongly excited by his reluctance to explain, and I pressed him upon the subject.

"'I know,' said he in reply, 'that the Franks are all atheists, and do not believe in the existence of spirits, therefore, Sheik----,' naming me, 'would only laugh at his brother if he were told the history of that talisman.'

"However, on my assuring him that he could not believe in spirits more fully than I did, his countenance cleared, and with the habitual piety of a Mussulman, thanking God for having enlightened me, he promised to tell me the next day the whole story of the piece of lead and its cabalistic inscription.

"About half-past one on the morning following, we began our march; and as it was uncommonly cold, my friend Abul Coumel and myself rode forward as fast as we could, leaving the caravan to follow. The plain, to the west, was bordered by high rocks of red granite, and we made all speed to reach them before daybreak, on account of the shadow which their various indentations afforded; for in that country, though the nights are chilling the extreme, no sooner does the sun rise above the horizon than the air becomes heated as by a furnace, and travelling from that moment is almost impossible. The morning was just breaking when we reached the granite mountains, and choosing a spot which afforded some shade, and at the same time commanded a view of the plain, so that we might not lose the caravan, we dismounted from our horses, and seated ourselves under the rock. Abul Coumel (as well as myself, who had by this time acquired some Arab habits), took several pieces of coarse bread from his wallet, and shared them with his horse. He then turned towards Mecca and said his prayers; after which he seated himself by me, wrapped his barrakhan around him, to keep him from any drifting sand, and proceeded with the tale connected with his talisman."

----------------

ABUL COUMEL AND HIS TALISMAN.

Truth, (said Abul Coumel) is as the waters of the Zemzem well, a gift which Allah gives to these that believe in him. I delayed to tell thee, my brother, how I became possessed of this talisman, until such time as we should be amongst these rocks, because it was here that I received it, in the manner that I am about to relate. About fifteen years ago, ere the hand of time had mingled my beard with white, I was returning from Cairo to Cossier, after having disposed of all my merchandize to Ibraham Bey, who being a careful and avaricious man, bought up all the goods which came into Egypt, and afterwards retailed them at a great profit to his less provident companions. My heart was glad, because the road to riches was before me, and I forgot the proverb, "In the midst of prosperity there is danger." Accordingly, the slow journeys of the caravan became hateful in my sight, and I lingered on the green banks of the Nile, thinking, with a swift horse, to overtake the rest of my company ere they had proceeded more than a day's journey. I was accompanied by a slave, whose horse carried the bags of water, and early in the morning we set out joyfully on our way; and as we went along the slave sang sweetly, and told many pleasant tales to beguile the time, so that the desert rang to our music and laughter. But it was thus we, forgot to make haste, and when morning broke we had not proceeded half so far as we thought to have done. The hot wind now began to blow; and to gain strength, we took a part of the water we had brought with us, and gave part to our horses, and so we proceeded; but the slave sang no more, and the desert looked the more dreary, because we were alone. We rode on for four hours longer, and then came to the summit of these hills, where we had expected to overtake the caravan; but we looked all around, to the east, and the west, the north, and the south, and not a living thing was within sight; all that we could see was a boundless sky, and a boundless plain, and dry sand, and a burning sun. However, we descended from the hills and took our way along the plain; but silence was upon our lips, for we feared to open our mouths lest we should increase the thirst we had little means to satisfy. At length, after two hours more, the slave said "Master, I thirst," and I bade him take some of the water, but to use it frugally. Nevertheless, he, seeing that I took none, was ashamed to drink before his master, so that we rode on with our thirst still unquenched; and at the end of another hour he said, "Master, I must drink, or I die." So turning round, I beheld that his face was changed, and his eyes had become like blood, and I said, "Drink, why hast thou not slackened thy thirst before?" But he answered not, and in a moment the bridle dropped from his hand, and he fell off his horse upon the sand. It was all in vain that I poured what yet remained of the water into his mouth or upon his forehead. Azraël claimed him for his own: his lips were black; and his tongue had grown dry and yellow, like the withered heart of an old sycamore tree.

Now, finding that he was dead, and that the thirst was gaining also upon me, I sucked the inside of the water bags, for there was no water in them, and mounting my horse I rode on in search of a well; and I went along the sand like lightning, for the fear of death was behind me. But no well could I find, and every instant the fire within my heart and on my lips grew more and more burning; I felt as if a serpent were eating my eyeballs; and when I looked round upon the desert and the angry sky, the world seemed all to be in flames. For another hour I rode on, and then I felt a few drops of water, for they were not tears, start out of my eyes and roll over my cheeks, burning as they went. I knew that it was the sign of death, and my heart turned sick when I thought of my own home and the pleasant shores of the Red Sea; and giving up hope, I turned towards these rocks, to find some spot where I could at least die in the shade; but ere I reached them life was forgotten, and I remembered the world no more.

What happened for some time, I know not, but at length I woke as from a deep sleep, yet so weary did I feel that I could not move hand nor foot; but I could see that I was lying at the mouth of a cave, and the large stars were shining bright in the sky. As soon as I began to move, a sweet woman's voice said, "Rest thee, brother; be thy cares at peace, for God has seen thee in the desert, and has brought thee help." And the voice was as soft and musical as the wind of heaven. So I lay still, but I could not sleep for weariness; and all through the night I saw a white figure moving round me, and every now and then it poured some cool liquor on my lips, and murmured what seemed a prayer, in a tongue that I could not understand. At length, towards morning, I fell into a sound sleep, and after a long time was wakened by some one kissing my forehead; whereupon I opened my eyes, and beheld, a woman, more beautiful than can be described. I was now strong with repose, and I rose up on my feet; but no sooner had I done so than the woman gave a great cry, and fled into the depth of the cave.

It was in vain that I called, and in vain that I sought, touching the rock all round; no one answered, and no one was to be found; and after a time I went out of the cave and found my horse feeding upon some of the rushes of the desert. I then went into the cave again, and lay down where I had been lying before, upon the bed of dry straw, thinking that the beautiful woman would come back when she thought I was asleep; but it was not so. And after having lain there some time, I heard two or three persons come into the cave, and one of them said, "Here is Abul Coumel, lying dead also." Upon which I opened my eyes, and found that it was a party of my friends, who had come back from the caravan to seek me. When I told them what had happened, at first they laughed at me, and said I had dreamed; but presently, seeing the bed of straw that had been made for me, they began to search also, but found no one, neither could they by any means discover another outlet to the cavern. At length they all determined that it must have been one of those spirits of the desert called Siltrims; but I maintained another opinion, for the Siltrims are always a malevolent and wicked race; whereas, this, by its actions, showed itself to belong to that order of genii, which were at first rebellious, but which, having submitted, are allowed to wander about the earth, doing good actions, and counteracting the efforts of the evil genii. In this I was confirmed when I came to say my prayers, for I then perceived that during the night a piece of lead had been bound round my arm, which was evidently a talisman against all bad spirits; and ever since that time, in addition to the prayers appointed by the law, I every day thank God for having sent one of these good spirits to my relief.

---------------

Such was the story told by my Indian friend; and thousands of such tales are still common in the Landes of France. The similarity of character which prevails amongst the superstitions of all countries and all nations, from Indus to the pole, may, perhaps, be the effect of tradition, more probably the effect of the universal principles of human nature, acting upon an indefinite, but no less deeply implanted conviction of the existence of another order of beings nearly approaching to ourselves in the scale of creation. While I remained in the Landes, I gathered together a great number of these stories, which were found in abundance round the Christmas fireside of our little inn at Guizan. Nothing, however, of any great interest, affecting ourselves, occurred during our farther residence in the Landes, and after staying a few days longer we procured two of the horses which are employed in carrying fish from La Teste to Bordeaux, and proceeded to the latter city, at a pace well calculated to dislocate every bone in our skins.

BOBECHE.

And in his brain, Which is as dry as the remainder biscuit After a voyage, he hath strange places crammed With observations, the which he vents In mangled forms.

Distance of time, like distance of space, gives to everything that sort of indistinctness which excites curiosity and even admiration. The deeds of our forefathers, as they gradually fade away and lose their place among the things that are, become clothed with an unreal splendour, and the habits and customs of other days, however insignificant in themselves, acquire a degree of interest as they recede from us, as much owing to their age as their originality. I will own I am fond of prying into old fashions and peculiarities; there is something attractive in their simplicity; and, in travelling along, whenever I find any vestige of the kind, I am as much rejoiced as ever was antiquary who had fished up a noseless bust out of the Tiber.

Amongst all the usages of former times, none was better than that of the court-fool, or licensed jester; but now-a-days men's vices and their weaknesses have become too irritable, and few are inclined to do penance under the scourge of satire.

Satirical talent is the most dangerous thing in the world. Those who possess it may be admired, but they are seldom liked; and who would barter love for admiration? In other days, none but a wit could be a fool, but now none but a fool would be a wit.

There is a man in France who, by some odd mistake of nature, has been born a couple of centuries too late, and has thus been deprived of an opportunity of turning either his wit or his folly to account. Poor Bobeche found it did not answer in Paris; the scene was too large for him; and he has retired for a time to Bordeaux, to exercise his talents amongst the Gascons; and here every evening he harangues the multitude from a little stage erected in the Alées de Tourny. Sometimes it is a dialogue between the fool and another; sometimes a soliloquy; and the people listen to both with profound respect and attention. I have often mingled with the crowd, and stood for a good hour, not so much to listen to his jests, as to examine the jester; for he is the only approximation to the old court-fool I ever saw. Of course his dress is peculiar to himself. It consists of a small three-cornered cocked-hat, stuck on one side of his head, and a close red coat of the ancient cut. His countenance has a strange mixture of vacancy and meaning, of solemnity and fun. He seems always to be searching for one idea, and stumbling upon another by accident, and appears scarcely to know whether it be wit or nonsense when he has uttered it; and in truth there is, nine times out of ten, somewhat of both. But still, he keeps his imperturbable gravity; and his round unmeaning face, and dull leaden eye, prepossess you in favour of his folly; so that any wit which he displays has the greater effect, from giving no notice of its approach.

Bobeche has the same failing as all his predecessors: he has no respect for the great. In fact, he cares not upon whom or on what subject he breaks his jest. It must have its way, light were it will; and they say that he has more than once been obliged to expiate the offences of his noddle by two or three weeks' cool reflection in prison. If this be true, it has not made him a whit the wiser; for I have heard the very questions most tender in France made the subject of his unlucky witticisms, and the king and every member of the government sported with in turn.

Bobêche is not "le Glorieux," but it is a variety of the same genus. The extraordinary author of Waverley is always true to nature in his depiction of character, and it has been a great subject of interest to me to trace in remote spots and corners of the earth the original lines which he has beautifully copied, and very often to find _that_ realized, which I had before imagined to be merely the conception of a brilliant imagination.

Though I have undertaken to tell my own history, I feel a strange disinclination to speak much of myself, especially during my stay at Bordeaux. My mind was in that vacillating and unsettled state which is perhaps the most painful that human nature can endure. It was at that point where sorrow degenerates into both levity and bitterness, the most dangerous of all conditions; but a letter which I wrote about this time, and which has since fallen into my hands again, will give a better picture of my state of thought than any thing I could write now.

MY DEAR R----,

Surely if I am an odd being, as you say, you are another! What in the name of heaven could induce you to write to any other person at Bordeaux about the letter which lay at the post-office for you? However, I have taken the business out of your friend's hands, and sent it on to you myself. It was in verity my own letter, and, as you will see by the post-marks, has been upon its travels for some time. The truth is, I put it in the post for Boulogne, where I fancied you were, and to which it went without the postage being paid. Some friend of yours at Boulogne, you being gone, put your London address upon it, without _affranchissement_, and in consequence it was sent back to the postmaster here, and so forth.

What its contents were, I quite forget; some great nonsense, I dare say. But who in this age of the world would write sense, when Feeling has been strangled for a traitor, Virtue publicly whipped for breaking all the commandments, Generosity turned out to beg his bread, and Charity (I do not mean ostentation) sent to the treadmill? In short, when Vice is triumphant, Folly is sure to come in for a share in the administration, and Nonsense becomes the only patron to whom a wise man can apply. There is no such thing, my dear R----, as being mad in this world. It is only being in the minority; and instead of saying that a man has been put in a lunatic hospital, we ought to say that he has been confined by the majority. However, I hope that my letter, which was a sad raw cub when it left my hands, has been improved by travelling, in which case it may give you some amusement.

You ask me a variety of questions, to very few of which I can reply. What has made me stay at Bordeaux so long is a problem which I should be happy if any one could solve for me. It has been from no particular or general attraction. Here the climate is disagreeable, and the society, generally, not much better. There are few that I care about, there is none that I love, there is little to amuse, there is little to interest. It must have been by some law of gravitation that I settled down here, and until some propelling force of sufficient power acts upon me, I suppose I shall not budge.

Your next question is, "When do you return to England?" I cannot tell. The very idea is wretchedness to me. I think it was the Helvetii--was it not?--who, without rhyme or reason, collected together all the provisions they could find, burnt their towns and villages, and left their own country to seek another. But with me it is not from any distaste to England that I leave it. I love it because it is my country. I love it for its free institutions and noble privileges; for its brave spirits and generous hearts; and I am proud of it for its grand pre-eminence over a corrupted world. But it is a country where I have suffered much and lost much, and I cannot calmly think of returning to the scenes which must recall so much bitterness.

But, to change the subject, I have been to see a curious receptacle for our mortality. It is a sort of bone-house, called "_Le Caveau des Morts_," placed under the tower of an old church, now converted into a station for a telegraph. The first notice we had of such a place being in existence, (for the people of Bordeaux know nothing,) was the sight of the name placarded on the door, and entering, we found ourselves in the inside of an old Gothic building, in company with an animal that at first view might be taken for Caliban. He was a shapeless man, dressed in a rough, shaggy coat, that descended to two feet clad in immeasurable _sabots_. On his head he wore a large black nightcap, that alone suffered to appear the lower part of his face and two small dark eyes, together with the tips of a pair of elephantine ears. For the first few minutes we could get nothing from him but a kind of growling bark, which proved to be cough, and he himself turned out the sexton and bell-ringer, and very readily, in consideration of a franc, conducted us down a narrow staircase in the wall, to descend which, I was obliged to bow my head, and my companion to go almost double.

On getting to the bottom we entered an almost circular vault, roofed by Gothic arches and paved with the mouldering remains of frail humanity. B---- took the candle from our sexton, and standing in the midst, held it high above his head, looking like some colossal spectre; while the light gleamed faintly round, catching on the groins of the vault and the rows of ghastly dead, half skeleton half mummy, which were ranged along the walls. As soon as he had lighted a lamp in the middle, our guide, in the true tone of a showman at a fair, began to give us an account of the place and what it contained. He told us first, that the ground on which we stood was fifty feet deep in dead. When the family vaults of the cemetery, he said, were full, the bodies which were not found corrupted were removed to this cavern, and took their station against the wall, as we saw them; and pointing to the one next the door, he assured us that it had lain in the earth for five hundred years, although the skin and flesh, dried to a thick kind of leather, were still hanging about its bones. He then went round them all, occasionally giving us little bits of their history, which might or might not be true, sometimes moralising and sometimes jesting, bringing strongly to my mind the grave-digger in Hamlet. It was strange to see him, just dropping into the grave, joking with the grim tenants of the tomb as if he were himself immortal. At length, he conducted us once more into the upper air of the tower, from whence we immediately issued into the most populous part of Bordeaux, swarming with the busy and the gay, the beautiful and the strong, all hurrying through an agitated existence towards the same great receptacle we had just left. It was a strange contrast.

The cathedral here is not so fine as many others we have seen. A few days ago we heard a fine military mass, at which the archbishop assisted. I was pleased with the service, notwithstanding all the overdone stage-effect of the Catholic ceremonies; but after the soldiers had marched out and the church was cleared, it was most disgusting to observe the effects of the French people's bad habit of spitting. There was actually a rivulet of saliva on each side of the church where the military stood. The archbishop is one of the best men in existence, but they say rather superstitious. A good story is told of him here, which, most probably, has its portion of falsehood. His cook-maid, it is said, gave herself out as possessed by a demon. Now, Monseigneur having no taste for such an inmate as this in his cook-maid or his house, proceeded instantly to exorcise the gentleman, ordering his chaplain to put his head to the lady's stomach and collect the devil's answers.

"Does the devil speak?" asked the archbishop, after a long address to the unearthly visitant.

"Yes," replied the chaplain.

"What does he say?" demanded the prelate.

"He says," answered the other, "_Je m'en fiche--i. e_. I do not care a groat."

So the archbishop gave it up as a bad job.

You say true: it is an extraordinary country, "La belle France;" but yet, in other days, I used to find much in it that gave me pleasure; and amidst the many faults that crowd upon the eye of a stranger on his first visit to any foreign country, I could descry many good qualities. At present my eye is jaundiced, and I dare not judge. I should be sorry to form an opinion of France from Bordeaux, but certainly there is vice enough here to supply a moderate kingdom.

I do not remember whether I have given you any account of Bordeaux before; if so, pardon the repetition. Not satisfied with the ordinary means of gambling, the good people have here invented one for themselves expressly. The price of brandy, you must know, is excessively subject to variation, and upon this they speculate, making bargains for time, as our stock-jobbers do, by which means fortunes are lost and won with extraordinary facility. The life of one of these men is brandy: he rises thinking of brandy--he writes about brandy all the morning--at dinner he talks about it--at the coffee-house he asks the news of brandy--at the theatre he makes a bargain between the acts, and then going to bed he dreams of a hogshead.

The upper classes of the Bordelois have the reputation of being not a little depraved. The next rank is a degree less corrupt; and lower down comes a race rather famous. You have heard of course of the Grisettes of Bourdeaux, and certainly they do appear the prettiest little beings that ever were turned out of a band-box, as they go tripping along the streets with their neat shoes and well-turned ankle and leg, which they do not at all scruple to show somewhat more than necessary. When in their working-dress, they wear a handkerchief shrewdly twisted round their head, a gown of common printed muslin, but cut in the most elegant form, and a little black silk apron, with a pocket on each side before, into which they put their hands to keep them warm in the winter.

Their dress at balls, and on fête days, is of the richest materials that can be found--expensive silks of the brightest colours, and a quantity of lace, which is principally displayed in the cap, that is then substituted for the handkerchief on the head. I am sorry to say that these young ladies are not generally famous for their morals. It is not, indeed, to be expected that they should be so. The same disgrace is not attached to the loss of virtue in this class as it is in England. If I may use the expression, they do not lose cast as they would with us, and are far from being disgraced amongst their fellows, by any degree of immorality except infidelity. All this does not prevent them from marrying when they arrive at a certain period of life, and making often better wives than those who, in the higher ranks, never went astray till they were married.

It is extraordinary, amidst this general dissolution of morals, how our fair countrywomen at Bordeaux keep themselves from all contamination. As you may suppose, there are a multitude of English families here, and I have never yet heard, a whisper against the female part of them. I know several persons here; some very agreeable, some who might be very agreeable if they would; but in general the society is confined to cold formal dinner-parties, which are little calculated to promote _sociality_. I do not at all thank a man for giving me a dinner. I can always get that for myself; but if he invites me to meet pleasant people, and adds one happy hour to the little stock of enjoyment that man can find in life, he lays me under an absolute obligation.

There are many Protestants in Bordeaux, and consequently a Protestant chapel, which I have attended frequently. Did you ever remark how intolerant a persecuted sect becomes? The horrible severities exercised for long upon the French Protestants have excited in them the most violent hatred to the Church of Rome; and even from the pulpit they do not spare their mother church. There is, however, here one of the best preachers I have ever heard, a Monsieur Vermeille. His sermons are by no means equally good; but I have heard him on many occasions burst into the most powerful strain of eloquence you can conceive. But my own eloquence is becoming rather tedious, and therefore I shall merely bid you farewell.

Your's ever, J.P.Y.

LA CHASSE.

* * * * But if the sylvan youth, Whose fervent blood boils into violence, Must have the chase, behold, despising flight, The roused-up lion, resolute and slow, Advancing full on the protended spear.--THOMSOM.

I had been wandering about one day in the neighbourhood of Bordeaux, indulging a variety of desultory meditations, following the uneven tenor of my own mind, sometimes sad and sometimes gay, and sometimes of that odd mixed nature where melancholy and mirth are so intimately commingled, that there is no separating them, when turning round an angle in the road, I had a figure before me whose occupations puzzled me not a little. He was one of that class of beings now nearly extinct, who still cling with pertinacity to powder and pigtails. His face was round, his cheekbones high, his complexion mummy-coloured, his nose turned up and primed with snuff, and in the cavities on each side stood two little dark eyes like black currants shining through a dumpling. The castor which covered his head was intended for a modern hat, but it had still a strange hankering for the form of the old-fashioned shovel, far more pinched behind than before, with the rear rim strongly turned up, as if to avoid the collar of his coat. It seemed that his head had been so long accustomed to wear cocked-hats, that whatever he put upon it assumed something of that form. To finish the whole, on each side under the brim lay two long rows of powdered curls, which flew off in an airy pigtail behind. This sort of man ought to be recorded, for in the course of years it will become unknown, like the mammoth; and strange remnants of whigs and pigtails will be found to puzzle the naturalist and antiquary.

But it was his occupation that I did not understand. He was creeping along by the side of a ditch, with his knees bowed, and eagerness in his air, and ever and anon he clapped to his shoulder a long machine, which seemed of a mongrel breed, between a duck-gun and a cross-bow; having the long barrel and stock of the one, and the arc and cord of the other. Continually as he placed it at his shoulder, I heard something plump into the ditch, on which he shook his head with evident mortification, and proceeded a little farther. I followed at the same stealthy pace, and he seemed rather flattered than discomposed by the attention I gave to his movements. At length he look a long and steady aim, drew the trigger, the bow twanged, and rushing forward with a shout of exultation, he seized an immense frog he had just shot, and held it up in triumph by the leg.[10]

[Footnote 10: Those who imagine this to be a jest deceive themselves; I have seen the same more than once since.]

"Qu'elle est belle! Qu'elle est belle!" cried he, turning to me as I came up. "It was a long shot, too," he added.

I paid him a compliment upon the achievement, and asked if he had had much sport.

He said, "No, that the weather was so hot that the frogs kept principally to the water, and they had been so much hunted that they were very wild."

"How!" cried I; "you do not shoot them sitting?"

He told me that he did, and asked me how I thought they ought to be shot?

I told him that to shoot them sitting was mere poaching, that he ought to take them in the leap.

He said "that a young man like me might do those things, but for an old man like him it was not so easy, but, however, that he would try."

I assured him that he ought to do so, and having examined his _arbalète_, I left him to endeavour to shoot frogs flying if he could.

As I went home I could not help moralizing upon the change which has taken place in Frenchmen since the revolution--a change which has altered them entirely, and yet left them nearly as different from the English as ever. I then asked myself in what the difference between us and our neighbours consisted, and I laid down in my own mind a whole table of

DISTINCTIONS.

Liberiùs si Dixero quid, si fortè jocosiùs, hoc mihi juris Cum veniâ dabis.--HORACE.

They may be true or they may be false, but I beg it to be understood that they are given with perfect good humour towards a people for many of whom I have a high personal regard.

An Englishman is proud, a Frenchman is vain. A Frenchman says more than he thinks, an Englishman thinks more than he says. A Frenchman is an excellent acquaintance, an Englishman is a good friend. A Frenchman is enterprising, an Englishman is indefatigable. An Englishman has more judgment, a Frenchman more wit. Both are brave, but an Englishman fights coolly, a Frenchman hotly. The latter will attack anything, the former will be repulsed by nothing. An Englishman in conversation seems going a journey, a Frenchman is taking a walk. The one plods hard on to the object in view, the other skips away from his path for the slightest thing that catches his attention. There is more advantage in conversing with the one, more pleasure with the other. An Englishman generalizes, a Frenchman particularizes. An Englishman when he tastes anything says that it is good, that it has an agreeable flavour; a Frenchman describes every sensation it produces in his mouth and throat, from the tip of the tongue down to the stomach, and winds it up with a simile. An Englishman remarking an opera-dancer sees that she dances well, with grace, with agility; a Frenchman notes every _entrechat_, and can tell to a line where her foot ought to fall. An Englishman must have a large stock of knives and forks to change with every plate: a Frenchman uses but one for all, and it sometimes serves him for a salt-spoon, too. An Englishman in his own country must have two rooms; a Frenchman can do very well with one; he dines there when he cannot go out, receives his company there, and can do everything there. A married Englishman requires but one bed, a married Frenchman must have two. In general an Englishman is willing to submit to the power of the law, but inclined to resist military force; the contrary proposition is the case with the French.

A Frenchman is constitutionally a happier animal than an Englishman. He is born a philosopher. He enjoys to-day, he forgets the past, and lets to-morrow take care of itself. No misfortunes can affect him, he floats like a bit of cork on the top of the waves which seem destined to overwhelm him. He makes his servant his confidant, the coffee-house his library, the man next him his friend, the theatre his fireside;--and his home--but he has nothing to do with that.

He is gay, witty, brave, and not unfeeling, but his character is like the sand on the sea-shore, where you may write deeply, but a few waves sweep it away for ever. That perverted word 'sentiment' in its true sense he knows little of. But are there many men in all the world who know much more.

A Frenchman is not so insincere as he has been called. It is true he makes vehement professions which mean nothing, but he makes them in a language the expressions of which are all overcharged, and in a country where they are justly appreciated. As money, the representative of labour, has in every country its relative value, so words, the current coin of conversation, vary in import amongst various nations, and have a rate of exchange with foreigners. Thus, if an Englishman takes a Frenchman's professions at the value the same would hear in England, it is his own fault, for the rate of exchange is against them. Besides, they are _obliged_ to use large words, there is no small change in France. In conversation, as well as in commerce, there is nothing circulating but heavy five-franc pieces. A boot is said to fit "_divinement_," and a tailor tells you that there is "_de quoi se mettre à genoux devant_" the coat he has just made for you. I have heard a boot-jack called _superb_, a pair of stockings _magnifique_, and a wig _angelique_. A man offered me "_poudre à la rose_," to make my boots slip on; and an old woman who had strayed a kitten, called it "expatriating her cat." An Englishman says, "I am glad to see you;" a Frenchman "_Je suis ravi de vous voir_." It comes to the same thing in the end. Everything in France is _au dessus du vraisemblable_, and the language not more than the rest. An Englishman's passions are like his own coal fire, difficult to kindle; but long before they go out, have more heat than flame, more intensity than brilliancy. A Frenchman is like a fire of wood that crackles and flames and blazes, that is lighted in a minute, and in a minute extinguished.

The French, though they are daily improving, are still certainly a dirty people,[11] not in their persons but in their houses and habits. In this, as in everything else, they are the most inconsistent nation in the world. In their habitations there is the strangest mixture of splendour and want of cleanliness, and in their manners an equal mingling of elegance and coarseness. One must often walk up a staircase where every kind of dirt is to be found in order to arrive at a palace, and a thousand things that shock all notions of delicacy are here openly done and talked of by the most polite.

[Footnote 11: These passages were written thirteen or fourteen years ago, since which time France has made the most extraordinary progress that any country in Europe can boast. England has also advanced, but the change is certainly not so striking between what she is now and what she was then, as that which has taken place in France in the same period; but it may be taken as a proof of the justice of these remarks, that France has become much more English than England has become French.]

A Frenchman's politeness consists much more in small talk and petty ceremonies than in any real elegance of person or of mind. They have told the world so often that they are the most civilized nation in Europe, that the world believes it. It is true, they have an immensity of the jargon of society, a quickness in catching and appreciating the tastes and ideas of others, and a great fund of good-nature, which makes them love to see all around them at their ease; but their vanity stands much in the way of their politeness. An Englishman may perhaps over-rate both himself and his country, but he is contented with his own opinion, and cares little what others think on the subject; but a Frenchman wishes every one to acknowledge, and takes the greatest pains to prove, that France is the first country and himself the first man in the world. A Frenchman, however, has much more of the two great principles on which real politeness is founded than an Englishman. He is by nature an infinitely more good-humoured being, and he has more of that inestimable quality which he himself calls _tact_.

If the French called themselves simply the most polite nation in the world, we might be inclined to admit the claim. When they say they are the most _civilized_, we instantly deny it. I have seen an actress and a famous actress too, stop in the midst of one of Racine's finest speeches to spit in her pocket handkerchief, before the whole audience. I asked the gentleman next me if such were a common occurrence. He seemed surprised at the question, and said, what could she do? She must spit! Did we not spit in England? he asked. I told him not in general, and never in genteel society. He said, "Oh!" and without doubt did not believe a word I said; for, let it be remarked, that the French generally have no more idea of our manners and customs than if we were placed at one pole and they at the other. A great proportion of the French people look upon us as a kind of Sandwich Islanders--imagine that we never see the sun--that our atmosphere is one constant fog--that we eat nothing but beef and potatoes--that we drink nothing but tea and porter--and that our only ripe fruit is. baked apples.[12] Let me do them justice, however; rarely or ever would an Englishman have been insulted by the populace of France with those brutal appellations which the lower classes in England did not fail to bestow upon the French, when they discovered them in the streets of London during the war. If the higher class of society in France, is not so refined as the same class in England, and I do not scruple to say that it is not, there is much more urbanity, and real or acquired politeness, amongst the peasantry of the former country. One or the greatest differences, however, between the two countries is the one which is least favourable to England and the most honourable to France. France is always anxious to improve, and the whole nation drags on the unwilling few. England is always suspicious of improvement, and the talented few drag on the unwilling nation.

[Footnote 12: This appears somewhat exaggerated now, but it was very little so when the passage was written; and opinions as absurd have a thousand times been uttered by men otherwise well informed in my presence. Some late books of travels in this country, however, would tend to show that the French have not yet much enlarged their knowledge of England and the English.]

I have hitherto in general spoken of French men; what shall I say of French women? If I say but little, it is not that I think them in any degree less charming, less graceful, less fascinating than others have thought. To criticise them would be a task invidious and not for me. If they have anything about them that might as well be altered, I say, heaven forbid that it should be otherwise; for as perfection is certainly not to be found amongst men, it would place too terrible a difference between the sexes if it were to be met with in women.

BEGGARS.

I'll bow my leg and crook my knee, And draw a black clout o'er my e'e; A cripple or blind they will ca' me, While we shall be merry and sing. THE GABERLUNZIE MAN.

There is a singular mode of begging existing at Bordeaux, which at all events has the merit of novelty. In passing along the Cours de Tourny, which is lined on each side by a row of fine elms, the eye is attracted by a number of little boxes, and cups, with a small slit in the top, large enough to admit a two-sous piece. Some of these are fixed to the trees, and some are placed in the centre of a chair left at the road side, without any one to guard it. It was some time before it struck me that this was for the purpose of soliciting charity; but upon inquiry, I found that it was an invention of late years, which at first had considerable success. The originator did not at once hazard his little box on the highway without interpretation, but fixed a placard upon one of the trees just above it, stating that it belonged to a "pauvre malade," who could not quit his bed; and, adding a list of as many misfortunes as he thought necessary, he summed up by begging the charitable passenger to drop his alms into the _coffre_ below.

As he neglected to take out a patent for his invention, of course there immediately appeared an infinity of other "pauvres malades," who contrived to levy a considerable contribution from the inhabitants of Bordeaux. Some placed a chair to represent their person: some were afflicted with one disease, some another. In short, various improvements took place, the thing being understood, and everybody knowing what the box meant, the placard was dispensed with, and the passenger's imagination was left to supply any malady for which he had a particular predilection.

Begging is in France a perfect trade, and by no means one of the least profitable. The streets, the highways, and all public places are infested with troops of beings of the most miserable appearance, with everything, that rags, filth, and disease can do to make them equally objects of disgust and compassion. But let it not be thought that these wretches, often scarcely human, are left to so sad a fate by any mismanagement of the many excellent charitable institutions of France. Misery is their profession. To cure than of their maladies would be a robbery, and to furnish them with any employment, they would consider as one of the worst sorts of tyranny. Idleness is their liberty, and disease is their fortune. A sore leg is at any time better than a trade, and a withered arm is a treasure.

In the towns, they have particular stations, which may be looked upon as shops where they expose their miseries, as they would any other kind of merchandise. There was one, I remember, at Bordeaux, who had scarcely any vestige of form left. He used to come to his station on horseback, (for he was a man of some consideration), and setting himself on the ground, he displayed his legs, which were dreadfully deformed; as a tradesman sets out his goods in his shop window.

All the cottages that border the high road are filled with little mendicants, who rush forth at the first sound of a carriage, and torment the unhappy traveller, sometimes for miles. One of their most common methods of begging is to throw a bunch of flowers into the window, and then never quit the vehicle till they are paid for them. Such a mode of soliciting charity may seem very poetical; but never in my life did I see such a race of dirty, ragged, pertinacious little vagabonds.

It is the same all over France. In every thing else the various provinces differ essentially, but in beggars they are all equally well supplied. I have visited the north, the south, the east, and the west of France, and have found no visible difference. From the Place de la Comédie, at Bordeaux, passing along the allées and the Cours de Tourny to the Place Dauphine, a distance of about half a mile, I once met three-and-twenty beggars; and on the bridge at Pau I have counted nineteen. Although many of those who are now common mendicants, played parts, more or less conspicuous, in the French revolution, I do not believe that it added greatly, if at all, to the number of beggars in France. The wars of the League and those of the Fronde certainly did add to the number; but in those wars there was no purifying principle, no ennobling motive on the part of the insurgents: all was selfishness, vice, or caprice. In speaking of the wars of the Fronde, Voltaire says:

Les Anglais avaient mis dans leurs troubles civiles un acharnement mélancolique et une fureur raisonée. Ils donnaient de sanglantes batalles et le fer décidait tout.

Les Français, au contraire, se précipitaient dans les séditions par caprice et en riant. Les femmes étaient à la tête des factions, l'amour faisait et rompait les cabales.--VOLTAIRE--SIECLE DE LOUIS XIV.

Amongst the beggars in the streets of Bordeaux there is an old man, said to have been bourreau, or executioner, in that city, during the revolution. Perhaps an executioner is one of the most extraordinary beings in nature. Cut off from all human feeling, to embrace by choice the occupation of deliberately slaying his fellow-creatures, seems a paradox in the history of man. There is certainly a strange principle of destructiveness mingled with all nature, in a way and for reasons that we cannot divine. But here seems an innate cruelty getting the better of all that man learns from his infancy. An executioner must be a being apart from all nature, who, without passion or prejudice to stimulate him, throws off all feeling of humanity, breaks from all social charity, and exposes himself to the abhorrence of mankind, for the sole delight of embruing his hands in human blood.

Before the revolution the office of bourreau was confined to particular families. It was a curse that descended from generation to generation; all fled from, all detested the unfortunate man fated to be the instrument of his fellows' death, and he himself, cut off from society with kindred beings, often grew morose and cruel, destroying without regret that race which refused him all community.

But when this odious inheritance was abolished, and it became a voluntary act, thousands stepped forward eager for the office of blood-spiller, and in all the horrors which succeeded, no one was ever wanting to do the work of death.

As the office of executioner is the most extraordinary that man can choose, so perhaps the French revolution is the most extraordinary event in the history of mankind.

It seems as if all nations were more or less like a man subject to occasional fits of insanity, and that they cannot proceed beyond a certain period without an unconquerable desire to destroy everything, which at other times they are most careful to preserve. From some of these maladies they recover, and have afterwards a more perfect health than if they had never occurred, but often the effects of the disease remain long after it has itself ceased.

The French revolution in general, taking it from its very commencement to its close, produced some good amidst a mass of evil; but there were particular periods, when all thought of right seemed abandoned, which did as much as the destruction of all order, the abolition of all law, the contempt of all religion; and the annihilation of every principle and every feeling, can effect towards a nation's overthrow. It often happens that man in doing wrong in one way, unintentionally do good in another; but those who governed France at the periods of which I speak, with a comprehensiveness of mind which, happily for the world, is not always attendant upon crime, contrived to be uniform at least in evil; and left no one good act for which history could accuse them of inconsistency. At the same time, they took care to prove to the world, by a rare combination of qualities, that it was in ill alone that they were uniform, by mixing the maddest display of folly with the affectations of philosophy, and uniting levity with slaughter. Humanity shudders at the remembrance of such deeds; not alone because they were bloody, but at the horrid frivolities with which they were accompanied. It appears as if the love of destruction had seized like a mania upon all the nation with a power ungovernable, had taken the place of every better feeling, and left every weakness and every defect in more than original force.

Never was the national levity of the French more conspicuous than during great part of the reign of terror. While every day shed fresh blood, and the deputy who superintended the work of murder at Nantes, found the guillotine but a means of slaughter in detail, not at all suited to his comprehensive mind; while he fell upon the happy expedient of embarking his victims in a covered boat, and sinking them wholesale in the river: at that very time the opera was as fully attended and the card-tables as gay as ever; jokes were cut upon the guillotine by those who were next to undergo its stroke, and the murderer handed his snuff-box to the victim whom to-morrow he condemned to death. In future ages the minute points of this vast tragedy will scarcely be believed. Many of its horrors are but faintly remembered even now, and the benefits which accrued from it are far overrated. The _dîme_, the _corvée_, and almost all the _droits seigneuriaux_ were falling or had fallen even before the actual revolution began, and every other abuse would have gradually yielded to the power of time and the increase of knowledge. But the French were not contented to wait; they slew a good king, deluged their fields in blood, and stained their annals with crime, to obtain what a few years would have peaceably brought about.

France has never yet perfectly recovered the revolution; the character of the people has been injured by it, and all the foundations of society have been shaken. No definite ideas regarding any of the great questions which affect the happiness of a community have been left; and though it is not improbable that from this chaotic condition a new and brighter system may arise, yet the state of transition has already lasted long enough to be an intolerable evil. Though I am inclined to believe that in France, as in other countries, an improvement in morals has taken place in regard to religion, the bad results produced by the revolution have been very extensive. Yet it is curious to observe, that among all the blasphemies and follies with which the French amused themselves at that period, a feeling of the absolute necessity of some religion manifested itself continually. Even in their greatest absurdities, it is evident. At the moment that a statue to eternal sleep was erected, pointing to the tomb, it was proposed to grant a patent to the Almighty for the invention of the world, upon condition that he ceased to meddle with human affairs. At another time, fruits and all things necessary to the support of man were proposed as the object of human adoration; but the conviction of our dependence upon some superior being, and the necessity of worship, was always breaking forth.

The revolution has, in a manner, divided the kingdom into various sects, of which the three principal are bigots, sceptics, and hypocrites. The bigots consist in general of that portion of the higher ranks who actually suffered in the revolution, and that portion of the lower whom it neither enlightened nor led astray. The sceptics consist of those who either never had any religion, or who lost it in the theories and sophistry of the day, and these form the great bulk, I am sorry to say, of the thinking and scientific in one class, and the vicious and thoughtless of another. The hypocrites are those in all stations to whom long practice in political dissembling has given a facility in dissembling altogether. There are two other sects. The French protestant and the unbigotted and enlightened French catholic, but these are few in comparison. They comprise, however, many of the most talented and most virtuous of the nation.

The sceptics are, of course, divided between many opinions. Many are materialists; one or two fancy themselves atheists, but a great majority follow what they call a purism. They allow the existence of a supreme Being, are doubtful in regard to the immortality of the soul, and profess to hold the moral doctrine of the Evangelists, although they deny it a divine origin. They labour, according to the reasoning of various pseudo-philosophers, to prove that the moral code of Christianity was merely a compilation by the eclectists of Alexandria from the most celebrated doctrines of the ancient philosophers, joined with the principle of universal charity which they own to be found in no other composition than the gospel. But they attempt by no means to dispose of the sect of Christians mentioned in the celebrated letter from Trajan to Pliny; nor to account for the extraordinary circumstance of the philosophers of Alexandria having borrowed the name of Christ, (as they suppose,) and having raised upon it such an apocrypha of history, circumstances, and details, all of which could have been contradicted at the time, had they been false. According to their own theory they are obliged to imagine much more and believe much more without proof, than if they were to receive the history which the divine volume gives of itself.

From all that I have seen in France of the consequences of their great national calamity, I am convinced, that however revolutions may call forth latent talent, and acuminate the mind of man, however necessary they may sometimes be as a defence to liberty and a check to tyrants, general virtue owes them little, and the very principles of social happiness are by them destroyed.

LA BREDE.

Tutta fra se di se siessa invaghita.--BERNARDO L'UNICO.

What the world are accustomed to consider as great and brilliant actions, have very often their origin in pride or ostentation, while home virtues, and less obtrusive qualities, though their motive does not admit of doubt, and their nature is mixed with no evil, are scarcely ranked in the catalogue of good deeds, and even if known are rarely appreciated. The rich man who spends a part of his fortune and bestows a portion of his time on public charities, claims unanimous applause as his just reward, and mankind are willing to grant it without any investigation, either of his actions or their incitements; but the man who without possessing any wealth to give, delights to see every one cheerful and happy around him, and finds his pleasure in his fellow-creature's peace, receives but small gratitude, and meets with little admiration.

For my own part, I am thankful to every one who gives me happy moments. There was a little circle at Bordeaux, in which I have spent some of the most pleasant hours of my existence. The follies and vices, the turmoil and discontent, of a large city never set foot there. It was composed of a few, that could feel and enjoy all that was beautiful in art or nature, whose native resources were equal to their own contentment, and who without shunning, required nothing from the world. Time passed not slowly with them; music, and reading, and conversation succeeded; each borrowing a charm from the other, and linking themselves together; so that the evenings flew insensibly; and the hour of our separation always arrived before we were aware of its approach.

In the mornings, we often left the town and spent the day in the most beautiful parts of the environs; and the scenery was always sure to suggest some new idea, which again celled forth a thousand more, and every one happy themselves, endeavoured to add to the happiness of others. It was in one of these expeditions that we went to visit the little town and château of La Brède, once the residence of the famous Montesquieu. The house is a true old French _château_, with its turrets, and drawbridges, and garden within the ditch, and loopholes for firing through the walls and all the little _et cæteras_, which carry one's mind back to ancient days; but the devil, or some spirit hostile to antiquity, has put it into the proprietor's head to whitewash the towers of La Brède; and there they were, hard at it, trying to metamorphose the old mansion of Montesquieu into the likeness of a Cockney cottage on the Hampstead road.

The owner was absent, but we were admitted immediately, and taken, in the first place, into the apartment where Montesquieu had composed his _Esprit des Lois_. A little more reverence for old times had been shown here; the room was exactly in the state he left it when he died; there was his arm-chair, and all the rest of the old damask furniture, spotted and stained in a truly classical manner; and there was the hole the sage had worn in the marble by resting his foot with mathematical precision always on one spot. We saw it all--all, which is nothing in itself, but something in its associations. We were then taken through the house, which appeared a large rambling kind of building; but, to tell the truth, I do not recollect much about it, except one large hall of very vast dimensions, where lay an old helmet, which something tempted me to put upon my head, and which I once thought must have remained there for ever, for, as if to punish me for the whim, during some time I could get it off by no manner of means. I have said that I remember little about the house; the reason was this--I was thinking more at the time of the woman who showed it to us than of anything else in it, aye, or of Montesquieu into the bargain. Now there may be many people who would judge from this confession, that she was some pretty _soubrette_, whose beauty had taken my imagination by the ear. But no such thing: not that I am not fond of beauty in every shape, but the case was different in the present instance. What or who she was I do not know; but if Dame Fortune had placed her in any other situation than that of a lady, the jade of a goddess ought to be put in the pillory for a cheat and an impostor. Her dress was of that dubious description which gave no information; but her manners--her air--her look--told a great deal. She was grave without being sad. It was a sort of gentle gravity, that seemed to proceed more from a calm, even disposition than from any grief or sorrow; and when she smiled, there was a ray of pure, warm light came beaming from her eyes, and said that there was much unextinguished within. They were as fine eyes, too, as ever I beheld. Yet she was not handsome; though, if I were to go on with the description, perhaps I should make her out a perfect beauty, for I saw nothing but the expression, and that was beautiful. I could draw her character, I am sure, and would not be mistaken in a single line; for her voice was exactly like her eyes, and when the two go together one cannot be deceived; there was a mild elegance in it that was never harsh, though sometimes it rose a little, and sometimes fell, and gave more melody to the French tongue than ever I had heard before.

Now reader, for aught I know, you may be as arrant a fool as ever God put breath into--for I hope and trust this book will be read not by the wise part of mankind only--should that be the case, Lord have mercy upon the publisher. But do not be offended. You may, (under the same restrictive "for aught I know,") be as wise as king Solomon or wiser; but, whatever be your portion of wit, you will have seen, in all probability, long before now, that there was something in this girl that interested me not a little. What that was can be nothing to you, for it proceeded from private feelings and private recollections, which you would make nothing of if you knew them this minute.

However, there was a question which none of us could decide: was she one of the family of the château or was she not, and how were we to bestow the little donation usually given to the servants under such circumstances? However, the elder lady of the party took it upon herself; and while I was standing in the garden where Montesquieu used to work with his own hands, figuring to myself the philosopher of the laws, digging away in his full nightcap and variegated dressing-gown, she put the money, into the hands of her companion, begging that she would give it to the servants. The other looked at her with a smile which might have been translated half a dozen ways. It might have been, "I am a servant myself"--it might have been, "I see your embarrassment." But, however, she said that she would give it to them, and bidding her adieu, we proceeded to the carriage. We had scarcely all got in, when she came tripping over the drawbridge, with a bouquet of flowers in her hand. She gave them with one of those same bright smiles, saying, that perhaps we might like to have "_Quelques fleurs du jardin de Montesquieu_." We took them thankfully, and she re-entered the house, leaving us more than ever in doubt.

THE CHATEAU DE BLANCFORD.

Quant è bella giovinezza Che si fugge tutta via Che vuol esser lieto, sia Di doman non c'è certezza.--TRIOMFO DE BACCO.

There is scarcely any character in the range of history, which I am so much led to admire as that of Edward the Black Prince. Combining all the brightest qualities of a hero and a man, his glorious actions and his early death, all give him a title to our interest and admiration. One of the last excursions which we made with the friends I have just mentioned was to a little town called Blancford. It lies, as it were, behind Bordeaux, upon an eminence which commands all the country round, with a far view over the plains of Medoc, and the bend of the Garrone lying at your feet. In a valley, at a short distance, stand the walls of an old castle, in which the Black Prince is said to have passed some of the last hours of his existence; and this was the real object of our pilgrimage.

Having ordered dinner, and left the carriage at Blancford, we wandered down, through some of the beautiful lanes, all breaking forth into the first blossoms of spring, to the ruins of the old château, which afford a sad picture of the decay of human works.

The walls, built to resist armies, had crumbled to nothing before the power of Time. We nevertheless amused ourselves for more than an hour, climbing amongst the old ivy-grown remains, and fancying the various beings that, from time to time, had tenanted that spot now so desolate. It was all imagination, it is true; but 'tis one of the greatest arts in life, thus to give food to fancy and to supply her with materials from the past. It is less dangerous than borrowing from the future. I forget whether it is Lord Kaimes, or Allison, or who, that accounts for the pleasure which we feel in the sublime and beautiful, principally from the exercise of the mind in new combinations. I feel that there is some truth in it; for when I can let my imagination soar without restraint, I try to separate myself, as it were, from her, and view her, as I would a lark, rising and singing in the sky, and enjoy her very wanderings.

So much amusement did we derive from our speculations that we lingered there long. A variety of shrubs and foliage had decorated the old ruin in a fantastic manner; and as we descended into one of the dungeons, where probably many a captive had told his solitary hours, a free wild bird started out, at our approach and took its flight into the unconfined air. On the highest pinnacles of the walls, where the hand of man could never reach, Nature has sown little groups of wild pinks, that hung bending in the wind, as if to tempt one to take them. I endeavoured in vain to obtain some of them, for one of the ladies of the party, between whom and my friend B---- feelings were growing up which ended in much happiness at an after period. To punish my awkwardness, they called upon me to write a ballad on the subject. I did my best to comply, for we all strove to bring our little share of amusement into the common stock, and I felt myself more peculiarly bound to contribute, as I believed in my heart that many of these amusements, and especially that of whiling away the evening with little tales and sketches, had been devised for the purpose of turning my mind from every painful thought. These contributions gradually accumulated into a short miscellany, which, as it comes decidedly into the recollections of this year, I will give, as far as my memory serves, and call it "Scraps."

We left the old castle with a feeling of regret. We had had time to establish a kind of friendship with it, and did not like to quit it. After dinner we wandered on to the brow of the hill, and sitting down, watched the landscape as the closing evening varied all its hues. It had been a fine clear day; no pain had reached us ourselves and no storm had come across the sky--all had been bright and unshadowed. The last moments of such a day are precious, for who can say what to-morrow will bring forth? and all feeling it alike, we lingered on till the edge of the sun touched the horizon, and then returned to the busy haunts of man.

SCRAPS.--NO. I.

THE LADY AND THE FLOWER.

There be of British arms and deeds Who sing in noble strain, Of Poitiers' field, and Agincourt, And Cressy's bloody plain.

High tales of merry England, Full often have been told, For never wanted bard to sing The adieus of the hold.

But now I tune another string, To try my minstrel power, My story of a gallant knight, A lady, and a flower.

The noble sun, that shines on all, The little or the great, As bright on cottage doorway small, As on the castle gate.

Came pouring over fair Guienne From the far eastern sea; And glisten'd on the broad Garrone, And slept on Blancford lea.

The morn was up, the morn was bright, In southern summer's rays, And Nature caroll'd in the light, And sung her Maker's praise.

Fair Blancford! thou art always fair, With many a shady dell, And bland variety and change Of forest and of fell.

But Blancford on that morn was gay, With many a pennon bright, And glittering arms and panoply Shone in the morning light.

For good Prince Edward, England's pride, Now lay in Blancford's towers, And weary sickness had consumed The hero's winter hours.

But now that brighter beams had come With Summer's brighter ray, He called his gallant knights around To spend a festal day.

With tournament and revelry, To pass away the hours, And win fair Mary from her sire, The lord of Blancford's towers.

But why fair Mary's brow was sad None in the castle knew, Nor why she watch'd one garden bed, Where none but wild pinks grew.

Some said that seven nights before A page had sped away, To where Lord Clifford, with his power On Touraine's frontier lay.

To Blancford no Lord Clifford came, And many a tale was told, For well 'twas known that he had sought Fair Mary's love of old.

And some there said, Lord Clifford's love Had cool'd at Mary's pride, And some there said, that other vows His heart Inconstant tied.

Foul slander, ready still to soil All that is bright and fair, With more than Time's destructiveness, Who never learn'd to spare!

The morn was bright, but posts had come Bringing no tidings fair, For knit was Edward's royal brow And full of thoughtful care.

The lists were set; the parted sun Shone equal on the plain, And many a knight there manfully Strove fresh applause to gain.

Good Lord James Talbot, and Sir Guy Of Brackenbury, he Who slew the Giant Iron arm On Cressy's famous lea.

Were counted best; and pray'd the prince To give the sign that they Might run a course, and one receive The honours of the day.

"Speed knights! perhaps those arms that shine In peace," Prince Edward said, "Before a se'nnight pass, may well In Gallic blood be dyed.

"For here we learn that hostile bands Have gather'd in Touraine, And Clifford with his little troop, Are prisoners, or slain.

"For with five hundred spears, how bold Soe'er his courage show, He never would withstand the shock Of such a host of foe."

Fair Mary spoke not; but the blood Fled truant from her cheek, And left it pale as when day leaves Some mountain's snowy peak.

But then there came the cry of horse, The east lea pricking o'er; And to the lists a weary page A tatter'd pennon bore.

Fast came a knight, with blood-stain'd arms, And dusty panoply, And beaver down, and armed lance, In chivalric array.

No crest, no arms, no gay device Upon his shield he wore, But a small knot beside his plume Of plain wild pinks he bore.

For love, for love and chivalry, Lord Clifford rides the plain! And foul lies he who dares to say His honour ere knew stain!

And Mary's cheek was blushing bright, And Mary's heart beat high, And Mary's breath, that fear oppressed, Came in a long glad sigh.

Straight to the prince, the knight he rode, "I claim these lists," he cried, "Though late unto the field I come My suit be not denied.

"For we have fought beside the Loire, And dyed our arms in blood, Nor ever ceased to wield the sword So long as rebels stood.

"Hemmed in, I one time never thought To die in British land, Nor see my noble prince again, Nor kiss his royal hand.

"But well fought every gallant squire, And well fought every knight, And rebels have been taught to feel The force of British might.

"And now in humble tone they sue, To know thy high command, And here stand I these lists to claim, For a fair lady's hand.

"For Mary's love and chivalry I dare the world to fight; And foul and bitterly he lies Who dares deny my right!"

"No, no, brave Clifford," Edward said, "No lists to-day for thee, Thy gallant deeds beside the Loire Well prove thy chivalry.

"Sir Guy, Sir Henry, and the rest Have well acquit their arms, But Edward's thanks are Clifford's due As well as Mary's charms.

"My lord, you are her sire," he said, "Give kind consent and free, And who denies our Clifford's right Shall ride a tilt with me."

Gay spake the prince, gay laugh'd the throng, And Mary said not nay, And bright with smile, and dance, and song, Went down the festal day.

And when Lord Clifford to the board Led down his Mary fair, A knot of pinks was in his cap, A knot was in her hair.

For it had been their sign of love. And loved by them was still, Till death came gently on their heads And bowed them to his will.

And now though years have passed away, And all that years have seen, And Clifford's deeds and Mary's charms Are as they ne'er had been.

Some wind, as if in memory, Has borne the seeds on high, To deck the ruin's crumbling walls, And catch the passing eye.

They tell a tale to those who hear, For beauty, strength, and power, Are but the idlesse of a day, More short-lived than a flower.

Joy on, joy on, then, whilst ye may, Nor waste the moments dear, Nor give yourselves a cause to sigh, Nor teach to shed a tear.

SCRAPS.--No. II.

LINES TO A WITHERED ROSE.

I cast thee from me, poor child of day Like the lost heart that bore thee now wither'd and dead, To open no more in the sunshiny ray. Thy fragrance exhausted, thy loveliness fled.

'Tis the bright and the happy, the fresh and the gay, Alone that are fitted to flaunt in man's sight, When withered, far better to cast them away, Than to mock their dull hues with the glitter of light.

No culture can ever restore thee thy bloom, Or waken thy odour, or raise up thy head, The wretch's last refuge, the dust and the tomb, Is all I can give, now thy sweetness has fled.

O who would live on, when life's brightness is past, When the heart has lost all that once bade it beat high? When hopes still prove false, and when joys never last, 'Tis better to wither--'tis better to die.

I cast thee from me--away to the earth, More happy than others that must not depart, Doom'd to bear on their grief 'neath the semblance of mirth, With silence of feeling, and deadness of heart.

SCRAPS.--No. III.

DESULTORY CONVERSATIONS WITH THE MAN IN THE MOON. BY A TRAVELLED GENTLEMAN.

I have wandered almost all over the face of this globe, which, notwithstanding everything that geographers have said upon the subject, appears to me to be nothing more nor less than a great melon; and I am much mistaken, if, when Parry gets to what we call the North Pole, he does not find it to be only a stalk.[13] But as I was saying, I have wandered almost all over it, and in so doing, I have met with a great many extraordinary characters, but with perhaps none more singular than the person with whom I held the conversations which follow.

[Footnote 13: This was written before the discoveries of Sir John Ross.]

Now, though I do not suppose anybody will have the hardihood to doubt my having had what Sterne calls an affair with the moon, in which, as he justly observes, there is neither sin nor shame, yet, for the gratification of the present society, I am very willing to explain how I first became acquainted with the gentleman from whom I have since derived so much moonlight and information.

I remember one day when I was at Shirauz, I had been out into the Vakeel's garden, drawling away my time, as is usual with me, and finding myself tired, I went into the tomb of Hafiz, squatted myself down in a corner, and began stroking my beard slowly with my right hand like a pious Mussulman. Several Persians came in while I was thus employed, and seemed wonderfully edified by my piety and solemnity, and after they were gone I fell asleep.

I always make a point of dreaming; indeed I should think I lost one half of my existence if I did not. During our dreams is perhaps the only portion of our being, that we live without doing any harm to ourselves or anything else.

That evening I jumbled a great many odd things in my head, and whether it was the influence of Hafiz's tomb or what, matters little, but I became critical in my sleep. I quarrelled with my old friend Shakspeare--I found out all his anachronisms. "How the mischief, sir," said I "could you be such a fool as to make the Delphic oracle exist at the same time with Julio Romano in the Winter's Tale?" Shakspeare hung his head. "And, besides," I continued, "having written many a stiff sentence, which neither you yourself nor any one else understand, you have stolen, most abominably stolen, from Saadi. 'And the poor beetle that we tread upon, etc.,' is absolutely the same as that passage in which he says, 'Life is sweet and delightful to all who possess it, and the ant feels as much as the hero in dying.' Billy, Billy! I am afraid you have not taken enough pains to correct your sad propensity to deer stealing."

"My dear sir," answered Shakspeare mildly, laying his hand upon the sleeve of my vest, "I never heard of Saadi in all my life; and let me assure you, that it is perfectly possible for two authors to think alike, aye, and write very much alike too, without at all copying from each other."

"But the reviewers don't think so," said I.

"There were no reviewers in my day," answered Shakspeare. "I have been plagued enough with commentators, Heaven knows! but with reviewers, thank God, I have had nothing to do. Why, my dear sir, I should have died under the operation."

Shakspeare was going on, but the last call to evening prayer, which a bell-mouthed muezzin was bellowing from a neighbouring minaret, put a stop to his oratory by wakening me from my dream.

It was a beautiful evening; the sun was just going down over far Arabia; the sky was purpled with the last rays of his departing splendour, the evening breath of the rose pervaded all the air, and the ear of heaven was filled with the reposing hum of creation. I offered up my prayers with the rest, and then stood gazing at the great orb of light as he sunk to his magnificent repose.

The moment that the last bright spot of his disk had disappeared, the eastern world was all darkness. No soft twilight in that climate smooths the transition from the warm light of day to the depth of night; but to compensate, the stars shine more brightly and come quicker upon the track of day, and in a moment a thousand beaming lights broke out in the heaven as if they were jealous that the sun had shone so long; while on the earth, too, the fire-flies kept hovering about as if the sky "rained its lesser stars upon our globe."

Men have strange presentiments sometimes, and we have a great many great instances of them in a great many great men. Now whether it was a presentiment that I should meet the Man in the Moon that evening, which made me linger out of the city, I cannot tell at this interval of time. But so it was that I did linger, and got wandering about down in the valley till the moon rose clear and mild, and weaving her silver beams with the dark blue of the sky, it became all one tissue of gentle light. Just at that moment, on a bank where the moonbeams appeared all gathered together, I saw a little old man with a dog by his side and a lantern in his hand--take him altogether, not at all unlike Diogenes.

Wherever I go I adopt the country that I happen to be in, lest at a pinch it should have nothing to say to me, not as most men do, by halves, growling like a bear all the time they do it; no, but altogether as a man does a wife, for better, for worse--laws, manners, superstitions, and prejudices. Now, had I followed this excellent custom in the present instance, I ought, in Persia, to have imagined my old man to be a Ghole _instanter_, or, at best, a Siltrim; but somehow forgetting a few thousand years, I could not get his likeness to Diogenes out of my head, and walking up to him, I asked him if he were looking for an honest man, adding, that if he were, I should be happy to help him, for that I wanted one too.

"No," said the old man, "I am looking for sticks."

"Sticks!" echoed I, "you will find none on this side of the valley--you must cross the stream, and amongst those bushes you will find sticks enough."

"But I cannot go out of the moonshine," said the old man.

I now began to smoke him, (as the vulgar have it.) "Ho, ho!" said I, "you are the Man in the Moon, I take it?"

"At your service," said my companion, making me a low bow.

"Well, then," I continued, "I will go and gather you a faggot, and afterwards we will have some chat together, and you shall tell me something about your habitation up there, for I have often wished to know all that is going on in it."

The Man in the Moon seemed very well pleased with the proposal. The sticks were soon gathered, and sitting on the bank together, he set the lantern down beside him whistled to his dog, which was one of those little, black, round-limbed, short-tailed curs, which seem of no earthly use but to bark at our horses' heels, and then entered into conversation without further ceremony. Indeed, ever after, in the many conversations which I have had with him, and which perhaps the malicious may term fits of lunacy, I have had reason to think of him as I did at first--namely, that he was a very shrewd, chatty old gentleman, not at all slack in showing any knowledge he possessed, and who, if he had not read much, had at least seen a good deal.

CONVERSATION I.-PERSIA.

"Sages and philosophers," said the Man in the Moon, "always show the certainty of what they advance by the descrepancy of their opinions. You must have remarked, my dear young friend----"

"I beg your pardon," interrupted I, "it is rather an odd appellation to bestow upon a man of my standing, who have more white hairs in my head than black ones."

The Man in the Moon burst out laughing with such a clear, shrill, moonlike laugh, that he made my ears ring. "Why you are but a boy," said he, "in comparison to me, when you consider all the centuries that I have been rolling round and round this globe. But listen to me. You must have remarked that no two wise men ever were known to think alike upon the same subject, while the gross multitude generally contrive to coincide in opinion, and, right or wrong, don't trouble their brains about it. Now, while in every age different theories have been formed amongst the learned respecting the moon and its structure, the vulgar have uniformly come to the same conclusion--namely, that it is made of cream-cheese."

"But, my dear sir," cried I, "remember that science very often, like a part of algebra, sets out with a false position; the error of which being subsequently discovered and corrected, leads to a just conclusion."

"As you say," replied the Man in the Moon, "philosophy is little better than a concatenation of errors."

"I did not say any such thing," interrupted I.

"Well, well, don't be so warm," he continued, "I am not going to discuss the point. I will now tell you what it really is, which is better than all theory. The common classes have not judged with their usual sagacity about the moon, which is not, in fact, made of cream-cheese, nor, indeed, as Mr. Wordsworth obscurely hints, in his profound old poem of 'Peter Bell,' has it any similarity to a little boat, except that of carrying me about in it. Nor is it a crepitation from the sun, nor a windfall from the earth, which has gone on in _statu quo_ ever since Galileo took the business out of the sun's hands by crying out, _E pur se mouve_. As to all that Ariosto said upon the subject, that is a pure fudge. No, sir, the moon is----but I must tell you that another time, for I see that I must be gone!" So saying, he snatched up his lantern, laid his faggot on his shoulder, and called to his dog, who appeared to have a mortal aversion to the excursion, for no sooner did he perceive his master's intentions than he clapped his tail between his legs, and ran away howling.

"Truth! Truth!" cried the Man in the Moon to his dog. "I call him Truth, sir, for he is very difficult to be caught hold of," said the old man, when he had got him; and now, having tied him by a string, he wished me good bye, and began walking up a moonbeam which soon conducted him out of sight.

SCRAPS--No. IV.

A YOUNG LADY'S STORY.

It was somewhere in Italy--the precise spot matters but little; one might fix it anywhere, from the Milanese to Calabria, though in all probability it was some place in the southern part of that beautiful land which has met the fate that so often follows loveliness--ruin even for its charms.

It was the close of a burning day about the middle of September; there had been a sort of feverish heat in the air during the whole morning, which, as the evening came on, settled down into an oppressive sultriness, that impeded respiration, and rendered the whole world languid and inactive. All was still, but it was not the stillness of repose. No animal enlivened the scene, but where a heavy crow took its long, slow flight across the sky, or a straggling fire-fly gave a dull and fitful gleans amongst the dank vapours that came reeking up from the flat marshy fields on either side of the road.

A solitary traveller rode along towards the dark wood before him, and ever and anon seemed to turn his eyes towards the edge of the horizon, where enormous masses of deep bleak clouds appeared to swallow up the setting sun. From time to time the roll of distant thunder announced the coming storm; and as darkness grew over the face of the earth quick flashes of lightning started like genii of fire from the gloom, and shed a livid horror on the scene. The traveller hurried on dismayed, while torrents of rain began to drench the bosom of nature; but strange to say, and unaccountable, he never once thought of returning to the inn where he had spent the day, and which was not half a league behind. However, as storms, like all other uncomfortable things, are rarely of eternal duration, the one in question began to subside. The rain ceased, and the traveller went on at an easy pace, hoping every moment to find some hospitable shed where he might dry his clothes and wait out the rest of the tempest.

The road at length turned off abruptly to the right, and narrowing insensibly, assumed the appearance of a winding lane, at the end of which stood a house of respectable, but dreary, aspect. The traveller paused: a strange, undefinable, dreamy apprehension took possession of his mind, and though by a strong effort he forced himself to proceed, it was not without something like a presentiment of evil that he clambered through a gap in the garden-wall, leading his horse by the bridle.

The first object that struck his view was a tall white figure, standing in a menacing attitude, at the end of a long, bleak, gravel walk. Start not; it was not a ghost, though the traveller was half-inclined to think so, till he walked up to it, and found that it was merely a noseless, moss-grown statue, rising from a wilderness of weeds which had once been an arbour. Our traveller smiled at his mistake, and leaving his horse to explore the garden alone, he made the best of his way to the house. It was a square building of gray stone, and as the pale lightning gleamed from time to time on its broken windows and yawning doors, it looked astonished and frightened at its own solitude. The traveller participated in its emotions, and as he entered the dreary vestibule his heart sunk within him. There were doors on either side, and a staircase at one end of the vestibule, but the traveller felt no inclination to penetrate into the interior of so gloomy an abode--the more so, as it appeared totally uninhabited, and every one knows that such places are always the most alarming, seeing that there must be some cause for leaving them thus to their fate. The wind moaned sadly through the half-opened doors, and the traveller's situation became every moment more unpleasant; so that he resolved at last to do that which he might as well have done at first, namely, return to the inn, and wait for the morning to continue his journey. The dead leaves which the wind had driven into the vestibule rustled fearfully under his feet as he walked towards the door; but he made his exit in safety, and taking his horse by the bridle, regained the broken garden wall with a step of forced composure, for the traveller wished sadly to persuade himself that he was not frightened at all. When, however, he found himself safe on horseback, and in a fair way of reaching the inn, the rapidity of his movements and the long deep shudder which accompanied his parting steps, gave sufficient evidence of the uneasiness of his sensations.

Arrived at the place of his destination, of course his first inquiry was on the subject of the mysterious habitation he had left; so while he drank some warm wine to raise his spirits, he sent for the landlord to tell him all about it. The host stared,--he had never heard of such a place. The traveller described its position and appearance exactly. The landlord had been born and brought up in that neighbourhood but had never seen either lane or house answering the description.

The boys of the inn were called, but they were as ignorant, or as lying, as the host, who said, with a smile, that perhaps his guest was mistaken.

This was not to the borne; the traveller offered a reward to any one who would accompany him in a second visit to the house in question. As money does great things, he had soon more than one volunteer, and off they set with lights and horses. They travelled on for some way at a rapid pace, and the stranger frequently stopped to look about him,--no house was to be seen. He perfectly recognized every object on the road which he had seen before, to a certain point, but there it assumed a new appearance. He must have passed the lane, he thought, and turned back again, amid the stifled merriment of his companions, but neither lane nor house was visible. All was straight, flat, and uniform. The traveller was as grave as a judge, but the rest could no longer conceal their laughter, and he himself, feeling rather shy on the subject, was glad to dismiss them with the promised reward.

He then proceeded on his journey alone, endeavouring to persuade himself that his late adventure was a dream, or something very like it. Scarcely, however, were the people of the inn well out of sight when, strange to say, the road bent mysteriously, as if by magic, to the right, and there it stood--the enchanted house at the end of the lane!!!

This time (thought the traveller) I will pierce the mystery, if it cost me my life. Leaving his horse in the lane, he entered the garden by the breach in the wall; he passed the old statue, he ascended the broken steps, and soon found himself in the solitary vestibule. There his nervous terrors redoubled. It seemed as if all the inhabitants of the Red Sea had agreed to haunt his imagination at once. Still, however, he went on, and began to mount the ruined staircase. He had reached the first landing, and was about to continue his ascent, when the whole building seemed to give way at once, and he sunk senseless amid the crashing ruin.

11 was a bright, clear, autumnal morning; all nature seemed to waken refreshed from her sleep; the dew began to sparkle in the early beams; the birds sang up the rising sun; and the clouds of night rolled sullenly away, as if to avoid the brilliant presence of the day, when some peasants, who were gaily going forth to their morning labour, were suddenly struck by seeing a horse saddled and bridled, but without a rider, engaged in cropping a scanty breakfast of the herbage which grew at the side of the road. A few steps further showed them our poor traveller, lying senseless and bleeding near a heap of stones. The good souls took him up, and carried him to one of their cottages, where they succeeded in bringing him once more to life. It was only, however, for a short period. He gave directions for sending off a messenger to his friends, and to the inquiries concerning the state in which he was found, replied, by relating the above adventure, after which he lingered for an hour or two without speaking, and expired.

The people of the neighbourhood are divided in opinion respecting the traveller's narrative. Some opine that he fell asleep on his horse, dreamed the whole story, and was killed by a very opportune and natural tumble. But others, with much more show or probability, attribute the whole to the machinations of some evil spirit.

SCRAPS--No. V.

THE LAW OF BABYLON.

MEMOIR.

Sheweth,

That although there be one person in this society who has obstinately and wilfully refused to make any contribution in writing towards our evening's amusement, it is, nevertheless, proposed to excuse him on the same principle that the grand Desterham of Babylon excused a certain wit of that city.

Be it known, then, that the laws of Babylon were all founded on the grand principle, that crimes are simply diseases, and that punishments are the remedies by means of which alone the malefactor can be cured of the malady under which he labours. Thus, when a man was afflicted with the thieving disease, they applied hanging, which was found infallible. For minor maladies, such as lying, cheating, swearing, etc., they had various remedies;--the bastinado, ear-slitting, nose-cutting, actual cautery, and many others; but it was all for the patient's good, and to cure him of his ailment. Now, in Babylon, as in all large and flourishing cities, one of the greatest and most unpardonable crimes was wit. It was held as the most dangerous species of treason, and punished accordingly, especially as the grand Desterham, at the time I speak of, had once been suspected of having thought a witty thing, though he never said it, and was of course much more severe than any other judge, in order to prove his zeal for the law, and abhorrence of witty practices.

It happened in the moon Assur, at twenty-three o'clock in the forenoon, twenty-five thousand years four days and seven minutes after the world's creation--as specified in the indictment, and copied into the register of the court--a certain citizen of Babylon was brought before the grand Desterham and his four colleagues, charged upon oath, with being a wit and a traitor. After the court had slept over five-and-twenty witnesses for the accusation, the prisoner was put upon his defence, being first told that he was indefensible.

The prisoner, however, undertook to prove that he was not a wit but a fool. "For," said he, "if I had possessed any wit, I should not have been fool enough to show it. If, therefore, I have not shown any, you must acquit me of having any; and if I have shown any, you must pronounce me to be a fool for so doing, and consequently must acquit me any way."

The judges all looked at one another, and not understanding what the prisoner meant they judged it to be blasphemy, and ordered him to be bastinadoed on the soles of his feet, after which they proceeded to judgment on the accusation, and unanimously found the prisoner guilty.

But the prisoner's counsel running over the indictment with his nose, found a flaw therein. For whereas it was stated that the time was twenty-five thousand years four days and seven minutes after the creation of the world; it was proved by the chief astrologico-astronomer to the Empire, that it was only twenty-five thousand years four days, six minutes and a half, so that the prisoner saved his life by half a minute, and was dismissed with the court with a suitable admonition.

But the warning was in vain, he soon fell into his old courses; and one unlucky day was again brought before the grand Desterham, his guilt clearly proved, and finally he himself ordered to be hanged, in the hope that this application might entirely remove the disease.

The grand Desterham himself assisted at the operation, and the poor patient was exhibited on a high scaffold with a rope about his neck.

"Citizens of Babylon," said he, addressing the people, "rejoice! You shall soon see into what elevated situations wit brings a man in this sublime empire."

As he spoke the hangman hoisted him up, but the grand Desterham vociferated, "Cut him down, cut him down; he is incorrigible."

The other members of the court objected greatly; but the grand Desterham quoted the universal principle of the law, and added, "that as the patient before them was evidently incurable, the remedy could have no effect."

The poor wit was therefore allowed to go at liberty, but the grand Desterham brought an old house over his head, for he was shortly after banished, being strongly suspected of good sense and judgment, though it was never clearly proved against him.

SCRAPS.--No. VI.

WRITTEN IN A BOOK OF DREAMS.

This life 's a dream--so all have thought, Philosophers and poets too, And rhyme and reason both have wrought, To prove what most have felt is true.

The warrior's dream 's a fiery chaos, For glory ever flying on; The statesman's an unceasing race, Full often lost and seldom won.

The merchant dreams of loss and gain, And gold that never brings content; The student's a dull dream of pain, 'Midst mouldered books and hours misspent.

The lover in his airy hall Has joy-dreams ever in his view, And, though the falsest of them all, His dream perhaps is sweetest too.

The poet's dream 's a dream of dreams, Of phantoms seen and passed away, Like dancing moats in sunny beams Which shine but while they cross the ray.

Yes, all's a dream, but who would part With one fond vision fancy knows, One bright delusion of the heart For all that waking reason shows?

Who'd quell the notes Hope gaily sings, Because they're tuned so witchingly? Who'd pluck Imagination's wings, Because they bear her up too high?

Let those who would so close this page, Where many dreams recorded lie; It ne'er was meant to please the sage, But feeling's heart and fancy's eye.

SCRAPS.--No. VII.

RABAS.

There is a garden near Bordeaux called Rabas, which may be considered the perfection of bad taste in gardening; I never saw anything so studiously ugly. There are straight walks as mathematically unnatural as if they had been laid out by an inhabitant of Laputa. There are hermitages, cottages, and wilderness, fit for Bagnigge Well's tea-gardens, together with sundry lions and tigers glaring in painted pasteboard. All the trees are pared as closely as possible, and there is eke a labyrinth for people to lose themselves, or not, as they like best.

It was in the said gardens of Rabas, which belong to a rich family in the neighbourhood, that these lines were written, at the request of a young lady who was expected soon to change her name.

RABAS.

Remember the moments of pleasure when past, For they keep still a trace of their lovliness, Lady, Let the memory too of these flat gardens last, With their trees cut so straight, and their straight walks so shady.

Come pledge me the oath I dare ask of thee yet, Come pledge me the oath that their memory claims, These gardens and moments, ah! ne'er to forget, While your name is Anna, and my name is James.

But, Lady! O Lady! your sex is so fickle, There is no believing a word that they say; Old Time like a reaper walks on with his sickle, And gathers no emptier harvest than they.

Not content with discarding their fashions and dresses, With their very own names they don't scorn to make war; Thus while 'Young' my identity ever expresses, You soon may be somebody else than you are.

Come, find me some oath that more surely may bind thee; Come swear then by something that never shall change, By the grace with which nature has lavish entwined thee, Which time ne'er shall alter nor fortune estrange.

By thy smile's witching power, by thy mind's airy flight, That lark-like soars high o'er the place of its birth, And tuning its song in the porches of light, Seems to sorrow that e'er it must sink to the earth.

Come swear then--but what can I swear in return?-- To remember thee ever wherever I rove, Though my heart may be dead, and my breast but its urn, I offer thee friendship--'tis better than love.

DOMESTIC LIFE IN FRANCE.

Mortel, qui que tu sois, prince, brame, ou soldat, Homme! ta grandeur stir la terre N'appartient point à ton état, Elle est toute à ton caractère.--BEAUMARCHAIS.

There are two words wanting in French which an Englishman can scarcely do without, _comfort_ and _home_. The hiatus is not alone in the language, the idea is wanting. Speak to a Frenchman of pleasure, he can understand you--of gaiety, amusement, dissipation, he has no difficulty: but talk to him of _comfort_, and explain it how you will, you can never make it intelligible to him. In like manner, he will comprehend everything that can be said on the theatre, the coffee-house, the club, the court, or the exchange; but _home_--there is no such thing. _Chez-soi_ is not the word: _intérieur_ comes nearer to it, for that particularises, but still it is not home--home, where all the affections of domestic life, all the kindly feelings of the heart, all the bright weaknesses of an immortal spirit clad in clay--where all, all the rays of life centre, like a gleam of sunshine breaking through a cloud, and lighting up one spot in the landscape while all the rest is wrapt in shadow. We may carry ambition, pride, vengeance, hatred, avarice, about with us in the world; but every gentler feeling is for _home_: and miserable is he who finds no such resting-place in the wide desert of human existence.

I speak not of all Frenchmen. I have met some who had the feeling in their hearts, and scarcely knew what it meant. They had formed themselves a home, but had not a name for it. But these are the accidents, and in the generality of French families it is not, nor it cannot be so.

Marriage in France is one of the most extraordinary things that ever was invented. It is a state into which men enter, seemingly, from a principle of inevitable necessity--the _besoin de se marier_, or else who would engage their fate to that of a person whose mind, education, and disposition, is generally wholly unknown to them? The first principle of a woman's education all over the world is deceit. She is taught, and wisely taught, to conceal what she feels. But in France they try to teach her not to feel it at all. Educated in the greatest retirement, watched with the most jealous suspicion, as soon as a favourable opportunity presents itself, she is brought forward to show off all her accomplishments, before a man, who is destined for her husband, and is bidden to assume his tastes, and coincide in his opinions. Little affectation, however; is necessary. It is all a matter of convention. The one party wishes for a wife, and marries without knowing anything about her; the other wishes for liberty, and is married without caring to whom. This is the great change in a Frenchwoman's life. While single she is guarded, and restrained in everything; each action each word, each look is regulated; but the moment she is married all is freedom, gaiety, and dissipation. From a caterpillar she becomes a butterfly, and flutters on amongst the multitude to be chased by every grown child that sees her. These are not the materials for happiness! But this is not all. Every circumstance, every custom on these occasions leaves little room for the expectation of domestic felicity.

A young lady is to be married, and a young gentleman is found in the necessary predicament. She is promised a certain dower, and he is possessed of a certain fortune, into the state of which, as in duty bound, her parents make the strictest inquiry. But the case is widely different on the part of the young gentleman. No inquiry must be made by him. The character of his future bride it is impossible for him to know, that of her relations concerns him little, and into their means of giving the dower they promise, he is forbidden to inquire, on pain of excommunication. Any doubt on the subject would show that their daughter did not possess his love!--O that prostituted name love! used every day to quality the basest and most ignoble feelings of our nature.

But to go on with the history of a French marriage. The contract generally imports, that the father of the young lady shall pay a certain yearly sum to her husband, and a further sum is promised to be left her at the death of her parents. The benefits of this arrangement are obvious and manifold, and well calculated to check the exorbitant power which husbands have over their wives.

A part of the ceremony, and one of the most essential, is the _corbeille de marriage_, or wedding present from the lover to his bride. This is scarcely a matter of courtesy alone, as some might imagine, but almost of right, which the young lady would yield upon no consideration whatever. It is a sort of price, and is expected to be the amount of two years' revenue.

The _corbeille_ is a basket lined with white satin, and containing a variety of articles of dress and jewellery. One indispensable part is a cashemere; and the rest is made up of laces, diamonds, and all the thousand little nothings which enter into the composition of a fine lady.

The civil ceremony at the commune is all which the present law requires, but the religious part is seldom if ever dispensed with. The first takes place generally in the morning, without any display. The ceremonies of the church however are delayed till near midnight, and have in general the advantage of new scenery, dresses, and decorations. The higher the class, and the better the taste of the parties, of course, the simpler are all the arrangements, and the fewer and more nearly connected are the persons present. With such a system is it possible that there can be such a thing as _home?_ That it is possible--that it may be found, is one of the finest traits of the French character. All their habits, all their customs, from time immemorial, have been opposed to domestic life; and yet they occasionally create it for themselves.

TRAVELLING.

Ye glittering towns with wealth and splendour crown'd, Ye fields where summer spreads profusion round, Ye lakes whose vessels catch the busy gale, Ye bending swains that dress the flowery vale, For me your tributary stores combine, Creation's tenant, all the world is mine.--THE TRAVELLER.

What was the cause of our setting out so late the personage who certainly had the chief hand in it best knows, but it was between four and five o'clock in the afternoon before we got from the door of the Hôtel de France, on our way towards Pau and the Pyrenees.

The carriage, too, was unlike anything that the ingenuity of man ever before invented; not indeed from itself, but from its appendices: every hole and corner was crammed with all sorts of conveniences. There was a whole subjunctive mood of comforts---everything that we might, could; should, or ought to want, piled up in grotesque forms both inside and out. I never saw anything like it but the carriage of a lady, whom I once met coming from Italy, and that, indeed,--Heaven help her, poor thing, for I am sure when she was in it she could not help herself.

At length, however, we did set off, and passing by several _guingettes_, or, as it may be translated, tea-gardens, though they drink no tea there, left Bordeaux behind us and proceeded on our way to Langon. It was night ere we reached Barsac, not more worthy fame on account of its good wines than its bad pavements. For what purpose they were constructed, I defy any one to explain; but they answer three objects, breaking carriages, laming horses, and jolting the unfortunate traveller to such a degree, that were there any thing contraband in his composition, it would be sure to be shaken out of him.

At Langon we stopped to supper, during which important avocation, we were waited on by a smiling, black-eyed country girl with scarcely a word of French to her back; for be it remembered, that here, on the banks of the Garonne, all the peasantry speak Gascon, as their mothers did before them; and after having made several ineffectual attempts to arrive at our little attendant's intellects, through any other channel than that of her native tongue, I was obliged to have recourse to that as a last resource. Never did I perceive joy and satisfaction so plainly depicted, as in her countenance, when she heard the first two or three words of Gascon which came out of my mouth; but the effect was not so good as might have been anticipated, for in that language she had no lack of expressions, and would fain have entered into a long conversation with me, which put my knowledge to the stretch. However, in the mean time, my companion, from what whim I know not, had persuaded the rest of the people in the house, that I was a Chinese, to which, perhaps, my fur travelling cap lent itself in a degree. He explained to them also, that China was the country from whence tea was brought, and to this, I believe, we were indebted for the best tea the place could afford, and for being stared at all the rest of the evening.

We travelled on from Langon with the intention of sleeping at Bazas, but by the time we arrived at that place, the night was so far wasted, that we agreed to continue our route without stopping.

The dress of the country people now began to vary; we had no longer the high Rochelle caps, which the women in Bordeaux sometimes wear, and which resemble very much the helmet of Hector, in the picture of his parting from Andromache; nor the neat twisted handkerchiefs, with which the grisettes dress their heads, but, as a substitute, a flat, square piece of linen, brought straight across the forehead, and tied under the chin in the fashion of the Landes. We had lost, too, the neat, pretty foot and well-turned ankle, with the stocking as white as snow, the shoe cut with the precision of an artist, and sandled up the leg with black ribbon; and instead had nothing but good, stout, bare feet, well clothed in dirt, and hardened by trotting over the rough roads of the country. The men were generally dressed in blue carter's shirts with the Bearnais berret, not at all unlike in shape the Scotch blue bonnet, but larger, of a firmer texture, and brown colour.

We breakfasted at Roquefort, celebrated, I believe, for nothing although there is a sort of cheese which carries the name of Roquefort about with it, and in the town is a pottery, said to be upon English principles. This we did not see, but pursued our journey to Mont de Marsan, the capital of the Landes, where we began to enjoy de benefits arising from monopoly when applied to posting, being obliged to wait nearly an hour for horses. Monopoly may be called injustice to the many for the benefit of a few. In great public works, which no one man could have the means to execute, and where individual competition is either impossible or destructive, governments are but just to grant particular privileges to the companies of men who undertake them, and to secure to them a reward apportioned to the enterprise; but, in every instance where various persons can place themselves in comparison one with another, in the service of the public, the public alone can minutely judge, and justly reward, and by so doing secure to itself the best servants at the lowest price. The French government, however, are rather fond of monopoly; that of posting is only one amongst several. As far as a monopoly can be well organised for the benefit of the public, posting in France is so. One postmaster is stationed in every town, who has alone the right to furnish horses for the road. He is obliged by law to be provided with a certain number, according to the size and position of the place in which he is established, but this number is very frequently insufficient, and not always complete.

Many provisions are made for rendering the postilions attentive to their duty, and civil to the traveller. Their recompense is fixed by the post-book at fifteen sous per post of two leagues; but the ordinary custom is to give them double, and generally something more, which they make no scruple of demanding, though positively forbid to do so by their instructions. Every postmaster is obliged to hold a register, in which any complaint either against himself or his postilions may be recorded by the traveller, and countersigned by the next commissary of police. This is generally visited every month, and the punishment consequent on any serious charge is very severe.

Our delay at the Mont de Marsan enabled us to walk through the town, which seemed to our post-bound eyes an ill-built, straggling place enough, with the people not very civil, and the streets not very clean. Notwithstanding, we found our inn, the cleanest and neatest we had seen in France; I could have fancied myself in old England if they would but have charged the Sautern ten shillings a-bottle.

The want of horses here was but a prelude to what we were to meet further on, for at Grenade we found that two carriages, which had preceded us, were waiting for the return of the postilions from Aire: so to make the best of it, we ordered our dinner and strolled out to the bridge over the Adoure, where we amused ourselves by talking all the nonsense that came into our heads, and watching some washerwomen washing sheets in the stream below. They do it with extreme dexterity, taking the largest sheet one can imagine, and after having folded it in their hands, with one sweep extend it flat upon the surface of the river; they then dip the end next them, and catching a little of the water pass it rapidly over the whole by drawing the sheet quickly to the bank.

After having watched this proceeding for some time, we returned to dinner, which consisted principally of the legs of geese salted, a favourite dish all over this part of France; and then amused ourselves by scrutinizing the antics of a large black monkey in the inn-yard.

I have an invincible hatred towards a monkey. It is too like humanity--a sort of caricature that nature has set up, to mock us little lords of creation. To see all its manlike, gentlemanlike ways of going on, gave me a bitter sense of humiliation. It is very odd, that we should thus dislike our next link in the grand chain of the universe.

A PRIME MINISTER'S MONKEY.

Il mio cuore gl'inalza un monumento dentro me stesso, tanto durevole quanto la mia vita. Aveva egli della bonta per me: ma e per chi mai non ne avea? GANGANELLI.

Several years ago I went one day to dine with the Duc de R----. The world say that he was not the greatest of ministers, but he was much more--he was the most amiable of men. However, that does not signify, he is dead now: and if politicians have forgotten him, he at least made himself a memory in the affection of the good, and the gratitude of the poor.

He lived at that time in the Rue de Bac; and as I knew him to be punctual, I got into the cabriolet exactly at nine minutes and three quarters before the time he had appointed; for I calculated that it would take me just so long to drive from the end of the Rue de la Paix to the Rue de Bac, allowing one minute for a stoppage, and half a minute for a call I had to make at ---- It does not signify where, for surely much mischief could not be done in half a minute.

However, the stoppage did not take place; and I changed my mind about the call; so that I was nearly as possible one minute and a half before my time. The duke was still more incorrect, for he was three minutes and a half after his. Thus, by the best calculation, there were exactly five minutes to spare. Accordingly, a page showed me into a saloon to wait the arrival of the duke. Now there was a fire in the _salon_, (I did not say a stove,) no, but an actual fire, with an arm-chair on one side and the duke's favourite monkey; on the other. So I sat myself down in the arm-chair, and began considering the monkey; who seemed not at all pleased with my presence. He grinned, he mowed, he chattered, and every now and then made little starts forward, showing his white teeth all prepared to bite me, I am not fond of being bit in any way, so I first of all took up the tongs, thinking to knock his brains out if he attacked me; but then, I thought that it would be cowardly to use cold iron against an unarmed monkey; and putting down the tongs I resolved on kicking him to atoms if he pursued his malicious inclinations. But just at the moment that we were in this state of suspended hostilities, the duke came in to make peace, like some more potent power between two petty sovereigns.

"I was just speculating monseigneur," said I, "upon the policy of kicking a prime minister's monkey."

"It would be bad policy with some men," said the duke, smiling; "but I hope that Jackoe has given you no reason to use him so severely."

"None precisely, as yet, my lord," replied I; "but he threatened more active measures, and, I believe, we should have come to blows if you had not come in."

"It was only fear," said the duke; "fear that makes many men as well as monkeys assume a show of valour; for Jackoe is a very peaceable gentleman: are not you, Jackoe?"

The monkey, with a bound, sprung into the duke's arms; and I never saw a more complete contrast than there was between the fine intelligent countenance of the minister, and the mean, anxious, cunning face of the ape.

"By heaven!" cried I, "it is the best picture I ever saw."

"What?" asked the duke.

"Why, your excellence and the monkey," answered I; and for fear he should misunderstand me, I added boldly what I thought, "It has all that contrast can do for it. It is it once the two extremes of human nature. You monseigneur, at the height of all that is great and noble, and the monkey coming in at the fag end, a sort of selvage to humanity."

"You do not consider the monkey as a human being?" asked the duke.

"If he is not," said I, "in truth he is very like it."

Monsieur de S---- coming in interrupted the duke's reply, but by his affection for the animal, I do not think we differed much in opinion.

AIRE.

Let school-taught pride dissemble all it can, These little things are great to little men.--THE TRAVELLER.

O Aire, Aire! It shall never forget thee. Not because Alaric king of the Visigoths made thee his habitation, but because within thy walls were we detained a whole night for want of horses, devoured by vermin, pestered by postilions, and bamboozled by innkeepers.

Be it known to every traveller, of every kind, sort, and description, whatever be his aim, object, or occupation; wherever he comes from, or wherever he is going, that if he travel in a "_petite caliche_," with two persons in the inside, and one servant on the out, together with a compliance to all the forms and regulations, as laid down in the book of French posts, he is not obliged by law to have more than two horses to the said _calèche_, paying for each at the rate of forty sous per post. But be it equally known, that at every relay he comes to, the postmaster will endeavour to force upon him a third horse, which being then thirty sous per post for each horse, will be then ten sous more than he would otherwise pay. Now every man may easily make the calculation for himself, and settle the accounts between his comfort and his pocket as he likes best. The rich traveller will say, "Hang the ten sous!" the poor traveller will say, "Why, it is a consideration!" The avaricious traveller will always have his thumb between those two leaves of the post-book; and there will be one sort of traveller who will say, "Though _I_ can afford to lose it, there may be some who follow that cannot, and therefore I will not submit to the imposition."

Now we being poor travellers, and in the category above mentioned respecting the _calèche_, we held out for our ten sous per post, and met little annoyance on that account, till we arrived at Aire; but there the postilion would insist upon being paid for three horses, though we had had but two. I called for the postmaster. He was not to be found, and as it was apparent from the number of carriages having priority of ours, which were waiting in the inn-yard for want of horses, that we should not be able to depart that night, we took a stroll down to the river, leaving the angry postilion keeping guard over our vehicle.

At the ford, just arrived from the Pau side of the Adoure, we met two carriages proceeding to the same miserable inn where we were lodged. They were filled with a lovely family from our own dear land, and I know not why, before we knew who or what they were, we could have sworn to them, and proudly too, for our country people.

In a few minutes the postilion rode after us, desiring us, in a sulky tone, to pay him, and as we found that the postmaster had now returned we went back with him. There was nothing to be said against the law, and in consequence the matter was decided in our favour; we paid the sum due, and for the sake of his insolence gave the postilion but thirty instead of forty sous, which we had been in custom of paying.

As soon as he had got it his rage broke forth in the most violent abuse of England and Englishmen. Everything that his fancy could invent in the way of vituperation was poured upon us, the more especially as he perceived that it highly amused a crowd of French _laquais_ and postilions, who had nothing better to do than to look on. I let him proceed as long as he pleased, and then, as he was going to mount his horse, and ride away, I stopped him; desired the postmaster to produce his register, took a pen from the ink, and was about to inscribe my complaint in form. But now the whole scene was changed; nothing was heard but prayers and entreaties that I would give up my design. The postmaster gently opposed my approach to the book. The postmaster's wife took hold of the skirts of my coat; and assured me that the "boy was ruined" if I insisted. "Utterly ruined," echoed the postmaster. He was "_bon garcon_," some of the neighbours said, "but _mauvaise tête_."

I replied, that his _mauvaise tête_ must be corrected, and made a show of insisting; but now they became clamorous. Could I have the heart, they asked, to throw him for ever out of bread? I said that if that were the consequence perhaps I might not. They assured me it was, that he would never be employed again, and used so many arguments, that I had a good opportunity of relinquishing what I had scarcely intended seriously; and, with a very grave admonition, suffered our youth to ride away.

Of all the wretched places that ever poor traveller was tormented in, the most wretched is that inn at Aire. No dinner was to be got, for all that was in the house had been given to the English family we had seen arrive. No milk was to be had for our tea. Only one bed-room was vacant, with two dirty beds, filth, fleas, bugs, and a bad smell. However, here we laid down in our clothes; but no sooner were we asleep than we were galloped over by the vermin in every direction--it was like a charge of light horse. At length, with the morning came the happy news that there were horses; and away we went towards Pau. I can fancy a Catholic soul getting out of purgatory nearly as happy as we were to leave Aire.

We now met a great many of the peasantry, men and women, riding the short mountain horses. The features of the people, as well as the scenery, were here very different from what they had been in the neighbourhood of Bordeaux, and all showed that we were entering Bearn. Here, as in many other parts of France, no such thing is thought of as a side-saddle for a woman, who rides exactly like a man, and very frequently quite as well. I once knew a lady in Brittany, who, both for mustachios and horsemanship, would have done admirably for a cavalry officer.

The country gradually rose into hills, generally richly cultivated and scattered with wood; but nothing was yet to be seen of the Pyrenees. The character of the scenery was generally very much like that of Devonshire, but there was a great difference in the peasantry, who were here poor and ill-looking in comparison.

Going up a steep ascent, as we approached nearer to Pau, we were tormented by a parcel of little, dirty, ragged children, who, with a peculiar kind of tormenting drony song, kept begging by the side of the carriage; there were at least twenty of them, who, with flowers in their hands, continued to run by our side for near a mile. At length they left us; and, on reaching the top of the hill, an unrivalled scene burst upon our view. Immediately below was a broad plain, or rather valley, with a little world of its own within its bosom--villages, and hamlets, and vineyards, and streams, rich in fertility, and lighted up with sunshine--all peaceful, and sweet, and gentle;--while directly behind the hill that bounded it on the other side, rose the vast line of the Pyrenees, in all nature's grandest and most magnificent forms. It is impossible to describe the effect that such mountain scenery produces--one gasps, as it were, to take it all in. After contemplating for any time those immense works of nature, if we turn to look at the dwellings of man, which seem crouching themselves at the feet of their lofty neighbours, the lord of the creation dwindles to an insect, and the proudest of his palaces looks like the refuge of a caterpillar. Before we can reconcile ourselves to our own littleness, we have to remember that this insect, with his limited corporeal powers, has found means to make the vast world, and all that it produces, subservient to his will and conducive to his comfort, and then, indeed, his mind shows as exalted and powerful as his body is feeble and insignificant.

I cannot help thinking, that there is a sort of harmony between the spirit of man and all external nature; the heart expands and the mind enlarges itself to all that is bright and grand. A wide, beautiful scene steals us away from selfish griefs and cares; and it would appear to me impossible to do a bad or a base action in the presence of these awful mountains.

THE BIRTH-PLACE OF HENRI IV.

Even in the most monotonous existence, every day gives rise to so many little accidents, each of which bears its comment and its counter comment, and its subsequent and collateral ideas, that were one to write a diary, in which thoughts had a place as well as circumstances, we should pass one half of our time in recording the other.

Three hundred and sixty-five registers every year of one's life! Aye, and registers crammed full, too; for where is the man whose paucity of ideas is so great that he has not at least five in a second?--If they would but invent a way of writing them, what a blessing it would be! for at least fifty escape past redemption while one is engaged in transcribing a word of three syllables.--Thus I have forgotten what I was going to say! But certainly it is the most extraordinary thing in nature, and clearly shows of what a different essence is the soul from the body, that mind so far outstrips every corporeal faculty. Before the tongue or the hand can give utterance or character to any one word, thought has sped on before for some hundreds of miles, called at every post-house on the way, ordered new horses and refreshments, and is often, alas! obliged to come back to his master, whom he finds lumbering on in a heavy post-chaise, the Lord knows how far behind.

But, to return, for surely I have quitted the subject far enough. If I were to write an exact account of everything that happened at Pau, and everything we said and thought thereupon, it would make a goodly volume and be sufficiently tiresome, no doubt; but as I am getting rapidly towards the end of the first half of that period which I have undertaken to commemorate, and have yet got all my journey through the Pyrenees to tell, I must not dilate.

Nevertheless, I love narrative and hate description; and I would a great deal rather tell everything simply as it happened, and what it called up in my own mind, than huddle them all together, like an account of the Chinese empire in a book of geography, beginning with the boundaries and ending with the Lord's Prayer in Chinese.

However, as it must be done, I will begin boldly, and give a regular account of Pau, the chief town of the Basses Pyrenées--a very neat little place, situated on the ridge of a hill, crowned by the château where that love and war-making monarch, Henri Quatre, first saw the light of day. In the valley below runs a broad, shallow river, called the Gave[14] of Pau, which frets on with the tumultuous hurry of a mountain stream, and dashing petulantly over every little bank of stones it meets in its way, passes under a pretty stone bridge, which leads on the road to the Eaux Bonnes, and to the village of Jurançon, famous for its wines. Beyond the town, proceeding along the ridge of the hill, (which runs with the course of the river due west), there is a fine park planted with beech-trees, which afford a complete shade from the heat of the sun. The highest walk, extending for nearly a mile, commands a most beautiful and ever-changing view of the mountains, which lie, pile above pile, stretched along the whole extent of the southern sky. Indeed, they form a scene of enchantment, and are never for a moment the same--sometimes so involved in mist, that they form but a faint blue background to the nearest hills--sometimes so distinct, that one might fancy he saw the izzard[15] bounding from rock to rock. The course of the sun, also alters them entirely by the difference of the shadows; and the clouds, frequently rolled in white masses half-way down their peaks, give them an appearance of much greater height than when they stand out in the plain blue sky. But however they may appear, even at the times they are clearest, there is still that kind of airy uncertainty about them which makes one scarcely think them real. They seem the bright delusion of some fairy dream, and indeed, I was almost inclined to suppose it a deception, when on waking the third morning after my arrival, I looked for the mountains, and found that, like Aladdin's palace, they were gone--not a vestige of them remaining--not a trace where they had been. The sky, indeed, was cloudy, but the day otherwise fair; and to any one unaccustomed to mountain scenery, it would appear impossible that any clouds could hide objects at other times seen so near. But so if was: for two days we saw nothing of them, and then again the curtain of clouds rose majestically from before them, and left the whole as clear and grand as ever.

[Footnote 14: "Gave" signifies water; and in the Pyrennees this name is given to all the mountain-streams.]

[Footnote 15: The chamois of the Pyrennes.]

The best view is certainly from the park, where, looking over the river and the village of Jurançon, scattered amongst beeches and vineyards, the eye runs up a long valley, marked at various distances with clumps of trees and hamlets, and every now and then a tall poplar or two lessening in the perspective, till the first rising rocks appear beyond, seeming to block up the pass, and increasing one above the other, more and more faint and misty, till the abrupt "Pic du Midi" towers above them all, looking like a cloud upon the distant sky.

The climate of Pau is variable, but never very bad; the changes, while I was there, were frequent, but not very excessive. Lodging is dear and scarce, but every other convenience and luxury abundant and cheap, so long as one keeps within the range of nature's productions, for the arts have made but small progress in the town since Henri Quatre's time.

The country round is rich in itself, and richly cultivated; and, indeed, it is not often that scenes of such sublimity are mingled with so much fertility. From the window of our lodgings, we could look over a wide view, covered with woods and vines, large fields of maize and corn, with peach and plum-trees growing in the open country, and the bright red blossom of the pomegranate mixing with the dark foliage of the other trees, and forming a strong contrast, not unlike that of the rich valley with the rocky mountains beyond.

The society here is very agreeable during the winter. There are many English, who have made it their residence; but it is too distant, and too retired, for those of our countrymen whose extravagance, or whose crimes, have driven them from their native country; nor have any of the coldly proud, or ostentatiously rich, yet found their way thither. The English, therefore, are gladly received, and even esteemed, by the French of Pau, who (unlike the natives of many other parts of France) have no cause to be afraid that either their purse or their consequence will suffer by admitting British travellers to their society: The best parts of the French character, also, are to be met with here, while many of the vices which find a hot-bed in great cities are lost in this retirement. I should suppose that the climate of Pau was healthy; the people seem strong, and with their brown skins, small black eyes, long dark hair, and the peculiar cap they wear, put me in mind of Calmuck Tartars. They are in general short, broad made, and muscular. In almost every other country we daily see huge mountains of flesh, that look like tumuli for entombing the soul; but there is nothing of the kind at Pau. They are sturdy, but not fat--well-fed, but not pampered. As I am speaking of the inhabitants of Pau, I must not forget the nightingales, the lizards, and the butterflies, which form no contemptible part of the population. The lizards are actually in millions, basking in the sun, and walking leisurely about, with all the insolence of a tolerated sect. No sooner does the sun begin to set, than the nightingale renders the whole air musical with its song. There is a little valley just below the town, warm, tranquil, and wooded, and here they congregate in multitudes, and wait for the night to begin their tuneful competition. I have, indeed, occasionally heard them in the day, even here, where the day is intensely hot, but it is only for a moment--a sort of rehearsal for the evening; and I must confess, that however beautiful the notes may be in themselves, they want half the charm in the broad light. They seem peculiarly appropriated to the night. There is a sort of plaintive melody about them, that is lost in all the gay buz and bustle of sunshine. But at night, when the dull crowd, whose feelings are more purely animal, have left Nature to her own quiet pensiveness--when there is no sound to distract, and no light to dazzle--the song of the nightingale comes like the voice of the spirit rising alone to heaven, with that kind of melancholy, solitary sweetness, which harmonises so sweetly with anything vast and beautiful.

I am not very well sure that I could make my feelings on the subject understood, and therefore I will not try, but go onto the butterflies, some of which are extremely beautiful. There is a superstition amongst the common people concerning one of these insects they call "the angel." They suppose that the etherial spirits visit earth under its form, and that whoever is fortunate enough to have one of them in his house, is exempt from the friendly visits of all evil spirits, and from many of the common misfortunes of life. On which principle, they do not at all scruple to catch them--and, angel or no angel, stick them on a cork with a large pin. But this is nothing to a diabolical way they have of making fishing-lines in Spain.

FLEURETTE.

I know not, in truth, how it has happened, but certain it is, that a great portion of the inhabitants of Pau have a very strong resemblance to Henri Quatre. One might indeed say, here, that he was the father of his people, at least there is a great family likeness. However, the Bearnais are both fond and proud of him. All the shop-windows are full of portraits of the warm-hearted monarch and very often is added that of poor Fleurette, the gardener's daughter. She was the first object of his love. He was very young, when one of the princes of his family passing through Bearn, accompanied him to the archery-ground. There were many of the youths of the neighbourhood shooting for the prize, which was a bouquet of flowers fastened on the butt; and many a Bearnaise girl looking on, and hoping that her lover would be the winner. Amongst others were Fleurette and her father, the old gardener of the château. She was a lovely, simple, country girl, and the young prince, scarcely less simple than herself, felt strongly attracted towards the gardener's daughter. Apparently it was without any design that he first began to speak to her; but the charm grew upon him: insensibly his language became more ardent, and then first began that sort of undefined courtship, which has from thenceforward been called "Conter Fleurette." He was so occupied it seems, that he did not even perceive that all the rest had missed the mark, till his cousin turned, saying to him, "Shoot, Henri; shoot Henri;" and gave him the bow. His arrow did not miss, and at once lodged in the bouquet, which was no sooner won than given to Fleurette.

What were the use of telling a long story about an every-day matter? Henry loved and was loved in return; but Fleurette was a country girl, and her lover was her prince. It is easy to imagine all the stages of the business. She commenced by admiring him as her prince; as such, too, she was flattered and pleased by his attention. She began to think less of the rank and more of the lover. She forgot the rank altogether, but he himself became more dear. She loved him not as a prince but as a man, and yielded as a woman. And then all the golden dreams of hope and passion came hovering round her. She never fancied such a thing as broken faith. She never thought that princes could betray. She never believed that Henri's heart would change. He would love her, and she would love him, until their lives did end. His glory would be her pride, and his good be her happiness.

Thus it went on from day to day; every evening he stole away from the castle to meet her. There was a pleasure in the secrecy, though all the world knew how matters went; and when any one asked where the prince was gone, the reply was, "Conter Fleurette."

At length it so happened, that amongst other guests at the château was a fair girl whose rank and beauty gave Fleurette some pangs. The world said that Henri was to receive her hand; and the ceaseless tongue of Fame kept ringing it in Fleurette's ears, till her cheek began to turn pale, and she often wandered into the woods to think in solitude. On one fair day, while she was thus employed, the prince and her rival passed before her. She could no longer doubt, for Henri held her hand, and there was an ardour in his eyes, and a tenderness in his manner, which Fleurette had wished, and hoped, and believed, were never shown to any but herself.

The hour of their meeting came; and Henri stole from the castle to the place of rendezvous. It was close to a spring which, falling from the rock, had formed a deep basin for itself below; and, round about, the trees had grown up, nourished by its waters; and as if in gratitude bent down over the clear still pool, hiding it from the rays of the obtrusive sun.

Henri waited--all was calm, and still, and silent; but there was no Fleurette. He grew anxious, alarmed--perhaps his heart smote him. He walked rapidly backwards and forwards, when suddenly he saw a scrap of paper lying in his path. He hurried back to the castle, opened it, and read, "You have passed near me."

The prince's agitation called instant inquiry upon him. But all mystery, all concealment was now over; an agony of fear and doubt had taken possession of his mind; and calling loudly to others to aid in his search for Fleurette, he hurried from the château. Servants followed with lights, and soon found the unhappy girl, whose sorrow had been short, though keen. She had chosen the wild basin, the spot near which had so often been the scene of her happiness, now to be her grave. Her heart had never loved but once, and broken to find that love betrayed.

Henry was nearly frantic, but remorse was now in vain. Her father, too, who was left in the world alone--the tale had reached him, and he came to where his poor child lay. His eye first fell upon her lover; he clasped his hands, while agony and wrath struggled hard in his bosom. "O that thou wert not my prince!" he cried, "O that thou wert not my prince!" and he cast himself down beside her.

It was long ere Henri forgot Fleurette; perhaps he never forgot her, for that first passion which sheds a new light upon our being--the brightest thing our youth has ever known--hangs fondly round remembrance, and yields neither to years nor sorrows. Time softens it; but memory hallows it; and on the tomb raised in our heart to past affection, is graven, an inscription which nothing can erase--"To the brightest friend of our youth, Early Love"--so runs the epitaph, "this sepulchre is given by Experience, Memory, and Regret;" Hope too would have added her name, but her eyes were dim with tears.

The character of Henri Quatre would certainly have been brighter had he wanted those failings of which poor Fleurette was the first victim: yet, as a man of strong passions, in a dissolute age, as a king, a conqueror, a soldier, warm, generous, enthusiastic, our sterner morality is but too much inclined to unbend towards him, and to attribute his faults to the same ardent nature which might lead him occasionally into error, but which carried him on to so many noble exploits.

The love, that the Bearnais bear to the memory of their native prince is beyond all bounds. In the reign of a vainer monarch, Louis XIV., a subscription was opened at Pau for erecting a statue to Henri. Louis liked statues to nobody else but himself: and though he did not absolutely prohibit the proposed monument, he caballed and intrigued with the people of the place, till he forced them to change their original intention into erecting a statue to himself, instead of one to his progenitor.

It was accordingly fixed in its place with great pomp; but in an inscription on the pedestal the Bearnais took care to state, that the statue was erected, "à Louis XIV. roi de France et de Navarre, _petit fils_[16] de notre grand Henri."

[Footnote 16: "To Louis XIV., king of France and Navarre, grandson of our great Henry." The force of the satire is not to be rendered in an English translation.]

THE EAUX BONNES.

Nulla di più immirabile che un suolo il più fertile sotto il clima più bello, ovunque intersecato di vive acque ovunque popolato da villaggi.--GANGANELLI.

From the higher range of the Pyrenees, which forms as it were an immense barrier between France and Spain, run a multitude of lateral valleys, each enclosing within its bosom its streams, its villages, and its plains, possessing its own peculiar race of inhabitants, its own usages and superstitions, and often having little communication with any world beyond its boundary of mountains. One of the sweetest and (until late years) one of the least frequented of these valleys, is the Valley d'Ossau, which leads apparently in a direct line to the foot of the Pic du Midi de Pau. I had often stood in the park, and looked up the long vista of hills before me, fancying a thousand things in the blue indistinctness of distance, and lending it as many charms as imagination can bestow on uncertainty; a longing took possession of me, to approach myself nearer to these airy hills whose fairy brightness haunted me: and I was never satisfied till we were on our way to the Eaux Bonnes. Of this little watering place, lying in the deepest recesses of the mountains, report had told such tales, that I got out of patience with my own fancy for believing them. You stupid fool, said I, to Imagination, you are only getting up a disappointment for yourself and me; methinks experience ought to have made you wise by this time; witness all the unpleasant scrapes into which you have plunged me. Just as I was reasoning thus with Fancy, came by a blind man, led by a dog; the sturdy cur would come into our court-yard, for some little affair of his own, and kept tugging and pulling at the rope which tied him, till the blind man, who felt he was going wrong, but did not know by what means to set him right, was fain to comply and let him have his own way. So I gave up the matter too, and we ordered horses for the Eaux Bonnes, for it was impossible for the blind man's dog to tug him into our court-yard one bit more violently than my fancy tugged me into the mountains. And hereby I leave and bequeath the similitude between a blind man and his dog, and any man and his fancy, to any person who may be disposed to profit by the same; giving up all right, title, and claim whatever; upon the said similitude or simile, and declaring and avowing that I will have nothing more to do with it. Always provided, nevertheless, and be it hereby understood and agreed, that these presents be no further considered as gift, bequest, donation, or legacy, than as far as in me lies to give, bequeath, or devise, the similitude or simile aforesaid, inasmuch as it may have been uninvented, unpossessed, and unappropriated, by any other person or persons whatsoever, otherwise, this item to be null, void, and of no effect, anything hereinbefore said to the contrary notwithstanding.

By the time the horses came the next morning, I had quite resolved to be very much disappointed; and I got into the carriage, with precisely the same sort of unwillingness that the animal usually cited as the most striking example of consistency evinces when it is obliged to run according to its driver's will instead of its own. However, the day was fine, and nature seemed resolved to smile me into a good-humour. We rattled down through the town, passed the bridge over the river, commented on the number of beggars, admired the view of the town from the banks, and then turning in amongst the lesser hills which lie to the left of the valley d'Ossau, lost at once the prospect of the mountains, and might have forgotten that we were in the Pyrenees.

Indeed, the soft slopes covered with meadows and fields, handsome modern houses and pleasure-grounds, and streams that flowed gently on with scarcely more force than sufficient to turn a mill, took from us all remembrance that we were within a few miles of some of the highest mountains in Europe.

As we proceeded, however, the scene gradually began to change; the houses were less frequent, and seemed to gather themselves into villages, the rivers became more rapid, and the country, though highly cultivated, assumed the appearance of a fine park; large clumps of oak and fir, lying scattered in every direction, and the tops of the hills hiding themselves in deep plantations. Still we saw nothing of the Pyrenees, and even the people seemed to differ in nothing from the common Bearnois of Pau, except, indeed, that the women had discarded their shoes as well as stockings, or rather carried them in their hands instead of on their feet.

We stopped at last to change horses at Savignac. A gentle slope leads from the village through some thick trees into the valley; and dashing down with all the _éclat_ of fresh horses and postilion we found ourselves, in a moment, in a scene that leaves description, and almost imagination, behind.

The valley winding up to the Peak, again lay before us; but we were now amongst the mountains indeed, and on either side, at the distance of less than half a mile, rose crags, and precipices, and hills covered with pine, towering to the very sky, and forming, as it were the impassable walls of the garden into which we were entering;--for it was a garden. Up to the very foot of the rocks, and climbing up the hills, wherever a spot of vegetable mould was to be found, the highest cultivation was extended, and the most extraordinary verdure. The hay and the corn harvest were both in progress at the same time and the new-mown fields appeared as if covered with rich green velvet, on which the large trees and rocks threw a beautiful transparent shadow. There were a thousand little objects of interest that filled up every spot the eye could rest upon, and satisfied it altogether. The valley all along was spotted with small villages, which seemed to creep for shelter close to the foot of the mountains. Not far on, stood a high rocky mound covered with the ruin of some feudal castle, and below lay a hamlet with its little church and the path winding up to it. Multitudes of small mountain-bridges crossed the river all the way up its course, as it came dashing and foaming over a bed of rocks. The crags, on either side, were broken and interspersed with rich hanging wood, and kept narrowing in the distance, till they seemed to meet, precipice over precipice, with the high conical Pic du Midi, rising purple above them all; and at the same time the warm sunshine, pouring over the hills, gave to all the further parts of the valley a kind of luminous indistinctness. I cannot describe it! It was a congregation of the grandest and the most minute, the most opposite and the most harmonious beauties, that nature can produce!

After having staid some time to admire, we passed on over a light, elegant little bridge, and followed an excellent read towards the Eaux Bonnes. In a valley which turns away to the left, lay the little town of Alurdi, scattered amongst some lesser hills. Part of it has been twice destroyed by avalanches, but the people still continue to build up the houses exactly on the same spot.

However grand the hills may appear, the eye, unaccustomed to such vast objects, does not judge rightly of their height till it compares them to something with which it is familiar. The steeple of Alurdi served us as a guide to estimate the objects around, and the effect was so extraordinary, that we both laughed on measuring it against the mountain behind. I am sure I know not why I laughed, for there is nothing in the littleness of man's works to make him merry; but so it was, and we went on.

Approaching Laruns, the valley appears terminated by high crags, and we could just distinguish the road to Spain, leading into a deep ravine, which seems scarcely more than a crevice in the rock. But here, turning off to the left, we passed through the town of Laruns itself, which is as odd a building as ever I beheld. Perhaps some people might find a great deal of amusement in searching into the history of the place, for both the materials and structure appear of an antique date. The lower story of the houses are only inhabited by the cows; pigs, and horses; and the number of pretty faces which the sound of a carriage called stare at the travellers, seemed as if they were looking out of the drawing-room windows. The streets are so narrow, that it is scarcely possible to pass; neither did I see a shop of any kind in the place. Over many of the doors we remarked the form of a serpent interlaced with two bars of iron, and the windows, which were without glass, consisted only of a kind of gothic frame of black marble, giving an extraordinary church-like appearance to the houses.

After passing through Laruns, as we entered another long valley to the left, we turned to take one more look at that which we were quitting. It was quite fairy land, a perfect scene of enchantment. The valley, full of villages, hamlets, and cultivation, undulating in a thousand slopes, and broken by woods and rivers, was all lighted up by the clear rays of the declining sun; while the wild heavy rocks and mountains to the west, rose in deep masses against the sky, no longer separated into detached portions, but all confounded in profound shadow, and airy, uncertain obscurity.

Language is all emptiness, and fails before any thing great or strong. Reader, I must take you to the valley d'Ossau, and set you where I stood, and win the sun to shine upon it as then he shone, before I can make you comprehend its loveliness.

We soon lost sight of it. After going on for a short time amongst some English-looking hedge-lanes, we again came out upon the edge of the hill; the road passing along the brink of a steep descent, at the bottom of which ran the river, roaring amongst the rocks. At one part, we found the people engaged in banking up the road, which was not upon the surest foundation possible, and which, having apparently a strong dislike to an elevated situation, was rather inclined to slip down into a more humble station in the valley below. The way taken, or rather the method in which they were proceeding to prop up the road, was somewhat curious. About twenty men and women were employed, some in digging earth for the embankment, others in carrying it to the spot. The machinery of a wheelbarrow never seemed to have entered their imagination, but as soon as a shovel full of earth was dug out, the women took it on their heads, in a small wooden trough, not at all unlike a butcher's tray, only not so large, and thus carried it at a slow pace to its destination, talking all the way; so that, upon a fair calculation, each woman could fill up about a cubic yard per diem.

It was not long now before we reached the Eaux Bonnes, a little town consisting of about a dozen large white houses, thrust into a gorge of the mountains. They are generally divided into small bed-rooms, and fitted alone for lodging the greatest possible number of the strangers who come to drink the waters. In fact, it looks as if a bit of Hastings, or Tunbridge Wells, and that a bad bit too, had been exported to the Pyrenees. The well is highly sulphureous, tasting most disagreeably of bad eggs; but it is supposed to have the most extraordinary effect in the cure of consumptive complaints, and thus, either for fashion or health, there are a great many people who come to drink of its waters.

The morning after our arrival, I wandered down to a cascade in the valley. I have seen much grander waterfalls, but rarely one more beautiful. By my eye, I should guess the height to be about forty feet. The scenery round is richly wooded, rocky, and picturesque, and the body of water considerable; but the principal effect is produced by the stream, after having fallen eight or ten feet, striking a projecting piece of a crag and rising back again in foam and spray, almost to the same height as that from which it fell. It then again descends, rushing down over the rock, with a roar which is heard for a great distance. At particular times, the sun, finding a way for its beams across the woody screen that hides it from above, shines upon the foaming mist that always rises from the water, and arches it with a sunbow. But I am not sure that it is not more beautiful without, in the calm simplicity of the white rushing stream, the dark rocks, and hanging wood.

THE EAUX CHAUDES.

* * * * On ev'ry nerve The deadly winter seizes, shuts up ev'ry sense, And o'er his inmost vitals creeping cold, Lays him along the snows a stiffen'd corse, Stretch'd out and bleaching in the northern blast.--THOMSON.

Blood-horses do not suit precipices, I am very well aware of that; but the two beasts which they brought forth to carry us to the Eaux Chaudes, were so tremendously irregular in appearance, so like the mountains they were destined to climb, that when I got across the ridge of my unfortunate hack, I could have fancied myself astride upon the Pic du Midi. However, they did very well, much better in all probability than better beasts would have done, and thus they went away, jogging on, lashing themselves with their tails, and kicking most unmercifully to get rid of the flies, but always with a kind of solemn gravity, which showed them well accustomed to it all, and neither at all inclined to discompose themselves nor their riders. As we went on, returning on the path we had passed the day before, we saw all the world in the fields getting in the harvest, trotting up and down the mountains with their bare feet, and as gay as the larks that were singing over their heads. To bring home the hay, they gather it into large linen cloths, forming packages very like feather beds these they roll down the hills as far as they can. When they cannot do so, they carry them, as they carry everything all through the mountains, on their heads; and difficult as the man[oe]uvre may seem, we saw more than once a girl stoop down to drink at a well, satisfy her thirst, and rise again, without ever removing the immense load of hay she carried on her head.

We were soon again in the beautiful valley d'Ossau, passed through Laruns, and following the road which I have said we saw going towards Spain, we entered a deep ravine, or pass in the mountains, where five men might dispute the passage with a world. There is not more room than for three horses abreast; and the rocks around rise high, bare, and inaccessible. At the end of the pass, the river which we had lost appeared pouring out into a deep hollow covered with rocks, trees, and underwood, the ravine widened into a narrow valley, varying from two to six hundred yards wide, while stupendous mountains rose on every side and shut out the world. Here some pious soul has hollowed out a little chapel in the rock, where the traveller may turn in to pray; and there could scarcely be a spot more solemn. In these passes, too, the storms of the winter months are most tremendous, with hurricanes and whirlwinds of snow so dreadful, that it is a common saying, "Here let not the father expect his son, nor the son expect his father." I have been told that this proverb originated in the story of a youth who had gone to hunt the izzard in the valley of Héas, when one of these storms occurred. His father, alarmed for his safety, went out to seek him. The young man arrived with his game, but finding his father absent on his account, returned to look for and bring him back. It would appear that the son had found, his parent almost overpowered by the storm, and being strong and vigorous had taken him in his arms to carry him home, for they were afterwards found lying together buried in the snow.

After keeping for some way along the steep which overhangs the river to the right-hand, we crossed a little bridge called _Le Pont Creusé_, and passed under the rocks to the left. It now becomes a country of cataracts, for every quarter of a mile a stream comes bursting over the top of the mountains, and descends from fall to fall for six or eight hundred feet. A very picturesque figure presented itself in our way; it was that of a Spanish smuggler, with his large sombrero, netted hair, and loaded mule; and I could not help remarking in his countenance, a kind of wild independence which I had not seen amongst the French mountaineers. God knows how he came by it, whether from his race or his country, or the continual habit of encountering and conquering dangers and difficulties in his illicit traffic, but there was something fine and grand, though bad, in the expression, not only of his face but figure.

Soon after passing him we arrived at the Eaux Chaudes, which consists simply of two ranges of houses built between the river and the mountain. The style of the place is exactly like that of the Eaux Bonnes, but it possesses several different springs, although the general nature of the waters appeared to me much the same as those of the former fountains.

Near the Eaux Chaudes is a mountain, called _La Montagne de la Grotte_, from a famous cavern situated near its summit, whose extent cannot exactly be ascertained, on account of a stream which impedes the passage at about three hundred yards from the entrance.

At the village we made an agreement with a guide to conduct us to the grotto. He was a shrewd, intelligent fellow, and spoke tolerable French, a thing rather rare in that part of the country; but he had acquired also a very excellent notion of the method of cheating travellers, together with a true French estimation of English purses and gullibility. Let me here remark, that the inhabitants of the Pyrenees, as far as I have seen, have little of the simplicity of mountaineers. The season for drinking the mineral waters bringing a great influx of strangers to spots at other times almost deserted, has taught the people of the country to gain as much as they can, and make hay while the sun shines, by cheating all the travellers within their reach to the utmost, so that whoever is obliged to employ them had better make their bargain beforehand.

Our guide having furnished himself with the necessary candles, etc., we proceeded along the valley, and crossed a bridge called _Le Pont d'Enfer_. I know not why, but in all mountainous countries they seem fond of attributing some of their bridges to the devil. In Wales, in the Alps, in the Pyrenees, one-half of them derive their name from that black personage, who, I should suppose, had something more serious to think about than building bridges. That which we now passed over had nothing very diabolical in its construction, and having again crossed the stream, our guide pointed out to us the grotto with a stream pouring down from it into the valley. It seemed a kind of garret-window in the mountain, which itself was little less perpendicular than the side of a house. We were told, however, that we might ascend on horseback, and on putting it to the proof, found that which had appeared impracticable, not only possible but easy, rendered so by means of a zig-zag path, which conducted by easy stages to the very mouth of the grotto. Arrived there, we were obliged to stop to cool ourselves, for the air of the interior was actually freezing.

I have always been disappointed in grottos and caverns; and this, like all the rest which I have seen, gratified me but little. It was a vast hole in the mountain, filled with large petrefactions in a great variety of forms; one of which, descending from above in the shape an elephant's trunk, kept pouring forth a heavy shower of water, forming pools, that emptied themselves into the river in the centre. It was altogether far more curious than beautiful; and whether it was that my mind was not in train to enjoy, or what, I know not, but I found little to interest and less to admire.

However, after having dined at the Eaux Chaudes, on passing through the deep ravine by which we had come, we had again new subject for pleasure in the view down the lovely valley d'Ossau. We returned to it with that feeling which man experiences on coming back to something loved, and we naturally called it _our valley_.

It was on the hills near the Eaux Bonnes that I first met with that luxuriance of flowers for which the Pyrenees are famous. The morning before our departure, I took a walk over the mountains to a cascade higher up in the valley than that which we had formerly seen, and in the course of an hour gathered more than forty different species of flowers, a great many of which I had rarely seen before. The butterflies were nearly as numerous, and as brilliant in colour, and I was almost tempted to catch some of them; but as I had no means of preserving them, to have done so would have been but useless cruelty.

We lingered for several days at the Eaux Bonnes, enjoying ourselves much; for it was one of those spots in which we can well live, "the world forgetting." Every morning offered some new expedition through beautiful scenery; and in wandering amongst the rocks and woods, by the side of the bright streams, and over the blue tops of those ancient mountains, a calm and placid thoughtfulness fell upon me, different in every respect both from the fits of dark gloom which had been so frequently my companions, and from the wild and reckless spirit of excitement, by conjuring up which, I strove at other times to gain assistance, to wage my constant warfare against Memory.

How long I might have remained there I do not know, had I not been driven thence by a return of my mental malady, which, though the fits were less frequent, more easily banished, and less painful in their effects, had never left me entirely. At Bordeaux I had suffered once or twice from the same delusion; and I only seemed to escape by constant occupation of mind and body.

In the present instance, I had roamed out early one morning, and had climbed one of the highest mountains during the continuance of a fog which I knew to be the forerunner of a bright summer's day. I was alone; but I ascended the mountainside so far, as to have all the vapours below me, and to get the blue sky around me. The whole world below was covered with the fog, which lay condensed and even, like a calm wide ocean, while round about on every side, from the surface of the mist, rose innumerable the granite peaks of the mountains, offering the same aspect which doubtless they had done when they looked down long centuries before upon the universal deluge. It was an extraordinary scene, and I paused to gaze upon it long; but as the sun advanced, he dispelled the mists, and descending by the valley of the cascade, I stopped by the side of the falling water. After gazing upon it for a moment, I raised my eyes, when suddenly, through the spray of the fall and amongst the bushes on the other side, I saw again that fearful countenance. Covering my eyes with my hand, to shut it out, I hurried back to the inn, and told my friend B---- what had occurred.

"Let us return to Pau," was his only reply, and we accordingly set out at once. My command over my mind, however, was now greater than it formerly had been; and ere we reached that place I had regained my calmness, and was prepared to act my allotted part with the rest.

THE FRIENDS.

* * * * * * Nor purpose gay, Amusement, dance or song, he sternly scorns, For happiness and true philosophy Are of the social still and smiling kind.--THOMSON.

Our cook--yes, our cook--for we took it into our heads to keep house at Pau, and did not repent of it, for Therese behaved as well in our household as ever girl did, and besides other merits, could make fruit tarts and British dishes, having lived two years with the English family that I have said we met at Aire.

Our cook then, on our return from the Eaux Bonnes, was called upon for her accounts, inasmuch as cooks must eat and drink like other animals, and we had told her to provide herself with what she liked during our absence. Her bread and her wine formed a regular weekly bill apart, but farther than that, her expenses amounted to--and she was as fine a fat rosy-cheeked lass as one would wish to see--amounted to the sum of three-halfpence per diem. I could scarcely forbear laughing, but I did so for the good of society. If I had laughed she would have charged the next people two-pence a-day, as long as she lived, and rightly too, for surely no one would be economical and laughed at for their pains?

Two days after our first arrival in this little capital of the Basses Pyrenees, we strolled down into a valley below the town, and loitered along by the banks of the river, seeing several groups pass us, knowing no one, and known of none, and perhaps not wishing a little to place ourselves in the midst of some of them, and have our share of the conversation of Pau as well as the rest. At length, however, a party came near, and I began to have a strange undefined remembrance of the form of one of the persons composing it. I was not wrong, I had known her just before she left school; there was all the change from an interesting girl to a lovely young woman; but it was the same person, and she had not forgotten me either. We were kindly greeted, and quickly became no longer strange even with the rest of the party. To know them was to have the highest regard for them all. We were glad to seek their acquaintance, and acquaintance soon ripened into friendship. Within their little circle we found all that could be desired--talents, and grace, and cheerfulness, and nature, and in their society we had some of the happiest hours we met with on the continent.

Whether my companion had told tales of my rhyming propensities, or whether I had been my own accuser, I forget: but I was soon called upon for verses, and drawings. I agreed to contribute if others would do so too; and we once more drew a magic circle round us in which the spirit of poetry and romance rose up and whiled away many an hour at our bidding. Some of the pieces which I myself contributed I know were bad enough, I was sorry that I had written them; but I now only remember one or two--the rest of the tales and anecdotes were given by others. The first thing of the kind which I shall transcribe was occasioned by a lady accusing me of having composed nothing for her--I asked for a subject, but she replied that I must choose one myself, she would give me "nothing."

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NOTHING.

'O quantum est in rebus inane!'

'Tis nothing all--our hopes our fears, Our pleasure's smiles, our sorrow's tears, Our dreams of pride, our thoughts of care, Are lighter, emptier than air.

'Tis nothing all--the splendid earth, The boons of art's, or Nature's birth, With all that memory recalls, From nothing rose--to nothing falls.

The emmet Man toils on in vain To monument his hours of pain, While giant Time pursues his way, And marks his footsteps with decay;

Tracing on all that he destroys The epitaph of man's short joys, The sentence of the great and small, The certainty--'tis nothing all.

'Tis nothing all--the mighty man Who conquer'd realms and world's o'erran; What is he now? Himself? his fame? A heap of dust--an empty name.

Rome! Rome! Where is the wealth, the power, The pride of thy meridian hour, Thy tyrant standard which, unfurl'd, Waved o'er a tributary world?

'Tis nothing all--and Canæ's plain, And Carthage towers, and Leuctra's slain, And all the deeds that deathless seem Are broken, like an idle dream.

Without the better hope that flows From the pure skies o'er human woes, Like sunset ere the night succeed, All would be nothingness indeed.

And yet we love to leave behind, Some faint memorial to mankind, A trace to fellow things of clay Of something kindred passed away.

And when Time's work is wrought on me, Some eye perchance these lines may see, Without which, to the world and you, My memory had been nothing too.

One of the families of which our little circle was now composed had passed some time in Brittany; and amongst the first stories contributed was one by Colonel C----, under the awful title of "Le Sorcier," preceeded by some observations upon that province.

LE SORCIER.

The introduction of customs does much more to conquer a country than even an invading army. Lorraine, Alsace, and Franche Comté, were annexed to France by Louis the Fourteenth. By imparting to them the manners and habits of the French people, he soon rendered them easy under their new yoke; and fettering their minds by the chains of custom, he secured himself effectually against all danger of revolt. Not so in regard to Brittany. A decided fief of the crown of France, and long, by failure of male issue as well as alliance with the house of Bourbon, merged entirely into that kingdom, the inhabitants of the ancient dukedom of Bretagne still obstinately retained their old manners and customs, looking upon their barbarism as a sort of privilege, and repelling all attempt at improvement as a commencement of tyranny, and a first effort to deprive them of their liberties. If, as is very much the case, France in general is many years behind England in all the arts of life, Brittany is at least a century behind the rest of France, but more especially that part of the country called La Basse Bretagne. We must, of course, except the higher classes, the majority of whose members, by long association with the rest of the French nobility, have acquired the general manners of the country. There are, nevertheless, several families who, retired in the wilds of the land, retain, in some degree, the habits of their ancestors; but it is of the lower classes that I would speak at present. I saw but little of that part of the country, but I heard much of it from several persons who had frequented La Basse Bretagne, and as far as I have been able to learn, the inferior orders are characterized by but few good customs. Lazy, dirty, and slovenly in their persons and habitations, they possess corresponding qualities of mind: they are, I was assured, most frequently obstinate, ignorant, superstitious, and vindictive; yet at the same time are hardy, courageous, and resolute, opposing a sort of sullen, inert, unconquerable resistance, to all attacks upon either their rights or prejudices. We read of a refractory mule upon whom a lion was let loose, in the ducal menagerie at Florence, but who, retiring into a corner, received the monarch of the woods on his first attack with such a severe kick, that he was fain to forbear any further aggression upon so sullen an enemy. In this manner did the Bas Bretons receive Louis the Fourteenth, who would willingly have given them some degree of civilisation: but they repelled all his efforts; and every foot of the roads which he attempted to carry through the forests and wilds of that impregnable country, was actually cut at the point of the bayonet. If they have at all changed since that time, it has been by such very slow and imperceptible degrees, that the amelioration can scarcely be traced. They retain their own unseemly garb; they speak nothing but their own inharmonious language; they wallow in their own indigenous dirt, and, I am told, transmit the itch as an heirloom from generation to generation. In many of their habits, they resemble the lower Irish; but the comparison would be unfair to our Hibernian brethren.

The people of La Haute Bretagne are much more civilized, but still, in the lower ranks of life, are a very simple, ignorant, poor race, with many habits and customs and superstitions peculiar to themselves, which render them highly interesting to a traveller.

Having stated thus much, to give some slight idea of the people to whom I am about to introduce my hearers, I will proceed to tell an anecdote, the authenticity of which I can safely vouch for, as it occurred within my own immediate observation.

Every one has heard of the Whisperers of Ireland, who pretend to, and really possess, the extraordinary art of taming the wildest horses, which they apparently accomplish, by the simple process of whispering in their ears, This faculty of whispering is not at all confined to Ireland, however, but is common, in different forms, to a great many other countries. Every one has heard of the Laplander's habit of whispering in the ear of his rein-deer; and in various parts of Brittany, several of these whisperers are to be met with, whose success is invariable. They are there called _Sorciers_, and generally exercise the trade of farriers, curing horses of a variety of diseases in a manner truly extraordinary. One time, being at the little village of Bècherel, we had an opportunity of seeing the skill of the Sorcier put to the proof. Our worthy host, Monsieur de G----, had shortly before purchased a beautiful horse, whose only defect appeared to be, that nobody could ride him; and we do believe that Alexander himself would have found no means of taming this Bucephalus. After having spent a whole morning together with our host and his groom, in the vain endeavour to conquer the vicious spirit of the animal, our friend, Monsieur de G----, shrugged up his shoulders, with the usual gesture of a Frenchman when he is forced to have recourse to some unpleasant expedient. "_Il n'y a pas de remède_," said he; "the horse must be sent to the sorcier;" and accordingly he gave orders to his _garçon d'écurie_ to take it down the next morning to the village at which the aforesaid sorcier made his abode. This occasioned inquiries, the answers to which soon determined us not to allow the taming of the shrew to take place without our presence; and on the first expression of a wish to be on the spot at the time, our friend, whose hospitable kindness and desire to give us all kinds of information and pleasure during our visit to his house we shall not easily forget, instantly arranged a party for the next morning, in order to let us see the effect of the sorcier's power, in the first instance, and afterwards shoot over the ground in our return to the _manoir_.

About six in the morning we set out, on horseback, for the dwelling of the sorcier, with a groom leading the horse in question, who remained quiet enough as long as no one attempted to mount him. However, after riding about six miles, as we came near the place of our destination, M. de G---- resolved to see whether the distance might not, in some degree, have quelled the spirit of the animal, and giving his own horse to the groom, he mounted the other, who let him fix himself very peaceably in the saddle, but at the moment out friend attempted to urge him forward every muscle in his body seemed to be animated with rage. He reared, he plunged, he kicked, and left no means untried to shake his rider from his back. M. de G---- was a good horseman, and kept his seat; but he soon found that his situation was not a pleasant one, and attempted to dismount; but this the animal would not suffer either, rearing more tremendously than before, and showing a strong inclination to throw himself over on his Master. Just at this moment, a short, sturdy little man, attracted by the noise, came forth from the blacksmith's shop, towards which we had been apparently directing our steps, and approaching the spot, looked on for a moment as a spectator, merely exclaiming, "_le coquin_"! At length, the groom, impatient of his apparent apathy, cried out, "Mais souffle donc, François! Il va tomber, je te dis."

"Does Monsieur wish it?" demanded the sorcier, for such he was.

"Nom de Dieu!" cried the groom; "S'il le veut!"

As soon as he had said these words the sorcier watched his opportunity, and threw his arms round the horse's neck, who, not accustomed to such embraces, reared more violently than before, raising the little man off the ground with him. But he kept his hold, not at all embarrassed, and contrived in that awkward situation, to fix his mouth upon the orifice of the animal's ear. What he did, we know not. No one can suppose that the mere breathing in the animal's ear could have any effect; but his hands were occupied holding tightly round his neck, and the only thing we could observe was that firm pressure of the mouth upon its ear. However, in a moment, the animal became less restive, stood still, shivered a little, as with cold, and from that moment his spirit was gone.

Monsieur de G---- dismounted, paid the sorcier his ordinary fee, which was no more than a few francs, and after the excitement, and surprise, and all that sort of thing, had passed away, we took to our guns and turned our steps homeward. It may well be supposed that our conversation for the rest of that day turned very much upon the sorcier; and, after several anecdotes of the same nature as the above, M. de G---- related the following.

"Our Curé," said he, "is a very excellent good man, but a little superstitious; and, about two years ago, hearing a great deal about this sorcier and his feats of magic, he considered it his duty to preach against him; which he did so effectually for more than one Sunday, that the poor blacksmith lost all his custom; and as the priest had taught the peasantry to consider him as somewhat worse than the devil, he might have starved, if a circumstance had not happened which delivered him from the anathema.

"Our good Curé had saved from his stipend a few hundred francs, with which he determined to buy himself a horse, to enable him to visit the farther parts of his extensive _cure_ with less inconvenience. Accordingly, when the fair of Dinan came round, he set out, and, confident of his own judgment, bought himself a beast, which, doubtless, he imagined possessed all the qualities with which horse was ever indued. It was brought home the next day, and in the face of the whole parish, the saddle was placed on his back, and the Curé mounted.

"The horse stood stock still. The Cure gave him a gentle cut with his whip. The beast did not budge. The priest then applied a smarter blow. The horse lashed out behind, and in a minute the Cure was seen flying, like, a black swan, into the pond before his own door, while the horse, as if quite satisfied with the exploit, stood as immoveable as a stone, with his head down to his knees, and his ears bent back upon his neck.

"What could be done?--the Cure was not a man to try it again; and though he offered his horse a bargain to every one in the village, nobody would buy it. Day after day passed, and the horse stood in the stable, eat the Curé's corn, and did nothing. More than once, the idea of applying to the sorcier occurred to the Curé. At first he could not resolve upon such a thing; and many an argument did he hold with himself concerning the propriety of it. At length, however, the necessity of the case overcame his scruples, and he determined to send him to the sorcier; but how to do it, now became a serious question. He had preached so much against the practice that he was ashamed of yielding to it himself.

"At length, however, he took courage, and one dark night led the horse with his own hands all the way to the house we were at this morning. As soon as our friend François saw him, 'Ah, Monsieur le Curé,' said he, 'I thought you would come to me at last; but do you think I will cure your horse after you have ruined me?' The Cure now tried all his eloquence; but the sorcier was as hard as a flint; however, at length, he was somewhat moved.

"'Allons, Monsieur le Curé,' said he, 'I will make a bargain with you. You have preached me down when I could do you no good; you shall now preach me up--and I'll cure your horse.' This was a hard pill to swallow, and François would do nothing to gild it; but what could the Curé do? The priest could get on no longer without his horse, and the horse would not budge a step under the Curé. So there was only one question asked: 'Has the devil anything to do in the matter?' 'Not a whit!' answered François; and the horse being left at the sorcier's for security, _on Sunday_, we had a sermon completely clearing François from the accusation of dealing with the devil; and _on Monday_ the Curé was cantering all over the country."

"I will tell you a much more extraordinary story of a cure than that," exclaimed the colonel's brother, as soon as the tale of the Sorcier was read. "It occurred in Brittany, too; under my own eyes, also, while I lived at the house of an excellent Breton, a Dr. R----.

"Every one has heard of the mania for leeches which has lately prevailed in France. Like all other manias, this did not long confine itself to the capital or its environs, but rapidly spread to every province and, every department; and, like the blood, which, impelled by the heart, finds its way to the most minute corners and remote extremities of the human frame, the doctrine of universal leechification gradually insinuated itself to the ultimate ends of his Most Christian Majesty's dominions. Not a canton so small but read the work of Monsieur Brousset; not a town so diminutive but had its regular consumption of leeches averaged amongst other articles of first necessity; not an apothecary's shop so insignificant, but possessed its dozen or two of jars replete with these little black benefactors of humanity; and not a pond nor a ditch where might not occasionally be seen some unfortunate wight up to his neck in the water, with a peculiar sort of net in his hand, endeavouring to entrap the aquatic practitioners to come and perform phlebotomy gratis. If a man had a pain in his head, he was ordered to apply leeches; if he had a pain in his toe, it was all the same thing. The gout, the apoplexy, a dropsy, or a consumption; the head-ache, or the heart-ache, or the stomach-ache, were all treated after the same fashion; and leeches were voted _nem. con_. the universal panacea applicable to every disease which afflicts poor little humanity. In short, the doctors were saved a great deal of trouble, the patients were probably none the worse, the apothecaries grew fat as well as the leeches, and many a man made a fortune, who, if it had not been for his _sangsues_, would probably have been _sans sous_.

"At the time that this practice was becoming general, my worthy friend and landlord, Monsieur le Docteur, was smitten with the desire of sucking his patients' blood--not personally, but by proxy; so that of all the words that the French Academy permit the nation to make use of, and which, when I left them, consisted of thirty-two thousand seven hundred and sixty one and a-half[17], the word most frequently in the mouth of Monsieur le Docteur was _sangsue_.

[Footnote 17: He afterwards explained that he had been admitted once to the making of a new word by the French Academy, and left it in the middle.]

"But before I proceed farther, I must briefly tell you, what sort of a machine a French doctor in a country town is. It is a thing that walks upon two legs, or trots upon four, as occasion serves; that knows nothing of medicine, a good deal of surgery, and will go ten miles for two shillings. My worthy friend, then, Monsieur le Docteur ----, resided at Quimper, in La Basse Bretagne. His fame was high, and not without cause, so that if a man fell off a tree and broke his neck within fifteen miles of Quimper, Monsieur le Docteur was sure to be in at the death.

"When last I was in Brittany, I spent six weeks very pleasantly with the Doctor and his family, and, as he was a good horseman and a pleasant companion, I accompanied him more than once when he rode to visit some country patients. Thus I was conducted one day to the little village of Kerethnac, some ten miles from Quimper, where my friend had plenty of occasions to exercise his curative propensities. One man had broken his leg, another had dislocated his wrist, and a third had a sore throat. To this last, without loss of time, the Doctor ordered the application of twenty leeches, seemingly sorry that he could not prescribe them for the others also; and having dispatched his business as quickly as possible, we remounted our horses and returned to Quimper. The road was a pleasant one, and two days after, when Monsieur le Docteur proposed to revisit Kerethnac, I was not unwilling to accompany him. On arriving at our journey's end, I went into all the huts with my friend. Huts they were, indeed,--a combination of pig-sty, cow-house, and bedchamber. But to proceed. After having looked at the broken leg, and ordered some camphorated spirit for the dislocated wrist, the Doctor entered the house of his sore-throated patient, the first piece of whose goods and chattels that presented itself being his wife.

"'Well, my good woman,' said the Doctor, 'how is your husband to-day?--better, no doubt.'

"'O yes, surely,' answered the woman. 'He is as well as ever, and gone to the field.'

"'I thought so,' continued Monsieur le Docteur. 'The leeches have cured him! Wonderful effect they have! You got the leeches, of course.'

"'Oh, yes, Monsieur le Docteur, they did him a deal of good, though he could not take them all.'

"'Take them all!' cried our friend. 'Why my good woman, how did you apply them?'

"'O, I managed nicely,' said the wife, looking quite contented with herself. 'For variety's sake, I boiled one half and made a fry of the other. The first he got down very well, but the second made him very sick. But what he took was quite enough,' continued she, seeing some horror in the Doctor's countenance, 'for he was better the next morning, and to-day he is quite well.'

"'Umph!' said the Doctor, with a sapient shake of the head. 'If they have cured him that is sufficient; but they would have been better applied externally.'

"The woman replied that she would do so next time; and I doubt not, that if ever fate throws a score of unfortunate leeches into her power again, she will make a poultice of them."

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"But there is no miracle in your story, my good brother," exclaimed the colonel, as the other concluded; "you vowed you would tell a much better story than mine. Now my friend's horse was cured by a whisper, your patient's sore-throat by an emetic; the one was miraculous the other nothing more than common.

"O, if you want a miracle," replied his brother, "you shall have one, and out of the same province also."

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A MIRACLE.

Prince Hohenloe, I mean the great miracle-monger of Germany; has surely said enough and done enough to convince Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, that miracles are quite as easy now-a-days, as they were a thousand years ago, and that good Dame Nature has grown somewhat doating, and will let him do anything he likes with her. Now, I believe it thoroughly, for more reasons than one, and do not scruple to call all the world fools who disbelieve it. At all events, I am sure to have one half of the old women of Europe on my side; and besides, I can vouch the matter from ocular observation: that into say, not that Prince Hohenloe commits miracles, but that even without him, they are as easy as ever--so easy, I am sure I could do one myself. But to my tale.

There is a deep embowering lane, not far from Corsieul, where the road winds slowly down between two high cliffy banks, till it comes to a low dell, through which flows one of the clearest streams I ever saw, so pure, so beautiful, the peasants have seemingly thought it next to sacrilege to hide it even by a bridge, and left it openly to traverse the road and wash your horse's weary feet before he begins the long ascent of the opposite hill. Though steep and fatiguing, that road has still a peculiar sort of charm, which compensates the trouble of climbing to the top; and even were the ascent less difficult, one would be tempted to linger long in the sweet contemplative shade and silence that hangs about it. The rocky banks break into a thousand picturesque forms; and wherever a patch of vegetable earth has been able to fix itself, there has sprung up the richest verdure, varied by a thousand shrubs, and herbs, and flowers,--honeysuckle, and eglantine, and sweet-briar, and the pure, large convolvulus„ and the deep blue pervanche, the lily of the fields, the hyacinth and the violet. Above, the trees hang, as if planted in the air, and throw a green, soft shade across the rich tints of the road, except where a gleam of sunshine breaking through, catches upon the salient points of the rock and chequers the deep shadows of the leaves with a dancing light. The silence to the ear has the same effect as the shade to the eye; for there no sound is to be heard, except when some wild bird bursts into song amidst the trees above, or when a low, sweet murmur rises up from the stream below. There is, as I have said, a magical charm in the whole, which compels one to linger in his progress; yet there is a reward in store for those who climb to the top; for suddenly the whole scene changes, and one of the most extensive prospects bursts upon the eye that can be conceived; hills, and valleys, and villages, and woods, and streams, mingled in gay confusion, growing fainter and fainter in the distance, till the far ocean closes the whole, looking like a faint cloud upon the border of the sky, from which indeed it would scarcely be distinguished, did not the bold Mont St. Michel rise abruptly up, and catching all the rays of the sun, mark the limits of the horizon. In front, as a sort of foreground to the landscape, stands the little chapel of St. Anne, with a few houses surrounding it, and a group of trees sheltering it from the wind.

I was one day riding to Corsieul with my friend, Monsieur R----, to see the curious Roman remains which have been found in that neighbourhood, when, as we mounted the hill, and came suddenly in sight of the chapel of St. Anne, we saw a vast variety of booths and tents, with a multitude of people, men, women, and children, in all their gay holiday attire, waiting round the chapel for the commencement of the mass. "I had forgot that to-day is the fête of St. Anne," said R----, "would you like to see a miracle. There is one performed here every year."

"Above all things, let us see it," replied I. So we dismounted, and went into the chapel. There were a great many people waiting about, to see (I suppose) if they could get a bit of miracle too; but above all others, we remarked one old woman, with whom the saint had to deal more particularly. She seemed very poor, and very devout; for, not being able to kneel, from her lameness, she sat before the shrine telling her beads, and praying as hard as she could; while a young priest stood beside her to keep off the profane vulgar, being probably of opinion, with the copy-line, that, "evil communications corrupt good manners." However, we remarked that her dress was that of a remote canton, and we learned from the people round that she was a stranger, come from a great way to see what St. Anne would do for her. "A prophet is no prophet, in his own country," says the old proverb, and I rather think that saints take care not to practise their miracles upon their next-door neighbours. However the mass commenced, and at the appointed place the old lady began to cry out. The priests swung their censers at her head, as if they would have broke it; and before the mass was over, the miracle was completed, and the lame woman firmly re-established on her legs.

We spent a very pleasant day at Corsieul, and before we returned, it was dark. In passing by the Chapel of St. Anne, however, we saw all the tents and booths, illuminated; cider and _eau de vie_ handing out in abundance; and, in short, a complete fair, in honour of the miracle and the saint. Hearing the dulcet notes of a cracked fiddle in one of the tents, we dismounted and went in, when, to our surprise, we beheld the miraculous old lady dancing away as hard as she could, and doing _dos-à-dos_ with a bumkin of Corsieul. Now let those deny miracles that like--I saw this myself. I do not mean to say I saw that the woman was lame, but I will swear that she danced.

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Our next evening's contributions were of a more serious character, and the two first came from the pen of my excellent friend Colonel W----, whose long residence in India, though it had injured his health, and whitened the hair upon his brow, had not taken away one fine feeling or impaired one high principle.

THE REPROOF OF ALLI.

In a country, situated at the northern extremity of India, and upon the very verge of the delicious valley of Cachemere, which it rivalled in beauty and surpassed in luxury, lived Alli el Assur, the glory of his illustrious house. None of the Oolasses of Afghaunistan had ever produced so many great men, none had ever so glittered with treasure, none had ever so shone in arms, as the tribe of Assur. But the fame of his ancestors was to the glory of Alli as the pale light of the morning-star, when the sun begins to beam upon the heavens. The day rose upon his splendour but to set upon his magnificence. Every hour saw his riches increase, and every hour saw his power extended.

But not for wealth alone was he famed; his wisdom and his knowledge were wafted to every quarter of the earth. The morning heard his words repeated in the east; the evening listened to his saying in the west: the southern star beheld his advice followed, and his counsels were borne on the wings of the north wind. For in the dawning of his youth, Alli had travelled over distant countries, and wandered among unknown people. Fringuistan had imparted to him all her arts; and all the wonders of Africa had been displayed before his eyes. He had conversed with the Moolaks of all lands, and spoke the tongues of many nations.

And Alli knew that he was wise. The pride of knowledge revelled in his heart, and he said, "There is no God, for I cannot see him, neither can mine ear hear his voice; and if there exist a Being governing the mighty universe with power and wisdom, why is evil permitted in the world? and why has he acted as he has done? It is against my reason to believe this thing, neither can my mind give it credit."

At five hours' journey from one of the palaces of Alli el Assur, there dwelt a certain hermit, who was much revered for his wisdom and sanctity, and much loved for the mildness of his heart. He lived afar from the rest of his race, because he loved contemplation, not that he loved not man: and in the solitude of the desert he waited for the angel of death.

And a desire entered into the heart of Alli to hear the words of the Solitary: "For where is the learned man," exclaimed he, "with whom I have not conversed and where is there knowledge that I have not sought for it?"

He mounted his horse while day was yet young in the sky; and, while the dew which evening had left still glittered undisturbed on the bosom of the flowers, proceeded, without attendants, to seek the place where the hermit made his abode. Nature was robed in her beauty, as a young bride, to meet the warm glances of the early sun: and the heart of Alli was glad, and expanded to the loveliness of the world. He directed his course by the river Hydaspes, that, like a golden lizard, drew along its mazy track, in the beams of the rising day. Its limpid waters seemed living in the rays, so full were they of motion and of music; and the rays, like divers, seemed to dip through the transparent waves, and raise the bright pebbles from the bottom to the surface of the stream. The banks were covered with flowers, and gay water-lilies, like youthful maidens in their pride of beauty, danced upon the bending waves. All was at first fresh and delightful, as the spring of early life; but soon the sun rose high above the mountains, the birds retired to the shadow of the trees, the wild beasts couched in the deepest recesses of the jungle, and Alli grew weary and faint with the heat of noon. However, the river itself, as if tired of the glare of sunshine, led its waters into the gloom of the forest, and Alli, following its course, quickly heard the roaring voice of the cataract, and his heart was rejoiced, for the dwelling of the hermit looked upon the fall of the waters. The sound grew louder and louder, the trees fell away from the strife of the stream, and the river again appeared forcing its way between the high rocks, which, approaching gradually towards each other, constrained it to plunge furiously over the precipice into the valley below.

Sitting at the foot of the crags was an old man, whose white beard descended below his girdle. His dress was as simple as his heart was pure; his form was stately and erect, and his eye beamed with the light of a benevolent spirit. More than a hundred winters had shed their snows upon his head, and more than a hundred summers had led him to the brink of the grave: his look was fixed upon the mist which arose from the cataract: his mind was bent upon the cloud which hangs over eternity; and his soul was elevated with the thoughts of death.

Alli dismounted and saluted the man of years. "My son," said the hermit, "thou seemest fatigued with exercise, and exhausted with the heat. Enter into this cave, which is my dwelling; eat of the food which is prepared for the stranger; rest and refresh thyself; and when thy limbs have recovered their vigour, and thy mind is calmed by repose, come and we will hold communion of this world, and what is beyond."

Alli entered the cavern, and returned after a short space, and sitting down by the old man, he poured forth the thoughts of his bosom.

"How beautiful is nature!" said he; "how lovely in every season! how mild in spring! how gay in summer! how luxuriant in autumn! how grand in the winter storm! and yet to man the spring brings illness, the summer yields fatigue, the autumn demands his labour, and the winter sees his death! Miserable in the midst of perfection, desolate in the heart of plenty, and wretched is he, even in the moment of enjoyment. What is he but a mixture of clay rendered sensible to pain, and affections destined to be quelled in death? And yet this animated mass of earthly sorrow vainly pictures to himself a Being whom he calls all good, who sees his misery, yet will not alleviate it, and who gave him being but to render him unhappy. Can this thing be? No!--there is no God. It is but the monstrous imagination of man's own heart!"

"What is there," answered the old man, "that has not a cause? And if each thing has a cause, all must have a cause; and that which was the cause of all, must have power over all, must love all, and protect all which it caused. And what is man, the insect of an hour, that he should say, I cannot understand, therefore I will not believe? Alli el Assur! (for by thy thoughts do I know thee,) listen to the words of experience--hearken to the voice of years--mark what I shall say to thee; for I am old, and thine own wisdom shall tell thee that my words are true!

"Know then, that at the bottom of the sea there is a certain animal, whose size is so minute, that ten of them would stand upon the point of thy scimitar. This animal never stirs from the place of its birth; and the term of its life is shorter than the being of a butterfly. It so happened, that as insect of this kind fell, by chance, upon the back of one of those large amphibious creatures which sometimes betake themselves to the land, and thus it was carried within sight of the dwelling of man. When it returned to its companions of the ocean, it related all the wonders it had seen, but found no one to believe.

"'Thou tellest us,' said one, 'that there is a being on the earth whose size is immense, and whose faculties are so wonderful, that all nature is open to his view; whose vast sight could comprehend the whole of this rock; and in short, whose senses are excellent in every particular: and yet thou sayest, that this being is stupid enough to move from place to place without being forced to do so and has the excessive folly to live on the land instead of dwelling in the sea, the natural element of all creatures existing. But granting even all that to be true, thou hast also said, that this great being builds himself a shell to creep into. Now, were he endowed with the powers you describe, he would of course, sit still at ease in one place, and enjoy the fluid that circulates round him, as we do. In this, as well as in a thousand other points, thy story is improbable and inconsistent, nor can we believe it, for our senses tell us it is not true.'

"'My friend,' replied the travelled insect, 'attempt not to scan the actions of a being above thy comprehension, nor measure his power by thy own littleness. Neither tell me that this being is not, because thy mind is too confined to reconcile his deeds to thine own ideas.'

"Man! man! vain man!" continued the hermit, "how much less art thou in comparison to the most High God, than is that insect in comparison to thee! Measure thyself by that mountain. Art thou not small? Yea, as a worm. How petty is the part which that mountain forms in the bulk of the earth. That great earth, on which thou art but an atom, is little to many of the planets; it is insignificant to the sun; it is as a grain of dust amongst the millions of orbs, which even thy limited sight can behold in the firmament; and what is it to the immensity of eternal space?[18] Look at that grain of sand: canst thou tell me its fabric? canst thou separate its parts? No!--Stretch thine ambitious soul; try to grasp the idea of infinity of time, of space, of matter. Thou canst do neither. And wilt thou, who canst not comprehend either the greatest or the least, wilt thou measure the actions of Omnipotence, by the standard of thine own littleness, and deny his power, because thou dost not understand its operations?

[Footnote 18: My worthy friend maintains that our knowledge of astronomy is very inferior to that possessed by the ancient tribes of Asia.]

"No, Alli el Assur, return to thine own dwelling, and be wise enough to know, that the wisdom of the wisest is, to the works of the Almighty, but as a drop of water to the ocean; aye, to an ocean of oceans: and henceforward, never deny because thou canst not comprehend; but learn, that with all thy knowledge thou knowest nothing."

THE VISIONS OF HASSAN.

The day faded into twilight; the flowers ceased to look upon the sun: the bulbul poured his notes of melody unto the star of the evening; and sleep stole over the sorrows and weariness of the universe. But while the eyes of a world were closed, Hassan the destitute woke to grief and meditated on despair.

"This morning," exclaimed he, "I was great amongst the greatest, a prince among princes, an eagle on a rock; but midday saw me in the hands of mine enemies, as a gazelle struck by the falcon; and evening beholds me as a wandering star, as the genii torch which is hurled into the vacancy of night: cast down from my throne, exiled from my land, wandering I know not whither. O Allah! Allah! great is thy wisdom, and merciful thy providence; suffer not my heart to blaspheme, nor my soul to doubt that thou art the Highest." Thus saying, Hassan cast himself upon the earth, and groaned in the bitterness of his misery. While he lay thus prostrate and grovelling like a slave upon the ground, he heard a voice, like thunder, echoing through the mountain.

"Hassan!" said a voice, "weak child of clay, humbled in thy career of pride, dost thou murmur that God hath chastised thee? Now look into the valley before thee, and say, what dost thou see?"

Hassan raised his head and looked into the valley. "I see," replied he, "a great stream, and there is a cloud at its source, and a whirlpool at its conclusion, so that I see not from whence it comes, neither behold I whereunto it goeth."

"That," said the voice, "is the stream of life. The cloud is the time of man's birth. Beyond is the eternity past. The whirlpool is the time of man's death, and beyond is the eternity to come. All must float from the one to the other, and what man shall say that his lot is harder than another? for death is a cup of which all must taste, and life is a trial which all must endure. Therefore is God good from the beginning even unto the end. Now bow down thy head unto the earth; give praise unto Allah, and then look into the valley once more."

Hassan did as the voice commanded.

"And now what seest thou?" said the voice.

"I see," answered Hassan, "a cottage and a palace; and there is above them both a fearful storm of lightning and thunder; and, lo! the bolt strikes the palace, and the cottage is untouched."

"That palace," said the voice, "is prosperity, and that cottage is adversity. The lightning strikes the proud and passes by the humble, and glory is due to God, for his name is the Impartial. And again, what dost thou behold?"

"I see," said Hassan, "a large nest upon a high place, and in it there lies a young bird. A fox approaches the nest, and the young bird is destroyed; and now behold an eagle drops upon the fox, and it also is no more."

"Thou shalt not hurt the smallest," said the voice, "lest the greatest frown upon thee; nor shalt thou injure the weakest, for the strongest beholds thine actions; and glory is due to God, for his justice is retributive. Now bow down thine head and pray, that thou mayest be able to endure." And Hassan prayed. "Once more, what dost thou behold?"

"It is my capital city in flames," said Hassan with a firm voice; "and I see my palace crumbling in the fire, and I see a woman striving to escape;" and the voice of Hassan became weak, as with great fear. "O Allah! save her," cried he; "it is her I have injured! it is Zelekah it is my beloved!" And he started forward to snatch her from the flames; but as he was about to plunge over the edge of the precipice, his arm was caught by one behind him. The vision passed away, and the valley once more relapsed into the darkness of night.

Hassan turned round, and by the trembling light of the stars, beheld a man of venerable years and benevolent deportment. Hassan was about to speak, but the old man commanded him to listen; and Hassan instantly remembered the voice he had before heard.

"Listen unto me," said the old man, "for what thou hast seen is all a vision, Thy capital city sleeps in peace; but it is no longer thine. Thy palace still stands in its strength; but thou art an exile from its walls. Thy Zelekah lives secure; but thou hast lost her by thine own passions. I am thy good genius, and hadst thou before listened to my voice, thou wouldst have been even now the lord of a fair land; the master of a willing people; the bridegroom of thy beloved. When thou soughtest first the love of Zelekah, the cottage girl, did not a voice remind thee, that thou hadst vowed to wed the daughter of the Caliph, and none but her; and did it not whisper, that though without vice thou mightest sacrifice thine ambition to thy passion, it was criminal to break thine oath, and dishonourable to forget thy promise; and when thou didst carry away by force the girl that loved thee well but loved virtue better, did not the same voice say; 'Thou art acting wrong; thou art misusing the power of a prince; thou art violating the rights of thy people?' Man, man! must thy good genius ever speak in thunder to make thee hear?"

Hassan hid his eyes with his hands, and the geni went on.

"Thou art punished by the loss of thy throne; thou art punished by the loss of thy beloved: but still more shalt thou be punished, by hearing that Zelekah, the cottage girl, was the daughter of the Caliph,--was thy promised bride--whom the wisdom of her father had absented from the too great splendour of his court."

"Allah! Allah!" cried Hassan; "deeply, but justly, hast thou chastised my wickedness."

"There is peace," said the geni, "in repentance. It is still in thy power to retrieve thy fortunes, and thou shalt ever be wiser from thy sorrows. Go, and remember, that when thou thinkest thyself most alone, then is the eye of God upon thee, and that every bad deed incurreth the wrath of Him to whom the greatest sovereign of the earth is but as a worm, yea, less than the meanest of insects. That God himself is good, and by no means will he endure evil."

Hassan cast himself at the feet of the geni; but when he raised his eyes, the old man was no longer there, and he found himself lonely on the brink of the precipice; but nevertheless his heart was much lightened, and his mind was calm; and, instead of yielding to despair, he now prepared for whatever fortune could inflict, or constancy endure; and laying himself down, sleep came over his eyes, and lulled the sorrows of his heart.

The morning was bright in the east; the sunbeams wandered over the hills; the flowers perfumed the early breeze; the woods were melodious with the warbling of the birds; and creation was animated with the wakening hum of life; when Hassan woke from his slumber, chastened by adversity, and strengthened by repose. "When," said he, "when have I, on the glittering alcove, resting on softness and surrounded by luxury, when have I tasted of calm so unbroken, and sleep so grateful, as on this barren rock, unguarded by any but by Providence, and unseen but by the eye of the Almighty?" And kneeling towards Mecca, he said the prayer of the morning. When he had concluded, he rose, and descended into the valley below, by a narrow path, which wound round the side of the mountain.

At the bottom of the hill, surrounded by tall palm trees, rose a spring of clear water, pouring music and freshness upon the air around; and as he drew nigh, Hassan beheld the form of a woman bending ever the fountain, and a strange feeling came over his heart, a mingling of joy and fear; for he felt as one that comes back to the home of fathers, and knows not what tidings shall greet his return. But as he drew near, he saw a leopard touching amongst the trees, and prepared to spring upon the girl beside the fountain. Now the heart of Hassan was as the heart of a lion, calm, and without fear; and drawing his scimitar, he smote the wild beast and drove him forth, wounded and howling, to the woods; and turning towards her he had, saved, as his mind had presaged, he beheld the light of his soul.

Zelekah extended her arms towards him.

"O Hassan!" cried she, "and have I then found thee?"

Hassan pressed her to his heart.

"Did Zelekah seek for him that had wronged her," he asked; "could she still love the tyrant who tore her against her will from the humble habitations of peace and the lowly mansions of uninterrupted quiet?"

Zelekah answered not, but her silence had a voice, and Hassan's heart was glad.

"O Zelekah?" said he, "I have learned, by my follies and my punishment, what experience will teach to all men, that adversity may try the body, but that our soul is tried by prosperity. I have failed in the ordeal, and am unworthy to enjoy the advantages which my own deeds have forfeited, and which the hand of justice has withdrawn; but still if thy love remain, Hassan is happier as an exile than as a prince. Come, let us retire to some humble spot; far from cities and from man's resort, where we may live with peace the number of our days; and when Azrael shall knock at our gate, we shall meet the angel of death with resignation." And Hassan and Zelekah fled from the world, and found peace in solitude.

Time flew away with his silent wings, changing the face of the world; and a heavy war vexed the kingdom from which Hassan had been driven. The people remembered him with regret, and began to ask amongst themselves, "Why have we not Hassan, who led us on to victory; on whose scimitar sat the death of our enemies? Hassan, the strong arm of war--the mighty man in the battle--the prince that we have chosen, is slain, and our foes rejoice in our defeat. Why have we not Hassan to deliver us from our enemies?"

And Hassan heard the tidings; and baring his arm, he flew to the battle, and smote the enemies of the land: and the people rejoicing, seated him gladly on his throne. Zelekah shared his joy, as she had shared his sorrow; and peace and abundance dwelt in the land, and justice and mercy stood on each side of the throne: for Hassan never forgot his vision on the mountain, and remembered that God is good, great, and impartial; and that evil will by no means be endured by the Almighty.

---------------

After such efforts to amuse and instruct as these on the part of one so much more entitled to repose than ourselves, neither I, nor the friend who was with me, could refuse to do, our best in some more laboured composition than a few verses, and, by the third night after, we had produced the two tales which follow.

THE STORY OF AZIMANTIUM.

We are weary of the present--Let us turn and rest our minds for a while upon a tale of the past.

There was a dreamy stillness in the air--there was a golden glory over the sky--there was a music in the far-off hum of distant nature sinking to repose--there was a fragrance in the soft breath of the valley, as it stole timidly through the multitude of drowsy flowers, as if afraid to wake them from their evening sleep; all told of one of those few days which last in loveliness from their dawning to their close--so full of every fine essence of joy, that we tremble to see them pass, lest we should never find anything so beautiful upon earth again. The whispering murmur of the small long waves, as they wooed the quiet sands upon the seashore--the pale and timid lustre of the stars, as they shone out, one by one, through the still purple heaven--the slow changes of a rosy cloud, as it dallied with an unseen wind--spoke peace!--Peace, the first, last, great blessing--the mightiest of promises--the object of virtue, of wisdom, of knowledge--the only desire that experience leaves--the hope beyond our life--the glory of eternity--Peace!

High-eyried on the rocky eminence, where now the overthrown stones of a massy wall tell of cities and their dwellers, past like shadows down the dim vista of the gone, stood the fair town of Azimantium, with its long-disused battlements, its temples, and its columns, marked in fine lines of shadowy purple, high upon the broad expanse of the rich evening sky. The mountain on which it stood, clothed in the splendid robe of the setting day's calm violet-colour, hung over the valleys and the plains around, with an air of protecting majesty. On one side, a gentle slope, covered with green pastures, and clumps of high trees, with ever and anon a temple or a villa in their shade, declined softly towards the fair land of Greece--the country of poetry and song--to which Azimantium had long belonged. Two other sides, that towards the Euxine,[19] and that which looked over Thrace, were rough and steep, broken with gigantic crags; and though many a piece of smooth short turf intervened between the masses of cold gray stone--though many a tree waved its leafy arms, as if in sport, above each rugged cliff, and many a green parasite trailed its fantastic garlanding of verdure over the harsh and stony limbs of the mountain--no footing was there for things of mortal mould. The goat, the sure-footed goat, looked down, with sidelong glance, from the flat summit above, but tempted not the descent; the fox earthed himself at the foot; and but the eagle, of all living things, in his kingly loneliness, chose it for his dwelling, from its very solitude. The fourth side turned towards the barbarian enemies of the Grecian name, and frowned defiance in one savage, dark, unbroken precipice.

[Footnote 19: See Procopius _de Edificiis_, lib. iv. cap. xi. Several reasons have induced me to place Azimantium on the very shores of the Euxine.]

But now all was peace around. Splendour, and feasting, and music, reigned through the Grecian empire. The brow of every man was calm and joyful, the voice of every one was rich in poetry and song; and it would have seemed that nothing but a smile had ever curled the lip, or danced in the eye. O fatal softness! O hard lot of man! that peace can never rest without power! that enjoyment can never continue without strength! that the shield, and the glaive, and the javelin, should be the only safeguards of tranquillity!

All was peace. Many a century of decaying years had swept over the proud fabric of the Roman Empire and what had been mighty was now hastening towards a name. The men who had conquered a world, mouldered in the dust; and their children were contented to enjoy. The arms which should have wielded the sword, or braced on the shield, now only raised the cup, or struck the lyre. Voices which, in former days, would have breathed the soul of freedom to the swelling hearts of a mighty people, or pleaded for the laws before that senate which should have been immortal, now sung the loose and ribald song, in The halls of luxury and the resorts of intemperance, or urged some vain and subtle theme, in schools that had become schools of folly. Honour was no longer to the brave, or to the good; and, though peace spread over the whole eastern realm, it was peace bought by tributary gold; won by degradation, and spent in effeminacy, indulgence, and vice.

One small city alone, of the whole empire, still held within its walls the nobler spirit of Rome's ancient days. One small city alone, like an altar to some sublime but nearly forgotten deity, upheld the flame of virtuous courage--simple, grand, noble, independent--enjoyed the smile of peace, but feared not the frown of war, reposed without softness, and rejoiced without debauchery. That city was Azimantium. Its youth, trained to the nobler amusements, only descended from the free mountain-air of their sky-surrounded dwelling to war with the wild beasts of the forests around, or to chase the swift deer over the Thracian plains. Such were their sports of peace; and if a lingering influence of the genius-breathing climate taught the Pentelican marble to start into life, woke the Achaian flute, or struck the Teian lyre, the godlike spirit of a purer age gave fire to the song, and vigour to the statue.

The mighty and majestic scenes amidst which they beat, raised and dignified the hearts of Azimantium; and though the passions of humanity were there in all their force, the better soul, the nobler purpose of the mind, linked those passions to all that is grand and dignified in nature. The aspirations of the spirit, and the desires of the body, were not waging the horrific struggle mutually to destroy each other; but, joined together in thrilling fellowship, like the immortal twins of Laconia, they strove alone to guide and elevate each other. Love dwelt in Azimantium; but it was that brighter love, wherein the radiant share of the deathless soul infests the earthly portion with a blaze of light.

I have said that it was the evening of a summer's day--a day such as is hardly known to more northern climates--a day on which the kingly charioteer of heaven seems to hold some high festival, and robe himself in more majestic lustre. The sunshine had passed, and it was evening--but an evening full of rays. It seemed as if some mysterious power had robbed the daylight of half its beams, to weave them into purple with the dark-blue woof of night, and then had studded it over with golden stars, to curtain the cradle of the sleeping earth.

Through the still calm valleys at the foot of the mountain of Azimantium--by the side of the living stream that sparkled onward on its brief gay course--amidst tall and scattered trees, where the nightingale raised his glorious anthem to the first star--wandered two of the children of that city, who had seen no other dwelling, and never desired to do so. They had risen from infancy in scenes which had every day grown dearer; and as years had flown, mutual love, uncrossed, unopposed, untainted, had given those scenes a light, whose spring was in their own hearts, a charm wrought by that potent magician, Affection. They loved as fully as mortal things can love; and from all external nature, from every song, from every sight, a sweet communion of thrilling enjoyments gathered itself round their mutual hearts. The memory of all their past was together; the joy of the present was tasted together; the future--misty and vague as that dim profound must ever be--they never dreamed could be otherwise than, together. One month had yet to fly ere the dearest; because the most durable, tie was to bind Honoria to Menenius for ever; and now they wandered alone through those sweet valleys, and amidst those soft scenes, unwatched, undoubted, by those whose duty was to guard and protect, because there was not one heart within the bounds of the city, who dared to think that Honoria was unsafe with Menenius.

They talked of love and hope; and those bright visions that, in the summer-morning of our youth, dance before our dazzled and untaught eyes, came thick upon them: and they lent each other willing aid to raise fabric after fabric, out of thin air alone, till the unsubstantial architecture reached to the very sky. O how they dreamt! and though a sultry and unnerving air grew up, one knew not whence, casting a sort of doubtful faintness on Honoria's frame; and though vague rumours of danger to the state, and new demands from the pensioned enemies of the Eastern Empire, had reached the ears of Menenius, an atmosphere of their own hope surrounded them, in which joy seemed to breathe secure.

They had wandered long, pouring their souls into each other's bosom, till at length they turned to mount the gentle assent that led them to their home. And yet they lingered, and yet they paused to take another look over the twilight world which spread out beneath, wider and wider at every step as they ascended; and to say, "How fair!" and still to speak one kind word more. As thus they paused beneath a group of tall trees, near which an ancient tower marked the burial-place of the great of other days, and stretched their eyes over the darkening landscape, a sudden feeling of terror shot through Honoria's breast--she knew not why. She heard nothing, she felt nothing, she saw nothing, which could awaken fear, and yet with a sudden and instinctive impulse, she clung to Menenius, exclaiming "What is coming?"

The horses that were feeding on the slope, with a shrill cry broke in madness down the hill; an eagle started from the rock below, and screaming, soared into the sky; while the lover cast his strong arm round her he loved, and unconsciously laid his hand upon his sword. All felt the dreadful coming of some great change.

It came--with a roar like the accumulated thunder of a thousand storms! The lightning, bursting from no visible cloud, swept over the clear blue sky, and shone amongst the stars; and, in the livid blaze, the towers of Azimantium, with each line dark and clear on the broad glare, were seen to quiver, and rock, and fall; while, beneath the lovers' feet, the earth heaved and panted, as if the globe were rent with dying agonies. The air was one wild scream--the sky, from pole to pole, was all on fire--the ground refused its footing. Then came a moment of dead calm. All was silent! all was still! and Menenius felt Honoria's arms relax the terrified clasp in which they held him! "It is over, beloved," whispered he, as if to break the restored tranquillity even by his voice: "It is over; thank God, the earthquake has passed by!"

But before the words were well pronounced, a fitful gleam, a broader flash, another roar, swept through the air; the ground yawned and quivered; the tottering tower beside them was hurled in crashing ruins over the brink. Menenius caught at a tree for support; but it, too, shaking like a willow bough in a storm, swayed to and fro, and staggered as if plucked up by some gigantic force. Its boughs crashed; its centuried roots gave way, and rushing on those who had sought support in its strength, it overwhelmed them in its descent. What was the lover's only thought as he fell? To save her he loved; and by a sudden, scarcely conscious, effort of all his natural vigour, he kept her off, while the uprooted tree was dashed upon himself.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

The earthquake had passed by, and become a thing of memory. Nineteen of the towers of Constantinople had fallen; the walls of Azimantium lay broken and destroyed; and on the day which was to have lighted the marriage torch for Honoria and Menenius, the lover lay, slowly recovering from the evening of the earthquake, and the beautiful girl watched him with glad, yet anxious eyes. The father of Menenius, too, stood beside him, and marked the reviving glow in his son's cheek with joy, although there was a deep and thoughtful shadow on his brow, which brightened into something of triumph and of hope, as his eye ran over the bold and swelling muscles of his frame, and thought that but a few days more would restore that frame to all its pristine vigour. The triumph and the hope were those of a true son of ancient Greece, for they were kindled and inspired by the proud thought that the energetic strength of mind and body which were no longer united in himself; would, in his son, prove the safeguard of his country.

He had news to tell which might well have quelled the feeble spirits of that degenerate age, but Menenius was a child of Azimantium, and knew not fear, even though crushed, and sick, and wounded. He had borne the cautions of the leech, and the restraint of a sick chamber, with somewhat of impatience and disdain; but when his father told him that the false Bishop of Margus had opened the gates of that city to the barbarian Attila, the destroyer of arts, the waster of empires, the scourge of God; that unnumbered myriads of the Huns were pouring over the frontier barriers of the eastern empire; that Sirnium and Sardica, Ratiaria and Naissus, had fallen, and that but a few days more would see the blood-gorged savages beneath the rocks of Azimantium, Menenius became docile as a lamb to all that might hasten his recovery.

Honoria's cheek grew pale, and her lip forgot its smile, but not a word of fear was breathed upon the air, and her dark, dark eye shot out rays of more intense and brilliant light, as she gazed on each piece of her lover's armour, and scanned them jealously for fault or flaw.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

There was a cry through the whole of Greece, "They come! They come!" Over the fields, through the valleys, on the mountains; from voice to voice, and castle to castle, and city to city, the cry went forth, "Death to the nations! They come They come! Vultures, prepare to feast! They come! They come!"

All fell down before them or fled, and those who timidly spoke but the name of war, died by their own hearths. Fortress after fortress, town after town, was attacked and taken, and plundered and destroyed; not one stone was left upon another, and captivity and the sword shared the children of the land between them; and still went on the cry, "They come! They come! Vultures, prepare! They come! They come!"

The weak luxurious Romans of that degenerate day, knew not the very arms with which to oppose their barbarous enemies. What did the song avail them? What the dance? What the wine-cup and the feast? Could the soft-tongued sophist cheat the dark Hun from his destined prey? Or the skilful lawyer shew Attila the code which forbade the strong to plunder and subject the weak? No, no! After three disgraceful scenes of defeat, all fled, or yielded, or died, or were made slaves, and the whole land was red with flaming cities, and with blood-stained fields.

At length, the watchers on the steep of Azimantium beheld a dim cloud sweeping over the distant prospect, so vast, so mighty, that the whole land seemed teeming with a fearful birth. "They come! They come!" was all the cry; "They come! They come! The myriads of the North! Warriors, prepare your swords! They come! They come!"

On they swept, like the wind of the desert. The ruined walls of Azimantium, rifted by the earthquake, offered nothing to oppose their progress. Three sides, indeed, were defended by Nature herself, but the fourth was free, and up the soft slope they rushed, tribe upon tribe, nation upon nation, flushed with conquest, hardened to massacre, eager for spoil, contemptuous of danger and death.

Across the narrowest part of the approach--where the steep natural rock on one side, and the chasm left by the overthrown tower on the other, impeded all passage by the smooth ascent--in long bright line, with casque, and buckler, and blade, stood the youth of Azimantium, between their dear familiar homes and the dark enemy. On rushed the Huns, with glad eyes gleaming in the fierce thirst for blood, The horsemen came first, their harness loaded with the golden ornaments of plundered cities, and hanging at each knee the bleeding head of a fresh slain Greek, while myriads of foot swarmed up behind them, so that, to the eyes above, the whole steep appeared alive with a dark mass of rushing enemies. An ocean of grim faces was raised to the devoted city, and glared upon the young band of Azimantines, as the first-prepared sacrifice to the god of victory.

Nearer and more near they came. Forth flew the Scythian javelins, and, repelled from a thousand shields, turned innocent away, and then, the gazers from the house-tops of Azimantium might see the closer fight engaged. The unbroken line of gallant champions still maintained the strife against the swelling multitude that rushed like a tremendous sea upon them. Barbarian after barbarian fell stricken from his horse, and still they saw the battle rage, and swarms of fresh enemies pour up to the assault. Still waved the swords, still advanced the spears, and still the bands of Azimantium held their narrow pass, while behind them stood the old men of the town, to encourage them by the presence of their fathers--to carry them fresh arms--to bear away the dead.

But oh, what a sight it was, when first the gazers beheld four of the parents separate from the rest of the wavering crowd, and, bearing a heavy burden, come back towards the city! Oh, with what terrified speed did mothers, and sisters, and wives, and the beloved, rush forth to meet the ghastly spectacle, and learn the dreadful truth! And oh, how they crowded round, when the old men laid down their load, and the cloak cast back, shewed the fair boy stricken in his spring of beauty, the red blood clotted in his golden hair; the energy of being passed from his young eyes, and the "pale flag of death advanced" where the joy of life had reigned.

His sister wrung her hands and tore her hair, and wept, but his mother gazed calmly, proudly, painfully, upon the clay. Then bending down to take one kiss of his cold cheek, "Weep not," she cried, "weep not, Eudocia, for your brother! He, the first, died for his country! My child is in heaven!"

"They come! They come!" was shouted from below! "Fly to the altars! Lo, they come! they come!" and breaking through the line of brave defenders, on rushed a body of the Huns. On, up the steep they urged their horses, reeking with blood and battle--on, on, towards the city. The women fled to the churches and to the shrines, but there was none to defend the town; the streets were vacant; the youths and old men had alike gone forth to battle; the Huns were at the gate, and all seemed lost.

It was then that Menenius, red from the brow to the heel with the blood of his enemies, shouted to his brave companions to follow him, and hurling a gigantic Scythian down the steep, with one bound he passed the chasm, and lighted on a point of rock where the foot of man had never stood before--another brought him to a higher crag, whence a small green ridge ran round the steepest of the precipice under the city walls.

One after another his bravest comrades followed. Some missed their footing and were dashed to atoms on the rocks below; but still another and another succeeded, for Azimantium knew not fear. The Huns were on their threshold, and who dared hesitate? A hundred of the most agile passed the depth, pursued the green path, cleared another and another spring, reached the city wall, climbed over its ruined stones, and in the narrow entrance street met the victorious Huns, who had paused to plunder the first shrine they found.

No words were spoken: nor javelins nor arrows were now used: brow to brow, and sword to sword, the struggle was renewed. But who can conquer men who combat for their hearths? The Huns fell, died, or were driven backs; for that narrow way had no outlet but by the gate through which they had entered, and the close street where fought the youth of Azimantium. Not a Grecian glaive fell in vain, and at every step Menenius trod upon a slain barbarian. Like a reaper, each sweep of his unceasing arm made a hollow vacancy in the rank before him, and death grew so fearfully busy amongst the Huns, that vague imaginings of some supernatural power being armed to their encounter, took possession of their bosons. The form of the young hero swelled to the eyes of their fancy. "It is a god!" they cried; "it is a god!" They shrank from his blows--they turned--they fled. Those who were behind knew not the cause of terror, but caught it as it came. Each saw his fellow flying, and, touched by the same dim unnerving influence, sought but to fly. "A god! a god!" they cried, and rushed forth tumultuously on those who followed towards the city.

The broken line of Azimantium through which they had forced their way, now divided into two by the barbarian multitude, still waged terrific warfare on either side, while Menenius, pressing on with his companions, drove the ferocious Huns from the gate. The contagious terror of the fugitives spread to those without, and all were hurrying down the descent, when one chief rushed through the struggling crowd. "A god?" he cried. "This hand shall try his immmortality!" And on he urged his steed against Menenius.

For an instant the Greeks paused in their pursuit, and the barbarians rallied from their flight, and all eyes turned upon the Hun and his opponent. The fate of Azimantium--the last relic of Grecian and of Roman glory--hung upon that brief moment. An instant decided all, for before fear could become hope in the hearts of the Huns, the charger of the barbarian chief was wild upon the plain, and he himself, cleft to the jaws, lay motionless before Menenius. A thousand souls seemed in the hero's bosom, and plunging into the midst of the enemies, he drove them down the steep. All Azimantium followed, and their footsteps were upon the necks of the dying. The rout was complete, and terror and dismay hung upon the flank of the defeated Huns; but still Menenius urged the furious pursuit. On, on he cleft his way. He marked not, he saw not who was near, he heeded not, he felt not what opposed him. His eye was fixed upon a white and fluttering object which was borne along amidst the brown masses of the flying barbarians, and towards it he rent his way, while his unwearied arm smote down all things that impeded his progress, as if but to make a path to that.

As long as the rout and the pursuit were confined by the narrow sides of the ascent to Azimantium, he kept that one spot in view; but afterwards, when the path of the flyers opened out upon the plains, the horse which bore it carried it away from his straining eyes, while the gray falling of the evening gave every distant thing a vague, shadowy, uncertain form, like the objects of the past seen through the twilight memory of many years.--He followed it to the last--night fell, and it was lost.

With triumph and with song the children of Azimantium wound up towards the city. Joy! joy! joy! was in their hearts and victory upon their brows. They had overcome the myriads, they had conquered the invincible! they had rolled back the barbarian torrent from the gates of their glad city, and every step that they took among the unburied dead of the enemy, told they had won for themselves both victory and peace. With a quick step, but with a cast-down eye and a knitted brow, Menenius, the hero of the triumph, followed the path up the hill. Every voice was glad, every heart seemed joyful, but his; but there was a fear, a dread, a conviction in his bosom, that his was the home that had been plundered of its treasure, his was the hearth to be for ever desolate. He strode on to the town, and joy and glory hailed him; and gratitude and admiration proclaimed his name to the skies. They called him the deliverer of his country, the saviour of his native place--they saluted him as victor--they acknowledged him as chief.

"Honoria?" he asked, "Honoria?" but no one answered. Honoria was gone. Since the entrance of the Huns into the city, Honoria had not been seen; and casting himself down upon a couch, he hid his eyes in cloak, while gladness and rejoicing filled the midnight air, and all Azimantium was one high festival.

'Twas strange, 'twas wonderfully strange! that one small city of the greatest empire in the world--while an inundation of barbarians poured over the land--while fortress and town were cast down and levelled with the earth--while legions fled dismayed, and nations bowed the head--and while the very suburbs of Constantinople, the imperial city, beheld the fearful faces of the Huns,--'twas strange, 'twas wonderfully strange, that one small city should stand in its solitary freedom, bold, fearless, and unconquered. 'Twas strange, 'twas wonderfully strange! Yet the deeds of the children of Azimantium are recorded in an immortal page, wherein we read, that "they attacked in frequent and successful sallies, the troops of the Huns, who gradually declined their dangerous neighbourhood; they rescued from their hands the spoil and the captives, and recruited their domestic force by the voluntary association of fugitives and deserters."[20]

[Footnote 20: Gibbon.]

In every sally, in every irruption made by the Azimantines into the vast tract of country now covered with the Huns, Menenius was the leader; and in the fierce incessant warfare thus carried on, he seemed to find his only consolation, his only enjoyment. At other times, he would sit sad and gloomy, his vacant eye fixed unobserving upon space, and his heart meditating sad dreams. In the visions of the night, too, when weariness dimmed the fire in his heart, and suffered his eyes to close, the white and fluttering object he had pursued in the fight of Azimantium would again be carried off, while imagination would fill up all that sight had not been able to ascertain, and the form of Honoria, torn away from him by the barbarian, would hold forth its phantom arms, and implore aid and succour in vain. Then his vigorous and manly limbs would writhe with the agony of his dreaming soul, till horror and despair would burst the bands of sleep, and he would start again upon his feet to wreak his great revenge upon the enemy. And yet there was a quality in his soul which--although while an adverse sword was drawn, or a threatening bow was bent, his step was through blood and carnage, his path was terror and death,--yet there was a quality in his soul which suspended the uplifted blow when the suppliant and the conquered clasped his knee; and many was the train captives which he sent home to the city; the pledges of future security and respect to Azimantium.

At length when seventy cities had fallen before the Scythian hordes, and nought but ruins were left to say where they had been, and to point to after ages the sad moral of an empire's decay, the weak Theodosius, unable to protect his subjects, or defend himself, agreed to treat with the mighty Barbarian, and to buy precarious peace with gold and concession, when he dared not purchase true security by the sword. Attila dictated the conditions and Theodosius yielded to all his demands but one, with which the emperor had no power to comply; and that was, that the city of Azimantium should restore the captives taken from the Huns. Attila felt how little power a feeble and degenerate monarch could have over a fearless, noble, unconquerable race; and he felt, too, that all his own power, great and battle-born as it was, could scarcely suffice to crush the hearts of Azimantium. The monarch of all the Eastern empire confessed his inability to compel the restoration of the captives; and Attila, the terror of the world, the scourge of God, the conqueror of nations, treated on equal terms with the small city of Thrace.

Oh, how the heart of Menenius beat, when the monarch of the Huns, by the mouth of his envoys, proposed that all prisoners taken between his myriads and the city of Azimantium should be mutually restored! And oh, how his bosom heaved, when, surrounded by the Hunnish cavalry, the little knot of Azimantine captives were conducted up the hill! But were was Honoria? where was the beloved?

The Huns declared that they had delivered all, and Honoria was not there--Honoria, without whom all was nothing. Ten of the principal barbarian chiefs were detained as hostages for the safety of her who had not returned; while the envoys of Attila were sent back to learn the savage monarch's will. The reply soon came, that if any of the chiefs of Azimantium dared to trust himself in the dominions of Attila, he should have free means and aid in making every search for the captive said to be detained. Maximin and Priscus, the messengers added, were then on their journey as ambassadors from the imperial court to the king of the Huns, and if the Azimantine chief would join them at Sardica, he would be conducted to the presence of Attila, who loved the brave, even when his enemies.

Menenius sprang upon his horse, and followed by a scanty train, took the way to Sardica, his heart torn with the eternal struggle of those two indefatigable athletes, Hope and Fear. Still, as he went, his eye roamed over the landscape--for even the absorbing sorrow of his own breast had not obliterated his love for his country--and how painful was the sight upon which the eye rested! Desolation--the vacant cottage, the extinguished hearth, the threshold stained with blood, the raven and the vulture gorged and gorging, the mangled and unburied slain, the overthrown cities, the deserted streets through which the speedy grass was already growing up where multitudes had trod--the grass--the verdant and the speedy grass, which, like the fresh joys of this idle world, soon covers over the place that we have held when once we are passed away--ruin, destruction, death--such was the aspect of the land. And as he gazed and saw--the thought of all the broken ties and torn fellowships, the sweet associations and dear thrilling sympathies dissolved, the wreck of every noble art, the scattering of every finer feeling, which the blasting, withering, consuming lightning of war had there accomplished, found an answering voice deep in the recesses of his own wrung and agonized heart. At the ruins of Naissus--for one stone of the city scarcely remained upon the other--he joined the legates of the emperor, and with them pursued his way. His mind was not attuned to much commune with his fellows; and though Priscus, with learned lore, tempted him to speak of science, and arts, and philosophy; and Maximin, with courtly urbanity, which softened and ornamented the sterner firmness of his character, and Vigilius, the interpreter, with subtle and persuasive art, strove to win the Azimantine chief to unbend from his deep gloom, Menenius could neither forget nor forgive, and sadness was at once in his heart and upon his brow.

Over high mountains, through brown woods, across dark and turbulent rivers, the ambassadors were led on by that part of the barbarian army which was destined to be both their protection and guide. They saw but few of the inhabitants of the country, and little cultivated ground. Droves of oxen and sheep seemed the riches of the land. Pasture appeared to be the employment of the people, and war their sport.

Their march was regulated by the Huns who accompanied them, and by them also was each day's journey limited. The spot for pitching their tents was exactly pointed out, and the hour for departure was not only named, but enforced. Each day, long before that hour came, Menenius was on foot, and he would wander forth in the morning sunshine, and gaze through the deep vacuities in the woods, or let his eyes rest upon the misty and uncertain mountains, while the vast wild wideness of the land would force upon his heart the madness of hoping that his search would prove successful.

Thus had he gone forth one morning, when, in the glade of the forest where their tents were raised, he saw before him one of the barbarians whom he had never beheld before. The cold stern eye of Menenius rested on him for an instant, and then turned to the dim woods again. There was nothing pleasing in his form or in his countenance, and Menenius was passing on. He was short in stature, but broad as a giant, and with each muscular limb swelling with vigour and energy. His head was large and disproportioned--his face flat--his brow prominent--his colour swarthy. A few long and straggling hairs upon his chin, and deep lines of powerful thought, told that he had long reached manhood, while his white and shining teeth, and his bright keen, speckless eye, spoke vigour undecayed by one year too many.

"Whither stray'st thou, stranger?" said the barbarian; "can a Greek enjoy the aspect of solitary nature; can the dweller in cities--the pitiful imitator of the meanest of insects, the ant--can he look with pleasure on the wilds that were given man for his best, and original home?"

"Thou art ignorant, Hun!" replied Menenius, "and with the pride of ignorance, despisest that which thou dost not comprehend. Man, in raising cities and ornamenting them with art, only follows the dictates of nature herself. To the brutes she gave the wild world, but added no intellect to her gift, for the world, in its wildest state, was sufficient. To man she gave intellect, and the whole universe, full of materials, on which to employ it. He who is most elevated by nature herself, will use her gifts in the most diversified ways, and he who least uses them, approaches nearest to the brute.--Nay, barbarian, roll not thy furious eyes on me; I sought thee not, and he who speaks to me must hear the truth."

For several minutes, however, the Hun did roll his eyes with an expression of fury that strangely contrasted with his perfect silence. Not a word did he speak--not a quiver of the lip betrayed the suppression of any angry tone, and it was not till the fierce glance of his wrath was completely subdued, that he replied, "Vain son of a feeble face, upon whose necks Attila, my lord and thine, has trod, boast not the use of arts which have reduced thy people to what they are, and made them alike unfit for war and peace. Look at their bones whitening in the fields; look at their cities levelled with the plains; look at their manifold and wicked laws, which protect the strong and oppress the weak; look at their silken and luxurious habits, which effeminate their bodies and degrade their minds. This is the product of the arts thou praisest. This is the degrading civilisation that thou huggest to thy heart."

"Not so, Hun," replied Menenius: "the corruption which thou hast seen with too sure an eye, springs not from art, or knowledge, or civilisation. It springs from the abuse of wealth and power. The Roman empire was as a man who, covered with impenetrable armour, had conquered all his enemies, and finding none other to struggle with, had cast away his shield and breastplate; and lay down on a sunny bank to sleep. In his slumber, new adversaries came upon him, his armour was gone, and he was overthrown. The armour of the empire was courage, decision, and patriotism, the slumber was luxury, and thus it was that the myriads of thy lord penetrated to Constantinople, and destroyed the cities. The arts thou despisest, because thou knowest them not, had no share in bringing on the slumber which has proved so destructive; but let the Huns beware, for the giant may awake."

"Ha!" cried the barbarian, with a triumphant smile, "what is the city that could stand an hour, if Attila bade it fall?"

"Azimantium!" replied Menenius.

The Hun threw back his broad shoulders, and glared upon the Thracian chief with a glance more of surprise than anger--then gazed at him from head to foot, visited each particular feature with his eye, and marked every vigorous and well-turned limb with a look of scrutinizing inquiry. "Thou art Menenius!" he exclaimed abruptly, after he had satisfied himself, "Thou art Menenius! 'Tis well! 'Tis well!--I deemed thou hadst been Maximin."

"And had I been so," asked Menenius, "would that have made a difference in thy language?"

"Son of a free and noble race," replied the Hun, "ask me no further. That which may well become thee to speak, would ill befit the suppliant messenger of a conquered king; and that which I would say to the vanquished and the crouching, could not be applied to the brave and the independent. Happy had it been for thy country had she possessed many like to thee, for then she would have fallen with honour: and happy, too, had it been for Attila, my lord, for then his triumphs would have been more glorious."

Menenius was silent. The tone of the Hun was changed. The rudeness of his manner was gone; and though he spoke with the dignity of one whose nation was rich in conquests, there was no longer in his language the assumption of haughty superiority which he had at first displayed.

"And thou," said Menenius, at last--"Who am I to fancy thee?"

"I am Onegesius, the servant of Attila the King," replied the Hun; "and mark me, chieftain of a brave people. Hold but little communion with the slaves of Theodosius as they pass through the dominions of the Huns. The lion may be stung by the viper, if he lie down where he is coiled. Now, farewell;" and thus speaking the Hun turned, and with a proud, firm step, each fall of which seemed planted as for a combat, he took his path away from the Grecian tents.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

The ambassadors pursued their way, and, after some days, encamped late at night upon the banks of the dark and rushing Tebiscus.

The heavens were obscured by heavy leaden clouds driven by the wind into large masses, through the breaks of which, a dull and sickly moon glared forth with a fitful and a watery light upon the misty earth. The dim shapes of shadowy mountains, too, were vaguely sketched upon the sky, covered with quick passing shades, while ever and anon the winds howled forth their melancholy song, a wild and sombre anthem to the grim genius of the scene around.

The tents were pitched, the plain meal was over, the mead had passed round, and sleep had relaxed every weary muscle of the travellers' limbs, when suddenly a hurricane rushed over the whole scene, the river rose, the rain came down in torrents, and the temporary encampment was in a moment overthrown. Drenched and terrified, the legates of the Emperor disengaged themselves with difficulty from their falling pavilions, and called loudly for help. Noise and confusion spread around, and the roaring stream rising quickly over the meadow in which they had been sleeping, the howling of the overpowering wind, and the heavy pattering of the rain, added to the disturbance and fear of the scene.

A moment after, a blazing light upon the nearest hill rose like a beacon to direct their steps, and thither the ambassadors were led by the Huns.

Menenius, after he had provided for the safety of his horses and attendants, followed the rest. As he approached the light, he saw, by the figures of several Huns supplying a large fire of dry reeds with fresh fuel, that it had been raised on purpose to guide any travellers overtaken by the storm, to a place of shelter and repose. Attention and kindness awaited him, and he was instantly led into a large wooden house, where Priscus and Maximin were already seated by a cheerful hearth, at which a young widow, the wife of Attila's dead brother Bleda, was busy in the gentle cares of hospitality. Along the extreme side of the apartment was drawn a line of Scythian slaves, armed as became those who waited on the widow of a king; and as Menenius entered, their rank was just closing, after having given exit to a form which made the Thracian chief, start forward, as his eye caught the last flutter of her retiring robes. "Who passed?"--he exclaimed, abruptly, forgetting, in the anxious haste of the moment, all idle ceremony. "Who passed but now?"

"Ella, the daughter of the king, and her maidens," was the reply. The heart of Menenius sunk, and his eye lost its eager fire. In a few brief words he excused his abruptness; but the widow of Bleda was one of those whose kind hearts find excuses better than we can urge them. "The maiden is fair," she said, "and well merits a stranger's glance. In truth, she knew not that there was another guest of such a mien about to be added to our hearth, or she would have staid to pour the camus and the mead. Much would she grieve were she not here to show that part of hospitality." And Bleda's widow sent a maiden to tell her niece that Menenius, the Azimantine chief, sat by the fire untended.

She came--a dark-haired girl, with a splendid brow, and eyes as pure and bright as if a thousand diamonds had been melted to furnish forth their deep and flashing light. A rose as glorious as that upon the brow of morning warmed her cheek, and a quick untaught grace moved in her full and easy limbs, like those of a wild deer. But she was not Honoria; and the eye of Menenius rested on her, as on a fair statue, which, in its cold difference of being, however lovely, however it may call upon admiration, wakens no sympathy within our warmer bosoms.

She, however; gazed on him, as on something new, and strange, and bright; and there was in her glance both the untutored fire of artless nature, and the fearless pride of kingly race, and early acquaintance with power. For a moment she stood, and contemplated the Thracian chief, with her sandalled foot advanced, and her head thrown back, and her lustrous eye full of wild pleasure; but then suddenly a red flush rose in her cheek, and spread over her brow, and, with a trembling hand, she filled a cup of mead, touched it with her lips, gave it to Menenius, and again retired.

Menenius lay down to rest, but his dreams were not of her whom he had seen. Gay visions of the former time rose up and visited his brain. From out the dreary tomb of the past, long-perished moments of joy and hope were called, as by an angel's voice, to bless his slumber--Honoria--Azimantium--happiness.

Pass we over the onward journey. After a long and tedious march, the ambassadors arrived at the royal village of the Huns, which was then surrounded by uncultured woods, though at present the rich vineyards of Tokay spread round the land in which it stood. Houses of wood were the only structures which were boasted by the chief city of the monarch of one half the earth; and to the eye of the Greeks, everything seemed poor and barbarous in the simplicity of the Huns. Yet, even lowly as were their cottage palaces, they had contrived to bestow much art on their construction. Fantastic trelliswork, and rich carved screens, and wreathed columns, cut of polished and variegated woods, were scattered in every direction; and while the first faint efforts of an approach to taste were to be found in the taller buildings and in the more correct proportions of the royal dwellings, the idea of war--the national sport and habitual passion, of the people--was to be seen in the imitative towers and castles with which they had decorated their dwellings of peace.

Attila himself had not yet returned from his last excursion; but a day did not elapse before his coming was announced by warrior after warrior who arrived, their horses covered with gold, and their follower's laden with spoil. All his subjects went forth to gratulate their conquering monarch; and the Greeks, standing on a little eminence, beheld his approach. First came innumerable soldiers, in dark irregular masses, and then appeared chieftain after chieftain, all the various nations that he ruled. Then was seen a long train of maidens, in white robes, walking in two lines, each bearing aloft in her hand one end of a fine white veil, which, stretching across to the other side, canopied a row of younger girls, who scattered flowers upon the path. Behind these, mounted on a strong black horse, clothed in one uniform dark robe, without jewel, or gold, or ornament whatever, came the monarch whose sway stretched over all the northern world.

As he advanced, he paused a moment, while his attendants raised a small silver table, on which the wife of one of his favourite chiefs offered him refreshments on his return. He was still at some distance, but the Greeks could behold him bend courteously to the giver, and raise the cup to his lips. The table was then removed, and onward came the king--nearer--more near--till Menenius might distinguish the features of the dark Hun he had met in the forest.

Menenius sat in the lonely hut which had been appointed for his dwelling, and while the shadows of night fell like the darkening hues of time, as they come deeper and deeper upon the brightness of our youth, hope waxed faint in his heart, and dim despondency spread like twilight over his mind. Alone, in the midst of a wild and barbarous land, the depths o, whose obscure forests were probably unknown even to the fierce monarch whose sway they owned, how could he, unfriended, unaided, dream that he would ever discover that lost jewel, which had been torn from the coronet of his happiness? Never! never! never to behold her again! To journey through a weary life, and fall into the chill, solitary tomb, without the blessed light of those dear eyes which had been the starlike lamps of his existence--to dwell for ever in ignorance of her fate, while his fancy, like the damned in Hades, could find nothing but the bitter food of horror and despair--Such was his destiny.

"Attila the king!" exclaimed a loud voice, as he pondered, and Menenius stood face to face with the Monarch of the North, while the light of the pinewood torch glared red upon the dark features of the Scythian, and gave to those grim and powerful lines a sterner character and fiercer shade. His voice was gentle, however; and, seating himself on the couch, he spoke with words which had in them a tone of unshared, undisputed, unlimited authority, but elevated by the consciousness of mental greatness, and tempered by admiration and esteem.

"Chief of Azimantium," said the Hun, "while the slaves of a vain and treacherous king wait long ere they are permitted to breathe the same air with Attila, the king of nations disdains not to visit the leader of the brave. Mark me, thou chief of the last free sons of Greece! The sword of thy country is broken--the sceptre of thine emperors passed away. The seed is gathered which shall sow grass in the palaces of kings--the clouds are collected which shall water the harvest of desolation. Greek, I boast not of my victories--it sufficeth Attila to conquer. But calmly, reasonably measure thy people against mine, and think whether the small band of Azimantines, were they all inspired by the God of battles with courage like thine own, could save the whole of degenerate Greece from the innumerable and warrior people of the north. What--what can Azimantium do, all unsupported, against a world?"

"Each son of Azimantium," replied Menenius, "can offer up a hecatomb of Scythian strangers, and give his soul to heaven upon the wings of victory. This will Azimantium--and then--perish Greece!"

A shadow passed across the monarch's brow.

"Be not too proud," he said, "be not too proud! A better fate may yet befall thy city and thy land. So well does Attila love Azimantium, that he claims her as his own from the Greek emperor; and to win her citizens to willingness, he offers his daughter--his loved--his lovely daughter to her chief. Pause!" he added, seeing the quivering of Menenius' lip: "pause and think! Reply not! but remember that thus may Greece be saved--that the safety or destruction of thy land is upon thy tongue. Pause, and let the sun rise twice upon the meditation of thine answer."

Thus spoke the monarch, and in a moment after, the Azimantine chief was once more left to solitude. Deep and bitter was the smile of contempt that curled the lip of Menenius; for in the proud glory of his own heart, he forgot how low Greece had fallen amongst the people of the earth, and in the imperishable memory of his love, the mention of another bride was but as the raving of insanity. "I!--I!--Menenius of Azimantium! wed the daughter of the barbarian! I become a subject of the Hun!--I forget Honoria!"

Another day went down, and Menenius, with the Grecian ambassador, was seated in the halls of Attila, at the banquet which the proud monarch gave at once to the envoys of the Eastern and Western empire. On a raised platform in the midst of the hall was the couch and table of Attila, covered with fine linen and precious stuffs, while fifty small tables on either side were spread out for the guests invited to the royal feast. An open space was before the board of the monarch, and behind him the hall was filled with a dark fantastic crowd of guards, and attendants, and barbarian slaves.

On the same couch with Attila sat his daughter Iërnë--that beautiful daughter whom Menenius had beheld at the dwelling of Bleda's widow; and as the Azimantine chief passed by, and poured the required libation to "Attila the Brave," the maiden's eyes fixed motionless on the ground, and the blood rose fast into her cheek, like the red morning sun rising up into the pale twilight sky. Menenius passed on unchanged and cold, and took his place with Maximin, the ambassador of Theodosius.

The fare of Attila was plain and rude, but the tables of his guest were spread with all that the fearful luxury of Rome itself could have culled from earth and sea. Ere long the cupbearer filled the golden goblet, and the monarch, rising from his couch, drank to Berec, the bravest of the Huns. Again, after a pause, he rose, but the cup was given him by his daughter, and Attila drank to Menenius, the bravest of the Greeks. Quick and sparkling flowed the mead, and then an old gray man poured to the wild chords of a barbaric lyre, a song of triumph and of battles, while at every close he proclaimed, Attila's bridal day. At length a bright troop of young and happy maidens led in, surrounded by their linked arms, three brighter than themselves, from whom the Monarch of the North was about to choose a new partner for his mighty throne. Their faces were veiled; but through the long white robes that clothed them shone out that radiant light of grace and beauty which nothing can conceal. Slowly, as if reluctant, they were brought into the monarch's presence.

Why quivered the lip of Menenius? Why strained his eye upon that first veiled figure? The veil is gone!--To him! to him she stretched forth her hands!--The table and the banquet are dashed to atoms at his feet; and Honoria is in Menenius' arms.

A thousand swords sprang from their sheaths--a thousand javelins quivered round the hall. "Traitor! Madman! Sacrilegious slave!" was shouted in a thousand fierce voices, and a thousand barbarous tongues. But unquailing in the midst stood the Azimantine chief--his left arm round the beating heart of his young bride--his right, armed with that sword which had bowed many a hero to the dust, raised appealing to the Scythian king. "Monarch of the Huns," he cried, "this is the captive I have come to seek. As you are a man--as you are a warrior--as you are a king!--by your oath--by your honour--by your justice! yield her to me, her promised husband, and put us safely off your land. Then if of all these brave and mighty men," he added with a frown, "who draw the sword against a single Greek, there be but ten who will meet me brow to brow on the battle plain, I will write it in their blood that I am neither slave nor traitor, but a bold man, who dares to claim and to defend his own!"

Fierce wrath, stern revenge, majestic admiration, had swept over the countenance of Attila, like the broken masses of a rent thunder-cloud hurled over the sky by the succeeding blast.

"Hold!" he cried; "Warriors! put up your swords. Chief of Azimantium! you rob me of a bride; but if this be the captive you have come to seek, Attila's word is given, and safely, surely, she shall be returned to her home, were she as lovely as the moon, But with you, Greek, with your companions, Maximin, Priscus, and Vigilius, the king has still to deal, and, after what has befallen this day, expect nothing more than justice." As he spoke, he rolled his dark eyes fearfully around, then suddenly raised his hand, exclaiming, "Now, warriors! now!" and before he could strike a blow, Menenius, unprepared, was seized on all sides, and bound tight in every limb, together with the envoys from Theodosius.

All, for an instant, was wild confusion. Honoria, with the other women, were hurried from the hall; and Menenius found himself ranged with Priscus and Maximin before the throne of Attila; while, in the deathlike, ashy, quivering countenance of Vigilius, the interpreter, who stood beside him, he read detected guilt and certain death.

"Hired murderers, sent by an imperial slave to slay his conqueror and master," exclaimed Attila, after he had gazed for some minutes upon the Greeks, "do ye not tremble to find your baseness exposed in the eyes of all the universe? Stand forth, Edecon, and tell the warriors of Attila, how these men came here, under the garb of ambassadors, to slay by treachery, in peace, the king that, by battle, they could not vanquish in war. And you warriors, lay not your hands upon your swords--Attila will do justice to Attila."

At the command of the king, Edecon, who had been ambassador for Attila at Constantinople, stood forth, and declared, that in an interview with the Eunuch Chrysaphius, that favourite of the weak Monarch of the East had proposed to him the assassination of his master, and offered him an immense reward. He had affected to consent, and had that very day received a purse of gold and jewels from Vigilius, the interpreter, who was privy to the whole. The plot he had instantly communicated to Attila, and the purse he now produced. Maximin and Priscus, he doubted not, were cunning men, sent to accomplish the scheme with art; and Menenius, beyond question, was the daring murderer to strike the final blow.

Maximin spoke loudly in his own defence, and Priscus learnedly on the improbability of the tale, while the mouth of Vigilius opened, and his lips quivered, but no sound found utterance. Menenius was silent, but he fixed his bold eye upon Attila, who glared upon them all like a tiger crouching for the spring.

"Maximin and Priscus," said the king, at length, "ye are innocent! Let them be freed. As for yon trembling traitor, guilt is in his eye and on his cheek; but the sword that should smite Vigilius would be disgraced for ever, and find no blood in his coward heart. Let him buy his life, and pay two hundred pounds weight of gold to him he sought to bribe.--As for thee, Chief of Azimantium--"

"Thou knowest I am guiltless, Hun!" replied Menenius, "and bonds such as these have pressed upon my arms too long."

"Of thy guilt or innocence I know nought," replied the King; "but this I know, that I will guard thee safely till thine Emperor send me the head of Chrysaphius, the murdering slave who first sought to tempt my subjects into treachery. Away with Vigilius, till he pay the purchase of his base life; and away with this Azimantine, till Orestes and Eslaw, my envoys, bring me the head of the eunuch from my slave the Emperor."

* * * * * * * * * * * *

In the solitude of a dark unlighted hut, stretched upon a bear's hide, which had been cast down for his bed, lay the young Chief of Azimantium, pondering his hard fate, while the sounds of many a gay and happy, voice without, struck with painful discord upon his unattuned ear. Dark and melancholy, the fancies flitted across his brain like the visions of dead friends seen in the dim atmosphere of troubled sleep, and he revolved in his mind that bold cowardice of his ancestors, which taught them to fly from the sorrows and dangers of their fate, by the sure but gloomy passage of the tomb. Was it virtue, he asked himself, or vice? wisdom, or insanity, that allied the last despair to the last hope, and made self-murder the cure of other ills? And, as he thought, sorrow took arms against his better mind, and whispered like a friend, "Die! Die, Menenius! Peace is in the grave!" A new and painful struggle was added to the evils of his state, and still he thought of death as hours and days went by.

Nor was this all; for, as the Dacians tame the lions for the imperial shows, the Hum strove to break his spirit, and subdue his high heart, by reiterated anxieties and cares. Now, he was told of wars with the Empire, and the fall of Greece: now, strange whispers were poured into his ear, of some direful fate reserved for himself: now, he heard of the great annual sacrifice offered at the altar of Mars, where a hundred captive maidens washed the platform with their blood. But still, like the great hero of the mighty founder of the Epic song, he rose above the waves that poured upon his head, and still answered, "Never! never!" when the name of Azimantium was connected with the dominion of the Huns.

It was one night when a darker melancholy than ever oppressed his mind, and despondency sat most heavy on his soul, that the door was cast open, and a blaze of light burst upon his sight. His eyes, familiar with the darkness, refused at first to scan the broad glare; but when at length they did their office, he beheld, in the midst of her slaves, that fair girl Iërnë, whose offered hand he had refused. Her cheek, which had been as warm as the last cloud of the summer evening was now as pale as the same cloud when, spirit-like, it flits across the risen moon. But her eye had lost none of its lustre; and it seemed, in truth, as if her whole soul had concentrated there to give fuller effulgence to its living light.

"Chief of Azimantium," said the maiden, "it is my father's will that you be freed, and I--that the generosity of Attila should know no penury--I have prayed, that though Menenius slighted Iërnë, he should wed the woman of his love even in Iërnë's father's halls. My prayer has been granted--the banquet is prepared--the maiden is warned, and the blushes are on her cheek--a priest of thine own God is ready.--Rise, then, Chief of Azimantium, and change a prison for thy bridal bed. Rise, and follow the slighted Iërnë."

"O lady!" answered Menenius, "call not thyself by so unkind a name. Write on your memory, that, long ere my eyes rested on your loveliness, Honoria was bound to my heart by ties of old affection; and, as your soul is generous and noble, fancy all the gratitude that your blessed words waken in my bosom. Oh! Let the thought of having raised me from despair--of having freed me from bonds--of having crowned me with happiness, find responsive joy in your bosom, and let the blessing that you give, return and bless you also."

Iërnë pressed her hand firm upon her forehead, and gazed upon Menenius while he spoke, with eyes whose bright but unsteady beams seemed borrowed from the shifting meteors of the night. The graceful arch of her full coral lip quivered; but she spoke not; and, waving with her hand, the attendants loosened the chains from the hands of the Azimantine, and, starting on his feet, Menenius was free.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

In the brightness and the blaze of a thousand torches, the chief of Azimantium stood in the halls of Attila, with the hand of Honoria clasped in his own. Sorrow and anxiety had touched, but not stolen, her beauty--had changed, but not withered, a charm. Every glance was softened--every feature had a deeper interest--and joy shone the brighter for the sorrow that was gone, like the mighty glory of the sun when the clouds and the tempests roll away.

The dark monarch of the barbarians gazed on the work he had wrought, and the joy that he had given; and a triumphant splendour, more glorious than the beams of battle, radiated from his brow. "Chief of Azimantium," he said, "thou art gold tried in the fire, and Attila admires thee though a Greek--not for the beauty of thy form--let girls and pitiful limners think of that!--not for thy strength and daring alone--such qualities are for soldiers and gladiators; but for thy dauntless, unshrinking, unalterable resolution--the virtue of kings, the attribute of gods--Were Attila not Attila, he would be Menenius. Thou hast robbed me of a bride! Thou hast taken a husband from my daughter; but Attila can conquer--even himself. Sound the hymeneal! Advance to the altar! Yon priest has long been a captive among us, but his blessing on Honoria and Menenius shall bring down freedom on his own head."

The solemnity was over--the barbarian guests were gone, and through the flower-strewed passages of the palace, Honoria and Menenius were led to their bridal chamber; while a thousand thrilling feelings of joy, and hope, and thankfulness, blended into one tide of delight, poured from their mutual hearts through all their frames, like the dazzling sunshine of the glorious noon streaming down some fair valley amidst the mountains, and investing every object round in misty splendour, and dreamlike light. The fruition of long delayed hope, the gratification of early and passionate love, was not all; but it seemed as if the dark cloudy veil between the present and the future had been rent for them by some divine hand, and that a long vista of happy years lay before their eyes in bright perspective to the very horizon of being. Such were the feelings of both their bosoms, as, with linked hands and beating hearts; they approached the chamber assigned to them; but their lips were silent, and it was only the love-lighted eye of Menenius, as it rested on the form of his bride, and the timid, downcast, but not unhappy glance of Honoria, that spoke the world of thoughts that crowded in their breasts.

A band of young girls, with the pale Iërnë at their head, met them singing at the door of their chamber. The maidens strewed their couch with flowers, and Iërnë gave the marriage cup to the hand of Honoria; but as she did so, there was a wild uncertain light in her eye, and a quivering eagerness on her lip, that made Menenius hold Honoria's arm as she was about to raise the chalice to her mouth.

"Ha! I had forgot," said the princess, taking back the goblet with a placid smile, "I must drink first, and then, before the moon be eleven times renewed, I too shall be a bride. Menenius the brave! Honoria the fair! Happy lovers, I drink to your good rest! May your sleep be sound! May your repose be unbroken!"

And with a calm and graceful dignity, she drank a third part of the mead. Honoria drank also, according to the custom; Menenius drained the cup, and the maidens withdrawing, left the lovers to their couch. Honoria hid her eyes upon the bosom of Menenius, and the warrior, pressing her to his bosom, spoke gentle words of kind assurance. But in a moment her hand grew deathly cold. "Menenius, I am faint," she cried: "What is it that I feel? My heart seems is it were suddenly frozen, and my blood changed into snow.--O Menenius! O my beloved! we are poisoned; I am dying! That cup of mead--that frantic girl--she has doomed us and herself to death."

As she spoke, through his own frame the same chill and icy feelings spread. A weight was upon his heart, his warm and fiery blood grew cold, the strong sinews lost their power, the courageous soul was quelled, and he gazed in speechless, unnerved horror on Honoria, while, shade by shade, the living rose left her cheek, and the "pale standard" of life's great enemy marked his fresh conquest on her brow. Her eyes, which, in the hour of joy and expectation, had been bent to the earth, now fixed on his with a long, deep, earnest, imploring gaze of last affection. Her arms, no longer timid, circled his form, and the last beatings of her heart throbbed against his bosom. "Thou art dying!" she said, as she saw the potent hemlock spread death over his countenance, "thou too art dying! Menenius will not leave Honoria even in this last long journey.--We go--we go together!"

And faintly she raised her hand, and pointed to the sky, where, through the casement, the bright autumn moon poured her melancholy splendour over the Hungarian hills. A film came over her eyes--a dark unspeakable gray shadow and oh, it was horrible to see the bright angel part from its clay tabernacle!

In the athletic frame of the lover, the poison did not its cruel office so rapidly. He saw her fade away before his eyes--he saw her pass like a flower that had lived its summer day, in perfume and beauty, and faded with the falling of the night. He could not--he would not so lose her. He would call for aid--some precious antidote should give her back to life. He unclasped the faint arms that still clung upon his neck. He rose upon his feet, with limbs reduced to infant weakness. His brain reeled. His heart seemed crushed beneath a mountain: but still he staggered forth. He heard voices before. "Help! help!" he cried, "Help, ere Honoria die!" With the last effort of existence, he rushed forward, tore open the curtain before him, reeled forward to the throne on which Attila held his midnight council--stretched forth his arms--but power--voice--sense--being--passed away, and Menenius fell dead at the monarch's feet.

"Who has done this?" exclaimed the king, in a voice of thunder. "Who has done this? By the god of battles, if it be my own children, they shall die! Is this the fate of Menenius? Is this the death that the hero of Azimantium should have known? No! no! no! red on the battle-field--gilded with the blood of enemies--the last of a slain, but not a conquered host--so should the chief have died. Menenius! Kinsman in glory! Attila weeps for the fate of his enemy!"

"Lord of the world! Lord of the world!" exclaimed a voice that hurried from the chambers beyond, "thy daughter is dead in the arms of her maidens; and dying, she sent thee word, that sooner than forbear to slay her enemies, she had drunk of the cup which she had mingled for them."

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Attila smote his breast. "She was my daughter," he exclaimed, "she was, indeed, my daughter! But let her die, for she has brought a stain upon the hospitality of her father; and the world will say that Attila, though bold, was faithless."

There was woe in Azimantium, while with slow and solemn pomp, the ashes of Honoria and Menenius were borne into the city.

In the face of the assembled people, the deputies of Attila, by oath and imprecation, purified their lord from the fate of the lovers. The tale was simple, and soon told, and the children of Azimantium believed.

Days, and years, and centuries, rolled by, and a race of weak and effeminate monarchs; living alone by the feebleness and barbarism of their enemies, took care that Azimantium should not long remain as a monument of reproach to their degenerate baseness. Nation followed nation; dynasty succeeded dynasty; a change came over the earth and its inhabitants, and Azimantium was no more. Still, however, the rock on which it stood bears its bold front towards the stormy sky, with the same aspect of courageous daring wherewith its children encountered the tempest of the Huns.

A few ruins, too--rifted walls, and dark fragments of fallen fanes--the pavement of some sweet domestic hearth, long cold--a graceful capital, or a broken statue, still tell that a city has been there; and through the country round about, the wild and scattered peasantry, still in the song, and the tale, and the vague tradition, preserve in various shapes, The Story of Azimantium!

THE FISHERMAN OF SCARPHOUT.

TWO CHAPTERS FROM AN OLD HISTORY.