CHAPTER XXXIII.

Marlow could not be hard-hearted with a woman, and he felt for the terrible state of agitation and alarm, to which John Ayliffe's mother was reduced.

"We must be gentle with her," he said in French to the Commissary of Police, who was with him, and whom we have hitherto called the man in black.

"_Oui, monsieur_," replied the other, taking a pinch of snuff, and perfectly indifferent whether he was gentle or not,--for the Commissary had the honor, as he termed it, of assisting at the breaking of several gentlemen on the wheel, to say nothing of sundry decapitations, hangings, and the question, ordinary and extraordinary, all of which have a certain tendency, when witnessed often, slightly to harden the human heart, so that he was not tender.

Marlow was approaching to speak to the unfortunate woman, when removing her hands from her eyes, she looked wildly round, exclaiming, "Oh! have you come to take me, have you come to take me?"

"That must depend upon circumstances, madam," replied Marlow, in a quiet tone. "I have obtained sufficient proofs of the conspiracy in which your son has been engaged with yourself and Mr. Shanks, the attorney, to justify me in applying to the Government of his most Christian Majesty for your apprehension and removal to England. But I am unwilling to deal at all harshly with you, if it can be avoided."

"Oh! pray don't, pray don't!" she exclaimed vehemently; "my son will kill me, I do believe, if he knew that you had found me out; for he has told me, and written to me so often to hide myself carefully, that he would think it was my fault."

"It is his own fault in ordering your letters to him to be sent to the Silver Cross at Hartwell," replied Marlow. "Every body in the house knew the handwriting, and became aware that you were not dead, as had been pretended. But your son will soon be in a situation to kill nobody; for the very fact of your being found here, with the other circumstances we know, is sufficient to convict him of perjury."

"Then he'll lose the property and the title, and not be Sir John any more," said the unhappy woman.

"Beyond all doubt," replied Marlow. "But to return to the matter before us; my conduct with regard to yourself must be regulated entirely by what you yourself do. If you furnish me with full and complete information in regard to this nefarious business, in which I am afraid you have been a participator, as well as a victim, I will consent to your remaining where you are, under the superintendence of the police, of which this gentleman is a Commissary."

"O, I have been a victim, indeed," answered Mrs. Ayliffe, weeping. "I declare I have not had a moment's peace, or a morsel fit to eat since I have been in this outlandish country, and I can hardly get any body, not even a servant girl, who understands a word of English, to speak to."

Marlow thought that he saw an inclination to evade the point of his questions, in order to gain time for consideration, and the Commissary thought so too: though both of them were, I believe, mistaken; for collaterality, if I may use such a word, was a habit of the poor woman's mind.

The Commissary interrupted her somewhat sharply in her catalogue of the miseries of France, by saying, "I will beg you to give me your keys, madame, for we must have a visitation of your papers."

"My keys, my keys!" she said, putting her hands in the large pockets then worn. "I am sure I do not know what I have done with them, or where they are."

"O, we will soon find keys that will open any thing," replied the Commissary. "There are plenty of hammers in St. Germain."

"Stay, stay a moment," said Marlow; "I think Mrs. Ayliffe will save us the trouble of taking any harsh steps."

"O yes, don't; I will do any thing you please," she said, earnestly.

"Well then, madame," said Marlow, "will you have the goodness to state to this gentleman, who will take down your words, and afterwards authenticate the statement, what is your real name, and your ordinary place of residence in England?"

She hesitated, and he added more sternly, "You may answer or not, as you like, madame; we have proof by the evidence of Mr. Atkinson here, who has known you so many years, that you are living now in France, when your son made affidavit that you were dead. That is the principal point; but at the same time I warn you, that if you do not frankly state the truth in every particular, I must demand that you be removed to England."

"I will indeed," she said, "I will indeed;" and raising her eyes to the face of the Commissary, of whom she seemed to stand in great dread, she stated truly her name and place of abode, adding, "I would not, indeed I would not have taken a false name, or come here at all, if my son had not told me that it was the only way for him to get the estate, and promised that I should come back directly he had got it. But now, he says I must remain here forever, and hide myself;" and she wept bitterly.

In the mean while, the Commissary continued to write actively, putting down all she said. She seemed to perceive that she was committing herself, but, as is very common in such cases, she only rendered the difficulties worse, adding, in a low tone, "After all, the estate ought to have been his by right."

"If you think so, madame," replied Marlow, "you had better return to England, and prove it; but I can hardly imagine that your son and his sharp lawyer would have had recourse to fraud and perjury in order to keep you concealed, if they judged that he had any right at all."

"Ay, he might have a right in the eyes of God," replied the unhappy woman, "not in the eyes of the law. We were as much married before heaven as any two people could be, though we might not be married before men."

"That is to say, you and your husband," said the Commissary in an insinuating tone.

"I and Mr. John Hastings, old Sir John's son," she answered; and the Commissary drawing Marlow for a moment aside, conversed with him in a whisper.

What they said she could not hear, and could not have understood had she heard, for they spoke in French; but she grew alarmed as they went on, evidently speaking about her, and turning their eyes towards her from time to time. She thought they meditated at least sending her in custody to England, and perhaps much worse. Tales of bastiles, and dungeons, and wringing confessions from unwilling prisoners by all sorts of tortures, presented themselves to her imagination, and before they had concluded, she exclaimed in a tone of entreaty, "I will tell all, indeed I will tell all, if you will not send me any where."

"The Commissary thinks, madame," said Marlow, "that the first thing we ought to do is to examine your papers, and then to question you from the evidence they afford. The keys must, therefore, be found, or the locks must be broken open."

"Perhaps they may be in that drawer," said Mrs. Ayliffe, pointing across to an escrutoire; and there they were accordingly found. No great search for papers was necessary; for the house was but scantily furnished, and the escrutoire itself contained a packet of six or seven letters from John Ayliffe to his mother, with two from Mr. Shanks, each of them ending with the words "_read and burn_;" an injunction which she had religiously failed to comply with. These letters formed a complete series from the time of her quitting England up to that day. They gave her information of the progress of the suit against Sir Philip Hastings, and of its successful termination by his withdrawing from the defence. The first letters held out to her, every day, the hope of a speedy return to England. The later ones mentioned long fictitious consultations with lawyers in regard to her return, and stated that it was found absolutely necessary that she should remain abroad under an assumed name. The last letter, however, evidently in answer to one of remonstrance and entreaty from her, was the most important in Marlow's eyes. It was very peremptory in its tone, asked if she wanted to ruin and destroy her son, and threatened all manner of terrible things if she suffered her retreat to be discovered. As some compensation, however, for her disappointment, John Ayliffe promised to come and see her speedily, and secure her a splendid income, which would enable her to keep carriages and horses, and "live like a princess." He excused his not having done so earlier, on the ground that his friend Mrs. Hazleton had advanced him a very large sum of money to carry on the suit, which he was obliged to pay immediately. The letter ended with these words, "She is as bitter against all the Hastings' as ever; and nothing will satisfy her till she has seen the last of them all, especially that saucy girl; but she is cute after her money, and will be paid. As for my part, I don't care what she does to Mistress Emily; for I now hate her as much as I once liked her,--but you will see something there, I think, before long."

"In the name of Heaven," exclaimed Marlow, as he read that letter, "what can have possessed the woman with so much malice towards poor Emily Hastings?"

"Why, John used always to think," said Mistress Ayliffe, with a weak smile coming upon her face in the midst of her distress, "that it was because Madame Hazleton wanted to marry a man about there, called Marlow, and Mistress Emily carried him off from her."

The Commissary laughed, and held out his snuff-box to Marlow, who did not take the snuff, but fell into a deep fit of thought, while the Commissary continued his perquisitions.

Only two more papers of importance were found, and they were of a date far back. The one fresh, and evidently a copy of some other letter, the other yellow, and with the folds worn through in several places. The former was a copy of a letter of young John Hastings to the unfortunate girl whom he had seduced, soothing her under her distress of mind, and calling her his "dear little wife." It was with the greatest difficulty she could be induced to part with the original, it would seem, and had obtained a copy before she consented to do so. The latter was the antidote to the former. It was a letter from old Sir John Hastings to her father, and was to the following effect:

"Sir:

"As you have thought fit distinctly to withdraw all vain and fraudulent pretences of any thing but an illicit connection between your daughter and my late son, and to express penitence for the insolent threats you used, I will not withhold due support from my child's offspring, nor from the unfortunate girl to whom he behaved ill. I therefore write this to inform you that I will allow her the sum of two hundred pounds per annum, as long as she demeans herself with propriety and decorum. I will also leave directions in my will for securing to her and her son, on their joint lives, a sum of an equal amount, which may be rendered greater if her behavior for the next few years is such as I can approve.

"I am, sir, your obedient servant,

"JOHN HASTINGS."

Marlow folded up the letter with a smile, and the Commissary proceeded, with all due formalities, to mark and register the whole correspondence as found in the possession of Mrs. Ayliffe.

When this was done, what may be called the examination of that good lady was continued, but the sight of those letters in the hands of Marlow, and the well-satisfied smile with which he read them, had convinced her that all farther attempt at concealment would be vain. Terror had with her a great effect in unloosing the tongue, and, as is very common in such cases, she flew into the extreme of loquacity, told every thing she knew, or thought, or imagined, and being, as is common with very weak people, of a prying and inquisitive turn, she could furnish ample information in regard to all the schemes and contrivances by which her son had succeeded in convincing even Sir Philip Hastings himself of his legitimacy.

Her statements involved Mr. Shanks the lawyer in the scheme of fraud as a principal, but they compromised deeply Mrs. Hazleton herself as cognizant of all that was going on, and aiding and abetting with her personal advice. She detailed the whole particulars of the plan which had been formed for bringing Emily Hastings to Mrs. Hazleton's house, and frightening her into a marriage with John Ayliffe; and she dwelt particularly on the tutoring he had received from that lady, and his frantic rage when the scheme was frustrated. The transactions between him and the unhappy man Tom Cutter she knew only in part; but she admitted that her son had laughed triumphantly at the thought of how Sir Philip would be galled when he was made to believe that his beloved Emily had been to visit her young reprobate son at the cottage near the park, and that, too, at a time when he had been actually engaged in poaching.

All, in fact, came forth with the greatest readiness, and indeed much more was told than any questions tended to elicit. She seemed indeed to have now lost all desire for concealment, and to found her hopes and expectations on the freest discovery. Her only dread, apparently, being that she might be taken to England, and confronted with her son. On this point she dwelt much, and Marlow consented that she should remain in France, under the supervision of the police, for a time at least, though he would not promise her, notwithstanding all her entreaties, that she should never be sent for. He endeavored, however, to obviate the necessity of so doing, by taking every formal step that could be devised to render the evidence he had obtained available in a court of law, as documentary testimony. A magistrate was sent for, her statements were read over to her in his presence by the commissary of police, and though it cannot be asserted that either the style or the orthography of the worthy commissary were peculiarly English, yet Mrs. Ayliffe signed them, and swore to them in good set form, and in the presence of four witnesses.

To Marlow, the scene was a very painful one; for he had a natural repugnance to seeing the weakness and degradation of human nature so painfully exhibited by any fellow-creature, and he left her with feelings of pity, but still stronger feelings of contempt.

All such sensations, however, vanished when he reached the inn again, and he found himself in possession of evidence which would clear his beloved Emily of the suspicions which had been instilled into her father's mind, and which he doubted not in the least would effect the restoration of Sir Philip Hastings to his former opulence and to his station in society.

The mind of man has a sun in its own sky, which pours forth its sunshine, or is hidden by clouds, irrespective of the atmosphere around. In fact we always see external objects through stained glass, and the hues imparted are in our windows, not in the objects themselves. It is wonderful how different the aspect of every thing was to the eyes of Marlow as he returned towards Paris, from that which the scene had presented as he went. All seemed sunshine and brightness, from the happiness of his own heart. The gloomy images, which, as I have shown, had haunted him on his way from his own house to Hartwell--the doubts, if they can be so called--the questionings of the unsatisfied heart in regard to the ways of Providence--the cloudy dreads which almost all men must have felt as to the real, constant, minute superintendence of a Supreme Power being but a sweet vision, the child of hope and veneration, were all dispelled. I do not mean to say that they were dissipated by reason or by thought, for his was a strong mind, and reason and thought with him were always on the side of faith; but those clouds and mists were suddenly scattered by the success which he had obtained, and the cheering expectation which might be now well founded upon that success. It was not enough for him that he knew, and understood, and appreciated to the full the beauty and excellence of his Emily's character. He could not be contented unless every one connected with her understood and appreciated it also. He cared little what the world thought of himself, but he would have every one think well of her, and the deepest pang he had perhaps ever felt in life had been experienced when he first found that Sir Philip Hastings doubted and suspected his own child. Now, all must be clear--all must be bright. The base and the fraudulent will be punished and exposed, the noble and the good honored and justified. It was his doing; and as he alighted from the carriage, and mounted the stairs of the hotel in Paris, his step was as triumphant as if he had won a great victory.

Fate will water our wine, however--I suppose lest we should become intoxicated with the delicious draught of joy. Marlow longed and hoped to fly back to England with the tidings without delay, but certain formalities had to be gone through, official seals and signatures affixed to the papers he had obtained, in order to leave no doubt of their authenticity. Cold men of office could not be brought to comprehend or sympathize with his impetuous eagerness, and five whole days elapsed before he was able to quit the French capital.

FOOTNOTES:

[E] Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850, by G. P. R. James, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New-York.

HORACE WALPOLE'S OPINIONS OF HIS CONTEMPORARIES.

The correspondence of the Earl of Orford and the Rev. William Mason, the friend and biographer of Gray, has just been published, and the critics seem to regard it as more entertaining than any previous collection of the letters of the noble and celebrated author. The _Examiner_ says they bring out with marked prominence his abhorrence of the Scotch, his bitter dislike of Johnson, and the men of genius connected with him, his uneasy contempt for Chesterfield and Lyttleton, his impatience of Garrick's popularity, and his better founded scorn of Cumberland and his clique. We do not mention his studied injustice to Chatterton, because in this there was not a little natural resentment of as great an injustice to himself on the part of poor Chatterton's upholders; but perhaps nothing is more painfully impressed on all the letters than his monstrous persistence in the refusal of all merit to the most distinguished writers of his time who did not happen to belong to his set. Let the reader remember that within a few years before these letters, and during their continuance, all the writings of Sterne had been produced, and all the writings of Goldsmith; that Johnson had published _Rasselas_ and the _Idler_, the edition of _Shakspeare_, the _Dictionary_, and the _Lives of the Poets_; that Smollett had given _Sir Lancelot Greaves_ and _Humphrey Clinker_ to the world; that the first publication of Lady Mary Wortley Montague's letters had taken place; that Percy had published his _Reliques_, Reid his _Inquiry_, and Hume his immortal _History_; that the most important portion of the _Decline and Fall_ had appeared, and that the theatres could boast of the farces of Foote and the comedies of Goldsmith, Colman, and Sheridan. Yet here is all that Walpole can say of it!

"What a figure will this our Augustan age make! Garrick's prologues, epilogues, and verses, Sir W. Chambers's Gardening, Dr. Nowel's Sermon, Whittington and his Cat, Sir John Dalrymple's History and Life of Henry II. What a library of poetry, taste, good sense, veracity, and vivacity! Ungrateful Shebbear! indolent Smollett! trifling Johnson! piddling Goldsmith! how little have they contributed to the glory of a period in which all arts, all sciences are encouraged and rewarded! Guthrie buried his mighty genius in a review, and Mallet died of the first effusions of his loyalty. The retrospect makes one melancholy, but Ossian has appeared, and were Paradise once more lost, we should not want an epic poem!"

We take other passages from the letters exhibiting the same spirit--now simply entertaining:

"Dr. Goldsmith has written a comedy--no, it is the lowest of all farces, it is not the subject I condemn, though very vulgar, but the execution. The drift tends to no moral, no edification of any kind--the situations, however, are well imagined, and make one laugh in spite of the grossness of the dialogue, the forced witticisms, and total improbability of the whole plan and conduct. But what disgusts me most is, that though the characters are very low, and aim at low humor, not one of them says a sentence that is natural or marks any character at all. It is set up in opposition to sentimental comedy, and is as bad as the worst of them. Garrick would not act it, but bought himself off by a poor prologue.

"You will be diverted to hear that Mr. Gibbon has quarrelled with me. He lent me his second volume in the middle of November. I returned it with a most civil panegyric. He came for more incense, I gave it, but alas! with too much sincerity, I added, 'Mr. Gibbon, I am sorry you should have pitched on so disgusting a subject as the Constantinopolitan history. There is so much of the Arians and Eunomians, and semi-Pelagians; and there is such a strange contrast between Roman and Gothic manners, and so little harmony between a Consul Sabinus and a Ricimer, Duke of the Palace, that though you have written the story as well as it could be written, I fear few will have patience to read it.' He colored; all his round features squeezed themselves into sharp angles; he screwed up his button-mouth, and rapping his snuff-box, said, "It had never been put together before'--'so well,' he meant to add, but gulped it. He meant 'so well,' certainly, for Tillemont, whom he quotes in every page, has done the very thing. Well, from that hour to this, I have never seen him, though he used to call once or twice a week: nor has sent me the third volume, as he promised. I well knew his vanity, even about his ridiculous face and person, but thought he had too much sense to avow it so palpably.

"I have read Sheridan's Critic, but not having seen it, for they say it is admirably acted, it appeared wondrously flat and old, and a poor imitation; it makes me fear I shall not be so much charmed with the School for Scandal, on reading, as I was when I saw it."

There is of course no denying that these attempts to make "small beer" of the Gibbons, Humes, Goldsmiths, Johnsons, Smolletts, and other spirits already secure and serene among the immortals, however amusing in themselves, become mighty ridiculous by the side of as perpetual praise of the writer's own clique.

THE COUNT MONTE-LEONE: OR, THE SPY IN SOCIETY.

TRANSLATED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE FROM THE FRENCH OF H. DE ST. GEORGES.

_Continued from page 357._

XI.--ON PAROLE.

Three days after the night upon which the father and son had knocked at the door of No. 7 Rue de Menors, another scene occurred. It was ten o'clock. The Prince had not appeared at dinner. Confined by a slight indisposition to his room, he sent an excuse to his daughter-in-law. The Prince was respectful as far as possible to Aminta, looking on her as head of the family and mistress of the household. The Countess of Grandmesnil had embroidered away a portion of the day, contradicted her niece, admired her nephew, commented on the last sermon of the Abbe de Rozan on worldly pleasures, contriving therein to insert various bitter-sweet allusions to Aminta. Finally the Countess left the room.

The Marquis and Marquise were then alone together. After her discovery of the nocturnal absence of Henri, and especially after the reading of the fatal note in which an appointment was made with the Marquis, Aminta felt a sadness which she could not overcome. Too proud to reproach him, or suffer him to discover her sorrow, divided between unextinguished love and deep mortification, Aminta lived in perpetual constraint, biding her grief and humiliation under a false tranquillity, the recompense for which she found in solitary tears. The Marquis seemed ill at ease. He had for some days been as moody as possible. His absence became every day more frequent, and the sudden departure of the Countess made his situation very annoying to both of them. Not a word was said for some moments. Henri sat with his eyes fixed on a paper, though he did not read, and Aminta convulsively twisted between her fingers a kind of work which just then was fashionable. Her eyes however occasionally strayed to her husband's face, on which they rested with anxiety. As she thus examined him, the features of Henri finally assumed such an expression of despair that Aminta could not repress her sorrow, and said, "What _is_ the matter? are you in pain?"

"I? not at all! I am well--very well," said the Marquis. "I have something of importance to attend to," and he added, as he looked at the clock, "I am already rather late."

Aminta, in a supplicating tone, said, "Henri, once the most important business of your life was to be with me."

"The business which calls me out is by no means as pleasant as that would be."

"I wish I thought so," said Aminta--"for the needle of jealousy had entered her heart.

"Aminta," said Maulear, looking at her, "what is the matter? what do you mean?"

"That I am afraid I have lost the greatest blessing of life in a marriage like ours, and that, when my confidence in you is lost, happiness is gone for ever."

"And why have you lost it?" said Maulear.

"You have yourself destroyed it. You, whom I thought so frank--you, in the oaths of whom I had confidence--for whom I abandoned my mother and my country," said she, with tears. "You, against whose love I contended, for I was afraid I would not be happy, or rather that you would not be. Alas! I am now sure of this. Your coldness, your indifference, your abandonment, tell me so more distinctly than your tongue could. Yet I had rather you should say so, for there would at least be boldness in the confession, while meanness is the element of dissimulation."

The head of the poor young woman fell on her shoulder, and she shed bitter tears.

"Aminta," said Henri, as he drew near and sought to take her hand, "I swear that I have not deceived you."

Aminta looked towards him with a countenance lighted up with joy, but a frightful thought, the recollection of the letter, pierced her heart like an arrow.

"He deceives me," said she, and she felt herself blush for the man who did not blush himself, though he was committing perjury. The door of the room was then opened, and the Prince de Maulear entered. He was pale and agitated, though he had a smile on his lips. The smile, however, was cold and evidently studied. "You are about to go out, Marquis," said he, pointing to the hat which the latter had in his hand, without appearing to remark either the trouble of Henri or the tears of Aminta.

"Excuse me, Monsieur, but I have an important appointment."

"I am sorry for your appointment," said the Prince, "but you must break it."

"I cannot," muttered Henri.

"I hope you will," said the Prince, but his manner implied, "you must."

"Very well, sir," said the Marquis, putting down his hat and gloves, with marked ill humor, "I obey you."

The Prince paid no further attention to him, but placed a chair near Aminta, sat beside her, and pointing out a chair to the Marquis, bade him do so also.

"We thought you unwell," said the Marquise to her father-in-law, making an effort to restrain herself. "We are glad to see it is not the case."

"For three days," said the Prince, "I have not felt well. Too long a walk for a person of my age, and some important affairs have fatigued both my body and mind. I therefore determined to pass this evening calmly and quietly with you--with my family. I do not," said he, speaking to Henri, "expect it will be gay, but we cannot make a holiday all the time. We must sometimes be calm, and reflect. You, my daughter," said he to Aminta, "may be sure I will do all I can to aid you. I know you like to hear my old stories, but if you did not, and it were unpleasant to you, you would bear with me. I am about to tell you a long one." The Marquis and the Marquise listened to the Prince with surprise. The tone of this preamble seemed to them so foreign to the ordinary language and habits of the Prince, that they began to see something stranger even than the piquant anecdotes and traditions he delighted in narrating. "This story is a revelation of a story I long doubted whether or not I should confide to you. Its avowal cannot but be painful to me, and a man does not like to blush before his children."

"Why do so, then, my father?" said Henri.

"Because I wish to, monsieur," said the Prince sternly. "Because in the course of his life man must suffer, when its suffering is good in its effects, because thereby he may punish evil, and do his duty." The young couple looked at the Prince with terror, for his brow was moody, and on his lips--across which irony, gayety, and sarcasm so often played--there were now the marks of anger, menace, and indignation.

The old man spoke thus: "After leaving Mettan, whither I had followed the Princess, I went to Naples in 1792. Like almost all the _emigres_ of that day, I had no money. One of the first Frenchmen I met with in that city was Count Max de Nangis, with whom I had previously become acquainted in the strangest manner. We had been educated by the Benedictines, but our scholastic success was most unequal; for the Count saw me regularly surpass him, and carry away every college prize. He naturally disliked me. When we had entered society, our whimsical hate continued,--so that I seemed born to be the evil genius of the Count. If our horses were entered for the same stake, mine won the purse; sometimes by a length or a head only--but they won. If the Count fell in love, he did so with a woman that loved me, and the Count was soon sent adrift. My marriage soon capped the climax. Count Max had a charming cousin, Mlle. de Devonne, whom he loved passionately. Their marriage had been quietly agreed on between the families, and was to be solemnized on the majority of M. de Nangis. I was introduced to the Duke de Devonne, and saw his daughter, the most beautiful woman of the Court. After a short time I became passionately in love with her. I soon saw that my love was returned, and as the marriage to which I have referred had only been a matter of family-talk, known to a few friends, but not to the public, my father induced the Dauphin to ask the Duke de Nangis for his daughter's hand for me. Unwilling to offend the Prince, led astray by the manifest interest of his daughter, and anxious to gratify her, the Duke consented. The Count de Nangis was enraged, and challenged me;--I wounded him in the arm. We fought again;--I wounded him in the thigh. He challenged me again; and I run him through the body; he was forced to be satisfied. All these duels took place in the county of _Saluces_, in Savoy,--then belonging to my family, and whither I had gone to attend to business-matters. I married Mlle. de Devonne, who was your noble and excellent mother,"--this was said to Henri, "I have told you this to explain the hatred which had existed so long a time in the heart of M. de Nangis, when we met at Naples, in 1792. The first months of my sojourn were sad and solitary. Too proud to inform any one of the nature of my sufferings, I lived retired; and, except a few countrymen as poor as I was, saw no one. This was easy enough; for I had brought no letter of recommendation to the eminent people of that capital, in which I made such a bad figure, and amid which I was isolated. This life made one of my habits and tastes suffer cruelly. A painful circumstance, however, mortified my self-love, and increased my humiliation,--the Count de Nangis then was 'the observed of all observers,' in Naples. More prudent or more fortunate than I, he saved large sums of money from the tempest which overwhelmed all the large fortunes of France. He had a number of servants, and in luxury and magnificence equalled the wealthiest persons of the city. Notwithstanding my anxiety to avoid him, I met him frequently, and I saw in his expression a kind of disdain and contempt which wounded me to the soul. One day, when I was more desperate than ever, I received a letter from France, and in it a check for fifty thousand livres, which the Countess of Grandmesnil had sent me. Intoxicated with joy, I hastened to get possession of this money, and careless of the future, forgot this would be the only sum I should receive for a long time, or perhaps would ever receive. I indulged in mad extravagance, took a carriage, and three days afterwards presented myself at various noble houses, where my rank and title procured me a ready reception. I saw M. de Nangis; we met in the same rooms, amid people of high rank, and there was no trace of our old differences. I fancied, though, that the Count exhibited a secret spite at my recovery of fortune, which he thought more stable than it really was. At this time people in Naples played high. The palace of Prince Leta was every night filled with rich strangers, and with the principal nobles of Naples. Over his tables, loaded with gold, they played all night long. I was taken to Prince Leta's, where a strange idea took possession of me. I fancied that I might, without danger or risk, increase my revenue, and probably triple the poor sum I had been fortunate to receive. I played, and my good fortune did not desert me; at first I won with the strangest good fortune. My daring increased, and I made some bold bets, which were successful; so that in the course of a few evenings I won three hundred thousand francs."

The eyes of the Marquis glittered with strange light, as he heard his father speak thus. The Prince did not seem to observe it, and continued--

"Chance led me into a room where the Count de Nangis also was--he too played. Remembering how my fortune had always seemed to surpass his, and all the victories I had won at his expense, I could not refrain from secretly pitying him for the fate which had again brought him into contact with me, and which led him again to contend with one who had uniformly triumphed over and beaten him in fortune, love, and war. We began to play--the Count betting high, and I following his example. The game was something between faro and lansquenet, now completely forgotten, having been replaced by _ecarte_." The Prince saw his son tremble at the mention of the last game; for a few moments he paused, and then continued--

"The first games were unfortunate for me; I lost--I doubled the stakes, and lost again. At the conclusion of the evening my hundred thousand crowns were reduced to a hundred thousand francs. I returned home completely overpowered, but less stupefied at my own losses than at the success of my rival, who heretofore had been so unfortunate. On the next day I sent to M. de Nangis, before noon, the fifty thousand francs I owed him--on the previous evening I had on my person only fifty thousand francs with me. That night we met again at Prince Leta's. The game began--there were many spectators. I won ten thousand francs, and smiled confidently at the change of fortune. It soon, however, changed once more.--When the clock struck twelve I was ruined! 'On my honor!' said the Count, 'I have sought for ten years to contend with you, Prince. If gold could indemnify me for all the losses you have caused me, confess that, to-day, we are even.' My heart was ready to burst with rage, and I was ready to insult him. 'We will not stop here, I hope,' said M. de Nangis; 'and I wish to have more of your money; provided I have fifty thousand francs of yours, I ask nothing more of the god Plutus.'

"A terrible contest then took place in my mind. To confess that I had no more money--that I was ruined, seemed impossible; a miserable false pride prevented me. Should I, however, go on, and contract a debt which I could not discharge? 'Prince,' said the Count, pushing ten notes of a thousand francs towards me, 'ten thousand francs more I wish to lose, and something tells me that luck is about to turn.' The devil spoke to me through the mouth of man. '_On parole_,' said I, 'for I have no money with me.' '_Pardieu_, said the Count, 'people like ourselves never have more than fifty thousand francs in our pocket-books. _Parole_ is our cash, and none but citizens and bankers, who are loaded with gold like mules in Guatemala, have any thing else. Your word is good for five hundred thousand francs, and I will take it for cash.' I felt an icy coldness run through my veins and stop at my very heart. I played again, and again I lost and won again. An hour afterwards I owed sixty thousand francs to the Count de Nangis. 'What is the matter?' said he ironically, 'are you ill.' 'The heat,' said I, rising, 'is excessive; and if you please we will stop here.' 'As you please,' said the Count; 'and to-morrow you shall have your revenge.' 'To-morrow, then, be it,' said I. My head was hot, yet a cold perspiration stood on my brow; my sight became troubled, my legs quailed, and I saw before me the terrible spectacle of dishonor. He at last had his enemy in his power, and was about to doom him to infamy. Two words seemed written before my eyes, and by their aspect terrified me. Those two words contained all I had to fear and apprehend--they were worse to me than death. These words were a contract of honor, a sacred article in even the gambler's code. These words had been pronounced by the Count as he pushed his money towards me: they were '_on parole_.' I went to my hotel--for I had not yet left the modest room I had inhabited while a more comfortable suite was being prepared--and gave way to despair. 'My name disgraced!' cried I, 'the name of the Prince de Maulear, which has been pure and honored for so many centuries, made vile and disgraced by a miserable debt of sixty thousand francs, a sum once scarcely to be considered as a fraction of the revenues of my family!' There was no one by to aid me--no one to whom I could own my fault, my remorse, and my despair. Day came, and the horror of my situation increased as the fatal hour drew near. Unable to resist this frightful torment I said, 'No! I will not live dishonored; I will not bear a disgraced, shameful, and dishonored life.' I went to the table and wrote: 'I owe to the Count de Nangis the sum of 60,000 francs, for which I bequeath him all the profits ever likely to accrue to me from my property in France. Here, when I am about to die, I enjoin my son to discharge this debt of honor by every means in his power.' I then took my pistols, loaded and cocked them--now be bold for one moment, and spare yourself years of shame and disgrace!--I placed one of the pistols with the muzzle at my heart, and the other in my mouth. I was about to pull the trigger when I heard a noise. The partition which divided me from the next room was shattered, and through the opening thus made, I saw a man, pale and agitated. This person advanced towards we with a pocket-book in his hands. 'Stop,' said he, 'here is what you owe--this pocket-book contains sixty thousand livres.'"

XII.--THE GAMBLER.

The Prince de Maulear continued his story. Aminta timidly looked at her father-in-law with painful emotion, for she knew how he must suffer in making such a confession. The Marquis seemed to suffer under increasing discomfort and terror.

"At the sudden and almost supernatural apparition of this stranger, who thus rose before me, the weapons fell from my hands, and as I was unable to speak, I made use of my eyes to question him.

"'I was there,' said the man, pointing to the chamber whence he had burst so suddenly; 'I have not lost one of the words you have uttered since your return--I have watched every moment, the long and cruel agony of your soul. You have revealed yourself to me, your name, your family, your isolated hopes, and your isolation in this city. I have seen your despair hourly increase, until, but for me, you would have reached the climax. Monsieur,' continued he, with a tone full of religion and sensibility, 'make this day the happiest of my life by enabling me to save one of my fellows.'

"'One of your fellows, Monsieur? alas I am not such, for if I estimate you according to your actions, you are a man of honor and heart, while I....'

"'You,' said he, interrupting me, 'you are like what you think me, a man of honor and heart. The proof that such is the case is, that, unable to bear the consequences of a moment of weakness, you were about to die to avoid the consequences of that error. Monsieur de Maulear,' continued the stranger, and he took my hand with touching kindness, 'permit me to restore you to life and happiness, for you have a family perhaps, and children, and cannot abandon all thus. Listen to me,' said he, as he saw me refuse the pocket-book he offered me; 'I had a father who was one of the noblest and best of men. He died many months ago, and my tears tell you how I regret him. I know that he is in heaven and blesses me for what I do now, for thus he would have done. The money I offer you is a part of his fortune, and I am sure I appropriate it as he would wish me. To refuse this, Monsieur, would be to exhibit ingratitude to Providence, which has evidently watched over you, in permitting me to hear and induce you to pause.'

"'But,' said I, with deep emotion, 'you do not know me, and such a service....'

"'Have I not told you,' said he, 'that in your sorrow you told me all. Do not, however, think I wish to be useful without a condition. I exact one, and you will excuse me for making it the consideration of what I propose to do.'

"'What is it?' said I. 'You can exact any thing from man as the price of his honor.'

"'Well, swear to me that you will never play again.'

"'I do, I do!' said I. 'I pledge my faith not to.'

"'Take this pocket-book then,' said the stranger. It is now ten o'clock, and debts of honor should always be paid before noon.'

"'But your name, at least, I should know, Monsieur, before I take your gold.'

"'An insignificant one, which derives its only merit from the virtues of him who transmitted it to me. My name is Luigi Rovero.'"

"My father," said the Marquise, "my father, was it he who...."

She paused from a sentiment of respect and delicacy to the Prince.

"This, however, is not the only benefit he conferred on me. From the effects of the emotion I had undergone, a horrible illness seized me, and during this malady of long days and endless nights of suffering, my new friend never left me. A crisis ensued; for three days my life was in danger, and depended on the precision with which a certain remedy was administered to me. For three days and nights he watched me without one minute of repose, and he not only restored my honor but preserved my life. Rovero was a very brother to me, and I passed a whole year at Naples, living with him and never leaving him. A few months after I was able to discharge my pecuniary obligation to him--my debt of honor was beyond my capacity. Here is the portrait of the person who was so dear to me," said the Prince, and he took from his pocket a magnificent gold box on which was a miniature set with diamonds. "Look at it, my daughter," said he, "and observe the noble face yours so often recalls to me."

Aminta kissed the portrait, and Henri, then remembering the picture which Signora Rovero had shown him on his second visit to Sorrento, explained his surprise when he saw it, for he had often seen the box and the magnificent portrait.

"Plans, prejudices, pride, and family pride," said the Prince, "my child, disappeared, as you know, when I heard the words 'The daughter of Rovero.' Rovero was my savior and brother. From that moment I understood that in the far-away skies, he besought me to discharge my debt towards him, and to prove the extent of my gratitude. I understood that he would have bequeathed his daughter to me, to become my own; therefore, when I opened my arms you became my child, and since then my love for you has continually increased. When I took charge of your life, my daughter, I took charge of your happiness, which I thought secured for ever. For some time, though, you have shed tears in secret--do not tell me no," said the Prince, as he saw Aminta make a motion of negation. "I have studied you closely, and one cannot deceive a father's heart--I am your father. Monsieur," said the Prince, turning towards his son, "now you know why I love your wife. You see that her sorrows are mine, and that her tears melt my heart. For two months you have distressed and made her weep over your neglect and indifference, the fatal secret of which I know and intend to tell her."

Henri quivered with fear.

"Father, for pity's sake, do not...."

"Monsieur," said the Prince, "had you blushed earlier you would not do so now."

"My daughter," said he, pointing to the Marquise who bent before him; "your husband is not false to you, but he is a gamester."

"Then he has not deceived me," said the young woman. With an emotion she could not restrain, she rushed into the arms of the Marquis. For some moments the Prince looked at her with deep emotion, for Aminta forgave and pardoned all in one who had not betrayed her. Then the Prince continued sadly--

"Do not rejoice so soon, my child; gaming is the instigator of all vices, and has led him so far as to _risk his honor without the means of redeeming his parole_."

"Monsieur," said the Prince to his son, "I have told you a terrible story, to prove to what abasement the passion for gaming can reduce a man. That abasement you are in danger of."

"Father, if you knew the temptation."

"I do--for three days ago your mysterious life was revealed to me. In the circle to which you belong, in one of those societies formed to divide and interfere with domestic life--where persons go in search of a liberty and after a license they do not find at home--in that place, led astray by morbid self-esteem, you played for the first time. What, in a man of your rank, should have been a mere amusement, a fugitive pleasure, became a serious business. You played to win, or rather to repair your losses. In the saloons of Paris you were constantly at the ecarte tables, that cursed game, the chances of which have ruined so many persons. Thanks to it, you won immense sums from young Lord Elmore, at the last ball of M. L----, which you lost again in the more doubtful house of Mme. Fanny de Bruneval, where you had an appointment."

"Ah, father! then he went to that woman's house to play?" said Aminta, almost involuntarily.

"What else should he go for to the house of a dowager of fifty, who receives all sorts of people, and where every thing is suspicious, from her guests to the very cards they use? This very night, in consequence of information received from me, that elegant abode will be examined by the police most scrupulously. That," said the Prince, "is one of the reasons why I have prevented my son from going thither. Now, Monsieur," said the Prince, "make an explanation of the state of your funds. You had six hundred thousand francs from your mother, you have expended two hundred thousand in furniture, horses, carriages, articles of luxury, and presents to your wife. With the expenditure of this money I have no fault to find, for you cannot estimate too highly the angel Heaven has sent you. Then you had four hundred thousand francs. You have realized this money, and during the last two months have lost the sum of three hundred and ninety thousand francs. This evening, Monsieur, you were about to tempt fortune with the ten thousand francs now in your possession. Is not this the exact state of your affairs?"

"Ah, Monsieur, it is cruel to say all this before the Marquise."

"It is a hundred times less cruel than the suspicion to which you abandon her. Did you not see just now that instead of reproaching the gamester who had ruined her, she experienced only a tender emotion for the husband she loved? Henri," continued the Prince, taking his son's hand in his own, "when I told you how once in my life I had erred, when I confessed to you a fault which yet makes my cheek blush, I sought to make you pause on the abyss into which you were near plunging. In telling you this secret I deprived myself of the right of severity to you. When, in a letter I wrote to you at Naples, I spoke lightly of a loss at cards I had undergone, I did not doubt that some day I would be obliged to tell you all that had taken place. I was wrong, however, in forbidding you to beware of what I had spoken of; for I should have known that there are passions, like other diseases, which a father transmits to his children. The body, like the soul, inherits them. I however pardon and forget all I have mentioned."

Henri clasped the old man's hand, and Aminta kissed the Prince.

"I will," said the latter, "only pardon you on the terms imposed on me by my generous friend Rovero. You will swear to me, on your honor, that you will never play again, and I will confide in you as he did in me."

"I do swear," said the Marquis, "and will die if I ever break my oath."

"Now listen to me, my children," said the Prince, kindly; "I have a hundred thousand francs a year--I will allow you fifty. A similar sum satisfies me. To protect you, however, from all temptations to extravagance, I give you the income and not the capital, and as a reward of my indulgence, as a recompense of my courage in making the confession of a great error of my life, make your wife happy, reward her by tenderness for the care you have subjected her to, for the uneasiness she has known, and my heart will be gratified for the bliss she will owe you, as something to discharge my debt to her father."

The Prince clasped his children to his heart and left. While this was occurring at the Hotel de Maulear, a storm overhung the hospitable roof of Mme. Fanny de Bruneval. This house had been correctly estimated by the Prince de Maulear, angry as he naturally was at the sums lost by his son in those saloons. Madame de Bruneval assumed the military title of widow of an ex-colonel of the Imperial Guard. There had really been such a colonel on the _roles_ of the _grande armee_. Such a soldier had not only had flesh and blood, but crosses and decorations. He had beaten, and well beaten, the Austrians, but had lost his horse at Leipsic, and been cut down by one of the black hussars of Brunswick. All this was real, positive, and printed in black and white. There was no doubt about it. It was doubtful, though, if the Colonel ever had a wife. The _Moniteur_ mentioned the battles and the death--it said nothing of Madame. Colonel de Bruneval, once, during a time of peace--such times were rare with the Emperor--came to Paris with a lady about forty, blonde like a German, rosy and fresh as a German, and speaking French with a German accent. The Colonel introduced the lady to his brethren in arms as _Madame la Colonelle_, and no one asked any other questions. No one was ever bold enough to ask if the contract was perfectly regular; for the Colonel was six feet high, tall as a drum-major, and was not only a giant, but susceptible as possible, having a habit of translating logic and syllogisms into sword-cuts and sabre slashes. The widow of the Colonel, naturally enough, opened her house to her husband's brothers-in-arms after the fatal blow of the black Brunswicker. The house of Mme. Bruneval, in 1818, had become a Bonapartist club, at which the police squinted with unusual forbearance for a long time. We must, however, say, that the widow soon saw that the illustrious soldiers who frequented her house did not indemnify her by their conversation for her expenses. She therefore sought to make the presence of these heroes available, and mingled with them a few honest people who were fond of play, from whom the lights, like the altars of the god Plutus, received the tithe of the stakes. At the widow's the play was high, and all kinds of games were recognized. All, however, was fair and above board, and this kind of reputation attracted thither many persons who would not have met on a field of battle less orthodox. People in good society were met with there. People who, like the Marquis de Maulear, were unwilling to play in public, looked for excitement without regard to chance and society. There the famous match between the Marquis and Lord Elmore took place. Count Monte-Leone also went occasionally to Mme. Bruneval's, since he used to meet there many _Carbonari_ and Bonapartists; for, as we have said, people of the most diverse opinions all united for one purpose, to destroy what was, and make their ideas triumph from the wreck of the general chaos.

On the evening of the lesson given by the Prince to the Marquis de Maulear, the Count presented Taddeo to Mme. de Bruneval, and while the play seemed animated in various parts of the room, the _Carbonari_ talked in a neighboring room of a plan conceived by several wealthy Americans who were affiliated with the society, of a plan to bear off the Emperor Napoleon from his prison at St. Helena, and carry him to France. Important, however, as the subject was, the Count paid but little attention to it. He was then at one of the most painful crises of his life. In about an hour he would need all his courage and persuasion to combat and conquer one of the greatest obstacles man can meet with in his career--the will of an energetic and passionate woman. Not long before, Monte-Leone had received the following note:

"For fifteen days I have not seen you. I do not know why you avoid me. I had rather die than continue to live thus. I wish to hear my fate from your own lips. For eight days _he_ will be away. Come--if you refuse me--if you are not with me when midnight comes, it will be the proof of an eternal adieu, and I will cease to live."

The Count waited with impatience for the period of this terrible interview. He knew the feeling which had inspired this note, how full of irrepressible indignation her mind was, and that it would shrink from no danger and no excess. He sought in vain to shake off Taddeo, but since the scene in Verneuil street, when the wretch set to watch Monte-Leone had been overheard by Rovero, the young man had been almost heart-broken. On this evening, though, he did not lose sight of Taddeo for an instant. The Count saw with terror that the time was drawing near, yet he could not leave the room. Taking advantage of a moment when Taddeo was not by, the Count was about to leave, when a noise was heard in the anteroom. The door was thrown open, and a man with a white scarf advanced amid the company. There was no possibility of mistake, for justice, herself, as the Prince de Maulear had told his son, had come into the gaming-house, disguised as a Commissary of Police. All who were present felt the greatest uneasiness--they were about to be arrested on the double charge of _Carbonarism_ and forbidden play. Was it to the gamesters or to the _Carbonari_ that the Commissary paid his visit? All were excited, though from different motives.

"Madame," said the Commissary, exhibiting his warrant to Madame Bruneval, who, like the commander of a besieged place, sought to parley with the enemy; "you are the widow of Colonel de Bruneval."

"I am, sir," said the German lady, whose color became greater than ever, "and cannot conceive why I should be thus insulted. I am not, I suppose, under the surveillance of the police."

"Excuse me, madame," said the Commissary, "your house has long been pointed out to us, as the rendezvous of many Buonapartists"--the Buonapartists became alarmed--"and," continued the Commissary, "as a place where forbidden games are played. For these reasons, we are about to make an examination in the premises and in relation to the persons here--until that is completed, none can leave this room."

The clock struck twelve. The sound made the Count grow pale, for it was the hour of the rendezvous. His situation was annoying, and a moment's delay might bring about a catastrophe. The note had said: "If you are not at my house by midnight, I shall be dead before one." The Count made up his mind, and with his habitual decision in all critical, embarrassing, or dangerous conjunctures, said that he must at all risks get out of the house and go whither he was expected, to save life--which every moment endangered. In such a state of affairs, _ruse_ was the best course he could adopt--especially as that promised his immediate extrication. He was about to adopt a difficult course; he purposed to put out the lights, rush on the magistrate and his attendants, and then break through the doors. Before adopting this extreme course, the Count wished to know if he had many Carbonari around him. Glancing around the guests of Madame Bruneval, he placed his hand on his brow and made slowly the secret sign by means of which the Carbonari recognized each other. The Commissary had not removed his eyes from the Count, who he was well aware, though he did not know his name, was one of the principal persons of the assemblage. No sooner had Monte-Leone made the sign than, much to his surprise, he saw the Commissary acknowledge it. The Count then discovered that the magistrate was a Carbonari, and that there was one more brother than could have been expected in the room. This strange circumstance had its explanation in the statement of D'Harcourt at Doctor Matheus's: "We meet our brethren every where; in the city, in the courts, among the lawyers, and among the judges." The inquiry was brief and a mere matter of form. The Commissary did nothing. Monte-Leone was one of the first who received permission to leave. Followed by Taddeo, he rushed out. Rovero called on him to stop, but the Count paid no attention to his cries. The clock was about to strike one, and hurrying across the streets and squares of Louis XV., with the rapidity of an arrow, he did not pause until he had reached the _Champs Elysees_, where a little green door veiled by a hedge was opened to admit him.

XIII.--DESPAIR.

When the door opened, a woman appeared and said, "Follow me, Count, Madame is waiting for your excellency."

"What o'clock is it?" asked he, with great anxiety.

She answered, "A quarter after one."

"When did you leave your mistress?"

"At twelve. Madame bade me wait here for you."

"Lost!--dead! perhaps dead!" exclaimed the Count. He hurried down the alley directly to the hotel.

"Signore! Signore!" said the woman; "all the servants have not perhaps gone to bed, and if you be seen now in the garden of the Embassy, what will people say and think of Madame?"

"Take me directly to her," said the Count, "for her life is in danger."

"Her life!" said the woman, with terror. Then, as if struck with an idea, she added, "Wait, though, Madame bade me not come into her room until to-morrow, unless I brought your excellency with me."

"Come, come," said the Count, dragging the woman after him. Thus they went to the right wing of the building. A small door opened on a private stairway communicating with the rooms of the Duchess of Palma. The servant pointed out the door to the Count, and then preceded him. The stairway ended at a little hall on the first floor. There the Count stopped and the woman put a key in another door in the wall, through which the Count entered a waiting-room and passed into a boudoir, where the _femme de chambre_ asked him to sit for a few moments while she informed the Duchess of his arrival. The Count was for some minutes alone in the boudoir, and at last heard a half stifled cry behind him. He looked around and saw the servant motionless and with terror impressed on every feature. She pointed to the Duchess's room with one hand, and lifted up the curtain of the door with the other. The Count entered the room where a terrible spectacle awaited him. The Duchess, pale as death, was extended on a sofa; by her side was a lamp almost burnt out, and the flickering light cast from time to time a pale lustre over this scene of sadness and death. The pulse and heart of La Felina were motionless. By her side was a flacon of red liquor, which was spilled on the rosewood stand. The Count held the flacon to his nose and lip, and recognized its contents to be laudanum, that bringer of calm or ruin, of sleep or death.

A feeling of deep sorrow took possession of him. The love and devotion of that woman appeared to him in their proper light--limitless and vast. Remorse lacerated his heart; for he charged himself with being the cause of the terrible crime she had committed. Again the Count approached the Duchess, and somewhat calmer than he had first been, perceived a faint palpitation. He placed a mirror near Felina's lips, and a thin mist overcast it. "She lives!" said Monte-Leone; "a lethargic sleep has plunged her in this apparent death. Thank heaven, from having taken too small a dose, the opium has acted as a narcotic--not as a poison. She must be roused from this dangerous state. Listen," said he to the servant, "I have a friend who will save your mistress without noise or scandal. He is a physician, as skilful as he is prudent. Send him this, at once," said he, writing hastily a few lines on a fragment of paper he took from the Duchess's desk. "Order the carriage at once, say that your mistress is ill and a physician indispensable. Suffer no one to enter this room but the person for whom I have written, and I will answer for the consequences. Here, this note is for Doctor Matheus, No. 7 _rue de Babylonne_--hurry."

When Monte-Leone was alone with the Duchess, he sought to arouse her from the sleep which oppressed her, by making her inhale the perfumes of several flacons which he found near. This was, however, in vain, and he soon abandoned it. "Poor woman," said he, sitting by and looking at her with compassion; "this is then the end of her life and love: to what misery has she been led by passion, while mine was not more lasting than the perfume of a rose." As he abandoned himself to these cruel thoughts, the eyes of the Count fell on a letter, which she had with her expiring strength attempted to throw into the fire. It had, however, fallen on the hearth and was but partially burned. The Count took hold of it with the intention of destroying it, lest it might contain some secret compromising the Duchess. Just, however, as he was about to destroy it, he fancied that he saw his own name, and unable to resist his curiosity, he glanced rapidly over it. The following detached phrases had been spared by the fire:

"You gave me bread when I was famishing, and apparel when I had none....

"The consequence of....

"body and soul....

"But I feel your....

"is mine....

"belongs to you....

"This Monte-Leone deserves to be....

"offends you....

"live for you....

"or if I....

"It will be for me...."

"What is the meaning of this, said the Count, and what does she meditate? Has the Duchess a confidant? Can this man be my enemy? How have I injured him?"

The servant entered, and the Count placed the letter in his bosom. A half hour passed in anxious expectation of Matheus. The wheels of a carriage were heard in the courtyard and aroused the Count from his thoughts. The servant went to meet the Doctor and soon after introduced Frederick von Apsberg into the room.

"Look there," said the Count, pointing to La Felina.

The doctor drew near and examined her.

"Suicide and laudanum," said he. He felt the pulse. "Just in time--luckily you told me what was the matter, and I have brought some active and powerful antidotes. In a quarter of an hour cerebral congestion would have ensued, and death." He poured out a few drops of a liquid he had brought in a glass spoon, and forced it between the convulsive teeth of the Duchess. Three minutes afterwards she heaved a deep sigh. "Now I will answer for her recovery," said Von Apsberg. The Duchess opened her eyes soon after and glanced around her. She was, though, unable to distinguish any thing, so haggard and fixed had they become. The Count stood aside. For a few moments through the vast room nothing was heard but the feeble panting and anxious breathing of the invalid, which, however, gradually grew more regular and natural.

"Madame," said the doctor, giving the Duchess a glass of water, into which he had poured a few drops of the liquid he had brought with him, "do you wish to live?"

"No," said the Duchess.

"Then do not take this antidote, for the poison is yet in your system and this alone can neutralize it."

Just then Monte-Leone advanced towards La Felina.

"He here!" murmured she.

"Live," said the Count, "live, I beg you."

Without replying, the Duchess looked towards the doctor as if she were about to ask him for the elixir. She drained the glass.

"Now," said Von Apsberg, "madame must be calm and silent; least of all must she indulge in any emotion," added he, looking at Monte-Leone, "or the medicine will be powerless."

"Who are _you_?" said the Duchess.

"A friend, a brother of mine, to whose heart I confide all the secrets of my life."

_La Felina_ glanced a few moments at the doctor, and said, "I remember."

"Certainly, the Duchess has not forgot the Pulcinella at the Eutruscan house. She has not forgotten the dreamy German lad whom she once lectured so sternly, but who never was offended with her. The lecture did him a great service, for the joyous Pulcinella, changing his humor and dress, has now become a grave doctor who never jests, and insists that his prescriptions be literally followed. To add example to precept, I will remain in this room and watch over the prophetess of San Carlo, and if I do not leave her cured and reasonable," said he, whispering in the Duchess's ear, "for I am a physician of the mind as well as body, I will at least do her some good. All my brothers of the medical profession cannot say as much."

He then handed the Count his hat and pointed to the door.

"To-morrow evening, at nine," said the Count, "I will call on you." An expression of joy hung on La Felina's lips, and she nodded in acknowledgment.

Monte-Leone placed his lips on the yet icy hand of the ambassadress, and then approached Von Apsberg, to whom he said in a low tone, "You swear that you will save her."

"I do," said Matheus.

The Count went to the door, not the one the doctor had pointed out, but to the secret one through which he had come, and a few minutes after was alone in the _Champs Elysees_, doubtful whether all that had passed was not a dream. The letter which he had found, and which rattled in his bosom, with its mysterious broken phrases, its shreds of threats and vengeance, sufficed to recall to his mind the reality of the scene which he had been both an actor and participator in. According to his promise, on the day after this series of alarms and torments, Monte-Leone went to the hotel of the Neapolitan minister just as the bell of Saint Philippe de Roule rang for nine. The Count on this occasion came us an ordinary visitor to the principal door.

"The Duchess," said the usher, "made an exception of Count Monte-Leone alone, in orders she gave that no one should be admitted. Madame had last night a nervous attack from which she yet suffers. She, however, expects your excellency."

The Count went into the reception room, and soon after was introduced into the Duchess's boudoir. He found Madame de Palma lying on a divan, and her countenance yet showed traces of her sufferings. Monte-Leone was touched.

The Duchess gave him her hand and bade him be seated. She said, "You see almost a spectre or ghost escaped from the grave. Do not, however, be afraid, the ghost will not rise before you animated by wrath and anger. Did it wish to do so, it is now too feeble." The Duchess used her salts, as if she would regain that strength which seemed rapidly leaving her.

"Felina," said the Count, gently and sadly, "did you wish to die?"

"What now is life to me?" said she, "I meet with only contempt and desertion from him for whom I forgot my gratitude and duty. Be frank with me, do not fear my despair; but this doubt is too cruel. _Tell_ me that you do not love me, let me learn it from your mouth, not from your indifference."

The Count wished to speak.

"Ah! you do not know," continued she, and with her hand she bade him listen, "what those long hours of expectation are, when every noise seems to announce the coming of the person you love--when the hope having been twenty times deceived, the ear rather than the heart listens with the anxiety of death to the sound of every carriage which passes by, but does not stop at your door--to the bell which announces another visitor than the one who is expected. You do not know the torment of those wretched evenings when alone, with no companion but sorrow--you see ever before you your devotion to the one man all the time staring you in the face, him attracted elsewhere by other charms. The soul that suffers thus, by some instinctive powers, sees him approach every rival, become intoxicated by her glance, listen to her voice, take her hand stealthily, live in her life, while she dies a thousand times an hour--a thousand deaths as often as despair passes a picture before her. Do you see, Count, how horrible all this is? This is murderous, though time must elapse before the deadly poison takes effect on the heart. In such cases one who does not die rapidly is mad. Yesterday I had in my power the means of avoiding such tortures."

Completely exhausted, the Duchess fell back on the cushion. The eyes of the Count glistened with tears, and he knelt before the poor woman who had suffered so much for him.

"Felina," said he, "until to-day I thought courage consisted in braving danger, and even death: I now know that I have only to unveil my heart to you to prove that my daring did not need that I should contend with the ocean, be immured in a dungeon, and bare my neck to the axe. I will have that courage, for to me it is a duty, and I will not shrink from it. When I met you on the Lago di Como--when sad at the fact that I had been deserted by men who did not know me, by the woman I adored, I saw your immense tenderness unfolded to me, when you uttered those passionate words which my heart had no power then of understanding, I fancied that I had forgotten the past in the charms of a present full of love and intoxicating passion. I told you all I felt, and was sincere and happy. I remembered what you had done for me, and I fancied I had found the angel of my existence in you. Alas! a few months after, the bandage was torn from my brow, and, excuse me, but all I thought dead in my soul became more animated than ever. I saw my tenderness was the offspring of friendship, that my love changed into deep affection, which, however, was not of the kind you expected from me. With terror and despair I discovered that I was ungrateful to you. Twenty times I was on the point of making this painful confession, yet as many times I felt my strength fail. Now, though, when you have wished to die for the unworthy man for whom you would have made such a sacrifice, when you have appealed to my honor, I must speak to you, and avow to you my true sentiments, which it would be improper for me any longer to conceal from you."

While the Count was speaking, the Duchess lay half asleep on the divan, with her eyes closed, and her hand on her heart, the pulsations of which she tried to restrain. One might have thought she slept, but for her short respiration, and the heaving of her breast, which indicated great feverish agitation. She remained in this motionless state a few seconds after Monte-Leone had ceased. She then slowly opened her eyelids, and resting her head on her hand, as if her marble shoulders would not suffice to sustain it, looked at the Count with those eyes whence emanated the burning glance of delirium. A single look--a single glance was cast on the Count; this glance, however, was instinct with a terrible thought, and she became at once chill and cold.

"I thank you for your frankness," said she to the Count, giving him her hand. "Perhaps I would have thanked you had you suffered me to die without telling me what you have heard. You, however, wished me to live, and I can understand why, for my death would have poisoned all your existence. I will live, then, but for you alone." The same glance she had thrown on the Count appeared again, but immediately died away. "Yet," continued she, "listen to me. I cannot consent to lose you--I can consent to be your friend, but will not think you another's."

"Felina," said the Count, "I understand you. On my life and soul, I swear I will never speak of love to her of whom you think. Her ties and virtues I will respect, her honor will relieve your apprehensions, and I know what this honor imposes on me."

"I have faith in you," said Felina; "understand me, though, and do not require what I cannot give. Do not add to my grief, the vengeance and excess of which you cannot calculate."

"Threats!" said the Count, bitterly. He was about to speak to the Duchess of the fragments of the letter, but was prevented by a secret presentiment.

"No," said Felina, "not threats. Such are not intended for friends, and to me you are a friend."

The Count took her hand. It was cold as death.

"Come to see me often," said she; "invalids need a physician; and skilful as the one you brought last night may be, your visits will exert a better effect--you will enable me to contend with myself. Then, too," said she, growing pale, "I will see you.... Now leave me, for I am feeble. Since you wish me to live, I must not exhaust the rest of my life ... I will try to sleep; but I will not sleep as long as I expected to last night." Then, as if she was completely exhausted by such a variety of shocks, she bade the Count adieu.

Monte-Leone left her. Just as he was about to cross the peristyle, he saw the shadow of a man gliding into the hotel through the half open door. The face of this man was suddenly lighted up by one of the reflectors of the palace, and Monte-Leone remembered features yet present to his memory. They were the features of STENIO SALVATORI of _Torre del Greco_.

XIV.--THE MAGNETIZER.

The lecture the Prince had given to his son seemed to have done him good. For two months the family of the Prince de Maulear had been calm and happy. Aminta, in the care, attention, and watchfulness of her husband, enjoyed again all the emotions of her early marriage days. Her letters to her mother were filled with hope far different than that expressed in the one we have read. Henri constantly avoided every thing which could possibly awaken the sad passion which chance, temptation, and the weakness of his character had led him into. He never approached the card-table, and paid no attention to the challenges of his old adversaries. He began to learn whist and other games of combination, calculation, and science, which leave the head cold and the reason sound, and at which no one ever pretended to bet a thousand francs a trick, as was subsequently done in 1846, at the house of Count A. ---- and that of M. de R----, Minister of D. People then played whist for whist's sake, not to become rich or bankrupt.

An unexpected event disturbed the quiet life of the inmates of the Hotel-Maulear. Aminta received a letter from her mother, in which Signora Rovero announced to her daughter a piece of intelligence, which for her children's sake delighted, while for her own sake it distressed her. The Roman Cardinal, Filippo Justiniani, her brother, of whom we spoke in one of the first chapters of this book, had died, leaving his fortune to his nephew and niece. This fortune was more than a million. Signora Rovero, therefore, wished her son-in-law, the Marquis de Maulear, and Taddeo, to come at once to Rome, to receive this inheritance; the one in the name of his wife, and the other for himself.

This letter produced very different effects in the family of the Prince de Maulear. Instead of rejoicing at a fortune which was to be purchased by the absence of her husband, the young _marquise_ was rather grieved than pleased at it. The revenue the Prince had appropriated to his children was sufficient to make their career quite brilliant. This increase of fortune, therefore, had little value in Aminta's eyes; but a separation, though but temporary, from Henri might endanger, in one so volatile as the Marquis was, the influence she had acquired over him. She apprehended this, and fear, in a heart impassionable as his was, could not but be the source of uneasiness and torment. The idea of accompanying the Marquis often suggested itself to her, but it was then the depth of winter, and her health, naturally delicate, had been so recently shaken by the troubles she had experienced, that she could not, at such a time, venture on such an excursion. The Prince de Maulear did not see his son leave him without dissatisfaction. He did not think him completely cured of the moral malady he had undertaken to cure, but watched over him paternally and kindly. The Marquis, though he sincerely regretted that he must be separated from his charming wife, whom he now loved better than ever, did not conceal the pleasure which such a trip caused him. He did not deny that the kind of atony to which his monotonous life subjected him, made it necessary that he should be somewhat galvanised by the excitement of travel.

Taddeo, too, had been more kindly received by the Duchess since the scene which had taken place between Monte-Leone and her. He was distressed at the absence which removed him from that woman whose influence over his heart nothing could overcome.

All these feelings, however, resulted in the same circumstance--the prompt departure of the two heirs from the eternal city. When they left, Aminta felt a deep distress, and the Prince de Maulear a sombre presentiment.

Fifteen days afterwards, a letter, dated at Rome, informed the young Marquise of the arrival of her husband and brother at the capital of the Christian world. This letter informed them also that there were difficulties in the way of obtaining possession of the estate of Cardinal Justiniani, from the fact that his eminence had made various bequests to convents, churches, and religious foundations, in relation to which it was necessary for the Holy Father himself to make a decision, which would much retard the final arrangement of their business.

Aminta felt that her sadness was doubled at this news, and the feeling grew more poignant from the fact that her husband's letters became every day more rare and more cold. Aware of the devotion of the Prince de Maulear to her, and knowing how uneasy the old man was about his son, the young woman did all she could to conceal her anxiety from her father-in-law, and by means of a thousand pretexts kept from his sight the often icy letters written by her husband. When the Prince questioned her about what he wrote from Rome, he received an evasive reply. "Well, well," he would say, "one should not inquire into them. Fathers have nothing to say about them; and provided, my child, that you are happy, I will ask nothing more." Thus two months rolled by. The young Marquise waited anxiously every day for the coming of the post, and the hours rolled by only to deceive her. Deep mortification soon replaced regret. Surrounded by the homage of a society which adored her, Aminta saw herself deserted by the man to whom she was bound for life, and the humiliation of this indifference almost overpowered the agony she felt. The fact was, that having already been sacrificed to the miserable passion for play, she now fancied she was postponed to the pleasure of travel, and her firm character, softened by the happiness in which the early days of her marriage had been passed, began now to assume the firmness of womanhood, with all the characteristics of the Italian nature. Such was the condition of Aminta's mind when she received the visit of the Count Monte-Leone. When he came she was alone. They were both annoyed by this novel position, and for a time their conversation was commonplace. But soon the memory of the past began to assert its influence over them. The Count spoke of Naples as Neapolitans only can. He infused into his conversation the passionate energy which ever exists in their souls in relation to that climate, so highly favored by heaven. Aminta, to whom the cold climate of France had not been that of her love, surrendered her whole soul to the happiness awakened by those smiling ideas. The Count recalled to her Sorrento and its perfumed hills, its azure sea and brilliant sky. He then recalled to her the villa where he had been so nobly welcomed, where days flitted by like hours, where the silence of a calm and beautiful nature were only interrupted by the breeze and the waves, which died away among myrtle and orange-groves, or by the songs of birds in the luxuriant thickets. Aminta listened to him with increasing trouble, for his voice had never seemed so penetrating and mild. Astonishment took possession of her when she thought that the mind of this man, so sensible to the charms of nature, so aware of the simple beauties of Italian scenery, was the energetic and powerful soul which braved death without weakness, and defied the executioner without fear. The Count thus led, contrary to his own wishes, into the dangerous retrospect of the past, felt his reason give way, as he found himself in the presence of one whose very appearance agitated his reason, because she recalled that country where the gayest and happiest hours of his life had passed.

Aminta, anxious to triumph over the involuntary emotion which took possession of her, diverted the Count from all the seductions of his memory and love by asking if Taddeo was a better friend than brother, and if letters were as great rarities to him as to herself. The Count replied that Taddeo wrote often. He then, with an effort, shook off his delicious dream, and sadly returned to real life. "The Marquis and he," said Monte-Leone, "are yet at Rome, as M. de Maulear must have told you. Rome has never been gayer than it now is. Festivals and entertainments are numerous, and the richest strangers of Europe are now there; while balls and cards are all the rage."

At the last phrase Aminta grew pale. The Count observed this, and attributing its cause to some illness, rose to go away. The Marquise, though, said with a vivacity which surprised him, "And does the Holy father authorize play in his states?"

"He does not authorize but tolerates it. This is sufficient for a bank kept by a rich society of capitalists, to realize millions by this passion, and to produce many disasters and calamities."

The Marquise felt her heart grow chill, and as she began to grow sick she dismissed the Count.

"Will the _Marquise_ permit me to call on her again?"

"Yes, Count; and if you receive any news from Rome--from the Marquis and my brother, tell me of it, I beg you." The Count left, more in love than ever; and Aminta remained alone, unhappy, agitated, and a prey to instinctive and wretched thoughts.

It now becomes our duty to conduct the reader to a magnificent hotel in the Faubourg St. Germain, and make him a spectator of a scene which occurred a few days after the conversation we have spoken of. We wish to introduce him to the beautiful girl of whom Dr. Matheus caught a glimpse from the windows of the laboratory. This girl was no longer the most brilliant rose of the parterre. Seated in a large arm-chair, near a window of the saloon, which looked out upon the garden, her pale complexion, and the hectic flush of her cheek, her red lips, and the dark ring about the eyes, indicated general indisposition. An old man sat near her, with one of her hands in his; while, with his eyes fixed on her, he seemed with despair to read the expression of intense suffering. The old man was the Duke d'Harcourt, and the invalid, his daughter _Marie_.

"Ah, papa! this is nothing but a horrid _migraine_ to which I have long been subject. The pain in the chest which accompanies it, you know, never lasts long, and is almost always cured by the very presence of the kind doctor, whom we might almost fancy to be a sorcerer."

"The means he employs, my child, and which he has communicated to me, is not sorcery, but a science, scarcely known as yet, and the source of much dispute. I confess I had no great faith in it until experience had revealed to me its power and reality."

"And have you faith, papa, in the power of the doctor?" asked the young girl, with a singular accent.

"I believe, my child, in what I see. He benefits you, and therefore dissipates all my hesitation. Magnetism is not new; Mesmer, the able Foria, and afterwards many serious and learned men have inquired into it, and discovered undeniable virtues. Unfortunately, imposture and charlatanism soon took possession of it, and, therefore, it has been overburdened with ridicule and contempt. If it be a truth, as all I have seen induces me to think; if in the employment of this fluid there be means to assist nature, a studious man, who has any charity towards his fellows, should study before he decides on it, and reject nothing novel, as it may be, until he has proven it to be false or impotent."

"Here is the doctor!" said the Vicomte d'Harcourt, quickly opening the door, and introducing Von Apsberg.--"I have taken him from a grave consultation to see my sister." Hurrying to his sister, the Vicomte kissed her. Marie blushed; was not this blush caused, perhaps, by the coming of the doctor?--Was it caused by Rene's kiss? The heart alone can tell; and young women's hearts do not answer such questions very readily.

"Marie yet suffers," said the Duke to the false Matheus. "With you though, doctor, hope and health always return. For that reason we are unwilling you should ever leave us." It was now the doctor's turn to blush.

"You certainly," said he, "estimate my influence over the disease to be in proportion to my wish to soothe it. If such were really the case, you might be of good cheer, for my wishes are limitless."

"There is a doctor for you, modest, talented, and one who uses no drugs and none of the remedies of the old medicine," said the Vicomte; "pantomime with him is every thing, as with the ballet-doctors of the opera. A few signs and gestures and away goes the disease, like the devil when holy water is brought him."

Von Apsberg said with a smile, "such an eulogium as the Vicomte's would, a few centuries ago, have sent me to the stake. Fortunately there is now no danger of that, for there is no longer any faith in magicians. Rightly enough, too, for if not so, there would be no glory and advantage in wisdom. _Savans_ are fond of their privileges. For my own part, though no philosopher, I do not deal in magic, though from study I have learned that there are secret agents in nature too much neglected even now, though much good has resulted and the most marvellous effects have been produced from them. Of these agents, the magnetic fluid is the surest, the most active and powerful. Like all other imponderable fluids, it is invisible, passing through space perhaps with the rapidity of light, though unlike the latter, its passage is not interrupted by the opposition of opaque bodies, which it penetrates as caloric does.[F] I do not pretend, Duke," continued Von Apsberg, "to teach you the theory of magnetism, but at all risks to justify your confidence in me, which now induces you to confide so precious a trust to me. As an honest man I think I am not deceived in the hope I expressed at my first visit, that your daughter, from my system of action, will acquire that vital force which will enable her to overcome her natural weakness, and thus reach the period of life when, age coming to aid nature, she will acquire a degree of health which will bid defiance to all the accidents of youth and assure her a healthy life in future. I call God to witness that I act with a heartfelt conviction and religious sincerity. I will, though, swear, that if in a short time I see no evidence of the efficacy of my remedy, I will inform you of the fact without delay."

"I am sure, sir, you will. I confide in your honor as I do in your skill."

"Father," said the Vicomte, "you are right to do so. The doctor is a brother to me, and looks on Marie almost as a sister."

Both the doctor and Marie now blushed. No one though remarked it, for just then the Prince and _Marquise_ de Maulear were announced. The Duke said:

"They are friends and need not disturb you."

Aminta loved Marie d'Harcourt. These two beautiful women had conceived a deep affection for each other. Aminta, though, who was a few years older than Marie, and had a right to more gravity, as a married woman, matronized the young girl, and it was rather an amusing picture to see a mother twenty years old, _chaperoning_ a daughter of seventeen and explaining the peculiarities of a life they were equally ignorant of.

"Prince," said the Duke, "Doctor Matheus is a famous magnetist, who has been serviceable to Marie already, and when you came in was about to subject her again to the influence of the fluid."

"_Parbleu!_" said the Prince, "I would be glad to witness the experiment. I am myself something of an adept, having known the Abbe Foria in my youth. People used to laugh at him, but the court and the people were present at his curious exhibitions. I, too, was magnetized, drank magnetic water, and passed whole hours on the magnetic chair surrounded by iron rings; all this was to cure me of a sciatica, which, nevertheless, he did not do at all. He asserted that I had no faith, and that I arrayed myself against the power of the fluid. I, however, only ask to believe, and if the doctor can convert me, I am willing."

Without answering the Prince, Von Apsberg approached Marie d'Harcourt. Aminta sat by the patient. The doctor looked at the young girl. Seated a few feet from her, he placed his hands in front of Marie's brow, and then lowering them slowly, made some magnetic passes, seeming to direct his action to the gastric regions where she suffered most. Marie did not seem at all affected by the operation.

While Matheus was doing thus the Marquise, who sat in front of the doctor, felt her brow grow heavy, her eyes close, and a deep stupefaction take possession of her. She soon felt that sleep was overpowering her, and after a few attempts to resist it, her head sunk on her bosom, and leaning back in her chair, she was completely overpowered.

"My daughter is sick," said the Prince, hurrying to Aminta.

"No, sir," said the physician coldly, "she only sleeps."

"She sleeps," said all who witnessed the scene, and who were evidently surprised.

THE SOMNAMBULIST.

"She sleeps!" said Matheus, pointing to Aminta, "and to fall so suddenly into that state when I did not intend it, shows her to be very impressionable and nervous."

"The Prince," said the Marquis, "has often told me she is a somnambulist."

"I am no longer amazed," said Von Apsberg, "at the spontaneity of her sleep."

"Is it true," said the Prince, "that somnambulists have the power of being able to see what is taking place in remote spots--that they can transport themselves to remote places and accompany the persons who are pointed out to them?"

"All these phenomena are real," replied the doctor, "but they demand the most perfect lucidity in the person magnetized."

"And can," asked the Duke, "such experiments be made without inconvenience or danger to the subjects?"

"Certainly."

"Pardieu," said the Prince, "I would like the doctor to question my daughter."

"About what?" said Matheus.

"Something interesting to us all. For a month we have had no news from my son, and are becoming uneasy about him."

"And do you wish," said the doctor, "to know what the Marquis de Maulear is engaged in now?"

"Exactly," said the Prince.

"Stop," said Rene, "I object. There is no reason why a wife should know what her husband is about when he is three hundred leagues away. The devil! That is dangerous, and the Marquise might some day regret it."

"Now you see," said Marie, with her soft voice, "it would be dangerous for her--she would not like it."

"I do not fear that," said the Vicomte, "but I vow there would be no marriages possible, if women had the faculty of knowing at any hour, and in any place, what their husbands are about."

"Ah!" said the Prince, "I have a better opinion of my son than the Vicomte has of his friend, and I hope the doctor will send my daughter-in-law on a visit to Rome."

During the whole of this time Aminta continued asleep, but so soundly, that her bosom scarcely heaved, and her breath escaped almost insensibly from her lips.

"But," said the doctor, "it is, in the first place, necessary that I should establish a communication between the _Marquise_ and myself. I must be able to place in her hands, to enable her to touch, something which belonged to the Marquis de Maulear. The best thing is a lock of the Marquis's hair."

"Nothing in the world is easier; my daughter-in-law always wears a bracelet of the Marquis's hair."

"On which arm?" asked the doctor.

"On the left," said M. de Maulear. "If Mademoiselle Marie be pleased to take it off we will place it as the doctor wishes in the hands of the somnambulist."

"But are you sure," said Marie to Von Apsberg, "are you sure she will not suffer?"

"I am, Mademoiselle, I would not have her suffer either for your sake or for her own."

Marie arose from her chair and walked painfully towards the Marquise, who, having bared Aminta's arm a little above the wrist, found there a bracelet of the Marquis's hair. When she was about to touch it she said to the doctor, "I shall awake her."

"Do not be afraid of that, you will not."

Slight, however, as the motion was, to which the sleeper's arm had been subjected, the _Marquise_ half arose from her chair and made an effort to open her eyes. Von Apsberg extended his arm towards the Marquise's brow, and she again sank into as deep a sleep as before. The bracelet was given by Marie to the doctor, who placed it in Aminta's hand.

"Now," said he, "we will begin." Silence was at once established, and all was solemn and almost terrible; for it seemed that something was in preparation of the most terrible character, and that the room was becoming filled with all those invisible phantoms we know as TERROR, FATE, and MISFORTUNE, and which on their leaden wings seem to soar above mortality. The strongest and best organized minds of our kind have, in the silent places of their hearts, something of superstition, which develop themselves in certain conditions of the corporeal and mental organization. Without pretending to considerations of a very serious kind, the guests of the Duke d'Harcourt experienced a kind of mute terror, which in this world always precedes misfortune.

The strange power which the doctor used was also well calculated to impress those who contemplated this scene. The doctor took Aminta's hand in his and said most respectfully:[G]

"Does the Marquise understand me?"

"Yes!" said she.

"Will you answer my questions?"

"Yes!"

"Do you read in my heart any malevolence or hostility to you?"

"No!"

"You then have confidence in me?"

"Yes!"

"Are you sure that in questioning you, as I am about to, I have no other object but to relieve you of uneasiness in relation to the Marquis?"

"I am sure that is the case."

"Well," said the Doctor, placing his thumbs on Aminta's forehead, "I wish you to go at once to Rome, to Italy."

"It is far away," said the Marquise, feebly.

"I wish you to," said Matheus, imperiously.

"Well, well," said the sleeper, with a smile, "there is no reason why you should be angry."

She was silent. All the spectators, with their eyes fixed and their necks extended, seemed to watch with anxiety every scene of this whimsical drama. Their souls seemed hung on their lips.

"Ah! my God!" said the Marquise, with agitation, "what a journey--how cold it is amid these mountains."

"She crosses the Alps," said the doctor.

The Marquise coughed.

"You see," said Marie, "she will take cold." The young girl wrapped the shawl around her friend.

"This cold will not be dangerous," said the Vicomte, gayly.

"Silence!" said Matheus.

"Ah!" said the somnambulist, "what a magnificent country! What a sun! This then is Rome," said she, with enthusiasm, "the city of the Caesars--the eternal city--the city of God!"

She bowed herself respectfully.

"True," said Matheus, "and now you must find him you love; you must look for your husband amid this vast city."

"No, no!" said the Marquise.

"Why not?"

"I shall lose myself amid these long streets; besides I am afraid of these men in masks."

"Do not fear. I _wish_ you to see the Marquis at once."

The Marquise clasped the bracelet of her husband's hair convulsively, and then uttering a cry of joy, said:

"It is he--Henri, Henri, I see him."

She extended her arms as if to embrace him. The flush which had covered her face was soon succeeded by a mortal pallor.

"What is the matter?" asked the doctor.

"Oh God!" said she, "he does not see me. He passes by without looking at me. Whither does he go? Why is he so sad? Why is his hair so disordered? Why? why?"

The tone in which these words were uttered were so deeply sorrowful, that the doctor reached forward his hand and said to the Prince: "_Must I awaken the Marquise?_" Before the Prince could reply, Aminta stood erect and said, "No! I will go with him. Henri, Henri! for pity's sake do not. I never will forgive you! Henri, you would not commit perjury? My God!" said she, clasping her hands, "he will go thither! Fatal, terrible passion!"

She then shed tears, and fell back into the arms of Marie, who sustained her.

"Enough, doctor, enough!" said Marie, "I beseech you. She suffers, you see. She shall not do so. I will not consent to."

The doctor took the young woman's hand, and prepared to arouse her from this condition and to restore her to real life. Just then the Prince de Maulear, with intense agony on his face, rushed towards his daughter-in-law, repelling Matheus.

"Will the health and happiness of the Marquise be endangered," said he, "if she continue longer in this condition?"

"Her heart alone will suffer, Monsieur," said the doctor, "neither her health nor her life is in danger."

"Go on, then, Monsieur," said the Prince, coldly, "for we speak of my son. On what the Marquise has said depends the repose of my life, her happiness, and the honor of my family."

"But," said Matheus, "my honor forbids me to follow up the excitement any longer. Know that the true apostles of the science I now practise before you, make it a rigid law never to make use of such phenomena as you have seen, to penetrate hidden secrets, or to read by force the consciences of those whom they submit to the exercise of their will."

"Monsieur," said the Prince, "we have around us here only honest hearts, which are also friendly. I, therefore, do not at all fear to initiate them into my family secrets. Besides this, vain curiosity exerts no influence over me, but a nobler thought, the possibility, perhaps, of preventing cruel misfortunes which I now apprehend, and which I would anticipate."

"_See!_" said the doctor to the Marquise. "_I wish you to_----"

"No, no!" said the somnambulist. "I have seen enough. Do not force me to follow out his wanderings--he has forgotten me--his father--his honor--his oath--himself!"

"_See!_" said the doctor, replacing his hand over the Marquise's eyes, "_I wish it._"

"Henri! Henri!" exclaimed she, "will nothing then restrain you?"

"What is he about, then?" said the doctor.

"See, see! he sits in front of a table covered with money. The wheel turns. The people who look after it do so with haggard eyes. How pale and withered they are! See how he throws the money on the table. Poor Henri--how he suffers! His brow is frozen. How horribly pale he is! He beats his breast. See that pale and pitiless man sweeping away all the money! Ah!" said she, "he quivers--he seems about to faint--no, he takes out his pocket-book, and throws other notes on the table. The wheel turns again. My God, have pity on him! Lost, lost again! He endures torments worse than death. Henri! for mercy's sake, stop--remember your wife--your Aminta--"

Her sobs increased, and inarticulate sounds burst from her chest. The Prince listened with increasing agitation to the heart-rending words of Aminta. His eyes wandered, troubled and uncertain, between the Marquise and the doctor. His eyes became cold, his cheeks livid, and from time to time the noble and venerable old man seemed to bend beneath another half century. All the others, sad and terrified, seemed fascinated by this terrible drama.

"He has in his hand his last notes," said Aminta--"he places them before him. Silence! hark, there is a confused noise. The wheel again makes its odious circle. It stops--Henri advances to take them. No, no, they are not his. The man seizes them, and takes possession of this. What does he say?" continued she, with attention--"ruined! ruined! he says. Well, what matter? it is only gold--only gold that he has lost. Dear Henri," said she, in a beseeching air, as if she knelt before him--"husband, what is the value of your money, if you love me? Listen to me. Do not weep, for your tears will kill me. Come to me--I forgive you. I will not reproach you, and you will not leave me again--never, never, never. He repels and avoids me. Whither does he go? What a desert! what an isolated street! How dark it is!--let us follow him, and not desert him. What do I see at the end of this street?" She looked through her hands, as if to enable her to see further. "What long black cloth is that? What pall is that? Henri does not walk--but I cannot follow him," said she, in a heart-rending voice. "Listen to me, Henri, I am suffering--I have walked so far and am so overcome. I do not see him--he is gone! he draws near the pall. My God! is there not a mourning-cloth painted on the horizon? It is water--a river--he rushes toward it--let us reach him--I cannot! Ah! here he is. I am with him now. What does he want. He calls me--he pronounces my name. Here I am--close--next to you. Your father also calls you. Come, come, let us turn to him. He does not hear me--he lifts his eye to heaven--he prays. Henri, Henri, why do you approach this dark water? Take care of the water--death is before you--under your very feet."...

Just then the Marquise uttered a terrible cry, and was seized with a violent nervous attack.

"You would insist, Monsieur," said the doctor to the Prince, in a reproachful tone. Then, taking the young woman's hands, he clasped them in his own, and made a few rapid passes over her face and eyes. He then made her smell a flacon of salts, and opened a window of the room, close to which he placed the Marquise's chair. This occupied a few minutes, all who were present standing around Mme. de Maulear, and paying attention only to her. The first excitement having passed away, they discovered that the Prince de Maulear had fainted. The doctor drew near the old man, and soon restored him to consciousness. When he had recovered his senses, the Prince called the doctor to him, and whispered, "Do you believe all this?"

The doctor clasped the hand of the Prince, and went away.

The Marquise de Maulear, smiling and calm, said, "Have I not been asleep?"

Her memory, however, recalled nothing of the scenes which had passed before her in her somnambulism. She forgot, as people frequently do, both pleasant and mournful dreams....

Fifteen days after this scene Mme. de Maulear saw her mother stop at the hotel of the Prince. Behind Signora Rovero, humble and trembling, was the deformed and courageous boy, whom the children of Sorrento had called Scorpione. The Marquise, both happy and surprised, rushed into her mother's arms. With great anxiety, she suddenly cried, "Henri--the Marquis--where is he?"

In reply, the Signora Rovero clasped her daughter to her breast, and wept.

FOOTNOTES:

[F] The translator has here elided about two pages on the theory of magnetism which he has thought rather detracted than otherwise from the interest of this book.

[G] Madame la Marquise, se trouve-t-elle ainsi suffisament en rapport avec moi?

From Fraser's Magazine.

SCENES AT MALMAISON.

The Palace of Malmaison, though not built on a large scale, became, with the additions afterwards made, a most princely residence. The hall, the billiard-room, the reception-rooms, the saloon, dining-room, and Napoleon's private apartment, occupied the ground floor, and are described as having been very delightful. The gallery was appropriated to the noblest specimens of the fine arts; it was adorned with magnificent statuary by Canova and other celebrated artists, and the walls were hung with the finest paintings. The pleasure-grounds, which were Josephine's especial care, were laid out with admirable taste; shrubs and flowers of the rarest and finest growth and the most delicious odors, were there in the richest profusion. But there is an interest far deeper than the finest landscape, or the most exquisite embellishments of art, could ever impart--an interest touchingly associated with the precincts where the gifted and renowned have moved, and with the passions and affections, the joys and sorrows by which they were there agitated. It is, indeed, an interest which excites a mournful sympathy, and may awaken salutary reflection. Who, indeed, could visit Malmaison without experiencing such?

The vicissitudes experienced by some individuals have been so strange, that had they been described in a romance, it would have lost all interest from their improbability; but occurring in real life, they excite a feeling of personal concern which forever attaches to the name with which they are associated. Of this, the eventful life of Napoleon furnishes a striking example. There cannot be found in the range of history one who appears to have identified himself so much with the feelings of every class and every time; nay, his manners and appearance are so thoroughly impressed on every imagination, that there are few who do not rather feel as if he were one whom they had seen and with whom they had conversed, than of whom they had only heard and read. Scarcely less checkered than his, was the life of Josephine: from her early days she was destined to experience the most unlooked-for reverses of fortune: her very introduction to the Beauharnais family and connection with them, were brought about in a most unlikely and singular manner, without the least intention on her part, and it ultimately led to her being placed on the throne of France. The noble and wealthy family of Beauharnais had great possessions in the West Indies, which fell to two brothers, the representatives of that distinguished family; many of its members had been eminent for their services in the navy, and in various departments. The heirs to the estates had retired from the royal marine service with the title of _chefs d'escadre_. The elder brother, the Marquis de Beauharnais, was a widower, with two sons; the younger, Vicomte de Beauharnais, had married Mademoiselle Mouchard, by whom he had one son and two daughters. The brothers, warmly attached to each other from infancy, wished to draw still closer the bonds which united them, by the marriage of the Marquis's sons with the daughters of the Vicomte; and with this view, a rich plantation in St. Domingo had never been divided. The two sisters were looked on as the affianced brides of their cousins; and when grown up, the elder was married to the elder son of the Marquis, who, according to the prevalent custom of his country, assumed the title of Marquis, as his brother did that of Vicomte. M. Renaudin, a particular friend of the Beauharnais, undertook the management of their West Indian property. The Marquis, wishing to show some attention in return for this kindness, invited Madame Renaudin over to Paris, to spend some time. The invitation was gladly accepted; and Madame Renaudin made herself useful to her host by superintending his domestic concerns. But she soon formed plans for the advancement of her own family. With the Marquis's permission, she wrote to Martinique, to her brother, M. Tacher de la Pagerie, to beg that he would send over one of his daughters. The young lady landed at Rochefort, was taken ill, and died almost immediately. Notwithstanding this unhappy event, Madame did not relinquish the project which she had formed, of bringing about a union between the young Vicomte and a niece of her own. She sent for another;--and _Josephine_ was sent. When the young creole arrived, she had just attained her fifteenth year, and was eminently attractive; her elegant form and personal charms were enhanced by the most winning grace, modesty, and sweetness of disposition. Such fascinations could not have failed in making an impression on the young man with whom she was domesticated. His opportunities of becoming acquainted with his cousin were only such as were afforded by an occasional interview at the grating of the convent, where she was being educated; so no attachment had been formed; and he fell passionately in love with the innocent and lovely Josephine. She was not long insensible to the devotion of a lover so handsome and agreeable as the young Vicomte. Madame Renaudin sought the good offices of an intimate friend, to whose influence with the young man's father she trusted for the success of her project. In a confidential interview the lady introduced the subject--spoke of the ardent attachment of the young people, of the charms of the simple girl who had won his son's heart, and urged the consideration of the young man's happiness on his father, assuring him it rested on his consent to his marriage with Josephine. The Marquis was painfully excited; he loved his son tenderly, and would have made any sacrifice to insure his happiness; but his affection for his brother, and the repugnance which he felt, to fail in his engagement to him, kept him in a state of the most perplexing uneasiness. At length, stating to his brother how matters stood, he found that he had mortally offended him; so deeply, indeed, did he resent the affront, that he declared he could never forget or forgive it--a promise too faithfully kept.

The affection and confidence of a whole life were thus snapped asunder in a moment. The Vicomte insisted on a division of the West Indian property; and, with feelings so bitterly excited, no amicable arrangement could take place, and the brothers had recourse to law, in which they were involved for the rest of their days.

The marriage of the young people took place, and the youthful Mademoiselle Tacher de Pagerie became Vicomtesse de Beauharnais.

It is said that her husband's uncle took a cruel revenge for the disappointment, of which she had been the cause, by awakening suspicion of the fidelity of Josephine in the mind of her husband. The distracting doubts he raised made his nephew wretched; to such a degree was his jealousy excited, that he endeavored, by legal proceedings, to procure a divorce; but the evidence he adduced utterly failed, and after some time, a reconciliation took place.

The uncle died, and his daughter had in the mean time married the Marquis de Barral. So all went well with the young couple. They met with the most flattering reception at court. The Vicomte, who was allowed to be the most elegant dancer of his day, was frequently honored by being the partner of the Queen. And as to Josephine, she was the admired of all admirers; she was not only considered one of the most beautiful women at court, but all who conversed with her were captivated by her grace and sweetness. She entered into the gayeties of Versailles with the animation natural to her time of life and disposition.

But the sunshine of the royal circle was, ere long, clouded, and the gathering storm could be too well discerned; amusement was scarcely thought of. The States General assembled, and every thing denoted a revolutionary movement.

Josephine was an especial favorite with the Queen; and in those days, dark with coming events, she had the most confidential conversations with her; all the fears and melancholy forebodings which caused the Queen such deep anxiety, were freely imparted to her friend. Little did Josephine think, while sympathizing with her royal mistress, that she would herself rule in that court, and that she, too, would be a sufferer from the elevation of her situation. Her husband, the Vicomte de Beauharnais, was then called to join the army, as war had been unexpectedly declared. He distinguished himself so much, that he attained the rank of general. But in the midst of his successful career, he saw the danger which was impending, and he could perceive that not only were the days of Louis's power numbered, but he even feared that his life was not safe. His fears were unhappily fulfilled; and he himself, merely on account of belonging to the aristocracy, was denounced by his own troops, and deprived of his commission by authority, arrested, brought to Paris, and thrown into prison. It was during his imprisonment that the Vicomte had the most affecting proofs of the attachment of Josephine: all the energies of her mind and of her strong affection were bent on obtaining his liberty; no means she could devise were left untried; she joined her own supplications to the solicitations of friends, to whom she had appealed in her emergency; she endeavored, in the most touching manner, to console and cheer him. But the gratification of soothing him by her presence and endearments was soon denied, for she was seized, and taken as a prisoner to the convent of the Carmelites. A few weeks passed, and the unfortunate Vicomte was brought to trial, and condemned to death by the revolutionary tribunal. Though natural tears fell at thoughts of parting from his wife and children, and leaving them unprotected in the world, his courage never forsook him to the last.

When the account of his execution reached Josephine she fainted away, and was for a long time alarmingly ill. It was while in prison, and every moment expecting to be summoned before the revolutionary tribunal, that Josephine cut off her beautiful tresses, as the only gift which she had to leave her children, for all the family estates in Europe had been seized, and the destruction of property at St. Domingo had cut off all supplies from that quarter. Yet amidst her anxieties, her afflictions, and her dangers, her fortitude never forsook her, and her example and her efforts to calm them, to a degree supported the spirits of her fellow-prisoners. Josephine herself ascribed her firmness to her implicit trust in the prediction of an old negress which she had treasured in her memory from childhood. Her trust, indeed, in the inexplicable mysteries of divination was sufficiently proved by the interest with which she is said to have frequently applied herself during her sad hours of imprisonment to learn her fortune from a pack of cards. Mr. Alison mentions, that he had heard of the prophecy of the negress in 1801, long before Napoleon's elevation to the throne. Josephine herself, Mr. Alison goes on to say, narrated this extraordinary passage in her life in the following terms:--

"One morning the jailer entered the chamber where I slept with the Duchesse d'Aiguillon and two other ladies, and told me he was going to take my mattress, and give it to another prisoner.

"'Why,' said Madame Aiguillon, eagerly, 'will not Madame de Beauharnais obtain a better one?'

"'No, no,' replied he, with a fiendish smile, 'she will have no need of one, for she is about to be led to the Conciergerie, and then to the guillotine."

"At these words, my companions in misfortune uttered piercing shrieks. I consoled them as well as I could; and at length, worn out with their eternal lamentations, I told them that their grief was utterly unreasonable; that I not only should not die, but live to be queen of France.

"'Why, then, do you not name your maids of honor?' said Madame Aiguillon, irritated at such expressions at such a moment.

"'Very true,' said I, 'I did not think of that. Well, my dear, I make you one of them.'[H]

"Upon this the tears of the ladies fell apace, for they never doubted I was mad; but the truth was, I was not gifted with any extraordinary courage, but internally persuaded of the truth of the oracle.

"Madame d'Aiguillon soon after became unwell, and I drew her towards the window, which I opened, to admit through the bars a little fresh air. I then perceived a poor woman who knew us, and who was making a number of signs, which I could not at first understand. She constantly held up her gown (_robe_); and seeing that she had some object in view, I called out _robe_; to which she answered _yes_. She then lifted up a stone, and put it into her lap, which she lifted a second time. I called out _pierre_. Upon this, she evinced the greatest joy at perceiving that her signs were understood. Joining then the stone to her robe, she eagerly imitated the motion of cutting off the head, and immediately began to dance and evince the most extravagant joy.

"This singular pantomime awakened in our minds a vague hope that possibly Robespierre might be no more.

"At this moment, while we were vacillating between hope and fear, we heard a great noise in the corridor, and the terrible voice of our jailer, who said to his dog, giving him at the same time a kick, 'Get in, you cursed Robespierre.'"

This speech told them they were saved.

Through the influence of Barras, a portion of her husband's property, in which Malmaison was included, was restored to Josephine. In this favorite abode she amused herself in exercising her taste in the embellishment of the grounds, and in the pursuit of botany; but her chief enjoyment was in the society and instruction of her children, to whom she was passionately attached. Their amiable dispositions and their talents were a source of the most exquisite pleasure to her, not, however, unmingled with regret at finding herself without the means of conferring on them the advantages of which they were so deserving. However, a better time was to come. Madame Tallien and several of Josephine's friends, after a time, prevailed on her to enter into society, and the fair associates became the principal ornaments of the dictatorial circle. Through their influence revolutionary manners were reformed, and all the power which their charms and their talents gave them was exerted in the cause of humanity.

Napoleon's acquaintance with Josephine arose from the impression made on him by her son, Eugene Beauharnais, then a little boy. He came to request that his father's sword, which had been delivered up, might be restored to him. The boy's appearance,--the earnestness with which he urged his request, and the tears which could not be stayed when he beheld the sword, interested Napoleon so much in his favor, that not only was the sword given to him, but he determined to become acquainted with the mother of the boy. He visited her, and soon his visits became frequent. He delighted to hear the details which she gave of the court of Louis.

"Come," he would say, as he sat by her side of an evening, "now let us talk of the old court--let us make a tour to Versailles." It was in these frequent and familiar interviews that the fascinations of Josephine won the heart of Napoleon. "She is," said he, "grace personified--every thing she does is with a grace and delicacy peculiar to herself."

The admiration and love of such a man could not fail to make an impression on a woman like Josephine. It has been said, that it was impossible to be in Napoleon's company without being struck by his personal appearance; not so much by the exquisite symmetry of his features, and the noble head and forehead, which have furnished the painter and the sculptor with one of their finest models; nor even by the meditative look, so indicative of intellectual power; but the magic charm was the varying expression of countenance, which changed with every passing thought, and glowed with every feeling. His smile, it is said, always inspired confidence. "It is difficult, if not impossible," so the Duchess of Abrantes writes, "to describe the charm of his countenance when he smiled;--his soul was upon his lips and in his eyes." The magic power of that expression at a later period is well known. The Emperor of Russia experienced it when he said, "I never loved any one more than that man." He possessed, too, that greatest of all charms, a harmonious voice, whose tones, like his countenance, changing from emphatic impressiveness to caressing softness, found their way to every heart. It may not have been those personal and mental gifts alone which won Josephine's heart; the ready sympathy with which Napoleon entered into her feelings may have been the greatest charm to an affectionate nature like hers.

It was in the course of one of those confidential evenings that, as they sat together, she read to him the last letter which she had received from her husband: it was a most touching farewell. Napoleon was deeply affected; and it has been said that that letter, and Josephine's emotion as she read it, had a powerful effect upon his feelings, already so much excited by admiration.

Josephine soon consented to give her hand to the young soldier of fortune who had no dower but his sword. On his part, he gave a pledge that he would consider her children as his own, and that their interest should be his first concern. The world can testify how he redeemed his pledge! To his union with Josephine he was indebted for his chief happiness. Her affection, and the interchange of thought with her, were prized beyond all the greatness to which he had attained. Many of the little incidents of their every-day life cannot be read without deep interest--evincing, as they do, a depth of affection and tenderness of feeling which it is difficult to conceive should ever have been sacrificed to ambition. They visited together the prison where Josephine had passed so many dreary and sad hours. He saw the loved name traced on the dank wall, by the hand which was now his own. She had told him of a ring, which she had fondly prized; it had been the gift of her mother. She pointed out to him the flag under which she had contrived to hide it. When it was taken from its hiding-place and put into her hand, her delight enchanted Napoleon. Seldom have two persons met whose feelings and whose tastes appeared more perfectly in unison than theirs, during the _happy_ days of their wedded life. The delight which they took in the fine arts was a source of constant pleasure; and in their days of power and elevation, it was their care to encourage artists of talent. Many interesting anecdotes are related of their kind and generous acts towards them. In Josephine's manner of conferring favors, there was always something still more gratifying than the advantage bestowed--something that implied that she entered into the feelings of those whom she wished to serve. She had observed that M. Turpin, an artist who went frequently to Malmaison, had no coveyance but an almost worn-out cabriolet, drawn by a sorry horse. One day, when about to take his leave, he was surprised to see a nice new vehicle and handsome horse drawn up. His own arms painted on the pannels, and stamped on the harness, at once told him they were intended for him; but this was not the only occasion on which Josephine ministered to the straitened means of the painter. She employed him in making a sketch of a Swiss view, while sitting with her, and directed him to take it home, and bring the picture to her when finished. She was delighted with the beautiful landscape which he produced, and showed it with pleasure to every visitor who came in. The artist no doubt felt a natural gratification at finding his fine work appreciated. Josephine then called him aside, and put the stipulated price in bank-notes into his hand.

"This," said she, "is for your excellent mother; but it may not be to her taste; so tell her that I shall not be offended at her changing this trifling token of my friendship, and of the gratification which her son's painting has given me, for whatever might be more acceptable."

As she spoke, she put into his hand a diamond of the value of six thousand francs.

Josephine attended Napoleon in many of his campaigns. When she was not with him, he corresponded regularly with her, and no lover ever wrote letters more expressive of passionate attachment.

"By what art is it," he says, in one of them, "that you have been able to captivate all my faculties? It is a magic, my sweet love, which will finish only with my life. To live for Josephine is the history of my life. I am trying to reach you. I am dying to be with you. What lands, what countries separate us! What a time before you read these lines!"

Josephine returned her husband's fondness with her whole heart. Utterly regardless of privation and fatigue, she was ever earnest in urging him to allow her to accompany him on all his long journeys; and often, at midnight, when just setting out on some expedition, he has found her in readiness.

"No, love," he would say, "No, no, love, do not ask me; the fatigue would be too much for you."

"Oh no," she would answer; "No, no."

"But I have not a moment to spare."

"See, I am quite ready;" and she would drive off, seated by Napoleon's side.

From having mingled in scenes of gayety from her earliest days, and from the pleasure which her presence was sure to diffuse, and perhaps, it may be added, from a nature singularly guileless, that could see no evil in what appeared to her but as innocent indulgencies, she was led into expenses and frivolous gratifications which were by no means essential for a mind like hers. Dishonest tradesmen took advantage of her inexperience and extreme easiness, and swelled their bills to an enormous amount; but her greatest and far most congenial outlay, was in the relief of the distressed. She could not endure to deny the petition of any whom she believed to be suffering from want; and this tenderness of heart was often imposed on by the artful and rapacious. Those who, from interested motives, desired to separate her from Napoleon, felt a secret satisfaction in the uneasiness which her large expenditure occasionally gave him. To their misrepresentations may be ascribed the violent bursts of jealousy by which he was at times agitated; but he was ever ready to perceive that there was no foundation to justify them. It was during one of their separations, that the insinuations of those about Napoleon excited his jealousy to such a degree, that he wrote a hasty letter to Josephine, accusing her of _coquetry_, and of evidently preferring the society of men to those of her own sex.

"The ladies," she says, in her reply, "are filled with fear and lamentations for those who serve under you; the gentlemen eagerly compliment me on your success, and speak of you in a manner that delights me. My aunt and those about me can tell you, ungrateful as you are, whether _I have been coquetting with any body_. These are your words, and they would be hateful to me, were I not certain you see already that they are unjust, and are sorry for having written them."

Napoleon's brothers strove to alienate his affections from Josephine; but the intense agony which he suffered when suspicion was awakened, must have proved to them how deep these affections were. Perhaps no trait in Josephine's character exalts it more than her conduct to the family who had endeavored to injure her in the most tender point. She often was the means of making peace between Napoleon and different members of his family with whom he was displeased. Even after the separation which they had been instrumental in effecting, she still exerted that influence which she never lost, to reconcile differences which arose between them. Napoleon could never long mistrust her generous and tender feelings, and the intimate knowledge of such a disposition every day increased his love; she was not only the object of his fondest affection, but he believed her to be in some mysterious manner connected with his destiny; a belief which chimed in with the popular superstition by which she was regarded as his good genius,--a superstition which took still deeper hold of the public mind when days of disaster came, whose date commenced in no long time after the separation. The apparently accidental circumstance by which Josephine had escaped the explosion of the infernal machine was construed by many as a direct interposition of Providence in favor of _Napoleon's Guardian Angel_.

It was just as she was stepping into her carriage, which was to follow closely that of the First Consul to the theatre, that General Rapp, who had always before appeared utterly unobservant of ladies' dress, remarked to Josephine that the pattern of the shawl did not match her dress. She returned to the house, and ran up to her apartment to change it for another. The delay did not occupy more than three minutes, but they sufficed to save her life. Napoleon's carriage just cleared the explosion. Had Josephine been close behind, nothing could have saved her. In the happy days of love and confidence, Malmaison was the scene of great enjoyment: the hand of taste could be discerned in all its embellishments. Napoleon preferred it to any other residence. When he arrived there from the Luxembourg or the Tuileries, he was wild with delight, like a school-boy let loose from school. Every thing enchanted him, but most of all, perhaps, the chimes of the village church-bells. It may have been partly owing to the associations which they awakened. He would stop in his rambles if he heard them, lest his footfall should drown the sound--he would remain as if entranced, in a kind of ecstasy, till they ceased. "Ah! how they remind me of the first years I spent at Brienne!"

Napoleon added considerably to the domain of Malmaison by purchasing the noble woods of Butard, which joined it. He was in a perfect ecstasy with the improvement; and, in a few days after the purchase was completed, proposed that they should all make a party to see it. Josephine put on her shawl, and, accompanied by her friends, set out. Napoleon, in a state of enchantment, rode on before; but he would then gallop back, and take Josephine's hand. He was compared to a child, who, in the eagerness of delight, flies back to his mother to impart his joy.

Nothing could be more agreeable than the society of Malmaison. Napoleon disliked ceremony, and wished all his guests to be perfectly at their ease. All his evenings were spent in Josephine's society, in which he delighted. Both possessed the rare gift of conversational powers. General information and exquisite taste were rendered doubly attractive by the winning manners and sweet voice of Josephine. As for Napoleon, he appeared to have an intuitive knowledge on all subjects. He was like an inspired person when seen amidst men of every age, and all professions. All thronged round the pale, studious-looking young man--feeling that "he was more fitted to give than to receive lessons." Argument with him almost invariably ended by his opponent going over to his side. His tact was such that he knew how to select the subject for discussion on which the person with whom he conversed was best informed; and thus, from his earliest days, he increased his store of information, and gave infinite pleasure by the interest which he took in the pursuits of those whom chance threw in his way. The delightful flow of his spirits showed how much he enjoyed the social evenings. He amused his guests in a thousand ways. If he sat down to cards, he diverted them by pretending to cheat, which he might have done with impunity, as he never took his winnings. He sometimes entertained them with tales composed on the moment. When they were of ghosts and apparitions, he took care to tell them by a dim light, and to preface them by some solemn and striking observation. Private theatricals sometimes made the entertainment of the evening. Different members of Napoleon's family and several of the guests performed. The plays are described as having been acted to an audience of two or three hundred, and going off with great effect--every one, indeed, endeavored to acquit themselves to the best, of their ability, for they knew they had a severe critic in Napoleon.

The amiable and engaging manners of Napoleon and Josephine gave to Malmaison its greatest charm. The ready sympathy of Josephine with all who were in sorrow, or any kind of distress, endeared her to every one. If any among her domestics were ill, she was sure to visit the sick bed, and soothe the sufferer by her tenderness. Indeed, her sympathy was often known to bring relief when other means had failed. She was deeply affected by the calamity of M. Decrest. He had lost his only son suddenly by a fatal accident. The young man had been on the eve of marriage, and all his family were busy in making preparations for the joyful occasion, when news of his death was brought. The poor father remained in a state of nearly complete stupor from the moment of the melancholy intelligence. All attempts to rouse him were unavailing. When Josephine was made acquainted with his alarming state, she lost not a moment in hurrying to him: and leading his little daughter by the hand, and taking his infant in her arms, she threw herself, with his two remaining children, at his feet. The afflicted man burst into tears, and nature found a salutary relief, which saved his life. In such acts Josephine was continually engaged. Nothing could withdraw her mind from the claims of the unfortunate. Her tender respect for the feelings of others was never laid aside; and with those who strove to please her she was always pleased. On one occasion, when the ladies about her could not restrain their laughter at the discordant music made by an itinerant musician, who had requested permission to play before her, she preserved a becoming gravity, and encouraged, and thanked, and rewarded the poor man. "He did his best to gratify us," she said, when he was gone; "I think it was my duty not only to avoid hurting his feelings, but to thank and reward him for the trouble which he took to give pleasure."

Such were the lessons which she impressed upon her children. She often talked with them of the privations of other days, and charged them never to forget those days amidst the smiles of fortune which they now enjoyed.

Josephine saw with great uneasiness the probable elevation of the First Consul to the throne. She felt that it would bring danger to him, and ruin to herself; for she had discernment enough to anticipate that she would be sacrificed to the ambition of those who wished to establish an hereditary right to the throne of the empire. Every step of his advancing power caused her deep anxiety. "The real enemies of Bonaparte," she said to Raderer, as Alison tells, "the real enemies of Bonaparte are those who put into his head ideas of hereditary succession, dynasty, divorce, and marriage. I do not approve the projects of Napoleon," she added. "I have often told him so. He hears me with attention, but I can plainly see that I make no impression. The flatterers who surround him soon obliterate all I have said." She strove to restrain his desire of conquest, by urging on him continually a far greater object--that of rendering France happy by encouraging her industry and protecting her agriculture. In a long letter, in which she earnestly expostulates with him on the subject, she turns to herself in affecting terms: "Will not the throne," she says, "inspire you with the wish to contract new alliances? Will you not seek to support your power by new family connections? Alas! whatever these connections may be, will they compensate for those which were first knit by corresponding fitness, and which affection promised to perpetuate?" So far, indeed, from feeling elated by her own elevation to a throne, she regretted it with deep melancholy. "The assumption of the throne," she looked on as "an act that must ever be an ineffaceable blot upon Napoleon's name." It has been asserted by her friends that she never recovered her spirits after. The pomps and ceremonies, too, attendant on the imperial state, must have been distasteful to one who loved the retirement of home, and hated every kind of restraint and ostentation.

From the time that Napoleon became Emperor he lavished the greatest honors on the children of Josephine. Her daughter Hortense received the hand of Louis Bonaparte, and the crown of Holland. Eugene, his first acquaintance of the family and especial favorite, obtained the rank of colonel, and was adopted as one of the imperial family; and the son of Hortense and Louis was adopted as heir to the throne of France. The coronation took place at Notre Dame, with all the show and pomp of which the French are so fond. When the papal benediction was pronounced, Napoleon placed the crown on his head with his own hands. He then turned to Josephine who knelt before him, and there was an affectionate playfulness in the manner in which he took pains to arrange it, as he placed the crown upon her head. It seemed at that moment as if he forgot the presence of all but her. After putting on the crown, he raised it, and placing it more lightly on, regarded her the while with looks of fond admiration. On the morning of the coronation, Napoleon had sent for Raguideau the notary, who little thought that he had been summoned into the august presence to be reminded of what had passed on the occasion of their last meeting, and of which he had no idea the Emperor was in possession. While Napoleon had been paying his addresses to Josephine, they walked arm in arm to the notary's, for neither of them could boast of a carriage. "You are a great fool," replied the notary to Josephine, who had just communicated her intention of marrying the young officer--"you are a great fool, and you will live to repent it. You are about to marry a man who has nothing but his cloak and his sword." Napoleon, who was waiting in the antechamber, overheard these words, but never spoke of them to any one. "Now," said Napoleon, with a smile, addressing the old man, who had been ushered into his presence--"now, what say you, Raguideau, have I nothing but my cloak and sword?" The Empress and the notary both stood amazed at this first intimation that the warning had been overheard.

The following year, the magnificent coronation at Milan took place, surpassing, if possible, in grandeur that at Paris. Amidst the gorgeousness of that spectacle, however, there were few by whom it was not forgotten in the far deeper interest which the principal actors in the scene inspired. Amidst the blaze of beauty and of jewels, and the strains of music, by which he was surrounded, what were the feelings of Napoleon, as he held within his grasp the iron crown of Charlemagne, which had reposed in the treasury of Monza for a thousand years, and for which he had so ardently longed. Even at that moment when he placed it on his own head, were the aspirings of the ambitious spirit satisfied?--or were not his thoughts taking a wider range of conquest than he had yet achieved? And for her, who knelt at his feet, about to receive the highest honor that mortal hands can confer--did the pomp and circumstance of that scene, and the glory of the crown, satisfy her loving heart? Ah, surely no! It was away in the sweet retirement of Malmaison--amidst the scenes hallowed by Napoleon's early affection. And how few years were to elapse ere the crown just placed on the head of Josephine was to be transferred to another?--when the place which she--the loving and beloved--occupied by her husband's side was to be filled by another? Though doubts had arisen in her mind--though she knew the influence of those who feared the sceptre might pass into the hands of another dynasty--still, the hope never forsook her, that affection would triumph over ambition, till Napoleon himself communicated the cruel determination. With what abandonment of self she was wont to cast her whole dependence on Napoleon, may be seen in a letter addressed to Pope Pius VII. In it she says: "My first sentiment--one to which all others are subservient--is a conviction of my own weakness and incapacity. Of myself I am but little; or, to speak more correctly, my only value is derived from the extraordinary man to whom I am united. This inward conviction, which occasionally humbles my pride, eventually affords me some encouragement, when I calmly reflect. I whisper to myself, that the arm under which the whole earth is made to tremble, may well support my weakness."

Hortense's promising child was dead; Napoleon and Josephine had shed bitter tears together over the early grave of their little favorite; and there was now not even a nominal heir to the throne. The machinations of the designing were in active motion. Lucien introduced the subject, and said to Josephine that it was absolutely necessary for the satisfaction of the nation that Napoleon should have a son, and asked whether she would pass off an illegitimate one as her own. This proposal she refused with the utmost indignation, preferring any alternative to one so disgraceful.

On Napoleon's return from the battle of Wagram, Josephine hastened to welcome him. After the first warm greetings and tender embraces, she perceived that something weighed upon his mind. The restraint and embarrassment of his manner filled her with dread. For fifteen days she was a prey to the most cruel suspense, yet she dreaded its termination by a disclosure fatal to her happiness. Napoleon, who loved her so much, and who had hitherto looked to her alone for all his domestic felicity, himself felt all the severity of the blow, which he was about to inflict. The day at length came, and it is thus affectingly described by Mr. Alison:

"They dined together as usual, but neither spoke a word during the repast; their eyes were averted as soon as they met, but the countenance of both revealed the mortal anguish of their minds. When it was over, he dismissed the attendants, and approaching the Empress with a trembling step, took her hand, and laid it upon his heart. 'Josephine,' said he, 'my good Josephine, you know how I have loved you; it is to you alone that I owe the few moments of happiness I have known in the world. Josephine, my destiny is more powerful than my will; my dearest affections must yield to the interests of France.'

"'Say no more,' cried the Empress, 'I expected this; I understand and feel for you, but the stroke is not the less mortal.' With these words, she uttered piercing shrieks, and fell down in a swoon.

"Doctor Corvisart was at hand to render assistance, and she was restored to a sense of her wretchedness in her own apartment. The Emperor came to see her in the evening, but she could hardly bear the emotion occasioned by his appearance."

Little did Napoleon think, when he was making a sacrifice of all the 'happiness which he had known in the world,' that the ambitious views for which it was relinquished would fade away ere five years ran their course. What strange destinies do men carve out for themselves! what sacrifices are they ever making of felicity and of real good, in the pursuit of some phantom which is sure to elude their grasp! How many Edens have been forfeited by madness and by folly, since the first pair were expelled from Paradise!

It was not without an effort on her part to turn Napoleon from a purpose so agonizing to them both, that Josephine gave up all hope. In about a month after the disclosure, a painful task devolved on the imperial family. The motives for the divorce were to be stated in public, and the heart-stricken Josephine was to subscribe to its necessity in presence of the nation. In conformity with the magnanimous resolve of making so great a sacrifice for the advantage of the empire, it was expedient that an equanimity of deportment should be assumed. The scene which took place could never be forgotten by those who witnessed it. Napoleon stood pale and immovable as a statue, showing in the very stillness of his air and countenance a deep emotion. Josephine and Hortense alone appeared divested of every ornament, while those about them sparkled in all the splendor of court costume. Every eye was directed to Josephine, as with slow steps she reached the seat which had been prepared for her. She took it with her accustomed grace, and preserved throughout a dignified composure. Hortense stood weeping behind her chair, and poor Eugene was nearly overcome by agitation, as the act of separation was read; Napoleon declared that it was in consideration of the interests of the monarchy and the wishes of his people that there should be an heir to the throne, that he was induced "to sacrifice the sweetest affections of his heart." "God knows," said he, "what such a determination has cost my heart." Of Josephine he spoke with the tenderest affection and respect. "She has embellished fifteen years of my life; the remembrance of them will be for ever engraven on my heart."

When it was Josephine's turn to speak, though tears were in her eyes, and though her voice faltered, the dignity of all she uttered impressed every one who was present. "I respond to all the sentiments of the Emperor," she said, "in consenting to the dissolution of a marriage which henceforth is an obstacle to the happiness of France, by depriving it of the blessing of being one day governed by the descendants of that great man, evidently raised up by Providence to efface the evils of a terrible revolution, and restore the altar, the throne, and social order. I know," she went on to say, "what this act, commanded by policy and exalted interests, has cost his heart; but we both glory in the sacrifice which we make to the good of our country. I feel elevated by giving the greatest proof of attachment and devotion _that ever was given upon earth_."

It was not till Josephine heard the fatal words which were to part her from the object of her affection for ever, that her courage seemed for a moment to forsake her; but hastily brushing away her tears that forced their way, she took the pen which was handed to her, and signed the act; then taking the arm of Hortense, and followed by Eugene, she left the saloon, and hurried to her own apartment, where she shut herself up alone for the remainder of the day.

It is well known that, notwithstanding the courage with which the imperial family came forward before the public on this occasion, they gave way to the most passionable grief in private. Napoleon had retired for the night, and had gone to his bed in silence and sadness, when the private door opened, and Josephine appeared. Her hair fell in wild disorder, and her countenance bore the impress of an incurable grief. She advanced with a faltering step; then paused; and bursting into an agony of tears, threw herself on Napoleon's neck, and sobbed as if her heart were breaking. He tried to console her, but his own tears fell fast with hers. A few broken words--a last embrace--and they parted. The next morning, the whole household assembled to pay the last tribute of respect to a mistress whom they loved and revered. With streaming eyes, they saw her pass the gates of the Tuileries, never to return.

The feelings with which Josephine took up her residence at Malmaison, amidst the scenes so dear to her, may be conceived; but true to the wishes of the Emperor, and to the dictates of her own elevated mind, she bore up under her trying situation with exemplary dignity; but grief had done its part; and no one could look into her face, or meet the sweet melancholy smile with which she welcomed them, without being moved. Happy days, which she had enjoyed amidst these scenes with many of those who waited on her, were sadly contrasted with her forlorn feelings; and though she strove to speak cheerfully, and never complained, the tears which she tried to check or to conceal would sometimes force their way. The chief indulgence which she allowed her feelings was during those hours of the day when she shut herself up in Napoleon's cabinet; that chamber where so many moments of confidential intercourse had passed, and which she continued to hold so sacred, that scarcely any one but herself ever entered it. She would not suffer any thing to be moved since Napoleon had occupied it. She would herself wipe away the dust, fearing that other hands might disturb what he had touched. The volume which he had been reading when last there lay on the table, open at the page at which he had last looked. The map was there, with all his tracings of some meditated route; the pen which had given permanence to some passing thought lay beside it; articles of dress were on some of the chairs; every thing looked as if he were about to enter.

Even under the changed circumstances which brought Josephine back to Malmaison, her influence over Napoleon, which had been always powerful, was not diminished. No estrangement took place between them. His visits to her were frequent, though her increased sadness was always observed on those days when he made them. They corresponded to the last moment of her life. The letters which she received from him were her greatest solace. It is thus she alludes to them in writing to him:--"Continue to retain a kind recollection of your friend; give her the consolation of occasionally hearing from you, that you still preserve that attachment for her which alone constitutes the happiness of her existence."

The nuptials of Napoleon and Marie Louise took place a very short time after the divorce was ratified. Whatever the bitter feelings of Josephine might have been, they were not mingled with one ungenerous or unjust sentiment. No ill-feeling towards the new Empress was excited in her bosom by the rapturous greetings with which she was welcomed on her arrival. "Every one ought," said she, "to endeavor to render France dear to an Empress who has left her native country to take up her abode among strangers."

But however elevated above all the meaner passions, the affections of Josephine had received a wound from which they could never recover, and she found it essential for any thing like peace of mind, to remove from scenes of former happiness. She retired to a noble mansion in Navarre, the gift of Napoleon; and as he had made a most munificent settlement on her, she was able to follow the bent of her benevolent mind, and to pass her time in doing good. So far from feeling any mortification on the birth of his son, she unfeignedly participated in the gratification which the Emperor felt, and she ever took the most lively interest in the child. She was deeply affected when his birth was announced to her, and retired to her chamber to weep unseen; but no murmur mingled with those natural tears.

It is rare to meet an example of one like Josephine, who has escaped the faults which experience tells us beset the extremes of destiny. In all the power and luxury of the highest elevation, no cold selfishness ever chilled the current of her generous feelings; for in the midst of prosperity her highest gratification was to serve her fellow-creatures, and in adverse circumstances, unspited at the world, such was still her sweetest solace. She was, indeed, so wonderfully sustained throughout all the changes and chances of her eventful life, that it needs no assurance to convince us that she must have sought for support beyond this transitory scene.

She employed the peasantry about Navarre in making roads and other useful works. Ever prompt in giving help to those in want, she chanced to meet one of the sisters of charity one day, seeking assistance for the wounded who lay in a neighboring hospital. Josephine gave large relief, promised to put all in train to have her supplied with linen for the sick, and that she would help to prepare lint for their wounds. The petitioner pronounced a blessing on her, and went on her way, but turned back to ask the name of her benefactress; the answer was affecting--"_I am poor Josephine._"

There can be no doubt but that Napoleon's thoughts often turned with tenderness to the days that he had passed with Josephine. Proof was given of an unchanging attachment to her, in the favors which he lavished on those connected with her by relationship or affection. Among her friends was Mrs. Damer, so celebrated for her success in sculpture. She had become acquainted with her while she was passing some time in Paris. Charmed by Josephine's varied attractions, she delighted in her society, and they became fast friends; when parting, they promised never to forget each other. The first intimation which Mrs. Damer had of Josephine's second marriage was one day when a French gentleman waited on her; he was the bearer of a most magnificent piece of porcelain and a letter, with which he had been charged for her by the wife of the First Consul. Great was her astonishment, when she opened the letter, to find that it was indeed from the wife of the First Consul; no longer Vicomtesse de Beauharnais, but her dear friend Josephine, who urged her, with all the warmth of friendship, to pay her an immediate visit at Paris. "I do long," she added, "to present my husband to you." Such a tempting invitation was gladly accepted, and she was received with joy by Napoleon and Josephine. In after years, she constantly recalled to mind the pleasures of that visit, with mingled feelings of melancholy and delight. The domestic scene left a lasting impression. Napoleon, always so fascinating in conversation, made himself delightfully agreeable to her; he loved to talk with her of her art; and his originality, enthusiasm, and taste gave an interest to every thing he said. He had a great admiration for Fox, and expressed a wish to have his bust. When Mrs. Damer next visited Paris, she brought Fox's bust, but Josephine's place was occupied by another. The Emperor saw her, and met her with all the cordiality and kindness which the recollection of former happy days, and her attachment to Josephine, were sure to inspire. At parting, he gave her a splendid snuff-box, with his likeness set in diamonds. The box is now in the British Museum.

It was in her retirement at Navarre that Josephine wept bitterly over the fallen fortunes of Napoleon. The Russian expedition caused her such deep inquietude that her health and spirits visibly declined; she saw in it a disastrous fate for Napoleon, and trembled, too, for the safety of Eugene, a son so dearly and so deservedly beloved, and who was, if possible, rendered still more precious, as the especial favorite of Napoleon, and as having been the means of introducing him to her. Josephine now scarcely joined her ladies, but would remain for the length of the day alone in her chamber, by the large travelling-desk which contained Napoleon's letters. Among these there was one that she was observed to read over and over again, and then to place in her bosom; it was the last that she had received; it was written from Brienne. A passage in it runs thus: "On revisiting this spot, where I passed my youthful days, and contrasting the peaceful condition I then enjoyed with the state of terror and agitation to which my mind is now a prey, often have I addressed myself in these words: I have sought death in numberless engagements, I can no longer dread its approach; I should now hail it as a boon. Nevertheless, I could still wish to see Josephine once more--" He again adds: "Adieu, my dear Josephine; never dismiss from your recollection one who has never forgotten, and never will forget, you."

It would be needless to dwell on the rapid events which led to Napoleon's abdication, but it would be impossible, even in this imperfect sketch, not to be struck by the strange coincidences of Josephine's life,--twice married--twice escaped from a violent death--twice crowned--both husbands sought for a divorce--one husband was executed--the other banished! One of Napoleon's first cares, in making his conditions when he abdicated, was an ample provision for Josephine; 40,000_l._ per annum was settled on her.

It was after Napoleon's departure from the shores of France, that the Emperor Alexander, touched with admiration of Josephine's character, and with pity for her misfortunes, prevailed on her to return to Malmaison to see him there. The associations so linked with the spot that she had loved to beautify must, indeed, have been overpowering. It was there that Napoleon's passionate attachment to her was formed. How many recollections must have been awakened by the pleasure-grounds adorned with the costly shrubs and plants which they had so often admired _together_; how many tears had afterwards fallen among them when the hours of separation came. The Emperor Alexander used every effort to console her, and promised his protection to her children, but sorrow had done its part, and the memories of other times had their effect. Josephine fell sick; malignant sore throat was the form which disease took, during the fatal illness of but a few days. Alexander was unremitting in his attentions; he again soothed the dying mother by the renewal of his promise of care for her children, a promise most faithfully kept. It was in the year 1814 that Napoleon left France for Elba, and also that Josephine died. The bells to which they had loved to listen together tolled her funeral knell. Her remains rest in the parish church of Ruel, near Malmaison. They were followed to the place of interment by a great number of illustrious persons who were desirous of paying this parting token of respect to one so much loved and honored. Upwards of eight thousand of the neighboring peasantry joined the funeral procession to pay their tribute of affection and veneration to her, who was justly called, '_the mother of the poor and distressed_.' The tomb erected by her children marks the spot where she takes her 'long last sleep.' It bears the simple inscription--

EUGENE ET HORTENSE A JOSEPHINE.

Napoleon, too, paid a parting visit to the residence which he had preferred to every other. After his unsuccessful attempt to resume the sovereignty of France, he spent six days at Malmaison to muse over departed power and happiness, and then left the shores of France for ever!

FOOTNOTES:

[H] Josephine might afterwards have fulfilled this promise, had not Madame d'Aiguillon been a divorced wife, which excluded her from holding any situation about the Empress.

From the London Art Journal.

THE GRAVE OF GRACE AGUILAR.

"Pilgrimages, pilgrimages!" exclaimed a German friend whose family had been shorn of its "olive branches" by so many hurricanes, that, although still in the prime of life, his head was bowed and his hair gray:--"pilgrimages! what is life but a pilgrimage over graves?" The older we grow, the better we comprehend the force of this sad truth; life is, indeed, a pilgrimage over graves; but how different are the ideas and emotions they suggest or excite!

In pent-up cities the graves cluster round ancient churches: congregations after congregations are pressed into festering earth until the inclosure becomes a charnel-house; yet they prove how devoutly later occupants have longed to rest in death with the loved in life. The nameless mounds are hardly shrouded by broken turf; records, on the cankering, crumbling head-stones, are almost obliterated; some are closely bordered and capped by heavy stones, as if rich inheritors dreaded a resurrection; others there are, where the dock and the nettle are matted around rusty railings, as though no hand remained that ever pressed, in friendship or affection, the hand which moulders beneath; others, again, are marked by broad head-stones, new and well-lettered, the black on the pure white setting forth a proud array of virtues, of which the co-mates of the departed never heard; a few dingy and heavy monuments stand apart, and look down with civic haughtiness on humbler graves. Repulsive specimens of bad taste are these elaborate monuments often; in their ornaments so unmeaning, their clumsy dignity so intrusive, so coarsely ostentatious--the epitaphs so earnest in saying _by whom_ the carved stones were erected!

Our village churchyards, lying away amid glorious trees, or tranquil valleys, or sleeping on the sloping hills, where "birds sing, lambs bleat, and ploughboys whistle,"--however picturesque they may appear in the distance, have frequently the same uncared for aspect as those within the city. We love the living, but we _seem_ to care little for the dead. However much we may muse on crossing "the churchyard," or indulge in poesy, where

"The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep,"

our places of burial, with the exception of cemeteries, which are as yet too new to show what they may become, bear but slight testimony to the "love which lives forever." The contrast is humiliating when we visit other lands, and mark the attention paid to graves of relatives and friends. A certain sum is annually set apart by the peasants in many districts of France, for visiting and decking the resting-places of those whom Death has taken; the fresh garland is hung on the simple cross, and the prayer earnestly repeated for the soul's peace; and these tributes continue for years and years, long after the bitterness of sorrow has passed away.

We have seen an aged woman, with white hair, strewing flowers on her mother's grave, though forty years had passed since the separation of the living from the dead; and once, attracted by the beauty of a girl who had been decking, and then praying, beside a nameless grave, we asked for whom she mourned--although the word "mourned" had little association with her bright face and sunny smile.

She answered, none of her people slept there; she had nothing of herself to do with graves; it was Marie's mother's grave, and Marie had gone far away--to England. Marie was her friend, and she had promised her that she would deck that grave, and pray beside it; and all for the love she bore her friend. We asked if she was certain Marie would return:

"No, there was no certainty; but she would watch the grave, and deck it, and say the prayers Marie would have said, all the same; she loved Marie, and had promised her." There was something very tender in this friendly fidelity, this tending the dead for the sake of the living--the living, dead to her.

For ourselves, the place of tombs has rarely been one of sorrow; we have loved to visit the last dwellings of those who have gone home before us. We have thought of the enjoyment of re-union; and dwelt upon the delight of an eternity of harmony and love--that "perfect love which casteth out fear." We have speculated on seeing Milton in the company of angels; on recognizing Bunyan with the faithful; on beholding Fenelon at the "right hand," and Mendelssohn among the chosen! Knowing that God is a more merciful judge than man, we believe that there we shall see many faiths prostrate in adoration of the one great LORD, who is for all, and "above all, and in us all." We have looked to the higher nature, the divine essence of those we have honored; and when noble deeds have been done, or lofty genius has triumphed, we have listened with more than doubt to the insinuations of those who, in former, as in present times, aim to detract from the excellence it is not given them to understand. We do not cater for the prejudices of sects or parties, but simply desire to lay our tribute of homage on the graves of those who seem to us most worthy, and have been most useful. We have enjoyed the high privilege of knowing many remarkable people who have passed from among us during the last twenty years,--having won for themselves a glorious immortality by the exercise of talents which, in any other country, would have led to national distinctions. Yet they are well remembered! and to them be _all_ the glory of success. The memory of these great lights,--great authors, great statesmen, great philosophers, great warriors,--is still

"Green in our souls."

But there were some stars of lesser magnitude, who, if longer spared among us, would have become luminaries of power; some who were summoned, when, according to our finite views, they had arrived at the period for their faculties to expand, and they were about to reap the harvest of long years of labor and of care; such was Mrs. Fletcher, better known as Miss Jewsbury, one of the chosen friends of Mrs. Hemans, who passed away in a foreign land, far from all who loved her.

And such was GRACE AGUILAR--a Jewess, of mind so elevated, heart so pure, and principles so just and true, as to deserve a lofty seat among those "Women of Israel," whose lives were so beautifully rendered by her delicate and powerful pen. It seems Quixotic in this day of sunshine, of civil and religious liberty, to attempt to combat the prejudices which, we are gravely told, do not now exist against the Jewish community; yet it is impossible to observe society, and not perceive that whatever political disabilities may be removed from them, individual prejudice against those from whom our blessed Saviour sprang, and who gave birth to the apostles of the Christian faith, is as deeply seated, as in the days when faggot and fire were the ministers employed for their conversion.

How can it be that we, in our age, look down with cold or scornful eyes upon this once "chosen people"--chosen when the material world was in its youth--those children of Israel, whose history is the foundation of our faith? We read _our_ Bible, which is _their_ Bible; our code of conduct is based upon _their_ commandments, which are _our_ commandments; _our_ salvation is gained by the Jewish sacrifice of the lamb without spot or blemish; _our_ apostles, the promulgators of the fulfilment of the Old Testament prophecies, and the founders of the New, were Jews. We are especially blessed in triumphing in a hope fulfilled--while to them the promise is yet to come; they linger and wait century after century for what they lost, and we won: this is their sorrow, and hard to bear is their punishment--but it should not detract from the honor and glory which was, and is, theirs from ages past. The condemnation we give them is unworthy of us, and undeserved by them--_They brought no wrath upon us by their blindness_; and we should remember the time will come when we shall be gathered--Jews and Gentiles--together from the four quarters of the globe, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south, "And there shall be one fold and one Shepherd." But of what do we, in these days, chiefly accuse the Jews?--of being a Mammon-making, and a Mammon-loving people?--Ought we not to look to ourselves in that matter, and remember the old saying about houses of glass, and throwing of stones? There are but too many evidences of late before the world, of the Mammon-worship of _our own_ people, to render any bowing down to the molten image remarkable in the children of Israel; yet it is marvellous how those who think and reason on all new things, give in to old prejudices without question or examination--clinging with childlike tenacity to foul traditions, as if they were established truths.

We no longer politically outrage a people who have been, at all times, LOYAL, peaceable, and industrious; we do not confine them to any particular quarter of our great city; nor drive them out of it like rabid dogs; we suffer them to make money and keep it, and we borrow it for our own wants; we allow them to worship as they please--but denying them a cordial fellowship with us, we restrict their improvement in all Arts, but the one of money-making;--and they, unable to obtain distinction except through their gold, naturally cling to that which gives them what all men covet--Power.

At our first introduction to Grace Aguilar we were struck, as much by the earnestness and eloquence of her conversation, as by her delicate and lovely countenance. Her person and address were exceedingly prepossessing; her eyes, of the deep blue that look almost black in particular lights; and her hair dark and abundant. There was no attempt at display; no affectation of learning; no desire to obtrude "me and my books" upon any one, or in any way: in all things she was graceful and well-bred. You felt at once that she was a carefully educated gentlewoman, and if there was more warmth and cordiality of manner than a stranger generally evinces on a first introduction, we remembered her descent,[I] and that the tone of her studies, as well as her passionate love of music and high musical attainments had increased her sensibility. When we came to know her better, we were charmed and astonished at her extensive reading; at her knowledge of foreign literature, and actual learning--relieved by a refreshing pleasure in juvenile amusements. Each interview increased our friendship, and the quantity and quality of her acquirements commanded our admiration. She had made acquaintance with the beauties of English nature during a long residence in Devonshire; loved the country with her whole heart, and enriched her mind by the leisure it afforded. She had collected and arranged conchological and mineralogical specimens to a considerable extent; loved flowers as only sensitive women can love them; and with all this was deeply read in theology and history. Whatever she knew she knew thoroughly; rising at six in the morning, and giving to each hour its employment; cultivating and exercising her home affections, and keeping open heart for many friends. All these qualities were warmed by a fervid enthusiasm for whatever was high and holy. She spurned all envy and uncharitableness, and rendered loving homage to whatever was great and good. It was difficult to induce her to speak of herself or of her own doings. After her death, it was deeply interesting to hear from the one of all others who loved and knew her best (her mother), of the progress of her mind from infancy to womanhood; it proved so convincingly how richly she deserved the affection she inspired.

Grace Aguilar, the only daughter of Emanuel and Sarah Aguilar, was born at the Paragon, in Hackney, in June 1816;[J] for eight years she was an only child, and after that period had elapsed, two boys were added to the family. Grace was of so fragile and delicate a constitution, that her parents took her to Hastings when she was four years old; and at that early age she commenced collecting and arranging shells, learning to read, almost by intuition, and when asked to choose a gift, always preferring "a book." These gift-books were not read and thrown aside, but preserved with the greatest care, and frequently perused.

From the age of seven years this extraordinary child kept a daily journal, jotting down what she saw, heard, and thought, with the most rigid regard to the truth; indeed, after visiting a new scene, her chief delight was to read and ponder over whatever she could find relating to what she had observed. Her parents were both passionately fond of the beauties of nature, and she enjoyed scenery with them, at an age when children are supposed to be incapable of much observation. Her mother, a highly educated and accomplished woman, loved to direct her child's mind to the study of whatever was beautiful and true: before she completed her twelfth year she wrote a little drama called "Gustavus Vasa;" it was an indication of what, in after life, became her ruling passion.

The first history placed in her hand was that of Josephus; increasing, as it was certain to do, her interest in her own people. In 1828, after various English wanderings, the family, in consequence of Mr. Aguilar's impaired health, went to reside in Devonshire. The beauty of the scenery which surrounds Tavistock inspired her first poetic effusions, and she became passionately fond of her new power; yet her well-regulated mind prevented her indulging in the exercise of this fascinating talent, until her daily duties and studies were performed.

A life spent as was that of Grace Aguilar, affords little incident or variety; it is simply a record of talents highly cultivated, of duties affectionately fulfilled, and, as years advanced, of the formation of a great purpose persevered in with stoic resolution, until, supported by pillows, and shaken by intense suffering, the trembling fingers could no longer hold the pen. It cannot fail to interest those at all acquainted with her writings, to learn how she mingled the most intense faith and devotion to her own people, with respect for the teachers of Christianity. Well as we knew her, we were quite unacquainted with her religious habits; though the odor of sanctity exhaled from all she did and said, she never assumed to be holier than others; never sought discussion; never, in her intercourse with Christians, though sometimes sorely pressed, gave utterance to a hard word or an uncharitable feeling; even when roused to plead with eloquent lips and tearful eyes the cause of her beloved Israel.

It is a beautiful picture to look upon--this young and highly endowed Jewish maiden, nurtured in the bosom of her own family, the beloved of her parents,--themselves high-class Hebrews,--gifted with tastes for the beautiful in Art and Nature, and a sublime love for the true; leaving the traffic of the busy city, content with a moderate competence, soothed by the accomplishments, the graces and the devotion of that one cherished daughter, whose high pursuits and purposes never prevented the daily and hourly exercise of those domestic duties and services, which the increasing indisposition of her father demanded more and more.

Stimulated by the counsel of a judicious friend, who, while she admired the varied talents of the young girl, saw, that for any _great purpose_, they must be concentrated, Grace Aguilar prayed fervently to God that she might be enabled to do something to elevate the character of her people in the eyes of the Christian world, and--what was, and is, even more important--in their own esteem. They had, she thought, been too long satisfied to go on as they had gone during the days of their tribulation and persecution; content to amass wealth, without any purpose beyond its possession; she panted to set before them "The Records of Israel," to hold up to their admiration "The Women of Israel," those heroic women of whom any nation might be justly proud. Here was a grand purpose,--a purpose which made her heart beat high within her bosom. She knew she had to write _against_ popular feeling; she had the still more bitter knowledge that the greater number of those for whom she contended, cared little, and thought less, of the CAUSE to which she was devoted, heart and soul. But what large mind was ever deterred from a great purpose by difficulties? The young Jewish girl, with few, if any, literary connections; with limited knowledge as to how she could set those things before the world; treasured up her intention for a while, and then imparted it to that mother who she felt assured would support her in whatever design was high and holy. Her mother exulted in her daughter's plan, and had faith in that daughter's power to work it out: she believed in her noble child, and thanked the God of Israel, who had put the thought into her mind. Mrs. Aguilar knew that Grace had not made religion her study only for her own personal observance and profit. She knew that she embraced its _principles_ in a widely-extended and truly liberal sense; the good of her people was her first, but not her sole, object. The Hebrew mother had frequently wept tears of joy and gratitude when she observed how her beloved child carried her practice of the holy and benevolent precepts of her faith into every act of her daily life--doing all the good her limited means permitted--finding time, in the midst of her cherished studies, and still more cherished domestic duties, and most varied occupations, to work for and instruct her poor neighbors; and, while steadily venerating and adhering to her own faith, neither inquiring nor heeding the religious opinions of the needy, whom she succored or consoled. Her young life had flowed on in bestowing and receiving blessings, and now, when her aspiring soul sought still higher objects, how could her mother, knowing her so well, doubt that she would falter or fail in her undertaking! Proofs have been for some time before the world that she did neither.

She first translated a little work from the French, called "Israel Defended;" she tried her pinions in "The Magic Wreath," and, feeling her mental strength, soared upwards in the cause of her people; she wrote "Home Influence," and "The Spirit of Judaism." But the triumphant spirit was, ere long, clogged by the body's weakness. In the spring of 1838, she was attacked by measles, and from that illness she never perfectly recovered. Soon, she commenced the work that of itself is sufficient to create and crown a reputation--"The Women of Israel." But while her mental powers increased in strength and activity, she became subject to repeated attacks of bodily prostration; and her once round and graceful form was but a shadow. The physician recommended change of air and scene: and sometimes she rallied, but there was no permanent improvement. Music was still, as it had ever been, her solace and delight; but she was obliged to relinquish her practice of the harp, and to exercise her voice but seldom; still her spirit cried "On, on," and every hour she could command was devoted to her pen.

"The Records of Israel," "The Women of Israel," and "The Jewish Faith," separately and together, show how, heart and soul, she labored in the cause she had so emphatically made her own. The first publication relating so particularly to her own people, met with but a cool reception from the English Jews; but in America (where the Hebrews enjoy perfect equality with their Christian brethren) they hailed this rising star with joy, and looked anxiously for its meridian. Letters and congratulations came to her across the Atlantic; and those who had read only her fugitive pieces, were astonished at the concentrated zeal and pious energy which animated her when writing of the Hebrews.

A little "History of the English Jews," published by the Messrs. Chambers, is perhaps superior to her other writings in style and finish--the sentences are more condensed--the information more full of interest. It was, we believe, her last labor of love, and she greatly rejoiced in its publication. When it was finished, she had resolved to visit the German baths, and enjoy, as much as her increased debility permitted, the society of her eldest brother, who at the time was studying music (the art in which he now so much excels) at Frankfort. Her youngest brother was at sea. There were times, even before her departure for Germany, that she felt as if her days were numbered; but this feeling she studiously concealed from her mother, and bore her sufferings with the sweet and placid patience which rendered it a privilege to see her and to hear her speak. At times she thought she might be spared a little longer to comfort her mother, to witness the distinction certain to reward her brother, and enjoy the reputation which now rushed upon her, especially from her own people, both here and in America.

Devotedly attached to her friends, she bitterly regretted that she could not take leave of them all; but her weakness increased daily; propped up by pillows she still continued to write, until her medical advisers expressly commanded that she should abstain from this--her "greatest and last luxury." She obeyed, though expressing her conviction that writing did her good, not harm; she frequently said that when oppressed by care, anxiety, and pain, her favorite pursuit drew her from herself, and she firmly believed that writing relieved her headaches,--and this at a period when she had grown too ill even to listen to music. But, all--all her sufferings were borne with angelic patience, as the will of her Heavenly Father, and she would console her mother with words of cheerfulness and hope.

We have said her life had in it nothing to render it remarkable; surely, we are in error, her patient, industrious, self-sacrificing life, was remarkable not only for its sanctity, its talent, and its high purpose, but for its earnest and beautiful simplicity, and perfect _womanliness_.

When the period of her departure for Germany had arrived, her friends found it difficult to bid her farewell; for they thought it would be the last time they should ever press her thin attenuated hand; but the brightness of her eyes, the hopefulness of her smile, made them hope against hope. She left England on the 16th of June, 1847, lingered in the brilliant city of Frankfort for a few weeks, and then went to the baths at Langen Schwalback. She persevered in her use of the baths and mineral waters, but they afforded no relief; she was seized one night with violent spasms, and the next day was removed to Frankfort. Convinced that recovery was now impossible, she calmly and collectedly awaited the coming of death: and though all power of speech was gone, she was able to make her wants and wishes known by conversing on her fingers. Her great anxiety was to soothe her mother; though her tongue refused to perform its office, those wasted fingers would entreat her to be patient, and trust in God. She would name some cherished verse in the Bible, or some dearly-loved psalm, that she desired might be read aloud. The last time her fingers moved it was to spell upon them feebly, "_Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him_;" when they could no longer perform her will, her loving eyes would seek her mother and then look upwards, intimating that they should meet hereafter. Amen!

Her death occasioned deep regret among the Hebrews both in Europe and America: foreign tabernacles poured forth their lamentations, private friends gave voice to their grief in prose and poetry, and the various journals of both hemispheres spoke of her with the respect and admiration she deserved. But to those who really knew Grace Aguilar, all eulogium falls short of her deserts; and she has left a blank in her particular walk of literature, which we never expect to see filled up! Her loss to her own people is immense; she was a golden light between the Christian and the Jew; respected and admired alike by both, she drew each in charity closer to the other; she was a proof, living and illustrious, of Jewish excellence and Jewish liberality, and loyalty, and intelligence. The sling of the son of Jesse was not wielded with more power and effect against the scorner of his people, than was her pen against the giant Prejudice.

We have dwelt more than may be thought necessary on Grace Aguilar's championship of her own people, because _that_ distinguishes her from all other female authors of our time; and when writing of the "fold of Judah," there is a tone of feeling in all she has published which elevates and sustains her in a remarkable manner. In conversation, the mention of her people produced the same effect. Sometimes she seemed as one inspired; and the intense brightness of her eyes, the deep tones of her voice, the natural and unaffected eloquence of her words, when referring to the past history of the Jews,--and the positive radiance of her countenance when she spoke of the gathering of the tribes at Jerusalem, could never be forgotten by those who knew this young Jewish lady. In time, as we have said, her own people estimated her as she deserved. She received a very beautiful address from some of the "women of Israel" before she left this country for Germany. Among her works of a more general nature, "Home Influence" is perhaps the most popular; and its sequel, "The Mother's Recompense," though only lately published, was written as far back as the year 1836. "The Vale of Cedars" is a tale of Jewish faith and Jewish suffering, founded on singular facts that came to her knowledge through some of her own people: the arrangement of the story was difficult, as it is always difficult to embellish what is simple and dignified, without destroying its effect and beauty--but, as we have said, whenever Grace touched upon her own people, she wrote and spoke as one inspired; she condensed and spiritualized, and all her thoughts and feelings were steeped in the essence of celestial love and truth. We are persuaded that had this young woman lived in the perilous times of persecution, she would have gone to the stake for her faith's sake, and died praying for her murderers. And this heroism was not only for the great trials of life; she was also a heroine in her endurance of small sufferings, and petty annoyances, deeming it sinful to manifest impatience, and thinking it right to be afflicted.

Grace Aguilar had earnestly desired that we should have met her at Frankfort; and the only letter we received from her after her arrival there, was full of the pleasant hope that we should meet again--in that cheerful city; this was however impossible; but when we knew that we should see her no more in this world, we promised ourselves a pilgrimage to her grave: and over all the plans which mingled with our dreams of the splendid churches and vast cathedrals we were to see in Germany, would come a vision of Grace Aguilar's quiet grave in the Jewish burying-ground of Frankfort-on-the-Main; and all the reality of the animated handsome city, its merchant palaces in the _Zeil_, and _Neue Mainzer Strasse_, its old _Dom_, so full of interest, with its fine monument of Rudolph of Sachsenhausen, beside which you cannot but recall the time when St. Bernard preached the crusade within its walls,--not even when we stood alone beneath the roof of St. Leonhard's Church, and knew that there once stood the Palace of Charlemagne,--not there--nor anywhere--could we forget that we had vowed a pilgrimage to the grave of "the lost star of the house of Judah."

How wild and inharmonious is the mingling of sights, as you whirl through continental cities! Heroic monuments--dark and deep dungeons--magnificent palaces--pictures--flowers--instruments of torture--delicious operas--all crowded together into a few short days!

We had not failed to remember that the brilliant city of Frankfort was the cradle of the Rothschilds; and it had been suggested that before we visited the Jews' burying-ground, we should see "The Jews' Quarter," to look upon the house where the "very rich man was born," and where his mother chose to live to the end of her many days, preferring, wise woman that she was, to dwell to the last amongst her own people; yet living, we believe, long enough to know that her grandson represented in Parliament the first city of the modern world: and so became a practical illustration of the altered position of the Jews in the middle of the nineteenth century--sheltered under the vine and fig-tree that flourishes in England.

In few of the German cities did the Jews endure more persecution than in the _free_ city of Frankfort. During the past century the gates of the quarter to which they were confined, were closed upon them at an early hour, and egress and ingress were alike denied. In 1796 Marshal Jourdan, in bombarding the town, knocked down the gate of the Jews' quarter, and laid several houses in ruin; they have not since been replaced. Another tyrannical law, not repealed until 1834, restricted the number of Hebrew marriages in the city to thirteen yearly. It would seem, however, that, like the mother of the Rothschilds, the people continue to dwell in their own quarter from choice, not necessity; and well it is for the lover of the picturesque and for the antiquary that they do so. A ramble in the Jews' quarter at Frankfort might well repay a journey from London; it is like going back to the fourteenth century, and meeting the people you read of in history far gone. Imagine the narrowest possible streets through which a carriage can drive, flanked at either side by houses so high that the blue sky above becomes an idea rather than a reality; story after story, with windows of ancient construction, small and narrow, inclosed by iron gratings, from which frequently depended portions of many-colored draperies; garments for sale, which might have been of the spoil of the Egyptian; strong swords and all kinds of weapons, rust-worn; bunches of keys, whose handles would drive an antiquary distracted by their elaborate workmanship; dresses of all countries and all fashions, fez caps, and old but costly turbans. The rich balconies of the most exquisite design, however time-worn; the _jalousies_, sometimes within, sometimes without the windows; the Atlantes, supporting entablatures; lost none of their effect from being half draped by a scarlet mantle or variegated scarf of Barbary. Numbers of the houses were profusely ornamented at intervals by ball-flowers in the hollow mouldings, and balustrades, supporting carved copings. Then above the doors, some of which evidently led to an inner court or a mysterious-looking passage, was inserted the most exquisitely wrought iron-work, sufficiently beautiful to form a model for a Berlin bracelet; while from a stealthy passage peered forth the half shrouded face and illuminated eyes of dazzling brightness, of some ancient Jewess, whose long, lean, yellow fingers grasped the strong, but exquisitely moulded handle of the entrance. The doors (except the very modern ones) were all of great strength, frequently studded with nails, and the bolts, now worn and rusty, had withstood many a rude assault. We passed beneath small oriel windows, supported by richly carved stone brackets, gray and mouldering; and beside bay windows, of pure Gothic times; and when we gazed up--up--up--story after story, we saw what appeared to us more than one Belvedere, doubtless erected by some wealthy Jew as a place from whence he could overlook the city it was forbidden him to tread, or to enjoy pure air, which certainly he could not do in the densely close street beneath. Many of the brackets supporting a solitary balcony were of beautiful design, though the greater number were defaced and crumbling. We also passed several of the fan-shaped windows, so characteristic of the early German style, and here and there a quaint and fantastic _gurgoyle_; from the mouth of one depended a bunch of soiled but many colored ribbons. What a vision it seems to us now--that wonderful Jews' quarter of the bright and busy city of Frankfort!--a vision of some far-off Oriental Pompeii, repeopled in a dream! Never did we look upon faces so keen and withered, beards so black, or eyes so bright; once we saw a curly-headed child, half naked in its swarthy beauty, throned, like a baby-king, upon a pile of yellow cushions; and once again, as we drove slowly on, a tall young girl turned up a face of scornful beauty, as if she thought we pale-faced Christians had no business there,--and those two young creatures were all we clearly observed of youthful beauty within the "Quarter."

The avenues in the outskirts of German towns contribute greatly to their interest,--they protect from both sun and wind. We drove leisurely along that which leads to the Cemetery of Frankfort, and turned up a narrower road, that we might enter the walled-off portion of ground appropriated as the Jews' burying-ground. Nothing can exceed the beauty of the view from the gate of entrance. The city is spread out in the valley like a panorama; the brightest sunshine illumined the scene; a girl was seated beneath the branches of a spreading tree in the distance; she was a garland-weaver, and there she spent her days weaving garlands, which the living bought from her to place on the graves of their departed friends. The gates were open. Mrs. Aguilar had told us that HER grave was near the wall of the Protestant burying-ground--and there we found it.

The head stone which marks the spot, bears upon it a butterfly and five stars, and beneath is the inscription:

"Give her of the fruits of her hands, and let her own works praise her in the gates."--PROV. Chap. xxxi., 31.

Our pilgrimage was accomplished. It was, though in a foreign city, a pilgrimage to an English Shrine--for it was to the grave of an English woman--pure and good. On the 16th of September, 1847, at the early age of thirty-one, Grace Aguilar was laid in that cemetery, far from the England she loved so well--the bowl was broken, the silver cord was loosed!

We cannot conclude this tribute to the memory of one we loved, respected, and admired, without extracting a portion of an address presented to her by several young Jewish ladies, before her departure for Germany. Had the gift which accompanied it been of the richest and rarest jewels, and offered by the princes of this earthly world, it could not have been as acceptable as it was, coming from the hearts and hands of the maidens of her own faith.

We would simply add that the address is a proof, if proof were needed, that Jewish ladies not only feel and appreciate what is refined, and high, and holy, but know how to express their feelings beautifully and well. Its orientalism does not detract from its pure and sweet simplicity:

"DEAR SISTER:--Our admiration of your talents, our veneration for your character, our gratitude for the eminent services your writings render our sex, our people, our faith,--in which the sacred cause of true religion is embodied, all these motives combine to induce us to intrude on your presence, in order to give utterance to sentiments which we are happy to feel, and delighted to express. Until you arose, it has, in modern times, never been the case, that a woman in Israel should stand forth, the public advocate of the faith of Israel, that with the depth and purity which is the treasure of woman, and the strength of mind and extensive knowledge that form the pride of man, she should call on her own to cherish, on others to respect, the truth as it is in Israel. You, sister, have done this, and more. You have taught us to know and appreciate our own dignity; to feel and to prove that no female character can be more pure than that of the Jewish maiden, none more pious than that of the women in Israel. You have vindicated our social and spiritual equality in the faith; you have, by your excellent example, triumphantly refuted the aspersion that the Jewish religion leaves unmoved the heart of the Jewish woman,--while your writings place within our reach those higher motives, those holier consolations, which flow from the spirituality of our religion, which urge the soul to commune with its Maker, and direct it to His grace and His mercy, as the best guide and protector here and hereafter."

We can say nothing of Grace Aguilar more eloquently or beautifully true; it is the just acknowledgment of a large debt from the Women of Israel to a holy and good sister, who, having done much to destroy prejudice, and to inculcate charity, merits the thanks of the true Christian as much as of the conscientious Jew.

FOOTNOTES:

[I] Grace Aguilar's family fled to England to escape Spanish and Portuguese persecutions, and some of them found homes and fortunes in the West Indies. Her mother's name was Diaz Fernandes.

[J] Her family were of the tribe of Judah. Of the original twelve tribes two only are at present are known: the tribe of Judah, the fourth son of Jacob and Leah, and the tribe of Benjamin, the youngest son of Jacob and Rachel. The other tribes revolted from Rehoboam, A.M. 2964, when there were two separate kingdoms, A.M. 3205, when the ten tribes were made captives by Shalmaneser, king of Assyria. The ten tribes have never since been heard of; but the Israelites believe they are in existence, and will be gathered "from all the nations whither the Lord our God hath scattered them." The Spanish and Portuguese Jews are of the tribe of Judah. The German Jews are of the tribe of Benjamin.

From Frazer's Magazine.

THE CLOISTER-LIFE OF THE EMPEROR CHARLES V.--PART. II.

To be lodged in the monastic palace of Yuste was a distinction which queen Mary of Hungary shared with one, and only one, of the visitors of her brother. The personage whom the imperial eremite delighted thus to honor was Francisco Borja, who a few years before had exchanged his dukedom of Gandia for the robe of the order of Jesus. In his brilliant youth, this remarkable man had been the star and pride of the nobility of Spain. Heir of a great and wealthy house, which was a branch of the royal line of Aragon, and which had given two pontiffs to Rome, he was distinguished no less by the favor of the emperor than by the splendor of his birth, the graces of his person, and the endowments of his mind. Born to be a soldier and a courtier, he was also an accomplished scholar, and no inconsiderable statesman. He broke horses and trained hawks as well as the most expert master of the menage and the mews; he composed masses, which long kept their place in the cathedral-choirs of Spain; he was well versed in polite learning, and deeply read in the mathematics; he served in Africa and Italy with distinction; and as viceroy of Catalonia he displayed abilities for business and administration which in a few years would have enabled him to rival the fame of Mendoza and De Lannoy. The pleasures and the honors of the world, however, seemed, even from the first, to have but slender attraction for the man so rarely fitted to obtain them. In the midst of life and its triumphs, his thoughts perpetually turned upon death and its mysteries. Ever punctilious in the performance of his religious duties, he early began to take delight in spiritual contemplation, and to discipline his mind by self-imposed penance. Even in his favorite sport of falconry, he sought occasion for self-punishment by resolutely fixing his eyes on the ground at the moment when he knew that his best hawk was about to stoop upon the heron. These tendencies were fixed by an incident which followed the death of the empress Isabella. As her master of the horse, it was Borja's duty to attend the body from Toledo to the chapel-royal of the cathedral of Granada, and to make oath of its identity ere it was laid in the grave. But when the coffin was opened, and the cerements drawn aside, the progress of decay was found to have been so rapid, that the mild and lovely face of Isabella could no longer be recognized by the most trusted and most faithful of her servants. His conscience would not allow him to swear, that the mass of corruption thus disclosed was the remains of his royal mistress, but only that having watched day and night beside it, he felt convinced that it was the same form which he had seen wrapped in its shroud at Toledo. From that moment, in the twenty-ninth year of his prosperous life, he resolved to spend what remained to him of time in earnest preparation for eternity. A few years later, the death of his beautiful and excellent wife strengthened his purpose, and snapped the dearest tie which bound him to the world. Having completed the Jesuits' college at Gandia, their first establishment of that kind in Europe, and having married his son and his two daughters, he put his affairs in order and retired into the young and still struggling society of Ignatius Loyola. In the year 1548, the thirty-eighth of his age, he ceased to be duke of Gandia, and became father Francis of the Company of Jesus.

Borja did not appear at Yuste as a chance or uninvited guest. Charles seems to have regarded him with an affection as strong as his cold nature was capable of entertaining. It was with no ordinary interest that he watched the career of the man whom alone he had chosen to make the confidant of his intended abdication, and who had unexpectedly forestalled him in the execution of the scheme. They were now in circumstances in some respects similar, in others widely different. Both had voluntarily descended from the eminence of their hereditary fortunes. Broken in health and spirits, the emperor had come to Yuste to rest and to die. The duke, on the other hand, in the full vigor of his age, had entered the humblest of the religious orders, to work out his salvation in a course of self-denial and toil, ending only in the grave. His career in the Company began with severe theological study, from which he passed to the pulpit and the professor's chair. As provincial of Aragon and Andalusia, he had been for some time laboring as a preacher, and teacher in various cities of Spain; he had founded colleges at Plasencia and Seville; and he was now delivering lectures at Alcala, in the college which Jesuit energy soon raised to be the stately pile which still forms one of the most prominent ruins of that Palmyra of universities.

It seems to have been in the early spring of the year 1557, that the emperor determined to send for his old companion and counsellor. The message was conveyed to Alcala by a servant of the count of Oropesa. Borja at first excused himself, pleading ill-health and the duties of his calling; and it was not until he had received a second summons, from the mouth of the duke of Medina-Celi, that he consented to go to Yuste. On the way he was met by a messenger, bearing a letter from the regent Juana, which advised him that her father's object in seeking an interview was to persuade him to pass from the Company into the order of St. Jerome. He arrived at the monastery early in December, attended by two brothers of the order, father Marcos, and father Bartolome Bustamente, the latter known to fame as a scholar, and as architect of the noble hospital of St. John Baptist at Toledo. The emperor not only paid his guest the unusual compliment of lodging him in his own quarters, but even busied himself in making preparations for his reception. To make his chamber as comfortable as conventual austerity would permit, Luis Quixada had hung it with some tapestry which remained in the meagre imperial wardrobe. But this his master, judging that it would rather offend than please the visitor, caused him to take down, supplying its place with some black cloth, of which he despoiled the walls of his own cell.

The royal recluse received the noble missionary with a cordiality which was more foreign to his nature than to his habits, but which on this occasion was probably sincere. Both had withdrawn themselves from the pomps and vanities of life; but, custom being stronger than reason or faith, their greeting was as ceremonious as if it had been exchanged beneath the canopy of state at Augsburg or Valladolid. Not only did the Jesuit, lapsing into the grandee, kneel to kiss the hand of Charles, but he even insisted on remaining upon his knees during the interview. Charles, who addressed him as duke, of course frequently entreated him to rise and be seated, but in vain. "I humbly beg your majesty," said he, "to suffer me to continue kneeling; for I feel," he added, in a spirit of extravagant loyalty, "as if, in the presence of your majesty, I were in the presence of God himself."

Being aware of his host's intentions with regard to himself and his habit, he anticipated them, by asking permission to give an account of his life since he made religious profession, and of the reasons which had led him to join the Jesuits,--"of which matters," he said, "I will speak to your majesty as I would speak to my Maker, who knows that all that I am going to say is true." Leave being granted, he narrated, at great length, how, being resolved to enter a monastic order, he had prayed, and caused many masses to be said, for God's guidance in making his choice; how, at first, he inclined to the rule of St. Francis, but found that, whenever his thoughts went in that direction, he was seized with an unaccountable melancholy; how he turned his eyes to the other orders, one after another, and always with the same gloomy result; how, on the contrary, when it at last occurred to him to join the Company, the Lord had filled his soul with peace and joy; how it frequently happened in the great orders that churchmen arrived at higher honors in this life than if they had remained in the world, a chance which he desired by all means to shun, and which was hardly offered in a recent and humble fraternity, still in the furnace of trial through which the others had long ago passed; how the Company, by embracing in its scheme the active as well as the contemplative life, provided for the spiritual welfare of men of the most opposite characters, and of each man in the various stages of his mental being; and lastly, how he had submitted these reasons to several grave and holy fathers of the other orders, and had received their approval and blessing before he took the vows which for ten years had been the hope and consolation of his life.

The emperor listened to this long narrative with attention, and expressed his satisfaction at hearing his friend's history from his own lips. "For," said he, "I felt great surprise when I received at Augsburg your letter from Rome, notifying the choice you had made of a religious brotherhood. And I still think, that a man of your weight ought to have entered an order which had been approved by age rather than this new one, in which no white hairs are found, and which besides, in some quarters, bears but an indifferent reputation." To this Borja replied, that in all institutions, even in Christianity itself, the purest piety and the noblest zeal were to be found near the source; that had he been aware of any evil in the Company, he would never have joined, or he would already have quitted it; and that, in the matter of white hairs, though it was hard to expect that the children should be old while the parent was still young, even these were not wanting, as might be seen in his companion, the father Bustamente. That ecclesiastic, who had begun his novitiate at the age of sixty, was accordingly called into the presence. The emperor at once recognized him as a priest who had been sent to his court at Naples, soon after the campaign of Tunis, charged with an important mission by Cardinal Tavera, primate of Spain.

Three hours of discourse with these able, earnest, and practised champions of Jesuitism appear to have had their natural influence on the mind of Charles. He hated innovation with the hate of a king, a devotee, and an old man; and having fought for forty years a losing battle against the reform of the terrible monk of Saxony, he looked with suspicion even upon the great orthodox movement, led by the soldier of Guipuzcoa. The infant Company, although, or perhaps because, in favor at the Vatican, had gained no footing in the imperial court; and as its fame grew, the prelates around the throne, sons or friends of the ancient orders, were more likely to remind their master, that its general had been once admonished by the holy office of Toledo, than to dwell on his piety and eloquence, or on the splendid success of his missions in the East. But from his ancient servant and brother in arms, in the quiet shades of Yuste, Charles heard a different tale, which seems to have changed his feelings towards the Jesuits, from distrust and dislike, to approval and friendly regard.

Sometimes the talk of the emperor and his guest was of old times, and of their former selves. "Do you remember," said Charles, "how I told you in 1542, at Moncon," during the holding of the Cortes of Aragon, "of my intention of abdicating the throne? I spoke of it to only one person besides." The Jesuit replied that he had kept the secret truly, but that now he hoped he might mention the mark of confidence with which he had been honored. "Yes," said Charles; "now that the thing is done, you may say what you will."

One of the emperor's most curious and interesting revelations to Borja, was the fact that he had composed memoirs of a part of his reign. He asked if the father thought that a man's writing an account of his own actions savored too much of vanity; and said, that he had drawn up a notice of his various campaigns and travels, not with any view to vain-glory, but in order that the truth might be known; for he had observed in the works of the historians of his time, that they were led into error, as much by ignorance, as by passion and prejudice. What judgment Borja delivered upon this case of conscience does not appear. Nor is the fate of the memoirs known. But the work cannot have been large, having been composed to beguile time spent in sailing down the Rhine from Mayence. Van Male, to whose letters we owe our knowledge of this fact, and who was employed to translate his master's French into Latin, praises the terseness and elegance of the style. This translation was spoken of, in 1560, by Ruscelli, in a letter addressed to Philip II., as soon to be published; and Brantome wonders why so excellent a speculation could have been neglected by the booksellers. It is plain, therefore, that Borja is not to be blamed for the loss, if they are indeed lost, of the precious commentaries of the Caesar of Castile. And indeed, though a saint, and an advocate for the mortification of all worldly desires, he was hardly capable of advising the imperial author to put his manuscript in one of his Flemish fireplaces. The stern ascetic had not quite cast off, or, at least, on occasion he could reassume, the ways and language of the insinuating chamberlain. To one of the devout queries of the emperor, he replied in a style of courtly gallantry, which sounds strange in the mouth of the friend of Francis Xavier, and would have done honor to a later Jesuit, who labored in the vineyard of Versailles. Narrating the course of his penances and prayers, Charles asked him whether he could sleep with his clothes on; "for, I must confess," added he, contritely, "that my infirmities, which prevent me from doing many things of the kind that I would gladly do, render this penance impossible in my case." Borja, who practised every kind of self-punishment, and had in early life in one year fasted down a cubit of his girth, eluded the question by an answer, which was perhaps as remarkable for modesty as for dexterity. "Your majesty," said he, "cannot sleep in your clothes, because you have watched so many nights in mail. Let us thank God that you have done more service by keeping those vigils in arms, than many a cloistered monk who sleeps in his hair-shirt."

The new allegiance of the Jesuit did not permit him to spare more than three days to his old master. Duty required him once more to take his staff in his hand, and proceed on his visitation of the rising schools and colleges of the company. While at Yuste he had been treated with marked distinction. Not only did his host arrange the upholstery of his apartment, but he sent him each day the most approved dish from his own table, the only part of his establishment which was somewhat removed from conventual meagerness. The honored guest set forth to Valladolid, with the pleasing impression that he left regrets behind him; and he likewise carried away two hundred ducats for alms, which Luis Quixada had been directed to force upon his acceptance. "It is a small sum," said the mayordomo; "but in comparison with the present revenues of my lord the emperor, it is the largest bounty which he ever bestowed at one time."

John III., king of Portugal, dying on the 11th of June, 1557, state or family affairs required Charles to send a trusty messenger to his sister, the widowed queen Catherine. He immediately bethought him of his cousin and counsellor, the Jesuit, whose order had early gained the ear of the deceased monarch, and who himself enjoyed the friendship and confidence of all that remained of the house of Avis. Borja received the summons at Simancas, where he had founded a small establishment, and whither he loved to escape from the court of Valladolid, to unstinted penance and prayer. The sun of July had begun to scorch the naked plains of the Duero, and the good father was in poor health. Nevertheless, he repaired to Yuste and received his instructions; and then scorning repose in the cool woodlands, at once took the road to Portugal across the charred wastes of Estremadura. This haste, and the heat, threw him into a fever, of which he nearly died in the city of Evora; and when once more able to resume his journey, he was nearly lost, in a squall, in crossing the Tagus to Lisbon. His mission accomplished, he eluded the nursing of the queen and the Cardinal Henry, and hurried back to Yuste, where he probably arrived early in September.

The usual gracious reception awaited him. The nature of his business in Portugal has not been recorded by his biographers. But he seems to have conducted it to the emperor's satisfaction. It was on this occasion, or the last, that Charles returned certain letters addressed to him, by Father Francis, on the politics and politicians of the day, and written at his request, and on condition of close secresy. "You may be sure," said he, on restoring them, "that no one but I have seen them." The confidence thus reposed in the judgment and observation of the Jesuit, by the shrewdest prince of the age, shows how keenly the things of earth may be scanned by eyes which seem wholly fixed on heaven.

The emperor likewise told him of a dispute between two nobles, which had been referred to him for decision, and on which he desired his opinion, because he probably knew on whose side the right lay. The dispute was about a title to certain lands, and the parties were Borja's son, Charles, then duke of Gandia, and Don Alonso de Cardona, admiral of Aragon. Thus appealed to, the father behaved with that stoical indifference to the voice of blood which somewhat shocked his lay admirers, and commanded the loud applause of his reverend biographers. "I know not," he said, "whose cause is the just one; but I pray your majesty not only not to allow the admiral to be wronged, but to show him all the favor compatible with equity." On the emperor's expressing some not unnatural surprise, this Cato of the company offered the very poor explanation of his request, that, perhaps, the admiral needed the disputed lands more than the duke, and that it was good to assist the necessitous.

Borja paid a fourth and last visit in the following year, 1558, to the monastery. He was sent for by the emperor for the benefit of his spiritual counsels, possibly after he had been attacked by his closing illness. For within a few days after the minister's return to Valladolid, tidings reached the court that the invalid was no more. During his brief sojourn at Yuste, his holy conversation and example awakened the religious zeal of Magdalena de Ulloa, the wife of the mayordomo, Quixada. The good seed thus chance-sown by the wayside sprang up in after years, bearing abundant fruit for the company in the three colleges founded and endowed by that devout lady at Villagarcia, Santander, and Oviedo. Almost a century after his visits, the fame of the third general of the Jesuits lingered in the country around Yuste. In 1650, the centenarian of Guijo, a neighboring village, used to tell how he had seen the emperor and the Count of Oropesa on the road to Xarandilla, and to point out a great tree, under which they had partaken of a repast, and he, a child, had been permitted to pick up the crumbs. But of the individual impressions left on his memory by that remarkable group, none had endured for the third generation, except "the meek and penitent face of him they called the saintly duke,"--"_el duque santo_."

In such occupations and in such companionship noiselessly glided away the cloister life of Charles V. The benefit which his health had reaped from the fine air of Yuste, was but transient. It began to decline rapidly in the spring of 1558, after the death of queen Eleanor, to whom he was tenderly attached. He caused funeral rites to be performed in her honor, in the church of the monastery, with all the pomp of light and music that the brotherhood could command. Indeed, funeral services were, in some sort, the festivals of his lugubrious life; for whenever he received intelligence of the death of a prince of the blood, or a knight of the Golden Fleece, he caused his obsequies to be celebrated by the Jeromites. He was also very mindful of the souls of his deceased friends, and the masses which were offered day by day up for himself were preceded by some for his father, his mother, and his wife.

As his infirmities increased, his prayers grew longer, and his penances more severe. He wrapped his emaciated body in hair-cloth, and flogged it with scourges, which were afterwards found in his cell, stained with his blood. Restless and sleepless, he would roam, ghost-like, through the corridors of the convent, and call up the drowsy monks for the midnight services of the church. Once he was asked by a slugglish novice, whose slumbers he had broken, why he could not be satisfied with turning the world upside down, but must also disturb the peace and rest which it was reported he had come to seek at Yuste.

From all secular things and persons he kept entirely aloof. Of the events then passing in the world, nothing stirred his curiosity or his interest but the ruthless crusade against heresy, led by Cardinal Valdes, the fiercest inquisitor since the days of Torquemada. For the great northern Reformation had made itself felt, though with feeble and transient effect, even in Spain,--as the Lisbon earthquake troubled the waters of Lochlomond. Strange questions were stirred in the schools of Alcala and Salamanca; new doctrines were taught from the pulpits of Seville and Valladolid; wool-clad wolves were said to lurk even in the folds of St. Francis and St. Dominic; and Lutheran traders ran casks of heretical tracts upon the shores of the bay of Cadiz. Amongst the persons arrested at Valladolid was Dr. Augustin Cazalla, canon of Salamanca, who had been one of the emperor's preachers, and as such, had resided, from 1546 to 1552, at the imperial court in Germany. Though he had distinguished himself in the land of the Reformation by sermons against its doctrines, and had returned to Spain with untarnished orthodoxy, he was accused not only with being infected with Lutheran principles, but of having "dogmatized," as the inquisition happily called preaching, in a conventicle at Valladolid. Charles was much moved when he heard of his arrest, not with pity for the probable fate of the man, but with horror of his crime. "Father," said he to the prior, "if there be any thing which could drag me from this retreat, it would be to aid in chastising heretics. For such creatures as these, however, this is not necessary; but I have written to the inquisition to burn them all, for none of them will ever become true Catholics, or are worthy to live." This recommendation, seldom neglected, was exactly observed in the case of the poor chaplain. Denying the offence of dogmatizing, he confessed having held heretical opinions, and offered to abjure them. Nevertheless he was "relaxed," or in secular speech, burnt, with thirteen companions, at Valladolid, in the presence of the princess-regent and her court.

A more illustrious victim of the holy office was Constantine Ponce de la Fuente, canon of Seville, and famous both as a pulpit orator, and as author of several theological works, which were much esteemed in Italy as well as Spain. He, too, had attended the emperor in Germany, as his preacher and almoner. For him Charles seemed to entertain more respect; for upon hearing that he had been committed to the castle of Triana, he remarked, "If Constantine is a heretic, he will prove a great one." The canon's "merits," for so the inquisition, with a sort of grim humor, called the acts or opinions which qualified a man for the stake, were certain heretical treatises in his handwriting, which had been dug with his other papers out of a wall. Confessing to the proscribed doctrines, but refusing to name his disciples, he was thrown into a dungeon, damp and noisome as Jeremiah's pit, far below the level of the Guadalquivir, where a dysentery soon delivered him from his chains. "Yet did not his body," says the historian[K] of Spanish literature, writing several ages after, with all the bitterness of a contemporary, "for this escape the avenging flames." His bones, and a carefully modelled effigy of him, with outstretched arms, as he charmed the crowd from the pulpits of Seville, figured at the _auto-da-fe_ which, in 1560, illuminated the burning-place, the _quemadero_, of that city. Another sufferer there, Fray Domingo de Guzman, was also known to the emperor. His arrest, however, merely drew from him the contemptuous remark, that fray Domingo might have been shut up as much for idiocy as for heresy.

In looking back on the religious troubles of his reign, Charles bitterly regretted that he did not put Luther to death when he was in his power. He had spared him, he said, on account of his pledged word, which, indeed, he would have been bound to respect had the offences of Luther merely concerned his own authority; but he now saw that he had erred, in preferring the obligation of his promise to the greater duty of avenging upon that arch-heretic his offences against God. Had Luther been removed, he conceived the plague might have been stayed: now, it was going on from bad to worse. He had some consolation, however, in recollecting how steadily he refused to hear the points at issue argued in his presence. At this price he had declined to purchase the support of some of the protestant princes of the empire, when marching against the duke of Saxony and the landgrave of Hesse; he had declined it even when flying, with only ten horsemen, before the army of duke Maurice. He knew how dangerous it was, especially for those who, like himself, had little learning, to parley with heretics, who were armed with reasons so apt and so well ordered. Suppose one of their arguments had been planted in his soul; how did he know that he could ever have got it rooted out? So have many better men of every form of faith learned to look upon their belief as something external to themselves, to be kept hid away in the dark, lest, like ice, it should melt in the free air and light of heaven.

The grave was now in all his thoughts. One morning, his barber, a malapert of the old comedies, ventured to ask him what he was thinking of. "I am thinking," replied Charles, "that I have here a sum of two thousand crowns, which I cannot employ better than in performing my funeral." "Do not let that trouble your Majesty," rejoined the fellow; "if you die and we live, we will take care to bury you with all honors." "You do not perceive, Nicolas," said the emperor, rather pursuing his own train of thought than replying to the barber, "that it makes a difference in a man's walking, if he holds the light before or behind him." The same opinion had been held by a bishop of Liege, Cardinal Erard de la Mark, whom Charles must have known, and whose example perhaps suggested the idea. For many years before 1558, the year of his death, did this prelate rehearse his obsequies, annually carrying his coffin to the tomb which he had prepared for himself in his cathedral.

Before deciding on the step, however, the emperor determined to submit the question to his confessor, Fray Juan de Regla. They had just been hearing the service for the souls of his parents and his wife. Speaking of such rites in general, he asked the friar if they were most effectual when performed before, or when performed after, death. Fray Juan, after due deliberation, gave his verdict in favor of solemnities which preceded decease. "Then," said the emperor, "I will have my funeral performed while I am still alive."

Accordingly, this celebrated service took place next day, being the 30th of August, 1558. So short a time being allowed for the preparations, they cannot have severely drained the bag of dollars, which Nicholas the barber wished to reserve for other purposes. A wooden monument, however, was erected in the chapel in front of the high altar; the ornaments of the convent were brought out and arranged to the best advantage; and the whole was illuminated with a blaze of wax-lights. The household of the emperor, all in deep mourning attended; and thither Luis Quixada brought Don Juan, from his sports in the forest, to learn his first lesson of the vanity of human greatness. "The pious monarch himself," says the historian of the Jeromites, "was there, in sable weeds, and bearing a taper, to see himself interred, and to celebrate his own obsequies." And when the solemn mass for the defunct was sung, he came forward and gave his taper into the hands of the officiating priest, in token of his desire to yield his soul into the hands of his Maker. High above, over the kneeling throng, and the gorgeous vestments, the flowers, and the incense, and the glittering altar--the same idea shone forth in that splendid canvas of Titian, which pictured Charles kneeling on the threshold of the heavenly mansion.

When the dirge was sung, and the ceremonies over, and Charles had, as it were, come back for a little while to life, he told his confessor that he felt the better for being buried. Of a scene which might well have shaken the nerves of the boldest hunter on the Sierra, he said next day, that it had filled his soul with joy and consolation that seemed to react upon his body. That evening he caused to be brought, from the repository where his few valuables were kept, a portrait of the empress, and hung for some time, lost in thought, over the gentle face, which, in its blue eyes, auburn hair, and pensive beauty, somewhat resembled the noble countenance of that other Isabella, the great queen of Castile. He next called for a picture of our Lord praying in the Garden; and after long gazing, passed from that to a Last Judgment, by Titian. Perhaps this was a sketch or small copy of the great altar-piece, or it may be that he turned to the original itself, which could be seen by opening the window, through which his bedchamber commanded a view of the altar. Having looked his last upon the image of the wife of his youth; it seemed as if he were now bidding farewell, in the contemplation of this masterpiece, to the noble art which he loved with a love that years, and cares, and sickness could not quench, and that will ever be remembered with his better fame. He remained so long abstracted and motionless, that the physician who was on the watch thought it right to awake him from his reverie. On being spoken to, he turned round and said, "I feel myself ill." The doctor felt his pulse, and pronounced him in a fever. He was seated at the moment in the open gallery, to the west of his apartments, into which the sinking sun poured his tempered splendor through the boughs of the great walnut-tree. From this pleasant spot, filled with the fragrance of the garden and the murmur of the fountain, and bright with glimpses of the golden Vera, they carried him to the gloomy chamber of his sleepless nights, and laid him on the bed from which he was to rise no more.

His old enemy, the gout, had not troubled him for several days. The disorder with which he was now attacked was a tertian fever, likewise a malady familiar to his shattered frame. The fits now were of unusual violence, the cold fit lasting twice as long as the hot. His physician twice attempted to relieve him by bleeding, but the operation seemed rather to augment than allay the violence of the disease. Being sensible that his hour was come, and wishing to add a codocil to his will, he dispatched a messenger to Valladolid, to the regent Juana, requiring an authorization for his secretary Gaztelu to act as a notary for the purpose. The princess, seeing the imminence of the danger, along with the authorization, instantly sent off her physician, Cornelio, to Yuste, while she herself prepared to follow. It is possible that she also sent father Borja, to pay a last visit of consolation to his friend.

The emperor had made his will at Brussels, on the 6th of June, 1554. The codocil is dated at Yuste, the 9th of September, 1558. From the great length of this document, its minuteness, and the frequent recurrence of provisions in case of his death before he should see his son, an event which now was beyond hope, it seems to have been prepared some time before. But as it must have been read to him before his trembling hand affixed the necessary signature, it remains as a proof that one of his last acts was to urge Philip II., by his love and allegiance, and his hope of salvation, to take care that "the heretics were repressed and chastised, with all publicity and rigor, as their faults deserved, without respect of persons, and without regard to any plea in their favor." The rest of the paper is filled with directions for his funeral, and with a list of legacies to forty-eight servants, and many thoughtful arrangements for the comfort of those who had followed him from Flanders. Though willing to send all his Protestant subjects to martyrdom, he watched with fatherly kindness over the fortunes of his grooms and scullions. It is said that Fray Juan de Regla proposed that Don Juan of Austria should be named in the will as next heir to the crown after Philip, his sister, and his children; but if this incredible advice were given by the confessor, the dying man had energy enough left to reject it with indignation.

Day by day the tide of life continued to ebb with visible fall. The sick man, however, was still able to attend to his devotions, to confess, and to receive the sacrament. He would not allow his confessor, Regla, to be absent from his bedside, and the poor man, who could hardly find a moment for his repasts, was nearly worn out with incessant watching. On every Sunday and feast day, at half-past three in the afternoon, the chaplain, Villalva, preached in the church, the window of the sick-room being left open, and the doors being shut to all but the friars. The patient likewise frequently caused passages of Scripture to be read to him, and was never weary of hearing the psalm which begins, _Domine! refugium factum es nobis_. On the 19th of September, towards evening, the patient asked for the rite of extreme unction. By the desire of the prior, Luis Quixada, who was ever at his pillow, inquired whether he would have it administered according to the form for friars, or after the briefer fashion of the laity. He chose the former, in which the seven penitential psalms were read, as well as a litany and sundry prayers and verses of scripture. During the reading of the psalms, it was observed that he joined in the responses of the monks with an audible voice. When the ceremony was over, instead of being exhausted, he seemed to have been revived by it. His appetite for food having entirely failed him for some days, Quixada seized the opportunity of urging him to take some. "Trouble me not, Luis Quixada," said he; "my life is going out of me, and I cannot eat." The next morning, the 20th, he asked for the eucharist. His confessor told him that having received extreme unction, the other sacrament was unnecessary. "It may not be necessary," said the dying man; "yet it is good company on so long a journey." His wish was accordingly complied with; the wafer was brought to his bedside, followed by the whole community in solemn procession, and he received it from the hands of his confessor with tears of devotion, incessantly repeating the words of our Saviour, "_In me manes, ego in te maneam_." In spite of his extreme weakness, he remained for a quarter of an hour kneeling in his bed, and uttering devout ejaculations, in praise of the blessed sacrament, which the simple friars attributed to divine inspiration.

On the evening of the 19th of September, a remarkable visitor knocked at the gate of Yuste. It was the new Archbishop of Toledo, Bartolome Carranza de Miranda--a name which stands high on the list of the Wolseys of the world, of men remembered less for their splendid success than for their signal fall. From a simple Dominican, he had risen to be a professor at Valladolid, a leading doctor of Trent, prior of Palencia, provincial of Spain, and prime adviser of Philip II. in that movement which Spanish churchmen loved to call the reduction of England. During Mary's reign, the ruthless black friar had been a mark for popular vengeance; and Oxford, Cambridge, and Lambeth, long remembered how he had preached the sacrifice of the mass, dug up the bones of Bucer, and presided at the burning of Cranmer. For these services he had been rewarded by Philip II. with the richest see in Christendom; and he was now on his way to take possession of the throne of Toledo, little thinking that his enemy, the inquisitor Valdes, was already preparing the indictment which was to make his reign a long disgrace.

The archbishop was expected at Yuste. He had been long known to the Emperor, who had paved the way for his success by sending him to display his lore at the council of Trent. Charles had afterwards offered him the Peruvian bishopric of Cuzco, the post of confessor to the heir-apparent of Spain, and lastly, the bishopric of the Canaries. His refusal of all these pieces of preferment caused his patron some surprise, which was changed into displeasure by his acceptance of the see of Toledo. Reports had also got abroad, which cast a doubt on the orthodoxy of the new prelate,--of all doubts, as Charles thought, the gravest. He was anxious for an opportunity of conversing with him, partly, it seems, to upbraid him with his new honors, and partly in order to ascertain how far these reports were well founded. William, one of his barbers, related that he had heard his majesty say, "When I gave Carranza the bishopric of the Canaries, he refused it; now he accepts Toledo. We shall see what we are to think of his virtue." In this frame of mind, he had been expecting the unconscious prelate for some time; these feelings of dislike being, no doubt, strengthened by his confessor, father Regla, a bitter enemy, and one of the foremost accusers of Carranza.

There can be no doubt that the ruin of this celebrated man was decreed on evidence which would have been listened to only by a secret tribunal of unscrupulous enemies. It may be that some of his printed theology contained--what theology does not?--passages capable of interpretations neither intended nor foreseen by the writer; it may be that he had pillaged the writings of reformers, whose persons he would willingly have given to the flames. But it is certain that he was a man of unambitious nature, of active benevolence, and, according to the notions of that age, of exemplary life; that he was a scholar and theologian of practised and consummate skill, a wary shepherd of the faithful, a relentless butcher of heretics; that he carried his reluctance to the mitre so far beyond the bounds of decent clerical coyness, as to recommend three eminent rivals to Philip II., as more fit and proper than himself for the primacy; and that one of his first acts, as archbishop, was to advise the king to appropriate the revenues of a canonry in every cathedral in Spain to the use of the Inquisition. Setting aside, therefore, the palpable personal hatred which betrayed itself in all the proceedings against him, it seems probable that he spoke the plain truth, when he made his dying declaration, that he had never held any of the heretical opinions of which he had been accused.

In after days, when enduring the sickness of deferred hope in his prison at Valladolid or at Rome, the archbishop perhaps regarded it as one of the mischances which marked the ebb of his fortunes, that he reached Yuste too late either to explain to the emperor the circumstances of his promotion, or to remove the suspicion which had been cast on his faith. On the evening of his arrival, Charles was too ill to receive him, and the day following, although he was thrice admitted into the sick room, he found occasion to utter only a few words. Those words, few and simple as they were, were some weeks after reported to the Holy Office, with, as it seems, gross exaggeration, by the confessor, father Regla.

On the 20th of September, it was evident that the end was approaching. The few friends of the emperor who lived in the neighborhood had assembled at the convent. The count of Oropesa was there from Xarandilla, with several of the family of Toledo, and Don Luis de Avila had come from Plasencia. They, and the prior and some of the monks, were frequently in the sick-room, in which Quixada kept constant watch. The patient had hardly spoken during the whole day. In the afternoon, when Oropesa introduced the archbishop, he merely told him to be seated, but was unable to hold any conversation. Towards night he grew hourly worse. The physicians, Mathesio and Cornelio, at last announced to the group around the bed, that the resources of their art were exhausted, and that all hope was over. Cornelio, the court doctor from Valladolid, then retired; Mathesio remained, feeling the pulse of the dying man, and saying at intervals, "His majesty has only two hours to live--only one hour--only half an hour." Charles meanwhile lay in a stupor, seemingly unconscious of what was going on around him, but now and then mumbling a prayer, and turning his eyes to heaven. At last he roused himself, and pronounced the name of William Van Male. On the man's coming to his support, he leaned towards him, as if to obtain ease by a change of posture; at the same time uttering a groan of agony. The physician now looked towards the door, and said to the archbishop, who was standing there in the shade, "_Domine! jam moritur_." The prelate approached, and knelt down by the bed, holding a crucifix in his hand, and saying in a loud tone, "Behold him who answers for sin; sin is no more; all is forgiven!" Sad and swarthy of visage, Carranza had also a hoarse, disagreeable voice. On hearing it, the emperor gave signs of impatience so distinct, that the faithful Quixada thought it right to interfere and say, "Hark, my lord, you are disturbing his majesty." The archbishop took the hint, and retired.

It was near two o'clock on the morning of the 21st of September, St. Matthew's day. Fray Francisco de Villalva, the favorite chaplain, now presented himself at the bedside. Addressing the dying man, he told him how blessed a privilege he enjoyed in having been born on the day of St. Matthias, the apostle, who had been chosen by lot to complete the number of the twelve, and in being about to die on the day of St. Matthew, the evangelist, who, for Christ's sake, had forsaken wealth, as his majesty had forsaken imperial power. For some time he continued to hold forth in the same edifying strain. At length, Charles, rousing himself, said, "The time is come, bring me the candle and the crucifix." These were cherished relics, which he had kept in reserve for this supreme hour. The one was a taper from Our Lady's shrine at Monserrat; the other, a crucifix of beautiful workmanship, which before had been taken from the dead hand of his mother Juana, in the convent of Tordesillas, and which afterwards comforted the last moments of his son Philip, in the convent of the Escorial. When brought by the attendant, he turned eagerly to receive them; and taking one into each hand, he remained silent for some minutes, with his eyes fixed upon the figure of the Saviour. Those who stood nearest the bed then heard him say, quickly, as if replying to a sudden call, "_Ya voy, Senor_--Now, Lord, I go." A few moments of death-wrestle between soul and body followed; and then, with a voice loud and clear enough to be heard in the other apartments, he cried three times, "_Ay, Jesus!_" and expired.

In or near the chamber of death were assembled the prior and the chaplains, and the household; the count of Oropesa, his brother Don Francisco, his cousin, Don Juan Pacheco, and his uncle Diego abbot of Cabanas, Don Luis de Avila, and archbishop Carranza. Don Juan of Austria, too, in the quality of page to Quixada, stood by the death-bed of him he was afterwards so proud to call his sire.

On the day of the death, and part of the day following, the physicians and attendants were engaged in embalming the body, and arranging it for the grave. Meanwhile, a leaden coffin was prepared, and likewise a massive outer case of chestnut wood, and a black velvet pall to cover the whole. Sandoval had heard, but gave no credit to the story, of the coffin which the emperor was said to have brought with him to Yuste, and to have kept under his bed. Another version of the tale, he says, made the coffin a winding-sheet, but no mention of either was found in the minute account drawn up by the prior Angulo. When all was ready, the coffin was lowered, by ten or twelve men, through the window which opened from the bedchamber into the church, and placed upon a stage erected in the middle of the isle. These preparations were hardly completed, when the corregidor of Plasencia arrived with his clerks and constables, and asserted that, as the emperor had died within his jurisdiction, it was his duty to see that the remains had been deposited in a place of safety. In spite, therefore, of the remonstrances of the prior, he caused the coffins to be opened, that he might identify the body.

The solemn funeral services, or the honors, as they were called, were commenced the next day, Tuesday, the 27th of October. They were an expansion of the rites in which the emperor had himself taken part a few weeks before, and they lasted for three days. Mass was said each day by the Archbishop of Toledo, the prior of Yuste assisting as deacon, and the prior of Granada as subdeacon, amongst the tears of the whole brotherhood. Funeral services were also preached, on the first day by the eloquent Villalva, on the second by the prior of Granada, and on the third by the prior of Yuste. The imperial dust was then committed to the earth. "Let my sepulchre," said the will of Charles, "be so ordered, that the lower half of my body lie beneath, and the upper half before, the high altar, that the priest who says mass may tread upon my head and breast." But the clergy present being divided in opinion as to the lawfulness of placing under the high altar a corpse not in the odor of sanctity, the matter was compromised by laying the coffin in a cavity made in the wall behind, so that it encroached only on a small portion of the holy ground.

Funeral honors also took place in the presence of the regent and her court, in the beautiful church of the Royal Benedictines at Valladolid. A sermon was preached on the occasion by Francisco Borja, from the text, "_Ecce longavi fugiens et mansi in solitudine._"--"Lo! then would I wander afar off, and remain in the wilderness." (Psalm lv. 7.)[L] It was filled with praise of the emperor for his pious magnanimity in taking leave of the world before the world had taken leave of him--praise which, from the mouth of a Jesuit who had once been a wealthy grandee, must have savored somewhat of self-glorification. Amongst other edifying reminiscences of his friend, Borja told his hearers that he had it from the lips of the deceased, that never, since he was one-and-twenty years old, had he failed to set apart some portion of each day for inward prayer.

Brussels excelled all the other cities of the Austrian dominion in the splendor with which she did honor to the emperor's memory. The ceremonies took place on the 29th and 30th of December. The procession, in which King Philip walked, attended by the dukes of Savoy and Brunswick, and a host of the nobility of Spain, Germany, and the Netherlands, was two hours in passing from the palace to the church of St. Gudule. Its principal feature was a huge galley, large enough for marine service, placed on a cunningly devised sea, which answered the double purpose of supporting some isles, emblematic of the Indies, and of concealing the power which rolled the huge structure along. Faith, Hope, and Charity, were the crew of this enchanted bark; and her sides were hung with twelve paintings of Charles's principal exploits, which were further set forth in golden letter-press on the black satin sails. A long line of horses followed, each led by two gentlemen, and bearing on its housings the blazon of one of the states of the emperor. They were led up the aisle of the church past the altar, and the seats occupied by the order of the Golden Fleece. As the last horse, covered with a black foot-cloth, went by, the count of Bossu, one of the knights, the early playmate and dear friend of the emperor, threw himself on his knees, and remained for some time prostrated on the pavement in an agony of grief.

The chapel of Yuste was merely a temporary resting-place of the royal dead. In his will the emperor had confided the care of his bones to his son, expressing a wish, however, to be laid beside his wife and his father in the cathedral of Granada, in that splendid chapel-royal, rich with the tombs and trophies of Ferdinand and Isabella. Philip, however, shivering in the rear at St. Quentin, had already vowed to St. Lawrence the great monastery which it was his after delight to make the chief monument of the power and the piety of the house of Hapsburg. At the Escorial, therefore, he united the bones of his father and mother, and placed them, on the fourth of February, 1574, in a vault beneath the jasper shrine, which yet contains their fine effigies, wrought in bronze by Leoni. The occasion was marked by one of those terrific storms, sent, as the monks supposed, by the devil, in the hope of overthrowing that fortress of piety. A grand arch of timber, erected at the door of the church, was blown away, and its hangings of rich brocades, rent into minute shreds, were scattered far and wide over the surrounding chase. Eighty years later, the repose of the emperor was once more broken by his great-grandson, Philip IV. For thirty-three years that prince was engaged in building the celebrated Pantheon, begun by his father, Philip III. On the sixteenth of March, 1654, the dust of the Austrian kings of Spain and of their consorts who had continued the line, was translated from the plain vault of Philip II. to this splendid sepulchral chamber, which gleamed, in the light of a thousand tapers, with its marble and jasper and gold, like a creation of oriental romance. Each coffin was borne by three nobles and three Jeromite friars; the procession being headed by that of Charles V., carried by Don Luis de Haro, the Duke of Abrantes, and the Marquess of Aytona. As the remains were to be deposited in a marble sarcophagus, it became necessary to remove the previous coverings, which enabled Philip IV. to come face to face with his great ancestor. The body of the emperor was found to be quite entire. After looking at it for some minutes in silence, the king turned to Haro, and said, "Honored body, Don Luis." "Very honored," replied the minister; words, brief indeed, but very pregnant; for the prior of the Escorial has left it recorded "that they condensed all that a Christian ought to feel on so solemn an occasion."

Charles did not leave the world without some of those portents in which the men of that age loved to trace the influence of a remarkable death upon the operations of nature. A comet appeared over the monastery at the beginning of his last illness, and was seen no more after the night on which he died. In the spring of 1558, a lily in his garden, beneath his windows, bore two buds, of which one flowered and withered in due course, but the other remained a bud through the summer and autumn, to the great astonishment of the gardener and the friars. But on the night of the twenty-first of September it burst into full bloom, an emblem of the whiteness of the parting spirit, and of the sure and certain hope of its reception into bliss. It was reverently gathered, and fastened upon the black veil which covered the sacramental shrine in the church. In the week following the grand obsequies, a pied bird, large as a vulture, but of a kind unknown at Yuste, perched at night on the roof of the church, exactly over the imperial grave, and disturbed the friars by barking like a dog. For five successive nights it barked there in the clear moonlight, always at the same hour, and always arriving from the east, and flying away towards the west. And four years later, a holy Capuchin of the New World, Fray Luis Mendez, as he knelt in his convent-chapel at Guatemala, was blessed with a vision, wherein he saw the emperor before the judgment-seat of our Lord, making his defence against the accusing demons, with so much success that he received honorable acquittal, and was in the end carried off to heaven by the angels of light.

The codicil of the will of Charles, the only part of the document which belongs to his life at Yuste, is drawn up with a minuteness of detail very characteristic of the careful habits of the man. After a profession of attachment to the church, and hatred of heresy, and after the directions for his burial which have been already noticed, he proceeds to describe a monument and an altar-piece which he wished to be erected in the church of the convent, in the event of Yuste being chosen by his son for the final resting-place of his bones. The altar-piece was to be of alabaster, a copy in relief of Titian's picture of the "Last Judgment," the picture on which he was gazing at the moment when he first felt the touch of death. A custodia, or sacramental tabernacle, was likewise to be made of alabaster and marble, and placed between statues of himself and the empress. They were to be sculptured, kneeling with hands clasped as in prayer, barefoot, and with uncovered heads, and clad in sheets like penitents. For further particulars, he referred the king to Luis Quixada, and the confessor Regla, who were fully instructed in his meaning and wishes. In case of the removal of his body, instead of the altar-piece and monument, the convent was to receive a picture for their altar, of such kind as the king shall appoint. In compliance with this desire, Philip presented the monks with a copy of Titian's "Judgment," which adorned their high altar until the suppression of the convents, in 1823, when it was carried off to the parish church of Texeda.

The emperor next expresses his concern at hearing that the pensions which he had granted to the servants whom he had dismissed at Xarandilla, had been very ill-paid, and he entreats the king to order their punctual payment for the future. He directs that the friars of Yuste and the friars from other convents, who had been specially employed in his service, as readers, preachers, and musicians, shall receive such gratuities as shall appear sufficient to father Regla and Quixada. To the confessor himself he bequeaths an annual pension of four hundred ducats (about 80_l._ sterling), and four hundred ducats in legacy. Of Luis Quixada he twice speaks in the most affectionate terms, acknowledging his long and good service, and his willing fidelity in incurring the expense and inconvenience of removing his wife and household to Yuste. Lamenting that he has done so little to promote his interest, he earnestly recommends him to the king's favor, and, with a legacy of 2000 ducats, he leaves him a pension to the value of his present appointment (without mentioning the sum), until he is provided with a place of greater emolument. He also desires that the Infanta will cause the amount of fines recovered by his attorney, or that might be recovered in cases still pending against the poachers and rioters of Quacos, to be paid into the hands of a person named by the executors for distribution amongst the poor of the village. The contents of his larder and cellar, and his stores of provisions in general, at the day of his decease, and likewise the dispensary, with its drugs and vessels, he leaves to the brotherhood of Yuste, and to the poor any money which may remain in his coffers after defraying the wages of his servants.

These are all mentioned by name, and for the most part receive pensions, except a few to whom small gratuities are given, it being explained that previous provision has been made for them. The pensions range from four hundred florins (32_l._ sterling), conferred on the doctor, Enrique Mathesio, to ninety florins, which requite the services of Isabel Plantin, the laundress of the table-linen. The gratuities vary from 150,000 maravedis (about 45_l._ sterling), left to the secretary Gaztelu, to 7500, given to Jorge de Diana, a boy employed in the workshop of Torriano. That mechanician being already pensioned to the amount of 200 crowns, receives only 15,000 maravedis; he is likewise reminded that he has been paid something to account on the price of a clock which is in hand, and for which his employer is content that the executors shall pay a fair valuation.

These sums were all to be paid at Valladolid. After the funeral service was ended, therefore, on the 29th of October, when the count of Oropesa and the other neighbors returned to their homes, and the archbishop took the road to Toledo, most of the household of the emperor were also ready to depart. Only three Flemings remained behind for a few days to bring up the rear with the heavy baggage. Within about a fortnight after the death of Charles, the Jeromites of Yuste were again alone among the yellow October woods, and the convent relapsed into its ancient obscurity, never more to be remembered, except as the cell of the imperial recluse.

So ended the career of Charles V., the greatest monarch of the memorable sixteenth century. The vast extent of his dominions in Europe, the wealth poured into his coffers by the New World, the energy and sagacity of his mind, and the important crisis of the world's history in which he acted, have combined to make him more famous than any of the successors of Charlemagne. The admiration which was raised by the great events of his reign was sustained to the last by the unwonted manner of its close. In our days, abdication has been so frequently the refuge of weak men fallen on evil times, or the last shift of baffled bad men, that it is difficult for us to conceive the sensation which must have been produced by the retirement of Charles. Now that the "divinity which doth hedge a king" has decayed into a bowing wall and a tottering fence, it is almost impossible to look upon the solemn ceremony which was enacted at Brussels, with the feeling and eyes of the sixteenth century. The act of the emperor was not, indeed, a thing altogether unheard of, but it was known only in books, and belonged, as the Spaniard used to say, to the days of king Wamba. The knights of the Fleece who wept on the platform around their Caesar, knew little more about Diocletian than was known by the farmers and clothiers who elbowed each other in the crowd below. It was only some studious monk who was aware that a Theodosius and an Isaac had submitted their heads to the razor to save their necks from the bowstring; that a Lothaire had led a hermit's life in the Ardennes; that a Carloman had milked the ewes of the Benedictines at Monte Cassino. The retirement of Charles, therefore, was fitted to strike the imagination of men by the novelty of the occasion, by the solemnity of its circumstances, by the splendor of the resigned crown, and by the world-wide fame with which it had been worn.

There can be no doubt that the emperor gave the true reasons of his act, when, panting for breath, and unable to stand alone, he told the states of Flanders that he resigned the government because it was a burden which his shattered frame could no longer bear. It was to no sudden impulse, however, that he yielded; but he calmly fulfilled a resolve which he had cherished for many years. Indeed, he seems to have determined to abdicate, almost at the time when he determined to reign. For so powerful a mind has rarely been so tardy in giving evidence of power. Until he appeared in Italy in 1530, the thirtieth year of his age, his strong will had been as wax in the hands of other men. Up to that time the most laborious, reserved, and inflexible of princes was the most docile subject of his ministers. But if his mind was slow to ripen, his body was no less premature in its decay. By nature and hereditary habit a keen sportsman, and in youth unwearied in tracking the wolf and the bear over the hills of Toledo and Granada, he was reduced, ere he had turned fifty, to content himself with shooting crows and daws amongst the trees of his gardens. Familiarized by feeble health with images of death, he had determined twenty years before his abdication to interpose some interval of rest between the council and the grave. He had agreed with his empress, who died in 1538, that as soon as the state affairs and the age of their children should permit, they should retire into religious seclusion: he into a cloister of friars, and she into a nunnery. In 1542, he spoke of his design to the duke of Gandia; and in 1546 it was whispered at court, and was mentioned by the sharp-eared envoy of Venice, in a dispatch to the Doge. Since then, decaying health and declining fortune had maintained him in that general vexation of spirit which he shared with king Solomon. His later schemes of conquest and policy had resulted in disaster and disgrace. The Pope, the great Turk, the Protestant princes, and the king of France, were once more arrayed against the potentate who in the bright morning of his career had imposed laws upon them all. The flight from Innsbruck had avenged the cause which seemed lost at Muhlberg; Guise and the gallant townsmen of Metz had enabled the French wits to turn the emperor's proud motto, _Plus ultra_, into _Non ultra metas_. Whilst the Protestant faith was spreading even in the dominions of the house of Hapsburg, the doctors of the church assembled in that council which had cost so much treasure and intrigue, continued to quibble, for the sole benefit of the tavern-keepers of Trent. The finances both of Spain and the other Austrian states were in the utmost disorder, and the lord of Mexico and Peru had been forced to borrow from the duke of Florence. It is no wonder, therefore, that he seized the first gleam of sunshine and returning calm to make for the long-desired harbor of refuge; and that he relieved his brow of its thorny crowns as soon as he had attained an object dear to him as a father, a politician, and a devotee, by placing his son Philip on the rival throne of the heretic Tudors.

His habits and turn of mind, as well as his Spanish blood, and the spirit of his age, made a convent the natural place of his retreat. Monachism seems to have had for him the charm, vague, yet powerful, which soldiership has for most boys; and he was ever fond of catching glimpses of the life which he had resolved, sooner or later, to embrace. When the empress died, he retired to indulge his grief in the cloisters of La Sisla, at Toledo. After his return from one of his African campaigns, he paid a visit to the noble convent of Mejorada, near Olmedo, and spent two days in familiar converse with the Benedictines, sharing their refectory fare, and walking for hours in their garden alleys of venerable cypress. When he held his court at Brussels, he was frequently a guest at the convent of Groenendael; and the monks commemorated his condescensions, as well as his skill as a marksman, by placing a bronze statue of him on the banks of their fish-pond, into which he had brought down a heron, from an amazing altitude, with his gun. Though unable at Yuste to indulge the love of sport, which may have had its influence in drawing him to the chestnut woods of the Vera, we have seen that he continued to the last to take his pleasure in the converse and companionship of the Jeromites.

In the cloister, Charles was no less popular than he had been in the world; for in spite of his feeble health and phlegmatic temperament, in spite of his caution, which amounted to distrust, and his selfishness, which frequently took the form of treachery, in spite of his love of power, and the unsparing severity with which he punished the assertion of popular rights, there was still that in his conduct and bearing which gained the favor of the multitude. A little book, of no literary value, but frequently printed both in French and Flemish, sufficiently indicates in its title the qualities which colored the popular view of his character. "The Life and Actions, Heroic and Pleasant, of the invincible Emperor Charles V." was long a favorite chap-book in the Low Countries. It relates how he defeated Solyman the magnificent, and how he permitted a Walloon boor to obtain judgment against him for the value of a sheep, killed by the wheels of his coach; how he charged the Moorish horsemen at Tunis; and how he jested incognito with the woodmen of Soigne. A similar impression, deepened by his reputation for sanctity, he seems to have left behind him amongst the sylvan hamlets of Estremadura.

In one point alone did Charles in the cell differ widely from Charles on the throne. In the world, fanaticism had not been one of his vices; he feared the keys no more than his cousin of England; and he confronted the successor of St. Peter no less boldly than he made head against the heir of St. Louis. When he held Clement VII. prisoner in Rome, he permitted at Madrid the mockery of masses for that pontiff's speedy deliverance. Against the Protestants he fought rather as rebels than as heretics; and he frequently stayed the hand of the triumphant zealots of the church. At Wittenberg, he set a fine example of moderation, in forbidding the destruction of the tomb of Luther--saying, that he contended with the living, and not with the dead. But once within the walls of Yuste, and he assumed all the passions, and prejudices, and superstitions of a friar. Looking back on his past life, he thanked God for the evil that he had done in the matter of religious persecution, and repented him, in sackcloth and ashes, of having kept his plighted word to a heretic. Religion was the enchanted ground whereon that strong will was paralyzed, and that keen intellect fell groveling in the dust. Protestant and philosophic historians love to relate how Charles, finding that no two of his time-pieces could be made to go alike, remarked that he had perhaps erred in spending so much blood and treasure in the hope of compelling men to uniformity in the more difficult matter of religion. We fear the anecdote must have been invented by some manufacturer of libels or panegyrics, such as Sleidan and Jovius, whom Charles was wont to call his liars. No remark of equal wisdom can be brought home to the lips of the Spanish Diocletian; nor was the philosophy "of him who walked in the Salonian garden's noble shade" ever heard amongst the litanies and the scourges which resounded through the cloisters of Yuste.

To those who have perused this brief record of the recluse and his little court, it may be agreeable to know the subsequent fortunes of the personages who acted upon that miniature stage.

Queen Mary of Hungary died at Cigales on the 28th of October, 1558, four weeks after the death of her brother. So passed away, in the same year, and within a few months of one another, the royal group who landed at Laredo.

From Yuste, Luis Quixada and his wife returned to their house at Villagarcia, near Valladolid, taking Don Juan with them. When Philip II. arrived in Spain, in 1559, he received his brother and his guardian at the neighboring convent of San Pedro de la Espina. They afterwards followed the court to Madrid, where Quixada had an opportunity of signalizing his devotion to his master's son, by rescuing him from a fire, which burnt down their house in the night, before he attended to the safety of Dona Magdalena. This, and his other services, were not neglected by the king, who made him master of the horse to the heir-apparent, and president of the council of the Indies, and gave him several commanderies in the order of Calatrava. When Don Juan was sent to command against the Moriscos, whom Christian persecution and bad faith had driven to revolt in the Alpuxarras, the old major-domo went with him as a military tutor. They were reconnoitring the strong mountain fortress of Seron, when a bold sally from the place threw the Castilians into disorder bordering on flight, in the course of which a bullet from an infidel gun finished the campaigns of the comrade of Charles V. He fell, shot through the shoulder, by the side of his pupil; and he died of the wound at Canilles, on the 25th of February, 1570, in the arms of his wife, who had hurried from Madrid to nurse him. Don Juan buried him with military honors, and mourned for him as for a father.

The good Dona Magdalena retired to Villagarcia, and employed her childless widowhood in works of charity and piety, in prayers for the soul of her husband, and for the success of her darling young prince. For the latter she also engaged in a work of a more practical and secular kind; for the hero of Lepanto wore no linen but what was wrought by her loving hands. His sad and early death severed her chief tie to the world, and left religion no rival in her heart. The companions of Francis Borja, who had first kindled the holy flames of her devotion at Yuste, became her guides and counsellors; and she built and endowed no less than three Jesuit colleges at Villagarcia, Santander, and Oviedo. Her life of gentle and blameless enthusiasm ended in 1598, when she was laid beside her lord in the collegiate church of Villagarcia. Amongst the relics of that temple, two crucifixes were held in peculiar veneration,--one being that which she had pressed to her dying lips, the other a trophy rescued by Luis Quixada from a church burned by the Moors in the war of the Alpuxarras.

William Van Male, the gentle and literary chamberlain, returned to Flanders, with a slender annual pension of 150 florins, which was to be reduced one half on his becoming keeper of the palace at Brussels, an office of which the king had given him the reversion. He died in 1560, and was buried in the church of St. Gudule, at Brussels, where his widow, Hippolyta Reynen, was laid by his side in 1579.

Father Borja continued to teach and to travel with unflagging zeal. Soon after preaching the emperor's funeral sermon, he was again in Portugal, visiting the colleges at Evora, Coimbra, and Braga, and aiding in the foundation of the college of Porto. Called to Rome by Pope Pius IV., to advise on affairs of the church, he was twice chosen vicar-general of the company; and finally, in 1565, he received the staff of Loyola. During his rule of seven years, the order lengthened its cords and strengthened its stakes in every part of the world, and in every condition of mankind. Its astute politicians gained the ear of princes and prelates who had hitherto been cold, or adverse; its colleges rose amid the snows of Poland, and the forests of Peru; Barbary, Florida, and Brazil, were watered with the blood of its martyrs; and its ministers of mercy moved amongst the roar of battle, on the bastions of Malta and the decks at Lepanto. The general of this great army visited his native Spain, for the last time, in 1571, when he was sent by Pope Pius V. to fan the anti-Turkish flame in the bosom of Philip II., and to add a morsel of the true cross to the relics of the Escorial. Of the offers to build houses for the company, which now poured in, the last that he accepted was Dona Magdalena de Ulloa's college at Villagarcia, thus finding, after many days, the bread which he had cast upon the waters at Yuste. From Spain, he went to preach the crusade at the courts of Portugal and France--an arduous journey, which proved fruitful of royal caresses, but fatal to his enfeebled frame. Falling ill by the way, he had barely strength to reach Rome to die. In the year 1572, the sixty-second of his age, he was laid beside his companions in toil and glory, and his predecessors in power, Loyola and Laynez.

* * * * *

"After long experience of the world," says Junius, "I affirm before God, I never knew a rogue who was not unhappy." Very likely: another author had intimated before the observations of Junius, that even the righteous "is of few days and full of trouble."

FOOTNOTES:

[K] Nicolas Antonio.

[L] Psalm liv. 7. The Vulgate Psalm liv. is our Psalm lv.

From the North British Review.

DICKENS AND THACKERAY.

Our impression of the difference between the two authors in the matter of style is very much what it has always been from a general reading acquaintance with their works, namely, that Mr. Thackeray is the more terse and idiomatic, and Mr. Dickens the more diffuse and luxuriant writer. Both seem to be easy penmen, and to have language very readily at their command; both also seem to convey their meaning as simply as they can, and to be careful, according to their notions of verbal accuracy; but in Mr. Dickens's sentences there is a leafiness, a tendency to words and images, for their own sake; whereas, in Mr. Thackeray's, one sees the stem and outline of the thought better. We have no great respect for that canon of style which demands in English writers the use of Saxon in preference to Latin words, thinking that a rule to which there are natural limitations, variable with the writer's aim and with the subject he treats; but we should suppose that critics who do regard the rule would find Mr. Thackeray's style the more accordant with it. On the whole, if we had to choose passages at random, to be set before young scholars as examples of easy and vigorous English composition, we would take them rather from Thackeray than from Dickens. There is a Horatian strictness, a racy strength, in Mr. Thackeray's expressions, even in his more level and tame passages, which we miss in the corresponding passages in Mr. Dickens's writings, and in which we seem to recognize the effect of those classical studies through which an accurate and determinate, though somewhat bald use of words becomes a fixed habit. In the ease, and at the same time thorough polish and propriety with which Mr. Thackeray can use slang words, we seem especially to detect the university man. Snob, swell, buck, gent, fellow, fogy--these, and many more such expressive appellatives, not yet sanctioned by the dictionary, Mr. Thackeray employs more frequently, we believe, than any other living writer, and yet always with unexceptionable taste. In so doing he is conscious, no doubt, of the same kind of security that permits Oxford and Cambridge men, and even, as we can testify, Oxford and Cambridge clergymen, to season their conversation with similar words--namely, the evident air of educated manliness with which they can be introduced, and which, however rough the guise, no one can mistake. In the use of the words genteel, vulgar, female, and the like--words which men diffident of their own breeding are observed not to risk; as well as in the art of alternating gracefully between the noun lady and the noun woman, the Scylla and Charybdis, if we may say so, of shy talkers--Mr. Thackeray is also a perfect master, commanding his language in such cases with an unconscious ease, not unlike that which enables the true English gentleman he is so fond of portraying, either to name titled personages of his acquaintance without seeming a tuft-hunter, or to refrain from naming them without the affectation of radicalism. In Mr. Dickens, of course, we have the same perfect taste and propriety; but in him the result appears to arise, if we may so express ourselves, rather from the keen and feminine sensibility of a fine genius, whose instinct is always for the pure and beautiful, than from the self-possession of a mind correct under any circumstances by discipline and sure habit. Where Mr. Dickens is not exerting himself, that is, in passages of mere equable narrative or description, where there is nothing to move or excite him, his style, as we have already said, seems to us more careless and languid than that of Mr. Thackeray; sometimes, indeed, a whole page is only redeemed from weakness by those little touches of wit, and those humorous turns of conception which he knows so well how to sprinkle over it. It is due to Mr. Dickens to state, however, that in this respect his "Copperfield" is one of his most pleasing productions, and a decided improvement on its predecessor "Dombey." Not only is the spirit of the book more gentle and mellow, but the style is more continuous and careful, with fewer of those recurring tricks of expression, the dread remnants of former felicities, which constituted what was called his mannerism. Nor must we omit to remark also, that in passages where higher feeling is called into play, Mr. Dickens's style always rises into greater purity and vigor, the weakness and the superfluity disappearing before the concentrating force of passion, and the language often pouring itself forth in a clear and flowing song. This, in fact, is according to the nature of the luxuriant or poetical genius, which never expresses itself in its best or most concise manner unless the mood be high as well as the meaning clear,--for maintaining the excellence of the style of a terse and highly reflective writer, such as Thackeray, on the other hand, the presence of a clear meaning is at all times sufficient, though, of course, here also the pitch and melody will depend on the mood....

There is one piece of positive doctrine, however, in which both Pen and Warrington agree, and of which Mr. Thackeray's writings are decidedly the exponents in the present day, as Mr. Dickens's are of the doctrine of kindliness. This doctrine may be called the doctrine of anti-snobbism. Singular fact! in the great city of London, where higher and more ancient faiths seem to have all but perished, and where men bustle in myriads, scarce restrained by any spiritual law, there has arisen of late years, as there arose in Mecca of old, a native form of ethical belief, by which its inhabitants are tried and try each other. "Thou shall not be a snob;" such is the first principle at present of Cockney ethics. And observe how much real sincerity there is in this principle, how it really addresses itself to facts, and only to facts, known and admitted. It is not the major morals of human nature, but what are called the minor morals of society, and these chiefly in their aesthetic aspect, as modes of pleasant breeding, that the Cockney system of ethics recognizes. Its maxims and commands are not "Thou shalt do no wrong," "Thou shalt have no other gods before me," "Thou shalt not covet,"--but, "Thou shalt pronounce thy H's," "Thou shalt not abuse waiters as if they were dogs," "Thou shalt not falsely make a boast of dining with peers and members of Parliament." He who offends in these respects is a snob. Thus, at least, the Cockney moralist professes no more than he really believes. The real species of moral evil recognized in London, the real kind of offence which the moral sentiment there punishes, and cannot away with, is snobbism. The very name, it will be observed, is characteristic and unpretentious--curt, London-born, irreverent. When you say that a man is a snob, it does not mean that you detest and abhor him, but only that you must cut him, or make fun of him. Such is anti-snobbism, the doctrine of which Mr. Thackeray, among his other merits, has the merit of being the chief literary expounder and apostle. Now it is not a very awful doctrine, certainly; it is not, as our friend Warrington would be the first to admit, the doctrine in the strength of which one would like to guide his own soul, or to face the future and the everlasting; still it has its use, and by all means let it have, yes, let it have its scribes and preachers.

From Household Words.

WORK AWAY!

Work away! For the Master's eye is on us, Never off us, still upon us, Night and day! Work away! Keep the busy fingers plying, Keep the ceaseless shuttles flying; See that never thread lie wrong; Let not clash or clatter round us, Sound of whirring wheels, confound us; Steady hand! let wool be strong And firm, that has to last long! Work away!

Keep upon the anvil ringing Stroke of hammer; on the gloom Set 'twixt cradle and 'twixt tomb Shower of fiery sparkles flinging; Keep the mighty furnace glowing; Keep the red ore hissing, flowing Swift within the ready mould; See that each one than the old Still be fitter, still be fairer For the master to behold: Work away!

Work away! For the leader's eye is on us, Never off us, still upon us, Night and day! Wide the trackless prairies round us, Dark and unsunned woods surround us, Steep and savage mountains bound us; Far away Smile the soft savannahs green, Rivers sweep and roll between: Work away!

Bring your axes, woodmen true; Smite the forest till the blue Of Heaven's sunny eye looks through Every wild and tangled glade; Jungle swamp and thicket shade Give to-day! O'er the torrents fling your bridges, Pioneers! Upon the ridges Widen, smoothe the rocky stair-- They that follow, far behind Coming after us, will find Surer, easier footing there; Heart to heart, and hand with hand, From the dawn to dusk o' day, Work away! Scouts upon the mountain's peak-- Ye that see the Promised Land, Hearten us! for ye can speak Of the country ye have scanned, Far away!

Work away! For the Father's eye is on us, Never off us, still upon us, Night and day! WORK AND PRAY! Pray! and Work will be completer; Work! and Prayer will be the sweeter; Love! and Prayer and Work the fleeter Will ascend upon their way! Fear not lest the busy finger Weave a net the soul to stay; Give her wings--she will not linger; Soaring to the source of day; Cleaving clouds that still divide us From the azure depths of rest, She will come again! beside us, With the sunshine on her breast, Sit, and sing to us, while quickest On their task their fingers move, While the outward din wars thickest, Songs that she hath learned above.

Live in Future as in Present; Work for both while yet the day Is our own! for Lord and Peasant, Long and bright as summer's day, Cometh, yet more sure, more pleasant, Cometh soon our Holiday; Work away!

From Household Words.

OUR PHANTOM SHIP.--JAPAN.

We may as well go by the North-west passage as by any other, on our phantom voyage to Japan. Behring Straits shall be the door by which we enter the Pacific Ocean. We are soon flitting between islands; from the American peninsula of Alaska runs a chain of islands,--the Aleutian,--which lie sprinkled upon our track, like a train of crumbs dropped by some Tom Thumb among the giants, who may aforetime have been led astray, not in the wood, but on the water. If he landed on Kamtchatka, from the point of that peninsula he made a fresh start, dropping more crumbs,--the Kurile Islands,--till he dropped some larger pieces, and a whole slice for the main island of Japan, before he again reached the continent and landed finally on the Corea. In sailing by these islands, we have abundant reason to observe that they indicate main lines of volcanic action. From Behring Strait, in fact, we enter the Pacific, between two great batteries of subterranean fire. Steering for Japan, we pass, on the Kamtchatkan coast, the loftiest volcano in the old world, Kamtchatskaja (fifteen thousand, seven hundred and sixty-three feet). Following the course of the volcanic chain of Kurile Islands, of which the most northerly belong to Russia, the southern Kuriles are the first land we encounter subject to Japan. We do not go ashore here, to be sent to prison like Golownin, for we are content, at present, to remember that the natives of these islands are the hairiest among men. We sail on, too polite to outrage Japanese propriety by landing, even from a Phantom Ship, on the main island; so we sail to Kiusiu, and run into the bay of Nagasaki. The isles of Japan, calling rocks islands, are in number three thousand eight hundred and fifty. The main island, Nippon, is larger than Ireland, and is important enough to have been justly called the England of the Pacific Ocean.

Only there is a mighty difference between this England, talking about liberty, or cherishing free trade, and that Dai Nippon; in which not a soul does as he pleases, and from which the commerce of the whole world is shut out. Dai (or great) Nippon is the name of the whole state, which the Chinese modify into Jih-pun, and which we have further altered to Japan. On Kiusiu, a large southern island, Nagasaki is the only port into which, on any possible excuse, a foreign vessel is allowed to enter. This port we are now approaching; the dark rocks of the coast line are reflected from a brilliant sea; we pass a mountain island, cultivated to the very summit, terrace above terrace; green hills invite us to our haven, and blue mountains in the distance tempt us to an onward journey. There are white houses shining among cedars; there are pointed temple roofs; boats with their sails up make the water near us lively; surely we shall like Japan. We enter the bay now, and approach Nagasaki, between fruitful hills and temple groves, steeps clothed with evergreen oak, cedars, and laurels, picturesque rocks, attacked by man, and wheedled out of practicable ground for corn and cabbages. There is Nagasaki on a hill side, regularly built, every house peeping from its little nest of greens; and there is the Dutch factory, named Dezima. Zima in Japanese means "island," for this factory is built upon an island. No Europeans but the Dutch; no Dutch except these managers of trade who are locked up in Dezima, may traffic with Japan; and these may traffic to the extent only of two ships yearly, subject to all manner of restrictions. As for the resident Dutch, they are locked up in Dezima, which is an island made on purpose for them. As if three thousand, eight hundred and fifty were not enough, another little island, fan-shaped, was built up out of the sea a few yards from the shore of Nagasaki. There the Dutchmen live; a bridge connects their island with the mainland, but a high gate and a guard of soldiers prevent all unseasonable rambles. In another part of the town there is a factory allowed to the Chinese. Other strangers entering this port are treated courteously, are supplied gratuitously with such necessaries as they want, but are on no account allowed to see the town, still less to penetrate into the country, and are required to be gone about their business as soon as possible. Strangers attempting entry at any other port belonging to Japan, are without ceremony fired upon as enemies. The admitted Dutch traders are rigorously searched; every thing betraying Christianity is locked up; money and arms are removed, and hostages are taken. Every man undergoes personal scrutiny. The Dutch are allowed no money. The Japanese authorities manage all sales for them; pay the minutest items of expenditure, and charge it on the profits of their trade, which are then placed on the return vessel, not in money, but in goods. The Japanese deal justly, even generously, in their way; but it is their way to allow the foreigners no money power. They restrict their exports almost wholly to camphor and copper, and allow no native workmanship to go abroad. Yet among themselves, as between one island and another, commerce is encouraged to the utmost. The Japanese territories range in the temperate zone through a good many degrees, and include all shades of climate between that of Liverpool and that of Constantinople. Between island and island, therefore, busy interchange takes place by means of junks, like these which now surround us in the Nagasaki harbor. You can observe how weak they look about the sterns, with rudders insecure. The law compels them to be so; for that is an acute device by which they are prevented from travelling too far; they dare not trust themselves too boldly to the mercy of the sea, and as it is, many wrecked men accuse the prudence of their lawgivers. But life is cheap; the population of Japan is probably near thirty million,--and who should care for a few dozen mariners?

If you please, we will now walk up into Nagasaki, with our phantom cloaks about us. Being in a region visited by earthquakes, of course we find the houses of one story lightly built; they are built here of wood and clay with chopped straw,--coated over, like our town suburban villas, with cement. Paper, instead of glass, for window panes, Venetian blinds, and around each house a verandah, we observe at once. But our attention is attracted from the houses to the people. How very awkwardly they slip along! With so much energy and vigor in their faces, how is it that they never thought of putting reasonable shoes upon their feet? They wear instead of shoes mere soles of wood or matting, held to the foot each by a peg which runs between the great toe and its neighbor, through a hole made for that purpose in the sock. These clouts they put away on entering a house, as we should put away umbrellas, and wear only socks in-doors. Nevertheless the people here look handsome in their loose, wide gowns, bound by a girdle round the waist, with long sleeves, of which, by the bye, you may perceive that the dependent ends are Japanese coat-pockets. Thence you see yonder gentleman drawing his nose-paper,--one of the little squares of clean white paper always ready in the sleeve-pocket to serve the purpose of our handkerchief. That little square when used is, you see, thrown away; but if the gentleman were in a house he would return it to his pocket, to be got rid of in a more convenient place. The women's robes are like those of the men in form, but richer in material, more various with gold and color. As to the head equipment, we observe, however, a great difference between the sexes. The men shave their own heads, leaving hair only at the back part and upon the temples, which they gather forward, and tie up into a tuft. The women keep their entire crop of hair standing, and they make the most of it; they spread it out into a turban, and stick through it not a few pieces of polished tortoise-shell, as big as office rulers.[M] Inviting admiration, the young beauty of Japan paints her face red and white, and puts a purple stain upon her lips; but the remaining touches are forbidden to a damsel till her heart is lost. The swain who seeks to marry her, fixes outside her father's house a certain shrub; if this be taken in-doors by the family, his suit he knows to be accepted; and when next he gets a peep at his beloved, he watches with a palpitating heart the movement of her lips, to see whether her teeth be blackened; for by blackened teeth she manifests the reciprocal affection. Only after marriage, however, is the lady glorified with a permission not only to have black teeth, but also to pull out her eyebrows.

Those are not little beggars yonder trotting by that lady who is so magnificently dressed; they are her children. The children of the Japanese are all dressed meanly, upon moral grounds. Notice those gentlemen who bow to one another; the ends of a scarf worn by each of them exactly meet the ground, yet one bows lower than another, and they go on walking in the bowed position until each has lost the other from his sight. Those scarfs are regulated by the law; each man must bow so that his scarf shall touch the ground, and it is so made long or short, that he may humble himself more or less profoundly in exact accordance with his rank.

Of rank there are eight classes after the Mikado and the Ziogoon, whom we shall come to visit in our travels presently. There are, one, the princes; two, the nobles, who owe feudal service to the prince, or the empire; three, the priests; and four, the soldiers; these four form the higher orders, and enjoy the privilege of wearing two swords and petticoat trousers. Class five counts as respectable; inferior officials and doctors constitute this class, and wear one sword with the trousers. Merchants and respectable tradesmen form class six, whose legs may not pollute the trousers, though, by entering themselves as domestics to a man of rank, they may enjoy the privilege of carrying one sword. These are the only people by whom wealth can be accumulated. Class seven--artists, artisans, and petty shopkeepers. Class eight--day laborers and peasants. Tradesmen who work on leather, tanners, &c., are excluded from classification. They are defiled, and may not even live with other men; they live in villages of their own, so thoroughly unrecognized, that Japanese authority, in measuring the miles along a road, breaks off at the entrance of a currier's village, leaves it excluded from his measurement, which is resumed upon the other side. So, if we travel post, we get through leather-sellers' villages for nothing.

These houses in Nagasaki, which at a distance looked so much like mansions, are the store-rooms wherein tradesmen keep their valuable stock, and families their valuable furniture. For desolating fires are common in the towns and cities of Japan; so common, that almost every house is prudently provided with a fire-proof store-room, having copper shutters to the windows, and the walls covered a foot thick with clay. Attached to each is a large vessel of liquid mud, with which the whole building is smeared on an alarm of fire; and this method of fire-insurance is exceedingly effective, where there is nothing like a Sun or Atlas Company to fall upon, and the most abstemious of fires eats up, at any rate, a street.

That door is open, and there is no horseshoe over it--there's not an iron horseshoe in Japan,--so two ghosts slip into the house unperceived. First, here is a portico for palanquins, shoes, and umbrellas; into this the kitchens open. In the back apartments we shall find the family. We walk into the drawing-room, and there the master sits. It is most fortunate that we are now invisible; for, did we visit in the flesh, we should be teased by the necessities of Japanese civility. That gentleman would sit upon his heels before us; we should sit on our heels before him; we should then all bow our heads as low as possible. Then we should make compliments to one another, the answer to each being "_He, he, he!_" Then pipes and tea would be brought in; after this we might begin to talk. Before we left we should receive sweetmeats on a sheet of white paper, in which it would be our duty to fold up whatever we did not eat, and put it in our pockets. Eat what you like, and pocket what remains, is Japanese good-breeding. At a dinner-party the servant of each guest brings baskets, that he may take away his master's portion of the feast. This master, however, is unconscious of our shadowy appearance, and continues busy with his book. It is Laplace, translated into Japanese, through Dutch. The Japanese are thoroughly alive to the advanced state of European science, and on those fixed occasions when the Dutchmen from the factory visit the capital, the Dutch physician is invariably visited by the native physicians, naturalists, and astronomers, who display on their own parts wonderful acumen, and most dexterously pump for European knowledge. Scientific books in the Dutch language they translate and publish into Japanese. The country has not been shut up out of contempt for foreigners, and native men of science have so diligently profited by opportunities afforded from without, that they construct by their own artificers, barometers, telescopes, make their own almanacks, and calculate their own eclipses. Hovering about this gentleman, our eyes detect at once that the impression on his page is taken from a wood-cut imitation of handwriting; movable types are not yet introduced into Japan. The writing, like Chinese, is up and down the page, and not across it. Three or four different characters seem to be used indiscriminately, and some of them are certainly Chinese. The good folks of Dai Nippon are indebted to the Chinese for the first strong impulse to their civilization; not being themselves of Chinese origin, but a distinct branch of the Mongolian family. Their language is quite different, and has exceedingly long words, instead of being built up, like Chinese, of mono-syllables. Japanese written in Chinese character is understood by any Chinaman; but so would English be, since Chinese writing represents ideas. So, if a Spaniard writes five, an Englishman reads it as "five," and understands correctly, yet the Spaniard would tell you that he wrote not "five," but "cinco."

Hovering still about this gentleman, and beguiled by the strangeness of all things we see into a curiosity like that of children, we admire his sword. The hilt is very beautiful, composed of various metals blended into a fine enamel. This enamel is used in Japan where Europeans would use jewels, because the art of cutting precious stones is not known to the Japanese. For the blade of this sword it is not impossible that a sum has been given not unlike a hundred pounds; the tempering of steel is carried to perfection in Japan, where gentlemen are connoisseurs in sword-blades. Young nobles lend their maiden swords to the executioner (who is always chosen from the defiled leather-selling race) that they may be tried upon real flesh and blood; as executions in Japan are generally cruel, and some criminals are hacked to death, rather than killed outright, the swords on such occasions are refreshed with a fair taste of blood. The mats upon the floor are the next things we notice. A thick matting of straw forms a substratum, over which are spread the fine mats, elegantly fringed. To see that lackered work inlaid with mother-of-pearl, which we familiarly call Japan, in its perfection, we must evidently visit it at home. Any thing of the kind so exquisitely beautiful as this little table, is not to be found in Europe. Whatever trinkets pass out of these islands into Europe, do so _nayboen_--that is, with secret connivance--but the first-rate manufactures are in no way suffered to come to us. Without _nayboen_, life would be insupportable in a minute wilderness of rules and customs. People even die _nayboen_--that is, a man lies unburied, and is said to be alive, when his death otherwise would lead to disagreeable results. Here, as elsewhere, when rules are made intolerably strict, evasion is habitual. The amount that cannot be evaded is astonishing enough, as we shall see ere we return to England. Now we are in the house of this gentleman at Nagasaki. His wife enters, and by their mutual behavior it is evident that ladies in Japan are to their husbands very much what ladies are in England. This lady passes to the garden; the room ends with a projecting angle open to the garden on each side, a sort of bay, which every house has; and if there be no more ground than just the supplementary triangles on each side to complete the square, still there is always that, and that is always quite enough, for want of more. It is enough to spend a fortune upon, in dwarf trees and vegetable curiosities. The Japanese shine like the Chinese in monstrosities. They can dwarf trees so well, that in a little box four inches square, President Meylan saw growing a fir, a bamboo, and a plum-tree, in full blossom. Or they hypertrophy plants if they please, until a radish is produced as large as a boy six years old. Their gardens, however small, are always laid out in landscape style, and each is adorned with a temple, not a mere ornamental summerhouse, but the real shrine of a household god. Into this garden walks the lady, and returns with a few flowers. She takes these to an elegant shelf fixed in a recess of the apartment, upon which a bouquet stands, and is engaged upon her nosegay. An act of taste? O dear, no; every drawing-room in Japan has such a shelf, with flowers placed upon it; every lady entering who found her husband there, and meant to talk with him, would in the first place make the nosegay talk, and say, "The wife and husband are alone together." If company arrive, the flowers must be otherwise adjusted; the position of every flower, and even of green leaves in that bouquet, is fixed by custom, which is law, to vary with the use to which the room is put. One of the most difficult and necessary parts of female education in Japan is to acquire a perfect knowledge of the rules laid down in a large book on the arrangements of the drawing-room nosegay, in a manner suitable to every case. It is the Japanese "use of the globes" to ladies' schools. To boys and girls, after reading and writing, which are taught (hear, England!) to the meanest Japanese, the most necessary part of education is an elaborate training in the ceremonial rules of life. Bows proper for every occasion, elegant kotoos, the whole science and practice of good-breeding, have to be learned through many tedious years. To boys there is given special training in the hara-kiri, or the art of ripping one's self up. Many occasions present themselves on which it as much concerns the honor of a Japanese to cut himself open, as it concerned an Englishman some years ago to fire a pistol at his friend. The occasions are so frequent, that a Japanese boys' school would be incomplete in which instruction was not given in this art of suicide. Boys practise all the details in dramatic fashion, and in after life, if a day come when disgrace, caused often by the deeds of other men, appears inevitable, he appoints a day, and according to the exigencies of the case, before his family or his assembled connections, ceremoniously cuts open his own belly at a solemn dinner. Dying in this way, he is said to have died in the course of nature; dying before shame came to him, he is said to have died undisgraced, and so has saved his family from that participation in his fall which otherwise was imminent. Now we must leave this house, in which we have spent perhaps a little too much time: yet in the whole time we did not once hear the squalling of a baby, though a baby was there certainly. If this should meet the eye of Mr. Meek, he is informed that in Japan, children, until they are three years old, are not allowed to wear any thing tight about their persons.

Now we are once more in the streets of Nagasaki, and observe, that for a gentleman to turn his back upon a friend, is true politeness in this most original of lands. It signifies that he who so turns is unworthy to behold the face, &c. A bridal procession passes us; the bride in her long white veil. There is a touch of poetry connected with that veil--it literally is the shroud in which she will be buried.

We are out of town, now, and delighting in the open country. Exquisite views of hill, and dale, and wood, and water, tempt the sight. Rice fields, of course, we pass; rice is a staple article of diet to the Japanese, as to so many other millions of the human race. It is the vegetable food that finds its way into more mouths than any other. There is wheat also in Japan, used chiefly for making cakes and soy; barley for feeding cattle. The cattle being used as beasts of draught and burden, it is thought improper to kill them, or to deprive the young calves of their milk; the Japanese, therefore, refrain from milk and beef. They eat great quantities of fish, poultry, and venison. In the country gardens we see quinces, pears, plums, cherries, peaches, oranges, and citrons too; bean-fields abound, and farms, of which the hedges are all tea. Where soil and climate favor, many a hillside in Japan is cultivated as a tea plantation; but beyond this the tea-plant is used by the farmers generally as a hedge from which they gather their own leaves, and dry tea for home use, just as our farmers brew their own October beer. Now we are flitting under cedar groves, now under firs, now under mulberry plantations for the silkworm; every good point in the landscape is occupied by a temple, which is composed of one large edifice and many little ones. The little ones are used by pleasure-parties. There is a snake, and there you see in the tree a long-tailed monkey (_Inuus speciosus_); there is no other kind of monkey in these islands, and the snakes are all of a species found nowhere else. The tree frog and the eatable frog live in the north of Nippon. Here we have squirrels. There are no lions and tigers; there is not a single animal of the cat tribe known upon these islands; you can meet with nothing worse than a wild boar. Great pains are taken to destroy the foxes. Here are pheasants without game-laws, and the peacock yonder looks as if he felt himself at home. Several palanquins have passed us on the road, varying much in shape and minor details. The shape of the palanquin, the length of the poles, their position, the way in which they are held, and the number of holders, all are fixed so as to accord precisely with the rank of the good gentleman inside. The number of attendants in the train, even of an inconsiderable man, is startling; and as for a prince, he might be setting out to conquer China. The roads are good, and there is no lack of horsemen, but we have not seen draught carriages; perhaps these hills are an impediment to travelling by such conveyance; roads over hills and mountains being simply flights of steps.

Hollo! What couple scampers by in such a hurry? 'Tis the post: the greatest princes must get out of its way. One man runs with the letters, and another keeps pace with him, to supply his place in case of illness or accident; if both posts fail, the nearest man, whatever be his dignity, must do their work for them. These posts are never horsed; but each pair, at the conclusion of a stage, finds the next couple waiting to catch the important bundle thrown to them, and set off instantly, before the spent runners have reached the spot where they may halt and get their wind again. Goods are conveyed on packhorses or oxen over land, but water transit by lakes, rivers, or canals, is much more common. The roads are well swept, for the farmers on each side diligently scrape up all manure; and as men with brooms clear all away before a traveller of rank, the highway is kept in a very neat condition. Men selling straw clouts for travellers, and straw shoes for the horses, which require, of course, frequent renewal, pick up a living by the roadside, and we pass them frequently. Observe that mighty camphor-tree, which every traveller has mentioned. To Kaempfer it was venerable for its age in the year 1691; still it is healthy, and so large that fifteen men can stand within its hollow. Hot-springs, of course, we pass in a volcanic country. There is a coal-mine also here, though charcoal is the fuel usually burned.

We have now crossed Kiusiu, and reached the seaport of Kokura, where we find our Phantom Ship in readiness to take us through a sea covered with islets, to the large island of Nippon. We shall disembark, and travel very rapidly through Ohosaka to Miyako, where the divine Mikado holds his court. We pass some strange-looking men covered with matting, each of whom has in his hand a long wooden spoon. The spoon is their cockle-shell, for they are pilgrims travelling in the most pious form, as beggars, to the shrine of their own goddess. This pilgrimage is made by all good Japanese--the oftener the better, especially as they grow old, because they get each time full absolution from the priests for their past sins.

The sun goddess and the Mikado are allied together; and as we now are journeying towards a seat of government, we can do nothing better than discuss the Japanese religion. It begins with an Oriental "once upon a time," of gods who reigned for a few millions of years apiece, above whom there was, and is, and ever will be, one supreme God, free from care. The last of seven royal gods said to his wife one day, "There's earth somewhere, I'm sure!" and so he poked about with his spear in the water, feeling for it. Drops falling from his spear-point made the islands of Japan. Then this god made eight millions of other gods, and also created the ten thousand things. Having ordered matters to his satisfaction, he made a present of his Japanese earth to his pet daughter, the sun goddess. The sun goddess reigned only two hundred and fifty thousand years, and her four successors filled the next two million; the last of the four, being the great-great-grandson of the sun goddess, fancied a mortal life, and left a mortal boy, who reigned on earth, and was the first Mikado: from him all Mikados are descended. This is the native Japanese religion, called Sintoo; worshipping the sun goddess, and _Kami_, which are minor gods or saints. The Sintoos bow before no images, but put as emblems in their temples a sheet of white paper and a mirror, to denote the soul pure and incapable of stain. The worshipper kneels, gazes at the mirror, offers sacrifice of fruit or rice, deposits money, and retires. Upon this creed Buddhism has been grafted; but the religion of the learned Japanese is Sintoo--a philosophic moral doctrine which they cherish secretly, while outwardly observing rites prescribed by custom.

But _revenons a nos Mikados_: the first Mikado, though of fabulous descent, is an historical person, Zin-mu-teen-woo, and with him Japanese history begins--at a period from whence we date rational annals in some other countries, about 660 B.C. We will note those points of history that are essential to a comprehension of the present government. Mikados followed each other, sole rulers and powerful, until they fell into a trick of abdicating in favor of their children, and then doing the duty without being annoyed by the ceremonies of their office. That had its inconvenient results, for presently came one Mikado who married the daughter of a powerful papa; and when the time came for retirement, and he had abdicated in favor of a son three years old, the powerful papa thrust him aside into a prison, and usurped the regency. A civil war was the result of this; Yoritomo leaped up as champion of the imprisoned man, so recently a king, released him, and restored him to the regency over his infant son. For this essential service good Yoritomo was made a sort of field-marshal, or Ziogoon. The ex-Mikado dying, left Yoritomo the guardian of his son; and so for twenty years the Ziogoon was regent. Infant Mikados still continuing to be the fashion, regency became hereditary to the Ziogoons; and these last being men, it eventually came to pass that the Mikado was stripped of all power, and converted into a magnificent doll, while the real court was transferred to Jeddo, where the Ziogoons reside. Retributive justice we shall meet with in a little while, but we have now reached Miyako, the Mikado's residence, and nominally still the capital of Nippon.

Poor Mikado, what a miserable honor he must think it is to be divine! He represents the sun goddess on earth, and is required to sit upon his throne quite still, and without moving his head for several hours every day, lest the whole earth should be unsteady. When not sitting, he must leave his crown upon the throne to keep watch in his absence. Being so very holy, he is deprived of all use of his legs; earth is not worthy of his tread. His nails and hair are never cut--for who may mutilate a god? Every article of dress that he puts on must be brand new; his plates, and cups, and dishes, every thing he touches at a meal--even the kitchen utensils used in cooking for him--must not be used twice, and of course no profane man may employ what has been sanctified by the Mikado's use. Whatever clothes he puts off are immediately burned; his pots and vessels are destroyed. This hourly waste being a heavy pull on the finances of the Ziogoon, the divine victim gets only the coarsest slops to dress in, and eats off the cheapest crockery. No wonder that he still keeps up the fashion of resigning. His palace is circumscribed with palisades, and an officer residing without the gate spies all his actions, and reports them to the Ziogoon. Still the poor fellow is divine. The gods, it is believed, all spend a month at his place, during which month they are not at home in their own temples, and worship is accordingly suspended. The Mikado grants religious titles, fixes feasts and fasts, and settles doctrinal disputes. Thus there arose once schism in Japan about the color of the devil. Four factions respectfully declared him to be black, white, red, and green. The theologic knot was given to the Mikado that day to unravel, who, knowing the obstinacy of theologians well, declared all parties to be right; and so the devil of Japan remains to this day a four-colored monster. Offices of state in the Mikado's court--the Dairi it is called--are above all in honor, objects of ambition even to the Ziogoon. The dwellers in the Dairi with the holy prisoner, both male and female, are the most refined and cultivated Japanese. From their ranks are supplied the poets of the land, who sing the beauties of the rapid Oyewaga, or legends of the snow-capped Foesi.

Miyako is the classic ground, the Athens of Japan. But we must go on to the Japanese London, Jeddo, the real capital, a grand metropolis, with about one million, six hundred thousand inhabitants. Of course there is a wilderness of suburb; there are endless streets; there is a river through the town which flows into the bay, from which this capital is not far distant. There are bridges; there is a vast multitude of people thronging to and fro; there are shops, signs, inscriptions. We will walk into a theatre; for here, as in the days of AEschylus, performances take place by day. There is a pit, and there are tiers of elegant seats, which answer to our boxes; the scenery and dresses are handsome, only in scene painting there is no perspective. As in the early European drama, the subjects illustrated are the deeds of gods and heroes; not more than two speakers occupy the scene at once; boys act the female characters. Several pieces are performed, each piece divided into acts, and the plan is to give after Act I. of the first play, Act I. of the second, and then to begin the third, before taking the series of second acts. As each actor in each piece plays also several parts, one might consider this arrangement to be rather puzzling. Gentlemen go out after the act of any piece they wish to hear, and attend to other matters till the next act of the same piece shall come on; but ladies sit with pleasure through the whole. Dear souls! they steal a march upon our feminine box ornaments; for they bring with them a collection of dresses to the play, slip out during each pause to change their clothes, and reappear, to catch the admiration of beholders, every time in a new costume.

The palace of the Ziogoon covers much ground, being in fact a rural scene--a palace and a park, locked up within the town. As for the Ziogoon, he also is locked up within his trenches. To understand how he is fettered, and, at the same time, how all the people of Japan have come to be locked up, we must pursue our little thread of history. Yoritomo established, as we said, the power of the Ziogoons, which flourished for a long time. Kublah Khan endeavored to make Nippon subject to him; but without success, winds and waves fighting with the Japanese. Mongolians were forbidden then to touch Japanese ground, but a century later friendly relations were restored with China. In 1543, two Portuguese, Antonio Moto and Francesco Zeimoto, landed in Japan, exciting great interest among a mercantile people, trading at that time, it is said, with sixteen foreign nations. The Portuguese taught new arts, they brought new wares, and they were welcomed eagerly; some of them settled, and were married in Japan. The Jesuits came, too, with Christianity, and their preaching was abundantly successful. Now, it so happened that about the same time, when the Portuguese first arrived, a civil war was waged between two brothers, for the dignity of Ziogoon. Both brothers perished in this war, and then the vassal princes fought over the fallen bone. Nobunaga, the most powerful of these, was aided by a person of obscure birth, named Hide-yosi. Nobunaga became Ziogoon, favored the Christians, and invested Hide-yosi with high military rank. An usurper murdered Nobunaga, was then himself murdered, and left vacant a seat which Hide-yosi was now strong enough to seize. He took the name of Tayko, and is the great hero of the annals of Japan. He it was who continued the robbery of the Mikado's power, and secured himself against revolt by establishing a system of check over the princes, which prevails to this day. He left a son bearing the name of Hide-yosi, six years old, and to secure his power, married him to the daughter of Jyeyas, a strong papa. Jyeyas played the usurper, of course, and a large faction supported the young Hide-yosi, whom he had sworn to guard. The boy was Christian at heart; his cause, also, was just; the Jesuits, therefore, and the great body of the Christians warmly took his part. Had he maintained his right successfully, Christianity would have become the state religion in Japan. Jyeyas conquered, and the Christians, persecuted, afterwards rebelling, they were rooted out--regarded as a sect politically hostile. Their rebellion broke loose in the principality of Arima; the Prince of Arima drove the insurgents, seventy thousand in number, to the peninsula of Simabara, where they stood at bay. Since they were not to be dislodged, the Dutch, then settled at Firato, were desired to aid the government; accordingly they sent a man-of-war, which fired upon the Christians and sealed their fate. To this service the Dutch were indebted for their permission to retain one factory. All other Christians were destroyed or expelled, and since those days every stranger has been required, exempting the Dutch factory, to trample on an image of the Saviour, as an evidence of his not being a Christian interloper.

To finish our history, we must record that Jyeyas, having established his own usurpation, completed the reduction of the Mikado to a state of helplessness; completed the fettering of the princes, and the protective system of espial; and being deified, on death, under the name, of Gongen, was the founder of the Gongen dynasty of Ziogoons, which still rules in Japan, and still adheres to the protective system. But in course of time the power of the Ziogoons has waned; the Ziogoon himself is now a puppet to his council, which is governed by a president, who by no means is able to do what he likes.

Let us now see how all the Japanese are tied and bound, and kept in profound peace. In the first place, nearly half the population are officials in pay, and the whole empire is sprinkled thickly with spies, some public and official, who may intrude where they please, others concealed and not acknowledged, although paid, by government. Furthermore, every householder is required to watch the actions of his five intermediate neighbors, and to keep a sharp eye upon movements opposite. Every prince is assisted in his government by two secretaries, whom the court appoints, one to reside with him, and the other to reside at Jeddo. These take every act of government out of his hands. The secretary, who lives with him, watches him, and acts upon instructions from the secretary who resides at Jeddo, who again is prompted by the council. Not only does the prince live surrounded by a mob of unknown spies, but he is obliged, every alternate year, to leave his principality and to reside at Jeddo; his wife and family are always kept at Jeddo in the character of hostages. Furthermore, pains are taken to prevent a prince from being rich. He is required at Jeddo to impoverish himself by displays of pomp; and if his purse be long, the Ziogoon invites himself to dinner with him; an honor great enough to ruin any noble in Japan. Similar checks are upon all governors of towns and all officials. Any neglect reported by a spy, any infraction of a rule, threatens disgrace, and makes it necessary to perform the act of suicide before described. So it was not without cause that they were taught at school the hara-kiri. Perhaps you think the council is omnipotent. Far from it. The council may, indeed, make any law, which will be submitted by the president for sanction to the Ziogoon. Then, should the Ziogoon refuse his signature, and differ in opinion from the council, if he blame the law, the question is submitted to the Ziogoon's three next of kin, and they are umpires. If these decide against the Ziogoon, he is deposed immediately; if they decide against the council, then its president and members must rip themselves up.

Yet still this tyranny of custom, which would seem to be so burdensome to all, goes on, because all are so bound that none can begin to stir. The Japanese, as we have partly been able to see, are an acute race--they have original and thinking minds; with a dash of Asiatic fierceness, they are generous, joyous, sympathetic. They love picnic parties and music, with a buffoon; who first encourages them to throw off restraint, to laugh and riot in good-nature; and, assuming then his second office, draws himself up demurely, to give all a lesson in politeness. The buffoons who go for hire to promote mirth with a pleasure-party, go also as masters of the ceremonies. The treatment of Golownin, as a prisoner, will also illustrate the nature of the Japanese. In moving from one prison to another, he walked, bound so tightly with thin cords that they cut wounds into his flesh. These wounds the soldiers dressed every evening, but did not slacken any string; they said that he was fettered in the customary way. Yet these men willingly would take him on their backs, to carry him, when he was foot-sore; people in the villages were gladly suffered to show sympathy by feeding him with pleasant things as he passed through; and when he had made efforts to escape; which, if successful, would have entailed hara-kiri on his guards; they still showed no abatement of good-nature.

Under the main bridge of Jeddo lies our Phantom Ship, and from the heart of that great city of the East we float out to the sea. It does not take us long to get to Tower Stairs;--and now a Phantom Cab will take you home.

FOOTNOTES:

[M] Hats are not used by either sex except in rainy weather, but every Japanese carries a fan; even the beggar yonder holds his fan to that young lady, whereupon she drops her charitable gift.

From Fraser's Magazine.

MY NOVEL:

OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.

BY PISISTRATUS CAXTON.

_Continued from page 409._