Various
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844
During the day Juliet was not forthcoming, and her absence produced, what the French call, a "lively sensation" – which, in nine instances out of ten, means an intolerable sense of ennui – in the whole establishment. I shared the general uneasiness, and at length began to cast glances towards the gate, where, though I was not exactly prepared to see the corpulent virtues of my friend in suspension, I had some tremblings for the state, "sain et sauf;" of my Béguine. At last her face appeared at the opening of the great door, flushed with heat and good-nature, and, as it came moving through the crowd which gathered round her with all kinds of enquiries, giving no bad resemblance to the moon seen through a fog; whether distinct or dim, full and florid to the last. Her good-humoured visage revived me, as if I had met a friend of as many years standing as she numbered on her cradle. But all my enquiries for the news of earth outside the hospital, were answered only by an "order" to keep myself tranquil – prevent the discomposure of my pulse, and duly drink my ptisan. All this, however, was for the general ear. The feebleness which kept me confined to my bed during the day, had made my nights wakeful. On this night, whether on the anxiety of the day, or the heavier roar of the siege, for the bombardment was now at its height, I exhibited signs of returning fever, and the Béguine remained in attendance. But when the crowd had gone to such rest as they could find, amid the thunder of batteries and the bursting of shells, Juliet approached my pillow with a broad smile, which distended her good-natured mouth from ear to ear, and thrust under my pillow a small packet – the whole operation being followed by a finger pressed to her lips, and a significant glance to every corner of the huge melancholy hall, to see that all was secure. She then left me to my meditations!
The mysterious packet contained three letters; and, eager as I was for their perusal, I almost shuddered at their touch; for they must have been obtained with infinite personal peril, and if found upon the Béguine they might have brought her under the severest vengeance of the garrison. They were from Guiscard, Mariamne, and Mordecai. Thus to three individuals, all comparatively strangers, was my world reduced. But they were no common strangers; and I felt, while holding their letters in my hand, and almost pressing them to my heart, how much more strongly friendship may bind us than the ties of cold and negligent relationship. I opened the soldier's letter first. It was like every thing that Guiscard ever did; manly, yet kind. "Your disappearance in that unfortunate rencontre has created much sorrow and surprise; but the sorrow was all for your loss to the 'corps of corps,' and the surprise was, that no tidings could be heard of you, whether fallen or surviving. The flag and trumpet sent in next morning to recover the remains of such as had suffered in that mad rush to the gates of the town, came back without being permitted to pass beyond the outworks, bringing a brutal message from the officer on duty, 'that the next flag should be fired on,' and that the 'brave soldiers of the Republic allowed of no compromise with the slaves of tyranny!' The bravado might be laughed at, but it left me in the dark relative to your fate; and if you are to be flattered by the feelings of men who cannot get at you but by cannon-shot, you may congratulate yourself on having had as many fine things said of you as would make an epitaph for a duke – and, I believe, with a sincerity at least equal to the best of them. I write all this laughingly now, but suspense makes heaviness of heart, and you cost me some uneasy hours, of course. I send you none of our news; as you will hear all in good time, and communications on public matters might bring your messenger or yourself into difficulties. You are alive, and in good hands; that is the grand point. Your character is now in my hands, and I shall take care of it; I shall see you a general officer yet, if you have not the greater luck to retire and live an honest farmer, sitting under your own fig-tree and your own vine, with an unromantic spouse, and some half-dozen of red-cheeked children. Farewell, we shall soon see each other."
The last line evidently meant more than met the eye, and I was now just in the mind to indulge in the fantasies of my fair correspondent. They were like herself – a curious mixture of mirth and melancholy.
"Why I wished to write to you, or why I write at all – which, however, I do decorously at the side of my father – are questions which I have not taken the trouble of asking until this moment. But I am in Switzerland, where no one has time for any thing but worshipping mountain-tops, and falling down at the feet of cataracts. Whether it would add to Mr Marston's satisfaction I cannot presume to say, but I feel better, much better, than when I first came into this land of fresh breezes and beauty of all kinds – the population, of every rank, always excepted. If I were, like you, a philosopher, I should probably say that nature gets tired of her work, and after having struck off some part of it with all the spirit of an Italian painter, disdains the trouble of finishing; or, like a French 'fashionable,' coquettes with her own charms, and is determined to make the world adore her, in spite of her slippers and her shawl. Thus, nature, which gave the peacock a diadem on its head, and a throne in its tail, has given it a pair of frightful legs. And on the same charming principle, she has given Switzerland the finest of all possible landscapes, and filled them with the most startling of all possible physiognomies.
"But no more of theory. It has always made my head ache, and headachs are, I know, contagious; so I spare you. Yet, have you a moment, among your thousand and one avocations, to remember my father – or me? I beg that I may not impede the march of armies, or shock the balance of Europe, while I solicit you to give me a single line – no more; a mere 'annonce' of any thing that can tell me of your 'introuvable' friend Lafontaine. This is not for myself. The intelligence is required for a sister of his whom I have lately met in this country – a showy "citizeness" of Zurich, embonpoint and matronly, married to one of the portly burghers of the city, and exemplary in all the arts of sheep-shearing, wool-spinning, and cheese-making; a mother, surrounded à la Française with a host of Orlandos, Hyacintes, Aristomenes, and Apollos – pretty children, with the Frenchman developing in all its gaudiness; the Switzer remaining behind, until it shall come forth in cloudy brows, and a face stamped with money-making. Madame Spiegler is still not beyond a waltz, and in the very whirl of one last night, she turned to me and implored that I should 'move heaven and earth,' as she termed it – with her blue eyes thrown up to the chandelier, and her remarkably pretty and well-chaussé'd feet still beating time to the dance – to bring her disconsolate bosom tidings of her 'frère, si bien aimé, si malheureux.' I promised, and she flew off instantly into the very core of a dance, consisting of at least a hundred couples.
"I have just returned from a drive along the shore of the Leman. The recollection of Madame Spiegler, rolling and rushing through the waltz like a dolphin through the waves; or like any thing caught in an enormous whirlpool, sweeping round perpetually until it was swept out of sight, had fevered me. The air here is certainly delicious. It has a sense of life – a vivid, yet soft, freshness, that makes the mere act of breathing it delightful. But I have mercy on you – not one word of Clarens, not one word of Meillerie. Take it for granted that Ferney is burnt down, as it well might be without any harm to the picturesque; and that Jean Jacques never wrote, played the knave, or existed. If I were a Swiss Caliph Omar, I should make a general seizure, to be followed by a general conflagration, of every volume that has ever touched on the wit and wickedness of the one, or the intolerable sensibility of the other. I should next extend the flame to all tours, meditations, and musings on hills, valleys, and lakes; prohibit all sunset 'sublimities' as an offence against the state; and lay all raptures at the 'distant view of Mont Blanc,' or the 'ascent of the Rhighi,' if not under penalty of prison, at least under a bond never to be seen in the territory again. But I must make my adieux. Apropos, if you should accidentally hear any thing of your pelerin-à-pied friend Lafontaine – for I conjecture that he has gone to discover the fountains of the Nile, or is at this moment a candidate for the office of court-chamberlain at Timbuctoo – let me hear it. Madame Spiegler is really uneasy on the subject, though it has not diminished either her weight or her velocity, nor will prevent her waltzing till the end of the world, or of herself. One sentence – nay, one syllable – will be enough.
"This light is delicious, and it is only common gratitude to nature to acknowledge, that she has done something in the scene before my casement at this sweet and quiet hour, which places her immeasurably above the decorateurs of a French salon. The sun has gone, and the moon has not yet come. There is scarcely a star; and yet a light lingers, and floats, and descends over everything – hill, forest, and water – like the light that one sometimes sees in dreams. All dream-like – the work of a spell laid over a horizon of a hundred miles. I should scarcely be surprised to see visionary forms rising from these woods and waters, and ascending in bright procession into the clouds. I hear, at this moment, some touches of music, which I could almost believe to come from invisible instruments as they pass along with the breeze. Still, may I beg of you, Mr Marston, not to suppose that I mean to extend this letter to the size of a government despatch, nor that the mark which I find I have left on my paper, is a tear? I have no sorrow to make its excuse. But here, one weeps for pleasure, and I can forgive even Rousseau his – 'Je m'attendrissais, je soupirais, et je pleurais comme un enfant. Combien de fois, m'arrêtant pour pleurer plus à mon aise, assis sur une grosse pierre, je me suis amusé à voir tomber mes larmes dans l'eau.' Rousseau was lunatic, but he was not lunatic when he wrote this, or I am growing so too. For fear of that possible romance, I say, farewell.
"P.S. – Remember Madame Spiegler. Toujours à vous– Mariamne."
My third letter was Mordecai to the life – a bold, hurried, yet clear view of the political bearings of the time. It more than ever struck me, in the course of his daring paragraphs, what a capital leader he would have made for a Jewish revolution; if one could imagine the man of a thousand years of slavery grasping the sword and unfurling the banner. Yet bold minds may start up among a fallen people; and when the great change, which will assuredly come, is approaching, it is not improbable that it will be begun by some new and daring spirit throwing off the robes of humiliation, and teaching Israel to strike for freedom by some gallant example – a new Moses smiting the Egyptian, and marching from the house of bondage, the fallen host of the oppressor left weltering in the surge of blood behind.
After some personal details, and expressions of joy at the recovering health of his idolized but wayward daughter, he plunged into politics. "I have just returned," said he, "from a visit to some of our German kindred. You may rely upon it, that a great game is on foot. Your invasion is a jest. Your troops will fight, I allow, but your cabinets will betray. I have seen enough to satisfy me, that, if you do not take Paris within the next three months, you will not take it within ten times the number of years. Of course, I make no attempt at prediction. I leave infallibility to the grave fools of conclaves and councils; but the French mob will beat them all. What army can stand before a pestilence? When I was last in Sicily, I went to the summit of Etna during the time of an eruption. On my way, I slept at one of the convents on the slope of the mountain. I was roused from my sleep by a midnight clamour in the court of the convent – the monks were fluttering in all corners, like frightened chickens. I came down from my chamber, and was told the cause of the alarm in the sudden turn of a stream of the eruption towards the convent. I laughed at the idea of hazard from such a source, when the building was one mass of stone, and, of course, as I conceived, incombustible. 'Santissima Madre!' exclaimed the frightened superior, who stood wringing his hands and calling on all the saints in his breviary; 'you do not know of what stone it is built. All is lava; and at the first touch of the red-hot rocks now rolling down upon us, every stone in the walls will melt like wax in the furnace.' The old monk was right. We lost no time in making our escape to a neighbouring pinnacle, and from it saw the stream of molten stone roll round the walls, inflame them, scorch, swell, and finally melt them down. Before daylight, the site of the convent was a gulf of flame. This comes of sympathy in stones – what will it be in men? Wait a twelvemonth; and you will see the flash and flame of French republicanism melting down every barrier of the Continent. The mob has the mob on its side for ever. The offer of liberty to men who have spent a thousand years under despotism, is irresistible. Light may blind, but who loves utter darkness? The soldier may melt down like the rest; he is a man, and may be a madman like the rest; he, too, is one of the multitude.
"Their language may be folly or wisdom, it may be stolen from the ramblings of romance writers, or be the simple utterance of irrepressible instincts within; but it is the language which I hear every where around me. Men eat and drink to it, work and play to it, awake and sleep to it. It is in the rocks and the streams, in the cradle, and almost on the deathbed. It rings in the very atmosphere; and what must be the consequence? If the French ever cross the Rhine, they will sweep every thing before them, as easily as a cloud sweeps across the sky, and with as little power in man to prevent them. A cluster of church steeples or palace spires could do no more to stop the rush of a hurricane.
"You will call me a panegyrist of Republicanism, or of France. I have no love for either. But I may admire the spring of the tiger, or even give him credit for the strength of his tusks, and the grasp of his talons, without desiring to see him take the place of my spaniel on the hearth-rug, or choosing him as the companion of my travels. I dread the power of the multitude, I despair of its discipline, and I shrink from the fury of its passions. A republic in France can be nothing but a funeral pile, in which the whole fabric is made, not for use, but for destruction; which man cannot inhabit, but which the first torch will set in a blaze from the base to the summit; and upon which, after all, corpses alone crown the whole hasty and tottering erection. But this I shall say, that Germany is at this moment on the verge of insurrection; and that the first French flag which waves on the right bank of the Rhine will be the signal of explosion. I say more; that if the effect is to be permanent, pure, or beneficial, it will not be the result of the tricolor. The French conquests have always been brilliant, but it was the brilliancy of a soap-bubble. A puff of the weakest lips that ever breathed from a throne, has always been enough to make the nation conquerors; but the hues of glory no sooner began to colour the thin fabric, than it burst before the eye, and the nation had only to try another bubble. It is my impression, that the favouritism of Revolution at this moment will even receive its death-blow from France itself. All is well while nothing is seen of it but the blaze ascending, hour by hour, from the fragments of her throne, or nothing heard but the theatrical songs of the pageants which perform the new idolatry of 'reason.' But when the Frenchman shall come among nations with the bayonet in his right hand and with the proclamation in his left – when he turns his charger loose into the corn-field, and robs the peasant whom he harangues on the rights of the people – this republican baptism will give no new power to the conversion. The German phlegm will kick, the French vivacité will scourge, and then alone will the true war begin. Yet all this may be but the prelude. When the war of weapons has been buried in its own ashes, another war may begin, the war of minds – the struggle of mighty nations, the battle of an ambition of which our purblind age has not even a glimpse – a terrible strife, yet worthy of the immortal principle of man, and to be rewarded only by a victory which shall throw all the exploits of soldiership into the shade."
While I was meditating on the hidden meanings of this letter, in which my Jewish friend seemed to have imbibed something of the dreamy spirit of Germany itself, I was startled by a tremendous uproar outside the hospital – the drums beat to arms, the garrison hastily mustered, the population poured into the streets, and a strong and startling light in all the casements, showed that some great conflagration had just begun. The intelligence was soon spread that the Hotel de Ville, the noblest building in the city, a fine specimen of Italian architecture of the seventeenth century, and containing some incomparable pictures by the Italian masters, and a chef-d'œuvre of Rubens, had been set on fire by a bomb, and was now in a blaze from battlement to ground. The next intelligence was still more painful. The principal convent of the city, which was close in its rear, had taken fire, and the unfortunate nuns were seen at the windows in the most imminent danger of perishing. Feeble as I was, I immediately rose. The Béguine rushed in at the moment, wringing her hands and uttering the wildest cries of terror at the probable destruction of those unhappy women. I volunteered my services, which were accepted, and I hurried out to assist in saving them if possible. The spectacle was overwhelming.
The Hotel de Ville was a large and nearly insulated building, with a kind of garden-walk round three of its sides, which was now filled with the populace. The garrison exhibited all the activity of the national character in their efforts to extinguish the flames. Scaling-ladders were applied to the windows, men mounted them thick as bees; fire-buckets were passed from hand to hand, for the fire-engines had been long since destroyed by the cannonade; and there seemed to be some hope of saving the structure, when a succession of agonizing screams fixed every eye on the convent, where the fire had found its way to the stores of wood and oil, and shot up like the explosion of gunpowder. The efforts of the troops were now turned to save the convent; but the intense fury of the flame defeated every attempt. The scaling-ladders no sooner touched the casements than they took fire; the very walls were so hot that none could approach them; and every new gust swept down a sheet of flame, which put the multitude to flight in all directions. Artillery was now brought out to breach the walls; but while there remained a hundred and fifty human beings within, it was impossible to make use of the guns. All efforts at length ceased; and the horror was deepened, if such could be, by seeing now and then a distracted figure rush to a casement, toss up her arms to heaven, and then rush back again with a howl of despair.
I proposed to the French officers that they should dig under the foundations, and thus open a way of escape through the vaults. The attempt was made, but it had the ill success of all the rest. The walls were too massive for our strength, and the pickaxe and spade were thrown aside in despair. From the silence which now seemed to reign within, and the volumes of smoke which poured from the casements, it began to be the general impression that the fate of the nuns was already decided; and the officers were about to limber up their guns and retire, when I begged their chief to make one trial more, and fire at a huge iron door which closed a lofty archway leading to the Hotel de Ville. He complied; a six-pound ball was sent against the door, and it flew off its hinges. To the boundless exultation and astonishment of all, we saw the effect of this fortunate shot, in the emergence of the whole body of the nuns from the smoking and shattered building. They had been driven, step by step, from the interior to the long stone-built passage which in old times had formed a communication with the town, and which had probably not been used for a century. The troops and populace now rushed into the Hotel de Ville to meet and convey them to places of safety. I followed with the same object, yet with some unaccountable feeling that I had a personal interest in the rescue. The halls and apartments were on the huge and heavy scale of ancient times, and I was more than once bewildered in ranges of corridors filled with the grim reliques of civic magnificence, fierce portraits of forgotten men of city fame, portentous burghers, and mailed captains of train bands. The unhappy women were at length gathered from the different galleries to which they had scattered in their fright, and were mustered at the head of the principal entrance, or grand escalier, at whose foot the escort was drawn up for their protection.
But the terrors of that fearful night were not yet at an end. The light of the conflagration had caught the eye of the besiegers, and a whole flight of shells were sent in its direction. Some burst in the street, putting the populace to flight on every side; and, while the women were on the point of rushing down the stair, a crash was heard above, and an enormous shell burst through the roof, carrying down shattered rafters, stones, and a cloud of dust. The batteries had found our range, and a succession of shells burst above our heads, or tore their way downwards. All was now confusion and shrieking. At length one fell on the centre of the escalier, rolled down a few steps, and, bursting, tore up the whole stair, leaving only a deep gulf between us and the portal. The women fled back through the apartment. I now regarded all as lost; and expecting the roof to come down every moment on my head, and hearing nothing round me but the bursting and hissing of those horrible instruments of havoc, I hurried through the chambers, in the hope of finding some casement from which I might reach the ground. They were all lofty and difficult of access, but I at length climbed up to one, from which, though twenty or thirty feet from the path below, I determined to take the plunge. I was about to leap, when, to my infinite surprise, I heard my name pronounced. I stopped. I heard the words – "Adieu, pour toujours!" All was dark within the room, but I returned to discover the speaker. It was a female on her knees near the casement, and evidently preparing to die in prayer. I took her hand, and led her passively towards the window; she wore the dress of a nun, and her veil was on her face. As she seemed fainting, I gently removed it to give her air. A sheet of flame suddenly threw a broad light across the garden, and in that face I saw – Clotilde! She gave a feeble cry, and fell into my arms.
Our escape was accomplished soon after, by one of the scaling-ladders which was brought at my call; and before I slept, I had seen the being in whom my very existence was concentrated, safely lodged with the principal family of the town. Slept, did I say? I never rested for an instant. Thoughts, reveries, a thousand wild speculations, rose, fell, chased each other through my brain, and all left me feverish, half-frantic, and delighted.
At the earliest moment which could be permitted by the formalities of France, even in a besieged town, I flew to Clotilde. She received me with the candour of her noble nature. Her countenance brightened with sudden joy as she approached me. In the salle de reception she sat surrounded by the ladies of the family, still full of enquiries on the perils of the night, congratulations on her marvellous escape, and no slight approval of the effect of the convent costume on the contour of her fine form and expressive features. My entrance produced a diversion in her favour; and I was showered with showy speeches from the seniors of the circle; the younger portion suddenly relapsing into that frigid propriety which the Mademoiselle retains until she becomes the Madame, and then flings off for ever like her girlish wardrobe. But their eyes took their full share, and if glances at the "Englishman" could have been transfered into words, I should have enjoyed a very animated conversation on the part of the Jeunes Innocenes. But I shrank from the panegyric of my "heroism," as it was pronounced in all the tones of courtesy; and longed for the voice of Clotilde alone. The circle at last withdrew, and I was left to the most exquisite enjoyment of which the mind of man is capable – the full, fond, and faithful outpouring of the heart of the woman he loves. Strange to say, I had never exchanged a syllable with Clotilde before; and yet we now as deeply understood each other – were as much in each other's confidence, and had as little of the repulsive ceremonial of a first interview, as if we had conversed for years.
"You saved my life," said she; "and you are entitled to my truest gratitude to my last hour. I had made up my mind to die. I was exhausted in the attempt to escape from that horrible convent. When at last I reached the Hotel de Ville, and found that all the sisterhood had been driven back from the great stair by the flames, I gave up all hope: and may I acknowledge, unblamed, to you – but from you what right have I now to conceal any secret of my feelings? – I was not unwilling to lay down a life which seemed to grow darker from day to day."
"You were wearied of your convent life?" said I, fixing my eyes on hers with eager enquiry. "But you must not tell me that you are a nun. The new laws of France forbid that sacrifice. My sweet Clotilde, while I live, I shall never recognise your vows."
"You need not," she answered, with a smile that glowed.
'Celestial rosy red, love's proper hue.'
"I have never taken them. The superior of the convent was my near relative, and I fled to her protection from the pursuit of one whom I never could have respected, and whom later thoughts have made me all but abhor."
"Montrecour! I shall pursue him through the world."
"No," said Clotilde; "he is as unworthy of your resentment as of my recollection. He is a traitor to his king and a disgrace to his nobility. He is now a general in the Republican service, Citizen Montrecour. But we must talk of him no more."
She blushed deeply, and after some hesitation, said, "I am perfectly aware that the marriages customary among our noblesse were too often contracted in the mere spirit of exclusiveness; and I own that the proposal of my alliance with the Marquis de Montrecour was a family arrangement, perfectly in the spirit of other days. But my residence in England changed my opinions on the custom of my country, and I determined never to marry." She stopped short, and with a faint smile, said, "But let us talk of something else." Her cheek was crimson, and her eyes were fixed on the ground.
"No, Clotilde, talk of nothing else. Talk of your feelings, your sentiments, of yourself, and all that concerns yourself. No subject on earth can ever be so delightful to your friend. But, talk of what you will, and I shall listen with a pleasure which no human being has ever given me before, or ever shall give me again."
She raised her magnificent eyes, and fixed them full upon me with an involuntary look of surprise, then grew suddenly pale, and closed them as if she were fainting. "I must listen," said she, "to this language no longer. I know you to be above deception. I know you to be above playing with the vanity of one unused to praise, and to such praise. But I have a spirit as high as your own. Let us be friends. It will give an additional honour to my name; shall I say" – and she faltered – "an additional interest to my existence. Now we must part for a while."
"Never!" was my exclamation. "The world does not contain two Clotildes. And you shall never leave me. You have just told me that I preserved your life. Why shall I not be its protector still? Why not be suffered to devote mine to making yours happy?" But the bitter thought struck me as I uttered the words – how far I was from the power of giving this incomparable creature the station in society which was hers by right! How feeble was my hope even of competence! How painfully I should look upon her beauty, her fine understanding, and her generous heart, humbled to the narrow circumstances of one whose life depended upon the chances of the most precarious of all professions, and whose success in that profession depended wholly on the caprice of fortune. But one glance more drove all doubts away, and I took her hand.
She looked at me with speechless embarrassment, sighed deeply, and a tear stole down her cheek. At length, withdrawing her hand, she said, in almost a whisper, and with an evident effort, "This must not be. I feel infinite honour in your good opinion – deeply grateful for your kindness. But this must not be. No. I should rather wear this habit for my life, than make so ungenerous a return to the noble spirit that can thus offer its friendship to a stranger."
"No, Clotilde, no. Again, in my turn, I say, this must not be; you are no stranger. I know you at this hour as well as if I had known you from the first hour of my being. I gave my heart to you from the moment when I first saw you among your countrywomen in England. It required no time to make me feel that you were my fate. It was an instinct, a spell, a voice of nature, a voice of heaven within me!"