I have often thought that it must be a curious, and by no means unimportant, or useless process, which the Roman Catholic is frequently called upon to go through, when preparing his mind for confession.

The above sentence may startle any one who reads these pages, and he may exclaim—

“The Roman Catholic!” Is not the writer—born in a Roman Catholic country, educated by a Roman Catholic priest, and with the force of his beautiful example to support all his precepts—is he not himself a Roman Catholic, or does he mean to say that he has never himself been to confession?

Never mind. That shall all be explained hereafter.

The process I allude to is that of making, as it were, a summary of all the acts and events, which have occurred within a certain period of the past, trying them by the test of reason and of conscience, and endeavoring to clear away all the mists of passion, prejudice, and error which crowd round man and obscure his sight in the moment of exertion or pursuit. Such is not exactly the task I propose to myself just now. All I propose to myself is to give a very brief and sketch-like view of the facts which occupied the next two or three years of my life. It will be faint enough. Rather a collection of reminiscences than of any thing else—often detached from each other, and never, I fear, very sharply defined. The truth is, events at that period were so hurried that they seemed to jostle each other in the memory, and often when I wish to render my own thoughts clear upon the particular events of the period, I am obliged to have recourse to the written or printed records of the events, where they lie chronicled in the regular order of occurrence.

I know that after Mariette’s departure, I was very sad and very melancholy for several weeks. Father Bonneville with all his kindness and tenderness, and with much greater consideration for the faults and weaknesses of others than for his own, did not seem to comprehend my sensations at all at first, and could not imagine—till he had turned it in his own mind a great many times, and painted a picture of it, as it were in imagination, that the society of a little girl of six years old could have become so nearly a necessity to a boy of thirteen. He became convinced, however, in the end that I was, what he called “pining after Mariette.” He strove then to amuse me in various ways—occupied my mind with fresh studies—procured for me many English books, and directed my attention to the study of German, which he himself spoke well, and which I mastered with the ready facility of youth. We all know how children imbibe a language, rather than learn it, and I had not at that time lost the blessed faculty of acquisition.

All this had its effect, while I was busying my mind with other things—for I pursued every object with earnestness, nay with eagerness—I thought little of my loneliness, but often when my lessons were done, and I was tired of reading, and indisposed to walk, I would sit in our little garden, and looking round upon the various objects about me, would recall the pretty figure of my dear little lost Mariette dancing in and out amongst the trees and shrubs, and almost fancy I heard her sweet voice, and the prattle which used so to delight me, strangely mingled as it was, of the innocent frankness of her nature, and a certain portion of shy reserve, which had been forced into her mind by the various painful scenes she had gone through.

One evening as I was thus seated and looking out upon the road, which ran between our small house and the forest, I saw an old woman coming down from the high road which led to the town with a slow and weary pace. I should not have taken much notice of her, perhaps, had not her dress been very different from that of the peasantry in the neighborhood. It was a dress which awakened old recollections—that of the Canton in which I had been brought up, if not born. There was the white cap, with the long ears flapping down almost to the shoulders, and the top running up and curling over into a sort of helmet shape—Heaven only knows how it was constructed; but it was a very complicated piece of architecture. Then again there was the neat little jacket of dull colored gingham, and beneath it the short petticoat of bright red cloth, with the blue stockings, and the red embroidered clocks, and the high-heeled shoes with the silver buckles in them. She carried a good sized bundle in her hand, and held her head upright, though she was evidently tired. But as she came nearer, I saw a round, dry, apple-like face, with two sparkling black eyes and a nose of extensive proportions. I was upon my feet in one moment, and the next, good old Jeanette was in my arms.

I need not say how rejoiced I was to see her, or how rejoiced was also Father Bonneville, nor need I tell all her simple history since we had left her in France; nor how we wondered at her achieving so long a journey in perfect safety. Her account, however, showed how simple the whole process had been, though I do not mean to say that Jeanette put her statement altogether in the most simple terms. She was not without her own little share of vanity, innocent and primeval as it was. She did not, indeed, strive to enhance the value of her services and affection toward us, but she seemed to consider that she was magnified in abstract importance by dangers undergone and privations suffered. She told us how far she had walked on foot, where she had got a Diligence, where somebody had given her a ride in a cart, where she had got no supper, where she had got a good one, where she had been cheated of fifteen sous at least, and where the landlord and landlady were good honest people, and had treated her well for a reasonable remuneration. Her great difficulties had begun in Germany; the language of which land she understood not at all, but by dint of patient perseverance, and asking questions in French of every person she met—whether they understood that language or not—she had made her way at length to the spot which good Father Bonneville’s last letter had indicated as his place of residence, not having gone, by the nicest calculation, more than eight hundred and seventy-four miles out of her way. She looked upon it as a feat of great importance, and was reasonably proud of it; but she thought fit to assign her motives for coming at all—although those motives were not altogether very coherent, nor did the premises invariably agree with the deductions. Indeed, Father Bonneville was a little shocked at some of the proceedings of his good housekeeper; for he had a great objection to using dirty arms against those who even used dirty arms against him. It seemed that after Jeanette had notified his absence to the municipality, his books, papers, and furniture had been seized for the rapacious maw of the public good. An auction had been held on the premises, and every thing had been sold; but Jeanette boldly produced a claim upon the effects of the absconding priest for a great arrear of wages, which she roundly asserted had never been paid. She brought forward the agreement between Father Bonneville and herself, in which the amount to be paid monthly was clearly stated, and as the commune could show no receipts it was obliged to pass the good housekeeper’s account, and pay her the money out of the funds raised by the sale. Some laughed, indeed, and said that the good woman had learnt the first grand art of taking care of herself, while others defended her on the ground that it was rather laudable than otherwise to pillage an aristocrat. They cited even the cases of Moses and Pharaoh, where the plunder of the Egyptians was not only lauded, but commanded. An old touch of religious fanaticism reigned in that part of the country, and men, even the most atheistical in profession and in action, which is still more, could quote Scripture for their purpose when it served their purpose.

We are told that the devil does the same—and I think it very likely.

The sum thus received from Jeanette—swelled by every item she could think of, was by no means inconsiderable; but she had not cheated a fraudulent and oppressive civic government for her own peculiar benefit. The sum which had been left her by Father Bonneville, and the wages which had been paid her, sufficed to maintain her for several months in Angoumois—in her frugal mode of living—and to carry her across the whole of France, leaving her with some dozen or two of livres at the time she reached us in Germany. The money which she had obtained from the commune, all carefully deposited in a canvas bag, she produced and placed in the hands of Father Bonneville, who, to say sooth, did not well know what to do in the peculiar circumstances of the case. Jeanette justified her acts and deeds toward the commune upon the same principle on which some members of the commune had justified her supposed acts toward Father Bonneville. She did not know much about spoiling the Egyptians indeed; but her mind was not sufficiently refined to see the harm of cheating cheats, or spoiling plunderers of part of their plunder.

I believe the good Father talked to her seriously on the subject when I was not present; but what became of the money I do not know. All I can tell, is, that the good Father never seemed to be actually in want of money, and that all those romantic distresses which hinge upon the absence of a crown-piece, were spared us even in our exile.

Time passed. Jeanette was fully established in her old post in the household, with the addition of another German maid-servant. The one whom she found with us was strongly imbued with despotic ideas; and was, for good reasons, unwilling to submit either to the orders of a foreign superior in her peculiar department, or to the inspection of accounts and prices which she soon found was to be established. Another German girl, consequently, was sought for and found, who being younger in age, unhardened by experience, and of a diffident nature, willingly undertook to receive a dollar and a half a month, and do the harder work of the house under the orders of Jeanette, of which she did not understand one word.

Our peaceful state of existence, however, was not destined to be of very long duration. The successes of the allies, then combating the republicans of France, both on the northern and eastern frontier, insured us, for some time, tranquillity and safety. We heard of the defeat of the French army at Neerwinden, and the fall of Valenciennes and CondÉ, mixed with vague rumors of the defection of Dumouriez, and the flight of some of the most celebrated generals in the French army. These latter events gave great joy and satisfaction to Father Bonneville; for his hopeful mind looked forward to the re-establishment of law and order in his native country, and to the utter abasement of the anarchical party in France before the skill of Dumouriez, and the bayonets of the Austrians joined with those of all the well disposed and moderate of the land itself.

Many others shared in the same delusions; but the manifestoes of the Austrians, soon checked all enthusiasm, even on the part of the emigrants. No pretence was made of coming to support the loyal and orderly in the re-establishment of a monarchy, and a war of aggression and dismemberment was gladly commenced against France from the moment that Dumouriez’s more generous—and I must say, more prudent schemes, were rendered abortive by circumstances.

Doubtless, this first raised some indignation in the bosom of Father Bonneville, who was of too true and really loyal a nature to see unmoved, his native land partitioned by the sword, upon any pretence or coloring whatever. I do not know why, but these matters did not appear to me in the same light. I thought the people of France had committed a great crime, and deserved to be punished, as if they were but one simple, individual man. I thought that all who were genuine loyalists or supporters of an orderly and constitutional system were guilty of a crime little less great than that of the anarchists, in their dastardly holding back when great questions involving the whole fate of France, hung upon the simple exertion of a well ordered body of the bourgeoisie; and I saw not why they should not be punished for their culpable negligence which was more disastrous in effect than all the virulence of the terrorists—I saw not why those who committed tremendous crimes under the name of justice should not be brought under the sword of justice, and I looked forward, I confess, to a period of retribution with no little joy and satisfaction. It mattered not to me, in my ignorance of great affairs whether this was effected by the Austrians, the Prussians, or any other nation on the face of the earth, but France deserved punishment, and I hoped she might be punished.

The expectations of retribution were destined to be long unfulfilled. The manifestoes of the Allies acted with singular power and significance, producing combinations not at all expected. The royalists, the constitutionalists, who still remained in France, prepared to resist operations, the avowed object of which was the dismemberment of France itself, and not the restoration of a purified monarchy. They were willing to support even their mortal enemies within the land, in resisting the newly declared enemies of the whole land, who were advancing along two frontiers. The republicans were roused to the most powerful and successful exertions in order to repel a slow and cautious, but victorious enemy from their frontiers, and even the ÉmigrÉs, who were scattered all along the banks of the Rhine, protested loudly against a scheme, which not only menaced the integrity of France as it then existed, but threatened to deprive the monarchy of some of its fairest provinces, if the legitimate line of their sovereigns should ever be restored.

No contrivance could have been devised so well calculated to reunite the greatest possible number of Frenchmen in opposition to a counter-revolution, and to render all others indifferent to the progress of the allied arms, as the proclamation of the Prince of Coburg. Some few, indeed, thought with me, but mine were doubtless boyish thoughts: for I have ever remarked that it is experience, and the hard lessons of the world, which bring moderation.

Father Bonneville seldom talked upon these subjects with me; for he had rightly no great opinion of my judgment in matters of which I could have had but a very vague knowledge, and he little knew how often and how deeply I thought upon such questions.

The siege and capture of Mayence, however: the inactivity of Custine, and the retreat of the whole of the French armies within the frontier line, seemed to insure to us perfect security, for a long time to come, in our calm and pleasant retreat upon the banks of the Rhine: when suddenly burst forth that wild and vengeful spirit of reaction which armed all France, almost as one man, against attacks from without, and soon retrieved all she had lost under a weak government and inexperienced commander.

Toward the end of the year, our situation became somewhat perilous. After a long period of successes, the fruits of which were all lost by indecision or procrastination, the allied armies found themselves the assailed rather than the assailers, the conquered rather than the conquerors; and the fierce spirit of the Frank, the most war-loving, if not the most warlike, of all the nations of the earth was soon ready to carry the flaming sword into all the neighboring lands.

I have given this little sketch merely to connect the events together, without at all wishing to imply that I knew or comprehended all the facts at the time, or recollect them now, except with the aid of books. My own memories are very slight and merely personal. I remember lingering on for some months in that small house by the Rhine. I recollect the warm, bright summer sinking down into heavy autumn, and the year withering in the old age of winter. I recollect numerous reports and rumors, and gossip’s tales, and—falser than all—newspaper narratives, and printed dispatches, reaching us in our solitude, some of them exciting my wonder, and some of them my alarm, and then I recollect various passages of no great importance in a somewhat long journey, till I find myself in a quaint old town upon the border of Switzerland, near which the Rhine breaks over high rocks and forms the cascade of Schaffhausen.

This place is only notable in my memory for the beauty of the water-fall, which I have since seen surpassed in grandeur, but not in picturesque effect, and by one little incident which there brightened many an hour. One day, when we were there, a letter was delivered to Father Bonneville, in my presence, which he found to contain a small note addressed to me. It was the first letter I had ever received in my life, although I was now between fourteen and fifteen years of age, and the sensations which I experienced when it was placed in my hands, and I saw my own name on the back, were very strange. Imagination went whirling here and there, seeking to divine whence it could come. The mystery of my own strange, isolated existence—which was frequently present to my thoughts, was the first thing that fancy snatched at; but I did not remain long in uncertainty. The seal was soon broken, and I found a few lines in a round, childlike hand, very well written, and very well expressed, with the name of “Mariette de Salins” at the bottom.

She told me that she wrote to show me, her dear instructor, how much progress she had made in her studies; and to tell me that although she had now a great number of companions, she loved me as well as ever, and better than them all. She bade me not forget her though she did not doubt that I had grown a great, tall man, and she was still but a little girl.

I cannot express how much pleasure this gave me; for I had been oppressed by the thought that in new scenes and new circumstances, all memory of her young companion would soon be obliterated in the mind of my little Mariette. That such had not yet been the case was in itself a pleasure; but I calculated sagaciously that the very fact of having to write to me, and to recall our youthful intercourse would renew all her recollections of the time we had passed together, and give memory, as it were, a new point to start from.

Our stay in Schaffhausen only continued a few months; for the progress of events in France, and the revolutionary spirit which began to effect other countries, left it hardly possible for emigrants to find any secure spot in Europe, except indeed in England, and thither Father Bonneville did not seem inclined to go. At Schaffhausen, however, I pursued my studies very eagerly, and had the opportunity of acquiring some knowledge of those manly exercises which I had never yet had any opportunity of practicing. There was a very good riding-school in the town, to which Father Bonneville sent me every day; and a French exile, celebrated for his knowledge of the sword exercise, had set up a fencing school, in which I soon became a favorite pupil. I was now a tall, powerful lad, and what between the continual exercise of the riding-school, and the Salle d’Armes, all the powers of a frame, naturally robust, were speedily developed. Previous to this time, I had stooped a little from the habit of bending over books and drawings; but my chest now became expanded, my step firm, and I acquired a sort of military air, of which, I need hardly say, I was very proud.

Thus passed four months and a few days; but rumors of the intention of the French to march an army up the Rhine, induced Father Bonneville to move our quarters, and about a fortnight before my fifteenth birth-day, we traveled up to Constance, and then across what they call the Boden See—or lake of Constance, to the Vorarlberg.

——