MARSTON; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN. PART VI. "Have I not in my time heard lions roar? Have I not heard the sea, puft up with wind, Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat? Have I not heard great ordnance in the field, And heaven's artillery thunder in the skies? Have I not in the pitched battle heard Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets clang?" Shakspeare .

My first questions to Lafontaine, when I had his wound looked to, were of course for those whom he had left in England.

"Ah, ha!" said he with a laugh, which showed the inextinguishable Frenchman, "are you constant still? Well, then, Madame la Comtesse is constant too; but it is to her boudoir, or the gaieties of Devonshire House, or perhaps to her abhorrence of Monsieur le Mari."

"Le Mari!" I repeated the words with an involuntary start.

"Bah! 'tis all the same. She is affianced, and among us that tie is quite as legitimate as marriage, and, our libellers say, a little stronger. But they certainly are not married yet, for Mademoiselle Clotilde either is, or affects, the invalid; and considering the probability that she abhors the man and the match, I think, on the whole, that she acts diplomatically in informing the vainest colonel, in or out of France, that she is sick of any thing rather than of him."

"But your Mariamne—how go on your interests there?" The question brought a smile and a sigh together, before he could find an answer.

"How she is, what she is doing, or intends to do, or even what she is, are matters that I can no more answer than I can why the wind blows. She torments me, and takes a delight in tormenting me. I have been on the point of throwing up my commission a hundred times since I saw you, and flying to America, or the world's end. She controls me in every thing, insists on knowing all my movements from hour to hour, finds them out when I attempt to conceal them as matter of duty, tortures me for the concealment, and then laughs at me for the confession. She is intolerable."

"And yet you have obtained a lengthening of your chain, or how come here? How long have you been in Paris?"

"Just two days; and busy ones, or I should have found you out before. Yes, I had Mariamne's full permission to come; though to this moment I cannot account for the change. I had received a sudden order from Montrecour, who is deep in the emigrant affairs, to set out with letters which could not be sent by the courier. But I dared not leave London without asking her permission; and I acknowledge asking her at the same time to run away with me, and give herself a lawful title to be my tyrant for life. Applying to Mordecai was out of the question. Her answer was immediate; contemptuous in the extreme as to my proposal, yet almost urgent on me to accept the mission, and lose no time between London and Paris. Her postscript was the oddest part of all. It was a grave recommendation to discover you, in whatever height or depth of the capital you might exist; whether you figured in the court or the cloister; were the idol of the maids of honour, or the model of the monks of La Trappe; to remind you that you had forgotten every body on the other side of the Channel who was worth remembering, including herself; and commending me, as a truant and a trifler, to your especial, grave, and experienced protection. Apropos! She sent me a letter, to be delivered to you with my own hands. But for yourself it had nearly failed in the delivery."

He gave me the letter. It was, like the writer, a pretty melange; trifles gracefully expressed; strong sense expressed like trifles; feeling carried off with a laugh; and palpable and fond anxiety for Lafontaine couched in the most merciless badinage. While I gave this missive a second, and even a third perusal—for it finished with some gentle mention of the being whose name was a charm to my wearied spirit—my eyes accidentally fell on Lafontaine. His were fixed on me with an expression of inconceivable distress. At length his generous nature broke forth.

"Marston, if I were capable of jealousy, I should be jealous of you and of Mariamne. What can be the caprice which dictated that letter? what can be the interest which you evidently take in it? I wish that the bullet which laid me at your door this evening had finished its work, and put an end to an existence which has been a perpetual fever. I shall not ask what Mariamne has said to you—but I am miserable."

"Yes, but you shall ask, and shall have all you ask," said I, giving him the letter. "It is the language of the heart, and of a heart strongly attached to you. I can see affection in every line of it. Of course she mingles a little coquetry with her sentiment; but was there ever a pretty woman, who was not more or less a coquette? She is a gem: never think it the less pure because it sparkles. Rely upon your little Mariamne."

"Then you have no sincere regard for her—no wish to interfere with my claims?" said my pallid friend, dubiously extending his hand towards me.

"Lafontaine, listen to me, and for the last time on the subject. I have a very sincere regard for her." (My sensitive auditor started.) "But, I have also a perfect respect for your claims. It is impossible not to acknowledge the animated graces of the lady on whom you have fixed your affections. But mine are fixed where I have neither hope to sustain them, nor power to change.—Those matters have nothing to do with choice. They are effects without a cause, judgments without a reason, influences without an impulse—the problems of our nature, without a solution since the beginning of the world."

"But, Marston, you will only laugh at me for all my troubles."

"Lafontaine, I shall do no such thing. Those pains and penalties have been the lot of some of the noblest hearts and most powerful minds that the earth has ever seen; and have been most keenly felt by the noblest and the most powerful. The poet only tells the truth more gracefully when he says—

"But now, my friend, let us talk of other things. We must not sink into a pair of sentimentalists; these are terrible times. And now, tell me what brought you out of quiet England among our madmen here?"

"I may now tell all the world," was the reply, "for the evil is done beyond remedy. I was sent by our friends in London, to carry the last warning to the royal family of all that has happened this day. My papers contained the most exact details, the names of the leaders, their objects, their points of assembling, and even their points of attack. Those were furnished, as you may conceive, by one of the principal conspirators; a fellow whom I afterwards saw on horseback in front of the Tuileries, and whom, I think, I had the satisfaction of dismounting by a shot from my carbine."

I mentioned the fruitlessness of my own efforts to awake the ministry.

"Ah," said he, with a melancholy smile, "my friend, if you had been admitted into the palace, or into the council-chamber itself, you would have had precisely the same tale to tell. All was infatuation. I was ushered into the highest presence last midnight. My despatches were read. I was complimented on my zeal, and then was told that every thing was provided for. I was even closeted for two hours with the two individuals who, of all France, or of all mankind, had the largest stake in the crisis, and was again told that there was no crisis to be feared. I even offered to take a squadron of dragoons, and arrest the conspirators at the moment with my own hand. I saw the eyes of the noblest of women fill with tears of grief and indignation at the hopelessness of my appeal, and the answer, 'that though Frenchmen might hate the ministers, they always loved their king.' I saw that all was over."

"Still," said I, "I cannot comprehend how the mere mob of Paris could have succeeded against the defenders of the palace."

"If you had seen it as I did, the only wonder is, how the Tuileries held out so long. After passing a night on guard at the Pavilon de Flore, I was summoned at daybreak to attend his majesty. What a staff for a reviewing monarch! The queen endeavouring to support the appearance of calmness; Madame Elizabeth, that human angel, following her, dissolved in tears; the two royal children, weeping and frightened, making their way through the crowd of nobles, guardsmen, domestics who had gathered promiscuously in the chambers and corridors, armed with whatever weapons they could find, and all in confusion. From the windows there was another scene; and the only time when I saw the queen shudder, was when she cast her eye across the Place du Carrousel, and saw it covered with the dense masses of the multitude drawn up in battle-array. A more gloomy sight never met the eye. From time to time the distant discharge of cannon was heard, giving us the idea that some treachery was transacting in the remoter parts of the city, every discharge answered by a roar of—'Down with the King'—'Death to Marie Antoinette'—'The lamp-iron to all traitors.' While, as I glanced on those around me, I saw despair in every countenance; the resolution perhaps to die, but the evident belief that their death must be in vain. You now know all."

I still expressed my strong anxiety to know what had been the events within the palace.

"Marston, I cannot think of them. I cannot speak of them. I see nothing but a vision of blood, shame, folly, wretchedness. There never was a cause more fatally abandoned. Every thing that could be done to ruin a monarchy was done. I was standing beside the royal group, when a deputation from the National Assembly made its appearance. At its head was a meagre villain, whom one might have taken for the public executioner. He came up, cringing and bowing, to the unfortunate king; but with a look which visibly said—We have you in our power. I could have plunged my sword in the triumphant villain's heart. I had even instinctively half drawn it, when I felt the gentle pressure of a hand on mine. It was the queen's. 'Remember the king's presence. We must owe nothing to violence,' were her words. And at this instant she looked so heart-broken, yet so noble, that I could have worshipped her. The deputation pressed the necessity of 'taking shelter,' as they phrased it, 'in the bosom of the faithful Assembly.' The words, 'assembly of traitors,' burst from my lips. A shout of approbation arose on all sides. But I was more rewarded by a sorrowing smile from the queen. She was indignant at the proposal. 'No; never shall I leave this spot but by the king's command!' she exclaimed. 'I would rather be chained to the walls.' As the guard pressed round her at the words, she suddenly stopped, took a pistol from one of the Garde du Corps, and forcing it on the king—'Now,' said the heroine—'now is the time to show yourself a king of France!' An universal cry of enthusiasm arose, and hundreds of swords were brandished in the air. The deputation, evidently expecting to be massacred, made an effort to reach the door, and the monarchy was on the point of being saved; when the leader of the party glanced back at the royal circle. There stood unfortunate Louis, hesitating, with the pistol in his hand. On such moments all depends. The villain crept up to the king, and whispered in his ear—'Would you have all your family put to death? In the Assembly all are safe.'—'Well, then, we shall go,' was the simple answer. He might have added—'To the scaffold.' The queen pressed her hands on her eyes, and wept bitterly. All were silent. In a few minutes more our sad procession was crossing the garden to the door of the Assembly, amid a roar, which could not have been fiercer or more triumphant had we been going to execution."

It was already twilight; the fine summer's day, as if it had been dimmed by the desperate scenes of which it was witness, set in sudden clouds; and the distant shoutings of the populace seemed to be answered by the voice of a storm. Lafontaine's wound began to bleed afresh by the agitation of his story, and to find medical assistance, was my first object. Having seen him conveyed to my bed, and leaving him in charge of my valet, I hastened towards the residence of the physician to the embassy. In doing this, I had to cross the Rue St HonorÉ. But there my course was stopped. I shrink from alluding to those horrid scenes and times. The scene which there met my eyes has scarcely left them since.

The populace were returning from the conquest and plunder of the palace to the Palais Royale, the headquarters of all convulsion; and they had arranged their ranks into something like a triumphal procession on the stage. The dead bodies of the brave Swiss were carried on boards or biers, preceded by banners of all kinds; the plundered ornaments of the Tuileries were borne on the heads of men; the horses from the royal stables, caparisoned for the occasion, drew hearses, in which the bodies of the mob who had fallen were deposited. Brief as the time for decoration had been, wreaths of artificial flowers, taken from the shops of the marchandes de modes, and theatrical shawls and mantles from the stores of the fripiers, covered the biers; and the whole, surrounded and followed by a forest of pikes and bayonets, plumes and flags, had no other light than the lurid and shifting blaze of thousands of torches tossing in the wild and howling wind.

The train seemed endless; shocked and sickened, I had made repeated efforts to cross the column, but was repeatedly driven back. If all the dead criminality of Paris had risen to join all the living, it could scarcely have increased my astonishment at the countless thousands which continued to pour on before me; nor scarcely, if the procession had started from the grave, could it have looked more strange, squalid, haggard, and woebegone. In the rear came the cannon, which had achieved this melancholy victory. And they, again, were sometimes converted into the carriage of the dead, sometimes of the plunder, and, in every instance, were surmounted by women, female furies, drinking, shouting, and uttering cries of unspeakable savageness and blasphemy against priests, nobles, and kings; and, mingled with all this, were choruses of bacchanal songs, accompanied with shouts of laughter. It was now near midnight; and my anxiety for the condition of my unfortunate friend at last urged me to make a desperate attempt to force my way through the mass of pikes and daggers. After being swept far along with the stream, I reached the street in which the physician lived. He set out with me immediately, and, by his superior knowledge of the route, we were enabled to make our way unimpeded through streets, that looked like dens of robbers, to my hotel.

But there a new and still more alarming disappointment awaited me. I found the porter and all the attendants of the establishment gathered on the stairs in terror. Lafontaine was gone! Whether, frenzied by the insults and yells of the populace, who continued to pass in troops from time to time, or anxious for my safety, he had started from his bed, put on his sword, and rushed into the street; without the possibility of being restrained, and without uttering a word of explanation.

Exhausted as I was by fatigue, and still more by the sights and scenes through which I had just passed, this intelligence was a severe blow. The fate of a young enthusiast, and a foreigner, whom I had known but so lately, and of whom I knew so little, might not have justified much personal sacrifice. But the thought of the heart that would be broken by his falling into the hands of the barbarians, who were now masters of every thing, smote keenly upon me. Mariamne would die; and though I was by no means a lover of Mariamne, yet, where I had seen so much that was loveable, I might have a regard next in degree. There may, and does often, exist the tenderness of love without the flame. I could have looked on this pretty and animated creature as the wife of Lafontaine, or of any other object of her choice, without the slightest pang; but I could not have looked upon her pining away in hopelessness, wasting in silent sorrow, or with her gay and gentle existence clouded by a loss which nothing could repair, without thinking every effort of mine to avert evil from her, due on every principle of common feeling.

While I pondered, a note was brought to me, written by Lafontaine before he had sallied from his chamber, and evidently written under the wildest emotion. It told me, in a few scarcely legible words, that he felt life a burden to him, and thanked Heaven for the opportunity now offered of dying for his king and the glory of France. That the monarchy had perished beyond redemption. But that, though the royal family were surrounded by the poniards of assassins, it was his determination to follow and find them, rescue them, or die at their feet. This strange production closed with—"You shall hear of me within twenty four hours, living or dead. If I fall, remember me to my affianced wife; and vindicate my character to the world."

This was so like insanity, that it perplexed me more and more; but, on second thoughts, it appeared to offer some clue to his pursuit.—He had gone to die in presence of the royal family. If they were to be found by him at all, they must be found in the Assembly. I immediately went to the garden of the Tuileries, where they met until their new legislative palace should be erected. The multitude had now partially retired, for it was midnight; and the entrance was comparatively clear. A strong force of the National Guard still kept the drunken rabble at a distance; and the five franc piece, with which I tempted the incorruptibility of a peculiarly ferocious-looking patriot, admitted me without delay.

What a scene there presented itself to my eyes! The "Salle" was large and showy; and when I had attended it in former debates, it exhibited the taste and skill which the French, more than any other people on earth, exhibit in temporary things. Nothing could exceed the elegance with which the Parisian decorators had fitted up this silk and tinsel abode, which was to be superseded, within a few months, by the solid majesty of marble. But, on this memorable and melancholy night, the ornaments bore, to me, the look of those sad frivolities with which France is fond of ornamenting her tombs. The chandeliers burned dim; the busts and statues looked ghostlike; the chief part of the members had thrown themselves drowsily on the benches; and the debate had languished into the murmurs of a speech, to which no one listened. If the loaded table, with its pile of petitions and ordonnances, in the midst of the hall, could have been imagined into a bier; the whole had the aspect of a chapelle ardente; there, indeed, lay in state the monarchy of France. My unlucky friend, of course, was not there; but I saw, in a narrow box, on the right of the president, a group, from which, when once seen, I found it impossible to withdraw my gaze—the first and most exalted victims of the Revolution, the king and his family. All but one were apparently overcome with fatigue; for they had sat there fifteen hours. But that one sat with a steady eye and an erect front, as if superior to all suffering. I had seen Marie Antoinette, the most splendid figure, in all the splendours of her court. I had seen her unshaken before vast popular assemblages, in which any rash or ruffian hand might have taken her life at the instant; but she now gave me an impression of a still higher order. Sitting in calm resignation and unstained dignity, her stately form and countenance, pale and pure as marble, looked like some noble statue on a tomb; or rather, sitting in that chamber of death, like some pure spirit, awaiting the summons to ascend from the relics of human guilt, infirmity, and passion before her.

But the slumbers of the Assembly were soon to be broken. A tumult, and the tramping of many feet, was heard at the door. It was followed by the thunder of clubs and hammers breaking it in; the bars gave way; the huissiers and other attendants rushed through the body of the hall, and took refuge behind the chair of the president in affright; the sleepers started from their seats; and, with a roar which spoke the true supremacy of the new power in France, the mob poured in. They announced themselves a deputation from the Municipality, and instantly took possession of the benches. Men, women, and even children, composed this barbarian invasion; like all that I had seen, half intoxicated; but evidently trained by higher hands for more determined evil. A chosen set of orators, in Roman robes, probably plundered from some suburb theatre, moved forward to the table, and took their seats round it in as much solemnity as conscript fathers. The chief speaker then advanced from the door, preceded by the head of one of the murdered Swiss on a pike, a hideous spectacle, and, drawing from his belt a dagger, commenced a furious harangue against every thing that bore the shape of authority in the kingdom. The Assembly did not escape in the general outpouring of its bitterness. They were charged with want of zeal, with want of honesty, and, most formidable of all, want of patriotism. I saw many a member cower at the word; for it was the countersign of Jacobinism; and the man, on whom that charge was personally fastened, was sure to fall by pistol or dagger. But the rage of the harangue was levelled at the royal family. "There sits the tyrant!" he exclaimed, pointing with his poniard to the meekest of monarchs and of men. "The vengeance of the people calls for victims. How long shall it be insulted? If justice is blind, tear the bandage from her eyes. How long shall the sword of the people rust in its sheath! Liberty sitting on her altar demands new sacrifices to feed the flame. The blood of tyrants is the only incense worthy to be offered by a regenerated people!"

At every pause of those fierce interjections, the crowd burst into yells of applause, drew knives and daggers from their bosoms, flourished them in the air, and echoed the words. The Assembly were evidently held in terror of their lives. The president made some faint attempts to restore order. A few of the members made faint attempts at speeches. But the mob were masters; and a night of such horrors passed, as I had never dreamed of before. At daybreak the orator demanded that a decree should be instantly passed, suspending the king, the ministry, and even the Assembly, in the midst of which he stood. Of all the extravagances ever conceived—of all the insolences of power—of all the licenses of popular licentiousness, this was the most daring, unrivalled, and unimagined; and yet this was carried, with scarcely a voice raised against it. The trembling president, with the dagger at his throat, put the motion for extinguishing the throne, the cabinet, and calling a new Assembly! From that hour the monarchy was no more.

During this tremendous discussion, I had not ventured to raise my eyes towards the royal family; but, as all were now about to retire, I dared a single glance. The king was slowly leaving the box, leading the dauphin by the hand; the Princess Elizabeth was carrying the sleeping dauphiness in her arms; the queen stayed behind, alone, for a moment, sitting, as she had done for hours, with her eyes fixed on vacancy, and her countenance calm, but corpselike. At length she seemed to recollect that she was alone, and suddenly started up. Then nature had its way; she tottered, and fainted. From that night forth, that glorious creature never saw the light of day but through the bars of a prison. From the Feuillans, the royal family were consigned to the cells of the Temple, from which Louis and Marie Antoinette never emerged but to the grave!

This night taught me a lesson, which neither time nor circumstance has ever made me forget. It cured me of all my republican fantasies at once, and for ever. I believe myself above the affectation of romantic sensibility. But it would not be less affectation to deny the feelings to which that awful scene of human guilt and human suffering gave birth. If the memory of the popular atrocities made me almost abhor human nature, the memory of that innocent and illustrious woman restored my admiration of the noble qualities that may still be found in human nature. "If I forget thee even in my mirth," the language of the Israelite to his beloved city, was mine, in scarcely a less solemn or sacred spirit, in those hours of early experience. Let the hearts and eyes of others refuse to acknowledge such feelings. I am not ashamed to say, that I have shed many a tear over the fate of the King and Queen of France. In the finest fictions of genius, in the most high-wrought sorrows of the stage, I have never been so deeply touched, I have never felt myself penetrated with such true and irresistible emotion, as in reading, many a year after, the simplest record of the unhappy Bourbons. What must it be, to have witnessed the last agonies of their hearts and throne!

On returning to my chamber, shuddering and wretched, I found a despatch on my table. It was from Downing Street; an order, that within twelve hours after its receipt, I should set out from Paris, and make my way, with the utmost secrecy, to the headquarters of the Austrian and Prussian army; where further orders would be waiting for me.

This command threw me into new perplexity. It had been my purpose to find my unfortunate friend, if he was not already in the bosom of the Seine, or a victim to some of the popular violences. But my orders were peremptory. I, however, did all that was in my power. I spent the day in looking for him through all the hotels and hospitals; and, after a hopeless search, gave my man of mystery, Mendoza, a commission—paid for at a rate that made him open his hollow eyes wide with incredulity on the coin—to discover and protect him, wherever he was to be found.

But I had now another difficulty which threatened to nip my diplomatic honours in the bud. The news had just arrived, that the allied armies had passed the frontier, and were sweeping all before them with fire and sword. A populace is always mad with courage, or mad with cowardice; and the Parisians, who, but yesterday, were ready to have made a march round the globe, now thought the wells and cellars of the city not too deep, or too dark to hold them. They would have formed a camp in the catacombs, if they could. All was sudden terror. The barriers were shut. Guards were posted tenfold at all the gates. Men were ranged on the heights round the city, to make signals of the first approach of the Prussian hussars; and the inhabitants spent half the day on every house top that commanded a view of the country, waiting for the first glimpse of their devourers. To escape from this city of terror now became next to impossible. All my applications were powerless. The government were themselves regarded as under lock and key; the populace, as if determined that all should share a common massacre, were clustered at the barriers, pike in hand, to put all "emigrants" to death; the ambassador was, as ambassadors generally are in cases of real difficulty, a cipher; and yet I must leave Paris within twelve hours, or be cashiered.

It at length occurred to me to avail myself of my Jewish spy, and I found him listening to a midnight harangue in the midst of a Jacobin crowd, in the Palais Royal. He considered the matter for a while; and I walked about, leaving him to his free invention, while I contrasted the brilliant blaze of the gaming and dancing-rooms above me with the assassin-like darkness of the galleries below. At length he turned to me. "There is but one way. Have you any objection to be arrested?"

"The greatest imaginable," was my answer.

"Just as you please," he replied; "but I have here an order for the seizure of one of the emigrant agents, a Chevalier Lafontaine, lately arrived in Paris. He has been seen in the palace, but we have missed him for the last twelve hours. The order is for Vincennes. Will you take his place?"

I naturally looked all surprise, and peremptorily refused.

"Do as you will," said my intractable adviser; "but there is no other way to pass the gates. I shall take you to Vincennes as a state prisoner; I have influence there. In short, if you trust me, you shall be safe, and on your road by daybreak. If you do not, here your life is uncertain; you are known, watched, and the first order that I receive to-morrow, may be one for your apprehension."

All this was likely enough; there was but a moment to deliberate, and I got into the first cabriolet, and drove with him to the barrier. The streets still exhibited scattered bands, who questioned us from time to time, but the words, "By order of the Municipality," which were enough to terrify the stoutest hearts, and the display of his badge, carried us through. We passed the guard at the gate, after a slight examination of the order, and galloped to Vincennes.

At the sight of the frowning fortress my blood chilled, and I refused to go further. "In that case," said my conductor, "I am compromised, and you are ruined; the first patrol will seize you, while I shall be shot. I pledge myself, that here you shall not remain; but I must be acquitted to the head of the police. You shall be M. le Chevalier Lafontaine for the night; and, if such a man exists, you will probably be the means of saving his life. To-morrow I shall bring proofs of my mistake, and then you will be outside the walls of Paris, and free to go where you please."

The name of Lafontaine decided me. Even the risk seemed less serious than before, and we drove over the drawbridge. The interior of the fortress formed a striking contrast to the scenes which I had just left behind me. All was still stern, and noiseless.

"Give me your papers," said Mendoza; "they will be safer in my hands than in yours."

I had but time to give him my despatch, as we passed through the court which led to the governor's apartments. I was searched in the presence of that important functionary, a meagre old captain of invalids, who had been roused from his bed, and was evidently half asleep. I stoutly denied my being "the criminal who had offended the majesty of the people." But as the governor himself, on gazing at me with his purblind eyes, was perfectly satisfied of my identity, there was no use in contesting the point. A couple of sentinels were placed at the door of my cell, and I was left, like himself, to my slumbers. Before the door closed, I grasped my guide by the throat. The thought that I had been entrapped, actually agonized me.

"Am I betrayed?" I asked, in a whisper of fury.

The only answer was, "Mordecai."

I felt security in the word, and, without a further pang, heard his tread echoing along the distant corridor.

Time rolls on, whether we are happy or miserable. Morning came, and found me feverish from a thousand dreams. Noon came, and my impatience grew with the hour. Evening came, and yet no symptom of my liberation. If, "hope deferred maketh the heart sick," confidence duped, and blindly, weakly, rashly duped, turns to torture.

Why trust a known agent of the police? Why put my liberty into his hands? Why, above all, make him master of my papers? I was overwhelmed with shame. I writhed with remorse. As hour after hour dragged into slow length along, I sank from dejection to dejection, or burst from rage to rage. But at last, when the drums of the garrison were making their final flourish for the night, the key turned in the door of my cell, and the Jew entered. I almost sprang upon him, and his life would have been worth little, but for the words—"You may now leave the fortress." He told me, further, that my absence was fortunate, for a domiciliary visit had been paid to my apartments by direction of the municipality; my trunks examined, and my doors sealed. My absence was imputed to flight; and, as jails were then the only safe residences in France, I had escaped actual imprisonment simply by my volunteer detention; to watch the event, had been the source of his delay. All was speedily settled with the old commandant, who was now as perfectly "convinced, on his own knowledge," that I was not the chevalier, as he had been convinced on the night before that I was. Mendoza's proofs were registered in due form; and with unspeakable delight I once again mounted his cabriolet, and heard the chains of the drawbridge rattle behind me.

My Jew had been true to his pledge. I found horses provided for me at a lonely cabaret, a league off. With the minute foresight which men of his trade learn, he had provided for me a couple of disguises—the garb of a peasant, which I was to use when I passed among the soldiery; and the uniform of an aide-de-camp, with which I was to keep down enquiries when I came among the peasantry. But I was weary of disguise. It had never thriven with my temperament. I was determined, at all events, now to trust to chance and my proper person; and if I must fail, have the satisfaction of failing after my own style. The only recompense which my magnanimous police-officer would receive, was a promise that I should mention his conduct to Mordecai; and, gathering up his rejected wardrobe, he departed.

Fortunately I found disguises unnecessary, though at any other time they might have been essential. The country was all in a state of flight, and every man was too much employed in securing himself, to think of laying hold of others. Thus galloped I through hill and dale, through bush and brier, unquestioned and almost unseen; until, on the evening of the fourth day, as I plunged into a forest, which for the last half hour I had been imagining into a scene of fairyland, a bower where a pilgrim might finish his journey for life, or a man, "crazed by care, or crossed in hopeless love," might forget woman and woe together—I was awakened to the realities of things by the whistle of a bullet, which struck off a branch within an inch of my head, followed by a fierce howl for the countersign. By all the laws of war, the howl should have come first; but these were not times for ceremony. A troop of Hulans rushed round me, sabre in hand. I stood like a stoic; and, of course, attempted to tell who I was. But my German was unintelligible to my captors, and my French, a suspicious language on a Prussian outpost, only confirmed their opinion that I was born to be stripped. Accordingly one demanded my watch, another my purse, and I was in a fair way of entering the Prussian lines in a state of pauperism, or of being "left alone in my glory" by shot or sabre, when an officer rode up, whom I had casually known in some Parisian circle. To him I could explain myself, and to him I exhibited the envelope of my letter, inscribed with the words, "Grand Quartier General." My new friend bowed to this awful address like a Turk to the firman of the padisha, poured out a volley of wrath on the troop, ordered the instant and very reluctant restitution of my property, and with a couple of the squadron at our heels, took me under his escort, to deliver my papers in person.

After an hour's gallop through rocks, rivulets, and brambles, which seemed without end, and totally uninhabited, except by an occasional patrol of the irregulars of the Austrian and Prussian forces—barbarians as savage-looking as ever were Goth or Hun, and capital substitutes for the wolves and wild-boars which they had ejected for the time—a sudden opening of the forest brought us within view of the immense camp of the combined armies.

All the externals of war are splendid; it is the interior, the consequences, the operation of that mighty trampler of man that are startling. This was my first sight of that most magnificent of all the atrocious inventions of human evil—an army. The forces of the two most warlike monarchies of Europe were spread before me; nearly a hundred and fifty thousand troops, with all the numberless followers of a host in the field, covering a range of low hills which circled the horizon. While we were still at a considerable distance, a gun was fired from the central hill, answered by others from the flanks. The rolling of drums set the vast line in motion, and just at the moment when the sun was lying on the edge of the west, the brigades, descending each from its height, halted on the slope. The whole vast manoeuvre was executed with the exactness of a single mind. The blaze of the sun on the arms, the standards, and the tents crowning the brow of the hills, was magical. "Are they marching to battle?" was my amazed question to my companion. His only answer was to check his charger, take off his shako, and bend his forehead to his saddle-bow. A burst of universal harmony, richer than I had ever yet conceived, explained the mystery. It was the evening prayer. The fine bands of the regiments joined the voices of the soldiery, and I listened, in unbroken rapture and reverence, until its close. In court or cathedral, in concert or shrine, I had never before so much felt the power of sound. It finished in a solemn chorus, and accumulation of music. I could have almost imagined it ascending, embodied, to heaven.

The fire of cannon announced the conclusion of the service; we put spurs to our horses, and soon entered the lines; and, on the strength of my credentials, I had distinguished quarters assigned to me.

I now, for the first time since I left England, began to feel the advantages of birth. In London every man is so submerged in the multitude, that he who can hold his head high enough out of the living surge to be known, must have something of remarkable buoyancy, or peculiar villany, about him. Even Parliament, except to a few of the leaders, is no distinction. The member for the shire is clipped of all his plumage at the moment of his entering that colossal poultry-yard, and must take his obscure pickings with other unnoticeable fowl. In Paris, once the Mahometan paradise of stars and garters, the central herald's office of the earth, the royal region of the Parliament aristocracy, where the beggar with a cordon on his breast outshone the banker with millions in his pocket-book, the world was changed; and to be the son or brother of a peer might have been only a speedier passport to the lamp-post. But, in Germany, the land of pedigrees, to be an "honourable" was to be one on whom the sun shone with double beams; the sex, young and old, smiled with double softness and the whole host of Serenities were doubly serene. In camp, nothing could be more hospitable or distinguished than my reception; for the soldier is always good-humoured under canvass, and the German is good-humoured every where. Perhaps he has rather too high an opinion of his descent from Goth and Vandal, but he makes allowance for the more modern savagery of Europe; and although the stranger may neither wear spectacles, nor smoke cigars, neither muzzle his visage with mustaches, nor speak the most formidable tongue on earth, the German will good-naturedly admit, that he may be a human being after all.

But the man with whom my mission brought me most immediately into contact, and to whom I was most indebted for courtesy, would have been a remarkable personage in any country of Europe; that man was the Duke of Brunswick.

On my arrival, I found two letters forwarded from London, and in the hands of an aide-de-camp of the generalissimo. The first which I opened was from the Foreign Office, a simple statement of the purpose for which I was sent—namely, to stimulate the activity of the Prussian councils, and to urge on the commander of the army an immediate march on the French capital; with a postscript, directing me, in case of tardiness being exhibited at headquarters, instantly to transmit a despatch home, and return to my post in Paris. The second letter—which I must, however undiplomatically, admit that I opened with much stronger interest—was from Mordecai. I glanced over it for some mention of the "ane braw name," and bitterly laughed at my own folly in expecting to find such communications in the letter of the hard-headed and busy Jew. All was brief and rapid.

"If this shall find you in the Prussian camp, you will have no more time for me than I have for you. Let me not clip your diplomatic hopes; but this I forewarn you, you will not obtain a single object of your journey; except, perhaps, showing that you can gallop a hundred miles in the four-and-twenty hours, and can make your way through a country of lunatics without being piked or sabred.

"The campaign is over already—over before it was begun. The battle was fought in the council at Berlin, and the allies were beaten. The duke, within the next fortnight, will be deciding on the merits of the ballet in Brunswick, and the French will be madder than ever with triumphs which they never won, preparing for conquests which are already gained, and knocking down thrones, the owners themselves supplying the pickaxes and hammers. You will see the two best armies of the Continent running away from their own shadows; the old councillors of Frederick and Maria Theresa baffled by cabinets of cobblers and tinkers; grey-beard generals, covered with orders, hunted over the frontier by boys, girls, and old women; and France, like a poissarde in a passion, with her hair flying about her ears, a knife in her hand, and her tongue in full swing, scampering half naked over Europe, to the infinite wonder of the wearers of velvet, Mechlin lace, and diadems,—ha, ha, ha!"

While I was trying to decipher this riddle, which was rather too contemptuous for my new views of things, but which I referred to the habitual feelings of a strong-headed man in humble life, brought just close enough to higher to feel his exclusion, an officer was announced as Count Varnhorst, on the staff of the duke. His countenance struck me at first sight, as one which I had seen before; and I soon discovered, that when I was a boy at Eton, he had been on a visit of a few days at Mortimer castle, in the suite of one of the Prussian princes. We had been thus old friends, and we now became young ones within the first quarter of an hour. His countenance was that of a humourist, and his recollections of the Great Frederick rendered him sarcastic on all things of the later generation.

"The duke has sent me for you," said he, "with his apology for keeping you out of bed; but he has appointed midnight for the delivery of your despatches. The truth is, that hitherto we have all slept so soundly, that we must make up for lost time by turning night into day now, just as we have turned day into night for the last twelvemonth."

"But what can you tell me of the duke?"

"Oh! a great deal; but you know that I am on his staff, and therefore bound to keep his secrets."

"Yet, count, remember that we have sworn an eternal friendship within the last five minutes. What can he or I be the worse for my knowing his great and good qualities?"

"My dear young friend, when you are as old as I am, you will see the improprieties of such questions."

"Well, then, to come to the point; is he a great general?"

"He speaks French better than any other prince in Germany."

"Is he an able politician?"

"You must see him on horseback; he rides like a centaur."

"Well, then, in one sentence, will he fight the French?"

"That wholly depends on whether he turns his horse's head towards Paris or Berlin."

"Count, but one question more, which you may answer without a riddle. Do you think that he will receive my mission cordially?"

"He speaks your language; he wears your broad cloth; he loves your porter; and he has married one of your princesses."

"All my difficulties are answered. I am ready; but what shall I find him doing at this extraordinary hour?"

"If asleep, dreaming of the opera at Brunswick; if awake, dreaming of the opera at Paris."

His diamond repeater, which he had laid on the table between us, struck twelve as he spoke; and, wrapping ourselves in our cloaks, we sallied forth into one of the most starry nights of autumn, and made our way, through long ranges of patrols and videttes, to the quarters of the generalissimo.

The mansion was an old chateau, evidently long abandoned to loneliness and decay one of those huge edifices; whose building had cost one fortune, and whose support had exhausted another. But the struggle had been over for the last fifty years, and two or three shrivelled domestics remained to keep out the invasion of the bats and owls. But at this period the chateau exhibited, of course, another scene; aides-de-camp, generals, orderlies, couriers—all the clang and clamour of the staff of a great army—rang through the wild old halls, and echoed up the long ghostly corridors. Every apartment was a blaze of light, and filled with groups of officers of the Prussian and Austrian guards; all was billiard-playing, talking, singing in chorus, and carousing in all the noisy gaiety of the soldier in good quarters.

"All this is tempting enough," said the old count, as we hastened along a gallery that seemed endless, but on which the open doors of the successive apartments threw broad illumination. "I dare say, Mr Marston, that you would prefer taking your seat among those lively fellows, to the honour of a ducal conference; but my orders are, that you must not be seen until the duke gives you carte blanche to appear among human beings again."

The count now opened the door of an apartment, which appeared to have been more lately tenanted than the rest, yet which exhibited signs of the general desertion; a marble table, covered with a decaying drapery, a Carrara alabaster of Niobe and her children on the mantelpiece, a huge mirror, and a tapestry of one of the hunts of Henri Quatre, showed that Time had been there, and that the Prussians had not; but the indistinct light of the single chandelier left me but little opportunity of indulging my speculations on the furniture. The count had left me, to ascertain when the duke should be at leisure to receive me; and my first process was, like a good soldier, to reconnoitre the neighbouring territory. The first door which I opened led into a conservatory, filled with the remnants of dead foliage, opening on the gardens of the chateau, which, wild as they now were, still sent up a fragrance doubly refreshing, after the atmosphere of meershaums, hot brandy, and Rhine beer, which filled the galleries. The casement distantly overlooked the esplanade in front of the chateau; and the perpetual movements of the couriers and estafettes, arriving and departing every moment, the galloping of cavalry, and the march of patrols, occupied me until a valet of the duke came to acquaint me that supper was served, by his highness's commands, in the apartment which I had lately quitted, and that he would be present in a few minutes.

I returned of course; and found the chamber which I had left so dark and dilapidated, changed, as if by a fairy wand, into pomp and elegance. The duke was renowned for splendid extravagance, and the table was covered with rich plate, the walls glittered with a profusion of gilt lamps, and all round me had the look of regal luxury. But one object suddenly caught my gaze, and left me no power to glance at any other. In a recess, which had hitherto been obscure, but over which now blazed a brilliant girandole, hung a full-length portrait of a nun, which, but for the dress, I should have pronounced to be Clotilde; the same Greek profile, the same deep yet vivid eye, the same matchless sweetness of smile, and the same mixture of melancholy and enthusiasm, which had made me think my idol fit to be the worship of the world. I stood wrapped in astonishment, delight, pain, a thousand undefined feelings, until I could have almost imagined that the canvass before me lived. I saw its eye all but glisten, its lips all but open to speak; the very marble of its cheek begin to glow; when I was awakened by a lively voice, saying, in French—"Ah, Mr Marston, I perceive that you are a connoisseur." I turned, and saw the speaker, a man somewhat above the middle size; a remarkably noble-looking personage; in full dress even at that hour, powdered and perfumed, and altogether a court figure; his hands loaded with jewels, and a diamond star of the order of the garter upon his breast. It required no introducer to tell me that I was in the presence of the Duke of Brunswick.

"Come," said he, "we have no time for etiquette, nor indeed for any thing else to-night—we must sup first, and then talk of your mission."

We sat down; a double file of valets, in liveries, loaded with embroidery, attended at the table; though the party consisted of but four; Varnhorst, and a Colonel Guiseard, chief of the secret diplomacy, a pale Spanish-featured officer—to whom his highness did me the honour of introducing me, as the son of one of his old friends.

"You remember Marston," said he, "at Brunswick, five-and-twenty years ago, in his envoyship—a capital horseman, a brilliant dresser, and a very promising diplomatist. I augured well of his future career, but" ——the infinite elevation of the ducal shoulders, and the infinite drooping of the ducal eyes, completed the remainder of my unfortunate parent's history; but whether in panegyric or censure, I was not sufficiently versed in the science of saying nothing and implying all things, to tell. Guiseard fixed his deep sallow eye on me, without a word: at that moment he reminded me exactly of one of the Inquisitors—the deep, dark-visaged men whom the matchless pencil of Velasquez has immortalized.

Varnhorst burst out into a laugh.

"What, Guiseard," said he, "are you reconnoitring the ground before you make the attack? Your royal highness, I think we ought to vindicate our country to this English gentleman, by assuring him that the colonel is not a cardinal in disguise."

The colonel merely smiled, which seemed an effort for his cloistered physiognomy; the duke laughed, and began a general conversation upon all possible topics—England forming the chief; the royal family—the court—the theatres—parliament—the people—all whirled over with the ease and rapidity of one turning the leaves of an album; here a verse and there a portrait—here a sketch of a temple, and there an outline of a cottage—the whole pretty, and as trifling as pretty, and cast aside at the first moment when any thing better worth thinking of occurred.

In the midst of our gaiety, in which the duke had completely laid down his sceptre, and taken his full share, the great clock of the chateau tolled one. The table was instantly swept of supper—the valets withdrew. I heard the tread of a sentinel at the door of the apartment; and the duke, instantly changing from the man of fashion to the statesman, began to enter into the questions then so deeply disturbing all the cabinets of Europe.

I found the duke a very superior man to what I had conceived of him. He was frank and free, spoke of the intentions of the Allies in the most open manner, and censured the errors which they had already committed, with a plainness which I had not expected to find out of London. He had evidently made himself master of a great variety of knowledge, and with the happy but most unusual power of rendering it all applicable to the point in question. My impressions of him and his order, imbibed among the prejudices of England and the libels of France, was that of frivolity and flutter—an idle life and a stagnant understanding. I never was more surprised at the contrast between this conception and the animated and accomplished prince before me. He seemed to know not merely the persons of all the leading men of Europe—which might have naturally been the case with one who had visited every capital—but to be acquainted with their characters, their abilities, and even their modes of thinking. He seemed to me a man born to rule. It was in later days that the habits of a voluptuary, of which his peculiar love of dress might have been slightly symptomatic, produced their effect, in enfeebling a mind made for eminence. I saw him afterwards, broken with years and misfortune. But on this night I could only see a man on whom the destinies of Europe were rightly reposed. I pay this tribute of honour to his memory.

He spoke a great deal, in our conference, on the necessity of a strong European combination against France, and flatteringly addressed to me a strong panegyric on my country.

"If we can obtain," said he, "the cordial co-operation of the English people, I see no difficulty before us. We already have the Ministry with us; but I know the Englishman's hatred of a foreign war, his horror of public expenditure on continental interests, and his general distrust of the policy of foreign courts. And until we can give the people some evidence, not only that our intentions are sincere, but that our cause is their own, we shall never have the nation on our side."

My remark was, "that the chief difficulty with the nation would be, to convince them that the Allied Powers were not influenced by personal motives; I said that the seizure of territory, while the French remained in their defenceless state, would probably excite strong public displeasure in England; and plainly stated, that the only thing which could engage the public spirit in the war, would be a conviction of its absolute justice and stern necessity."

The conversation was here interrupted by the arrival of a staff-officer with despatches from Berlin. A number of papers were laid on the table, and handed over to Varnhorst and Guiseard to read. They proved chiefly notes and orders relative to the advance of the army. One paper, however, the duke read with evident interest, and marked with his pencil down the margin.

"I am delighted," said he, "that this paper has reached us at last. Mr Marston will now see what my real advice has been from the beginning. The French journals have attacked me furiously for the declaration issued at our entrance on the frontier. The journals of England have partly echoed the French, and I am held up to the world as the author of the Declaration of Pilnitz. This paper, which Mr Marston will do me the honour to send at daybreak to his court by a special messenger, will clear my character with his countrymen at once—with the rest of Europe, I am content to wait a little longer."

He then read the paper in his hand; and it was a long and striking protest against the idea of partitioning France, or having any other intention in the movement of the troops than the security of the French throne. This document had been sent to the Council at Berlin, and been returned by them for revision by the duke, and the softening of its rather uncourtly decisiveness of expression. It stated, that even the conquest of France, if it could be effected, must be wholly useless without the conciliation of the people: that it must be insecure, that it never could be complete, and that even the attempt might rouse this powerful people to feel its own force, and turn its vast resources to war. The first measure ought, therefore, to be an address to the nation, pronouncing, in the clearest language, an utter abjuration of all local seizure.

The paper thus returned, and containing the observations of the council, was given to Varnhorst, to be copied. "And now," said the duke, "gentlemen, I think we may retire for the night; for we have but three hours until the march in the morning."

I said some common-place thing, of the obligations which Europe must owe to a sovereign prince, exposing himself to such labours, honourable as they were.

"No," he smilingly replied; "they are part of our office, the routine of the life of princes, the vocation of men born for the public, and living for the public alone. The prince must be a soldier, and the soldier must make the camp his home, and the palace only his sojourn. It is his fortune, perhaps his misfortune, that but one profession in life is left open to him, whether it be the bent of his temperament or not—while other men may follow their tastes in the choice, serve their fellows in a hundred different ways, and raise a bloodless reputation among mankind. And now, good-night. To-morrow at five the advance moves. At six I shall be on horseback, and then—Well! what matter for the then? We shall sleep at least to-night; and so, farewell."

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