Chapter VII: Part IV (2)

But while I followed, with eye and mind, the movements of the stage, Lafontaine was otherwise employed. His opera-glass was roving the boxes; and he continually poured into my most ungrateful ear remarks on the diplomatic body, and recognitions of the _merveilleux_ glittering round the circle. At last, growing petulant at being thus disturbed, I turned to beg of him to be silent, when he simply said--"La Voilà!" and pointed to a group which had just taken their seats in one of the private boxes. From that moment I saw no more of the tragedy. The party consisted of Clotilde, Madame la Maréchal, and a stern but stately-looking man, in a rich uniform, who paid them the most marked attention.

"There is the Marquis," said my companion; "he has never smiled probably, since he was born, or, I suppose, he would smile to-night; for the secretary to the embassy told me, not half an hour ago, that his marriage-contract had just come over, with the king's signature."

My heart sank within me at the sound. Still my gay informant went on, without much concerning himself about feelings which I felt alternately flushing and chilling me. "The match will be a capital one, if matters hold out for us. For Montrecour is one of the largest proprietors in France; but, as he is rather of the new noblesse, the blood of the De Tourvilles will be of considerable service to his pedigree. His new uniform shows me that he has got the colonelcy of my regiment, and, of course, I must attend his levee tomorrow. Will you come?"

My look was a sufficient answer.

"Ah!" said he, "you will not. Ah! there is exactly the national difference. Marriage opens the world to a French _belle_, as much as it shuts the world to an English one. Mademoiselle is certainly very handsome," said he, pausing, and fixing his opera-glass on her. "The contour of her countenance is positively fine; it reminds me of a picture of Clairon in Medea, in the King's private apartments--her smile charming, her eyes brilliant, and her diamonds perfect."

I listened, without daring to lift my eyes; he rambled on--"Fortunate fellow, the Marquis--fortunate in every thing but that intolerable physiognomy of his--Grand Ecuyer, Gold Key, Cross of Saint Louis, and on the point of being the husband of the finest woman between Calais and Constantinople. Of course, you intend to leave your card on the marriage?"

"No," was my answer. I suppose that there was something in the sound which struck him. He stared with palpable wonder.

"What! are you not an old acquaintance? Have you not known her this month? Have you not walked, and talked, and waltzed, with her?"

"Never spoke a word to her in my life."

"Well, then, you shall not be left in such a forlorn condition long. I must pay my respects to my colonel. I dare say you may do the same to the _fiancée_. Mademoiselle will be charmed to have some interruption to his dreary attentions."

I again refused, but the gay Frenchman was not to be repulsed. He made a prodigious bow to the box, which was acknowledged by both the ladies. "There," said he, "the affair is settled. You cannot possibly hesitate now; that bow is a summons to their box. I can tell you also that you are highly honoured; for, if it had been in Paris, you could not have got a sight of the bride except under the surveillance of a pair of chaperons as grey and watchful as cats, or a couple of provincial uncles as stiff as their own forefathers armed cap-a-pie."

I could resist no longer; but with sensations perhaps not unlike those of one ascending the scaffold, I mounted the stairs. As the door opened, and Lafontaine, tripping forward, announced my name, Clotilde's cheek suffused with a burning blush, which in the next instant passed away, and left her pale as marble. The few words of introduction over, she sank into total silence; and though she made an effort, from time to time, to smile at Lafontaine's frivolities, it was but a feeble one, and she sat, with pallid lips and a hectic spot on her statue-like cheek, gazing on the carpet. I attempted to take some share in the conversation; but all my powers of speech were gone, my tongue refused to utter, and I remained the most complete and unfortunate contrast to my lively friend, who was now engaged in detailing the attempt on the royal life to Madame la Maréchal, whose later arrival had prevented their witnessing it in person. My nearer view of the Marquis did not improve the sketch which Lafontaine had given of his commanding-officer. He was a tall, stiff, but soldierly-looking person, with an expression, which, as we are disposed to approve or the reverse, might be called strong sense or sullen temper. But he had some reputation in the service as a bold, if not an able officer. He had saved the French troops in America by his daring, from the effects of some blunders committed by the giddiness of their commander-in-chief; and as his loyalty was not merely known but violent, and his hatred of the new faction in France not merely determined but furious, he was regarded as one of the pillars of the royal cause. The Marquis was evidently in ill-humour, whether with our introduction or with his bride; yet it was too early for a matrimonial quarrel, and too late for a lover's one. Clotilde was evidently unhappy, and after a few common-places we took our leave; the Marquis himself condescending to start from his seat, and shut the door upon our parting bow. The stage had now lost all interest for me, and I prevailed on Lafontaine, much against his will, to leave the house. The lobby was crowded, the rush was tremendous, and after struggling our way, with some hazard of our limbs, we reached the door only just in time to see Montrecour escorting the ladies to their carriage.

All was over for the night; and my companion, who now began to think that he had tormented me too far, was drawing me slowly, and almost unconsciously, through the multitude, when a flourish of trumpets and drums announced that their Majesties were leaving the theatre. The life guards rode up; and the rushing of the crowd, the crash of the carriages, the prancing and restiveness of the startled horses, and the quarrelling of the coachmen and the Bow Street officers, produced a scene of uproar. My first thought was the hazard of Clotilde, and I hastened to the spot where I had seen her last, but she was gone.

"All's safe, you see," said Lafontaine, trying to compose his ruffled costume; "your John Bulls are dangerous, in their loyalty, to coats and carriages." I agreed with him, and we sprang into one of the wretched vehicles that held its ground, with English tenacity, in the midst of a war of coronets. But our adventures were not to close so simply. Our driver had not remained in the rain for hours, without applying to the national remedy against all inclemencies of weather. He had no sooner mounted the box than I found that we were running a race with every carriage which we approached, sometimes tilting against them, and sometimes narrowly escaping from being overturned. At last we met with an antagonist worthy of our prowess. All my efforts to stop our charioteer had been useless, for he was evidently beyond any kind of appeal but that of flinging him from his seat; and Lafontaine, with the genuine fondness of a Gaul for excitement of all kinds, seemed wonderfully amused as we swept along. But our new rival was evidently in the same condition with our own Jehu, and after a smart horsewhipping of each other, they rushed forward at full speed. A sudden scream from within the other carriage showed the terror of its inmates, as it dashed along; an old woman in full dress, however, was all that I could discover; for we were fairly distanced in the race, though it was still kept up, with all the perseverance of a fool thoroughly intoxicated. In a few minutes more we heard a tremendous collision in front, and saw by the blaze of half a hundred flambeaux brandished in all directions, our rival a complete wreck, plunged into the midst of a crowd of equipages, waiting for their lordly owners in front of Devonshire house. It had been one of the weekly balls given by the Duchess, and the fallen vehicle had damaged panels covered with heraldry as old as the Plantagenets.

Arriving with almost equal rapidity, but with better fortune, I had but just time to spring into the street, at the instant when the old lady, writhing herself out of the window, which was now uppermost, was about to trust her portly person to chance. I caught her as she clung to the carriage with her many-braceleted arms, and was almost strangled by the vigour of her involuntary embrace as she rolled down upon me.

There was nothing in the world less romantic than my position in the midst of a circle of sneering footmen; and, as if to put romance for ever out of the question, I was relieved from my plumed and mantled encumbrance only by the assistance of Townshend, then the prince of Bow Street officers; who, knowing every thing and every body, informed me that the lady was a person of prodigious rank, and that he should 'feel it his duty,' before he parted with me, to ascertain whether her ladyship's purse had not suffered defalcation by my volunteering.

I was indignant, as might be supposed; and my indignation was not at all decreased by the coming up of half a dozen Bow Street officers, every one of whom either "believed," or "suspected," or "knew," me to be "an old offender." But I was relieved from the laughter of the liveried mob round me, and probably from figuring in the police histories of the morning, by the extreme terrors of the lady for the fate of her daughter. The carriage had by this time been raised up, but its other inmate was not to be found. She now produced the purse, which had been so impudently the cause of impeaching my honour; "and offered its contents to all who should bring any tidings of her daughter, her lost child, her Clotilde!" The name thrilled on my ear. I flew off to renew the search, followed by the crowd--was unsuccessful, and returned, only to see my _protégé_ in strong hysterics. My situation now became embarrassing; when a way was made through the crowd by a highly-powdered personage, the chamberlain of the mansion, who announced himself as sent by "her Grace," to say that the Countess de Tourville was safe, having been taken into the house; and, further, conveying "her Grace's compliments to Madame la Maréchal de Tourville, to entreat that she would do her the honour to join her daughter." This message, delivered with all the pomp of a "gentleman of the bedchamber," produced its immediate effect upon the circle of cocked hats and worsted epaulettes. They grew grave at once; and guided by Townshend, who moved on, hat in hand, and bowing with the obsequiousness of one escorting a prince of the blood, we reached the door of the mansion.

But here a new difficulty arose. The duchess was known to La Maréchal, for to whom in misfortune was not that most generous and kind-hearted duchess known? But _I_ was still a stranger. However, with my old Frenchwoman, ceremony was not then the prevailing point. _I_ had been her "preserver," as she was pleased to term me. _I_ had been "introduced," which was quite sufficient for knowledge; above all other merits, "I spoke French like a Parisian;" in short, it was wholly impossible for her to ascend the crowded staircase, with her numberless dislocations, by the help of any other arm on earth. The slightest hope of seeing Clotilde would have made me confront all the etiquette of Spain; and I bore the contrast of my undress costume with the feathered and silken multitude which filled the stairs, in the spirit of a philosopher, until, by "many a step and slow," we reached the private wing of the mansion.

There, in an apartment fitted up with all the luxury of a boudoir, yet looking melancholy from the dim lights and the silent attendants, lay Clotilde on a sofa. But how changed from the being whom I had just seen at the theatre! She had been in imminent danger, and was literally dragged from under the horses' feet. A slight wound in her temple was still bleeding, and her livid lips and half-closed eyes gave me the image of death. As for Madame, she was in distraction; the volubility of her sorrows made the well-trained domestics shrink, as from a display at which they ought not to be present; and at length the only recipients of her woes were myself and the physician, who, with ominous visage, and drops in hand, was administering his aid to the passive patient. As Madame's despair rendered her wholly useless, the doctor called on me to assist him in raising her from the floor, on which she had flung herself like a heroine in a tragedy.

While I was engaged in this most reluctant performance, the accents of a sweet voice, and the rustling of silk, made me raise my eyes, and a vision floated across the apartment; it was the duchess herself, glittering in gold and jewels, turbaned and embroidered, as a Semiramis or a queen of Sheba; she was brilliant enough for either. She had just left the fancy ball behind, and was come "to make her personal enquiries for the health of her young friend."

My office was rather startling, even to the habitual presence of mind of the leader of fashion. I might have figured in her eyes, as the husband, or the lover, or the doctor's apprentice; she almost uttered a scream. But the sound, slight as it was, recalled the Maréchal to her senses. The explanation was given with promptitude, and received with politeness. My family, in all its branches, came into her Grace's quick recollection; and I was thus indebted to my adventure, not only for an introduction to one of the most elegant women of her time--to the goddess of fashion in her temple, the Circe of high life, at the "witching hour," but of being most "graciously" received; and even hearing a panegyric on my chivalry, from the Maréchal, smilingly echoed by lips which seemed made only for smiles.

A summons from the ball-room soon withdrew the captivating mistress of the mansion, who retired with the step and glance of the very queen of courtesy; and I was about to take my leave, when a ceremonial of still higher interest awaited me. Clotilde, feebly rising from her sofa, and sustaining herself on the neck of her kneeling mother, murmured her thanks to me "for the preservation of her dear parent." The sound of her voice, feeble as it was, fell on my ear like music. I advanced towards her. The Maréchal stood with her handkerchief to her eyes, and venting her sensibilities in sobs. The fairer object before me shed no tears, but, with her eyes half-closed, and looking the marble model of paleness and beauty, she held out her hand. She was, perhaps, unconscious of offering more than a simple testimony of her gratitude for the services which her mother had described with such needless eloquence. But in that delicious, yet unaccountable feeling--that superstition of the heart, which makes every thing eventful--even that simple pressure of her hand created a long and living future in my mind.

Yet let me do myself justice; whether wise or weak in the presence of the only being who had ever mastered my mind, I was determined not "to point a moral and adorn a tale." I had other duties and other purposes before me than to degenerate into a slave of sighs. I was to be no Romeo, bathing my soul in the luxuries of Italian palace-chambers, moonlight speeches, and the song of nightingales. I felt that I was an Englishman, and had the rugged steep of fortune to climb, and climb alone. The time, too, in which I was to begin my struggle for distinction, aroused me to shake off the spirit of dreams which threatened to steal over my nature. The spot in which I lived was the metropolis of mankind. I was in the centre of the machinery which moved the living world. The wheels of the globe were rushing, rolling, and resounding in my ears. Every interest, necessity, stimulant, and passion of mankind, came in an incessant current to London, as to the universal heart, and flowed back, refreshed and invigorated, to the extremities of civilization. I saw the hourly operations of that mighty furnace in which the fortunes of all nations were mingled, and poured forth remolded. And London itself was never more alive. Every journal which I took up was filled with the signs of this extraordinary energy; the projects and meetings, the harangues and political experiments, of bold men, some rising from the mire into notoriety, if not into fame; some plunging from the highest rank of public life into the mire, in the hope of rising, if with darkened, yet a freshened wing. The debates in parliament, never more vivid than at this crisis, with the two great parties in full force, and throwing out flashes in every movement, like the collision of two vast thunder clouds, were a perpetual summons to action in every breast which felt itself above the dust it trod. But the French journals were the true excitements to political ardour. They were more than lamps, guiding mankind along the dusky paths of public regeneration--they were torches, dazzling the multitude who attempted to profit by their light; and, while they threw a glare round the head of the march, blinding all who followed. To one born, like myself, in the most aristocratic system of society on earth, yet excluded from its advantages by the mere chance of birth, it was new, and undoubtedly not displeasing, to see the pride of nobility tamed by the new rush of talent and ambition which had started up from obscurity in France; village attorneys and physicians, clerks in offices, journalists, men from the plough and the pen, supplying the places of the noblesse of Clovis and Capet, possessing themselves of the highest power while their predecessors were flying through Europe; conducting negotiations, commanding armies, ruling assemblies, holding the helm of government in the storm which had scattered the great names of France upon the waters. I anticipated all the triumph of the "younger sons."

Even the brief interval of my Brighton visit had curiously changed the aspect of the metropolis. The emigration was in full force, and every spot was crowded with foreign visages. Sallow cheeks and starting eyes, scowling brows and fierce mustaches, were the order of the day; the monks and the military had run off together. The English language was almost overwhelmed by the perpetual jargon of all the loud-tongued provincialities of France. But the most singular portion was the ecclesiastical. The streets and parks were filled with the unlucky sheep of the Gallican church, scattered before the teeth and howl of the republican wolf; and England saw, for the first time, the secrets of the monastery poured out before the light of day. The appearance of some among this sable multitude, though venerable and dignified, could not prevent the infinite grotesque of the others from having its effect on the spectator. The monks and priesthood of France amounted to little less than a hundred and fifty thousand. All were now thrown up from the darkness of centuries before a wondering world. I had Milton's vision of Limbo before my eyes.

"Embryos and idiots, eremites and friars,
A violent cross wind from either coast
Blew them transverse. Then might ye see
Cowls, hoods, and habits, with their wearers, tost,
And flutter'd into rags; their reliques, beads,
Indulgences, dispenses, pardons, bulls,
The sport of winds."

The mire was fully stirred up in which the hierarchy had enjoyed its sleep and sunshine for a thousand years. The weeds and worms had been fairly scraped off, which for a thousand years had grown upon the keel of the national vessel, and of which the true wonder was, that the vessel had been able to make sail with them clinging to her so long. In fact, I was thus present at one of the most remarkable phenomena of the whole Revolution. The flight of a noblesse was nothing to this change. The glittering peerage of France, created by a court, and living in perpetual connexion with the court, as naturally followed its fate as a lapdog follows the fortunes of its mistress; but here was a digging up of the moles, an extermination of the bats, a general extrusion of the subversive principle, to a race of existence which, whether above or below ground, seemed almost to form a part of the soil. Monkery was broken up, like a ship dashed against the shores of the bay of Biscay. The ship was not only wrecked, but all its fragments continued to be tossed on the ceaseless surge. The Gallican church was flung loose over Europe, at a time when all Europe itself was in commotion. I own, to the discredit of my political foresight, that I thought its forms and follies extinguished for ever. The snake was more tenacious of life than I had dreamed. But if I erred, I did not err alone.

Mordecai, whom I found immersed deeper and deeper in continental politics, and who scarcely denied his being the accredited agent of the emigrant princes, gave his opinion of this strange portion of French society with much more promptitude than he probably would of the probable fall or rise of stocks.

"Of all the gamblers at the great gambling-table of France," said he, "the clergy have played their game the worst. By leaving their defence to the throne, they have only dragged down the throne. By relying on the good sense of the National Assembly, they have left themselves without a syllable to say. Like men pleading by counsel, they have been at the mercy of their counsel, and been ruined at once by their weakness and their treachery."

On my observing to him that the church of France was necessarily feebler than either the throne or the nobles, and that, therefore, its natural course was to depend on both--

"Rely upon it," said the keen Jew "that any one great institution of the state which suffers itself, in the day of danger, to depend on any other for existence, will be ruined. When all are pressed, each will be glad to get rid of the pressure, by sacrificing the most dependent. The church should have stood on its own defence. The Gallican hierarchy was, beyond all question, the most powerful in Europe. Rome and her cardinals were tinsel and toys to the solid strength of the great provincial clergy of France. They had numbers, wealth, and station. Those things could give influence among a population of Hottentots. Let other hierarchies take example. They threw them all away, at the first move of a bloody handkerchief on the top of a Parisian pike. They had vast power with the throne; but what had once been energy they turned into encumbrance, and if the throne is pulled down, it will be by their weight. They had a third of the land in actual possession, and they allowed themselves to be stripped of it by a midnight vote of a drunken assembly. If they were caricatured in Paris, they had three-fourths of the population as fast bound to them as bigotry and their daily bread could bind. Three months ago, they might have marched to Paris with their crucifixes in front, and three millions of stout peasantry in their rear, have captured the capital, and fricaseed the foolish legislature. And now, they have archbishops learning to live on a shilling a-day."

From the Horse guards I had yet obtained nothing, but promises of "being remembered on the first vacancy;" Clotilde was still a sufferer, and my time, like that of every man without an object, began to be a deplorable encumbrance. In short, my vision of high life and its happiness was fairly vanishing hour by hour. I occasionally met Lafontaine; but, congenial as our tempers might be, our natures had all the national difference, and I sometimes envied, and as often disdained, his buoyancy. Even he, too, had his fluctuations; and a letter from Mariamne, a little more or less petulant, raised and sank him like the spirits in a thermometer.

But one day he rushed into my apartment with a look of that despair which only foreigners can assume, and which actually gave me the idea that he was about to commit suicide. Flinging himself into a chair, and plunging his hand deep into his bosom, from which I almost expected to see him draw the fatal weapon, he extracted a paper, and held it forth to me. "Read!" he exclaimed, with the most pathetic tones of Talma in tragedy--"read my ruin!" I read, and found that it was a letter from his domineering little Jewess, commanding him to throw up his commission on the spot, and especially not to go to France, on penalty of her eternal displeasure. My looks asked an explanation. "There!" cried the hero of the romance, "there!--see the caprice, the cruelty, the intolerable tyranny of that most uncertain, intractable, and imperious of all human beings!" I had neither consolation nor contradiction to offer.

He then let me into his own secret, with an occasional episode of the secrets of others--the substance of the whole being, that a counter revolution was preparing in France; that, after conducting the correspondence in London for some time, he had been ordered to carry a despatch, of the highest importance, to the secret agency in Paris; and that the question was now between love and honour--Mariamne having, by some unlucky hint dropped from her father, received intimation of the design, and putting her _veto_ on his bearing any part in it in the most peremptory manner. What was to be done? The unfortunate youth was fairly on the horns of the dilemma, and he obviously saw no ray of extrication but the usual Parisian expedient of the pistol.

While he alternately raved and wept, the thought struck me--"Why might I not go in his place?" I was growing weary of the world, however little I knew of it. I had no Mariamne either to prohibit or to weep for me. The only being for whom I wished to live was lost to me already. I offered myself as the carrier of the despatch without delay.

I never saw ecstasy so visible in a human being; his eloquence exhausted the whole vocabulary of national rapture. "I was his friend, his brother, his preserver. I was the best, the ablest, the noblest of men." But when I attempted to escape from this overflow of gratitude, by observing on the very simple nature of the service, his recollection returned, and he generously endeavoured, with equal zeal, to dissuade me from an enterprise of which the perils were certainly neither few nor trifling. He was now in despair at my obstinacy. The emigration of the French princes had not merely weakened their cause in France, but had sharpened the malice of their enemies. Their agents had been arrested in all quarters, and any man who ventured to carry on a correspondence with them, was now alike in danger of assassination and of the law. After debating the matter long, without producing conviction on either side, it was at length agreed to refer the question to Mordecai, whom Lafontaine now formally acknowledged to be master of the secret on both sides of the Channel.

* * * * *

A VISION OF THE WORLD.

BY DELTA.

A blossom on a laurel tree--a cloudlet on the sky
Borne by the breeze--a panorama shifting on the eye;
A zig-zag lightning-flash amid the elemental strife--
Yea! each and all are emblems of man's transitory life!
Brightness dawns on us at our birth--the dear small world of home,
A tiny paradise from which our wishes never roam,
Till boyhood's widening circle brings its myriad hopes and fears,
The guileless faith that never doubts--the friendship that endears.

Each house and tree--each form and face, upon the ready mind
Their impress leave; and, in old age, that impress fresh we find,
Even though long intermediate years, by joy and sorrow sway'd,
Should there no mirror find, and in oblivion have decay'd.
How fearful first the shock of death! to think that even one
Whose step we knew, whose voice we heard, should see no more the sun;
That though a thousand years were ours, that form should never more
Revisit, with its welcome smiles, earth's once-deserted shore!

Look round the dwellings of the street--and tell, where now are they
Whose tongues made glad each separate hearth, in childhood's early day;
Now strangers, or another generation, there abide,
And the churchyard owns their lowly graves, green-mouldering side by side!
Spring! Summer! Autumn! Winter! then how vividly each came!
The moonlight pure, the starlight soft, and the noontide sheath'd in flame;
The dewy morning with her birds, and evening's gorgeous dyes,
As if the mantles of the blest were floating through the skies.

I laid me down, but not in sleep--and Memory flew away
To mingle with the sounds and scenes the world had shown by day;
Now listening to the lark, she stray'd across the flowery hill,
Where trickles down from bowering groves the brook that turns the mill;
And now she roam'd the city lanes, where human tongues are loud,
And mix the lofty and the low amid the motley crowd,
Where subtle-eyed philosophy oft heaves a sigh, to scan
The aspiring grasp, and paltry insignificance of man!

'Mid floods of light in festal halls, with jewels rare bedight,
To music's soft and syren sounds, paced damosel with knight;
It seem'd as if the fiend of grief from earthly bounds was driven,
For there were smiles on every cheek that spake of nought but heaven;
But, from that gilded scene, I traced the revellers one by one,
With sad and sunken features each, unto their chambers lone;
And of that gay and smiling crowd whose bosoms leapt to joy,
How many might there be, I ween'd, whom care did not annoy?

Some folded up their wearied eyes to dark unhallow'd dreams--
The soldier to his scenes of blood, the merchant to his schemes:
Pride, jealousy, and slighted love, robb'd woman of her rest;
Revenge, deceit, and selfishness, sway'd man's unquiet breast.
Some, turning to the days of youth, sigh'd o'er the sinless time
Ere passion led the heart astray to folly, care, and crime;
And of that dizzy multitude, from found or fancied woes,
Was scarcely one whose slumbers fell like dew upon the rose!

Then turn'd I to the lowly hearth, where scarcely labour brought
The simplest and the coarsest meal that craving nature sought;
Above, outspread a slender roof, to shield them from the rain,
And their carpet was the verdure with which nature clothes the plain;
Yet there the grateful housewife sat, her infant on her knee,
Its small palms clasp'd within her own, as if likewise pray'd he;
For ere their fingers brake the bread, from toil incessant riven,
Son, sire, and matron bow'd their heads, and pour'd their thanks to Heaven.

What, then, I thought, is human life, if all that thus we see
Of pageantry and of parade devoid of pleasure be!
If only in the conscious heart true happiness abide,
How oft, alas! has wretchedness but grandeur's cloak to hide?
And when upon the outward cheek a transient smile appears,
We little reck how lately hath its bloom been damp'd by tears,
And how the voice, whose thrillings from a light heart seem'd to rise,
Throughout each sleepless watch of night gave utterance but to sighs.

This was the moral, calm and deep, which to my musing thought,
From all the varying views of man and life, reflection brought--
That most things are not what they seem, and that the outward shows
Of grade and rank are only masks that hide our joys and woes;
That with the soul, the soul alone, resides the awful power,
To light with sunshine or o'ergloom the solitary hour;
And that the human heart is but a riddle to be read,
When all the darkness round it now in other worlds hath fled.

Why, then, should sorrow cloud the brow, should misery crush the heart,
Since all life's varied changes "come like shadows, so depart?"
There is one sun, there is one shower, to evil and to just,
And health, and strength, and length of days, and to all the common dust:
But as the snake throws off its skin, the soul throws off its clay,
And soars, till purpled are its wings with everlasting day;
God, having winnow'd with his flail the chaff from out the wheat,
When those, who seem'd alike when here, approach'd his judgment-seat.

* * * * *

THE BANKRUPTCY OF THE GREEK KINGDOM.

Come let us drink their memory,
Those glorious Greeks of old--
On shore and sea the Famed, the Free,
The Beautiful--the Bold!
The mind or mirth that lights each page,
Or bowl by which we sit
Is sunfire pilfer'd from their age--
Gems splinter'd from their wit.
Then, drink and swear by Greece, that there
Though Rhenish Huns may hive
In Britain we the liberty
She loved will keep alive.

_Philhellenic Drinking Song._ By B. Simmons.

In our July No. CCCXXXIII.

Sir Robert Peel, Monsieur Guizot, and Count Nesselrode, Great Britain, France, and All the Russias, have announced to the world that the kingdom of Greece is bankrupt. The _Morning Chronicle_, at a time when it was regarded as a semi-official authority on foreign affairs, declared and certified that the king of Greece was an idiot. Verily! the battle of Navarino has proved a most "untoward event."

In these degenerate days, a revolution is by no means so serious a matter as a bankruptcy, and kings require rather more than the ordinary proportion of wit to keep their feet steady in their slippery elevation. Greece is therefore clearly in a most lamentable condition, and the British public who adopted her, and fed her for a while on every luxury, now cares very little about her misfortunes. Sir Francis Burdett, Sir John Hobhouse, and the Right Honourable Edward Ellice, who once acted as her trustees, and Joseph Hume--the immaculate and invulnerable Joseph himself, who once stood forward as her champion--have forgotten her existence.

There can be no permanent sympathy where truth is wanting, but the public does not attend to the correct translation of _Graecia mendax_; it ought to convey the fact, that foreigners tell more lies about Greece than the natives themselves. Old Juvenal calls the Greeks a mendacious set of fabulists, for recording that Xerxes made a canal through the isthmus to the north of Mount Athos. Colonel Leake declares that the traces of the canal are visible to all men at this day, who ride across that desert plain. The moral we wish to inculcate is, that modern politicians should learn, from the error of the old Roman satirist, to look before they leap. We shall now endeavour to supply our readers with an impartial account of the present condition of the Greeks, without meddling with politics or political speculation. Our opinion is, that the country ought not to be put in the _Gazette_,--nor ought the king to be sent to the hospital. Greece is not quite bankrupt, and King Otho is not quite an idiot. Funds are scarce every where with borrowers in this unlucky year 1843, and wit scarcer still with most men.

Our readers are aware, that Great Britain, France, and Russia, having constituted themselves into an alliance for protecting Greece, concocted together a long series of protocols, and selected Prince Otho of Bavaria to be King of Greece.[A] The prince was then a promising youth of seventeen years of age, destined by his royal father to be a priest, and--his holiness the Pope willing--in due time a cardinal. At the time of King Otho's election, a national assembly was sitting in Greece, and a military revolution was raging in the country, in consequence of the assassination of Capo d'Istria. The recognition of King Otho was obtained from this national assembly by the ministers of the three protecting powers, amidst scenes of promising, threatening, and stabbing, which will long form a deep stain on the Greek revolution, and on European diplomacy. Mr Parish, who was subsequently secretary of the British Legation in Greece, has described the drama, and the share which the ministers of the allied powers took in arranging its acts.

[Footnote A: Three large volumes of papers relative to the affairs of Greece have been laid before Parliament in 1830, 1832, 1833, and 1836.]

It was well known that King Otho and his regency could not arrive for several months; and it appeared to be the duty of the protecting powers, who had selected a sovereign for Greece, to maintain tranquillity in the country until the arrival of the new government. The representatives of the allied powers shrank from this responsibility. The national assembly seemed determined to vote two addresses--one congratulating King Otho on his selection to the throne, assuring him of the submission of the nation, but stating to him the laws and usages of Greece, and informing him that his new dignity imposed on him the duty of rendering justice to all men according to the laws and institutions of Greece. This address might have failed to interest the foreign ministers, but it became known that another was to follow--thanking the protecting powers for the selection they had made of a monarch, but calling upon them to maintain order in the country until the arrival of the young king, or of a legally appointed regency.

The representatives of the European powers knew that Greece was in a state of anarchy, and that the irregular troops scattered over the country, were destroying the resources of the new monarchy; yet to escape the responsibility of advising their courts to act, they thought fit to persuade a few of the political leaders of different parties to unite in silencing the observations of the representatives of the Greek nation, and looked on while a military insurrection compelled the assembly to adopt a decree in the following words--

"The representatives of the Greek
nation recognise and confirm the selection
of H.R.H. Prince Otho of Bavaria as
King of Greece.

"The present decree shall be inserted
in the acts of the assembly, and published
by the press."

The military rabble outside then rushed in and dispersed the representatives of the Greek nation. No rhetorical Greek ever prepared this precious decree. It tells its own tale; it is too diplomatically laconic. It served its purpose in Europe: it looked so well suited to act as an annex to a protocol. Here, however, we have the source of half the evils of the Greek monarchy. King Otho's reign commenced with a violation of law, order, and common sense; and as this violation of every principle of justice had been openly countenanced by the political agents of the protecting powers, King Otho was misled into a belief that Great Britain, France, and Russia, wished to deliver Greece, bound hand and foot, and despoiled of every right, into his hands.

Various reasons, at the time, induced the Greeks to submit to these proceedings without a murmur, and even to turn away from those who endeavoured to raise a warning voice. The truth is, no sacrifice was too great, which held out a hope of putting an end to the existing anarchy. About thirteen thousand irregular troops were occupying the richest part of Greece, and destroying or consuming every thing that had escaped the Turks. The cattle and sheep of the peasantry were seized, the olive trees cut down for fuel; and while the people were dying of hunger, literally perishing for want of food, these banditti were feasting in abundance. The political Greeks, the jackals of diplomacy, cajolled the people and the soldiers, by declaring that the allied powers had furnished the king with money to pay the troops, and to indemnify every man for the losses sustained during the revolution.

King Otho and his regency did at last arrive, and they brought with them an army of Bavarians. The king was received with a degree of enthusiasm, and with proofs of devotion which would have touched any hearts not protected by an impenetrable padding of beer and sour crout. But it was, unfortunately for the young king, the fashion at the new court to despise and distrust the Greeks, to underrate their exploits, and to declaim against their honesty. The revolution was treated as a war of words, the defence of Missolonghi as a trifle, and the naval warfare as a farce. The Greeks have since, on the mountains of Maina, and on the plain of Phthiotis, shown themselves so far superior to the Bavarians when engaged in the field, that we shall say nothing on that subject. Their honesty has been generally considered more questionable than their courage; for though the names of Miaulis, Kanaris, Marco Botzaris, Niketas, Kolocotroni and Karaiskaki are known to all Europe, the only spotless statesman, in the opinion of the Greeks themselves, is the unknown Kanakaris. The arrival of the king, however, afforded singular proof of the strong feeling of patriotism and honesty which prevailed among the people.

The Bavarians arrived in Greece early in 1833, and the revenues for that year were estimated, by competent persons, at four millions of drachmas; but it was thought that the regency would not succeed in collecting more than three millions, as their recent arrival prevented their enforcing a strict system of control. It was necessary, therefore, to trust much to the honesty of the people, usually a poor guarantee for large payments into the exchequer of any country. But the Greeks felt that their national independence was connected with the stability of the new government, and they acted with true nobility of feeling on the occasion. The revenues received by the king's government in 1833, amounted to upwards of seven millions of drachmas, although two months elapsed before some of the provinces were relieved from the burden of maintaining the irregular soldiery at free quarters. We believe that there never was a government in the world which received the amount of the taxes imposed on the people with such perfect good faith, as the Greek government in 1833. The expenditure of the government for that year, amounted to something more than thirteen millions and a half, and if Greece had been governed with the honesty shown by the Greek people, the expenditure of future years would never have exceeded that sum.

[We subjoin a statement of the revenues and expenditure of Greece, for those in which the Greek government have condescended to publish their accounts.

REVENUE. EXPENDITURE. Drachmas. Drachmas. 1833, . . . . 7,042,653 1833, . . . . 13,630,467 1834, . . . . 9,455,410 1834, . . . . 20,150,657 1835, . . . . 10,737,011 1835, . . . . 16,851,070 1836, . . . . 12,381,000 1836, . . . . 16,447,126 1837, . . . . 13,313,393 1837, . . . . 16,190,527

After the king took the entire direction of public business into his own hands, he gave up publishing any accounts, and accordingly none have appeared in the Greek Gazette for the years 1838, 1839, 1840, and 1841. Financial difficulties pressing hard in 1842, his Majesty resumed the practice to a certain degree, by publishing a budget:--

REVENUE. EXPENDITURE.
Drachmas. Drachmas.
1842, estimated at 17,834,000 1842, . . . . 19,395,022
1843, . . . . 14,407,795 1843, . . . . 18,666,482

We may remark, that not the smallest reliance can be placed on these budgets for the years 1842 and 1843. We are informed that 1,000,000 drachmas of the revenue of 1842 were still unpaid in the month of May 1843.]

We shall now endeavour to explain why the king's government has proved so inefficient in improving the country, and afterwards examine the various causes of its extreme unpopularity. To do this, it is necessary to state what the government has really done; and also, what it was expected to do. We shall try as we go along, to explain the part the protecting powers have acted in thwarting the progress of improvement, and in encouraging the court in its lavish expenditure and anti-national policy. It must, indeed, constantly be borne in mind by the reader, that the three protecting powers in their collective capacity have all along supported the government of King Otho--and that even when the _Morning Chronicle_ called King Otho an idiot, and Lord Palmerston quarrelled with him and scolded him, still England joined the other powers in continuing to supply him with money to continue his immense palace, and pay his Bavarian aides-de-camp. We may add, too, that if it had been otherwise, had either Great Britain, France, or Russia, deliberately abandoned the alliance, King Otho would immediately have ceased to be King of Greece, unless supported on his throne by the direct interference of the other two. Had the Greeks not looked upon him as the pledge that the protecting powers would maintain order in the country, they would have sent him back to his royal father, as ornamental at Munich, where an additional king would make the town look gayer, but as utterly useless in Greece. Though, England, France, and Russia, have therefore each in their turn acted in opposition to King Otho, still they have always as a body supported his doings, right or wrong.

Let us now see what the government of King Otho has done for Greece. From 1833 until 1837, Greece was governed by Bavarian ministers, and accordingly the king was not considered directly responsible for the conduct of the administration. These ministers were Mr Maurer, who, during 1833 and part of 1834, directed the government. He was supported with great eagerness by France, and opposed with more energy by England. The liberal and anti-Russian tendency of his measures, alarmed Russia, but she showed her opposition with considerable moderation. Count Armansperg succeeded Mr Maurer, and he ruled Greece with almost absolute power for two years. He was supported by Lord Palmerston with the energy of the most determined partizanship. The institutions of Greece, liberal policy, and sound principles of commercial legislation, were all forgotten, because Count Armansperg was anti-Russian. The opposition of France and Russia was strongly announced, but restrained within reasonable bounds. Mr Rudhart succeeded Count Armansperg. He, poor man! was assailed by England with all the artillery of Palmerston; and as neither France nor Russia would undertake to support so unfit a person, he was driven from his post.

The Greek government enjoyed every possible advantage during the administration of these Bavarians. A loan of £.2,400,000, contracted under the guarantee of the three protecting powers, kept the treasury full; so that no plan for the improvement of Greece, or for enriching the Bavarians, was arrested for want of funds. We shall now pass in review what was done.

1. A good monetary system was established. The allies, it is true, supplied the metal, but the Bavarians deserve the merit of transferring as much of it as they could into their own pockets, in a very respectable coinage.

2. The irregular troops were disbanded, and many of them driven over the frontier into Turkey. The thing was very clumsily done; but, thank Heaven! it was done, and Greece was delivered from this horde of banditti.

3. Every Bavarian officer or cadet was promoted, and every Greek officer was reduced to a lower rank. We cannot venture to describe the rage of the Greeks, nor the presumption of the Bavarians.

4. An order of knighthood was created, of which the decorations were distributed in the following manner: One hundred and twenty-five grand crosses, and crosses of grand commanders, were divided as follows: The protecting powers received ninety-one, that is thirty a-piece if they agreed to divide fairly. The odd one was really given to Baron Rothschild, as contractor of the loan. The Bavarians took twenty-three. The Greeks received ten for services during the war of the revolution, and during the national assembly which accepted King Otho, and one was bestowed among the foreigners who had served Greece during the war with Turkey. Six hundred and fourteen crosses of inferior rank were distributed, and of these the Greeks received only one hundred and forty-five; so that really the protecting powers and the Bavarians reserved for themselves rather more than a fair proportion of this portion of the loan, especially if they expected the Greeks not to become bankrupt.

5. All the Greek civil servants of King Otho were put into light blue uniforms, covered with silver lace, at one hundred pounds sterling a-head. And, O Gemini! such uniforms! Those who have seen the ambassador of his Hellenic majesty at the court of St James's, at a levee or a drawing-room, will not soon forget the merits of his tailor.

6. Ambassadors were sent to Paris, London, St. Petersburg, Munich, Madrid, Berlin, Vienna, and Constantinople, and Consuls-general to all the ends of the earth.

7. A council of state was formed.

8. The civil government was organized, and royal governors appointed in all the provinces, who maintain a direct correspondence with the minister of the interior.

9. A very respectable judicial administration was formed, and codes of civil and criminal procedure published.

10. The Greek Church was organized on a footing which rendered it independent of the patriarch at Constantinople without causing a schism. This is unquestionably the ablest act of Mr Maurer's administration, and it drew on him the whole hatred of Russia.

11. The communal and municipal system of Greece, the seat of the vitality of the Greek nation, was adopted as the foundation of the social edifice in the monarchy. It is true some injudicious Bavarian modifications were made; but time will soon consign to oblivion these delusions of Teutonic intellect.

12. The liberty of the press was admitted to be an inherent right of Greek citizens.

The five last-mentioned measures are entirely due to the liberal spirit and sound legal knowledge of Mr Maurer, who, if he had been restrained from meddling with diplomacy, and quarreling with the English and Russian ministers at Nauplia, would have been universally regarded as a most useful minister. But all the practical good Greece has derived from the Bavarians, is confined to a few of his acts.

The accession of Count Armansperg to power, opened a new scene. A certain number of Greeks were then admitted to high and lucrative employments, on condition that they would support the Bavarian system, and declare that their country was not yet fit for the enjoyment of constitutional liberty. The partizans of Mr Maurer were dismissed and sent back to Bavaria: a few good bribes were given to newspaper editors and noisy democrats; but the Bavarians were kept in the possession of the richest part of the spoil. Accordingly, the cry of the Greeks against Bavarian influence and Bavarian rapacity never ceased. Rudhart's government was a continuation of that of Armansperg, only with the difference that he leaned on a different foreign power for support. Neither Armansperg nor Rudhart conferred any benefit on Greece. They formed a phalanx or corps of veterans; but as they laid down no invariable rules for admission, but kept the door open as a means of creating a party among the military, this institution has become a scene of jobbing and abuse.

A law conferring a portion of land on every Greek family was passed; but as it was intended to serve political purposes, it was never put into general execution. A number of sales of national lands has been made under it, in direct violation of every principle of law and justice; and as detached pieces of the richest plains in Greece have been alienated in this way, the resources of the country will be found to have been very seriously diminished by this singular species of wholesale corruption.

Rudhart was compelled from his weakness to make one or two steps in the national path. He assembled the council of state, and called the provincial councils and the university into activity.