Chapter VII: Part 7

The plot was thickening with a vengeance. What could this mean? And what was I to do? Clearly to wait upon the lady, as directed, to postpone my departure, to forfeit my fare, and to mix myself deeper than ever in a mystery, which, trusting to appearances, was likely to end in the ruin of Mr Rupert Sinclair, and his more luckless tutor. Taking care to avoid Sinclair in the morning, I directed his servant to acquaint him with my change of views; and quitted the hotel some hour or two before the time fixed for the anxious interview. Punctually at noon, I presented myself at Mrs Twisleton's door. My alarm was intense when I reached that lady's apartment. She had evidently been waiting my arrival with extreme impatience. Before I could speak or bow, she rushed towards me, and exclaimed--

"Is it over, sir? Is he gone?"

"What over, madam?" I answered. "Who gone?"

"Mr Sinclair. Is he married?"

"Married?"

"Yes. Married. They are to be, if they are not already. Take him to town, sir. Drag him away. We shall be ruined."

I had thought so for the last four-and-twenty hours; but I had certainly not included Mrs Twisleton in the calculation.

"Mr Thompson," continued the lady, forgetting my name in her anxiety, "Lord Railton will go raving mad if this should come about. We shall all be punished. I know him well. You, for having brought Mr Sinclair here; I, for having introduced him to the impostors; and himself for having been caught in their snares. And he is a powerful man, and has the means to punish us."

He had certainly the means of punishing Mrs Twisleton; for her son, at college, had been already promised the next presentation to a valuable living in Yorkshire. Her fears on my account were hardly so well founded.

"Look here, Mr Wilson," said Mrs Twisleton, hurrying to her writing-desk, and taking from it a letter, which she placed in my hands. "Read that."

I ran my eye over the document. It was from a female correspondent in London and it conjured Mrs Twisleton to avoid all connexion whatever with General Travis and his too fascinating family. The general was described as a bold bad man, utterly ruined, involved beyond the possibility of recovery, a mere hanger-on of fashion, an adventurer. His wife was spoken of as a mere simple instrument in his hand; naturally disposed to goodness, but perverted by the cruel necessity of her position. But what said this timely--oh, if but timely!--informer respecting _her_ whose name I greedily sought out in these disastrous pages? I grew sick as I proceeded in the narrative. Elinor Travis--so said the letter--was a clever, subtle, accomplished, and designing woman. Numerous had been her flirtations, not few her conquests; but the game she had brought down, it had never been worth the general's while to bag. The general had been a great traveller. He had passed some years in India. During his residence there, the fair fame of Elinor Travis had been--oh, horror!--sullied; falsely so, some said; but still sullied. She had loved an officer with whom, it was reported--I read no more.

"The writer of this letter, madam," I asked--"is she trustworthy?"

"Alas! alas! yes," exclaimed Mrs Twisleton, in despair.

"It must be prevented by all and every means," I continued.

"We are still safe then?"

"Yes, although I cannot answer for an hour. He must be spoken to, remonstrated with"----

"Threatened," added Mrs Twisleton, stamping with her foot. "Any thing to save us."

"I will appeal to his reason."

"Then we are lost," said the lady, emphatically. "That family never listened to reason yet."

"Do you know," I enquired, "this great foreigner whom they call the Yahoo?"

"Oh, no! no!" exclaimed Mrs Twisleton, shaking her head impatiently. "I don't know any of them. I disown them all; they are all impostors. I said so from the beginning. Oh, Mr Wilson, what _can_ he have to do with it? How can you talk so idly?"

"Mrs Twisleton," said I, "have I your permission to communicate the contents of this letter to Mr Sinclair?"

"Yes, but never mention my name in the matter. Take the address of the writer, and communicate with her yourself. Save your friend, and make your fortune. Get us all well out of the scrape, and then depend upon me for speaking about you to his lordship. He shall know the part you have played; and no man can be more generous than Lord Railton when the fit is on him."

"Do not trouble yourself, madam, on my account," I replied. "This letter I will borrow, with your leave, for awhile. There is not a moment to lose. The next hour may prove fatal to the interests of our unfortunate friend."

I had not spoken before Mrs Twisleton pulled the bell violently, shook my hand eagerly, and urged me to the door. Within ten minutes, I was face to face with Sinclair.

"Sinclair," said I, "you must return to London with me."

"What has happened, then?" he inquired.

"You stand on a precipice," I continued. "Advance but another step, and you are lost."

"Translate your language, friend," said Rupert, "and suffer me at least to understand you."

"You are mistaken, Sinclair--cruelly deceived."

"What, again?" he asked, with a smile.

"Yes, again and again. No experience teaches you. No conviction reaches your judgment. Will you listen to me, and believe me?"

"I will listen to you."

"The family of General Travis are not what you suppose them. I can prove them unworthy your confidence and affection. Will you link your fate with that of one who"----

I hesitated.

"Go on," said Sinclair, calmly.

"Read, read for yourself!" I exclaimed, placing the letter I had received from Mrs Twisleton, without further ceremony, in his hands.

He did read--every line, without the smallest surprise or perturbation--and then folded the document, and gave it back to me. I thought him mad.

"This is no news to me, Wilson," he said quietly. "I have been put on my guard respecting these slanderers. Their baseness does not take me by surprise. The trick is a poor one."

"The trick!"

"Yes; if it deserve no harsher name. What know you of the writer of that letter?"

I had but one answer to give to that question--"Nothing." And the name of Mrs Twisleton was sacred.

"I thought so," proceeded Rupert. "Every assertion contained in that precious document has already met with a sufficient refutation. I know _my_ informant, and can rely upon _my_ information; advantages of which, dear Wilson, you cannot boast."

"Sinclair," I replied, with warmth, "remember what passed between us yesterday. 'Prove,' said you, 'that Elinor Travis is less good than beautiful and her influence ceases from that moment.' Give me time to prove it, or to ask your pardon and hers for as much as I have said already. I must exact this from you. It is all I ask. With this document before me, I can demand no less."

"Do as you will. What do you propose?"

"To go at once to town; to seek out the writer of this letter, and to obtain from her proofs of her allegations which even you must respect and listen to. If I fail to secure them, you shall be pained no more by interference of mine."

"Be it so," said Sinclair; "I await your return here."

Upon the evening of this day I was in London, and on the following morning at the residence of the lady whom I sought. Ill luck attended my steps. She was ill, and could not be seen. For a week I remained in London, unable to gain an interview, or to communicate with her. I obtained the name of her physician, waited upon him, and asked him to convey a letter from me to his patient. It was impossible. It was of the highest consequence to keep the lady tranquil. In every post I wrote to Sinclair, informing him of my disappointment, and conjuring him to take no steps until my mind, as well as his, was satisfied. He returned no answer to my communications, but I relied upon his friendship. Upon the eighth day of my absence, sick to death with impatience and idleness, and no nearer to my object than on the first day of my arrival, I resolved to return to Bath, and to remain with my friend until I should receive intelligence of the lady's convalescence. Something might be done by remonstrance and entreaty. To leave him to himself, was to give up every chance of his salvation.

The coach in which I travelled halted at Marlborough for dinner. When I alighted, I perceived, but took no particular notice of a post-chaise standing at the door of the inn. I had scarcely set foot in the house, however, before I encountered General Travis. The moment he caught sight of me, he seemed to become agitated or alarmed. He approached me--took me by the arm, and led me into the open air.

"Have you seen them?" he eagerly asked.

"Seen whom?" I asked in return.

"Your friend. He is a villain!"

"General Travis," I said indignantly, "I have no friend to whom that term applies, nor must you couple it with any name that's dear to me."

"Forgive me, forgive me!" said the general with evident grief. "I have been deceived, cruelly deceived; my house is deserted--my child is stolen--they have eloped!"

"Eloped!"

"Yes; Mr Sinclair and my daughter. This very morning. Your friend, my Elinor!"

The general stamped; then walked furiously about, whilst I stood thunderstruck.

"He never spoke to me on the matter; as I am a living man, he never hinted to me his attachment. Could I have suspected it--dreamed it? Oh, my child, my child!"

I looked hard at the man, as intently as my agitation would permit, and I believed his passion to be genuine and honest. Tears were in his eyes, and he wrung his hands, and raved like men in deep affliction. Could I be deceived?

"Whither have they gone?" I asked.

"God knows; I missed my child at breakfast. She had never been absent before. I was alarmed, but looked for her return. At noon, we heard that she had been seen at the distance of half a mile from the city, walking quickly with Mr Sinclair. At Mr Sinclair's hotel, I learned that he had quitted the city, and had ordered a chaise and four to meet him a mile off, at ten o'clock precisely. I followed them at once, and traced them for twenty miles, and then lost sight of them altogether."

"What is your intention now?"

"To take the north road, and, if possible, to overtake and recover her. I am heart-broken and distracted. He has robbed me of a treasure, dearer to me"----

Fresh horses had been put to the general's carriage, and the postilions were already in the saddle; not a moment was to be lost. Before the general could finish his speech, he was seated in the chaise, and driving away at the rate of fifteen miles an hour.

My feelings may be imagined. What to do, I knew not; and there was little time to consider. The dinner had been transacted during our anxious conference, and the horses' heads were looking towards Bath. The coachman mounted the box. I ascended the other side, and took my seat next to him, quite mechanically.

"Knowing gentleman, that 'ere," said Jehu, "as you conwersed with."

"Do you know him then?" I asked with curiosity.

Jehu closed one eye; rubbed his chin against his comforter, and said, "hexcessively!"

"What of him?"

"Werry deep and werry singular. I've druv him many a time."

"He's very rich," said I.

"Oh, werry! So they say. So I s'pose he is. For my part, I'm no judge of mutton till it's cut up. Is he a werry pertickler friend of yours?"

"No friend at all. Scarcely an acquaintance. I have met him but once before to-day."

"Then it won't break your heart to hear, that it wouldn't be quite as safe as the bank of England to lend him twenty pounds. A box fare once told me he wasn't worth a sixpence, and that he'd come down one of these days like a crash in a china shop. My fare was an Injyman, as had known the gentleman out in them parts, where he was obliged to cut with all his family."

"Oh, did he say any thing about the family?"

"No; nothing about the family. Them, he said, was all right, especially one beautiful girl as he had, that run the rigs with a hofficer, and broke every body else's heart. My eye! wouldn't I have given my top-boots to have been that 'ere hofficer!"

I changed the subject of discourse, and not once again did I revert to it for the rest of that disastrous journey. Arriving at Bath, I proceeded at once to the hotel in which I had left Sinclair. He was gone--but no one could tell me whither. The account given by General Travis was corroborated by the master of the house. Mr Sinclair had ordered a chaise and four to wait for him at the distance of a mile from the city--his order had been complied with, and nothing since had been heard of him.

"It's very strange," said I.

"Yes, sir, very," replied mine host, "and strange things have happened since. You knew General Travis, sir, I believe?"

"I have seen him in Bath; what of him?"

"Dreadful affair that of his. The whole family have vanished."

"Vanished!"

"Yes, sir. Three or four days ago the general's lady vanished with the youngest daughter; this morning the eldest daughter vanished by herself; and an hour or two afterwards, the general vanished with his own man, having previously discharged every other servant in the establishment."

"Is any reason assigned?"

"Debt, they tell me. The family have gone abroad to recover themselves; and, whilst they are recovering themselves, scores here will be ruined. The house has been beset with creditors this afternoon, and one poor fellow in the next street, a working upholsterer, with a family of ten children, has been raving at the doors like a madman."

"You are mistaken," I said; "the general has not vanished after the manner you describe. To-morrow every thing will be explained. I do not feel myself at liberty to say more now. Let me entreat you, however, to remove the absurd impression that has been made; and, above all, to dispel the unfounded apprehensions of the unfortunate man you speak of."

"Glad to hear you say so," rejoined mine host; "but I doubt it."

He left me and I sallied forth; first to Mrs Twisleton's, who at first was not at home, but, receiving my card, sent her servant running half a mile, to assure me that she was. Poor Mrs Twisleton! sad and lugubrious was she on that melancholy evening. Faithful visions of the unappeasable wrath of the proud Lord Railton flickered before her eyes, and pierced her very soul.

The next advowson was no advowson at all, as far as she was concerned, and her hope and offspring were alike cut off by the terrible and irrevocable act of the morning. I found the lady in tears.

"This is a shocking business, madam!" I began.

It was the signal for a flood.

"When did you arrive?" she sobbed.

"An hour since."

"And you have heard of it?"

"Of the elope"----

"Oh, don't, don't, don't speak of it!" shrieked the lady. "It turns me sick. He has married a beggar--the daughter of an impostor and a swindler."

"Can it be true?"

"Oh, you have been very dilatory and foolish, Mr Wilson," suddenly exclaimed Mrs Twisleton in a clear sharp tone, which had nothing of the softness of tears about it. "Had I been a man, I would have saved my friend from certain infamy. Mr Wilson, I gave you full warning--ample time. You cannot deny it."

I sighed.

"And now you have come to Bath again, what do you mean to do?"

I thought for a second or two, and then sighed again.

"Take my advice, sir; it's a woman's, but not the worse for that. If you stay here till doomsday, you can't alter what is unalterable. The fool's married by this time. The general has broken up his establishment and has decamped!"

"Impossible!"

"That may be, but what I tell you is the truth, nevertheless. The mail leaves Bath at eleven o'clock. Return by it to London. See Lord Railton as soon as you arrive. Make the best you can of this wretched business, and prepare him to meet his son without a curse. You need not tell him all you know about the general. He will find that out quickly enough; nor need you mention my insignificant name at all. The old man has feeling left in him; and the mother doats upon her namby-pamby boy. Obtain their pardon for your friend, and you will do that friend a service which he will never forget, and can never sufficiently repay."

I reflected for a moment; the advice seemed sound. I determined to adopt it. Bewildered and vexed, I quitted the lady's house, and walked mechanically about the town, from street to street. An hour or two were yet at my disposal--heavy, irritating hours, converted into ages by my impatience and anxiety. Chance or fate conducted me to the abode of General Travis. I stopped before the door, as purposeless as I had just approached it. To curse the hour that had connected poor Sinclair with the proprietor of that late magnificent and extravagant establishment, was a natural movement. I cursed, and proceeded on my walk. I had not, however, advanced a few steps, before, looking back, I became aware of a light gleaming from one of the windows of the house. I returned. Some information might be gained from the servant left in charge of the place; possibly a clue to the mystery in which, without any valid reason, I had myself become entangled. I found the door of the mansion ajar. I knocked, but no one answered; I repeated the summons with as little success, and then I walked boldly in--and up-stairs, in order to place myself at once in communication with the apartment in which I had perceived the faint illumination. Opening the drawing-room door, I perceived, as much to my disgust as astonishment--the Yahoo!

That dark gentleman was drunk; there was no doubt of it. He was sitting at a table that was literally covered with food, of which he had taken to repletion. His coat was off, so was his cravat, and the collar of his shirt unbuttoned. Perspiration hung about his cheeks, and his face looked very oily. Decanters of wine were before him; a pewter jug of ale; and bottles containing more or less of ardent spirits. There was a wild expression in his eye, but the general glow of his visage was one of fuddled sottishness. He saluted me with a grin.

"Who the debil are you?" he politely asked.

"I was looking," I answered, "for a servant."

"D--n him serbant," exclaimed the Yahoo, speaking in his drunkenness like a very nigger. "I gib him a holyday. What are you got to say to dat? What do you want?" he proceeded. "Sit down. Enjoy yerself. What do you take? Deblish good rum, and no mistake."

_Hold a candle to the Devil_ is a worldly maxim, which I had never an opportunity of practising to the letter until now. Much might be learned by humoring the monster--nothing by opposing him. I sat down and drank his health.

"Thankee, old boy," said he. "I'm deblish glad to see you, upon my soul. Gib us your hand. How many are you got?"

"Two," said I.

"That's a lie," replied the nigger hastily. "I see four. But neber mind, I'm not partickler. Gib us two of 'em. I say, old boy," he continued, "don't you eat nothing? D----d sweet. Sure to make you sick. Him drink much as him like."

"You wait the general's return, I presume?" said I, in the vain hope of eliciting something from this black moving barrel.

The gentleman tried to look me full in the face; but his eyes rolled involuntarily, and prevented him. He contrived, however, to effect what he intended for a knowing wink, whilst he thrust out his cheek with the end of his tongue.

"Oh yes, in course," he answered. "I wait till him come back. Him wait d----d long while. He! he! he!"

"His departure was very sudden," I continued.

"Oh, bery! All them departure's bery sudden. Missy General go bery sudden--Missy Elinor go bery sudden--rum go bery sudden," he concluded, drinking off a glassful.

"I saw the general to-day. We met on the road. He told me every thing."

"Stupid old codger! Him can't keep his own counsel. Dat him business, not mine. Deblish cleber old codger!"

"He was much affected," said I. "The elopement of his child is a serious blow to him."

The nigger performed the same pantomime as before; winking his eye, and enlarging his cheek.

"Blow not so bad as a punch on the head, old boy. Deblish cleber old codger," repeated the Yahoo, laughing immoderately. "Deblish cleber 'Gustus too!"

"Who is he?" I inquired.

The nigger attempted to rise in his chair, and to make a profound bow, but failed in both attempts.

"I'm 'Gustus!" said he, "at your sarvice--take a glass of wine with you!"

I pledged the gentleman, and he continued.

"You know Massa Sinclair?"

"A little."

"Big jackass, Massa Sinclair. Awful big. He no run away with Missy Elinor, Missy run away with him. Massa General run away with both. 'Gustus do it all."

I groaned.

"You ain't well? Take glass rum? Bery good rum!"

"And so you did it all, Augustus? You must be a clever fellow!"

"I think so. If you could but have seen us this morning. I and Massa General looking over the banisters whilst Missy Elinor was running away; and Massa Sinclair in de hall, trembling all over like a ninny, for fear Massa General should see him--Massa General and me splitting sides all the time. D----d good! like a play. He! he! he!"

I groaned again.

"Sure you are not well, old boy? Try the bitters."

"I have had enough," said I. "I must begone."

"Don't hurry, old fellow. Can't ask you again. Go to town to-morrow. Meet General Travis to-morrow night. Him sewed up. 'Gustus neber desert him."

"The general will not return then?"

"Him too good judge!"

"And Mr Sinclair and the lady?"

"They married by this time. I say, old boy, let's drink their health."

"No, no, no. Tell me whither do they go!"

"No, no, no!--I say yes, yes, yes," roared the intoxicated monster. "Drink it, you rascal," he added, "or I'll kick you down stairs."

My blood was boiling in a moment. The nigger staggered to me, and touched the collar of my coat. His hand was scarcely there, before I took him by the neck, and flung him like a loathsome reptile from me. He fell at the foot of the table, but in his passage to the ground he grasped a decanter of wine, which he hurled at my head. It passed me, met the door, and flew in a thousand pieces about the room. Sick at heart, I took the opportunity to retire.

Never shall I forget the morning upon which I stood in Grosvenor Square, knocker in hand, about to present myself before the father of Rupert Sinclair, and to acquaint him with the disgrace that had come to his family, by the alliance of the previous day. The feelings of the hour return with all their painful vividness as I recall the time. A lazy porter, richly attired, opened the door, and rang a bell in the hall, which brought to me his lordship's valet. The latter received my card, and after a quarter of an hour's absence, returned with the information, that his lordship was particularly busy with the Director of the Opera, and could not be seen by any one that morning. Every little circumstance is indelibly imprinted on my memory, stamped there by the peculiar anxiety under which I laboured. I respectfully submitted that my business was even more important than that of the Director, and requested the valet to return with my urgent request to his lordship for one short interview.

"His lordship doesn't know you," said the valet.

"Not know me!" I exclaimed, forgetting at the moment how little it was to his lordship's interest to remember me. "There," I exclaimed "take this card to him." I had written upon it--_Late tutor to the Hon. Rupert Sinclair._

Another quarter of an hour, and I was admitted. His lordship was evidently angry at the interruption. My heart was fluttering. He extended to me one finger, by way of compromise, which I reverently touched, offered me no seat, but asked me my business.

I began--continued--and ended without the least hinderance on his lordship's part. I spoke without reserve of my own share in the unfortunate business, taking particular care, however, not to say one word to the disparagement of Elinor, or that might unneccessarily excite Lord Railton against his erring son. I told him of Rupert's illness, of our having proceeded to Bath in company--of his recovery--his meeting with Elinor--her beauty--his devotion. I pleaded his youth, his ardent nature--referred to the past as irretrievable, to the future as full of happiness for Mr Sinclair, provided his lordship would look with forgiving kindness upon his act; and used all the eloquence I could command to move what I conceived to be at least a heart of flesh to pity and sympathy for its own blood and offspring.

Lord Railton heard me to the end, with a knitted brow and closed lips. When I had finished, he asked me sternly if I had any thing more to say.

"Nothing," I replied.

Whereupon his lordship rang the bell.

The valet again appeared.

Lord Railton again held out his finger, as at our meeting. I was about to take it, when his lordship moved it quickly--pointed to the door--and said--"Show that person out!"

For a second I stood astounded and confused. In another second I found myself breathing on the sunny side of Grosvenor Square. How I reached it, I no longer remember.

THE PEOPLE.[72]

Mr Cobden, in the House of Commons, has given us a definition of the term which heads this article:--THE PEOPLE _are the inhabitants of towns_. "I beg to tell the honourable member for Limerick," said the arch-leaguer, a few evenings since, "and the noble lord, the member for Lynn, and the two hundred and forty members who sit behind him, that there are other parties to be consulted with regard to their proposition--that there are THE PEOPLE; I don't mean the country party, but the people living in the towns, and who will govern this country."

"What is the city," says Shakspeare, "but the People?"----"True, the people are the city."

Against Mr Cobden we pit Mr D'Israeli, who defines the people to be the country gentlemen. Against Shakspeare, we bring M. Michelet, who, in an affectionate dedication of his latest work to his fellow-labourer and friend, M. Edgar Quinet, modestly acquaints the said M. Edgar, that THE PEOPLE are neither more nor less than the author of the book and the gentlemen to whom it is inscribed:--

"Recevez-le donc, ce livre du Peuple, parce qu'il est vous, parce qu'il est moi. Par vos origines militaires, par la mienne, industrielle, nous representons nous-memes, autant que d'autres peut-etre, les deux faces modernes du Peuple, et son recent avenement."

There is, in truth an extensive amount of cant afloat just now, both here and elsewhere, on this subject of THE PEOPLE. It is the staple commodity of your newspaper-mongers, and the catchpenny song of the streets. Agitators feed upon it, politicians play upon it, our needy brethren of the quill pay outstanding debts with it. It is one of the few things that pay at all in an age of fearful competition, and one that always will pay whilst poor human nature holds the purse-strings. The wretched beggarman of Ireland famishes for a crust, yet he has his farthings to spare for the greedy hypocrite who flatters his vanity, and heaps laudations on his social importance. JOHN HOWARD made four pilgrimages to Germany, five to Holland, three to France, two to Italy, with the simple object of mitigating the physical sufferings of his fellow creatures; he visited Spain, Portugal, the United States, and Turkey, with the same practical and praiseworthy purpose. He passed days in pest-houses and lazarettos, and finally laid down his life in the blessed work of charity at Cherson in the Crimea. _Nous avons change tout cela._ Philanthropy is a luxurious creature now-a-days. She is passive rather than active; she does not work--she _talks_. Her disciples take no journeys, unless it be to Italy for their own pleasure; they sit at home in satin dressing-gowns, supported on velvet, feeding on turtle. They tell the labouring classes--whom they style the bone and sinew of the land--that though they talk prose, and lead prosaic lives, they are nevertheless first-rate poets, that though rough at the surface, they are the gentlest of creation "at the core;" that though dull, they are quick; though ugly, handsome; though stupid, vastly clever; though commoners in the last degree, yet nobles of God, and nature's grandees of the very first class. It is gratifying to believe all this, and the charge is only threepence a-week, or a shilling a-month. Open as we all are to flattery, who would not pay so trifling a sum for the pleasure of so sweet a dream? If you cannot relieve our sufferings, it is something to create an inordinate self-esteem. If you cannot afford us a shilling from your pockets, it is much that your goose-quill can convert us into birds of Paradise. The successful writers of the day are those who have nauseously fawned upon the million for the sale of their "sweet voices" and their halfpence.

There is not one of these popular authors who has had the manliness to suggest, supposing that he has the head to discover, a remedy for the evils which every honest mind perceives in the social condition of the humbler classes. The most they have done is to drag further into the light miseries which every one saw without their aid--to point out exultingly distinctions of rank, which have always been, and can never cease to be--to remove bonds of sympathy, that united for mutual benefit one class with another--and to widen as far as possible the breach that has arisen between the governed and the governing of this great empire. We do them injustice--they have accomplished more. In seasons of difficulty and trial, in those periods of convulsion and danger, to which all great societies are liable, and a large mercantile community like our own is especially subject, they have assuaged alarm and appeased hunger by writing books with a _moral_; such a moral as that upon which THE CHIMES was founded, and which the snarling author of Mrs Caudle's Lectures loves to inculcate: we mean the moral that teaches the loveliness of all that lies in the hovel, the hatefulness of all that dwells in the palace; the sublimity of vulgarity, and the ridiculousness of high birth; the innate virtues of ignorance and poverty, and the equally essential wickedness of wealth and rank. Such are the exertions of modern philanthropy! Such are the self-denying, humble, and glorious achievements of the successors of John Howard!

There are two classes of philanthropists very busy just now on this side the English Channel: viz., that composed of men who are particularly anxious that no laws whatever should be passed for the effectual punishment of the midnight assassin in Ireland; and that which stands up for the murderer in England, denying the right of the legislator to punish any man with death, and the expediency of the punishment, provided the right be conceded. Should society be restored to tranquillity, and crime be expurgated by the success of these gentlemen's endeavours, it is very clear that France will take the wrong track, by following the counsel of the belligerent M. Michelet, according to whose views, peace and order are to be obtained only by the proclamation of war, and the shedding of blood for the glory of his native country. "My only hope," says the valiant historian, "is in the flag." Every time, he tells us, that he sees the bayonets of the French army, his heart bounds within him. "Glorious army! pure swords! holy bayonets!" upon which the eyes of the world are fixed, and which will eventually save that world by--cutting the throats of all the enemies of France.

M. MICHELET has obtained some celebrity in Europe: amongst the learned and the reading public by his histories; amongst the masses by that remarkable work styled _Priests, Women, and Families_, which met with many readers and elaborate notices in this country, and was reviewed in the pages of this Magazine as recently as August last. We paid our tribute of respect to an effort which, whatever might be its faults--and serious faults it had--was distinguished by a commanding eloquence, a manly energy, and an uncompromising zeal worthy of the cause which the historian had undertaken; viz., the restoration of _woman_ to her spiritual and social rights--rights invaded by the stranger, trampled upon by priestcraft. We did not stay to inquire into the motives by which the indignant professor of the College of France had been actuated. It may have been, that, to avenge a slight inflicted upon him by the Jesuits, the learned teacher aimed a blow at the entire Roman Catholic Church; that having repudiated the sentiments of his early life--sentiments which attached him affectionately to the religion, poetry, and traditions of the middle ages--he burned with the new fire of a convert or an apostate, and sought to establish the sincerity of his conversion by deadly home-thrusts at the party he had forsaken. It was sufficient for us that a scholar and a Frenchman had manfully advanced to the rescue of his fellow-countrywomen; that he had detected the errors that lay at the heart of their social condition; that he had noted the hindrances that affected domestic purity and peace; and bravely undertook, if possible, to remove, at all events to expose and brand them.

There is great peril attending the career of any man who acquires the reputation of a reformer of abuses. It is easier to acquire that reputation than to sustain it. It is well when the necessity gives birth to the reformer; but it is ill when the reformer, in order to live, is forced to create the necessity. There was ease and grace, simplicity and truthfulness, honesty and ardour, in that defence of woman, to which the champion was urged by the conviction that he entertained of her wrongs. Few of these qualities remain in the work now before us--a work suggested by any thing rather than the crying evils of the community to which the author belongs; a work that may have been written for money--with the mere object of book-making--to bamboozle the million, to inspire it with cock-like crowing; certainly, with no hope of regenerating France, of removing one feather's weight from the load of calamity to which her people, in common with the people of all the nations of the earth, are mysteriously doomed.

We do not pretend to understand the motives which have carried M. Michelet to his task; neither can we distinctly discern the object which it is his purpose to reach. His book is divided into three parts, which are again subdivided into chapters. There is a great appearance of connexion, and indeed an affectation of logical cohesion in the structure, but there is really and essentially no union whatever of the several divisions. Part I. is styled, "_Of Bondage and Hatred_;" Part II., "_Enfranchisement by Love--Nature_;" and Part III., "_Friendship_." Each part is an essay, complete, so to speak, in itself, more or less distinct; intelligible at times, but as often vague, dark, and paradoxical; most satisfactory where it treats of simple, well-known facts--least successful where it deals in the crudest theories, which are not tedious only because they are ridiculous and amusing.

The spirit that pervades the entire book is that of intolerable conceit--individual and national. We can pardon the author of _The History of France_ much, but we will never forgive in him a vice that has ceased to be supportable in the most ignorant of his countrymen. It is impossible to conceive a philosopher and scholar so irritated and perverted by thin-skinned vanity as M. Michelet appears throughout this volume; and indeed we cannot do his intellect the injustice of supposing him to believe the jargon that has fallen from his pen. The heart, we fear, rather than the intellect, is at fault, when he who has the ear of the people approaches it with accents that inflame its lowest passions, rather than correct and guide, and bring to usefulness and good, its best and noblest instincts.

Every thing is perfect in France; nothing is perfect elsewhere. This is the theme of the song which M. Michelet circulates throughout the empire. The people are nevertheless wretched, in poverty, and in bondage; they are doomed to evil government; their social state is one of tyranny and cruel persecution. An historian, sprung from the people, has deemed it his duty to proclaim these facts, and to write a book which shall go far to remove the evils he complains of; yet, at the outset of the work, he announces, to our astonishment, that France is beyond all other lands the favoured land of heaven, the mistress of the world, the paragon of countries. We turn back a page, and ask--Was it for this that the student stepped from his retirement, or was it to prove facts the very opposite to these? If France be indeed so pre-eminently good and great, why write so many pages to prove that she lies in bondage? If the literature of France be perfect, her army pure, her people great, her religion the only true revelation of God's purposes and will, wherefore complain and cry aloud, and seek to remedy a condition already so enviable, to elevate a character already so super-eminent? Is it that France is too self-loving to hear of her faults even from her own offspring, or that she will not take her wholesome medicine without the gilding that removes its flavour, and hides its ugliness? Is she a child, and must the teacher flatter her as a child; coax, pacify, and bribe her as a child, in order to work her reformation and secure her happiness?

Let us for awhile follow the author of _The People_, as he traces bondage and hatred throughout the social scheme of France, and gather from him, as well as we may, the remedies he has for their destruction; so shall we do him greater justice, and obtain, if they be within grasp, the intention and the object of his undertaking.

"If we would know," says M. Michelet, "the inmost thought, the passion of the French _Peasant_, it is very easy. Walk any Sunday into the country, and follow him. Look! he is yonder before us! It is two o'clock; his wife is at vespers, and he is in his Sunday's clothes. I warrant you he is going to see his mistress!" His mistress! Yes; but tropically. The peasant's mistress is his _Land_; he loves it with intensest delight, with procreative love. Happy for France that it is so; for let it once cease, and the land is barren from that instant. She brings forth because she is loved. "_La terre le veut ainsi, pour produire; autrement, elle ne donnerait rien, cette pauvre terre de France, sans bestiaux presque et sans engrais._" By _Love_, the reader will understand needful care and culture, but he will err in the interpretation. It is something far more poetical and French. The peasant having arrived face to face with his mistress, "folds his arms, stops, looks serious and thoughtful; he looks a long, long time, and seems to forget himself; at last, if he fancies himself overlooked, if he perceives any body passing, he moves slowly away; after a few steps, he stops, turns round, and casts upon his land one last profound and melancholy look: but to the keen-sighted, that look is full of passion, full of heart, full of devotion. If that be not love, (!) by what token shall we know it in this world? It is love--do not laugh." It were indeed very easy to laugh, but, thus intreated, we forbear, and proceed. To love is to covet possession. To have a bit of land, means "you shall not be a mercenary, to be hired to-day and turned off to-morrow. You shall not be a serf for your daily bread. You shall be free!" To acquire that land, the peasant will consent to any thing, even to lose sight of it. To obtain it he will sell his life, and go to meet death in Africa. The peasant is very aspiring; he has been a soldier; he believes in impossibilities. The acquisition of land is for him a combat; "he goes to it as he would to the charge, and will not retreat. It is his battle of Austerlitz; he will win it; it will be a desperate struggle, he knows, but he has seen plenty of these under his old commander;" and accordingly this brave and warlike peasant borrows money of a usurer at seven, eight, or ten per cent, to purchase a piece of earth that shall bring him in two. "Heroic man--are you surprised, if, meeting him on that land which devours him, you find him so gloomy?" Certainly not. "If you meet him," says M. Michelet--heroic and sublime as he is--"do not ask him your road; if he answers, he may perhaps induce you to turn your back on the place you are going to." It is the way with atrabilious heroes. What is to be done? "We must take serious measures for defending the nobility;" that is to say--the peasantry who are in the hands of the usurers. Alter the laws. This "vast and profound," but very much involved "legion of peasant-soldier proprietors," are the People: the people are France. France is a principle, "a great political principle. It must be defended at any cost. As a principle, she must live. _Live for the salvation of the world (!!)_ In the midst of his difficulties, the peasant learns to envy the town workman. He sees him on Sunday walking about like a gentleman, and thinks he is as free as a bird; he believes that a man who carries his trade with him, not caring a straw for the seasons, is a lord of the creation: he remembers his own liabilities to the usurer--and, lo! we have arrived at bondage and hatred, No. 1.

But the _Workman_, after all, is not so well off as he looks in his Sunday's best. Work fluctuates, and at times there is a want of work altogether: moreover, there are wicked _cabarets_ and _cafes_, that play havoc with his four or five francs _per diem_. And, above all, there is that tremendous rival, with lungs of iron that know no rest, and never cease, whom men call MACHINERY, and who laughs the skill and strength of man to scorn. "It is humiliating," says the historian, "to behold, in presence of machinery, man fallen so low. The head is giddy, and the heart oppressed, when, for the first time, we visit those fairy halls, where iron and copper of a dazzling polish seem moving of themselves, and to have both thought and will, whilst pale and feeble man is the humble servant of those giants of steel." No reverie, no musing is allowed in the temples of MACHINERY. The _Lollards_, those mystic weavers of the middle ages, received their name, because, whilst working, they _lulled_, or hummed in an under tone some nursery rhyme that cheered then in their labour: for it is wisely said by our author, who can speak like a prophet and a sage when he will--shame to him when he speaks otherwise!--that "in the manual labours subject to our impulse, our inmost thought becomes identified with the work, puts it in its proper place; and the inert instrument, to which we impart the movement, far from being an obstacle to the spiritual movement, becomes its aid and companion. The rhythm of the shuttle, pushed forth and pulled back at equal periods, associated itself (in the case of the Lollards) with the rhythm of the heart; in the evening, it often happened, that, together with the cloth, a hymn, a lamentation, was woven to the self-same numbers." No human heart beats harmoniously with the thunder of machinery, whose abode is the real hell of _ennui_. "It seems, during those long hours, as if another heart, common to all, had taken its place--a metallic, indifferent, pitiless heart." Pitiless, indeed, if it degrade the human creature to the level of the brute. "The manufactory is a world of iron, a kingdom of necessity and fatality. The only living thing there is the severity of the foreman; there they often punish, but never reward. There man feels himself so little man, that as soon as ever he comes out, he must greedily seek the most intense excitement of the human faculties, that which concentrates the sentiment of boundless liberty in the short moment of a delicious dream. This excitement is intoxication, especially the intoxication of love." The workman becomes vicious; but extreme physical dependency, the claims of instinctive life, which once more revert to dependency, moral impotency, and the void of mind, are the causes of his vices. Talk of the bondage of the peasant! What is his slavery to that of the workman! _He_ was at least a happy _child_. He lived in the air and played. He was at liberty, whilst his body and his strength were forming: the chains did not gall him till his wrist was hard: he was not called upon to suffer, before his spirit was sufficient to cope with life. Yes, there is positive bondage here.

And the _Artisan_? Is he at liberty? As an apprentice-boy, he is already in bondage. "Whatever annoys or irritates his master or his master's wife, falls very often upon his shoulders. A bankruptcy happens, the apprentice is beaten: the master comes home drunk, the apprentice is beaten: the work is slack or pressing, he is beaten all the same." Apprenticeship over, the artisan marries--has a wife, family; expense, misery! His children grow up, and the mother (we are in France, and M. Michelet speaks) is ambitious. Drawing will be serviceable, says the mother, to her boy in his business. She pinches herself for a few sous for _crayons_ and paper, and a miserable artist is made of one who would have proved a good workman. Or an inspired artist, the child of labour, is left an orphan and a beggar in the midst of his aspirations and struggles towards distinction: to subsist, he must desert art, and become a workman like his father. "All his life he will curse his fate; he will work here, but his soul will be elsewhere." If he weds, and has a family--that family will become less and less loved. "A man embittered in such a struggle, and wholly intent on personal progress, considers every thing else of little value. He weans himself even from his native land imputing to it the injustice of fate." And so there is imprisonment and hatred also here.

Look at the _Manufacturer_. The manufacturers of France have, generally speaking, all been workmen. Six hundred thousand have become manufacturers or tradesmen since the peace. "Those brave men, who, returning from war, wheeled suddenly to the right-about towards Industry, charged as for an onset, and without difficulty carried every position." But they brought to commerce more of the violence of military life than the sentiment of honour, and treated unmercifully two classes of individuals, viz. the workman and the consumer. Towards the latter they behaved as the female shopkeepers ransomed the Cossacks in 1815. They sold at false weight, false die, false measure. With respect to the former, they applied to industry the great imperial principle--sacrifice men to abridge warfare. Men were _pressed_ in town and country, and the conscripts of labour were placed at the pace of the machine, and required to be, like it--indefatigable. The successors of these men, the present manufacturers, pay the penalty of their fathers' misdeeds. Their reputation is gone in the market--they cannot get on. "Most of them would be heartily glad to retire if they could; but they are engaged, they must go on--_march! march!_" Such men are not likely to be tender-hearted. They are unfeeling to their workmen, for the money-lender is unfeeling to them. To live, the manufacturer must borrow. To get back his interest he has recourse to the workmen, for the consumer is on his guard. The former present themselves in crowds, and are obtained at any price. But a glut in the market compels the manufacturer to sell at a loss; the lowness of wages, which is death to the workman, is no longer profitable to the master, and the consumer alone gains by it. May not bondage and hatred be discerned in the present condition of the French manufacturer?

We come to the _Tradesman_. "The tradesman is the tyrant of the manufacturer. He pays him back all the annoyance and vexations of the purchaser." The purchaser of to-day wishes to buy for nothing: he requires two things, a showy article and the lowest price. The tradesman must deceive or perish. His life is made up of two warfares--one of cheating and cunning against the purchaser; the other of vexations and unreasonableness against the manufacturer. We have said that no one can talk more wisely than the author of _The People_ when he is so disposed. The picture of the tradesman is drawn with a masterly hand. The original may be found here as well as in France, and is, in truth, the creation of the unwholesome time in which we live rather than of any particular city or state.

"The repugnance for industry exhibited by the noble republics of antiquity, and the haughty barons in the middle ages, is doubtless unreasonable, if by industry we understand those complicated fabrics which require science and art, or a grand wholesale trade, which requires such a variety of knowledge, information, and combination. But this repugnance is truly reasonable when it relates to the ordinary usages of commerce, the miserable necessity in which the tradesman finds himself of lying, cheating, and adulterating.

"I do not hesitate to affirm, that, for a man of honour, the position of the most dependent working man is free in comparison with this. A serf in body, he is free in soul. To enslave his soul on the contrary and his tongue, to be obliged, from morning till night, to disguise his thoughts, this is the lowest state of slavery.

"It is singular that it is precisely for honour that he lies every day, viz. to _honour_ his affairs. Dishonour for him is not falsehood, but bankruptcy. Rather than _fail_, commercial honour will urge him on to the point at which fraud is equivalent to robbery, adulteration to poisoning; a gentle poisoning, I know, with small doses, which kill only in the long run.

"The manufacturer, and even the artisan, have two things which, in spite of work, render their lot better than that of the tradesman--

"First.--_The tradesman does not create_; he has not the important happiness--worthy of a man--to produce something--to see his work growing under his hand, assuming a form, becoming harmonious, responding to its framer by its progress, and thus consoling his _ennui_ and his trouble.

"Secondly.--Another awful disadvantage, in my opinion, is, _the tradesman is obliged to please_. The workman gives his time, the manufacturer his merchandise, for so much money: that is a simple contract which is not humiliating, neither has occasion to flatter. They are not obliged, often with a lacerated heart and tearful eyes, to be amiable and gay on a sudden, like the lady behind the counter. The tradesman, though uneasy, and tormented to death about a bill that falls due to-morrow, must smile, and give himself up by a cruel effort to the prating of some young fashionable lady, who makes him unfold a hundred pieces, chats for two hours, and, after all, departs without a purchase. He must please, and so must his wife. He has staked in trade, not only his wealth, his person, and his life, but often his family."

We need not ask, is bondage here? or stay to inquire whether the condition of the tradesman thus described is likelier to engender love or hatred towards mankind.