Chapter V: Part 5

"'Come along!' cried M. Malais, 'you have a famous soup waiting for you. Upon my word, it smells too good; I must taste it. Pélagie, give me a plate; I will eat a few spoonsful with you. Certainly, it is but a short time since I took my breakfast--what people call a good breakfast--but without appetite, without pleasure.'

"'Indeed! M. Malais, you will do us the honour of tasting our soup?'

"And Pélagie hastened to put a clean cloth upon the table. Berenice fetched a pot of cider. Onesimus _moored_ the horse in the shade; then they all sat down, taking care to give the best place to M. Malais, who eagerly devoured a plateful of soup."

We refer to the book itself those who would know how the poor old gentleman made a second fierce assault on the tureen, and an equally determined one on the bacon and greens; to what expedients he was subsequently reduced; how it fared with the Countess Pulchérie and her scapegrace husband, and what were the struggles, sufferings, and ultimate rewards, of the courageous and simple-hearted Alains. The book may safely be recommended to all readers. This is more than we can say for the next that comes to hand--_Un Mariage de Paris_ by Méry. This we should pitch into the rubbish-basket after reading the first two chapters, did it not serve to illustrate what we have often noted--the profound and barbarous ignorance of French literary men on the subject of England and the English. Were this confined to the smaller fry, the inferior herd of _Trans-canalic_ scribblers, one would not be surprised. It is nothing wonderful that such gentlemen as M. Paul Feval and poor blind Jacques Arago, should take _le gin_ and _le boxe_ to be the Alpha and Omega of English propensities and manners, and should proceed upon that presumption in romances of such distinguished merit as _Les Mystères de Londres_ and _Zambala l'Indien_. But M. Méry is a man of letters esteemed amongst his fellows--a hasty and slovenly writer, certainly, but possessing wit, and tact, and style, when he chooses to employ them; and having, moreover, he himself assures us, in the pages of the singular production now under dissection, been all through England--although this we apprehend he effected by means of express trains, without stop or stay, from Folkestone to Berwick-upon-Tweed and back again. Even this much acquaintance with the British Isles is denied to many of his contemporaries, who evidently derive their notions of English habits and customs from the frequenters of the English taverns about the Places Favart and Madeleine at Paris. M. Méry is above this. He draws entirely upon his imagination for the manners, morals, and topography of the country in which his scene is laid. He has got a few names of places, which he jumbles together in the most diverting manner. His hero, Cyprian de Mayran, a Paris exquisite of the first water, saddened by a domestic calamity, comes to London in quest of dissipation and oblivion. He has some acquaintances there, dating from a previous visit, and amongst them is the popular singer Sidora W----, a lady, we are told, "whose talent would have been very contestable at Paris, but was venerated in London, the city of universal toleration. When, in Norma, or Fidelio, she kept only tolerably near to the intentions of the composers, changing their notes into false coin, a phalanx of admirers rose like one man, and a triple round of applause rent thirty pair of yellow gloves. The name of Sidora W---- had _great attraction_, (the italics are M. Méry's,) and when displayed on gigantic placards, before _Mansion-house_, or _Post-office_, as well as on the modest gray circulars of the grocers, at night whole squadrons of noble equipages were seen manoeuvring between _Long Acre_ and the peristyle of _Covent Garden_, and the theatre of _Drury Lane_ was invaded." The nightingale who thus, in 1845, filled to suffocation the walls of Drury, (a fact Mr Bunn may have difficulty to remember,) had a rural retreat at Highgate, where she received a motley company. "The garden of reception was like a vast flower-basket inhabited by a woman, and surrounded by a dark fringe of mute adorers. There were all the faces of the English universe: retired Calcutta nabobs; ex-governors of unknown Archipelagos; colonels whose defunct wives were Malabar widows, snatched from the funeral pile of their Indian spouses; admirals bronzed by twenty cruises under the equator; nephews of Tippoo Saib; disgraced ministers from Lahore; ex-criminals from Botany Bay, who, having grown rich, were voted virtuous; princes of Madagascar and Borneo; citizens of New Holland, (naturalised Englishmen, notwithstanding their close affinity to orang-outangs,)--in short all the human or inhuman types that Sem, Cham, and Japhet invented on their escape from the Ark, to amuse themselves a little after a year's diluvian captivity on the summit of Mount Ararat. It is only in London such collections are to be met with; and the foreign naturalist has the gratuitous enjoyment of them. The capital of England is sometimes generous and disinterested in its zoological exhibitions."

Amidst these dingy exotics, Cyprian, "with his Parisian elegance, his fresh complexion, his hair of a vivid auburn, waving like that of the Apollo Belvedere," appeared like a swan amongst gray geese; and, seating himself between "two equinoctial beings not classed by Buffon," he soon engrossed all the attention of the fascinating Sidora, to the suppressed but violent indignation of Prince Rajab-Nandy, and her other copper-coloured admirers. One of these waylays the handsome Frenchman on his return home. Whilst passing over _Highgate Bridge_, Cyprian's horse starts violently, and an "equinoctial gentleman, with nothing _white_ about his whole person, except a pair of _yellow_ gloves, (a Gallo-Irishism,) springs from amongst the _brushwood_, and plants himself in the middle of the bridge, like a satyr in the poem of Ramaiana." A duel is arranged, to take place at _Cricklewood Cottage_, and Cyprian gallops into London by _Tottenham-Road_. Having no male acquaintances in London, except two sobersided bankers, he is at a loss for seconds. Finally he prevails on two of the opera chorus, in consideration of a new coat and a sovereign, to accompany him to the field of danger; and, after duly gloving and dressing them in _Saint-Martin-Court_, he packs them in a hackney-coach and starts for _Cricklewood_, which we now learn is on the summit of the _mountain of Hamstead_. "There, in a pavilion decorated Chinese-fashion, three men of tropical physiognomy awaited De Mayran...." Opposite the cottage there stretched out, to an immense distance, over hill and over valley, a gloomy forest, which served as dueling ground in the quarrelsome days of the Roundheads and Cavaliers. In a level glade, bare of trees, the Anglo-Indians paused. It was a wild and solitary place; nevertheless, here and there, on the fir trees, were seen enormous electioneering placards, bearing the words, "_Vote for Parker!_" This is rich, particularly if we bear in mind that the author is perfectly serious, and devoutly believes he is giving a very curious insight into the local usages and characteristics of semi-civilised England. M. Méry's hero has other adventures, equally true to life,--makes new acquaintances on board a river-steamer; dines with them at _Sceptre and Crown_ at Greenwich, and at _Star and Garter_ at Richmond; and falls violently in love with Madame Katrina Lewing, a beautiful Englishwoman. M. Méry makes merry on the river Thames, which he affects to believe rises in the immediate vicinity of Richmond, and concerning whose origin and exiguity he is very facetious. He also displays his acquaintance with English literature by quoting "the great poet Pope's famous drinking song in honour of the Thames, '_I you like, little stream!_'" Then Cyprian prevails on Katrina to elope with him to _Port Natal_, (of all places in the world!) and realises his fortune as a preparatory measure; but Katrina proves a mere decoy-duck, and the amorous Frenchman is stripped of his bank-notes, and left in the dead of night in the middle of a field. In vain, at daybreak, does he seek a shepherd to question, because, as M. Méry testifies, English peasants do not inhabit the fields; shepherds are scarcely known in the country; and the only one he, the aforesaid Méry, ever beheld, during his extensive rambles in England, was a well-dressed young gentleman, with gloves on, reading the _Morning Chronicle_ under a tree. Then we have a thieves' orgie, where the liquors in demand are claret and _absinthe_, nothing less--M. Méry not condescending to the gin, so much abused by his contemporaries. And, finally, a murder having been committed, its circumstances are investigated on the spot, by a _Queen's proctor_, assisted by two policemen, a barmaid, and a physician. We might multiply these literary curiosities; but we have given enough to prove their author's intimate acquaintance with the country about which he so agreeably writes. It is related of M. Méry's friend Dumas, that he once resolved on a visit to London, posted to Boulogne, steamed to London bridge, and reached St Paul's, but there turned back, anathematising fog and sea-coal, and never stopped till he found himself in the Chaussée d'Antin. Without vouching for the truth of this tale, we must admit its probability when told of the eccentric Alexander. Mr Méry's knowledge of this country is just what he might have obtained by an hour's conversation with his friend, upon the return of the latter from his journey to St Paul's. But it is a crying sin of French writers, when they get upon foreign ground, that, in their anxiety to give to their books a tinge characteristic of the country, (_couleur locale_ they call it,) they outstrip the limits assigned to them by their real knowledge of the land and its inhabitants, and, meaning to be effective, become simply ridiculous. And England is the country, of all others, whose ways they apparently have most difficulty in rightly comprehending. On a more southern soil they are less apt to run into absurdities, but sin chiefly on the side of overcolouring. This may be alleged, although to no violent extent, of a pleasant little romance by Paul de Musset, _La Chèvre Jaune_--The Yellow Goat--intended as an illustration of Sicilian life, particularly amongst the lower orders. The hero of the tale is a precocious peasant boy, dwelling in the mountains with his mother--a fierce old lady who owns a rifle, and detests the Neapolitans. This boy, who herds goats, pets one of them, and trains her to dance; by which means, and by his own good mien, he gains the affections of a notary's daughter, whose papa, disapproving of the attachment, has the peasant taken up on a false accusation of theft. The boy escapes, turns bandit, and is accompanied in his forays and ambuscades by his goat, who dances tarantellas on the mountain-tops, and plays so many queer antics that she finally is held uncanny, and becomes an object of fear and veneration to the ignorant Sicilians. The story is prettily and pleasingly told, and is just the sort of reading for a lazy man on a hot day. But, like most of the same author's works, it wants vigour and originality. Paul de Musset is a careful and a polished writer, and whatever he executes conveys the idea of his having done his best; but his best is by no means first-rate, and he labours under the great disadvantage of having a younger brother a far cleverer fellow than himself. Nevertheless, he is not to be spoken of disrespectfully. Slight as most of his productions are, they are often graceful, and sometimes witty. One of his recent _bluettes, Fleuranges_, although a thrice-told tale, is distinguished by its charming vivacity and lightness.

We turn to _François le Champi_, by George Sand. We need hardly say that Madame Dudevant is any thing but a favourite of ours. Whilst admitting her genius and great literary talent, we deplore the evil application of such rare powers,--the perversion of intellect so high to purposes so mischievous. And we cannot agree with M. de Lomenie, who, in his sketch of her life, asserts the pernicious influence of her books to be greatly exaggerated, maintaining that "the catastrophe of almost all of them contains a sort of morality of misfortune which, to a certain extent, replaces any other." This is a specious, but a very hollow argument. How many of those who read George Sand's books have ability or inclination to strike this nice balance between virtue and vice, and do not rather yield themselves captives to the seductive eloquence with which the poetess depicts and palliates the immorality of her characters! Her earlier works gave her a fair claim to the title of the Muse of Adultery, which some uncivil critic conferred on her. The personages were invariably husband, wife, and lover, and the former was by no means the best treated of the three. After a while she deviated from this formula--employed other types, and produced occasionally books of a less objectionable character; but, upon the whole, they are ill to choose amongst. In the one before us there is no great harm, but neither is there much to admire. As a literary production, it is below the average of its predecessors. It is a story of peasant life in western France. George Sand is taking a country walk one evening, when her companion accuses her of making her rustics speak the language of cities. She admits the charge, but urges, in extenuation, that if she makes the dweller in the fields speak as he really speaks, she must subjoin a translation for the civilised reader. Her friend still insists on the possibility of elevating the peasant dialect, without depriving it of its simplicity; of writing a book in language that a peasant might employ, and which a Parisian would understand without a single explanatory note. To professors and amateurs of literary art, the discussion is of interest. Madame Sand agrees to attempt the task; and takes for her subject a tale she has heard related the previous evening, at a neighbouring farm-house. She calls it _François le Champi_, but her critic cavils at the very title. _Champi_, he says, is not French. George Sand quotes Montaigne, to prove the contrary, although the dictionary declares the word out of date. A _champi_ is a foundling, or child abandoned in the fields, the derivation being from _champ_. And having thus justified her hero's cognomen, she at once introduces him, at the tender age of six years, boarded by the parish with Zabella, an old woman who dwells in a hovel, and lives on the produce of a few goats and fowls that find subsistence on the common. Madeleine Blanchet, the pretty and very young wife of the miller of Cornouer, takes compassion on the poor infant, and finds means to supply him, unknown to her brutal husband and cross mother-in-law, with food and raiment. The child grows into a comely lad, gentle, intelligent, and right-hearted, and devotedly attached to Madeleine. He enters the service of the miller, a rough dissipated fellow, given up to the fascinations of a loose widow, Madame Sévère, a sort of rural Delilah, who tries to seduce the handsome Champi, and, failing of success, instils jealousy into the ear of the miller, who drives François from his house. The young man finds occupation in a distant village, and returns to the mill of Cornouer only when its master is dead and Madeleine on a bed of sickness, to rescue his benefactress from grasping creditors, by means of a sum of money his unknown father has transmitted to him. George Sand makes every woman in the book fall in love with the Champi; but he repulses all, save one, and that one never dreams of loving him otherwise than as a mother. At last one of the fair ones who would fain have gained his heart, generously reveals to him, what he himself has difficulty in believing, that he is in love with Madeleine Blanchet; and, further, compassionating his timidity, undertakes to break the ice to the pretty widow. It requires a talent like that of George Sand to give an air of probability to all this. There are at most but a dozen years' difference between Madeleine and the Champi, but the reader has been so much accustomed to look upon them in the light of mother and son, that he is somewhat startled on finding the boy of nineteen enamoured of the woman of thirty. The love-passages, however, are managed with Madame Sand's usual skill. As a picture of peasant life, the book yields internal evidence of fidelity. The granddaughter of the farmer-general of Berri has called up the memories of her youthful days, passed in happy liberty upon the sunny banks of Indre, and of the years of connubial discontent that went heavily by in her husband's Aquitanian castle, when country rides and the study of Nature's book were her chief resources. It was from this castle of Nohant that the Baroness Dudevant fled, now nearly twenty years ago, to commence the exceptional existence she since has led. We may venture to take a page from her _Lettres d'un Voyageur_--a page replete with that peculiar fascination which renders her pen so powerful for good or evil.

"It grieves me not to grow old, it would grieve me much to grow old alone; but I have not yet met the being with whom I would fain have lived and died; or, if I have met him, I have not known how to keep him. Hearken to a tale, and weep. There was a good artist, called Watelet, who engraved in aquafortis better than any man of his time. He loved Margaret Lecomte, and taught her to engrave as well as himself. She left her husband, her wealth, and her country, to live with Watelet. The world cursed them; then, as they were poor and humble, it forgot them. Forty years afterwards there were discovered, in the neighbourhood of Paris, in a little house called _Moulin-Joli_, an old man who engraved in aquafortis, with an old woman whom he called his _Meunière_, who also engraved at the same table. The last plate they executed represented _Moulin-Joli_, Margaret's house, with this device,--_Cur valle permutem Sabinâ divitias operosiores!_ It hangs in my room, above a portrait whose original no one here has seen. During one year, he who gave me that portrait seated himself every night with me at a little table, and lived on the same labour as myself. At daybreak we consulted each other on our work, and we supped at the same table, talking of art, of sentiment, and of the future. The future has broken its word to us. Pray for me, O Margaret Lecomte!"

It is no secret that Madame Dudevant's Watelet was Jules Sandeau, a French novelist of some ability, whose name still makes frequent apparitions in the windows of circulating libraries, and at the foot of newspaper feuilletons. Let us see what M. de Lomenie says of this period of her life, and of her first appearance in the lists of literature, in his brief but amusing memoir of this remarkable woman.

"Some time after the July revolution, there appeared a book entitled, _Rose et Blanche_, or the Actress and the Nun. This book, which at first passed unnoticed, fell by chance into a publisher's hands; he read it, and, struck by the richness of certain descriptive passages, and by the novelty of the situations, he inquired the author's address. He was referred to a humble lodging-house, and, upon applying there, was conducted to a small attic. There he saw a young man writing at a little table, and a young woman painting flowers by his side. These were Watelet and Margaret Lecomte. The publisher spoke of the book, and it appeared that Margaret, who could write books as well as Watelet, and even better, had written a good part, and the best part, of this one; only, as books sold badly, or not at all, she combined with her literary occupations the more lucrative labour of a colourist. Encouraged by the publisher's approval, she took from a drawer a manuscript written entirely by herself; the publisher examined it, bought it, doubtless very cheap, and might have paid a much higher price without making a bad speculation, for it was the manuscript of _Indiana_. Soon after that, Margaret Lecomte left Watelet, took half his name, called herself George Sand, and of that half name has made herself one which shines to-day amongst the greatest and most glorious."

Somebody has hazarded the sweeping assertion that the lover is the _King_ of George Sand's novels. George Sand herself is the queen of the class of _femmes incomprises_, the victim of a _mariage de convenance_. The death of her grandmother left her, at the very moment she quitted the convent where she had been educated, alone and almost friendless. Ignorant of the world, she allowed herself to be married to a rough old soldier, who led a prosaic existence in a lonely country-house, had no notion of romance, sentiment, or reverie, and made little allowance for them in others. The days that ought to rank amongst the brightest memories of a woman's heart, the early years of marriage, were a blank, or worse, to Aurora Dudevant, and the bitterness thus amassed not unfrequently breaks forth in her writings. It has been urged by her partisans, in extenuation of her conjugal _faux pas_, that her husband was ignorant and brutal. On the other hand, the idle have invented many of the delinquencies imputed to her since her separation, just as they have told absurd stories about her fantastical habits; and have made her out a sort of literary Lola Montes, swaggering and smoking in man's attire, and brandishing pistol and horsewhip with virile energy and effect. The atmosphere of Paris is famous for its magnifying powers. Seen through it, a grain of sand becomes a mountain, an eccentricity is often distended into a vice. We lay this down as a rule, which none who know and understand the French metropolis will dispute; but we do not, at the same time, in any way take up the gloves in defence of George Sand, with whom we have not the honour of a personal acquaintance, and whose writings would certainly incline us to somewhat ready credence of her irregularities and masculine addictions. Now that she has attained the ripe age of forty-four, we may suppose her sobered down a little. Before the February revolution upset society, and drove the majority of the wealthy from Paris, we happen to know she was a welcome guest in some of the most fashionable and aristocratic drawing-rooms of the Faubourg St Germain, where she was sought and cultivated for the charm of her conversation. Since the revolution, there have been reports of her presiding, or at least assisting, at democratic orgies; but these rumours, as the newspapers say, "require confirmation." Since we have, somehow or other, got led into this long gossip about the lady, we will make another extract from the writer already quoted, who tells an amusing story of his first introduction, obtained by means of a misdelivered note, intended by the authoress of _Lelia_ for a man who cured smoky chimnies. A resemblance of name brought the missive (a summons to a sick funnel) into the hands of the biographer, who, puzzled at first, finally resolved to take advantage of the mistake, to ascertain whether George Sand really did wear boots and spurs, and smoke Virginian in a short pipe. He expected something masculine and alarming, but in this respect was agreeably disappointed.

"I saw before me a woman of short stature, of comfortable plumpness, and of an aspect not at all _Dantesque_. She wore a dressing gown, in form by no means unlike the wrapper which I, a commonplace mortal, habitually wear; her fine hair, still perfectly black, whatever evil tongues may say, was separated on a brow broad and smooth as a mirror, and fell freely adown her cheeks, in the manner of Raphael; a silk handkerchief was fastened loosely round her throat; her eyes, to which some painters persist in imparting an exaggerated power of expression, were remarkable, on the contrary, for their melancholy softness; her voice was sweet, and not very strong; her mouth, especially, was singularly graceful; and in her whole attitude there was a striking character of simplicity, nobility, and calm. In the ample temples and rich development of brow, Gall would have discerned genius; in the frankness of her glance, in the outline of her countenance, and in the features, correct but worn, Lavater would have read, it seems to me, past suffering, a time-present somewhat barren, an extreme propensity to enthusiasm, and consequently to discouragement. Lavater might have read many other things, but he certainly could have discovered neither insincerity, nor bitterness, nor hatred, for there was not a trace of these on that sad but serene physiognomy. The Lelia of my imagination vanished before the reality; and it was simply a good, gentle, melancholy, intelligent, and handsome face that I had before my eyes.

"Continuing my examination, I remarked with pleasure that the _grande désolée_ had not yet completely renounced human vanities; for, beneath the floating sleeves of her gown, at the junction of the wrist with the white and delicate hand, I saw the glitter of two little gold bracelets of exquisite workmanship. These feminine trinkets, which became her much, greatly reassured me touching the sombre tint, and the politico-philosophic exaltation, of certain of George Sand's recent writings. One of the hands that thus caught my attention concealed a _cigarito_, and concealed it badly, for a treacherous little column of smoke ascended behind the back of the prophetess."

Whether or no the interview thus described really took place, Madame Dudevant should feel obliged to her biographer for his gentle treatment and abstinence from exaggeration. On the strength of the puff of smoke and the epicene dressing gown, many writers would have sketched her hussar fashion, and hardly have let her off the mustaches.

We are nearly at the end of our parcel, at least of such portion of it as appears worthy a few words. Here are a brace of volumes by M. de Kock, over which we are not likely long to linger. An esteemed contributor to Maga expressed, a few years ago, his and our opinion concerning this ancient dealer in dirt--namely, that he has no deliberate intention to corrupt the morals or alarm the delicacy of his readers, for that morals and delicacy are words of whose meaning he has not the slightest conception. Paul, every Frenchman tells you, is not read in France, save by milliners' girls and shopboys, or by literary porters, who solace the leisure of their lodge by a laugh over his pages, contraband amongst _gens comme il faut_. No man is a prophet in his own land; and yet we have certain reasons for believing that, even in France, Paul has more readers, avowed or secret, than his countrymen admit. But at any rate, we can offer the old gentleman (for M. Kock must be waxing venerable, and his son has for some years been before the public as an author,) the consolatory assurance, that in England he has numerous admirers, to judge from the thumbed condition of a set of his works, which caught our eye last summer on the shelves of a London circulating library. To these amateurs of "Kockneyisms," whether genuine cockneys, or naturalised cooks and barbers from Gaul, _Taquinet le Bossu_ will be welcome. The hunchback, everybody knows, is a great type in France. Who is not acquainted with the glorious _Mayeux_, the swearing, fighting, love-making hero of a host of popular songs, anecdotes, and caricatures, and of more than one romance--especially of a four-volume one by Ricard, a deceased rival of De Kock? Well, Paul--who, we must admit, is quite original, and disdains imitation--has never meddled with the hackneyed veteran Mayeux, but now creates a hunchback of his own. Taquinet is the dwarf clerk of a notary, luxuriating in a wage of fifty pounds a-year, and a hunch of the first magnitude. Pert as a magpie, mischievous and confiding, devoted to the fair sex, and especially to its taller specimens, he is a fine subject for Monsieur de Kock, who gets him into all manner of queer scrapes, some not of the most refined description. The French hunchback, we must observe, is a genus apart--quite different from high-shouldered people of other countries. Far from being susceptible on the score of his dorsal protuberance, he views it in the light of an excellent joke, a benefaction of nature, placed upon his spine for the diversion of himself and his fellow-men. The words _bosse_ and _bossu_ (hunch and hunchback) have various idiomatic and proverbial applications in France. To laugh like a _bossu_, implies the _ne plus ultra_ of risibility: _se donner une bosse_--literally, to give one's-self a hunch--is synonymous with sharing in a jovial repast where much is eaten and more drunk. An excellent caricature in the _Charivari_, some years ago, represented a group of half-starved soldiers sitting round a fire of sticks at the foot of Atlas, and picking a dromedary's scull--"_Pas moyen de se donner une bosse!_" exclaims one of the dissatisfied conscripts. On twelve hundred francs per annum, poor Taquinet often makes the same complaint; and, in hopes of bettering his fortune, wanders into Germany on a matrimonial venture, there to be jilted by Fraulein Carottsmann, for a strolling player with one coat and three sets of buttons, who styles himself Marquis, because he has been occasionally hissed in the line of characters designated in France by that aristocratic denomination. Then there is a general of Napoleon's army who cannot write his name; and a buxom sutler and a handsome aide-de-camp, sundry grisettes, and the other _dramatis personæ_ habitually to be met with in the pages of Paul--the whole set forth in indifferent French, and garnished with buffoonery and impropriety, after the usual fashion of this zany of Parisian novelists.

Is it true that M. Honoré de Balzac is married to a female _millionnaire_, who fell in love with him through his books and his reputation? If so, let him take our advice and abjure scribbling--at least till he is in the vein to turn out something better than his recent productions--better, at least, than the first volume of the _Député d'Arcis_, now lying before us. What heavy, vulgar trash, to flow from the pen of a man of his abilities! After beginning his literary career with a series of worthless books, published under various pseudonymes, and whose authorship he has since in vain endeavoured to disclaim, he rose into fame by his _Scènes de la Vie de Province_, by his _Peau de Chagrin_, his _Père Goriot_, and other striking and popular works. The hour of his decline then struck, and he has since been rolling down the hill at a faster rate than he ascended it. His affectation of originality is wearisome and nauseous in the extreme. He reminds us of a nurseryman we once knew, who, despairing of equalling the splendour of a neighbour's flowers, applied himself to the production of all manner of floral monstrosities, mistaking distortion for beauty, and eccentricity for grace. He strains for new conceptions and ideas till he writes nonsense, or something very little better. And his mania for introducing the same personages in twenty different books, renders it necessary to read all in order to understand one. The question becomes, whether it is worth while going through so much to obtain so little. Our reply is a decided negative. If the system, however, be annoying to the reader, for the author it has its advantages. It is, in fact, a new species of puffery, of considerable ingenuity. Backwards and forwards, M. de Balzac refers his public; his books are a system of mutual accommodation and advertisement. Thus, in the _Député &c._, apropos of a lawsuit, we find in brackets and in large capitals,--"_See_ UNE TENEBREUSE AFFAIRE." A little farther on, an allusion being made to the town of Provins, we are requested to "_See_ PIERRETTE." Similar admonitions are of constant recurrence in the same author's writings. The plan is really clever, and proves Paris a step or two ahead of London in the art of advertising. We have not yet heard of Moses and Doudney stamping on a waistcoat back an injunction to "Try our trousers," or embroidering on a new surtout a hint as to the merits of a 'poplin overcoat.' "Buy our bear's grease!" cries Mr Ross the perfumer. "_Prenez mon ours!_" chimes in M. Balzac, the author. O Paris! Paris! romantic and republican, political and poetical, of all the cities of the plain thou art the queen, and humbug is the chief jewel in thy diadem!

LIFE IN THE "FAR WEST."

PART THE LAST.

No sooner was it known that Los Americanos had arrived, than nearly all the householders of Fernandez presented themselves to offer the use of their "salas" for the fandango which invariably celebrated their arrival. This was always a profitable event; for as the mountaineers were generally pretty well "flush" of cash when on their "spree," and as open-handed as an Indian could wish, the sale of whisky, with which they regaled all comers, produced a handsome return to the fortunate individual whose room was selected for the fandango. On this occasion the sala of the Alcalde Don Cornelio Vegil was selected and put in order; a general invitation was distributed; and all the dusky beauties of Fernandez were soon engaged in arraying themselves for the fête. Off came the coats of dirt and "alegnía" which had bedaubed their faces since the last "funcion," leaving their cheeks clear and clean. Water was profusely used, and their cuerpos were doubtless astonished by the unusual lavation. Their long black hair was washed and combed, plastered behind their ears, and plaited into a long queue, which hung down their backs. _Enaguas_ of gaudy colour (red most affected) were donned, fastened round the waist with ornamented belts, and above this a snow-white _camisita_ of fine linen was the only covering, allowing a prodigal display of their charms. Gold and silver ornaments, of antiquated pattern, decorate their ears and necks; and massive crosses of the precious metals, wrought from the gold or silver of their own placeres, hang pendant on their breasts. The enagua or petticoat, reaching about half-way between the knee and ancle, displays their well-turned limbs, destitute of stockings, and their tiny feet, thrust into quaint little shoes (_zapatitos_) of Cinderellan dimensions. Thus equipped, with the reboso drawn over their heads and faces, out of the folds of which their brilliant eyes flash like lightning, and each pretty mouth armed with its cigarito, they coquettishly enter the fandango.[2] Here, at one end of a long room, are seated the musicians, their instruments being generally a species of guitar, called heaca, _bandolin_, and an Indian drum, called _tombé_--one of each. Round the room groups of New Mexicans lounge, wrapped in the eternal sarape, and smoking of course, scowling with jealous eyes at the more favoured mountaineers. These, divested of their hunting-coats of buckskins, appear in their bran-new shirts of gaudy calico, and close fitting buckskin pantaloons, with long fringes down the outside seam from the hip to the ancle; with mocassins, ornamented with bright beads and porcupine quills. Each, round his waist, wears his mountain-belt and scalp-knife, ominous of the company he is in, and some have pistols sticking in their belt.

The dances--save the mark!--are without form or figure, at least those in which the white hunters sport the "fantastic toe." Seizing his partner round the waist with the gripe of a grisly bear, each mountaineer whirls and twirls, jumps and stamps; introduces Indian steps used in the "scalp" or "buffalo" dances, whooping occasionally with unearthly cry, and then subsiding into the jerking step, raising each foot alternately from the ground, so much in vogue in Indian ballets. The hunters have the floor all to themselves. The Mexicans have no chance in such physical force dancing; and if a dancing Peládo[3] steps into the ring, a lead-like thump from a galloping mountaineer quickly sends him sprawling, with the considerate remark--"Quit, you darned Spaniard! you can't 'shine' in this crowd."

During a lull, guagés[4] filled with whisky go the rounds--offered to and seldom refused by the ladies--sturdily quaffed by the mountaineers, and freely swallowed by the Peládos, who drown their jealousy and envious hate of their entertainers in potent aguardiente. Now, as the guagés are oft refilled and as often drained, and as night advances, so do the spirits of the mountaineers become more boisterous, while their attentions to their partners become warmer--the jealousy of the natives waxes hotter thereat--and they begin to show symptoms of resenting the endearments which the mountaineers bestow upon their wives and sweethearts. And now, when the room is filled to crowding,--with two hundred people, swearing, drinking, dancing, and shouting--the half-dozen Americans monopolising the fair, to the evident disadvantage of at least threescore scowling Peládos, it happens that one of these, maddened by whisky and the green-eyed monster, suddenly seizes a fair one from the waist-encircling arm of a mountaineer, and pulls her from her partner. Wagh!--La Bonté--it is he--stands erect as a pillar for a moment, then raises his hand to his mouth, and gives a ringing war-whoop--jumps upon the rash Peládo, seizes him by the body as if he were a child, lifts him over his head, and dashes him with the force of a giant against the wall.

The war, long threatened, has commenced; twenty Mexicans draw their knives and rush upon La Bonté, who stands his ground, and sweeps them down with his ponderous fist, one after another, as they throng around him. "Howgh-owgh-owgh-owgh-h!" the well-known war-whoop, bursts from the throats of his companions, and on they rush to the rescue. The women scream, and block the door in their eagerness to escape; and thus the Mexicans are compelled to stand their ground and fight. Knives glitter in the light, and quick thrusts are given and parried. In the centre of the room the whites stand shoulder to shoulder--covering the floor with Mexicans by their stalwart blows; but the odds are fearful against them, and other assailants crowd up to supply the place of those who fall.

Alarm being given by the shrieking women, reinforcements of Peládos rushed to the scene of action, but could not enter the room, which was already full. The odds began to tell against the mountaineers, when Kit Carson's quick eye caught sight of a high stool or stone, supported by three long heavy legs. In a moment he had cleared his way to this, and in another the three legs were broken off and in the hands of himself, Dick Wooton, and La Bonté. Sweeping them round their heads, down came the heavy weapons amongst the Mexicans with wonderful effect--each blow, dealt by the nervous arms of Wooton and La Bonté, mowing down a good half-dozen of the assailants. At this the mountaineers gave a hearty whoop, and charged the wavering enemy with such resistless vigour, that they gave way and bolted through the door, leaving the floor strewed with wounded, many most dangerously; for, as may be imagined, a thrust from the keen scalp-knife by the nervous arm of a mountaineer was no baby blow, and seldom failed to strike home--up to the "Green River"[5] on the blade.

The field being won, the whites, too, beat a quick retreat to the house where they were domiciled, and where they had left their rifles. Without their trusty weapons they felt, indeed, unarmed; and not knowing how the affair just over would be followed up, lost no time in making preparations for defence. However, after great blustering on the part of the prefecto, who, accompanied by a _posse comitatus_ of "Greasers," proceeded to the house, and demanded the surrender of all concerned in the affair--which proposition was received with a yell of derision--the business was compounded by the mountaineers promising to give sundry dollars to the friends of two of the Mexicans, who died during the night of their wounds, and to pay for a certain amount of masses to be sung for the repose of their souls in purgatory. Thus the affair blew over; but for several days the mountaineers never showed themselves in the streets of Fernandez without their rifles on their shoulders, and refrained from attending fandangos for the present, and until the excitement had cooled down.

A bitter feeling, however, existed on the part of the men; and one or two offers of a matrimonial nature were rejected by the papas of certain ladies who had been wooed by some of the white hunters, and their hands formally demanded from the respective padres.

La Bonté had been rather smitten with the charms of one Dolores Salazar--a buxom lass, more than three parts Indian in her blood, but confessedly the "beauty" of the Vale of Taos. She, by dint of eye, and of nameless acts of elaborate coquetry, with which the sex so universally bait their traps, whether in the salons of Belgravia, or the rancherias of New Mexico, contrived to make considerable havoc in the heart of our mountaineer; and when once Dolores saw she had made an impression, she followed up her advantage with all the arts the most civilised of her sex could use when fishing for a husband.

La Bonté, however, was too old a hunter to be easily caught; and, before committing himself, he sought the advice of his tried companion Killbuck. Taking him to a retired spot without the village, he drew out his pipe and charged it--seated himself cross-legged on the ground, and, with Indian gravity, composed himself for a "talk."

"Ho, Killbuck!" he began, touching the ground with the bowl of his pipe, and then turning the stem upwards for "_medicine_"--"Hyar's a child feels squamptious like, and nigh upon 'gone beaver,' _he_ is--Wagh!"

"Wagh!" exclaimed Killbuck, all attention.

"Old hos," continued the other; "thar's no use câching anyhow what a niggur feels--so hyar's to 'put out.' You're good for beaver I know; at deer or buffler, or darned red Injun either, you're 'some.' Now that's a fact. 'Off-hand,' or 'with a rest,' you make 'em 'come.' You knows the 'sign' of Injuns slick--Blackfoot or Sioux, Pawnee or Burntwood, Zeton, Rapaho, Shian, or Shoshonée, Yutah, Piyutah, or Yamhareek--their trail's as plain as writin', old hos, to you."

"Wagh!" grunted Killbuck, blushing bronze at all these compliments.

"Your sight ain't bad. Elks is elk; black-tail deer ain't white-tails; and b'ar is b'ar to you, and nothin' else, a long mile off and more."

"Wa-agh!"

"Thar ain't a track as leaves its mark upon the plains or mountains but you can read off-hand; that I've see'd myself. But tell me, old hos, can you make understand the 'sign' as shows itself in a woman's breast?"

Killbuck removed the pipe from his mouth, raised his head, and puffed a rolling cloud of smoke into the air,--knocked the ashes from the bowl, likewise made his "medicine"--and answered thus:--

"From Red River, away up north amongst the Britishers, to Heely (Gila) in the Spanish country--from old Missoura to the sea of Californy, I've trapped and hunted. I knows the Injuns and thar 'sign,' and they knows _me_, I'm thinkin. Thirty winters has snowed on me in these hyar mountains, and a niggur or a Spaniard[6] would larn 'some' in that time. This old tool" (tapping his rifle) "shoots 'center,' _she_ does; and if thar's game afoot, this child knows 'bull' from 'cow,' and ought to could. That deer is deer, and goats is goats, is plain as paint to any but a greenhorn. Beaver's a cunning crittur, but I've trapped a 'heap;' and at killing meat when meat's a-running, I'll 'shine' in the biggest kind of crowd. For twenty year I packed a squaw along. Not one, but a many. First I had a Blackfoot--the darndest slut as ever cried for fofarraw. I lodge-poled her on Colter's Creek, and made her quit. My buffler hos, and as good as four packs of beaver, I gave for old Bull-tail's daughter. He was head chief of the Ricaree, and 'came' nicely 'round' me. Thar wasn't enough scarlet cloth, nor beads, nor vermilion in Sublette's packs for her. Traps wouldn't buy her all the fofarrow she wanted; and in two years I'd sold her to Cross-Eagle for one of Jake Hawkin's guns--this very one I hold in my hands. Then I tried the Sioux, the Shian, and a Digger from the other side, who made the best mocassin as ever _I_ wore. She was the best of all, and was rubbed out by the Yutahs in the Bayou Salade. Bad was the best; and after she was gone under I tried no more.

"Afore I left the settlements I know'd a white gal, and she was some punkins. I have never seed nothing as 'ould beat her. Red blood won't 'shine' any ways you fix it; and though I'm hell for 'sign,' a woman's breast is the hardest kind of rock to me, and leaves no trail that I can see of. I've hearn you talk of a gal in Memphis county; Mary Brand you called her oncest. The gal I said _I_ know'd, her name I disremember, but she stands afore me as plain as Chimley Rock on Platte, and thirty year and more har'nt changed a feature in her face, to me.

"If you ask this child, he'll tell you to leave the Spanish slut to her Greasers, and hold on till you take the trail to old Missoura, whar white and Christian gals are to be had for axing. Wagh!"

La Bonté rose to his feet. The mention of Mary Brand's name decided him; and he said--

"Darn the Spaniard! she cant shine with me; come, old hos! let's move."

And, shouldering their rifles, the two compañeros returned to the Ronch. More than one of the mountaineers had fulfilled the object of their journey, and had taken to themselves a partner from amongst the belles of Taos, and now they were preparing for their return to the mountains. Dick Wooton was the only unfortunate one. He had wooed a damsel whose parents peremptorily forbade their daughter to wed the hunter, and he therefore made ready for his departure with considerable regret.

The day came, however. The band of mountaineers were already mounted, and those with wives in charge were some hours on the road, leaving the remainder quaffing many a stirrup-cup before they left. Dick Wooton was as melancholy as a buffalo bull in spring; and as he rode down the village, and approached the house of his lady-love, who stood wrapped in reboso, and cigarito in mouth, on the sill of the door, he turned away his head as if dreading to say adios. La Bonté rode beside him, and a thought struck him.

"Ho, Dick!" he said, "thar's the gal, and thar's the mountains: shoot sharp's the word."

Dick instantly understood him, and was "himself again." He rode up to the girl as if to bid her adieu, and she came to meet him. Whispering one word, she put her foot upon his, was instantly seized round the waist, and placed upon the horn of his saddle. He struck spurs into his horse, and in a minute was out of sight, his three companions covering his retreat, and menacing with their rifles the crowd which was soon drawn to the spot by the cries of the girl's parents, who had been astonished spectators of the daring rape.

The trapper and his bride, however, escaped scatheless, and the whole party effected a safe passage of the mountains, and reached the Arkansa, where the band was broken up,--some proceeding to Bent's Fort, and others to the Platte, amongst whom were Killbuck and La Bonté, still in company.

These two once more betook themselves to trapping, the Yellow Stone being their chief hunting-ground. But we must again leap over months and years, rather than conduct the reader through all their perilous wanderings, and at last bring him back to the camp on Bijou, where we first introduced him to our mountaineers; and as we have already followed them on the Arapaho trail, which they pursued to recover their stolen animals from a band of that nation, we will once again seat ourselves at the camp on Boiling Spring, where they had met a strange hunter on a solitary expedition to the Bayou Salade, and whose double-barrelled rifle had excited their wonder and curiosity.

From him they learned also that a large band of Mormons were wintering on the Arkansa, _en route_ to the Great Salt Lake and Upper California; and as our hunters had before fallen in with the advanced guard of these fanatic emigrants, and felt no little wonder that such helpless people should undertake so long a journey through the wilderness, the stranger narrated to them the history of the sect, which we will also shortly transcribe for the benefit of the reader.

The Mormons were originally of the sect known as "Latter-day Saints," which sect flourishes wherever Anglo-Saxon gulls are found in sufficient numbers to swallow the egregious nonsense of fanatic humbugs who fatten upon their credulity. In the United States they especially abounded; but, the creed becoming "slow," one Joe Smith, a _smart_ man, arose from its ranks, and instilled a little life into the decaying sect.

Joe, better known as the "Prophet Joe," was taking his siesta one fine day, upon a hill in one of the New England States, when an angel suddenly appeared to him, and made known the locality of a new Bible or Testament, which contained the history of the lost tribes of Israel; that these tribes were no other than the Indian nations which possessed the continent of America at the time of its discovery, and the remains of which still existed in their savage state; that, through the agency of Joe, these were to be reclaimed, collected into the bosom of a church to be there established, according to principles which would be found in the wonderful book--and which church was gradually to receive into its bosom all other churches, sects, and persuasions, with "unanimity of belief and perfect brotherhood."

After a certain probation, Joe was led in body and spirit to the mountain by the angel who first appeared to him, was pointed out the position of the wonderful book, which was covered by a flat stone, on which would be found two round pebbles, called Urim and Thummim, and through the agency of which the mystic characters inscribed on the pages of the book were to be deciphered and translated. Joe found the spot indicated without any difficulty, cleared away the earth, and discovered a hollow place formed by four flat stones; on removing the topmost one of which sundry plates of brass presented themselves, covered with quaint and antique carving; on the top lay Urim and Thummim, (commonly known to the Mormons as Mummum and Thummum, the pebbles of wonderful virtue,) through which the miracle of reading the plates of brass was to be performed.

Joe Smith, on whom the mantle of Moses had so suddenly fallen, carefully removed the plates and hid them, burying himself in woods and mountains whilst engaged in the work of translation. However, he made no secret of the important task imposed upon him, nor of the great work to which he had been called. Numbers at once believed him, but not a few were deaf to belief, and openly derided him. Being persecuted, (as the sect declares, at the instigation of the authorities,) and many attempts being made to steal his precious treasure, Joe, one fine night, packed his plates in a sack of beans, bundled them into a Jersey waggon, and made tracks for the West. Here he completed the great work of translation, and not long after gave to the world the "Book of Mormon," a work as bulky as the Bible, and called "of Mormon," for so was the prophet named by whose hand the history of the lost tribes had been handed down in the plates of brass thus miraculously preserved for thousands of years, and brought to light through the agency of Joseph Smith.

The fame of the Book of Mormon spread over all America, and even to Great Britain and Ireland. Hundreds of proselytes flocked to Joe, to hear from his lips the doctrine of Mormonism; and in a very brief period the Mormons became a numerous and recognised sect, and Joe was at once, and by universal acclamation, installed as the head of the Mormon church, and was ever known by the name of the "Prophet Joseph."