Chapter I: Part 1

“_Familiar in their Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS._”—SHAKESPEARE.

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.
A WEEKLY JOURNAL.

CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.

N^{o.} 13.] SATURDAY, JUNE 22, 1850. [PRICE 2_d._

THE SUNDAY SCREW.

This little instrument, remarkable for its curious twist, has been at work again. A small portion of the collective wisdom of the nation has affirmed the principle that there must be no collection or delivery of posted letters on a Sunday. The principle was discussed by something less than a fourth of the House of Commons, and affirmed by something less than a seventh.

Having no doubt whatever, that this brilliant victory is, in effect, the affirmation of the principle that there ought to be No Anything hut churches and chapels on a Sunday; or, that it is the beginning of a Sabbatarian Crusade, outrageous to the spirit of Christianity, irreconcileable with the health, the rational enjoyments, and the true religious feeling, of the community; and certain to result, if successful, in a violent reaction, threatening contempt and hatred of that seventh day which it is a great religious and social object to maintain in the popular affection; it would ill become us to be deterred from speaking out upon the subject, by any fear of being misunderstood, or by any certainty of being misrepresented.

Confident in the sense of the country, and not unacquainted with the habits and exigencies of the people, we approach the Sunday question, quite undiscomposed by the late storm of mad mis-statement and all uncharitableness, which cleared the way for Lord Ashley’s motion. The preparation may be likened to that which is usually described in the case of the Egyptian Sorcerer and the boy who has some dark liquid poured into the palm of his hand, which is presently to become a magic mirror. “Look for Lord Ashley. What do you see?” “Oh, here’s some one with a broom!” “Well! what is he doing?” “Oh, he’s sweeping away Mr. Rowland Hill! Now, there is a great crowd; of people all sweeping Mr. Rowland Hill away; and now, there is a red flag with Intolerance on it; and now, they are pitching a great many Tents called Meetings. Now, the tents are all upset, and Mr. Rowland Hill has swept everybody else away. And oh! _now_, here’s Lord Ashley, with a Resolution in his hand!”

One Christian sentence is all-sufficient with us, on the theological part of this subject. “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.” No amount of signatures to petitions can ever sign away the meaning of those words; no end of volumes of Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates can ever affect them in the least. Move and carry resolutions, bring in bills, have committees, upstairs, downstairs, and in my lady’s chamber; read a first time, read a second time, read a third time, read thirty thousand times; the declared authority of the Christian dispensation over the letter of the Jewish Law, particularly in this especial instance, cannot be petitioned, resolved, read, or committee’d away.

It is important in such a case as this affirmation of a principle, to know what amount of practical sense and logic entered into its assertion. We will inquire.

Lord Ashley (who has done much good, and whom we mention with every sentiment of sincere respect, though we believe him to be most mischievously deluded on this question,) speaks of the people employed in the Country Post-Offices on Sunday, as though they were continually at work, all the livelong day. He asks whether they are to be “a Pariah race, excluded from the enjoyments of the rest of the community?” He presents to our mind’s eye, rows of Post-Office clerks, sitting, with dishevelled hair and dirty linen, behind small shutters, all Sunday long, keeping time with their sighs to the ringing of the church bells, and watering bushels of letters, incessantly passing through their hands, with their tears. Is this exactly the reality? The Upas tree is a figure of speech almost as ancient as our lachrymose friend the Pariah, in whom most of us recognise a respectable old acquaintance. Supposing we were to take it into our heads to declare in these Household Words, that every Post-Office clerk employed on Sunday in the country, is compelled to sit under his own particular sprig of Upas, planted in a flower-pot beside him for the express purpose of blighting him with its baneful shade, should we be much more beyond the mark than Lord Ashley himself? Did any of our readers ever happen to post letters in the Country on a Sunday? Did they ever see a notice outside a provincial Post-Office, to the effect that the presiding Pariah would be in attendance at such an hour on Sunday, and not before? Did they ever wait for the Pariah, at some inconvenience, until the hour arrived, and observe him come to the office in an extremely spruce condition as to his shirt collar, and do a little sprinkling of business in a very easy offhand manner? We have such recollections ourselves. We have posted and received letters in most parts of this kingdom on a Sunday, and we never yet observed the Pariah to be quite crushed. On the contrary, we have seen him at church, apparently in the best health and spirits (notwithstanding an hour or so of sorting, earlier in the morning), and we have met him out a-walking with the young lady to whom he is engaged, and we have known him meet her again with her cousin, after the dispatch of the Mails, and really conduct himself as if he were not particularly exhausted or afflicted. Indeed, how _could_ he be so, on Lord Ashley’s own showing? There is a Saturday before the Sunday. We are a people indisposed, he says, to business on a Sunday. More than a million of people are known, from their petitions, to be too scrupulous to hear of such a thing. Few counting-houses or offices are ever opened on a Sunday. The Merchants and Bankers write by Saturday night’s post. The Sunday night’s post may be presumed to be chiefly limited to letters of necessity and emergency. Lord Ashley’s whole case would break down, if it were probable that the Post-Office Pariah had half as much confinement on Sunday, as the He-Pariah who opens my Lord’s street-door when any body knocks, or the She-Pariah who nurses my Lady’s baby.

If the London Post-Office be not opened on a Sunday, says Lord Ashley, why should the Post-Offices of provincial towns be opened on a Sunday? Precisely because the provincial towns are NOT London, we apprehend. Because London is the great capital, mart, and business-centre of the world; because in London there are hundreds of thousands of people, young and old, away from their families and friends; because the stoppage of the Monday’s Post Delivery in London would stop, for many precious hours, the natural flow of the blood from every vein and artery in the world to the heart of the world, and its return from the heart through all those tributary channels. Because the broad difference between London and every other place in England, necessitated this distinction, and has perpetuated it.

But, to say nothing of petitioners elsewhere, it seems that two hundred merchants and bankers in Liverpool “formed themselves into a committee, to forward the object of this motion.” In the name of all the Pharisees of Jerusalem, could not the two hundred merchants and bankers form themselves into a committee to write or read no business-letters themselves on a Sunday—and let the Post-Office alone? The Government establishes a monopoly in the Post-Office, and makes it not only difficult and expensive for me to send a letter by any other means, but illegal. What right has any merchant or banker to stop the course of any letter that I may have sore necessity to post, or may choose to post? If any one of the two hundred merchants and bankers lay at the point of death, on Sunday, would he desire his absent child to be written to—the Sunday Post being yet in existence? And how do they take upon themselves to tell us that the Sunday Post is not a “necessity,” when they know, every man of them, every Sunday morning, that before the clock strikes next, they and theirs may be visited by any one of incalculable millions of accidents, to make it a dire need? Not a necessity? Is it possible that these merchants and bankers suppose there is any Sunday Post, from any large town, which is not a very agony of necessity to some one? I might as well say, in my pride of strength, that a knowledge of bone-setting in surgeons is not a necessity, because I have not broken my leg.

There is a Sage of this sort in the House of Commons. He is of opinion that the Sunday Police is a necessity, but the Sunday Post is not. That is to say, in a certain house in London or Westminster, there are certain silver spoons, engraved with the family crest—a Bigot rampant—which would be pretty sure to disappear, on an early Sunday, if there were no Policemen on duty; whereas the Sage sees no present probability of his requiring to write a letter into the country on a Saturday night—and, if it should arise, he can use the Electric Telegraph. Such is the sordid balance some professing Heathens hold of their own pounds against other men’s pennies, and their own selfish wants against those of the community at large! Even the Member for Birmingham, of all the towns in England, is afflicted by this selfish blindness, and, because _he_ is “tired of reading and answering letters on a Sunday,” cannot conceive the possibility of there being other people not so situated, to whom the Sunday Post may, under many circumstances, be an unspeakable blessing.

The inconsequential nature of Lord Ashley’s positions, cannot be better shown, than by one brief passage from his speech. “When he said the transmission of the Mail, he meant the Mail-bags; he did not propose to interfere with the passengers.” No? Think again, Lord Ashley.

When the Honorable Member for Whitened Sepulchres moves his resolution for the stoppage of Mail Trains—in a word, of all Railway travelling—on Sunday; and when that Honorable Gentleman talks about the Pariah clerks who take the money and give the tickets, the Pariah engine-drivers, the Pariah stokers, the Pariah porters, the Pariah police along the line, and the Pariah flys waiting at the Pariah stations to take the Pariah passengers, to be attended by Pariah servants at the Pariah Arms and other Pariah Hotels; what will Lord Ashley do then? Envy insinuated that Tom Thumb made his giants first, and then killed them, but you cannot do the like by your Pariahs. You cannot get an exclusive patent for the manufacture and destruction of Pariah dolls. Other Honorable Gentlemen are certain to engage in the trade; and when the Honorable Member for Whitened Sepulchres makes _his_ Pariahs of all these people, you cannot refuse to recognise them as being of the genuine sort, Lord Ashley. Railway and all other Sunday Travelling, suppressed, by the Honorable Member for Whitened Sepulchres, the same honorable gentleman, who will not have been particularly complimented in the course of that achievement by the Times Newspaper, will discover that a good deal is done towards the Times of Monday, on a Sunday night, and will Pariah the whole of that immense establishment. For, this is the great inconvenience of Pariah-making, that when you begin, they spring up like mushrooms: insomuch, that it is very doubtful whether we shall have a house in all this land, from the Queen’s Palace downward, which will not be found, on inspection, to be swarming with Pariahs. Not touch the Mails, and yet abolish the Mail-bags? Stop all those silent messengers of affection and anxiety, yet let the talking traveller, who is the cause of infinitely more employment, go? Why, this were to suppose all men Fools, and the Honorable Member for Whitened Sepulchres even a greater Noodle than he is!

Lord Ashley supports his motion by reading some perilous bombast, said to be written by a working man—of whom the intelligent body of working men have no great reason, to our thinking, to be proud—in which there is much about not being robbed of the boon of the day of rest; but, with all Lord Ashley’s indisputably humane and benevolent impulses, we grieve to say we know no robber whom the working man, really desirous to preserve his Sunday, has so much to dread, as Lord Ashley himself. He is weakly lending the influence of his good intentions to a movement which would make that day no day of rest—rest to those who are overwrought, includes recreation, fresh air, change—but a day of mortification and gloom. And this not to one class only, be it understood. This is not a class question. If there be no gentleman of spirit in the House of Commons to remind Lord Ashley that the high-flown nonsense he quoted, concerning labour, is but another form of the stupidest socialist dogma, which seeks to represent that there is only one class of laborers on earth, it is well that the truth should be stated somewhere. And it is, indisputably, that three-fourths of us are laborers who work hard for our living; and that the condition of what we call the working man, has its parallel, at a remove of certain degrees, in almost all professions and pursuits. Running through the middle classes, is a broad deep vein of constant, compulsory, indispensable work. There are innumerable gentlemen, and sons and daughters of gentlemen, constantly at work, who have no more hope of making fortunes in their vocation, than the working man has in his. There are innumerable families in which the day of rest, is the only day out of the seven, where innocent domestic recreations and enjoyments are very feasible. In our mean gentility, which is the cause of so much social mischief, we may try to separate ourselves, as to this question, from the working man; and may very complacently resolve that there is no occasion for his excursion-trains and tea-gardens, because we don’t use them; but we had better not deceive ourselves. It is impossible that we can cramp his means of needful recreation and refreshment, without cramping our own, or basely cheating him. We cannot leave him to the Christian patronage of the Honourable Member for Whitened Sepulchres, and take ourselves off. We cannot restrain him and leave ourselves free. Our Sunday wants are pretty much the same as his, though his are far more easily satisfied; our inclinations and our feelings are pretty much the same; and it will be no less wise than honest in us, the middle classes, not to be Janus-faced about the matter.

What is it that the Honorable Member for Whitened Sepulchres, for whom Lord Ashley clears the way, wants to do? He sees on a Sunday morning, in the large towns of England, when the bells are ringing for church and chapel, certain unwashed, dim-eyed, dissipated loungers, hanging about the doors of public-houses, and loitering at the street corners, to whom the day of rest appeals in much the same degree as a sunny summer-day does to so many pigs. Does he believe that any weight of handcuffs on the Post-Office, or any amount of restriction imposed on decent people, will bring Sunday home to these? Let him go, any Sunday morning, from the new Town of Edinburgh where the sound of a piano would be profanation, to the old Town, and see what Sunday is in the Canongate. Or let him get up some statistics of the drunken people in Glasgow, while the churches are full—and work out the amount of Sabbath observance which is carried downward, by rigid shows and sad-colored forms.

But, there is another class of people, those who take little jaunts, and mingle in social little assemblages, on a Sunday, concerning whom the whole constituency of Whitened Sepulchres, with their Honorable Member in the chair, find their lank hair standing on end with horror, and pointing, as if they were all electrified, straight up to the skylights of Exeter Hall. In reference to this class, we would whisper in the ears of the disturbed assemblage, three short words, “Let well alone!”

The English people have long been remarkable for their domestic habits, and their household virtues and affections. They are, now, beginning to be universally respected by intelligent foreigners who visit this country, for their unobtrusive politeness, their good-humour, and their cheerful recognition of all restraints that really originate in consideration for the general good. They deserve this testimony (which we have often heard, of late, with pride) most honorably. Long maligned and mistrusted, they proved their case from the very first moment of having it in their power to do so; and have never, on any single occasion within our knowledge, abused any public confidence that has been reposed in them. It is an extraordinary thing to know of a people, systematically excluded from galleries and museums for years, that their respect for such places, and for themselves as visitors to them, dates, without any period of transition, from the very day when their doors were freely opened. The national vices are surprisingly few. The people in general are not gluttons, nor drunkards, nor gamblers, nor addicted to cruel sports, nor to the pushing of any amusement to furious and wild extremes. They are moderate, and easily pleased, and very sensible to all affectionate influences. Any knot of holiday-makers, without a large proportion of women and children among them, would be a perfect phenomenon. Let us go into any place of Sunday enjoyment where any fair representation of the people resort, and we shall find them decent, orderly, quiet, sociable among their families and neighbours. There is a general feeling of respect for religion, and for religious observances. The churches and chapels are well filled. Very few people who keep servants or apprentices, leave out of consideration their opportunities of attending church or chapel; the general demeanour within those edifices, is particularly grave and decorous; and the general recreations without, are of a harmless and simple kind. Lord Brougham never did Henry Brougham more justice, than in declaring to the House of Lords, after the success of this motion in the House of Commons, that there is no country where the Sabbath is, on the whole, better observed than in England. Let the constituency of Whitened Sepulchres ponder, in a Christian spirit, on these things; take care of their own consciences; leave their Honorable Member to take care of his; and let well alone.

For, it is in nations as in families. Too tight a hand in these respects, is certain to engender a disposition to break loose, and to run riot. If the private experience of any reader, pausing on this sentence, cannot furnish many unhappy illustrations of its truth, it is a very fortunate experience indeed. Our most notable public example of it, in England, is just two hundred years old.

Lord Ashley had better merge his Pariahs into the body politic; and the Honorable Member for Whitened Sepulchres had better accustom his jaundiced eyes to the Sunday sight of dwellers in towns, roaming in green fields, and gazing upon country prospects. If he will look a little beyond them, and lift up the eyes of his mind, perhaps he may observe a mild, majestic figure in the distance, going through a field of corn, attended by some common men who pluck the grain as they pass along, and whom their Divine Master teaches that he is the Lord, even of the Sabbath-Day.

THE YOUNG ADVOCATE.

Antoine de Chaulieu was the son of a poor gentleman of Normandy, with a long genealogy, a short rent-roll, and a large family. Jacques Rollet was the son of a brewer, who did not know who his grandfather was; but he had a long purse and only two children. As these youths flourished in the early days of liberty, equality, and fraternity, and were near neighbours, they naturally hated each other. Their enmity commenced at school, where the delicate and refined De Chaulieu being the only gentil-homme amongst the scholars, was the favorite of the master (who was a bit of an aristocrat in his heart) although he was about the worst dressed boy in the establishment, and never had a sou to spend; whilst Jacques Rollet, sturdy and rough, with smart clothes and plenty of money, got flogged six days in the week, ostensibly for being stupid and not learning his lessons—which, indeed, he did not—but, in reality, for constantly quarrelling with and insulting De Chaulieu, who had not strength to cope with him. When they left the academy, the feud continued in all its vigour, and was fostered by a thousand little circumstances arising out of the state of the times, till a separation ensued in consequence of an aunt of Antoine de Chaulieu’s undertaking the expense of sending him to Paris to study the law, and of maintaining him there during the necessary period.

With the progress of events came some degree of reaction in favour of birth and nobility, and then Antoine, who had passed for the bar, began to hold up his head and endeavoured to push his fortunes; but fate seemed against him. He felt certain that if he possessed any gift in the world it was that of eloquence, but he could get no cause to plead; and his aunt dying inopportunely, first his resources failed, and then his health. He had no sooner returned to his home, than, to complicate his difficulties completely, he fell in love with Mademoiselle Natalie de Bellefonds, who had just returned from Paris, where she had been completing her education. To expatiate on the perfections of Mademoiselle Natalie, would be a waste of ink and paper; it is sufficient to say that she really was a very charming girl, with a fortune which, though not large, would have been a most desirable acquisition to De Chaulieu, who had nothing. Neither was the fair Natalie indisposed to listen to his addresses; but her father could not be expected to countenance the suit of a gentleman, however well-born, who had not a ten-sous piece in the world, and whose prospects were a blank.

Whilst the ambitious and love-sick young barrister was thus pining in unwelcome obscurity, his old acquaintance, Jacques Rollet, had been acquiring an undesirable notoriety. There was nothing really bad in Jacques’ disposition, but having been bred up a democrat, with a hatred of the nobility, he could not easily accommodate his rough humour to treat them with civility when it was no longer safe to insult them. The liberties he allowed himself whenever circumstances brought him into contact with the higher classes of society, had led him into many scrapes, out of which his father’s money had one way or another released him; but that source of safety had now failed. Old Rollet having been too busy with the affairs of the nation to attend to his business, had died insolvent, leaving his son with nothing but his own wits to help him out of future difficulties, and it was not long before their exercise was called for. Claudine Rollet, his sister, who was a very pretty girl, had attracted the attention of Mademoiselle de Bellefonds’ brother, Alphonso; and as he paid her more attention than from such a quarter was agreeable to Jacques, the young men had had more than one quarrel on the subject, on which occasions they had each, characteristically, given vent to their enmity, the one in contemptuous monosyllables, and the other in a volley of insulting words. But Claudine had another lover more nearly of her own condition of life; this was Claperon, the deputy governor of the Rouen jail, with whom she had made acquaintance during one or two compulsory visits paid by her brother to that functionary; but Claudine, who was a bit of a coquette, though she did not altogether reject his suit, gave him little encouragement, so that betwixt hopes, and fears, and doubts, and jealousies, poor Claperon led a very uneasy kind of life.

Affairs had been for some time in this position, when, one fine morning, Alphonse de Bellefonds was not to be found in his chamber when his servant went to call him; neither had his bed been slept in. He had been observed to go out rather late on the preceding evening, but whether or not he had returned, nobody could tell. He had not appeared at supper, but that was too ordinary an event to awaken suspicion; and little alarm was excited till several hours had elapsed, when inquiries were instituted and a search commenced, which terminated in the discovery of his body, a good deal mangled, lying at the bottom of a pond which had belonged to the old brewery. Before any investigations had been made, every person had jumped to the conclusion that the young man had been murdered, and that Jacques Rollet was the assassin. There was a strong presumption in favour of that opinion, which further perquisitions tended to confirm. Only the day before, Jacques had been heard to threaten Mons. de Bellefonds with speedy vengeance. On the fatal evening, Alphonse and Claudine had been seen together in the neighbourhood of the now dismantled brewery; and as Jacques, betwixt poverty and democracy, was in bad odour with the prudent and respectable part of society, it was not easy for him to bring witnesses to character, or prove an unexceptionable alibi. As for the Bellefonds and De Chaulieus, and the aristocracy in general, they entertained no doubt of his guilt; and finally, the magistrates coming to the same opinion, Jacques Rollet was committed for trial, and as a testimony of good will, Antoine de Chaulieu was selected by the injured family to conduct the prosecution.

Here, at last, was the opportunity he had sighed for! So interesting a case, too, furnishing such ample occasion for passion, pathos, indignation! And how eminently fortunate that the speech which he set himself with ardour to prepare, would be delivered in the presence of the father and brother of his mistress, and perhaps of the lady herself! The evidence against Jacques, it is true, was altogether presumptive; there was no proof whatever that he had committed the crime; and for his own part he stoutly denied it. But Antoine de Chaulieu entertained no doubt of his guilt, and his speech was certainly well calculated to carry that conviction into the bosom of others. It was of the highest importance to his own reputation that he should procure a verdict, and he confidently assured the afflicted and enraged family of the victim that their vengeance should be satisfied. Under these circumstances could anything be more unwelcome than a piece of intelligence that was privately conveyed to him late on the evening before the trial was to come on, which tended strongly to exculpate the prisoner, without indicating any other person as the criminal. Here was an opportunity lost. The first step of the ladder on which he was to rise to fame, fortune, and a wife, was slipping from under his feet!

Of course, so interesting a trial was anticipated with great eagerness by the public, and the court was crowded with all the beauty and fashion of Rouen. Though Jacques Rollet persisted in asserting his innocence, founding his defence chiefly on circumstances which were strongly corroborated by the information that had reached De Chaulieu the preceding evening,—he was convicted.

In spite of the very strong doubts he privately entertained respecting the justice of the verdict, even De Chaulieu himself, in the first flush of success, amidst a crowd of congratulating friends, and the approving smiles of his mistress, felt gratified and happy; his speech had, for the time being, not only convinced others, but himself; warmed with his own eloquence, he believed what he said. But when the glow was over, and he found himself alone, he did not feel so comfortable. A latent doubt of Rollet’s guilt now burnt strongly in his mind, and he felt that the blood of the innocent would be on his head. It is true there was yet time to save the life of the prisoner, but to admit Jacques innocent, was to take the glory out of his own speech, and turn the sting of his argument against himself. Besides, if he produced the witness who had secretly given him the information, he should be self-condemned, for he could not conceal that he had been aware of the circumstance before the trial.

Matters having gone so far, therefore, it was necessary that Jacques Rollet should die; so the affair took its course; and early one morning the guillotine was erected in the court yard of the jail, three criminals ascended the scaffold, and three heads fell into the basket, which were presently afterwards, with the trunks that had been attached to them, buried in a corner of the cemetery.

Antoine de Chaulieu was now fairly started in his career, and his success was as rapid as the first step towards it had been tardy. He took a pretty apartment in the Hôtel Marbœuf, Rue Grange-Batelière, and in a short time was looked upon as one of the most rising young advocates in Paris. His success in one line brought him success in another; he was soon a favourite in society, and an object of interest to speculating mothers; but his affections still adhered to his old love Natalie de Bellefonds, whose family now gave their assent to the match—at least, prospectively—a circumstance which furnished such an additional incentive to his exertions, that in about two years from the date of his first brilliant speech, he was in a sufficiently flourishing condition to offer the young lady a suitable home. In anticipation of the happy event, he engaged and furnished a suite of apartments in the Rue du Helder; and as it was necessary that the bride should come to Paris to provide her trousseau, it was agreed that the wedding should take place there, instead of at Bellefonds, as had been first projected; an arrangement the more desirable, that a press of business rendered Mons. de Chaulieu’s absence from Paris inconvenient.

Brides and bridegrooms in France, except of the very high classes, are not much in the habit of making those honeymoon excursions so universal in this country. A day spent in visiting Versailles, or St. Cloud, or even the public places of the city, is generally all that precedes the settling down into the habits of daily life. In the present instance St. Denis was selected, from the circumstance of Natalie’s having a younger sister at school there; and also because she had a particular desire to see the Abbey.

The wedding was to take place on a Thursday; and on the Wednesday evening, having spent some hours most agreeably with Natalie, Antoine de Chaulieu returned to spend his last night in his bachelor apartments. His wardrobe and other small possessions, had already been packed up and sent to his future home; and there was nothing left in his room now, but his new wedding suit, which he inspected with considerable satisfaction before he undressed and lay down to sleep. Sleep, however, was somewhat slow to visit him; and the clock had struck _one_, before he closed his eyes. When he opened them again, it was broad daylight; and his first thought was, had he overslept himself? He sat up in bed to look at the clock which was exactly opposite, and as he did so, in the large mirror over the fire-place, he perceived a figure standing behind him. As the dilated eyes met his own, he saw it was the face of Jacques Rollet. Overcome with horror he sunk back on his pillow, and it was some minutes before he ventured to look again in that direction; when he did so, the figure had disappeared.

The sudden revulsion of feeling such a vision was calculated to occasion in a man elate with joy, may be conceived! For some time after the death of his former foe, he had been visited by not unfrequent twinges of conscience; but of late, borne along by success, and the hurry of Parisian life, these unpleasant remembrancers had grown rarer, till at length they had faded away altogether. Nothing had been further from his thoughts than Jacques Rollet, when he closed his eyes on the preceding night, nor when he opened them to that sun which was to shine on what he expected to be the happiest day of his life! Where were the high-strung nerves now! The elastic frame! The bounding heart!

Heavily and slowly he arose from his bed, for it was time to do so; and with a trembling hand and quivering knees, he went through the processes of the toilet, gashing his cheek with the razor, and spilling the water over his well polished boots. When he was dressed, scarcely venturing to cast a glance in the mirror as he passed it, he quitted the room and descended the stairs, taking the key of the door with him for the purpose of leaving it with the porter; the man, however, being absent, he laid it on the table in his lodge, and with a relaxed and languid step proceeded on his way to the church, where presently arrived the fair Natalie and her friends. How difficult it was now to look happy, with that pallid face and extinguished eye!

“How pale you are! Has anything happened? You are surely ill?” were the exclamations that met him on sides. He tried to carry it off as well as he could, but felt that the movements he would have wished to appear alert were only convulsive; and that the smiles with which he attempted to relax his features, were but distorted grimaces. However, the church was not the place for further inquiries; and whilst Natalie gently pressed his hand in token of sympathy, they advanced to the altar, and the ceremony was performed; after which they stepped into the carriages waiting at the door, and drove to the apartments of Madme. de Bellefonds, where an elegant _déjeuner_ was prepared.

“What ails you, my dear husband?” enquired Natalie, as soon as they were alone.

“Nothing, love,” he replied; “nothing, I assure you, but a restless night and a little overwork, in order that I might have to-day free to enjoy my happiness!”

“Are you quite sure? Is there nothing else?”

“Nothing, indeed; and pray don’t take notice of it, it only makes me worse!”

Natalie was not deceived, but she saw that what he said was true; notice made him worse; so she contented herself with observing him quietly, and saying nothing; but, as he _felt_ she was observing him, she might almost better have spoken; words are often less embarrassing things than too curious eyes.

When they reached Madame de Bellefonds’ he had the same sort of questioning and scrutiny to undergo, till he grew quite impatient under it, and betrayed a degree of temper altogether unusual with him. Then everybody looked astonished; some whispered their remarks, and others expressed them by their wondering eyes, till his brow knit, and his pallid cheeks became flushed with anger. Neither could he divert attention by eating; his parched mouth would not allow him to swallow anything but liquids, of which, however, he indulged in copious libations; and it was an exceeding relief to him when the carriage, which was to convey them to St. Denis, being announced, furnished an excuse for hastily leaving the table. Looking at his watch, he declared it was late; and Natalie, who saw how eager he was to be gone, threw her shawl over her shoulders, and bidding her friends _good morning_, they hurried away.

It was a fine sunny day in June; and as they drove along the crowded boulevards, and through the Porte St. Denis, the young bride and bridegroom, to avoid each other’s eyes, affected to be gazing out of the windows; but when they reached that part of the road where there was nothing but trees on each side, they felt it necessary to draw in their heads, and make an attempt at conversation. De Chaulieu put his arm round his wife’s waist, and tried to rouse himself from his depression; but it had by this time so reacted upon her, that she could not respond to his efforts, and thus the conversation languished, till both felt glad when they reached their destination, which would, at all events, furnish them something to talk about.

Having quitted the carriage, and ordered a dinner at the Hôtel de l’Abbaye, the young couple proceeded to visit Mademoiselle Hortense de Bellefonds, who was overjoyed to see her sister and new brother-in-law, and doubly so when she found that they had obtained permission to take her out to spend the afternoon with them. As there is little to be seen at St. Denis but the Abbey, on quitting that part of it devoted to education, they proceeded to visit the church, with its various objects of interest; and as De Chaulieu’s thoughts were now forced into another direction, his cheerfulness began insensibly to return. Natalie looked so beautiful, too, and the affection betwixt the two young sisters was so pleasant to behold! And they spent a couple of hours wandering about with Hortense, who was almost as well informed as the Suisse, till the brazen doors were open which admitted them to the Royal vault. Satisfied, at length, with what they had seen, they began to think of returning to the inn, the more especially as De Chaulieu, who had not eaten a morsel of food since the previous evening, owned to being hungry; so they directed their steps to the door, lingering here and there as they went, to inspect a monument or a painting, when, happening to turn his head aside to see if his wife, who had stopt to take a last look at the tomb of King Dagobert, was following, he beheld with horror the face of Jacques Rollet appearing from behind a column! At the same instant, his wife joined him, and took his arm, inquiring if he was not very much delighted with what he had seen. He attempted to say yes, but the word would not be forced out; and staggering out of the door, he alleged that a sudden faintness had overcome him.

They conducted him to the Hôtel, but Natalie now became seriously alarmed; and well she might. His complexion looked ghastly, his limbs shook, and his features bore an expression of indescribable horror and anguish. What could be the meaning of so extraordinary a change in the gay, witty, prosperous De Chaulieu, who, till that morning, seemed not to have a care in the world? For, plead illness as he might, she felt certain, from the expression of his features, that his sufferings were not of the body but of the mind; and, unable to imagine any reason for such extraordinary manifestations, of which she had never before seen a symptom, but a sudden aversion to herself, and regret for the step he had taken, her pride took the alarm, and, concealing the distress she really felt, she began to assume a haughty and reserved manner towards him, which he naturally interpreted into an evidence of anger and contempt. The dinner was placed upon the table, but De Chaulieu’s appetite of which he had lately boasted, was quite gone, nor was his wife better able to eat. The young sister alone did justice to the repast; but although the bridegroom could not eat, he could swallow champagne in such copious draughts, that ere long the terror and remorse that the apparition of Jacques Rollet had awakened in his breast were drowned in intoxication. Amazed and indignant, poor Natalie sat silently observing this elect of her heart, till overcome with disappointment and grief, she quitted the room with her sister, and retired to another apartment, where she gave free vent to her feelings in tears.

After passing a couple of hours in confidences and lamentations, they recollected that the hours of liberty granted, as an especial favour, to Mademoiselle Hortense, had expired: but ashamed to exhibit her husband in his present condition to the eyes of strangers, Natalie prepared to re-conduct her to the _Maison Royale_ herself. Looking into the dining-room as they passed, they saw De Chaulieu lying on a sofa fast asleep, in which state he continued when his wife returned. At length, however, the driver of their carriage begged to know if Monsieur and Madame were ready to return to Paris, and it became necessary to arouse him. The transitory effects of the champagne had now subsided; but when De Chaulieu recollected what had happened, nothing could exceed his shame and mortification. So engrossing indeed were these sensations that they quite overpowered his previous ones, and, in his present vexation, he, for the moment, forgot his fears. He knelt at his wife’s feet, begged her pardon a thousand times, swore that he adored her, and declared that the illness and the effect of the wine had been purely the consequences of fasting and overwork. It was not the easiest thing in the world to re-assure a woman whose pride, affection, and taste, had been so severely wounded; but Natalie tried to believe, or to appear to do so, and a sort of reconciliation ensued, not quite sincere on the part of the wife, and very humbling on the part of the husband. Under these circumstances it was impossible that he should recover his spirits or facility of manner; his gaiety was forced, his tenderness constrained; his heart was heavy within him; and ever and anon the source whence all this disappointment and woe had sprung would recur to his perplexed and tortured mind.

Thus mutually pained and distrustful, they returned to Paris, which they reached about nine o’clock. In spite of her depression, Natalie, who had not seen her new apartments, felt some curiosity about them, whilst De Chaulieu anticipated a triumph in exhibiting the elegant home he had prepared for her. With some alacrity, therefore, they stepped out of the carriage, the gates of the Hôtel were thrown open, the _concierge_ rang the bell which announced to the servants that their master and mistress had arrived, and whilst these domestics appeared above, holding lights over the balusters, Natalie, followed by her husband, ascended the stairs. But when they reached the landing-place of the first flight, they saw the figure of a man standing in a corner as if to make way for them; the flash from above fell upon his face, and again Antoine de Chaulieu recognised the features of Jacques Rollet!

From the circumstance of his wife’s preceding him, the figure was not observed by De Chaulieu till he was lifting his foot to place it on the top stair: the sudden shock caused him to miss the step, and, without uttering a sound, he fell back, and never stopped till he reached the stones at the bottom. The screams of Natalie brought the concierge from below and the maids from above, and an attempt was made to raise the unfortunate man from the ground; but with cries of anguish he besought them to desist.

“Let me,” he said, “die here! What a fearful vengeance is thine! Oh, Natalie, Natalie!” he exclaimed to his wife, who was kneeling beside him, “to win fame, and fortune, and yourself, I committed a dreadful crime! With lying words I argued away the life of a fellow-creature, whom, whilst I uttered them, I half believed to be innocent; and now, when I have attained all I desired, and reached the summit of my hopes, the Almighty has sent him back upon the earth to blast me with the sight. Three times this day—three times this day! Again! again!”—and as he spoke, his wild and dilated eyes fixed themselves on one of the individuals that surrounded him.

“He is delirious,” said they.

“No,” said the stranger! “What he says is true enough,—at least in part;” and bending over the expiring man, he added, “May Heaven forgive you, Antoine de Chaulieu! I was not executed; one who well knew my innocence saved my life. I may name him, for he is beyond the reach of the law now,—it was Claperon, the jailer, who loved Claudine, and had himself killed Alphonse de Bellefonds from jealousy. An unfortunate wretch had been several years in the jail for a murder committed during the phrenzy of a fit of insanity. Long confinement had reduced him to idiocy. To save my life Claperon substituted the senseless being for me, on the scaffold, and he was executed in my stead. He has quitted the country, and I have been a vagabond on the face of the earth ever since that time. At length I obtained, through the assistance of my sister, the situation of concierge in the Hôtel Marbœuf, in the Rue Grange-Batelière. I entered on my new place yesterday evening, and was desired to awaken the gentleman on the third floor at seven o’clock. When I entered the room to do so, you were asleep, but before I had time to speak you awoke, and I recognised your features in the glass. Knowing that I could not vindicate my innocence if you chose to seize me, I fled, and seeing an omnibus starting for St. Denis, I got on it with a vague idea of getting on to Calais, and crossing the Channel to England. But having only a franc or two in my pocket, or indeed in the world, I did not know how to procure the means of going forward; and whilst I was lounging about the place, forming first one plan and then another, I saw you in the church, and concluding you were in pursuit of me, I thought the best way of eluding your vigilance was to make my way back to Paris as fast as I could; so I set off instantly, and walked all the way; but having no money to pay my night’s lodging, I came here to borrow a couple of livres of my sister Claudine, who lives in the fifth story.”

“Thank Heaven!” exclaimed the dying man; “that sin is off my soul! Natalie, dear wife, farewell! Forgive! forgive all!”

These were the last words he uttered; the priest, who had been summoned in haste, held up the cross before his failing sight; a few strong convulsions shook the poor bruised and mangled frame; and then all was still.

And thus ended the Young Advocate’s Wedding Day.

EARTH’S HARVESTS.

“Peace hath her victories, no less renowned than War.”—
MILTON’S _Sonnet to Cromwell_.

Two hundred years ago,[1] the moon
Shone on a battle plain;
Cold through that glowing night of June
Lay steeds and riders slain;
And daisies, bending ’neath strange dew,
Wept in the silver light;
The very turf a regal hue
Assumed that fatal night.

Time past—but long, to tell the tale,
Some battle-axe or shield,
Or cloven skull, or shattered mail,
Were found upon the field;
The grass grew thickest on the spot
Where high were heaped the dead,
And well it marked, had men forgot,
Where the great charge was made.

To-day—the sun looks laughing down
Upon the harvest plain,
The little gleaners, rosy-brown,
The merry reaper’s train;
The rich sheaves heaped together stand,
And resting in their shade,
A mother, working close at hand,
Her sleeping babe hath laid.

A battle-field it was, and is,
For serried spears are there,
And against mighty foes upreared—
Gaunt hunger, pale despair.
We’ll thank God for the hearts of old,
Their strife our freedom sealed;
We’ll praise Him for the sheaves of gold
Now on the battle-field.

Footnote 1:

Naseby, June 14, 1646.

“THE DEVIL’S ACRE.”

There are multitudes who believe that Westminster is a city of palaces, of magnificent squares, and regal terraces; that it is the chosen seat of opulence, grandeur and refinement; and that filth, squalor, and misery are the denizens of other and less favoured sections of the metropolis. The error is not in associating with Westminster much of the grandeur and splendour of the capital, but in entirely dissociating it in idea from the darker phases of metropolitan life. As the brightest lights cast the deepest shadows, so are the splendours and luxuries of the Westend found in juxta-position with the most deplorable manifestations of human wretchedness and depravity. There is no part of the metropolis which presents a more chequered aspect, both physical and moral, than Westminster. The most lordly streets are frequently but a mask for the squalid districts which lie behind them, whilst spots consecrated to the most hallowed of purposes are begirt by scenes of indescribable infamy and pollution; the blackest tide of moral turpitude that flows in the capital rolls its filthy wavelets up to the very walls of Westminster Abbey; and the law-makers for one-seventh of the human race sit, night after night, in deliberation, in the immediate vicinity of the most notorious haunt of law-breakers in the empire. There is no district in London more filthy and disgusting, more steeped in villany and guilt, than that on which every morning’s sun casts the sombre shadows of the Abbey, mingled, as they soon will be, with those of the gorgeous towers of the new “Palace at Westminster.”

The “Devil’s Acre,” as it is familiarly known in the neighbourhood, is the square block comprised between Dean, Peter, and Tothill Streets, and Strutton Ground. It is permeated by Orchard Street, St. Anne’s Street, Old and New Pye Streets, Pear Street, Perkins’ Rents, and Duck Lane. From some of these, narrow covered passage-ways lead into small quadrangular courts, containing but a few crazy, tumble-down-looking houses, and inhabited by characters of the most equivocal description. The district, which is small in area, is one of the most populous in London, almost every house being crowded with numerous families, and multitudes of lodgers. There are other parts of the town as filthy, dingy, and forbidding in appearance as this, but these are generally the haunts more of poverty than crime. But there are none in which guilt of all kinds and degrees converges in such volume as on this, the moral plague-spot not only of the metropolis, but also of the kingdom. And yet from almost every point of it you can observe the towers of the Abbey peering down upon you, as if they were curious to observe that to which they seem to be indifferent.

Such is the spot which true Christian benevolence has, for some time, marked as a chosen field for its most unostentatious operations. It was first taken possession of, with a view to its improvement, by the London City Mission, a body represented in the district by a single missionary, who has now been for about twelve years labouring—and not without success—in the arduous work of its purification; and who, by his energy, tact, and perseverance, has acquired such an influence over its turbulent and lawless population, as makes him a safer escort to the stranger desirous of visiting it, than a whole posse of police. By the aid of several opulent philanthropists whom he has interested in his labours, he has reared up within the district two schools, which are numerously attended by the squalid children of the neighbourhood—each school having an Industrial Department connected with it. An exclusively Industrial School for boys of more advanced age has also been established, which has recently been attached to the Ragged School Union. In addition to these, another institution has been called into existence, to which and to whose objects the reader’s attention will be drawn in what follows.

The Pye Street Schools being designed only for children—many of whom, on admission, manifest an almost incredible precocity in crime—those of a more advanced age seeking instruction and reformation were not eligible to admission. In an applicant of this class, a lad about sixteen, the master of one of the schools took a deep interest from the earnestness with which he sought for an opportunity of retrieving himself. He was invited to attend the school, that he might receive instruction. He was grateful for the offer, but expressed a doubt of its being sufficient to rescue him from his criminal and degraded course of life.

“It will be of little use to me,” said he, “to attend school in the daytime, if I have to take to the streets again at night, and live, as I am now living, by thieving.”

The master saw the difficulty, and determined on trying the experiment of taking him entirely off the streets. He accordingly paid for a lodging for him, and secured him bread to eat. For four months the lad lived contentedly and happily on “bread and dripping,” during which time he proved his aptitude for instruction by learning to read, to write tolerably well, and to master all the more useful rules in arithmetic. He was shortly afterwards sent to Australia, through the kindness of some individuals who furnished the means. He is now doing well in the new field thus opportunely opened up to him, and the experiment of which he was the subject laid the germ of the Institution in question.