Chapter V: Part 5

He looketh as it were a grim lion;
And on his toes he roameth up and down,
Him deigned not to set his feet to ground:
He chucketh, when he hath a corn yfound,
And to him rennen then his wives all.
Thus royal, as a prince is in his hall,
Leave I this Chanticleer in his pasture;
And after will I tell his aventure.
When that the month in which the world began,
That highte March, when God first maked man,
Was complete, and ypassed were also,
Sithen[364] March began, thirty dayes and two,
Befell that Chanticleer in all his pride,
His seven wives walking by his side,
Cast up his eyen to the brighte sun,
That in the sign of Taurus had yrun
Twenty degrees and one, and somewhat more:
He knew by kind,[365] and by none other lore,
That it was prime, and crew with blissful steven,[366]
"The sun," he said, "is clomben up on heaven
Forty degrees and one, and more ywis.[367]
Madame Partelote, my worldes bliss,
Hearkeneth these blissful birdes how they sing,
And see the freshe flowers how they spring;
Full is mine heart of revel and solace."
But suddenly him fell a sorrowful case;
For ever the latter end of joy is woe:
God wot that worldly joy is soon ago;
And if a rethor[368] coulde fair indite,
He in a chronique safely might it write,
As for a sovereign notability.
Now every wise man, let him hearken me:
This story is also[369] true, I undertake,
As is the book of Launcelot de Lake,
That women hold in full great reverence.
Now will I turn again to my sentence.
A col fox,[370] full of sly iniquity,
That in the grove had woned[371] yeares three,
By high imagination forncast,[372]
The same night throughout the hedges brast[373]
Into the yard, there Chanticleer the fair
Was wont, and eke his wives, to repair;
And in a bed of wortes[374] still he lay,
Till it was passed undern[375] of the day,
Waiting his time on Chanticleer to fall:
As gladly do these homicides all,
That in awaite lie to murder men.
O false murderer! lurking in thy den!
O newe 'Scariot, newe Genelon!
False dissimulour, O Greek Sinon.
That broughtest Troy all utterly to sorrow!
O Chanticleer! accursed be that morrow,
That thou into that yard flew from the beams,
Thou were full well ywarned by thy dreams,
That thilke day was perilous to thee.
But what that God forewot[376] mote needes be,
After the opinion of certain clerkes.
Witness on him that any perfect clerk is,
That in school is great altercation
In this matter, and great disputison,
And hath been of an hundred thousand men.
But I ne cannot bolt[377] it to the bren,[378]
As can the holy doctor Augustin,
Or Boece, or the bishop Bradwardin,
Whether that Godes worthy forewiting[379]
Straineth me needly for to do a thing,--
Needly clepe I simple necessity--
Or elles if free choice be granted me
To do that same thing, or do it nought,
Though God forewot it ere that it was wrought;
Or if his witing[380] straineth never a del,
But by necessity conditionel.
I will not have to do of such mattere;
My tale is of a cock, as ye may hear,
That took his counsel of his wife with sorrow
To walken in the yard upon that morrow
That he had met[381] the dream, that I of told.
Womenes counsels be full often cold;
Womanes counsel brought us first to woe,
And made Adam from Paradise to go,
There as he was full merry, and well at ease.
But for I not,[382] to whom it might displease,
If I counsel of women woulde blame,
Pass over, for I said it in my game.
Read authors, where they treat of such mattere,
And what they say of women ye may hear.
These be the cockes wordes, and not mine;
I can none harm of no woman divine.[383]
Fair in the sand, to bathe her merrily,
Lieth Partelote, and all her sisters by,
Again the sun; and Chanticleer so free
Sang merrier than the mermaid in the sea;
For Physiologus saith sikerly,[384]
How that they singen well and merrily.
And so befell that as he cast his eye
Among the wortes on a butterfly,
He was ware of this fox that lay full low.
Nothing ne list him thenne for to crow,
But cried anon "Cock! cock!" and up he start,[385]
As man that was affrayed in his heart.
For naturally a beast desireth flee
From his contrary, if he may it see,
Though he ne'er erst[386] had seen it with his eye.
This Chanticleer, when he gan him espy,
He would have fled, but that the fox anon
Said, "Gentle Sir, alas! why will ye gon?
Be ye afraid of me that am your friend?
Now certes, I were worse than a fiend,
If I to you would harm or villainy.
I am not come your counsel for to espy,
But truely the cause of my coming
Was only for to hearken how that ye sing:
For truely ye have as merry a steven,[387]
As any angel hath that is in heaven;
Therewith ye have in music more feeling,
Than had Boece, or any that can sing.
My lord your father! God his soule bless
And eke your mother of her gentillesse,
Have in mine house ybeen, to my great ease:
And certes, sir, full fain would I you please.
But for men speak of singing, I will say,
So mote I brooken[388] well my eyen tway,
Save you, I hearde never man so sing,
As did your father in the morwening.
Certes it was of heart all that he sung.
And for to make his voice the more strong,
He would so pain him, that with both his eyen
He muste wink, so loud he woulde crien,
And standen on his tipton therewithal,
And stretchen forth his necke long and small.
And eke he was of such discretion,
That there nas no man in no region,
That him in song or wisdom mighte pass.
I have well read in Dan Burnel the ass
Among his verse, how that there was a cock,
For that a priestes son gave him a knock
Upon his leg, while he was young and nice,[389]
He made him for to lese his benefice.
But certain there nis no comparison
Betwix the wisdom and discretion
Of your father, and of his subtilty.
Now singeth, sir, for sainte Charity,
Let see, can ye your father counterfeit?"
This Chanticleer his winges gan to beat,
As man that could his treason not espy,
So was he ravished with his flattery.
Alas! ye lordes, many a false flatour[390]
Is in your courts, and many a losengeour,[390]
That pleasen you well more, by my faith,
Than he that soothfastness[391] unto you saith.
Readeth Ecclesiast of flattery,
Beware, ye lordes, of hir treachery.
This Chanticleer stood high upon his toes
Stretching his neck, and held his eyen close,
And gan to crowen loude for the nonce:
And Dan Russel the fox start up at once,
And by the garget[392] hente[393] Chanticleer,
And on his back toward the wood him bare.
For yet ne was there no man that him sued.[394]
O destiny, that mayst not be eschewed!
Alas, that Chanticleer flew from the beams!
Alas, his wife ne raughte[395] not of dreams!
And on a Friday fell all this mischance.
O Venus, that art goddess of pleasance.
Sin that thy servant was this Chanticleer,
And in thy service did all his power,
More for delight, than world to multiply,
Why wouldst thou suffer him on thy day to die?
O Gaufrid, deare master sovereign,
That, when thy worthy king Richard was slain
With shot, complainedest his death so sore,
Why nad[396] I now thy sentence and thy lore,
The Friday for to chide, as diden ye?--
For on a Friday soothly slain was he,--
Then would I shew you how that I could plain
For Chanticleeres dread, and for his pain.
Certes such cry, ne lamentation
Was ne'er of ladies made, when Ilion
Was won, and Pyrrhus with his streite[397] swerd,
When he had hent king Priam by the beard,
And slain him, as saith us _AEneidos_,
As maden all the hennes in the close,
When they had seen of Chanticleer the sight.
But sovereignly Dame Partelote shright,[398]
Full louder than did Hasdrubales wife,
When that her husband hadde lost his life,
And that the Romans hadde burnt Carthage.
She was so full of torment and of rage,
That willfully into the fire she start,
And brent[399] herselven with a steadfast heart.
O woful hennes! right so crieden ye,
As when that Nero brente[399] the city
Of Rome, crieden senatores wives
For that their husbands losten all hir lives;
Withouten guilt this Nero hath hem slain.
Now will I turne to my tale again;
This sely[400] widow, and eke her daughters two,
Hearden these hennes cry and maken woe,
And out at doores starten they anon,
And saw the fox toward the grove gon,
And bare upon his back the cock away:
They crieden, "Out! harow and welawa!
Ha, ha! the fox!" and after him they ran,
And eke with staves many another man;
Ran Coll our dog, and Talbot, and Garland,
And Malkin with a distaff in her hand;
Ran cow and calf, and eke the very hogges,
So were they feared for barking of the dogges,
And shouting of the men and women eke,
They rannen so, hem thought hir hearte breke.[401]
They yelleden as fiendes do in hell:
The duckes crieden as men would hem quell:
The geese for feare flewen o'er the trees,
Out of the hive came the swarm of bees,
So hideous was the noise, a! _ben'cite!_
Certes he Jacke Straw, and his meyne,[402]
Ne maden never shoutes half so shrill,
When that they woulden any Fleming kill,
As thilke day was made upon the fox.
Of brass they broughten beames[403] and of box,
Of horn and bone, in which they blew and pooped,[404]
And therewithal they shrieked and they hooped[405],
It seemed as that heaven shoulde fall.
Now, goode men, I pray you hearkeneth all;
Lo, how Fortune turneth suddenly
The hope and pride eke of her enemy.
This cock that lay upon the fox's back,
In all his dread, unto the fox he spake,
And saide, "Sir, if that I were as ye,
Yet would I say, as wis[406] God helpe me,
'Turneth again, ye proude churles all;
A very pestilence upon you fall!
Now am I come unto the woodes side,
Maugre your head, the cock shall here abide:
I will him eat in faith, and that anon.'"
The fox answered, "In faith, it shall be done:"
And as he spake that word, all suddenly
This cock brake from his mouth deliverly,[407]
And high upon a tree he flew anon.
And when the fox saw that he was ygone,
"Alas!" quoth he, "O Chanticleer, alas!
I have to you," quoth he, "ydone trespass,
Inasmuch as I maked you afeard,
When I you hent,[408] and brought out of the yard;
But, sir, I did it of no wicke[409] intent:
Come down, and I shall tell you what I meant.
I shall say sooth to you, God help me so."
"Nay then," quoth he, "I shrew[410] us bothe two.
And first I shrew myself, both blood and bones,
If thou beguile me any ofter than ones.
Thou shalt no more through thy flattery
Do[411] me to sing and winken with mine eye.
For he that winketh when he shoulde see,
All willfully, God let him never the[412]!"
"Nay," quoth the fox, "but God give him mischance,
That is so indiscreet of governance,
That jangleth[413] when he shoulde hold his peace."
Lo, such it is for to be reckeless
And negligent, and trust on flattery.
But ye that holden this tale a folly,
As of a fox, or of a cock and hen,
Take the morality thereof, good men.
For Saint Paul saith, That all that written is,
To our doctrine it is ywrit ywis,[414]
Taketh the fruit, and let the chaff be still.
Now goode God, if that it be thy will,
As saith my lord, so make us all good men;
And bring us to his highe bliss.--_Amen._

[262] Advanced.

[263] Capital.

[264] Income.

[265] Economical management.

[266] Supported.

[267] Was called.

[268] Whit.

[269] Cottage.

[270] Temperate.

[271] Content.

[272] Prevented.

[273] Injured.

[274] Singed, broiled.

[275] A sort of dairy-woman.

[276] Surer.

[277] Clock, horologe.

[278] Battlemented.

[279] Toes.

[280] Burnished.

[281] Companionable.

[282] Since.

[283] Possession.

[284] Locked, inclosed.

[285] Limb.

[286] "My love is gone to the country."

[287] Oppressed.

[288] In offence.

[289] I dreamed.

[290] Misfortune.

[291] Dream.

[292] Interpret.

[293] 3 Die.

[294] Secret.

[295] Boaster of female favor.

[296] Dreams.

[297] Temperaments.

[298] Dreamed.

[299] Bile.

[300] Flames.

[301] Contention.

[302] Little.

[303] Quickly.

[304] Make no account.

[305] Upon.

[306] Health.

[307] Profit.

[308] Those.

[309] Nature.

[310] Fumitory.

[311] Spurge.

[312] Dogwood berries.

[313] Much obliged for.

[314] Thrive.

[315] Trial, experience.

[316] Limited in accommodation.

[317] Part.

[318] Dreamed.

[319] Awoke.

[320] Heed.

[321] Slain.

[322] Dreamed.

[323] Stay.

[324] Prone on his back.

[325] Started.

[326] Revealest.

[327] Loathsome.

[328] Hidden.

[329] Seized.

[330] Tortured.

[331] Racked.

[332] Confessed.

[333] Talk idly.

[334] Toward.

[335] Pleased.

[336] Dreamed.

[337] Drowned.

[338] Stay.

[339] Dreams.

[340] Tricks.

[341] Wild fancy.

[342] Lose by sloth.

[343] Moves my pity.

[344] Know not.

[345] Learn.

[346] Mercia.

[347] Dreamed.

[348] Vision.

[349] Saw.

[350] Nurse.

[351] For fear of.

[352] Account hath he made.

[353] Vision.

[354] Whether.

[355] Realms.

[356] Dreamed.

[357] Lose.

[358] Lost.

[359] Set no store.

[360] As.

[361] Certain.

[362] Meaning.

[363] Dream.

[364] Since.

[365] Instinct.

[366] Voice.

[367] Certainly.

[368] Rhetorician.

[369] As.

[370] Crafty fox.

[371] Dwelt.

[372] Predestined.

[373] Burst.

[374] Herbs.

[375] Mid-day meal time.

[376] Foreknows.

[377] Sift.

[378] Bran.

[379] Foreknowledge.

[380] Knowledge.

[381] Dreamed.

[382] Know not.

[383] Conjecture.

[384] Certainly.

[385] Started.

[386] Before.

[387] Voice.

[388] Enjoy.

[389] Foolish.

[390] Flatterer.

[391] Truth.

[392] Throat.

[393] Seized.

[394] Followed.

[395] Cared.

[396] Had not.

[397] Drawn.

[398] Shrieked.

[399] Burnt.

[400] Simple.

[401] Would break.

[402] Followers.

[403] Trumpets.

[404] Trumpeted.

[405] Whooped.

[406] Surely.

[407] Actively.

[408] Seized.

[409] Wicked.

[410] Curse.

[411] Cause.

[412] Thrive.

[413] Prateth.

[414] Certainly.

TRUTH

BALLADE OF GOOD COUNSEL

Flee from the press, and dwell with soothfastness[415];
Suffice thine owen thing, though it be small;
For hoard hath hate, and climbing tickleness,[416]
Press hath envy, and weal blent[417] overall[418];
Savour no more than thee behove shall;
Rule well thyself, that other folk canst rede[419];
And truthe shall deliver, it is no drede.[420]

Tempest thee not all crooked to redress,
In trust of her that turneth as a ball:
For great rest stands in little business;
Beware also to spurn against an awl;
Strive not as doth the crocke with the wall;
Daunte thyself that dauntest otheres deed,
And truthe shall deliver, it is no drede.[420]

That[421] thee is sent receive in buxomness,[422]
The wrestling for this world asketh a fall:
Here is none home, here nis[423] but wilderness:
Forth, pilgrim, forth! Forth, beast, out of thy stall!
Know thy country, look up, thank God of all;
Hold the high way, and let thy ghost[424] thee lead,
And truthe shall deliver, it is no drede.[420]

ENVOY

Therfore, thou vache,[425] leave thine old wretchedness
Unto the worlde; leave now to be thrall;
Cry him mercy, that of his high goodness
Made thee of nought, and in especial
Draw unto him, and pray in general
For thee, and eke for other, heavenly meed,
And truthe shall deliver, it is no drede.[420]

[415] Truth.

[416] Unsteadiness, unstability.

[417] Blinds.

[418] Everywhere.

[419] Advise.

[420] Doubt.

[421] What.

[422] Submissiveness.

[423] Is not.

[424] Spirit.

[425] Beast.

ANDRE CHENIER

(1762-1794)

BY KATHARINE HILLARD

There are some reputations which seem to depend upon their environment. Certain names are surrounded by a halo of romance, through which all outlines are enlarged and heightened in effect until it becomes difficult to discern their true proportions through the golden mist. When we think of Andre Chenier we see a youthful figure among a crowd of fellow-prisoners, the light of genius in his eyes, the dark shadow of impending death already enveloping him and climbing slowly upwards, as the mist of the Highland second-sight rises higher as death draws near. The pathetic character of his fate touches the heart, and disposes us to judge the poems he wrote with that bias of personal interest which is so apt to warp the verdict of the critical mind. Had Andre Chenier died comfortably in his bed at a good old age, would Sainte-Beuve have been so apt to call him "our greatest classic poet since Racine and Boileau"? unless indeed he had vainly racked his memory to think of any other.

Andre-Marie de Chenier--as he was called until 1790 swept away all ornamental particles--was born amid picturesque surroundings at Constantinople, October 30th, 1762, where his father then held the office of Consul-General. He had married a young Greek girl, a Mademoiselle Santi-l'Homaka, whose family came originally from the island of Cyprus. A Languedocian father, a Cyprian mother, an Oriental birthplace,--it was no wonder that the passionate fire of his blood flamed somewhat too hotly through his verse. Andre was the third of four sons, and four daughters were also born to M. de Chenier. In 1765, when he was but three years old, his father returned to France; but two years afterwards left his native country again to fill a diplomatic position in Morocco, while his wife remained in Paris with their children.

Andre seems to have always looked back with pleasure to his Eastern birthplace, and long cherished the hope of revisiting it, but he never got farther on the way than Italy. Madame de Chenier, who was a refined and cultivated woman with much taste for art and literature, gave him his first lessons; but he was soon sent with his brothers to the College of Navarre. There he made many friendships that lasted to the end of his short life, and his school-fellows, some of whom belonged to noble and wealthy families, often took him to spend his holidays at their country-houses.

At the age of sixteen he carried off a first prize in rhetoric; and from that time began his apprenticeship to the trade of the Muses, as Ronsard would say, by writing translations of Greek and Latin verse. He does not seem to have been particularly precocious as a poet, and his imitations of Sappho were even then considered rather feeble. His mother's salon was thronged with artists, poets, writers, and men of the world, among whom Andre might have found many indulgent listeners, were it not that his reserve and fastidious taste made him rather chary of exhibiting his youthful efforts. His mind was already full of ambitious projects for future epics, and his leisure was spent very much as his classic models had spent theirs, in light and facile pleasures and loves.

M. de Chenier, who watched over his family from afar, was ambitious for the future of his sons; Constantine, the eldest, was already in the diplomatic service; the other three were destined for the army. Andre joined his regiment when he was twenty, and went to Strasbourg to learn his new duties; but the life of a soldier was not congenial to him, and although he made one or two dear friends in the garrison, the six months that he spent there seemed interminable, and he returned to Paris to resume his life of elegant dissipation among his rich and titled acquaintances. But his health began to give way, and the hope of relief from a change of climate induced him to join his old friends, the brothers Louis and Charles Trudaine, in a journey they projected through Switzerland and Italy to Constantinople. The three friends started together in the summer of 1784, passed through Switzerland, and spent the autumn and winter in Italy; but although they remained away a year, they never got any further.

This journey and its experiences did much to educate and enrich the mind of Andre, and he continued to devote much time to study and poetic composition to the elaboration of vast schemes for dramas and epics, and to the imitation of the Greek and Latin poets he loved and copied so well. He wished to enlarge the province of the idyl, and to give to it more variety than even Theocritus had succeeded in doing; to make it more dramatic, less rustic, and in short if we may judge from the assertions of his countrymen, a more perfect picture of that elegant and aristocratic world in which he moved. The idyls of Andre Chenier are to poetry very much what the pictures of Watteau and Boucher are to painting. The variety he wished so much to impart to them is after all confined to the grouping of the figures, and their greatest beauty is the classic elegance of their style; as one of his French biographers says, "The style of these poems makes up for what the sentiment lacks of ideality, and lends a sort of purity to details which from any other pen would have run great risk of coarseness." Sainte-Beuve speaks of "his boxwood flute, his ivory lute"; but all this beauty of diction, this smoothness and grace of verse, can hardly blind the unprejudiced critic to the fact that "a sort of purity" will hardly make up for his too frequent choice of subjects that appeal only to the grossest tastes. His highest ideals, like those of most poets, were never reached. He had lofty visions of writing a poem called 'Hermes,' which should be an exposition of natural and social laws, principles, and progress; a system of philosophy in heroic couplets, beginning with the birth of humanity and its first questioning of natural phenomena, its first efforts to solve the problems of the universe, and coming down to the latest discoveries of physical and political science. He never succeeded in completing the preliminary studies necessary to the carrying out of this vast conception, and the 'Hermes' remains a mass of incoherent fragments.

Andre de Chenier had not the robust common-sense that underlay all the poetic eccentricities of the poet whom in many ways he so much resembled,--Alfred de Musset. The latter knew and recognized his limitations. "My glass is not large, but I drink from my own glass," he said, and what he did attempt was well within his possibilities and was exquisitely done. Not so with Chenier. With a genius like that of De Musset, pre-eminently lyrical, but with infinitely less variety and richness, he laboriously accumulated vast piles of materials for dramas and for epics that if ever completed must have but added another page to the list of literary soporifics. He made a colossal sketch of another poem, to be called 'America,'--a sort of geographical and historical encyclopedia, M. Joubert calls it, whose enormous mass of detail could scarcely be floated by any one current of interest, but whose principal motive seemed meant to be the conquest of Peru.

In the midst of these enterprises he suddenly conceived what one of his biographers calls "the amiable intention" of writing a poem on the story of 'Susannah and the Elders,' but only completed a prose sketch with two or three short passages in verse. He also began one or two tragedies which were to be after AEschylus, a comedy called 'The Charlatans,' poems on the literary life, and many other subjects; and at the same time he was keeping up his relations with many of his distinguished contemporaries;--the Polish poet Niemcewicz; Mrs. Cosway, the charming young wife of the well-known English painter, and an artist herself; the Italian poet Alfieri; and the Countess of Albany.

In 1787 his father, who had returned to Paris, was anxious that Andre should begin his diplomatic career; and he was appointed attache to M. de la Luzerne, just sent as ambassador to England. The poet went to London in December,--a most unpropitious season,--and naturally nothing pleased him there; he found the climate detestable, the manners of the English rude and cold, their literature of a barbaric richness, and in fact he approved of nothing in England but its Constitution, which he thought not only good but worthy of imitation.

He had been in London about sixteen months when the first rumors of the French Revolution reached him and turned all his thoughts towards the great political questions of the moment. The project of a rule of liberty and justice for France appealed to the noblest side of his nature; and while passionately opposed to all excess and violence, he was eager to assist any movement that promised to help the people.

With his friends the brothers Trudaine, he joined the Society of '89, when it was a centre for varying shades of opinion, reconciled by a common love of liberty and hatred of anarchy. He returned to Paris definitely in the summer of 1790, and wrote independent and impassioned articles in the Journal of the Society of 1789, warning the people against their real enemies, the fomenters of anarchy, while he expressed much the same ideas in one of the most celebrated of his poems, the ode to David's picture called 'Le Jeu de Paume,' representing the deputies taking their famous oath in the Hall of the Jeu de Paume at Versailles. Lacretelle, in his reminiscences published half a century later, spoke of Andre Chenier as a fellow-member of the club called Friends of the Constitution, as a man of great talent and great force of character:--"The most decided and the most eloquently expressed opinions always came from him. His strongly marked features, his athletic though not lofty stature, his dark complexion, his glowing eyes, enforced and illuminated his words. Demosthenes as well as Pindar had been the object of his study."

But moderate opinions and a horror of the excesses of the Revolution were very unsafe things to hold. Although Andre took refuge in 1793 in a quiet little house at Versailles, he could not stay there altogether, but made frequent visits to Paris; and an unfortunate chance caused his arrest at the house of M. Pastoret at Passy, where he was accused of having gone to warn his friend of his own danger. Chenier was first taken to the prison of the Luxembourg, which was too full to receive him, and then to St. Lazare, where he was registered on the 8th of March, 1794.

Apart from the suspicion which caused his arrest, he could hardly have escaped much longer; his fellow editor of the Journal de Paris had already been in St. Lazare for several months, and his friends the Trudaines joined him there before long. M. de Chenier exerted all his influence to procure his son's liberation, but was put off with promises and polite evasions; and not long after, his second son, Sauveur, was imprisoned in the Conciergerie.

By this time there were nearly eight thousand persons in the prisons of Paris; about eight hundred in St. Lazare, where Chenier found many of his friends, and among the ladies there the beautiful and charming young Duchess of Fleury. It was she who inspired the poet with the idea of his poem called 'The Young Captive,' perhaps the most beautiful, as it is the most touching, of all his poems.

Shortly before Chenier was arrested he had formed a close friendship with Madame Pourrat of Luciennes and her two daughters, the Countess Hocquart and Madame Laurent Lecoulteux. To the latter, under the name of Fanny, he addressed many charming verses; one ode in particular, that seems to have been intended to accompany the gift of a necklace, is almost worthy of Ronsard, although like many of Chenier's poems it was never finished.

His last poems were written in a very fine hand on some narrow strips of paper that had escaped the vigilance of his jailers, and were smuggled out of prison with the linen that went to the wash.

On the flimsy pretext of a conspiracy among the prisoners, Andre Chenier, then only thirty-one, was condemned with twenty-five others as "an enemy of the people, and for having shared in all the crimes perpetrated by the tyrant, his wife, and his family; of writing against liberty and in favor of tyranny; of corresponding with enemies of the republic abroad and at home; and finally of conspiring, in the prison of St. Lazare, to murder the members of the committees of general safety, etc., and to re-establish royalty in France."

The twenty-five victims went through the mockery of their trial in the morning of the 25th of July, 1794, and at six the same evening were executed at the Barriere de Vincennes. Three days afterward, Robespierre and many of his accomplices perished upon the scaffold, and the Reign of Terror was at an end.

Very little of Andre Chenier's poetry was left in a state fit for publication; he began so many vast enterprises of which he left but the merest fragments, and he wrote so much that his literary executors feared would shock the public taste. His brother published 'The Young Captive' and one or two other poems some seven years after his death, which were quoted by Chateaubriand in 1802 and warmly admired by him. The first complete edition of his poems did not appear till 1819, a year before Lamartine's 'Meditations' came out, and three years before Victor Hugo's first collection was printed. He was not considered a great poet by his first readers, and he would be almost a forgotten one now, were it not for the romance of his short life and his early death. He was the precursor of Byron and De Musset, having the ardent love of liberty of the former and the sensuous grace of the latter; but he lacked the strength for a sustained flight, and he did not know the measure of his powers. He had saturated himself too completely with the honey of Greek verse, and was prisoned in its cloying sweetness. When he would soar into the empyrean, his wings were clogged, and he soon fell back again among the flowers. But he will always be a notable figure in French literature, although we may not consider him, with his French admirers, as one of the masters among the poets of our own time.

[Signature: Katharine Hillard]

THE YOUNG CAPTIVE

"The corn in peace fills out its golden ear;
Through the long summer days, the flowers without a fear
Drink in the strength of noon.
And I, a flower like them, as young, as fair, as pure,
Though at the present hour some trouble I endure,
I would not die so soon!

"No, let the stoic heart call upon Death as kind!
For me, I weep and hope; before the bitter wind
I bend like some lithe palm.
If there be long, sad days, others are bright and fleet;
Alas! what honeyed draught holds nothing but the sweet?
What sea is ever calm?

"And still within my breast nestles illusion bright;
In vain these prison walls shut out the noonday light;
Fair Hope has lent me wings.
So from the fowler's net, again set free to fly,
More swift, more joyous, through the summer sky,
Philomel soars and sings.

"Is it my lot to die? In peace I lay me down,
In peace awake again, a peace nor care doth drown,
Nor fell remorse destroy.
My welcome shines from every morning face,
And to these downcast souls my presence in this place
Almost restores their joy.

"The voyage of life is but begun for me,
And of the landmarks I must pass, I see
So few behind me stand.
At life's long banquet, now before me set,
My lips have hardly touched the cup as yet
Still brimming in my hand.

"I only know the spring; I would see autumn brown;
Like the bright sun, that all the seasons crown,
I would round out my year.
A tender flower, the sunny garden's boast,
I have but seen the fires of morning's host;
Would eve might find me here!

"O Death, canst thou not wait? Depart from me, and go
To comfort those sad hearts whom pale despair, and woe,
And shame, perchance have wrung.
For me the woods still offer verdant ways,
The Loves their kisses, and the Muses praise:
I would not die so young!"

Thus, captive too, and sad, my lyre none the less
Woke at the plaint of one who breathed its own distress,
Youth in a prison cell;
And throwing off the yoke that weighed upon me too,
I strove in all the sweet and tender words I knew
Her gentle grief to tell.

Melodious witness of my captive days,
These rhymes shall make some lover of my lays
Seek the maid I have sung.
Grace sits upon her brow, and all shall share,
Who see her charms, her grief and her despair:
They too "must die so young"!

ODE

May fewer roses calls her own,
And fewer vines wreathe Autumn's throne,
Fewer the wheat-ears of the field,--
Than all the songs that Fanny's smiles
And Fanny's eyes and witching wiles
Inspire my lips and lyre to yield.

The secret longings of my heart
In words of fire to being start,
Moved by the magic of her name:
As when from ocean's depths the shell
Yields up the pearl it wrought so well,
Worthy the Sultan's diadem.

And thus from out the mulberry leaves
The Cathay silkworm twines and weaves
Her sparkling web of palest gold.
Come, dear, my Muse has silk more pure
And bright than hers, that shall endure,
And all your loveliness enfold.

And pearls of poetry divine
With rosy fingers she shall twine,
To make a necklace rich and rare;
Come, Fanny, and that snowy neck
Let me with radiant jewels deck,
Although no pearl is half so fair.

VICTOR CHERBULIEZ

(1829-)

In 1863 the Revue des Deux Mondes offered its readers a novel by a young author very slightly known to Parisian _litterateurs_. But everybody read him with interest, whether cordially approving or not. The story was not evolutionary, had no definite moral purpose. Perhaps the public were glad to temporarily lay aside their instruments for scientific dissection of literary art; for 'Le Comte Kostia,' a lively tale of romantic adventure, was the most popular story that had been published by the Revue des Deux Mondes. Naturally the gratified editors accepted the author as a regular contributor, which he has been ever since. He had been introduced to them by George Sand, who, pleased with an earlier work of his, wrote him appreciatively and did him this kind turn. This earlier work, 'Un Cheval de Phidias' (A Horse by Phidias), cordially praised by Sainte-Beuve, was a capable dissertation upon archaeology and art, strung on a thread of narrative.

The young author, Victor Cherbuliez,--Genevese, of French descent,--was about thirty-four when 'Le Comte Kostia' appeared. A critic in discussing him speaks almost enviously of the liberalizing influences experienced in cosmopolitan little Switzerland. Cherbuliez's advantages have been great. His father was a professor in the university, and of his parents it has been pleasantly said that from his father he learned all he ought to know, from his mother all he ought to be. He was graduated from the University of Geneva, and later studied history and philosophy at Paris, Bonn, and Berlin. For a time he taught at Geneva; then he married, and with his wife traveled extensively in the East, where he collected abundant material for his trained powers of observation and his love of social and artistic questions. He has been a member of the Academy since 1881, and now lives in Paris,--a perennial novel-writer, distinguished also for the clever sketches on modern French politics which appear regularly in the Revue des Deux Mondes signed "George Valbert."

But his best and most abundant work has been in fiction, where his talent lies in the union of romantic imagination with a practical view of life. There is sometimes falsetto in the imagination, but it gratifies a liking for falsetto in many readers. Translated, his novels have been read almost as much in English as in French; and among the best liked are 'L'Idee de Jean Teterol' (Jean Teterol's Idea); 'La Revanche de Joseph Noircel' (Joseph Noircel's Revenge); 'Le Docteur Rameau.'

If they refuse Cherbuliez a place among great writers, at least the critics always respect his cleverness, and recognize the range of his information regarding the art, literature, politics, and history of different lands. The prime quality of his work is _interest_. His remarkable inventiveness shows in one unusual situation after another, without repetition and with always fresh stimulus. His kinship with George Sand's romantic spirit was felt at once, and his style has always remained essentially unchanged. But that his earlier emotional spontaneity has grown with maturity to a more conventional spirit, may be seen by comparing the two ends of his work. In 'Le Comte Kostia' we have the persecution of a beautiful young daughter by a Russian nobleman. He forces her to hide her sex and personate the son he has lost, and subjects her to many terrors until she is rescued by his chivalrous young secretary, who in time discovers her secret and marries her,--but first, numberless adventures and scenes of passion. In 'Le Roi Epepi' (King Epepi: 1895) there is no profound emotion. It is the cleverly cynical account of the rescue by a worldly old uncle of a romantic and short-sighted nephew. The young man, infatuated by an adventuress, insists upon marrying her. The uncle ingeniously, without compromising himself, leads the lady to believe that he himself is in love with her. Naturally she prefers proprietor to heir, and throws over the latter only to find herself deceived.

Perhaps the best way to indicate Cherbuliez's place in French literature is by comparison with the English Trollope. Both create interest. Both have a swift firm style, with sometimes almost too facile a rush. But while Trollope draws ordinary men and women who talk in ordinary fashion, Cherbuliez invents brilliant-minded people who shower us with epigram. They shoulder too much of their creator's erudition, and are too clever to be quite natural.

THE SILENT DUEL

From 'Samuel Brohl and Company'

Madame de Lorcy ushered Samuel into the salon, where he had scarcely set foot when he descried an old woman lounging on a _causeuse_, fanning herself as she chatted with Abbe Miollens. He remained motionless, his eyes fixed, scarcely breathing, cold as marble; it seemed to him that the four walls of the salon swayed from right to left and left to right, and that the floor was sliding from under his feet like the deck of a pitching vessel.

The previous day, Antoinette once departed, Madame de Lorcy had resumed her attack on Princess Gulof, and the princess had ended by consenting to delay her departure, to dine with the adventurer of the green eyes, and to subject him to a close scrutiny. There she was; yes, it was indeed she! The first impulse of Samuel Brohl was to regain the door as speedily as possible; but he did nothing of the kind. He looked at Madame de Lorcy: she herself was regarding him with astonishment; she wondered what could suddenly have overcome him; she could find no explanation for the bewilderment apparent in his countenance.

"It is a mere chance," he thought at last; "she has not intentionally drawn me into a snare." This thought was productive of a sort of half-relief.

"_Eh bien!_ what is it?" she asked. "Has my poor salon still the misfortune to be hurtful to you?"

He pointed to a jardiniere, saying: "You are fond of hyacinths and tuberoses; their perfume overpowered me for a moment. I fear you think me very effeminate."

She replied in a caressing voice: "I take you for a most worthy man who has terrible nerves; but you know by experience that if you have weaknesses I have salts. Will you have my smelling-bottle?"

"You are a thousand times too good," he rejoined, and bravely marched forward to face the danger. It is a well-known fact that dangers in a silken robe are the most formidable of all.

Madame de Lorcy presented him to the princess, who raised her chin to examine him with her little glittering eyes. It seemed to him that those gray orbs directed at him were two balls, which struck him in the heart; he quivered from head to foot and asked himself confusedly whether he were dead or living. He soon perceived that he was still living; the princess had remained impassible--not a muscle of her face had moved. She ended by bestowing upon Samuel a smile which was almost gracious, and addressing to him some insignificant words which he only half understood, but which seemed to him exquisite--delicious. He fancied that she was saying to him: "You have a chance--you were born lucky; my sight has been impaired for some years, and I do not recognize you. Bless your star, you are saved!" He experienced such a transport of joy that he could have flung his arms about the neck of Abbe Miollens, who came up to him with extended hand, saying:--

"What have you been thinking about, my dear count? Since we last met a very great event has been accomplished. What woman wishes, God wishes; but after all, my own humble efforts were not without avail, and I am proud of it."

Madame de Lorcy requested Count Larinski to offer his arm to Princess Gulof and lead her out to dinner. He mechanically complied; but he had not the strength to utter a syllable as he conducted the princess to table. She herself said nothing; she seemed wholly busied in arranging with her unoccupied hand a lock of her gray hair, which had strayed too far over her forehead. He looked fixedly at this short plump hand, which one day in a fit of jealous fury had administered to him two smart blows; his cheeks recognized it.

During dinner the princess was very gay: she paid more attention to Abbe Miollens than to Count Larinski; she took pleasure in teasing the good priest--in endeavoring to shock him a little. It was not easy to shock him; to his natural easy good-nature he united an innate respect for grandeurs and for princesses. She did not neglect so good an opportunity to air her monkey-development theories. He merrily flung back the ball; he declared that he should prefer to be a fallen angel rather than a perfected monkey; that in his estimation a parvenu made a much sorrier figure in the world than the descendant of an old family of ruined nobility. She replied that she was more democratic than he. "It is pleasant to me," said she, "to think that I am a progressive ape, who has a wide future before him, and who by taking proper pains may hope to attain new advancement."

While they were thus chatting, Samuel Brohl was striving with all his might to recover from the terrible blow he had received. He noted with keen satisfaction that the eyesight of the princess was considerably impaired; that the microscopic studies for which she had always had a taste had resulted in rendering her somewhat near-sighted; that she was obliged to look out carefully to find her way among her wine-glasses. "She has not seen me for six years," thought he, "and I have become a different man; I have undergone a complete metamorphosis; I have difficulty sometimes in recognizing myself. Formerly my face was close-shaven; now I have let my entire beard grow. My voice, my accent, the poise of my head, my manners, the expression of my countenance, all are changed; Poland has entered into my blood--I am Samuel no longer, I am Larinski." He blessed the microscope, which enfeebled the sight of old women; he blessed Count Abel Larinski, who had made of him his twin brother. Before the end of the repast he had recovered all his assurance, all his aplomb. He began to take part in the conversation: he recounted in a sorrowful tone a sorrowful little story; he retailed sundry playful anecdotes with a melancholy grace and sprightliness; he expressed the most chivalrous sentiments; shaking his lion's mane, he spoke of the prisoner at the Vatican with tears in his voice. It were impossible to be a more thorough Larinski.

The princess manifested, in listening to him, an astonished curiosity; she concluded by saying to him, "Count, I admire you; but I believe only in physiology, and you are a little too much of a Pole for me."

After they had left the table and repaired to the salon, several callers dropped in. It was like a deliverance to Samuel. If the society was not numerous enough for him to lose himself in it, at least it served him as a shield. He held it for a certainty that the princess had not recognized him; yet he did not cease feeling in her presence unutterably ill at ease. This Calmuck visage of hers recalled to him all the miseries, the shame, the hard grinding slavery of his youth; he could not look at her without feeling his brow burn as though it were being seared with a hot iron.

He entered into conversation with a supercilious, haughty, and pedantic counselor-at-law, whose interminable monologues distilled ennui. This fine speaker seemed charming to Samuel, who found in him wit, knowledge, scholarship, and taste; he possessed the (in his eyes) meritorious quality of not knowing Samuel Brohl. For Samuel had come to divide the human race into two categories: the first comprehended those well-to-do, thriving people who did not know a certain Brohl; he placed in the second, old women who did know him. He interrogated the counselor with deference, he hung upon his words, he smiled with an air of approbation at all the absurdities which escaped him; he would have been willing to have his discourse last three hours by the watch; if this charming bore had shown symptoms of escaping him, he would have held him back by the button.

Suddenly he heard a harsh voice saying to Madame de Lorcy, "Where is Count Larinski? Bring him to me; I want to have a discussion with him."

He could not do otherwise than comply; he quitted his counselor with regret, went over and took a seat in the arm-chair that Madame de Lorcy drew up for him at the side of the princess, and which had for him the effect of a stool of repentance. Madame de Lorcy moved away, and he was left _tete-a-tete_ with Princess Gulof, who said to him, "I have been told that congratulations are due you, and I must make them at once--although we are enemies."

"By what right are we enemies, princess?" he asked, with a slightly troubled feeling, which quickly passed away as she answered, "I am a Russian and you are a Pole; but we shall have no time for fighting: I leave for London to-morrow morning at seven o'clock."

He was on the point of casting himself at her feet and tenderly kissing her two hands in testimony of his gratitude. "To-morrow at seven o'clock," he mentally ejaculated. "I have slandered her: she has some good in her."

"When I say that I am a Russian," resumed the princess, "it is merely a formal speech. Love of country is a prejudice, an idea which has had its day, which had sense in the times of Epaminondas or of Theseus, but which has it no longer. We live in the age of the telegraph, the locomotive; and I know of nothing more absurd now than a frontier, or more ridiculous than a patriot. Rumor says that you fought like a hero in the insurrection of 1863; that you gave proof of incomparable prowess, and that you killed with your own hand ten Cossacks. What harm had they done you, those poor Cossacks? Do they not sometimes haunt your dreams? Can you think of your victims without disquietude and without remorse?"

He replied in a dry, haughty tone: "I really do not know, princess, how many Cossacks I have killed; but I do know that there are some subjects on which I do not love to expatiate."

"You are right--I should not comprehend you. Don Quixote did not do Sancho the honor to explain himself to him every day."

"Ah, I beg of you, let us talk a little of the man-monkey," he observed, in a rather more pliant tone than he had at first assumed. "That is a question which has the advantage of being neither Russian nor Polish."

"You will not succeed that way in throwing me off the track. I mean to tell you all the evil I think of you, no matter how it may incense you. You uttered, at table, theories which displeased me. You are not only a Polish patriot,--you are an idealist, a true disciple of Plato, and you do not know how I have always detested this man. In all these sixty years that I have been in this world, I have seen nothing but selfishness and grasping after self-gratification. Twice during dinner you spoke of an ideal world. What is an ideal world? Where is it situated? You speak of it as of a house whose inhabitants you are well acquainted with, whose key is in your pocket. Can you show me the key? I promise not to steal it from you. O Poet!--for you are quite as much of a poet as of a Pole, which is not saying much--"

"Nothing remains but to hang me," he interposed, smilingly.

"No, I shall not hang you. Opinions are free, and there is room enough in the world for all, even idealists. Besides, if you were to be hanged, it would bring to the verge of despair a charming girl who adores you, who was created expressly for you, and whom you will shortly marry. When will the ceremony take place?"

"If I dared hope that you would do me the honor of being present, princess, I should postpone it until your return from England."

"You are too amiable; but I could not on any consideration retard the happiness of Mademoiselle Moriaz. There, my dear count, I congratulate you sincerely. I had the pleasure to meet here the future Countess Larinski. She is adorable! It is an exquisite nature, hers--a true poet's wife. She must have brains, discernment; she has chosen you that says everything. As to her fortune, I dare not ask you if she has any; you would turn away from me in disgust. Do idealists trouble their heads with such vile questions?"

She leaned toward him, and fanning herself excitedly, added, "These poor idealists! they have one misfortune."

"And what is that, princess?"

"They dream with open eyes, and the awakening is sometimes disagreeable. Ah, my dear Count Larinski, this, that, and the other, _et caetera_. Thus endeth the adventure."

Then stretching out her neck until her face was close to his, she darted at him a venomous viper-like look, and in a voice that seemed to cut into his tympanum like a sharp-toothed saw, she hissed, "Samuel Brohl, the man with the green eyes, sooner or later the mountains must meet!"

It seemed to him that the candelabra on the mantel-piece darted out jets of flame, whose green, blue, and rose-colored tongues ascended to the ceiling; and it appeared to him as though his heart was beating as noisily as a clock pendulum, and that every one would turn to inquire whence came the noise. But every one was occupied; no one turned round; no one suspected that there was a man present on whom a thunderbolt had just fallen.

The man passed his hand over his brow, which was covered with a cold sweat; then dispelling by an effort of will the cloud that veiled his eyes, he in turn leaned toward the princess and with quivering lip and evil sardonic glance, said to her in a low voice:--

"Princess, I have a slight acquaintance with this Samuel Brohl of whom you speak. He is not a man who will allow himself to be strangled without a great deal of outcry. You are not much in the habit of writing; nevertheless he received from you two letters, which he copied, placing the originals in safety. If ever he sees the necessity of appearing in a court of justice, these two letters can be made to create quite a sensation, and unquestionably they will be the delight of all the petty journals of Paris."

Thereupon he made a profound bow, respectfully took leave of Madame de Lorcy, and retired, followed by Abbe Miollens, who inflicted a real torture by insisting on accompanying him to the station.

SAMUEL BROHL GIVES UP THE PLAY

From 'Samuel Brohl and Company'

The gate opened and admitted Samuel Brohl, who had a smile on his lips. His first words were--"And your umbrella! You have forgotten it?"

Mademoiselle de Moriaz replied, "Do you not see that there is no sunshine?" And she remained leaning against the apple-tree.

He uplifted his hand to show her the blue sky; he let it fall again. He looked at Antoinette, and he was afraid. He guessed immediately that she knew all. At once he grew audacious.