Chapter XII (3)

When James II., in December, 1688, fled from his kingdom, the sympathies of more than half the French people were enlisted on his side. Ignorant of the British constitution, they knew little of the peril it had incurred through the king's extraordinary extension of the dispensing power, and they saw in the landing and success of the Prince of Orange nothing but a horrible domestic tragedy, in which, through personal ambition and hatred of the true religion, a Catholic sovereign was hurled from his throne by an unnatural daughter and son-in-law. They joined, therefore, without any misgiving, in the cordial reception given to the royal fugitives by Louis, and desired nothing so much as to make common cause with them, and take vengeance on their foes. Madame de Maintenon was not among those who pressed with all ceremony into the presence of the exiled king and queen; but she visited them in private, and was received as became her station. The compassion she felt for their fate, her respectful address and Christian consolations, so won upon Mary Beatrice, that a lasting friendship was formed between the queen in name, not in reality, and the queen in reality, not in name. It continued without interruption during five-and-twenty years, and was cemented by unity of sentiments and mutual services. The ex-queen had married in her fifteenth year, and had overcome, by the advice of her mother and the Pope, her desire to devote herself to a religious life. [Footnote 194] Whatever may have been her trials in a convent, they could hardly have equalled those which befel her as queen. A hundred and forty-five of her letters to Madame de Maintenon are extant, and the readers of Miss Strickland's "Lives" are familiar with the Chaillot correspondence, in which the desolate and sorrowful queen pours forth the fulness of her sensitive heart, and never tires of expressing her love and esteem for that remarkable friend whom Providence has led across her thorny path. Often Madame de Maintenon repaired to Saint-Germain to visit her, and still more frequently the latter came to Versailles to see Madame de Maintenon. It was some relief to escape for a time from that downcast, dreary court in exile, where a crowd of poor but faithful followers gathered around a master equally wrong-headed and unfortunate. The semblance of royalty which was there kept up only increased the sadness of the place, and fostered those jealousies, intrigues, and cabals of which a banished court is so often the parent and victim.

[Footnote 194: _"Duc de Noailles," tome_ iv., p. 231.]

A powerful coalition, in the creation of which the Prince of Orange was the chief agent, had long been menacing France, and was now actually formed. Louis found himself opposed to the greater part of Europe, for the Emperor Leopold, the Germanic and Batavian federations, the kings of Spain and Sweden, and the Pope himself, obliged to act on the defensive, adhered to the league of Augsburg. [Footnote 195]

[Footnote 195: _"Duc de Noailles,"_ p. 253. ]

Three powerful armies were sent by the king of France to the seat of war. The mission of one of them was to capture Philipsburg; and from the camp before that stronghold the king's brother wrote many letters to Madame de Maintenon, describing the operations in progress. The Duc du Maine also, once her pupil, and now in his eighteenth year, wrote to her from time to time, and received thankfully the advice she offered him with all a mother's solicitude. The second of the three armies was charged with the devastation of the Palatinate, and fulfilled the part assigned it with distressing precision. If its soil was not to supply the French, it must {821} furnish nought to the Germans. It was a perfect garden, and Duras received orders to reduce it to a wilderness. Half a million of human beings were warned that in three days their houses would be burned and their fields laid waste. Fiercely the flames went up from city and hamlet, and the fugitives sank with fatigue and hunger in the snow, or, escaping beyond the borders, filled the towns of Europe with squalid beggary. Every orchard was hewn down, every vine and almond tree was destroyed. The castle of the Elector Palatine was a heap of ruins; the stones of Manheim were hurled into the Rhine. The cathedral of Spires and the marble sepulchres of eight Caesars were no more; and the fair city of Treves was doomed to the same cruel fate. It was time for the voice of mercy to speak. Marshal Duras had already written to Louvois, [Footnote 196] to remonstrate against the barbarous orders he was compelled to execute, and Madame de Maintenon herself is said to have interceded with Louis for the suffering people of the Rhine. The Duc de Noailles, indeed, does not state this, like Macaulay, [Footnote 197] as matter of history, though he allows that it is probably true; and this variety in the views of the two historians, each anxious to do justice in this particular to the king's wife, proves how difficult it is for even the most sagacious and unprejudiced writers to arrive at the exact truth in reference to bygone days. Macaulay is certainly inclined to attribute to Madame de Maintenon a much larger measure of political power than she really exercised; and it is curious to observe the chain of pure assumptions by which, having taken it for granted that she "governed" Louis, he arrives at the conclusion that she induced him to recognize the Pretender as James III. [Footnote 198] In a letter written [Footnote 199] soon after the taking of Philipsburg, she seems to disclaim all active interference in state affairs. In speaking of Louvois, she says that she never contradicted him, and adds, "People think that I govern the kingdom, and they do not know that I am convinced God has bestowed on me so many favors only that I may seek more earnestly the king's salvation. I pray God daily to enlighten and sanctify, him." But it is evident how completely an earnest recommendation to Louis to spare Treves, and stay the ravages in the Palatinate, may have tallied with that unique and hallowed purpose. Have not those from whom such truculent orders emanate a terrible account to render? Has not she who dissuades a ruler from an iniquitous measure done something toward saving his soul?

[Footnote 196: 21st May, 1689.]

[Footnote 197: Hist., chap, xi., 1689.]

[Footnote 198: Hist, chap, xxv, 1701.]

[Footnote 199: 4th October, 1688.]

There are stories afloat respecting Madame de Maintenon, and in everybody's mouth, which the Duc de Noailles scarcely condescends to notice. That she who always spoke and wrote of Louis in terms of affectionate homage should have seriously committed herself to such assertions, as that her daily task ever since her marriage was to amuse a king who could not be amused, and that he was so selfish that he never loved anything but himself, is an improbability as inconsistent with her character and policy as it is at variance with the facts of the case. That in his latter years her life was embittered by his fretful and querulous temper, and by the fits of passion into which he often fell, and that in one of her letters written at that period she complains of the difficulty of amusing him, is undoubtedly true; but this and similar complaints ought not to be stretched beyond their natural meaning, and made to tell too severely against the king. When, in the early part of 1691, Louis appeared in the camp before Mons, his wife, separated from him for the first time since their marriage, retired to Saint-Cyr, alarmed at the dangers he was about to incur, and unable to conceal her sadness. Consolatory letters poured in upon her from all quarters, especially {822} from her spiritual friends and advisers--the Abbe Gobelin, the Bishop of Chartres, and Fenelon. But, "the selfish monarch who could not be amused," did he, amid the bustle of a siege, find time to write to a lady fifty-five years old, whose only business had been to amuse him or fail in the attempt? He did; and that not once now and then; not briefly and drily, as a matter of form; not like a man who had little to say, and still less attachment, to the person to whom he said it. No; every day in her solitude Madame de Maintenon was consoled by seeing a royal dragoon ride into the court-yard with a letter for her from his majesty, and almost every day with one from the king's brother also. Nor was this all; the king, "who had never loved any one but himself," proved that there was at least one exception to this rule, and that he loved his wife. In 1692 she joined him at Mons, by his command, in company with other ladies of the court, and followed him to the siege of Namur. Amusements were not wanting in the royal camp. The king and his courtiers dined to the music of timbrels, trumpets, and hautboys, and he reviewed his troops in the presence of carriages full of fair faces. But, with all this, he visited the different quarters so diligently, and inspected so closely the works and trenches, riding continually within range of the enemy's guns, that his wife had almost as much anxiety for his safety as when she pondered at a distance the cruel chances of war.

In spite of his many faults, there was much in Louis XIV. to captivate the imagination of one like Madame de Maintenon. "No prince," says the Duke of Berwick, [Footnote 200] "was ever so little known as this monarch. He has been represented as a man not only cruel and false, but difficult of access. I have frequently had the honor of audiences from him, and have been very familiarly admitted to his presence; and I can affirm that his pride is only in appearance. He was born with an air of majesty, which struck every one so much, that nobody could approach him without being seized with awe and respect; but as soon as you spoke to him, he softened his countenance, and put you quite at ease. He was the most polite man in his kingdom; and his answers were accompanied by so many obliging expressions, that, if he granted your request, the obligation was doubled by the manner of conferring it; and if he refused, you could not complain."

[Footnote 200: Memoirs, vol. ii.]

Madame de Maintenon's campaigning life was not altogether free from disagreeables. On one occasion, writing from Dinant, [Footnote 201] she relates how they encountered more difficulty in retiring from Namur than in approaching it. They were eleven hours and a half on the road, and wholly unprovided with food. She arrived at her journey's end exhausted with hunger and suffering also from rheumatism and headache; but, it being an abstinence day, the only repast that awaited her was oil-soup. The king likewise, though throughout the campaign he dined ordinarily with all the sumptuousness of Versailles, found himself obliged sometimes to partake of a cold collation under a hedge, without quitting his travelling carriage. Warfare would be an easy calling if such were its worst hardships.

[Footnote 201: 12th June, 1693.]

In Flanders, as in France, Madame de Maintenon continued to take the most lively interest in the course of events, martial, political, and social. Proximity to the scene of action did not induce her to exceed those limits of reserve which she had long since marked out for herself. Though informed of all that happened, and forming a sound judgment on almost every occurrence, though earnestly desiring peace rather than aggrandizement, and justice rather than glory, she obtruded no views of her own in the cabinet of the king, nor even influenced the choice of generals. It was her habit of close observation, and her exact description {823} of all that passed, which made Napoleon Bonaparte delight in reading her correspondence, and pronounce it superior to that of Madame de Sevigne, because it had more in it. Madame de Maintenon speaks in one place of her own style as "dry and succinct;" and, indeed, were it not for the piety which constantly breathes through them, her letters would often read like the despatches of a general. She is brief, terse, sententious; her mind being evidently bent on things rather than on words. As a letter-writer, she resembles Napoleon himself more than any other French authoress. Her style is free from that vacillation, that timid adoption of a definite line, which always indicates a weak thinker and a total absence of system in the mind. Had it been otherwise, she would never have stood so high in the esteem of foreign courts, nor would princes and sovereigns, such as the Elector of Cologne, the Duc de Lorraine, and his mother, Queen Eleanor, have written to ask favors at her hands.

The reign of Louis XIV. lasted so long, that neither his son nor grandson ever sat on the throne. If the latter, the Duc de Bourgogne, had not died in his thirtieth year, he might, as the once docile pupil of Fenelon and Madame de Maintenon, have fulfilled his promises of excellence, and have left to his successors a rich inheritance of wisdom. "Telemachus" was not composed expressly for him in vain. He was born in 1682, and at an early age was affianced to Marie-Adelaide of Savoy. The princess was at that time only eleven years old, and was, by the marriage contract, to remove to France, and be wedded in the ensuing year. The union of the young couple was celebrated in 1697, but on account of their extreme youth they continued to live apart two years longer. During this time, Madame de Maintenon undertook to complete Marie-Adelaide's education. The instructress was worthy of a princess destined, as it was believed, to govern France. All day she sat by her when sick, and Racine read Plutarch's "Lives" to her during the pauses of the night; Bossuet was her chaplain, and Dangeau, whose manuscript memoirs of Louis' court have proved so useful to historians, [Footnote 202] was her knight of honor. She was the delight of all around, and so charmed the king, that he was never willing to part with her. But there were no apartments Marie-Adelaide so much loved to frequent as those of Madame de Maintenon. Severe as her admonitions often were, she possessed in the highest degree the art of attaching young persons to her, and inspired them insensibly with taste, wisdom, and nobility of mind. She had long been convinced that the education of princes was conducted, generally, in such a way as to prepare them for habitual _ennui_. They learned and saw everything in childhood, and, when grown up, had nothing fresh to see or learn. She withdrew her, therefore, as far as possible from the court, and submitted her to the simple and wholesome routine of Saint-Cyr. The princess proved extremely docile, and her amiability was as striking as her diligence. The society of the religious in Saint-Cyr, so far from putting a constraint on her lively and winning ways, seemed only to fit her more completely to be the pet companion of Louis XIV. Her sprightly talk, her opening mind, her elegant simplicity, amused him in his walks and drives, in the gardens, the galleries, and the chase; and while he contrived daily some new diversion for the fascinating child, he could not but trace in her the happy results of Madame de Maintenon's unwearied attention. She entered into all her childish pleasures, and even played hide-and-seek with her, that she might, as she said afterward, gain her ear for serious truths, and by yielding all she could, have the better reason for withholding what would have been hurtful. At last--nor was the time long--Marie-Adelaide quitted Madame de Maintenon's embrace, and with her heavenly counsels {824} graven on her memory, and given in writing into her hands, bidding farewell to the hallowed cloisters of Saint-Cyr, and to her daily gambols and prattle with the loving and indulgent king, she took her place beside her destined bridegroom, and "entered other realms of love."

[Footnote 202: They were first published entire in 1856.]

Such was the woman of whom the worldly and sceptical speak jeeringly as the proud widow of Scarron; the intriguing, austere, ambitious Marquise de Maintenon; the persecutrix of Huguenots, and the despot of her royal spouse. They know not what they speak, nor whereof they affirm; for they are incapable of estimating the character of the righteous. Outward acts are to them an enigma and a stumbling-block, because the soul and its guiding principles cannot be seen. A true Christian, such as Madame de Maintenon, is an object of faith, as is the Church, and as was the Church's Lord in the days of his humiliation. Seated, to say the least, on the footstool of the throne, and surrounded by all the pomp and circumstance of royal life, she was to jaundiced eyes but one in a crowd of princes and courtiers, and differing from them only in that she was more astute; but, seen as the prelates of Cambray and Meaux saw her--seen as her letters and conversations with the nuns of Saint-Cyr exhibit her--seen as the Duc de Noailles describes her, and "time, the beautifier of the dead," has rendered her--she was using this world and not abusing it; seeking society only to improve it, and solitude only to pray; holding all she possessed in fealty to her unseen King, and making every occupation subordinate to that of loosening her affections from earthly vanities, and fastening them wholly upon God. The Duc de Noailles' history does not end with the fourth volume. It leaves Madame de Maintenon in her sixty-second year--two-and-twenty years before her death. To trace her intercourse with Louis during the long and disastrous war with Spain, called the War of the Succession--her counsels and influence during the defeats by Marlborough and Prince Eugene, and the triumphant reprisals of Vendome and Villars--her grief at the king's death in 1715, when she had reached her eightieth year--her retirement to the long-loved shades of Saint-Cyr--her devotion and zeal heightening as age advanced, and the celestial goal was neared--her conversations with the sisters, and her letters to the Princesse des Ursins--to analyze her correspondence, and her _vade-mecum_ as published by M. Bonhomme--to record the pillage of Saint-Cyr, and the outrage done to her venerable remains, as to those of the royal dead in St. Denis, by the frantic revolutionists of 1792--would supply ample materials for another article, but would only confirm the views already formed of her prevailing character and principles. Enough, perhaps, has been said to place our readers on their guard against the malice and fictions of the Duc de Saint-Simon and a host of detractors who rely too readily on his word, and to dispose them favorably toward a most judicious and remarkable history, which does honor to the French Academy and the illustrious house of de Noailles.

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{825}

From All The Year Round.

A DUBLIN MAY MORNING.

When I look down on this gay May morning from a window into Great Sackville street, where there is a huge column to Admiral Nelson, and a golden shop-front board dedicated to O'Connell, on the site for his statue, and which is by-and-by to be made into a French boulevard and planted with trees--I say, on this May morning it is easy to see that one of the many great days for Ireland has come round once more. For the crowds in the great thoroughfares, and the "boys" sitting on the bridges, and the flags and streamers, and the rolling carriages, and the general air of busy idleness, tell me that a great festival is toward; and placards in fiercely carbuncled letters proclaim in an angry fit of St. Anthony's fire that the Prince of Wales is to "OPEN" something: which something a still greater scorbutic operation of type tells us is THE DUBLIN EXHIBITION OF 1865.

Not without charms, and marked and special features of its own, is this Dublin city--to say nothing of the fresh and fair Irish faces and violet eyes which pass by in streams, or of the cheerful voices and the gay laughs heard at every turn; or of the giant policemen who wear moustaches and beards, and thus compete on more favorable terms with military rivals; or of the rollicking drivers, who stand up as they drive, very like the _cocchieri_ of Rome, and who look out for "fares" in a debonnaire indifferent fashion. There is a gay, busy, foreign, particolored look about the place, which reminds one of a foreign town. The background is composed of wide spacious streets, Grecian buildings wonderfully classic in tone and shape, fitted into corners with porticoes that belong _to_ the street, and under which the people walk--pretty breaks where the bridges come, and the masts of shipping seen in the sun half way down a long, long thoroughfare. There are no warehouses or ugly business associations; but all is shops and shopping, and color and liveliness, and carriages and walkers.

I think, as I look out on this May morning, that it is curious that a people popularly supposed to want "self-reliance" and "independence," and who are utterly ignorant of the "self-help" principle, should, after all, have done some few self-reliant things in this very matter of exhibitions. Some one tells me that many decades of years before glass palaces were thought of, and when the universal peace and brotherhood glass palaces were mysteriously supposed to bring with them were not quite believed in, this "un-self-reliant" people had their regular triennial exhibition of manufactures, on the French model. Further, that close on the footsteps of the Hyde Park Exhibition came the great one of Cork, and closer again on the footsteps of Cork the really great Dublin Exhibition of 1853, the building of which cost nearly eighty thousand pounds, and which was remarkable for the first international collection of pictures, and for the first performance of Handel on a colossal scale. Not content with this, I am told that this people, who were not self-reliant, went further, had two more successful exhibitions on a smaller scale, and have now finally girded themselves up for this yet more complete effort of 1865. Not so bad, this, for our poor wo-begone sister with the harp, especially when we consider that our well-to-do Scotch sister has not "fashed" herself with such follies, justly considering the margin of profit too uncertain or too slight to repay the trouble. {826} But this is a grim and statistical ungracious view, not all suited to this Dublin May morning.

It is known, then, on this gay Dublin May morning, that the young prince, who in this island has always been looked to with an affectionate interest, has been in the city since over-night, and out at the pretty lodge, which lies out in the "Phaynix." Hence the flags and the streamers. Hence, too, in front of the palace, the balconies fringed with scarlet, and the softened and melodious buzz of distant military music, with the staff officers flying north and south, and the regiments tramping by. But the flags grow thicker, and the balconies gayer, and the music more distinct, as I find myself at the corner of the great _place_, or square dedicated to St. Stephen, which is a good mile's walking all round, and near which I see the great building, with the heavy porches and pillars, round which, and over which, run delicately, the light entrance of a Moorish-looking glass temple--a silver howdah on the back of a gray elephant. Such is the rather novel design for this last comer in the long series of exhibitions.

After all the miles of glass greenhouse, and the long protracted repetitions of gorgeous decorated pillars and girders, I cannot but think what a happy combination this is of solidity and lightness; and acknowledge that in these days, when Paxton Palace succeeds Paxton Palace with some monotony, there is something original in striking out the idea of fitting the glass-house to a great solid building, with huge halls, and long, cool passages, and spacious rooms, and surrounding the whole with a garden, and greenery, and cascades.

There has been the usual crush and pressure, the tremendous toiling against time, to get all done; the straining of every nerve, the sitting up all night, the hammering and sawing, the stitching of a hundred workmen and workwomen, changing the utter disorder and the naked deal boards and the rude planks of five o'clock last evening to perfect order--to the regularity of a drawing-room and acres of scarlet cloth. And in a crowd of light May morning dresses we drift into the huge concert hall, which is to hold thousands, and to echo to brass throats, and where there are the great organ, and the orchestra which holds the musical army a thousand strong: on the floor of which have grown up beds upon beds of human lilies that flutter and flutter again, whose flowers are white parasols and gossamer shawls. This hall, as a feature, is not so remarkable, for there are many great halls; but at its far end it is open and crossed half way by a gallery: and through this opening we see far on into a Winter Garden and Crystal Palace, where are the light airy galleries, with the old familiar rimson labels, and the French trophies, and the bright objects, and the great apse like a glass cathedral, and Mr. Doyle's pale coloring, the faint lines of delicate green, chosen with rare good taste, which in itself is a novelty.

Looking out through the open end of the concert hall, and facing the organ, I see a grand marone velvet eastern canopy and dais, under which the Pasha of Egypt is to sit a few months hereafter and receive his tribes; and on this dais are the nobles and gentlemen gathering, in the fine rich theatrical suits which give a coloring to a festival, and of which we have not half enough. Judges in scarlet and ermine, privy councillors with coats that seem "clotted" with gold, the never-failing lords-lieutenant and deputy-lieutenants, knights of St. Patrick, deans, doctors in scarlet, soldiers in scarlet, a lord chancellor all black and gold, eastern dervishes (it may be, from the pillow-case look of their caps), a lord mayor of York, a lord provost of Edinburgh; in short, all shapes of particolored finery. Turning round for a second, I see that the black musical army has debouched and taken ground, and that {827} the great orchestra has spread like a large dark fan from floor to ceiling. I can see "Ulster" in a gorgeous tabard, flitting to and fro, marshalling grandees, as none so well know how to marshal them, each according to his or her degree. That marvellous tabard is so stiff and gorgeous, that when it is laid by, it surely cannot be hung up or folded or put to sleep on its back like other robes, but, I fancy, must stand up straight in a wardrobe on its end, like a steel cuirass.

We seem to riot in mayors. The eye can be feasted on mayors; they can become as the air we breathe if we so choose it. They have flowed in from every town in the three kingdoms. And it does strike one, with having such a municipal gathering brought together, that there is a sort of corporate expression, a kind of municipal smirk or perk, a kind of smiling burgess air of complacency which makes the whole of this world akin. Every one, too, seems to be invested with the collar of the Golden Fleece.

Here, also, are many known faces, who wear no scarlet nor gold nor collars. Faces like that of the famous dog and animal painter whose four-footed friends look down at him from the walls: faces like that of the Sir David who invented the most popular toy in the world: faces from the science and art: from South Kensington, which, as we all know, is science and art: faces from France, from Canada, Rome, India, and a hundred other places.

Now, I hear the hum of distant martial music, and the yet fainter but more inspiriting sound of distant cheering. Then the scarlet and ermine, the privy council clotted gold, the May morning bonnets, glitter and rustle with excitement. The hum and chatter of voices full of expectation travel on softly down the glass aisles and into the great hall. There has been a grand plunging of military troopers outside, a violent arrest of fiery horses pulled up suddenly, and the prince and a royal duke and the vice-king and all their attendants have descended. From the outside, the shouting creeps in gradually, until at last it comes to its fullest pitch; when the crimson and gold crowd parts a little, we see this prince standing modestly under the Egyptian pasha's canopy, with thirty thousand eyes upon him. At this moment a speck half way up the dark orchestra, but which is a very skilful and most musical speck, gives a signal with what seems a white pin, and the musical army advances with the fine Old Hundredth. The grand Old Hundredth travels out in rising waves through the open end of the hall into the glass cathedral, then loses itself up and down in the aisles. For two verses the voices do the battle by themselves; but, at the third, the trumpets and the grand brass and the rolling of monster drums burst out, and every syllable is emphasized with a stirring crash. It is like the deluge after a drought.

Then the sun gets up, and the gold and colored figures cross, and crowd, and flit past, as some business is being transacted under that Egyptian pasha's canopy; for there are addresses to be read and spoken, and there is much advancing and backing to be done. Now, the party under the pasha's canopy breaks up for a time, and the stiff gold and scarlet and privy council strait-waistcoats, and the corporate dressing-gowns, having formed themselves into a procession, take the prince round to look at the place.

And there is a great deal to see. There are many charming pictures, and among the choicest those of which the queen of Spain has stripped her palaces, and sent here. Is there not a hint of many a Velasquez most exquisite, and of Mr. Stirling, which are worth a journey to the Escurial to worship? Here is many a rare Reynolds which Mr. Tom Taylor might find worth making a note of, and here are walls covered with noble cartoons of the severe Munich school. These, with the photographs and water-colors, and mediaeval objects, are common to many {828} an exhibition held before; but there is one feature unique--a noble sculpture gallery, artistic, charmingly lighted, sufficient to delight Mr. Gibson, and drive the Royal Academy to despair. A sculpture-hall, on which you can look down from a balustrade in a room overhead, as if into a Pompeiian court. A sculpture-hall, in which you can look up to an arching glass roof, and, half way down again, to the balustrade just mentioned, which is dotted with small statutes. A sculpture-hall, where I can walk round and think myself in a Roman palace, to which these fine objects belong, and not in a temporary shed where some scattered objects that have been lent are shown. For here I see that the Roman studios have been emptied of their treasures; that Miss Hosmer has sent her Faun, in toned yellow marble: a marvellous--if the speech be not impolite-- work for a woman. With Story's wonderful Judith, and a Baby Girl by Mogni--a pendant for the now famous Reading Girl. But it is easy to prophesy that this Baby Girl will be photographed, and stereoscoped, and binocularized in a hundred ways, and watched over by policemen specially, and visited by a steady crowd. This hall and its contents--the like of which it is no boast to say has not been yet seen in these kingdoms--is the feature of this exhibition.

Then, having seen all that is most curious and beautiful--in the fashion in which such things _must_ be seen where there is only a quarter of an hour to see them--the stiff' gold and crimson strands, which we call the procession, came back to the pasha's dais. And then, with a crash and a smash, and a thundering of monster drums, and the rattle and rolling of little drums, and the sharp brassy bark of trumpets, the true English national Old Hundredth, in which musical and unmusical--people with ears, and people without, even people with voices, and people without--can join, then God save the Queen is sung. Sung! Rather fired off! Discharged! Salvoed!

And then the glittering mass begins to dissolve and fade away. The stage, which has been laid out under the pasha's canopy, gradually clears. At the door there is a struggle, and the scatter of new gravel, with the frantic leaping up behind carriages of many footmen, and the closing in of mounted soldiers. And then the pageant melts away, and the work of the day is done.

As I walk and wander from the light glass arcades to the darker courts, and from the courts to the open terraces, and hear the hum of Saxons' voices, and from at least every third mouth the sharp "burr" of some Saxon dialect, and when I meet burly shoulders and massive chests which are not of the country, some out-of-place speculations come into my mind, and I am tempted to make suppositions. First, I speculate--of course shrinking away from the dry bones of politics--whether there might not have been some mistake in the old and constant treatment of a people who seem cheerful and grateful for a kind word or a kinder act, and who are "willing" and even clever in their way--and think whether the "want of progress" and want of "capital" and of "self-reliance," and the want of a hundred other things which puzzle and dispirit the political physician, may not in some degree be laid to the account of old mistakes, old laws, old errors, old harsh treatment, old jealousies and restraints, the folly of which is now seen and admitted, but the fruits of which remain to this day?

Just as the fruits of a bad education linger in a grown man, and the marks of early hardship are stamped upon the face and constitution, it will take many years yet, in the life of a nation, before old faults are worked out of its constitution. And I think--still in the walks of the Winter Garden--that if my friendly Briton tell me that his experience of the lower orders of Irish is that "you can't depend upon a word they say," I cannot but recollect that half a century ago they were civilly slaves, without rights; {829} and that a century ago they were a proscribed caste, against whom one-half the laws of the land were directed. If we have found them indolent, and disinclined to perseverance and the making of money, have we not dim recollections of seeing acts of parliament passed again and again to cripple their trade? A people must grow up, as a child must grow up; and it is hard to expect that a child whose body has suffered by an unkind or an injudicious nurse, should become at once strong under better treatment. Then I speculate on the mysterious relation of Irishmen to Irish land, through which the "bit" of land is as necessary as the "bit" of bread; where a tenant holds his tiny scrap, on which he pays his thirty-shilling rent; and during the whole year is struggling desperately to work out of this great estate a few potatoes, and fewer clothes for himself and family, beside the miserable thirty-shilling margin for the landlord. I think how some estates have two, four, six, eight thousand tenants of this valuable class--and think beside, in answer to a natural objection, how this miserable system was created for political ends, to multiply voters "to support government," If the Palace and Winter Garden were twice as long and twice as broad, I should not have half time or space enough for the speculations that come crowding on me with reference to this perplexing country.

And having made these speculations, and having gone quite round the garden, I begin--in addition to my speculations--to make some rather wild suppositions. As, suppose that, for a mere experiment, there were a greater spirit of charity of speech introduced into our dealings with this country. Suppose that we gave the people time and reasonable allowance--looked on with encouragement where there was any good attempt made, and with indulgence where there was failure. Suppose that some of our journals gave over writing "slashing" articles, and some men desisted from speeches and bitter epigrams on the "mere Irish," which, being copied in every cheap print, and brought to every cabin door, do incalculable mischief, fatally widening the breach, and causing England and Englishmen to be sometimes almost hated. Suppose that there were _some_ little restraint on the traditional stock ridicule of Irish matters. Suppose that the Englishmen who visited the country carried themselves with a little less of William the Conqueror and Strongbow air, and suppose that--

But here are the umbrellas, and the sticks, and the gate.

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From Chambers's Journal.

SPEECH.

Be choice and frugal of thy speech alway:
The arrow from the engine of the thoughts
Once shot, is past recall; for scorn is barbed,
And will not out, but rankles in the wound;
And calumny doth leave a darkening spot
On wounded fame, which, as it would infect,
Marks its sad victim in the eyes of men,
Till no one dare approach and know the truth.

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{830}

From The Lamp.

A VISIT TO THE GRANDE CHARTREUSE.

Our pilgrimage to La Grande Chartreuse was an event in our lives worth remembering. At about half-past five on the morning of the 22d of June we left Lyons. Nothing could have been more auspicious than the brilliant sun and balmy air of that early morning. The birds sang cheerily as we walked from St. Irenee down to the railway station, where our kind friends took leave of us. The country in the neighborhood of Lyons was exceedingly pretty; but as we drew nearer to Grenoble, it became more and more attractive. The railway passes through two ranges of mountains, whose snow-capped summits stood out in beautiful contrast to the azure sky. Our only fellow-traveller was a priest, who for a long time had been intent on his breviary. Amused perhaps at our exclamations of delight, he entered into conversation with us; and we were soon very good friends. He expressed particular interest in the condition of the Catholic Church in England, having heard that there were many conversions in consequence of the hard work doing in our missions. He spoke very highly in favor of a visit to La Grande Chartreuse. He kindly promised always to pray for us, and the conversion of those we had left behind, and to remember us in the mass he was about to offer. We reached Grenoble at about twenty minutes to ten. It will not do to stop to describe the magnificent situation of this old city, completely surrounded as it is with mountains, between the rivers Isere and Drac. Until recently it was a frontier town; a very strong one too, judging from the appearance of the citadel, piled fortress after fortress up the steep mountain side. The cathedral is interesting, as having belonged to St. Hugo, the friend of the great founder of the Grande Chartreuse.

We made an agreement with the driver of a carriage to take us to the Grande Chartreuse; and he promised to take us there in about five hours, and put us down at the door of the convent; so, at least, we understood him. We returned to the hotel, got some refreshment, and started in an open carriage at about twelve o'clock. The road for several miles runs through a richly cultivated valley, with wooded mountains on either side. Everywhere the vine was trained in graceful festoons, and stately walnut and chestnut trees grew along the roadside, shading us from the mid-day sun with their rich foliage. Every now and then we caught beautiful glimpses of the distant Alps, abruptly rising from the green level of the valley, beyond the hills clad with the dark verdure of the pine forests, piled curiously one over another, which run the whole length of the plain, forming the first steps, as it were, of those mighty Alpine mountains which rear their magnificent heights, shrouded in eternal glaciers, behind these graduated ranges. Just before reaching St. Laurent du Pont, what was our astonishment to hear our driver proclaim we should shortly reach our destination! We could not conceive how that could be, for we were evidently approaching a small town. How different it looked from all we had read and heard of La Grande Chartreuse! Our amazement increased when the carriage was driven up in front of a small inn; the driver, getting down, opened the door, and said, with evident satisfaction, _"Nous voila."_ We demanded an explanation, and his reply was that this was St. Laurent du Pont, and as far as he could take us. Here we {831} could either procure another carriage or mules to carry us up the mountain to the monastery, which we might reach in about two hours.

It was difficult to suppress all the indignation one felt at being so completely taken in; and we threatened the unfortunate driver with all kinds of complaints on our return to Grenoble. There was nothing to be done, so we agreed we had better make the best of it. It was five o'clock, and we could not afford to waste our time in words; so we ordered another carriage, and in a few minutes a most rickety, uninviting conveyance was brought to the door. St. Laurent du Pont is situated at the opening of the narrow gorge leading to the wild solitude where the monastery is built. The scenery was grand and beautiful as we gradually began the ascent about a mile from St. Laurent du Pont, where the mountains closed upon our road, and the rocky stream of the Guiers Mort brawling beneath us. Tall pines and stately trees overshadowed us, rising from the almost naked rocks themselves. One of the great peculiarities of the Chartreuse mountain is the extreme luxuriance of the vegetation, mingled as it is with the huge blocks of limestone, which sometimes formed walls on either side of our way. We had a miserable horse, which stoutly refused to go beyond a sleepy walk, the driver and the horse being of the same dreamy nature. We lost all patience, and got out. No language can adequately describe the enjoyment of that walk. The scenery, so sublimely wild; the sound of the rushing torrent, now far below our road, filled us with awe. The pines, rising like weird giants by the mountain side, mile after mile; the scene changing and becoming more majestic with every curve of the road. Every now and then we crossed a handsomely built stone bridge, erected by the good monks, across the torrent, and passed under several tunnels cut through the rock. The sun was declining, and nothing could exceed the beauty of the evening; we had walked for nearly two hours in almost uninterrupted silence, for there was that in the solemnity of the scene, as we penetrated further into the heart of the desert, which filled one's mind with thoughts and one's soul with feelings which could not be uttered. At length, on a sudden turn in the road, the breeze wafted toward us the sound of the chapel-bell, ringing, we supposed, for vespers. This was truly a most grateful sound to our ears, for we were weary with our walk and the excitement of the scene, and longed for our journey's end. A few steps further, and the vast monastery lay before us. How solemn and silent it looked! The tones of the bell, how sweetly musical they were! To listen to them, to gaze on that gray pile, and, high above it, on the lofty snow-capped peaks of the mountains, was an indescribable rest. How wonderfully grand was that mountain top! and far beyond the forests of pine rose still more distant mountain peaks, ascending until they reached the very skies, now gilded with all the glories of a setting sun. It filled one with peace the thought of all the centuries that that vast pile had lasted; of the long ages the voices of the monks had mingled with the varied voices of nature in one hymn of praise to the almighty Creator of all. We waited until the arrival of our carriage interrupted our musings. It could go no further; so, followed by the driver carrying our baggage, we walked up to the door of the convent of the Soeurs de la Providence, where we were most hospitably received. A friendly sister took us to our cells, and said supper would shortly be ready. The blazing logs of pine in a huge fireplace in the refectory were most cheering, for the evening air was quite cold in these high regions even at the close of a hot June day. A maigre supper was served at half-past seven. We were amused to hear that it had all been cooked by the monks, and sent to us from the monastery, {832} where nothing but maigre is ever allowed.

From eight to nine we walked round the monastery, following a path close to the dark pine forest, which forms the background to the building. We could look down from this height upon the cells, church, and little gardens of the monks. Returning toward the hospice, we met the reverend mother and a sister; they took us into the little chapel where we were to hear mass the following morning. It was very plain and small; there was a grille in front of the altar, on which the blessed sacrament was not reserved. What a trial this must be to the good sisters!

At half-past nine, rev. mother advised our retiring to our cells, as we were to be up early the next morning, and _en route_ for St. Bruno's chapel by half-past four. A very intelligent young guide was provided us; he told us he had spent his life with the fathers, and hoped to live there to the end. He was extremely communicative and willing to answer all our questions.

There are about forty monks in this monastery, beside several lay brothers. The monks live each in his cell, which has a little garden attached to it. They maintain silence, excepting on Sundays and great festivals, and during their Monday walk together through the desert for four hours. They eat alone in their cells, excepting on Sundays; each one's maigre meal is passed by a lay brother from the cloister through a little turn into his cell. On Sundays they go to the choir at all the hours except complin; on other days they only go to sing matins and lauds at midnight; for high mass and vespers; the other hours are recited in their cells. Women are not only excluded their enclosure, but even their church, under pain of excommunication. It was very tantalizing to hear of their solemn midnight office, sung as it is in darkness; each monk takes with him into choir a dark lantern, and for each antiphon he does not know opens a slide which throws the light on it. It must have a wonderful effect these sudden flashes of light, lighting up the Chartreux, clothed in their white woollen habits, with their patriarchal beards and hooded heads. Beside the divine office, they say the office of our Blessed Lady, and, almost every day, the office of the dead. Their library was plundered by the revolutionists, and now forms the public library at Grenoble, one of the finest small collections of books in France. Nearly all this we learnt from our guide while walking up to the chapel of St. Bruno. Before we reached it, far into the midst of a dark forest, we came to the chapel called De Casalibus, erected upon the very spot where the first convent stood, which was destroyed by an avalanche. The chapel of St. Bruno is built over the same rock under which he dwelt, beside a gushing spring, his only beverage, which supplies the monastery to this day.

The chapel is about an hour's walk above the present monastery. It is very plain, but adorned with frescoes, representing some of the early fathers of the order. A most beautiful altar stands at one end of it, of exquisitely carved Italian marbles, on which has been placed the same altar-stone on which St. Bruno celebrated the holy mysteries; behind this is a basso-relievo of St. Bruno, with our Blessed Lady appearing to him, beautifully executed. We lingered here awhile, loth to leave so holy a spot. The guide told us that there are frequently as many as sixty masses said in the Chartreuse church in one morning. Many hundred priests make their annual retreat here. What place, indeed, could they find more fitting for the repose their souls thirst for! Here truly they might die to the world and all its allurements, and meditate in peace on the deep mysteries of God and eternity. We descended the mountain to assist at the offering of the holy sacrifice at seven o'clock in the little chapel we had {833} visited on the previous evening, It was a great joy to make our communion in this vast mountain solitude, where all combined to elevate the soul to God. We had hoped a Carthusian would say mass, but in this were disappointed, for a secular priest had been requested to do so by the ladies of his party.

At the _Homo factus est_ of the Credo, the fathers prostrate themselves on the ground, and the mode of celebrating mass is strange, and differs in many points from the ordinary mass of seculars. As the blessed sacrament was not reserved in the chapel, we preferred finishing our thanksgiving beneath the blue sky on the skirts of the forest of pines. After breakfast we tasted the celebrated liqueur made by the monks from the wild mountain flowers. It was very good; there was a certain charm in taking it on the spot where it was made. We had a talk with the reverend mother, and left with her a long list of intentions to be given to the fathers, asking especially their prayers for the conversion of England. This, we were thankful to hear, was frequently an object of their devotions. Before leaving, our curiosity to see some of the fathers was gratified; for two came out to give instructions to some workmen. We began to descend the mountain at about half-past eight, arrived at St. Laurent du Pont about ten, and as soon as our carriage of the previous day was ready started for Grenoble. Once the horse came to a dead stop, and we fancied the driver wished to prolong our journey as long as he could, that we might have no time for making the threatened complaints on reaching Grenoble. As it was, we arrived there five minutes before the time fixed for our departure at half past-one. There was hardly a minute to get anything to eat beyond some fruit and bread which we took with us. So the driver escaped his punishment, after all.

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From The Reader.

DEATH BY LIGHTNING.