Chapter III (4)

'Tis then I raise aloft my cry:
St. Michael, to the rescue fly!
'Tis then almost my foot is prest
Upon the monster's struggling breast;

'Tis then I feel my shoulders glow
With hints of wings they yet may know,
And breathe as slaves pant, wild and sweet,
Whose chains are falling to their feet!

'Tis then I nestle, safely bound
By wings of angels circling round,
And feel the drawing of the cord
That holds my anchor in the Lord!

And most I fear when cunningly
He crouches, hidden from mine eye,
And breathes into the pipes whose keys
Hold all my spirit's melodies.

When I his hiding would betray,
He holds the lamp, and leads the way;
When I would break his hardihood,
He wields the lash that draws my blood.

So deep his guile, I scarce can know
From whose intent my actions grow;
So brightly do his tear-drops shine,
I oft mistake his grief for mine.

When veiled emotions, swift and strong,
Run all my trembling nerves along,
If 'tis his sigh or mine whose swell
Upheaves my breast, I cannot tell.

When friendship frowns, I turn to see
My foe's eyes beaming tenderly;
When friendship harshly speaks, I hear
His dulcet tones wooing mine ear.

When God is slow to hear my cry,
Behold th' insidious list'ner nigh!
When thirst has parched my vitals up,
His hand presents the sparkling cup.

{75}

If I would reason with my foe,
He lets the high-piled logic grow,
And lowly bends, in humble guise,
With silent mouth and drooping eyes.

But as, o'erflowing with content,
I view my stately monument,
Nor guess the thoughts lie side to side
In subtle, weak cement of pride,

With sudden flash of mocking wit
He plays about and shatters it,
Or some volcanic underthrust
Levels my structure with the dust.

And straight, ere I can speak for pain,
He builds my chang'd thoughts up again
In airy stretches, bright or dim,
With flower-woven cornice-rim;

With domes that melt into the sky,
Like piles of snowy cumuli;
And pinnacles where fancy sees
Stars cling and swim, like golden bees;

With long-drawn wings whose cloudy tips
The sunset kisses with red lips;
And cloudy-curtained windows bright,
Whence pours a flood of rosy light.

And with it come bewildering tunes,
Where heavenly airs bear hellish runes;
And, calling sweet and calling clear,
The voice that most I long to hear.

But if, lured by this temple fair,
Dazzled, I seek to enter there,
It clings, and burns with lurid light,
Like Glauce's bridal-garment white.

Then since my foe so potent is,
And I so weak, lest I be his,
Some friend I need, stronger than he,
To stand and keep my heart for me.

And since, though driven forth with pain,
Ever he stealeth back again,
More need have I of heavenly light
To make his lurking-places bright.

{76}

And since I stand unarmed, indeed,
Before his wrath, great is the need
I should invoke, with prayerful word,
Saint Michael of the fiery sword!

That night and day I still should cling
Beneath my hovering angel's wing;
And ne'er let slip the golden cord
That holds my anchor in the Lord!

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Translated From The Revue Du Monde Catholique.

Flaminia.

By Alexandre De Bar.

Concluded.

"You will not be surprised to see that Flaminia was ignorant of the veritable nature of the affection that she felt for Albert; but you will be astonished to learn that he shared entirely her ignorance, although he had seen much of life. Yet think that it is to know nothing of the most impetuous passion of our soul if we have only learnt the theory; for as to know the world we must have lived in the world, so to know the heart one must have lived by the heart; if such has not been one's experience, all is obscurity and one takes a false route. Now, Albert had lived out of the world, and had not yet loved aught but a glorious renown. Besides all this, if you will look back upon that fair time of youth which has now fled from us, you will remember that the descent which allures us is often so gentle that we follow it without attention; until the day when an unforeseen event, and often even an unimportant circumstance, arouses us, and permits us by a glance to see the road that we have already glided down. Albert, too, descended that charming declivity, gathering the perfumed flowers which hung on the shrubs, and intoxicating himself with perfumes, with light and songs. His soul happy, his heart pure, dazzled by the celestial gleams which irradiated him, how could he see where all this was conducting him? This is how he first became aware of his position: There was at the bottom of the gardens of the palace Balbo a long alley, that was covered by the thick foliage of the vines, whose stems, black and distorted, clung to and spread up the stone pillars on each side. Here and there the jasmines displayed the silver stars of their flowers, which shone out of the deep shade of their leaves. From that alley the eye gazed upon a vast horizon, bounded by two large sheets of azure, the sea and sky, between which the mountains lifted their imposing masses, gilded by the rays of the setting sun. It was in this perfumed gallery that, each evening, Albert was conducted by his hosts, as soon as the refreshing breeze of evening blew across the sea. {77} Often it was the arm of Flaminia that aided his yet feeble steps in this exercise. How many charming hours thus passed for them during the calm of those evenings, when the noises of the day ceased one by one, until the ear brought but the sound of the whispering breeze, pure and sweet as the breath of a sleeping child, to the touched and softened soul! One day, the fever seemed struggling to regain its power over the form of Albert; his wounds were scarcely closed, and the emotions that he experienced reacted most powerfully upon his health. Sir, man is born for suffering, and not for joy. His body can support an immense weight of sorrow and pain without giving way; but it is worn out by pleasure, and joy kills it. Giovanni, uneasy about his friend, strictly forbade his leaving his room, and that evening the family went alone to their walk. Albert returned sadly to the saloon, become more desert for him than the sands of Sahara, in company with Giovanni, who, in the hope of distracting his loneliness, talked to him of battles and of victories; although had he known how far the mind of his friend was from all such subjects, he might have given himself far less trouble with an equally good result. Little caring then for glory, Albert's heart was with Flaminia under the perfumed shade of the vines and jasmines. At their return, Flaminia held out to Albert a spray of jasmine covered with flowers, saying to him: 'You like these flowers, so I bring you them.' When Albert had retired to his own room, he took this bouquet and covered it with kisses: he listened with delight to the voice that issued from those flowers and that told him such sweet words. A flame seemed to mingle with their perfumes that carried a new life to his heart; but it carried there also the light. Another voice made itself heard and showed him the truth, and he fell from the regions of happiness where his dream had carried him, into the implacable reality; for he then discovered with what sort of an affection they were both animated. And he a knight of the Order of Malta! If absence could have given the repose of forgetfulness to Flaminia, Albert would not have hesitated to have left her at once. But if there exist attachments so slight that the simple absence of their object is sufficient to cure them, so there are others which may be likened to those long-lived plants that extend their roots in all directions and all depths; so that one cannot tear them from the soil in which they have once gained a hold. Such affections as these resist all human efforts, and absence but serves to render their wounds more poignant and more lively. Albert understood too well the character of Flaminia not to know that their destiny was irrevocably fixed. Divine Providence seemed to have drawn them together in this world but to make them merit, by a sacrifice of their affections, the happiness that was destined for them in the next. The ordinary remedy of absence would have been useless in their case. Albert understood this, and the idea of getting himself absolved from his vows of knighthood came to him. This thought he repelled. It was not that he believed the success of such a measure impossible, but that he saw in it a desertion of his duty; he felt that his conscience would not be in tranquillity, and that it would perpetually remind him that one cannot thus break his engagements with God. He knelt down piously, and that which passed in his soul during that cruel night, and that which he suffered during that struggle, ever rested a secret between him and God. {78} For you, scholar of the eighteenth century, it is an unpardonable weakness that of placing one's self humbly on one's knees before the Divine Majesty. Yet, thanks only to this weakness, Albert, in all the force of youth, resisted without failing before the most impetuous, the most irresistible of all our passions, and came forth victorious out of the rudest combat that he had ever given. He loved, passionately, Flaminia: Flaminia, beautiful, rich in heart and soul, full of all the merits, of all the virtues, that can entrance at the same time the heart, the soul, and the senses; Flaminia, who loved him with an equal ardor, and who confided herself to him absolutely and without reserve. He had over her an absolute power, and, far from using it, he subdued his passion, and, directing by a determined will the tumultuous waves of his heart, he traversed without shipwreck those tempests that are more ungovernable than the rage of the ocean. The strength with which he aided himself was that same weakness which makes you smile. Had he trusted only in himself, he would have fallen, because he was but a man; he implored the aid of him who is strength itself, and he vanquished. Faith was for him what the fortifying oil was with which the athletes rubbed their bodies before the struggle; and, not content with aiding him to overcome himself, she knew also how to dry his tears by the blessed aid of hope. For, at the same time that she showed him in all their barrenness the painful paths of duty, she let him see at the end of the journey, and as the price of his victory, that eternal union of souls which time itself is powerless to break. I know you to be prejudiced, my dear Frederick, on all that which touches religious questions; but, at the same time, I know you to be of too good faith not to acknowledge that there is truly something superhuman in a doctrine which gives such victories; neither shall I insist on the detail of the events which occurred during the six months that Albert yet passed by the side of Flaminia, for they would have no value in my recital. It would not, perhaps, be without a certain interest to follow the developments of that affection, so completely purified from all earthly thoughts; but, as there are certain situations where a look, a smile, takes the proportions of a veritable event, it would be necessary for me to enter into the very slightest points of its psychology. On learning the gravity of the wounds of his brother, Adolph Shraun had come in all haste to the palace Balbo. Antonia failed not to produce in his heart an impression as profound, but more decisive, than that which Flaminia had already aroused in his brother. As he knew that the project of an alliance would be joyfully received in the two families, Antonia was not long without knowing the sentiments which she had enkindled. The frank, impetuous, and lively character of Adolph had already predisposed her in his favor, so that she quickly shared the same sentiments and hopes as himself. Joy renders us much more disposed to confidence than does sorrow, and Antonia did not fail to feel the need of confiding to some one both her secret and her love. This need caused her to seek in Flaminia for sympathy, and the reciprocal confidence which was due between these two young hearts, so well formed to love and sustain each other, was then established for ever. The _naïve_ confidences of her sister enlightened Flaminia on her own sentiments, and carried into her soul the light that she had but caught glimpses of before. {79} She then understood the nature of her destiny, and, like Albert, she accepted it without a murmur. She took refuge in the consoling thought that their union would be accomplished in those celestial regions where only reign the eternal laws of love; and thus placing her hopes upon a sure basis, she resigned herself to her cross, prayed, and awaited God's will. I think that I have quite sufficiently instructed you upon the state of these noble hearts; so that I can arrive at that which is the object of my story--namely, to tell you how it was that my great-grandfather, Adolph, saw, one day, two souls." The Baron Frederick could not here repress a deep sigh of satisfaction, and the count, who noticed nothing, continued: "The hours, which their separation was soon to render so long, passed away with a cruel rapidity; the moment approached when Albert ought to leave Flaminia, that he might report himself to the Grand-Master Coroner, who was then preparing an expedition directed against Napoli of Roumania, and the few days they had yet to pass together made them feel still more strongly the happiness that they were about to lose. Giovanni had announced his intention of following his friend, and their approaching departure had cast a shade of sadness on that household, lately so joyous that it had seemed a nest hidden from the world, where alone happiness dwelt. One evening, when, according to their usual custom, they were all grouped together under the shadow of the vines, the conversation took a melancholy form, and the fear that reigned in all their hearts expressed itself by words: they were talking of death. 'Come, come,' said the Prince Balbo, after a few minutes of discussion on the subject, 'what is the use of these fears? When duty calls, we must obey, not only by action, but in heart, and without regret. Besides,' he added, 'the hour of our death is not in our own choice; and none are protected from his stroke when God calls the angel of death and says, "Strike!" I have, like you, my children, incurred many perils in my life, and yet sixty winters have whitened my head; and how many have I not seen of those whose life was peaceable--of flourishing youth--sheltered from all harm, who have been struck down before their time! Let us confide in God, my children; let us resign ourselves beforehand to his will, which is always just, always good--since he is eternally just and good.'

"Flaminia, crushed by the grief of a separation that snatched away from her for ever the half of her soul, had, until these last words of her father, remained silent; but then, lifting her head and leaning slightly toward Albert, said to him in a tone that was audible only to him, 'Yes, happily, one dies at every age.'

"Albert understood her thought.

"'Do you not, then, think on the grief of those who are left?' answered he, in a voice of low reproach.

"'Oh!' replied she quickly, 'if I die first, I will come to seek you.'

"Before that cry, uttered from the heart, before that affection that felt itself sufficiently strong to vanquish the laws of death, sufficiently holy that God should grant it a miracle, silence could be the only answer; but a glance of Albert replaced with all the eloquence of the heart the powerless word. On the morrow of that evening, Albert left Flaminia. I will not paint to you their affliction. It was immense. But a hope that is too ill known in this, our century, sustained their courage and energy. {80} At the moment of an adieu so cruel to both, not a tear fell from their eyes. That they did flow, and most abundantly and bitterly, there is no doubt, since grief never loses its rights, and human force, even the best sustained, has its bounds; but they flowed in silence and in secret, and he who was their only witness treasured them up. The days, the months, the seasons passed on; three times the trees had lost their foliage and renewed their leaves; three times had the alley of vines seen the winter's sun pass unobstructed through their naked branches. All had changed around them; their hearts alone changed not. The renown of Albert grew each day, with his valor, more brilliant; but it was no longer renown that he sought, it was a death that would have opened before him that wide field where impatience dies away before the eternity that then commences; death that he desired because it would have brought him near to Flaminia; and death would not listen to him. In vain did he fling himself into the thickest of the danger; in vain did he accomplish prodigies that had caused the bravest to turn pale; he passed through all these without even a wound. Although he had but very rare occasion of knowing what passed in that cherished spot where ever rested his heart and thoughts, still he doubted not but that the tenderness of Flaminia was as lively and as deep as his own; nor did he deceive himself. Flaminia had refused under different pretexts the offers that had been made to her; and notwithstanding all the desire they felt to establish their daughter, I would dare to affirm that it was not without a certain secret joy that the Prince and Princess Balbo looked upon the prospect before them, the hope of keeping her always by their side. Do not blame them too quickly, my friend; for it is a painful thought that during twenty years a child should have been the object of your affection and of your solicitude; that she should have taken the best and largest portion of your life and heart, in order that, one day, a stranger, under the title of a new-born love, should carry away from you all your joy; leaving you to see your much-loved child place herself under another protection than thine, and quit without regret the house where she leaves a blank that nothing else can fill.

"I had almost forgotten to tell you that Antonia had married Adolphus, and lived happy and peaceful in this same castle where we now are finishing our career. Albert, tired of war, and freed from all further illusions of glory, had come, after having refused the highest distinctions of the order, to seek some repose by his brother's side. Ambition was dead in him; his soul, that had been so severely proved, had need of recollection and calm; and he found this by the side of him whom, after Flaminia, he loved the best in the world. Moreover, although he himself scarcely ever spoke of her who filled all his thoughts, still he felt a lively pleasure in hearing her spoken of so frequently by his brother and his wife. Albert was then calm and composed; he marched courageously forward in life as does the traveller who climbs with difficulty the bare paths of a desolate and arid mountain, sure to find in the evening the joys of the fireside and the shelter of his friends' roof.

"Three years, day by day, had passed away since the moment when Albert had quitted the palace Balbo. It was the evening; Adolphus and Antonia were by his side, in this same saloon where we now are. {81} Contrary to his custom, Albert, for whom that anniversary was a day of mourning, felt his soul full of a penetrating and serene joy, when ten o'clock sounded from that same clock that--"

Here the recital of the count was interrupted by the sound of the clock which resounded in the vast apartment. One would have said that it affirmed the words of the count, by repeating the ten strokes which it had caused to be heard at the moment of which he was speaking. That metallic sound seemed to have in it an unusual power; there was something solemn in its grave slowness; in the deep noise of the wheel drawn round by the falling lead, which accompanied with its heavy base the more piercing sound that traversed the thick oaken case. Both the count and his friends were seized by an impression which they did not seek to dispel or resist. Both instinctively uncovered their heads, and while the count waited almost respectfully until its last vibrations were lost in silence, the baron, more moved than perhaps he was willing to show, placed on the table his pipe, yet fully charged with tobacco, and, an event that certainly had not occurred with him once in ten years, he left that inseparable companion of his leisure hours, without touching the tankard that in vain offered to his gaze its brown and golden tints.

"Ten o'clock had then sounded," continued the count, "and that being the moment when each was accustomed to separate for their bedrooms, Adolphus had got up and looked at his brother, who had been for some time previous motionless and in an attitude of profound attention, resembling a man who follows with his ear the scarcely perceptible sounds of some distant harmony.

"All is finished,' murmured Albert at the moment when the clock had finished striking; and, placing his hand on his brother's arm, 'Remain here,' said he, and turning toward Antonia: 'Pardon me, my sister, if I thus detain Adolphus; but I have need of him to-night, and to-morrow it will be too late.'

"'You frighten me,' answered Antonia; 'what then is going to happen?'

"'You will know very soon,' replied Albert. 'Poor sister! your eyes will shed many a tear; but they will be dried by the thought that the motive which causes them to flow assures for ever the happiness of those who are dear to you.'

"He then kissed her forehead, and, followed by Adolphus, went to his own room, the same which is now yours, dear Frederick.

"'What is the matter with you?' asked Adolphus of his brother, as soon as they were alone.

"'I am sad and happy at the same time; sad because I am going to leave you alone for a short time; but very happy because I go at last to rejoin her, and for this time not again to leave her!'

"'Explain yourself; why do you leave us?'

"'Listen: for that you may understand what is going to happen here this night, it is necessary that you should know what I have felt and suffered during the past three years.'

"Albert then told him of all that which I have just described to you; of his love for Flaminia, of his struggles, and of his victory, over himself; and Adolphus, who already knew through his wife of what Flaminia had suffered, saw with astonishment that all which had been felt by the one had also been by the other, in the same degree and at the same moment. Never had the most profound sympathy established between two beings a more complete identity of sensations and thoughts; near or separated, their two existences had formed but a single life, as their two souls seemed to form but a single soul. When Albert had finished his recital, he added:

{82}

"'"If I die first, I shall come to seek you!" Flaminia had told me, and now Flaminia has just died. Do not ask me how I know it, for I am ignorant myself of the reason; but I do know it. I have followed, moment by moment, the progress of her death; at the end I have felt her die, and now I await her coming. In a few instants more she will be here, and we shall depart together for that blessed home where nothing can again oppose itself to our eternal union. It seems to me that already I feel my soul disengaging itself from its bonds; I no longer regard the sufferings that I have endured, except with that sentiment of thankfulness and joy which one feels at the recollection of perils that have been overcome; my past sufferings have no longer their sting, my tears no longer their bitterness! At the solemn moment when I am about to quit a life that has been most painful in its trials for the happy life of triumph, I have wished to have you by my side, that I might say to you my last farewell in this world, and press for a last time your hand before going to await you in eternity.' I leave you to think, my dear Frederick, what must have been the astonishment of Adolphus at receiving this strange confidence.

"'I have too much confidence in the firmness of your reason,' he answered to his brother after a short silence, 'to believe that it has become weakened, were it only for a moment; but do you not fear to have been the victim of some mental illusion, and to have taken for a reality that which was in reality only the dream of your heart exalted by sadness and solitude?'

"'I understand your incredulity,' answered Albert, 'for I have myself shared in it. Each time that the recollection of that promise presented itself to my memory, my reason revolted against such an evident impossibility; the soul cannot again appear in this world once that it has quitted it, thought I, and yet I counted on the premise even while I disbelieved its possibility. Only an hour ago, I yet doubted, but now that doubt has passed away, since the moment when her dying voice sounded in my ears uttering her last words: "You have waited for me; I am here!" Then I understood that it was not merely the strong desire of a soul overexcited by the desire to be reunited to the second half of itself that I felt, but that it was really a mysterious warning; and the accomplishment of a promise that God himself had blessed, and that he permitted to be fulfilled.'

"'But how to explain this miracle?'

"'I am unable to explain it; I tell you what is about to happen, that is all that I can do. In a few minutes Flaminia will be present, and in seeing her you will believe me. For the rest,' added he, after a moment's pause, 'all is a mystery in this world, but the grand end of all is sufficient to enlighten our paths. Do you think that it would be more easy for me to tell you how it is that, notwithstanding we have never said anything to each other that could divulge the mutual state of our hearts, we have yet, in spite of our separation, lived by the same life and the same love? That you cannot believe me, I know, but only wait a little time, and you shall see.'

{83}

"In truth, Adolphus did not believe, although the evidently profound conviction of Albert shook his mind and caused in him an impression that he would gladly have shaken off, so contrary to reason did it seem to him. 'Let us make haste, the time presses,' said Albert. He then arranged in order, with rapidity and calm, several important affairs with which he was charged, relating to the principal commanderies of Germany; then, kneeling down, he offered up a short prayer; scarcely had he finished, than, rising up quickly, he seized the hand of his brother, and cried: 'Look! she is come.' Adolphus turned round, and saw Flaminia standing by the side of Albert. You who have lost some one who was dear to you, Frederick, you have remarked that, at the moment when the last sigh escapes and before the work of decay begins, the face is possessed of a calm beauty, supernatural and indefinable in its expression, that inspires an awed respect for that now lifeless form which just a moment before contained a soul. Such looked Flaminia; her figure, surrounded by a luminous atmosphere, had received from immortality an august expression. It was perfectly the form of Flaminia, such as Adolphus had known her, but it was no longer the creature that is imperfect, and subject to the attacks of time and life. It was the being imperishable who, coming forth victorious from her many trials, bore in her all the splendors of her glory. Her beauty was not that which charms by the uniformity, more or less complete, of its lineaments; no, it was the celestial beauty whose type is graven in ourselves; the beauty a single ray of which suffices to illuminate the face that hides a pure soul: this was the beauty sublime that enveloped her with its divine wings, and transfigured her face while changing its lineaments. Adolphus bent his knee before the vision. 'Had I not told you that she would come?' said Albert to his brother. 'Yes!' replied a harmonious voice, which issued from the then incorruptible lips of Flaminia. 'Yes! our love was too pure not to merit its recompense. God has permitted it; you waited for me, and I am come.' She bent slightly toward him to whom she at length was about to be united, and, surrounding him with her arms, she drew his face closer to her own, that gleamed with a celestial joy. Behind them, and contemplating them, stood Death, not under the form of fleshless skeleton, but as a radiant angel who changes bitterness into joy, and tears into smiles. His beautiful face bore the impress of grave majesty rather than of severity, softened by that infinite mercy which gives hope to repentance. The mercy and goodness of the Master who sends him shone in his look, which is so sweet to the contemplation of the soul wearied by the painful journey of life. The hour was come! At the moment when Flaminia, in a manner, took possession of Albert, the angel of Death drew near him, and while with one hand he touched his shoulder, with the other he pointed toward heaven. Albert's body fell back into the arm-chair, which, living, he had just occupied; and when Adolphus, drawn forward by an instinctive motion, ran to support him, he saw by the side of Flaminia the form of his brother, that shone forth surrounded by the same glory and the same joy. He passed the rest of the night by the side of his brother's body, and wept, though not over him whom he had just seen pass away to heaven. The man whom faith sustains with its sweet consolation weeps not the loss of his friend, but his absence. {84} He wept because every separation, even the shortest, is a grief, and his tears were dried by the certainty that Albert was in the possession of a happiness that could neither diminish nor fade, and which he hoped one day to share with him."

The count here left off his story. The baron had listened to him with a sustained attention, and although he preserved his imperturbable calm, yet the recital had so much moved him, that he remained silent; and the count, after waiting a few minutes, continued: "Such is the history of my great-uncle Albert, as it has been transmitted to us by him who was the witness. Do you find it, then, surprising that the faith should be hereditary in a family where such facts happen? What can you reply to this history?"

"Nothing," answered the baron, "except that, to draw the consolations which it contains, one must have the faith; and besides, in supposing that God, if he exists, interferes with the affairs of this world, he is unjust, since he refuses to me the consolation that he gives to others."

"Have you ever asked him for it?" answered the count with a friendly severity. "Have you not, on the contrary, repulsed by a determined obstinacy the solicitations of divine Providence? Pardon me, my friend, if I awaken a painful recollection for you, but have you not even resisted the awful voice of Death?"

"What is the good of my asking?" replied the baron, eluding the second part of his friend's demand. "If faith be necessary, God owes it to me without asking him."

"Food is also necessary," answered the count, "and does man find it ready for him, unless he works? No, no, my friend; labor and prayer, such is the destiny of man upon the earth. His material life is bought by the sweat of his brow, as his spiritual life is the price of his efforts. 'Seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you,' has said the divine Master. Ah! if you had ever knelt before that God whom you blaspheme; if you had with perseverance exposed to him your doubts, your miseries, you would have known that he never leaves without help the soul that sincerely implores him; you would have known that he never hides himself from him who seeks him with a humble and contrite spirit and a pure heart. Pray, my dear Frederick, pray, I tell you, and you will feel that he is near to you; that his arms are open to receive you, and his hands ready to shed on you all the sweet consolations and hopes with which they are filled!"

It was now late; the two friends then separated, and, without doubt, the count that night in his prayers demanded with more than usual fervor the conversion of the man he so warmly loved. Ordinarily, on gaining his room, the baron was accustomed to install himself as comfortably as possible in an immense old leathern arm-chair, whose age dated back for two or three centuries, which he placed in front of the wood fire that burnt noisily on the hearth; and after having again lit his pipe, that inseparable friend, he used to take a book, and, stretching out his feet upon the copper fire-dogs, wait until he felt sleepy, which invariably occurred as soon as there remained no more tobacco in the sculptured wooden bowl of his pipe.

{85}

But on that night he cast around him many a curious look, and examined with as great an attention, one after the other, the several pieces of antique furniture with which his room was furnished, as though it had been the first time that he had seen them; then, in place of sitting down in that ancient arm-chair, which he preferred to all the others on account of its large dimensions, he placed it in front of him, and, sitting down on the most modern of his chairs, he regarded with a questioning curiosity and certain respect that mute witness of an adventure, the mere recital of which had caused so great a trouble in his mind; seeming to ask of it a solution to his doubts and fears. After a long and silent contemplation, he let fall his forehead on his hands, and, plunging his fingers among his hair, whitened rather by sorrow than by age, began to meditate profoundly. The agitation of his mind was so great, and the flow of his thoughts so rapid, that, without knowing it, he began to think aloud. "If what he said were true, if there were something within us that outlived our bodies, I could see thee again, my dearest and best-beloved Gertrude; and I could again find the joys of our too short union, and this time for always, unchanging and eternal! And ought I to repulse that thought through the childish fear of abandoning myself to a false hope? Of these two ideas were it not better to follow that which gives us consolation and causes us to live, rather than that which thickens around us the already too profound shades of life, and changes our grief into despair? What consolation have I ever found in the reason of which I am so proud? None! If pride has withheld my tears before men, yet since twenty years they have flowed on in silence without their source being yet dry. If I have blushed to let my weakness be seen by men, have I not felt it a thousand times within me, implacable, and terrible, before my vain revolts against a destiny that broke my heart and that I was forced to submit to? When beside her death-bed I felt but a sterile despair, when my will, my love, were powerless to retain for a single moment the last sigh of that life that I would have been willing to prolong at the expense of my own days, what have I been able to do? Nothing! not even to die! Since twenty years I implore the oblivion which flies before me! Since twenty years, I recoil before the thought to precipitate myself therein! Is it fear that hinders me? No! I have faced the peril when my duty demanded it, and I would do it again: I have too often seen Death to fear him. The reason is that a secret voice speaks within me higher than all the sophisms of my grief, and tells me that I have not the right to destroy the life which I did not give myself. Yet if there is nothing beyond the tomb, why should I fear it, and what have I to dread from oblivion? Have I not the most absolute right on myself, since all ends but in a dreamless sleep? Is it really a sleep? Ah! there is the truth, both for me and for all others; it is that in secret I doubt as often of that oblivion that I so loudly affirm, as I do whether that God does not exist whose existence I so deny. Yet again, if God is but an imaginary being, and if immortality is but a dream, what does one risk to have thought the contrary? One would have lived fortified against the ills and crosses of this life by a thought that sweetens, even the terrors of death. One would not even feel the loss of that hope, since the hour of our disenchantment would be the one which should plunge us into the deep repose of oblivion! The lie, then, would have done that which the truth could not do; it would have given us happiness. If, on the contrary, immortality is not a vain chimera, but a reality, is it not a terrible responsibility to have shut one's heart to its evidence and to have misunderstood the sublime Author of all things? {86} Yes! in truth terrible; for in that momentous question, doubt is not to be permitted. On all human questions indifference follows uncertainty, but here indifference is itself a fault--one must deny or believe. But how am I to believe? When from earliest childhood you have had your aspirations broken or wounded under the repeated blows of contempt, and when you have been taught but to laugh at in others that faith whose absence you shall one day so bitterly deplore, how then to believe? Pray, he told me. Pray! Can I pray? Oh! happy are they who, arrived like me at that sad epoch in life when one drags painfully along the burden of one's worn-out days, have not to curse those who held them away from that source of strength and consolation! Yes, they are happy whom a pious mother taught from their cradle to bend the knees and join the hands in prayer! Gertrude also, she too prayed; and many a time have I felt myself touched in seeing her bend her head before the God of whom she asked for me the light of the faith. How many times have I not felt the desire to share her belief, and to kneel down like her and say: 'My dear Gertrude, there exists no place on this earth where we ought to be separated; there is not a thought, a belief, an affection, that ought not to be shared by us. Whatever may be the destiny that awaits us after the destruction of our being, whether it be oblivion or immortality, I wish to share it with you. Let your convictions be mine also, even as your life is mine. After having given me happiness in this world, show me the road that leads to that eternity I wish to believe in because you believe; make me to know that God whom I wish to love because you love him!' But alas! held by a false shame, I resisted that voice which spoke in the depth of my heart, and which, perhaps, was the voice of God: for is it not possible that such feelings as these are those by which Providence calls us to the truth? And I, how have I responded to that voice? Why, by rallying her on her belief. I caused her tears to flow, the only ones most certainly, but today they fall heavily upon my heart. And now friendship speaks to me this day the very same language that did of old her love. Shall I yet remain deaf? Ought I to cede to or resist the voice which now speaks to me? O Albert! you on whom was accomplished, in the room where I am, and in that arm-chair that I now look on, so incomprehensible a mystery, cannot you come in aid of the most faithful friend that your family ever had!" And the excellent baron, letting himself be carried away by his emotion, found himself, without knowing how, on his knees before that chair in whose arms Albert had died; and the head covered by his hands, and the heart filled with the thirst for truth, he prayed: "O my God!" prayed he, "if it is true that you are not a vain creation of the weakness or of the pride of man; if it is true that you continue to watch with solicitude over the creature who has issued from your hands, you will not see without pity the heart full of trouble that I lift up toward you. Led astray by the habits begun in childhood, I have perhaps followed error thinking to follow the truth; but I have done it in all sincerity and through love of the truth. If I am deceived, O God! enlighten my trembling soul, dissipate the doubt which is crushing me, and draw toward you the soul that seeks you and desires you! And you, Gertrude, dear companion too soon lost to me, if you see my regrets that time cannot extinguish; and the tears that your memory costs me, ask of your God that he make himself known to me; ask him that I may adore him as you adored him, and, above all, ask him that I may again be united to you."

{87}

His voice died away then, and yet his prayer continued. His soul, overexcited with the emotions of that night, poured itself out before God without following any line of thought. It was an immense lifting up of his whole being toward the truth--an ardent thirst for hope; it was the twenty years of a mute despair that resumed itself into a supreme cry; it was the heart, so pure and so good, of that worthy man, that opened itself completely and mounted full of desires and tears, carrying with it the most fervent prayer that had ever reached the immovable throne of the Eternal. At last the baron arose, but in place of at once laying himself down to sleep on the bed, whose soft pillows vainly invited him to repose, he retook his former position and began to reflect. The thoughts pressed so tumultuously in his brain, ordinarily so calm, and succeeded each other with so great a rapidity, that he could but vaguely seize them. His eyes, fixed upon the light flame that yet burned on the hearth, saw not that they expired one by one. The last played yet some time on the log covered with white ashes, disappearing for a moment to again reappear in another spot; at length it died out. The lamp burned with a reddened glare through its lack of oil, and yet the baron did not move. How long he had rested in that state of semi-sleep is what he never knew himself, when to the dying gleam of the lamp succeeded so brilliant a light that the baron always maintained that one so intense had never before shone on mortal eyes; at the same time brilliant and soft, it penetrated all objects without causing them to cast any shadow, and, as it were, drowned them in a sea of light. The baron lifted up his head at this unexpected brilliancy; he wished to speak, and his voice expired on his opened lips; but he distinctly heard these words: "Frederick, the prayers of your beloved Gertrude have been at length heard; the straight-forwardness and simplicity of your heart have found grace before the throne of the Eternal Master; he smiles on those who imitate him. He loves those who, like him, bear their cross with courage, and drink without feebleness the chalice of bitterness that is offered to all, without exception, in this life of probation. If it has been that, until now, you have rested deaf to the warnings that divine Providence sent you, at least you have listened with docility to that which was contained in the recital of your friend, and it was not without a reason that he was inspired to tell the true legend of the loves of Flaminia and Albert to you this night. The faith that strengthens the soul in the midst of the calamities of life descended into your heart and penetrated it with its salutary ardors at the moment when, breaking your pride before your will, you have knelt down before the Lord and asked of him the light; you could not remain always out of the truth; you, the devoted friend, the faithful husband; you whose entire life has been but a long research for the rarest virtues, and who feel, beating in your breast as noble and loving a heart as ever animated a human form." Here the brilliant light faded slowly away. The lamp was extinguished, and the blackened, logs gave forth no glimmer of light. {88} The baron gained, by feeling his way, his bed, and laid himself on it, feeling himself full of an unknown joy, understanding the duties of a Christian, and resolved to perform them. He fell asleep in thinking of that happy day when should be restored to him that wife whom he had never ceased to love. The next morning, when he descended to the saloon where all the family were united, he embraced his friend's wife, and kissed, one after another, her children and grandchildren, who were all there that day at the castle; and all this with a demonstration of joy so contrary to his usual phlegmatic manner that it for the moment gave cause to fear for his reason; and then, approaching the count, who regarded him with stupefaction, he embraced him vigorously, and said to him, while wiping his eyes, humid with tears of joy: "Ah! you are right, my dear friend; I shall see again my Gertrude!"

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Talleyrand,
by Lytton Bulwer.[Footnote 18]

[Footnote 18: _Historical Characters. By Sir Henry Lytton
Bulwer, G.C.B. Two vols., 8vo. Richard Bentley, New
Burlington street, London_. 1868.]

Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer has presented the public with sketches of some eminent men, and has done his work well. It is not a series of biographies, but rather a finished outline of their prominent characteristics and of their achievements. In advance of the memoirs of Talleyrand, written by himself, and now in course of publication, this illustrious Frenchman is placed among the number, and in a new light. He is no longer the inscrutable being he appeared to his contemporaries, and as he has appeared since to their children. His name has been intimately associated with the great men and events of the last years of the unfortunate reign of Louis XVI. of France, near the close of the last century. Still more prominently is the memory of him associated with the convocation of the States-General and the National Assembly. By accident, he had the good fortune to be free from the odium attached to the Legislative Assembly and the atrocities of the National Convention, with the attendant horrors of the Committee of Public Safety in the Reign of Terror.

He fled from France in all haste as an _émigré_, and yet was lucky to avoid being classed with the aristocrats and so-called enemies of his country. He was prominent in the Revolution, without the stain of a regicide; he was a fugitive with the loyal crowd, without being stigmatized as a royalist. No amount of human foresight could have served him as a safe guide to shun the dangers which beset his fame and security on either side. His success was altogether fortuitous; but his friends attribute all to his superior sagacity and wisdom, while his enemies ascribe it to his remarkable cunning and prudence. When the days of danger and of blood passed by, Talleyrand returned to Paris with _prestige_, and was immediately employed by the Directory. When that went down, he floated to the surface with Bonaparte in the consulate and empire. Upon the fall of the empire, with the entrance of the allied armies into the capital he was their trusted counsellor. {89} The restoration of the Bourbons was at once accompanied with the restoration of Talleyrand to the foreign office and to the head of affairs. When the Bourbons were expelled, in 1830, he was again reinstated by Louis Philippe, under whose reign he died in 1838, with that sovereign an attendant at his death-bed.

In truth, the same good fortune set in his favor when he was a boy: but it came in the guise of a calamity. Neglect on the part of a nurse resulted in a slight lameness for life in his legs, and in consequence a family council was convened wherein it was decided he should be deprived of his rights of primogeniture, of his high station as a nobleman, and of the wealth which went with them. His younger brother was substituted, while Talleyrand was destined for the priesthood. But such is the waywardness of fate that in a few years nobility was abolished, its privileges destroyed, and the nobles themselves were in exile, with his impoverished brother among the number. On the other hand, Talleyrand entered the church; he became a bishop, and in turn he deserted the church and his diocese when the road to greater worldly success and distinction led through desertion. He was excommunicated by the pope when papal censure and condemnation could only, for the time being, add to his popularity. Subsequently these were removed by the pontiff, when a brief to that end, with the turning tide of events, was all that was wanting to increase his _prestige_.

To what peculiar talent, quality, or skill he was indebted for his happy career has always been an open question; nor is it yet completely solved. Sir Henry does not undertake to discuss the problem, although he must entertain an opinion on the subject. But it is much better that he declined to propound any theory of his own; for in doing so the readers of his book would have misgivings that he tampered with some facts, or suppressed others altogether, in order to maintain it. His work in its present shape invites confidence, imports greater accuracy, and imparts additional satisfaction. No one can distrust his historical integrity, or doubt the extent of his inquiries and research in an honest endeavor to enlighten the public, or fail to appreciate the information obtained. It is a decided accession to biographical literature.