Chapter VII: A Providential Event (2)

The leader of the little band was a few steps in advance. He was an old Indian warrior who a long time before had been converted to Christianity by this holy missionary, and who from that time became the faithful companion of all his adventurous wanderings.

The travellers advanced slowly on their _raquettes_[37] over a soft, thick snow. It was one of those superb December nights whose marvellous splendor is entirely unknown to the people of the South, with which the old year embellishes its waning hours to greet the advent of the new-comer. Innumerable stars poured their light in silver tears over the blue firmament of heaven—we might say tears of joy which the glory of the Sun of Justice draws from the eyes of the blessed. The moon, ascending through the different constellations, amused itself by contemplating in the snowy mirror its resplendent disk. Toward the north, luminous shafts radiated from a dark cloud which floated along the horizon. The aurora borealis announces itself first by pale, whitish jets of flame which slowly lick the surface of the sky; but soon the scene grows more animated, the colors deepen, and the light grows larger, forming an arch around an opaque cloud. It assumes the most bizarre forms. In turn appear long skeins of white silk, graceful swan-plumes, or bundles of gold and silver thread; then a troop of white phantoms in transparent robes execute a fantastic dance. Now it is a rich satin fan whose summit touches the zenith, and whose edges are fringed with rose and saffron tints; finally, it is an immense organ, with pearl and ivory pipes, which only awaits a celestial musician to intone the sublime hosanna of nature to the Creator. The strange crackling sound which accompanies this brilliant phenomenon completes the illusion; for it is strangely like the sighs which escape from an organ whose pipes are filled with a powerful wind. It is the prelude of the divine concert which mortal ears are not permitted to listen to. The scene which presented itself below was not less fascinating in its savage beauty than that of the sky above.

The cold, dry atmosphere was not agitated by a single breath; nothing was heard but the dull monotonous roaring of the gigantic river, sleeping under a coverlet of floating ice, which dotted its dark waters like the spotted skin of an immense leopard. A light white vapor rose like the breath from the nostrils of a marine monster. Toward the north, the blue crests of the Laurentides were clearly defined, from Cape Tourmente to the mouth of the Saguenay. In a southern direction the last slopes of the Alleghanies stretched along, covered with pines, firs, and maples; almost the entire shore was densely wooded, for at the remote period which we describe those vast clearings along the banks covered with abundant meadows were not to be seen, nor the pretty little whitewashed houses grouped in villages along the shore so coquettishly, a person could easily compare them to bands of swans sleeping on the river-banks. A sea of forest covered these shores. A few scattered houses appeared here and there, but this was all.

II.—THE APPARITION.

The travellers advanced in silence toward the middle of the wood, when suddenly the leader of the party stopped, making at the same time a sign with his hand for his companions to do likewise. “You are mistaken, comrade,” said the missionary to him; “the noise that you have just heard was only a tree split by the frost.”

The Indian turned slowly toward him, an almost imperceptible smile passing over his face. “My brother,” said he, in a low voice, “if you saw me take your holy word,[38] and try to read in it, you would laugh at me. I do not wish to laugh at you, for you are a black-gown; but I tell you, you do not know the voices of the forest, and the noise which we have just heard is a human voice. Follow me at a distance, while I go on to see what is happening yonder.” The travellers walked on for some time without seeing anything. The father began to think he had not been deceived, when they came to an opening in the woods, and saw the Indian stop. What was his astonishment, when, following the direction in which the savage was looking, he saw at the extreme end of the opening a very extraordinary light, apparently detached from the obscurity of the trees. In the midst of this luminous globe appeared a vague, indistinct form, elevated above the ground. Then another spectacle that the brilliancy of the strange vision had prevented him from seeing before, was presented to his gaze.

A young man dressed in military uniform was kneeling at the foot of a tree. His hands were clasped and his eyes turned towards heaven; he seemed absorbed in the contemplation of a mysterious and invisible object. Two corpses, which were easily recognized as an officer and a soldier from their uniforms, were lying by his side in the snow. The officer, an elderly man with gray hair, was lying against a maple; in his hands was a little book, about to slip out of them. His head was leaning on his right shoulder, and his face had that ashy hue which too plainly told that death already claimed him. A bluish circle surrounded his half-closed eyes, and a last tear stood congealed on his livid cheek. A placid smile was on his face, indicating that a supreme hope, which faith alone could inspire, had consoled his last moments.[39]

The noise made by the travellers’ feet in the snow caused the young man, who was still on his knees, to turn suddenly round. “O father! my father!” cried he, rushing toward the missionary, “it is Providence who has sent you here to save me. I was about to share the terrible fate of my unfortunate companions, when—a prodigy!—a miracle!”—suffocated by his tears and sobs, he could say no more, but, throwing himself into the arms of the missionary, he pressed him to his heart.

“Calm yourself, my dear son,” said the old man; “for in your feeble and exhausted state such violent emotion might prove fatal.” Scarcely had he finished the words, when he felt the young man’s head sink heavily on his shoulder, and his body become a dead weight—he had fainted.

The travellers eagerly bestowed on him every care that his situation required and that lay in their power. His two friends, alas! were beyond reach of human succor. The savages dug their graves in the snow, and the saintly missionary, after reciting some prayers over their bodies, cut with his knife a large cross in the bark of the maple at the foot of which they had breathed their last—a simple but sublime monument of hope and love, destined to guard their earthly remains.

III.—A CANADIAN HOME.

See you yonder, on the slope of the hill, that pretty cottage, so neat and white, with its little thatched barn, so clearly defined against the caressing foliage of that beautiful copse of maples? Well, that is a Canadian home. From its high green pedestal it smiles at the great rolling river, in whose wave is mirrored its trembling image, and which so gently comes to expire at its feet; for the happy proprietor of this pretty dwelling loves his great, beautiful river, and has been careful to establish his home on its banks. Sometimes, when necessity obliges him to go away, he is always homesick, because he must listen to its grand voice, and contemplate its wooded islands and distant shores; he must caress with his eyes its waters, sometimes calm, sometimes foaming and turbulent. A stranger who is not familiar with the _habitant_ of our country, and who imagines that there is an affinity to his ancestor—the peasant of old France—is much mistaken. More enlightened, and, above all, more religious, he is far from sharing his precarious condition. The former is, in comparison, a veritable prince; perfectly independent on his sixty or eighty arpents of land, surrounded by a cedar enclosure, he is furnished with everything necessary for an honest and comfortable subsistence.

Let us now peep under this roof, whose exterior is so attractive. I should like to sketch it just as I’ve seen it so frequently. On entering the _tambour_, or passage-way, two pails of fresh water, standing on a wooden bench, and a tin cup hanging against the wall, hospitably invite you to quench your thirst. In an inner room the mother of the family is quietly spinning near the window, while the soup is boiling on the stove. A calico cape, a blue skirt of domestic manufacture, a _caline_[40] neatly fixed on her head, completes her toilet. The baby sleeps in its cradle at her side; from time to time she smiles at its bright little face, as fresh as a rose, peeping out from the quilt, whose triangular patches of the brightest colors are ingeniously distributed over it. In a corner of the room the eldest daughter sits on a chest, singing merrily, while she works at her loom; quickly and skilfully the shuttle flies between her hands; she makes in a day several measures of cloth, which she will use next year to make into garments. In another corner stands the huge bed, with its white and blue counterpane, and at its head a crucifix surrounded with pictures. That little branch of withered fir above the cross is the blessed palm. Two or three barefooted little urchins are playing on the floor, harnessing up a dog. The father, bending over the stove, gravely lights his pipe with a firebrand. He is accoutred in a red woollen cap, vest and pants of a grayish material, and rough, heavy boots. After each meal he must “take a smoke” before going out to plough or to thresh in the barn. There is an air of thrift and comfort about the house; the voices of the children, the songs of the young girl, with her spinning-wheel accompaniment, the appearance of health and happiness written on their faces, tell of the peace and serenity of their lives.

If ever, in travelling through this country, you are overtaken by a snowstorm or severe cold, go and knock without fear at the door of the Canadian cottager, and you will be received with that warmth and cordiality which their ancestors have transmitted to them as a souvenir and a relic of the Old Country; for this antique French hospitality, which can scarcely be found now in certain parts of France, seems to have taken refuge under the roof of the Canadian _habitant_. With his language and religion, he has piously preserved many of his old habits and customs. The traveller who rested under his roof a century ago would to-day find the same manners and characteristics.

It is in the parish of the Rivière Ouelle, in the bosom of one of these good Canadian families, that we find again our missionary and his companions. All the family, eager to hear the extraordinary adventures of the young officer, had gathered round him. He was a young man, from twenty to twenty-five years of age, with fine, delicate features; his dark wavy hair fell over and partially shaded his high forehead, and his proud glance revealed the loyalty of the French soldier; but an extreme pallor, consequent on the fatigue and privations he had undergone, had left a touching and melancholy expression on his face, while his refined and finished manners told of an equally finished and careful education.

IV.—THE SILHOUETTE.

“More than a month ago,” said the young officer, “I left the country of the Abnakis, accompanied by my father, a soldier, and an Indian guide. We were bearing very important dispatches to the governor of the colony. We travelled along through the forest for several days without any accident, when, one evening, overcome with fatigue, we lit a fire and camped for the night near an Indian cemetery. According to the custom of the savages, every corpse was wrapped in a shroud of coarse bark, and placed high above the ground on four stakes. Bows and arrows, tomahawks, and some ears of maize were hung against these rude graves, and shook and rattled as the wind passed over them. Our own savage was seated just in front of me, on the half-decayed trunk of a pine-tree that had fallen to the ground, and seemed half buried in profound meditation. The fitful flames of the fire threw a weird light over his gigantic frame. An Indian might readily have compared him to one of the superb maples of our forest, had he been able at the same time to have united with it the cunning of the serpent and the agility of the elk. His height was increased by a quantity of black, red, and white feathers tied with his hair on the top of his head. His ferocious features, piercing black eyes, his tomahawk and long knife, half concealed by the trophy of scalps which hung from his belt, gave him a wild and sanguinary appearance. The night was dark and bitter cold. The low and unequal arch formed by the interlacing branches of the trees, and illuminated by the flickering light of our pine-wood fire, seemed like a vast cavern, and the old trunks of the rotten trees, which were buried in the snow, looked like the corpses of giants strewn around. The birches, covered with their white bark, seemed like wandering phantoms in the midst of this _débris_, and the dull rumbling of the distant torrent, and the wind moaning and whistling through the leafless branches, completed the weird funereal aspect of the place. Any one slightly superstitious could easily believe he heard the sighing spirits of the Indian warriors who lay buried so near us. In spite of myself, a shiver of horror ran through my veins. Here, in the midst of all this grim rubbish, where every rock and tree was transformed by the shadows into as many spectres watching his movements; our audacious savage appeared as grave and tranquil as if he had been in his own cabin.

“‘Comrade,’ said I to him, ‘do you think we need fear any danger still from those Iroquois whose trail we discovered yesterday?’

“‘Has my brother already forgotten that we found it again this morning?’

“‘But there were only two,’ said I.

“‘ Yes; but an Iroquois can very quickly communicate with his comrades.’

“‘But these were not on the war-path; they were hunting an elk.’

“‘Yes; but the snow is deep, and they could soon kill him without much fatigue, and then—’

“‘Well!’

“‘And then, their hunger once satisfied—’

“‘Finish!’

“‘I say they might, perhaps, amuse themselves by hunting the whiteskins.’

“‘But the whites are at peace with the Iroquois.’

“‘The Iroquois never bury but half of the war-hatchet; and, besides, they have raised the tomahawk against the warriors of my tribe, and if they discover the track of an Abnakis among yours—’

“‘You think, then, that they might pursue us? Perhaps it would be more prudent to extinguish our fire.’

“‘Does not my brother hear the howling of the wolves? If he prefers being devoured by them to receiving the arrow of an Iroquois, he can extinguish it.’

“The words of our guide were not very reassuring, but I was so overcome with fatigue that, in spite of the evident danger to which we were exposed, I fell asleep. But my sleep was filled with the wildest dreams. The dark shadow of our guide, that I saw as I went to sleep, seemed to lengthen and rise behind him, black and threatening, like a spectre. The dead in the cemetery, shaking the snow from their shrouds of bark, descended from their sepulchres, and bent towards me. I fancied I heard the gritting of their teeth as the wind rushed through the trees and the dry branches cracked and snapped. I awoke with a start. Our guide, leaning against a post of one of the graves, was still before me, and from his heavy and regular breathing I knew that he slept profoundly. I fancied I saw just above him, peeping over the grave against which he was leaning, a dark form and two fixed and flaming eyes. My imagination is excited by my fantastic dreams, thought I, and tried to compose myself to sleep again. I remained a long time with my eyes half shut, in that state of semi-somnolence, half watching, half sleeping, my stupefied faculties scarcely able to discern the objects around. And yet the dark shadow seemed to move slightly, and to lean more and more towards our savage, who was still in a deep sleep. At that moment the fire suddenly blazed up, and I saw distinctly the figure of an Indian. He held a long knife between his teeth, and, with dilated eyes fixed on his enemy, he approached still nearer to assure himself that he slept. Then a diabolical smile lit up his face, and, seizing his knife, he brandished it an instant in aiming a blow at the heart of his victim. The blade flashed in the firelight. At the same moment a terrible cry rang out, and the two savages rolled together in the snow. The flash of the steel, in awakening our guide, had also betrayed his enemy. Thus my horrible nightmare terminated in a more horrible reality. I had hastily seized my gun, but dared not fire, lest I should kill or wound our guide. It was a death-fight between them. The snow, streaked with blood, blew up around them like a cloud of dust. A hatchet glittered in the air, then a dull, heavy sound, followed by the cracking of bones. The victory was decided. A gurgling sound escaped from the victim—it was the death-rattle! Holding in one hand a bloody scalp, the conqueror, with a smile, raised himself proudly. At that instant a shot was heard. A ball struck him in the breast, and our savage, for it was he, fell dead in front of the fire. Taking aim with my gun, and sending a ball in the direction whence the shot had come, and where I saw another shadow gliding among the trees, was for me the work of an instant. The Indian, with a terrible death-cry, described an arch in the air with his body, and fell dead to the ground. The tragedy was finished; our savage was avenged, but we had no longer a guide. I then thought of our conversation that evening, and how his apprehensions of the two savages whom we had tracked in the morning had been so fearfully realized.”

V.—DEATH.

“Abandoned, without a guide, in the midst of interminable forests, we were in a state of extreme perplexity. We hesitated a long time whether to proceed on our route or retrace our steps. The danger of falling into the hands of the Iroquois, who infested that part of the country, decided us to continue our journey.

“The only means left of finding our way was a little compass which my father had fortunately brought along. Several days later found us still on our painful march, in the midst of a violent snowstorm. It was a veritable tempest; the snow fell so thick and fast we could scarcely see two feet in advance.

“In every direction we heard the trees splitting and falling to the ground. We were in great danger of being crushed. My father was struck by a branch, which completely buried him under the snow, and we had great difficulty in extricating him. When we raised him up, he found that the chain around his neck which held the compass was broken, and the compass had disappeared. We searched long and carefully, but in vain—it could not be found. In falling, my father received a severe injury on the head. While dressing the wound, which bled freely, I could not restrain my tears on seeing this old man, with his white hair, enduring intense suffering with so much fortitude, and displaying such calmness in the midst of an agony which he tried to conceal from me by an outward show of confidence. ‘My son,’ said he, when he saw my tears, ‘remember that you are a soldier. If death comes, it will find us on the roll of honor. It is well to die a martyr to duty; besides, nothing happens except by the will of God. Let us submit at once with courage and resignation to whatever he pleases to send.’

“We marched two days longer in an intense cold, and then my father could go no further. The cold had poisoned the wound in his head, and a violent fever came on. To crown our misfortunes, our little store of matches had become damp, and it was impossible to kindle a fire. Then all hope abandoned me, and, not having been able to kill any game for the past day or two, we had been almost entirely without food; then, in spite of all my warning and advice, the soldier who accompanied us, exhausted by fatigue and hunger, and utterly discouraged, went to sleep in the snow, and, when I found him some time after, he was dead—frozen stiff! Overcome by the most inexpressible grief, I remained on my knees by the side of my dying father. Several times he besought me to abandon him, and escape death. When he felt his last hour approaching, he said, handing me an _Imitation of Christ_ which he held in his hand, ‘My son, read to me.’ I took the book, and opened it at chance, reading between my sobs: ‘Make now friends near God, in order that, after leaving this life, they will receive you in the eternal tabernacles.’[41] ‘Conduct yourself on earth as a traveller and a stranger who has no interest in the affairs of the world. Keep your heart free and raised toward God, because here below you have no substantial dwelling-place. You should address to heaven every day your prayers, your sighs, and your tears, in order that, after this life, your soul will be able to pass happily into the bosom of our Lord.’

“I replaced the book in his hand. A smile of immortal hope passed over his countenance, for these lines were a _résumé_ of his entire life. After a moment’s silence, he said: ‘My son, when I shall be no more, take this little gold cross which hangs around my neck, and which was given to me by your mother on the day of your birth’—there was a moment’s silence. A shade of profound sadness passed over his face, and, taking my two hands in his, he added, ‘Your poor mother!—oh! if you live to see her again, tell her I died thinking of God and of her.’ Then, making a supreme effort to put aside this painful thought, at which he feared his courage might fail him, he continued: ‘Always wear this little cross in remembrance of your father. It will teach you to be faithful to your God, and to your country. Come nearer, my son, that I may bless you, for I feel that I am dying.’ And with his faltering hand he made the sign of the cross on my forehead.”

At these words the young man stopped. Large tears rolled down his cheeks as he pressed to his lips the little gold cross which hung on his breast. All around him remained silent, in respect to his noble grief, but their tears flowed with his. Sorrow is so touching in youth! We cannot see, without a pang, the bright flowers which adorn it wither and fade away. The missionary was the first to break the silence. “My son,” said he, addressing the young man, “your tears are legitimate, for the cherished being for whom you weep is worthy of them; but do not weep as those who have no hope. He whom you have lost now enjoys on high the recompense promised to a life devoted to sacrifice and duty.”

“But, oh! my father, if only you could have been with him to console his last moments!”

After a pause, he continued: “I pressed my father for the last time in my arms, and imprinted a last kiss on his pale, cold forehead. I thought at this moment he was dying. He remained immovable, his eyes turned towards heaven, when suddenly, as if by inspiration from above, he said, ‘I wish you to make a vow that, if you succeed in escaping with your life, you will place a picture in the first church which you reach on the road.’ I promised to do as he desired. Some moments after, a few vague and incoherent words escaped his lips, and all was over.”

VI.—THE VISION.

“How long I remained on my knees beside my father’s corpse I cannot tell. I was so utterly overwhelmed by grief and sorrow that I was plunged in a kind of lethargy which rendered my soul insensible to everything. Death, the loneliness of the forest, terrified me no longer; for solitude dwelt in my heart, where so short a time before all was bright and joyous. Dreams, illusions—those flowers of life that I have seen fall leaf by leaf, to be swept away by the storm; glory, happiness, the future—those angels of the heart who so lately entranced my soul with their mysterious music, had all departed, veiling with their drooping wings their sorrowful faces. All had gone—all. Nothing remained but a void, a horrible nothingness. But one feeble star watched yet in the midst of my night. The faint lamp of the inner sanctuary was not entirely extinguished; there came a ray from its expiring flame. Remembering the vow that my dying father had desired me to make, I invoked with a sort of desperation the Blessed Virgin, Comfortress of the Afflicted; and behold, suddenly—but can I tell what took place within me? Human words are inadequate to unveil the mysteries of God. I cannot explain, human ears cannot comprehend—yes, suddenly, in the midst of my darkness, my soul trembled, and a something seemed to pass through me like an impetuous wind, and my soul was carried over the troubled waters; then, rapid as the lightning that flashes through the storm-cloud, a light appeared in the darkness, in this chaos—a dazzling, superhuman light—and the tempest was appeased within me; a wondrous calm had entered my soul, and the divine light penetrated its most remote recesses and imparted a delicious tranquillity and peace, but such a peace as surpasses all comprehension; and through my closed eyelids I saw that a great light was before me. O my God! dare I tell what happened then? Would it not be profane to weaken thus the marvels of your power! I felt that something extraordinary, something supernatural, was taking place around me, and a mysterious emotion, a holy terror, that every mortal should feel at the approach of a Divine Being seized me. Like Moses, my soul said within me, ‘I will go and I will see this grand vision’; and my eyes opened, and I saw—it was not a dream—it was a reality, a miracle, from the right hand of the Most High. No; the eye of man has never seen, nor his ear heard, what was permitted that I should see and hear then. In the midst of a cloud of dazzling light, the Queen of heaven appeared, holding in her arms the divine Child. The ineffable splendor that enveloped her form was so brilliant that in comparison the sun is only a dim star; but this brilliancy, far from fatiguing the sight, refreshed it deliciously. Twelve stars formed her crown, the colors of the rainbow tinged her robes, while under her feet were clouds which reflected the colors of aurora and the setting sun, and behind their golden fringing myriads of angels were smiling and singing hymns which have no echo here below. And what I saw and heard was so real that all that I had heard and seen heretofore seemed like a vague, dark dream of night. The divine Virgin looked at me with an immortal smile, which was reflected no doubt from the lips of her divine Child on the day of his birth.

“She said to me: ‘Here I am, my son. I come because you called me. The help that I sent you is very near. Remember, my son—’ But, oh! what was I going to say! I am only permitted to reveal a few words of this celestial conversation, which relate to my deliverance. The rest is a secret between God and myself—sufficient to say these words have fixed my destiny.

“For a long time she spoke to me, and my soul, ravished, absorbed, transfigured, listened in unspeakable ecstasy to the divine harmony of her voice. It will vibrate eternally in my soul, and the torrents of tears that poured from my eyes were as refreshing as dear to my heart. At last the mysterious vision gradually vanished. Clouds, figures, angels, light, all had disappeared, and yet my soul invoked the celestial vision by ineffable sighs and moans.

“When at last I turned round, the help which had been miraculously promised to me had arrived. ‘Twas then, reverend father, that I perceived you near me. You know the rest.”

The next day there was great excitement among the little population of the neighborhood. The news of the miracle had spread rapidly, and a pious and devout crowd had gathered in the modest little church to assist at a solemn Mass celebrated by the holy missionary. More than one pitying look was turned during the ceremony toward the young officer, who knelt near the sanctuary, praying with an angelic fervor.

It is said that some time after, in another country, far, far beyond the sea, a young officer who had miraculously escaped death abandoned a brilliant future, and consecrated himself to God in a cloister. Was it he? No one has ever known positively.

If ever you pass by the old church of the Rivière Ouelle, don’t forget to stop a moment. You will see hanging in one of the side-chapels the antique _ex-voto_ which recalls the souvenir of this miraculous event. The picture has no intrinsic value; but it is an old, old relic, that one loves to see, for it tells a thrilling story. Often travellers who come from distant lands stop before this dusty old picture, struck by the strange scene it represents. Oftentimes pious mothers stand before it with their little ones, and relate to them the wondrous legend; for the souvenir of this thrilling story is still vivid throughout the country.

THE RECORDS OF A RUIN.

THE Palais Royal derives its chief historical interest from its association with the memory of Cardinal Richelieu. When it first attracted his notice by its situation, at once delightful and convenient, surrounded by richly planted gardens, and close to the Louvre and the then fashionable thoroughfare of the city, it was the property and residence of the Marquis d’Estrée. From this nobleman Richelieu purchased it in 1624. Soon, however, the elegant mansion, which had been abundantly spacious for the lords of d’Estrée with their innumerable retainers and long corteges of valets of every degree in the lengthy domestic hierarchy of those days, became too small for the growing importance of Louis XIII.’s magnificent minister.

Richelieu fell a conquest to the building and decorating mania prevalent at that period amongst princes and princely prelates; he threw down the walls of the Hôtel d’Estrée at the north end, pushed the house into the gardens, drove the gardens further out into the open space beyond, and pierced a way through into the street which was henceforth to be honored by bearing his name. Philippe of Champagne was invited to paint the ceilings and decorate the walls of the stupendous eminence whose cipher gleamed over all the doors, sometimes engrained in gold letters upon marble, sometimes curiously interlaced with emblematic figures, or emblazoned in the Richelieu arms. When all was complete, it was necessary to rechristen the dwelling which had been so enlarged and renovated as to be virtually a new edifice—the mansion which had been metamorphosed into a palace. After much serious consultation, and many times changing his mind, Richelieu decided that it should be called Palais Cardinal. A slab bearing these two words in large gold letters was accordingly placed over the gates of the _ci-devant_ Hôtel d’Estrée. The next morning all Paris beheld it, and burst out laughing. The _beaux-esprits_ of the sarcastic capital, with Balzac at their head, rushed in a body to the square in front of the new palace, and woke the echoes of the sleeping aristocratic gardens with their uproarious mirth; there they stood, armed with grammars, lexicons of divers tongues, and pens and portfolios, discussing with much solemnity the two inoffensive nouns on the marble slab; every now and then a wag from the crowd raising shouts of laughter by some ludicrous explanation of his own. Presently the gates were swung apart, and out drove the cardinal, and beheld the spectacle, so eminently gratifying to his sensitive pride, of “all Paris laughing at him.”

The scoffers gathered round his equipage, books and pen in hand, imploring him to enlighten their ignorance from the depths of his unfathomable erudition; how were they to parse the name of his eminence’s house? _Palais_ and _Cardinal_—it was most perplexing to their weak intelligence. The conjunction was a turning upside down of all established rules—a topsy-turvy of principles and of all known precedents.

Separately, the two nouns were comprehensible, but joined together, what were they? Was it, mayhap, Greek or Latin construction, or was it taken from the legends of old Gaul French, or a specimen of some new and unknown tongue evolved from the universal genius of the minister? Richelieu, writhing under the pitiless hilarity of the tormentors, lent a deaf ear to them, and rode forth in scornful taciturnity; petitions from imaginary savants, who professed to be laboring in the mazes of a new grammar, flowed in the following days upon the unlucky author of the ungrammatical inscription, beseeching him to let the ignorant world into the secret of its proper parsing; the enemies of the cardinal, in fact, made capital out of his vanity to their heart’s content, but Richelieu’s pride was a match for them. The only answer he condescended to make was to point to the inscription over the Hôtel Dieu. The precedent was no doubt unanswerable; but vanity remained, nevertheless, more prominent in the imitation than either sense or grammar. It held its place, however, in spite of all attempts to laugh it down. The splendors of the Palais Cardinal have been enlarged upon in most of the memoirs and chronicles of that time. Richelieu, while busy making and mending quarrels between the king and the queen-mother, Marie de Medicis, governing France, and pulling the strings of all the governments of Europe, found time to devote to his hobby of enriching and beautifying his palace, overseeing in its most minute details the architectural part of the work, and directing the research after objects of art far and near for its adornment. While he was thus variously occupied, a knot of literary men were in the habit of meeting quietly once a week close to his palace gates, to read aloud their own works, and discuss the state of letters, whose horizon was just then beginning to brighten under the rising sun of the great Corneille. The meetings were held at the house of one of the circle; they were quite unostentatious, and aspired to no notoriety beyond their own circle; the members sought only to encourage each other by honest criticism, and by the emulation that comes of working in common towards a common end. Soon, however, these weekly gatherings became talked about; courtiers heard of them, and begged to be allowed to assist at them. By-and-by Richelieu came to hear of them; his curiosity was excited, first from a political point of view—he feared the so-called _réunions littéraires_ might be a covert for something more dangerous; he was not slow, however, to find out his mistake, and to detect in the modest literary club a germ of future greatness; he expressed his desire that the meetings should be held henceforth at the Palais Cardinal, and under his immediate auspices. The members protested; they were not worthy of so distinguished an honor, etc.; but Richelieu assured them that he saw in their modest labors the promised fulfilment of his long-cherished desire “to raise the French language from the ranks of barbarous tongues, and to cleanse it from the impurities which it had contracted in the mouth of the people and on the lips of courtiers.” The little band of writers yielded reluctantly to the pompous summons so flatteringly sent forth against their independence, and the Académie Française was founded. Louis XIII. gave it letters-patent, and became its chief patron, while Richelieu was named President. The number of academicians was limited to forty. Amongst the great and gifted men who figure at the birth of this modern Areopagus, destined to be glorified in its after-career by so many brilliant members, Pierre Corneille stands out conspicuous. The young poet found in Richelieu a kind and munificent patron, until he had the ill-luck to wound his vanity in one of its most vulnerable points. Not content with being a potentate, a warrior, a financier, and innumerable other things besides, the insatiable cardinal aspired to being a poet—a disastrous form of ambition which gave a cruel handle to his enemies, and furnished them with many a shaft of ridicule wherewith to pierce his thin-skinned susceptibilities. Richelieu, however, pursued his way in serene self-confidence, despising the ignorance and jealousy of the vulgar herd, and periodically bringing forth the offspring of his genius in the shape of plays and poems. One set of verses with which he was particularly satisfied he handed in MS. to Corneille, desiring to secure his approval before launching them on the sea of public criticism, and modestly requesting the young poet to overlook them and make any alteration that he thought advisable. Corneille had not graduated long enough in the school of courtiers to know what this flattering request was worth, so he set about complying with it conscientiously, pruning and altering with his fine critical pen as it ran along the course of the ministerial poem. Richelieu’s amazement on beholding his masterpiece thus audaciously overhauled was only equalled by his indignation. Corneille, instead of falling on his knees and crying _peccavi_ when he saw his mistake, proceeded with infantine _naïveté_ to argue the case with the wrathful poet, and prove to him that every correction had been called for by some glaring fault. This did not mend matters. Such insane honesty met with the fate it deserved—the fate that from time immemorial it has met with in similar circumstances. The scene between Gil Blas and the bishop was enacted in the library of the Palais Cardinal between Corneille and Richelieu, and certainly Gil Bias was not more astonished by the effect of his candid criticism on the bishop’s long-winded sermon than was the young academician by the thunderbolt which fell from his patron’s brow on perusing his MS. revised and corrected. He was dismissed peremptorily, and withdrew cursing his own stupidity, and vowing that never again would he be entrapped into the folly of believing in the common sense of a patron. Shortly after this mishap, while wandering about in listless pursuit of an object at Rouen, his native place, he fell in accidentally with a gentleman who had read his first poetic efforts, and discerned through their faults and trammels the promise of true genius that lay beneath. “Why do you waste and hamper your talent in the threadbare conventionalities of French art?” inquired M. de Chalan. “You want a higher and a wider scope; read Guillen de Castro, and there you will find a subject worthy of you, and which will bring out your powers with a fire and force unsuspected by yourself.”

“Unfortunately, I am not acquainted with Spanish,” replied the young man.

“But I am,” returned M. de Chalan, “and, if you like, I will teach it to you.”

Corneille, having nothing else to do, accepted the proposal, and to this chance circumstance the world apparently owes _The Cid_. That masterly composition came upon the dramatic world of France—hitherto fed on threadbare conventionalities, as de Chalan had well said—like a revelation, and raised such a tempest of senseless vituperation and malignant opposition as has no parallel in the history of literary cyclones. Richelieu, who was far too good a judge not to see the rare merits of the poem, had not the magnanimity to proclaim his opinion, and thus quell the storm, but fell in with the rioters, and was one of the loudest in crying down the new tragedy. He could not forgive the young poet who, without his patronage, nay, in spite of his own disgrace, had succeeded in climbing to the topmost round of the ladder. Corneille’s star rose steady and clear above the stormy waters, and he lived to see it shine out in glorious lustre through the clouds of envy and hostile criticism. His career was one of unparalleled triumph, till the appearance of his last work, _Pertharite_, written in 1653. It was played on the boards of the Palais Cardinal theatre, that had echoed to so many of his previous triumphs, and was received with a coldness that was equivalent to condemnation. Corneille saw in this isolated defeat the ruin of his poetic fame; he became possessed by a morbid despair, flung away his lyre, and gave up the theatre in disgust. During the interval of depression that followed this fancied humiliation, he devoted himself to the translation of Thomas à Kempis’ _The Imitation of Christ_, sacrificing, as he said himself, “his own reputation to the glory of a sovereign author.”

The Palais Cardinal, during Richelieu’s multifarious reign, was the theatre of many boisterous scenes, dark intrigues, and events otherwise important than these literary skirmishes that occasionally engage the thoughts of ambitious statesmen. Its propinquity to the Louvre enabled him to keep his lynx eyes on the busy hive of friends, foes, and tools who gathered round the king; to frustrate the petty plots of courtiers; and forestall the schemes of faction by his ubiquitous presence. Nor are comic chapters lacking in the annals of the Palais Cardinal at this period. One related by the sprightly Duchesse de Chevreuse, in a letter to Mme. de Motteville, is grotesque enough to be worth recording, as characteristic of the cardinal and the court. Richelieu, it was said, had dared to raise his eyes to the queen, then in the full bloom of her youth and beauty. As might be expected, the unwarrantable presumption inspired Anne of Austria with no gentler feeling than contempt, not unmixed with disgust. She gathered up her purple robes, as she might have done at the touch of a viper, and shook them, and passed on with a shudder and a shrug. But her volatile friend, Mme. de Chevreuse, whose _rôle_ was fun at any price, thought the cardinal’s love too good a joke not to be turned to account. She proposed playing him a trick which would have the double advantage of giving herself and her royal mistress an hour’s good fun, and of making Richelieu, whom she hated with a woman’s inventive hate, appear thoroughly ridiculous. “Let me tell him from myself,” she entreated, “that your majesty is only inexorable because you do not believe in the sincerity of his love; but that, if he can give you proof of it, you are open to conviction. I will propose that he come here by the private way, dressed as a harlequin, and dance the saraband before you one of these evenings, assuring him, if he does this, you will believe in the reality of his protestations.” Anne was young, her life had not much sunshine in its splendor, and the demon of frolic which so madly possessed her friend was not without its power over her. She consented that the outrageous joke should be played off on her gloomy swain. The duchess accordingly informed him that the queen was passionately fond of the saraband, and had often expressed a desire to see it danced by one whose dignified deportment and elastic figure were so admirably adapted to bring out the peculiar characteristics of the spirited and stately dance, and that nothing would gratify and flatter her more than to see his eminence yield to this fancy. It was necessary, she added, that he should be dressed as a harlequin, in order to bring out in all their perfection the picturesque points of the dance. Richelieu bit at this outlandish bait, and it was agreed on a given night he would roam to the Louvre, and disport himself in the aforesaid manner for the edification of the queen, he being alone in one room, while her majesty looked on at the performance from behind a screen in an adjoining one; a musician, concealed also from view, was to accompany the performance on the violin. The duchess, who had not bargained for her own share in the sport, took care not to be deprived of it, but stood beside the queen, peeping through the screen, while the haughty statesman, bedizened in the variegated costume of harlequin, “with bells on his fingers, and bells on his toes,” and jingling from his comical fool’s cap, tripped it on the light fantastic toe. Mme. de Chevreuse describes the scene with the mischievous glee of a schoolboy: herself and the queen squeezing each other’s hands, and terrified lest one explosive burst should betray them and suddenly cut short the performance; the musician convulsed in another corner, scratching away frantically at his fiddle to drown the irrepressible laughter of the trio; while Richelieu, the proud, the grave, the vindictive and all-powerful Richelieu, capered backwards and forwards on the polished floor, snapping his fingers at each rapid _pirouette_, stamping his heel and pointing his toe as the figures of the saraband demanded. The performance over, he donned his cloak, and made his way back discreetly to the Palais Cardinal. No time was lost in recapitulating the farce to the court, and the merriment that it provoked may be readily imagined. But who might laugh with impunity at Richelieu? The true motive of the unseemly burlesque to which he had lent himself was soon made known to the hero, and terrible was the vengeance that awaited its authors. He bided awhile, and then began that series of calumnies and persecutions that poisoned so many years of the young queen’s life. Richelieu had insinuated himself into the confidence of Louis XIII., and his influence over him was boundless. This tremendous weapon he used against the queen with cruel ingenuity. He contrived to implicate her in the odious and diabolical conspiracy of the arch-traitor de Chalais; accused her of having plotted to dethrone and murder the king, with a view to putting Gaston d’Orléans, his brother, on the throne, and marrying him. When Louis XIII. brutally challenged his wife to vindicate herself from the twofold criminal charge, she replied, with _spirituelle_ disdain: “I had too little to gain by the exchange.” It is more than probable that Louis never seriously suspected Anne of Austria of having had any share in the guilt laid to her charge by Richelieu; but the calumny did its work efficiently in another way: it cut at the root of her affection for her husband and of his trust in her—it chilled and alienated them for years. The Duchesse de Chevreuse, accused, with some show of truth, of having conspired with Gaston d’Orléans to dethrone the king, was exiled from France. Richelieu followed up the advantage of his first attack by accusing the queen of keeping up a correspondence with the enemies of the state. Anne, too proud to justify herself, imprudently paraded her contempt for Richelieu’s malevolent intrigues by openly and on every occasion showing her love for her own family, at that time at war with France; expressions full of the warmth of natural affection were made a handle of by her enemies, construed into treason against the king and the state. The birth of Louis XIV. (1638) brought about a partial reconciliation between her and the husband who had insulted and treated her with systematic neglect. But Richelieu’s sway remained unshaken to the end. It was entirely an intellectual sway; the heart had no share in it on either side. The minister hated the king, and the king hated the minister; their natures were essentially antagonistic, and mutual interest alone held them together. Louis, hearing that he was about to be freed from the bondage under which he had chafed so long—that the summons had come for Richelieu—went in haste to the Palais Cardinal to receive the adieux of the dying minister. The interview between them was short and utterly devoid of pathos; no shade of tenderness had entered into the bond that was about to be dissolved. The breaking up of it was simply a matter of business. The king left the death-chamber of the man to whom he owed all the glory of his reign, without a tear in his eye or a passing emotion in his heart, and paced the adjoining room with a steady step and satisfied air, while a smile, amounting at intervals to a suppressed laugh, was visible on his features. When all was over, and the signal came forth that Richelieu was no more, he exclaimed tranquilly: “_Voilà un grand politique de mort!_”[42] (1642.) A few months later, he himself had joined the great politician in another world.

Richelieu, whose more than royal munificence of state had roused the jealous susceptibilities of the king, atoned for it by bequeathing his beautiful palace, with its accumulated treasures of art and industry, to his unthankful master. Anne of Austria inaugurated her reign as regent by taking up her abode under the roof of the man who had been to the last day of his life her implacable enemy. Immediately after the death of Louis XIII., she came to the Palais Cardinal with the little king and his brother, the Duc d’Anjou. The theatre on which Richelieu had lavished so much taste and wealth was included in the bequest, though he had often expressed his intention of presenting it to the nation, and endowing it for the benefit of rising dramatic artists.

Notwithstanding that Anne of Austria had good reason to execrate the cardinal for his injustice and malignity to herself personally, she did full honor to his merits as a statesman; and years after his death, when at the zenith of her popularity as regent, she said once, looking up at a portrait of Richelieu which hung in the state-saloon of the Palais Cardinal: “Were that man alive now, he would be more powerful than ever.” It was a generous and exhaustive tribute to the memory of those services which had consolidated the monarchy in France, and made her own position what it was.

The name of Palais Cardinal, which, despite its equivocal grammar, was appropriate while Richelieu inhabited it, ceased to be so when it passed into the possession of the crown. Anne was advised to change it, but refused to do so, at the solicitation of the Duchesse d’Aiguillon, who besought her to retain a name which so honorably associated Richelieu with the glorious reign of Louis XIII. Public opinion, however, prevailed before long, and the palace was henceforth by common consent designated as the Palais Royal. With its new name began a new era in its annals.