Chapter XXXII: Dublin at last 565 (12)

_Judge._ _It is a very unlucky combination for you_ that these
balls, which went, you say, from the same pistol, should have taken
two different directions.

_Prisoner._ I can’t dispute about the various combinations of
fire-arms--professional persons will be heard.

_Judge._ According to your statement, your wife said to you, ‘My
poor husband, take your pistols.’

_Prisoner._ She did.

_Judge._ In a manner quite distinct?

_Prisoner._ Yes.

_Judge_. So distinct that you did not fancy she was hit?

_Prisoner._ Yes; that is the fact.

_Judge._ _Here, again, is an impossibility_; and nothing is more
precise than the declaration of the medical men. They affirm that
your wife could not have spoken--their report is unanimous.

_Prisoner._ I can only oppose to it quite contrary opinions from
professional men, likewise: you must hear them.

_Judge._ What did your wife do next?

* * * * *

_Judge._ You deny the statements of the witnesses (they related to
Peytel’s demeanour and behaviour, which the judge wishes to show
were very unusual;--and what if they were?). Here, however, are
some mute witnesses, whose testimony you will not perhaps refuse.
Near Louis Rey’s body was found a horse-cloth, a pistol, and a
whip.... Your domestic must have had this cloth upon him when he
went to assassinate you: it was wet and heavy. An assassin
disencumbers himself of anything that is likely to impede him,
especially when he is going to struggle with a man as young as
himself.

_Prisoner._ My servant had, I believe, this covering on his body;
it might be useful to him to keep the priming of his pistol dry.

The president caused the cloth to be opened, and showed that there
was no hook, or tie, by which it could be held together; and that
Rey must have held it with one hand, and, in the other, his whip,
and the pistol with which he intended to commit the crime; which
was impossible.

_Prisoner._ These are only conjectures.

And what conjectures, my God! upon which to take away the life of a man. Jeffreys, or Fouquier Tinville, could scarcely have dared to make such. Such prejudice, such bitter persecution, such priming of the jury, such monstrous assumptions and unreason--fancy them coming from an impartial judge! The man is worse than the public accuser.

‘Rey,’ says the judge, ‘could not have committed the murder, _because he had no money in his pocket, to fly, in case of failure_.’ And what is the precise sum that his lordship thinks necessary for a gentleman to have, before he makes such an attempt? Are the men who murder for money usually in possession of a certain independence before they begin? How much money was Rey,--a servant, who loved wine and women, had been stopping at a score of inns on the road, and had, probably, an annual income of four hundred francs,--how much money was Rey likely to have?

_‘Your servant had to assassinate two persons._’ This I have mentioned before. Why had he to assassinate two persons,[11] when one was enough? If he had killed Peytel, could he not have seized and gagged his wife immediately?

_‘Your domestic ran straight forward, instead of taking to the woods, by the side of the road: this is very unlikely._’ How does his worship know? Can any judge, however enlightened, tell the exact road that a man will take, who has just missed a _coup_ of murder, and is pursued by a man who is firing pistols at him? And has a judge a right to instruct a jury in this way, as to what they shall, or shall not, believe?

‘You have to run after an active man, who has the start of you; to jump out of a carriage; to take your pistols; and _then_, your hammer. _This is impossible._’ By heavens! does it not make a man’s blood boil, to read such blundering, blood-seeking sophistry? This man, when it suits him, shows that Rey would be slow in his motions; and, when it suits him, declares that Rey ought to be quick; declares, _ex cathedrâ_, what pace Rey should go, and what direction he should take; shows, in a breath, that he must have run faster than Peytel; and then, that he could not run fast, because the cloak clogged him; settles how he is to be dressed when he commits a murder, and what money he is to have in his pocket; gives these impossible suppositions to the jury, and tells them that the previous statements are impossible; and, finally, informs them of the precise manner in which Rey must have stood holding his horse-cloth in one hand, his whip and pistol in the other, when he made the supposed attempt at murder. Now, what is the size of a horse-cloth? Is it as big as a pocket-handkerchief? Is there no possibility that it might hang over one shoulder: that the whip should be held under that very arm? Did you never see a carter so carry it, his hands in his pockets all the while? Is it monstrous, abhorrent to nature, that a man should fire a pistol from under a cloak on a rainy day?--that he should, after firing the shot, be frightened, and run; run straight before him, with the cloak on his shoulders, and the weapon in his hand? Peytel’s story is possible, and very possible; it is almost probable. Allow that Rey had the cloth on, and you allow that he must have been clogged in his motions; that Peytel may have come up with him--felled him with a blow of the hammer; the doctors say that he would have so fallen by one blow--he would have fallen on his face, as he was found: the paper might have been thrust into his breast, and tumbled out as he fell. Circumstances far more impossible have occurred ere this; and men have been hanged for them, who were as innocent of the crime laid to their charge as the judge on the bench who convicted them.

In like manner, Peytel may not have committed the crime charged to him; and Mr. Judge, with his arguments as to possibilities and impossibilities,--Mr. Public Prosecutor, with his romantic narrative and inflammatory harangues to the jury,--may have used all these powers to bring to death an innocent man. From the animus with which the case has been conducted from beginning to end, it was easy to see the result. Here it is, in the words of the provincial paper:--

‘BOURG: _28th October 1839_.

‘The condemned Peytel has just undergone his punishment, which took
place four days before the anniversary of his crime. The terrible
drama of the bridge of Andert, which cost the life of two persons,
has just terminated on the scaffold. Mid-day had just sounded on
the clock of the Palais: the same clock tolled midnight when, on
the 30th of August, his sentence was pronounced.

‘Since the rejection of his appeal in Cassation, on which his
principal hopes were founded, Peytel spoke little of his petition
to the king. The notion of transportation was that which he seemed
to cherish most. However, he made several inquiries from the gaoler
of the prison, when he saw him at meal-times, with regard to the
place of execution, the usual hour, and other details on the
subject. From that period, the words “_Champ de Foire_” (the
fair-field, where the execution was to be held) were frequently
used by him in conversation.

‘Yesterday, the idea that the time had arrived seemed to be more
strongly than ever impressed upon him; especially after the
departure of the curé, who latterly has been with him every day.
The documents connected with the trial had arrived in the morning.
He was ignorant of this circumstance, but sought to discover from
his guardians what they tried to hide from him; and to find out
whether his petition was rejected, and when he was to die.

‘Yesterday, also, he had written to demand the presence of his
counsel, M. Margerand, in order that he might have some
conversation with him, and regulate his affairs, before he----; he
did not write down the word, but left in its place a few points of
the pen.

‘In the evening, whilst he was at supper, he begged earnestly to be
allowed a little wax-candle, to finish what he was writing:
otherwise, he said, _Time might fail_. This was a new, indirect
manner of repeating his ordinary question. As light, up to that
evening, had been refused him, it was thought best to deny him in
this, as in former instances; otherwise his suspicions might have
been confirmed. The keeper refused his demand.

‘This morning, Monday, at nine o’clock, the Greffier of the Assize
Court, in fulfilment of the painful duty which the law imposes upon
him, came to the prison, in company with the curé of Bourg, and
announced to the convict that his petition was rejected, and that
he had only three hours to live. He received this fatal news with a
great deal of calmness, and showed himself to be no more affected
than he had been on the trial. “I am ready; but I wish they had
given me four-and-twenty hours’ notice,”--were all the words he
used.

‘The Greffier now retired, leaving Peytel alone with the curé, who
did not thenceforth quit him. Peytel breakfasted at ten o’clock.

‘At eleven, a picquet of mounted gendarmerie and infantry took
their station upon the place before the prison, where a great
concourse of people had already assembled. An open car was at the
door. Before he went out, Peytel asked the gaoler for a
looking-glass; and having examined his face for a moment, said, “at
least, the inhabitants of Bourg will see that I have not grown
thin.”

‘As twelve o’clock sounded the prison gates opened, an aide
appeared, followed by Peytel leaning on the arm of the curate.
Peytel’s face was pale, he had a long black beard, a blue cap on
his head, and his greatcoat flung over his shoulders, and buttoned
at the neck.

‘He looked about at the place and the crowd; he asked if the
carriage would go at a trot; and on being told that that would be
difficult, he said he would prefer walking, and asked what the road
was. He immediately set out, walking at a firm and rapid pace. He
was not bound at all.

‘An immense crowd of people encumbered the two streets through
which he had to pass to the place of execution. He cast his eyes
alternately upon them and upon the guillotine, which was before
him.

‘Arrived at the foot of the scaffold, Peytel embraced the curé, and
bade him adieu. He then embraced him again; perhaps, for his mother
and sister. He then mounted the steps rapidly, and gave himself
into the hands of the executioner, who removed his coat and cap. He
asked how he was to place himself, and, on a sign being made, he
flung himself briskly on the plank, and stretched his neck. In
another moment he was no more.

‘The crowd, which had been quite silent, retired, profoundly moved
by the sight it had witnessed. As at all executions, there was a
very great number of women present.

‘Under the scaffold there had been, ever since the morning, a
coffin. The family had asked for his remains, and had them
immediately buried, privately: and thus the unfortunate man’s head
escaped the modellers in wax, several of whom had arrived to take
an impression of it.’

Down goes the axe; the poor wretch’s head rolls gasping into the basket; the spectators go home, pondering; and Mr. Executioner and his aids have, in half an hour, removed all traces of the august sacrifice, and of the altar on which it had been performed. Say, Mr. Briefless, do you think that any single person, meditating murder, would be deterred therefrom by beholding this--nay, a thousand more executions? It is not for moral improvement, as I take it, nor for opportunity to make appropriate remarks upon the punishment of crime, that people make a holiday of a killing-day, and leave their homes and occupations to flock and witness the cutting off of a head. Do we crowd to see Mr. Macready in the new tragedy, or Mademoiselle Elssler in her last new ballet and flesh-coloured stockinet pantaloons, out of a pure love of abstract poetry and beauty; or from a strong notion that we shall be excited, in different ways, by the actor and the dancer? And so, as we go to have a meal of fictitious terror at the tragedy, of something more questionable in the ballet, we go for a glut of blood to the execution. The lust is in every man’s nature, more or less. Did you ever witness a wrestling-or boxing-match? The first clatter of the kick on the shins, or the first drawing of blood, makes the stranger shudder a little; but soon the blood is his chief enjoyment, and he thirsts for it with a fierce delight. It is a fine grim pleasure that we have in seeing a man killed; and I make no doubt that the organs of destructiveness must begin to throb and swell as we witness the delightful savage spectacle.

Three or four years back, when Fieschi and Lacenaire were executed, I made attempts to see the execution of both; but was disappointed in both cases. In the first instance, the day for Fieschi’s death was, purposely, kept secret; and he was, if I remember rightly, executed at some remote quarter of the town. But it would have done a philanthropist good to witness the scene which we saw on the morning when his execution did _not_ take place.

It was carnival time, and the rumour had pretty generally been carried abroad that he was to die on that morning. A friend, who accompanied me, came many miles, through the mud and dark, in order to be in at the death. We set out before light, floundering through the muddy Champs Elysées; where, besides, were many other persons floundering, and all bent upon the same errand. We passed by the Concert of Musard, then held in the Rue St. Honoré; and round this, in the wet, a number of coaches were collected. The ball was just up, and a crowd of people, in hideous masquerade, drunk, tired, dirty, dressed in horrible old frippery, and daubed with filthy rouge, were trooping out of the place: tipsy women and men, shrieking, jabbering, gesticulating, as French will do; parties swaggering, staggering forwards, arm in arm, reeling to and fro across the street, and yelling songs in chorus: hundreds of these were bound for the show, and we thought ourselves lucky in finding a vehicle to the execution place, at the Barrière d’Enfer. As we crossed the river and entered the Enfer Street, crowds of students, black workmen, and more drunken devils from more carnival balls, were filling it; and on the grand place there were thousands of these assembled, looking out for Fieschi and his cortège. We waited and waited; but alas! no fun for us that morning: no throat-cutting; no august spectacle of satisfied justice; and the eager spectators were obliged to return, disappointed of their expected breakfast of blood. It would have been a fine scene, that execution, could it but have taken place in the midst of the mad mountebanks and tipsy strumpets who had flocked so far to witness it, wishing to wind up the delights of their carnival by a _bonne-bouche_ of a murder.

The other attempt was equally unfortunate. We arrived too late on the ground to be present at the execution of Lacenaire and his co-mate in murder, Avril. But as we came to the ground (a gloomy round space, within the barrier--three roads lead to it; and, outside, you see the wine-shops and restaurateurs of the barrier looking gay and inviting)--as we came to the ground, we only found, in the midst of it, a little pool of ice, just partially tinged with red. Two or three idle street-boys were dancing and stamping about this pool; and when I asked one of them whether the execution had taken place, he began dancing more madly than ever, and shrieked out with a loud fantastical theatrical voice, ‘Venez tous, Messieurs et Dames, voyez ici le sang du monstre Lacenaire, et de son compagnon le traître Avril,’ or words to that effect; and straightway all the other gamins screamed out the words in chorus, and took hands and danced round the little puddle.

O august Justice, your meal was followed by a pretty appropriate grace! Was any man, who saw the show, deterred, or frightened, or moralised in any way? He had gratified his appetite for blood, and this was all. There is something singularly pleasing, both in the amusement of execution-seeing, and in the results. You are not only delightfully excited at the time, but most pleasingly relaxed afterwards; the mind, which has been wound up painfully until now, becomes quite complacent and easy. There is something agreeable in the misfortunes of others, as the philosopher has told us. Remark what a good breakfast you eat after an execution; how pleasant it is to cut jokes after it, and upon it. This merry pleasant mood is brought on by the blood tonic.

But, for God’s sake, if we are to enjoy this, let us do so in moderation; and let us, at least, be sure of a man’s guilt before we murder him. To kill him, even with the full assurance that he is guilty, is hazardous enough. Who gave you the right to do so?--you, who cry out against suicides as impious and contrary to Christian law? What use is there in killing him? You deter no one else from committing the crime by so doing: you give us, to be sure, half an hour’s pleasant entertainment; but it is a great question whether we derive much moral profit from the sight. If you want to keep a murderer from further inroads upon society, are there not plenty of hulks and prisons, God wot; treadmills, galleys, and houses of correction? Above all, as in the case of Sebastian Peytel and his family, there have been two deaths already: was a third death absolutely necessary? and, taking the fallibility of judges and lawyers into his heart, and remembering the thousand instances of unmerited punishment that have been suffered upon similar and stronger evidence before, can any man declare, positively and upon his oath, that Peytel was guilty, and that this was not _the third murder in the family_?

FRENCH DRAMAS AND MELODRAMAS

There are three kinds of drama in France, which you may subdivide as much as you please.

There is the old classical drama, well-nigh dead, and full time too: old tragedies, in which half a dozen characters appear, and spout sonorous Alexandrines for half a dozen hours. The fair Rachel has been trying to revive this _genre_, and to untomb Racine; but be not alarmed, Racine will never come to life again, and cause audiences to weep as of yore. Madame Rachel can only galvanise the corpse, not revivify it. Ancient French tragedy, red-heeled, patched, and be-periwigged, lies in the grave; and it is only the ghost of it that we see, which the fair Jewess has raised. There are classical comedies in verse, too, wherein the knavish valets, rakish heroes, stolid old guardians, and smart free-spoken serving-women, discourse in Alexandrines as loud as the Horaces or the Cid. An Englishman will seldom reconcile himself to the _ronflement_ of the verses, and the painful recurrence of the rhymes; for my part, I had rather go to Madame Saqui’s, or see Deburan dancing on a rope: his lines are quite as natural and poetical.

Then there is the comedy of the day, of which Monsieur Scribe is the father. Good heavens! with what a number of gay colonels, smart widows, and silly husbands has that gentleman peopled the play-books! How that unfortunate seventh commandment has been maltreated by him and his disciples! You will see four pieces, at the Gymnase, of a night; and so sure as you see them, four husbands shall be wickedly used. When is this joke to cease? Mon Dieu! Play-writers have handled it for about two thousand years, and the public, like a great baby, must have the tale repeated to it over and over again.

Finally, there is the Drama, that great monster which has sprung into life of late years; and which is said, but I don’t believe a word of it, to have Shakespeare for a father. If Mr. Scribe’s plays may be said to be so many ingenious examples how to break one commandment, the _drame_ is a grand and general chaos of them all; nay, several crimes are added, not prohibited in the Decalogue, which was written before dramas were. Of the drama, Victor Hugo and Dumas are the well-known and respectable guardians. Every piece Victor Hugo has written, since _Hernani_, has contained a monster--a delightful monster, saved by one virtue. There is Triboulet, a foolish monster; Lucrèce Borgia, a maternal monster; Mary Tudor, a religious monster; Monsieur Quasimodo, a hump-backed monster; and others that might be named, whose monstrosities we are induced to pardon--nay, admiringly to witness--because they are agreeably mingled with some exquisite display of affection. And, as the great Hugo has one monster to each play, the great Dumas has, ordinarily, half a dozen, to whom murder is nothing; common intrigue, and simple breakage of the before-mentioned commandment, nothing; but who live and move in a vast, delightful complication of crime, that cannot be easily conceived in England, much less described.

When I think over the number of crimes that I have seen Mademoiselle Georges, for instance, commit, I am filled with wonder at her greatness, and the greatness of the poets who have conceived these charming horrors for her. I have seen her make love to, and murder, her sons, in the _Tour de Nesle_. I have seen her poison a company of no less than nine gentlemen, at Ferrara, with an affectionate son in the number; I have seen her, as Madame de Brinvilliers, kill off numbers of respectable relations, in the four first acts; and, at the last, be actually burned at the stake, to which she comes shuddering, ghastly, barefooted, and in a white sheet. Sweet excitement of tender sympathies! Such tragedies are not so good as a real downright execution; but, in point of interest, the next thing to it: with what a number of moral emotions do they fill the breast; with what a hatred for vice, and yet a true pity and respect for that grain of virtue that is to be found in us all: our bloody, daughter-loving Brinvilliers; our warm-hearted, poisonous Lucretia Borgia; above all, what a smart appetite for a cool supper afterwards, at the Café Anglais, when the horrors of the play act as a piquant sauce to the supper!

Or, to speak more seriously, and to come, at last, to the point. After having seen most of the grand dramas which have been produced at Paris for the last half-dozen years, and thinking over all that one has seen,--the fictitious murders, rapes, adulteries, and other crimes, by which one has been interested and excited,--a man may take leave to be heartily ashamed of the manner in which he has spent his time; and of the hideous kind of mental intoxication in which he has permitted himself to indulge.

Nor are simple society outrages the only sort of crime in which the spectator of Paris plays has permitted himself to indulge; he has recreated himself with a deal of blasphemy besides, and has passed many pleasant evenings in beholding religion defiled and ridiculed.

Allusion has been made, in a former paper, to a fashion that lately obtained in France, and which went by the name of Catholic reaction; and as, in this happy country, fashion is everything, we have had not merely Catholic pictures and quasi-religious books, but a number of Catholic plays have been produced, very edifying to the frequenters of the theatres or the Boulevards, who have learned more about religion from these performances than they have acquired, no doubt, in the whole of their lives before. In the course of a very few years we have seen--_The Wandering Jew_, _Belshazzar’s Feast_, _Nebuchadnezzar_, and the _Massacre of the Innocents_, _Joseph and his Brethren_, _The Passage of the Red Sea_, and _The Deluge_.

The great Dumas, like Madame Sand before mentioned, has brought a vast quantity of religion before the footlights. There was his famous tragedy of _Caligula_, which, be it spoken to the shame of the Paris critics, was coldly received; nay, actually hissed, by them. And why? Because, says Dumas, it contained a great deal too much piety for the rogues. The public, he says, was much more religious, and understood him at once.

‘As for the critics,’ says he nobly, ‘let those who cried out against the immorality of Antony and Marguerite de Bourgogne, reproach me for _the chastity of Messalina_.’ (This dear creature is the heroine of the play of _Caligula_.) ‘It matters little to me. These people have but seen the form of my work: they have walked round the tent, but have not seen the arch which it covered; they have examined the vases and candles of the altar, but have not opened the tabernacle!

‘The public alone has, instinctively, comprehended that there was, beneath this outward sign, an inward and mysterious grace: it followed the action of the piece in all its serpentine windings; it listened for four hours, with pious attention (_avec recueillement et religion_), to the sound of this rolling river of thoughts, which may have appeared to it new and bold, perhaps, but chaste and grave; and it retired, with its head on its breast, like a man who had just perceived, in a dream, the solution of a problem which he has long and vainly sought in his waking hours.’

You see that not only Saint Sand is an apostle, in her way; but Saint Dumas is another. We have people in England who write for bread, like Dumas and Sand, and are paid so much for their line; but they don’t set up for prophets. Mrs. Trollope has never declared that her novels are inspired by Heaven; Mr. Buckstone has written a great number of farces, and never talked about the altar and the tabernacle. Even Sir Edward Bulwer (who, on a similar occasion, when the critics found fault with a play of his, answered them by a pretty decent declaration of his own merits) never ventured to say that he had received a divine mission, and was uttering five-act revelations.

All things considered, the tragedy of _Caligula_ is a decent tragedy; as decent as the decent characters of the hero and heroine can allow it to be; it may be almost said, provokingly decent: but this, it must be remembered, is the characteristic of the modern French school (nay, of the English school too); and if the writer take the character of a remarkable scoundrel, it is ten to one but he turns out an amiable fellow, in whom we have all the warmest sympathy. Caligula is killed at the end of the performance; Messalina is comparatively well-behaved: and the sacred part of the performance, the tabernacle-characters apart from the mere ‘vase’ and ‘candlestick’ personages, may be said to be depicted in the person of a Christian convert, Stella, who has had the good fortune to be converted by no less a person than Mary Magdalene, when she, Stella, was staying on a visit to her aunt, near Narbonne.

‘_Stella (continuant_) Voilà
Que je vois s’avancer, sans pilote et sans rames,
Une barque portant deux hommes et deux femmes
Et, spectacle inouï qui me ravit encor,
Tous quatre avaient au front une auréole d’or
D’où partaient des rayons de si vive lumière
Que je fus obligée à baisser la paupière;
Et, lorsque je rouvris les yeux avec effroi,
Les voyageurs divins étaient auprès de moi.
Un jour de chacun d’eux et dans toute sa gloire
Je te raconterai la merveilleuse histoire,
Et tu l’adoreras, j’espère; en ce moment,
Ma mère, il te suffit de savoir seulement
Que tous quatre venaient du fond de la Syrie:
Un édit les avait bannis de leur patrie,
Et, se faisant bourreaux, des hommes irrités,
Sans avirons, sans eau, sans pain et garottés,
Sur une frêle barque échouée au rivage.
Les avaient à la mer poussés dans un orage.
Mais à peine l’esquif eut-il touché les flots,
Qu’au cantique, chanté par les saints matelots,
L’ouragan replia ses ailes frémissantes,
Que la mer aplanit ses vagues mugissantes,
Et qu’un soleil plus pur, reparaissant aux cieux,
Enveloppa l’esquif d’un cercle radieux!...

_Junia._ Mais c’était un prodige.

_Stella._ Un miracle, ma mère!
Leurs fers tombèrent seuls, l’eau cessa d’être amère,
Et deux fois chaque jour le bateau fut couvert
D’une manne pareille à celle du desert;
C’est ainsi que, poussés par une main céleste,
Je les vis aborder.

_Junia._ Oh! dis vîte le reste!

_Stella._ A l’aube, trois d’entre eux quittèrent la maison:
Marthe prit le chemin qui mène à Tarascon,
Lazare et Maximin celui de Massilie,
Et celle qui resta ... _c’était la plus jolie_ [how truly French!],
Nous faisant appeler vers le milieu du jour,
Demanda si les monts ou les bois d’alentour
Cachaient quelque retraite inconnue et profonde,
Qui la pût séparer à tout jamais du monde....
Aquila se souvint qu’il avait pénétré
Dans un antre sauvage et de tous ignoré,
Grotte creusée aux flancs de ces Alpes sublimes,
Où l’aigle fait son aire au-dessus des abîmes.
Il offrit cet asile, et dès le lendemain
Tous deux, pour l’y guider, nous étions en chemin.
Le soir du second jour nous touchâmes sa base:
Là, tombant à genoux dans une sainte extase,
Elle pria longtemps, puis vers l’antre inconnu,
Dénouant sa chaussure, elle marcha pied nu.
Nos prières, nos cris restèrent sans réponses:
Au milieu des cailloux, des épines, des ronces,
Nous la vîmes monter, un bâton à la main,
Et ce n’est qu’arrivée au terme du chemin,
Qu’enfin elle tomba sans force et sans haleine....

_Junia._ Comment la nommait-on, ma fille?

_Stella._ Madeline.’

Walking, says Stella, by the sea-shore,

‘A bark drew near, that had nor sail nor oar; two women and two men
the vessel bore: each of that crew, ‘twas wondrous to behold, wore
round his head a ring of blazing gold; from which such radiance
glittered all around, that I was fain to look towards the ground.
And when once more I raised my frightened eyne, before me stood the
travellers divine; their rank, the glorious lot that each befell,
at better season, mother, will I tell. Of this anon: the time will
come when thou shalt learn to worship as I worship now. Suffice it,
that from Syria’s land they came; an edict from their country
banished them. Fierce, angry men had seized upon the four, and
launched them in that vessel from the shore. They launched these
victims on the waters rude: nor rudder gave to steer, nor bread for
food. As the doomed vessel cleaves the stormy main, that pious crew
uplifts a sacred strain; the angry waves are silent as it sings;
the storm, awe-stricken, folds its quivering wings. A purer sun
appears the heavens to light, and wraps the little bark in radiance
bright.

_Junia._ Sure, ‘twas a prodigy.

_Stella._ A miracle. Spontaneous from their hands the fetters fell.
The salt sea-wave grew fresh; and, twice a day, manna (like that
which on the desert lay) covered the bark, and fed them on their
way. Thus, hither led, at Heaven’s divine behest, I saw them
land----

_Junia._ My daughter, tell the rest.

_Stella._ Three of the four our mansion left at dawn. One, Martha,
took the road to Tarascon; Lazarus and Maximin to Massily; but one
remained (the fairest of the three), who asked us if, i’ the woods
or mountains near, there chanced to be some cavern lone and drear;
where she might hide, for ever, from all men. It chanced, my cousin
knew of such a den; deep hidden in a mountain’s hoary breast, on
which the eagle builds his airy nest. And thither offered he the
saint to guide. Next day upon the journey forth we hied; and came,
at the second eve, with weary pace, unto the lonely mountain’s
rugged base. Here the worn traveller, falling on her knee, did pray
awhile in sacred ecstasy; and, drawing off her sandals from her
feet, marched, naked, towards that desolate retreat. No answer made
she to our cries or groans; but walking midst the prickles and rude
stones, a staff in hand, we saw her upwards toil; nor ever did she
pause, nor rest the while, save at the entry of that savage den.
Here, powerless and panting, fell she then.

_Junia._ What was her name, my daughter?

_Stella._ MAGDALEN.

Here the translator must pause--having no inclination to enter ‘the tabernacle’ in company with such a spotless high-priest as Monsieur Dumas.

Something ‘tabernacular’ may be found in Dumas’s famous piece of _Don Juan de Marana_. The poet has laid the scene of his play in a vast number of places: in heaven (where we have the Virgin Mary, and little angels, in blue, swinging censers before her!)--on earth, under the earth, and in a place still lower, but not mentionable to ears polite; and the plot, as it appears from a _dialogue_ between a good and a bad angel, with which the play commences, turns upon a contest between these two worthies for the possession of the soul of a member of the family of Marana.

Don Juan de Marana not only resembles his namesake, celebrated by Mozart and Molière, in his peculiar successes among the ladies, but possesses further qualities which render his character eminently fitting for stage representation: he unites the virtues of Lovelace and Lacenaire; he blasphemes upon all occasions; he murders, at the slightest provocation, and without the most trifling remorse; he overcomes ladies of rigid virtue, ladies of easy virtue, and ladies of no virtue at all; and the poet, inspired by the contemplation of such a character, has depicted his hero’s adventures and conversation with wonderful feeling and truth.

The first act of the play contains a half-dozen of murders and intrigues; which would have sufficed humbler genius than M. Dumas’s, for the completion of, at least, half a dozen tragedies. In the second act our hero flogs his elder brother, and runs away with his sister-in-law; in the third, he fights a duel with a rival, and kills him: whereupon the mistress of his victim takes poison, and dies, in great agonies, on the stage. In the fourth act, Don Juan, having entered a church for the purpose of carrying off a nun, with whom he is in love, is seized by the statue of one of the ladies whom he has previously victimised, and made to behold the ghosts of all those unfortunate persons whose deaths he has caused.

This is a most edifying spectacle. The ghosts rise solemnly, each in a white sheet, preceded by a wax candle; and, having declared their names and qualities, call, in chorus, for vengeance upon Don Juan, as thus:--

‘_Don Sandoval_ (_loquitur_). I am Don Sandoval d’Ojedo. I played
against Don Juan my fortune, the tomb of my fathers, and the heart
of my mistress; I lost all. I played against him my life, and I
lost it. Vengeance against the murderer! vengeance!--(_The candle
goes out._)’

_The candle goes out_, and an angel descends--a flaming sword in his hand--and asks: ‘Is there no voice in favour of Don Juan?’ when lo! Don Juan’s father (like one of those ingenious toys called ‘Jack-in-the-box’) jumps up from his coffin, and demands grace for his son.

When Martha, the nun, returns, having prepared all things for her elopement, she finds Don Juan fainting upon the ground.--‘I am no longer your husband,’ says he, upon coming to himself; ‘I am no longer Don Juan; I am Brother Juan the Trappist. Sister Martha, recollect that you must die!’

This was a most cruel blow upon Sister Martha, who is no less a person than an angel, an angel in disguise--the good spirit of the house of Marana, who has gone to the length of losing her wings, and forfeiting her place in heaven, in order to keep company with Don Juan on earth, and, if possible, to convert him. Already, in her angelic character, she had exhorted him to repentance, but in vain; for, while she stood at one elbow, pouring not merely hints, but long sermons, into his ear, at the other elbow stood a bad spirit, grinning and sneering at all her pious counsels, and obtaining by far the greater share of the Don’s attention.

In spite, however, of the utter contempt with which Don Juan treats her,--in spite of his dissolute courses, which must shock her virtue,--and his impolite neglect, which must wound her vanity, the poor creature (who, from having been accustomed to better company, might have been presumed to have had better taste), the unfortunate angel, feels a certain inclination for the Don, and actually flies up to heaven to ask permission to remain with him on earth.

And when the curtain draws up, to the sound of harps, and discovers white-robed angels walking in the clouds, we find the angel of Marana upon her knees, uttering the following address:--

‘LE BON ANGE

Vierge, à qui le calice à la liqueur amère
Fut si souvent offert,
Mère, que l’on nomma la douloureuse mère,
Tant vous avez souffert!

Vous, dont les yeux divins, sur la terre des hommes,
Ont versé plus de pleurs
Que vos pieds n’ont depuis, dans le ciel où nous sommes,
Fait éclore de fleurs!

Vase d’élection, étoile matinale,
Miroir de pureté,
Vous qui priez pour nous, d’une voix virginale,
La suprême bonté;

A mon tour, aujourd’hui, bienheureuse Marie,
Je tombe à vos genoux;
Daignez donc m’écouter, car c’est vous que je prie,
Vous qui priez pour nous.’

Which may be thus interpreted:--

‘O Virgin blest! by whom the bitter draught
So often has been quaffed,
That, for thy sorrow, thou art named by us
The Mother Dolorous!

Thou, from whose eyes have fallen more tears of woe,
Upon the earth below,
Than ‘neath thy footsteps, in this heaven of ours,
Have risen flowers!

O beaming morning star! O chosen vase!
O mirror of all grace!
Who, with thy virgin voice, dost ever pray
Man’s sins away;

Bend down thine ear, and list, O blessed saint!
Unto my sad complaint;
Mother! to thee I kneel, on thee I call,
Who hearest all.’

She proceeds to request that she may be allowed to return to earth, and follow the fortunes of Don Juan;--and as there is one difficulty, or, to use her own words,--

‘Mais, comme vous savez qu’aux voûtes éternelles,
Malgré moi, tend mon vol,
_Soufflez sur mon étoile et détachez mes ailes,
Pour m’enchaîner au sol_;’

her request is granted, her star is _blown out_ (O poetic allusion!), and she descends to earth to love, and to go mad, and to die for Don Juan!

The reader will require no further explanation, in order to be satisfied as to the moral of this play; but is it not a very bitter satire upon the country, which calls itself the politest nation in the world, that the incidents, the indecency, the coarse blasphemy, and the vulgar wit of this piece, should find admirers among the public, and procure reputation for the author? Could not the Government, which has re-established, in a manner, the theatrical censorship, and forbids or alters plays which touch on politics, exert the same guardianship over public morals? The honest English reader, who has a faith in his clergyman, and is a regular attendant at Sunday worship, will not be a little surprised at the march of intellect among our neighbours across the Channel, and at the kind of consideration in which they hold their religion. Here is a man who seizes upon saints and angels, merely to put sentiments in their mouths which might suit a nymph of Drury Lane. He shows heaven, in order that he may carry debauch into it; and avails himself of the most sacred and sublime parts of our creed, as a vehicle for a scene-painter’s skill, or an occasion for a handsome actress to wear a new dress.

M. Dumas’s piece of _Kean_ is not quite so sublime; it was brought out by the author as a satire upon the French critics, who, to their credit be it spoken, had generally attacked him, and was intended by him, and received by the public, as a faithful portraiture of English manners. As such, it merits special observation and praise. In the first act you find a Countess and an Ambassadress, whose conversation relates purely to the great actor. All the ladies in London are in love with him, especially the two present;--as for the Ambassadress, she prefers him to her husband (a matter of course in all French plays), and to a more seducing person still--no less a person than the Prince of Wales! who presently waits on the ladies, and joins in their conversation concerning Kean. ‘This man,’ says his Royal Highness, ‘is the very pink of fashion. Brummell is nobody when compared to him; and I myself only an insignificant private gentleman: he has a reputation among ladies, for which I sigh in vain; and spends an income twice as great as mine.’ This admirable historic touch at once paints the actor and the Prince; the estimation in which the one was held, and the modest economy for which the other was so notorious.

Then we have Kean, at a place called the _Trou de Charbon_, the ‘Coal-hole,’ where, to the edification of the public, he engages in a fisty combat with a notorious boxer; this scene was received by the audience with loud exclamations of delight, and commented on, by the journals, as a faultless picture of English manners. The ‘Coal-hole’ being on the banks of the Thames, a nobleman--_Lord Melbourn!_--has chosen the tavern as a rendezvous for a gang of pirates, who are to have their ship in waiting, in order to carry off a young lady, with whom his lordship is enamoured. It need not be said that Kean arrives at the nick of time, saves the innocent _Meess Anna_, and exposes the infamy of the Peer;--a violent tirade against noblemen ensues, and Lord Melbourn slinks away, disappointed, to meditate revenge. Keen’s triumphs continue through all the acts; the Ambassadress falls madly in love with him; the Prince becomes furious at his ill success, and the Ambassador dreadfully jealous. They pursue Kean to his dressing-room at the theatre; where, unluckily, the Ambassadress herself has taken refuge. Dreadful quarrels ensue; the tragedian grows suddenly mad upon the stage, and so cruelly insults the Prince of Wales, that his Royal Highness determines to send him _to Botany Bay_. His sentence, however, is commuted to banishment to New York; whither, of course, Miss Anna accompanies him; rewarding him, previously, with her hand and twenty thousand a year!

This wonderful performance was gravely received and admired by the people of Paris; the piece was considered to be decidedly moral, because the popular candidate was made to triumph throughout, and to triumph in the most virtuous manner; for, according to the French code of morals, success among women is at once the proof and the reward of virtue.

The sacred personage introduced in Dumas’s play, behind a cloud, figures bodily in the piece of the _Massacre of the Innocents_, represented at Paris last year. She appears under a different name, but the costume is exactly that of Carlo-Dolce’s Madonna; and an ingenious fable is arranged, the interest of which hangs upon the grand Massacre of the Innocents, perpetrated in the fifth act. One of the chief characters is Jean le Précurseur, who threatens woe to Herod and his race, and is beheaded by the orders of that sovereign.

In the _Festin de Balthazar_ we are similarly introduced to Daniel, and the first scene is laid by the waters of Babylon, where a certain number of captive Jews is seated in melancholy postures; a Babylonian officer enters, exclaiming, ‘Chantez nous quelques chansons de Jérusalem,’ and the request is refused in the language of the Psalm. Belshazzar’s Feast is given in a grand tableau, after Martin’s picture. That painter, in like manner, furnished scenes for the _Déluge_. Vast numbers of schoolboys and children are brought to see these pieces; the lower classes delight in them. The famous _Juif Errant_, at the theatre of the Porte St. Martin, was the first of the kind, and its prodigious success, no doubt, occasioned the number of imitations which the other theatres have produced.

The taste of such exhibitions, of course, every English person will question; but we must remember the manners of the people among whom they are popular; and, if I may be allowed to hazard such an opinion, there is, in every one of these Boulevard mysteries, a kind of rude moral. The Boulevard writers don’t pretend to ‘tabernacles’ and divine gifts, like Madame Sand and Dumas, before mentioned. If they take a story from the sacred books, they garble it without mercy, and take sad liberties with the text; but they do not deal in descriptions of the agreeably wicked, or ask pity and admiration for tender-hearted criminals and philanthropic murderers, as their betters do. Vice is vice on the Boulevard; and it is fine to hear the audience, as a tyrant king roars out cruel sentences of death, or a bereaved mother pleads for the life of her child, making their remarks on the circumstances of the scene. ‘Ah, le gredin!’ growls an indignant countryman. ‘Quel monstre!’ says a grisette, in a fury. You see very fat old men crying like babies; and, like babies, sucking enormous sticks of barley-sugar. Actors and audience enter warmly into the illusion of the piece; and so especially are the former affected, that, at Franconi’s, where the battles of the Empire are represented, there is as regular gradation in the ranks of the mimic army, as in the real imperial legions. After a man has served, with credit, for a certain number of years in the line, he is promoted to be an officer--an acting officer. If he conducts himself well, he may rise to be a Colonel, or a General of Division; if ill, he is degraded to the ranks again; or, worst degradation of all, drafted into a regiment of Cossacks or Austrians. Cossacks is the lowest depth, however; nay, it is said that the men who perform these Cossack parts receive higher wages than the mimic grenadiers and old guard. They will not consent to be beaten every night, even in play; to be pursued in hundreds, by a handful of French; to fight against their beloved Emperor. Surely there is fine hearty virtue in this, and pleasant childlike simplicity.

So that while the drama of Victor Hugo, Dumas, and the enlightened classes is profoundly immoral and absurd, the drama of the common people is absurd, if you will, but good and right-hearted. I have made notes of one or two of these pieces, which all have good feeling and kindness in them, and which turn, as the reader will see, upon one or two favourite points of popular morality. A drama that obtained a vast success at the Porte St. Martin was _La Duchesse de la Vauballière_. The Duchess is the daughter of a poor farmer, who was carried off in the first place, and then married by M. le Duc de la Vauballière, a terrible _roué_, the farmer’s landlord, and the intimate friend of Philippe d’Orléans, the Regent of France.

Now, the Duke, in running away with the lady, intended to dispense altogether with ceremony, and make of Julie anything but his wife; but Georges, her father, and one Morisseau, a notary, discovered him in his dastardly act, and pursued him to the very feet of the Regent, who compelled the pair to marry and make it up.

Julie complies; but though she becomes a Duchess, her heart remains faithful to her old flame, Adrian, the doctor; and she declares that, beyond the ceremony, no sort of intimacy shall take place between her husband and herself.

Then the Duke begins to treat her in the most ungentleman-like manner: he abuses her in every possible way; he introduces improper characters into her house; and, finally, becomes so disgusted with her, that he determines to make away with her altogether.

For this purpose, he sends forth into the highways and seizes a doctor, bidding him, on pain of death, to write a poisonous prescription for Madame la Duchesse. She swallows the potion; and, oh, horror! the doctor turns out to be Dr. Adrian; whose woe may be imagined, upon finding that he has been thus committing murder on his true love!

Let not the reader, however, be alarmed as to the fate of the heroine; no heroine of a tragedy ever yet died in the third act; and, accordingly, the Duchess gets up perfectly well again in the fourth, through the instrumentality of Morisseau, the good lawyer.

And now it is that vice begins to be really punished. The Duke, who, after killing his wife, thinks it necessary to retreat, and take refuge in Spain, is tracked to the borders of that country by the virtuous notary, and there receives such a lesson as he will never forget to his dying day.

Morisseau, in the first instance, produces a deed (signed by his Holiness the Pope), which annuls the marriage of the Duke de la Vauballière; then another deed, by which it is proved that he was not the eldest son of old La Vauballière, the former Duke; then another deed, by which he shows that old La Vauballière (who seems to have been a disreputable old fellow) was a bigamist, and that, in consequence, the present man, styling himself Duke, is illegitimate; and, finally, Morisseau brings forward another document, which proves that the _reg’lar_ Duke is no other than Adrian, the doctor!

Thus it is that love, law, and physic, combined, triumph over the horrid machinations of this star-and-gartered libertine.

_Hermann l’Ivrogne_ is another piece of the same order; and, though not very refined, yet possesses considerable merit. As in the case of the celebrated Captain Smith, of Halifax, who ‘took to drinking ratafia, and thought of poor Miss Bailey,’--a woman and the bottle have been the cause of Hermann’s ruin. Deserted by his mistress, who has been seduced from him by a base Italian Count, Hermann, a German artist, gives himself entirely up to liquor and revenge: but when he finds that force, and not infidelity, has been the cause of his mistress’s ruin, the reader can fancy the indignant ferocity with which he pursues the _infâme ravisseur_. A scene, which is really full of spirit, and excellently well acted, here ensues: Hermann proposes to the Count, on the eve of their duel, that the survivor should bind himself to espouse the unhappy Marie; but the Count declares himself to be already married, and the student, finding a duel impossible (for his object was to restore, at all events, the honour of Marie), now only thinks of his revenge, and murders the Count. Presently, two parties of men enter Hermann’s apartment; one is a company of students, who bring him the news that he has obtained the prize of painting; the other the policemen, who carry him to prison, to suffer the penalty of murder.

I could mention many more plays in which the popular morality is similarly expressed. The seducer, or rascal of the piece, is always an aristocrat,--a wicked Count, or licentious Marquis,--who is brought to condign punishment just before the fall of the curtain. And too good reason have the French people had to lay such crimes to the charge of the aristocracy, who are expiating now, on the stage, the wrongs which they did a hundred years since. The aristocracy is dead now; but the theatre lives upon traditions; and don’t let us be too scornful at such simple legends that are handed down by the people, from race to race. Vulgar prejudice against the great it may be; but prejudice against the great is only a rude expression of sympathy with the poor; long, therefore, may fat _épiciers_ blubber over mimic woes, and honest _prolétaires_ shake their fists, shouting--‘Gredin, scélérat, monstre de Marquis!’ and such republican cries.