"You frighten me. Go on."
"I ask your forgiveness, Mr Wilson," proceeded Humphrys, mumbling on, "but there are strange things said, and I didn't believe them at first,—and I was ready to knock the man down that hinted them to me—and I would have done it,—but I have seen, sir—with my own eyes—I wish I had been blind!" suddenly and passionately exclaimed the good fellow, his eyes overflowing with honest tears.
"Man, man!" said I hastily and vexed. "You talk in riddles. What is it you drive at?"
"Can't you guess, sir?" he answered meaningly.
"Guess?"
"Yes, sir,—Mrs Sinclair!"
"Mrs Sinclair?"
"And Lord Minden."
"Lord Minden! For God sake"—
"Hush, sir!" said John, putting his finger to his lips. "I wouldn't have any body overhear us for the world. But it's true, it's true, as I am a living man."
"It is a lie!" I cried—"an infamous and slanderous lie! Some tale of a discharged and disappointed servant—a base conspiracy to destroy a good man's character. For shame, John Humphrys—for shame!"
"I don't wonder at you, sir," continued Humphrys. "They were my own words; and, until I was satisfied with my own eyes of the truth of what I had heard, I wouldn't have believed an angel from heaven. God knows, Mr Wilson, it is too true. We have lived to see terrible things, sir."
I entreated Humphrys to be still more explicit, and he was so. His communication went to show that the interference of Lord Minden in the affairs of his master was far from being disinterested, and that the price to be exacted for the preferment was much too great to make preferment or even life desirable to Rupert Sinclair. If I was horrorstruck at this announcement, how shall I describe my feelings when he further stated, with a serious and touching earnestness, that, as he hoped for salvation hereafter, he firmly believed that Rupert Sinclair was a party to his own dishonour. I was about to strike the fellow to the earth for his audacity; but I reflected for a moment, and was relieved of a load of oppression. I could have laughed outright, so overjoyed did I at once become, with the sudden upsetting of this tremendous fabrication. Sinclair a party to his own dishonour! Any thing short of that might have found me credulous. That accusation would have destroyed the unimpeachedevidence of saints. I recovered myself and spoke.
"You are an honest man, John Humphrys," said I, "a good servant, and faithful, I believe. But go your ways, and let not the wicked impose upon you more. Your tale is too good by half. Tell your informants, that, if they look for success, they must be less ambitious: if they desire to bring conviction to their listeners, they must not prove so much. And beware"—I proceeded in a more serious tone—"how you give currency to the slander you have brought to me. You love your master. Show your fidelity by treating this calumny with the scorn it merits."
"Sir," answered Humphrys, "if I were to be called from this world to-night, I could not retract the words I have spoken. I have not hinted to another what, alas! I know to be true. You may be sure I have no desire to circulate Mr Sinclair's infamy. I shall leave his service, for with him I can no longer live,—and you will soon learn whether or not I have uttered the truth. Oh dear! oh dear!" he added, with a sigh of despair,—"what will the world say?"
I dismissed John Humphrys, and turned to my own affairs. It was neither prudent nor becoming to listen further to the revelations of such a person; I would not even permit him to explain to me how he had arrived at the convictions which no doubt he honestly entertained. It was sufficient to hear the charges he brought against poor Rupert, to be convinced that the man was grossly deceived; that he had been cruelly imposed upon by vicious and vindictive men. But, could I be otherwise than deeply aggrieved by the rumour which had arisen, and which was not likely to lose on the lips of those who would be too eager to give it currency? It was a new and unexpected element in the complicated misfortunes of Lord Railton's house.Unexpected?What, Walter Wilson, and had not suspicions crossed your mind before, of the probability of such slander? Had you not many times angrily repulsed intruding thoughts that savoured of uncharitableness towards the volatile and beauteous wife? Had not prejudice before her marriage rendered you cruel; and experience since—did it not tend, if not to foster cruelty, to sustain alarm?But Rupert a party to his own dishonour!Monstrous! Ridiculous! Absurd!
Either the perseverance of Lady Railton, or the magic power of Lord Minden's name, had achieved a miracle. The stony and stubborn heart of Lord Railton was mollified. True, he hesitated to forgive his son; true, he would not see him; but he graciously submitted to be spoken to on his son's affairs, and even went so far as to admit me to an audience, in order that I might explain, as well as I knew them, the difficulties under which Mr Rupert Sinclair at present laboured. The doors of Lord Railton's house opened wide on the auspicious morning. The sun shone brilliantly in Grosvenor Square. The porter was a living smile from head to foot. The under butler all blandness and honied words. He rubbed his hands when he received me, bowed patronisingly and preceded me to his lordship's study with the air of one who knew which way the wind was, and that it was blowing pleasantly. There was a frozen air about the house when I had visited his lordship before—now it was summer-like and warm. Then every thing seemed bound with iron clasps,—men's mouths, and hearts, and minds; and even doors and windows. Now, every thing looked free and open, pleasant, hospitable, inviting. Could it be that I had changed,—or was it only that Lord Railton's note was different, and that the universal heart of that great house had pitched itself to the prevailing key?
No word of apology was offered for former rudeness. His lordship, as before, presented me with his finger, and then proceeded to our business. He had heard, he said, of Lord Minden's kind interference on behalf of his son, who was indeed most unworthy of his lordship's favourable notice; nay, he had been spoken to by Lord Minden himself, and desirous as he was at all times to comply with the wishes of any member of His Majesty's government, he could not but feel, that when their wishes pointed to the advancement of his own flesh and blood, there was additional reason for listening, to all they had to urge. Forhis part, if Lord Minden should feel justified in extending his patronage to Mr Sinclair, he, Lord Railton, on his side, should deem it a matter of grave consideration, whether it would not be advisable to extricate the object of Lord Minden's favor from the liabilities which he had thoughtlessly incurred. Not that Mr Sinclair must look for pardon—or reconciliation—yet; that is to say, until Lord Minden should be satisfied that his protégé had deserved the gracious favour of His Majesty, and had shown himself worthy of the condescension, &c. &c. &c.
The upshot of the long harangue was, that as soon as Lord Minden should aid in promoting Sinclair, Lord Railton would be ready to pay his debts—and to receive terms for peace, provided the patronage of the commander-in-chief continued to rest upon the fortunate scapegrace, and His Majesty thought him still a fit object for the exercise of his royal favour. Translated into honest English, Lord Railton's proposition was neither more nor less than this,—"I will forgive my son, as soon as circumstances render my forgiveness not worth a button to him. I will withhold it so long as it is necessary to save him from ruin, and to restore him to tranquillity." A right worldly proposition too!
Lord Railton requested, as a preliminary step, to be informed of the exact state of his son's affairs; and I, as mediator, undertook to lay it before his lordship. I quitted the mansion in Grosvenor Square to procure at once the necessary documents from Sinclair. Approaching the house of the latter, I perceived standing before the door two horses and a groom. I advanced, knocked, and was informed that groom and horses were the property of the Earl of Minden, who was then with Mrs Sinclair, and that Mr Sinclair himself was from home. I had no right to feel uncomfortable at this announcement, yet uncomfortable I was, in spite of myself. "When does Mr Sinclair return?" I asked.
The two lackeys who listened to my question exchanged an almost imperceptible smile, and replied, that "they could not tell." That smile passed like a dagger to my heart.
I hesitated for a moment—left my card—and then withdrew.
I had not proceeded to the corner of the street before I turned round instinctively, and without a thought. To my joy I perceived Rupert making his way from the other extremity of the street to his own door. I moved to meet him. He came nearer and nearer—approached within sight of the horses and groom—and then turned back. What did it mean? Why did he not go home? I grew giddy with coming apprehensions. Whilst I stood motionless on the path, I felt a touch upon my shoulder. I perceived John Humphrys.
"Here, sir," said the man, "you have seen with your own eyes what I have seen every day for the last month. As soon as Lord Minden arrives, Mr Sinclair goes out, and never returns until he takes his departure. If he should by chance return whilst his lordship's horse is standing there, he walks away, and does not think of coming back until"——
"It is a lie! a dream!" I exclaimed, almost bewildered. "It cannot be!"
"I wish to say nothing, sir," proceeded Humphrys. "You have seen, you have seen!"
"I have! I have!" I cried, coming to myself. "I wash my hands of him and his. Father of Heaven! can such wickedness exist—and inhim, inhim? But I have done with him for ever!"
And so saying, I fled maniac-like from the accursed spot, and vowed in my excitement and indignation to return no more. I kept my word.
"Aspettar e non venire,Star in letto e non dormire.Son' due cose da morire."Italian Proverb.
Threeyears are passed since we last visited Herr Ascherson, and we once more find ourselves, with considerably improved tact and knowledge, both as to virtuosi and virtu, ringing at the well-known bell! On the door being unbarred to us, we are sorry to hear that he is now a great invalid, and confined to bed. "I hope we don't disturb you, Mr Ascherson," said we, as a half-witted slattern of fifty opened the door of the sick man's room, and discovered to us something alarmingly like Cheops redivivus, reclining on a Codrus-looking couch, which was too short to receive his whole body save diagonally, in which position he accordingly lay. Upon hearing these words, the much-swathed object suddenly draws itself up in bed; and after looking keenly to make us out in the dusk, (as if he suspected a visit of cajoling rather than condolence.) his eye lost its anxious look, and his features gradually expanded, when he saw at a glance that we were come, not to cheat, but to cheer him. The first words he uttered were—"Ja, ja; dat is mein nobil freund the Doctor;" and then, falling back, he resigned himself to his pains, like a man who has been long trained to suffer. We ask after his health. The poor invalid shakes his head, and tells us, groaning, that he was "sehr krank, very ill indeed; had much dolors but no slipp;" apologising also for having sent for some 10 pi. which we owed him, and which "it was need," so he told us, "to pay his medicine mit." Really concerned to see one whom we had so recently known under worldly circumstances so unlike the present, so suffering, so poor, and so solitary, we told him that we had been intending to call on him that very day for that very purpose—observing, by way of consoling his feelings, that it was not to be expected "that a man who had laid out so much money of thepresentcurrency to procure fine specimens of one that was out of date, could be quite so well off in ready cash as those whose money was all in hard coin at their bankers. "Ja, ja," it was even so; and then, his pains remitting for a moment, he proceeded to explain, for our satisfaction, how he had become so short of the needful supplies. "Tis three monate seyne mein freund Vinhler went to Paris—(an honest and heart-good man, Mr Vinhler)—to whom this commission I consign:—'See you give a carefuleye-blinkto this 9000 ducats, which you must take mit you to Paris. There in the house of Furet you shallbecomesome moneys, which you shall send to me directly; and mit these ducats you shall also pay their consignment.' Well, it was a simpledirect, als any childer might do. So Vinhler takes my money, gets to Paris, calls andpaysMr Furet, and writes that he will be back inNeapoliin a week. So I stay! Drei monate I stay, and no Mr Vinhler come! Then lastly, when I hav begin toscold myself, two days seyne, comeseine briefe, and says, 'I hav been stopt here for three weeks by what I then foresaw not when I did write you lastly. I am promised to marry Herr Furet's daughter, and we mak the marriage in eine monate. I am sorry for the delay about your monete, but shall bring them mit Mrs Vinhler and myself to Neapoli, when we arrive!" So, while he is happy mit his Julia in Paris, I cannotbecomemy Julias that I hav bought; and I hav lost much by this man's delay. Ah! (continued he,)wheneverhe had felt mein dolors," (the poor man had now wrought himself up into a painful excitement,) "my no slipp, thisunendlichirritation, this torment to pay the Doctor, for no gute—my loss of practice, my loss of friends, my physiqueso bad,mein eine samkeitso dull—he should surely have sent me thatcassettaof coins to make me a little more gay." Being obliged to quit Naples suddenly, we left him in the midst of his pains, which had been wholly unrelieved by our medication; fretting more and more daily at the non-arrival of his friend; with nobody tovisithim but the needy Leech, who, having asked himself—
"And will my patientpay?Andcanhe swallow draughts until his dying day?"
thinks no furtherself-interrogatory needful; with none toinquireafter him, save only the peasants, whose findings he is too ill to look at, and too poor to purchase; and Death's grimauctioneer, who undertakesfor the district; and who, when he has made the daily inquiry at his door, not to lose further time, begins to ply his small hammer, and is tap-tap-tapping away for somebody else, tillwanted. Oh! who would change places with a sick antiquary, whoseconscience, though he sleeps, is awake to torment him, and whose dreams, if he dream, are of rifled tombs, profaned temples, Charon and his boat!
"Nocte, brevem si forte indulsit cura soporem,Et toto versato toro, jam membra quiescunt,Continuotemplum et violati numinis aras,Et quod præcipuis mentem sudoribus urget,Seviditin somnis!"
"Oh dear! what can the matter be?Oh dear! what shall I do?Nobody coming to Jockey, andNobody coming toJew!"
What quondam collector at Rome but must recollect that snuffy and gruffy old fellow, Ignazio Vesconali, who lives at the bottom ofScalirata, and has grown old with the Piazza itself! Go down at any hour of the day, and there he was sure to be, either blinking away through his blue goggle glasses, with his cap on, at his door, or at a little shabby table fumbling over curiosities; or creeping over to the coffee-house opposite, to toddle back again, with his cotton pocket-handkerchief, his snuff-box, and his key in hand, to re-arrange his treasures, and utter lamentations that nobody any longer comes to buy. On such occasions we have sometimes entered; and after a "buon giorno," and a remark on the weather, (which, if you abused it, however injuriously, always secured you his assent; for he quarrels now even with the calendar,) he expected you tohopehe had sold something lately, to afford him an opportunity to say, "Ma ché, ma niente;" and then you had to sit and listen while he told you all his grievances—how once "a dozen English noblemen had stoodall of a row there," and he showed you where, in his shop, fighting for his wares, and buying them almost quicker than he could register the purchases they made; and how sometimes he could sell 500 scudi worth of property before breakfast, and get an appetite by doing so! No! there was not a man of note in England, that had not some day or other beenbookedby him. Alltheirkindness, no doubt—and then they came not to tease poor Ignazio, but to buy of him. Now a different set of customers dropt in one by one to look at his gems, and to find nothing good enough for them; some tumbling over his antiques, and offering a scudo for his best onyxes; "uno scudo, Santissima Maria Virgine!" others adventuring a whole paul! a price for his best Consular coins!—ah! gli avari!The earth too, once so bountiful, was now as avaricious of parting with her treasures as the English themselves. The fields had ceased to yield their former supplies; and the peasants about Rome would scarce stoop to picking up rubbish, for which, however, they always wanted Ignazio's money. "Ah, poorold man!—che vecchio?old man forsooth! say rather an old dotard, who is unfit to buy, to bargain, or to live!" And then he would ventriloquize once more to himself. "Ah, poor Ignazio! ah, poor old man! your day is indeed gone by." Such appeals were irresistible. So, whenever we had a few scudi to spare, (and it was not quite discreet to go into his shop without,) we used to beg to see some of his boxes of engraved stones; and having pored for a time over wares that had been examined by the most cunning eyes in Rome, would find one of better workmanship, and stop to inquire its price. "Quanto, Signor Ignazio?" and while Signor Ignazio was recollecting himself, we glanced on from one to the other, (the great rule in bargaining being never to appear to know what you are bargaining for!) "Per cinque scudi vi lo do." Viewed thus in the light of a donation, we would think it too high, and tell him so. "Take it for four, then—pigliate lo per quattro;" and at this fresh concession he would grunt a little, like a tame seal in a water-tub! Still we would hesitate, and dare to offer two. "For every body else, he had saidimpossible,—for us we werepadronissimito take it, as the old man's gift, on our own terms." So we would put it up, and then, elated at ourbargain, and at his respect for us, we would remove another "intaglio" from the box; and this time, naming our own price, say with perfect nonchalance, "due scudi." The old fellow would then fumble it up in his snuffy old gloves, and bring it near his snuffy old nose; and having wiped his snuffy old magnifier, would bend his blue goggle glasses over it—and havingscreamed—"Che! due scudi?what do you mean by two scudi? A stone of this beauty! a living head of Medusa—a front face, too—for two scudi! The serpents in the hair were worth more money—one-half of such a head, were the stone intwo, would be worth more money." And then would come in the antistrophe as before—"Ah, povero Ignazio! povero vecchio!"—and we would be shocked, and declare with compunction that we had no intention to cheat him; and he, already "persuasissimoof that," would beg us to say no more, but to put it into our pocket forthree. After these preliminaries were settled and paid for, we would be contented to hear him once more recount the tale of his younger days, when he had the antiquity business all to himself; when he married his first wife; had dealings with Demidoff; and knew all that were worth knowing in Rome—both buyers and sellers. "Old age, Signor, is preparing me fast to give up both my business and my life! Buy, buy, now's your time,eccomi! an old man who wants to sell off every thing! name your prices! Don't be afraid, you may offer me any thingnow." "Three scudi?" "Impossible I should let you have it for that. It cost me five; but never mind! there's the mask at three scudi. Take it! Any thing else?" "This intaglio?" "You are a capital judge, or you would not have thus picked out mybestintaglio—will no colonnati suit?" "No." "Will you be pleased if I prove my friendship for you by sacrificing it at fifteen?" No! "There, take it as our third gift for twelve; but, oh that I should have lived to sell it for that,even to you! But you will come and see me again; I know you will,Dottore mio!And sure you might contrive to spend a few morefeeswith me than you do, and be all the richer for it into the bargain—what fine opportunitiesyoumust have of selling things to your patients, especially to thedonne! I wish I was a doctor, that I might carry on my business for a year or two longer!"
"I have a hundred questions to ask," said we, turning into Dedomenicis' curiosity-shop, and casting a furtive glance behind his old armour and arras hangings, to see that there was no other confidant to whom we might be betraying our ignorance. "Dunque—well then, one at a time;è s'accommodi—make yourself at home," said the old dealer, pushingus a chair, and looking humanely communicative, as he adjusted to his temples a huge pair of spectacles, and stood at our side ready to be interrogated.
An old dealer, like a young beauty, when you are together, expects something flattering to be said about his eyes, so "we wished ours were as good as his." He said, "they were younger." "But what was the use of young eyes, or of any eyes," said we, disparaging our own, "that could not make out the wholesomeness of a coin, nor distinguish the patina of antiquity from vulgar verdigris?"
Dedomenicis'coughconvinced us that this sentiment of ours was not very far from what he himself believed to be the truth, only he was too polite tosayso.
"There!" said we, "look at these bronze bargains of ours, these twocounterfeitcoins, which have not been a week in our possession, and which C—— has already declared to be false! Oh! wouldyounot have deemed it a happier lot to put up with a blameless blindness, and all its evils, rather than, having eyes in your head, to have disgraced them by such a purchase?" Dedomenicis glances one glance at the false Emperors, and then passes a sentence which banishes them for ever from the society of the Cæsars; while hewondershow we could have hoped to buy a real Piscennius and a Pertinax in the same adventure, and both so well preserved too?
"Were we ignorant of the prices usually set upon the heads of all those emperors who had enjoyed but a few weeks' reign?" Did not every body, for instance, know that the African Gordians, both father and son, were, inbronze, worth their weight in gold? that a Vitellius in bronze was cheap at six pounds? and that he might be considered fortunate indeed who could convert his spare ten-pound notes into as many Pertinax penny-pieces, or come into the possession of a half-penny or a second module, as it is called, of Pescennius Niger, at the same price? Did not every body know that Domitia was coy at £20, and stood out for £25? That Matidia, Mariana, and Plotina smiled upon none who would not give £40 to possess them, and that Annia Faustina was become a priceless piece? Had we been so long returned to Rome and not yet heard of the Matidia now in the keeping of our gallant countryman, General A——, who was jealous (at least so B—— had told him) of showing her even to his best friends, lest she should prove too much for their virtue to withstand, and slept with her, and could not snore securely unless she was by his side? Well, he had paid £40 for her at Thomas's sale in London, and Rollin, on seeing her in Paris, would have gladly detained her there for £50, but the general was not to be bribed; "so you see,dottore mio, it costs a good deal to collect coins even in the baser metal." "So it would appear, indeed, Dedomenicis; and the next time a Pertinax in bronze turns up, we will mostpertinaciouslyrefuse to bid for him; or if another Pescennius should ever again cross our path, we will mutter 'HicNigerest,' and remember to have nothing to do with him."
"And I think," said the old fellow, slily taking off his spectacles, and placing them on the table,—"I think you will not lose much if you adhere to your present intention."
"And yet it is annoying not to know the difference between the works of thosePaduanbrothers, of a recent century, and such as really belong to the old Roman mint;" saying which we began to study them afresh, as a policeman would do to a rogue, whom he expected to meet again. "Is this knowledge, dear Dedomenicis, to be acquired 'per càrita?' let us not waste our time, if it be not." "Lei lo sapra!it will come in good time.Pazienza!be patient! you know our proverb—'time and straw ripen medlars,' and your judgment will mature in time,just as the medlars do."
Crude as an unripe medlar though our judgment certainly thenwas, still the prospect of itsmellowing into unsoundness at lastwas by no means consolatory; and so we told him, pocketing our false coins, and going home to consult the memorandum of their price,—here it is!Eccola!as it was most ingeniously registered by us at the time—"Nov. 7, 1840—Boughtto-day of a peasant on his way from Ricci to Rome, twobeautiful coins, a Pertinax and a Pescennius Niger, inperfect preservation! only paid £5 for the two!! thesimplecontadino, who can't read the epigraphes, asks whether they are not Nero's!!"[54]
A ring at the bell, and our courier has announced Signor Dedomenicis. "By all means, show him in then,"—for he had come, a year later, to see coins we had picked up during our summer trip to Sicily. "There," said we gaily, and to put him in a good humour at once, (for the remark showed we had made ourselves master of his physiognomy),—"there, Dedomenicis, is a Ptolemy Evergetes, who was, to judge by his coins, your very prototype—it is your nose—your chin—your"——
"Suppose you make it mine altogether then," said he slily; but we "prized it too much, on this very account, to part with it!" After which we go to the nearest cabinet in the room—unlock the door, take out drawer No. 1, marked Sicilian, andrare; and in the pride of our young beginnings, and little knowing what we were to bring upon ourselves in so doing,—
"Midst hopes, and fears that kindle hopes.A pleasing anxious throng;And shrewd suspicions often lull'd,But now returning strong,"—
we hand over the tray to Dedomenicis, whose running commentary, as soon as he had brought it into the field of his spectacles, was really appalling; and he plied it as destructively as a Sikh battery, or a Perkins's steam gun.
Prepared to see him take out the first coin in the row, to subject it to his magnifier, to turn it round, now on this side, now on that, and then to pause, ere he could decide upon it, little could we have supposed that in a second his battery was to commence fire; and that in less than a minute, he would have passed a summary sentence upon every coin of the lot.
"One—two—three."—Thus it began; "roba commune—common as blackberries; (four, five, six,)niente di buono—good for what you can get for them; (seven, eight, nine,)Idem; (ten, eleven, twelve,)Idem; thirteen,notof Messina, as it pretended to be; and here had sold us aNeapolitan catin place of aSicilian hare!" "Come!a cat?" (for we called to mind what each of puss'sninelives had cost us, and determined to die game for it), "thatcoin acounterfeit?" "Sī—Sīg-nō-rĕ!" in that sort of sing-song gamut twang in which one Roman answers another's incredulity—"anzi falsīssimo," with a most provoking lengthening out of the second syllable of that most provoking superlative; he knew all about its fabrication; thegentlemanwho made these coins was an acquaintance—not afriendof his; the original coin being in request, and somewhat expensive, he had contrived to get up a new issue of the Messina Hare,[55]which was much in vogue, and seemed, like Gay's Hare, to court an extensive acquaintance, and many friends. "ThatHimera[56]hen is of a brood that never lays golden eggs, and the sooner you can get rid of her the better. Time was when such poultry fetched its price; now, thanks to the prolific process of our modern hatchings, we see her as often in the market as widgeon, snipe, or plovers.That'sa fine lion; 'tis a pity you've no lioness to match him; but one such realRhegium leoneis worth a host of counterfeits,—'unus, sane, at Leo'. As to yourPtolemies' eagles here, at least they are well preserved, and that always should give a coin some claim to a place in abeginner'scollection; though to us dealers, who see many of them, these eagles at last become somewhat uninteresting and vulgar birds. What a collection is here of Hieros[57]on horseback, all in good plight too! Well, I might have boughtinoroutof these ranks myself; butIshould not, I think, like you, have purchased the whole troop—of course you paid but little for them." "Yes," said we timidly, "not overmuch, not more than they were worth perhaps, six pauls a-piece," and we coughed nervously, and expected him to speak encouragingly; but he said nothing, and proceeded with his scrutiny of our box. "Per Bacco!What a quantity of cuttlefish! Methinks Syracuse has rather overdone you with herLobigo, butthatat least is genuine, for 'tis too cheap to make money of by imitation. This ofNaxoswill do.Thisof Tarentum,va bene!this ofLocri, corresponde." A faint "bravo!" escapes him on taking up an Athenian Tetradrachm, with theArcher'sname on the field; but he takes no note, has no "winged words" to throw away upon our winged horses, though every nag of them, we know, came from Corinth or from Argos.
The bearded corn of Metapontus, with Ceres or Mars on the reverse: Arion on his dolphin—that beautiful, most beautiful of coins—were, together with sundry others, all too common for his antiquarian eye to take pleasure in; he sought something less frequently presented to it, and at last he found it in a Croton coin with a rare reverse, which, "would we sell him, he would take at twenty dollars, and pay us inlivingsilver." A bow told him we were not disposed to part with it. And now he comes to what we consider to be our finest piece,—our Lipari bronze! And on it is a fatdolphinsporting on agreensea. Dedomenicis' manner is vastly discouraging, and we are prepared for new disappointment, yet we could have sworn thatthatcoin was genuine. But if false, as he believes it to be, why then not have done with it? why put it down to take it upagain? why ask whetherwedon't repute it false, when he knows we know nothing of the matter? And whymouseit so closely under his keen eye, and look round the rim of it, and examine the face of it, and appear as if he would penetrate into its very soul,[58]and get at its history? Oh! 'tis all right, then; if "he may be mistaken," doubtless heisso: and this is confirmed by his now proposing—thinking an exchange no robbery, of course—to exchange it for us. Ingenuous man! who hadst twice invoked the saints and the Madonna in our behalf when thou heardest the price we paid for our unlucky Hare; and when thou knewest how C—— had beguiled us into taking, and paying for aRoman, the price of anEtruscan"As;" and now thou wouldst have robbed us of our best coin, have deprived us of the veryDelphin classicof our collection; it won't do! Our Messenian hare is welcome, but, old æruscator, we cannot let you swim away on our dolphin; and we rise toreplace himin ourmonetaroaccordingly.
A third interview with Dedomenicisis recorded in our entry-book of such matters.—"Here are the coins, Signor, which you gave me to clean last week: they are ten in number, for which you owe me as many pauls.—Eccole!" "Ah," said we, "you have not made much of them, I fear." "Look and see," was the laconic reply. By which time we had taken up the first, and were pleased to find that an Augustus, whose lineaments we could hardly recognise, when we gave him to Dedomenicis toscale, had come back to us perfectly restored. "Why, Dedomenicis," said we, "this is a restitution better than Trajan's, of this very Emperor's coinage; for that, after all, was but theimitationof an old mint; but yours therestorationof the old one itself. Henceforth I preferDedomenicis' restituittoTrajan's restituit." "Well, then, when you have looked over the others, you will, I dare say, pay these and them at the same rate, as if they had been the issues of that Emperor."[59]We were indeed surprised at what we saw, so much had all our coins gained by the process to which Dedomenicis had subjected them. The second we took up represented theOstian harbour, (Portus Ostiensis.) We had given it to him with afoul bottom—it was restored to us with its basin cleared out, and with all its shipping, just as it used to look in the days of Nero; in another, the whole arena of the Colosseum had been disencumbered; in another, Antonine's column shone bright from top to bottom; here we sawHonos et Virtus(honour and military prowess) again taking the field; here the scales of Justice once more appeared, and librated freely in her hand; here Hope resumed her green trefoil; Pudicityunveils her face; and there sat Fecundity on a curule seat, with all her family about her; lastly, there were those three scandalous sisters of Caligula—the MissesMoney(Moneta,)[60]—standing together with their arms intertwined, and their names at their backs. All these ten restitutions cost only ten pauls! "And how did you manage to clean then so well, Dedomenicis?" "Col tempo ed il temperino,"—with time and a penknife: "Ma ci vuo il genio,"—you must have a talent for it.
"Ci vuo il genio,"—he was right; and think you 'tis so easy or simple a thing to clean a coin? to unmask an empress, pertinacious in her disguise, or toscrapeacquaintance with emperors? Try it;—not that you will succeed; but that the difficulties which you are thus made to encounter in the attempt, will dispose you the more readily to do justice to the skill of those who succeed in this delicate process, which, like the finer operations of surgery, requires at once precision and address, great nicety in the handling of your instrument; while the importance attached to the operation itself makes the successful performance of it not a little desirable. The penknife, guided by adexteroushand, may light upon a discovery that has been buried for ages; and a pin's point may make revelations sufficient to adjust some obscure point in history. Who knows what face may now lie hid (facies dicatur an ulcus?) under some obscure coating of paste? What an it be a Vitellius; what if a Pertinax should reveal himself? or suppose, when you have removed the foullarvæ, youunderminea Matidia! a Plotina!! an Annia Faustina!!! and your fortuneis made! 'Tis a lottery, we admit. But the very principle of the excitement—the charm is, that you know not whatmayturn up; for a less chance, you may possibly have bought a "Terno" in a Frankfort lottery, the chance of an estate on the Moselle! But there are small prizes to be picked up occasionally—and here's a case in point:—"I was one day sauntering," said our friend C——, "by the tomb of Cecilia Metella, when a peasant came up with a handful of very dirty-looking coins, so firmly encrusted with mortar, that it seemed absurd to attempt its removal. Having nothing particular to do, and liking the wild quiet of the spot, I gave some 'baiocchi' to the man; and taking my seat on a bit of the old aqueduct, I opened my penknife, and began to scrape away. At first I saw thetraceof a letter; and digging round it, I at length disinterred a large M——a Roman M! It was probably Maximin, or his son Maximus, that I then had under my thumb; but itmightbe a Marinus, in which case it was a valuable coin; so I wrought on with renewed vigour, and presently anLwas in thefield. A better prospect this than the last; for if it turned out to be an Æmilianus, I should have made a good morning's work of it—and it was so! Little by little, line by line, grain by grain, I opened the field, tillC. Julius Æmilianus, Pontif: Max: in a full epigraphe, shone forth with the imperialhead in full relief, all in a bright emerald patina. I have seen several Æmilianuses, but none like that; and it cost me only a penny."
Now, touching the difficulties in your way—should you still fancy them to be imaginary—take any dirty coinnigra moneta sordibus, and try to clean it; oil it, and scrub it as you may; pick into, poke at, finally, waste your whole morning over it, till your back aches, and your penknife is blunted; you will have to confess at last that your labour has been lost! Your only chance, then, is the fire; and if theactual cauteryfails, there is no longer any hope. As in learning to scale properly, you must come to sacrificea great many coinsbefore you can hope to succeed,fiat experimentum in corpore vili—begin with those that are worthless. Never mind scratching a Faustina's face; set no store by Nero; you may, if you like, mutilate as manyDomitiansas that emperor mutilated flies. For why?—they cost nothing; unless, indeed, there were something to be gained byreversingthe picture. But this only while learning, and to learn; for when youknowhow to clean a coin properly, you will hardly waste your time in adding new Trajans to the ten thousands already in existence; nor whet your curiosity or steel upon an empress, known to be as common in bronze as she was wont to be in the flesh! When you have a really valuable coin, on which your pains will not be thrown away, your mode of procedure is, first to scrape, with extreme caution, on some small spot by the margin, till you have taken your proper soundings, and come down to thepatina. Your next step must be, to ascertain whether that patina is hard, or soft and friable; in which latter case you will have to use all diligence not to poke your penknife in Crispina's eyeball, nor to wound her husband, with a few days' beard upon his chin. Nohealing processcan help you here to undo your clumsy surgery and want of skill. He will remaincicatrised, and shelippafor life. Each separate feature requires renewed care. When your minute manipulations have brought out the eyeballunspecked, then comes the nose; and to remove the closely sticking plaster from its side, and expose uninjured the curling nostril underneath, requires more than Taliacotian sleight of hand to manage properly. You must not trifle with Faustina'shair, nor with Philip'sbeard. The "flava coma," which we do not consider as ornamental at any time, looks far worse inbrassthan ingoldentresses. You must be an aurist when you come to the ear. Deal with the ear, and remember that it has itsportio mollisas you gently probe your way into its tube. Need we insist upon the necessity of respecting a lady'slips? and yet you will wound them, unless you are careful. And when all is done, you may find that your coin is no sooner cleaned, thanit is seized with thesmallpox,[61]which will becomeconfluentand spread, unless properly instructed. You have probed each cicatrix to the bottom, and filled the minute holes withink. Thus you will see that patience, tact, and care are all required in scaling a coin; or, as Dedomenicis said,ci vuo il genio!
The collecting coins is a pleasant way of learning the chronology of the royal families of antiquity; and if you are culpably negligent in their arrangement, the first dealer who sees your cabinet takes care to apprize you of your mistakes, and will generally rate you soundly as he does so. The first time Dedomenicis visited our collection of the Roman emperors, he was in a great taking on detecting (which he did not fail to do at a glance) various anachronisms in our arrangement. "By all that should be, if here is not Agrippina the wife of Germanicus, and Claudius's Agrippina, in next-door neighbourhood! the two Faustinas (che scandalo, dottore mio!) lying side by side withstrange husbands! Philip junior deposing his own father—ci avevano questa consuetudine, so let that pass; but here is a more serious affair. Pray separate all these Julias a little, my dear sir,caro lei, (looking at us very reproachfully;) here, in this one tray, you have mixed, introduced, and confounded together all the Julias of the Roman empire! Julia, the daughter of Titus, alone in her right place beside her first consort Domitian. But Julia Pia and Julia Domna are but thealiasesof the same empress, the wife of Septimius Severus; and here you have placed by mistake Julia Paula, the wife of Eliogabalus, after Julia Mammæa, who youmustremember married Maximin. Pray attend to these things; and whenever your series is deficient, leave vacant spaces in your trays to mark the deficiencies. Don't crowd your emperors thus together, when time has separated them in history," &c. &c. &c. We promised faithfully to attend to these hints; but it was all to no purpose, for in one week our friends, to whom we used to show our collection properly arranged, would again involve our chronology in inextricable confusion, especially certain dear young ladies of our acquaintance, who, by no means showing the same respect for old Time that old Time continued to demonstrate towards them, would make light of whole centuries; and we have known them so regardless of all dates, except perhaps their own, as to bring up a Constantine or Maxentius, and to place them under the very nose of Augustus!
Thereare few things more striking than the analogy in civil and physical changes of the world. There have been in the history of man periods as distinctive as in the history of nations. From these periods society and nations have alike assumed new aspects, and the world has commenced a new career. The fall of the Roman Empire was the demarcation between the old world and the new. It was the moral deluge, out of which a new condition of man, new laws, new forms of religion, new styles of thought, almost a totally new configuration of human society, were to arise. A new settlement of the civil world took place: power absorbed by one race of mankind was to be divided among various races; and the development of principles of government and society, hitherto unknown, was to be scarcely less memorable, less unexpected, or less productive, than that voyage by which Columbus doubled the space of the habitable globe.
The Reformation was another mighty change. It introduced civil liberty into the empire of tyranny, religion into the realm of superstition, and science into the depths of national ignorance. The French Revolution was the last, and not the least powerful change within human experience. Its purpose is, like its operation, still dubious. Whether it came simply for wrath, or simply for restoration—whether, like the earthquake of Lisbon, it came only to destroy, and leave its ruins visible for a century to come; to clear the ground of incumbrances too massive for the hand of man, and open the soil for exertions nobler than the old, must be left to time to interpret. But there can be no question, that the most prominent agency, the most powerful influence, and the most dazzling lustre, of a period in which all the stronger impulses of our being were in the wildest activity, centred in the character of one man, and that man—Napoleon.
It is evidently a law of Providence, that all the great changes of society shall be the work of individual minds. Yet when we recollect the difficulty of effecting any general change, embracing the infinite varieties of human interests, caprices, passions, and purposes, nothing could seem more improbable. But it has always been the course of things. Without Charlemagne, the little principalities of Gothic Europe would never have been systematised into an empire;—without Luther, what could have been the progress of the Reformation?—without Napoleon, the French Revolution would have burnt itself out, vanished into air, or sunk into ashes. He alone collected its materials, combined them into a new and powerful shape, crowned this being of his own formation with the imperial robe, erected it in the centre of Europe, and called the nations to bow down before a new idol, like the gods of the Indian known only by its mysterious frown, the startling splendour of its diadem, and the swords and serpents grasped in its hands.
That the character of Napoleon was a singular compound of the highest intellectual powers with the lowest moral qualities, is evidently the true description of this extraordinary being. This combination alone accounts for the rapidity, the splendour of his career, and the sudden and terrible completeness of his fall. Nothing less than pre-eminent capacity could have shot him up through the clouds and tempests of the Revolution into the highest place of power. A mixture of this force of mind and desperate selfishness of heart could alone have suggested and sustained the system of the Imperial wars, policy, and ambition; and the discovery of his utter faithlessness could alone have rendered all thrones hopeless of binding him by the common bonds of sovereign to sovereign, and compelled them to find their only security for the peace of Europe in consigning him to adungeon. He was the only instance in modern history of a monarch dethroned by a universal conviction; warred against by mankind, as the sole object of the war; delivered over into captivity by the unanimous judgment of nations; and held in the same unrelaxing and judicial fetters until he died.
It is another striking feature of this catastrophe, that the whole family of Napoleon sank along with him. They neither possessed his faculties, nor were guilty of his offences. But as they had risen solely by him, they perished entirely with him. Future history will continually hover over this period of our annals, as the one which most resembles some of those fabrications of the Oriental genius, in which human events are continually under the guidance of spirits of the air; in which fantastic palaces are erected by a spell, and the treasures of the earth developed by the wave of a wand—in which the mendicant of this hour is exalted into the prince of the next; and while the wonder still glitters before the eye, another sign of the necromancer dissolves the whole pageant into air again. Human recollection has no record of so much power, so widely distributed, and apparently so fixed above all the ordinary casualties of the world, so instantly and so irretrievably overthrown. The kings of earth are not undone at a blow; kingdoms do not change their rulers without a struggle. Great passions and great havoc have always preceded and followed the fall of monarchies. But the four diadems of the Napoleon race fell from their wearers' brows with scarcely a touch from the hand of man. The surrender of the crown by Napoleon extinguished the crowns actually ruling over millions, and virtually influencing the whole Continent. They were extinguished, too, at the moment when the Imperial crown disappeared. It had no sooner been crushed at Waterloo, than they all fell into fragments, of themselves;—the whole dynasty went down with Napoleon into the dungeon, and not one of them has since returned to the world.
The name of General Count Montholon is well known to this country, as that of a brave officer, who, after acquiring distinguished rank in the French army by his sword, followed Napoleon to St Helena; remained with him during his captivity; and upon his death was made the depositary of his papers, and his executor. But his own language, in a letter dated from the Castle of Ham in June 1844, gives the best account of his authority and his proceedings.
"A soldier of the Republic, a brigadier-general at twenty years of age, and minister-plenipotentiary in Germany in 1812 and 1813, I could, like others, have left memoirs concerning the things which I saw; but the whole is effaced from my mind in presence of a single thing, a single event, and a single man. The thing is Waterloo; the event, the fall of the Empire; and the man, Napoleon."
He then proceeds to tell us, that he shared the St Helena captivity for six years; that for forty-two nights he watched the dying bed of the ex-monarch; and that, by Napoleon's express desire, he closed his eyes. But to those duties of private friendship were affixed official services, which looked much more like tyranny than the tribute of personal regard, and which we should think must have worn out the patience, and tried the constitution, of the most devoted follower of this extraordinary captive.
Napoleon, though apparently contemptuous of the opinions of mankind, evidently felt the strongest anxiety to make out a favourable statement for himself. And all his hours, except the few devoted to exercise on horseback and to sleep, and to his meals, were employed in completing the narrative which was to clear up his character to mankind.
During the last years passed in St Helena, Napoleon sent for the Count every night at eleven o'clock, and continued dictating to him until six in the morning, when he went into the bath, dismissing the count with—"Come, my son, go and repose, and come to me again at nine o'clock. We shall have breakfast, and resume the labours of the night." At nine, he returned, and remained with him till one, when Napoleon went to bed. Between four and five, he sent for the count again, who dined with him every day, and at nine o'clock left him, to return at eleven.
The world little knew the drudgery to which these unfortunate followers of the Ex-Emperor were thus exposed, and they must all have rejoiced at any termination of a toil so remorseless and so uncheering.
Napoleon was fond of the Turkish doctrine of fatality. Whether so acute a mind was capable of believing a doctrine so palpably contradicted by the common circumstances of life, and so utterly repugnant to reason, can scarcely be a question; but with him, as with the Turks, it was a capital doctrine for the mighty machine which he called an army. But the count seems to have been a true believer. He, too, pronounces, that "destiny is written," and regards himself as being under the peculiar influence of a malignant star, or, in his own words: "In fact, without having sought it, my destiny brought me into contact with the Emperor in the Elysée Bourbon, conducted me, without my knowing it, to the shores of Boulogne, where honour imposed upon me the necessity of not abandoning the nephew of the Emperor in presence of the dangers by which he was surrounded. Irrevocably bound to the misfortunes of a family, I am now perishing in Ham; the captivity commenced in St Helena."
Of Count Montholon, it must be acknowledged, that he was unstained by either the vices or the violences which scandalized Europe so frequently in the leaders of the French armies. He appears to have been at all times a man of honourable habits, as he certainly is of striking intelligence. But we have no faith in his doctrine of the star, and think that he would have acted much more wisely if he had left the stars to take care of themselves, avoided the blunder of mistaking the nephew of Napoleon for a hero and a genius, and stayed quietly in London, instead of risking himself with an invasion of valets to take the diadem off the most sagacious head in Europe.
The narrative commences with the return of Napoleon to Paris after his renown, his throne, and his dynasty were alike crushed by the British charge at Waterloo. He reached Paris at six in the morning of the 21st. It is now clear that the greatest blunder of this extraordinary man was his flight from the army. If he had remained at its head, let its shattered condition be what it might, he would have been powerful, have awed the growing hostility of the capital, and have probably been able to make peace alike for himself and his nation. But by hurrying to Paris, all was lost: he stripped himself of his strength; he threw himself on the mercy of his enemies; and palpably capitulated to the men who, but the day before, were trembling under the fear of his vengeance.
Nobleness of heart is essential to all true renown; and perhaps it is not less essential to all real security. Napoleon, with talents which it is perfectly childish to question, though the attempt has been made since the close of his brilliant career, wanted this nobleness of heart, and through its want ultimately perished. Of the bravery of him who fought the splendid campaigns of Italy, and of the political sagacity of him who raised himself from being a subaltern of artillery to a sovereign of sovereigns, there can be no doubt. But his selfishness was so excessive that it occasionally made both contemptible, and gave his conduct alike the appearance of cowardice, and the appearance of infatuation. His flight from Egypt, leaving his army to be massacred or captured, disgraced him in the face of Europe. His flight from Russia, leaving the remnant of his legions to be destroyed, was a new scandal; but hitherto no evil had been produced by this gross regard of self. The penalty, however, must be paid. His flight from the army in Belgian, leaving it without counsel or direction, to be crushed by a victorious enemy, was the third instance of that ignoble preference of his own objects which had characterised and stained his Egyptian and Russian career. But retribution was now come, and he was to be undone. The slaughter of Waterloo had been tremendous, but it was not final. The loss of the French army had been computed at forty thousand men, killed, wounded, and dispersed. He had come into the field with seventy-two thousand men, independent of Grouchy. He had thus thirty thousand remaining. Grouchy's force of thirty thousand was stilluntouched, and was able to make its way to Paris. In addition to these sixty thousand, strong garrisons had been left in all the fortresses, which he might without difficulty have gathered upon his retreat. The Parisian national guard would have augmented this force, probably, on the whole, to one hundred thousand men. It is true that the allied Russian and Austrian forces were on the frontier. But they had not yet moved, and could not prevent the march of those reinforcements. Thus, without reckoning the provincial militia of France, or calculating on alevée en masse, Napoleon within a fortnight might have been at the head of one hundred and fifty thousand men, while the pursuing army could not have mustered half the number. He would thus have had time for negotiation; and time with him was every thing. Or let the event be what it might, the common sense of the Allies would have led them to avoid a direct collision with so powerful a force fighting on its own ground under the walls of the capital, and knowing that the only alternatives were complete triumph or total ruin.
Count Montholon makes a remark on the facility with which courtiers make their escape from a falling throne, which has been so often exemplified in history. But it was never more strikingly exemplified than in the double overthrow of Napoleon. "At Fontainbleau, in 1814," says the Count, "when I hastened to offer to carry him off with the troops under my command, I found no one in those vast corridors, formerly too small for the crowd of courtiers, except the Duke of Bassano and two aides-de-camp." His whole court, down to his Mameluke and valet, had run off to Paris, to look for pay and place under the Bourbons. In a similar case in the next year, at the Elysée Bourbon, he found but two counts and an equerry. It was perfectly plain to all the world but Napoleon himself that his fate was decided.
There certainly seems to have been something in his conduct at this period that can scarcely be accounted for but by infatuation. His first act, the desertion of his army, was degrading to his honour, but his conduct on his arrival was not less degrading to his sagacity. Even his brother Lucien said that he was blinded with the smoke of Waterloo. He seems to have utterly lost that distinct view and fierce decision which formerly characterised all his conduct. It was no more the cannon-shot or the thunder-clap, it was the wavering of a mind suddenly perplexed by the difficulties which he would once have solved by a sentence and overwhelmed by resistance—which he would have once swept away like a swarm of flies. The leader of armies was crushed by a conspiracy of clerks, and the sovereign of the Continent was sent to the dungeon by cabal of his own slaves.
While Napoleon was thus lingering in the Elysée Bourbon, the two chambers of the Legislature were busily employed between terror and intrigue. The time was delicate, for the Bourbons and the Allies were approaching. But, on the other hand, the fortunes of Napoleon might change; tardiness in recognising the Bourbons might be fatal to their hopes of place, but the precipitancy of abandoning Napoleon might bring their heads under the knife of the guillotine. All public life is experimental, and there never was a time when the experiment was of a more tremulous description.
At length they began to act; and the first precaution of the Chamber of Deputies was to secure their own existence. Old Lafayette moved a resolution, that the man should be regarded as a traitor to the country who made any attempt to dissolve the Chamber. This was an obvious declaration against the authority of the Empire. The next motion was, that General Beker should be appointed commandant of the guard ordered to protect the Legislature. This was a provision against the mob of Paris. The Legislature was now safe on its two prominent perils. In the mean time, Napoleon had made another capital blunder. He had held a council of the ministers, to which he proposed the question, whether he should proceed in person to the Chamber of Deputies, and demand supplies, or send his brothers and ministers tomake the communication. Three of the ministers approved of his going in person, but the majority disapproved of it—on the plea of its being a dangerous experiment, in the excited state of the public passions. If Napoleon had declined this counsel, which arose from either pusillanimity or perfidy, it is perfectly possible that he might have silenced all opposition. The known attachment of the troops, the superstition connected with his fortunes, the presence of the man whom they all so lately worshipped, as the Indians worship the serpent for the poison of its fang, might have produced a complete revulsion. Napoleon, too, was singularly eloquent—his language had a romantic splendour which captivates the artificial taste of the nation; and with an imperial figure before them, surrounded with more powerful incidents than the drama could ever offer, and threatening a fifth act which might involve the fate of France and Europe, the day might have finished by a new burst of national enthusiasm, and the restoration of Napoleon to the throne, with all his enemies in the Legislature chained to its footstool.
But he sent his brother Joseph to the Chamber of Peers, and received the answer to his mission next morning, in a proposal which was equivalent to a demand for his abdication.
A council of ministers was again held on this proposal. The same three who had voted for his presence in the Chamber, now voted for his rejection of the proposal. The majority, however, were against them. Napoleon yielded to the majority. He had lost his opportunity—and in politics opportunity is every thing. He had now nothing more to lose. He drew up an acknowledgment of his abdication; but appended to it the condition of proclaiming his son, Napoleon Second, emperor of the French. This was an artifice, but it was unworthy even of the art of Napoleon. He must have been conscious that the Allies would have regarded this appointment as a trick to ensure his own restoration. His son was yet a child; a regent must have been appointed; Napoleon would have naturally been that regent; and in six months, or on the first retreat of the Allies, he would as naturally have reappointed himself emperor. The trick was too shallow for his sagacity, and it was impossible to hope that it could have been suffered by the Allies. Yet it passed the Chamber, and Napoleon Second was acknowledged within the walls. But the acknowledgment was laughed at without them; the Allies did not condescend to notice it; and the Allies proceeded to their work of restoration as if he had never existed. In fact, the dynasty was at an end; a provisional government was appointed, with Fouché at its head, and the name of Napoleon was pronounced no more.
Count Montholon gives a brief but striking description of the confusion, dismay, and despair, into which Waterloo had thrown the Bonapartists. He had hurried to the Elysée a few hours after the arrival of Bonaparte from the field. He met the Duke of Vicenza coming out, with a countenance of dejection, and asked him what was going on. "All is lost," was the answer. "You arrived to-day, as you did at Fontainbleau, only to see the emperor resign his crown. The leaders of the Chambers desire his abdication. They will have it; and in a week Louis XVIII. will be in Paris. At night on the 19th, a short note in pencil was left with my Swiss, announcing the destruction of the army. The same notice was given to Carnot. The last telegraphic dispatch had brought news of victory; we both hastened to the Duke of Otranto; he assured us with all his cadaverous coldness that he knew nothing. He knew all, however, I am well assured. Events succeeded each other with the rapidity of lightning; there is no longer any possible illusion. All is lost, and the Bourbons will be here in a week."
The Count remained forty-eight hours at the palace. The fallen Emperor had now made up his mind to go to America, and the Count promised to accompany him. A couple of regiments, formed of the workmen of the Faubourg St Germain, marching by the palace, now demanded that Napoleon should put himself at their head, and take vengeance on his enemies.But he well knew the figure which the volunteers of the mob would make in front of the bayonets which had crushed his guard at Waterloo, and he declined the honour of this new command. A few courtiers, who adhered to him still, continued to talk of his putting himself at the head of the national force. But Waterloo had effectually cured him of the passion for soldiership, and he constantly appealed to his unwillingness to shed the blood of Frenchmen. It was at least evident that he intended to tempt the field no more, but after being the cause of shedding the blood of two millions of the people, his reserve was romantic.
The Count was sent to dismiss the volunteers, and they having performed their act of heroism, and offered to challenge the whole British army, were content with the glory of the threat, and heroically marched home to their shops.
But Montholon, on returning again, addressed Napoleon on the feasibility of attacking Wellington and Blucher with the battalions of the Messrs Calicot, upon which the Ex-Emperor made the following solemn speech: "To put into action the brute force of the masses, would without doubt save Paris, and ensure me the crown, without having recourse to the horrors of a civil war. But this would be also to risk the shedding of rivers of fresh blood. What is the compressive force which would be sufficiently strong to regulate the outburst of so much passion, hatred, and vengeance? No, I never can forget one thing, that I have been brought from Cannes to Paris in the midst of cries for blood, 'Down with the priests!' 'Down with the nobles!' I would rather have the regrets of France than possess its crown."
There is no country in the world, where Napoleon's own phrase, that from the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step, is more perpetually and practically realised than in France. Here was a man utterly ruined, without a soldier on the face of the earth, all but a prisoner, abandoned by every human being who could be of the slightest service to him, beaten in the field, beaten on his own ground, and now utterly separated from his remaining troops, and with a hundred thousand of the victors rushing after him, hour by hour, to Paris. Yet he talks as if he had the world still at his disposal, applauds his own magnanimity in declining the impossible combat, vaunts his own philosophy in standing still, when he could neither advance nor retreat, and gives himself credit as a philanthropist, when he was on the very point of being handed over to the enemy as a prisoner. Some unaccountable tricks of a lower description now began to be played on the goods and chattels of the Elysée Bourbon. A case containing snuff-boxes adorned with portraits set in diamonds, was laid by Bertrand on the mantel-piece. He accidentally turned to converse with General Montholon at the window. Only one person entered the room. The Count does not give his name,—he was evidently a person of rank. On turning to the mantel-piece again, the case was gone.
One of the ministers had brought some negotiable paper to the amount of several millions of francs into the Emperor's chamber. The packet was placed under one of the cushions of the sofa. Only one person, and that one a man of rank who had served in Italy, entered the chamber. Napoleon went to look for the money, calculated a moment, and a million and a half of francs, or about £60,000 sterling, had been taken in the interim. Those were times for thievery, and the plunderers of Europe were now on the alert, to make spoil of each other. The Allies were still advancing, but they were not yet in sight; and the mob of Paris, who had been at first delighted to find that the war was at an end, having nothing else to do, and thinking that, as Wellington and Blucher had not arrived within a week, they would not arrive within a century, began to clamourVive l'Empereur!Fouché and the provisional government began to feel alarm, and it was determined to keep Napoleon out of sight of the mob. Accordingly they ordered him to be taken to Malmaison; and on the 25th, towards nightfall, Napoleon submissively quitted the Elysée, and went to Malmaison. At Malmaison he remained for the greater part of thetime, in evident fear of being put to death, and in fact a prisoner.—Such was the fate of the most powerful sovereign that Europe had seen since Charlemagne. Such was the humiliation of the conqueror, who, but seven years before, had summoned the continental sovereigns to bow down to his footstool at Erfurth; and who wrote to Talma the actor these words of supreme arrogance—"Come to Erfurth, and you shall play before a pit-full of kings."
From this period, day by day, a succession of measures was adopted by the government to tighten his chain. He was ordered to set out for the coast, nominally with the intention of giving him a passage to America. But we must doubt that intention. Fouché, the head of the government, had now thrown off the mask which he had worn so many years. And it was impossible for him to expect forgiveness, in case of any future return of Napoleon to power. But Napoleon, in America, would have been at all times within one-and-twenty days of Paris. And the mere probability of his return would have been enough to make many a pillow sleepless in Paris. We are to recollect also, that the English ministry must have been perfectly aware of the arrest of Napoleon; that St Helena had been already mentioned as a place of security for his person; and that if it was essential to the safety of Europe,—a matter about which Fouché probably cared but little; it was not less essential to the safety of Fouché's own neck,—a matter about which he always cared very much, that the Ex-Emperor should never set foot in France again.
The result was, an order from the minister at war, Davoust, Prince of Eckmuhl, couched in the following terms. We give it as a document of history.