PAQUETA.

———

BY. H. DIDIMUS.

———

“Paqueta, Paqueteta, Paquete,” I called, throwing the Italian and English diminutives together to express more strongly the smallness, and, I may add, prettiness, of the little being whom I knew was listening for my voice. Paqueta sprang into the room with a shower of laughter, and rolled at my feet, and took them in her hands, and embraced them, and said that she was, indeed, very happy. Paqueta was one of those “pets” to be found in every creole family of Louisiana; and which seem to be as necessary to the completeness of the establishment, as was the fool among the nobler of our ancestors, some three centuries past. The pet is ever a slave, a little slave, sometimes full-blooded and jetty black, and sometimes so near upon white, as to puzzle the eye to find a trace of the African sun in its complexion. It is adopted from chance, or whim, and grows daily into the affections, until it becomes the most indulged, pampered, spoiled, cared-for, and idolized thing about the house. With the widest liberty, its chains hang in the air, or are made of those roses which the good people of Geneva put into Jean Jaque’s hands when they raised a monument to his Emile. Paqueta was a quateronne—a light quateronne, of exquisite features, and most fragile make; and, at the time of which I write, had eight years—eight years of happiness to her; for she knew not of her condition, knew not of any thing, save petting, from her birth to that hour. Thus it is that liberty is a breath, an airy something to be talked of, rather than enjoyed. What liberty have the poor? Are they not bound to labor, to a toil which is ceaseless, by the will of God, even to the grave! And what liberty have the rich? A change of place, and their own wills. Better it were that their own wills were bound about with clamps of iron three-fold deep. Paqueta was born upon the feast of Easter, and thence took her name—for the French call Easter-day “Paque;” and a paque it was, or a festival it was, from her birth unto her death. Her hair was long and straight, and black as night; while her eyes, ox-eyes, too, were deeply blue; as if nature, knowing her mixed race, were willing to carry out the mixture by a strange compound of opposing colors. Nothing could be more delicate and tapering than her fingers; and her tiny feet were a joy to the sight. And there she lay, rolling at my feet, and looking up archly, and laughing—for she knew what was to come next; so I put out my hand, and commenced the daily lesson, counting upon the digits.

“Un,deux,trois,quatre,cinq.” I had undertaken to teach Paqueta to count five—and a mighty task it was; for she was a very little witch, and knew me better than I knew myself, and feared lest, the lesson ended, she might lose her interest to be whistled down the wind. Oh, nature, nature! thou knowest full well what thou art about; and dost put into our breasts, even in the beginning, the ways and means of winning all our desires.

“Un,deux,trois,quatre,cinq.” Paqueta crooked her little fingers, and commenced; “Un,deux,quatre—non, ce n’est pas juste;un,quatre,cinq”—and then, with a fillip upon her ear, the one hundred and ninety-ninth, she sprang away, and shouted, and laughed, and crept back again, and rolled at my feet, and took them in her hands, and said that indeed she must learn, and thought that she should do so, if she could but try again. And thus we went on, from day to day, Paqueta’s little head refusing to hold more than three numerals at once, and even those three not in the right relative position. And when Paqueta became weary of her counting, and I became weary of the fillip, she would steal up behind my chair, and comb out my hair—which I then wore foolishly long, having enough of it—and fumble in my pockets for paper, and roll my locks up tightly to the skin, saying that they must curl, and that, as I was a good man, I must buy her, and she would be my nice little barber forever. Buy her! And so she knew that she was a thing of barter—a thing to be bought and sold! And what if she did know it—was she the less happy for her knowledge—and was she other than we all are, in this broad world? Who buys the maid, trained to all luxury, sighing for position! And who buys the youth, in science well instructed, ambitious of a name! The poor are bought daily, under every sum that civilization acknowledges, and the rich, when in want of other purchasers, sell themselves to their own vices. Small difference is it, whether the price be pounds, shillings, and pence, or a promise of ease, or power, or bread, or pleasures, forbidden in this life, to be accounted for in the next. So Paqueta was not so unfortunate, after all.

Paqueta loved dress above all things, and had the taste to wear it—the French part of her composition—and when, on a gala day, she appeared tricked out with ribbons, her joy ran over, and sparkled in her eyes, and lighted up her face, and babbled from her tongue, and played in her feet, so airily, that she seemed to tread upon nothing. She loved admiration, too; and no punishment could be devised, for any of her faults, so effective as the forbidding her to appear before the company which visited her mistress’ house. She took to music from nature, for she was born amid the sound of bells; and at the Opera,where she held her mistress’ handkerchief, or arranged her mistress’ train, kept time with her head, and with her hands, and with her whole body—certainly Paqueta was not unhappy. I much doubt whether she ever saw a more miserable hour than that to which I once subjected her, in an honest attempt to teach her English. She began with a right good will, for she knew that the lesson was to be a long one, and would not be got over with the counting of five; but the guttural and teeth sounds so grated upon her ear, that, like the whetting of a saw, they made her sick, and I gave up my project—the more readily, since we all know that one language is enough for anybody; and more than enough for most of us.

Next to dress, in a woman, comes religion; and since nature is ever true, and ever holds to her first types, Paqueta was religious all over. She kept the fast-days every one, eat no meat upon a Friday, and with the coming of the Sabbath, and on most week days, walked at her mistress’ side to matins. If she came away with little knowledge, she came away with much wisdom; for true wisdom is a getter of happiness, and her happiness flowed from her religion as one of its main sources. She ever wore about her neck, hanging to a narrow ribbon, a small medal of the size, if you are a lady, of your thumb nail; it was of bronze, and bore upon one side an impress of the cross, and upon the other a raised figure of the Virgin. One day I took it between my fingers, and asked her what it was; she said it was her God, and began with much earnestness to tell me how it came into her possession. She said that it had been given to her a long time before, so long before that her little memory could not run back to the precise year, and month, and day, by the good Father Joseph, who told her that if she kept it safely she should never die. Never die;pauvre petite!What could Paqueta know of death, except as a place where there was no dressing, no eating and no drinking, no counting of five, and, more than all, no petting? Yet the good father had spoken to her of death, and had told her further, that if she did but pray to her God morning and night, she would in return, receive whatever she asked.

“And did the good father tell you what to ask for, Paqueta?”

“Oui, monsieur; he said that I must ask for health, and nothing more, for every thing else I could get myself.”

A right good father, and a right sensible father was Joseph, according to my thinking; for the little Paqueta throve well under his instructions. Every morning and every night she took the medal from her neck, and placed it upon her bed and knelt before it and asked for health, and rose with the consciousness of possessing what she asked for. Her religion was a reality, and if it went not far, it at least went some way; and there was an earnestness about it which sometimes made me wish it my own. I have many neighbors, and perhaps you are slightly acquainted with others, who would show another and a better face with one half of Paqueta’s faith.

——

Little Paqueta, nice Paqueta, sweet Paqueta, slave Paqueta, my pen runs riot when speaking of Paqueta, heaven bless her soul. Thus Paqueta lived, and breathed, and was happy during two whole years under my eyes, when a great change came over her life, and she put off the bonds of servitude never to resume them more. Her mistress, who had wealth, and who, with all of her sex among the creole French of Louisiana, looked forward to a translation to Paris with much of the expectation that fills the breast of a devotee who travels toward a “city out of sight,” removed to La Belle France. As the law then stood, it was the practice of those who went abroad to add a favorite slave to their train, as a readier and earlier means of manumission than the statute gave. All who touched la belle France returned free; so Paqueta’s mistress, knowing full well that her little maid-in-waiting, whom she had spoilt, and whom everybody had spoilt, was too white for servitude, was too white for any thing except one long Easter-day, as the pagans kept it, put her among her baggage. I saw Paqueta on shipboard, and there, standing upon the deck which was to take her forever from the clime of which she was a most true child, the wind whistling through her hair, and her tongue garrulous of the joy which childhood ever finds in all things new. I gave her my last lesson.

“Paqueta,” said I, “never trouble yourself about counting five; if you should ever arrive at the counting of a hundred, you would be none the better for it; but remember always the good Father Joseph’s gift and his instructions—good bye.”

And again the little slave-girl, so happy and so beautiful, rolled at my feet, and took them in her hands, and looked up, and was silent; for the long lesson of two years was ended, and was to be washed out by the wetting of a passing sorrow which I saw hanging upon her eyelids.

Ten years had rolled away since Paqueta’s emigration, and in the course of them I had grown more than ten years older under this hot, quick-racing sun. I had forgotten the long-haired, blue-eyed, Easter-born quateronne, with her mistress, and ten thousand other things beside, when, one long vacation, having nothing else to do, and having just got through a dull history of Paris in twelve big volumes, I resolved to see that great heart of the world. It was in King Philippe’s day, when the Parisians enjoyed more rational liberty than they ever enjoyed before, or will ever enjoy again, except they very much mend their ways. Now any thing may take place in Paris, as we know very well; and one who has lived there a long time must have long since ceased wondering. Paris is the mother of civilization, and civilization is a Proteus which turns itself inside-out, and upside-down, every day throughout the week. Paris is a citizen of the world, and has the good and the bad qualities of all the earth beside; so that no one, wherever born, is at a loss in its streets, but at once feels at home, and leaving it, leaves it with regret. Paris, therefore, is as infinite in its incident as theearth is; and although it might be hard to find, elsewhere in Europe, the manners of two widely-separated people in close and harmonious juxtaposition, yet, in Paris, you tread upon the four continents every step you take. In Paris man’s intellect is stretched to the utmost, the best fencer takes the prize, the hardest fends off, and no false coin passes for true metal; real merit is recognized, and mind, polished, sharp, ready for effective use, is the only nobility which ranks one higher than another. Therefore, sir, you need not open your eyes very wide when I tell you of Paqueta’s transformation in Paris.

I had been in the city a whole month, running about in every quarter to see the world of art collected within its walls—and twelve months, and twice twelve-months would not have been sufficient for the Louvre alone—when, one early eve, the light yet hanging upon the house-tops and dropping down upon the passengers below, I discovered in the Champs Elysées, moving in a direction opposite to my own, a gentleman and lady whose manner, whose comeliness, whose air of full content, strongly fixed my attention. As we drew near to each other, I saw that the lady was possessed of a rare beauty, and as Frenchwomen are proverbially plain, and as her complexion was of the deeper olive, I at once said that she was from the Peninsula, perhaps Cadiz, of whose excellence in that way we have all read so much.

The lady and her companion were engaged in earnest conversation, when, just as we were about to cross, her eye caught mine; she hesitated, stopped, moved on, hesitated, stopped again, and then, her whole face lighting up with a burst of joy, sprang forward, and seizing both my hands in hers—

“Ah, have you forgotten me!” she exclaimed; “mon cher ami, mon ancien ami; have you forgotten Paqueta—little Paqueta, who would not count five!”

All of Paqueta, as I had taken leave of her upon the ship’s deck, came back to me in a moment, and I wondered that I had not recognized her, enlarged as she was, with the same beauty, the same heart, the same child-character, raised and instructed to fill another and higher condition in life. She was so warm, so truthful, so full of recollections of the early years which she still loved, that I half feared she might again roll at my feet, and take them in her hands, and say, “non, ce n’est pas juste; un, trois, quatre”—and I told her so.

“And now, you must know my husband, my Charles,” said she, turning to her companion who stood making big eyes at the scene which was enacted before him. Charles received me with the polished courtesy of a Frenchman, asked for my address, gave me his own, and said that his wife received her friends every Thursday. We parted; Paqueta, a being of impulse, all the girl again, laughing until her eyes ran over at my perplexity, which I could not wholly conceal, and I promising that she should see me on the morrow, although Thursday was yet two days off.

On ascending to my rooms, at the head of four flights of French stairs, dark, odorous, and which comfort never visited but to die, I opened my note book, and commenced the journal of the day. I am now writing from it, and the page is marked with a flourish, a sort of out-breaking animal spirits, to show that it commemorates one of the happiest incidents of my life. “Charles R——; so; I have heard of that name before. He is something already, and is young enough to become in the end a great deal more. Charles R——; he must be a feuilletonist or a politician, an attaché to some one of the innumerable parties with which this miserable country is cursed; for these are the only names that get over to the other side of the water. Very well, he has won Paqueta—and she was worth the winning. Into what a noble woman the little minx has grown! And who can discover a trace of her former servitude about her! I hope he knows her beginning; and certainly Paqueta is too honest to have concealed her life; how does an extreme civilization civilize away our prejudices: and, after all, condition is but one of the positive laws of men.”

On the morrow I called upon Paqueta, and found her living, with some elegance, upon a second floor, or “flat,” as we call it in Edinbro’. To those who have been in Paris, or to those who have read Parisian books, or books written elsewhere of Parisian life, it is not necessary to say what a “second floor” is; and all others may as well remain as they are. She received me with her whole heart, with no show of her changed condition—which was to me like the sudden shifting of a scene in some melo-dramatic piece upon the stage—and sat me down, and at once commenced talking of Louisiana, and of her early life, and of its happiness, and sighed that it could not have so remained forever. She then told me of her history since her coming into France; how that her mistress, who was without children, after settling down in Paris treated her more as a favorite daughter than otherwise; how that she had masters given her, who taught her ten thousand things beside the counting of five; how that her mistress had died two years before, bequeathing her thirty thousand francs; and how Charles once met her, and loved her, and they were married. And thus she ran on for one full hour, her eyes sparkling with delight, the same Paqueta with whom I had trifled away many a pleasant minute ten years before.Cœlum, non animum mutant, qui trans mare currant.While we conversed, her husband entered, and took my hand with much cordiality, and welcomed me, saying that his wife had told him of her having known me in America.

“And did you tell him what a hard master I was?”

“Ah, I remember the fillips perfectly well, and sometimes think I feel them burning upon my ears even now,” said Paqueta.

“And the little medal, your god; with the good Father Joseph’s advice?”

Paqueta’s face, for the first time, looked troubled; the sunlight left it; and I felt sorry that I had asked the question.

“Charles made me lay the medal aside the secondday after our marriage; and as to praying for health, or aught else, Paris knows nothing of that.”

Charles laughed, and said “that he had been long since convinced that a priesthood was incompatible with Liberty.”

Charles R. was, as I had supposed, connected with the “press,” a socialist, a believer in the perfectability of men—of Frenchmen at least—and, in theory, an organizer of Labor. At that time the “press” had no great liberty in France; but it had to the full as much as it deserved, whatever the interested, or those who know nothing of the matter, may say to the contrary. The French “press,” when it has had its way, has done little else than to overturn a government, without the power or the knowledge to set up another in its place. It is not best that children, or the unskillful, should be entrusted with edge-tools; and a people is to be educated, through long centuries, to a fitness for the enjoyment of civil liberty, as man is educated, through long years, to a fitness for becoming his own master. Such has been the pupilage of our ancestry; but such has not been the pupilage of the ancestry of the French. In France liberty is anarchy; and so it is upon the Continent, in Germany, in Italy, and the Peninsula; and he who thinks it is to be made otherwise in a day, might as well pour the contents of a library at a fool’s feet, and bid him rise learned. But Charles R. and his friends, among whom was Louis Blanc—who looked like a boy, as a boy indeed he was, who had achieved something beyond his years—and Ledru Rollin—the future leader of the Mountain, which he had neither the ability to protect, nor the courage to fall with—and Proudhon—the plausible corrupter of youth, who endeavored to persuade France that “property is theft”—thought much and talked much of the liberty of the “press,” until in the end they got it, and made such use of it as we all know.A las la presse.I heard that cry once, and thought it the most conservative and the best for France.

Such was the atmosphere which Paqueta now breathed, and I sometimes thought that, for her soul’s health, it was no better than the servitude from which she had escaped. I saw her often during another month that I remained in Paris, and more than once with a deal of company at her rooms. She had grown to her husband’s intellect, conversed freely upon the lightest and gravest topics, and performed the duties of a hostess with an ease and propriety which flowed directly from her native good taste; it is so with French blood every where, and however small may be the proportion to the whole mass. Her husband was a brilliant feuilletonist; I had read something of his pen before seeing France; but he found more excellence in his wife than his imagination ever limned; and, as a proof of it, he himself told me that his friends said his articles had more heart in them since his marriage.

——

When Louis Philippe fled, Charles R. harangued the people. He would have thrown the red flag of the old republic to the breeze, and have followed it to the world’s end. The French have grown no wiser since Robespierre’s day; and in Robespierre’s day they sat around Plutarch’s Lives, and modeled government upon the anecdotal garrulity of an old gentleman who lived some two thousand years ago. But Charles found that his friends were in the Provisional Government—one of whom he hoped soon to see stealing all power from his associates—so he acquiesced in Lamartine’s well-turned sentences, and consented that the tricolor and a poet should be uppermost for a time. Charles entered the National Assembly, as a member from the department of the Seine, and took his seat with the Mountain; that great party, whose history is more terrible than that of any body of men, either of ancient or of modern days, which has come down to us.

“The Mountain!” exclaimed Charles R., at aconversazionewhich I attended at his rooms; “how often do my thoughts run back to its great leader. Extremely beautiful, extremely touching, too, are the chapters which Michelet devotes to the history of the Purcelle. She, who had been taught neither to read nor to write, but who had learned all her mother knew of sacred things, left her sewing, and her spinning, and went forth to give courage to men; to give a king to her country; to turn back the tide of conquest; to smite victorious armies with ceaseless rout and ruin, urged, sustained, by that certain knowledge of being called, which God gives to all the chiefest instruments of his dispensations—by the certain knowledge, too, of the quick coming of a martyr’s death. There was another, of a sterner sex, appointed unto times more trying, who equally saved France, when three-fifths of France were traitors unto France; who alone, of all the faithful, never for a moment despaired of the Republic; who assumed nothing, claimed nothing, asked for nothing for himself, but all for his country; whose will, of a wonderful energy, scattered the victorious arms, not of one nation, but of combined Europe; who, from afar off, retired, sitting in his narrow chamber over the cabinetmaker’s shop, blasted with the breath of his nostrils the well-concerted plans, the strength of despotism, and delivered over France, his great mother, into the hands of those who came after him, triumphant, uncontaminated by the tread of a single foreign foe. He, too, had the certain knowledge of being called and appointed to a purpose; and the certain knowledge of the quick coming of death; for he often spoke of it as a fit crowning of a great labor. Robespierre a coward! He who spoke daily, as of old the Athenian spoke, at the gage of life! Death was at all times treading hard upon his footsteps; and did he shun it in that last hour when he put aside the proclamation which was to give him the victory? Many have been the martyrs for opinion’s sake. To die by the axe, all are equal to; to die by fire, most are equal to; but to die misrepresented and misunderstood, cheated of fair fame, with another’s crime fastened upon us—to die taken in the toils of an enemy, who usurps our purposes, and gives to history a lie growing with each new teller of the story—this is terrible. Pardon me; I could not but say thusmuch. I judge men by their acts and words, and my opinion hangs not upon another’s conclusions. I believe I have read all that has been most ably written about the revolution; in all, the acts are the same, and the words are the same, but the arrangement of the acts, and the voice given to the words, change with each several narrator. Neither Thiers, nor Allison, nor Miguet, nor Lamartine, shall speak for me; the prejudices of the Englishman, and the prejudices of the Frenchman color their vision—I am answerable for my own. When will History listen to the defense which has not yet been heard!”

With such sentiments, it was not difficult to foresee what would be Charles’ policy in the Assembly. When news of the Revolution of February came, I thought at once of my friend, and expected to find him an actor amid the events then transpiring. I watched, and saw him step forth among the foremost. I listened—even at this distance—and was pleased to hear his voice among the ablest in debate.

“Who knows,” said I, “what Paqueta—who rolled at my feet, and wished to be my little barber forever—may become with a people who have been democratic in their belief, and monarchical in their sentiments, since eighty-nine? One has as much right to expect sudden promotion in France, as in the East; and a slave may yet sit upon the throne of the Capets.”

Paqueta was equal to either fortune; or to a better, as her true story—now drawing to its close—will tell you.

We all know the weak and vacillating policy of the Mountain during the earlier stages of the later Republic—if that may be said to have had any stage at all, which was born to die so soon. Violent—without strength; headstrong—without wisdom; it moved—under the leadership of Rollin—straight onward to an utter ruin. It had committed itself from the beginning, to all the impracticabilities of the modern French mind. TheouvrierAlbert was the type of its philosophy. Ignorant, stolid: it thought that the poor were the only class in society to be cared for; and that true government consisted in setting on foot, and in keeping up an endless and inextinguishable warfare between the beggars and the rich. The organization of labor, forsooth! Labor organizes itself; and is best protected when the magistrate lets it alone. Charles might have done better had he but followed his own counsels; and I believe he would have done so, had he not entered upon his public life swayed by private friendships and predilections. Certainly, he who reads the history of his hero aright, will find no such half-measures, no such ideas of one side alone, in his speculations. But the Mountain walked upon ashes; and the fatal day came in that sweet month of June, which God made for love, and its fruition; but which a son of the Republic—stern and honest, yet weak as the rest, blind to the future, and driven by a necessity, much of his own making—has marked with blood in his country’s calendar. I was thinking of Paqueta, and what her part might be in her husband’s ambitions, when the reverberations of the fusilade of Paris, the cries of the massacred of the 25th, smote upon my ears, here, three thousand miles from the scene of that tragedy. Thus fell the Mountain: and with the Mountain, and through the Mountain fell the Republic; for the Republic died with the coming in of the Dictatorship, and the Mountain rested and must ever rest upon the shoulders of the poor.

As the smoke cleared away, amid the quietude of death, I looked around for my friend; and I found him listed among those who—on either side—had fought for a phantom, even unto the bitter end. Charles R——, laid down his life at the barricades, a shame to that leader who now eats of foreign bread.

——

In the summer of ’49, an old acquaintance of mine, who had grown fat upon the Black Letter of the Profession; who, for twenty years, had hardly seen the outside of our parish; and whom I had supposed a fixture, so fixed, as no allurements of travel could draw beyond the limit of his daily rounds about the courts, came to my rooms, with wonder in his eyes, to tell me that he was about to leave for Europe; to visit England, and France, and Germany, and Italy, and the Levant, and the Holy Land, and heaven knew what horrid places beside; and, as it might be that he should never get back, he had called to bid me good-bye. I congratulated him on his new-born propensity to rove, and said to myself, now here is an opportunity for learning something of Paqueta, of whom I have dreamed so much since Charles’ sad fate. So, I related her story; and when my friend became interested in it—for he had a bit of romance beneath his Law—I asked him to call upon her in Paris, giving him her residence, with a letter addressed to “Madame Charles R——, Née Paqueta.” He put the letter in his pocket, saying, that really—after what he had heard—he should himself liketo know what had become of the fair widow of the Deputy; then, charging him, in case of her removal from the hotel in which I had found her, to inquire for her of the wife of the commissaire, we joined hands and parted.

My fortunate brother went abroad, and saw a part of the countries he had enumerated, and returned with this tale of the message I had confided to him—mournful indeed, but which caused me to love Paqueta more and more. He said that, on arriving in Paris, he soon found out the street, and the number of the hotel I had given him, and put my letter into the commissaire’s hands. The old servant read the address, shrugged his shoulders, crossed himself, and was silent.

“Is Madame at home?”

“Non, Monsieur; she is dead!”

The wife of the commissaire, who stood near by, within the corridor, hearing the question, came forward and asked, whom Monsieur would be pleased to see?

“Madame Charles R——.”

“Mon Dieu!” exclaimed the little woman, alsocrossing herself, and beginning to cry—“Madame is with the virgin in heaven; and is happier now than she ever was with us; though Jean, my good man, knows she was then the sweetest and happiest angel alive. Did you know her, Monsieur?”

My friend gave the kind woman my name, and said I had heard of the Deputy’s death, and he had called, at my request, to learn something of his widow.

“Eh, I remember him very well. He loved Madame a great deal, and Madame loved him; I think he was her godfather. He was here in good King Philippe’s time.Mon Dieu, mon Dieu!we were well enough under good King Philippe, but now it isà basthis andà basthat, andvivethis andvivethat, and we shall never have done until we have cut every body’s throat.A bas les émeutes, say I; poor Monsieur Charles and Madame were killed in anémeute.” And then, amid many crosses and many sobs, she told how Paqueta had died.

“On the morning of the 25th of June, 1848, only four short months after Lamartine had proclaimed the Republic, with liberty, equality and fraternity as its watch-words—when the fight raged hottest at the Clos St. Lazare, Paqueta called to her the wife of the commissaire. ‘You,’ said she, ‘were born in Paris, and know all its streets and blind, crooked ways; be quick, put on that dress, and go with me.’ ‘I thought my good lady mad,’ said the commissaire’s wife, ‘for she stood before me habited in male attire, with a gentleman’s hat upon her head, and the dress she offered me was like her own. But she looked so firm, and so fearful, too, and her words were so hoarse and had such a command in them, that I obeyed without knowing why. ‘Now, no one will know us,’ said Madame; ‘do you hear that terrible cannon! For two days it has boomed in my ears, and in all that time Charles has not been with me. My God! my God! they are slaughtering the people in the streets, and he is in the battle!’ What could I do? The little creature, so soft, so pretty, so mild, so loving to all about her, looked like a giant, and I hastened after her, afraid to cry out, afraid to say any thing, as she rushed ever forward in search of her husband. Where the noise was greatest, where the shout was loudest, she ran to catch it, crying, ‘Come, quickly, quickly.’ Oh, monsieur, the poor people! Oh, monsieur, the blood, the dying, and the dead! And Madame heeding nothing of all that, but still crying, ‘Come, quickly, quickly.’Mon Dieu, Monsieur, à bas les émeutes!The strife grew nearer every step we made, the combatants fleeing and pursuing, grew thicker, and when we entered the Clos St. Lazare, we saw the roar of the battle. ‘Ah, there is Monsieur Charles!’ said I. Madame sprang from me at the word, and was soon at his side fighting with the rest;oui, monsieur, fighting with a musket which she snatched from a falling soldier’s grasp. Monsieur,quel horreur! I could neither fly nor go forward, but stood where I was, and watched the war, until I saw Charles go down—and then Madame,comme un tigre, sprang upon theouvrierwho struck him, and was avenged, and sank not to rise any more. Oh, monsieur,quel horreur!”

When the fight was ended, and the smoke had cleared off, and quietude had returned with death, the good wife of the commissaire reclaimed Paqueta’s body. There was no hurt upon it, she said; and about her neck she found, fastened by a little black ribbon, a very small bronze medal, which she had never seen her wear before. And now she rests, side and side with the one she loved so much, in the bosom of the Pere la Chaise.

Of all who fell upon that terrible day, Paqueta was among the noblest. She fought on neither side; knew nothing of liberty, of despotism, of forms of government; knew only her love, and the man who kept it, her life and—her death. Generous Paqueta, noble Paqueta, brave Paqueta, my pen shall ever run riot when speaking of thee—Heaven bless thy soul.

———

BY MISS MATTIE GRIFFITH.

———

The twilight now is blushing o’er the earth—The west is glowing like a garden, richWith summer’s many-tinted blooms; the flowersOf earth hold up their fairy cups to catchThe softly falling dew-drops; the bright starsAre set like glorious diamonds on the darkBlue drapery of the halls of heaven; the pale,Sweet moon, like some young angel of the air,Floats from the east upon her silver wing;Eve’s golden clouds hung low—and thin, white mistsRise silently and beautifully upThrough the calm atmosphere. SerenityAnd loveliness and beauty are abroadO’er the whole world of Nature.At this hour,When all the dark, wild passions of the breastAre hushed and quelled by Nature’s spell of power,When every wayward feeling is rebukedAnd chastened by the blended influenceOf earth and heaven, I’ve stolen forth aloneBeneath the blue and glorious sky, to holdCommunion with the golden hours now goneInto the past eternity.My heartIs very soft to-night, and joys long pastShine through the silver mists of memory,Like sweet stars of the soul. My brow is flushed,My bosom throbs, and blesséd tears well upFrom my heart’s unsealed fountain, as I see,Through the pale shadows of the years, the homeWhere first I felt the sweet, bewildering blissOf new existence. Softly, through the deepGreen foliage of the grove, the beautifulWhite cottage peeps with its thick-blooming vines,And in the distance the still church-yard, whereRepose the cold, unthrobbing hearts of thoseI loved in childhood, lifts its marble shaftsBeneath the drooping willows. I beholdThe shaded paths where my young footsteps strayedTo gather wild flowers at the morning tide,And for a few brief moments once againI seem to wander through the dear old wood.The birds sing round me, the dark forest pines,Stirred by the breeze, make music like the low,Faint murmurs of the sea, my playmates shoutBeside me, and my mother’s music callOf gentle love is in my ear.Oh, there,In that sweet home, I cherished fairy dreamsOf happiness, sad all my being woreA glow of deep, ideal loveliness.My vanished childhood rises to my viewIn pale and melancholy beauty. LifeSince then hath been but desolate. Alas!What heart-chords have been broken, what bright dreamsBeen shadowed by the hue of grief. No moreThe Egeria of my spirit-worship hauntsThe grove and wood. No charm can woo her back,She will not hear my call, she answers notThe witching spell of fancy. It is notThat Nature has grown old. Her skies are stillAs blue, her trees as green, her dews as soft,Her flowers as sweet, her clouds as beautiful,Her birds, her waves, her winds as musicalAs when I was a child—Alas! the changeIs in my heart.Oh, blessed memoriesOf home! ye are the worshiped household godsUpon my spirit’s altar. Vanished years!Ye are the dew-drops that my spirit’s flowersEnfold within their petals. Years have passedSince that all-mournful day when, with a sadAnd breaking heart, and streaming eyes, I leftThe scenes of childhood, and went forth to findA home amid the stranger-crowds, where IHave learned to wear the mask that others wear,To smile while agony is in my soul,Yet at an hour like this, when Nature glowsWith deepest loveliness, when earth and heavenUnite to woo my heart from its retreatOf gloom and sorrow, I can wander backTo quench my faint and sinking spirit’s thirstAt young life’s gushing fountains, and forgetThat I am not once more a happy child.

The twilight now is blushing o’er the earth—

The west is glowing like a garden, rich

With summer’s many-tinted blooms; the flowers

Of earth hold up their fairy cups to catch

The softly falling dew-drops; the bright stars

Are set like glorious diamonds on the dark

Blue drapery of the halls of heaven; the pale,

Sweet moon, like some young angel of the air,

Floats from the east upon her silver wing;

Eve’s golden clouds hung low—and thin, white mists

Rise silently and beautifully up

Through the calm atmosphere. Serenity

And loveliness and beauty are abroad

O’er the whole world of Nature.

At this hour,

When all the dark, wild passions of the breast

Are hushed and quelled by Nature’s spell of power,

When every wayward feeling is rebuked

And chastened by the blended influence

Of earth and heaven, I’ve stolen forth alone

Beneath the blue and glorious sky, to hold

Communion with the golden hours now gone

Into the past eternity.

My heart

Is very soft to-night, and joys long past

Shine through the silver mists of memory,

Like sweet stars of the soul. My brow is flushed,

My bosom throbs, and blesséd tears well up

From my heart’s unsealed fountain, as I see,

Through the pale shadows of the years, the home

Where first I felt the sweet, bewildering bliss

Of new existence. Softly, through the deep

Green foliage of the grove, the beautiful

White cottage peeps with its thick-blooming vines,

And in the distance the still church-yard, where

Repose the cold, unthrobbing hearts of those

I loved in childhood, lifts its marble shafts

Beneath the drooping willows. I behold

The shaded paths where my young footsteps strayed

To gather wild flowers at the morning tide,

And for a few brief moments once again

I seem to wander through the dear old wood.

The birds sing round me, the dark forest pines,

Stirred by the breeze, make music like the low,

Faint murmurs of the sea, my playmates shout

Beside me, and my mother’s music call

Of gentle love is in my ear.

Oh, there,

In that sweet home, I cherished fairy dreams

Of happiness, sad all my being wore

A glow of deep, ideal loveliness.

My vanished childhood rises to my view

In pale and melancholy beauty. Life

Since then hath been but desolate. Alas!

What heart-chords have been broken, what bright dreams

Been shadowed by the hue of grief. No more

The Egeria of my spirit-worship haunts

The grove and wood. No charm can woo her back,

She will not hear my call, she answers not

The witching spell of fancy. It is not

That Nature has grown old. Her skies are still

As blue, her trees as green, her dews as soft,

Her flowers as sweet, her clouds as beautiful,

Her birds, her waves, her winds as musical

As when I was a child—Alas! the change

Is in my heart.

Oh, blessed memories

Of home! ye are the worshiped household gods

Upon my spirit’s altar. Vanished years!

Ye are the dew-drops that my spirit’s flowers

Enfold within their petals. Years have passed

Since that all-mournful day when, with a sad

And breaking heart, and streaming eyes, I left

The scenes of childhood, and went forth to find

A home amid the stranger-crowds, where I

Have learned to wear the mask that others wear,

To smile while agony is in my soul,

Yet at an hour like this, when Nature glows

With deepest loveliness, when earth and heaven

Unite to woo my heart from its retreat

Of gloom and sorrow, I can wander back

To quench my faint and sinking spirit’s thirst

At young life’s gushing fountains, and forget

That I am not once more a happy child.

———

BY LILIAN MAY.

———

There are hearts in Northland valleysThrobbing, beating wild for me,And their soul-love yearneth everFor a far-off one to see;And the heart-strings of a sisterHarpeth all their melody,Wild, sweet lays, for her lone brother,In her joyness and her glee.Oh, the ties which bind me to herKeep aglow my ardent heart,Thrilling it with pure emotion—May it nevermore depart;Oh, I love her ever dearly,Sister kind she’s been to me—All her words are golden musicTo my heart-hopes minstrelsy.Through the mellow sunlight glim’ring,Glinting down upon the stream,Voices sweet of love-tones falleth,On my gorgeous, bright day-dream,And I fancy forms of beautyLinger then anear my side—’Mid them all I see my sisterThrough the misty visions glide.In her love, and in her beauty,Softly, slowly doth she glide,O’er the pathway of my day-dream,As a moon-beam on the tide;And she whispers close beside me,Meekly soft, and kindly low,Words, that kindle up my heart-hopes,Which no other one may know.When the fairies from the SouthlandBring from far the meek-eyed flowers—Undine trippeth o’er the waters,In the rosy June-day hours—As I watch her mellow glancesLighting up the fitful stream,I shall tellherall the haloesOf a youthful poet’s dream;And I’ll gather on the lea-land,By the hill-side, in the grove,Gems she’ll prize far more than jewels,The bright flowers which I love,With the dew-drops heavy-laden,Sparkling in the red dawn light,As the molten glory beamethO’er the ebon wand of night.Oh, my heart throbs wildly ever,In its loneliness and wo,And I long me for the summer,When the Southland breezes blow;Gladly, quickly, then I’ll hasten,In the bright mid-summer day,To my love-light Northland sister,In my childhood’s home away.

There are hearts in Northland valleys

Throbbing, beating wild for me,

And their soul-love yearneth ever

For a far-off one to see;

And the heart-strings of a sister

Harpeth all their melody,

Wild, sweet lays, for her lone brother,

In her joyness and her glee.

Oh, the ties which bind me to her

Keep aglow my ardent heart,

Thrilling it with pure emotion—

May it nevermore depart;

Oh, I love her ever dearly,

Sister kind she’s been to me—

All her words are golden music

To my heart-hopes minstrelsy.

Through the mellow sunlight glim’ring,

Glinting down upon the stream,

Voices sweet of love-tones falleth,

On my gorgeous, bright day-dream,

And I fancy forms of beauty

Linger then anear my side—

’Mid them all I see my sister

Through the misty visions glide.

In her love, and in her beauty,

Softly, slowly doth she glide,

O’er the pathway of my day-dream,

As a moon-beam on the tide;

And she whispers close beside me,

Meekly soft, and kindly low,

Words, that kindle up my heart-hopes,

Which no other one may know.

When the fairies from the Southland

Bring from far the meek-eyed flowers—

Undine trippeth o’er the waters,

In the rosy June-day hours—

As I watch her mellow glances

Lighting up the fitful stream,

I shall tellherall the haloes

Of a youthful poet’s dream;

And I’ll gather on the lea-land,

By the hill-side, in the grove,

Gems she’ll prize far more than jewels,

The bright flowers which I love,

With the dew-drops heavy-laden,

Sparkling in the red dawn light,

As the molten glory beameth

O’er the ebon wand of night.

Oh, my heart throbs wildly ever,

In its loneliness and wo,

And I long me for the summer,

When the Southland breezes blow;

Gladly, quickly, then I’ll hasten,

In the bright mid-summer day,

To my love-light Northland sister,

In my childhood’s home away.

BLIND ROSA.

———

BY HENRIK CONSCIENCE. TRANSLATED BY MARY HOWITT.

———

On a splendid summer day in 1846, the diligence was rolling along the great highway from Antwerp to Turnhout at the regular hour. The horses trotted, the wheels rattled, the carriage creaked, the driver clucked incessantly with his tongue in order to quicken the speed of his cattle, dogs barked in the distance, birds soared up from the fields high into the air, the shadow sped alongside of the diligence, and danced along with its peculiar motion amongst the trees and bushes.

Suddenly the conductor pulled up not far from a solitary inn. He leaped down from his seat, opened the door of the diligence without saying a word, slapped down the step, and put out his hand to a traveler, who, with a knapsack in his hand, descended to the road. In the same silence the conductor again put up the step, closed the door, sprung again into his seat, and whistled gently to intimate to the horses that they must move. The horses trotted on; the heavy vehicle pursued its monotonous career.

In the mean time the traveler had entered the inn, and seated himself at a table with a glass of ale before him. He was a man of more than ordinary size, and appeared to be about fifty. You might at the same time have supposed him to be sixty, if his vigorous carriage, his quick glance, and a certain youthful smile about his lips, had not testified that his soul and senses were much younger than his appearance. His hair was gray, his forehead and cheeks covered with wrinkles, and his complexion bore the stamp of early age which excessive exertion and long-continued care impress on the countenance. Yet, at the same time, his breast heaved with vigor, he bore his head upright, and his eyes still gleamed with the fire of manhood. By his dress you would take him for a wealthy citizen; it had nothing peculiar, except that the frock-coat buttoned to the throat, and the large meerschaum pipe which hung at his breast, bespoke a Flemish or a German officer.

The people of the house, having attended to his demands, again returned to their occupations, without taking further notice of him. He saw the two daughters go to and fro, the father renew the fire with wood and turf, and the mother fill the kettle with water; but not one of them addressed to him a single word, though his eyes followed earnestly every member of the family, and although in hisfriendly glance might have been read the question—“Do you not recognize me?”

At this moment his attention was caught by the striking of a clock which hung upon the wall. As if the sound had painfully affected him, an expression of disagreeable surprise appeared in his countenance, and chased the smile from his lips. He stood up and contemplated the unlucky clock while it went sounding stroke after stroke, to the number of nine. The mother observed the singular emotion of the stranger, and placed herself in wonder at his side; she, too, looked at the clock, as if to discover what he found so remarkable in it.

“The clock has a pleasant sound—has it not?” said she. “It has now gone for twenty years without the hand of the clockmaker touching it.”

“Twenty years!” sighed the traveler. “And where, then, is the clock which hung there before? What has become of the image of the Virgin which stood here upon the mantlepiece. They are both probably broken and gone.”

The woman looked in astonishment at the stranger, and replied:—“The figure of the Virgin, Zanna broke as she played with it as a child. But it was really so pitiful, that the priest himself had advised us to buy another. Here stands the new one, and it is much handsomer.”

The traveler shook his head dissentingly. “And the clock,” continued the hostess, “you will soon hear. The wretched old thing is always too late, and has hung from time immemorial in the lumber-room. There! now it is just beginning to buzz.”

And, in truth, there came from the adjoining room a peculiar, croaking noise. It was like the hoarse note of a bird which slowly wheezed out “Cuckoo! cuckoo!” But this extraordinary sound called into the traveler’s countenance a beaming smile; accompanied by the hostess, he hastened into the lumber-room, and there, with glistening eyes, gazed on the old clock, which still had not got to the end of its “Cuckoo! cuckoo!”

Both daughters approached the stranger with curiosity, and stared with wonder at him, their large eyes turning from him to their mother full of inquiry. The looks of the damsels awoke the stranger to consciousness, and he returned to the room, followed by the three women. His heart clearly felt very happy, for his features glowed with so attractive an expression of pleasure and good-will, and his eyes bedewed with tears glanced so brightly, that the two young girls with evident sympathy approached him. He seized their hands and said:—

“You think my conduct strange, eh, children? You cannot conceive why the voice of the old cuckoo delights me so much. Ah! I too have been a child, and at that time, my father, when he had done his work, used to come and drink here his glass of ale. When I had behaved well, I was allowed to accompany him. For whole hours have I stood and waited for the cuckoo opening its little door; I have danced and leaped to the measure of her song, and admired in my childish simplicity the poor bird as a masterpiece. And the sacred image of the Virgin, which one of you has broken, I loved it for its beautiful blue mantle, and because the little Jesus-childstretched its arms toward me, and smiled as I smiled. Now is the child—myself—almost sixty years old, with gray hair and furrowed countenance. Four-and-thirty years have I passed in the steppes of Russia, and yet I remember the sacred image of Mary, and the cuckoo, as if I had only been brought hither by my father yesterday.”

“You are from our village, then?” said Zanna.

“Yes, certainly,” answered the stranger, with a joyous precipitance. But this announcement had not the anticipated effect; the girls only smiled familiarly; that was all; the intelligence seemed to give them neither pleasure nor pain. The traveler turned to the mother:—

“Well,” said he, “what is become of Baes Joostens?”

“You mean Baas Jan,” answered the hostess; “he died about twenty years ago.”

“And his wife, the good, stout Petronella?”

“Dead too,” was the answer.

“Dead! dead!” sighed the stranger; “and the young herdsman, Andries, who made such handsome baskets?”

“Also dead,” replied the hostess.

The traveler dropped his head and gave himself up to gloomy thoughts. In the meantime the hostess went out into the barn to relate to her husband what had passed with the unknown guest. The host entered the room carelessly, and awoke by his noisy wooden shoes the stranger out of his reverie. He sprung up, and with an exclamation of delight, rushed with outstretched arms toward the host, who coldly took his hand, and almost with indifference looked at him.

“Don’t you either know me again, Peter Joostens?” cried the stranger, quite confounded.

“No, I do not recollect ever to have seen you,” replied the host.

“No! Don’t you know who it was that ventured his life under the ice to rescue you from an otherwise inevitable death?”

The host shrugged his shoulders. Deeply wounded, the traveler continued, almost moved to tears:—

“Have you actually forgotten the youth who defended you against your bigger comrades, and supplied you with so many birds’-eggs, that you might make a beautiful garland for the may-pole? He who taught you to make so many pipes of reeds, and who so often took you with him when he went with the tile-burner’s cart to market?”

“Something of the kind floats dimly in my memory,” answered the host; “my late father used to tell me that when I was about six years old I was very near perishing under the ice; but that Tall Jan drew me out, and that he went away with the rest in the emperor’s time to serve for cannon fodder. Who knows now where his bones lie in unconsecrated earth? God be merciful to his poor soul!”

“Ah! now at length you know me!” exclaimed the stranger, joyously; “I am tall Jan, or rather, Jan Slaets.”

As he did not receive an immediate answer, he added, in surprise:—

“You recollect the good shot at the bird-shooting, who for four miles round was reckoned the best sportsman, who every time carried off the prize, and who was envied by the young men because the girls showed him the preference? I am he, Jan Slaets of the hill.”

“Very possibly,” said the host, incredulously; “at the same time, do not take it amiss, my good sir, if I do not remember you. Our village has no longer a bird-shooting; the shooting-ground is converted into private property, and for a year past has been unoccupied, owing to the death of the possessor.”

Deterred by the cold reception of the host, the traveler gave up the attempt to make himself known; but as he prepared to go further, he said, calmly:—

“In the village here there live a good many of my friends who cannot have forgotten me. You, Peter Joostens, were very young at that time. I am persuaded that the brick-maker, Paul, will rush to my arms the moment that he sees me. Does he yet live in the clay dale?”

“The brick-yard became, many years ago, a prey to the flames; the clay-field is cultivated, and bears now the finest hay. The meadow now belongs to the rich Mr. Tirt.”

“And what has become of Paul?”

“After their misfortunes, the whole family went away. . . I do not know certainly, perhaps he, too, is dead. But I observe that you talk of our grandfathers’ time, and it will be difficult to get answers to all your questions unless you go to the grave-digger. He can reckon up for you on his fingers what has happened for a hundred years past, or more.”

“I can believe that; Peter Jan must have reached his ninetieth year.”

“Peter Jan? That is not the name of the grave-digger; his name is Lauw Stevens.”

A glad smile illumined the countenance of the traveler.

“God be praised,” he exclaimed, “that he has at least left one of my comrades still in life!”

“Indeed! was Lauw your friend, sir?”

“Not exactly my friend,” replied the traveler, shaking his head: “we were always at loggerheads. Once, in the heat of our strife, I flung him from the little bridge into the brook, so that he ran great risk of drowning; but above thirty years are flown since then. Lauw will be glad to see me again. Give me now your hand, good Joostens; I shall often come to drink a glass of ale with you here.”

He paid, took his knapsack under his arm, and went out. Behind the inn he took his way through a young pine-wood. His interview with the host, although not very animating, had, nevertheless infused comfort into the heart of the traveler. Memories from his childhood transported him; memories at every step crowded upon him, and gave him new life. True, the young wood could say nothing to him; in its place stood formerly a tall pine-wood, whose trees had concealed so many birds’-nests, under whose shade the refreshing bilberries had ripened. It had fared with the wood as withthe inhabitants of the village—the old trees had fallen, or were cut down, and a new generation, who were strange and indifferent to him, had taken their places. But the songs of the birds which resounded on all sides were still the same; the wind murmured complainingly as before through the branches; the cricket sang as it used to do, and the fresh aroma of the wood still filled the air. All objects had changed, but the work of eternal nature had continued in its principal features the same. Thoughts like these arose in the traveler’s soul, and now glad and inspirited he continued his way without looking up from the ground till he came out of the wood.

Here opened before his eyes the wide extent of fields and meadows, amongst which the brook’s silvery thread coursed playfully its way. In the background, at the distance of a quarter of a mile, the pointed spire of the church lifted aloft its gilded vane, which gleamed in the sunshine like a morning-star; and still beyond it the windmill whirled its red wings.

Overcome by an unspeakable emotion, the traveler stood still—his eyes filled with tears, he let his knapsack fall, and stretched out his arms, while his countenance glowed with love and rapture. At the same moment the bells rang for Angelus. The traveler fell on his knees, sunk his head deep upon his bosom, and continued thus for a considerable time, immovable though trembling. A prayer streamed up from his heart and lips; this was evident as he cast his eyes full of inward thankfulness toward heaven, and lifted his clasped hands to God. He then took up again his knapsack, and said, with his gaze riveted on the church-tower—“Thou at least hast not become changed, thou little church, in which I was baptized, in which I celebrated my first communion, in which all looked to me so wonderful and so holy. Yes, I shall see them again, the Sacred Virgin in her garments of gold, and her silver diadem; St. Anthony with the little friendly swine; St. Ursula and the devil with the red tongue, of which I so often dreamed! and the organ, upon which the sexton played so beautifully, while we sung with all our hearts—

Back to Index Next