Wild and fierce the GuadalquiverDown the mountain gorges crashes,’Gainst opposing rocks that towerIn its current, boldly dashes,While its white spray like the bannerOf a hostile army flashes.Wildly speeds the Guadalquiver,Proudly rushing Guadalquiver.
Wild and fierce the GuadalquiverDown the mountain gorges crashes,’Gainst opposing rocks that towerIn its current, boldly dashes,While its white spray like the bannerOf a hostile army flashes.Wildly speeds the Guadalquiver,Proudly rushing Guadalquiver.
Wild and fierce the GuadalquiverDown the mountain gorges crashes,’Gainst opposing rocks that towerIn its current, boldly dashes,While its white spray like the bannerOf a hostile army flashes.Wildly speeds the Guadalquiver,Proudly rushing Guadalquiver.
Wild and fierce the Guadalquiver
Down the mountain gorges crashes,
’Gainst opposing rocks that tower
In its current, boldly dashes,
While its white spray like the banner
Of a hostile army flashes.
Wildly speeds the Guadalquiver,
Proudly rushing Guadalquiver.
But in bright Sevilla’s gardens,Flowing down their peaceful way,’Neath the trees whose drooping branchesKiss the ripplets as they sway,Guadalquiver’s waters murmurTones of joy and peace alway.Gently flows the Guadalquiver,Softly murmuring Guadalquiver.
But in bright Sevilla’s gardens,Flowing down their peaceful way,’Neath the trees whose drooping branchesKiss the ripplets as they sway,Guadalquiver’s waters murmurTones of joy and peace alway.Gently flows the Guadalquiver,Softly murmuring Guadalquiver.
But in bright Sevilla’s gardens,Flowing down their peaceful way,’Neath the trees whose drooping branchesKiss the ripplets as they sway,Guadalquiver’s waters murmurTones of joy and peace alway.Gently flows the Guadalquiver,Softly murmuring Guadalquiver.
But in bright Sevilla’s gardens,
Flowing down their peaceful way,
’Neath the trees whose drooping branches
Kiss the ripplets as they sway,
Guadalquiver’s waters murmur
Tones of joy and peace alway.
Gently flows the Guadalquiver,
Softly murmuring Guadalquiver.
“Ah, my dearest lady, dost thou not see the peace which thou so sweetly singest of, can never be a prince’s.”
“Pedro, it may be thine.”
“Never.”
“Hast thou no pride to give up, no enemies to forgive? Need thy life-stream dash forever blindly amid the rocks? The valley is below; burst through the barriers that keep thee from its peaceful current.”
“It cannot be. Even now my enemies prepare a new struggle. Even to-night my hollow friend, my real enemy, my brother Fadrique sleeps within these walls. But never, never shall he—”
“Pedro, what mean’st thou?”
“That Fadrique dies.”
“Oh God!”
A page, interrupting them, announced Don Fadrique’s herald.
“Bid Reboledo and Don Juan of Arragon meet me in my closet. Go.”
“Pedro!”
“To-morrow, to-morrow, gentle Maria,” said the king, as he hastily strode away.
Diego Perez de Reboledo, and his friend the infanté, speedily attended the summons of Pedro.
“Don Fadrique has arrived,” said the king, in a careless tone.
“I have seen him, sire,” was the reply of Don Juan. “Know you that he is the envoy of Blanche of Bourbon?”
“Ha! is it so?” continued Pedro. “Señor Diego, there is a deep grudge between you and him; and I know that he is plotting against my crown. And even thou, Don Juan, losest no love toward him.”
“What is your meaning, sire?” said Reboledo with a sarcastic smile. “You may speak plainly here.”
“I would not have him leave these walls. Thou knowest the proverb, ‘Teach the falcon while he is thine.’”
“Nay, then; he shall be severely taught, an’ it be your will,” said Reboledo.
“Plainly, he must be dispatched, Señor Diego, and I trust to thee to have it done. As for the act, my guards will not be wanting.”
After some slight arrangements, made as coolly as if for a festival, the prince and Reboledo left the king to his own thoughts, which certainly were far from agreeable. Distrust is the inevitable poison of those who themselves break trust, and Pedro dared not leave the performance of the deed to his accomplices.
They might have some secret cause of hatred toward himself, and might save his intended victim for the furtherance of their own schemes.
——
Maria’s chambers overlooked the groves and bowers of the garden, beyond which flowed the river, while the dim and distant sierra formed the horizon. It was morning, and she sat by the balcony instructing her dark-eyed, graceful daughter in the mournful but harmonious music of the time. Her attitude was very listless, and her dark lids rose not from the eyes which seemed too sad for tears. Soon she gave up her task but watched the child, as in the exuberance of youthful spirit she danced before her.
“Alas, my daughter!” she murmured, “what fate is thine. Born to a royal heritage, thy uncertain fortune may sink beneath the wave which bears a rival to its haven. Yet—yet I dare not ask the boon which is my right before the world, as it is here. If I should claim the crown, he would not give it till he had murdered Blanche.”
It was too true. With Pedro life was nothing in the scales of interest or impulse. And dearly as he loved Maria, he was too conscious of the policy which was necessary in his situation, to dare to proclaim her queen and her children heirs to the throne, while Blanche was yet alive.
Don Fadrique who had known Maria in Toledo, was announced by her page and was admitted to her presence. Kneeling, he kissed the hand of the Padilla whose beauty he remembered, and which he found still as remarkable as ever, but of a darker, yet a gentler cast.
“Welcome, Don Fadrique, to this our calmer home,” she said, and pointed to a seat near that from which she had arisen.
“Your grace, the true divinity of these fair bowers, I trust may ever find in them a home of peace.”
“The serpent’s sting is everywhere, my lord, and even here Death contends with Life.” She intended the words, and the look which accompanied them, for a warning, (a clearer one she dared not make,) but he understood her not.
The maestro, charmed with the beauty of the Alcazar and the loveliness of Maria, ceased to wonder at Pedro’s fascination, and felt but little hope from any mediation in the cause of Blanche. But his word was passed to the queen, and his honor, even without that pledge, impelled him to its fulfillment.
An hour had passed most agreeably, when the king sent Garcia de Padilla to request his presence in a private interview. As they walked through the rooms, and as he observed that few persons were to be seen, and that all the doors were guarded, a suspicion of the truth crossed his mind; but his resolute and generous nature repelled it. The king was in an inner apartment beyond the presence-chamber, called the “chamber of iron,” whose doors were guarded by several mace-bearers.
Fadrique had only time to notice that Garcia and he were the only guests, when the door of “the chamber” was opened by Reboledo, who called to Fadrique to go into the king. Gently freeing his sword arm from his mantel, he entered, and was followed by Reboledo and the mace-bearers.
“Seize the maestro!” said Pedro, in a stern voice to the guards.
“Should a king play the traitor?” said Fadrique in a lofty tone, as he drew his sword and placed his back to the wall. “We are of Castile, my lord; her sons must be worthy of their heritage even in death.”
“Villains!” exclaimed Reboledo to the guards, who hesitated to attack the gallant Fadrique, “do you not hear his grace’s order to kill the maestro?”
In a few moments, though not without a brave defense, the Maestro of St. Jago was no more.
——
When the news of Fadrique’s death reached the castle of Estuniga, a profound grief visited its inmates. This last act of perfidious cruelty destroyed all the hopes that Blanche had founded upon Pedro’s better nature. To invite Fadrique to the capital, and then to meet him with death, was so infamous that she no longer even wished for a reunion with her husband. Her heart now told her that the throne of Spain was not the home for her, and she once more yearned for the land she had forsaken for a fate like hers, and a husband such as Pedro.
At this time Estuniga and the Lady Leonora were seriously disquieted, in consequence of a command which Pedro had sent to the knight, to treat his queenly guest as he himself had treated Fadrique, in other words, to put her to death. To execute such a command was for him impossible. Every principle and every feeling of his nature revolted from the slightest injustice, much more from a deed as fiendish as this. He sent back an indignant refusal, and saw the necessity of some energetic movement in order to secure Blanche’s safety.
Hearing that Alburquerque was at or near Toledo, still unpardoned by the king, he resolved to meet him, and with him concert, if possible, some feasible scheme for the escape of the queen. Leaving Blanche in care of his lady, to whom he gave command of the castle in his absence, he set forth with a promise to return within six days. Blanche knew not of the king’s message, nor of the purpose of the knight’s sudden journey.
But unfortunately Pedro’s distrustful and uneasy spirit could not rely on Estuniga’s fealty, and long ere his evil messenger had returned to Seville, he ordered Reboledo to add another to his list of crimes, and sent him with a force of troops to take Queen Blanche and murder her. This remorseless satellite, whose life reflected his master’s, was not apt to fail in the distasteful task.
On the second morning after the departure of the Knight of Estuniga, a goodly train was at the castle gate, and their herald claimed admittance for the troop. The Lady Leonora’s lieutenant, an aged warrior, who had been knighted by her father, recognized the pennon of Reboledo and advised her not to admit them, until she knew the object of the cold-blooded Diego. Accordingly he went down to the wicket, but soon returned to inform her that the purpose of the visit was to gain possession of the queen. Further information he could not gain, but Reboledo’s character and her well-founded suspicion that he had been an instrument of Fadrique’s death induced her to refuse admittance, and if he attacked the castle to defend it if possible until the return of her lord.
To her old knight, Roberto, she gave the necessary authority over all the force within the walls. Fortunately Estuniga had left the castle in the best state of defense of which it was capable, and though not adapted to a regular siege, could, it was thought, be defended against the light force of Reboledo.
Lady Leonora and the queen were not kept long in suspense, for Reboledo soon prepared for the attack. He had ascertained that the knight was absent, and not knowing when he might return, resolved to accomplish his purpose without delay. Roberto had divided his force between the only two points which were assailable by the enemy, the draw and the postern. The best marksmen were stationed at the draw, while above the postern he soon had a supply of melted lead and pitch, which were almost the only weapons there available. Several slight attacks were made during the morning, more for the purpose of ascertaining the force of the defenders than with the expectation of penetrating into the castle.
At noon Roberto observed preparations which satisfied him that the struggle was about to commence in earnest. A furious assault was made upon the draw, and while flights of arrows passed between the besiegers and the besieged, a band of sturdy axe-men endeavored to get at the drawbridge for the purpose of cutting it down. The vigilance of Roberto’s bow-men prevented their success, and they were repeatedly forced to retire. In the meantime, Reboledo supposing that the principal force was diverted from the postern, attacked that part of the castle. Having during the morning ascertained the means of defense in that quarter, he had hastily constructed a large shield capable of protecting several men from the arrows, lead, and pitch. Under the shield several axe-men advanced to the charge, while a party of bow-men strove to prevent the besieged from molesting them. Roberto was not so easily entrapped, and the assailants after a fruitless battering at the postern gate, were driven back with the loss of several men and their shield. The attack in front was now continued with nearly the entire force with but little better success. A number of the enemy were wounded, and several were killed, while but a few of Roberto’s men were injured.
In the wane of the afternoon another shield was constructed, and Reboledo, incensed to a fiendish bitterness by the unexpected vigor of the defense, after a desperate assault succeeded in injuring the postern gate ere being again driven off. A new attack was at once commenced in order to complete the work, and was supported by a heavy force of bow-men and mailed soldiers. In a few minutes the gate was open, and a fierce hand-to-hand fight took place in the archway. Roberto headed the defenders, who forced the assailants to give way, till Reboledo himself entered the vaulted passage, and with his herculean strength bore down all opposition. Roberto fell while gallantly stemming the torrent of success, and his men after a brave defense were overwhelmed. The castle was soon entirely in the power of the assailants, and Reboledo at once made all the necessary dispositions for defense, in case it should prove necessary.
After ordering the butler to furnish supper in the dining-hall, he sent the seneschal to deliver to theladies a courteous and knightly invitation to appear at the evening repast.
During the siege the Lady Leonora had informed Blanche of Pedro’s intention and of the cause of Estuniga’s absence. Shocked at the fate which seemed to impend over her, and confident that Reboledo was the tool of the king, she at first resolved to refuse her presence in the hall; but her hostess showed the futility of the refusal, and the necessity of appearing to be friendly to the victor. They were indeed completely in his power, for though they had contrived to send two messengers away at the moment of defeat, there was no chance for them to escape. Leonora’s policy was to endeavor to retain Diego in his present position till her messengers should have apprised Estuniga of the aspect of affairs and he could recover the castle and the prisoners.
“Fair ladies,” said Reboledo, as the queen and her hostess entered the hall, “I am well aware that in ordinary courtesy I should have been the guest at this table, and therefore beg that you may so consider me.”
The Lady Leonora, though incensed at the covert sarcasm of this speech, true to her policy, answered it with a polite courtesy which surprised both her “guest” and the queen. No further reference was made to the events of the day, and Reboledo, who was in manners an accomplished cavalier, entertained the ladies with such gossip as was interesting and customary. Their own seneschal was in the hall but did not approach the table, and they observed that the two pages who attended them were strangers. As they were about to leave the table, the knight turned to the Lady Blanche, whom he had addressed by the title of “your grace,” and inquired when she would be ready to rejoin her royal consort. Surprised at such an unexpected question, she did not reply for a moment, but promised to answer him in the morning, “for,” she added, “I am not well to-night, and cannot say but I may be too ill to go to-morrow.”
Apparently satisfied with the answer, he gracefully escorted the ladies to the door.
“I am ill, Lady Leonora, very ill,” said Blanche, breathing shortly and throwing herself upon a couch.
“Oh! a consuming fire flies through my veins. Give me some drink. How I thirst!”
The Lady Leonora, though skilled in the leech-craft of the time, was utterly at a loss, and what to do for Blanche she did not know. There was no leech or friar in the castle. For a few minutes she gave her wine and water to assuage her raging thirst, and bathed her burning temples.
Suddenly Blanche raised herself to a sitting position, and while her face was convulsed with agony, exclaimed—
“Beware Leonora, I am poisoned by——”
This world and all its sorrows had passed away from her, and her pure spirit, freed from the material fetters of this earthly life, had reached its eyrie, basked in the pure light, far above the storm and darkness of the valley.
LINES TO A BIRD,
WHICH SUNG AT MY WINDOW ONE MORNING IN LONDON.
———
BY THOMAS BUCHANAN READ.
———
Whence comest thou, oh wandering soul of song?Round the celestial gates hast thou been winging,And hearkening to the angels all night longTo brighten earth with somewhat of their singing?Thou child of sunshine, spirit of the flowers!Nature, through thee, with loving tongue rejoices,Until these walls dissolve themselves to bowers,And all the air is full of woodland voices.The winds that slumbered in the fields of dew,Float round me now with music on their pinions,Such as I heard while yet my years were few,By native streams, in boyhood’s lost dominions.And with the breath of morning on my brow,I hear the accents of the few who love me;Sing on full heart! I am no exile now—This is no foreign sky that smiles above me.I hear the happy sounds of household glee,The heart’s own music, floating here to bless me,And little ones who smiled upon my kneeNow clap the dimpled hands that would caress me.Oh! music sweeter than the sweetest chimeOf magic bells by fairies set a-swinging;I am no pilgrim in a foreign clime,With these blest visions ever round me clinging.I hear a voice no melody can reach;Dear lips, speak on in your accustomed measure,And teach my heart what you so well can teach,How only love is earth’s enduring pleasure.Oh! music sweeter than the Arcadian’s tune,Wooing the dryads from the woodlands haunted;Or than beneath the mellow harvest moon,Trembles at midnight over lakes enchanted!Oh! sweeter than the herald of the morn,The clarion lark, that wakes the drowsy peasant,Is this which thrills my breast, so else forlorn,And with the Past and distant fills the Present.Thus, with the music ringing in my heart,I may awhile forget an exile’s sorrow,And, armed with courage, rise—and so depart;But what sweet bird shall sing to me to-morrow?
Whence comest thou, oh wandering soul of song?Round the celestial gates hast thou been winging,And hearkening to the angels all night longTo brighten earth with somewhat of their singing?Thou child of sunshine, spirit of the flowers!Nature, through thee, with loving tongue rejoices,Until these walls dissolve themselves to bowers,And all the air is full of woodland voices.The winds that slumbered in the fields of dew,Float round me now with music on their pinions,Such as I heard while yet my years were few,By native streams, in boyhood’s lost dominions.And with the breath of morning on my brow,I hear the accents of the few who love me;Sing on full heart! I am no exile now—This is no foreign sky that smiles above me.I hear the happy sounds of household glee,The heart’s own music, floating here to bless me,And little ones who smiled upon my kneeNow clap the dimpled hands that would caress me.Oh! music sweeter than the sweetest chimeOf magic bells by fairies set a-swinging;I am no pilgrim in a foreign clime,With these blest visions ever round me clinging.I hear a voice no melody can reach;Dear lips, speak on in your accustomed measure,And teach my heart what you so well can teach,How only love is earth’s enduring pleasure.Oh! music sweeter than the Arcadian’s tune,Wooing the dryads from the woodlands haunted;Or than beneath the mellow harvest moon,Trembles at midnight over lakes enchanted!Oh! sweeter than the herald of the morn,The clarion lark, that wakes the drowsy peasant,Is this which thrills my breast, so else forlorn,And with the Past and distant fills the Present.Thus, with the music ringing in my heart,I may awhile forget an exile’s sorrow,And, armed with courage, rise—and so depart;But what sweet bird shall sing to me to-morrow?
Whence comest thou, oh wandering soul of song?
Round the celestial gates hast thou been winging,
And hearkening to the angels all night long
To brighten earth with somewhat of their singing?
Thou child of sunshine, spirit of the flowers!
Nature, through thee, with loving tongue rejoices,
Until these walls dissolve themselves to bowers,
And all the air is full of woodland voices.
The winds that slumbered in the fields of dew,
Float round me now with music on their pinions,
Such as I heard while yet my years were few,
By native streams, in boyhood’s lost dominions.
And with the breath of morning on my brow,
I hear the accents of the few who love me;
Sing on full heart! I am no exile now—
This is no foreign sky that smiles above me.
I hear the happy sounds of household glee,
The heart’s own music, floating here to bless me,
And little ones who smiled upon my knee
Now clap the dimpled hands that would caress me.
Oh! music sweeter than the sweetest chime
Of magic bells by fairies set a-swinging;
I am no pilgrim in a foreign clime,
With these blest visions ever round me clinging.
I hear a voice no melody can reach;
Dear lips, speak on in your accustomed measure,
And teach my heart what you so well can teach,
How only love is earth’s enduring pleasure.
Oh! music sweeter than the Arcadian’s tune,
Wooing the dryads from the woodlands haunted;
Or than beneath the mellow harvest moon,
Trembles at midnight over lakes enchanted!
Oh! sweeter than the herald of the morn,
The clarion lark, that wakes the drowsy peasant,
Is this which thrills my breast, so else forlorn,
And with the Past and distant fills the Present.
Thus, with the music ringing in my heart,
I may awhile forget an exile’s sorrow,
And, armed with courage, rise—and so depart;
But what sweet bird shall sing to me to-morrow?
CHATEAUBRIAND AND HIS CAREER.
———
BY FAYETTE ROBINSON.
———
François Auguste, Vicomte de Chateaubriand, was born in 1768, in the midst of that epoch which produced so many great men, Napoleon, Soult, Wellington and Walter Scott. Educated at the castle of Combourg near Saint-Malo, beyond all doubt as he wandered over the arid lands and desolate shores of Armorica, young Chateaubriand felt the development in his soul of that inclination and solitude which never abandoned him even in the turmoil of business and amid the gravest political affairs. Intended originally for the church, it was subsequently purposed to devote him to the army; he began at Dol and terminated at Rennes, an arduous course of study, which though it left his intense sensitiveness and that creative imagination which are the chief characteristics of his mind unaltered, enabled him to publish serious works on critical history, at an age when persons usually possess but vague notions of life and the principles which regulate the organization of society. In 1787, for the first time, young Chateaubriand went to Paris. He was at that time a second lieutenant in the regiment of Navarre, but so as to be enabled to ride in the king’s coaches, an honor to which from his old nobility, he was entitled, the rank of captain was necessary, he obtained by a fiction, not unusual at that time, the brevet of captain of cavalry; notwithstanding this however, he continued to do duty in the regiment of foot to which he belonged. The magnificence of the court of Versailles could not at all satisfy the vague desire, which, though he did not then understand its nature, tormented his soul. Adventure was a condition of his being; his life could not be objectless, and with delight he hailed the commencement of a career. One day as he looked over a map of the New World, he was struck with the possibility of discovering a passage to the northern Pole. From that hour sleep and repose were gone. Like Columbus, he went from door to door, to solicit means to realize the idea which animated him, and was compelled to submit to the ridicule of some, and the indifference of others. This idea, which then was esteemed insoluble, but a short time after was realized. It may be, had the government of Louis XVI, paid any attention to a question which had great significance in the points of view of commerce, politics and science, that passage, now known as McKenzie’s, would have borne the name Chateaubriand. Let this however, be as it may, the young second lieutenant, by ridicule and discouragement, resolved to accomplish his gigantic project without assistance, and in the spring of 1791, set out for America, with no other baggage than a letter of introduction to Washington. Yet imbued with the ideas of the old world, Chateaubriand had imagined the President of the United States, a king, surrounded by a brilliant court, with guards and chamberlains, crowding the portals of a palace of marble and gold. How great must his surprise have been, when he knocked at the door of a modest dwelling, which, in France, would have been esteemed scarcely fit for a private gentleman, and when a female opened the door, and without parade let him into the presence of one who had created a nation and declined a crown.
Washington received him with cordiality and kindness, but terrified beyond doubt at the dangers to which he was about to expose himself, attempted to dissuade the young adventurer from his enterprise. Chateaubriand, however, would not be persuaded, and soon after hired a guide and really began his journey, fancying that he had merely to go straight to the Pole, as he had gone from Saint Malo to Paris. He reached the limit of civilization, in what was then considered a short time, and with indescribable joy found himself amid the dark and mysterious forests of the new world, where it seemedto him, no human foot had ever been planted before. He thus describes his sensations, when his soul first became replete with astonishment and amazement at the magnificence of the scene.
“I wandered from tree to tree, now turning to the right and then to the left, saying to myself, here there are no beaten paths, no restricted dwelling places; presidents, kings and oligarchies, have no power here. By way of exhibiting my freedom from all control, I committed countless wild pranks, which made the steady Dutchman, who was my guide, fancy me a fool.”
The young lieutenant, however, looked anxiously for one of those Indian villages, in which the children of nature, the men of the soil, might certainly be found. His first essay, however, by no means impressed him favorably in relation to the true Native Americans. After a journey of several days, he saw in the depth of a forest, compared with which, all France was but a park, a wigwam from which strange sounds issued, and which in that place must have astonished him indeed. He listened with attention, and heard a well known “chant populaire” of France, with an accompaniment wrung from a violin, which certainly, Stradivarius never made. The wanderer entered the hut, and amid a bevy of Indians, who danced as if Saint Vitus had touched them, he saw an old man of diminutive stature, with his hair “à l’oisseau royal,” with a green coat, a coarse vest, cut however,à l’agoniede Louis XV., ruffles and wristbands ofcoarse cotton, busy in teaching a dozen Iroquois to dance the cotillion andminuet de la cour. The teacher’s name was Violet, and strange to say, he was the progenitor of that individual of the same name, made so famous by the late Captain Marryatt. Violet had been a servant of the Count Rochambeau, and had been induced to establish himself on one of the little lakes in New York, amid the Iroquois.—French nature and human nature are however, different entirely, and thevalet de chambrehadbegun to civilize North American Indians, from thepoint du départ de la danse.
The young adventurer in a short time left his countryman and resumed his journey through the wilderness. He soon met with Indians far less civilised than the Corypheans of Violet. He was kindly received by various tribes which he visited, and participated in their councils and their wars. At this period of his career, he collected the variety of information, which was ultimately fused into Atala, René and the Natchez. It cannot but be regretted, that Chateaubriand never chanced to grasp the thread of that tradition, which connected the Natchez with the Aztecs, of whom beyond all doubt they were an abrasion. Had he done so, the light his meditative mind would have thrown on the traditions of that mysterious people, of whom now no remnant exists, and the memory of whom is forgotten, can scarcely be calculated. His poetical meditations did not, however, prevent him from keeping in view the original idea which had brought him to America, and he became more and more resolved to penetrate to the icy Pole. One day though, by a strange fancy, a fragment of a French paper, containing an account of the flight of Louis XVI, his arrest at Varennes, and the formation of the Army of Condé, beyond the Rhine, reached him. As he read this strange intelligence, the Breton gentleman, fancied that he heard the cry of honor calling him to defend that king for whom he had sworn to live and die. He then hastened, to cross the sea again, and within a few months, was a simple volunteer in the ranks of the royal and catholic army. It is well, here, to mention, that though Chateaubriand sought for the North Pole, he had from the lakes of New York, gone southward, and that the fragment of newspaper, which, in all probability, changed the tenor of his whole career, reached him in the depth of the lagoons of Florida. It is very certain that though his voyage to America, produced Atala and the Natches, he would not have occupied a high position among the great discoverers.
Having been wounded by the explosion of a shell, at Thionville, after undergoing the greatest vicissitudes, he contrived to reach England. The danger from which he had escaped on the Rhine, was, however, replaced only by penury, and the suffering of exile. In that country while expecting death, his physicians having told him, that he could live, under no possibility, more than two or three years, he wrote and published the “Essai historique, politique et moral, surles révolutions anciennes et modernes considérées dans leurs rapports avecla révolution Française.” This is one of the strangest books ever published, the author succeeding in the most incomprehensible manner in drawing a parallel between Pisistratus andRobespierre,Maratand Harmodius,J. J. Rousseauand Heraclitus, Hanno and Fox, and Barca and Pitt, and finally discovering in Miltiades the type of Dumouriez.
Having on the 18th Brumaire returned to France, Chateaubriand became with Fontanes, his friend, a companion in exile, one of the proprietors of theMercure, in which paper he published Atala, (so far back as this does the Frenchfeuilletondate.) The freshness of the ideas, the grandeur of sentiment, and exquisitely simple style of this book, were novel indeed, at a time when all things were innoculated with the pretence of the Directorate. The success of this prose-poem aptly prepared the public for the immense sensation subsequently created byle genie du Christianisme. It may safely be said that no work was ever better timed. The iron grasp of Napoleon had strangled all popular movements, order had succeeded anarchy, temples again were open for prayer, and ruined altars were rebuilt. All the world, weary of the fruitless worship of the personification of abstract and transcendental qualities and virtues, felt an innate longing for a less sterile and more poetical faith. Society hastened to resume that old creed, which had been the source of all the civilization which existed, not it may be true, because of conviction, but because the disgusting orgies at the feet of the statue of the so-called goddess of reason, had offended not only all sentiment but all decency. Never probably before were the fasts and feasts of Christianity so rigidly observed, and all France, by a rigid observance of Lent, sought to atone for and wipe out all remembrance of the reign of terror. With that wonderful sagacity which made Napoleon great in cabinet as he was on the battle-field, he did not neglect Chateaubriand’s book, and rewarded the author by the appointment of Secretary of Embassy to Rome, where the Cardinal Fesch was the French representative. Then, in the eternal city, amid the ruins of the coliseum, yet filled with the spirits of the ancient martyrs, the Christian poet formed a conception of the angelical Cymodocré and Eudoxe, and determined to visit the cradle of Christianity, the triumph and contests of which he resolved to celebrate, and to gather inspiration in the “city of desolation” by contemplating that one sepulchre which when time shall be no more will yield nothing to the great, grand judge.
Soon after his return from Rome, the Vicomte de Chateaubriand, who continued to maintain as high a position as ever in the favor of Napoleon, was appointed plenipotentiary to the Valois. Just then a rumor, circulated beyond doubt by the partisans of the exiled dynasty, acquired some influence on the popular mind, many hoping and others fearing that the emperor was prepared to follow the example of Monk, and sought to replace the Bourbons on the throne of Saint Louis and Henri IV. Chateaubriand, perhaps more than any one else, under the influence of the chivalric ideas which always characterisedhim, flattered himself that this dream would soon be realised. At once, however, all Paris was amazed by the news that the Duke d’Enghien, the last of the Condés, had been shot at midnight, in the ditch of the castle of Vincennes. Thus Napoleon replied to the imprudent suggestions of the royalists. The reason of this terrible tragedy is even now unknown, the only man who possibly could have explained it, the emperor, having borne the secret with him to the grave. The whole party then known as the emigration, was however terrified, and under the influence of a generous indignation, on the very day that he heard the news Chateaubriand resigned his appointment. Independence was then a crime, but far from being offended, Napoleon conceived a yet more exalted esteem for Chateaubriand. Prayers, promises, every possible inducement were used in vain to retain him in the imperial service. Chateaubriand hurried the preparations for his pilgrimage and crossed the Alps. On his previous visit he had not studied closely enough the Italian, and after a careful tour the vicomte sailed for Greece. In the wilds of America, the poet had shaken himself free of all old-world ideas as he would from a burden which oppressed him, that his soul in vigor, and unrestrained, might hear every accent of the poetry of a young nature. In Greece, however, his conduct was precisely the reverse. He was in the holy land of poetry and art, and he sought to conjure up by the powerful magic of memory, the mighty dead who for almost twenty centuries have slumbered in unknown graves. Thrice, according to ancient usage, he made the echos of Thermopylæ resound with the name of Leonidas, and in his pious wanderings across the ruins of Athens, he would ascend some fallen tribune, from which perhaps the voice of Demosthenes might have been heard moving the popular mind as the wind agitates the sea, and calling forth a new generation of warriors by the magic of the names of “those who died at Marathon.” If ever a man was instinct with the feeling of universal love, if ever any one idolized nature it was Chateaubriand, the piety of whom, however, was too intense to permit him ever to mistake the apparent for the great first cause. In the words of one of our own writers “he was filled with devotion to God and sympathized with all humanity.” Those now desolate regions he soon left, and the enthusiast went to seek in the dwelling-places of the once “people of God,” those spots over which Christ had passed during his pilgrimage from Bethlehem to the “place of the skull,” amid hordes of savage Bedweens and robber Arabs, he crossed the summits of Mount Liban and the waters of the sea of death. He prayed on the Mount of Olives, moistened his lip in the cool wave of the Jordan, and brought a portion of its waters, which, preserved with all the care of a pious superstition was subsequently used at the baptism of the Duke ofBordeaux. He finally knelt at the very tomb of Christ, the venerable guardians of which clasped on his heel the spur of Godfry de Bouillon, and made him a “Knight of the Holy Sepulchre.” The city of Alexandria and the capital of the Ptolemies were also visited by him, and ascending the Nile as far as Cairo, he sat at the foot of the pyramids, and gave himself up to meditation amid the Memphian ruins. He then re-embarked, and after undergoing imminent danger from shipwreck, landed at Tunis. Neglecting the living city, he visited that Carthage which twice became the rival of Rome, in war in the days of Hannibal, and in religion when St. Cyprian lived. From Africa Chateaubriand passed to Spain, that land of war and love, and as he wandered through the dilapidated halls of the Alhambra, and recalled Pelayo, Charlemagne and Boabdil, he formed the conception of the tender and chivalric legend of “The Last Abencerrages.”
On his return to Spain, in 1807, Chateaubriand, who had not yet ceased to feel an interest in Spain, published an analysis of Laborde’s book on that country. This book excited great curiosity, some of the pages containing allusions to which a malicious public gave a point. Napoleon was weak enough to take offense at a fancied parallel between himself and Nero; and after having stripped him of his ownership of theMercure, went so far as to threaten to have him shot down in the Tuileries.
The independence of Chateaubriand is well known, and the despotism of Napoleon found an untiring enemy in him. All were, however, surprised to find in hisItinerary from Paris to Jerusalem, frequent eulogies of the imperial glory. The public was not aware of the fact, that a few days before its appearance, the publisher was notified that it would be suppressed unless praises of the emperor were inserted. Chateaubriand long protested against this edict, and yielded only to the prayers of the bookseller, who informed him that the suppression of the work would be his ruin. He had, however, something in reserve to gratify his self-respect, speaking only of the military glory, not of the statesman-like qualities of Napoleon.
Subsequently, in his peaceful hermitage ofla vallée aux loups, Chateaubriand finished the great work, the plan of which he had conceived at Rome, and which he had meditated on during the whole of his pilgrimage in Greece, Judea, and Africa.The Martyrsat last appeared, and were all the pamphlets and books of every size which it called forth collected, a hall large as the Alexandrine Library would not suffice to contain them. It was a daring act, indeed, to personify, in a prose-poem, all the mysterious powers of Christianity. It was a poetical novel, the old gods of Greece and Rome playing a conspicuous part. In the introduction of the Pagan divinities, instead of Beelzebub and the powers of darkness, does this book greatly differ in general conception from the strange old book of the Puritan Bunyan. The genius of Christianity, however, demonstrates that there was inherent in Christianity, not less poetry than existed in the Heathen Olympus, and that the mysteries of Christianity opened as rich a field to the poet as did the Hesiodic theogony.
This was a great discovery in France, where at that time the Paradise Lost, and Klopstock’s greatpoem, were almost unknown. The attack and defense of this poem consequently created much excitement, and the reputation of Chateaubriand rapidly expanded. In 1811, a chair in the Academy having, by the death of Joseph Chenier, become vacant, public opinion designated Chateaubriand as the person most qualified to fill it. It is well known that custom requires the new member to eulogize his predecessor. Chateaubriand, however, in politics differed entirely from Chenier, and unwilling to submit to the usage, had prepared to attack him. The emperor having heard of his intention, forbade him to pronounce his address, seeing that this could not but be a dangerous precedent at a time when the judges of Louis XIV. occupied all the principal offices of state. From that time the emperor and Chateaubriand were irreconcilable.
During the hundred days Chateaubriand accompanied Louis XVIII. to Ghent, and after the restoration, was elevated to the dignity of a peer of France. At this crisis his opinions were ultra royalist. In his last work,de la Monarchie selon la Charte, he dared to define clearly the position of the king, according to the charter; he lost favor, Louis XVIII. being too shrewd to break with the liberal party. The order dismissing him is very significative, viz., “The Vicomte de Chateaubriand having in a printed book expressed doubt in relation to our personal will, made known in the decree of the 5th of September, the said Vicomte will, from to-day, cease to be one of our ministers of state.”
It is now scarcely worth while to follow Chateaubriand through all the phases of his political life. Dismissed and subsequently restored to royal favor, he was ambassador at both Berlin and London. He was also plenipotentiary at the Congress at Verona, again dismissed, and sent as minister to Rome. He again resigned on the coming into power of the ministry of Polignac, and even then foresaw the fall of the throne he had been so anxious to make secure. Having undergone proscription and exile, he had nothing more to undergo except imprisonment. He was yet doomed to taste of prison-fare, and it was reserved for the government of Louis Philippe to arraign the author ofThe Martyrsbefore the Court of Assizes.
Subsequent to the restoration, besides various political pamphlets, Chateaubriand published many works of a purely literary character. The first of these wasThe Natchez. The manuscript of this book, forgotten with many other similar things by the author, had been left at an inn in London, on the occasion of his return from emigration after the 18th Brumaire. Twenty years after it was strangely recovered in a cottage at an obscure village. The honesty of persons to whom he had confided it was the source of one of the happiest hours of the life of Chateaubriand, and secured to the world one of thechef-d’œuvresof romance. Next came Moses, the Essay on English Poetry, the translation of Milton, the Congress of Verona, and the Life ofRanée. The life of Chateaubriand, it will be seen, was eventful as the age in which he lived. Like Dante, Tasso, Cervantes, Camaeus, and Milton, persecution of every kind was heaped on him.
For many years he lived in an almost impenetrable retirement. Caring little for the convulsions of the world, or for courtly intrigues, he has consecrated his time to the publication of hisMemoires d’Outre Tombe, the recent publication of which has suggested this notice.
This remarkable book he thus prefaces: “I have met almost all the men who, in my own days, have been conspicuous in my own or foreign countries—Washington and Napoleon, Louis XVIII. and Popes Alexander, Pius VII., and Gregory XVI., Fox, Pitt, Sheridan, Londonderry, Capo d’Istrias, Malesherbes, and Mirabeau, Nelson, Bolivar, Mehemet, the Pacha of Egypt, Suffren, Bougainville, Lapeyrouse, Moreau, and others. I was one of a triumverate which has no parallel in the history of the world; three poets of different views and interests having been almost at the same time ministers of foreign affairs—I, in France, Canning, in England, and Martinez de la Rosa, in Spain, I have lived through the uneventful years of my youth, the teeming era of the republic, the proud days of Buonaparte, and the reign of legitimacy. I have sailed over the seas of the Old and New World, and stood on the soils of four quarters of the globe. I have slept in the Indian wigwam, Arab tent, and Huron hut; amid the ruins of Athens, Jerusalem, Memphis, Carthage, and Grenada, with the Greek, Turk, and Moor, amid forests, and amid deserted cities. I have worn a bear-skin cap, and the Mameluke caftan; I have undergone hunger and thirst, and as an ambassador, covered with golden embroidery, and stars, and insignia of chivalry, have sat at the board of kings, princesses and ladies, and then have again become impoverished, and have languished in prison.”
For a long time the health of Chateaubriand had been the source of much uneasiness to his friends, but on his return from a trip to Dieppe, in 1847, the symptoms became absolutely alarming. He had resolved to visit Italy, but was attacked with pneumonia, in Paris, and died July 4, 1848, after an illness of five days. The body of the poet was taken to Saint Malo, his birth-place, and on a rocky promontory, where the waves of the Atlantic ceaselessly beat, one who was restless as they, found a final repose. Full of tender love for his childhood’s home, he himself selected his burial place, as the bird which perchance has girded the earth, returns to the nest whence it first winged its flight—to die.
TO J. F. H.
———
BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
———
Nine years have slipped like hourglass-sandFrom life’s fast-emptying globe away,Since last, dear friend, I clasped your hand,And lingered on the impoverished land,Watching the steamer down the bay.I held the keepsake which you gave,Until the dim smoke-pennon curledO’er the vague rim ’tween sky and wave,And closed the distance like a grave,Leaving me to the outer world;The old worn world of hurry and heat,The young, fresh world of thought and scope;While you, where silent surges fleetTow’rd far sky-beaches still and sweet,Sunk wavering down the ocean-slope;Come back our ancient walks to tread,Old haunts of lost or scattered friends,Amid the Muses’ factories red,Where song, and smoke, and laughter spedThe nights to proctor-haunted ends.Our old familiars are not laid,Though snapped our wands and sunk our books,They beckon, not to be gainsaid,Where, round broad meads which mowers wade,Smooth Charles his steel-blue sickle crooks;Where, as the cloudbergs eastward blow,From glow to gloom the hill-side shiftsIts lakes of rye that surge and flow,Its plumps of orchard-trees arow,Its snowy white-weed’s summer drifts.Or let us to Nantasket, thereTo wander idly as we list,Whether, on rocky hillocks bare,Sharp cedar-points, like breakers, tearThe trailing fringes of gray mist,Or whether, under skies clear-blown,The heightening surfs with foamy din,Their breeze-caught forelocks backward blownAgainst old Neptune’s yellow zone,Curl slow, and plunge forever in.For years thrice three, wise Horace said,A poem rare let silence bind;And love may ripen in the shade,Like ours, for nine long seasons laidIn crypts and arches of the mind.That right Falernian friendship oldWill we, to grace our feast, call up,And freely pour the juice of gold,That keeps life’s pulses warm and bold,Till Death shall break the empty cup.
Nine years have slipped like hourglass-sandFrom life’s fast-emptying globe away,Since last, dear friend, I clasped your hand,And lingered on the impoverished land,Watching the steamer down the bay.I held the keepsake which you gave,Until the dim smoke-pennon curledO’er the vague rim ’tween sky and wave,And closed the distance like a grave,Leaving me to the outer world;The old worn world of hurry and heat,The young, fresh world of thought and scope;While you, where silent surges fleetTow’rd far sky-beaches still and sweet,Sunk wavering down the ocean-slope;Come back our ancient walks to tread,Old haunts of lost or scattered friends,Amid the Muses’ factories red,Where song, and smoke, and laughter spedThe nights to proctor-haunted ends.Our old familiars are not laid,Though snapped our wands and sunk our books,They beckon, not to be gainsaid,Where, round broad meads which mowers wade,Smooth Charles his steel-blue sickle crooks;Where, as the cloudbergs eastward blow,From glow to gloom the hill-side shiftsIts lakes of rye that surge and flow,Its plumps of orchard-trees arow,Its snowy white-weed’s summer drifts.Or let us to Nantasket, thereTo wander idly as we list,Whether, on rocky hillocks bare,Sharp cedar-points, like breakers, tearThe trailing fringes of gray mist,Or whether, under skies clear-blown,The heightening surfs with foamy din,Their breeze-caught forelocks backward blownAgainst old Neptune’s yellow zone,Curl slow, and plunge forever in.For years thrice three, wise Horace said,A poem rare let silence bind;And love may ripen in the shade,Like ours, for nine long seasons laidIn crypts and arches of the mind.That right Falernian friendship oldWill we, to grace our feast, call up,And freely pour the juice of gold,That keeps life’s pulses warm and bold,Till Death shall break the empty cup.
Nine years have slipped like hourglass-sand
From life’s fast-emptying globe away,
Since last, dear friend, I clasped your hand,
And lingered on the impoverished land,
Watching the steamer down the bay.
I held the keepsake which you gave,
Until the dim smoke-pennon curled
O’er the vague rim ’tween sky and wave,
And closed the distance like a grave,
Leaving me to the outer world;
The old worn world of hurry and heat,
The young, fresh world of thought and scope;
While you, where silent surges fleet
Tow’rd far sky-beaches still and sweet,
Sunk wavering down the ocean-slope;
Come back our ancient walks to tread,
Old haunts of lost or scattered friends,
Amid the Muses’ factories red,
Where song, and smoke, and laughter sped
The nights to proctor-haunted ends.
Our old familiars are not laid,
Though snapped our wands and sunk our books,
They beckon, not to be gainsaid,
Where, round broad meads which mowers wade,
Smooth Charles his steel-blue sickle crooks;
Where, as the cloudbergs eastward blow,
From glow to gloom the hill-side shifts
Its lakes of rye that surge and flow,
Its plumps of orchard-trees arow,
Its snowy white-weed’s summer drifts.
Or let us to Nantasket, there
To wander idly as we list,
Whether, on rocky hillocks bare,
Sharp cedar-points, like breakers, tear
The trailing fringes of gray mist,
Or whether, under skies clear-blown,
The heightening surfs with foamy din,
Their breeze-caught forelocks backward blown
Against old Neptune’s yellow zone,
Curl slow, and plunge forever in.
For years thrice three, wise Horace said,
A poem rare let silence bind;
And love may ripen in the shade,
Like ours, for nine long seasons laid
In crypts and arches of the mind.
That right Falernian friendship old
Will we, to grace our feast, call up,
And freely pour the juice of gold,
That keeps life’s pulses warm and bold,
Till Death shall break the empty cup.