FOOTNOTES:

"Bon vin, bon gîte, bon lit,Belle hôtesse, bon appétit."

Even Regnard, who had seen so much of the world, tried his hand at this kind of travel-writing and failed lamentably.

At thirty, Regnard closed a chapter in his life, and turned over a new leaf. He gave up wandering and gambling, the ruling passions of his youth, and settled himself comfortably for the rest of his days. For occupation and official position, he bought an assistant-treasurership in theBureau des Finances. His house in the Rue Richelieu became famous for good company and good things, intellectual as well as material. In the country hisTerre de Grillonwas planted with so much taste that the lively persons who liked to visit there called it aSéjour enchanté. In layingout his grounds, his intimate, Dufresny, was doubtless of use to him. This spendthrift poet, reputed great-grandson of Henri Quatre and thebelle jardinière, had great skill in landscape gardening, admitted even by those who found his verses tedious. He it was, probably, who introduced Regnard to the stage. For several years they supplied the Théatre Italien with amusing trifles,—working together in one of those literary partnerships so common among French playwrights. The "Joueur" broke up this business connection. Dufresny accused Regnard of having stolen the plot from him, and brought out a "Joueur" of his own. Regnard insisted that Dufresny was the pirate. The public decided in favor of Regnard. Dufresny's play was hopelessly damned, and no appeal ever taken from the first sentence. The verdict of thebel-espritswas recorded in an epigram, which ended thus:—

"Mais quiconque aujourd'hui voit l'un et l'autre ouvrageDit que Regnard a l'avantageD'avoir été le 'bon larron.'"[F]

Dufresny had more wit than dramatic talent. He will live in the memories of married men for his famous speech,—

"Comment, Monsieur! Vous n'y étiez pas obligé."

It was in 1696, twelve years after his return to Paris, that Regnard sent the "Joueur," a comedy in five acts, and in verse, to the Théatre Français. It was received with enthusiastic applause. Nothing equal to it had appeared in twenty-four years since the death of the great master; nor did the eighteenth century produce any comedy which can be compared with it for action, wit, and literary finish,—not excepting the "Turcaret" of Le Sage, and Beaumarchais's "Barber of Seville," which are both better known to-day.

Regnard sat to himself for the portrait of Valère. The wild and fascinating excitement of play, the gambler's exultation when he is successful, his furious curses on his bad luck when he loses, his superstitious veneration for his winnings, are drawn from the life. When Fortune smiles, Valère neglects Angélique, his richfiancée; when he is penniless, his love revives, and he is at her feet until his valet devises some new plan of raising money. He swears, if she will forgive him, never again to touch dice or cards, and five minutes afterward pledges for a thousand crowns a miniature set in diamonds she has just given him to bind their reconciliation, and hurries back to the gaming-table. He wins, but thinks his gains too sacred to pay away, even to redeem the portrait of Angélique.

"Rien ne porte malheur comme de payer ses dettes,"

is his answer to the prudent Hector,—a maxim current among many who never play. At last comes a reverse of fortune so sweeping that he cannot conceal it. Angélique might have forgiven him his broken promises, but the pawnbroker enters with her picture and demands the thousand crowns. This is too much. She rejects him and gives her hand to his rival. His indignant father casts him off forever. But no feeling of regret or of repentance arises in the mind of the gambler. He turns coolly upon his heel, and calls to his valet,—

"Va! va! consolons-nous, Hector,—et quelque jourLe Jeu m'acquittera des pertes de l'amour."

Richard is the name of this prince of rascally and quick-witted valets; but he calls himself Hector, after the knave of spades, because he serves a gambler. He has good sense as well as ingenuity; for he gives his master the best advice, while he strains his invention and his impudence to help him on to destruction. Nérine, maid to Angélique, declares open war against Valère, and vows that her mistress shall not throw herself away upon a silly dandy, an insipid puppet, with nothing to recommend him but his fine clothes and his swagger.

"True enough," laughs Hector, "but

"C'est le goút d'à présent; tes cris sont superflus,Mon enfant."

"And Valère is a spendthrift, an inveterate gambler, who will bring her to misery and want."

"What of that?

"Tant que tu voudras, parle, prêche, tempête,Ta maîtresse est coiffée,...Elle est dans nos filets."

"And such an outrageousrouéthat he cannot live in his father's house."

"We do not deny it," Hector answers. "It is no fault of ours.

"Valère a déserté la maison paternelle,Mais ce n'est point à lui qu'il faut faire querelle;Et si Monsieur son père avait voulu sortir,Nous y serions encore;...Ces pères, bien souvent, sont obstinés en diable."

Nevertheless, the obdurate parent, in the hope of reforming his son, and of providing for him by the excellent match with Angélique, hunts up the prodigal and lectures him after the manner of fathers. Hector joins in, and expresses strongly his disapprobation of games of chance; "les jeux innocents, où l'esprit se déploie," are the only safe pastime.

"But will our father pay our debts this time?"

"Not a crown."

"Will he lend us the money at one per cent a month? Once out of this pecuniary strait, we can marry Angélique, and be rich and virtuous. Besides, we have assets as well as debts: here is our schedule."

The elder softens a little and takes the paper. At the head of the list of debts he finds Hector's bill for wages and services rendered, leading off a long file of Aarons and Levys; and the assets consist of a debt of honor owing by an officer killed at the Battle of Fleurus, and the good-will of a match attric-tracwith a poor player who had already lost games enough to make his defeat certain.

The action of the comedy does not lag or limp from the opening scene to Valère's last words. The versification is easy and natural; the dialogue abounds in wit and comic humor; it is short and quick, with none of those tedious declamations which weary and unsettle the attention of an audience. Take it all in all, we may say, that, if Molière had chosen the same subject, he could hardly have handled it better.

Not that Regnard can pretend to rank with Molière in genius, or even near him. The "Gambler" is admirably done; but it is the only comedy in which Regnard attempted character. He drew from his experience. Molière was so skilful a moral anatomist that he required only a whim or a weakness to construct a consistent character. This wonderful man found the French comic stage occupied by a few stock personages, imported from Spain and Italy. The elders were fathers or uncles, rich, miserly, and perverse, instinctively disposed to keep a tight rein on the young people, of whose personal expenses and matrimonial projects they invariably disapproved. The persecuted juniors were all alike, colorless shadows, mere lay figures to hang a plot on:Léandre, amant de Célimène; Célimène amante de Léandre: helpless creatures, who would have been quite at the mercy of the old dragons of the story, were it not for the powerful assistance of the rascally soubrettes. These clever sinners abounded in cunning contrivances, disguises, and tricks, which resulted in the signal discomfiture of the parents and guardians. In the last act, they are forced to consent to all the marriages, and are cheated out of most of their property; they are even lucky to escape with their lives. There was no mercy for Age in those plays.

"Pluck the lined crutch from the old limping sire;With it beat out his brains."

The theatre was the temple of youth, of love, and of feasting. Away with the dull old people! Providence created them only to pay the bills.

"Fuyez d'ici, sombre vieillesse,—Car en amour les vieillards ne sont bonsQu'à payer les violons."

Did gentlemen of a certain age go to the theatre in the seventeenth century? expend their money to see themselves abused and ridiculed? Did they laugh at these indignities and enjoy them? We might wonder, if we did not know that Frenchmen never grow old, so long as they have an eye left for ogling or a leg to caper with.

Molière took these old inhabitants of the stage into his service, and injected new life into their veins. He gave them the foibles, the follies, and the vices he saw about him, and made them speak in a new language of unrivalled wit, humor, and mirth. But his genius was shackled by the artificial conventions of the theatre, which did not allow him time or space to fully develop a character. A grand comic creation like Falstaff was impossible. He introduces a single propensity of mankind, exhibits it in all its relations to society, shows it to us on every side; but it remains only a trait of character, although we see it in half a dozen different lights. Tartuffe is the one exception; in him, hypocrisy hides covetousness and lust; and Tartuffe is Molière's masterpiece. But in most of his comedies he displays rather a knowledge of the world than a knowledge of human nature. In his walk he has no equal at home or abroad; but his walk is not the highest. We feel that something is wanting, and yet we can hardly extol him too highly. He brought comedy into close relation with every-day life; he is the father of the modern French stage, which has gradually cast off the old conventional personages. The French dramatists of to-day are not men of genius like Molière, but, in their airy, sparkling plays, they represent the freaks, follies, and fancies of society so exquisitely that nothing remains to be desired. They furnish the model and the materials for the theatre of all other nations.

When Regnard came before the public, the stage remained as Molière had left it The only new personage was the Marquis, first introduced in the "Mère Coquette," by Quinault, the sweet and smooth writer of operas,—of whom it was said, that he had boned (désossé) the French language. The Marquis is the ancestor of our Fop,—

"Loose in morals and in manners vain,In conversation frivolous, in dress extreme,"—

who in turn has become antiquated and tiresome. Regnard's only original character is the Gambler; in his other comedies he made use of the old, familiar masks, and won success by his keen sense of the ridiculous, his wit, and his unceasing jollity and fun. His Crispins and Scapins are perfect. What impudent, worthless, amusing rogues! To keep inside of the law is their only rule of right. "Honesty is a fool, and Trust, his sworn brother, a very simple gentleman." They came of an ancient race, these Crispins and Scapins, that had flourished in Italy and in Spain since Plautus and Terence brought them over from Greece. They found their way to France, and even reached England in their migration, following in the train of Charles II. when he returned from exile, and during a short life on that side of the Channel added drunkenness and brutality to their gayer vices. The character was true to Nature in Athens or in Rome, where men of talent might often be bound to devote their brains to the service of those who owned their bodies, and by their condition as slaves were released from all obligations of honor or of honesty. In the seventeenth century it might pass in France; for the line between gentle and simple was so sharply drawn that ladies of rank saw no greater impropriety in disrobing before their footmen than before their dogs. But the progress of liberty or ofégalitéblotted out the valets of comedy. Even in Regnard's time the inconsistencies of the character were noticed. Jasmin, in the "Sérénade," utters revolutionary doctrine:—"How can an honorable valet devote himself to the interests of a penniless master? We grow tricky in waiting upon such fellows. They scold us; sometimes they beat us. We have more wit than they. We support them; we are obliged to invent, for their benefit, all sorts of knavery, in which they are always ready to take a share; and, withal, they are the masters, and we the servants. It is not just. Hereafter I mean to scheme for myself, and become a master in my turn."

Scapin has joined his brother pagans beyond the Styx; but Lisette blooms in evergreen youth. This young Frenchperson's theory of woman's rights is different from the one which obtains in New England; nor does she trouble herself at all to seek for woman's mission. She found it years ago. It is to deceive a man. She is satisfied with her condition, and with the old mental and moral attributes of her sex. When Crispin disguises himself in her clothes, he exclaims,—

"L'addresse et l'artifice ont passé dans mon cœur;Qu'on a sous cet habit et d'esprit et de ruse—Rien n'est si trompeur qu'animal porte-jupe."

This animal is as clever and as cunning in Paris to-day as when Crispin felt the inspiration of the petticoats.

In 1708, after another period of twelve years, "Le Légataire Universel" was played at the same theatre. In this piece the author relied entirely upon thevis comicaof his plot and dialogue. Géronte, a rich, miserly old bachelor, with as many ailments as years,—

"Vieux et cassé, fiévreux, épileptique,Paralytique, étique, asthmatique, hydropique,"—

has for a nephew Ergaste, with well-grounded hopes of inheriting, and that shortly. These are suddenly dashed by the announcement that his uncle has resolved to marry Isabelle, a girl to whom Ergaste himself is attached. The nephew keeps his own secret, and judiciously commends the choice of his uncle. Géronte is delighted with him; even asks his advice about a present for the damsel,—something pretty, but cheap.

"Je voudrais inventer quelque petit cadeauQui coutât peu, mais qui parût nouveau."

Meeting with no opposition, the old gentleman gradually loses his relish for matrimony; and Madame Argante, the mother, promises Ergaste to give Isabelle to him, instead of to his uncle, provided Géronte will declare his nephew heir to his estate. Unluckily, there are two other collaterals, country cousins, whom Géronte has never seen, but whom he wishes to remember. Crispin, valet to Ergaste, assisted by Lisette, the old man's housekeeper and nurse, personifies first the male and then the female relative from the rural districts so well that Géronte orders them out of his house in disgust, swears that he will not leave them a sous, and sends for a notary to draw his will in favor of Ergaste. But the excitement of the last interview with Crispin, as a widow, is too much for his strength. He becomes unconscious, and apparently breathes his last just as the notary knocks at the door. In this moment of agonizing disappointment, the indomitable Crispin comes to the rescue. He puts on the dressing-gown and cap of Géronte, reclines in his easy-chair, counterfeits his voice, and dictates a will to the notary. Firstly, he bequeaths to Lisette two thousand crowns, on condition that she marry Crispin; secondly, he leaves to Crispin an annuity of fifteen hundred crowns, to reward his devotion to his master; the rest of the estate, real and personal, to go to Ergaste. The residuary legatee remonstrates warmly with the testator against his foolish generosity to Crispin and Lisette; but the sham Géronte insists, and Ergaste is obliged to submit. The notary withdraws to make the necessary copies of the will, and the plotters are chuckling over the success of their plans, when, to their dismay, Géronte enters, alive. He tells them that he feels his strength departing, and bids them send at once for the notary to settle his worldly affairs. The notary, who is ignorant of any deceit, assures him that he has made his will already, and shows him the document. The conspirators seize the chance of escape, confirm the notary's story, and relate all the circumstances of the conference, Géronte protests that he recollects nothing of it; he feels certain he could not have given more than twenty crowns to Lisette; as to Crispin, he had never heard of him. The answer is always, "C'est votre léthargie." While perplexed and hesitating, the old man discovers that a large sum in notes has been abstracted from his hoard. Ergaste had secured them as an alleviation in case of the worst, and had placed them in the hands of Isabelle. She promises to return them, if Géronte will make Ergaste hisheir and her husband. In his anxiety for his money, Géronte consents to everything, and allows the will to stand.

Nothing, La Harpe tells us, ever made a French audience laugh so heartily as the scene of the will. Falbaire, one of thepoètes négligésof the eighteenth century, says, in a note to his drama, "The Monks of Japan," that the Jesuits furnished Regnard with the idea of this scene. In 1626, the reverend fathers, by precisely the same stratagem employed by Crispin, obtained possession of the estate of a M. d'Ancier of Bésançon, who died suddenly and intestate. It is proper to add that M. Falbaire's drama was written against the Jesuits.

There are two other plays, out of some twenty that Regnard published, which will repay a reader: "Les Menéchmes," imitated from Plautus, like Shakspeare's Dromios, and "Démocrite,"[G]which reminds one a little of Molière's "Amphitryon." Both are distinguished for that perpetual gayety, the most pleasing of all qualities, which is the characteristic of their author. It seems impossible for him to be dull; he never nods; his bow, such as it is, is always strung. It is remarkable that his comic scenes, although crammed with fun, never run down into farce; nor does he find it necessary to eke out his wit with buffoonery. He had an instinctive taste which preserved him from coarseness; although he wrote a century and a half ago, there is less of the low and indelicate than in the plays we see posted at the doors of our theatres. The French of the time of Louis XIV. must have been a much more refined people than the contemporary English. At least, Thalia in Paris was a vestal, compared with her tawdry, indecent, and drunken London sister. One is ashamed to be seen reading the unblushing profligacy of Wycherley, Cibber, Vanbrugh, and Congreve.

We must admit that Regnard's mantle of decorum is not without a rent. In the "Légataire," as in the "Malade Imaginaire," may be found a good deal of pleasantry on the first of the three principal remedies of the physicians of the period, as mentioned by Molière in his burlesque Latin:—

"Clysterium donare,Postea purgare,Ensuita seignare."

It seems to have been a good joke in France then; it is so now,—wonderfully fresh and new,—defying time and endless repetition. American eyes do not see much fun in it; they rather turn away in disgust. But on the risible organs of the French purgative medicines operate violently; and the favorite weapon of their medical service, primitive in shape and exaggerated in dimensions, is a property indispensable to every theatre. Regnard used it as a part of the stage machinery,—worked it in as a stock pleasantry, the effect of which was certain. Were he writing now, he would do the same thing. But in the "Joueur" nobody is ill; it may be read by that typical creature, the "most virtuous female," publicly and without a blush.

Gentlemen and ladies whose morals are not fully fledged are generally advised to beware of attempting to skim over the fiction of modern France. They may take up Regnard without risking a fall; for there is little danger of being led astray by the picaresque knaveries of Scapin and Lisette. In 1700 love for another man's wife had not come to be considered one of the fine arts. Nowadays the victims of this kind of misplaced affection are the heroes of French novels and plays. The husband, odious and tiresomeex officio,has succeeded to the miserly father or tyrannical guardian. He is the giant of French romance, who keeps the lovely and uneasy lady locked up in Castle Matrimony. He cannot help himself, poor fellow!—he is compelled to fill that unenviable position, whenever Madame chooses. Sentimental young Arthurs and Ernests stand in the place of Ergaste and Cléante, and are always ready to make war upon the unlucky giant. They overcome him as of old, scale the walls, and carry off the capricious fair one. We have hardly changed for the better. Ergaste and Cléante were not sentimental, but they were marrying men and broke no commandments.

Regnard's life of fifty years covers the whole of the literary age of Louis XIV. Before 1660 the French had no literature worth preserving, except Rabelais, Montaigne, a few odes of Malherbe, a page or two of Marot, and the tragedies of Corneille. Pascal published the "Provincial Letters" in the year of Regnard's birth. La Fontaine had written a few indifferent verses; Molière was almost unknown. In 1686, when Regnard became an author, the Voitures, Balzacs, and Benserades, the men of fantastic conceits, the vanguard of the grand army of French wits, had marched away to Pluto and to Lethe. One or two stragglers, like Ménage and Chapelle, lingered to wonder at the complete change of taste. The age had ripened fast. Not many years before, Barbin the bookseller ordered his hacks tofaire du St. Évremond. St. Évremond was still living in England, dirty and witty; and Barbin still kept his shop, but gave no more orders for wares of that description. Many of the greatest names of the era were already carved on tombs: La Rochefoucauld, Pascal, Corneille, Molière. Bossuet was a man of sixty; La Fontaine a few years older; Boileau and Racine close upon fifty. When Regnard died, in 1710, the eighteenth century had begun. Fontenelle, Le Sage, Bayle, men of nearly the same age as himself, belong to it.

In 1686 King Louis had reached the full meridian of hisGloire,Grandeur,Éclat. No monarch in Europe was so powerful. He had conquered Flanders, driven the Dutch under water, seized Franche-Comté, annexed Lorraine, ravaged the Palatinate, bombarded Algiers and Genoa, and by a skilful disregard of treaties and of his royal word kept his neighbors at swords' points until he was ready to destroy them. The Emperor was afraid of him, Philip of Spain his most humble servant, Charles II. in his pay. He had bullied the Pope, and brought the Doge of Genoa to Paris to ask pardon for selling powder to the Algerines and ships to Spain. He wasLouis le Grand, le roi vraiment roi, le demi-dieu qui nous gouverne, Deodatus, Sol nec pluribus impar. Regnard witnessed the cloudy setting of this splendid luminary. After the secret marriage with Mme. de Maintenon, in 1686, Fortune deserted the King. He was everywhere defeated, or his victories were Cadmean, as disastrous as defeats. The fleet that was to replace James II. on his throne was destroyed at La Hogue by Russell. The Camisards defied for years the army sent against them. Rooke took Gibraltar. Peterborough defeated the Bourbon forces in Spain. Blenheim, Oudenarde, Ramillies, Malplaquet, brought ruin upon France before Regnard was withdrawn from the scene.

Meanwhile the Eighteenth Century, with its godlessness and its debauchery, was born. Hypocrisy watched over its infancy. When Louis reformed, and took a pious elderly second wife, it was the fashion to be religious; and whoever wished to stand well at court followed the fashion. "You who live in France have wonderful advantages for saving your souls," wrote St. Évremond from London. "Vice is quite out of date with you. It is in bad taste to sin,—as offensive to good manners as to morality. And those of you who might be forgetful of their hereafter are led to salvation by a becoming deference to the habits and observances of well-bred people." The monarch himself was utterly ignorant in matters of religion; the Duchess of Orleans wrote to herGerman friends, that he had never even read the Bible. He was shocked to hear that Christ had demeaned himself to speak the language of the poor and the humble. "Il avait la foi du charbonnier," Cardinal Fleury said,—the blind, unreasoning faith of the African in his fetich. He considered it due togloireto assist Divine Providence in its government of the souls of men. Was he not the greatest prince of the earth, the eldest son of the Church, standing nearer to the throne of grace than any insignificant pope? Of course he was responsible for the orthodoxy of his subjects, ademi-dieu qui nous gouverne. He came to think religion a part of his royal prerogative, and misbelief treason against his royal person. He was quite capable of going a step beyond Cardinal Wolsey, and of writing, "Ego et Deus meus." He said to a prelate whose management of some ecclesiastical business particularly gratified him,—"J'ignore si Dieu vous tiendra compte de la conduite que vous avez tenue; mais quant à moi, je vous assure que je ne l'oublierai jamais." The spiritual powers are never backward in taking advantage of favorable circumstances: Huguenots, Jansenists, and Quietists were sternly put down, and the girdle of superstition tightened until it began to crack. The skeptics were quiet,—asked but few questions,—pretended to be satisfied with the time-honored answers Mother Church keeps for her uneasy children,—and seemed to be busy with the "Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes," and the "Dispute sur les Cérémonies Chinoises." It was not yet the time for them to announce pompously their radical theories as new and true. A thin varnish of decorum and orthodoxy overspread everything; but one may see the shadow of the comingRégencein Regnard's works. He and gentlemen like him went to mass in the morning, and to pleasure for the rest of the day and night.

"Ils sont chrétiens à la messe,Ils sont païens à l'opéra."

Regnard was almost as much of a pagan as his favorite Horace,—called for wines, roses, and perfumes, and sang his Lydia and his Lalage almost in the same words. His creed and his philosophy were pagan. He adored three goddesses,—la Comédie,la Musique,la bonne Chère; his solution of the problem of life was enjoyment.

"Fair tout ce qu'on veut, vivre exempt de chagrin,Ne se rien refuser,—Voilà tout mon systême,Et de mes jours ainsi j'attraperai la fin."

Wisdom was given to man to temper pleasure,—to avoid excess, which destroys pleasure. Regnard had agreeable recollections of the past; the present satisfied him; he was as careless of the unknown future as De Retz, whoseépouvantable tranquillité, appalling ease of mind on that point, so shocked poor Mme. de Sévigné. All other speculations he put quietly aside with a doubt or acui bono. It was a witty and refined selfishness, and nothing beyond. Spiritual light, faith, none; hope that to-morrow might pass as smoothly as to-day; love, only that particular affection which man feels for his female fellow-creature. Such a heathenish frame of mind will find little favor in this era of yearnings, seekings, teachings. It was, indeed, a lamentable condition of moral darkness; but the error, though grievous, has its attractive side.

"On court après la vérité;Ah! croyez moi, l'erreur a son mérite."

It is a relief in these dyspeptic times to turn back to Regnard, the big, rosy, and jolly pagan, enjoying to the utmost the four blessings invoked upon the head of Argan by the chorus of Doctors:—

"Salus, honor et argentum.Arque bonum appetitum."

Comfortable, contented with himself and with the world, he was free from the sadness, the misgivings, and the enervating doubts which overrun so many morbid minds,—symptoms of moral weakness, and of the want of healthy occupation. Hence lady poets, more than all others, love to indulge in these feeble repinings, and take the privilege of their sex to shed tears on paper.In his bachelor establishment, Rue de Richelieu, there was, he tells us,—

"Grande chere, vin délicieux,Belle maison, liberté toute entière,Bals, concerts, enfin tout ce qui peut satisfaireLe goût, les oreilles, les yeux."

TheSociété choisiewas numerous; for a good cook never fails to make friends for his master, and Regnard's cook dealt with fat capons, plover, and ortolans. His lettuce, mushrooms, and artichokes were grown under his own eyes. The choice vintages of France, in casks, lay in his cellar. He gave wine to nourish wit, not to furnish an opportunity for ostentatious gabble about age and price. How he revels in the description of good cheer! There rises from his pagesfumetof game and thebouquet d'un vin exquis.

"Et des perdrix! Morbleu! d'un fumet admirableSentez plutôt, Quel baume! Mon Dieu!"

Why are American authors so commonly wan and gaunt, with none of the external marks of healthy gayety? Is it the climate, or the lack of out-door exercise, or hot-air furnaces, or rascally cooks? They look as if, like Burns's man, they "were made to mourn." If they conceive a joke, their sad, sharp voices and angular gesticulations make it miscarry. Now and then they rebel against their constitutions, poor fellows, and try to imitate the jovial ancestors they have read of; babble shrilly ofnoctes cœnæque Deûm, petits soupers, and what not. It is mostly idle talk. They know too well that digestion does not wait upon appetite in the evening,—and that they will feel better for the next week, if they restrict their debauch to dandelion coffee and Graham bread. Moreover, the age of conviviality is gone, as much as the age of chivalry.Petits soupersare impossible in this part of the world. Let us manfully confess one reason: they cost too much. And we have not the wit, nor the wicked women, nor the same jolly paganism. Juno Lucina reigns here in the stead of Venus; and Bacchus is two dollars a bottle.

But these and other good things Regnard had in abundance, and so lived smoothly and happily on, defying time,—for he held, with Mme. de Thianges, "On ne viellit point à table" until one day he overheated himself in shooting, drank abundantly of cold water, and fell dead,—Euthanasia. He died a bachelor, and, if we may judge from many of his verses, seems, like Thackeray, to have wondered why Frenchmen ever married. But he had a keen eye for "the fair defect of Nature." Strabon's description of young Criseïs before her glass could have been written only by an amateur:—

"Je la voyais tantôt devant une toiletteD'unemouche assasine irriter ses attraits."

Neither Molière, Regnard, nor Le Sage was a member of the Academy.

Béranger thinks it remarkable that theimprovisations folles et charmantesof Regnard should now be neglected in France. We do not recollect to have met with him even in the "Causeries" of Ste. Beuve, who has ransacked the French Temple of Fame from garret to cellar forfeuilletonmaterials; yet the "Légataire" kept a foothold on the stage for a hundred and twenty years. But the Temple of Fame is overcrowded. Every day some worthy fellow is turned out to make room for a new-comer. Our libraries are not large enough to hold the mob of authors who press in. What with newspapers, magazines, and the last new novel, few persons have time to read more than the titles on the backs of their books. They are familiar with the great names, take their excellence on trust, and allow them to stand neglected and dusty on their shelves. But with another generation the great names will become mere shadows of a name; and so on to oblivion. Father Time has a good taste in literature, it is true. He mows down with his critical scythe the tares which spring up in such daily abundance; but, unfortunately, he cannot stop there: after a lapse of years, he sweeps away also the fruit of the good seed to make room for the productions of his younger children.

"For he's their parent and he is their grave."

The doom is universal; it cannot be avoided. There must be an end to all temporal things, and why not to books? The same endless night awaits a Plato and a penny-a-liner. Our Eternities of Fame, like all else appertaining to humanity, will some day pass away. Even Milton and Shakspeare, our great staple international poets, who have been brought out whenever the American ambassador to England dined in public, are travelling the same downward path. How many of us, man or woman, on the sunny side of thirty, have gone through the "Paradise Lost"? And Shakspeare, in spite of new editions and of new commentators, is not half as much read as fifty years since. Perhaps the time will come when English speaking people will not know to whom they owe so many of the proverbs, metaphors, and eloquent words which enrich their daily talk.

Will none escape this inexorable fate? Homer and Robinson Crusoe seem to us to have the most tenacity of life.

FOOTNOTES:[F]The proverbial French expression for the thief who rebuked his reviling comrade at the crucifixion.[G]Démocrite, in an attack upon a heavy diner-out, says,—"Il creuse son tombeau sans cesse avec ses dents,"—and thus anticipates Sir Astley Cooper by many years. It is lucky that these fellows, who took a mean advantage of seniority to get off our good things before us, have perished, or they might give us trouble. At least two Frenchmen could claim "the glorious Epicurean paradox" of one of the seven wise men of Boston, "Give us the luxuries of life, and we will dispense with its necessaries,"—M. de Voltaire, and M. de Coulanges, a generation earlier. These "flashing moments" of the wise in Boston, as in other great places, are often, like heat-lightning, reflections of a previous flash.

[F]The proverbial French expression for the thief who rebuked his reviling comrade at the crucifixion.

[G]Démocrite, in an attack upon a heavy diner-out, says,—"Il creuse son tombeau sans cesse avec ses dents,"—and thus anticipates Sir Astley Cooper by many years. It is lucky that these fellows, who took a mean advantage of seniority to get off our good things before us, have perished, or they might give us trouble. At least two Frenchmen could claim "the glorious Epicurean paradox" of one of the seven wise men of Boston, "Give us the luxuries of life, and we will dispense with its necessaries,"—M. de Voltaire, and M. de Coulanges, a generation earlier. These "flashing moments" of the wise in Boston, as in other great places, are often, like heat-lightning, reflections of a previous flash.

[G]Démocrite, in an attack upon a heavy diner-out, says,—

"Il creuse son tombeau sans cesse avec ses dents,"—

and thus anticipates Sir Astley Cooper by many years. It is lucky that these fellows, who took a mean advantage of seniority to get off our good things before us, have perished, or they might give us trouble. At least two Frenchmen could claim "the glorious Epicurean paradox" of one of the seven wise men of Boston, "Give us the luxuries of life, and we will dispense with its necessaries,"—M. de Voltaire, and M. de Coulanges, a generation earlier. These "flashing moments" of the wise in Boston, as in other great places, are often, like heat-lightning, reflections of a previous flash.

It was a wet Monday in October, on my return from a journey, with a large party of friends and acquaintances, as far north as Chicago and as far south as St. Louis and the Iron Mountain. We were gradually nearing home, and the fun and jollity grew apace as we got closer to the end of our holiday and to the beginning of our every-day work. Our day's ride was intended to be from Cumberland (on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad) to Baltimore. The murky drizzle made our comfortable car all the more cozy, and the picturesque glories of that part of Western Virginia, through which we had come very leisurely and enjoyably, were heightened by the contrast of the dull cloud that hung over the valley of the Potomac. At Martinsburg the train was stopped for an unusually long time; and in spite of close questioning, we were obliged to satisfy our curiosity with a confused story of an outbreak and a strike among the workmen at the armory, with a consequent detention of trains, at Harper's Ferry. The train pushed on slowly, and at last came to a dead halt at a station called The Old Furnace. There a squad of half a dozen lazy Virginia farmers—we should call them a picket just now, in our day of military experiences—told us half a dozen stories about the troubles ahead, and finally the people in charge of our train determined to send it back to wait for further news from below. A young engineer who was employed on the railroad was directed to go along the track to examine it, and see what, if any, damage had been done. As I had brushed up an acquaintance with him, I volunteered to accompany him, and then was joined by a young Englishman, a Guardsman on his travels, one of the Welsh Wynns, just returning from a shooting-tour over the Prairies. We started off in the rain and mud, and kept together till we came to a bridle-path crossing the railroad and climbing up the hills. Here we met a country doctor, who offered to guide us to Bolivar, whence we could come down to the Ferry, and as the trains would be detained there for several hours, there would be time enough to see all the armory workshops and wonders. So off we started up the muddy hillside, leaving our engineer to his task on the railroad; for what pedestrian would not prefer the worst dirt road to the best railroad for an hour's walking? Our Englishman was ailingand really unwell, and half-way up the rough hill left us to return to the easy comfort of the train.

My guide—Dr. Marmion was the name he gave in exchange for mine—said that the row at the Ferry was nothing but a riotous demonstration by the workmen. He came from quite a distance, and, hearing these vague reports, had turned off to visit his patients in this quarter, so that he might learn the real facts; and as it was then only a little past nine, he had time to do his morning's work in Bolivar. So there we parted, he agreeing to join me again at the Ferry; and he did so later in the day.

Turning to the left on the main pike, I found little knots of lounging villagers gathered in the rain and mud, spitting, swearing, and discussing the news from the Ferry. Few of them had been there, and none of them agreed in their account of the troubles; so I plodded on over the hill and down the sharp slope that led to the Ferry. Just as I began the descent, a person rode up on horseback, gun in hand, and as we came in sight of the armory, he told me the true story,—that a band of men were gathered together to set the slaves free, and that, after starting the outbreak on the night before, they had taken refuge down below. He pointed with his gun, and we were standing side by side, when a sudden flash and a sharp report and a bullet stopped his story and his life.

The few people above us looked down from behind the shelter of houses and fences;—from below not a soul was visible in the streets and alleys of Harper's Ferry, and only a few persons could be seen moving about the buildings in the armory inclosure. In a minute, some of the townspeople, holding out a white handkerchief, came down to the fallen man, and, quite undisturbed, carried him up the hill and to the nearest house,—all with hardly a question or a word of explanation. Shocked by what was then rare enough to be appalling,—sudden and violent death by fire-arms in the hands of concealed men,—I started off again, meaning to go down to the Ferry, with some vague notion of being a peace-maker, and at least of satisfying my curiosity as to the meaning of all these mysteries: for while I saw that that fatal rifle-shot meant destruction, I had no conception of a plot.

Just as I reached the point where I had joined the poor man who had fallen,—it was a Mr. Turner, formerly a captain in the army, and a person deservedly held in high esteem by all his friends and neighbors,—a knot of two or three armed men stopped me, and after a short parley directed me to some one in authority, who would hear my story. The guard who escorted me to the great man was garrulous and kind enough to tell me more in detail the story, now familiar to all of us, of the capture of Mr. Lewis Washington and other persons of note in the Sunday night raid of a body of unknown men. The dread of something yet to come, with which the people were manifestly possessed, was such as only those can know who have lived in a Slave State; and while there was plenty of talk of the steadiness of the slaves near the Ferry, it was plain that that was the magazine that was momentarily in danger of going off and carrying them all along with it.

The officers of the neighboring militia had gathered together in the main tavern of the place, without waiting for their men, but not unmindful of the impressive effect of full uniform, and half a dozen kinds of military toggery were displayed on the half-dozen persons convened in a sort of drum-head court-martial. I was not the only prisoner, and had an opportunity to hear the recitals of my fellows in luck. First and foremost of all was a huge, swaggering, black-bearded, gold-chain and scarlet-velvet-waistcoated, piratical-looking fellow, who announced himself as a Border Ruffian, of Virginia stock, and now visiting his relations near the Ferry; but he said that he had fought with the Southern Rights party in the Kansas war, and that whenhe heard of the "raid," as he familiarly called the then unfamiliar feat of the Sunday night just past, he knew who was at the top and bottom of it, and he described in a truthful sort of way the man whose name and features were alike unknown to all his listeners,—"Ossawatomie Brown," "Old John Brown." Garnishing the story of their earlier contests with plentiful oaths, he gave us a lively picture of their personal hand-to-hand rights in the West, and said that he had come to help fight his old friend and enemy, and to fight him fair, just as they did in "M'souri." He wanted ten or a dozen men to arm themselves to the teeth, and he'd lead 'em straight on. His indignation at his arrest and at the evident incredulity of his hearers and judges was not a whit less hearty and genuine than his curses on their cowardice in postponing any attack or risk of fighting until the arrival of militia, or soldiers, or help of some kind, in strength to overpower the little band in the armory, to make resistance useless, and an attack, if that was necessary, safe enough to secure some valiant man to lead it on.

My story was soon told, I was a traveller; my train had been stopped; I had started off on foot, meaning to walk over the hill to the Ferry, and expecting there to meet the train to go on to Baltimore. The interruptions were plentiful, and the talk blatant. I showed a ticket, a memorandum-book giving the dates and distances of my recent journey, and a novel (I think it was one of Balzac's) in French, and on it was written in pencil my name and address. That was the key-note of plenty of suspicion. How could they believe any man from a Northern city innocent of a knowledge of the plot now bursting about their ears? Would not my travelling-companions from the same latitude be ready to help free the slaves? and if I was set at liberty, would it not be only too easy to communicate between the little host already beleaguered in the armory engine-house and the mythical great host that was gathered in the North and ready to pour itself over the South? Of course all this, the staple of their every-day discussions, was strange enough to my ears; and I listened in a sort of silent wonderment that men could talk such balderdash. Any serious project of a great Northern movement on behalf of Southern slaves was then as far from credible and as strange to my ears as it was possible to be. It seemed hardly worth while to answer their suggestions; I therefore spoke of neighbors of theirs who were friends of mine, and of other prominent persons in this and other parts of Virginia who were acquaintances, and for a little time I hoped to be allowed to go free; but after more loud talk and a squabble that marked by its growing violence the growing drunkenness of the whole party, court and guard and spectators all, I was ordered along with the other prisoners to be held in custody for the present. We were marched off, first to one house and then to another, looking for a convenient prison, and finally found one in a shop. Here—it was a country store—we sat and smoked and drank and chatted with our guard and with their friends inside and out. Now and then a volley was fired in the streets of the village below us, and we would all go to a line fence where we could see its effects: generally it was only riotous noise, but occasionally it was directed against the engine-house or on some one moving through the armory-yard.

As the militia in and out of uniform, and the men from far and near, armed in all sorts of ways, began to come into the village in squads, their strength seemed to give them increased confidence, and especially in the perfectly safe place where I sat with half a dozen others under a heavy guard. Now and then an ugly-looking fowling-piece or an awkwardly handled pistol was threateningly pointed at us, with a half-laughing and half-drunken threat of keeping us safe. Toward afternoon we were ordered for the night to Charlestown, and to the jail there that has grown so famous by its hospitality to our successors. The journey across was particularlyenlivening. My special guard was a gentlemanly young lawyer, one of the Kennedys of that ilk; and to his cleverness I think I owed my safe arrival at the end of our journey. Every turn in the road brought us face to face with an angry crowd, gathering from far and near, armed and ready to do instant justice on a helpless victim. Kennedy, however, gracefully waived them back to the wagons behind us, where other prisoners, in less skilful hands, were pretty badly used. The houses on the road were utterly deserted; on the first news of an outbreak by the slaves, the women and children were hurried off to the larger towns,—the men coming slowly back in squads and arming as best they could, and the negroes keeping themselves hid out of sight on all sides.

The eight miles' distance to Charlestown was lengthened out by the rain and mud, and the various hindrances of the way, so that the day was closing as we came into the main street of the straggling little town. The first odd sight was a procession of black and white children playing soldiers, led by a chubby black boy, full of a sense of authority, and evidently readily accepted by his white and black comrades in childlike faith. The next was a fine, handsome house, where a large number of ladies from the country round had been gathered together, and as we were greeted in going by, my guide stopped, and introducing me, I explained my position. They were all ready with their sympathy, and all overpowering with their gratitude, when I pooh-poohed their fear of a great Northern invasion, and said that the people of the North were just as innocent of any participation in this business as they themselves were. Our line of march resumed brought us to the prison, and I was not sorry to have the shock of an enforced visit somewhat lessened by a general invitation from mine host of an adjoining tavern to liquor up. Of course I was noways chary of invitations to the crowd, and the bar-room being full, I made the bar my rostrum, and indulged in a piece of autobiography that was intended to gain the general consent to return to my fellow-travellers, who were reported still at Martinsburg. If I cannot boast of great successatthe bar, I am as little proud of my eloquenceonthe bar. One of the Kennedys, brother to my guard, did suggest taking me to his house, half a mile off; but to that Colonel Davenport, a bustling great man of the village, answered, that, as there was sure to be some hanging at night, it would be safer to be in the prison, as well from the mob as from any escape on my own part, and it was better to stay contentedly where I was. Doctor Marmion, my acquaintance of the morning, rode over to find me and to explain his part in my visit to the Ferry, hoping that such a confirmation of my story would secure my immediate release. But by that time I was in the custody of the sheriff, by some military legal process; and while that officer was kind and civil, he refused to do anything, except promise me an early hearing before the court-martial, which was to reassemble the next day. Finally, I was hustled through a gaping, pot-valiant crowd, into the prison, where the mob had violently taken possession; and it was a good while before I could be got up stairs and safely locked into my cell. The bolts were shot pretty sharply, but the sense of relief from the threats and impertinence of the bullying fellows outside quite outweighed my sensation of novelty on finding myself in such strange quarters. My supper was sent up, my friendly guard gave me cigars, and a buxom daughter of the jailer lent me a candle. I lay down on a rough cot and was soon asleep; my last recollection was of my sturdy guard, armed and wakeful, in front of my cell; and I woke after several hours of sound, refreshing slumber, startled by the noise of his angry answers to some still more angry and very drunken men. They had, so I learned partly then and partly afterwards, broken into the jail, and hurried from the cell next to mine a poor black prisoner, who was forthwith hanged; and, whetted by their sport, they hadreturned to find a fresh victim. Fortunately, in the turmoil of their first attack, the only other prisoner easily got hold of was a white boy, who escaped, while I owed my safety to Kennedy's earnest protestations, and to his ready use of a still more convincing argument, a loaded pistol and a quick hand.

Early morning was very welcome, for it brought the court-martial up to Charlestown, and I was soon ready for a hearing. Fortunately, after a good deal of angry discussion and some threats of a short shrift, a message came up from the Ferry from Governor Wise; and as I boldly claimed acquaintance with him, they granted me leave to send down a note to him, asking for his confirmation of my statements. While this was doing, I was paroled and served my Kansas colleague by advice to hold his tongue; he did so, and was soon released; and my messenger returned with such advices, in the shape of a pretty sharp reprimand to the busy court-martial for their interference with the liberty of the citizen, as speedily got me my freedom. I used it to buy such articles of clothing as could be had in Charlestown, and my prison clothes were gladly thrown aside. Some of my fellow-travellers reached the place in time to find me snugly ensconced in the tavern, waiting for an ancient carriage; with them we drove back to the Ferry in solemn state. The same deserted houses and the same skulking out of sight by the inhabitants showed the fear that outlasted even the arrival of heavy militia reinforcements. We stopped at Mr. Lewis Washington's, and, without let or hindrance, walked through the pretty grounds and the bright rooms and the neat negro huts, all alike lifeless, and yet showing at every turn the suddenness and the recentness of the fright that had carried everybody off. Our ride through Bolivar was cheered by a vigorous greeting from my captor of the day before,—the village shoemaker, a brawny fellow,—who declared that he knew I was all right, that he had taken care of me, that he would not have me hanged or shot, and "wouldn't I give him sum't to have a drink all round, and if I ever came again, please to stop and see him"; and so I did, when I came back with my regiment in war-times; but then no shoemaker was to be found.

I paid my respects to Governor Wise, and thanked him for my release; was introduced to Colonel Lee, (now the Rebel general,) and to the officers of the little squad of marines who had carried the stronghold of the "invaders," as the Governor persistently called them. In company with "Porte Crayon," Mr. Strothers, a native of that part of Virginia, and well known by his sketches of Southern life in "Harper's Magazine," I went to the engine-house, and there saw the marks of the desperate defence and of the desperate bravery of John Brown and his men. I saw, too, John Brown himself. Wounded, bleeding, haggard, and defeated, and expecting death with more or less of agony as it was more or less near, John Brown was the finest specimen of a man that I ever saw. His great, gaunt form, his noble head and face, his iron-gray hair and patriarchal beard, with the patient endurance of his own suffering, and his painful anxiety for the fate of his sons and the welfare of his men, his reticence when jeered at, his readiness to turn away wrath with a kind answer, his whole appearance and manner, what he looked, what he said,—all impressed me with the deepest sense of reverence. If his being likened to anything in history could have made the scene more solemn, I should say that he was likest to the pictured or the ideal representation of a Roundhead Puritan dying for his faith, and silently glorying in the sacrifice not only of life, but of all that made life dearest to him. His wounded men showed in their patient endurance the influence of his example; while the vulgar herd of lookers-on, fair representatives of the cowardly militia-men who had waited for the little force of regulars to achieve the capture of the engine-house and its garrison, were ready to prove their further cowardice by maltreating the prisoners. The marines,who alone had sacrificed life in the attack, were sturdily bent on guarding them from any harsh handling. I turned away sadly from the old man's side, sought and got the information he wanted concerning "his people," as he called them, and was rewarded with his thanks in a few simple words, and in a voice that was as gentle as a woman's. The Governor, as soon as he was told of the condition of the prisoners, had them cared for, and, in all his bitterness at their doings, never spoke of them in terms other than honorable to himself and to them. He persistently praised John Brown for his bravery and his endurance; and he was just as firm in declaring him the victim of shrewd and designing men, whose schemes he would yet fathom.

The day was a busy one; for little squads of regulars were sent out on the Maryland Heights to search for the stores accumulated there; and each foraging party was followed by a tail of stragglers from all the volunteers on the ground, who valiantly kept on to the Maryland side of the bridge that crossed the Potomac, and then, their courage oozing out of their fingers and toes both, stopped there and waited for the return of the regulars. On the instant of their arrival, each time fetching a great hay-wagon full of captured goods, tents, picks, spades, pikes, the tag-rag and bobtail party at once set to work to help themselves to the nearest articles, and were soon seen making off homeward with their contraband of war on their backs. The plunder, however, was not confined to the captured property. A strong force of militia soon invaded the armory, and every man helped himself to a rifle and a brace of pistols, and then, tiring of the load, began to chaffer and bargain for their sale. Governor Wise was called on to interfere and preserve the Government property; he came into the little inclosure of the works, and began an eloquent address, but seeing its uselessness, broke off and put his Richmond Grays on guard; and then the distribution of public property was made through the regular channels,—that is, the men inside brought guns and pistols to the men on guard, and they passed them out to their friends beyond, so that the trade went on almost as free as ever.

Night soon came, and it was made hideous by the drunken noise and turmoil of the crowd in the village; matters were made worse, too, by the Governor's order to impress all the horses; and the decent, sober men trudged home rather out of humor with their patriotic sacrifice; while the tipsy and pot-valiant militia fought and squabbled with each other, and only ceased that sport to pursue and hunt down some fugitive negroes, and one or two half-maddened drunken fellows who in their frenzy proclaimed themselves John Brown's men. Tired out at last, the Governor took refuge in the Wager House;—for an hour or two, he had stood on the porch haranguing an impatient crowd as "Sons of Virginia!" Within doors the scene was stranger still. Huddled together in the worst inn's worst room, the Governor and his staff at a table with tallow candles guttering in the darkness, the Richmond Grays lying around the floor in picturesque and (then) novel pursuit of soft planks, a motley audience was gathered together to hear the papers captured at John Brown's house—the Kennedy farm on Maryland Heights—read out with the Governor's running comments. The purpose of all this was plain enough. It was meant to serve as proof of a knowledge and instigation of the raid by prominent persons and party-leaders in the North. The most innocent notes and letters, commonplace newspaper-paragraphs and printed cuttings, were distorted and twisted by the reading and by the talking into clear instructions and positive plots. However, the main impression was of the picturesqueness of the soldiers resting on their knapsacks, and their arms stacked in the dark corners,—of the Governor and his satellites, some of them in brilliant militia array, seated around the lighted table,—and of the grotesque eloquence with which either the Governor or some of his prominentpeople would now and then burst out into an oratorical tirade, all thrown away on his sleepy auditors, and lost to the world for want of some clever shorthand writer.

In the morning I was glad to hear that my belated train had spent the last forty-eight hours at Martinsburg, and I did not a bit regret that my two days had been so full of adventure and incident. Waiting for its coming, I walked once more through the village, with one of the watchmen of the armory, who had been captured by John Brown and spent the night with him in the engine-house, and heard in all its freshness the story now so well known. Then I bade Governor Wise good-bye, and was duly thanked for my valiant services to the noble Mother of States, and rewarded by being offered the honorary and honorable title of A.D.C. to the commander-in-chief of Virginia, both for past services and for the future tasks to be met, of beating off invading hosts from the North,—all in the Governor's eye. Luckily for both sides, I declined the handsome offer; for my next visit to Virginia was as an A.D.C. to a general commanding troops, not of the North, but of the United States, invading, not the Virginia of John Brown's time, but the Virginia of a wicked Southern Confederacy.

Not long after, I received a letter of thanks from Governor Wise, written at Richmond and with a good deal of official flattery. His son Jennings, an old acquaintance of mine in pleasant days in Germany, came to see me, too, with civil messages from his father. Poor fellow! he paid the forfeit of his rebellious treason with his life at Roanoke Island. His father pays the heavier penalty of living to see the civil war fomented by him making its dreadful progress, and in its course crushing out all his ancient popularity and power.

In spite of many scenes of noble heroism and devoted bravery in legitimate warfare, and in the glorious campaigns of our own successful armies, I have never seen any life in death so grand as that of John Brown, and to me there is more than an idle refrain in the solemn chorus of our advancing hosts,—

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