FOOTNOTE:

“I am now here in Congress, this 28th day of January, in the year of our Lord 1834; and, what is more agreeable to my feelings, as a free man. I am at liberty to vote as my conscience and judgment dictate to be right, without the yoke of any party on me or the driver at my heels with the whip in hand commanding me to ‘gee-wo-haw!’ just at his pleasure. Look at my arms: you will find no party handcuffs on them! Look at my neck: you will not find there any collar with the engraving,MY DOG.—ANDREW JACKSON.But you will find me standing up to my rack as the people’s faithful representative, and the public’s most obedient, very humble servant,“David Crockett.”

MY DOG.—ANDREW JACKSON.

But you will find me standing up to my rack as the people’s faithful representative, and the public’s most obedient, very humble servant,

“David Crockett.”

What would not senators and representatives of to-day give for the same independence? What health and manliness it would impart to public life, if every legislator were thus free of handcuffs and collars!

In the spring of 1834, Crockett made his famous “starring tour” through the East. From Philadelphia to Portland, and back to Washington, it was a continuous ovation. Crockett and the populace were mutually astonished; he at his receptions, and they at the actions, appearance, and utterances of the man who had been represented to them by his political opponents as a buffoon and semi-savage. He was more than all impressed with the developments of wealth and enterprise in the North; he frankly confessed the prejudices he had formed against the Yankees, and praised their thrift and principles. He spoke well and appropriately on each occasion, though—strange change in him!—with evident confusion at the lionizing. He wrote of the ovation he received on landing in Philadelphia:

“It struck me strangely to hear a strange people huzzaing for me; it took me so uncommon unexpected, as I had no idea of attracting attention. The folks came crowding around me, saying, ‘Give me the hand of an honest man.’ I thought I had rather be in the wilderness with my gun and dogs, than to be attracting all that fuss.”

In a happy little speech here, from the hotel balcony, he said:

“I am almost induced to believe this flattery—perhaps a burlesque. This is new to me, yet I see nothing but friendship in your faces.”

At a grand banquet in New York City, Crockett having been toasted as “The undeviating supporter of the constitution and the laws,” made this neat and characteristic hit, as he reports it:

“I made a short speech, and concluded with the story of the red cow, which was, that as long as General Jackson went straight, I followed him; but when he began to go this way, and that way, and every way, I wouldn’t go after him; like the boy whose master ordered him to plough across the field to the red cow. Well, he began to plough, and she began to walk; and he ploughed all forenoon after her. So when the master came, he swore at him for going so crooked. ‘Why, sir,’ said the boy, ‘you told me to plough to the red cow, and I kept after her, but she always kept moving.’”

Most enthusiastic of all was his reception in Boston, where President Jackson’s policy was most unpopular. It was even proposed to confer on Crockett the degree of LL.D., an honor that had been awarded to Jackson: but, unlike Jackson, Crockett had the wit to decline an honor which neither of the two deserved.

The more he saw and heard the more humble he became. When called up for an after-dinner speech in Boston he burst out in his honest way—“I never had but six months’ schooling in all my life, and I confess I consider myself apoor tyketo be here addressing the most intelligent people in the world.” If he had not culture, he had what was far more rare in that age of truckling to one-man power—manhood. It seemed as if unlettered David Crockett was the only man in public life to stand up straight, and people acknowledged the power of true character. The culture and wealth of the East bowed to unspoiled manhood; it was a revelation fresh from Nature’s hand.

A few extracts from one of his more sustained and dignified efforts will illustrate the development Crockett had attained by simple observation. After praising New England he said:

“I don’t mean that because I eat your bread and drink your liquor, that I feel so. No; that don’t make me see clearer than I did. It is your habits, and manners, and customs; your industry; your proud, independent spirits; your hanging on to the eternal principles of right and wrong; your liberality in prosperity, and your patience when you are ground down by legislation, which, instead of crushing you, whets your invention to strike a path without a blaze on a tree to guide you; and above all, your never-dying, deathless grip to our glorious Constitution. These are the things that make me think you are a mighty good people.“I voted for Andrew Jackson because I believed he possessed certain principles, and not because his name was Andrew Jackson, or the ‘Hero,’ or ‘Old Hickory.’ And when he left those principles which induced me to support him, I considered myself justified in opposing him. This thing of man-worship I am a stranger to; I don’t like it; it taints every action of life.“I know nothing, by experience, of party discipline. I would rather be a raccoon-dog, and belong to a Negro in the forest, than to belong to any party, further than to do justice to all, and to promote the interests of my country. The time will and must come, when honesty will receive its reward, and when the people of this nation will be brought to a sense of their duty, and will pause and reflect how much it cost us to redeem ourselves from the government of one man. It cost the lives and fortunes of thousands of the best patriots that ever lived. Yes, gentlemen, hundreds of them fell in sight of your own city.“Gentlemen, if it is for opposing those high-handed measures that you compliment me, I say I have done so, and will do so, now and forever. I will be no man’s man, and no party’s man, other than to be the people’s faithful representative: and I am delighted to see the noble spirit of liberty retained so boldly here, where the first spark was kindled; and I hope to see it shine and spread over our whole country.”

“I voted for Andrew Jackson because I believed he possessed certain principles, and not because his name was Andrew Jackson, or the ‘Hero,’ or ‘Old Hickory.’ And when he left those principles which induced me to support him, I considered myself justified in opposing him. This thing of man-worship I am a stranger to; I don’t like it; it taints every action of life.

“I know nothing, by experience, of party discipline. I would rather be a raccoon-dog, and belong to a Negro in the forest, than to belong to any party, further than to do justice to all, and to promote the interests of my country. The time will and must come, when honesty will receive its reward, and when the people of this nation will be brought to a sense of their duty, and will pause and reflect how much it cost us to redeem ourselves from the government of one man. It cost the lives and fortunes of thousands of the best patriots that ever lived. Yes, gentlemen, hundreds of them fell in sight of your own city.

“Gentlemen, if it is for opposing those high-handed measures that you compliment me, I say I have done so, and will do so, now and forever. I will be no man’s man, and no party’s man, other than to be the people’s faithful representative: and I am delighted to see the noble spirit of liberty retained so boldly here, where the first spark was kindled; and I hope to see it shine and spread over our whole country.”

He took his seat in Congress, a central object in the political field. His position was anomalous. Party ties were closely drawn, and party rancor bitter as it can be only when nothing but plunder is at stake between parties. The Democrats could not claim Crockett so long as he antagonized their god, Jackson; and the alliance of the Whigs he most distinctly repudiated. He was an independent, an “unattached statesman;” the prototype of an element which has now become formidablein our politics, but a character for whom there was no place in those times. He was, like all eccentrics, ahead or apart from his age, and was at first feared, then shunned, and then called crazy by the great body of public men, whose standard of sanity was to sacrifice manhood to party, to betray the Republic for spoils.

It was during this Congress that he created a sensation by antagonizing benevolence of representatives at government expense. A bill had been reported and was about to pass, appropriating a gratuity to a naval officer’s widow. Crockett made an unanswerable argument on the unconstitutionality of this and other such appropriations, and closed by offering, with other friends of the widow, to give her a week of his salary as congressman. Not a member dared to answer or to vote for the bill, and not one followed Crockett’s example of charity at his own expense.

But the independent, honest eccentric had reached the end of his public career. In the next congressional election he was beaten by tricks such as would not be tolerated at this time. One of these devices was to announce fictitiously a large number of public meetings in Crockett’s name on the same day. When he failed to appear, as announced, speakers of the Jackson party, who would always arrange to be present, denounced Crockett as afraid to face his constituents upon his “treacherous and corrupt record in Congress.” The defeat was a surprise to him; more, it almost broke his heart. He wrote, manfully, but pathetically, “I have suffered myself to be politically sacrificed to save my country from ruin and disgrace.” I may add, like the man in the play, “Crockett’s occupation’s gone.”

Shortly after he made a farewell address to his constituents, into which he compressed a good deal of plain speaking, or as he says, “I put the ingredients in the cup pretty strong, I tell you: and I concluded by telling them that I was done with politics for the present, and that they might all go to hell and I would go to Texas.”

“When I returned home,” he adds, “I felt sort of cast down at the change that had taken place in my fortunes; sorrow, it is said, will make even an oyster feel poetical. Such was my state of feeling that I began to fancy myself inspired; so I took my pen in hand, and as usual, I went ahead.” This is

CROCKETT’S FAREWELL TO HOME.“Farewell to the mountains whose mazes to meWere more beautiful far than Eden could be;No fruit was forbidden, but Nature had spreadHer bountiful board, and her children were fed.The hills were our garners—our herds wildly grewAnd Nature was shepherd and husbandman too.I felt like a monarch, yet thought like a man,As I thanked the Great Giver, and worshiped his plan.“The home I forsake where my offspring arose;The graves I forsake where my children repose.The home I redeemed from the savage and wild;The home I have loved as a father his child;The corn that I planted, the fields that I cleared,The flocks that I raised, and the cabin I reared;The wife of my bosom—Farewell to ye all!In the land of the stranger I rise or I fall.“Farewell to my country! I fought for thee well,When the savage rushed forth like the demons from hell.In peace or in war I have stood by thy side—My country, for thee I have lived, would have died!But I am cast off, my career now is run,And I wander abroad like the prodigal son—Where the wild savage roves, and the broad prairies spread,The fallen—despised—will again go ahead.”

CROCKETT’S FAREWELL TO HOME.

“Farewell to the mountains whose mazes to me

Were more beautiful far than Eden could be;

No fruit was forbidden, but Nature had spread

Her bountiful board, and her children were fed.

The hills were our garners—our herds wildly grew

And Nature was shepherd and husbandman too.

I felt like a monarch, yet thought like a man,

As I thanked the Great Giver, and worshiped his plan.

“The home I forsake where my offspring arose;The graves I forsake where my children repose.The home I redeemed from the savage and wild;The home I have loved as a father his child;The corn that I planted, the fields that I cleared,The flocks that I raised, and the cabin I reared;The wife of my bosom—Farewell to ye all!In the land of the stranger I rise or I fall.

“The home I forsake where my offspring arose;

The graves I forsake where my children repose.

The home I redeemed from the savage and wild;

The home I have loved as a father his child;

The corn that I planted, the fields that I cleared,

The flocks that I raised, and the cabin I reared;

The wife of my bosom—Farewell to ye all!

In the land of the stranger I rise or I fall.

“Farewell to my country! I fought for thee well,When the savage rushed forth like the demons from hell.In peace or in war I have stood by thy side—My country, for thee I have lived, would have died!But I am cast off, my career now is run,And I wander abroad like the prodigal son—Where the wild savage roves, and the broad prairies spread,The fallen—despised—will again go ahead.”

“Farewell to my country! I fought for thee well,

When the savage rushed forth like the demons from hell.

In peace or in war I have stood by thy side—

My country, for thee I have lived, would have died!

But I am cast off, my career now is run,

And I wander abroad like the prodigal son—

Where the wild savage roves, and the broad prairies spread,

The fallen—despised—will again go ahead.”

We can not follow our hero—for he was a moral hero—in his adventures while going across the country to Texas. Only one incident have we room for. On the way he rode apace with a circuit preacher, a man not less a hardy adventurer than himself. He narrates this:

“We talked about politics, religion, and nature, farming, and bear-hunting, and the many blessings that an all-bountiful Providence had bestowed upon our happy country. He continued to talk on this subject, traveling over the whole ground, as it were, until his imagination glowed, and his soul became full to overflowing; and he checked his horse, and I stopped mine also, and a stream of eloquence burst forth from his aged lips, such as I have seldom listened to: it came from the overflowing fountain of a pure and grateful heart. We were alone in the wilderness, but as he proceeded, it seemed to me as if the tall trees bent their tops to listen; that the mountain stream laughed out joyfully as it bounded on like some living thing; that the fading flowers of autumn smiled, and sent forth their fresher fragrance, as if conscious that they would revive in spring; and even the sterile rocks seemed to be endued with some mysterious influence. We were alone in the wilderness, but all things told me that God was there. The thought renewed my strength and courage. I had left my country, felt somewhat like an outcast, believed that I had been neglected and lost sight of. But I was now conscious that there was one watchful eye over me; no matter whether I dwelt in the populous cities, or threaded the pathless forests alone; no matter whether I stood in the high places among men, or made my solitary lair in the untrodden wild, that eye was still upon me. My very soul leaped joyfully at the thought. I never felt so grateful in all my life. I never loved my God so sincerely in all my life. I felt that I still had a friend.“When the old man finished, I found that my eyes were wet with tears. I approached and pressed his hand, and thanked him, and says I, ‘Now let us take a drink.’ I set him the example, and he followed it, and in a style too that satisfied me, that if he had ever belonged to the temperance society, he had either renounced membership, or obtained a dispensation.”

“When the old man finished, I found that my eyes were wet with tears. I approached and pressed his hand, and thanked him, and says I, ‘Now let us take a drink.’ I set him the example, and he followed it, and in a style too that satisfied me, that if he had ever belonged to the temperance society, he had either renounced membership, or obtained a dispensation.”

Crockett reached Texas just in time to take part with the American filibusters in the famous defense of the fortress of the Alamo, against Santa Anna’s army. On the 6th of March, 1836, the citadel was carried by the Mexicans by assault, only six of the little garrison surviving, of whom Crockett was one. When captured he stood at bay in an angle of the fort, his shattered rifle in one hand and a bloody bowie-knife in the other; twenty Mexicans, dead or dying, were at his feet. His face was covered with blood flowing from a deep gash across his forehead. Santa Anna ordered the prisoners to be put to the sword. Crockett, hearing the order, though entirely unarmed, sprang like a tiger at the throat of the Mexican general, but a dozen swords interrupted him and cut off his life.

Thus in its prime was thrown away a life that in many respects was one of the most extraordinary in our annals. If he had enjoyed early advantages, he would have been one of the greatest of Americans. Nay, it is possible that if he had not been so deeply wounded by ingratitude, treachery and defeat, and had remained at home, he, instead of General Harrison, would have been the one to lead the popular revolution, when came the reaction from the unlicensedregimeof Jackson and Van Buren.

David Crockett’s courage, independence, honesty, goodness of heart, made him shine “like a good deed in a naughty world.” He ought not to be forgotten by his countrymen, for a noble illustration of the capabilities that may be found among the common people, and of the career possible to even the lowliest-born American citizen.

FOOTNOTE:[H]Abbott.

[H]Abbott.

Whena man is called feeble, what is meant by the expression? Feebleness denotes a relative state; a relative state of the being to whom it is applied. He whose strength exceeds his necessities, though an insect, a worm, is a strong being; he whose necessities exceed his strength, though an elephant, a lion, a conqueror, a hero, though a god, is a feeble being.—Rousseau.

Etiquette is from the French word for ticket, and its present use in English suggests the old custom of distributing tickets or cards on which the ceremonies to be observed at any formal proceedings are fully set forth—a kind of program for important social gatherings of distinguished persons. Modern usage has given the word a much wider significance. It means the manners or deportment of cultured people; their bearing toward, or treatment of others.

The suggestions in a recent number ofThe Chautauquan, respecting “street etiquette,” or things proper to be observed in riding, driving and walking, will not now be repeated, though many of our younger readers might profit by having, on so familiar a subject, “line upon line, precept upon precept.”

The etiquette proper for the home and every-day life, in town and country, is quite as important, and embraces more things than there is space to notice.

Home, the dearest spot on earth, would be no fit abode for social beings if closed against the entrance and friendly offices of those without. The courtesies and kindness of neighbors must be received and reciprocated to make the home comforts complete. By simple methods the most important amicable relations in society are established and maintained.

Calls may be distinguished as ceremonious or friendly. The latter among intimate friends may, and ought to be quite informal, and for them no rules need be prescribed. Common-sense may be safely trusted, as to their manner, frequency, and the time spent in making them. But well-disposed, cultured people will usually have friendly relations with a much larger number than can be received on terms of close intimacy. As a means of establishing and maintaining such relations, mere formal calls are made. In the country and in small towns residents are expected to call on new-comers without having any previous acquaintance with them, or even having met them before. Ordinarily the new-comer, of whatever rank, should not call formally on a resident first, but wait till the other has taken the initiative. If after the first meeting, for any reason, the resident does not care to pursue the acquaintance, it will be discontinued by not leaving cards or calling again. The newcomer in like manner if not wishing to extend or continue the acquaintance, will politely return the first call, leaving cards only if the neighbors are not at home.

In some sections of the country calling on newcomers is done rather indiscriminately and with little regard to the real, or supposed social standing of the persons. This accords best with our American ideas of equality, and is consistent for those whose friendships are decided by character and personal accomplishments, rather than by the accidents of birth or wealth. The good society for which all may rightly aspire claims as among its brightest jewels some who financially rank with the lowly—rich only in the nobler qualities of mind and heart. The etiquette that, in any way, closes the door to exclude them is more nice than wise.

Those in high esteem in their community and most worthy will naturally, if circumstances permit, take the responsibility of first calls on strangers who come to reside among them. The call itself is a tender of friendship, and friendly offices, even though intimacy is not found practicable or desirable.

Custom does not require the residents of large cities to formally call on all new-comers in their neighborhood, which would be impracticable, only those quite near and having apparently about the same social status are entitled to this courtesy. Some discrimination is not only allowable but necessary.

A desirable acquaintance once formed, however initiated, is maintained by calls more or less frequent, as circumstances may decide, or by leaving cards when for either party that is more convenient.

Visiting cards must be left in person, not sent by mail or by the hand of a servant, unless in exceptional cases. Distance, unfavorable weather or delicate health might be sufficient reasons for sending the cards, but, as a rule, ladies leave their cards themselves, this being found more acceptable.

A lady’s visiting card should be plain, printed in clear type, with no ornamental or old English letters. The name printed on the middle of the card. The place of residence on the left-hand corner.

A married lady would never use her christian name on a card, but that of her husband after Mrs., before her surname.

In most places it is customary and considered in good taste for husbands and wives to have their names printed on the same card: “Mr. and Mrs.,” but each would still need separate cards of their own.

The title “Honorable” is not used on cards. Other titles are, omitting the “The” preceding the title.

It is not in accordance with etiquette in most places for young ladies to have visiting cards of their own. Their names are printed beneath that of their mother, on her card, either “Miss” or “the Misses,” as the case may be. If the mother is not living, the daughter’s name would be printed beneath that of her father, or of her brother, in case of a brother and sister residing alone.

If a young lady is taken into society by a relative or friend, her name would properly be written in pencil under that of her friend.

If a lady making calls finds the mistress of the house “not at home” she will leave her card and also one of her husband’s for each, the mistress and her husband; but if she have a card with her own and her husband’s name on it, she leaves but one of his separate cards.

If a lady were merely leaving cards, and not intending to call she would hand the three cards to the person answering at the door, saying, “For Mrs. ——,” without asking whether she is at home or not.

If a lady is sufficiently intimate to call, asks for and finds her friend at home, she should, on leaving the house, leave two of her husband’s cards in a conspicuous place on the table in the hall. She should not drop them in the card-basket or hand them to the hostess, though she might silently hand them to the servant in the hall. She will on no account leave her own card, having seen the lady which removes all occasion for leaving her card.

If the lady were accompanied by her husband and the lady of the house at home, the husband would leave one of his own cards for the master of the house, but if he also is at home no cards are left. A lady leaves her card for a lady only, while a gentleman leaves his for both husband and wife.

A gentleman when calling takes his hat in his hand into the room and holds it until he has met the mistress of the house; he may then either place it on a chair or table near him, or hold it in his hand till he takes his leave.

Dreams, books, are each a world: and books we know,Are a substantial world, both pure and good;Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,Our pastime and our happiness will grow.There find I personal themes, a plenteous store,Matter wherein right voluble I am,To which I listen with a ready ear;Two shall be named, preëminently dear,—The gentle lady married to the Moor;And heavenly Una, with her milk-white lamb.Blessings be with them, and eternal praise,Who gave us nobler loves and nobler cares—The poets, who on earth have made us heirsOf truth and pure delight by heavenly lays!Oh! might my name be numbered among theirs,Then gladly would I end my mortal days.—Wordsworth’s “Personal Talk.”

Dreams, books, are each a world: and books we know,

Are a substantial world, both pure and good;

Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,

Our pastime and our happiness will grow.

There find I personal themes, a plenteous store,

Matter wherein right voluble I am,

To which I listen with a ready ear;

Two shall be named, preëminently dear,—

The gentle lady married to the Moor;

And heavenly Una, with her milk-white lamb.

Blessings be with them, and eternal praise,Who gave us nobler loves and nobler cares—The poets, who on earth have made us heirsOf truth and pure delight by heavenly lays!Oh! might my name be numbered among theirs,Then gladly would I end my mortal days.—Wordsworth’s “Personal Talk.”

Blessings be with them, and eternal praise,

Who gave us nobler loves and nobler cares—

The poets, who on earth have made us heirs

Of truth and pure delight by heavenly lays!

Oh! might my name be numbered among theirs,

Then gladly would I end my mortal days.

—Wordsworth’s “Personal Talk.”

Napoleon’s marshals were twenty-six in number, of whom seven only were born in a rank which would have entitled them to become general officers under the old Monarchy. These were Kellermann, Berthier, Davoust, Macdonald, Marmont, Grouchy, and Poniatowski, a Pole. Of the others, Murat was the son of an innkeeper, Lefèbvre of a miller, Augereau of a mason, Bernadotte of a weaver, and Ney of a cooper. Masséna’s father, like Murat’s, kept a village wine-shop; Lannes was the son of an ostler, and was himself apprenticed to a dyer; Victor, whose real name was Perrin, was the son of an invalided private soldier, who after leaving the service became a market-crier; while Soult’s mother kept a mercer’s shop, and Oudinot’s a smallcafèwith a circulating library. The marshals sprung from thebourgeoisieor middle class were Serrurier, whose father was an officer, but never rose above the rank of captain; Bessières, whose father, though a poor clerk in a lawyer’s office, was the son of a doctor; Suchet, who was the son of a silk-merchant; Moncey, the son of a barrister; Gouvion, who assumed the name of Saint-Cyr, and whose father practiced as an attorney; and Brune, who started in life as a journalist. It is curious to trace through the lives of the different men the effect which their earliest associations had upon them. Some grew ashamed of their parentage; whilst others bragged overmuch of being self-made men. Only one or two bore their honors with perfect modesty and tact.

The noblest character among Napoleon’s marshals was beyond doubt Adrien Moncey, Duc de Conégliano. He was born at Besançon in 1754, and enlisted at the age of fifteen, simply that he might not be a charge to his parents. From his father, the barrister, he had picked up a smattering of education, while Nature had given him a talent for drawing. He looked so small and young when he was brought before the colonel of the Franche Comté regiment for enrollment, that the latter, who was quite a young man—the Count de Survilliers—asked him, laughing, whether he had been tipsy from “drinking too much milk” when he fell into the hands of the recruiting sergeant. The sergeant, by way of proving that young Moncey had been quite sober when he had put on the white cockade (which was like taking the king’s shilling in England), produced a cleverly executed caricature of himself which the boy had drawn; upon which M. de Survilliers predicted that so accomplished a recruit would quickly win an epaulette. This promise came to nothing, for in 1789, after twenty years’ service, Moncey was only a lieutenant. It was a noble trait in him that in after years he never spoke resentfully of his slow promotion. He used to say that he had been thoroughly well-trained, and he alluded kindly to all his former officers. After Napoleon’s overthrow, Moncey’s conduct was most chivalrous; he privately blamed Ney’s betrayal of the Bourbons, for it was not in his nature to approve of double-dealing, but he refused to sit in judgment upon his former comrade. Marshal Victor was sent to shake his resolution, but Moncey repeated two or three times: “I do not think I should have acted as Ney did, but I believe he acted according to his conscience and did well; ordinary rules do not apply to this case.” He eventually became governor of the Invalides, and it fell to him in 1840 to receive Napoleon’s body when it was brought from St. Helena. It was remarked at the time that if Napoleon himself could have designated the man who was to discharge this pious duty, he would have chosen none other than Moncey, or Oudinot, who by a happy coincidence became governor of the Invalides in 1842 after Moncey’s death.

Nicolas Oudinot, Duc de Reggio, was surnamed the Modern Bayard. He was born in 1767, and like Moncey enlisted in his sixteenth year. He was wounded thirty-two times in action, but was so little of a braggart that in going among the old pensioners of the Invalides he was never heard to allude to his own scars. At Friedland a bullet went through both his cheeks, breaking two molars. “These Russians do not know how to draw teeth,” was his only remark, as his wound was being dressed.

After Friedland he received with the title of count a grant of £40,000, and he began to distribute money at such a rate among his poor relations, that the emperor remonstrated with him. “You keep the lead for yourself, and you give the gold away,” said His Majesty in allusion to two bullets which remained in the marshal’s body.

Macdonald comes next among the marshals for nobility of character. He was of Irish extraction, born at Sancerre in 1765, and served under Louis XVI. in Dillon’s Irish Regiment. Macdonald won his colonelcy at Jemmapes. In 1804, however, all his prospects were suddenly marred through his generous espousal of Moreau’s cause. Moreau had been banished on an ill-proven charge of conspiracy; and Macdonald thought, like most honest men, that he had been very badly treated.

But by saying aloud what most honest men were afraid even to whisper, Macdonald incurred the Corsican’s vindictive hatred, and during five years he was kept in disgrace, being deprived of his command, and debarred from active service. He thus missed the campaigns of Austerlitz and Jéna, and this was a bitter chagrin to him. He retired to a small country-house near Brunoy, and one of his favorite occupations was gardening. He was much interested in the projects for manufacturing sugar out of beetroot, which were to render France independent of West India sugar—a matter of great consequence after the destruction of France’s naval power at Trafalgar: and he had an intelligent gardener who helped him in his not very successful efforts to raise fine beetroots. This man turned out to be a police-spy. Napoleon in his jealousy of Moreau and hatred of all who sympathized with the latter, had thought it good to have Macdonald watched, and he appears to have suspected at one time that the hero of Otricoli contemplated taking service in the English army. There were other marshals besides Macdonald who had reasons to complain of Napoleon; Victor’s hatred of him was very lively, and arose out of a practical joke. Victor was the vainest of men; he had entered Louis XVI.’s service at fifteen as a drummer, but when he became an officer under the Republic he was weak enough to be ashamed of his humble origin and assumed his Christian name of Victor as a surname instead of his patronymic of Perrin. He might have pleaded, to be sure, that Victor was a name of happy augury to a soldier, but he does not appear to have behaved well toward his Perrin connections. He was a little man with a waist like a pumpkin, and a round, rosy, jolly face, which had caused him to be nicknamedBeau Soleil. A temperate fondness for red wine added occasionally to the luster of his complexion. He was not a general of the first order, but brave and faithful in carrying out his master’s plans; he had an honorable share in the victory of Friedland, and after this battle was promoted to the marshalate and to a dukedom. Now Victor would have liked to be made Duke of Marengo; but Napoleon’s sister Pauline suggested that his services in the two Italian wars could be commemorated as well by the title of Belluno—pronounced in French, Bellune. It was not until after Napoleon had innocently acceded to this suggestion that he learned his facetious sister had in choosing the title of Bellune (Belle Lune) played upon the sobriquet of Beau Soleil. He was at first highly displeased at this, but Victor himself took the joke so very badly that the emperor ended by joining in the laughter, and said that if the marshal did not like the title that had been given him, he should have no other. Wounds in vanity seldom heal, and Victor, as soon as he could safely exhibit his resentment, showed himself one of Napoleon’s bitterest enemies. During the Hundred Days he accompanied Louis XVIII. to Ghent, and he figured in full uniform at theTe Deumcelebrated in the Cathedral of Saint Bavon in honor of Waterloo.

Augereau, Duc de Castiglione, was of all the marshals the one in whom there is least to admire; yet he was for a time themost popular among them, having been born in Paris and possessing the devil-may-care impudence of Parisians. He was the son of a mason and of a street fruit-vendor, and he began life as apprentice to his father’s trade. Soon after he enlisted, and proved a capital soldier; but his character was only good in the military sense. He was thirty-two when the Revolution broke out, and was then wearing a sergeant’s stripes; in the following year he got a commission; in 1793 he was a colonel; in 1795 a general. His rapid promotion was not won by valor only, but by sending to the war office bombastic despatches in which he magnified every achievement of his twenty-fold, and related it with a rigmarole of patriotic sentiments and compliments to the convention.

There was one great point of resemblance between Augereau and Masséna: they were both inveterate looters. In 1798, when Masséna was sent to Rome to establish a republic, his own soldiers were disgusted by the shameless way in which he plundered palaces and churches, and he actually had to resign his command owing to their murmurs. Augereau was a more wily spoiler, for he gave his men a good share of what he took, and kept another share for Parisian museums, but he always reserved enough for himself to make his soldiering a very profitable business.

It was politic of Napoleon to make of Augereau a marshal-duke, for apart from the man’s intrepidity, which was unquestionable (though he was a poor general), the honors conferred upon him were a compliment to the whole class of Parisianouvriers. Augereau’s mother, the costerwoman, lived to see him in all his glory, and he was good to her, for once, at a state pageant, when he was wearing the plumed hat of a senator, and the purple velvet mantle with itssemisof golden bees, he gave her his arm in public. This incident delighted all the market-women of Paris, and helped to make Napoleon’s court popular; but in general respects Augereau proved an unprofitable, ungrateful servant. He was one of the first marshals to grumble against his master’s repeated campaigns, and he deserted him in 1814 under circumstances which looked suspicious. Napoleon accused him of letting himself be purposely beaten by the Allies. After the escape from Elba, Augereau first pronounced himself vehemently against the “usurper;” then proffered him his services, which were contemptuously spurned. The Duc de Castiglione’s career ended then, for he retired to his estate at Houssaye, and died a year afterward, little regretted by anybody.

Masséna, who had been born the year after Augereau, died the year after him, in 1817. He too had enlisted very young, but finding he could get no promotion, had asked his friends to buy his discharge, and during the five years that preceded the Revolution, he served as potman in his father’s tavern at Leven. Re-enlisting in 1789, he became a general in less than four years. After Rivoli, Bonaparte dubbed him “The darling of victory;” but it was a curious feature in Masséna that his talents only came out on the battle-field. Usually he was a dull dog, with no faculty for expressing his ideas, and he wore a morose look. Napoleon said that “the noise of cannon cleared his mind,” endowing him with penetration and gaiety at the same time. The din of war had just the contrary effect upon Brune, who, but for his tragic death, would have remained the most obscure of the marshals, though he is conspicuous from being almost the only one of the twenty-six who had no title of nobility. Brune was a notable example of what strong will-power can do to conquer innate nervousness. He was the son of a barrister, and having imbibed the hottest revolutionary principles, vapored them off by turning journalist. He went to Paris, and was introduced to Danton, for whom he conceived an enthusiastic admiration. He became the demagogue’s disciple, letter-writer, and boon companion, and it is pretty certain that he would eventually have kept him company on the guillotine, had it not been for a lucky sneer from a woman’s lips which drove him into the army. Brune had written a pamphlet on military operations, and it was being talked of at Danton’s table, when Mdlle. Gerfault, an actress of the Palais Royal, better known as “Eglé,” said mockingly, “You will be a general when we fight with pens.” Stung to the quick, Brune applied for a commission, was sent into the army with the rank of major, and in about a year, through Danton’s patronage, became a brigade-general; meanwhile poor Eglé, having wagged her pert tongue at Robespierre, lost her head in consequence.

The marshal on whom ducal honors seemed to sit most queerly was François Lefèbvre, Duc de Dantzig. He was born in 1755, the son of a miller, and was a sergeant in the French guards at the time of the Revolution. He had then just married avivandière. The anecdotes of Madame Lefèbvre’s incongruous sayings at the consular and imperial courts are so many as to remind one of the proverb, “We yield only to riches.” Everything that could be imagined in the way of alapsus linguæor a bull was attributed to this good-natured Mrs. Malaprop, whose oddities amused Josephine, but not always Napoleon.

Once Lefèbvre fell ill of ague, and his servant, an old soldier, caught the malady at the same time. The servant was quickly cured; but the fever clung to the marshal until it occurred to his energetic duchess that the doctor had blundered by giving to a marshal the same doses as to a private soldier. She rapidly counted on her fingers the different rungs of the military ladder. “Here, drink, this suits your rank,” she said, putting a full tumbler to her husband’s lips, and the duke having swallowed a dozen doses at one gulp, was soon on his legs again. “You have much to learn, my friend,” was the lady’s subsequent remark to the astonished doctor.

Napoleon was a great stickler for appearances, and for this reason loathed the dirtiness and slovenliness of Davoust. Madame Junot, in her amusing “Memoirs,” relates that the Duc d’Auerstadt, having some facial resemblance to Napoleon, was fond of copying him in dress and manners; but she adds that Napoleon himself was very neat. A marshal had no excuse for being untidy. Davoust had been at Brienne with Bonaparte, and had thus a longer experience of his master’s character than any of the other marshals. Had he been wise he would have turned it to account, not only by cultivating the graces, but by giving the emperor that ungrudging, demonstrative loyalty which Napoleon valued above all things, and rewarded by constant favor. But Davoust was a caballer, a grievance-monger, and agrognard; and it must have been rather diverting to see him aping the manners of a master at whom he was always carping in holes and corners. On the other hand, it must be said that Davoust proved faithful in the hour of misfortune, and did not rally to the Bourbons till 1818; that is, when all chances of an imperial restoration were gone; moreover, every time he held an important command he did his duty with courage, talent, and fidelity. His affected brusqueness of speech was an unfortunate mannerism, for it made him many enemies, and sometimes exposed him to odd reprisals. The roughness of tongue which was affected in Davoust was natural in Soult. This marshal had an excellent heart, but he could not, for the life of him, refrain from snarling at anybody whom he heard praised. The proverb about bite and bark might have been invented for him, as the men at whom he grumbled most were often those whom he most favored.

Soult was born in the same year as Napoleon, 1769, and out-lived all his brother marshals, dying in 1852, when the second empire was already an impending fact. He had been a private soldier under Louis XVI., he passed through every grade in the service, he became prime minister, and when he voluntarily resigned office in 1847, owing to the infirmities of age, Louis Philippe created him marshal-general—a title which had only been borne by three marshals before him, Turenne, Villars, and Maurice de Saxe. But these honors never quite consoled Soult for having failed to become king of Portugal. He could not stomach the luck of his comrade Bernadotte, the son of a weaver, who was wearing the crown of Sweden.

Bernadotte, whom Soult envied, has some affinities with M. Grévy. This president of the republic first won renown by a parliamentary motion to the effect that a republic did not want a president; so Bernadotte came to be a king, after a long and steadfast profession of republican principles. Born in 1764, he enlisted at eighteen, and was sergeant-major in 1789. He was very nearly court-martialed at that time for haranguing a crowd in revolutionary terms. Five years later he was a general, and in 1798 ambassador at Vienna. He was an able, thoughtful, hardy, handsome man, who, having received no education as a boy, made up for it by diligent study in after years; and no man ever so well corrected, in small or great things, the imperfections of early training. Tallyrand said of him, “He is a man who learns andunlearnsevery day.” One thing he learned was to read the character of Napoleon and not to be afraid of him, for the act which led to his becoming king of Sweden was one of rare audacity. Commanding an army sent against the Swedes in 1808, he suspended operations on learning the overthrow by revolution of Gustavus IV., against whom war had been declared. The Swedes were profoundly grateful for this, and Napoleon dared not say much, because he was supposed to have no quarrel with the Swedes as a people; but Bernadotte was marked down in his bad books from that day, and he was in complete disgrace when in 1810 Charles XIII. adopted him as crown prince with the approval of the Swedish people. Bernadotte made an excellent king, but remembering his austere advocacy of republicanism, it is impossible not to smile and ask whether there is not some truth in Madame de Girardin’s definition of equality asle privilége pour tous.

Napoleon always valued Kellerman as having been a general in the old royal army. Born in 1735, he was a maréchal de camp (brigadier) when the war broke out. The emperor would have been glad to have had more of such men at his court; but it was creditable to the king’s general officers that very few of them forgot their duties as soldiers during the troublous period when so many temptations to commit treason beset men holding high command. Grouchy, who in 1789 was a lieutenant in the king’s body-guard, hardly cuts a fine figure as a revolutionist accepting a generalship in 1793 from the convention which had beheaded his king. He was an uncanny person altogether; the convention having voted that all noblemen should be debarred from commissions, he enlisted as a private soldier, and this was imputed to him as an act of patriotism; but he had friends in high quarters who promised that he should quickly regain his rank if he formally renounced his titles; and this he did, getting his generalship restored in consequence. In after years he resumed his marquisate, and denied that he had ever abjured it. Napoleon created him marshal during the Hundred Days for having taken the Duc d’Angoulême prisoner; but the Bourbons declined to recognize his title to thebâton, and he had to wait till Louis Philippe’s reign before it was confirmed to him. Grouchy was never a popular marshal, though he fought well in 1814 in the campaign of France. His inaction on the day of Waterloo has been satisfactorily explained, but somehow all his acts have required explanation; he was one of those men whose records are never intelligible without footnotes.

But how many of the marshals remained faithful to their master when his sun had set? At St. Helena Napoleon alluded most often to Lannes and Bessières, who both died whilst he was in the heyday of his power, the first at Essling, the second at Lützen. As to these two Napoleon could cherish illusions, and he loved to think that Lannes especially—his brave, hot-headed, hot-hearted “Jean-Jean”—would have clung to him like a brother in misfortune. Perhaps it was as well that Lannes was spared an ordeal to which Murat, hot-headed and hot-hearted too, succumbed. It is at all events a bitter subject for reflection that the great emperor found among his marshals and dukes no such friend as he had among the hundreds of humbler officers, captains, and lieutenants, who threw up their commissions sooner than serve the Bourbons.—Temple Bar.

ByRev.J. H. VINCENT, D.D.,Superintendent of InstructionC. L. S. C.

The Class of ’84 rules the year.

The readings for November are: “History of Greece,” Timayenis, volume II, parts 10 and 11, or (for the new Class of 1877) “Brief History of Greece;” Chautauqua Text-Book No. 5, “Greek History;” Required Readings inThe Chautauquan.

Memorial Day for November, Special Sunday, November 11. Read Job, twenty-eighth chapter. One of the finest passages in all literature.

Talk much about the subject of your reading. You know what you have by your speech caused others to know.

Have you ever tried to control conversation at a table in the interest of some sensible subject? It will be a curious study for you to see how this mind and that will run away with or from the topic you have proposed. It will tax your ingenuity to bring the company back to the original topic. The measures of your success will be the interest you can awaken in others, the amount of information on the subject which you can elicit from them, and the amount, also, which you can give them without seeming to be a lecturer or preacher for the occasion.

We must insist upon the observance of the Memorial Days. Put up your list of Memorial Days in plain sight, so that you may not forget them. Order a copy of the little volume of “Memorial Days” from Phillips & Hunt, 805 Broadway, New York, or Walden & Stowe, Cincinnati, Ohio. Price, 10 cents.

It is proposed that “the C. L. S. C. as a body organize a lecture bureau, to be entirely or partially sustained by small contributions from each member, thereby enabling weak circles to obtain one or two good lectures during the year at reasonable prices.” A proposition to be considered.

“Will I be required to read the ‘Preparatory Latin Course in English’ next year? I have studied the same thing in the original very lately.” Answer: You will be required to read the “Preparatory Latin Course in English.” You can not have studied, except under such a teacher as Dr. Wilkinson, the Latin Course in English as we require it under the C. L. S. C. The book must be read.

“Does the C. L. S. C. confer a degree? If so, what is it?” Answer: The C. L. S. C. is not a university or college. It has no charter, consequently it has no power to confer degrees. There is a university charter in the hands of the Chautauqua management—a university to be. In this university there will be non-resident courses of study, with a rigid annual examination, to be followed by degrees and diplomas. There may sometime in the future be a permanent Chautauqua University at Chautauqua. Further than this I can say nothing now. It is to be hoped the Chautauqua University will never confer honorary degrees.

Correspond with some one on the studies of the C. L. S. C. Make your letter a means of self-improvement. Congratulate yourself if your friend, in reply, shows where you made two or three mistakes in your letter.

Will you find out the names of the latest graduating class of the high school in your town, and send them to me? I may interest them in the C. L. S. C. course of study, by sending a “Popular Education Circular.” Address Drawer 75, New Haven, Conn.

Are you willing wisely to distribute from ten to a hundred copies of the “Popular Education Circular,” and would youscatter copies of the tiny C. L. S. C. advertisement, if they were sent you?

The most indefatigable worker in the C. L. S. C., next to our worthy secretary, Miss Kimball, is the secretary of the new class—the Class of 1887—Mr. Kingsley A. Burnell, who is making a remarkable record as he travels to and fro in the far West, visiting editors of papers, offices of railroad superintendents, cabins of employes, and on the cars, urging persons to adopt this new plan of self-culture.

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