struggle of Germany to liberate itself from "Thus spake a true and faithful mouth sys tion of the Franks, the aboriginal settlement of the Germans, and the Corsican origin of Bonaparte. Fouqué joined the army with the rank of captain, and we can well believe that he carried into the field the energy of his poetical battle-scenes. Indeed he sometimes had felt presentiments of future action, which were now satisfactorily realized. In painting the victory of the Swedes over the Finns, where Otto of Trautwangen, as he breaks into the enemy's infantry, shouts exultingly to his squadron of horse, "Strike, my Swedes, strike!"-the poet had a presentiment of a deed of arms yet to come. "As he wrote the words down, and as often as he read them again, he was seized with a profound, one might almost say a mournful enthusiasm. In the battle of Lützen, where he charged French square at the head of the Jagers, he felt the completion, and mingled with the hurrah of the squadron, in reference to Otto of Trautwangen, his shout of exultation, ‘Strike, my Jägers, strike!" On another occasion, one of the princes of the blood came to Fouqué's corps when he was absent with a detachment, and asked for Heerdegen of Lichtenried." "Whom does your royal highness mean?" said a volunteer. "Why him with the scar on his browFouqué." Now these celebrated lectures are principally devoted to an examination of the superiority which Germany enjoys over the rest of Several of the minor poems in this collecEurope in the possession of an indigenous tion refer to this campaign, and to the baron's language: from which the orator deduces the retirement at its close in consequence of ill inference that in Germany alone can true free-health. We select a few stanzas on the death dom be realized. He warns his hearers earof Major Wilhelm Von Röder, who fell at Culm, when Kleist with his Prussians crossed nestly against the error of attempting to recover external freedom, till a new and better the line of Vandamme's retreat to Dresden, generation has grown up under an altered and completed the investment of his army. tem of education; and throughout, it appears ligious spirit of the time, and in themselves to They seem to us to illustrate the high and reto a reader of the present day, as if the prac- be nearly perfect in their grave simplicity. tical exhortations of the philosopher must have been rather satisfactory than otherwise Of course the original will not be supposed to to the French officers who heard it, even if we share in the awkwardness of a nearly literal make the very improbable supposition that translation. they understood German and metaphysical reasoning sufficiently well to attach any meaning whatever to the language of Fichte. And yet there is no doubt whatever that he was incurring danger and arousing his country. Men who are all of one mind will find the key to any cipher; and the bookish German nation have a wonderful sympathy with scientific language. A great man was speaking to them on the subject of subjects, and they understood his end if not his methods. It was felt to be a continuation of the same appeal when, in 1813, he exhorted his pupils to join the army---though for reasons which appear to us incredibly whimsical-from considerations connected with the early migra Perhaps there was not one who rode A Christian hero true: Good night, dear friend-Heaven's franchise now Ye who still watch, upon the foe, It would be easy to add many general con siderations on Fouqué's genius, but we hope betroth or sell them to a mortal possessing that the remarks which we have thrown out the requisite qualifications for a husband. will be sufficient to explain our views, and in some degree to illustrate his works. We think he well deserves his wide reputation. The compliment is not ill chosen which has been paid him by Büsching in dedicating to him his translation of the Nibelungen-Lied, under the title of Volker; for, like the noble fiddler of Alsace, the baron is ready alike for music and for battle, and whether he or Otto charge the squares of infantry, we fee! How mightily he fiddled, the noble Fiddleman. ART. VII. Mathilde. Mémoire d'une It would be difficult to find a collection of Of old, ladies were not unwisely nurtured in convents, awaiting the time of sacrifice, with curiosity and espièglerie unrepressed perhaps, but still unsophisticated, and unspoiled by a full sight and inspection of the world, as is now the case. The young lady is not, indeed, allowed the use of her tongue and of free intercourse; but she has eyes and ears, and is allowed the full liberty of judgment, if not of choice. Then however close may be drawn the curtains of the French nursery, the prevalent ideas, the moral atmosphere which reigns and prevails without, penetrate in some degree within, and coming upon the simplicity of youth, beget strange effervescence. The last century in France was corrupt enough; but there was a world of light and a world of darkness-purity, strictness, religion in the one; the very contrary existing or affected in the other. Now there are no such compartments. Good and Ill in persons, in sentiments, in things, are intermingled, as veins in marble, past tracing or separating. And there is no retreat from pleasure to devotion. The young female is no longer entrusted to the priest and the convent; but is allowed to form her own code of morality, her own tissue of sentiment, which in generous minds is of course romantic. incidents more unnatural, or a set of characters more exaggerated, than those which compose the Mathilde of Monsieur Sue. And yet it has been the most popular book of the season, the most universal y read, and not undeservedly so: for it interests, and has a foundation of truth and spirit at the bottom of its extravagances, which draws the reader on from volume to volume. There is, hence, a great tendency in We understood that the French had France towards exchanging the matter-ofgrown tired of their extravagant school; fact simplicity, which hitherto marked the that the distortions of Hugo and Balzac had young French damsel, for a degree of palled upon the public taste; that Hans of sensibility and sentimentalism which surIceland and Bug Jargal no longer inspired pass even the English standard. The horror, but ennui; and that, in commercial work at present under review is written to phrase, there was a demand for the natural meet this taste. It has a Grandisonian and simple. Madame Dudevant at first hero, and a heroine very unlike one of promised to satisfy this taste, and it was Balzac, or Madame Sand: a virtuous, highone of the secrets of her early success. minded, self-denying female. Hitherto But Madame Dudevant unfortunately gave the female sex has been caricatured by herself to philosophical studies and specu- French romancers. M. Sue's portrait of lations upon human life, which removed his heroine at least is more like the truth her ninety degrees from anything like nature. The misty spectacles she put on distorted all objects fully as much as the green vision of either Balzac or Hugo. Then came Charles Bernard as the type of the natural school, and clever and successful he proved. But in the end his condiment was found not full-flavoured enough for French palates, and all run back to Monsieur Eugene Sue's catering. The true secret of Mathilde's success, however, is the story coming so home to every French female. Their life begins at the moment when their prudent relatives of the time. And the fury with which it is snatched up and read, shows that it has started a vein of nature yet unexplored. M. Sue takes Mathilde at her childhood, an orphan left to the care of a maiden aunt. This aunt, Mademoiselle de Maran, is one of the best characters of the book: a kind of female Talleyrand. But let the author speak for himself. "Mademoiselle de Maran abhorred and es chewed marriage; she was deformed, expert at wit and raillery. In spite of her deformity, her downright ugliness, and shortness of stature, a physiognomy could with difficulty be found so) malignant passions. She gives her as imposing and haughty as hers. She certainly companion a young and poor relative; in did not inspire that respectful deference which order to beget in Mathilde the heartless noble features or dignified affability command; but her presence begot a kind of fear and self manners of a superior, and in the cousin diffidence in others. Acute, adroit, full of pene- the rancour of one treated as an inferior. tration, dreaded for her sarcastic malignity, which As far as Mathilde is concerned, the aunt neither feared nor spared any one, Mademoiselle fails. Her heart remains generous and de Maran made her sex and her deformity disinterested. Mademoiselle de Maran, pretexts to wound all within her reach. She however, winds up her malignity by beincurred ridicule willingly, on condition of being trothing Mathilde to a spendthrift, attached allowed to employ it unsparingly. With the most dangerous art, she made use of those secrets to the court; with a fine name and handwhich she had the tact of drawing from thought- some person; weak, the slave of pleasure; less or unsuspicious persons, to astonish her dupes and in short a bad husband par excellence. afterwards with her knowledge; well acquainted The consequences,—that is, the mortificawith the vulnerable points of others, the fear of tions, disappointments, disasters and struggiving pain never stopped her. She affected in gles of a French wife,-fill five of Mongeneral a certain familiarity of speech approach- sieur Sue's volumes. ing vulgarity. Having passed a portion of her youth at Ponchartrain, with old Madame MauAmongst the merits or demerits of the repas (when Monsieur Maurepas was banished novel is the introduction of living, or wellto that place), she had contracted a habit of known characters; so changed indeed, or using very free expressions, common in the time veiled, or exaggerated, as scarcely to be of the regency, and which in some circles con- taken as a resemblance: but still like tinued late in the reign of Louis XV. Louis enough to pique and entertain curiosity, XVIII., who was fond of epigrammatical severity and amuse by their traits. Thus, the viland coarse jokes, took much pleasure in my aunt's society, and was heard to say, that he felt lain of the piece-Lugarto-has some more at his ease with her than with a man, and points in common with Demidoff, a man less constrained than with a woman. She was an adept in political affairs. I am convinced now that all femmes politiques are alike. They are a spurious race, possessing the ambitious egotistical passions of man, without any of the qualities and graces of women: barrenness of mind, impotency of heart, hardness of temper, ridiculously exaggerated pretensions to knowledge, those are their distinguishing characteristics. In a word femmes politiques are a mixture of the pedagogue and the stepmother. When a child I was always "Lugarto is scarcely twenty-three: he is of afraid of Mademoiselle de Maran; her long, Brazilian origin. His father, son of a slave halfthin, dark face, her strongly-marked features, caste, was set free in his infancy. This man, who were rendered still harsher by a quantity of false had been steward to a very distinguished Portuhair half concealing a forehead flat like an guese nobleman, had managed so well-or so ill adder's. She had thick, grey eyebrows, and his master's property, that he ruined him small, piercing, brown eyes. She wore in all completely, and acquired a great portion of his seasons a dark-brown silk dress, with a bonnet of wealth. Such was the origin of a fortune, which, the same colour; the latter rarely quitted her at first considerable, became at length colossal, head; she even wore it in bed, in a morning, by mining and other speculations, in South when she usually breakfasted, read, or wrote, America; so that at his death M. Lugarto left enveloped in a brown silk cloak. At the back of his son more than sixty millions of francs. the alcove curtained with dark red damask, con- Lugarto, the father, had lived in the colonies taining her bed, was a large crucifix of ivory on with the pomp and depravity of a satrap. Deepblack velvet ground. This was merely an af- ly corrupted, avowing a disbelief in all virtue, fectation of piety-a kind of decorous show, for I as cowardly as wicked, it is said he had, in a fit do not remember ever seeing my aunt at mass. of anger, so cruelly maltreated one of his wives, Nearly all the windows were of painted glass. that she died from the effects of his violence. Among other subjects was a beheading of John After setting his son a most frightful example, the Baptist. Upon the marble secretary stood he died; leaving Lugarto, at the age of fifteen, two cases containing the deceased father and master of a princely fortune, surrounded by degrandfather of her lap-dog. Several family por-pravity and adulation of all kinds. At twenty traits stood out from the wainscoting. Finally he already felt the disgust and satiety of old age. the chimney was ornamented with two immense He had indulged in excesses of all the pleasures china figures, whose rolling eyes and wagging heads struck terror into my young heart." more fond of pleasure than plagued by scruples, and the malicious public has set down the caricature for a portrait. We mentioned the likeness of Mademoiselle de Maran to Talleyrand. Ursule, the com panion of Mathilde, is an amplification of Madame Laffarge. This is the sketch of Lugarto: which gold can procure; his constitution is frail there ever such a thing seen in heraldry as metal upon metal? They have cheated you in the grossest manner, with their gold stars in a silver field: they imagined that, perhaps, as giving the most ingenious idea of your heaps of piastres and doubloons. Without reckoning the two lions rampant with which these blockheads have loaded your shield-though, do you know, they would have a superb effect, those two lions rampant, if they did not happen to belong to the royal family of Aragon.' ingly depraved; he is faithless, without courage, sense in them. As if you should follow the without goodness, with a sovereign contempt for advice of such persons! Since you had that men: nearly all having basely flattered his su- whim, you should have addressed yourself premacy. By turns madly prodigal, or sordidly to But, madame,' said Lugarto, pale avaricious, his expenditure has but one source, with suppressed passion- But, sir, I repeat, pride; but one end, ostentation. The shrewdest your coachmaker, or his painter, are fools. Was attorney has not a better knowledge of affairs than he; without any assistance he manages his immense riches, with a skill and sagacity really wonderful, and increases them every day by the least honourable speculations. A faithful likeness of his father, the ignoble rapacity of the slave struggles in him with the ridiculous vanity of the freedman. Everything proves his double nature: his rigidly-regulated luxury, his highsounding but parsimonious pomp: even to his public alms-giving, done carelessly, without any sympathy for the misfortunes he relieves. Two incurable wounds, however, poison Lugarto's imperial opulence; his lowness of birth, and the consciousness of how little personal merit he possesses. Thus, by a compromise, which deceives none but himself, he has procured the title of count, and has invented some ridiculous coat of arms. Exalted by adulation and pride, adulation and pride torture him. He knows that it is to his fortune alone he owes the attentions accorded him: poor to-morrow, he would be completely despised at times his rage against fate knows no bounds: but like his father, Lugarto is as cowardly as wicked, and repays prosperity so unjustly heaped upon him, by illtreat ing in the most cruel manner all whose position compels them to support his violence. Women -even women-have not escaped his brutality. Notwithstanding all this, notwithstanding his odious vices, the world has always received him with smiles; the boldest have shown him but indifference." The following is a tilt between the maie and female demon of the tale. It is rich in malice. "M. Lugarto exclaimed Mademoiselle de Maran suddenly, without quitting her knitting, interrupting one of those pauses so frequent in conversation, was that your carriage I saw you in the other day? Why,' said M. Lugarto carelessly, do you ask?' Instead of replying to this question, Mademoiselle de Maran asked another. Why were there arms painted on the panels if it be yours? They are mine, madame,' said he, reddening with vexation, for his usual audacity failed him when his pretensions to nobility were attacked. 'Did you pay much for those arms, M. Lugarto? There was for a moment a very embarrassing silence. M. Lugarto frowned, bit his lips, then looked at Gontran in a manner at once angrily and beseechingly, who exclaimed quickly, Apropos of arms, Mademoiselle de Maran, will you have the kindness to lend me your Hozier? I want to seek one of the collateral branches of our family.'Be quiet with your collateral branches,' replied she, 'you are interrupting a very interesting conversation!say, M. Lugarto, if they sold you those arms dearly, you have been nicely robbed. I lay a wager that it is the invention of your coachmaker; if so, permit me to tell you there is no "I did not invent those arms, madame, they belong to my family,' said M. Lugarto, rising with impatience, and casting a furious glance at Gontran. The latter in vain tried to put a stop to the conversation; Mademoiselle de Maran did not so easily abandon her prey. Ah! mon Dieu! mon Dieu! Really now-they are the arms of our family!' exclaimed she, taking off her spectacles and clasping her hands on her knees with an appearance of the most natural bonhommie. Why did you not tell me that before? After all, there is nothing unnatural in that. It is possible, you see, that a Lugarto, for some great deed of arms against the Moors of Aragon, obtained from the King of Spain the signal favour of bearing two lions rampant on his arms: the same as our kings granted the fleur-de-lis to certain French families. Like your étoiles d'or en champ d'argent, I am quite sure some great heraldic mystery is buried in the archives of your family. And I who laughed at them! But now, I assure you upon my word, that I quite admire your étoiles d'or en champ d'argent! It is, perhaps, in its kind, a blazon as singular, as particular, as the cross of Lorraine, the criquier of Créquy, the macles of Rohan. It must be excessively curious, the origin of your étoiles d'or en champ d'argent! Do find it out for us, will you?' Madame, if this is a raillery, I must own frankly that I think it in very bad style,' said M. Lugarto, endeavouring to be cool. Not at all, not at all, my dear sir, I assure you I never was more serious. For I remember you are of Brazilian origin. Brazil belongs to Portugal, Portugal did belong to Spain: you see in going back we approach the kings of Aragon. There is now but one small circumstance which stops my progress towards the past.' Bless my soul, Madame! do not trouble yourself any further. I return you my thanks for all your solicitude,' exclaimed M. Lugarto. Mademoiselle pretended not to hear him, and continued, ‘Ah, yes! there is but that little difficulty! they say that your grandfather was a negro slave, or something like it.-Madame, you abuse-It is that,' said Mademoiselle de Maran, continuing her knitting, which puts me out; for I cannot figure to myself your grandfather with a count's coronet on his head. I fancy he would have resembled those ugly savages of Bougainville, who wore a cross of Saint Louis at the tip of the nose. Do not you think so?' I shuddered at the almost ferocious expression of M. Lugarto's stars on a silver field.' countenance at that moment, more especially as shrugged his shoulders, and drawing out a pock he burst into a fit of convulsive laughter. Now et-book which he laid on the table, said, 'Come, is not mine an amusing comparison, M. Lugar-you had better sit down, for I have a great deal to?' 'Very, Madame, very,' he replied; but to tell you.' 'Great God! have pity on me,' I you must own that I show good temper.' Why said, throwing myself on my knees. After a certainly, the best in the world; and I am sure fervent prayer I rose more firm; and, casting a you bear no malice. And you are right; for look of defiance on M. Lugarto, I said, "There is there is nothing more innocent than my jokes.' a God in heaven; I have friends upon earth!' Malice!' said Lugarto; 'could you imagine if you rely upon M. de Mortagne you may dessuch a thing? As a proof, I shall run away with pair, for his carriage was broken in the descent Gontran, in order to laugh at our ease at my gold from Luzarches. He was taken out nearly dead; you have a proof of that in seeing me so quietly sitting here. He and M. de Rochegune have been dogging my steps for the last two months, and have seduced from me those I thought incorruptible. They have already been the cause of my failing in two places against you. This time I have them.' Oh! you are as cowardly as cruel,' said 1, clasping my hands in horror. No! I am merely nervous, because I have no desire to die at present. I am in love with you. By-the-by you must think me either a great novice or a very cold admirer, that I am in no hur 666 While you are about it, you may as well laugh at the lions rampant,' added Mademoiselle de Maran, they are the best part of your blazon. But this is all folly; keep your arms. It is all that is necessary for the eyes of the bourgeois, for your innoceat pretensions to aristocracy do not pass the threshold of the ante-room. As for us, you have much more to dazzle or rather charm us, than your étoiles d'or en champ d'argent; you have all kinds of good qualities, both of heart and mind; immense knowledge and modest ingenuity: so, if even you were not a mil-ry to talk of my passion, when I have one of lionaire you would still be a man joliment in téressant, — mind, I tell you so.' I am quite sensible of the value of your praises, Madame; I will endeavour to repay you suitably, and if possible extend my gratitude to your family, and those in whom you are interested,' replied Lugarto, bitterly casting a furious look at me. rely upon your word, for I am not an egotist, said Mademoiselle de Maran, with a strange smile." the prettiest women in Paris in my power. But do not be impatient. I will explain the reason of my appearing rather too respectful. Look at that timepiece, you see it is now half-past eleven. Mark me well-before midnight you will be completely in my power. At supper you took a Ipowerful narcotic; you must already feel symptoms of heaviness; meanwhile, in awaiting the critical moment, let us have a little conversation.' I uttered a terrible cry, for I had imagined that the dull heaviness I felt merely proceedThis semi-Brazilian, semi-French satrap, ed from fatigue and want of sleep. I questioned of course makes love to the wife of his as it were my sensations, with dreadful uneasifriend, De Lancry, who, on his part, se- burning; my head was heavy; I could scarcely ness; I pressed my hand to my forehead, it was cure of her affection, deems it unnecessa- raise my eyelids; I tried to rise, my knees bent ry to offend the rich Lugarto, on whom he under me. This, indeed, is not sleep,' I exis in a great measure dependant. Such claimed in affright; it is agony, living death. conduct brings him into obloquy in the It is dreadful-I feel my strength going. God world and disgrace at court. A mock of heaven! God of vengeance! will you then quarrel and duel ensue. De Lancry is abandon me? Alas! whether it was that my obliged to absent himself; and by coun- garto, hastened the effects of the narcotic, or imagination, struck by the revelation of M. Luterfeiting De Lancry's writing, Lugarto that it acted naturally, I felt a kind of languor entices Mathilde to a lone house in the and oppression which I could not overcome. In neighbourhood of Chantilly. He makes spite of myself I fell again into the arm-chair, her swallow a sleeping potion in her sup-by the side of the table where that dreadful supper, and then appears, like Mephistophiles, to acquaint her that she is in his power. All this may appear very commonplace, improbable, and absurd: yet French readers lend an ear to it, knowing how very similar the facts are to those that befell a lady of the noble family of La Rochefoucault not many years since, from a wealthy Lugarto. We have here the scene in the lone house. per had been served. I trembled convulsively; ed the monster by signs. I was quite sure of I could scarcely speak; in my terror I supplicatthe effects of the narcotic,' he at last began: 'I have often tried it. Good! now you are seated, soon you will be unable to move, but you can still hear. Listen to me—it will amuse you.' It is true I heard, but vaguely. I seemed a prey twice I endeavoured to rise and call for assistto some horrible dream; my eyes were fixed; ance: my strength, my voice failed. "I tell you it is useless,' said Lugarto. 'Listen to me-you shall now know your beloved Gontran, and the reason of my aversion to him. "M. Lugarto said to me, with one of his dia- Two years ago, in Paris, I discovered in an humbolical looks, The inhabitants of this house are ble position a pearl, a treasure of beauty, a noble devoted to me. No human power can deliver heart, enchanting wit, in fact, an adorable you.' Struck with horror I rushed to the win-young girl. She knew me not for what I am. dow, exclaiming, Approach me not! He merely This young girl loved me, but she was virtuous. |