vr .vS ^OAHvaaiB^ >&Aav!iaiii^ '%120NVS01-'^^ ■ %a3AiNn- .X\l LIBRAKVO/^ ^^ILIBRARYOc, ,^WEUNIV[RS/A ^I^WOJITVJ dO"^ ^WJIWDJO'^ ^IDNVSOl^"^ ■^/ia]AiNn-3i\v' ^OFCAllFOff/)^ ^OFCAllfOP^^ ^OAavaani^ >&Aavaan-^^ .^\^EUNIVER5/A '%13DNVS01'^ ^lOSANC[lfx> o ^^^ ■ "^/sajAiNii-iwv^ <;^UIBRARYQ<;^ ^tllBRAR ^K!/OJI1V3JO'^ ^iOJIlVJ- ^OfCAllfO/?^ ^OFCAllFi >OAavaani^ ^OAavaar \\\l UNIVER5/A o %a3AiNn-3Wv ^>jvlllBRARYO/r^ ^*OJ11V3JO>' '^iJOJIlVD JO't^ ^ME■UNIVERS■/4 >- — vvlOSANC! O li. ■^AasAiNa , \W{ UNIVERJ/A sKlOSANCElfj;^ ^OFCAllFOff^k, •^TJUDNVSOV^ ^/Sfl3AlN(l]ftV^ ^OFCAllFORi^ ^CAavaaii-^v^- A'rtEUNIVER% '^(?Aavaan-# ^lllBRARYOr. ^IUBRARY(> ,^OFCA1IFO% ,^;OFCA1IFO% ^ C 5, .^\\EUNIVERy/A &A«va8iiis^^ '^OAavaani'^ '^wdnvsoi^ ^lOSANCElfj-^ o ^/sa3AiNn]Wv ^lOSANCElfj> o ^^^ ■ "^/sajAiNdJiV^ ^IIIBRARYQ^^ ^lllBRAf '^^OJIIVDJO'^ ^iOJIlVJ ^OFCAIIFO/?^ HjOFCAlIF "^ 4^^HIBRARYQr ^^^lllBRARY^ vkIOSANCI "^/saaAiNfl ,^^lllBRARYO/^ -^11IBRARY6K ,\\\El)NIVER% ^iOJIlVJJO'*^ "^iUOKYSOl^ o^lOSANCElfj-y. "^/iaJAINUftV^ ^lllBRARYO/- ^lllBRAl ^aOJIlVDJO'^ "^tfOJITV: ^OFCAllfOff^ ^OFCAllFORi^ ^\\\EUNIVERJ/^ ^lOSANCflfj, ^A;OFCAllF0ff^ ^OFCAlll IMDi i\©i i!^i irrti I^qI |\4: ^OAavaan# ^riijDNvsoi^ '^/saaAiNnjftV' :^ "^OAHvaaiii^ '^OAavaaniv^ ^TiUONVSOl^'^ ^lOSANCElff^ -< ^lOSANCElfXx i aAIUBRARYQc, 3^ ^ • -^ ^ ^uibraryq^ ^OFCAllFOff^ ^OFCAllFOff^ 30 ^ '&Aavaan-i't^ .^WEDNIVERJ/A o .^MEUNIVERJ/A o A^lOSANCElfj> %a3AiNn-3i\v^ vjclOSANCElfj> "^^/sajMNnjwv^ ^llIBRARYQc %ojnv3jo^ jj^OFCAllFOff^ ^0Aav8an# ^^tllBRARYO/c ■^^ - — ^ ^\\\im\ms/A ^lOSANCElfXx ^aojiivjjo^' so -< %3AINn-3ftV^ vvlOSANCElfx> ^^^tllBRARYQ^ ^IIIBRARYO/^^ ^iiOdnvDjo^ ^^l■llBRARYQc ^OFCAllFOff^ ^MllBRARYQf ^'rtEUNIVERJ•/4 vvlOSANCflfj> o ^ ■ • ^AOJIIVJJO'^ ^lllBRARYQr ,^tllBRARYO/r A\\tlINlVtRS/A %0JnV3JO'^ '^OJIIVJJO'^ &Aavaani^ A^lllBRARYO^^ xxMUBRARYQ/- ^OFCAllFOff^ ^tfOJIlVDJO't^ i^OFCAllFO% %130HVS0A=^ -< %aMiNn3rtV^ 1^01 iV£)i iL^i ir^ ^^ME■UNIVERy/^ ^lOSANCElfj-^ ^aojiwjjo'f^ ^OFCAllFORfc, WOMEN OF BEAUTY AND HEROISM FEOM SEMIRAMIS TO EUGENIE. A PORTRAIT GALLERY <|i;inuU itokliiuss, ^rlji^btnunt ait^ |iifhuiu£. ILLUSTRATED WITH NINETEEN ENGRAVINGS ON STEEL, FROM ORIGINAL DESIGNS BY CHAMPAGNE AND WANDESFORDE. BY FRANK B. GOODRICH, ADTHOB OF "THK COURT OF NAPOLEON. NEW YORK: DERBY & JACKSON, 119 NASSAU STREET. M DOOO LIX. Entered accordJDg to Act of Congress, in the year 1S5S, by PRANK B. GOODUICU, 111 tin; Ck-rk'a Office of the District Court of tlie UniteQ States for the Soutliern District of New Yorlt. ■ 'SOEO. IllWKI.I, fc CO., PRINTEKS.^' ^^^^5^ TINSON, STEKEOTVrEU. SOMERVILLB & BRO., BINDERS. ZZ 00/30-^5^1-^ 5" CONTENTS. SEMIRAMIS. A cautious Exordium — The Goddess Derceto and the Assyrian Venus — The Foundling Hospital of the Classics — Semiramis nursed by Pigeons — Discovered and educated by the King's Intendant — Her Marriage — Is summoned to the Camp — Becomes a Widow and marries the King — Her Accession to the Throne — Her Achievements — She embellishes Babylon — The Babylonish Lake — The Temple of Belus — The Oracle of Jupiter Ammon — Semiramis invades the Territories of Stabrobates — A Battle in the Indus — Defeat and Death of Semiramis — Her Tomb — Interpretation to be placed upon her Story, 13 PENELOPE. Birth of Penelope and Marriage with Ulysses — Paris, Helen and the Trojan War — Ulysses is summoned to Ilium and is absent Twenty Tears — Penelope is importuned by Suitors — She repulses them by various ingenious Devices — Penelope's Web — Her Letter to Ulysses — The Suitors become impatient — Antinoiis — Medon — Irus — Melanthius — Their Extravagance — Ulysses returns in Disguise — Is regaled with a Pork Steak, and is recognized by his Dog Argus— He begs at his own Table — Overpowers the Mendicant Irus in single Fight — Inter- view of Penelope and the Suitors — The Presents of the latter — Penelope is forced to choose a Husband from one hundred and eight Aspirants — Minerva suggests a Mode of baffling them — Penelope proposes a Tournament with the Bow and Arrow — Terrible Battle between Ulysses, Minerva, Telemachus and Eumaeus, on the one Side, and the one hundred and eight on the other — Astounding Result of this unequal Fight — Fidelity of Penelope rewarded, 27 CORNELIA. The Family of Scipio Africanus — Cornelia's Marriage — Her Character — The Education of her Children — A Prodigy and its Interpretation — Death of Tiberius— Successive Deaths of nine of Cornelia's Children — Her Rejection of the Hand of Ptolemy Physco — Cornelia's .Jewels — Marriage of her Son Tiberius and of her Daughter Sempronia — The Licinian Law — A Sedi- tion — Death of Tiberius — The Mother of the Gracchi — Caius is made Tribune — A Collision — Fall of Caius Gracchus — Closing Years of the Life of Cornelia, . . . . .43 1CS9115 IV CONTENTS. ZENOBIA. Tadmor in the Wilderness — War between Rome and Persia — Interference of Odcnatus, a Pal- myreuian Senator — ^Ile receives tlic Title of Associate Augustus — Zenobia — Her Cliaraeter and Personal Appearance — Death of Odenatus — Zenobia ascends the Throne — The Policy of her Reign — She assumes the Title of Queen of the East — Aurelian resolves to humble her Pride — He marches against her — The Dogs of Tyana — The Battles of Antioch and Emesa — Zenobia defeated — The Siege of Palmyra — Aurclian's Letter to the Roman People — Zenobia's Dispatch to Aurelian — Her Flight from Palmyra — Her Capture — The Fate of Longinus, her Counsellor — Zenobia is taken to Rome to grace Aurelian's Triumph — A Barbarous Pageant— Zenobia led in Fetters through the Streets — Her Exile at Tibur — The Modern Traveller at TivoU, 57 BEATRICE. The Birth of Beatrice Portinari — Her Meeting with Dante — His Love — Her Marriage to another and early Death — The Vita Nuova — Dante's Determination to hush his Muse till he can Sing of Beatrice more worthily — The Performance of his Vow — The Divina Commedia-^The Nine Circles of Hell — ^The Mount of Purgatory — The Purgation of the Seven Mortal Sins — Tho Terrestrial Paradise — The Approach of Beatrice — The Ten Heavens — The Harmony of the Spheres — The Empyrean — A Gaze at the Great Mystery — The Brow of Beatrice bound with Dante's Laurel, 73 JOAN DARC. The Orthography of the Name of Joan Pare — Her Birth and Childhood — Her Contemplations — The Superstitions of her Village — A Legend of the Enchanter Merlin — Unhappy Condition of the Country — Charles VII. and Agnes Sorel — Joan and her Family driven from Home — Joan's Visions — Her Interviews with St. Michael — She Visits Baudricourt at Vaucouleurs — Is regarded as a Witch — A Priest performs the Ceremony of Purification — Joan is summoned by the King to Chinon — Her Journey — She recognizes Charles VII. among his Courtiers — She is examined by the University and the Parliament — The Verdict of the Council — The Ordeal of Maidenhood — Joan is equipped for Battle — She joins the Army and reforms the Morals of the Camp — Her Arrival at Orleans — CoUision with the English — Joan's uncon- scious Profanity — The Conflict of the 8th of May — Deliverance of Orleans — Joan rejoins the King — She engages to crown him at Rheims — The Pilgrimage thither — The Consecration — Termination of Joan's Mission — Her Error in remaining with the Army — Unsuccessful Siege of Paris — Her Capture at Compiigne — She is given up to the EngUsh and is tried for Sorcery — Details of the Trial — She disconcerts her Judges — Easter Sunday in Joan's Cell — ^A Mock Execution — The Parody of St. Oueu — Her Condemnation to the Stake — Horrible Scene at her Martyrdom — The Mitre of the Inquisition — The miserable Deaths of her Persecutors — The Rehabilitation of her Memory — The Pageant of 1855 — Reflections, . . .81 ISABELLA. Birth and Childhood of Isabella — Her proposed Union with Don Pedro Giron — The Civil War Attempted Dethronement of King Henry — Isabella's Refusal to accept the Crown — Her Suitors — Ferdinand of Aragon — Ili.s Meeting with Isabella — Their Personal Appearance Their Marriage — Death of Henry— Isabella proclaimed Queen — The Battle of Toro CONTENTS. V Isabella's Schcmeg of Reform— The Establishment of the Inquisition — The War against the Moors — Capture of Alhama — Siege and Surrender of Malaga — Reduction of Baza — Siege of Granada — Building of Santa Fe — The Hebrews contribute Moneys for the Extirpation of Saracen Unbelievers — Expulsion of the Jews — The Voyages and Discoveries of Christopher Columbus — Marriage of Isaljclla's son John and of her daughter Isabella — Tlieir Deatlis — Birth of Charles V. — Incipient Insanity of Joanna, Isabella's second Daughter — Decline of Isabella's Health — Her Will — Her Death — Reflections upon her Reign, .... 129 DIANA DE POITIERS. Diana's Residence at the Court of Francis I. — Her Liaison with Henry, Dulse of Orleans — Con- sequent Scenes in the Palace — Henry becomes Dauphin and assumes Diana's Colors — He ascends the Throne, and marries Catherine de Medicis — The Queen and the Favorite — The Royal H entwined witli the Patrician D — Diana still Beautiful at the Age of Fifty — Description of her Appearance — The Death of the King and Fall of Diana — Her Unconscious Tribute to the Supremacy of Virtue, 165 ANNE BOLEYN. Origin of the Family of Anne Boleyn — Her Birth and Education — Her Residence in France — She is summoued to England to marry Piers Butler — She engages herself to Henry, Lord Percy — Henry VIII. becomes enamored of her and forbids her Union with Percy — Tlie latter is dismissed from Court — The King makes an Avowal to Anne — His Repulse — Anne absents herself for four Tears — Change in her Character and Conduct — Henry determines to win her as a Wife, and to obtain a Divorce from his Queen — A Pestilence recalls him to a Sense of his Iniquities — He malses thirty-nine Wills — The Queen is exiled to Greenwich — Scandal liusy with Anne's Name — Fall of Wolsey — Nupti.ils of Henry and Anne — Pageants in Honor of the Event — Birth of EUzabeth — Execution of Sir Thomas More — The Reformation — Inconstancy of the King — Jane Seymour — Decline of Anne's Favor — She is accused of Adultery and imprisoned — Her Appeal to the King — Her Trial and Conviction — The Execution of her alleged Paramours — Her last Hour — Her Execution — The King awaits the Signal Gun, that he may wed Jane Seymour — Character of Anne Boleyn — Her Influence in aid of the Trans- lation of the Scriptures, 161 MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. Birth of Mary Stuart — Her Coronation at the Age of nine Months — Her Residence at Linlithgow and Inchmahome — She is sent to France — Her Desire to take the Veil— Her Education and Accomplishments — Her Marriage with the Dauphin — Her Beauty — Her Claim to the English Throne — She becomes Queen of France — Her Return to Scotland — Her Dismay at the Poverty of the Land — She oSends John Knox — Her Occupations — Her Second Marriage — Henry Lord Darnley — The Assassination of Rizzio — Birth of James I. of England — Envious Speech of Queen Elizabeth — The Earl of Bothwell — His Plot to murder Darnley — Its Execu- tion — Trial and Acquittal of Bothwell — His Marriage witli Mary — They separate at Carbcrry Hill — Mary at Loch Leveu — She is forced to abdicate — Her Escape — Tlie Battle of Langside — Mary throws herself upon the Generosity of Elizabeth — Her Trial for Complicity in the Murder of Darnley — Her eighteen Months' Captivity— Babington's Plot — ^Mary's Trial as an Accessory — Her Defence and Conviction— The Execution — The Verdict of Posterity, . \S1 vi CONTENTS. POCAHONTAS. Captain John Smith in Virginia— The Hostility of the Emperor Powh.itan— Smith is taken Prisoner by Opechancanough — He is saved by the Intervention of a Pocket Compass — He is taken to the Residence of Powhatan — The Queen of Apamatuck and Matoaka, the Snow- feather — The latter saves Smith's Life — Her Name is changed to Pocahontas — She Visits the English Fort and turns Summersets with the Boys — She befriends Smith, and a, second Time saves his Life — An Indian " Anticke " — Smith leaves the Colony — Pocahontas forsakes her Father — She is decoyed on board an English Ship, and is detained a Prisoner — Powhatan refuses to ransom her — She remains two Years, and falls in Love — Her Baptism — Powhatan consents to her Maniage — The Ceremony at Jamestown — Pocahontas visits England — Smith's Appeal in her Behalf to the Queen — Her Portrait is taken — Meeting of Smith and Poca- hontas — Her Illness and Death — Her Burial at Gravesend — Her Character — Her Descendants — John Randolph — The Nonpareil of Virginia, 211 NELL GWYNN. An Explanation — ^Nell Gwynn's Horoscope — She becomes a Bar-tender and an Orange-girl — The Reopening of the Theatres — Women's Parts are, for the first Time, performed by Women — Orange Moll — Pepys admires " Pretty, Witty Nell," and kisses her— She becomes an Actress — She plays in Dryden's " Maiden Queen" — Pepys is enthusiastic — Lord Buckhurst is Nelly's Lover — He is induced to yield her to the King — Nelly at Whitehall — Madame Carwell — Odd's Fish ! — The Manager of Drury Lane and Oliver Cromwell — Nelly's two Sons by the King — Her Device to obtain Titles for them — The Origin of Chelsea Hospital — Death of Charles II. — "Let not poor Nelly Starve" — Nell's straitened Circumstances — Her Illness, Contrition, and Christian Death — Dr. Tenison's Sermon — Apologies for Nell Gwynn — The Duke of St. Albans — Harriet Mellon — Angela Burdett Coutts, 235 LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. Birth of Lady Mary Pierrepont — Her Education and Precocity — She is enrolled a Toast at the Kitcat Club, at the Age of Eight Years — She directs her Father's Household and carves on Election Days — Her Acquaintance with Edward Wortley Montagu— They avow their Love — Lord Kingston objects to the Match — The Lovers are privately Married — Lady Mary appears at St. James's — She accompanies her Husband to Constantinople — The Bagnio — Adrianople — The Lovely Fatima — Lady Mary studies the Language — She observes the Process of Inocu- lation for the Small Pox — Iler Infant Son the first British Subject Inoculated — Her Return to England — Ilcr Intimacy with Pope — She dabbles in South Sea Stock — Inoculation in England — Her Efforts to introduce it — Her Successes — ^Three Cases end fatally — She is attacked from the Pulpit — The Medical Profession takes up Arms against her — Theological Argimients against the Practice — Final Triumph of Common Sense — Lady Mary's Quarrel with Pope Her Travels upon the Continent — Her Death — The Surreptitious Publication of her Letters — Her Position in Literature — Her Cenotaph at Lichfield, 253 MARIE ANTOINETTE. Marie Antoinette at the Age of Fourteen Years — She is contracted to Louis, Dauphin of Franco — Her Education to fit her for her Station — Her Journey to France, and Arrival at ('ompii'gne CONTENTS. vii — The Nuptial Festivities — Marie Antoinette at Court — Madame Etiquette — A Masked Ball by Moonlight — Marie Antoinette becomes Queen of France — She obtains the Title of Autri- chienne, and offends the Royal Sisters-in-Law — The Sliding Scale of Beauty — A Forbidden Amusement — The Queen plays Truant from Home — She witnesses the Exercises of the future Charles X. upon the Tight Rope — Her Son, the Martyr Louis XVII. — The Queen's Necklace — Fatal Results — Madame Deficit — The French Revolution — The Emigration — The Mob at Versailles — The Baker, the Baker's Wife, and the Little Apprentice — The Flight of the Royal Family — They are intercepted at Varennes — The Monarchy is Overthrown — Marie Antoinette in the Temple — The Precautions of the Municipality — The Execution of the King — Horrible Treatment inflicted on the Dauphin — Trial and Conviction of Marie Antoinette — Scenes on the Road to the Scaffold — The Execution — Opinions of Lamartiue, Alison and Thomas Jefferson — Example of Marie Antoinette, 275 THE MAID OF SARAGOSSA. The First Siege of Saragossa — The City contemptuously spoken of by the French as inhabited by Priests, Cowards, and Women — An Apparition — Southey's Description of the Scene — Agostina Zaragoz — Her Intrepidity and Omnipresence — A Laconic Reply to a Laconic Sum- mons — War to the Knife — Eleven Days' Butchery — The Siege is raised — Agostina is made an Engineer of Artillery — The Second Siege — Agostina is taken Prisoner by the French — Her Escape — Lord Byron's "Childe Harold " — Wilkie's " Defence of Saragossa" — Statue of Agostina by J. Bell — IndifiTerence of the Spanish upon the Subject of Agostina, . . 805 ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. An American Heroine — Birth and early Life of Anne Hasseltine — Her Youthful Gaieties — Her Conversion — She teaches School at Salem — The General Association of Congregatioualist Clergymen — The Importance of Foreign Missions urged — Adoniram Judaon — ^His offer of Mar- riage to Miss Hasseltine, together with a Proposal to accompany him to India — Her Earnest Consideration of the Project — Her Consent — Mr. Judson's Letter to her Parents— Her Mar- riage and Departure for Calcutta — The Voyage — The Ai-rival — The English" Mission at Seram- pore — Vexatious Persecution by the Police — Mr. and Mrs. Judson are compelled to leave for the Isle of France — Mrs. Judson in quest of missing Baggage — The Death of Harriet Newell — The Missionaries arrive at Rangoon — Their study of the Language — Difficulties — Mrs. Judson visits Madras for her Health — Her Return — Birth and Death of her first Child — Arrival of a Printing Press — Two Tracts are published — Mrs. Judson reads the Scriptures to Birmese Women — Erection of a Zayat — The first Convert — The Sacrament administered in two Languages — A Solemn Baptism — The King of Birmah rejects the Bible — Mrs. Judson visits England and America — She finds the Mission prospering on her Return — They ascend the Irrawaddy to Ava — War between Birmah and England — Arrest of Mr. Judson as a Spy — His Sufferings — The Efforts of his Wife to obtain his Release — Her Silver confiscated — ^Mr. Jud son in the Death Prison — A Mince Pie far from Home — Devotion of Mrs. Judson — Birth of her second Child, a Daughter — Affecting Scene in the Prison Yard — Stanzas composed by the chained Father — The English advance towards Ava — Mr. Judson is secretly removed — Agony of his Wife — Oung-pen-la, the " Never-to-be-Forgotten " — A Filthy Receptacle for Grain Mrs. Judson's only Home — The Small Pox and Famine — Unparalleled Misery — Mr. Judson allowed to beg Nourishment from compassionate Mothers for his starving Infant vui CONTENTS. Mr. Judson sent, as Interpreter, to Maloun — Mrs. Judson attacked with Spotted Fever — The Birraese assemble to see her die — Her Recovery — Release of the Missionaries at the Behest of the EngUsh Commauder — A Thrill of Delight — The Whirligig of Time, and one of its Revenges — Mrs. Judson and a wounded Oflicer — Her failing Health — ^Her last Illness and Death — Her Grave beneath the Hope Tree — Conclusion, 813 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. The Six Children of the Rev. Patrick Bronte — Their Early Life — Potato Dinners — Mr. Bronte's Eccentricities — Death of his Wife — His eldest four Daughters at Cowan's Bridge — Death of Maria and Elizabeth — Occupations of Charlotte — Her Personal Appearance — The Seminary of Roe Head — A Ghostly Neighborhood — Charlotte's Scholarship — Her Opinions upon Books — She returns to Roe Head as an Instructress — She spends two Years at Brussels — Branwell Bronte — Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell — Their Volume of Poems — Incipient BUndness of their Father — " Jane Eyre " commenced — Progress of the Work — Miseries of Authorship — Publi- cation and Success of Jane Eyre — Opinions of the Press — Mr. Bronte reads the Book, and is favorably impressed — The Secret faitlifully kept — Charlotte's First Visit to London — Death of Branwell — Death of Emily — Death of Anne — The Valley of the Shadow of Death — Sliirley — The Mystery solved — Villette — ^Mr. Nicholls proposes Marriage to Charlotte — Her Father's Objections — His final Consent — Marriage and Death of Charlotte Bronte — Jane Eyre a Classic, 353 VICTORIA. Queens of To-day as distinguished from Queens of Ancient Times — Improbabilities of Victoria's Accession to the Throne — Edward, Duke of Kent — His Marriage In Germany — Journey to England — Birth of AJexandrina Victoria — Situation of the Succession — Death of the Duke — Early Education of Victoria — Wilberforce — Rev. George Davys — Victoria has a Companion in her Studies — Her Confirmation — She attains her Majority — Death of King WUliam — Vic- toria proclaimed Queen — She prorogues Parliament — Her Coronation — Marriage with Prince Albert — A bounteous Dispens.ation — The Princess Royal and the Heir Apparent — The Public Duties of the Queen — Her Occupations — Her private Life — Her Summer Holidays — The Highlands and the Valley of the Rhine — American Respect for Victoria — Spirit of the English National Anthem — Reflections, 375 EUGENIE. A startling Rumor — A Spanish Countess at Compiegne — The Parisians are discontented — ^Epi- grams — A trying Ordeal — Louis Napoleon announces his intended Mari'iage to the Senate — Effect upon the Country — Eugenie de Montijo — Her Ancestry — Education — Personal Appear- ance — Character — The Marriage — A Chilling Reception — An unconsidered Expression — The Honeymoon— Ilcr Majesty obtains the Good Will of the People— The Parisians recant — The Empress' Taste in Dress — A famous Invention — Her Occupations — Her PoUtical Influence — Conclusion, 389 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. SEMIRAMIS, FUONTISPIECE. PENELOPE, TO FACE I'AliE 27 CORNELIA, 43 ZENOBIA, 57 DANTE'S BEATRICE, 73 JOAN DARO, 81 ISABELLA, 120 DIANA DE POITIERS, 155 ANNE BOLEYN, 161 MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS, 187 POCAHONTAS, 211 NELL GWYNN, 235 LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU, 253 MARIE ANTOINETTE, 275 THE MAID OF SARAGOSSA, 305 ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON, 313 CHARLOTTE BRONTE, 353 VICTORIA, 375 EUGENIE, 389 AUTHORITIES CONSULTED AND BOOKS REFERRED TO. ANCIENT HISTORY, Rollin. NINEVEH, Layard. THE ODYSSEY, Popes Homer. EPISTLES OP THE HEROINES, Ovid. TELEMACHUS, Fcnelon. PLUTARCH'S LIVES. DE PAUPERTATE, BIOGRAPHIE NOUVELLE, Valerius Maximus. Didot. THE HOLY BIBLE. AUGUSTA HISTORIA, .... RISE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, HARMONIES OP NATURE, . RUINS OF ANCIENT CITIES, ZENOBIA, OR THE FALL OF PALMYRA, BIOGRAPHIE UNIVERSELLE. Trebellius Pollio. Gibbon. Bern, de St. Pierre. Bucke. IVare. LA VITA NUOVA, LA DIVINA COMMEDIA, VITA DI DANTE, POETS AND POETRY OF EUROPE, NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW, 1833. CHRISTIAN EXAMINER, Jan., 1858. Dante. Boccaccio. Longfellow. LE PROCES DE LA PUCELLE, HISTORY OF FRANCE, JEANNE D'ARC, BIOGRAPHIE NOUVELLE, . HISTORY OF FERDINAND AND ISABELLA, CHRISTOPHE COLOMB, LIFE OF MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS, HISTORY OP FRANCE, LES VIES DES DAMES GALANTES, QUEENS OP ENGLAND. HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION, LIFE OP MARY, QUEEN OP SCOTS, HISTORY OF SCOTLAND, . Jules Quicherat. Michekt. Henri Martin. Guido Goerres. Lamartine. Abel Desjardins. Didot. PrescoU. RoseUy de Lorgues. JMi.ts Brnger. Henri Martin. Brantime. Agnes Strickland. Burnet. H. G. Bell. Miss Beuger. Bobertson. xu AUTHORITIES CONSULTED, ETC, HISTORY OP SCOTLAND, . ... GOODALL'S EXAMINATION. TYTLER'S INQUIRY. LES VIES DES DAMES ILLUSTRES, fflSTOEY OF VIRGINIA, ... GENERALL HISTORIE OP VIRGINIA, LIFE OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH, HISTORIE OF TRAVAILE INTO VIRGINIA BRITANNIA, LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH, .... MARRIAGE OF POCAHONTAS, .... STORY OF NELL GWYNN, PEPYS' DIARY. BEADTIES OF THE COURT OF CHARLES H., WOMAN'S RECORD, ANNALS OF CHELSEA HOSPITAL. ENVIRONS OF LONDON, HISTORY OF THE REIGN OF JAMES H., NELL GWYNN, OR THE PROLOGUE, Dr. Gilbert Stuart. Brantome. Stith. Burk. Captain John Smith. HiUard. Strachey. Garland. Lossing. Peter Cunningham. Mrs. Jameson. Mrs. Hale. Lysons. Charles James Fox. Douglas Jerrold. LETTERS OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. BIOGRAPHY OF LADY M. W. M., . PLAIN DEALER, CRITICAL REVIEW SERMONS AND MEDICAL WORKS OF THE PERIOD. ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ENGLISH LITERATURE, . PENNY CYCLOPEDIA. REES' CYCLOPEDIA. Dallaway. Lady Louisa Stuart. Steele. Smollett. Chambers. LIFE OF MARIE ANTOINETTE, . HISTORY OF THE GIRONDINS, HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, CHRONIQUES DE L'CEIL DE BCEUF, HISTORY OP THE PENINSULAE WAR, . DISSERTATION ON THE CONVENTION OF CINTRA, CHILDE HAROLD, . . . • . LIFE OF SIR DAVID WILKIE, WOMAN'S RECORD MEMOIR OF REV. DR. JUDSON, . " MRS. JUDSON, .... THE EARNEST MAN, MISSIONARY REGISTER. HISTORY OF MISSIONS. LIFE OF CHARLOTTE BRONTE, . LECTURES, LIFE OF EDWARD, DUKE OF KENT, . ROYAL AI-MANACS AND GAZETTES. ROYAL PRINCESSES OF ENGLAND, FRENCH OFFICIAL JOURNALS AND RECORDS. TRICOLORED SKETCHES I>r PARIS. NEWSPAPERS OF THE DAY. PERSON.U> KNOWLEDGE AND OBSERVATION. TVeber. Lamartine. Tliiers. Touchard- Lafosse. Southey. Napier. JVordsjcoi'th. Byron. Allan Cunningham. Mrs. Hale. Wayland. Knmvles. Conant. Mrs. Gaskell. Rev. Henry Giles. Neal. Mrs. Hall. SEMIRAMI8 At a period which the researches of historians have failed to determine, an Assyrian king, whose very name is a matter of doubt, and the site of whose capital city has long since been lost, leading an army whose numbers cannot with any certainty be fixed, into a territory whose location it would be impossible to indicate, to avenge an insult the nature of which history has not recorded, laid siege to the stronghold of the country. Prodigies of valor were achieved on either side, but the beleaguered city proved so fertile in resources that the blockade languished, and the operations of the Assyrians were for a time suspended. At this juncture, the fortunes of the king or the chances of war brought to the camp a woman, whose birth had been the subject of fable, whose arrival amid the riot of battle can only be explained by complaisant legend, and whose subsequent history — indeed, whose very existence — is regarded by the prudent commentators of our times with con- stantly augmenting distrust. The reader is thus duly forewarned that, in the following sketch of Ninus and Semiramis, we appeal exclusively to the fabulists, convinced as we are that, did we rely upon the antiquarians, or accept only what is deemed au- thentic in their history, we should leave our frontispiece without 14 SEMIEAMIS. illustrative text, or perhaps, indeed, should have had no fron- tispiece at all. In the year 1240, B. c, or thereabouts, a goddess worshipped in Syria uuder the name of Derceto, and widely respected for her chastity, had the misfortune to displease that most irritable divinity, Venus, who straightway resolved on vengeance. The catalogue of ways and means in her possession seems to have been, in every system of mythology, exceedingly Umited ; and it is not surprising to find the Assyrian Venus resorting, in the poverty of her resources, to the universal and infallible passion — Love ; thus setting the example to which the Venus of Paphos afterwards so consistently adhered. Derceto loved, and not wisely : she gave birth to a female infant, which she abandoned upon the deserts of Ascalon ; then, obeying an impulse which seems to have been usual in these guilty legendary mothers, she slew her betrayer, and threw herself headlong into a lake. The eternal fitness of things is beautifully consulted in the disposition made of her by the fable — she was changed, either by assimila- tion or metempsychosis, into a fish. Now, fish are cold-blooded, as every one knows, and being oviparous, leave their young to take care of themselves. The legend, having thus given to the parent an integument consistent with her nature, returns to the deserted babe. No little invention has been shown by the mythologists in what may be called the ward or department of abandoned infants. The Foundling Hospital of antiquity and the classics is an extensive institution, and its annals are distinguished by an agreeable variety. Without once trespassing upon the precincts of Sacred History, without an attempt to imitate or to repeat the beautiful narrative of the osier basket among the bulrushes, its managers depend solely upon their own resources, which are, indeed, sufficiently abundant. For the founder of Rome, they invented the she-wolf of the Tiber ; they delivered Jason, whom his parents, through fear of a usurping brother, dared not keep SBMIRAMIS. 15 at home, to the centaur Chiron ; Bacchus, prematurely born of a dead mother, they stitched tightly up in the thigh of Jupiter ; they gave ^neas for five years to the nurture of the dryads of Mount Ida ; they hid the infant Jove, leaving him among the Melian nymphs to be suckled by a goat, and instructed the wild bees to deposit their honey on his lips. They caught the limping sou of Juno, as his mother, shocked at his deformity, flung him from Olympus, and deputed the nymphs Eurydice and Thetis to cherish him in a cavern beneath the sea. Juno was nursed, dur- ing her tender years, in the grotto palace of Oceanus and Tethys. But long before these quaint and delicate fancies were invested by Homer and other poets with the fame which should give them immortaUty, the mythologists of Syria had made Semiramis the subject of a similar and as probable a legend. The infant daughter of Derceto was abandoned, as has been said, upon the desolate shores of the lake in which her mother had perished. She was befriended in her abandonment, not by wood nymphs or water sprites ; not by bees or goats ; but by doves. These gentle nurses fed and sheltered her from the storm. They pilfered milk from the royal dairies, and brought it to her in their beaks. They spread their wings over her at night, forming a quilt of dove plumage softer than coverlet of eider down. A year thus passed away. The child grew and prospered, but at last clamored for more substantial food. The doves, whose depredations had been undiscovered as long as they had been confined to the milk pails, were detected in their larcenies the moment they attacked the cheese ; they were tracked to the spot where the babbling orphan lay. The intend- ant of the flocks and herds of the king, Simmas by name, being without children of his own, adopted her, and made her his daughter and his heir. He gave her the name of Semiramis — a word which, in the Syrian tongue, expressed the tender relations which had subsisted between her and her friends of the dove-cot. 16 SEMI RAM IS. It is humiliating, after having narrated this absorbing story, to be obliged to add, that it is believed to have been invented by Semiramis herself, in later years, to conceal the irregularity of her bii-th, and to convince her subjects, the Assyrians, of the interest with which the gods had watched over her early years. It is, at any rate, certain that doves were publicly worshipped by that people — an honor paid them, doubtless, in acknowledg- ment of the humanity and disinterested benevolence which they had displayed towards their queen. Semiramis attained her eighteenth year, her beauty and her accomplishments attracting many suitors for her hand. Menones, the governor of Syria, was the successful aspirant ; he conducted his lovely bride to Nineveh, where the marriage was celebrated. Their union was a happy one, and two sons, Hypates and Hy- daspes, soon came to bless it. Semiramis gave her husband much prudent advice in the administration of his governorship, and he was always ready to confess the benefit he derived from her sagacious counsels. At this juncture, in an evil hour for Menones, Ninus, the king, who had received a check in a late excursion against Bactriana, resolved to march upon the rebel- lious kingdom with an army of formidable proportions. He summoned all his officers and retainers to his assistance, Menones among the number. Ninus was at this time master of all the nations inhabiting Asia, with the exception of India and Bactri- ana — Syria, Phoenicia, Pamphylia, Lycia, Caria, Phrj'gia, Mysia, Lydia, Persia, Susiana. His capital, Nineveh, was the most remarkable city of antiquity. His resources must have been inexhaustible, to have enabled him to lead to battle such an army as took the field. His forces consisted of 1,700,000 infan- try, 200,000 horse, and 10,000 chariots, armed with scythes. With this enormous train he overran and subdued the country of his enemies, till he arrived before Bactria, their capital, having lost in various encounters the bagatelle of 100,000 men. SEMIRAMIS. 17 The city held out with unlocked for courage, and Ninus de- spaired of reducing it. It so happened, that at this period Menones, desiring to beguile the tedium of the siege, had summoned Semiramis to the camij. Ambitious of fame, and tired of her inglorious life, she hastened to obey. She composed a travelling costume which might have suited a person of either sex, in which good taste, cleanliness and convenience were equally consulted, and in this ambiguous attire appeared before her husband. The siege was still languishing, and without prospect of a speedy termination. She went forth to reconnoitre the means of resistance employed by the Bactrians. She noticed that the citadel was negligently guarded, the troops stationed about it invariably leaving it unprotected when their assistance was required at other points of the line of defence. She resolved to attack the spot thus exposed, and on the occasion of an assault directed at a distant portion of the wall, she led a body of picked troops against the citadel. They penetrated into the city, and opened the gates to the besiegers. Bactria, with its immense treasures, thus fell into the hands of Ninus. The grateful king overwhelmed Semiramis with presents, and though ripe in years and experience, con- ceived an unconquerable passion for her. He sent for Menones, and offered him his daughter Sosana in exchange for his wife. Menones was highly scandalized, and refused to accede to the proposal. Ninus assured him that if he did not yield, he would have his eyes put out. Menones, convinced that nothing could save Semiramis from the king, and determined not to survive his dishonor, hung himself in despair. On his return to Nineveh, Ninus married the lovely widow, whose grief at the unfortunate end of her husband does not seem to have been of long duration. She bore him a son, who was called Ninyas. Her influence over her lord, now well-nigh in his dotage, may be imagined from the following incident : Having secured the cooperation of the principal officers of 3 18 SEMIRAMIS. the kingdom, Semiramis besought Ninus to intrust her with the sovereign power for the space of five days. The uxorious monarch consented, and Semiramis, after a sufficient number of lesser experiments to prove the allegiance of her subjects, ordered the unfortunate Ninus to be beheaded. The command was executed with an alacrity which must have consoled the last moments of a king who had been an ardent stickler for disciiDline and unquestioning obedience. Semiramis seized the crown, and, encountering no opposition from the court or the people, reigned uninterruptedly upon the throne she had usurped. It is proper to add that, according to another version of Semiramis' accession to power, instead of murdering Ninus, she merely imprisoned him for hfe ; that, according to still another, she received the crown from Ninus, upon his expiring tranquilly in his bed ; and that, during the early years of her administration, she assumed the garments and bearing of her youthfid son Ninyas, until, by a vigorous and sagacious use of her authority, she had reconciled the Assyrians to the domination of a woman. However this may be, and in whatever manner Semiramis attained the sovereign power, it would seem that she wielded it with marvellous energy, creating for herself a reputation unrivalled in antiquity. She applied all her thoughts to immor^ talize her name and to surpass her predecessors in magnificence. She conceived the idea of building a city which should excel the peerless Nineveh, and in this view, undertook the construction, or, according to other authoritres, merely the embellishment, of the mighty Babylon. This city, as Semiramis left it, was surrounded with walls eighty-seven feet thick and three hundred and fifty feet high ; they formed an exact square, each side being fifteen miles long. On llic outside was a moat as deep as the walls were high, for it had furnished the clay of which the bricks were formed. Tliere were one hundred gates of solid brass — the gates whose destruction by Cyrus was predicted by Isaiah. Numerous streets, intersecting each other at right angles, cut SEMIRAMIS. 19 the city into six hundred and seventy-six squares, all of them ornamented by elegant buildings, by gardens and open cultivated spaces. An arm of the Euphrates ran across the city from the north to the south ; a quay bordered each bank, and a bridge, one-eighth of a mile in length, was skillfully thrown across it. That the river, swollen as it usually was in summer by the melting of the snows upon the mountains of Armenia, might not inundate its banks, two canals were dug at some distance above Babylon, by which the overflow was diverted into the Tigris. A reservoir was also formed by the sinking of a prodigious artificial lake, one hundred and sixty miles in compass, whose waters, collected in times of abundance, were let out by sluices to irrigate the land at seasons of drought. Into this lake the river was turned, till the bank and quays and bridge were completed. The time occupied by the laborers in these works could of course be no longer than that taken by the river to fill the lake, after which it would naturally burst its bonds and return to its former channel. It has been calculated that if the Euphrates were five hundred feet wide and ten deep, and flowed two miles an hour, it would fill the lake in three years, allowing no absorption to the sides ; but if absorption and evaporation were takeu into the account, four years would probably be required — a period doubtless suflicient, when the number of hands employed is considered. Were the Babylonish lake to be now constructed in America, it would cost, according to the usual prices paid for public works, the incredible sum of twenty-one thousand millions of dollars. This comparison will either serve to show the immense superiority of the ancients to the moderns in all those elements which constitute national grandeur, or to con- vince the reader, with the historian Rollin, that "there are some of the wonders of Babylon which are scarce to be compre- hended or believed, and that of this number is the lake." The temple of Belus was another of the marvels of Babylon, 20 SEMIRAMIS. and was chiefly remarkable for a prodigious tower which stood in the middle of it. Its base was a square, each side being a furlong in length ; its height was also a furlong. It consisted of eight towers, built one upon the other, decreasing regularly to the top, whence it has been called a pyramid by several ancient authors. In height it far exceeded the most remarkable of the pyramids of Egypt. It is believed by respectable authorities to have been the tower mentioned in the Scriptures as the Tower of Babel, the presumptuous edifice which called down upon the human race the curse of the confusion of tongues. Upon the very summit was an observatory, by means of which the Babylonians attained the proficiency in astronomy which history ascribes to them. The chief use to which the building was put was the worship of Belus, the Assyrian Jupiter, and its wealth in statues, censers, cups and other sacred vessels — all of them of massive gold, and the spoil of conquered nations, was almost beyond calculation. An estimate made by Diodorus, however, places their value at six thousand three hundred Babylonish talents, or six hundred millions of dollars. Such were the principal works of art and ingenuity which rendered Babylon so famous in antiquity ; a portion of them are believed to have been due to Semiramis, though her share has not been satisfactorily separated from that of Ninus and of Nebu- chadnezzar. All historians unite, however, in ascribing to her the building of the walls — an effort which must always be regarded with amazement, if not with incredulity. When the works she had undertaken were completed, or sufficiently advanced, Semiramis resolved upon making a royal progress through her vast and constantly extending empire. She advanced into Media at the head of an imposing army. Here, in a romantic site, she laid out a garden whose extent was mea- sured by square miles, and left, hewn upon the rocks which diversified the scene, the bas-reliefs of herself and one hundred of her guards. At Chaones she remained long enough to build S E M I R A M I S . 21 a palace and spend in it a season of riot and gross self-indul- gence. She continued her route into the territory of the Per- sians, leaving traces of her passage in the aqueducts which conveyed water to thirsty cities, in the liighways which she laid across tracts before impassable, in the mountains which she tunnelled and the valleys which she filled. Not content with her dominions in Asia, she extended them by conquests in Ethiopia and Libya. While in the latter country, curiosity led her to visit the oracle of Jupiter Ammon, which she consulted upon the number of years she had yet to live. The oracle replied that she would die when her son Ninyas should secretly attempt her life, but that after death several nations of the east would pay divine honors to her memory. Whatever proportion of fable may be mingled with the history of Semiramis, it is the unanimous verdict of antiquity that the sway of the Assyrian queen extended over the whole of upper Asia. Statues, monuments, and inscriptions referring to her, cities either founded, built or improved by her, scattered over this wide expanse of territory, have proved to the inquirers of a later period, either that she had caused her supremacy to be acknowledged there, or that she had taken the very unusual step of embellishing kingdoms not her own. An inscription in which the princess chronicles her own exploits has been preserved by Polysenus : "Nature gave me the form of a woman; my actions have raised me to the level of the most valiant of men. I have swayed the empire of Ninus, which, towards the east, touches the river Inamanes ; upon the south, the land of incense and myrrh ; and upon the north, the territory of the Sogdians. Before me, no Assyrian ever saw the sea ; I have seen four whose waters were not navigated, and I have subdued them to my laws. I have constrained rivers to flow in the directions which I wished ; and I never wished them to flow where they would not be useful. I have rendered sterile lands fruitful by irrigation. I have built 22 S E M I R A M I S . impregnable fortresses, and I have thrown roads across impracti- cable mountains. I have jaaved with my silver highways where before were the footprints of wild beasts ; and in the midst of my labors, I have found time for my own diversion and for that of my friends." While reigning in uninterrupted tranquillity, Scmiramis heard that a nation which lived beyond the river Indus, and which derived its name from that stream, claimed to be the greatest people in the world, and that they dwelt in a fertile country, beneath a benignant sky. She resolved to make war upon a race thus presumptuous in their boasts and thus fortunate in their lot. She spent three years in preparation for the conflict, and finally took the field at the head of the largest army ever yet assembled. It consisted of three millions of infantry, five hundred thousand cavalry, one hundred thousand chariots, and an immense number of portable boats in which to cross the Indus. Aware that the great strength of Stabrobates, the Indian monarch, lay in his elephants, she caused three hundred thousand cows and oxen to be killed, and their skins to be dressed and colored to resemble elej^hants' hides. With these she made a large number of false elejahants, the motive power of each being furnished by a camel. One hundred thousand men, ai'med with spears six feet long, were attached to this wing of the service. The Indian king having received notice of her approach, gathered an army even more numerous than that of the invaders, and sent word to the queen that she would soon have cause to repent an aggression as unwise as it was unjust. She launched her fleet of canoes upon the waters of the Indus, and attempted to reach the opposite bank. Battle was joined in the middle of the stream ; the issue was for a long time doubtful, but the Indians were finally repulsed, and fled, leaving one hundred thousand pri- soners in the hands of Semiramis. Encouraged by this success, and having transported her enlirc army across the river by means of her boats, which she had formed into a bridge, she SEMIKAMIS. 23 advanced into the heart of the enemy's territory. She disco- vered, too late, that the flight of Stabrobates had been designed expressly to decoy her within liis power, for he now faced about, and a sanguinary engagement of the entire forces of both armies ensued. The real elephants were at first appalled at the uncouth and clumsy imitations which met them in the charge : and the Indian soldiers, accustomed to the balmy odors with which their spicy harvests filled the air, were almost incapacitated from fighting by the horrible smell of the hides in which the enemy's camels were incased. But both they and the elephants soon reco- vered, and the forces of Semiramis gave way before the com- bined attack. The Assyrian queen sought to rally her troops, but a panic had seized them, and they commenced a disorderly retreat towards the river. She was twice wounded by the hand of Stabrobates, and was only saved from capture by the swiftness of her horse. In the confusion attendant upon the re-passage of the Indus, large numbers of her men perished, and she regained her own dominions with hardly one-third of the army she had taken to the field. As she approached her capital, she learned that her son Ninyas was plotting her destruction, and that one of her princi- pal ofiicers was lying in wait for her. She called to mind the response of the oracle of Jupiter Amnion, and, with a resignation unusual upon the throne, resolved to obey the implied injunc- tion. Though she caused the treacherous officer to be taken into custody, she forbore inflicting punishment upon him, and after voluntarily abdicating the crown, and putting the supreme authority into the hands of her son, she withdrew from the sight of men. She is even said to have been changed into a dove, and to have been last seen when on the wing. Notwithstanding this metamorphosis, which would seem to preclude the possibility of sepulture, respectable authorities attribute to her a tomb, and even record a very peculiar inscription which they allege was placed upon it. This consisted of two distinct epigraphs, the 24 SEMIRAMIS. one contradicting and annulling the other : the first informed her royal successors that, in case of need, they would find large stores of precious metals within her tomb ; the second embodied a fierce imprecation upon the perverse and avaricious king who should violate the sanctuary of the dead. Semiramis died or disappeared in her sixty-second year, after a glorious and useful reign of forty years. She has been pro- nounced the best political economist of antiquity, and the first utilitarian queen. The reader may safely reject the greater portion of her history, such as it has been handed down to us ; and he may even divide among several sovereigns bearing the name of Semiramis, the merit of the achievements which the chronicles usually attribute to her alone ; there will still remain sufficient ground for admiration and respect for one or all of her line and Uneage. The example of Semiramis is believed to have induced Plato to maintain, in his Commonwealth, that women, as well as men, should be admitted to the management of public affairs ; that they should be trained to perform the same bodily exercises, and to undergo the same mental fatigue. But Aris- totle and Xenophon, and, many centuries later, the French historian RoUin, surprised to find a philosojiher so judicious in other respects, openly combating the most natural maxims of modesty, and insisting so strongly upon a principle at variance with the usual practice of mankind, "have, with great judgment, marked out the different ends to which man and woman are ordained, from the different qualities of body and mind where- with they are endowed by the Author of Nature, who has given the one strength of body and intrepidity of mind, to enable him to undergo the greatest hardships and face the most imminent dangers ; whilst the other, on the contrary, is of a weak and delicate constitution, accompanied with a natural softness and modest timidity, which render her more fit for a sedentary life, and dispose her to keep within the precincts of the house, and to employ herself in the concerns of prudent and industrious SEMIRAMIS. 26 economy. This allotment, far from degrading or lessening the woman, is really for her advantage and honor, in confiding to her a kind of domestic empire and government, administered only by gentleness, reason, equity and good nature ; and in giving her frequent occasions of concealing the most valuable and excellent qualities under the inestimable veil of modesty and submission." We have nothing to add to these sage reflections. We may with propriety mention, however, in regard to the sources from whence we have drawn the details herein collected, that we do not expect again to be compelled to appeal so unreservedly to the traditions and legends of any period of which we may be treating; and we hope, as our chronological sequence progresses, to arrive, in due time, at that epoch in history, when we may present a record of attested facts in place of an array of mar- vellous puerilities. PEJ^ELOPE. This most interesting of the semi-historical heroines of anti- quity was born, we may reasonably suppose, some twenty years previous to the Trojan War : the date could not have been far, therefore, from 1214 B.C. She was the daughter of Icarius and Polycaste, and niece of Tyndarus, king of Sparta. Her name is said to have been originally Arnsea, and to have been changed to Penelope in commemoration of the skill and patience which she afterwards displayed in the art of spinning. Ulysses, son of the king of Ithaca, was at first a suitor for the hand of Helen, Tyndarus' daughter and Penelope's cousin, but, disheartened by the great number of his competitors, he solicited the hand of Penelope ; his addresses being encouraged by her father, he married her and returned with her to Ithaca. The aged king resigned his crown to his son, and retired to a life of rural solitude ; Ulysses and Penelope lived for a time happily in their island kingdom, reigning in peace over their subjects, and rearing their son Telemachus. In the meantime, Helen had married Menelaiis, who, upon the death of Tyndarus, succeeded to the throne of Sparta. Paris, the son of Priam, king of Troy, now paid his memorable visit to Sparta, requiting the hospitality of his host by abducting 27 28 PENELOPE. his wife — an act which, reprehensible as it was, we may, at this late day, safely omit stigmatizing, inasmuch as without it we should have lost the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the iEneid. All who had ever addressed their court to Helen, had bound themselves by oath to unite to protect her, should violence be offered to her person. Ulysses was, therefore, summoned by Menelaiis and his brother, Agamemnon, to join the forces collecting for the chastisement of Paris and the destruction of Troy. He was loath to quit his beloved Penelope, and to avoid the necessity, resorted to stratagem. He counterfeited insanity, and, yoking together a horse and a bull, ploughed the sea-shore and sowed salt in the furrows. Palamedes, the envoy from Menelaiis, sus- pected the artifice and resolved to expose it. He placed the infant Telemachus in the path of the ill-matclied team : Ulysses, in whom the father predominated over the masquerader, turned them aside from the furrow, leaving the boy unhurt. Thus de- tected, he was compelled to depart for the wars. He after- wards revenged himself upon the officious Palamedes by forging a letter of thanks from Priam, by which the Greeks were led to believe that he had furnished supplies to the Trojans ; for this imputed offence he was stoned to death by his indignant countrymen. Ulysses accompanied the Greeks to Ilium, and remained during the siege of Troy — ten yeai's according to the time-tables of history, many more in the computation of the desolate Pene- lope. Upon the fall of the city, he was involved in the disasters which the vengeance of Minerva heaped upon the Grecian ships, and for ten years more wandered from country to country, exposed to constant peril and unable to regain his home. From time to time, an episode of a gratifying nature compensated for the trials he underwent : Calypso certainly atoned for Poljj^phe- mus, and Circe, after her spell was broken, was a fair equivalent for Scylla and Charybdis. It is the prudence, dignity and fidelity of Penelope, during tliesc twenty years of separation, that have PENELOPE. 29 made her the heroine of poets, the envy of husbands, the dream and the toast of bachelors. During the hatter years of the absence of Ulysses, his palace at Ithaca was thronged with princes and peers, importunate and quarrelsome suitors for the hand of the queen, who, they main- tained, had long since been made a widow by battle or ship- wreck. Her friends and family urged her to abandon the idea of her husband's return, and to choose from among the rival aspirants a father for Telemachus and a sovereign for Ithaca. She exerted all. her ingenuity, and put in practice every artifice which she could invent, to defer the period of her final decision. In the seventeenth year of her solitude, she imagined the device which is so indissolubly connected with her name, engaging to make a choice when she should have completed a web which she was then weaving as a funeral ornament for Laertes, Ulysses' father, now rapidly sinking to the grave. The suitors gladly accepted a proposal which seemed to promise a speedy termina- tion to their woes. But Penelope, assiduously unravelling at night what she had woven during the day, protracted for three years more the fatal moment. At the beginning of the fourth, a female attendant disclosed the pious treachery. These inci- dents are related by Homer in a speech placed in the mouth of Antinoiis, the most turbulent of the suitors. Telemachus had reproached them with riotous conduct, alleging that their prodi- gality had well-nigh drained the royal coffers. Antinoiis thus replied : " O insolence of youth ! whose tongue afTords Snch railing eloquence and war of words; Studious thy country's wortliies to defame, Thy erring voice proclaims thy mother's shame. Elusive of the bridal day, she gives Fond hope to all, and all with hopes deceives. Did not the sun, through heaven's wide azure roU'd, For three long years the royal fraud behold ? While she, laborious in delusion, spread 30 PENELOPE. The spacious loom and mixed tlie various tliread : When, as to life, the wondrous figures rise, Thus spoke th' inventive queen, witli artful sighs : 'Though cold in death Ulysses breathes no more, ' Cease yet awhile to urge the bridal hour ; ' Cease tUl to great Laertes I bequeath ' A task of grief, his ornaments of death. ' Lest when the Fates his royal ashes claim, ' The Grecian matrons taint my spotless fame ; ' When he whom, living, mighty realms obeyed, ' Shall want, in death, a shroud to grace his shade.' Thus she : at once the generous train complies, Nor fraud mistrusts in virtue's fair disguise. The work she plied, but studious of delay, By night revers'd the labors of the day. While thrice the sun his annual journey made. The conscious lamp the midnight fraud survey'd. Unheard, unseen, three years her arts prevail, The fourth, her maid unfolds th' amazing tale. We saw, as unperceiv'd we took our stand, The backward labors of her faithless hand. Then urg'd, she perfects her illustrious toils, A wondrous monument of female wiles!" Ill Ovid's "Epistles of the Heroines," is a letter from Pene- lope to Ulysses, in which, ignorant of the causes of his delay, she chides him for his prolonged absence, and with persuasive elo- quence entreats him to return : " Ulysses, thy Penelope sends this to thee, thus delaying. But write me nothing in answer : do thou come thyself. Troy, so hateful to the Grecian fair, doubtless lies prostrate ; hardly was Priam, and the wliole of Troy, of such great importance. Oh ! how I wish that at the time when he was making for Lace- daemon with his fleet, the adulterer had been overwhelmed in the raging waves ! Then I had not lain cold in a deserted bed, nor, forlorn, should I have complained that the days pass slowly on : the hanging web would not have wearied my widowed hands, as I seek to beguile the lingering night. " When have I not been dreading dangers more grievous PENELOPE. 31 than the reaUty? Love is a thing replete with anxious fears. Against thee did I fancy that the furious Trojans were rushing on ; at the name of Hector I was always pale But the righteous god had a regard for my chaste passion ; Troy has been reduced to ashes, and my husband survives. The Argive chieftains have returned ; the altars are smoking ; the spoils of the barbarians are offered to the gods of our country. The damsels newly married are presenting the gifts of gratitude for the safe return of their husbands ; the latter are celebrating the destinies of Troy overcome by their own. " But what avails me Ilion hurled down by thy arms, and that level ground which once was walls, if I remain just as I remained while Troy was flourishing, and if thou, my husband, art afar from me, to be lamented by me eternally ? Now 'tis a field of corn where once Troy stood ; and the ground, destined to be plied with the sickle, is rich, fattened with Phrygian blood. Victorious, thou art absent, and it is not granted to me to know what is the cause of thy delaying, or in what corner of the world, in thy cruelty, thou art concealed. Whoever steers his stranger bark to these shores, departs after having been asked by me many a question about thee ; and to him is intrusted the paper inscribed with my fingers for him to deliver to thee, if he should only see thee anywhere. " More to my advantage would the walls of Troy be standing even now. I should then know where thou art fighting, and warfare alone should I dread, and with those of many others would my complaints be joined. What to fear I know not ; still, bewildered, I dread everything ; and a wide field lies open for my apprehensions. Whatever dangers the sea presents, whatever the land, these I suspect to be the causes of a delay so prolonged. " While in my folly I am imagining these things, such is the inconstancy of you men, that thou mayest be captivated by some foreign beauty. Perhaps, too, thou mayest be telling how 32 PENELOPE. homely thy wife is, who minds only the spindle and the distaff. May I prove mistaken, and may this charge vanish into unsub- stantial air ; and mayest thou not, if free to return, still desire to be absent ! My father, Icarius, urges me to leave a widowed bed, and is always chiding thy protracted delay. Let him chide on ; thine I am, thy Penelope must I be called ; the wife of Ulysses wiU I ever be. Suitors from Dulychium, and Samos, and the lofty Zacynthus, a wanton crew, are besetting me ; and in thy palace do they rule, with no one to hinder them ; thy wealth, our very entrails, are they dissipating I have no strength to drive the enemy from thy abode ; come speedily, then, the refuge and sanctuary of thy family. " Thou hast, and long mayest thou have, a son, who in his tender years ought to have been trained to the virtues of his father. Think of Laertes ; that thou mayest close his eyes he still drags on the closing hours of his existence. I, no doubt, who was but a girl when thou didst depart, shall seem to have become an old woman, though thou shouldst return at once." Penelope, in the language thus attributed to her by Ovid, draws no exaggerated picture of the unseemly conduct of the aspirants to her favor. Their number, alone, would have been sufficient to render their cause odious to the fair object of their vows. The little island of Dulychium — one of a cluster to the west of the Peloponnesus — had contributed fifty-two, and Samos — now Cephalonia — twenty-four. They had gathered from all quarters of the insular realm of Ulysses, and from the adjacent isles which acknowledged his sway — in all, one hundred and eight. The names and characters of several of them have been preserved. Eurymachus and Antinous were the chief in i-ank, the former being the candidate preferred by Laertes above his rivals. One Medon, a herald, is mentioned as being personally disagreeable ; Irus, a beggar of Ithaca, seems to have based his claim upon his gigantic size ; Melanthius, Ulysses' goatherd, was admitted by the suitors among them, in view of the services PENELOPE. 33 he might render in supplying their table with the flesh of the royal flocks. Homer thus depicts their extravagance through the mouth of Telemachus : " Still through my conrt the noise of revel rings And wastes the wise frugality of Icings ; Scarce all my herds their luxury suffice, Scarce all my wine their midnight hours supplies ; Safe in my youth, in riot still thoy grow. Nor in the lielpless orphan dread a foe." Ulysses was not altogether unworthy of his wife and son. It is true that he lived eight years with the ocean nymph, Calypso, in her enclianted island Ortygia, but as he had no vessel or other means of getting away, he can hardly be blamed for remaining. Minerva called a council of the gods, and complained to Jupiter of Calypso's forced detention of the king of Ithaca. We have the authority of the goddess for asserting that the infidelity of Ulysses was totally beyond his control. She thus described his situation : " Sole in an isle, encircled by the main, Abandon'd, banish'd from his native reign ; Unblest he sighs, detain'd by lawless charms, And prest, unwilling, in Calypso's arms. Nor friends are there, nor vessel to convey, Nor oars to cut th' immeasurable way." Mercury was commissioned by Jupiter to proceed to Ortygia, and to communicate to Calypso the desire, nay the will, of the gods that Ulysses be released and furnished with the means of returning to his home. The conversation which ensued between them after the delivery of the message, sufficiently characterizes their respective situations : " Ulysses ! with a sigh slie thus began, O sprang from gods ! in wisdom more than man ! Is then thy home the passion of tliy heart ? Thus wilt thou leave mo ? Are we thus to part ? 5 34 PENELOPE. Farewell, and ever joyful mayst thon be — Nor break tlie transport with one thought of me. But oh ! Ulysses, wert thou given to know What fate yet dooms thee still to undergo. Thy heart might settle in this scene of ease. And e'en these slighted charms might learn to please. A willing goddess and immortal life Might banish from thy mind an absent wife. Am I inferior to a mortal dame ? Less soft my features, less august my frame ? Or shall the daughters of mankind compare Their earth-born beauties with the heavenly fair ?" Ulysses, deaf to these solicitations — for, as has been said, he had been eight years upon the island — thus in Homeric verse returned reply : " Lov'd and ador'd, O goddess, as thou art, Forgive the weakness of a human heart. Tho' well I see thy graces far above The dear, tho' mortal object of my love. Of youth eternal well the difference know, And the short date of fading charms below. Yet every day, while absent thus I roam, I languish to return and die at home." At last, after having once more suffered the horrors of shipwreck, Ulysses, guided by Minerva, set foot upon the coast of Ithaca. Yielding to the advice of the goddess, he consented to assume the guise of a beggar, that he might mingle with the throngs that swarmed about his palace, and witness for himself the wanton revels of the suitors : " A swift old ago o'er all his members spread ; A sudden frost was sprinkled on his head ; Nor longer in the heavy eyeball shin'd Tho glance divine, forth beaming from the mind. His robe, which spots indelible besmear, In rags dishonest flutters with the air. A stag's torn hide is lapt about his reins; A rugged stall' his trcmbluig hand sustains ; PENELOPE. 35 And at his side a wretched scrip was hung, Wide patch'd and knotted to a twisted thong. So look'd the chief, so mov'd ; to mortal eyes Object uncouth ! A man of miseries !" Thus disguised, Ulysses proceeded to the lodge of Eumasus, his faithful swineherd. He found the veteran engaged in making buskins, and in watching over the scarce four hundred poi'kers which remained, " doomed to supply the suitors' wasteful feast." Two of them, however, were destined to be put to a more legitimate use, for Eumgeus, compassionating the stranger's wretched plight, was moved to deeds of hospitality : " Straight to the lodgment of his herd he ran, Where the fat porkers slept beneath the sun. Of two his cutlass launch'd the spouting blood ; These quarter'd, sing'd, and fix'd on forks of wood. All hasty on the hissing coals he threw ; And, smoking, back the tasteful viands drew, Broachers and all : then on the board display'd The ready meal, before Ulysses laid. With flour imbrown'd ; next mingled wine yet new, And luscious as the bee's nectareous dew." The poet having thus embellished a prosaic theme — the cooking and serving of a pork steak — proceeds to treat a subject more obviously within the scope of his art — the meeting of father and son, and the manner in which Ulysses, at the behest of Minerva, discovered himself to Telemachus. They then con- sulted together upon the means they should employ to disperse or destroy the suitors. Telemachus was of opinion, that as they were but two, while the suitors numbered one hundred and eight, it was best to dispose of them singly. Ulysses was introduced to the palace in his beggar's garb ; his dog Argus recognized him in his tatters : " The dog, whom fate had granted to behold His lord, when twenty tedious years had roH'd, Takes a last look, and having seen him, dies ; So clos'd forever faithful Argus' eyes." 36 PENELOPE. Ulysses, in pursuance of the plan he had formed, stooped to beg at his own table, and to accept in grateful humility the morsels which the rioters gave him, at the same time taunting his poverty and his age. At last the mendicant wooer Irus, having forgotten himself so far as to wonder why he did not dash Ulysses' teeth out, the suitors proposed a fight, promising to stand neutral, and to be the arbiters of the fray. Ulysses, reserving half his strength, lest he might otherwise disclose the latent hero, dealt Irus a blow upon his jaw-bone, the effects of which are thus described : " Down dropp'd he stupid from the stunning wound ; His feet extended, quivering, heat the ground His mouth and nostrils spont a purple flood, Uis teeth, all shatter'd, rush immix'd with hlood. The peers transported, as outstretoh'd he lies, With hursts of laughter rend the vaulted skies." Penelope, who rarely gratified the train of aspirants by her presence, was induced by her maids to descend during the sojourn of Ulysses. They besought her to appear bathed, anointed and adorned : "Ah me, forhear, returns the queen, forhear; Oh, talk not, talk not of vain heauty's care ; No more I hathe, since he no longer sees Those charms, for whom alone I wisli to please ; The day that hore Ulysses from this coast, Blasted the little hloom these cheeks could hoast ; But instant hid Autonoe descend. Instant llippodame our steps attend ; 111 suits it female virtue to he seen Alone, indecent, in the walks of men. Then while Eurynome the mandate hears, From llcavon Minerva shoots with guardian cares ; O'er all her senses, as her couch she prest. She pours a pleasing, deep and death-like rest: With every heauty every feature arms, Bids her cheeks glow, aud lights up all her charms ; PENELOPE. 37 In her love-darting eyes awakes tlio fires — Immortal gifts I to kindle soft desires — From limb to limb an air majestic sheds, And the pure ivory o'er her bosom spreads." Ulysses witnessed the interview which succeeded between his queen and the one hundred and eight. She did not hesitate to reproach them with their unusual style of wooing, which consisted in consuming the substance of her whose heart they sought to win : " Careless to please, with insolence ye woo ! The generous lovers, studious to succeed, Bid their whole herds and flocks in banquets bleed ; By precious gifts the vow sincere display ; You, only yon, make her ye love your prey. Well pleased Ulysses hears his queen deceive The suitor train, and raise a thirst to give ; False hopes she kindles, but these hopes betray, And promise, yet elude, the bridal day." The suitors, whose generosity was thus stimulated, laid their several offerings at the feet of their unwilling hostess. These hardly seem to have been of a value proportionate to the ardor of their suit ; indeed they were far from presenting an equivalent for the forced entertainment they had wrung from the reluctant household. Antinoiis gave a robe of shining dyes, with twelve gold clasps ; Eurymachus, an amber bracelet set in gold, and a pair of ear-rings, tremulous with the flickering light of triple stars ; Pisander, a necklace wrought with art. The poet pursues , the shabby inventory no farther, merely adding, in a general way, that : " Every peer, expressive of his heart, A gift bestows." Penelope, compelled at last to fix a term to her widowhood, and forced to choose from the one hundred and eight, was 38 PENELOPE. inspired by Minerva with an idea of Olympian origin. She thus addressed the suitor train in the hearing of Ulysses : " Say you, whom these forbidden walls inclose, For whom my victims bleed, my vintage flows, If these neglected, faded charms can move. Or is it but a vain pretence, you love ? If I the prize, if me you seek to wife. Hear the conditions and commence the strife : Who first Ulysses' wondrous bow shall bend. And through twelve ringlets the fleet arrow send, Him will I follow, and forsake my home. For him forsake this lov'd, this wealthy dome. Long, long the scene of all my past delight, And stUl to last the vision of my night !" The bow of Ulysses was taken from the massive case in which it had so long reposed ; and a coffer containing six brass and as many silver rings was brought upon the ground. Pene- lope sat, veiled, in the portal of the palace, with a handmaid on either side, watching the progress of the tilt. Leiodes, a priest, and the only suitor whose conscience smote him for the un- worthy part he was enacting, was the first to whom the trial fell. After indulging the reflection, that it would be far better " With some humble wife to live, Whom gold should gain or'destiny should give," he rejected the bow and abandoned the contest. From hand to hand passed the sturdy weapon. One hundred and five of the suitors tugged in vain at its rebellious string ; none remained but Eurymachus and Antinoiis. Attributing a portion of its resist- ance to the inertia acquired in twenty years' repose, they resolved to try the effect of a little lubrication. A pile was prepared and set on fire : "With melted lard they soak tlie weapon o'er. Chafe every knot, and sn])ple every pore. Vain all their art, and all their strength as vain. The bow inflexible resists their pain." PENELOPE. 39 Thus discomfited, tliey suddenly remembered that the day was sacred to Apollo, and ascribed their failure to the anger of the god at the neglect of his anniversary. So they resolved to postpone the trial till the morrow, and spend the remainder of the day in sacrifice and wassail. In the meantime, Ulysses requested permission to essay the reluctant instrument. The suitors scoffingly consented, mocking at his withered arm and shrunken muscle : " And now his well-known bow the master bore, Turn'd on all sides, and view'd it o'er and o'er, Lest time or worms had done the weapon wrong. Its owner absent, and untried so long. While some deriding — How he turns the bow ! Some other like it sure the man must know, Or else would copy ; or in bows he deals ; Perhaps he makes them, or perhaps he steals. Heedless he heard them, but disdain'd reply. The bow perusing with exactest eye. From his essaying hand the string let fly, Twang'd short and sharp, like the shrill swallow's cry. A general horror i-an through all the race. Sick was each heart and pale was every face ; Signs from above ensued : th' unfolding sky In lightning burst ; Jove thundered from on high. Fir'd at the call of Heaven's Almighty Lord, He suatch'd the shaft that glitter'd on the board : Then, sitting as he was, the cord he drew. Through every ringlet levelling his view ; Then notch'd the shaft, releas'd and gave it wiug. The whizzing arrow vanished from the string. Sung on direct, and threaded every ring. The solid gate its fury scarcely bounds, Pierc'd thro' and thro', the solid gate resounds. Then fierce the hero o'er the threshold strode; Stript of his rags, he blazed out like a god!" Ulysses commenced the slaughter of the suitors by the death of Antinolis, who, at the moment of raising a goblet and drawing a long breath, in order to drain it at a draught, received the second 40 PENELOPE. arrow of the quiver full in his throat. Eurymachus, who now deplored that privilege of birth which had placed him next in rank to Antinoiis, and naturally entitled him to be disposed of in his turn, proposed a compromise to Ulysses. He acknow- ledged the errors of the suitors, and was disposed to confess the whole amount of the wrongs the king had sustained in his despoiled palace and exhausted land. Still, he was of the opinion that Antinoiis was responsible for all the depredations which the other suitors, his inferiors, had committed ; and Antinoiis, he said, had paid the forfeit of his crimes. He sug- gested that Ulysses restrain his indignation, and permit the one hundred and seven to defray the expenses they had occasioned, by gifts of brass, gold and treasures ; adding, that each prince would be glad to add a bonus of two hundred oxen ; thus, he urged, the waste of years would be refunded in a day. Ulysses spurned the bribe, and pierced Eurymachus incontinently through the liver. Anphinomus, slain by Telemachus, was the third victim. The suitors, aided by Melanthius, having ransacked the royal magazine, and confident in their immense superiority of numbers, combined against the mad archer and his presumptuous son. Ulysses, Telemachus and Euma3us, contended with varying success against these fearful odds. At length, Minerva, descend- ing in the friendly form of Mentor, joined the Ithacensian forces. Javelins and arrows rained thick and fast ; Minerva turned the shafts of the enemy aside with her breath, and they fell harmless and spent, short and wide of the mark. Not so those of the Ithacans : the bulletin of the fight, compiled by Homer from official records, suggests to the reader an early Jacquerie or a classic St. Bartholomew. Agelaus, Eurynomus, Pisander, Am- phimedon, Polybus, Demoptolemus, Elatus, Eurydamus, Ctesip- pus, Damastorides, Leocritus, Leiodes, in turn met their doom ; in short, one hundred and six out of one hundred and eight. Phemius, a poet, and Medon, the herald of unprepossessing appearance, alone were spared : PENELOPE. 41 " Witli timorous awe, From the dire scene tli' exempted two withdraw, Scarce sure of life, look round and trembling move To the bright altar of Protector Jove. Meanwhile Ulysses search'd the dome, to find If yet there live of all th' offending kind. Not one ! complete the bloody task he found. All steep'd in blood, all gasping on the ground." Penelope, during the progress of the fight, lay wrapped m sleep. Euryclea awoke her with the glad tidings of the return of the hero and the destruction of the suitors. The queen listened with incredulity, and even when brought into the presence of her lord, refused to believe : " Amaz'd she sat, and impotent to speak. O'er all the man her eyes she rolls in vain ; Now hopes, now fears, now know.«, now doubts again. At length Telemachus — Oh, who can find A woman like Penelope unkind I Why thus in silence ? why, with winning charms, Thus slow to fly with rapture to his .arms ? Stubborn the breast that with no transport glows, When twice ten years are past of mighty woes ; To softness lost, to spousal love unknown. The gods have formed that rigid heart of stone!" Penelope's distrust, however, was not altogether without reason : Ulysses was still dressed in his beggar's garb, and the frosts of threescore years and ten lay cold and white upon his brow. Twenty years was indeed a long time, but it would hardly explain such a transformation as this. So Minerva recalled her spell, and Ulysses shone forth in the splendor of his royalty and his manhood : 'The warrior goddess gives his frame to shine, With majesty enlarg'd and grace divine ; Back from his brows in wavy ringlets fly His thick large locks, of hyacinthine dye." G 42 PENELOPE. Penelope believed at last ; and she fell upon Ulysses' neck and wept. This, the poet tells us, was in the evening ; and he adds that the night which followed, was an unusually protracted one, inasmuch "As Pallas backward held the rising day, The wheels of night retai-ding." Here, in the twenty-third book of the Odyssey, the story of Penelope ends. The daughter of Icarius was more fortunate in death than in life : she fovmd a historian in Homer ; an editor in Ovid ; and in Fenelon a biographer for her son. But Penelope would have lived forever without either the poet or the archbishop : an assertion which we shall soon have occasion to sustain inferentially, in showing how three ungrammatical lines of an inferior Roman annalist have con- ferred immortality upon Cornelia, a sister heroine. CORNELIA. One thousand years have passed ; the lapse of centuries carries us from Ithaca to Latiiyn ; we glide from mythology into history, citing Plutarch where we lately quoted Homer ; our theme no longer the Greek Penelope, but the Roman Corneha, Scipio Africanus her father, and the two Gracchi her sons. Cornelia was the youngest of the four children of Scipio Africanus the Elder and Emilia his wife. She was born one hundred and eighty-nine years before Christ. No details have reached us of her early life ; we are briefly informed that upon the death of Scipio, the friends of the family, in selecting a hus- band for the peerless Cornelia, fixed their choice upon Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, a tribune of the people, and until lately an enemy of Africanus. He had, however, in the crisis of Sci- pio's fortunes, separated himself from his colleagues, and forget- ting his private resentment, made a vigorous and, as the event proved, successful effort in behalf of his political foe. This graceful and honorable act was rewarded by the hand of Cor- nelia, and the marriage took place one hundred and sixty-nine years before Christ, the bride being in her twentieth year. The union was a happy one, and Cornelia was twelve times a mother. Tiberius was once honored with the censorship, and 44 COKNELIA. twice with the consulate. The care of the household and the education of the family devolved wholly upon Cornelia, and she acquitted herself of the duties in a manner which has elicited the admiration of the world. She maintained in herself and trans- mitted to her sons the grand and severe virtues of her father. She had inherited from Scipio a love for the arts and for litera- ture, and her letters, which were extant in the time of Quin- tilian — two hundred years afterwards — were often cited with praise by him and by Cicero. It has been intimated by the French historian Rollin, that Cornelia did not bear her honors meekly, and that she placed an undue estimate upon herself and her family. He cites a passage from Juvenal as his authority for this opinion. But it is appa- rent from the text, that the satirist intended no such insinu- ation : • "Malo Vennsinam quam te, Cornelia, mater Gracchorum, si, cum magnis virtutibus, affers Grande supercilium, et numeras in dote triumphos." The meaning evidently is, that he would prefer a Venusian village girl to Cornelia, if, with her transcendent virtues, the mother of the Gracchi brought a supercilious brow and boastful tongue. Dryden's paraphrase clearly shows that Juvenal's lines arc not to be understood in a reproachful sense : " Some country girl, scarce to a curtsey bred, Would I much rather than Cornelia wed, If, supercilious, lianghty, proud and vain. She brought her father's triumphs in her train." Cornelia's happiness was now violently interrupted. Tibe- rius, according to a legend which Cicei'o and Plutarch think not unworthy of record, found, on awaking one morning, a pair of serpents upon his bed. He narrated the circumstance to the soothsayers, asking their interpretation of the prodigy. They considered the matter, and finally reported as follows : The COKNELIA. 45 serpents were, in their opinion, prophetic, and their appearance together could not he regarded in any other hght than that of an omen. If Tiberius killed the male, his death, they said, wovdd be the consequence : if he killed the female, he would lose his wife Cornelia. With that peculiar obtuseness which seems to be a besetting and inevitable weakness in the minds of those con- sulting oracles or interpreting omens, Tiberius did not perceive the possibility of releasing both the serpents and of killing neither- — thus preserving the life of his wife without sacrificing his own. Convinced, however, of the existence of a dilemma, and believing that an alternative alone was left him, he thought within himself that he was much older than Cornelia, and conse- quently, in the order of nature, nearer the close of his career ; he reflected that the children had more need of their mother by whom they had been reared, than of their father whom they rarely saw, and concluded that it was more suitable for him to die than for her. He therefore killed the male serpent, and soon after perished, leaving his twelve sons and daughters to the care of Cornelia. Though deeply bowed by this affliction, the widow gave her whole soul to the augmented duties which now devolved upon her. In her prosperity, she had excited admiration ; in her ad- versity, she won the love and respect of the nation. All who knew her acknowledged that Tiberius had acted wisely in choos- ing to die for so excellent a woman. During her widowhood she lost nine children by successive bereavements, devoting her- self, however, with increased assiduity to the instruction of those who remained. She was left, at last, with one daughter, Sem- pronia, and two sons, Tiberius and Caius. She seems to have concentrated upon these two boys the tenderness which she had before shared with their brothers, and to have bestowed upon the culture of their minds the most affectionate care ; so that, although they possessed all the advantages of an illustrious birth and name, and were endowed with the happiest gifts of genius 46 CORNELIA. and disposition, education was allowed to have contributed more to their perfections than nature. The historians of Rome have given undue importance to Cornelia's refusal of a crown, which one of the Ptolemies of Egypt offered her, together with his hand and a seat upon his throne. The offer was not one which she would have been likely to accept, as the king who made it — and who can have been no other than Ptolemy Physco — was in every way unworthy of her. He was one of the most brutal tyrants mentioned in history ; his body was so swollen and bloated by intemperance, that he was unable to walk, and never appeared before his subjects, unless mounted upon a chariot and supported by trusses and other ingenious devices. Cornelia must be supposed to have been fully acquainted with his infirmities, as Publius Scipio, afterwards known as Africanus the Younger, and the husband of her daughter Sempronia, had been sent by the Romans upon an embassy to Alexandria, where he had dined in the palace of the king, and had been a daily witness of his excesses. It is attributing an unreason- able influence to royal grandeur, to imagine it capable of perverting the judgment of a woman like Corneha, or to sup- pose her to have exercised self-denial in declining the proffer- ed honor. The reply of Cornelia to a wealthy lady of Campania, who requested to see her jewels, is the most memorable incident in her career. Adroitly turning the conversation upon subjects likely to interest and detain her visitor, till Tiberius and Caius came home from school, she said, as they entered the room, "These are my jewels!" Probably no character was ever so clearly drawn in so few words ; no delineation can possibly add to it ; if notliing were known of Corneha but* tliis one speech, the historian would still find it a sufficient basis upon which to construct the whole character. The three obscure lines in which Valerius Maximus narrates the anecdote, CORNELIA. 47 introducing it merely as an incidental illustration of his subject in his discourse De Paupertate, have probably been as often translated, as widely repeated, and as deeply reflected upon, as any other three which have been left us by the writers of antiquity. There was a difference of nine years in the ages of Tiberius and Caius ; they attained their political ascendency, therefore, at different periods. Had they flourished together and acted in concert, their power would doubtless have been irresistible. Their separation in time was a serious disadvantage, and probably prevented their success. Tiberius enjoyed a high reputation for virtue, sobriety, temperance, at an age when youth is looked upon as an excuse, or at least a palliation, for idleness and vice. He was admitted to the college of Augurs, as a compliment to his character rather than in recognition of his birth. An anecdote of the period shows in what esteem he was held, and what fruits the careful nurture of his mother had already borne : Appius Claudius, who had been both censor and consul, and whose honorable discharge of his duties had since raised him to the rank of President of the Senate, was one evening taking supper with the Augurs ; he conversed a long time with Tiberius, and towards the end of the entertainment, offered him his daughter Claudia in marriage. Tiberius, who must be presumed to have been acquainted with the lady, accepted the proposal with joy and alacrity. Appius went immediately home to communicate the tidings to his wife. " Antistia, my love," he said, on entering the house, " I have contracted our daughter Claudia." Antistia, surprised and perhaps vexed at her husband's omission to consult her upon so momentous a subject, exclaimed, " Why so suddenly? I cannot conceive why you should act thus hastily, unless, indeed, Tiberius Gracchus be the man you have pitched upon !" The worthy matron was doubtless conciliated by the reply that it was no other than 48 CORNELIA. Tiberius — a choice which neither required reflection on the part of the mother, nor involved hesitation on that of the daughter. Cornelia had, in the meantime, married her only daughter, Sempronia, to Pubhus ^mihanus, who bore, at a later period, the title of Scipio Africanus the Younger, obtaining that of Scipio by adoption into the family, and that of Africanus by the de- struction of Carthage. Tiberius served for a time under him in Africa, and dwelt beneath the same tent. He excelled all of his age in valor, at the same time bearing himself with such modesty that none of his rivals could take offence. He was be- loved by the whole army, and universally regretted when he quitted it. Scipio's glory and popularity being continually upon the in- crease, a portion of his fame was reflected upon the family which had adopted him. Cornelia, the daughter of one Scipio, heard herself styled, in eulogistic phrase, the mother-in-law of another. Her maternal pride was wounded at the reflection that the glory of the father had not been perpetuated in her sons, but had been diverted into another hne, and she reproached Tiberius and Caius that she was called the mother-in-law of Scipio, not the mother of the Gracchi. Whether to this reproach is to be attri- buted the rashness and indiscretion of her sons, in their zeal to achieve a hasty fame, it would be impossible now to decide ; his- torians have generally chosen to trace a connection between the dissatisfaction of Cornelia and the turbulent measures which at once marked her sons' accession to power and precijjitated their faU. Upon the appointment of Tiberius to the office of tribune of the people, he embarked in an enterprise having for its object the restoration to the poor of their share in the public lands. It had formerly been the custom of the Romans, when they acquired land by conquest from their neighbors, to add a part of it to the national domains, and to let the remainder, at low rates, to necessitous citizens. But this custom had of late fallen into CORNELIA. 49 disuse, the rich having obtained a voice in public affairs which enabled them to exclude the poor, except upon the payment of exorbitant sums. The consequence was the ruin of the agricul- tural classes, and a deai'th, even in the rich grazing districts of Tuscany, of husbandmen and shepherds. The land they should have tilled was occupied by foreign slaves and barbarians, who, after the natives were dispossessed, cultivated it for the rich. Tiberius, inflamed by the people's enthusiasm in his behalf, by the writings which they posted on the public monuments, walls and porticoes, urging him to action, drew up the bill which was to relieve them. It was simply a revival of the Lex Licinia. which prohibited any one from possessing more than five hun- dred acres of land. Its provisions were mild in the extreme ; those who had accumulated more land than was permitted, receiving indemnity on giving up their claims, instead of incur- ring punishment for their infringement of the law. The people were content that no reprisals should be taken for the past, if they might be protected against future usurpations. The rich, and a large majority of the senate, resisted the pas- sage of the law. They induced Tiberius' colleague in the tri- buneship to oppose it. Tiberius plead daily for the poor, upon the rostrum, in persuasive language. " The wild beasts of Italy," he said, "have their caves to retire to, but the brave men who spill their blood in her cause have nothing left but air and light. Without houses, without any settled habitation, they wander from place to place with their wives and children ; and their generals do but mock them, when at the head of their armies, they exhort their men to fight for their sepulchres and domestic gods ; for among the whole vast number, there is not, perhaps, a Roman who has an altar that belonged to his ances- tors, or a sepulchre in which their ashes rest." Incensed by the opposition of his colleague Octavius, Tibe- rius dropped the moderate bill which he had hitherto urged, and proposed another, more severe upon the rich, inasmuch as it 7 50 CORNELIA. required them immediately to abandon the lands which they held m defiance of the unrepealed, though unenforced, Licinian law. He forbade all other magistrates to exercise their functions till the agrarian laws were passed. He put his own seal upon the doors of llio Temple of Saturn, thus suspending the operations of the pubhc treasury. AU the departments of the government were at once brought to a stand. The rich dressed in mourning, that they might excite the compassion of the public ; failing in this, they suborned assassins, and plotted the murder of Tiberius. The latter now resolved to remove Octavius from the tri- buueship ; it was evident the law could not otherwise be passed. He first addressed him in public, taking him by the hand, and conjuring him to satisfy the legitimate demands of the people. Octavius refused to comply. Tiberius then said it was evident that one of them must be deposed, and suggested that Octavius propose his — Tiberius' — removal to the thirty-five tribes of voters ; promising to retire from office, if his fellow-citizens so wUled it. Octavius refused ; whereupon Tiberius proposed the removal of his colleague. When eighteen of the thirty-five tribes had voted for his expulsion, Tiberius ordered him to be dragged from the tribunal. He filled the vacancy by appointing one Mutius, a man of little note ; the agrarian law was then jjassed ; three commissioners were selected to survey the lauds in dispute, and to superintend their distribution. The senate and the patricians were deeply exasperated by these proceedings, while the people were no less indignant at the senate's dissatisfaction. One of the friends of Tiberius died sud- denly, and mahgnant spots appeared upon the body, suggesting the presence of poison. This suspicion was confirmed by what occurred at the burning of the corpse. It burst, and emitted such a quantity of vapor and corruption that it extinguished the fire. Fresh wood was brought, but it was with difficulty that the body was consumed. Upon this, Tiberius put on mourning, and leading his children to the forum, commended them and their COENELIA. 51 mother to the lorotection of the people — thus intimating that he gave up his own hfe for lost. At this juncture, Attains, king of Pergamus, died, constitut- ing the Roman people his sole heir. Tiberius, seeking to avail himself of this incident, proposed that all the money found in the treasury of Attains should be distributed among the people, to enable them to purchase tools with which to cultivate the lands lately assigned them. This still further offended the senate, and one of that body accused Tiberius of aspiring to the title of king ; and even asserted that the messenger from Pergamus had brought him the diadem of Attalus, for his use when seated upon the throne. Stung by this unjust charge, Tiberius resolved to lower still further the pride and authority of the senate : he prepared and proposed several laws in this view. The people assembled in the capitol, and Tiberius, though much discouraged by a dream and an omen, which seemed to forebode disaster, set forward to join them. On his arrival, the people expressed their joy in acclamations, forming a circle about him to protect him from rough treatment. He was secretly informed that the senators and others of the landed interest had resolved upon his assassination, and for that pur- pose had armed themselves, their friends and slaves. Tiberius and his adherents tucked up their gowns and prepared for combat. Their friends at a distance, not understanding the nature of this movement, asked what it meant. Tiberius lifted his hands to his head, to indicate that his hfe was in danger. His adversaries, interpreting this gesture to suit their own pur- poses, ran to the senate, announcing that he had demanded the crown. The senators, headed by one Nasica, and armed with the clubs and bludgeons which their servants had brought, made towards Tiberius, felling those who stood in their way. His friends being either killed or dispersed, Tiberius fled, but in his flight stumbled over the prostrate body of one of his party. Upon attempting to rise, he was struck by Publius Satureius 52 CORNELIA. with the leg of a chair ; the second and fatal blow was dealt by Lucius Rufus, who afterwards pubUcly boasted of the exploit. Three hundred persons perished in this sedition, the first in which Roman blood had been shed since the expulsion of Tarquin. This digression, involving the fate of Tiberius, is essential to our story, showing, as it does, under what circumstances Cornelia was called upon to part with her tenth child, and the eldest of those whom she had styled her jewels. She claimed the body of her son, sending Caius to entreat the senators that it might be secretly taken away and buried in the night. They refused the request, ordering the corpse to be thi'own into the Tiber, with the carcasses of the three hundred traitors who had fallen in his cause. The mother bore the dispensation with a magnanimity which endeared her more than ever to the people ; and upon the accession to the tribunate of her last son, Caius, they erected a statue to her, with this inscription : Cornelia, the Mother of the Gracchi. Among the laws which Caius, as tribune, caused to be passed for the benefit of the people, was one regulating the markets and the price of breadstuffs ; another, relative to a distribution of public lands ; and still another, depriving the senatorial order of the judicial authority, and investing the equestrian order with it exclusively. As the people empowered him to select the three hundred judges himself, he became, in a manner, possessed of the sovereign power. He sent out colonies, constructed roads, and built public granaries. He went about, followed by throngs of architects, artificers, ambassadors, magistrates and officers. The senators, who both hated and feared him, could not refrain from admiring his amazing industry, and the energy and rapid- ity with which he effected his reforms. The senate having decided upon the rel)uilding of Carthage, which had been lately destroyed by Scipio, Caius sailed to CORNELIA. 53 superintend the labor of reconstriiction and colonization. Dur- ing his absence, his colleague, Livius Drusus, Avho was in league with the senate to weaken his hold upon the people, made such concessions to the multitude, taking pains to assure them that they came from the senate, that Caius, informed of the scheme and of its probable success, returned hastily from Africa. But the people, cloyed with indulgence, welcomed him with dimin- ished favor, and it was obvious that his influence was already upon the decline. Lucius Opimius was now elected consul, and in his hatred of Caius, set about repealing several of his laws and annulling his measures at Carthage, hoping by these annoyances to incite him to some act of violence which would justify a sentence of banishment. He bore this treatment for a long time with patience, but at last, irritated beyond endurance, he collected his partisans and prepared for resistance. It is asserted that Cornelia encouraged him in this course, and even enrolled a large number of men and sent them into Rome in the disguise of reapers. Her letters which, as we have said, were extant two hundred years after her death, are said to have contained enigmatical allusions to this circumstance. Both parties posted themselves in the capitol on the morning of the day in which the vote was to be taken upon the repeal of Caius' laws. An acci- dental collision resulted in the death of a lictor, Quintus Antyl- lius, whose insolent conduct, however, at such a period of ex- citement, furnished a sufficient motive for his destruction. Caius deeply regretted the occurrence, being well aware that he had given his enemies the pretext they desired. Opimius rejoiced at the opportunity and foresaw an easy triumph. A heavy rain kept the combatants for a time apart ; Caius, as he returned home, stopped before his father's statue, giving vent to his sorrow in sighs and tears. Many of the people, moved to com- passion, accompanied him to his house and passed the night before his door, keeping watch and taking rest by turns. 54 COENELIA. His partisans assembled the next morning upon the Aventine Hill, under the command of one Fulvius, a man of factious life, and for several just reasons, offensive to the senate. Caius was present in his toga, and unarmed, except with a small dagger. An ambassador was sent to Opimius in the fonmi, proposing terms of accommodation. He returned with the answer that criminals could not be allowed to treat by heralds, but should surrender themselves to justice before they interceded for mercy. The same herald was sent a second time, but as he made proposals in all respects identical with the first, he was detained. Opimius now offered pardon to all who should aban- don Gracchus ; the unhappy tribune was gradually deserted by his forces till he was left defenceless and at the mercy of the consul. Opimius led his men to the Aventine, and fell upon the remnant of the disaffected army with ungovernable fury. Three thousand Koman citizens were slain upon the spot. Caius took refuge with a single servant in a grove sacred to the Furies ; the servant, yielding to his master's entreaties, pierced him with his sword, and then killed himself at his side. The enemy came up, and having cut off the head of Gracchus, marched off with it as a trophy. Opimius had offered a reward for his head ; the sum to be paid was to depend upon its weight. Septimuleius, one of Caius' bosom friends, having obtained possession of it and car- ried it home, removed the brains, pouring melted lead into the cavity. The consul, without testifying surprise at the unusual weight, a circumstance which was hardly to be looked for even in a son of Cornelia, paid the stipulated sum in gold — seventeen pounds by the scales. With Caius Gracchus perished the freedom of Rome. The Republic had long been verging to its fall : one century more, and Augustus Ca3sar mounted the imperial throne. By the death of Caius, Cornelia became virtually childless ; her only surviving daughter, Sempronia, being, to a certain extent, alienated by the disapproval, openly expressed by her husband Africanus, of the measures which had brought ruin CORNELIA. 65 upon her brothers. She took up her residence at Misenum, upon a promontory overlooking the lovely expanse of water now known as the bay of Naples. She made no change in her mode of life, keeping her house always open, and her table always ready for purposes of hospitahty. The kings in alliance with Rome expressed their regard by the frequent offer of presents. She was surrounded by men of letters, in whose society she was glad to pass her declining years. The afflictions and bereavements which she had suffered, so far from being forbidden themes, were the subjects upon which she best loved to converse. She often spoke of her father Africanus, delighting her listeners by descriptions of his private life and his domestic virtues. It was he, she said, who first uttered the sentiment that he was never so much occupied as when he had nothing to do, and never in such good company as when left to himself. She spoke of her sons without a sigh or a tear ; they had been killed on consecrated ground, and the spots upon which they fell were monuments worthy of them. She recounted their actions and their martyrdom, as if they had been heroes in ancient story. Her magnanimity and resignation passed with many for insensibility and indifference ; they imagined, says Plutarch, that age and the magnitude of her misfortunes- had deprived her of understanding. But, he adds, those who were of that opinion seem rather to have wanted understanding themselves ; since they knew not how much a noble mind may, by a liberal education, be enabled to sustain itself against distress. Though two thousand years have passed since the occurrence of these events, the student of classic history can hardly recur, in thought, to this second period of the Roman annals, without, as it were, involuntarily recaUing to mind, as types of its virtues and witnesses to its greatness, the members of the illustrious family whose fortunes we have sketched — Scipio, Cornelia, and the Gracchi. ZE^OBIA. Tadmor in the Wilderness, called Palmyra by the Greeks and llomans, originally founded by Solomon in a fertile oasis of the Arabian desert, and whose site was surrounded for many days' journey by barren, solitary wilds, seems to have served, in the earliest days of commerce, as a commercial station between Tyre and Babylon, and by its springs of fresh water, its groves of palm trees and its fruitful soil, to have become the halting-place of caravans and the resort of traders and spice merchants. It was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, and rebuilt during a period when the historians and chroniclers had withdrawn their atten- tion from this desert quarter of the globe. Pliny is the fii'st writer who mentions it after its destruction by the Jews, and says of it, that "it is remarkable for situation, a rich soil and plea- sant streams. It is surrounded on aU sides by a vast sandy desert, which totally separates it from the rest of the world ; it has preserved its independence between the two great empires of Kome and Parthia, whose first care, when at war, is to en- gage it in their interest." The city thus restored, and thus neutral, soon rose to opulence, till, upon the conquest of Central Asia by Trajan, it submitted to the Roman yoke, and, though a colony in name, remained for one hundred and fifty years 8 " 58 Z E N B I A . in peaceful possession of many of the advantages it had enjoyed while a republic. The few Palmyrenian inscriptions which are now extant, seem to indicate that the magnificent temples, por- ticoes, and colonnades of Corinthian and Ionic architecture, whose ruins form at this day so magnificent and yet melan- choly a spectacle, were built during this period of Roman sway. In the year 260 of our era, the Emperor Valerian, dreading the effects of Persian ambition, crossed tlie Euphrates and attacked Sapor, the Persian king ; encountering an army near the waUs of Edessa, he was vanquished and taken prisoner. At this juncture, Odenatus, an opulent senator of Palmyra, who had so far turned the waning fortunes of the Romans in the East to his own account, as to have obtained the balance of power between Rome and Persia, was led by an act of insolence on the part of Sapor warmly to espouse the quarrel of the Romans. Upon the submission of Valerian, he had sent the conqueror a present of a well-laden train of camels, accompanied by a respectful though by no means servile epistle. "Who is this Odenatus ?" asked Sapor, at the same time ordering the rare gifts with which the camels were burdened to be thrown into the Euphrates^" who is he, that he thus presumes to write to his lord ? If he entertains a hope of mitigating his punishment, let him faU prostrate before the foot of our throne, with his bauds bound behind his back. Should he hesitate, swift destruction shall be poured on his head, on his whole race, and on his country." Odenatus, naturally indignant, collected an army from the villages and tents of the desert, joined the scattered remnants of the Roman legions in Syria, and so harassed the retreat of the Persian host, that on subsequently joining battle with Sapor, he easily routed him, and advanced even as far as the gates of Ctesiphon, his capital. Valerian died in chains, and his son Gallienus succeeded to the throne. He acknow- ledged the debt due to Odenatus, and with the consent of the senate, and amid the applause of the people, bestowed upon ZEN OB I A. 59 him the associate title of Augustus. The government of the East seemed to be thus tacitly conferred upon Odenatus, and "for a while," says Gibbon, "Palmyra stood forth the rival of Rome : but the competition was fatal, and ages of prosperity were sacrificed to a moment of glory." Previous to his elevation, Odenatus had mai'ried a beautiful and accomplished woman, Zenobia Septimia. Of this remarka- ble heroine the historian just quoted thus speaks, upon the authority of Trebellius PoUio, who was contemporary with her : "Modern Europe has produced several illustrious women who have sustained with glory the weight of empire ; nor is our own age destitute of such distinguished characters ; but if we except the doubtful achievements of Semiramis, Zenobia is, per- haps, the only female whose superior genius broke through the servile indolence imposed on her sex by the climate and man- ners of Asia. She claimed her descent from the Macedonian kings of Egypt, equalled in beauty her ancestor Cleopatra, and far surpassed that princess in chastity and valor. Zenobia was esteemed the most lovely as well as the most heroic of her sex. She was of a dark complexion — for in speaking of a lady these trifles become important — her teeth were of a pearly whiteness, and her large black eyes sparkled with uncommon fire, tempered by the most attractive sweetness. Her voice was strong and harmonious. Her manly understanding was strengthened and adorned by study ; she was not ignorant of the Latin tongue, but possessed in equal perfection the Greek, the Syriac, and the Egyptian languages. She had drawn up for her own use an epitome of Oriental history, and familiai'ly compared the beauties of Homer and Plato, under the tuition of the sublime Longinus." Zenobia had accompanied Odenatus in his expedition against the Persian monarch, and was with him at the gates of Ctesi- phon. To her fortitude and prudence is attributed a large portion of this and of his subsequent successes. She accustomed herself to fatigue, usually rode on horseback clad in military CO Z E N OB I A. attire, and sometimes led the troops on foot. She often har- angued the army, her fine head surmounted by a helmet of fur, her breast covered with a coat of mail, and her arms left bare, that she might more freely use them in gesture. At such moments, her severe beauty reminded the spectator of the Minerva of the Greeks. In peace, she attended Odenatus in his favorite pursuit of hunting, and hurled the javelin at the lions and panthers of the desert with as much courage and the same skill as he. When Odenatus became the colleague of the Roman Augustus, Zenobia suffered her ambition to outrun her judgment, and she looked forward to the moment when, arrayed in the imperial purple, she should dwell in the palace of the Caesars. In the year 264, Odenatus resolved upon a second expedition against the Persians ; in this he was so successful that he sent captive to Rome a large number of generals and satraps, whom the profligate Gallienus forced to appear at the inglorious triumph which, at his own instigation, was decreed him by the senate. Odenatus reached a second time the walls of Ctesiphon, but was compelled hurriedly to raise the siege, that he might hasten to repel an invasion of the Goths, who had already covered the Black Sea with their vessels and Asia Minor with their tents. After a successful excursion against these formidable foes, he returned to Emesa in Syria. Here, in the year 267, he fell a victim to assassination, his nephew, Mceonius, in revenge for a slight punishment inflicted upon him by Odenatus, having slain him at a banquet, assuming, imme- diately afterwards, his title and his authority. A son of Odenatus by a previous marriage, Ouorodes or Herod, perished with him. Zenobia avenged her husband's massacre by ordering her soldiers to put the assassin Moeonius to death — a command which they eagerly obeyed, as his brief possession of the imperial honors had disgusted the camp with him and his pretensions. A trivial circumstance and an ingenious train of reasoning, have forced upon the minds of several historians the suspicion ZEN OB I A. 61 that Zenobia was herself not innocent of the death of her hus- band. Their argument is as follows : Odenatus had a son by a previous marriage, Herod ; Zenobia, a widow at the time of her union with Odenatus, also had a son, Vabalatus ; two sons, Timolaiis and Herennianus, and several daughters were the off- spring of both. Odenatus manifested an extreme partiality for Herod, whom he intended for his successor, and who is described as a luxurious and worthless prince, and upon whose blind indulgence by his father, Zenobia is said to have looked with jealous eyes. Her ambition for herself, and her aspirations for her own sons might naturally awaken in her mind the desire to remove the obstacles in her path. She might thus have incited Mseonius to a sanguinary retaliation for the slight offence he had received, i-ecommending him even to assume the purple upon Odenatus' death. When she in her turn avenged her husband's murder by that of Mgeonius, she in reality reaped the reward of her previous crime, while merely appearing to chastise its apparent perpetrator. In repelling the charge involved in this plausible hypothesis, it will be merely necessary to state that it is based upon conjecture alone, no accusation or hint to such an effect being found in any of the writers contemporary with Zenobia. It is a singular fact, that nearly all the French historians and biographers are disposed to attach credence to the story ; while the English, with equal unanimity, reject it. Gibbon treats the subject with contempt, omitting all mention of it in the text, and merely stating in a note that "some very unjust suspicions have been cast upon Zenobia, as if she was accessory to her husband's death." Zenobia at once declared her son Vabalatus emperor, and reigned as regent in his stead. The late friends and advisers of Odenatus contributed by their support and their counsels to consolidate her infant authority. The Roman emperor Gal- lienus did not see fit to recognize her as the successor of Odena- tus, nor to acknowledge her claim to a title which, he maintained, 62 Z E N B I A . had been awarded to her husband as a distinction altogether per- sonal, and in no wise hereditary. He even sent a general against her, with instructions to humble her insufferable pride ; but the high-spirited widow, taking the field in person against him, drove him in confusion back into Europe. Her dominions now extended from the Euphrates to the Mediterranean, and from the Arabian deserts to the heart of Asia Minor. Arabia, Armenia and Persia offered their friendship and solicited her alliance. She even acquired some authority, though how much is not exactly known, over the fertile districts of Lower Egypt, during the reign of Flavius Claudius, the successor of Gallieuus ; thus recovering what she claimed as her inheritance as the descendant of Cleo- patra. The heterogeneous elements of which Zenobia's empire was composed, compelled her to adopt an inconstant and ambiguous policy, suiting her conduct to the time and place. She sought to rule the Greeks by love, the barbarians by fear : with the one she used conciliation ; with the other, intimidation. She appeared to have no determinate character, but was clement or cruel according to the circumstances under which she acted. She exacted from her subjects that species of worship which the ■Persians paid to the sviccessors of Cyrus ; but she bestowed upon her sons a Latin education, and harangued her troops after the fashion of the Roman generals. Though to all outward appearance a Jewess in religion, and constantly erecting syna- gogues for the propagation of her faith, she never interfered with the liberty of conscience, and afforded equal toleration to both Jew and Gentile. No Christian church was closed during her reign. In this career of administrative double-deahng — a course which often brought perplexity into her councils, and at best begot but a precarious security — Zenobia manifested judg- ment, coolness and address. Her authority and prestige waned from the moment when, emboldened by the indifference with which Claudius permitted her to assume the title of Queen of the ZEN OB I A. 63 Bast, she aspired to the creation of an independent and even rival monarchy. Aurehan, a soldier of fortune, and a child of a priestess of the Sun, whose martial tastes and prowess in the field obtained for him the title of Aurelian Sword-in-hand, now, in the year 270, succeeded Claudius upon the throne of Rome. He found the empire dismembered, and its remote provinces either in open disaffection or reluctant submission. Two women were the foes and rivals of Rome. Gaul, Spain and Britain acknowledged the sway of Victoria, the Mother of the Camps ; while Syria, Asia Minor and Egypt had insensibly sunk into the lap of Zeno- bia, the Queen of the East. Aurelian set himself the task of reuniting these scattered fragments. He marched into Gaul, and by the bloody battle of Chalons, quenched the spirit of resistance in the north. He returned hastily to Italy, recalled by an invasion of the Yandals. Partly by battle and partly by treaty, he obtained the vantage ground of his foes, and the bar- barian legions hurriedly repassed the Rhine. The north and the west having been thus gathered again into the fold, Aurelian turned his arms against the east and the brilliant Palmyrenian. It was in the second year of his reign that Aurelian started upon his march from Rome to Palmyra. On his way through Illyria, Dalmatia and Thrace, he easily eradicated the seeds of insubordination which Zenobia had planted in the soil ; he passed through Byzantium, into Bithynia and Galatia, without encoun- tering resistance ; but in Cappadocia, the city of Tyana closed its gates at his approach. In his rage at this interruption, Aurelian swore that " he would not leave a dog alive;" but when, through the perfidy of a Tyanian, he obtained bloodless possession of the city, and the soldiers clamored for their pro- mised plunder, he replied, "I promised no such thing; I pro- mised you the dogs ; kill them all, and leave not one alive !" The first resistance he encountered from Zenobia awaited him near Antioch, upon the Syrian frontier. Zabdas, who had 64 ZEN OB I A. distinguished himself in the Egyptian campaign, was the com- mander of the army, though Zenobia encouraged her troops by her presence. A battle was fought without the waUs of the city, in which the Palmyrenians were signally discomfited. Zabdas, fearing that the people of Antioch would not admit him if aware of his defeat, arrayed one of his officers in jDurple garments, and announcing him as the vanquished Aurelian, succeeded in pene- trating into the city. During the night, he fled with Zenobia and the remnants of the army to Bmesa, where the dauntless queen collected and hastily equipped a second and a more effi- cient force. The conflict which ensued was even more disastrous to her arms than the battle of Antioch ; her army was cut to pieces ; and the Emesans, at heart preferring the Roman domi- nation to that of Palmyra, opened their gates to Aurelian. Zenobia withdrew to her capital, and unable to collect a third army, she shut herself up within the walls, resolved and pre- pared to sustain a siege, and declaring that the last moment of her reign should be the last of her life. Aurelian advanced over the burning sands which lay between Emesa and Palmyra, sorely harassed by hordes of Arabs, whose attack was invariably a surprise, and whose retreat was as regu- larly a marvel. At last, he arrived before Palmyra, and his legions commenced the siege. The resistance was heroic, and for a long time successful. Aurelian himself was wounded by a dart, while personally directing the combat. In a letter of self-justification, wi'itten by him at this period, he says: "The Roman people speak with contempt of the war which I am waging against a woman. They are ignorant of the character and of the resources of Zenobia. It is impossible to enumerate her warlike preparations of stones, of arrows, and of every species of missile weapons. Every part of the walls is provided with two or three balistaj, and artificial fires are thrown from her military engines. The fear of punishment has armed her with a desperate courage. Yet, still I trust in the protecting Z B N B I A . 65 deities of Rome, who have hitherto been favorable to all my undertakings." Seeming, however, to distrust the continuance of this divine favor, Aurelian resolved to mingle negotiation with faith, and wrote to Zenobia, offering her the terms of an advantageous surrender : for herself, a tranquil life in a resi- dence which the senate should select ; and for her people, the continued enjoyment of the rights they then -stood possessed of. Her reply is memorable. It was thus couched : "Zenobia, Queen of the East, to Aurelian Augustus : " Never was such an unreasonable demand proposed, or such rigorous terms offered by any but yourself! By valor alone, by the force of arms only, can wars be brought to a close. You imperiously command me to surrender, as if you were ignorant that Cleopatra chose rather to die with the title of Queen than to live in servitude, however tolerable it might be rendered. We are awaiting succor from Persia : the Saracens and the Armenians are arming in our eause. The banditti of the desert have defeated your army, Aurelian ! Judge, then, what our strength will be when our allies have joined us. You will be compelled to abate that pride with which, as if you were already conqueror, you command me to become your captive." Aurelian read this haughty dispatch with cheeks burning with indignation. He pressed the siege with redoubled ardor : he intercepted the scanty reinforcements sent by the king of Persia, and either by battle or bribery prevented them from proceeding to Zenobia's relief. He won over the Saracens and Armenians to his cause. Probus, the general whom he had detached for the conquest of Egypt, returned at this juncture, and added his troops, fresh from victory and flushed by success, to Aurelian's vigilant camp. The Palmyrenians fought with courage, and at first to great advantage ; but famine at length invaded the beleaguered city. Zenobia resolved to proceed in 9 66 ZEN OBI A, person to the king of Persia, to implore his assistance in this extremity. She mounted her fleetest dromedary, and between sunrise and sunset, accomplished the sixty miles which lay between Palmyra and the Euphrates. She had reached the boat which was to carry her across the river, when a detach- ment of Aurelian's light cavalry overtook her and carried her back a captive. She was brought before Aurelian, who sternly asked her how she had dared to rise against the Emperor of Rome. "Because," she replied, somewhat descending from the lofty key in which her late letter to the emperor was indited, "because I disdained to consider as Roman emperors an Aureo- lus or a Gallienus. You alone I recognize as my emperor and my sovereign." Palmyra surrendered upon the capture of its queen, and its citizens implored the clemency of the victor. Aurelian behaved with unexpected magnanimity, sparing their hves and giving them their liberty, appropriating, however, as spoils of war, their gold, silver and precious stones ; their arms, horses and camels. Aurehan now retired to Emesa, taking with him Zenobia and her counsellors. There he instituted a tribunal, over which he himself presided, and submitted to its deliberation the fate of the queen and her adherents, Longinus, Otho, Seleucus, Nicanor. The soldiers, indifl'erent to the subordinates, clamorously de- manded the execution of the fair and haughty rebel. Gibbon, quoting the historian Zosimus, says, upon the much disputed point of Zenobia's behavior at this juncture : " Her courage de- serted her in the hour of trial ; she trembled at the angry clamors of the soldiers, forgot the generous despair of Cleopatra, which she had proposed as her model, and ignominiously pur- chased hfe by the sacrifice of her fame and her friends. It was to their counsels, which governed the weakness of her sex, that she imputed the guilt of her obstinate resistance ; it was on their heads that she directed the vengeance of the cruel Aurelian." From other authorities, and especially from Vopiscus, we gather Z B N B I A . 67 a different statement of the motives which led AureUan to spare his captive's hfe. If he had ah-eady been exposed, as the letter we have cited shows, to the sarcasm of the Romans for his pro- longed contest with a woman, the most ordinary prudence would suggest the danger of giving his caustic subjects fresh mat- ter for ridicule by putting a defenceless woman to death. He might, as we are assured he did, consider the Roman sceptre under obligations to Zenobia for her repulse and pursuit of Sapor, in the earlier days of her reign. He might desire to ex- hibit his revolted but now submissive foe to the senate and the people. He might wish to reserve her to grace the triumph with which he hoped to celebrate his conquests. It is not neces- sary to resort to the hypothesis that Zenobia denounced her counsellors, in order to justify and account for their death and her own escape. Such would be their lot by the fortunes of war ; their counsels had undoubtedly encouraged their queen in her resistance, and the vicissitudes of fate now summoned them to pay the penalty and forfeiture of their acts. It is difficult to suppose that Zenobia could have saved her own life, had Aure- han resolved to take it, by imputing to Longinus and his col- leagues a responsibility of which they were already convicted by the very position they held. Longinus suffered with the stoicism of which he had given so many proofs, " pitying his un- happy mistress and bestowing comfort on his afflicted friends." A number of his associates perished with him, others were re- served to be thrown into the sea, as the army recrossed the Thracian Bosphorus. While Aurehan was on his homeward march, he learned that Palmyra had again raised the standard of revolt, by putting to the sword the garrison of six hundred men in whose possession he had left it. He hastened back, and devoted the hapless city to sack, fire and pillage. Zenobia's capital was levelled to the dust ; the Arabs who now infest the waste upon which it stood have built their mud and straw-thatched hovels beneath the 68 ZENOBIA. ' shadow of one single edifice — a temple of the Sun. The vil- lage of Tadmor in the Wilderness numbers hardly a dozen families, who feed their goats and cultivate their starveling gar- dens among the most majestic ruins which antiquity has be- queathed us. Aurelian's successes, which had dazzled the people, now well- nigh blinded him. He had commenced his reign, three years before, with the modesty and simplicity of a private citizen, and had enforced his domestic sumptuary laws with such rigor as to deny his wife and daughter the indulgence of silken robes. Now that he had restored peace and order to the Roman world, and had reunited the fragments of a dismembered empire, he organized in his own honor a triumphal procession at Rome, which, in respect of pomp and barbarous magnificence, has never to this day been equalled. The cortege was opened by the im- perial menagerie, collected by Aurelian from every climate he had visited. Twenty elephants led the way, followed by four royal tigers and two hundred wild animals from Libya and Pales- tine — Hons, leopards, deer, camels, dromedaries ; these he distri- buted the next day among his friends, that the public treasury might not be taxed for their maintenance. Sixteen hundred gladiators followed, prepared for the sanguinary sports of the amphitheatre. Then came delegations of captives from every conquered tribe — Goths, Vandals, Syrians, Saracens, Franks, Gauls, Egyptians. Their hands were bound and they marched with downcast eyes. The spoils of the world came next, artfully arranged upon gilded wagons ; the jewels and scented woods of India, the wealth and treasures of Persia, the ivory and gold of Ethiopia, the quaint and costly productions of China, the magni- ficent plate and sculptures of Palmyra — the rifled contents of the palace of Zenobia. Then followed the ambassadors from friendly powers, gorgeously arrayed in their national costumes ; then a band of youths picturesquely habited, bearing upon silken cushions a number of golden crowns — the tribute of submissive "^ ZENOBIA. 69 cities. Ten women of masculine proportions and clad in male attire, who had been captured while fighting by their husbands' sides on the shores of the Danube, next attracted the gaze of the admiring throng. At last, came the two illustrious captives, the Gallic emperor, Tetricus, and the Syrian queen, Zenobia. Both proceeded on foot, Zenobia being closely followed by the chariot she had built to grace her own triumph, in the very streets where she was now led a bound and sullen prisoner. The barbarous monarch had caused her to be decked with her ornaments and jewels till she bent beneath tlieir weight. The massive chains and golden fetters which encircled her neck, were sup- ported by slaves who walked beside her. The populace mur- mured their admiration and their pity as she passed. From morn till night she toiled beneath an Italian midsummer sun. The gorgeous war-chariot of Odenatus followed Zenobia's tri- umphal car, together with that of Sapor II., the Persian monarch. Aurelian — seated in a chariot taken from a Gothic king and drawn by stags — the senate, the principal citizens, and the chiefs of the army, closed this memorable procession. We cannot refrain from quoting here a passage from an ima- ginative description of the Triumph of Aurelian, in which the legitimate hcense of the romancer is happily blended with the research of the historian : " You can imagine, Fausta," says the writer, "better than I can describe them, my sensa- tions, when I saw our beloved friend, her whom I had seen treated never otherwise than as a sovereign queen, and with all the imposing pomp of the Persian ceremonial — now on foot and exposed to the rude gaze of the Roman populace — toiling beneath the rays of a hot sun, and the weight of jewels such as both for richness and beauty were never before seen in Rome — and of chains of gold, which, first passing around her neck and arms, were then borne up by attendant slaves. I could have wept to see her so — yes, and did. My impulse was to break through the crowd and support her almost fainting form — but 70 Z E N B I A . I well knew that my life would answer for the rashness on the spot. I could only, therefore, like the rest, wonder and gaze. And never did she seem to me, not even in the midst of her own court, to blaze forth with such transcendent beauty — yet touched with grief. Her look was not that of dejection, of one who was broken and crushed by misfortune — there was no blush of shame. It was rather one of profound, heart-breaking melan- choly. Her full eyes looked as if privacy only were wanted for them to overflow with tears. Her gaze was fixed on va- cancy, or else cast toward the ground. She seemed like one unobservant of all around her, and buried in thoughts to which all else were strangers and had nothing in common with. They were in Palmyra, and with her slaughtered multitudes. Yet, though she wept not, others did ; and we could see all along, wherever she moved, the Roman hardness yielding to pity, and melting away before the all-subduing presence of this wonderful woman. The most touching phrases of compassion fell constantly upon my ear. And ever and anon, as in the road there would happen some rough or damp place, the kind souls would throw down upon it whatever of their garments they could quickest divest themselves of, that those feet, little used to such encounters, might receive no harm. And as when other parts of the procession were passing by, shouts of triumph and vulgar joy frequently arose from the motley crowds, yet when Zenobia appeared, a death-like silence prevailed, or it was interrupted only by exclamations of admiration or pity, or of indignation at Aurelian for so using her. But this happened not long. For when the emperor's pride had been sufficiently gratified, and just there where he came over against the steps of the Capitol, he himself, crowned as he was with the diadem of universal empire, descended from his chariot, and unlocking the chains of gold that bound the limbs of the queen, led and placed her in her own chariot — that chariot in which she had fondly hoped herself to enter Rome in triumph. Upon this. ZENOBIA. 71 the air was rent with the grateful acclamations of the countless multitudes. The queen's countenance brightened for a moment as if with the expressive sentiment, ' The gods bless you !' and was then buried in the folds of her robe. And when, after the lapse of many minutes, it was again raised and turned towards the people, every one might see that tears, burning hot, had coursed her cheeks, and relieved a heart which else might well have burst with its restrained emotion." ^ The week succeeding the triumph was devoted to games, theatres, and gladiatorial exhibitions. Hundreds of victims perished in the arena and in the sea-fights in Domitian's pond. The news soon reached the public that Zenobia was to be leniently dealt with. Early in the week, Aurelian made her a present of his villa at Tibur, and sent his own chariot to convey her thither. She bore her fall with equanimity, living tranquilly in her forced retirement, and reminding the citizens of Cornelia, after the death of Tiberius and Caius. She became, to all intents, a Roman matron ; her two daughters married into Roman fami- lies, although a romantic embellishment of her story makes the eldest, Livia, Aurelian's wife and Empress of Rome, and Zenobia herself again a mother by a union with an illustrious Roman senator. From whichever source her descendants sprang, it is certain that her race was perpetuated to the fifth century, beyond which the genealogists have not been able to trace it. Her son Vabalatus was made king of a small province in Armenia, and his reign is commemorated by medals still in existence. Timolaiis and Herennianus are supposed to have been dead before Aurelian's conquests. The modern traveller can hardly visit Tibur, now Tivoli, some twenty miles from Rome, without experiencing the liveliest emotions. If a classical scholar, he will remember it as the retreat of Horace and as the seat of the oracle of Faunus ; if an ' Ware's Zenobia. 72 . Z E N B I A . antiquarian, he will visit with interest the ruins of the villa of Maecenas and of the Tiburtine Sibyl ; if a lover of the picturesque in nature, he will gaze with rapture upon the charming Casca- telle ; upon the falls of the headlong Anio, and the echoing grotto of the Syrens ; upon the dense foliage of the vine-clasped olives Avhich clothe the precipitous hill-side ; and if a reflecting student of history, he will ponder upon the impressive lesson he may read in a spot pecuharly connected with human vicissitude — the scene of the crumbling splendors of Adrian, the life-long captivity of Syphax and the golden exile of Zenobia. -:~3>. BEATRICE Beatrice Portinari, the heiress of an iUustrious house of Florence, was born in the year 1266, and died at the age of twenty-four. In her short and blighted life, she achieved nothing which, were we to adopt a material standard of criticism, would entitle her to a place among queens, heroines and martyrs. She neither ruled a kingdom, nor fought a battle, nor enslaved a peo- ple. By her beauty she inspired a poet ; by her purity, her spi- ritual loveliness, her "divine weakness," she so wrought upon the soul and so exalted the intellect of one who loved her, that, abandoning a licentious and erratic career, and applying himself to study and contemplation, he became the Christian Homer. That the Divina Commedia was directly due to the sway still ex- ercised over him by the hallowed memory of Beatrice — ^for she was long since dead — we have Dante's own authority for assert- ing. She to whom the world owes the most magnificent poem in the Italian language, and one of the most subhme efforts of hu- man genius, cannot be out of place in a gallery which claims to recognize female influence as well as female achievement. Of Dante's love for Beatrice, the effects of that love upon his life are sufficient evidence ; we are not told, and we have no means of knowing, whether she returned his afiection. He first 10 u 74 BEATRICE. saw her, when in her ninth year, at a May-day festival. She at any rate married another, one Simone de' Bardi, and whUe yet in the pi'ime of her youth, overcome with grief at the death of her father, she died in the year 1290. Dante was married soon after- wards to a lady named Gemma de' Donati, with whom he lived mihajDpily. " Oh ! inconceivable torture," exclaims Boccaccio, " to live, and converse, and grow old, and die with such a jealous creature !" Four years later, he composed his Vita Nuova- — a series of canzoni or sonnets interspersed with prose, in which he records the joys and sorrows of his youth, and speaks of the change wrought in him by his passion, and of the ' ' new hfe " which it induced him to commence. From this we obtain a pic- ture of the moral and spiritual perfections of his " gloriosa e gen- tUhssima donna." " Whenever she appeared before my sight," he says, " all ha- tred at once departed from my heart, and in its stead there was kindled such a flame of charity, that I willingly pardoned all who had offended me This gentlest of ladies gained such favor with every one, that when she walked through the streets, peo- ple would run to catch a glimpse of her, whence a marvelous gladness seized my heart ; and when she drew near to any one, so much gentleness would enter into his heart that he would not dare to lift up his eyes to answer her greeting ; and of this many, as having witnessed it, would bear testimony to those that would not beUeve it. But she, crowned and clothed in humihty, walked on, showing no pride of what she saw and heard. And many would say, after she had passed by, ' This is no woman, surely, but one of the most beautiful of angels.' And others would say, ' She is a miracle ; blessed be the Lord, who worketh so mar- velously !' " The Vita Nuova concludes with the following words : " After this, I beheld a vision, in which I saw sights that caused me to resolve to cease writing of my beloved Beatrice, until I can cele- brate her more worthily ; which, that I may do, I devote my BEATRICE. 75 whole soul to study, as she well knoweth. In so much that if it should be His pleasure, for whom all things live, that my life should be spared for a few years upon this earth, I hope to sing of her what never yet was sung or said of any woman. And I pray Him who is the father of goodness to suffer my soul to be- hold the bliss of its lady, who now, abiding in glory, looketh upon the face of Him who is blessed forever, world without end." It is evident from these lines that Dante had, at this early period — he was not yet thirty years of age — conceived the idea which he afterwards elaborated in the master-piece of his mature life. " The vow which the youth had made," we quote from the Christian Examiner, "the man performed. Never, by pen of mortal writer, has woman been more glorified than Beatrice was by Dante. Never has love inspired its poet with a purer and loftier ideal ; never has earthly beauty enjoyed a more radiant apotheosis. She who had been, while livhig, the delight of his youthful eyes, became when dead, the guiding-star of his spirit, the comforter and enlightener of his soul, the Jacob's ladder of his holiest aspirations. All representations of love and woman be- fore Dante appear earthly and sensual by the side of his. Noble and glorious as were some of the creations of Greek and Roman poets, here is something 'above all Greek, above all Roman fame.' We may admire, we may pity, we may love, Andromache, Pen- elope, Iphigenia, Electra, Antigone, but here we put off our shoes from our feet, and humbly bow in profound veneration." The Divina Commedia is a highly wrought allegorical j^oem, consisting of a Vision of HeU, Purgatory and Paradise. Through these regions the poet makes an imaginary journey, conducted by various guides. Having wandered from the direct path of life, and finding himself alone in a savage and trackless forest, he is accosted by the shade of Virgil, who had always been the object of his admiration. Virgil explains to him that he has descended to earth, at the request of Beatrice, to guide him upon his way. Thus reassured, the Tuscan poet follows his conductor 76 BEATRICE. across the Acheron into the realms of Minos. He supposes, in the poem, that "when Lucifer fell from heaven, he struck the earth with such violence as to make a vast chasm, tunnel-shaped, quite down to the earth's centre, where he lies frozen in eternal ice. Down the sloping sides of this great tunnel sucks the groaning maelstrom of Dante's Inferno ; through whose various eddies and whirlpools the shuddering poet is hurried forward, amid the shrieking shipwrecked souls." Virgil and Dante pass successively through the nine circles of Hell — the most appalling series of pictures ever conceived by the imagination of man. In the first, called Limbo, are the souls of the unbaptized and of the heathen philosophers ; no groans are heard, but the air is tremulous with sighs. In the second, the spirits of the incontinent are tossed to and fro in a whirlwind. In the third, the souls of gluttons lay howhug under a ceaseless shower of hail- stones and black rain. In the fourth, the prodigal and the avaricious wage an eternal warfare by rolling huge weights against each other. In the fifth — the Stygian pool — the irascible are seen smiting each other, breathing beneath the filthy water and covering its surface with bubbles. In the sixth — the flaming city of Dis, with walls of heated iron — the souls of heretics lie buried in fiery graves. In the seventh are the ^dolent, the unjust, and suicides, who are plunged into rivers of blood, or walk upon a sandy plain beneath a shower of fire. In the eighth, or gulf of Malabolge, are seducers, scourged by demons ; flatterers, wallowing in filth ; fortune-tellers, with their heads turned backwards ; peculators, seething in a lake of boiling pitch ; hypocrites, wearing gUded hoods of lead ; and alchemists and forgers rotting with disease. In the ninth circle are the souls of traitors, and Lucifer himself, imbedded in the frozen lake. AH these horrible fancies are described with such awful minuteness, that we can hardly wonder at the belief which for a time prevailed among his countrymen, that Dante did actually descend into hell, and that the sallowness of his complexion and BEATRICE. 77 the crispness of his beard were occasioned by his having ventured too near the lire. Lucifer, in his fall, had not only hollowed out the gulf of Hell, but had thrown up on the opposite side of the earth, a mountain, or cone, called Purgatory. In the sides of this cone were cut seven broad terraces, and upon them the seven mortal sins were purged away. Here despair gives way to hope, and as the poets clambered from one terrace to the other, ushered onward by angels, Dante beheld the milder, and yet agonizing expiation of those who had led lives of sin. He saw the proud, tottering under huge weights of stone ; the envious, with their eyelids sewed together with iron wire, and having piteous upturned faces, like blind beggars at the gates of churches ; the irascible, enveloped in suffocating smoke ; the avaricious, burying their faces in the dust ; gluttons emaciated by famine ; and the incon- tinent undergoing purgation by fire. Beyond, and above the seventh and last terrace, upon the summit of the mountain, stood the Terrestrial Paradise. Here, by the side of hmpid waters, and under the shadow of eternal trees, the poet met Beatrice. Her approach is announced with all the splendid imagery of which his pen was capable. A soft melody breathes through the air, and the forest becomes brilliantly illuminated. A sacred procession passes by ; hymns, paraphrases for the most part from the psalms of David, are sung in his ravished ear ; a mystic chariot, surrounded by saints and angels, who strew the path with lilies, and containing the cherished object of his undying love, advances. Dante turns to Virgil to express his rapture, but he finds himself alone, and weeps. Then, for the first time, he hears the voice of Beatrice : " Dante ! weep not that Virgil leaves thee ; nay Weep thou not yet ; behooves thee feel the edge Of other sword, and thou shalt weep for that." Beatrice becomes Dante's guide through the ten heavens or 78 BEATRICE. spheres of Paradise. She fixes her gaze upon the sun, till Dante is dazzled by his reflected light. They hear the harmony of the spheres. In the first sphere, or that of the Moon, the poet sees the happy souls of those who, having taken monastic vows on earth, were forced to violate them ; in the second. Mercury, dwell the spirits of those whom a thirst for glory moved to noble enterprises ; in the third, Venus, those who on earth were cele- brated for holy and legitimate love ; in the fourth, the Sun, dwell the doctors and fathers of the church ; the fifth. Mars, is the home of the heroic souls of the crusaders, who died fighting for the cross ; the sixth, Jupiter, is the abode of upright princes, who are arranged in the form of an eagle, in the centre of whose flaming eye sits King David ; in the seventh, Saturn, to which the poet and Beatrice ascend upon a ladder spangled with stars, dwell those who have passed their fives in holy contemplation. Dante here notices that the beauty of Beatrice is constantly becoming- more radiant, and that it is as difficult to gaze upon her as upon the spheres themselves. The eighth heaven is that of the fixed stars ; they enter the constellation Gemini, and the poet turns his backward glance upon earth, a remote speck in the universe. In this heaven dwell the souls of Adam and the saints. Here the music is so sweet that, compared to it, Dante describes the most delightful earthly music as "a rent cloud, when it grates the thunder." In the ninth circle, all is light, and love, and joy. "A river of light flows through the centre, bordered with flowers of incredible beauty. From the river issue brilliant sparkles which fly amongst the flowers, where they seem Uke rubies chased in gold. By the desire of Beatrice, Dante drinks of this water, and his eyes being opened, he sees that the sparks are angels, and the flowers mortals. He beholds, in a vast circle of fight, more than a million of thrones, disposed like the leaves of a rose, where sit angels and the souls of just men made perfect. An innumerable host of celestial beings, with faces of flame and BEATRICE. 79 wings of gold, float over the eternal city. Here Beatrice leaves him and resumes her throne of Hght in the third circle from the highest." The tenth and last heaven is the empyrean. Here the ven- erable St. Bernard becomes Dante's guide. Assisted by his prayers to the Virgin Mary that the poet may be enabled to contemplate, for an instant, the dazzling glory of the Divine Majesty, he is vouchsafed one fearful gaze upon the Great Mystery. Declaring his inability to describe what he has beheld, Dante lays down his pen and brings his poem to a close. He returns to earth, to his exile and his poverty, leaving his saint behind him, " Vested in colors of the living flame." They alone who can read Dante in the original, and can dispense with a paraphrase — for translation is impossible — can comprehend to what a degree the poet was wrought upon by the deathless memory of her who had inspired him. Never, indeed, was such a tribute paid by man to woman. He has bound her brow with laurel, and has made her name as immortal as his own. JOAN DARC Before entering upon the history of the transcendent hero- ine whose name, restored to its correct orthography, we have given above, it is proper that we should state the reasons which have led us to take a step which, without such explanation, might seem unauthorized and gratuitous. The name " Joan of Arc" is the old English equivalent for Jeanne or Jehanne d'Arc : but d'Arc is, in the original French, an erroneous spelling of the proper name, Dare. However the mistake may have arisen — for it has never been traced to its source — it is certain that Joan could only have a right to the nobiliary particle de, either in consequence of the possession or the creation of a title in her family, or as a distinctive appellation, designating her as inhabiting the town, village, or estate of Arc. Now, Joan's father was a humble ploughman, and no patrician blood ran in his veins ; he possessed no title ; and, moreover, his name is well known to have been Dare, without the apos- trophe. There is not, and never has been, in Lorraine, either town or estate of Arc, to which Joan could have owed the dis- tinction which tradition gives her. Her name, therefore, was Jeanne Dare, and in English Jane or Joan Dare. History seems disposed to perpetuate the error, in the two languages, though 11 81 82 J A N D AliC. modern French authors take care, while falling in with the pre- cedent thus sanctified by time, to record the circumstances under which the distortion has taken place. The error is in French less worth correcting, as the omission of the apostrophe alters neither the sound nor the sense, in the spoken word ; but in English it is a very grievous mutilation of a name which man- kind should have been anxious to preserve intact. Had there been a " Joan of Arc," she would have been found in a baron's palace, not beneath a peasant's thatch. We may mention that the new " Biographic UniverseUe," now in course of publication in Paris, by Didot Freres, gives the name as Dare, and repudi- ates the usual and traditional spelling as at once corrupt and absurd. It was in the village of Domr^my, between the hills of Lor- raine and the plains of Champagne, and not far from the town of Vaucouleurs, that Joan was born, probably in the year 1410. She was the third child of Jacques Dare, a laboring peasant, and of his wife Isabelle. The latter is usually designated in history as Isabelle Rom6e, but this surname was merely an epithet, sig- nifying that she, or some one of her immediate family, had made a pilgrimage to Rome. Joan's three brothers were named Jacquemin, Jacques, and Pierre. She herself, called Jeanne by one of her stepmothers, was always called Sibylle by the other. She had one sister, whose name has not been preserved. Her father and brothers labored in the fields or tended their flocks upon the hill-sides. Joan stayed at home with her mother and learned to sew and spin. She was never taught either to read or write. She went often to confession, and undertook, in humble imitation of the pilgrims whose devotion she admired, excursions to neighboring shrines and sanctuaries. She blushed when told that she was too often seen at prayer. She gave alms in proportion to her means, and tended the sick in the cot- tages of the village. As she grew older, the first manifestations of her singular JOANDARC. 83 character were noticed with wonder by her parents. She with- drew from all society and sat contemplative apart, where she could gaze at the sky, the church spire, and the mountains. She betrayed the depth of her feelings less by abstraction from passing events than by the intensity with which she applied her- self to the few occupations which pleased her. She listened with rapture to sounds rendered soft by distance, and to the melody of bells ; she would spin heavy knots of worsted with which to bribe the sexton to prolong on summer evenings the harmonious chimes of the Angelus. She felt for the sufferings of animals, and was the good genius of worried cats and starving birds. Sexual love never touched her heart, and though often sought in marriage, she preferred the freedom of a single life. One of her lovers, unscrupulous in his passion, made affidavit be- fore a court of justice that she had promised him her hand, and asked that she might be compelled to execute her engagement. Joan appeared before the court at Toul and spurned the ca- lumny under oath. She was reserved for another destiny than that of a Domremy peasant's wife. Joan became at an early age strongly imbued with the local superstitions of the village. The deep forests of the Vosges touched the borders of Domremy ; and beneath a hoary beech called the Fairies' Tree was a fountain whose waters dispelled disease. Joan, with the children of the neighbors, danced round the tree, suspended garlands from its branches, and played with the rippling water-source. She gathered May-flowers upon its borders, and wove them into wreaths for the statue of Notre Dame. Her foster-sister even saw the fairies as they gambolled about their tree ; but Joan, even during her moments of ecstasy and inspiration, never allowed her fancy to take this form. The fairies were, nevertheless, believed to haunt the forest ; and the old guy6 of Domremy, sharing the hostility of the church to the divinities of local tradition, went once a year to the fountain, and with mass and holy water exorcised the hamadryads. 84 JOANDARC. Joan lived among these legends, in the midst of a super- stitious people, and in the heart of a romantic country. A pre- diction made by the Enchanter Merlin, so famous in Ariosto — one portion of which had already been accomplished — violently agitated the little community. It was to the effect that France would, ere long, be lost by an unnatural woman, and subse- quently saved by a young and innocent maiden. The present misfortunes of France, of which we shall have occasion to speak at length, were, it was thought by those interested in the pro- phecy, directly traceable to the infamous conduct of Isabeau de Bavaria, the wife of King Charles VI., whose son, the daupliin, afterwards Charles VII., was affected almost to imbecility by the apprehension that he was not the king's son, and consequently unfit to reign. The country was thus "lost by an unnatural woman," and the first half of the prediction had come to pass. The remainder was yet to be fulfilled, and among the supersti- tions of the Vosges, none was more rife than that of the salvation of France by an innocent maiden. Merlin's prophecy had been adapted by popular credulity or local prejudice to the circum- stances of each province, and the inhabitants of Lorraine were taught to believe that the heroine would arise in Lorraine, as, doubtless, in Brittany and Langucdoc she was expected to own a more western or southern allegiance. It was, indeed, time that the Pucelle of the prophecy should appear, and that the kingdom should be saved. Charles VI. was crazy, having lost his reason in an orgy ; his brother and his queen Isabeau reigned in his stead. The rival houses of Orleans and Burgundy contended for the throne, carrying on their wars more by murder and massacre than by regular battles. An English army several times entered the country at the call of one or the other of the conflicting parties, and under the ruthless heel of the invaders France suffered deeper injuries than from her own two quarreling factions combined. At last, the King of England died at Vincennes, and the King of France JOANDARC. 85 at Paris. The Duke of Bedford assumed the regency in the name of England ; while the dauphin Charles, wandering with his handful of partisans from province to province, saw his un- happy country desolated by civil war, the prey to anarchy and the spoil of mercenary strangers. He saw cities burned and pillaged, and vineyards and harvests devastated. Two women, both des- tined to immortality, took deeply to heart the afflictions of the prince — Agnes Sorel and Joan Dare. Agnes Sorel, his passion- ately loved mistress, blushed for herself and for him at his inglorious life, and by a happy speech stimulated him to action. A fortune-teller predicted to her that she would soon marry the greatest king in Europe. Turning to Charles, she said, "Sire, permit me to leave the country, that I may marry the King of England ; for it is plain enough that if you continue thus, you will not long be King of France, and cannot, therefore, be the object of this j^i'ediction." The throneless king shed a few bitter tears and then renewed the campaign. He was soon reduced to extremity, and his stronghold, Orleans, was closely besieged. Agnes Sorel now gave way to Joan Dare. During the progress of these events, Domremy, though remote, was deeply interested in the issue of the struggle. It had pronounced itself strongly in favor of the king, and was strengthened in its Armagnac fidelity by the rivalry of the neighboring village of Marcey, which had adopted Burgundian colors. Whenever the inhabitants met, it was to exchange blows ; the children even caught the infection, and the brothers of Joan often returned home bloody and bruised from encounters with enemies of their own age. More than once Joan gave up her bed to a wounded Armagnac, a fugitive from the victorious Burgundians. The pilgi-ims, beggars and monks who wandered from place to place, and stopped at Domremy on their way, terrified the listening villagei-s with tales of war, pillage and devastation. At length, a horde of bandits passed through the peaceful hamlet, driving the inhabitants from their homes ; 86 JOANDARC. Joan, her parents and brothers fled in dismay ; they returned to find the fields laid waste and the church in ashes. Thus Joan became familiar with the horrors of war, and while her heart melted with pity for her king and country, her mind dwelt unceasingly upon the prediction of the enchanter, that France should be saved by a virgin. One day, a fast-day, and at noon, Joan, who was then in her thirteenth year, saw between herself and the chm-ch a dazzling light, and heard a soft voice whisper in her ear: "Joan, be a good girl, and go often to church." She was alarmed, and ran into the house. Soon after, she saw another and a brighter light, iu the midst of which were the radiant forms and outspread wings of angels. She recognized St. Michael, the stern arch- angel of judgment and battle. The figure said to her: "Joan, go to the assistance of the King of France, and restore to him his kingdom." She trembhngly replied, " Messire, I am but a poor village girl ; I cannot ride on hoi-seback nor lead men to battle." The voice retiu-ned : "Go to M. de Baudricourt, captain at Vaucouleurs ; he will take you to the king. Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret wiU aid you." Joan burst into tears, and recorded a vow to heaven of eternal chastity. Saint Michael came again, armed with his lance and clad in glory ; Joan's pillow by night and her spinning wheel by day were surrounded l>y the white figures of saints, beseeching her in winning accents to hasten to the rehef of France. Saint Catherine promised assistance from the clouds afar ofi". In the beatific society of her visions Joan passed five years, sedulously keeping her own counsel ; she who had known no other adviser than her poor, ignorant mother, now listened in rapture to the persuasions of the majestic cohort of heaven. In her eighteenth year, Joan confessed all to her mother. As a matter of course, her father and brothers, the village, the whole canton, were soon informed of her supernatural visitations. She became a subject of marvel to the ignorant, and of study to JOANDARC. 87 the reflecting. Between the paternal authority on the one hand, and the celestial bidding on the other, poor Joan's mind was harassed and torn. St. Michael beckoned her to the wars ; her father threatened her with death if she dared to stir from home. The honest peasant saw no good in such dangerous favors of heaven, and these visits from the angels furnished the neighbors with a fruitful topic of scandal. Besides, in those days of cre- dulity, it was easy to obtain the name of sorceress, and Jacques Dare had no desire to see his daughter exorcised at the stake. He bade her dismiss her nightly company, and prepare to marry a peasant of the hamlet. She sought and obtained permission to spend some time with her uncle, Durand Laxart by name, of whom, by dint of persuasion, she made her earliest convert and her first accomplice. With him she went to Vaucouleurs, and lodged with the wife of a wagoner, a cousin of her mother. Coarsely dressed in red, her usual attire, she obtained access to Baudricourt. Captivated by her beauty and modest earnestness, the captain listened to her appeal, which she delivered in a tone which left no doubt of her complete sincerity. "I come in the name of the Lord, King of Heaven, to desire you to instruct the dauphin to remain where he is, and not to join battle with the enemy at present, for God will send him succor at the feast of Mid-Lent. The kingdom does not belong to the dauphin, but to the Lord ; it shall be his, nevertheless, as a sacred trust. He shall be king in spite of his enemies, and I will bring him to Rheims to be crowned and consecrated." The captain, amazed at this speech, asked time for reflection, dismissed Joan and sent for the priest. He strongly suspected witchcraft, and his suspicions were eagerly shared by the alarmed churchman. They went together to the wagoner's hovel, the priest arrayed in his robes of office, as a defence against the snares of the evil one. He summoned Joan to his jDresence, and went through the ceremony of purification, ordering her to retire if she was in league with the spirit of darkness. She bore the profane ordeal 88 JOANDARO. meekly ; and the priest and the captain withdrew, edified but undecided. The humble lodgings of Joan were now invaded by throngs of the curious, of all ranks and ages. She won many and interested all. She complained of the indifference of Baudri- court, saying to those who surrounded her: "I must be with the king before Mid-Lent, even though I wear my legs to the knees in reaching him. There is no one living, neither king nor duke, nor even the king of Scotland's daughter, that can give him back his kingdom ; there is no succor possible but myself, though I would rather have stayed at home to spin with my poor mother, for this is not my path ; but I must do the bidding of the Lord my master." Two chevaliers, convinced of her sincerity, promised that she should speak with the king, and placed her hand in theirs, in token of the fideHty with which they would execute their engagement. The king was soon informed of these occurrences, and after consultation with his mother-in-law, Yolande of Sicily, and with his heutenant, the Duke of Lorraine, sent a summons to Joan to appear before him at Chinon. Though he regarded her as a mere enthusiast and fanatic, who had taken her own insanity for inspiration, he nevertheless felt what a powerful influence he might wield over a credulous camp and a superstitious people, by appearing to place confidence in a possessed but beautiful woman, promising a crown to the king and deliverance to the country. Joan, therefore, prepared to leave Taucouleurs, and to abandon forever her weeping parents, who had traced her flight from Domremy. She resisted their prayers, and mounted her sorry horse — a present from her humble converts among the wagoner's friends at Vaucouleui's. Baudricourt gave her a sword and a soldier's uniform. Thus arrayed, she departed upon her perilous mission, pursuing her route of one hundred and fifty leagues across a country infested by brigands, deserters from the Burguudian and English armies, and rendered almost impassable JOANDARC. 89 by the winter torrents. She started on Sunday, the 13th of February, 1429. Seven armed men, one of them her brother Pierre, formed her escort, six of whom looked upon her much less as a saint than a sorceress, and who might be tempted to discover that, whether the one or the other, she was a yoimg and beautiful woman. But Joan had no apprehensions for herself: " Fear not for me," she said ; " God guides me on my way, and will bring me to the king ; I was born for that." At another time she said: "My brothers in Paradise tell me what to do." They slept over night in ruined abbeys and abandoned huts, and, at her command, stopped twice and attended mass. At last, on the eleventh day, they approached the castle of Chinon, where the errant court had for the moment fixed its residence. Her coming was awaited in anxiety and agitation. The more prudent counsellors of the king would have dissuaded him from receiving a person who, if not actually an envoy from Satan, was at least the messenger of her own illusion. But the army, who felt too deeply their need of a miracle to repulse one who offered to perform one in their behalf, overruled this temporizing advice. The king resolved to admit Joan to an audience, and at the same time subject to trial her supposed supernatural powers. He divested himself of such insignia as would have betrayed his rank, and mingled in the throng of courtiers. Joan was brought in her peasant's costume to the hall where the audience was to be held. The glare of the torches and the scrutiny of so many lords and ladies disconcerted her at first ; she wandered confusedly among the guests, seeking with shrink- ing gaze him towards whom she was sent. Ko sooner did she see him than she dropped upon her knees in homage. "I am not the king," said Charles VII. " By the Lord, sweet prince," replied Joan, "you are he and none other. I am called Jehanne la Pucelle. The King of Heaven sends you word by me that you shall be crowned and consecrated in the city of Rheims, and that you shall be His vicar and lieutenant in the kingdom of 12 90 JOANDARC. France." The court was struck dumb with wonder at this evi- dence of what then seemed inspiration, and what at this day cannot be regarded as mere perspicacity. It is one of the un- explained, and, doubtless, inexphcable, incidents of Joan's mar- vellous career. At this point of our narrative — and as we enter the miracu- lous phase of the life of its subject — it is proper to premise that every statement — even the least — contained in it, is sustained by evidence of the most irrefragable character. The witnesses sum- moned at her trial, both for the accusation and the defence, the depositions taken at the inquest subsequently held for her rehabilitation, the laborious collocation of facts and comparison of authorities to which the historians of France have devoted them- selves as to a labor of love, have contributed to the elaboration of a narrative which combines conditions and elements of authen- ticity of which few other chronicles can boast. There is hardly an allegation not supported over and over again by testimony taken under oath and furnished by persons who had no motive to deceive. It would be a poor recognition of the zeal mani- fested by the biographers of the Maid of Orleans, to regard her most authentic story, as it has been rescued from the archives of the past, with any portion of the distrust with which it is the custom, often justifiable enough, to receive the memoirs of the middle ages and of the Cinque Cento era of French and Itahan history. The king still hesitated, and his councils were distracted by conflicting opinions. The commander of his forces besieged in Or- leans — the famous Dunois — dispatched messenger after messenger to Charles, imploring him to send the inspired maiden to his reUef. The king resolved to subject her to one more trial, not for the purpose of testing her powers, of which he was already con- vinced, but to decide whether she derived them from the Source of Light or from the Prince of Darkness. The two oracles of the time, the University and the Parliament, driven from Paris JOANDARC. 91 by the Burgundians, had fixed their temporary seat at Poi- tiers. Thither the king himself conducted Joan, and there he presided over the council assembled to examine her. The art- less damsel sustained for three long weeks the trying ordeal, replying to the profound inquiries of the Archbishop of Rheims with a grand and earnest simplicity. She narrated her inter- views with the angels, and gave the very language of St. Michael. A Dominican friar sought to draw her into the labyrinth of metaphysics : " Jehanne," he said, " you say that God wishes to dehver Prance from her enemies : if such is his will, he has no need of soldiers." " The soldiers will fight," she replied in- stantly, " and God will give the victory." " Aide-toi, et le ciel t'aidera," she might have said, quoting the famous maxim depre- cating a too listless reliance upon heaven. Another theologian asked her for a sign or miracle, saying that without such a guaranty of her sincerity, the king would not risk his army. " I was not sent to Poitiers to give signs," she answered : " my sign will be the deliverance of Orleans from siege. If you wish to see my sign, give me soldiers, few or many matters not, I'll go." A learned brother by the name of Seguin, a native of Limoges, and in consequence speaking one of the most dis- agreeable dialects in France, now felt disposed to break a lance with Joan, and opened the tilt in this wise : " What language did St. Michael speak ?" " Better French than you do," retort- ed Joan — her first display of causticity, though not by any means her last. Frere Seguin held his peace thereafter, his colleagues enjoying, as theologians often will, the discomfiture of their brother. The verdict of the council was rendered at last, to the effect that nothing was impossible to God, that the Bible was full of mysteries and of examples which might, broadly construed, be taken as authority in the case now before them. God had often intrusted secrets, withheld from men, to virgins, and espe- cially to sibyls. The Archbishop of Embrun was of opinion that 92 JOAN DARC. the demon could not enter into a pact with a maiden : if, there- fore, Joan was in sober truth a maiden, her evident inspiration must have been a gift from on high. The good queen-dowager, Yohxnde of Sicily, presided at the ridiculous examination sug- gested by the archbishop's theory, and Joan issued triumphant from the last of her long series of trials. She was now accepted as the saviour of the coimtry ; men, women and children flocked to see her at the house in which she lodged — that of a lawyer's widow. From time to time a skeptic offered to prove, text in hand, and to her own satisfaction, that she was an impostor ; to one of them she repUed : "I know neither A nor B ; but I have come from God to deliver Orleans and consecrate the king." There was now no time to lose. The citizens of Orleans clamored for the deliverance which the Pucelle promised in the name of the Most High, and Dunois sent daily to hasten her approach. Joan was equipped as became her new condition ; the king's artificers forged a suit of light and polished armor, in which she girded herself for the battle. Her standard was white, strewn with the emblematic fleurs-de-hs, and fringed with silk ; an embroidery in the centre represented the Saviour with the globe in his hands. Her jet black horse formed a striking contrast to her banner and coat of mail. She directed a search to be mad^ in the neighboring church of St. Catherine de Fierbois for a long, rusty sword, upon the blade of which would be seen five deep crosses. The sword was found behind the altar of the chapel. This was considered at the time an instance of Joan's supernatural knowledge, but it was afterwards clearly shown that she had stopped to pray in St. Catherine's, before entering Chinon ; she had undoubtedly seen the sword there, and made use of the circumstance to augment the popular confidence in her divinity. Her staff consisted of Jean Daulon, a knight who had grown grey in the service of the king, and who was made lier equerry and protector ; of a page of noble birth, of two heralds, a steward and two valets. Her .brother, Pierre, JOANDARC. 93 who had permanently attached himself to her cause, and her con- fessor, Jean Pasquerel, a hermit of the order of St. Augustin, completed the body-guard with which she set forth upon her errand. She joined the king's forces at Blois, where she was received in triumph by the rank and file. The soldiers welcomed her as a saint commissioned to deliver the country, the officers respected her as one who, at least, bore an order from the king, even if she had come to execute no higher bidding. She at once commenced a reform of the morals of the army. Cards and dice were thrown into the flames, and the instruments with which the black art was pursued, broken up ; women of bad life were driven from the camp, and priests and preachers urged countless throngs of listeners to repentance and amendment. Joan fol- lowed these holy men on foot through the streets of the city ; she summoned before her the most terrible and unconscionable brigands in the army, and forbade them even to swear. The redoubtable Lahire found it so difficult to obey this order, that Joan was glad to effect a compromise, and allowed him to swear "by hisstaffi" She advanced with her forces towards Orleans along the southern bank of the Loire. At night, an altar was built in the open air, and Joan and her officers partook of the holy communion. She slept in her armor, though its weight fatigued her sorely. On the third day, she arrived opposite Orleans, the river lying between the city and her troops. Dunois saw her from the ramparts, and, crossing the stream in a boat, met her at the water's edge. "Are you the bastard of Orleans?" she asked. " I am," he replied, " and glad I am at your approach." " Have no fear," returned Joan; "God lays out my path before me, and for this was I born. I bring you the best succor ever borne to knight or city — succor sent from Heaven." The wind at this moment changed, and the boats, laden with provisions and arms for the besieged, which had been for several days prevented 94 JOANDARG. from landing their cargoes, approached the wharf and discharged their welcome burden. The next morning, Joan dismissed her escort, charging them to report her safe arrival to Charles. She crossed the river with two hundred lances only, and at eight o'clock in the evening of the 29th of April, she entered the beleaguered city. She was mounted upon a white charger, preceded by her standard and followed by a retinue of nobles and lords, and soldiers of her escort and of the garrison. Men and women lighted her path with torches ; priests and children knelt by the roadside, and reverentially touched her spurs and stirrups. She went at once to the cathedral, and joined in a Te Deum for the hberated city. The wife of the Duke of Orleans' treasurer had been directed to place her house at Joan's disposal ; beneath this hospitable roof she removed her cumbrous armor, and sat down to a well- spread table. In remembrance of her father's poverty and the simplicity in which she and her family had passed theu" lives, she accepted nothing but bread and a glass of the wine furnished by the vintage of the neighboring hills. After singing a hymn with the family of her hostess, and affectionately kissing her standard, she retired to rest with the treasurer's daughter, Charlotte. The next day she dictated a letter to the commander of the English forces, urging him to abandon the siege, and promising him honorable treatment if he would come and deliberate upon the subject with her in the city. The Eng- lish captain, Gladesdall, received the missive with contempt, call- ing Joan a cow-tender and a wanton. He detained the herald prisoner, and threatened to bui-n him, as a specimen of the treatment his mistress might expect. Joan then sent to Tal- bot, challenging him to single combat before the ramparts, adding, " if you are victorious, yon shall burn me at the stake ; if vanquished, you shall raise the siege." Talbot replied by a disdainful silence — the only answer, indeed, that a veteran could JOANDARC. 95 return to a peasant girl of twenty years who dared him to the field. Joan was now anxious to attack the English fortresses, or as they were then called, bastilles. She manifested the utmost confidence in herself and in the divine assistance upon which she counted in the hour of need — a confidence which was fully shared by the people and the soldiers. Dunois affected to yield in all things to her advice, though often in defiance of his own judgment, and as often offending the counselloi's whose opinions he had been accustomed to ask and to respect. Gamaches, an old soldier, furled his banner and surrendered it to Dunois, saying that he preferred fighting in the ranks to obeying the mad ca- prices of a girl. Joan was in fact regarded with distrust by the officers of her own army, and by them as well as by the Eng- lish, the wish was often uttered, accompanied by coarse exple- tives, that she might go home to her needle and her flocks. Dunois soon announced to Joan the approach of a strong English force under Falstafif, which, with those already upon the ground, would complete the investment of the city. Joan, fear- ing that the officers would prevail upon Dunois to act without consulting her, said, " Bastard, bastard, the moment this army appears upon the field, let me know it ; for if it shows itself, and I do not give it battle, I will have your head taken off." Some time later, Joan was attempting to sleep in the middle of the day, but an anxiety for which she could not account prevented her from closing her eyes. Suddenly jumping up, she called for Daulon and ordered him to arm her, saying that a presentiment instructed her to attack the English. The streets were full of armed men, and distant sounds told of the shock of contending forces. "God bless us!" exclaimed Joan, "the blood of French- men is flowing ! Why was I not awakened sooner ? Quick, my arms ! my horse !" She rushed half equipped from the house, mounted her steed, and receiving her standard from an open window, spurred toward the gate of the city. She met several 96 JOANDARC. of her soldiers returning wounded from the fight. " Alas !" slic said, " I can never see French blood without my hair standing on my head." She was speedily informed that the garrison had attempted to surprise one of the English fortresses, and that they had been ingloriously driven back by Talbot to the ram- parts. She dashed through the portal, rallied her men, led them back to the charge, and assailed the fortress with the spirit and courage of a tigress. The victory was almost instantaneous, and Joan, forgetting her indignation at the treachery of her officers in the emotion naturally excited by the first sight of carnage, wept over her enemies who had died without confession, and uttered a hasty and shuddering prayer for the repose of their unshriven souls. It was now resolved to attack the remaining bastilles of the Enghsh, and if possible disengage the city. Joan ascended to the summit of a tower, attached a summons to surrender to an arrow, and shot it with her own hands into the hostile camp. The enemy replied by invectives and tauntg, coupled with atro- cious insinuations against the character and life of Joan. She shed tears as she heard them read. Drying her eyes with the back of her hands, she said, " Pshaw! the Lord knows these are nothing but lies." She started the next morning at break of day — Saturday, the 7th of May- — to lead the assault. Her hostess begged her to taste a morsel of fresh shad which had been just taken from the river. " Keep it till night," said Joan, add- ing with unconscious profanity, "I wiU bring a Goddam with me who shall eat his share." She summoned Gaucourt, one of the refractory officers, to open the gate of Bourgogne. He refused, and the impatient army forced it from its hinges. Their boats soon covered the bosom of the Loire, Joan and Lahire dragging their horses after them ; the sun rose upon this inspiring scene. Early in the contest, Joan was wounded in the shoulder, an arrow passing through her flesh and out upon the other side. She fell inanimate in the moat, and a party of English descended JOANDARC. 97 from the bastille to secure the inestimable prize. Gamaches, who had refused to fight under her orders, valiantly defended her till aid arrived and she was carried from the scone. She be- came a woman again at the sight of the blood pouring from the wound, and she prayed to St. Michael not to desert her at this strait. She repelled those who proposed to heal or charm the wound by magic — at that time a common resource among the superstitious — saying that she would rather die than be restored against the will of God. The pain was alleviated by an applica- tion of olive oil, and then Joan withdrew into a vineyard to pray for her soldiers, who, deeply discouraged by the mishap which had befallen her, were flying from the field. Her standard still lay in the moat where it had fallen from her hands. Her equerry Daulon, unwilling that such a trophy should come into the possession of the enemy, proceeded with a handful of men to redeem it. He returned successful, and found Joan again on horseback. As he restored it to her, its folds opened in the breeze, and the I'ays of the now setting sun struck full upon it. The retreating French rallied at the signal, and rushed back at the call of their resuscitated saint. The bastille was overpowered, attacked with irresistible impetus from three sides at once. A panic seized the English, and in their super- stitious terrors,- they saw Joan's celestial cohorts, mounted on fieiy chargers, descending from the clouds. Gladesdall, who had so foully insulted Joan, fell from a bridge which a cannon ball shattered beneath his feet, and was drowned before her very eyes. " Heaven have mercy on thy soul !" she cried, as he disappeared from view. Five hundred men were put to the sword, and the foe was thus swept from the southern bank of the Loire. The next day, Sunday, the English abandoned the fortresses of the north, leaving their ai'tillery, their prisoners, their sick and Avounded, behind. The retreat was conducted in good order by Talbot and Suffolk. Joan would not suffer them to be pursued, but while they were still in sight, ordered an 13 98 JOANDARC. altar to be erected on the plain, and thanks to be offered to heaven for the deliverance of the city. The siege, which had lasted seven months before Joan's arrival, was raised ten days after she entered its walls. The people recognized her as their savionr, and as she returned to Orleans, her armor dyed with blood, they prostrated themselves before her, embracing the very knees of her horse. Her fame spread over the continent, and in the remotest corner of France the people waited im- patiently for tidings of the peasant saint — so soon to be the maiden martyr. Orleans made Joan its tutelary divinity, and inscribed the 8th of May in its archives as its sacred and peculiar anniversary. Bidding adieu to her kind hostess and to the people she had delivered, Joan led her victorious army back to Blois, where the king received her not only as one holding authority upon earth, but as one whom he recognized as bearing a mission from heaven. Joan offered to conduct him at once to Rheims, though the intervening country was occupied by the English and Bur- gundians, there to consecrate him king in the cathedral of Clovis and Philip Augustus. Should the English anticipate him, and, by a rapid movement upon the ecclesiastical city, be the first to crown their pretender, young Henry VI., Charles would forever lose the throne of France. Joan was alone in this opinion ; the step was denounced as foolhardy and impracticable by the ablest counsellors of the king. "I shall last but a year more," she said, sadly ; "you must employ me quick or not at all." The king hesitated, and closeting himself with bishops and favorites, wasted the precious hours in unavailing delibera- tion. At last he yielded to the remonstrances of his patroness, resolving to attempt the enterprise ; but first sending forth the Duke d'Alenpon, under Joan's guidance, to drive the English from the strongholds yet in their possession upon the Loire. Suffolk was attacked at Jargeau ; Joan led the assault, one of the most bloody of the war, with 5,000 men. She was thrown JOANDARG. 99 from her horse by a stone, which cleft her hehnet upon her head. She recovered herself, and drip^^ing with the water of the moat, rode victorious into the city. Meun and Beaugency sui'rendered without resistance. Joan was now regarded as invincible, and the Duke de Richemont, grand constable or commander-in-chief of the armies of France, until now in disgrace with the king, joined her standard unsolicited. Her first battle in the open field took place immediately after this accession to her forces. " We will have them to-day," said Joan, " even if to escape they shovild hang themselves to the clouds." 2,000 English were left dead upon the plain. Joan wept when the trumpets proclaimed the victory. Seeing a wounded wretch struggling in the agonies of death, she sprang from her horse, and, taking his head in her arms, supported him till a priest whom she had summoned could arrive and grant him absolution. This struggle — known as the battle of Patay — decided the fate of France. The English retired in disorder, burning the villages and devastating the fields through which they passed. Joan returned to Orleans, and then rejoined the king at Gien-on-the-Loire. The indolent young monarch at last resolved to make the pil- grimage to EJieims. He could not, indeed, have longer resisted the ardent solicitations of the motley but enthusiastic throngs who now flocked to Joan's standard. They departed on the 29th of June. Avoiding Paris, which was held by the Eng- lish regent, the Duke of Bedford, they halted before the city of Auxerre. Not caring to lay siege to it, they accejDted the provisions which it offered as a compromise between resistance and surrender. On the 4th of July they arrived at Troyes, where, eight years before, the treaty had been signed which excluded Charles VII. from the throne of his ancestors. Joan promised that the city should yield or fall within three days, though defended by a strong force of Burgundians. The latter were brought to terms by the sight of the preparations for the siege within the allotted time, and on the 9th of the month. 100 J A N D A K . Charles and Joan made their entrance, side by side, into the Burgundiau stronghold. Chrdons submitted in its turn. The enthusiasm of the peasants inhabiting the localities in the neigh- borhood of Joan's birth-place, through Avhich the army was now passing, knew no bounds. Her two younger brothers joined her standard, and received emblems of knighthood from the king. They now aj)proached the hmit of their march. Charles anticipated a vigorous resistance at Rheims, and, as he had no artillery, looked forward to a long and difficult siege. But Joan reassured him saying: "Have no fear; the citizens of Rheims will come forth to meet you. Act with energy, and you will recover your kingdom." The army arrived before Rheims on the 16th of July. The English quitted the city secretly, and the notables laid the keys of the gates at the feet of the king. Joan dictated the next morning her famous letter to the Duke of Burgundy, in which she sought to reconcile the leaders of the two contending factions. "Pardon each other in good faith," she said, "as loyal Christians should. If you must make war, Prince of Burgundy, go fight the Saracen. The King of Heaven warns you, through me, that you shall win no battle against the French, and that all those who fight against the holy kingdom of France fight against Jesus. I pray and beseech you, with clasped hands and upon bended knees, wage no battle against us ; you will gain nothing, in whatever number you may come, and it would be a pity to shed blood in vain. Three weeks ago I sent you conciliating letters by my herald, bidding you to the coronation of the king, which, to-day, Sunday, the 17th day of ' this present month of July, takes place in the city of Rheims. I have had no answer nor news of the herald. I recommend you to God, and pray that He may make peace between us." The imposing ceremony of the consecration took place at noon, at Notre Dame de Rheims. The archbishop who performed it had come from Blois with the king, and owed his diocese, as Charles did his crown, to the Maid of Orleans. Joan stood by JOANDARC. 101 the altai-, her banner in her hand. The holy oil which had been preserved since the time of Clovis, was used in anointing the sovereign. When the time-honored ritual was concluded, Joan embraced the king's knees, and speaking through her tears, said : "Now is accomplished, sweet king, the pleasure of the Lord, who ordered me to raise the siege of Orleans, and conduct you to your city of Kheims, that you might receive His holy ordina- tion, and show yourself to be the king, and that to you the kingdom belongs." That none of the formalities customary at a coronation might be omitted, Charles went, after the ceremony, to a neighboring hospital and laid his hands upon persons afflicted with the king's evil. Thus, being the first consecrated, he became king by divine right ; had the English succeeded in conferring upon their pretender a similar ordination, the second baptism, in the estimation of the nation, would have been merely a parody and profanation of the first. Joan felt, on entering Rheims, that her mission was accom- plished, and her task on earth achieved. She even had a pre- sentiment of her approaching end, though not of the martyrdom which was to attend it. "0 excellent and devout people !" she said, as she rode into the city ; " if I am to die, let me be buried here !" Still her triumph was not devoid of gratifying episodes. Women brought their children to her, that they might grasp the hem of her garments. Soldiers fell upon their knees and kissed her standard. Warriors grown grey in the harness placed their weapons in contact with her sword, that the touch might sanctify their arms and the cause in which they might draw them. But she modestly declined this superstitious worship, attributing all the glory of her work to Him who had sent her. But another and a purer pleasure awaited her at Rheims. Her father and uncle — whom the city received and treated as its guests — had come from Domremy to meet her. The interview between the parent and his child was long and touching ; he told her of the cottage, her mother, and her sister ; 102 JOAN DARC. of the church, the vineyard, and the flocks ; and sought, by every argument he could devise, to induce her to return. " Would to Heaven," she said, "that I could lay down my arms and return to serve my father and mother, by tending their herds with my sister and brothers ! They would be glad to see me !" Happy would it have been for Joan, and happier still for history and humanity, had she listened to the entreaties of her family and the counsels of her conscience ; the annals of England and France would have been spared the most revolting tragedy which sullies their blood-stained pages. The genius or the inspiration of Joan expired with the necessity which had created and sustained it. This necessity no longer existed after the coronation of the dauphin. France was already casting forth the usurpers from her bosom, and the path of the king lay clear and distinct before him. Neither he nor the country needed the further interposition of the peculiar elements which had constituted the authority and influence of the Pucelle, from whatever source it was derived. He had been consecrated by the holy oil — that divine balsam which, em2:>loyed to anoint the sovereign, has often served to heal the animosities begotten in civil war. The season for miracles had passed, and even the simple magic of the Maid of Orleans was henceforward inopportune. Though she felt this keenly, as her replies to questions addressed her upon her trial distinctly proved, she suflered herself to be overruled by the army, who besought her to remain their prophetess and their saint. She remained, though bereft of her inspiration and soon to be shorn of her infallibility. The oracle within her was silent ; the voices which had whispered their celestial counsels in her ear were dumb. She was a woman, lost and out of place in the midst of courts and camps, where she had lately been a warrior and an apostle. Late in the month of August, Charles, Joan and their army approached the city of Paris. Joan would willingly have stopped at the suburb of St, Denis, the burial-place of the kings JOAN DARC. 103 of France, and consequently possessing, like Rheims, a sacred character in her eyes. She felt an undefined dread of Paris, which she was unable to explain in words ; it was doubtless the consciousness of the danger to which her life, her inspiration and her motives were exposed, when confronted with the sar- casm, the raillery and infidelity of the metropolis. An assault was, nevertheless, decided upon, and Joan was the first who reached the outer moat. She scrambled over a wall and arrived at the second, which was a water moat, and full to its edge. While sounding its depth with her lance, she was struck by an arrow which passed through her thigh. The assault Avas repulsed, the besiegers losing fifteen hundred men. Maledictions were freely uttered against Joan, who was made to bear the responsibility of an attack which she had ardently opposed. During the winter she laid siege to two towns — Le Moustier and La Charity — victorious in the first, unsuccessful in the second. In May, 1430, she marched to the relief of Compiegne, which was besieged by the united forces of the English and the Burgun- dians. She threw her troops into the town, and on the 24th, led a sortie with six hundred men. They crossed the bridge spanning the river Oise, and entered the field occupied by the enemy's camp. Joan was easily recognizable by the rich velvet tunic which she wore over her armor. It was five o'clock in the afternoon ; the Burgundians were taken completely by surprise, with such marvellous celerity was the onset conducted. It was repulsed, however, and the French withdrew in disorder toward the bridge. Joan covered the retreat, fighting with desperate valor and facing the enemy even in her flight. She arrived the last at the draw, just in time to see it raised before her, cutting off the only path of escape. She was surrounded, seized and dragged from her horse. Lionel de Vendume, into whose hands she fell, sold her for a price to Jean de Luxembourg, general in chief of the Duke of Burgundy. Her capture was celebrated by the cannon of the camps and the Te Deum of the cathedrals, in 104 JOAN DARC. all the provinces yet faithful to the allies. Her loss was de- plored with grief and consternation in Compiegne, and the bells of the churches pealed forth a solemn requiem in memory of their transcendent heroine. Joan was imjjrisoned by Luxembourg in his castle of Beau- revoir, where, though closely confined, she was kindly treated by the wife and sister of her captor. They besought her to lay aside her martial attire, offering her cloth of which to make gar- ments more suited to her sex. She declined, saying that without the permission of God she would not quit the costume in which she had been permitted to serve His cause. In the meantime, the English, whose rage against her had been inflamed by her capture, were intriguing for the possession of her person. They felt that if she was not condemned and executed as a sorceress, and her exploits and triumphs thus repudiated and branded as the work of the Evil One, she would be forever regarded as a saint and her acts chronicled as miracles. They, who had fought against her, would be thus placed in the position of enemies of heaven ; their cause was, therefore, unrighteous, and their lot perdition. The inquisition of Paris, the ally of the usurpers, and the University, the ally of the inquisition, claimed with pressing instance the body of Joan from Luxembourg. They even invoked the ecclesiastical authority, and, suborning the fierce and fanatical bishop of Beauvais, Cauchon by name, bribed him to claim Joan as a prisoner of war taken within the limits of his diocese. A correspondence ensued with the king of Eng- land, at the close of which Cauchon offered to Luxembourg, in the name of his majesty, six thousand francs in exchange for the body of the captive, to be judged by himself and the grand iiupiisitor, jointly. Observing that Luxembourg hesitated, he finally offered ten thousand francs, ujjon which the nefarious bargain was concluded. These negotiations had occupied six months. Joan had been transferred from prison to prison, her captors, the Burgundians, JOANDARC. 105 fearing either a rescue by the French or a seizure by the Eng- hsh. At Beaurevoir, maddened by captivity, she threw herself headlong from the tower in which she was confined, maiminsr not kilhng herself, in the fall. At Arras, a companion in capti- vity, a Scotchman and a soldier in the army of Charles VII., showed her a small painting which he carried concealed upon his person, in which she was represented as delivering to the dauphin the letter of Baudricourt. Her portrait had never to her knowledge been taken, and this proof of the interest she had excited at so early a period of her career, affected the poor cap- tive to tears. At Crotoy, on the English Channel, whose severe and imposing citadel has now disappeared beneath the sands of the shore, she saw, when the atmosphere was clear, the Eng- lish Downs, the hostile coast to which she had at one period hoped to carry the war of deliverance. It was here, condemned to sohtude, that she awaited the decree which was to consign her to the hands of Bedford, the implacable chief of her cruel enemies. Early in January of the year 1431, a detachment of English 5oldiei"s presented to her jailer the paper ordering her surrender, and conducted her in rude haste to Rouen. Here the terrible tribunal was assembled ; its object being to place a ban on the coronation of Charles, by proving it to have been the work of a sorceress, and, by implication, to pronounce it nuU and void ; to try, condemn, and execute the messenger of the fiend, and to involve in her disgrace the sovereign who owed her his crown. The tribunal consisted, nominally, of one hundred doctors, ecclesiastic and secular, who constituted the jury, and of two judges, the bishop of Beauvais and the vicar of the inquisition, who were to pronounce the sentence. Before the opening of the court, spies and informers were sent to Domremy to collect such evidence against Joan as village gossip and the enmities which her triumphs had perchance awakened, might, by skillful distortion, be made to present. The emissaries returned laden with ardent 14 106 JOANDARC. testimonials of her virtues, her filial obedience, and of her sin- cere religious faith. Foiled in this, her accusers resorted to an adroit but infamous scheme. They confined in her cell a man named Loyseleur, giving her to understand that he was a Lor- rain like herself, and that his offence, like hers, was attachment to Charles VII. They hoped that the sympathy which Joan could not fail to feel for a compatriot, would induce her to make avowals which might artfully be made to pass for admissions of crime. While the crafty Loyseleur sought to draw from his con- fiding companion such self-accusations, the bishoj) of Beauvais listened behind a wainscot, noting down her replies. Without the prison, witnesses who were expected to depose in her favor, were intimidated and driven from the city ; and a woman who maintained that Joan was a good and virtuous girl, was burned alive. Though thus far only accused, Joan was treated as if con- victed. Her feet were heavily chained to a log, while a second chain bound her by the waist. It is even alleged that she was confined in an iron cage : such an instrument was certaifily made, though it may not have been employed. Her cell was treble- locked, and the three keys were confided to three different per- sons. She was guarded by five English soldiers, three of whom occupied her ceU at night. They treated her so abominably, that Bedford was compelled, out of sheer anxiety lest she should die before her trial, to remove them and appoint others in their place. Charles VII., everywhere victorious against his enemies, and indifferent to the fate of one who could no longer serve him, abandoned her to her persecutors, after a single and ineffectual attempt to ransom her of the Duke of Burgundy. On the 21st of February, Joan was brought before the tribunal ; but thirty -nine out of the one hundred members of the court were present. She was chained and dressed in her military costume. She was allowed neither counsel nor advo- cate, in defiance of a custom of the period, which forbade persons JOANDARC. 107 below the age of twenty-five to be tried or condemned without proper and capable defenders. The bishop of Beauvais addressed her in tones of hypocritical kindness, as if to attest his impar- tiality. She complained of the pressure of the chains upon her limbs. The bishop replied that they were rendered necessary by her early attempts to escape ; to which she I'eturned, that as she had never given her parole not to seek safety in flight, she had committed no crime. The bishop, without ordering her bonds to be loosened, caused the act of accusation to be read ; in which, charged with offences against the church rather than against the state, she was held to have been guilty of heresy and of the damnable art of sorcery. She was then interrogated upon her name, her age, and her faith. Upon the latter point, she said that her mother had taught her to recite the Pater, the Ave, and the Credo. Upon being asked to repeat aloud the two prayers and the profession of faith, she hesitated, and finally refused ; offering, however, to say them to the bishojD, if he would condescend to hear her in confession. This was an adroit turn, for it gave her a reasonable pretext for avoiding a public recital of the prayers, which, being in Latin, she might have repeated inaccurately, thus exposing herself to the subtle logic of the church, and, had she made the slightest error, to the accusation of holding heretical opinions. It offered her, too, the chance, though a slight one, of converting her temporal judge into her spiritual adviser. But Cauchon refused and adjourned the session. The following day Joan was urged to abridge the trial and ease her conscience by confessing everything she knew. She was easily brought to swear that she would truthfully narrate all that concerned herself ; but as to what regarded God and the king, "they might cut her head off rather." She at last con- sented to tell the story of her visions, of her sleepless nights, and of her first interview with the dauphin. All this she narrated in her innocent, almost infantine manner. She would not say by 108 JO AN D ARC. what means she had recognized his majesty, and was led back to her cell almost fainting with fatigue and emotion. Upon the third day, urged by the bishop to divulge certain secrets to which she was supposed to be a party, she said : "My lord, reflect that you are my judge, and that you are put- ting yourself in great danger, for verily I was sent by God." The interrogatory then continued: "Do you still hear your voices?" "Yes." "When did you hear them last?" "To-day." " What were you doing?" "I was asleejD and they awoke me." "Did you go upon your knees to reply?" "No; I simply thanked them for their consolation ; I was sitting upon my bed, and prayed them to assist me in my distress." "Did they tell you that they would save you from your present danger?" "I decline replying." Being pressed to disclose the whole truth upon the matters the court wished to investigate, she answered : "Children say that people are hung sometimes for speaking the truth." Thus circumvented and disconcerted, the bishop of Beauvais puzzled his brain to invent a question requiring a categoric an- swer, yes or no, either of which would subject her to an accusa- tion of heresy. There was one question which, in that age, could hardly be propounded to any living being without crime on the part of tlie interrogator — that as to the belief of the re- spondent respecting his or her salvation ; and this the perfidious bishop resolved to address to Joan. Should she reply that she did not think herself in a state of grace, she acknowledged her- self unworthy of having been the instrument of God. Should she say that she believed herself in a state of grace, she committed the sin of the Pharisee, and her presumption might challenge the chastisement of the church. So, with insidious accent, he launched the fatal question : " Joan, do you believe yourself in a state of grace ?" " If I am not," she replied, with ej^igramma- tic yet Christian simplicity, " God bring me there ; if I am, God keep me there !" After this sublime response, an adjournment JOANDARC. 109 was indispensable ; the doctors departed in amazement. " Fue- runt multum stupefacti," says the manuscript record of the trial. On other occasions, the following questions and answers passed between the judges and their prisoner. "Was Saint Michael naked when he appeared to you?" "Do you think that the King of Heaven has no glory wherewith to clothe his saints !" " Why was your standard borne to the church of Rheims, at the coronation, more than those of the other cap- tains !" "My standard had been in the fight, it was but just it should be also at the triumph." " Did you not disobey your father and mother in going to the wars?" " God bade me go ; had I a hundred fathei's and mothers, I should have gone all the same." " Does God hate the English?" " Of the love or hate of God for the English, or of what He does with their souls, I know nothing : but I know that the English will be driven out of France, except those who perish in it." A month had now passed ; the assessors abandoned all hope of convicting Joan of sorcery. She was firmly persuaded that she had been visited by saints — a persuasion which might be re- garded as erroneous, but not criminal or sinful. But the very fervor of her piety, which had led her to commune directly with God, the Saviour and the saints, and thus to forego and reject the mediation of the church, suggested a vulnerable point of attack. She might easily be convicted of giving a preference to her own inspiration over the recognized ecclesiastical authorities. She was asked if she would acknowledge the prerogative of the church. She replied that Jesus and the church were the same thing ; that she had been sent by Jesus, and of course recognized his authority. She was then told that there was a distinction to make ; that God, the saints and the saved consti- tuted the Church Triumphant ; and that the Pope, the cardinals, bishops, and all good Christians constituted the Church Militant. " WiU you submit to the decision of this church?" "To the no JO AN D AEC. Church Victorious," she replied, "I submit myself, my works, and all that I have done or am to do." " And to the Church Militant?" "I decline answering." In her anguish, Joan prayed to be delivered from the temptations which beset her. " Sweet Lord," she said, " I pray you by your Holy Passion to tell me what I am to reply to these churchmen. I know what to do as regards my life ; but in other matters, I do not hear the commands of my guides." Thus harassed and tortured, Joan's strength gave way ; she fell sick, and the trial was interrupted. She was carried back to her dungeon, and left to languish away her wretched days in chains, solitude and darkness. Cauchon had intended to await Joan's recovery to obtain from her a refusal to recognize and acknowledge the visible church, which he well knew would ruin her. But as the poor victim lay consumed with fever in her doleful cell, he descended with his scribes and assessors to the pitiable scene of human anguish. " Would she submit to a council?" he asked, hoping and expecting a negative reply. A humane assessor, making known to Joan his sympathy rather by his tone than by his words, explained to her that a council was a general assembly of the cluu'ch. " Very well, then," said Joan, " I submit." Cauchon, enraged at this concession, which, should it become public, would save her from death, furiously forbade the scribe to record it in his notes. " Alas !" she said, with piteous accent, "you write down all that is against me, and will not wi'ite what is for me !" The tender-hearted ecclesiastic, on leaving the cell, was accused of prompting the prisoner, and threatened with a cold bath in the Seine. He fled that night from Rouen, with several of his colleagues. The English were in mortal fear lest Joan should, by a natural death, escape their vengeance. "The king would not for the world have her die," said her brutal jailer; "he paid enough for her to have the right to burn her. Why don't the doctors cure her ?" Holy Week commenced with Palm Sunday, J AN DA RC. Ill and though deprived of the religious consolations to which, on this Christian anniversary, she had long been accustomed, she revived sufficiently to attend the sessions of the tribunal. Com- manded to exchange her male garments for those of her sex, she consented, on condition that she should have a long and ample robe, "like the modest daughters of the citizens of Rouen." Her motive in retaining her military attire, and, upon abandoning it, in exacting this condition, will be understood, when it is remem- bered that three soldiers occupied her cell with her at night, and that they made no secret of their infamous intentions, when the verdict should be once pronounced. The sessions were suspended on Thursday and Friday, and Joan spent the days on which the faithful throughout Christendom were celebrating the Last Sup- per and the Crucifixion, in the black depths of her miserable dungeon. All this she bore in meek submission ; but when, on Easter Sunday, the joyous melody from the spires and belfries of Rouen, penetrating her prison-house, announced that Christ had arisen from the dead and had opened the portals of heaven, exhausted nature gave way, and she wept bitter and scalding tears as she found herself excluded from the feast, repulsed from the universal communion — abandoned by the church, forgotten by the king, and deserted by God and man. A series of articles or propositions, artfully digested by Cauchon from the replies of Joan to the questions addressed her upon her trial, was sent to the University of Paris ; its opinion was asked upon them, and upon the punishment befitting the crimes of which the prisoner was accused. The answer arrived about the middle of May. The Faculty of Divinity pronounced Joan possessed with a devil, impious towards her parents, and steeped in Christian blood. The Faculty of Law, more moderate in its views, placed two restrictions upon its sentence of culpa- bility : first, in case she persisted ; and second, in case she were unquestionably in her right mind. Thus fortified and sustained, the more fanatic of the EugUsh party clamored for her immediate 112 JOAN D ARC. execution ; but, in the meantime, the people of Rouen had begun to regard her suflferings with a certain degree of sympathy, and Cauchon and his satellites were intimidated. They resolved to make one last attempt to draw from her a sufficient confession to disgrace Charles and his cause, and then to condemn her to imprisonment for life ; hoping to satisfy the English by a retrac- tion, which would, so to speak, uncrown the king ; and to indulge the people, by sparing her Hfe. They prepared and performed, on Monday in Whitsun week, the horrible historical comedy known as the Parody of St. Oucn. In a graveyard behind the severe monastic church of that name, which is still to be seen as it then existed, two scaflblds were erected. Upon one, Cardinal Winchester, representing the English king, the two judges, Cauchon and Estivet, and thirty- three assessors, took their seats ; upon the other were the ser- vants and ministers of the Inquisition with their instruments of torture ; notaries and scribes to take down the confessions wrung from the victim, and a preacher, instructed to deUver an address of solemn admonition. Below them, in the midst of a jDopulace appalled by the hideous spectacle, stood an executioner, ready with his cart to remove the body when the torture should have done its work. Joan, in male attire, chained hand and foot, and bound by an iron girdle to a stake, contemplated the scene in silent agony. The preacher, Guillaume Erard, a famous doctor of the University, commenced the ceremony by a violent apostrojihe to Joan, in which he spared neither invective nor calumny. She did not deign to reply as long as his charges concerned her alone. At last, he attacked the king. "Yea, verily," he said, shaking his finger in holy denunciation, "yea, Jehanne, not only thou, but thou and thy king are the partisans of heresy and schism." Joan turned upon him with startling ferocity : "By my trust in God," she exclaimed, her eye, but now dimmed by suffering, dilating with sudden splendor, "I swear that the king is the noblest Christian amongst all Christians ; he loves the church JOANDARC. 113 and the faith, and he is not what you say !" " Silence !" shouted Cauchon, at the same time preparing to read the act of condem- nation. "I am wiUing to submit to the Pope," said Joan. "The Pope is too far off," returned the bishop, and commenced his reading. While this was progressing, Erard, the populace, and even the executioner, besought Joan to have pity upon herself, and to sign the form of retraction which was already drawn up. Cau- chon, deeming her retraction of more value to the English than her death, stopped his reading, in the hope that Joan would yield. Winchester's secretary angrily accused him of favoring her escape ; the consistent churchman retorted by giving the lie direct. While this edifying scene was taking place upon one scaffold, Joan was yielding to the intercessions of those who surrounded her upon the other. " Abjure, or you will be burned at the stake," said Erard. " Sign the retraction," urged a compassionate layman ; "it is merely a confession of your own ignorance in matters of doctrine, not a disavowal of your cause or an incrimination of your own sincerity." " Very well, then, I will sign it." The cardinal's secretary drew from his sleeve the form of retraction. It contained six lines — that which was afterwards published as her act of apostasy consisting of as many pages. He offered her a pen ; the poor girl blushed with shame, for the hand which had wielded the sword of St. Catherine had never been taught to write. She took the pen awkwardly between her fingers, and traced, under the direc- tion of the bystanders, a circular figure, adding, of her own will, a cross, the emblem of her martyrdom. Her sentence was then read : " Jehanne, we condemn you, in our grace and moderation, to pass the rest of your life in prison, lamenting your sins, eating the bread of suffering and drinking the water of anguish." She accepted the woman's garments offered her in token of submission, and was led back to the castle amid the hootings of the soldiers, disappointed of their prey. 15 114 JOANDARC. The English vented their rage upon the judges and assessors in a more summary manner. They had come to see a sorceress burned, and were ill pleased with what was given them instead — a strip of parchment with unmeaning ink scratches at the foot of it. They hurled stones and dead men's bones at the cardinal and the priests, and as the latter descended in confusion from the scaffold, held their drawn swords at their throats. The most moderate among them contented themselves with oaths and menaces. The affrighted doctors escajjed, saying by way of conciliation : " Never fear, we will have her again, in one way or another." The method which they adopted to redeem this engagement, was perhaps the most infamous in a long catalogue of infamies. The successes of Charles VII., and the narrow escape of Bedford between Rouen and Paris, exasperated the English beyond measure. There was no hope for them, they said, as long as breath remained in Joan's body ; chained and incarcerated as she was, she still continued her pernicious office, and by her magical arts, sustained the royal army in the field. On the morning of Trinity Sunday, her jailers, acting upon instructions they had received, removed the woman's garments which she had assumed in token of obedience, and emptying her former habiliments out of a bag, told her to put them on. "Gentle- men," she replied, "you know I am forbidden ; no, truly, I will not." She resisted till noon ; then, compelled to rise, and having no other clothing, she dressed herself in male attire. Cauchon was immediately summoned, and, upon his arrival, roundly upbraided her for this forced relapse. Disdaining to explain, she boldly accepted the situation, saying that as long as she was guarded by men, she would wear men's garments ; but that if she were placed in a prison where she could be safe from violence, she would wear women's clothes, and do every- thing which the church could desire. Cauchon, at last convinced that nothing but the life of Joan JOANDARC. 115 Dare could satisfy the party of which he was the instrument, convoked an assembly of assessors, priests, and legists, admitting even three physicians to the tribunal thus illegally organized. Their opinion was asked and given^ — to the effect that Joan be brought before them, and the act of recantation again read to her. This Cauchon thought could not be done in safety to them- selves, in the midst of the agitation which reigned in the army. A sentence of death at the stake was hastily passed, the wily ecclesiastics, who formed a majority, delegating its execution to the civil authorities, and thus with the cunning of Pontius Pilate, washing their hands of the responsibility. The next morning, at eight o'clock, a confessor, brother Martin Ladvenu, visited Joan in her cell, and announced to her that she was that day to pass through the fiery ordeal. Poor Joan — whom it would be a cruel error to regard, in this crisis of her calamities, as either a saint or an envoy from heaven, or as anything more than a friendless though heroic girl — stretching forth her pinioned arms and throwing back her head in agony, exclaimed, " Alas ! alas ! that I should be so hor- ribly and cruelly treated, that my body, pure and unstained by corruption, should be consumed and reduced to ashes ! Oh ! I would rather be beheaded seven times over than be burned ! I appeal to God, the judge of all, against the wrongs and outrages they inflict upon me !" When her calmness returned, she confessed herself and then asked permission to commune. The priest consulted Cauchon upon the propriety of the step, and was instructed to take the eucharist to the prison, but in secret and without candles. Thus the consistent bishop, having condemned Joan to death for heresy, schism and backsliding, accorded her all that the church could have granted her had she been in full communion ! It would be quite useless to look for such amazing incoherence any- where else than in a prince of the church. The confessor com- plained to the ecclesiastical authorities of Rouen that he had 116 JO A N D AEC. been ordered to mutilate the ceremony and perform it witliout light. They sent, in tacit condemnation of the bishop's course, the Host and a number of tapers, and thus enabled the wretched convict to partake of her last communion. Noticing Cauchon among the spectators, Joan said, in accents of mild reproach, " Bishop, bishop, I die at your hands !"' It was now nine o'clock. Joan was decently dressed in female attire and placed between her confessor and a lay officer upon the condemned cart, which was drawn by four horses. An Au- gustine monk, named Isambart, followed her on foot to the place of execution, praying for her soul. A guard of eight hun- dred EngUsh soldiers, armed with lances and drawn swords, accompanied tlie dread procession. Joan had nev^er expected death tiU now ; she had never realized the imminence of lier dan- ger. She might reasonably anticipate a rescue by the king whom she had so zealously served ; or failing human aid, she might look for deliverance to the saints and angels whose behests she had so obediently executed. At last, despairing of either deliverance or miracle, she said, wailing rather than speaking, " Oh ! Rouen, Rouen ! must I then die here !" The scene of the sacrifice was the Fish Market of Rouen. In the open space formed by the intersection of several streets, three scaffolds had been erected ; upon one was the episcopal throne of the Enghsh cardinal, surrounded by seats prepared for the lesser ecclesiastical dignitaries. Upon the other were the judges who had condemned her, the baillie or civil officer who was to authorize her execution, and the preacher who was to exhort her before her death. The third, built of stone and plaster, support- ed the funeral pile. This was of enormous and unusual height, and formed of wood carefully dried. There was a motive in this lavish expenditure of fuel — to prevent the executioner from abridging the torture and relieving the sufferer as he was accus- tomed to do — though by what means is not stated — when the dimensions of the pyre permitted, sparing them the flame. The JOAN DARC. 117 spectators of Joan's martyrdom were to witness a complete and consummated agony. The horrible rites commenced by a ser- mon delivered by Nicolas Midy, upon the following text : 1 Cor. xii. 26 : "And when one member suffers, all the other members suffer with it ;" the application being that the church, ailing in aU its members from the sinfulness of Joan, was about to cut off the offending member, as the only means of cure. He finished with the formula, " Depart in peace, the church can no longer defend you, and abandons you to the secular arm." The church, which had condemned Joan to the stake, and had made over to the civil power the privilege of applying the flame, hoped to shuffle off the responsibility by this cruel excuse. Joan fell upon her knees and clasped her hands. She in- voked in pathetic accents the compassion and the prayers of her judges and tormentors, freely offering them her pardon, and imploring Heaven to open the gates of Paradise to the bishop and the cardinal, her two arch-persecutors. She called upon the priests around her to say one mass each for the repose of her soul, and then, apostrophizing St. Michael and St. Catherine, entreated them not to desert her in this awful strait. The spectacle was more than many of those who had come to witness it could endure ; the sight of one so young, so beautiful, and, notwithstanding the fulminations of the church, so innocent, standing vipon the verge of death under cir- stances so appalling, and yet with a resignation so touching, moved some to tears and others to flight. Winchester and Beauvais wept, several of the assessors fainted outright, whih? many of their colleagues hurried from the scene as if it and they had been accursed. Joan then confessed herself aloud, regret- ting the errors and presumptions — if such they were — -of which, in all sincerity, she might have been guilty. The chronicles of the time, without asserting that she repented of her devotion to a regardless country and an ungrateful king, permit such a con- clusion to be drawn. In this fearful moment, she must have 118 JO AN DA RC. keenly realized at what price glory and earthly immortality are won, and have looked back with sickening heart from the stake of Rouen to the cottage and pastures of Domremy. The judges, for an instant moved from their propriety, quickly recovered their equanimity, and the bishop read the act of con- demnation. He concluded by hypocritically "praying the secular arm of justice to temper its sentence and spare the prisoner both the pain of death and the mutilation of her body." If this was to mislead history and abuse posterity, it was labor thrown away, for no sentence was ever passed upon Joan by a temporal tri- bunal. She died the victim and sacrifice of the church, passing directly from the hands of the priests to those of the executioner. Before being led to the scaffold, she implored the bystanders to give her a cross, the external symbol of the divine atonement and of human redemption. An EngUsh soldier took two broken branches, not even divested of their bark, and tying them roughly together in the form of a cross, handed them to her. She received the emblem devoutly, clasping it to her bosom, even opening her garments and pressing it to her very flesh. But this did not satisfy her, and she begged hard for the cross belong- ing to the neighboring church of St. Sauveur. Isambart and an attendant named Massieu prevailed upon the clerk of the parish to lend it to them for this pious office. These delays exasperated the EngHsh soldiers, and their captains, losing all patience, rudely took the confessor to task, saying, "Hallo, priest, are you going to make us dine here !" Resolved to wait no longer and to dispense with the warrant of the secular officer, the baillie, they ordered two sergeants to ascend the scaffold, to tear her from the hands of the priests and drag her to the place of torment. This they did with such ferocious zeal, though she offered no resistance, that many of the assessors who had been before unmoved, started in horror from their seats, unable to see the rest. Joan was spared no humiliation. The ignominious mitre of JOAN D ARC. 119 the inquisition, bearing the words Heretique, Relapse, Apos- tate, Ydolastre, was placed upon her head. In front of the pile was an inscription couched in words setting forth the crimes for which she suffered : "Jeanne, menteresse, pernicieuse, abuseresse du peuple, devineresse, superstitieuse, blasphemeresse de Dieu, mal creant DE LA LOY DE J^STJS-ChRIST, VANTERESSE, YDOLASTRE, CRUELLE, dissolue, invocatrice de diables, schismatique et heri-'tique." She was bound to the fatal stake, and the executioner ap- plied the torch. She saw the fire and shuddered in all her limbs. " Ah, Rouen, Rouen," she said, " I fear thou wilt one day suffer for my death!" The flames ascended. Ladvenu was still at Joan's side. The heroic girl, forgetting her own peril in her fears for her confessor's safety, implored him to depart. She besought him to hold the cross on high that she might see it through the flames, and to exhort her, with holy words, till death came to her relief. The fire glowed amid the crackling logs, and the spreading sheets of flame at last seized upon the garments of the victim. " Water ! water !" she cried, in the last agony of nature. The blaze roared and wrapped itself in hissing folds about her. Uttering the single word Jesus, her head dropped upon her shoulders. The chroniclers of the period express the hope and belief, in which the sympathetic reader will be glad to join, that heaven, in its mercy, recalled the spirit of the martyr before it was divorced by fire. The heart and viscera of Joan Dare long resisted the destruc- tive action of the flames, although the executioner heaped sulphur and charcoal upon them, and drenched the inflammable mass with rivers of oil. The English cardinal ordered her uncon- sumed remains to be swept into the Seine, in order that no pious hand might ever give them Christian burial, and that no busy antiquary might collect for future worship the charred bones and scattered ashes of the martyr. The horrible spectacle was not witnessed without emotion by 120 JOAN DARC. the priests or the soldiers. An EngUsh archer who had sworn that he would throw a fagot into the blaze, fainted as he did so, and was removed from the ground. On recovering his senses he averred that he had seen a white pigeon fly out of the flames. Others had seen the name of Jesus written in the air. Others repented and acknowledged Christ. One of the assessors who had been the most zealous in condemning Joan, exclaimed, " Would to God that my soul were where I firmly believe hers to be !" Jean Tressart, one of the English king's secretaries, left the place of execution violently agitated, exclaiming, "We are lost and undone ; we have burned a saint." The executioner went the same evening to seek out Isambart, and after confes- sion, asked in trembling accents, "Will God ever forgive me?" With the gradual dispersion of the English, and the extension and development of a French national sentiment, the party of Joan increased till it embraced the whole country, and those who had participated in her condemnation were pointed out with scorn and reprobation. The chronicles of the period mention from time to time the violent or miserable deaths of those who had persecuted her. A relentless fate seemed to pursue them to the grave, and in many cases, beyond it. Cauchon died suddenly while under the hands of his barber ; his remains, excommuni- cated by Pope Calixtus III., were disinterred some years after- wards and thrown into the public streets ; the vice-inquisitor, Jean le Maistre, disappeared mysteriously from off the face of the earth ; Joseph d'Estivet, associate judge with Cauchon, was found dead upon a dunghill in the suburbs of Rouen ; Loyseleur was struck with apoplexy in a church at Basle ; Nicolas Midy, the preacher at the stake, perished a shunned and odious leper ; and Henry VI., in whose name and behalf Joan Dare was slain, was twice dethroned, and died in the Tower of London. In 1456, the war, which had lasted one hundred and fifteen years, was brought to a close by the expulsion of the English army. Charles VII. now made a tardy reparation for the royal J AN D ARC. 121 indiiFerence he had manifested to the fate of his dehverer. At the suit of Joan's aged mother and her two surviving brothers, Jacques and Pierre, he ordered a second trial to be held, for the purpose of rehabilitating her memory and proclaiming her innocence. The solemn ceremony took place before a bench of bishops, and under the authority of Pope Oalixtus III. By a happy chance, though twenty-five years had elapsed since her death, nearly all whose testimony would be valuable in establishing her in- nocence and reversing the former sentence, had been spared to give it : — Pasquerel, her ahnoner, now far advanced in years ; Dunois, the fire of his eye somewhat quenched by age ; Dau- lon, her equerry and faithful guardian ; Jean de Metz and Poulengy, her companions-in-arms ; Martin Ladvenu, her con- fessor at the stake ; Isambart, who heard her call upon Jesus in the flames ; Massieu, who brought her the cross from the church of St. Sauveur, and a numerous throng of her early friends in the village where she was born. From this evidence — against which the partisans of the English have never been able to say aught, except that it was somewhat moulded and influenced by the reaction of the pe- riod — we have derived a large portion of the preceding details, and have, therefore, no occasion to repeat it here. The inno- cence of the Pucelle of the crimes attributed to her — impiety, sorcery, idolatry — was solemnly proclaimed by the Archbishop of Rouen on the 7th of July. The clergy went in procession to the scenes of the Parody and of the Execution, and per- formed an expiatory service upon the spots profaned by those two ecclesiastical crimes. The church, the state, literature and the fine arts have vied with each other in doing honor to the memory of the Maid of Orleans. The present generation has witnessed the purchase of Joan's cottage — such as it now exists, enlarged and, as it were, lost in the more modern constructions which inclose it — by the French government, for the purposes of a girls' school ; the 16 122 JOAN DARC. erection of a statue, due to the chisel of a king's daughter, upon the grand staircase of the HStel de Ville at Orleans ; and in 1855, the inauguration, in the Place du Martroi, in the same city, of an admirable equestrian statue of the warrior saint. The festivities on this occasion lasted four days ; music, science, sculpture, elo- quence, architecture, were pressed into the grateful service. The historical edifices in which the city abounds were brilliantly decorated with the trappings and hangings pecuhar to the fif- teenth century. The violin of Sivori was called upon to illustrate, in harmonious measure, the career of the heroine, from the green fields of Domr^my to the red ordeal at Rouen. The beUs of the Tourelles j^ealed forth, at early dawn, the same chimes with which, in 1429, they had announced the deliverance of the city. At night, a Historical Cavalcade, armed and equipped in imita- tion of Joan's victorious troops, made the round of the city, fol- lowing the route taken by her four hundred and twenty-six years before. The illustrious knights who had fought by her side were represented by their descendants — Dunois, Daulon, Jean Debrosses, Lahire. A grand mass was performed, not by an ecclesiastical prince, but by the pastor of a village church, the curate of Domr^my. On the fourth day, the statue was unveiled and dehvered to the people, amid the din of voices, the roaring of cannon, and the clamor of bells. We have sought to narrate the story and interpret the life of Joan Dare in a manner to call for little elucidation beyond that which the mind of the reader will readily suggest. The fact cannot be concealed, that in France the prevailing tone of opin- ion, and the whole influence of the church tend to establish the beUef that she was not only a beatified saint, but a commis- sioned envoy. The annual panegyrics pronounced at Orleans invariably proceed upon the ground that her character is insus- ceptible of subdivision, and that she was either — in the broadest sense of those terms — a saint or a charlatan. Between the two conclusions the patriot and the CathoUc can hardly hesitate, and JOANDARC. 123 the mass of the French nation have accepted a theory which, while it gratifies their pride and flatters their sentiment of vene- ration, grants them the satisfaction of a mystery accounted for, and spares them the discomfort of a marvel unexplained. His- tory, however, demands a more conscientious and disinterested verdict than priests and panegyrists can be expected to render, and it is fortunate that among the students who have made Joan Dare their theme, there are many who are neither churchmen nor even Catholics. Neither Lamartine, nor Michelet, nor Henri Martin, accept for an instant the opinion which clothes Joan Dare in the robes of the celestial emissary ; and they refuse to compromise the dignity of history by the puerilities of the popu- lar imagination. That her marvellous career may be satisfacto- rily interpreted without recourse to the theory of a direct divine intex'position, a few words will suffice to show. Joan Dare possessed in an extraordinary degree three exceptional qualities — Love of Country, Faith, Enthusiasm. The sentiment of patriotism was active and vital in her to a degree never before witnessed in the land which gave her birth. France was tiU then an assemblage of provinces, a vast chaos of fiefs, a confused federation of vassals, independent of each other and rivals of the crown ; in Joan's heart beat the first pulsation which throbbed for all alike, embracing Burgun- dians, Proven^aux, Bretons, in one common brotherhood. Love of country lay at the base of her character, and was the main- spring of the delicate but sturdy mechanism of her being. It was, in short, the motive of her life, and it urged and spurred her to action with an intensity which, from the fact that it was unusual, has seemed to many unnatural. StiU, though Joan possessed the incentive, she would have been powerless without the machinery ; fortunately she had the means as well as the motive ; and this she found in her Faith — her belief in her own inspiration, whether she were inspired or not. The faith of Joan Dare was more than as a grain of mustard seed, and when 124 JOAN DARC. she controlled and wielded men, when she resuscitated and saved an empire, she did more than remove mountains or com- mand sycamines to be planted in the sea. That Joan Dare should have been deceived by her imagina- tion, and should have been herself a convert to her own illu- sions, is not to be marvelled at. Stronger heads than hers have been the dupes of similar conscientious impostures. Numa Pompilius listened to the counsels of an imaginary divinity whom he called Egeria, but who was nothing more than a personifica- tion of his own natural inspiration. Socrates heard and obeyed the monitions of an inward voice which he was accustomed to re- gard and to consult as his familiar genius. Joan Dare was simi- larly wrought upon, with the diflFerence that her impressions were more violent and the forms assumed by her fancy more tan- gible. Passionately preoccupied with one idea, endowed with an imagination of extreme activity, called upon to reaUze keenly the calamities of her country, educated to regard her persecuted king as the lieutenant and vicegerent of God on eai'th, inhabiting a spot picturesque in its scenery and romantic in its legends, ac- customed from childhood to tread and play upon fairy ground, taught by the annual exorcisms of the curate to look upon the dryads and watersprites as very substantial and authentic be- ings, and, above all, haunted by the prediction of the enchanter, and thinking and reasoning herself into the belief that she was the commissioned and foreordained heroine of the prophecy — it is not extraordinary, or rather, it is not impossible, that she should have abandoned herself to revery and day-dreams, that in her moments of ecstasy she should have been beset by visions and have held conversations with the saints. "With their several attributes and positions in glory her religious habits and associa- tions had rendered her famihar, and the language which she ascribed to each was such as the object of it might have em- ployed without discredit. It is not wonderful, either, that she should have interpreted these creations of her fancy as direct JOAN DAKC. 125 communications from on high. There is nothing marvellous in a dream, nor is it marvellous for pei'sons in a certain mental con- dition to dream awake ; and there is nothing which should astonish a reader properly informed of the character and educa- tion of Joan Dare, in the construction which she placed upon her waking dreams. The fact once conceded that, though claiming the estate of a divine envoy, she was self-appointed and commis- sioned, there is nothing in her subsequent career which is not equally susceptible of explanation. Prompted by patriotism, endowed and qualified by faith, sustained by enthusiasm, she was still marvellously aided by the credulity of the age in which she lived. Upon this subject, a few words will not be out of place. Like all characters of spontaneous growth, springing from the emergencies or exigencies of the moment, Joan Dare was in j)erfect harmony with the circumstances under which she was to act. She would have been powerless in a material and incredu- lous age, but in the fifteenth century she was in unison with the fashion of men's minds and their habits of thought. Many of her battles were won, and certainly the deliverance of Orleans was ef- fected — not by the vigor of her arm nor by the skill of her tactics — but by the paralyzing effect upon the enemy of their belief in her divinity. The English saw the saints in the air descending to battle ; they heard the emissary of heaven, a girl in her teens bearing the banner of the cross, thundering at their very gates. It is not to be wondered at that they often permitted the strug- gle to go by default, and refused to measure swords with the re- doubtable St. Michael. This was not a belief forced upon them in moments of panic or at the ghostly hour of midnight, and abandoned as childish upon the return of reason or with the rising of the sun. The English were consistent throughout ; while Joan was their enemy, she was a saint and a leader of saints ; when she became their captive, she was a sorceress and in league with the fiend. The character of her mission and the 126 J AN D ARC. source of her power changed in their eyes, but not their belief in the existence of the power itself. They had dreaded her sanc- tity while free, and they exorcised her as a witch when she fell into their hands. That her influence over them was that of a person acknowledged to possess supernatural gifts, the whole history of her life and times abundantly shows. There are no events in her career which positively require the intervention of a supernatural explanation, or must else be left unexplained. It has been said that her recognition of the dauphin at Chinon could hardly be characterized as an exercise of perspicacity. Still it need not be regarded as miraculous. The mind, in certain phases, may, and often does, become possessed of a sense finer than any sense of the material body^the sense of instinct ; Joan and the king were situated towards each other in a manner calculated to awaken in her this dormant sense. She, inspired, chosen and sent, as she believed, to deh- ver the country and crown the king ; he, dauphin by the grace God, the inheritor of a divine right, heir to a consecrated ma- jesty — the two in presence, the king disguised and the envoy told to seek. She who had seen saints could not fail to recog- nize the king. The marvel would have been had she not re- cognized him. She became clairvoyant at a moment when it would have been weakness to remain blind. Fatal it would have been, as well, for had she seen with the eyes of sense merely, her epopee would never have been enacted and her story never told. Were history written by women and not by men — with whatever shortcomings we should have to reproach the historians — Joan Dare, at least, would have been better understood and her life and mission more intelligibly interpreted. We should have been reminded that patriotism influences men in one manner and women in another ; that it acts through different channels and touches different chords, according to the sex of those upon whom it operates. Men rise to lofty heights J AN D AEG. 127 in virtue, heroism, moral grandeur ; women in enthusiasm, fa- naticism, inspiration. Love of country produces among men, Cincinnatus, Alfred, Washington — pure, unselfish, sjrinmetrical ; among women, Vittoria Colonna, Madame Roland, Charlotte Corday, Joan Dare — romantic, devoted, marvellous. Men are governed by the intellect and sway their fellow-men by reason ; women are wrought upon through the imagination and produce their effects by the heart and the affections. With all her patri- otism, Joan Dare would have been powerless, had she been con- demned to employ, to save France, the means and resources which, at a later period, saved America. Women have a fibre more in the heart and a cell less in the brain than men ; they cannot, therefore, be measured by the same standard nor weighed in the same balance. Let us claim Joan Dare as a mortal, and let us judge her as a woman. Though doubtless, in one sense, the most remark- able of created beings, she was still human, and of the race of Adam. The calendar of Rome is rich and full to overflowing ; the saints can spare St. Joan, mankind cannot spare Joan Dare. ISABELLA Isabella, afterwards Queen of Spain, was born at Madrigal in the kingdom of Castile, on the 22d of April, 1451. Her father, John II., died three years later, after a long and inglorious reign, lamenting that he had not been born beneath a roof of thatch, instead of under the dome of a palace. His eldest son, Henry TV., succeeded to the throne, and Isabella retired, with her mother, to the village of Aravelo, where she lived for many years in tranquil obscurity. During her early youth, she was repeatedly sought in marriage, and one of her first suitors, though unsuccessful then, was he for whom fate ultimately reserved her hand — Ferdinand of Aragon. Twice betrothed and twice released, she was next offered to a man known to be stained with almost every crime — Don Pedro Giron, grand-master of the order of Calatrava, her selfish brother thus hoping to conciliate a powerful and troublesome family. The Pope released Don Pedro from his vow of celibacy, and mag- nificent preparations were made for the ceremony. Isabella, having at this period attained her sixteenth year, refused to consent to the sacrifice. Her brother assured her that if, on the appointed day, she proved refractory, he would adopt compulsory measures. Isabella, indignant and resolved, ^ij 128 130 ISABELLA. withdrew to her room, where she abstained from food and sleep, and implored Heaven, upon her knees, to take her life rather than subject her to this ignominy. Her bosom-friend, Beatriz de Bobadilla, whose reliance seemed to be more strongly fixed on material agencies, exclaimed, drawing a knife from her bosom, "God will not permit it, neither will I!" She swore she would plunge the weapon into Don Pedro's heart, if he persisted in his intention. The valiant lady was spared the necessity of executing her threat, by the convenient death of the grand-master, while on his way to Madrid, where the ceremony was to be performed. At this period, a civil war broke out in Castile between the partisans of the king and the disaffected nobles, the latter desiring to dethrone Henry and give the crown to his half- brother Alfonzo. The question was referred to the issue of a battle, to be fought on the plains of Olmedo. The contest lasted three hours, with no decisive result, except that it kindled a taste for carnage, and plunged the whole country into the horrors of civil war. Churches became barracks, and palaces castles ; pitched battles were fought in every street, and blood and conflagration spread over the kingdom. The death of Alfonzo, by poison or the plague, totally disconcerted the schemes of the allied nobles. They could hardly hope to con- tinue their league without a leader, and if it were dissolved, they would be exposed to Henry's vengeance. They cast their eyes on Isabella, the own sister of Alfonzo, now in her seven- teenth year, and living, since her brother's death, in a monastery at Arvila. She was here visited by the Archbishop of Toledo, the envoy of the confederates, and besought by him to assume the authority lately held by Alfonzo, and to allow herself to be proclaimed Queen of Castile. After due reflection, she refused, saying that "while her brother lived, none other had a right to the crown ; that the country had been divided long enough under the rule of two contending mouarchs ; and that ISABELLA 131 the death of Alfonzo might, perhaps, be interpreted into an indication from Heaven of its disapprobation of their cause." She professed herself willing and anxious, however, to effect a reconciliation between the king and the confederates, and such a reconciliation was ultimately negotiated, the conditions being that Henry should grant an amnesty for past offences ; that he should repudiate his licentious queen and disinherit his daughter ; that the principalities of the Asturies should be settled upon Isabella, who should then be formally recognized as heiress to the crowns of Castile and Leon. A formal interview took place between Henry and Isabella, in ratification of this agreement ; the king kissed his sister affectionately, and solemnly declared her his successor. The cortes were convened in forty days and their sanction was unanimously conferred upon her pretensions to the crown. The number of Isabella's suitors now very naturally increased. The King of Portugal sought her in marriage for himself, while the King of France, Louis XL, asked her for his brother. Edward IV. of England solicited her hand, but whether for himself or his brother Gloster, afterwards Richard III., the chronicles of the time do not clearly state. Ferdinand of Aragon, heir to the throne of that kingdom, was the favored aspirant. Isabella easily justified in her own mind the propriety of such a choice, by dwelling upon the advantages of a union which should unite two contiguous and homogeneous nations. While separated, they were powerless ; combined, they might claim a part, perhaps a j^reponderance, in the balance of na- tions. Ferdinand was in his early prime, and, in the stining events amid which he had passed his youth, had displayed valor and discretion. A number of the dissatisfied nobles who had espoused the cause of Henry's disinherited daughter, Joanna, now resolutely attempted to baffle Isabella's plans. The king even was induced to listen to their intrigues. Isabella, indignant at his duplicity, 132 ISABELLA. resolved to conclude her marriage with Ferdinand without con- sulting her brother further. The contract was signed by Ferdinand on the 7th of January, 1469. He engaged to respect the laws and usages of Castile ; to reside in that kingdom ; to alienate no property belonging to the crown ; to prosecute the war against the Moors, and to respect King Henry. In the mean- time, Isabella's actions were closely watched by the spies of the adverse party. Her very household servants were corrupted, and her slightest movements reported. The king, finding the preparations for the wedding so far advanced, sent a force to Madrigal to lay violent hands upon the person of his sister, but, fortunately, their arrival was anticipated by a forced march of cavalry to her rehef, under the orders of the Archbishop of Toledo. Isabella was hurried off to the friendly city of VaUa- dohd, where she was to await the coming of the bridegroom. Ferdinand, however, did not, at that moment, possess the means of effecting a hostile entrance into Castile, his father being engaged in a harassing and exhausting war with a rebellious province. He resolved to make the adventurous attempt in disguise. He set out, accompanied by half a dozen attendants ; they travelled, principally by night, in the garb of merchants ; the prince waited upon them at table, and, at the halting places, fed and watered the mules.' After a journey of forty-eight hours, they arrived at a castle, the first point upon the route occupied by troops in Isal ella's interest. Thus protected and reinforced, Ferdinand easily reached Duefias, in the kingdom of Leon, where he was met by throngs of nobles and soldiers, assembled to espouse his cause and render homage to his rank. The following description of Ferdinand and Isabella, at the epoch of this interview, we quote from Mr. Prescott : ' ' Ferdinand was at this time in the eighteenth year of his age. His com- plexion was fair, though somewhat bronzed by constant exposure to the sun ; his eye quick and cheerful ; his forehead ample and approaching to baldness. His muscular and well-proportioned ISABELLA. 133 frame was invigorated by the toils of war, and by the chivakous exercises in which he deliglited. He was one of the best horse- men in his court, and excelled in field-sports of every kind. His voice was somewhat sharp, but he possessed a fluent eloquence, and when he had a point to carry, his address was courteous and even insinuating. He secured his health by extreme temperance in his diet, and by such habits of activity that it was said he seemed to find repose in business. Isabella was a year older than her lover. In stature she was somewhat above the middle size. Her complexion was fair ; her hair of a bright chestnut color, inclining to red ; and her mild, blue eye beamed with intelligence and sensibility. She was exceedingly beautiful ; ' the handsomest lady,' says one of her household, ' whom I ever beheld, and the most gracious in her manners.' The portrait, still existing of her in the royal palace, is conspicuous for an open symmetry of features, indicative of the natural serenity of temper and that beautiful harmony of intellectual and moral qualities which auost distinguished her. She was dignified in her demeanor, and modest even to a degree of reserve. She spoke the Castilian language with more than usual elegance ; and early imbibed a relish for letters, in which she was superior to Ferdinand, whose education in this particular seems to have been neglected. It is not easy to obtain a dispassionate portrait of Isabella. The Spaniards who revert to her glorious reign, are so smitten with her moral perfections, that even in depicting her personal, they borrow somewhat of the exaggerated coloring of romance." The marriage of the happy pair was solemnized on the 19th of October, 1469. Both Ferdinand and Isabella were com- pelled to borrow money to defray their respective portions of the expenses. The ceremony was witnessed by two thousand per- sons, the highest in rank being the Admiral of Castile and the Archbishop of Toledo. The latter produced upon the occasion a spurious papal bull, authorizing the parties to marry, though 134 ISABELLA. within the prohibited degrees of consanguinity. He had forged this document in connection with the King of Aragon and Ferdi- nand, well aware that the Pope was fully committed to the cause of Henry, and would not have granted a genuine dispensation, and that Isabella would not enter into a forbidden union, with- out believing herself authorized so to do. When, in later years, she discovered the imposture, she obtained an authentic bull from Sixtus IV. During the week following the marriage, Ferdinand and Isa- bella sent a message to Henry, informing him of the consumma- tion of their union, and asking his fraternal approbation. The unbrotherly king responded by avowing his determination to resist the pretensions of Isabella, by putting his daughter Jo- anna forward as his successor. Ambassadors were received from Louis XI. of France, and the princess, though but nine years of age, was betrothed, by proxy, to that sovereign's bro- ther, the Duke of Guienne. This accession of the influence of the French court to that of the crown of Castile alarmed many of the adherents of Isabella, and they hastened to acknowledge their allegiance to Joanna. In the meantime, the whole ter- ritory of Castile was a prey to the most frightful anarchy and civil war — the natural but fatal results of the license of the court, the corruption of the clergy, the imbecility of the gov- ernment, and the dispute in which the succession was involved. Isabella remained at DueSas, her husband being often absent to aid his father in his wars with the Catalans ; her discreet conduct and wise administration of her little court, convinced all who witnessed them that her ultimate triumph over her niece, her rival, would be the most auspicious event that could hap- pen to their country. Henry IV. died in December, 1474, without designating his successor. The previous action of the cortes, however, in doing homage to Isabella as the only heir to the crown, had settled this vexed question, and she was proclaimed queen at Segovia, on the morning of the 13th, ISABELLA. 135 The principal grandees of the populous cities and provinces of the kingdom flocked to her standard and tendered her their homage and allegiance. Ferdinand soon returned from Aragon, and evinced a marked dissatisfaction with the bestowment of the royal pre- rogative upon his consort- — a measure which involved his own degradation to a secondary rank. Arbitrators decided, however, after an examination of the subject, that the Salic law, exclud- ing females from the succession, did not obtain in Castile, although it did in Aragon ; that Isabella was heir to, and con- sequently queen proprietor of, the kingdom ; and that Ferdi- nand, if he were to possess any authority, could only obtain it through his wife. The offended prince, upon this verdict, declared he would go home to his father, but Isabella com- forted him by the assurance that his will should be hers, and that their interests should always be inseparable. Besides, his profile was to be stamped, in conjunction with hers, upon the metallic currency, and he was to add his signature to hers, upon public documents and letters j^atent. She moreover pleaded the maternal argument, that if a Sahc law excluded her, it must, in the impartiality of its operation, likewise exclude their only child, a daughter. By such mollifying arguments did the Queen of Castile induce her discontented husband to acquiesce in the decision of the cortes. She now commenced her beneficent reign over a kingdom described, at the j^eriod of her accession, by the historian whom we have quoted, as " dismembered by faction, the revenues squandered on worth- less parasites, the grossest violations of justice unredressed, public faith become a jest, the treasury bankrupt, the court a brothel, and private morals too loose and audacious to seek even the veil of hypocrisy ! Never had the fortunes of the kingdom reached so low an ebb since the great Saracen in- iion." The last spark of opposition which the new sovereigns 136 ISABELLA. encountered from the hostile pretensions of Joanna, was extin- guished by the great battle of Toro, fought between the Cas- tilians, under Ferdinand, and the Portuguese, under their king, Alfonzo. Isabella devoted herself night and day to the interests of her kingdom during the struggle. She dictated dispatches, performed long journeys on horseback, inspected citadels, reviewed disciplined troops, and drilled raw recruits. AVhen the tidings of Ferdinand's triumph reached her, she ordered her court to go in procession to a suburban church, and set an example of royal humiliation by walking barefoot herself. A treaty of peace was signed with Portugal on the 24th of September, 1479, and the war of the succession was closed. In the same year, the throne of Aragon, with its six dependencies, descended, by the death of the king, to Ferdi- nand, and thus, after a separation of four hundred years, Cas- tile and Aragon were again united under the same crown. Isabella now devoted herself to the elaboration of efficient schemes of reform. The administration of justice was en- forced by the introduction of rigid but impartial laws ; when they were resisted, she herself repaired to the scene of the rebellion, and witnessed their prompt execution. She organ- ized a force of two thousand military police, Avhose swift and unsparing justice restored the country, in the space of twenty- two years, to a condition of security it had never yet known. The privileges of the nobles were curtailed, grants made to them by previous sovereigns were revoked, and a sum of thirty million maravedis was annually economized. The aris- tocratic classes, in resisting these innovations, wei'e made to feel severely the strength of the hand which now held the reins of government. The military orders were compelled to root out the corruptions which had crept into their organiza- tions ; the church of Rome was forced to abandon the prac- tice which it had usurped, of making appointments to vacant sees, and to cease its encroachments upon the lay tribunals. ISABELLA. 137 The stagnation of trade, resulting from the misrule of pre- vious sovereigns and from the debasement of the currency, was met and combated by acts determining the standard of coins and affixing heavy penalties to the issuing of counter- feit money ; by the construction of roads and viaducts ; by punctual payment, on the part of the government, of its obli- gations ; and by the enactment of laws encouraging commerce and protecting the mercantile marine. The husbandman, no longer dreading the inroads of hostile bands upon his mead- ows, and the settlement of hereditary feuds amid his harvests, felt once more a stimulus to toil ; and the face of the couir- try soon bore witness, in the renewed vigor of its culture, to the wisdom of the measures of the queen. The court itself, following her admirable example, and repudiating the lessons of many generations of license, became the appropriate setting of the jewel of the crown. The wilderness once more blossomed as the rose. Desirous of fortifying her temporal power by calling to her aid the influence of spiritual authority, Isabella committed the lamentable error of promoting the religious intolerance and bigotry of her age, in listening to the importunate clamor of the clergy against the Jews ; she suffered her zeal in behalf of true religion to be so warped by her reverend advisers, that she was induced to solicit, from Pope Sixtus IV., a bull for the establish- ment of the Inquisition in Castile, in behalf of "the extirpation of heresy, for the glory of God and the exaltation of the Catholic faith." The Holy Office was inaugurated at Seville in January, 1481, and six Jewish victims were burned at the stake on the 6th of the month ; two hundi'ed and ninety-eight convicted heretics suffered death by fire during the year in Seville ; the province of Andalusia itself furnishing, in the same space of time, two thousand martyrs to the flames, while seventeen thou- sand were either mulcted in property or civilly incapacitated. We do not care to linger upon this deplorable page of Isabella's 18 138 ISABELLA. history ; suffice it to say that the misguided queen, through the agency of her confessor, Torquemada, afterwards Inquisitor- General of Castile and Aragon, was concerned, directly or indirectly, in the burning of ten thousand men and women, and in the infliction of lesser, but still terrible, penalties upon one hundred thousand more. Great, indeed, must have been the compensating merits of Isabella, transcendent must have been her services to civilization, to have outweighed, in the judgment of posterity, the atrocious wrongs inflicted upon her land by the most unholy of human institutions. Isabella had no sooner directed the vengeance of the state against one form of heresy, than she became i^ossessed with an ardent desire to wage a similar war of extirpation against that more extensive and dangerous foi'm — Mohammedanism. The Saracen empire in Spain, which had been founded in the middle of the eighth century, had shriuik, in the time of Isabella, within the limits of a single province, perhaps the fairest in the peninsula — Granada. Here the crescent had waved tri- umphantly since the year 711. Intercourse of a neutral, semi- amicable character had for many years been kept up between the two peoples. In 1476, Isabella required from the Moorish sovereign, upon the renewal of an existing truce, the payment of a tribute to which his predecessors had been accustomed to submit. He tartly replied that the mint of Granada had aban- doned the coinage of gold, and coined steel instead. The war, thus provoked, was commenced by the Moors late in the year 1481, by an attack upon the Andalusian town of Zahara. The garrison was surprised, and the whole population, men, women and children, were carried off slaves to the Moors. The Castilians revenged this loss by the capture of the Moslem stronghold of Albania ; the city was tlien ecclesiastically purified, and its mosques were consecrated to the worship of the true God. The green crops in the surrounding fields were destroyed, the vines uprooted and the trees felled to the earth. The eleven ISABELLA. 139 years' war was fairly begun. Isabella issued orders fixing the quota of men and supplies to be furnished by each province ; and she dotted the Mediterranean with the sails of a powerful fleet, commissioned to scour the Barbary coast and intercept all aid and comfort sent by the Moors of Africa. For four years the war continued, with varying success, and without a decisive action on either side. The foragers, of whom there were thirty thousand in Isabella's armies, made incursions in spring and autumn into the enemy's vineyards, pastures and wheat fields, devastating the face of nature, and destroying the works of man. Isabella, summoning engineers and military artisans from France and Germany, and pointing out to them the Moorish strongholds perched upon dizzy heights and defying her weak artillery, commanded them to forge cannon and other battering engines capable of reducing them. Gunpowder was imported from Sicily and Flanders. Camps were laid out, forges erected, commissaries appointed, and rigid systems of supply elaborated. Isabella soon possessed the finest artillery in Europe, though, viewed in the light of modern experience, it was of course rude and comparatively inefficient. An army of pioneers constructed the roads over which the trains proceeded. Such were the difficulties in levelling mountains, in felling trees, and in bridging torrents, that the average advance of the besieging army across the ■ rugged sierras, was one mile a day. Isabella remained upon the frontier, informed by hourly couriers of the progress of events. She held the exclusive control of the com- missariat department, supplying her own army as well as such captured cities of the enemy as were surrounded with trampled harvests. She established and sujaported, at her own expense, a hospital in the camp — the first on record. Everywhere, in every department of the war, her influence was powerfully felt, and vigor was infused into every ai'tery of the service by the contagious effect of her own inspiring example. In 1486, the Spaniards had advanced sixty miles into the territory of Granada, 140 ISABELLA. fortifying and colonizing each successive conquest. The sea-port of Malaga, a town second only to the city of Granada, well pre- pared to sustain a siege, hxy completely exposed to the invaders in April, 1487. The first attempts upon this stronghold being repulsed, and rumors of the approach of the plague spreading dismay among his troops, Ferdinand sent to Isabella, at Cordova, demanding her instant presence at the camp. She came, with her usual retinue of ecclesiastics and gallants, and repaired to her tent amid the rapturous greetings of the loyal forces. The enthusiasm of the besiegers was revived by her arrival. Ferdinand resolved to spare no longer the architectural gloi'ies of the city, and brought out his heavy ordnance. The attack was met in a spirit of gallantry of which even the Spanish historians express their admiration. The battle raged for six hours, when the Spaniards, following up the harassing effects of an exploded mine, estab- lished themselves in the enemy's defences. The city soon after surrendered without condition, and in the middle of August, Ferdinand and Isabella made their entrance into the stronghold. A Te Deum was sung for the first time in the Saracen cathedral, and then Ferdinand pronounced his sentence on the inhabitants. They were doomed to slavery : one-third to be sent to Africa in exchange for an equal number of Christians ; one-third to be sold to defray the expenses of the war ; and one-third to be given away as presents. Isabella herself sent fift}^ of the fairest girls to the Queen of Naples — a cruel measure, which "may find some palliation, however, in the bigotry of the age — the more excusable in a woman, whom education, general example, and a constant distrust of hei'self, accustomed to rely, in matters of conscience, on the spiritual guides whose piety and professional learning seemed to qualify them for the trust." The year 1489 was devoted to the siege and reduction of Baza, near the Guadalquivir. The queen fixed her residence at Jaen, and Ferdinand took command, in May, of an army of ISABELLA. 141 80,000 foot, and 15,000 horse. Baza, unlike the majority of Moorish strongholds, lay in a spacious valley, devoted to culti- vation and irrigated by a net-work of canals. The city was strongly fortified, and though amply provisioned for fifteen months, the prudent inhabitants had harvested the yet unsea- soned crops. The first onslaught was unsuccessful, and the Spaniards were beaten back. The army at once became dejected and Ferdinand irresolute. Nothing remained but to ask the advice of Isabella. She replied in encouraging terms, asserting that their cause was the cause of God, and adding, that they need have no apprehension concerning the regularity of the supplies — an item for which she held herself responsible. Thus exhilarated and reassured, the soldiers returned to their labors with renewed spirits. Ten thousand men labored at the works of investment for seven weeks, in the midst of the constant and harassing sorties of the enemy, and of hand-to-hand encounters between the champions of either army. Their ^^rovident caterer, the queen, sent them not only bread and meat in the wagons of the commissariat, but silks, cutlery and jewels, in the packs of Aragonese and Catalonian peddlers. The siege had now lasted five months. An autumnal storm, for which the besieged had hourly prayed, at last broke over the investing camp. A deluge of rain swept away their tents, and, by rendering the roads impassable, broke up their com- munication with Jaen. For a time Isabella's vans were inter- rupted ; the labors, however, of six thousand levellers speedily repaired the damage ; new bridges spanned the torrents, and new passes cut the mountains ; the fourteen thousand mules of the department at once resumed their traffic to and fro. Isabella ordered new levies of troops, and obtained upon her individual security large loans from religious associations ; she even pawned the crown jewels, the city of Valencia advancing thirty-five thousand florins upon the crown itself. Her presence being ardently desired in the camp, she repaired thither on the 7th of U2 ISABELLA. November. Her arrival was the signal for a mutual suspension of hostilities ; a truce was, as it were, tacitly agreed upon. Her visit was construed by the Moors as an earnest of renewed effort on the part of the besiegers, and they, therefore, offered terms of capitulation, which, after some negotiation, were accepted. The sovereigns took possession of the city on the 4th of Decem- ber ; the cities of Almeria and Guadix surrendered in quick succession, and the army, after leaving a sufficient force in each, returned to Jaen in January, 1490. This was the eighth and most decisive year of the war. Eighty thousand men had kept the field — twenty thousand of them falling before the sword of the enemy or the diseases incident to camp life. Abdallah, the King of Granada, had stipulated some years previously, that upon the capitulation of Baza, Almeria, and Guadix, he would surrender his capital as well. Being summoned, early in the year 1490, to perform this engage- ment, he declined, alleging the decided opposition of his con- stituents, the inhabitants of the city, who clamorously insisted upon its defence. Ferdinand, therefore, prepared for its reduc- tion, and in April, 1491, took command of the army collected for that purpose. Towards the close of the month, the camp was formed at about two leagues distance from the massive and magnificent metropolis. Isabella often appeared upon the field upon a steed superbly ca^^arisoned, and, with her retinue of ladies, witnessed the tournaments — often fatal to both com- batants — in which the cavahers of the two armies whiled away the time not spent in more general melees. Sorties from the city were repulsed with unequal loss, and, on one occasion, when the Moorish rabble issued from the gates, to measure their undisciplined forces with the Christian warriors, two thousand of them fell in the brief though ruthless slaugh- ter which ensued. Midsummer brought with it a disaster which might have been fatal to the Castilian cause and queen. The pavilion ISABELLA. 143 of Isabella, by the negligence of an attendant, was set on fire at the dead of night. The flames spread from tent to tent, and soon threatened to envelop the camp. They were at length subdued, though not before a large amount of tent material — a portion of it valuable and not easily replaced — had been destroyed. It was at once resolved, instead of re- constructing the camp, to build a city upon its site. Edifices of stone and mortar— houses for the officers, barracks for the men, stables for the horses — rose before the wondering eyes of the beleaguered Moslems. The city was completed in Octo- ber, and though the whole army desired to confer upon it the victorious name of Isabella, the queen thought fit to record, in the title selected, the faith of her people in the sustaining protection of Providence. The city bears to this day the name it then received — Santa Fe. The besieged were alarmed at this stone encampment — one which they felt would outlive Granada. Abdallah saw the provisions giving out, the suppUes cut ofl', and aid from across the Mediterranean intercepted. He opened negotiations with the enemy for the capitulation of the city, his people being held in ignorance of their progress. The 2d of January, 1492, was fixed upon for the surrender, which took place with every possible religious and military ceremonial. The court, discarding the mourning they had assumed upon the death of Alfonzo, Prince of Portugal, appeared clad in their most sump- tuous holiday garments, while the army glittered in polished steel, and waved aloft the now triumphant Banner of the Cross. As the first column ascended to the city, Abdallah, starting upon the exile to which the terms of surrender condemned him, saluted Ferdinand as he passed, at the same time de- livering to him the keys of the Alhambra, saying, "They are thine, king, since Allah so decrees it ; use thy success with clemency and moderation." The Moorish war, like the siege of Troy, to which the 144 ISABELLA. Spaniards often compare it, had lasted ten years, and thus ended in the fall of Granada. The Spanish Arabs, driven from the empire which they had raised to the highest degree of civili- zation of which their religion and government rendered tJicm capable, withdrew before a people whose faith and resources made them eminently fit to cultivate to the utmost, the ad- vantages which nature, with prodigal hand, had lavished upon this favored spot. While the sovereigns were still before Granada, the inquisi- tors, to whom the task of converting and reforming the Jews had lately been assigned, reported to them the entire failure of the rigorous measures adojited. They urged the necessity of the total banishment of the Israelitish race from Spanish soil, supporting their argument by the most calumnious accusations. The Jews, they said, kidnapped Christian children and crucified them in mockery of the Saviour ; they sought to make convei'ts from Christianity, and to reclaim such of their own faith as the Inquisition had led astray. Jewish apothecaries, making adroit mistakes in compounding their prescriptions, sent home deadly doses to their Christian patients. Christians, too, they com- plained, still, from time to time, took Jewish wives, seduced by the tempting plethora of the Jewish coffers. Wherefore, they sohcited an immediate edict of banishment. The wily Hebrews, aware of the progress of these deliberations, sent a deputy to conciliate their majesties by the offer of thirty thousand ducats, to be spent in extirpating the Moors. The sovereigns gave audience to their ambassador, amused, doubtless, at this contri- bution from one form of heresy for the eradication of another. While the negotiation was pending, Isabella being markedly anxious, from motives not only of humanity, but also of policy and prudence, to retain in her empire the most industrious, skill- ful, and orderly portion of her subjects, the Inquisitor-General, Torquemada, burst into the apartment, and holding aloft his crucifix, exclaimed: "Judas Iscariot sold his Master for thirty ISABELLA. 145 pieces of silver ; your highnesses would sell Him anew for thirty thousand : here He is, take Him and barter Him away !" He tossed the holy emblem violently on the table, and rushed fran- tically out. Isabella, who was still, in all matters concerning religion, absolutely under the influence of her late confessor, to whom she had surrendered her judgment in affairs of conscience, hushed her own scruples and signed the edict. One hundred and fifty thousand Jews were expelled the kingdom, the clauses of the instrument regulating the tei'ms of their banishment being so framed, that many a departing exile, forbidden to carry gold or silver with him, and yet compelled to exchange immovables for movables, bartered his house for an ass and his vineyard for a suit of clothes. Spain lost, in this wholesale expatriation of her subjects, her best artisans, mechanics, and handicraftsmen — a loss which in any age would be lamentable, and one which in that age of tardy national development, was irreparable. Indeed, one of the wealthiest districts of Spain being depopulated, and em^Dtying its valuable, though heretical, citizens into the terri- tories of the Turkish Sultan Bajazet, the barbarian monarch exclaimed : " Do they call this Ferdinand a politic prince, who can thus impoverish his own kingdom and enrich ours ?" We have purposely omitted alluding to the arrival in Spain of Christopher Columbus, during the Moorish war, in order to make a consecutive narrative of his various applications to the court of Isabella. Repulsed by the authorities of Genoa, his native city, his schemes treated as visionary by the Council of Venice, his negotiations with the King of Portugal rendered fruitless by the disloyal conduct of that potentate, Columbus ai'rived in Spain about the year 1484, to lay his proposals for western discovery before Ferdinand and Isabella. The sove- reigns, though deeply engaged in their preparations for extir- pating the Moors, referred the subject to a council of scholars and philosophers assembled at Salamanca. Their verdict was unfavorable; and Columbus, after five years spent in solicitation, 19 146 ISABELLA. returned to the convent of La Rabida, where he had left his son Diego with his friend Juan Marchena, the prior. Marchena, who had formerly been Isabella's confessor, determined to repair in person to the improvised city of Santa Fe, in which the sove- reigns were now receiving the proposals of Abdallah to surrender Granada. He was at once admitted to an audience, and urged the cause of the despairing philosopher with so much zeal and effect, that Isabella, regarding the Moorish war as well-nigh terminated, decided to resume the negotiation with Columbus, and bade him attend her at Santa Fe. He arrived in time to witness the capitulation of the Moslem stronghold, and then laid once more before the king and queen his fascinating programme. Apart from the arguments upon which he founded his faith in the existence of a western continent, he urged two motives which he thought likely to sway the passions and influence the judgment of his hearers. For Ferdinand he alleged the fabulous riches of the lands which he hoped to discover, and which he doubted not would prove, though reached by sea from the east, to be the Cathay and Cipango which Marco Polo had reached by land from the west. For Isabella he held out the hope of adding new domains to the fast extending empire of Christendom, and of gathering nations of pagans beneath the banner of the cross. Ferdinand still looked with coldness upon the project, and his distrust changed to downright ojjposition when Columbus made known his conditions. He stipulated that he should receive the title of Admiral of the Ocean and Viceroy of all lands discovered ; that his share in all exportations from such lands should be one-tenth ; and that his titles and authority should be trans- missible in his family for ever. The negotiations were abruptly brought to an end, and Columbus, once more shaking the dust of Spain from his feet, mounted his mule and rode sturdily away. Isabella's advisers now warmly remonstrated with her. She listened, and at last resolved to accept for herself, individually, ISABELLA. 147 the risk and responsibility which she knew Ferdinand would not consent to share. Columbus was recalled, when but a few miles from Granada, and, upon his return, was courteously received. "I will assume the undertaking," said Isabella, "for my own crown of Castile, and am ready to pawn my jewels to defray the expenses of it, if the funds in the treasury shall be found inadequate." A definitive arrangement was signed before Granada on the I7tli of April, 1492, the title and authority which Columbus had claimed being fully secured to him. He was to be the governor-general of all discovered lands, with the privilege of suggesting candidates for the governorship, from whom the sovereigns should choose. His tenth part of the products and profits was likewise guaranteed. Isabella inte- rested herself personally in the preparations for the expedition, and it is probable that without this royal intervention in his behalf, Columbus would never have overcome the overt and even rebellious opposition which the shipowners and sailors of the Andalusian ports manifested to the undertaking. On the 3d of August, 1492, the commander and his crews partook of the holy communion, unfurled the banner of the cross, and set sail upon their adventurous voyage. Towards the close of May, the sovereigns quitted Granada and Santa Fe, and undertook a progress through the country. They were everywhere received with an enthusiasm bordering on dehrium. The court spent the winter at Barcelona, and in the spring of 1493, received letters from Palos, announcing the return of Columbus, after a voyage resulting in the discovery of land in the western seas. Impatient to hear the details of this wonderful intelligence, they forwarded instructions to the Admiral of the Ocean to attend them instantly at Barcelona. He set out amidst the ringing of bells, and such processional honors as the little village of Palos could afford. His journey was an ovation from beginning to end. He reached the Cata- lonian capital in the middle of April. He was escorted to the 148 ISABELLA. palace by the authorities of the city and the nobles in attendance upon their majesties. Ferdinand and Isabella rose from their seats, extended their hands to him, and bade him be seated before them. The court was somewhat moved from its propriety at these unprecedented marks of condescension. Columbus then narrated his adventures and discoveries, enumerating the islands he had visited, describing their climate and productions, and even showing specimens of their metallic riches, and enlarging upon the character of the simple and confiding races who inhabited them. Though his manner was sedate rather than enthusiastic, and his deductions those of a philosopher rather than those of an enthusiast, yet the audience were kindled to rapture by his graphic and eloquent recital. The king and queen set the example, as he concluded, of prostrating them- selves before Him who had vouchsafed these precious favors to the Spanish crown, and the kneeling assembly joined the choir in its inspiring anthem of the Te Deum Laudamus. Isabella, in conjunction with Ferdinand, now devoted herself earnestly to furthering the interest of her infant colonial pos- sessions. A custom-house for the transaction of West Indian affairs was established at Cadiz, which was henceforth to be the port of departure. Seeds, roots, grains, were sent thither in abundance for exportation and transplantation ; shipowners were required to hold their vessels at Columbus' disposal ; miners, mechanics and ai-tisans were recruited and collected at Cadiz, and Columbus was empowered to impress officers, soldiers and sailors. The equipment for his second voyage was completed by the addition of twelve priests, among whom was the since celebrated Las Casas, whose mission was to conciliate and illu- minate the heathen, under a system of benevolent regulations drawn up by Isabella herself. Columbus departed on the 25th of September, 1-193, with seventeen vessels and fifteen hundred men — the latter no longer craven and shrinking poltroons, as on the occasion of his first voyage from Palos, but many of them ISABELLA. 149 persons who had enlisted without compensation, eager in the pursuit of western adventure, romance or booty. To defray the expenses of this voyage, Isabella resorted to a loan, applying to the same purpose a portion of the proceeds of the Jewish confiscation. The first intelligence from the colonists was encouraging, and sustained the enthusiasm of the nation. But disastrous tidings soon followed. The adventurers, who were subjected to no control or discipline, were frittering away their energy in isolated and bootless enterprises ; no discoveries of gold had rewarded their efforts, while rapine and massacre had followed in their track through the islands they had invaded. License and disaffection had desolated their ranks ; and Columbus was regarded with jealousy as a Genoese and a foreigner. Isabella's ear was constantly assailed with accusations and complaints against the admiral, to which she listened with undisguised reluctance. Columbus returned in 1496, and was received with the same favor as before. He again brought specimens of the productions of the soil and the handiwork of the natives, but the adventurers who returned with him told so sad a story of destitution and privation, that the public returned to its former skepticism, and regarded with pity the rehance still exhibited by Isabella upon the admiral's representations. Placing implicit confidence in his assurances that he could not fail soon to discover a mainland, she managed to divert to his use a portion of the sums set aside for the nuptials of her only son John with the Princess Margaret of Austria, and for those of her daughter Isabella with Emmanuel, King of Portugal. Honors were con- stantly conferred upon him, and his privileges increased with his years. In April, 1497, John, Prince of the Asturies, now m his twentieth year, espoused his Flemish bride at Bruges. The whole nation rejoiced at this auspicious event, which promised to Europe peace, and to Spain a continuance, under the son, the 150 ISABELLA. first heir to the combined monarchies of Aragon and Castile, of the beneficent sway of his royal parents. But this joy was short- lived. The prmce was taken iU at Salamanca, whither Ferdinand hastened upon receiving the first intelligence. He arrived in time to see his son expire, young in years, but ripe in philosophy and resignation. In order to prepare Isabella for the calamity, he sent couriers to lier in rapid succession, each with a bulletin less favorable than its predecessor. The queen foresaw the dis- pensation, and the messenger who bore the final and fatal tidings found her ready to receive them. She ordered the court to assume sackcloth instead of white serge, the usual mourning garb, and closed all public offices for the space of forty days. This calamity was shortly followed by the death of Isabella, the eldest daughter of the sovereigns, now, by a second marriage, the wife of the King of Portugal. She died in giving birth to a son, who was at once recognized as heir to the three crowns of Aragon, Castile and Portugal. He, in his turn, was taken away, hardly living to complete his second year. The health of Isabella gradually sank under these accumulating sorrows. Columbus departed upon his third voyage in May, 1498, from the port of St. Lucar, with six vessels and a deficient complement of men, a portion of the latter being convicts, whose severe sentences had been commuted to transportation. He found the colony harassed by disaffection and mutiny, and spent a year in attempting to remove the abuses which had sprung up in his absence. Again were Ferdinand and Isabella annoyed by clamors against the admiral, and the king could hardly ride out on horse- back without being persecuted by importunate demands for redress. Columbus was charged with malversation, disloyalty, and even contemplated treason. A commissioner was finally sent out to examine into these alleged frauds and misdemeanors ; and the extraordinary powers with which it was necessary to clothe this officer were conferred upon the since infamous Bobadilla. His first use of the authority vested in him was to send Columbus ISABELLA. 151 back in fetters to Spain, having previously accumulated against him every species of frivolous or outrageous accusation. Isabella, indignant at Bobadilla's high-handed transgression of his prero- gative, sent an order for Columbus' instant release ; and upon his arrival at Granada, where the court was then residing, sought by every gentle means which the heart of a woman or the credit of a queen could suggest to soothe his lacerated feelings. The sovereign and the subject mingled their tears together. Columbus, deeply moved by this display of sympathy, fell upon his knees and wept aloud. Isabella promised him that justice should be meted out to himself and his detractors, and renewed her engagement to legalize the transmission, in his family, of the honors and titles he had acquired. At about this time, Isabella's heart was gladdened by an event in her family of auspicious promise — the birth to her second daughter, Joanna, and her husband Philip, Archduke of Germany, of a son, whose future greatness as Charles V., Em- peror of Spain and Germany, Isabella was the first to predict. But this joy was soon clouded by a sad domestic affliction. Joanna was extravagantly fond of her handsome and courtly, but frivolous and faithless husband. During his absence in France, whither he had been sent by Ferdinand upon a mission to Louis XII., she pined for him in the most doleful manner, sitting for hours together upon the ground in unbroken silence. Another more dangerous freak, indulged in for the first time while her mother was absent, was to repair to the barrier of the castle at night, thinly clad, and remain there motionless as a statue till morning. The queen, being summoned in aU haste, with difficulty prevailed upon her to return to her apartment. Thus was Isabella as sorely tried in her living children as she had been in the deaths of those she had lost. She had been compelled to deplore the untimely fate of him who had been educated for the cares of state, and was competent to bear the burden ; a relentless destiny now called upon her to shed fresh 152 ISABELLA. tears at the spectacle of the insanity of her upon whom the suc- cession was to devolve. Still, in the midst of her afflictions, and despite her rapidly failing health, slie maintained her usual vigilant supervision of the interests of the state. A historian of the time compares her to a rock upon the sea-shore, receiving and repelling the advances of the tide and the shocks of the waves. In the year 1503, the cortes, alarmed at the visihle decay of Isabella's energies, and aware of the increasing incapacity of Joanna, memorialized the queen in favor of a provision for the government of the kingdom, in the event of her decease. A momentary revival of her spirits was effectually checked by humiliating tidings from Flanders, whither Joanna had gone to rejoin her husband. The jealous wife, roused to frenzy by the open attentions of Philip to one of her own ladies, had assaulted the fair object of his devotion. A scandalous scene, high words, and finally a rupture between the archduke and Joanna ensued. These disgraceful occurrences plunged the sovereigns into deep affliction. They both fell ill — Ferdinand with the army in Italy, Isabella at Medina del Campo. Though compelled to lie prostrate on her couch the greater part of the day, she still hstened to the reading of papers which concerned the state, or, raised upon a cushion, gave audience to foreigners who could tell her of the war. Isabella was far better prepared for the inevitable change than were the people whose passionate admiration she had won. They awaited in trembling, but prayerful anxiety the moment which was to bereave the Spanish nation. They remembered an earthquake and a hurricane of the year before, and connecting these omens with the now impending calamity, sought to avert the displeasure of heaven by masses, pilgrimages and processions. Isabella, retaining her self-possession in the midst of the affliction of her subjects, executed, on the 1 2th of October, her memorable will and testament. Commencing by directing her remains to be ISABELLA. 153 consigned to the Franciscan monastery in the Alhambra, in a humble sepulchre and with modest ceremonies, she provided, in order, for the annual marriage of a certain number of indigent girls ; for the ransom of Spaniards held in bondage in Africa ; for the payment of her personal debts ; and for a necessary retrenchment in the economy of the palace. She recommended to her successors the urgent importance of retaining possession, for ever, of that key to the Mediterranean, the fortress of Gibral- tar. She settled the crown upon her daughter Joanna, as queen proprietor, counselling her to live in harmony with her husband, and instancing as an example of conjugal felicity, her own long and happy life with Ferdinand. The latter she made regent of the kingdom, in the event of Joanna's declared incapacity, until her son Charles should attain his majority. She then fixed a sum for her husband's personal maintenance ; and after men- tioning by name the most attached members of her household, and asking for them the beneficent consideration of her succes- sors, she thus concluded: "I beseech the king, my lord, that he will accept all my jewels, or such as he shall select, so that seeing them, he may be reminded of the singular love I always bore him while living, and that I am now waiting for him in a better world ;' by which remembrance he may be encouraged to live the more justly and holily in this." Some weeks later, and but three weeks before her death, she added a codicil, the principal articles of which recommended a new codification of the laws, and enjoined upon her successors an indulgent administration of the affairs of the colonies — some vague hints of the cruelties practised by her people upon the Indians having already reached her ears. Thus having devoted her last conscious moments to the service of the people whom Providence had committed to her care, and thinking a sovereign's best preparation for eternity to be the faithful discharge of her temporal responsibility, she expired, in the midst of weep- ing friends, on the 26th of November, 1504, having passed the 20 154 ISABELLA. fifty -third year of her age, and having nearly attained the thirtieth of her reign. "The world," wrote Pierre Martyr on the same day, " has lost its noblest ornament; a loss to be deplored not only by Spain, which she has so long urged onward in the career of glory, but by every nation in Christendom ; for she was the mirror of every virtue, the shield of the innocent, and an aveng- ing sword to the wicked. I know none of her sex in ancient or modern times who is at all worthy to be named with this incomparable woman." Isabella's mortal remains were conveyed in solemn procession to Granada, where, in the midst of a terrific warfare of the elements, they were deposited in the vaults of the Franciscan monastery. Upon the death of Ferdinand, they were exhumed, to be laid side by side with his, in the more imposing shadows of the cathedral and metropolitan church. The chroniclers of the reign of Isabella, and even the more impartial historians of a later date, have exhausted the language of panegyric, while dwelling ujDon the delightful theme. Her people lamented her as the "most brilliant exemplar of every virtue ;" the present descendants of the Spaniards over whom she exercised her beneficent sway, look back to her administration as the brightest page in the history of their country. The only blot upon her character was the surrender of her conscience to priestly keeping. Though the stain with which the Spanish name has been sullied by the introduction of the Inquisition and the expulsion of the Jews can never be effaced, yet the customs of the age in ecclesiastical affairs may authorize the biographers of the Queen of Castile to use the apologetic expression, that these measures were resorted to, not by Isabella's authority, but during Isabella's reign. DIANA DE POITIERS. This most remarkable of royal favorites, the daughter of Jean de Poitiers, Seigneur de St. Vallier, and the descendant of one of the oldest families in Dauphiny in France, was born on the 3d of September, 1499. Of her early life, little has been preserved ; we know, however, that she was married at the age of thirteen, to Louis de Breze, grand-s^n^chal of Normandy, and grandson, on his mother's side, of Charles YII. and Agnes Sorel. She lived at the court of Francis I., the most gallant monarch of his time ; during the life of her hus- band, her conduct furnished no occasion for scandal. The grand-senechal died in 1531 ; his widow erected a superb monument to his memory in the church of Notre Dame de Rouen. She assumed black and white as her colors, and during her long and chequered life, she never quitted them. She was at this period thirty-two years of age ; Henry, the Duke of Orleans, the second son of Francis, with whom the fortunes of Diana were to be so intimately connected, had just entered his thirteenth year. At what period the liaison commenced, is now impossible to say ; but it was, probably, about the year 1536, Diana being then at the age when female beauty usu- ally entei's its decline, but still in the full splendor of her 156 DIANA DE POITIERS. charms. The Duke of Orleans had now become dauphin by the death of his elder brother, Francis ; and Diana, we are told, finding in him an awkward, shy youth of seventeen, un- dertook to form his character and manners on the model of the preux chevalier. She soon inspired him with an ardent and romantic pas- sion. The ascendant thus acquired by personal beauty, was confirmed by the fascination of her manners and address. She was thus brought into direct rivalry with the Duchess d'Etampes, the favorite of the king. The court was at once divided into two parties, and scandalous and violent scenes often sprang from the animosities created. The duchess was ten years younger than Diana, and her partisans gratified her vanity by applying to her rival the elegant epithet of "old wrinkly." The attachment of the dauphin was in no wise weakened by these assaults, and at a tournament held in 1541, he assumed Diana's colors, and entered the lists as her cham- pion. This act of gallantry was thus celebrated in verse : " Dn chevalier royal j a dressS sa tente, Et sert de coeur loyal une dame cxcellente, Dont le nom gracieux n'est ja besoin d'ecrire, n est 6crit aux cieux, et de nuit se peut lire." During the height of his passion, Henry married, from mo- tives of policy, the beautiful Catherine do Medicis, then eigh- teen years old. Her youthful charms did not detach him from the resplendent- favorite, and when, upon the death of Francis, he ascended the throne, he shared it rather with his mistress than his wife. Diana's influence was unbounded, and her employment of it unscrupulous. She caused the exile of the Duchess d'Etampes, and appropriated her diamonds to her own use. The crown jewels were worn exclusively by her. Henry adopted as his motto the words, donec totum impleat ORBEM — meaning Uterally, "until she attain her plenitude" — D I A N A D E P I T I E R S . 157 aud referring to the mythologic Diana. He caused his royal H to be entwined- with her patrician D upon the sculptured fa9ade of the Louvre and upon the frescoes at Fontainebleau. The constraint in which the young queen was compelled to live during the reign of Diana, the habit of reserve and dis- simulation which she acquired during the long triumph of her rival, are believed to have contributed to form the terri- ble Machiavehan character which has made Catherine de Medicis so infamous in history. In the year 1548, the king bestowed upon Diana the duchy of Valentinois, with the right to assume the title. He also gave her a privilege known as the "right of confirmation," which empowered her to renew, upon his accession to the throne, and upon the payment of certain sums, the tenures of all those who held office under the crown. Francis I. had accorded this privi- lege to his mother ; and the subjects of Henry murmured some- what at his very different bestowment of the revenue. Diana applied the funds accruing from this source to the embellishment of her patrimonial estate of Anet, a lovely country seat which the poets of her time celebrated under the name of Dianet. Philibert Delorme was her architect, and his sumptuous taste soon rendered the seigneurial chateau worthy of what it soon became — a royal residence. The pope, desirous of paying court to the young king, sent presents at this period both to Catherine and Diana, making, however, a delicate discrimination in his choice of gifts : to Catherine he gave a blessed rose, and to Diana a string of costly pearls. The latter strove to deserve the pontifical favor by the zeal which she exhibited against the heretics ; and more than once contemplated, in company with her cruel and intolerant lover, the heroic martyrdom of Lutherans at the stake. She was an ardent Catholic, and all the Calvinistic writers of the period attribute to her influence a large portion of the persecutions which the Protestants endured. Diana had now entered her fiftieth year ; her empire over 158 DIANA DE POITIERS. the king had suffered no diminution, and her charms were still those of a woman of twenty-five. To account for a fact so extra- ordinary, her enemies invented a story to the effect that she dealt in the black ai't, and that she was indebted for her jjeren- nial youth to potions compounded by unholy hands. One or two historians of the time, who have left works otherwise worthy of credit, have not hesitated to assert their belief in this singular superstition. But Diana's magic was one which any lady may practise without endangering her soul — the magic of amiability, regular habits and vigorous exercise. She has been thus described by a historian of the reign of Francis I. : "Her features were regular and classical ; her com- plexion was faultless ; her hair of a rich purple black, which took a golden tint in the sunshine ; while her teeth, her ankles, her hands and arms, and her bust, were each in their turn the theme of the court poets. That the extraordinary and almost fabulous duration of her beauty was in a great degree due to the precautions which she adopted, there can be little doubt, for she spared no effort to secure it. She was jealously careful of her health, and in the most severe weather bathed in cold water ; she suffered no cosmetic to approach her, denouncing every compound of the kind as worthy only of those to whom nature had been so niggardly as to compel them to complete her im- perfect work. She rose every morning at six o'clock, and had no sooner left her chamber than she sprang into the saddle, and after having galloped a league or two, returned to bed, where she remained until mid-day, engaged in reading. The system appears a singular one ; but in her case it undoubtedly proved successful. It is certain, however, that the magnificent Diana owed no small portion of the extraordinary and unprecedented constancy of the king to the charms of her mind and the bril- liancy of her intellect." Diana, who liad borne two daughters to her husband, is said to have had one by King Henry. It is also alleged that the king DIANA DE POITIERS. 159 wished to take the necessary steps for acknowledging the infant, but that Diana prevented him by saying : "I was born to have legitimate children by you ; I have been your mistress because I loved you ; but I will not suffer any decree to declare me so." On the 10th of July, 1559, a tournament took place at Paris, in honor of a royal marriage celebrated there by proxy. Henry, who in all exercises requiring bodily strength and personal address had no sui3erior at court, insisted on breaking a lance with the Count de Montgomery, the most skillful jouster among his subjects. Montgomery entered the lists with apparent, in- deed confessed, reluctance. Henry wore, as usual, the colors of Diana. The lance of the count broke against the king's helmet, whereupon he renewed the assault with the stump. It entered Henry's right eye, instantly depriving him of sight, speech, and consciousness. The monarch was conveyed to his palace, where he remained insensible for eleven days. When it was evident that he could not survive, Catherine de Medicis sent a message to Diana to quit the palace and return to her the crown jewels in her possession. "Is the king dead?" asked Diana of the messenger. The latter replied that he was not, but that he could not live through the day. ' ' I have no master yet, then," she replied ; "let my enemies know that I fear them not ; when the king dies, I shall be too much occupied in my grief at his loss to pay heed to the in- sults which they may heap upon me." The king expired that evening, and Diana, knowing full well that her credit and po- sition fell with him, retired gracefully to Anet, where she lived tranquilly during the remainder of her Ufe. Catherine, content with having driven her from the court, abstained from any further persecution. The exiled favorite spent her time and her means in deeds of charity and beneficence. She foimded hospitals for the sick, and an asylum for widows and orphans. She died in April, 1566, at the age of sixty-seven years. She retained her beauty to the last. "Six months 160 DIANA DE POITIERS. before her death," says Brantume, " I saw her so handsome, that no heart of adamant could have been insensible to her charms, though she had some time before broken one of her limbs upon the paired stones of Orleans. She had been riding on horseback, and kept her seat as dexterously and well as she had ever done. One would have thought that the pain of such an accident would have made some alteration in her love- ly fiice ; but this was not the case ; she was as beautiful, as graceful, and handsome in every respect as she had ever been." Diana was the only royal favorite to whom numismatic honors were paid by the mints of France. The city of Lyons, where she was much beloved, struck a medal to her memory ; upon one side was her profile, with the words, Diana, dux Valentinorum clarissima ; and on the reverse her device. Omnium Victorem Vici. This has been erroneously supposed to refer to Henry II., but it is not likely that Diana would have strained the language of com23liment so far as to style her very un warlike lord "the conqueror of the world." It is to be otherwise interpreted. She had assumed the sym- bols of Diana at the commencement of her liaison with the prince, and proclaimed defiance to malice by adopting a motto 'which asserted her to be, like her prototype, invulnerable to the shafts of that other warrior and conqueror, Cupid. She thus intimated her scorn of terrestrial love. It was this construc- tion which the engravers of Lyons intended to be placed upon the inscription. Diana succeeded, by her high birth, exalted connections, her ardent orthodoxy, and, more than all, by her matronly age, at least in overawing reproach, if not in silenc- ing sliuuler. Her reply to the king, in regard to the public acknowledgment of their daughter, shows her to have been conscious of the innate superiority of virtue over vice. Her life was a remarkable tribute, rendered by one whose celebrity and position were due to her frailty, to the dignity of recti- tude and the supremacy of moral worth. ANNE BOLEYN. The birth of this most unhappy of women and of queens took place in Norfolk, England, and, probably, in the year 1501 — a date more plausible than that usually given, 1507. The family of Anne Boleyn was of French oi'igin, and the name, before it underwent mutilation to suit English ears, was BuUeyne. One of her ancestors was knighted at the corona- tion of Richard III., and her father, Sir Thomas Boleyn, was brought into contact with the court of Henry VII. by the marriage of his brother-in-law. Lord Thomas Howard, with Anne Plantagenet, the sister of the queen. Lady Boleyn, Anne's mother, was one of the reigning beauties of the com-t of Katharine of Aragon, the first wife of Henry the Eighth. Anne was educated under the supervision of her mother, till the death of the latter in 1512. She was then confided to the care of a Trench governess, named Simonette, and be- came, at an early age, a proficient in music, needlework, and epistolary composition. She corresponded with her father, who was usually absent at the court, both in English and French. These accomplishments, unusual in one of her sex, caused her to be selected, at the age of thirteen, as one of the maids of honor to Mary Tudor, King Henry's youngest 21 161 162 AN N E B LE YN. sister, on the occasion of her marriage with Louis the Twelfth of France. The ceremony was solemnized at Greenwich, in August, 1514, and in September, the royal party proceeded to Dover, where they were to embark for France. The equi- noctial gales delayed them a month, and when at last they ventured upon the Channel during a lull of the storm, it was to undergo all the hardships incident to a tempestuous passage of that boisterous frith. The exhausted voyagers at last made the harbor of Boulogne, where they were received, wet and weary as they were, by a gorgeous throng of princes and pre- lates. After a series of pageants, in which the maid of honor, though not yet sixteen, appears to have attracted notice, in her crimson velvet robes, the jealous king dismissed all the Eng- lish attendants of his queen, both male and female, with the exception of Anne Boleyn and two other ladies. The motive for Anne's detention is believed to have been her knowledge of the French language, and perhaps, too, her French extraction. Little is known of her residence at the court of Louis XII. ; it is even alleged that the king's captious exclusion of the queen's English retinue, finally extended to her, and that she retired to a convent in the village of Brie, to complete her educa- tion. Upon the death of Louis, she entered the service of his daughter, Claude, now the queen of Francis I. This amiable, but austere princess zealously sought to fix the thoughts of her ladies upon devotional and religious topics. She spent much time in processions and genuflexions, and forbade her maids of honor to converse or associate with gentlemen, ex- cept on occasions of festivity, when, such conversation being public and observed by all, no scandal could attach to it. Anne's character had by this time been formed, and her lively temperament and volatile humor seem to have been in no wise consulted in these ascetic regulations. A contemporary chronicler thus speaks of her at this period: "She possessed great poetic talent, and when she sang, like a second Orpheus, ANNEBOLEYN. 163 she would have made bears and wolves attentive. She like- wise danced the English dances, skipping and jumping with infinite ease and agility. Besides singing like a syren, she ac- companied herself on the lute, and harped better than King David. She dressed with marvellous taste, and devised new modes, which were followed by the fairest ladies of the court ; but none wore them with her grace, in which she rivalled Vemis." Though she is not mentioned as one of the witnesses of the Field of the Cloth of Gold, her presence there, in the retinue of the queen, can hardly be doubted. It is, neverthe- less, quite certain that Henry and Anne did not meet upon the plain of Ardres, and that the period at which their romantic and sombre histories intermingle was somewhat subsequent to the epoch of the interview of the two courts. Late in the year 1521, a dispute between Sir Thomas Bo- leyn and the male heirs of the family of the Butlers, in refe- rence to an inheritance, rose to such a height that it reached the ears of the king ; to whom a suggestion was made, that the surest method of effecting a reconciliation and setthng all difficulties, would be to marry the children of the contestants — Anne Boleyn and Piers Butler. Henry concurred in the suggestion, and in November, instructed Cardinal Wolsey to negotiate the alliance in question. Anne was at once recalled from France, and, though certainly at an age when a woman, though she may not have disposed of her hand, has often lost the control over her affections, arrived in London appa- rently free from trammels of every nature. The king first met her by accident in her father's garden ; a casual conver- sation ensued, in which Henry was charmed by her beauty, her grace, and the sprightly animation of her discourse. He returned to Westminster with her praises upon his lips, assert- ing to Wolsey that she had the wit of an angel, and was worthy of a crown. The astute prelate saw in his sovereign's fasci- nation the means of luring him away from the cares of state 164 ANNE BOLEYN. — which would thus fall more completely within his own con- trol ; he conceived the idea of engrossing the king in the in- toxication of an intrigue, and, in fui'therance of his scheme, suggested the appointment of Anne Boleyn as maid of honor to Queen Katharine. She was soon presented at court, and her rare and admirable beauty soon fixed the attention of the king. The inconstant sovereign had previously admired Anne's sister Mary, who was incomparably the more dehcate and feminine of the two. The vivacity and wit of the former, however, the spirit of her conver- sation, and the sprightliness of her demeanor — social graces acquired at the French court — rendered her infinitely more attractive to the pampered taste of the monarch. He soon became enamored of her, though he concealed the state of his feelings from others, and indeed, as his apologists maintain, from himself. Anne, in the meantime, disregarding the motive for which she had been recalled from France, paid no heed to the contemplated alliance between herself and Piers Butler ; on the contrary, she allowed and encouraged the advances of Henry, Lord Percy, the heir of the Earl of Northumberland ; after a brief courtship, the young lover attained a promise of marriage from the willing maid of honor. It is proper to remark here, in dissenting from the ojDinion held by the majority of Catholic writers, that Anne sought to beguile the king, and was herself the first mover in the intrigue which ensued — that we have every reason to believe her love for Percy to have been her only genuine attachment ; it is unlikely, therefore, that at this period, when she was seriously enamored, and before her ambition had been awakened by a contemplation of her possible elevation, she would have wittingly sought to alienate the affections of her lover by imdue dalliance with the king ; and we surely have no reason to sujjpose her already so versed in artifice as to have remarked her sovereign's passion, and to have plighted her troth to Percy merely to compel him to ANNEBOLEYN. 165 a declaration. As to King Henry himself, it is impossible to accept the theory maintained by his defenders, that he was unconsciously captivated, and unaware of the emotions incon- sistent with his duty as a married man with which he regarded her. That Corydon and Daphnis may have been in love without knowing it, we can readily believe upon the testimony of the poets and after a proper consultation of bucolic literature ; but that Henry VIII. was ever ignorant of any passion which burned in his bosom, few readers acquainted with the history of his reign will admit. The monarch who quarrels with the Pope, that he may repudiate one wife and take another, who makes a cardinal the abettor of his intrigues and the headsman the instru- ment of his lusts, may safely be supposed, from the energy with which he pursues his designs, to have consciously formed them and to have deliberately resolved upon their execution. Upon the announcement of their intended marriage, Henry resolved to separate Percy and Anne, and commissioned Wolsey to annul the engagement. The cardinal summoned Percy to his presence, and threatened him with the displeasure of the king for contemplating a union with a person so much beneath him, and likewise intimated the probability of his disinheritance by his father. The unfortunate young man was subsequently dis- missed from court, and compelled to marry Lady Mary Talbot, to whom he had been, some time previously, involuntarily contracted. Anne, too, was discharged from Queen Katharine's service by order of the king, who was unwarrantably piqued at the attachment she had manifested to Percy. She withdrew to her father's house at Hever, threatening vengeance upon the cardinal, to whose interference she attributed her blighted pros- pects. The sequel will show with what unrelenting purpose she pursued the object of her animosity. The king suffered several weeks to elapse before he again sought the society of Anne Boleyn, and then paid an unan- nounced visit to Hever Castle. Had Anne been playing a j^art. 166 AN N E B LE YN. and had her object been to insnare the affections of Henry, she would have profited by the present opportunity of effecting a reconcihation. So far from this, she pleaded indisposition, and locked herself up in her chamber, where she remained during his stay. All efforts to see her proving unavailing, the king took measures to compel the return of her family to court. He appointed her father to the office of treasurer to the royal house- hold, with the title of Viscount Rocheford, and made William Carey, the husband of her sister Mary, a gentleman of the privy chamber. A present of jewels to the fair Anne herself, and at last an avowal, in unmistakable terms, followed in quick succession. Anne fell upon her knees, and thus addressed her sovereign : " I think, most noble and worthy king, your majesty speaks these words in mirth to prove me, without intent of degrading your princely self. I beseech your highness most earnestly to desist and take this my answer, which I speak from the depth of my soul, in good part. Most noble king ! I will rather lose my life than my virtue, which will be the greatest and best part of the dowry I shall bring my husband." Henry, fully aware that a repulse so energetic left him no resource but to retire, abandoned the attempt for the time, adding the assurance, however, that he should continue to hope, " I know not," she returned, " how you should retain such hope, most mighty king. Your wife I cannot be, both in respect of mine own unworthiness, and also because you have a queen already; your mistress I will not be." Anne now withdrew from the court, to which no persuasions could induce her to return. Henry wrote to her constantly, and the originals, in bad French, which are still in existence in the library of the Vatican, bear witness to the ardor of his passion and to the continued indifference with which Anne received his advances. She even left England and spent a year in France, amid the festivities consequent upon the liberation of Francis I. from his incarceration in Madrid. She returned in 1527, and after an ANNE BOLEYN. 167 alienation of four years, resumed her place in the household of Queen Katharine. A marked change was now observed in her conduct, result- ing, naturally, from a corresponding change in her character. She was now twenty-six years of age ; she had loved but once, and had been cruelly disappointed ; time, which had doubtless calmed her regrets for the loss of her lover, had deepened and intensified her hatred for the prelate to whom she attributed her misfortunes. Ambition and revenge were now her ruling pas- sions ; and she lived to gratify both. She received the king's renewed addresses with smiles, and confident of her power over the sovereign, began to treat the cardinal-secretary with scorn. Henry, convinced that Anne could only be won as a wife, set on foot the intrigues which resulted in his divorce from the queen. Hypocritically alleging, at first, that his conscience was sorely grieved by his marriage with his brother's widow, and at last openly calling for an ecclesiastical inquiry into the validity of their union, he pressed the subject with an impatient zeal which shocked even the most unscrupulous of his courtiers. In the midst of these prehminaries, a terrible pestilence which broke out in London, and which was fatal to several members of the royal household, recalled Henry to a sense of his iniquities, and alarmed him into a temporary reconciUation with his wife. He even sent Anne Boleyn back to Hever, and spent his time in exercises of devotion and in compound- ing specifics against the plague. He confessed his sins once a day, and during the prevalence of the epidemic, made thirty- nine wills. But with the disappearance of the disease, his equanimity returned, he abandoned his pharmaceutical studies, summoned Anne back to court, and discontinued his reli- gious avocations. At last the Pope's envoy, the cardinal-legate Campeggio, arrived. He was won over by Katharine to espouse her cause, and Wolsey, his colleague, finding that the humi- liation of the queen would be followed by the elevation of 168 ANNE BOLEYN. his dissembling enemy, Anne, contrived, by a dexterous and lavish exei'cise of his diplomatic craft, to interpose a constant succession of obstacles to the proceedings for a divorce. The queen was now sent to Greenwich, and Anne was established in a splendid mansion known as Suffolk-house, to which the king had unobserved access through the contiguous palace of the cardinal. Here she held daily levees, and in- dulged, prospectively, in aU the parade and pleasures of royalty. Her position was now worse than equivocal ; scandal was busy with her name and fame, and the reports of the foreign am- bassadors to their respective cabinets represented her intimacy with the king as having reached all possible limits. Crowds of riotous people paraded the streets, shouting " Down with Nan Bullen ! We won't have Nan Bullen for our queen !" The sympathy of the courts of Europe had plainly been pro- nounced for Katharine, and for a time Henry wavered in the prosecution of his schemes. Months and even years passed, and the great question, though stiU agitated at Rome and in the universities of Eu- rope, remained unsettled. Wolsey fell, through Anne's resent- ment, and Cranmer rose to power, through her influence ex- erted in his behalf. In her thirty-first year, she was created a peeress of the realm, with the title of Marchioness of Pem- broke. A gi'and ceremony was performed in honor of this event, in which the king placed the robe of state and the golden coronet upon the shoulders and brow of the expectant queen. The real queen, during this time, was residing at Ampt- hill in Bedfordshire, separated from her only daughter, virtu- ally divorced from her husband, and deprived of the respect and deference due to her not only as a queen, but as a mo- ther and a wife. In 1532, Henry crossed the English Channel to Boulogne, to confer with Francis I. Anne accompanied him, and was present at the congress. She was greatly mortified, upon the AN N E B LE YN. 169 arrival of the French king, to find him unattended by any of the ladies of his court — a fact which aflbrdcd palpable evi- dence of the suspicion with which she was regarded. She was consequently unable to appear at any of the festivities offered to the English monarch. Shortly after their return to England, Henry and Anne were united in marriage. The ceremony took place privately, in an empty attic in the west turret of Whitehall, on the 25th of January, 1533. The royal chaplain had been sum- moned thither to perform a mass, and, upon his arrival, found the king and Anne Boleyn awaiting him ; three witnesses were also present — Henry Norris and Heneage, grooms of the cham- ber, and Anne Saville, the bride's train-bearer. The chaiDlain expressing some hesitation to celebrate the rites of marriage under such auspices, Henry easily reassured him, either by the promise of a vacant bishopric or by the assui'ance that he had received the papal authorization. The king's counsellors were totally ignorant of the step thus taken by their royal master. Cranmer himself remained in ignorance of the mar- riage till about the 10th of February. It was soon evident, however, that a prolonged maintenance of the secret would affect the legitimacy of Anne's expected offspring — the heir to the crown. The marriage was therefore publicly solemnized on the 12th of April ; and on the 8th of May, Cranmer, pre- siding at a tribimal held at Dunstable, pronounced the inva- lidity of the king's previous union with Katharine of Aragon. This declaration naturally rendered a decree of divorce un- necessary. The first pageant in honor of the new queen, and prelimi- nary to the coronation, took place upon the Thames, on the 19th of May. The purpose was to fetch the queen in state from Greenwich to the Tower ; the lord mayor's barge, the bachelors' barge, the barges of the city craftsmen, fifty in number, all orna- mented with colored flags hung with bells, rowed chiming and 170 ANNE BOLE YN. tinkling up the river to Greenwich palace. The barge furnished by the worshiijful craft of the haberdashers, was a gun-boat, armed with inoffensive culverins, and manned by worthy clothiers and tailors disguised as fire-monsters and "salvages terrible to behold." A pyrotechnic dragon, stationed upon the deck, spirted fire from a revolving tail, while his sartorial attendants vomited flames from their mouths into the river. From time to time, a culverin, loaded by some draper less expei'i with the ramrod than the yard-stick, filled the air with echoes and the floating spectators with awe. The queen entered her barge at the palace, and was attended in state to the Tower, where a peal of ordnance, shot off" at the command of the king, announced her arrival at the fortress. Henry received her with a kiss, and dismissed the lord mayor with thanks. The barges floated about before the Tower the whole evening, and as darkness descended over the river, the capering dragon and his fieiy tail, together with the mcendiary haberdashers and their hissing coruscations, per- formed their antics to an audience which covered the bosom of the water, and swarmed over the bridges, turrets and gateways which commanded a view of the fantastic scene. The next pageant was that of the royal progress through the city, on the eve of the coronation. The streets of the city were spread with gravel ; Cornhill and Cheapside were hung with crimson and scarlet, and with cloth of gold and velvet. Anne was seated in an open litter which was covered with white and gold cloth, and supported by two palfreys, enveloped in white damask and led by the queen's footmen. She herself was dressed in silver tissue, lined with ermine ; a canopy of cloth of gold, carried by four knights on foot, was borne over her head. She was followed by seven ladies upon palfreys clad in crimson velvet, by four ladies of the bedchamber in a scarlet chariot, and by thirty waiting-maids on horseback. The procession came to a pause from time to time to witness the shows and pageants with which the line of march was occupied. ANNE BOLE YN. 171 Among these was a group representing Mount Parnassus with Apollo and his attendants, arranged about a fountain of Helicon which ran with Rhenish wine throughout the day. Another was the coronation of a white falcon seated among white and red roses. At Cornhill, the Three Graces welcomed the queen, and, through the medium of an attendant poet, bestowed gifts and blessings upon her. A neighboring fountain ran, in the meantime, at one end with white wine and at the other with claret. At Cheapside, Pallas, Juno and Venus gave Queen Anne their apple of gold, significant of wisdom, riches and felicity. Ladies, grouped over the gate of St. Paul's, threw down wafers stamped with devotional mottoes. At Fleet street Conduit four turi'ets were erected, and from each turret a Cardi- nal Virtue solemnly promised never to desert, but ever to aid and comfort, the beautiful new queen. A choir, posted on the leads of St. Martin's, sang ballads in her praise ; and a grand concert, artfully concealed, " made a solemn and heavenly noise." Thus, through a series of similar shows, derived principally from heathen mythology, the queen proceeded till she reached West- minster Hall. Here she alighted, and remained during the night. The morrow was Whitsunday, the 1st of June, and upon that long and ardently expected day, her coronation as Queen of England was to be sumptuously solemnized. At eight o'clock in the morning, Anne, robed in purple velvet lined with ermine, entered Westminster Hall, and stood under the canopy of state. The procession usual in ceremonies of the kind then started, proceeding from the Hall through the sanc- tuary and palace to the high altar in the Abbey. Here the queen seated herself upon gorgeous cushions, and after a few moments repose, descended to the altar, prostrating herself before it. Cranmer read the collect provided by the ritual, and anointed the queen upon the head and breast with the coronation oil. He then placed the crown of St. Edward upon her brow, while the choir sang the Te Deum Laudamus. As the crown of 172 ANNE BOLE YN. the saint was too hea\-y, however, another, expressly made for her, was quickly substituted in its place. Cranmer then cele- brated a Cathohc mass, after which Queen Anne returned to her withdrawing chamber, to await the coronation banquet. This quaint ceremonial was performed without the participa- tion of the king, who was concealed in an adjoining cloister, where, in company with several gossiping ambassadors, he witnessed the fantastic feast. The Earl of Essex was the queen's carver ; the Earl of Arundel her butler ; Lord Burgoyue her larderer ; Sir Thomas Wyatt, the poet, formerly her lover, her ewerer ; while the mayor of Oxford kept the buttery bar. The Countess of Worcester held a handkerchief before the queen's face, "whenever she listed to spit." Two other ladies of high rank sat under the table at the queen's feet. The first course, consisting of twenty-seven dishes, among which were "subtleties of ships made of colored wax," were brought into the hall and placed upon the table by the knights of the Bath, escorted by the Duke of Suffolk and Lord Howard on horseback. During the progress of the dinner, a band of trumpeters, located in the grand window, discoursed agreeable music. The cere- monial, or rather series of ceremonials, which began at eight, was not concluded till six in the evening. Anne Boleyn was now queen in solemn earnest. From the very outset of her ambitious career, however, she had felt her situation to be precarious. She was conscious that her tenure of power was contingent upon her giving birth to a son who should inherit the crown. She knew that she had become the subject of the revilings of the populace, and of the fulmina- tions of Pope Clement. Henry was branded in the pulpit with the name of polygamist, and on one occasion, Anne listened to a sermon from an indignant friar, in which he invoked heaven's wrath upon them both ; and she read letters and petitions addressed to the king, in which he was implored to "put that Jezebel away." For a time, however, the delicate attentions of AN NE BOLE YN. 173 her royal lover softened the annoyance and anxiety which these vexations caused her ; and she forgot the denunciations of the pope and the hostility of the peojjle as she contemplated the new gold coins upon which her initial A. was entwined with the sovereign's royal H. Anne gave birth to a daughter in September of the same year. Henry, whose disappointment might have been tempered, had he been enabled by the gift of second-sight to contemplate the glory which the infant Elizabeth was destined to achieve, did not seek to conceal his chagrin. His first act was one of pettish, unmanly spite : he denied the mother the j^rivilege of nursing the babe herself, and caused it to be removed to a distant apart- ment, as he did not wish his rest to be disturbed, he said, by the presence and the complaints of an offspring so unwelcome. Disappointed as Henry was, he nevertheless caused the Parliament to pass an act entailing the succession upon his daughter by Anne, in case he should have no heirs male — thus excluding his daughter by Katharine, the Princess Mary. All persons in office were at the same time compelled to swear alle- giance to the line thus estabhshed. Sir Thomas More, lord chancellor, refused ; and Anne, in the bitterness of her resent- ment, induced the king to sentence his tried and faithful servant to the block. This was the most execrable act of her reign. More, when visited in the Tower by his daughter, was told by her that Anne and the court did little else than dance and sport. " These dances of hers," returned More, "will jDrove such dances that she will spurn our heads off like footballs, but it will not be long ere her head will dance the like dance." "When the intelU- gence of More's execution was brought to Henry, he said to Anne, " Thou art the cause of this man's death." He then abruptly left the room and shut himself up in his own apartment. The new pope, Paul III., now renewed the denunciations of his predecessor, Clement, and declared the offspring of Henry and Anne illegitimate. This persecution by the Catholic church 174 AN NE B LEYN. induced Anne to become an apparent convert to the doctrines of the Reformation, then in its infancy ; in heart, however, she was still a Romanist, though at best an inconsistent one. While, on the one hand, she abstained from interfering between the ruthless cruelty of Henry and the martyrdom of the Protestants — an interference which the control she exercised over the king at this period would have made successful — she used her in- fluence, on the other, to obtain the royal sanction to the transla- tion of the Sci-iptures. Her deportment underwent a marked change at this epoch — one usually ascribed to her intimacy with Hugh Latimer, the reformist preacher, whom she had caused to be released from the confinement which his professions of faith had brought upon him. Under his tuition, she became humble, charitable, devout ; she made large donations of money to the poor, provided for the education of numerous young men destined to the church, and spent her leisure hours in working tapestry and in discoursing of religion with her maids of honor. Yet, in the intervals between these various exercises of piety, she urged the king to renewed persecutions of Katharine of Aragon, and, finally, upon the death of that unfortunate queen, she appeared at the funeral clad in yellow, thus disobeying, in the unamiable exultation of her triumph, the express commands of Henry, who had ordered the court to assume black upon the occasion. AVhether the disgust occasioned in the mind of the king by this imqueenly display was the proximate cause of his alienation from Anne, it would be impossible at this late day to decide. It is certain, however, that in the very month in which Katharine died, and at the very time, therefore, when Anne had reason to believe the crown firmly fixed upon her own head, she brought forth, during the throes of a premature travail, a still-born son. This event, fatal to the hopes of Anne Boleyn, had been caused by the grief and despair consequent upon a sight which met her gaze, as she one day entered unexpectedly a room where ANNEBOLEYN. 175 the king was seated. Upon his knees sat her maid of honor, the beautiful, yet shameless, Jane Seymour. The nature of their conversation and the familiarity of their attitudes, spoke too plainly to the eyes of the agonized queen of the place already held by Jane in the affections of her inconstant lord. Henry endeavored to soothe her agitation and reason away her fears, in his anxiety for the life of the expected heir ; but when his hopes had been crushed by the untimely birth, he gave way to the natural brutality of his character, and muttered as he with- drew from the bedside, that "Anne should have no more boys by him." Events now succeeded each other in confused rapidity. Anne, whose health returned, but whose spirit was quelled, and whose heai't was well-nigh broken, withdrew to Greenwich Park, where she spent the sad days in listless expectation of the blow, in whatever shape it might come, which should drive her from the home, as she had already been expelled from the affections, of the royal egotist who occupied the throne. Her •conscience admon- ished her that, as by her arts she had compassed the fall of the queen her mistress, so another, younger and fairer than herself, was, in her turn, by similar, indeed, identical arts, to compass her own disgrace. It does not appear, however, that Anne's apprehensions extended beyond the probable loss of her dignity as a queen and her station as a wife. She had every reason to expect a divorce, while she had none whatever to anticipate death. No female blood had yet been shed upon the scaffold in English annals ; and Anne, whatever may have been her secret anxiety, could not have supposed that she would be, not only the first queen, but the first woman in England to bare her neck to the executioner's axe. The eagerness of the king to displace Anne, and to share his throne with the new favorite, was now apparent to all the retain- ers of the court. In the servility of their obedience, they sought to ingratiate themselves into his favor, by bringing accusations of 176 ANNEBOLEYN. infidelity, founded upon idle and invidious gossip, against the queen their mistress. In the absence of any other pretext of ridding himself of the incumbrance, Henry resolved to proceed against his wife upon these frivolous and odious grounds. Mark Smeaton, a musician — who had, indeed, been so adventurous as to whisper his passion in the ears of the coquettish Anne, always a willing listener to such confidences — and three gentlemen of the royal household, Norris, Brereton, and Weston, were de- nounced as her paramours. Her brother, George Rocheford, was also charged, by his mahgnant wife, with entertaining feel- ings towards his sister revolting alike to nature and to decency. The king at once oi'ganized his plot upon this basis. He dis- solved the Parhament early in April, that the queen, in her coming adversity, might have no opportunity of appealing to that body. He appointed a secret committee from members of his privy council, to investigate the charges brought against her. Brereton was at once examined and imprisoned. On the first of May, at a tournament at Greenwich, attended in state by Henry and Anne, Norris, one of the suspected persons, being in the lists, took up a handkerchief which the queen, either by accident or design, had dropped, and in returning it, kissed it, after the courtly manners of the time. Henry rose furiously from his seat, gave orders for the arrest of Anne and of the implicated parties, and rode sullenly back to Whitehall. Anne was conve3^ed to the Tower the next day, the second of May. On her way thither, an attempt was made to extract a confession from her, by telling her that " her paramours had ac- knowledged their guilt." She replied by a passionate protesta- tion of innocence. As she entered the room she was to occupy, she fell upon her knees, exclaiming, " Oh, Lord, help me, as I am guiltless of that whereof I am accused !" She then gave way to a parox3'sm of hysterical grief, in which apprehension for her- self and dismay for her suspected friends were equally mingled. Upon recovering her self-possession, she said to the lieutenant ANNEBOLEYN. 177 of the Tower who attended her, " Mr. Kmgstou, shall I die without justice ?" Two ladies, who had their own reasons for detesting their queen, Lady Boleyn, her aunt, and Mrs. Cosyns, one of her suite, were placed as spies over her, that they might listen to her deUrious ravings, and report to the king the calumnious inferences which they might have the ingenuity to extort from them. They succeeded, by artful interpretations of her lan- guage and even by gross misrepresentation of her words, in causing her to criminate herself in more ways than one. They alleged that she even admitted her desh-e for the king's death, that she might marry Norris ; and that she expressed great fear that Weston, in his examination, might compromise her, as he had already told her " of his behef that Norris went to her chamber more for her sake than for Madge," one of her ladies of honor. These statements, coming from women in the avowed position of spies, and openly confessing themselves the enemies of thij queen, are not and cannot be, upon any principle of evi- dence, entitled to the smallest degree of reliance, in the absence of authentic corroborating testimony. "The king wist well what he did," said Anne, bitterly, " when he put such women as Lady Boleyn and Mrs. Cosyns about me." On the fourth day of her imprisonment, Anne wrote and for- warded to Henry a letter thus addressed: " To the King, from the Ladye in the Tower." We quote entire this beautiful appeal to the better nature of the tyrant : " Sire : "Your grace's displeasure and my imprisonment are things so strange unto me, as what to write, or what to ex- cuse, I am altogether ignorant. Let not your grace ever im- agine that your poor wife will ever be brought to acknow- ledge a fault, when not so much as a thought thereof preceded. And, to speak a truth, never prince had wife more loyal in 23 178 ANNE B L E YN. all duty and in all true affection than you have ever found in Anne Boleyn ; with which name and place I could willingly have contented myself, if God and your grace's pleasure had been so pleased. Neither did I at any time so far forget my- self in my exaltation or received queenship, but that I always looked for such an alteration as I now find ; for the ground of my preferment being on no surer foundation than your grace's fancy, the least alteration I knew was fit and sufficient to draw that fancy to some other object. You have chosen me from a low estate to be your queen and companion, far beyond my desert or desires. . . . Try me, good king, but let me have a lawful trial, and let not my sworn enemies sit as my accusers and judges ; yea, let me receive an open trial, for my truth shall fear no open shame ; then shall you either see mine innocence cleared, your suspicions and confidence satis- fied, the ignominy and slander of the world stopped, or my guilt openly declared. " But if you have already determined of me, and that not only my death, but an infamous slander, must bring you the en- joying of your desired happiness, then I desire of God that he will pardon your great sin therein, and likewise mine enemies, the instruments thereof, and that he will not call you to an account for your unprincely and cruel usage of me, at his general judgment seat, where both you and myself must shortly appear, and in whose judgment, I doubt not, whatsoever the world may think of me, mine innocence shall be openly known and suffi- ciently cleared. My last and only request shall be, that myself may only bear the burden of your grace's displeasure, and that it may not touch the innocent souls of those poor gentlemen who, as I understand, are in strait imprisonment for my sake. If ever I have found favor in your sight, if ever the name of Anne Bo- leyn hath been pleasing in your ears, then let me obtain this re- quest, and I will so leave to trouble your grace any further, with mine earnest prayers to the Trinity to have your grace in his ANNEBOLEYN. 179 good keeping, and to direct you in all your actions. From my doleful prison in the Tower, this sixth of May. " Your most loyal and ever faitliful wife, "Anne Boleyn." The Grand Jury of Westminster found an indictment against the queen and the five parties accused upon the 10th of May. Norris, Weston, Brereton and Smeaton were tried on the same day. They were found guilty and condemned to death, though upon what evidence the records do not inform us. The wretched Smeaton made a desperate effort to save his life by confessing a criminal intercourse with the queen. He was hanged, while the others, of noble birth, were brought to the block. Anne and her brother, Lord Kocheford, were tried on the 16th of the month. Twenty-six peers, upon whose servility Henry knew he could rely, were chosen by him from the fifty-three who consti- tuted the entire body. Anne's uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, her unrelenting enemy, was deputed to preside over their delibera- tions ; while all who had a motive, either avowed or presumed, for desiring the removal of the queen, were made "lords triers" in this infamous court. Even Percy, now Earl of Northumber- land, Anne's once betrothed lover, whom Henry might suppose to cherish a lingering resentment at the indifference with which she had abandoned him, was named among her judges. He appeared and took his seat: he was seized, however, with a violent and uncontrollable agitation before the trial commenced, and hastily quitted the hall. He died soon afterwards, broken- hearted. Lord Rocheford was the first arraigned. His wife volunteered her evidence against him, which was, in substance, that he had once leaned upon the bed in which his sister, the queen, was, and, in making some request, had kissed her. The court at once convicted him of high treason, and condemned him to death. Anne was then summoned to appear. She entered, and was led 180 ANNE BOLEYN. to the bar by the constable of the Tower. Though without counsel or defender, her manner betrayed neither fear nor agita- tion : she courtesied to the judges, and then held up her hand and pleaded "not guilty." The destruction of the records of the trial leave us without the means of judging of the admissi- bility of the evidence brought against her. All that remains is a defaced entry in the private note-book of one of the judges, from which it would appear that "one Lady Wingfield, who had been a servant to the queen, and had become suddenly infirm before her death, did swear this matter to one of her " If this was all the evidence, it was singularly incomplete, being the hear-say statement that a woman, dead before the trial, had made an oath some time previously, at a time when she was infirm, and perhaps not altogether sane. Anne defended herself with so much eloquence, and such logical acumen, that a report sj^read through the city that she was sure of an acquittal. A verdict of condemnation was, never- theless, declared. The queen was then required to lay aside her crown while sentence was pronounced by her uncle, the Duke of Norfolk— a sentence to death at the stake or upon the block, as the king might decree. Anne raised her eyes to heaven as these terrible words were uttered, and said : " Oh, Father ! oh. Creator ! Thou who art the way, the life and the truth, thou knowest whether I have deserved this death!" She then made the following address to the peers of the realm : "My lords, I will not say your sentence is unjust, nor presume that my reasons can prevail against your convictions. I am willing to believe that you have sufficient reasons for what you have done ; but then they must be other than those which have been produced in court, for I am clear of all the offences which you there laid to my charge. I have ever been a faithful wife to the king, though I do not say I have always shown him that humility which his goodness to me, and the honor to which he raised me, merited. I confess I have had jealous fancies and ANNEBOLEYN. 181 suspicions of him, which I had not discretion and wisdom enough to conceal at all times. But God knows and is my witness, that I never sinned against him in any other way. Think not that I say this in the hope lo prolong my life. God hath taught me how to die, and he will strengthen my faith. I know these my last words will avail me nothing, except for the justification of my chastity and honor. As for my brother and those others who are unjustly condemned, I would willingly suffer many deaths to deliver them ; but since I see it so pleases the king, I shall willingly accompany them in death, with this assurance, that I shall lead an endless life with them in peace." She then courtesied resignedly to her judges and the court, and left the hall accompanied by the constable and the ladies who had attended her at the bar. A few hours after, Henry signed the death-warrant of his wife. On the 17th of the month a summons was served upon her, requiring her to appear before the archbishop at Lambeth, "to answer certain questions as to the validity of her marriage with the king." Acknowledging, as she was bound in truth to do, her engagement to Percy before her union with Henry, she was forced to hear from the lips of Cranmer the declaration that the marriage was null and void, and had always been so. The artful king had delayed the publication of this new sentence, till Anne had been formally condemned to death ; it is evident that had he caused his marriage with Anne to be pronounced null before her trial for infidelity and high treason, she could not have been found guilty of crimes which only a lawful wife could commit. Henry's proceedings were logically conducted, how- ever ; he desired Anne's death as a more complete release from her than he could procure by a divorce ; and he sought to invalidate their marriage that he might dispossess his daughter Elizabeth of her right to the succession. He had already reached that epoch in his career, in which it was said of him that, "Henry, the most brutal, heartless and licentious tyrant in 182 ANNE BOLEYN. history, never spared a man in liis anger, nor a woman in his lust." As Anne returned from Lambeth Palace, she heard the knell of her brother and her friends, who were to be executed that day upon Tower Hill. Rocheford suffered first, ha^^ng exhorted his companions to die courageously, and having forgiven his enemies and the king. Norris, Brereton and Weston bowed their necks to the axe in turn. Mark Smeaton, as has been said, was hanged. His dying words, " Masters, I pray you all to pray for me, for I have deserved the death," have been construed as a confession of guilt. But it is quite as likely they were an expression of contrition for his perjury. This is the more pro- bable from the fact that Anne fully expected him to make a retraction of his previous confession, and not interpreting his language in this sense, exclaimed, "Has he not, then, cleared me from the public shame he has done me ? Alas, I fear his soul will suffer from the false witness he hath borne." Anne had now but two days to live, as the 19th of May had been appointed by the king as " the last of earth" for her. She spent this brief period in devotional exercises with a CathoUc confessor, and in attempts at poetic composition. The following stanza of a dirge written by her at the time, aptly depicts the desolation of her feelings upon the approach of the fatal hour : "Farewell my pleasures past, Welcome my present pain, I feel my torments so increase, That life cannot remain. Samd now the passing-bell, Kung is my doleful knell, For its sound my death doth tell; Death doth draw nigh, Sound the knoll dolefully, For now I die !" Henry had waived the privilege by which he might have burned his wife at the stake. He compensated for this leniency,. ANNEBOLEYN. 183 however, by authorizing an experiment to be tried upon her person. He ordered the headsman of Calais — a man renowned for his address — to be brought to London, that Anne might be decollated with a sword, after the French fashion, instead of being decapitated by the traditional axe of English executions. All strangers were excluded from the Tower that the hideous spectacle might be witnessed by as few persons as possible — the cruel monarch's single acknowledgment of the power of public opinion. Cromwell, the successor of Wolsey in his confidence, had advised him not to fix the hour, in order to lessen the chances of a concourse of people and of a forcible rescue. Anne rose at two o'clock on the morning of Friday, the 19th. She partook of the sacrament, and while engaged in this supreme devotional act of her life, solemnly protested to the heutenant of the Tower her innocence of the crimes for which she was to die. As she had never deigned to sue for mercy to the king, and as, so far from desiring a reprieve or pardon, she was now impatient for a release from her sufferings, the reader will see in this solemn declaration, not an act of deliberate perjury, which could not help her here and would endanger her hereafter, but an assertion of innocence, intended to clear her character rather than to prolong her life. She was a personage in history and had occupied the throne : nothing could have been more natural than that she should seek, while not compromising her eternity in heaven, to vindicate her good name with posterity on earth. While she was making her preparations for the fatal moment, Kingston, the lieutenant, was writing to Cromwell an account of every event which transpired in the Tower. Anne sent for him to say that- she had heard "she should not die before noon, and was very sorry therefor, for she had thought to be dead by this time, and past her pain." Kingston replied that the pain would be little, "it was so subtle." Anne returned, laughing, "I have heard say the executioner is very good, and I have a little neck." It was probably about eleven o'clock that Anne sent to the king. 184 ANNEBOLEYN. by a messenger whom she thought trustworthy, but who dared not deliver them, the memorable words which Lord Bacon has transmitted to posterity: "Commend me to his majesty," she said, "and teU him he hath ever been constant in his career of advancing me. From a private gentlewoman he made me a marchioness ; from a marchioness, a queen ; and now that he hath left no higher degree of honor, he gives my innocency the crown of martyi-dom." At twelve o'clock the portals opening upon the church-green were thrown open, and Anne Boleyu appeared, led by the lieu- tenant of the Tower, and accompanied by her four maids of honor. She was dressed in black damask, with a deep white cape at the neck. Her cheeks were flushed, while her eyes gleamed with unusual lustre. She ascended the scaffold, with the aid of the lieutenant, and saw there, assembled to witness her death, her implacable uncle the Duke of Norfolk, the lord mayor, and other civic functionaries, Henry's natural son, the Duke of Richmond, and Cromwell, whom she had aided in his aspiring aims, and who had deserted her in her adversity. To none of these truculent personages did she condescend to speak. With the pei-mission of Kingston, however, she thus addressed the sparse assemblage of spectators ; "Good Christian people, I am come hither to die according to law, for by the law I am judged to die, and therefore will speak nothing against it. I am come hither to accuse no man, nor to speak anything of that whereof I am accused, as I know full well that aught that I could say in my defence doth not appertain unto you, and that I could draw no hope of life from the same. But I come here only to die, and thus to yield myself humbly unto the will of my lord the king. I pray God to save the king and send him long to reign over you, for a gentler or more merciful prince was there never-. To me he was ever a good and gentle sovereign lord. If any person will meddle with my cause, I require him to judge the best. Thus I take my leave of the world and of you, and I AN NE B LE YN. 185 heartily desire you all to i^ray for me." She then, without the assistance of her ladies, removed her hat, and, placing a linen cap over her hair, said : " Alas ! poor head, in a very hrief space thou wilt roll in the dust upon the scaffold ; and as in life thou didst not merit to wear the crown of a queen, so in death thou deservest not better doom than this." She gave her prayer-book to her faithful friend, Mary Wyatt, the sister of the poet, who had steadfastly clung to her in every reverse, and then sufTering her eyes to be bandaged by another of her ladies, she knelt down upon both knees. Uttering a hasty prayer, "0 Lord God, have pity upon my soul !" she received upon her neck the sturdy yet skillful blow, dealt by the headsman of Calais. A signal gun was fired to announce the consummation of the tragedy to the impatient king, who, gaily attired for the chase, was awaiting the joyful tidings in Richmond Park. When the echoes of the distant report reached his ear, the relieved widower exclaimed: "Ha! ha! the deed is done! Uncouple the hounds and away !" He then dashed off at lightning pace for the scene of his bloody nuptials at Wolf Hall, where Jane Seymour, in the full knowledge that her queen and mistress was at that hour undergoing her mortal agony at the Tower of London, was prejiai'lng to wed the remorseless tyrant who had slain her. The mangled remains of the hapless Anne, having been covered with a sheet by the attendant ladies, were placed by them in an elm chest which had been used for storing arrows ; they were then conveyed to the church within the Tower, and hastily buried in a trench beside the coffins of her brother and friends. No funeral rites were performed over the grave, except, doubtless, a hurried prayer whispered by the trembling lips of gentle Mary Wyatt. During the following night, according to a tradition now for three centuries uncontradicted, the old elm chest was secretly conveyed to Salle Church in Norfolk, where it was committed to consecrated ground. A black marble slab, devoid of inscription 24 186 ANNE BOLE YN. or date, is pointed out to this day as the funereal monument of Anne Boleyn. The following passage would hardly have been written by Wyatt, in his pathetic account of Queen Anne's death, had not her remains been honored by other ceremonies than those which immediately followed her execution: "God," he says, "provided for her corpse sacred burial, even in a place, as it were, consecrate to innocence." Anne Boleyn having been the recognized cause of the separa- tion of England from the Romish communion, her character has been from that time to this the subject of fierce denunciation on the part of Catholic polemical writers. They have striven elabo- rately to prove her unchaste before marriage and adulterous afterwards. Protestant authors, on the other hand, urge the fact of her marriage with Henry as conclusive proof of her virtue, and repel the charges upon which the cruel monarch caused her to be condemned to death as slanderous and futile. That she was ambitious and unscrupulous after she had resolved to obtain the crown, will hardly be contested ; but it will not be denied either, that had not the king interfered, she would have amply gratified her tastes, her feelings and her ambition, by an unostentatious union with Lord Percy. After her trial, her con- duct was in every way admirable ; and she seems to have been absorbed in indignation at the baseness of her oppressors and anxiety for her posthumous fame. Anne Boleyn enabled Henry VIII. — whom the pope had once in flattery called the Defender of the Faitli — to become the unworthy instrument of the intro- duction of the Reformation into England ; and as such, her history would always be interesting, even if she were not also remarkable as the victim of a monarch's heartlcssness, and as an ilhistration of the state of English jurisprudence in her time. That she lent her influence to aid William Tyndal, Miles Cover- dale and John Rogers, the martyr, in their translation — the first attempted — of the Scriptures into the English tongue, is not her least title to respect and grateful remembrance. MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS, Mary Stuart, celebrated above all other women for her beauty and her misfortunes, was the third child of James V. of Scotland, and was born on the 7th of December, 1542. By her father's death, seven days afterwards — his two sons having died in infancy — Mary succeeded, when but a week old, to the throne of a kingdom torn asunder by political and religious dissensions, and suffering from the consequences of a calamitous war with Eng- land. Henry VIII., then upon the English throne, conceived the idea, upon Mary's birth, of marrying her to his son Edward by Jane Seymour, and thus peacefully annexhig Scotland to his crown ; he lost no time, therefore, in making the proposal, but it was received with little favor by the Scottish nobles. The young queen, when nine months old, was crowned by Cardinal Beaton ; after t"he ceremony, the queen-motlier, informed of a report that the infant was sickly, caused her to be unswaddled in the presence of the English ambassador, who wrote home that she was as goodly a child as he had seen of her age. Mary spent the two first years of her life in the palace of Linlithgow, in which she was born ; here she had the small pox, but in a mild form probably, as it left no trace. Her three fol- lowing years were passed in Stirling Castle ; in her sixth year she 1RT 188 MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. was removed, on account of the vicinity of that residence to the scene of partisan troubles, to Inchmahome, a sequestered island in the Lake of Monteith. Four young ladies of rank, of her ov?n age, were appointed to keep her company in this lonely spot ; here ^Nlary Stuart, with the four Maries who formed her society — Mary Beaton, Mary Livingstone, Mary Fleming and Mary Seaton — remained tUl her mother and the regent, sanctioned by the Scottish parUament, betrothed her to the French dauphin, Francis, the son of Henry II. and Catherine de Medicis. Such an alliance was felt both by the Scotch and the French to protect them in a measure against the designs of the English monarch. The treaty stipulated that Mary should be sent to France to be educated at the French court, till the nuptials could be solemnized. She was delivered to the French admiral at Dumbarton, in July, 1548, and landed at Brest on the 14th of August. She was received with royal honors ; during her progress to St. Germain, near Paris, the j^risons in every town through which she passed were opened and the prisoners set free. She was sent, with the king's daughters, to a convent, where she was instructed in the elements of education. Here the tranquillity of a life of seclusion made such a deep imjiression upon her naturally fervent and enthusi- astic disposition, that she soon expressed a desire to take the veil and enter the cloister for life. Henry, whose ambitious projects would have been defeated by such a step, resolved to remove her to the gayer scenes of the court. The unhappy princess shed floods of tears upon her sej^aration from her vestal sisters, but Henry shared the opinions of his father upon the priesthood, that monks were fit for little else than teaclnng linnets to whistle, and persisted in his determination. This was the era of polite learning in France. George Buchanan was Mary's professor in Latin, a language in which it was then indispensable even for ladies to attain proficiency. She studied rhetoric with Fauchet, history with Pasquier, and poetry with tlie gallant and amiable Rousard. She spoke French and MAEY, QUEENOPSCOTS. 189 her native tongue with equal facility. She followed the stag with her maids of honor ; she played on the lute and the virgi- nals ; in winter she erected mimic ice-fortresses, with all the science of an engineer ; and she had but one rival in the minuet. She excelled in the composition of devices — an art which con- sisted in the skillful application of a few precise and expressive words, in the form of a motto, to an engraving, picture, or other work of art. This amusement was veiy popular at court, and was termed "an eloquent species of trifling." The nuptials of Francis and Mary took place at Notre Dame on the 24th of April, 1558, the bride being in her sixteenth year. The spectacle was one of the most imposing which the Parisians of that age had been summoned to witness. As the procession returned from the cathedral, largess was proclaimed among the people in the name of the King and Queen of Scots. Catherine de Medicis and Mary sat in the same palanquin, a car- dinal walking on either hand. The mummeries and artifices dis- played at the banquet were of the most costly and ingenious description. Twelve horses, moved by mechanism, covered with cloths of gold and mounted by the scions of noble houses, pranced into the hall. They were followed by six galleys, decorated after the manner of Cleopatra's barge, which sailed along the tables ; each contained two seats, one of which only was occupied. As each galley advanced, the cavalier who manned it snatched from among the spectators the willing and probably expectant object of his vows. The festivities were con- cluded by jousts and tournaments. The contemporaries of Mary Stuart are unanimous in extolling her unusual beauty. In stature she was majestic, being, hke her mother, above the ordinary height. Her person was finely pro- portioned, and all her movements were graceful and dignified. Her hair was auburn, clustering in luxuriant ringlets ; her eyes were of chestnut color, a darker shade of the same hue ; her nose was Grecian, her brow high and open, her complexion clear, her 190 MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. skin white ; her cheeks were rose-tinted, not rosy. Her Hps were full, and a dimple in her chin gave expression to that usually expressionless feature. These lineaments were so charm- ingly animated by the light suffused from the soul within, that physical and spiritual beauty contended for the palm. The gal- lant BrantSme, whose opinion upon Diana de Poitiers we have cited, comjDared her to the sun at mid-day, and declared that no man ever saw her without losing his heart. Mary sometimes dressed herself in a complete Highland costume, and when thus arrayed in the Stuart tartan, delighted to testify her regard for Scotland, by appearing in public. Brantome declared her a god- dess even in this "barbarous and astonishing garb ;" and added, "if she appeared so beautiful when thus dressed like a savage, what must she not be in her rich robes made a la Fran9aise ?'' The younger brother of Francis, afterwards Charles IX., passion- ately exclaimed that he considered his brother the happiest man on earth, to possess a creature of so much loveliness. But the most spontaneous tribute to her matchless beauty was offered on the occasion of a religious ceremony in the streets of Paris. Mary, then in her 15th year, was walking in the procession, dressed in white and holding a lighted torch in her hand. A woman in the crowd, startled by the lovely apparition, stopped her and asked with reverential accent, "Are you not an angel?" At this time, Mary Tudor, Queen of England, daughter of Henry YIII. by Katherine of Aragon, died, having succeeded Edward VI., Henry's son by Jane Seymour. The parliament declared that the succession was vested in Elizabeth, Henry's daughter b}^ Anne Boleyn, and the voice of the nation ratified this decree. The guardians of Mary Stuart, however, chose this inauspicious moment to press her claims to the English throne, basing them upon the following argument : — Mary was the daughter of James V. of Scotland, whose mother, wife of James IV., was the eldest' daughter of Henry VII. of England, and consequently sister of Henry VIII. If the two daughters of MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 191 Heuiy VIII., Mary and Elizabeth, were, as he had caused them to be declared, illegitimate, Mary Stuart, his grand-niece, was the next heir to the crown. But after Henry's death the parlia- ment reversed his decision and pronounced his daughters legiti- mate. Mary Tudor had reigned, and now Elizabeth was simi- moned to succeed her. The people acquiesced without giving a thought to the Scottish princess. The course of her partisans in pushing her forward as a claimant was, therefore, in the highest degree ill-advised. In July, 1559, Mary Stuart became Queen of France, by the death of Henry II. and the accession of Francis. She was already Queen of Scotland, and, in the case of the death of Elizabeth, would become also Queen of England. History has chronicled few such instances of the concentration of the gifts of fortune upon one single head. But Mary's grandeur was of short duration. Francis died after a reign of seventeen months, and his wife was no longer Queen of France. Charles IX. succeeded, his mother, Catherine de Medicis, reigning in his stead ; in her Mary found an inveterate foe. She retired at first to Rheims, to weep over the grave of her mother, and there resolved, that as France was no longer the home which it once had been, it was her duty to return to that other land which owed her alle- giance. She sent to Elizabeth to demand of her the courtesy usually extended to princes who had occasion to venture upon the water — the favor of a free passage. Elizabeth, indignant at Mary's refusal to ratify a treaty made between herself and the heads of the reformed religious party in Scotland, one of the terms of which was a renunciation, on the part of Mary, of all claims to the English crown, refused the request in the presence of a numerous audience, thus making the denial public, and seek- ing to render the breach of court etiquette as flagrant as possible. Mary still resolved to depart, independent of Elizabeth's consent, though it was with deep grief that she looked forward to a life in a country where barbarism characterized the manners, turbulence 192 MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. the politics, and fanaticism the religion of the people. She set sail late in August from Calais, and as she gazed at the receding shore, exclaimed: "Farewell, France! farewell beloved country, which I shall never more behold!" As long as daylight continued she remained straining her eyes toward the coast ; when darkness shrouded the sea and the land, she refused to retire to her cabin, but caused a bed to be spread for her upon the deck, upon which she wept herself to sleep. In less than a week, Mary arrived in the Frith of Forth, and landed at Leith, a suburb of Edinburgh. She soon after entered her capital and established herself in Holyrood palace. Her sensa- tions of dismay, almost of terror, may easily be comprehended. The poverty of the land contrasted woefully with the smiling val- leys of France ; the weather was thick, wet and "dolorous;" the poor trappings of the horses, the meagreness of the bonfires and illuminations, recalled, by comparison, the splendor of the public rejoicings of Paris and St. Germain. A knot of reformers, who sang psalms under her window, and a band of bagpipers, who performed a serenade before her gate, quite disconcerted both her and her attendants ; and BrantOme, who had followed in her suite, alludes to the dismal concert in the expressive words, "He! quelle musique !" After a time, however, Mary recovered her gaiety, and introduced into her palace a few of the amusements to which she had been accustomed. She thus gave great offence to John Knox, who inveighed against such practices ffom the pulpit, and who even wrote — "So soon as ever her French fil- locks, and fiddlers, and others of that band, got the house alone, there might be seen skipping not very comely for honest women. Her common talk was, in secret, that she saw nothing in Scotland but gravity, which was altogether repugnant to her nature, for she was brought up in joyousness." For a few years Mary led a tranquil though a busy life. She continued to worship in the forms of the Catholic religion, thougli by so doing she at first deeply oH'ended her subjects. She sought MA IIY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 193 to conciliate Knox and the reformers, and to introduce the refine- ments of continental civilization into the counti'y. She devoted five hours a day to public affairs ; and while she listened to the advice of her counsellors and joined in discussion with them, worked diligently at her embroidery. She studied the books which she had brought with her from France, and gave one hour a day to Latin. She made various excursions through the country, endearing herself to the people by her moderation and urbanity. She was benevolent and attentive to the jDoor. She was fond of botany and horticulture, and planted the first sycamore tree which ever grew upon Scottish soil. She delighted in hunting, hawking, dancing and archery, and excelled in the game of chess. Her love for music induced her to maintain a band of twelve minstrels, and to introduce into her religious worship, as a sup- port to the organ, a trumpet, drum, fife, bagpipe and tabor. It was as a bass singer that David Rizzio, a Piedmontese, of whom we shall hereafter have occasion to speak, was recommended to her notice. With Mary's second marriage, commenced the vicissitudes and calamities of her life. The choice of a husband from among her numerous suitors was a task of no little delicacy. The Duke of Anjou, her late husband's brother, and afterwards, upon the death of Charles IX., King of France, was rejected on account of his relationship ; other royal aspirants were refused on account of her objections to a continental and Catholic alliance. Elizabeth, miserable in her childlessness, desired Mary to remain a widow, and sent her word that if she married without her consent, she should induce the Parliament of England to set aside her succes- sion. She, nevertheless, as a matter of form, offered to guide Mary's choice, and suggested her own favorite, Dudley, Earl of Leicester, weU knowing that the Scottish queen would spurn the low born English subject. At last, Mary fixed her preference upon a man four years her junior, Henry Stuart^ Lord Darnley, after herself, and failing issue by Elizabeth, the next heir to the 25 194 MARY, QUEEN OP SCOTS. English throne. His personal attractions were great ; he was tall, graceful, of agreeable and animated features ; Mary said of him that he was " the best proportioned long man she had seen." He excelled in all showy accomplishments, and afiected a fond- ness for music and poetry. Rizzio and others familiar with Mary's tastes instructed him in what manner he could best pay his com-t to the queen. Though destitute of true religious feel- ing, he was a Protestant in outward form, and Mary was decided, in deference to the desire of her subjects, to marry none but an adherent of the estabhshed church. She was deceived in Darn- ley's mind, character and education, and during an attack of the measles, by which her suitor was confined to his room, she made up her mind, in her sympathy for the sufferer, to wed him when he should recover. Having conferred upon liim various titles, and among them that of Duke of Albany, and having obtained a dispensation from the pope — as she and Darnley were first cousins — Mary Stuart was married to her lover at five in the morning of the 29th of July, 1565, in Holyrood chapel, bestow- ing upon him, by the act, the title and some portion of tlie authority of King of Scotland. A handsomer coujsle had never been seen in Scotland ; Mary was in the full flush of her beauty at the age of twenty-three ; Darnley, though only nineteen, ap- peared like a man young at thirty. Armed men stood aroiuid the altar, as Elizabeth's hostility might be expected at any moment to manifest itself in overt acts. Mary was dressed in black, in memory of her late husband, but immediately after the ceremony, she assumed garments more in keeping with her new condition. For a time, Mary was happy, and she lavished upon her husband every token of love and every mark of distinction. But the conviction forced itself upon her, at the expiration of a few months, that she had united lier fortunes with a weak, headstrong and inexperienced boy. He was intemperate, licentious, violent ; so fickle and indiscreet, that he abjured the Protestant faith and MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 195 became a Catholic, thus mortally offending the reformers without winning the Catholics. On one occasion, at a civic banquet, while under the influence of wine, he spoke to the queen so insolently that she left the table in tears. He was, besides, exceedingly and unreasonably ambitious, and Mary felt obliged, for her own sake and for that of her country, to refuse him several of his more importunate demands. Yexed and irritated, Darnley sought among the adherents and friends of his wife some one to whom he could attribute her alienation from himself, and upon whom he could wreak his vengeance. A number of designing nobles, jealous of the favor enjoyed by Rizzio, now French secretary to the queen and one of the most faithful servants Mary ever had, and anxious to promote a permanent state of hostility between Darnley and his wife, per- suaded him that Rizzio was the occasion of the queen's displeasure. They knew that the Piedmontese was unpopular in the country, being unjustly suspected of exerting an undue influence over Mary, and often spoken of as the minion of the pope and the minister of antichrist. The simple truth appears to have been that "he was much respected by his mistress, not for any beauty or external grace that was in him, being rather old, ugly, austere, and disagreeable, but for his great fidelity, wisdom and prudence, and on account of several other good qualities which adorned his mind." The conspirators, who numbered five hundred, easily engaged Darnley in a plot to assassinate Rizzio, and appointed the evening of Saturday, the 9th of March, 1566, for the perpe- tration of the crime. One of their number, Patrick Lord Ruth- ven, a coward, a bigot, and a broken down invalid, undertook to head the enterprise. Mary, totally unconscious of the plot now so near its consum- mation, sat down to supper in a cabinet communicating with her bedroom, at seven in the evening. Some half a dozen persons, friends or attendants, were with her, and among them was Rizzio. At eight, Darnley entered, sat down beside her, and 196 MARY, QU EE N F SC T S. threw his arms familiarly around her waist. Finding Rizzio there, he remained — the signal to the conspirators that every- thing was ready for the attempt. Ruthven rushed into the room, equipped in complete armor. He had lately risen from a sick bed ; his eyes were sunken, his cheeks hollow ; his face was ashy pale, and his whole appearance haggard and frightful. Exhausted by the effort, his knees shook, and his armor rattled and clanked loosely upon his limbs. He threw himself into a chair, and gazed fiercely upon Rizzio. The queen indignantly bade him begone, but she had scarcely uttered the words, before torches gleamed in the passage way, and the room was filled with armed and resolute assassins. Ruthven drew his dagger, and, exclaiming that his business was with Rizzio, endeavored to seize him ; the wretched secretary, seeing that his time was come, and losing all presence of mind, pressed into the recess of a window, clasping the folds of Mary's gown, and exclaiming, in his native tongue, "Giustizia! Giustizia !" Mary, though thus placed between the conspirators and their victim, retained her self- possession. She ordered Ruthven to withdraw, threatening him with an accusation of high treason. She called upon Darnley to protect her, but the recreant husband chose to remain a passive spectator of the scene. In the confusion, the lights were thrown down and extinguished ; with hideous oaths, the assassins de- manded the life of the trembling Piedmoutese. The first blow struck was dealt by the bastard George Douglas ; he seized Darnley's dagger from his belt, stabbed Rizzio with it over Mary's shoulder, and left it sticking in the wound. Rizzio was dragged to the door of the presence-chamber and dispatched ; fifty-six wounds were found upon his body. The alarm bell was rung, and the civic authorities of Edinburgh hastened to Holyrood palace. They called upon the queen to show herself at the window and assure them of her safety. But Mary, who was closely confined in her cabinet, and told "that if she spoke to the townspeople they would cut her in collops and cast her over MAE Y, QUEEN OP SCOTS. 197 the walls," was not permitted to comply with their request. Darnley, however, assured the crowd that the queen was well and required no assistance. The ruffian Ruthven, returning im- brued in Rizzio's blood, called for a cup of wine, and seating himself in the presence of Mary, drained it at one draught while she was standing before him. Mary was detained a prisoner through the night, and the next morning was visited by Darnley. She was ignorant of the extent of his guilt, and believed his protestations that he had no hand in the murder of her secretary. She employed all her eloquence to convince him that in associating with this desperate cabal he was acting a dangerous part ; that his only hope of advancement lay in her good will, not in the friendship of assas- sins and agitators. Darnley, always vacillating, and now once more under the influence of the lovely pleader before him, who, should no evil consequence ensue from the alarm of the night, might in a few months become the mother of a king, yielded to her entreaties and consented to fly with her to Dunbar. Accom- panied by the captain and two officers of the guard, they escaped on horseback at midnight. In five days, Mary, surrounded by her loyal nobles, returned in triumph to Edinburgh. The con- spirators fled - in all directions, and Ruthven died before the summer of the disease to which he was a prey. But two of the conspirators were executed for Rizzio's murder, the ringleaders contriving to obtain their pardon from the generous and indul- gent queen. On the 19th of June, Mary gave birth to a son, afterwards James I. of England and VI. of Scotland. The birth of a prince had been looked forward to as the greatest blessing which Provi- dence could vouchsafe to Mary's divided kingdom, and the intel- ligence was received with every demonstration of joy. Elizabeth was dancing at Greenwich when Mary's letter, communicating the tidings, aiTived. "But so soon," says Melville, who bore the missive, " as the Secretary Churchill sounded the news in her 198 MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. ear of the prince's birth, all merriment was laid aside for that night ; every one that was present marvelling what might move so sudden a changement. For the queen sat down with her hand upon her cheek, and bursting out to some of her ladies how that the Queen of Scotland was lighter of a fair son, and that she was but a barren stock." After this envious and repining speech, she assured Mehalle that the joyful news he had brought had recovered her out of a heavy sickness which had held her for fifteen da)'^s ! The child was christened with great pomp, the festivities far surpassing in splendor and variety any which the kings and queens of Scotland had given upon similar occasions. The conduct of Darnley now became so outrageous, that Mary was often in tears, and was heard several times to exclaim : "Would I were dead!" The lords of her council urged a divorce, but she rejected the advice, saying, " I will that you do nothing by which any spot may be laid on my honor or conscience ; but wait till God of His goodness shall put a remedy to it." One of the most zealous advisers of the project of a divorce was the ambitious, reckless and dissolute James Hepburne, Earl of Both- well. He was the head of a powerful family ; and having always remained faithful to the interests of the queen, he stood high in her favor. Though he had been married but a few months pre- viousl}', he seems to have conceived at this period the daring scheme of succeeding to Darnley as King of Scotland and hus- band of the queen. Finding Mary resolved against aj^plying for a divorce, he resolved to remove Darnley by violent means. He concocted a plot which has had few parallels in history for audacity, cruelty and villainy. He obtained a divorce from his wife, on the plea of consanguinity, and thus liberated from a tie which checked his soaring ambition, he awaited a favorable mo- ment for putting his plan into execution. Darnley was at this time taken sick of the small pox, at Glasgow. Mary at once set out to visit him ; "his danger," says Dr. Gilbert Stuart, "awakened all the gentleness of her nature, MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 199 and she forgot the wrongs she had enchired. Yieldmg to anxious and tender emotions, she left her cai)ital and her palace, in the severest season of the year, to wait upon him. Her assiduities and kindnesses even communicated to him the most flattering solace- ment ; and while she lingered about his person with a fond solici- tude and a delicate attention, he felt that the sickness of his mind and the virulence of his disease were diminished." Upon his convalescence, she caused him to be removed to the vicinity of Holyrood and lodged in a house called the Kirk-of-Field. This mansion had been chosen by BothweU and his accomplices, whose motives in the selection Mary was far from suspecting. They fixed upon it on account of its lonely situation, but recom- mended it to her " as a place of good air." Here Darnley spent ten days, Mary visiting him constantly, sometimes bringing her band of musicians from the palace, and often spending the night. Bothwell resolved upon blowing up the premises with gunpowder, and this point being settled, only delayed the execution of the plot till Mary should indicate, a sufficient time beforehand, her intention of sleeping a night at Holyrood. On the morning of Sunday, the 9th of February, Bothwell learned that the queen intended to be present that evening at the marriage of one of her waiting-maids, and could not, therefore, make a prolonged visit to the Kirk-of-Field. The gunpowder was stealthily conveyed to the house by his accomplices. Mary left Darnley at eleven o'clock and returned to Holyrood. Bothwell, to divert suspicion, appeared at the wedding, and soon afterwards joined the conspi- rators at the lonely house. The gunpowder was lying in a heap upon the floor, and they consulted for some time as to the best method of setting fire to it. They at last kindled one end of a piece of lint, four inches long, and retired to await the event. For a quarter of an hour not the slightest sound was heard. Bothwell, nervous and impatient, was on the point of returning, when a sudden flash and a tremendous explosion terminated his suspense. The Kirk-of-Field was so violently rent asunder, 200 MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. that not a stone remained standing upon another. The body of Darnley was carried by the force of the explosion into a garden at some distance, where it was found lifeless, but with little external injury. Mary's distress, when informed of the disaster, knew no bounds ; she shut herself up in her apartment, and refused to see any one, even her counsellors, during the day which followed. Suspicion soon fell upon Bothwell, and upon the 12th of April, 1567, he was brought to trial in the Tolbooth of Edin- burgh. The indictment accused him of being "art and part of the cruel, odious, treasonable and abominaljle slaughter and murder of the umwhile the right high and mighty prince the king's grace, dearest spouse for the time to our sovereign lady the queen's majesty." Matthew, Earl of Lennox, Darnley's father, had been summoned to act as public accuser, or "pur- suer." Instead of appearing, he sent a protest by a servant, in which he stated that the cause of his absence was the shortness of time, the want of the necessary proofs, and of friends and retainers to accompany him to the place of trial. Bothwell's counsel insisted upon their right to jarocecd at once with the action. The judges granted them the privilege, and a jury was chosen. Bothwell pleaded not guilty, and in the absence of the pursuer, no evidence was taken against him. The case being thus given to the jurors, they speedily acquitted Bothwell of the crime laid to his charge. The murderer at once published a challenge, offering to sustain his innocence, single-handed, against all such as might dare to maintain his guilt. No champion, however, ventured to appear. Bothwell's next object was to marry the queen, or rather, by marrying the queen, to obtain the crown of Scotland. He had little hope of inspiring her with any affection for his person, but seems to have expected to gain his ends by putting himself forward as tlie only niiiii in the realm fit to cope with her turlm- lent sulijects, or possessing sufficient resolution to enable Mary MARY, QUEEN OP SCOTS. 201 herself to maintain her seat upon the throne. On the 20th of April, he invited the members of parliament to a supper at Ainsly's tavern. When the wine had circulated freely, he pro- duced a document which he had previously drawn up, to the effect that the signers were heartily of the opinion that he ought to marry the queen, and that they would bind themselves to give him all necessary counsel and assistance. This, after con- sideration, was signed by all present but one. Armed with this formidable document, Bothwell, resolved that the caprice or dis- inclination of a woman should be no serious obstacle to his designs, collected a force of one thousand horsemen, and inter- cepting Mary while on her return from Stirling to Edinburgh, seized her in the midst of her attendants, and carried her a prisoner to his castle at Dunbar. For ten days he kept her sequestrated, spending the whole time with her, calling to his aid every artifice of aflfected passion, of menace and of jDrayer. He flung himself at her feet, and even threatened her with dishonor and death. By force and fraud he at length triumjDhed over her resistance, and on the 15th of May the marriage took place. The first month of this ill-starred union was the most miser- able of Mary's life. Bothwell treated her with such indignity that he " caused her to shed abundance of salt tears." He kept her " environed with a continual guard of two hundred harque- buziers, day and night." It appeared subsequently that Both- well's previous wife had merely been divorced from him as a matter of form, her family consenting to it to permit Bothwell to prosecute his schemes of ambition, and that he was at this time maintaining her at home. "No wonder," says Bell, "that under such an accumulation of miseries — the suspicion with which she was regarded by foreign courts, the ready hatred of many of her more bigoted Presbyterian subjects, the de- pendence, almost amounting to a state of bondage, in which she was kept, and the brutal treatment she experienced from her worthless husband — no wonder that Mary was heard, in moments 26 202 MARY, QUEEN OP SCOTS. almost of distraction, to express an intention of committmg suicide." It was not long before the very lords who had recommended the marriage, made it the pretext of rebellion against Bothwell and the absolute authority in which he was seeking to intrench himself. Both parties took up arms, and met at Carberry HiU. The first day passed in unavailing negotiations, and a battle must have ensued upon the second, had not Mary taken a decisive and most unexpected step during the night. She sent a message to the lords to the effect that she would quit Bothwell forever, if they would reconduct her in safety to Edinburgh and return to their allegiance. She persuaded Bothwell to retire from the field, and from that moment she never saw him again. She gave herself up to her lords, who, partly to gratify their retainers by allowing them to insult a Roman Catholic queen, partly because perfidy was more congenial to their nature than fidelity, con- ducted her, not to Holyrood, but to the castle of Loch Leven, situated in the centre of a lake and owned by Lady Douglas, the mother of one of the most poAverful of the rebels, and a woman of harsh and unfeeling temper. To the custody of this person Mary was consigned ; she was kept in durance for many weeks, her enemies trusting that her spirit would be broken by the ill usage to which she was sub- jected, and that she would finally consent to abdicate her crown, as a means of obtaining rehcf. On the 25th of July, two depu- ties sent by the rebels to propose terms of submission had an interview with her. Sir Robert Melville, whose duty it was merely to argue and endeavor to persuade her to affix her signa- ture to the act of abdication, having signally failed, called in Lord Lindsay, his colleague, whose assigned province it was to tlu-eaten her with death, if she refused compliance. Lindsay, armed and helnietcd, rushed into the room, with the documents prepared to receive her signature. Seizing her hand in his gauntleted pahn, he swore that unless she subscribed the deeds MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 203 without delay, he would himself sign them in her blood. Mary nearly swooned with terror, for she remembered that Lindsay was by Ruthven's side when Rizzio was slain at her feet. Mel- ville, in order to ^^revent her from fainting, whispered in her ear that a signature thus given in captivity and extorted by force, could not be valid. Lindsay, his eyes now gleaming with rage, pointed to the lake, and vowed that if she hesitated one moment longer, he would cast her headlong from the castle. Mary mechanically seized a pen, and, without reading a syllable of the papers, calling on those present to witness that she did so only through fear of death, affixed her name to them with a trembhng hand. Two days afterwards, her son, who was little more than a year old, was publicly crowned at Stirling. He was educated by Mary's deadliest foes, and his subsequent career too plainly showed that a son may be so wrought upon in his tender years as to part even with that first and holiest of sentiments, affection for a mother. Mary made two attempts to escape from Loch Leven. The first was unsuccessful ; she had already taken her seat in the boat which was to convey her to the shore, when she was betrayed by the extreme whiteness and beauty of her hand. A month afterwards, a second attempt was made with more success : Mary assisted the single oarsman in rowing, and upon reaching the shore, mounted a horse and galloped the whole of the night. In three days, she was at the head of 6,000 men devoted to her cause. Murray, tlie regent during the nonage of the king, collected his forces and the battle of Langside ensued. The queen beheld the conflict, and saw the fortune of the day turn signally against her. She saw her army in fuU flight before the victorious usurper. Her general. Lord Herries, took her horse's bridle and turned his head from the dismal scene. Mary fled to the south, and first sought repose at the distance of sixty miles from the field, at the Abbey of Dundreddan ; rejecting the advice of Herries — which was to seek protection in France — she 204 MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. adopted the fatal resolution of throwing herself upon the com- passion and genei'osity of Elizabeth. As she approached the fi'ontier, her resolution faltered ; but as no other alternative pre- sented itself, she pushed on and entered Elizabeth's dominions at the town of Carlisle. The English queen, incapable of magnanimity or pity, be- haved towards her fallen sister with the most odious hypocrisy and artifice. In order to preserve a show of decency, she sent noblemen of suitable rank to receive her, ha\ang, however, in- structed them on no account to sufier her to leave the kingdom. She refused to admit her to an interview, alleging the serious imputation under which she labored of being accessory to Darn- ley's death, as a sufficient motive. Mary, in her indignation, as Ehzabeth clearly foresaw, at once offered to submit her cause to her, and to produce convincing proofs of her innocence. Eliza- beth thus craftily became the umpire between Mary and her subjects. She soon after appointed a conference to be held at York, where Mary, compelled to stifle her indignation at the humiliation, was, as it were, tried by the commissioners of Queen Elizabeth. Murray appeared in person, and accused Mary of having maintained an illicit intercourse with Bothwell during her husband's lifetime, and of having been jiri^^ to Darnley's murder. In support of the fii'st allegation, he pro- duced eight love-letters, eleven amatory sonnets, and one mar- riage contract, all alleged to be in the handwriting of Mary, and addressed by her to Bothwell. Her representatives, by her command, repelled the accusation with indignation, and declared the letters forgeries, which they have since been sufficiently proved. The conference was concluded, as had been the pur- pose of Elizabeth from the beginning, without any decision being rendered ; Murray, though accused by Mary of having resorted to force to secure her abdication, was permitted to return to Scotland, and Mary naturally expected to be also set at lib- erty. But Elizabeth sent her word that liberty was only to MARY, QUEEN OP SCOTS. 205 be obtained by voluntarily renouncing her throne and country ; she would then be allowed to reside in privacy and without molestation in England. Disdaining liberty upon these disgrace- ful terms, she remained the captive of her cruel and ungenerous sister queen. The last eighteen years of Mary's life were spent in hopeless captivity. She was transferred from dungeon to dungeon, and placed successively in the charge of various noblemen, but no improvement was permitted in her condition. On the contrary, each succeeding year found her with diminished comforts and in failing health. The dampness of her prisons rendered her rheu- matic and infirm at the age of thirty. "Here the sun," she wrote to a friend in France, " can never penetrate, neither does any pure air ever visit this habitation, on which descend driz- zling damps and eternal fogs, to such excess that not an article of furniture can be placed beneath the roof, but in four days it becomes covered with green mould." Mary's principal occupa- tion was needle-work ; she attended to her religious duties with solicitous regularity ; and from time to. time she sought to beguile the heavy hours in French composition. She endured with un- varying gentleness the discomforts of her situation — a proof at once of the sweetness of her temper and of the tranquillity of her conscience. At last, in the year 1686, the termination of her woes ap- proached. Elizabeth, during the eighteen years of Mary's cap- tivity, had been stretched upon the rack of fear for her own life and throne. Plot had succeeded plot, many of them with the ostensible purpose of releasing the Queen of Scots. Mary openly avowed her intention of cooperating with those who aspired to be her deUverers, and of accepting freedom at their hands, but she strenuously denied that she had been, or would be, privy to any attempt upon the person or against the au- thority of Elizabeth. The latter, failing to implicate Mary in any traitorous project, finally induced a servile parhament 206 MART, QUEE N OF SC OTS. to pass a law to the effect that not only conspirators, but those in whose cause they conspired, though innocent or even igno- rant of their acts, should equally suffer death, the penalty of treason. Babington's plot soon after offered an excuse for bringing Mary to trial under this law. Anthony Babington was a young man of fortune in Derby- shire. He had long cherished a romantic desire to perform some chivalrous exploit for the dehverance of Mary. He became the first English proselyte to an idea conceived in France, that Eliza- beth's late excommunication by Pope Pius V. had been dictated by the immediate inspiration of the Holy Ghost. The queen, therefore, in the eyes of the fanatics holding this behef, was an enemy of heaven, and her assassination would be an act calculated to obtain the divine favor. The release of Maiy formed part of the purpose of the conspirators, and she con- sented to enter into their schemes as far as her own interests were concerned, but no further. The plot was discovered, and all engaged in it were arrested. Fourteen of them were at once condemned and executed, and Mary was arraigned as an accessory. She was imprisoned at the time at the castle of Fotheringay, in Northamptonshire, under the charge of Sir Amias Paulet. On the 11th of October, Ehzabeth's commissioners, appointed to hear the cause, arrived. Mary refused to acknowledge their jurisdic- tion. "I am no subject to Elizabeth," she said, "but an inde- pendent queen as well as she ; and I wiU consent to nothing unbecoming the majesty of a crowned head." For two days she combated their arguments and denied their authority, but was finally entrapped by the specious plea that by avoiding a trial she must inevitably excite suspicion and injure her own reputation. She yielded to these insidious representations, and consented to defend herself against a charge of high treason. "There was never an occasion," sa3'S Bell, "throughout the whole of Mary's life, in which she appeared to greater advantage than this. In the presence of all the pomp, learning and talent MARY, QUEEN OP SCOTS. 207 of England, she stood alone and undaunted ; evincing, in the mo- dest dignity of her bearing, a mind conscious of its own integrity and superior to the malice of fortune. Elizabeth's craftiest law- yers and ablest politicians were assembled to probe her to the quick — to press home every argument which ingenuity could de- vise and eloquence embellish- — to dazzle her with a blaze of eru- dition or involve her in a maze of technical perplexities. Mary had no counsellor, no adviser, no friend. Her very papers, to which she might have wished to refer, had been taken from her ; and there was not one to plead her cause or defend her inno- cence. Her bodily infirmities imparted only a greater lustre to her mental preeminence ; and not in all the fascinating splendor of her youth and beauty, not on the morning of her first bridal day, when Paris rang with acclamations in her praise, was Mary Stuart so much to be admired, as when, weak and worn out, she stood calmly before the myrmidons of a rival queen." Mary defended herself with composure, dignity and acuteness. She denied all connection with Babington's conspiracy, except so far as it aimed at her own deliverance. " I would disdain," she said, " to purchase all that is most valuable upon earth by the assassination of the meanest of the human race ; and worn out, as I now am, by cares and sufferings, the prospect of a crown is not so inviting that I should ruin my soul in order to obtain it. Neither am I a stranger to the feelings of humanity, nor un- acquainted with the duties of religion, and it is my nature to be more inclined to the devotion of Esther than to the sword of Ju- dith. If ever I have given consent by my words, or even by my thoughts, to any attempt against the life of the Queen of Eng- land, far from declining the judgment of men, I shall not even pray for the mercy of God." But eloquence and arguments were thrown away upon judges instructed beforehand what ver- dict to render, and a sentence, universally declared iniquitous, was pronounced against her. Ehzabeth, deaf to the reproaches and menaces by which she 208 MARY, QUE EN OF SC OTS. . was assailed, indifferent to the horror which the outrage of Mary's condemnation had excited throughout Europe, was firmly resolved to execute the sentence, though she affected sensibility and hesitation. Her subservient parliament dissuaded her from leniency, calhng to her mind the example of God's vengeance upon Saul for sparing Agag. She replied with the hypocritical prayer that they would consider if the public safety might not be otherwise provided for. But her meaning was well understood, and the request was fearlessly repeated. Elizabeth, before signing the death-warrant, let fall an intimation, in her anxiety to shift upon others the responsibility of Mary's death, which might stimulate Paulet, the jailer, to extricate her from the dilemma, by assassinating or poisoning his royal prisoner. Pau- let rejected the proposal with disdain. Upon this Elizabeth ordered her secretary, Davidson, to bring her the death-warrant, to which she dehberately and without shrinking, affixed her signature. On the 7th of February, the Earls of Shrewsbury, Kent, and others, commissioned to attend Queen Mary's exe- cution, arrived at Fotheringay Castle. Mary was ill and in bed, but being informed that they came upon a matter of import- ance, she arose and received them. They broke to her gently the nature of their errand, and one of their number read the warrant for her execution. Mary replied, making the sign of the cross, that she had expected death, and was not unpre- pared to die, though she regretted that the order proceeded from Elizabeth. She then protested upon a volume of the New Testa- ment lying before her, that she had never, directly or indirectly, sought or compassed the assassination of Elizabeth — a jjrotesta- tiou wliich the earls regarded as without significance, made as it was upon a Catholic Bible. Mary then asked if no foreign nation had interposed in her behalf ; if her son, James of Scot- land, was well and had manifested any interest in her fate. She then inquired of Shrewsbury when her execution was to take place. He replied that the hour appointed was eight, the next MARY, QUEEN OP SCOTS. 209 morning. Mary betrayed some agitation at the indecorous haste thus made, saying that it was more sudden than she had expected. She requested to be left alone, that she might make her will and otherwise prepare for death. Upon the departure of the earls, Mary bade her waiting maids hasten supper. " Come, Jane Kennedy," she said, "cease your weeping and be busy." When the sad meal was over, she pledged every one of her attendants in a glass of wine ; they fell upon their knees to drink the melancholy toast. Upon the margin of the inventory of her wardrobe, furniture and jewels, she wi'ote the name of the person to whom she wished each article to be given, forgetting none of her friends, either present or absent. She next composed her will, which is stiU extant, writing rapidly and without once lifting her pen from the paper, and covering four large closely-written pages. No subject or person of consequence was omitted. She sent to her confessor, whom she was not permitted to see, as he was a CathoHc, requesting him to pray for her, and to indicate to her such passages in the Bible as were most appropriate for her to read. She retired to bed at two in the morning, but was unable to sleep. Her lips were frequently in motion, and she held her hands clasped and raised imploringly towards heaven. She rose at daybreak, and with the assistance of her maids, who had passed the night in weeping, dressed herself with studied care, choosing a robe of rich black silk, bordered with crimson velvet, over which was thrown a satin mantle. At the appointed hour the sheriff appeared, and Mary, after a brief prayer, signified her willingness to accompany him. Her maids expected to follow her to the scaffold, but the harsh order of Elizabeth was that Mary should proceed thither unattended. They were torn from her and the door was closed upon their shrieks and lamen- tations. Jane Kennedy and one other were subsequently allowed to support her to the scaffold. This was a platform erected in the hall in which she had been tried. On one side of the block 27 210 MARY, QUEEN OP SCOTS. were the executioner and his aid ; on the other, the Earls of Kent and Shrewsbury. The death-warrant was read, but the smile and absent expression upon Mary's features told that her thoughts had preceded her soul to the spirit-land. Her officious persecutors now besought her to join them in devotion according to the Protestant form. She declined, but falling on her knees, and clasping her crucifix in her hands, prayed fervently alone, but aloud. She prayed for herself, for the Queen of England, for her friends and enemies. Jane Kennedy bound her eyes with a gold-bordered handkerchief, and Mary Stuart laid her head upon the block; her last words were: "Oh Lord, in thee have I hoped, and into thy hands I commit my spirit." The exe- cutioner's arm was unskillful or unsteady, for it was at the third blow only that he separated her head from her body. His assistant then raised the head by the hair, ciying, " God save EUzabeth, Queen of England!" The spectators were dissolved in tears, and but one deep voice — that of the Earl of Kent — responded "Amen!" Had Mary Stuart's career been as prosperous as it was calamitous, her life and character would probably have escaped censure. But there was such a preponderance of adversity, that many have been induced to give ready credence to the calumnies of which she was the object, conceiving that a queen who was so constantly unfortunate, must, by her own actions, in some degree have invited and deserved her fate. For two centuries Mary has furnished the theme of an acrimonious warfare to historians and controvertists ; but during the last fifty years all uncertainty has been set at rest, and the subject may be regarded as ex- hausted. We may now safely say with the Archbishop of Bruges, who was appointed to preach Mary's funeral sermon in Paris : "Marble, and brass, and iron decay, or are devoured by rust; but in no age, however long the world may endure, will the memory of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots and Dowager of France, cease to be regarded with affectionate admiration." ^ nuiiver POCAHOITAS Captain John Smith, of Lincolnshire in England, after having spent an adventurous apprenticeship in the art of war in the Low Countries and in Turkey, set sail from London in December, 1606, for the fertile and salubrious coasts of Virginia. Captain Bartholomew Gosnold, who had already made a prosperous voyage to New England, George Percy, the brother of the Earl of Northumberland, Mr. Wingfield, a merchant, and Mr. Hunt, a clergyman, accompanied Smith and the colonists, who, number- ing one hundred and five souls, embarked in three small vessels. They followed the old route by the Canaries and the West Indies. Smith became so popular with the colonists, that his jealous colleagues accused him of forming a conspiracy by which he was to make himself king of Virginia ; they kept him in prison during the remainder of the voyage. Land was discovered at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay late in April, 1607 ; it was named Cape Henry, in honor of the Prince of Wales. A river empty- ing its watei's into the bay was named James River, in honor of the king. The strangers sailed into this stream, and ascended a distance of forty miles from its mouth. Here the landscape was so inviting, and the early beauties of a Virginia spring were so alluring, that on the 13th of May they resolved to pitch their 212 POCAHONTAS. tents ; and they gave to the site thus chosen the name of Jamestown. The river's bank was so bold that their ships rode in six fathoms water, though moored to the trees on the land. At this period, the extent of country now known as Virginia was occupied by twenty thousand Indians, eight thousand of them being the subjects of Powhatan, a savage of warlike renown and superior talents. His dominions, acquired by inheritance, he had extended by conquest, and by his arts and the force of his character, had united forty tribes under his own single authority. He looked with enmity upon the colonists, and circumstances made him at an early period their implacable foe. Before many months had elapsed, the chief management of their affairs devolved upon Smith, a result which all had regarded as inevitable sooner or later. He devoted himself energetically to the building of Jamestown, and to the obtaining of provisions wherewith to stock it. He made a foray into an Indian settle- ment, and by a judicious use of his firearms, induced a party of savages to load his boat with corn, venison and wild fowl, and to accept beads and hatchets in return. He repeated his excur- sions from time to time, though dissensions invariably broke out among his people during his absence. Before the approach of winter, he had gained such an ascendency over the Indians, that on invading their territory he was certain to find them awaiting his coming, with baskets laden with corn, beans and pumpkins. The bays and rivers were covered with ducks and geese, and the tables of the adventurers were thus bountifully spread. In one of his attempts to penetrate to the source of the Chickahominy River, being very insufficiently attended. Smith's party was attacked by three hundred savages led by Opechan- canough, Powhatan's brother. Though wounded in the thigh, he bound one of his Indian guides to his left arm, using him as a buckler, and at the same time plied his musket so efi'cctively that he killed three of his assailants and wounded several others. POCAHONTAS. 213 While attempting to reach his canoe, he sank, with his buckler on his arm, up to his waist in a bog. The savages dared not approach him, till, benumbed with cold, he threw away his arms and shield in token of surrender. They extricated him from the morass, carried him to their bivouac, and attempted to restore the circulation of his frozen blood by vigorous friction. Smith, without condescending to beg for his life, requested to speak with the chief. Upon being presented to Opechan- canough, he drew from his pocket a portable ivory compass, which he used to guide his course through the woods. He called the chief's attention to the restless play of the needle, at the same time attempting an explanation of the wonderful purpose it was made to serve. In his own account of the interview, he states that he went on to expound the mysteries of astronomy, the alternations of the seasons and the revolution of the earth, ' ' and how the sunne did chase the night about the world continually ;" but those who are aware how difficult it is to comprehend these abstruse matters, and to obtain an adequate conception of the Copernican system, even with the aid of diagrams and an orrery, will probably conclude that Smith entirely overrated his skill in pantomime. But, at any rate, the interesting little dial, which was doubtless taken for a god or a medicine, saved him ft-om the immediate death to which he was doomed, and he was taken in procession to the village of Orapax. Here the warriors performed a hideous war dance around him, to the dehght of the assembled squaws and pappooses. He was then plied so bounti- fully with excellent fare, that he imagined he was to be fattened for the table — a calumnious supposition, by the way, as the Indians of Korth America have always been free from the dis- gusting practice of cannibahsm. Some time after this, Smith was taken to Werowocomoco, the residence of Powhatan, the great chief. He was detained for a time, that the emperor might receive him with becom- ing ceremony. He was at last introduced into a wigwam of 214 POCAHONTAS. unusual size, in the centre of which was a blazing fire. At one end, upon a rude throne, sat Powhatan, a man of noble stature, and of majestic, though severe demeanor. He was dressed in raccoon skins, "the tayles all hanging by." On one side of him was his daughter Matachanna; on the other, his younger and favorite daughter, Matoaka, the " Snow- feather," destined in the coming hour to render herself im- mortal, under the beautiful but assumed name of Pocahontas. Against each wall of the wigwam sat a row of women, their faces and shoulders painted red, their hair adorned with the white down of birds, and their necks ornamented with beads. The queen of Apamatuck brought the guest water with which to wash his hands, and another lady of rank a bunch of feathers with which to dry them. A consultation was then held, at the end of which two large stones were laid before Powhatan. Smith was dragged to the altar thus improvised, and his head placed upon the stones. Some half dozen sav- ages raised their clubs in the air, waiting for Powhatan's sig- nal to beat out the helpless victim's brains. Matoaka for a moment stayed her father's purpose by her tears and entrea- ties ; but finding all intercession unavailing, she sprang forward, kneeled over Smith's prostrate form, clasped his head in her arms, and placing her own upon it, seemed determined to share his fate. This heroic and generous act touched the hearts of Powhatan and the executioners ; the chief yielded to the solicitations of his daughter, and set the sentence of death aside, resolving to employ Smith as an artisan, to make hatchets, bows and arrows for himself, and bells and beads for Matoaka. "The accovmt of this most beautiful and touching scene," says Mr. nillard, " familiar as it is to every one, can hardly be read with unmoistened eyes. The incident is so dramatic and startling, that it seems to preserve the freshness of novelty amidst a thousand repetitions. We could almost as reasonably have expected an angel to have come down from heaven and POCAHONTAS. 215 rescued the captive, as that his deliverer should have sprung from the bosom of Powhatan's family. The universal sympa- thies of mankind, and the best feelings of the human heart, have redeemed this scene from the obscurity which, in the pro- gress of time, gathers over all but the most important events. It has pointed a thousand morals and adorned a thousand tales. Innumerable bosoms have throbbed, and are yet to throb, with generous admiration for this daughter of a people whom we have been too ready to underrate. Had we known nothing of her but what is related in this incident, she would deserve the eternal gratitude of the inhabitants of this country, for the fate of the colony may be said to have hung upon the arms of Smith's executioners. He was its life and soul, and with- out the magic influence of his personal qualities, it would have abandoned in despair the project of permanently settling the country, and sailed to England by the first opportunity." Matoaka was at this period twelve years old, having been born in 1595. Of her life up to the period of which we are speaking, nothing whatever is known, and history has preserved no record of the influences which conspired to form a cha- racter which would have been beautiful anywhere, and was a marvel in one reared in a Virginia forest, amid lawless and untutored savages. It is certain, however, that upon the set- tlement of the English colonists in their vicinity, Powhatan changed her name to that of Pocahontas — signifying "a run between two hills." He appears to have believed that by thus concealing her true name, he should deprive the English of the power of harming her, should she, by any mischance, fall into their hands. Smith was detained two days, and then dismissed with compliments and promises of friendship. Powhatan often sent Pocahontas to Jamestown with provisions, of which the colonists stood in great need. Mr. William Strachey, the first secretary of the colony, makes the following incidental 216 POCAHONTAS. mention of these visits of Pocahontas, in his "Historic of Tra- vaile into Virginia Britannia:" "The better sort of women cover themselves for the most part all over with skin man- tells finely drest, shagged and fringed at the skirt. Their younger women goe not shadowed amongst their own com- panie until they be nigh eleaven or twelve returns of the leafe old — for so they accompt and bring about the yeare — nor are they much ashamed thereof, and therefore would the before remembered Pochahuntas, a well-featured but wanton young girl, Powhatan's daughter, sometyme resorting to our fort, get the boyes forth with her into the markett place, and make them wheele, falling on their hands, turning up their heeles upwards, whom she would followe and wheele so her- self, naked as she was, all the fort over ; but being once twelve yeares, they put on a kind of semecinctum lethern apron, as doe our artificers or handycrafts men." Smith returned the same winter to Werowocomoco, bring- ing with him one Captain Newport, who had just arrived from England, and was anxious to behold the emperor. Powhatan exerted himself to entertain them sumptuously. He received them reclining upon his couch of mats, and dressed as before in the fur of the raccoon, his pillow of skins lying beside him, brilliantly embroidered with shells and beads. Speeches and feasts, with dancing and singing, followed ; and finally, New- port and Powhatan made up their minds to trade. Newport was inclined to higgle, but was reproved by Powhatan. "Cap- tain Newport," said he, "it is not agreeable to my greatness to truck in this peddling manner for trifles. I am a great sachem, and I esteem you the same. Therefore lay me down all your commodities together ; what I like I will take, and in return you shall have what I conceive to be a fair value." Upon this request being acceded to, Powhatan coolly made an adroit selection, giving three bushels of corn in exchange. New- port had calculated upon twenty hogsheads at least. POCAHONTAS. 217 Smith, vexed at Newport's imprudent operation, by which he had greatly lowered the value of many articles of barter, saw that it was indispensable to do away with its ill eJBfects by a counter operation. He drew forth a quantity of toys and gewgaws, glancing them dexterously in the light. Powhatan eyed with admii-ing gaze a string of blue glass beads. Smith put the beads away. Powhatan offered to buy them. Smith said they were not for sale. Powhatan insisted. Smith replied that they were of the color of the sky, and only to be worn by great sachems. Powhatan observed that he was a great sachem. He soon became quite beside himself to possess the beads, and finally purchased them for three hundred bushels of corn. Smith, not ashamed of having overreached the father of Pocahontas in this unseemly manner, subsequently outwit- ted her uncle, Opechancanough, in precisely the same way. Blue beads soon became imperial symbols of enormous value, and none but sachems and members of their famihes dared to be seen wearing them. Powhatan's fancy was next attracted by the swords of the colonists, which he had had occasion to admire as more effi- cient than the native hatchets and tomahawks. Remembering Newport's indefinite notions of barter and sale, he sent him twenty turkeys, with a request for twenty swords in return, with which that inconsiderate gentleman furnished him unhe- sitatingly. He subsequently attempted to wheedle Smith in the same way, but the shrewd pioneer kept the turkeys and the swords both. Powhatan, therefore, ordered his people to possess themselves of the weapons of the English whenever an opportunity offered, either by stratagem or force. They commenced their depredations and continued them till surprised by Smith, and then confessed that Powhatan was endeavoring to obtain their arms that he might afterwards exterminate them. When the sachem learned that his plot was discovered, he sent the gentle Pocahontas to Smith, with directions to 28 218 POCAHONTAS. excuse him, and to lay the entire bhxme upon his disorderly and ungovernable warriors. Smith released his prisoners, after a sufficient chastisement, sending word to Powhatan, that if he treated them with unmihtary clemency, it was wholly due to the intercession of Pocahontas. Smith was now elected governor of Virginia. Newport, who had in the meantime sailed home to England, returned, bringing numerous costly presents for Powhatan — the effect of which would be, Smith feared, to cause the emperor to over- rate the importance of his own favor. One of the presents was a royal crown, the gift of King James I., who doubtless hoped to seduce Powhatan into submission to his dominion, or at least to assimilate the royal authority of his sylvan ally to his own, by the solemn ceremony of a coronation. Smith set out to invite Powhatan to Jamestown, for the pur- pose of receiving the presents. On his arrival at Werowo- comoco he found Powhatan absent. Pocahontas sent for him immediately, and in the meantime entertained her visitors with an extraordinary pageant, which, in the original narrative, is called an "anticke." A fire was made in an open field, and Smith was placed upon a mat before it, with his men about him. Hideous shouts were then heard in the woods, and the Englishmen, fearing a surprise, seized their arms. "Then presently," says the chronicle, "they were presented with this anticke. Thirtie young women came naked out of the woods, only covered behind and before with a few greene leaves ; their bodies all paynted, some of one colour and some of another, but all differing. Their leader had a fayre payre of bucke's horns on her head, and an otter's skinne at her girdle, another at her arme, a quiver of arrowes at her backe, a bow and arrowes in her hand. The next had in her hand a sworde, another a clubbe, another a pot-sticke, aU horned aUke ; the rest every one with their severall devices. These fiends, with most helUsh shouts and cryes, rushing from among the trees, POCAHONTAS. 219 caste themselves in a ring about the fire, singing and dauncing with the most excellent ill varietie, oft falling into their infernall passions, and then again to sing and daunce. Having spent near an hour in this mascarado, as they entered, in like manner they departed. "Having reaccommodated themselves, they solemnly invited Smith to their lodgings, when he was no sooner within the house but all these nymphs more tormented him than ever, with crowd- ing, pressing and hanging about him, most tediously crying, ' Love you not me V This salutation ended, the feast was set, consisting of all the salvage dainties they could devise ; some attending, othei's dauncing about them. This mirth being ended, with firebrands instead of torches, they conducted him to his lodging. " Tlius did they show their feats of annes, and others art in dauncing; Some others ns'd their oaten pipe, and others voyces chaunting." The next mention of Pocahontas in the Virginia chronicles is in the character of the guardian angel of the settlers. Powhatan had resolved to fall upon the Enghsh, and had made such formid- able preparations as would have secured him an easy triumph, had not his intentions been divulged by his daughter. "For Pocahontas, his dearest jewell, in that dark night came through the irksome woods and told our Captain great cheer should be sent us by and by ; but Powhatan and all the power he could make, would after come kill us all, if they that brought it could not kill us with our own weapons when we were at supper. Therefore, if we would live, she wished us presently to be gone. Such things as she delighted in the Captain would have given her ; but, with the tears running down her cheeks, she said she durst not be seen to have any ; for if Powhatan should know it, she were but dead, and so she ran away by herself as she came." Thus placed upon his guard by his amiable and disinterested 220 POCAHONTAS. preserver, Smith baffled the artful design of Powhatan, and with his men departed at high water. In the autumn of 1609, an accident which happened to Cap- tain Smith forever severed his connection with the Virginia colonists. While sleeping in the boat in which he was returning down the river to Jamestown, a bag of gunpowder exploded, mangling and burning his flesh in the most shocking manner. He sprang overboard to allay the pain and extinguish the flames, and was with difficulty rescued. The wounds soon grew danger- ous, and Smith, tormented by bodily anguish, and weary of the mental anxieties in which his position involved him, departed from Virginia never again to return. He left behind him four hundred and ninety colonists, three ships, with seven boats and twenty-four cannon, an ample stock of provisions, tools, clothing, ammunition and domestic animals. Notwithstanding this abundant supply of the necessaries of life, the colonists were by waste and bad management soon brought to want. Six months after Smith's departure the colony was reduced to sixty persons, who subsisted miserably, first upon roots, herbs and berries, and finally upon the skins of horses, and even upon starch. One starving wretch actually disinterred and devoured the body of an Indian who had been slain and buried. Another killed his wife, "powdered her," or, in other words, salted her, and thus for a time prolonged his life. But for this deed of despair the murderous cannibal was afterwards hanged. During this season of horror. Captain Ratcliffe headed a party of thirty men who set out to trade with Powhatan, in- veigled by his specious arts. They were all slain but one, a boy named Heni-y Spilman, who owed his life to the intervention of Pocahontas, and who remained for many years among the Poto- wamack Indians, or Potomacs. The Indian princess would appear at this period to have for- saken her father, and to have placed herself under the protection of Japazaws, the chief of the Potomacs. The historians of the POCAHONTAS. 221 Virginia colony attribute this abandonment of her home to her unwillingness to remain a witness of her father's constant massacres of the English. It is believed, too, that she had incurred Powhatan's displeasure by her frequent interference in behalf of the invaders. In the year l6l2, Capt. Argall, who had arrived at Jamestown with two ships laden with provisions — which, however, proved insufficient — went up the Potomac to procure corn from the natives. He formed an acquaintance with Japazaws, who had previously been a friend of Smith's, and was still an ally of the English. The chief incidentally mentioned to Argall that Pocahontas was living upon his territories, her asylum being known to a few trusty friends only. Argall immediately resolved to obtain possession of her person, as a means of forcing Powhatan to a peace with the colony. He secured the cooperation of Japazaws by promising him in recom- pense a bright copper kettle — a bribe which had always proved irresistible to the Indians — the sachem, however, exacting a pledge that Pocahontas should not be harmed while in English custody. Japazaws in turn induced his wife to join in the scheme, which was executed in the following adroit and characteristic manner : Japazaws'' wife, acting under instructions, affected an ex- treme curiosity respecting Argall's ships, and expressed a desire to go on board. Japazaws, however, had often visited the vessels of the colonists, and did not care to go again ; he would not take his wife, nor allow her to go alone. She became importunate and he became impatient ; finally her persistence grew so intolerable, that he positively beat her. Upon this, we are told, " she actually accomplished a few tears !" All this occurred in the presence of Pocahontas, and such scenes were frequently enacted for her benefit. At last Japazaws appeared to yield to the evident afiiiction of his wife, and said that however irksome a visit to the vessel might be to himself — familiar as he was with the English marine — he was nevertheless willing to 222 POCAHONTAS. gratify her innocent curiosity, and if her friend Pocahontas would consent to accompany her, he would be happy to escort them both. The amiable princess, who was far from suspecting treachery, and who was unable to endure the apparent distress of her friend, readily consented. They were cordially welcomed on board the vessel, and hospitably entertained in the cabin. Japa- zaws trod stealthily upon Argall's foot, to intimate that his part of the bargain was accomplished. The guests were then paraded about the ship, Japazaws taking every opportunity to repeat his indecorous summons to the captain for the delivery of the kettle. At last he received "the brilliant wages of his sin." Argall decoyed Pocahontas to the gun-room, and there told her that she was a prisoner, and must remain with him as a hostage till a peace could be arranged between himself and her father. She wept bitterly at first, but was doubtless consoled in her grief by the intolerable affliction manifested by the two Japazaws. They absolutely howled when they learned that the innocent maiden whom they had induced to confide in their protection, was to be thus treacherously treated. They ceased their lamen- tations upon a signal from Argall, that they were altogether overdoing the matter; and, with their kettle filled to the brim with toys and glass jewelry, trudged merrily home to their ;wam. Pocahontas dried her eyes upon the reflection that the English, to whom she had rendered such signal services, could not treat her with inhumanity. The vessel sailed down the river to Jamestown, which the princess had not seen since Smith's departure. On their arrival a message was dispatched to Pow- hatan, to the effect " that his daughter Pocahontas he loved so dearly, he must ransom with the English men, swords, pieces, tooles, hee treacherously had stolen." Though the venerable sachem is said to have been much troubled at his daughter's captivity, he was still so deeply offended at the undiplomatic POCAHONTAS. 223 language in which the demand was couched, that he sent no answer for the space of three months. At the end of that time, he hberated seven Englishmen, with as many rusty, disabled fire- locks, one axe, one saw, and one canoe laden with corn. He further offered to make peace and give a bonus of five hundred baskets of corn, if his daughter were restored. He could return no more muskets, however, as they were all mislaid ; and he could not compel the whites who remained with him to return, free volunteers as they were in his service. The colonists were not deceived by this transparent ruse, and sent back word that they would release Pocahontas when all the arms and captives were restored, and not before. The stern warrior gave himself no further uneasiness about his daughter, tranquilly abandoning her to her fate, and retaining his prisoners and the muskets. Thus nearly a year passed away. The time need not be sup- posed to have hung heavily upon the captive princess' hands, for subsequent developments show her to have been engaged in the "very pleasant and diverting pastime of love-making with a worthy young Englishman, John Rolfe by name." In the spring of 1613, a party of one hundred and sixty colonists, well armed, and commanded by Sir Thomas Dale, the President of .the colony, sailed up the river Werowocomoco, taking Pocahontas with them. Young Mr. Rolfe also accom- panied the expedition. The Powhatans received them with scorn and defiance, threatening them with the fate of Captain RatcUffe. The English landed and burned and destroyed their wigwams. A truce was agreed upon, during which two of the brothers of Pocahontas visited her on board the ship. They found her well, and, moreover, contented and happy. They promised to do everything in their power to effect her release, which, however, she did not seem particularly to desire. Mr. Rolfe and Mr. Sparkes were soon after sent upon an em- bassy to Powhatan, who refused to see them, turning them over to his brother, Opechancauough. The whole party now 224 POCAHONTAS. returned to Jamestown, without having ransomed a man or redeemed a musket. Mr. Rolfe now informed Sir Thomas Dale of his attach- ment to Pocahontas, and requested his consent to their mar- riage. It was cheerfully given, as such a connection could not fail to prove an auspicious event in the annals of the colony. Pocahontas communicated her intentions to one of her brothers, who promised to convey the intelligence to Pow- hatan. The old chief was highly pleased with the idea, and within ten days forwarded his consent and his blessing to his daughter. Unable to attend the ceremony himself, he commis- sioned his brother Opachisco and two of his sons, " to wit- ness the manner of the marriage, and to do in that behalf what they were requested for the confirmation thereof as his deputies." Pocahontas had already become a convert to the Chi'istian religion, and by the mysterious rite of baptism, had exchanged her Indian appellation for the biblical name of Re- becca. She was often called "the first fruit of the Gospel in America," and Sir Thomas Dale once wrote of her, " were it but the gaining of this one soule, I will think my time, toil, and present stay, well spent." The following account of the nuptial ceremonies we ex- tract from Lossing's " Marriage of Pocahontas :" " It was a day in charming April, in 1613, when Rolfe and Pocahontas stood at the marriage altar in the new and pretty chapel at James- town. The sun had marched half way up toward the meridian, when a goodly company had assembled beneath the temple roof. The pleasant odor of the "pews of cedar" commingled with the fragrance of the wild flowers which decked the fes- toons of evergreens and sprays that hung over the ' fair, broad windows,' and the commandment tablets above the chan- cel. Over the pulpit of black-walnut hung garlands of white flowers, with (he waxen leaves and scarlet berries of the holly. The comnmuion table was covered with fair white linen, and POCAHONTAS. 225 bore bread ft-om the wheat fields of Jamestown, and wine from its luscious grapes. The font, ' hewn hollow between, like a canoe,' sparkled with water, as on the morning when the gentle princess uttered her baptismal vows. "Of all that company assembled in the broad space be- tween the chancel and the pews, the bride and groom were the central figures in fact and significance. Pocahontas was dressed in a simple tunic of white muslin, from the looms of Dacca. Her arms were bare even to the shoulders ; and, hanging loosely towards her feet, was a robe of rich stuff, presented by Sir Thomas Dale, and fancifully embroidered by herself and her maidens. A gaudy fillet encircled her head, and held the plumage of birds and a veil of gauze, while her limbs were adorned with the simple jewelry of the native work- shops. Rolfe was attired in the gay clothing of an English cavalier of that period, and upon his thigh he wore the short sword of a gentleman of distinction in society. He was the personification of manly beauty in form and carriage ; she of womanly modesty and lovely simplicity ; and as they came and stood before the man of God, history dipped her pen in the indestructible fountain of truth, and recorded a prophecy of mighty empires in the New World. Upon the chancel steps, where no railing interfered, the good Whitaker stood in his sacerdotal robes, and, with impressive voice, pronounced the marriage ritual of the liturgy of the Anglican Church, then first planted on the Western Continent. On his right, in a luchly carved chair of state, brought from England, sat the Governor, with his ever-attendant halberdiers, with brazen helmets, at his back. " All then at Jamestovra were at the marriage. The let- ters of the time have transmitted to us the names of some of them. Mistress John Rolfe, with her child — doubtless of the family of the bridegroom — Mistress Easton and child, and Mis- tress Horton and grandchild, with her maid servant, Elizabeth 226 POCAHONTAS. Parsons, who, oil a Christmas Eve before, had married Thomas Powell, were yet in Virginia. Among the noted men then present was Sir Thomas Gates, a brave soldier in many wars, and as brave an adventurer among the Atlantic perils as any who ever trusted to the ribs of oak of the ships of Old England. And Master Spai-kes, who had been co-ambassador with Rolfe to the court of Powhatan, stood near the old sol- dier, with young Henry Spilman at his side. There, too, was the young George Percy, brother of the powerful Duke of North- umberland, whose conduct was always as noble as his blood ; and near him, an earnest spectator of the scene, was the elder brother of Pocahontas, but not the destined successor to the throne of his father. There, too, was a younger brother of the bride, and many youths and maidens from the forest shades ; but one noble figure — the pride of the Powhatan confederacy — the father of the bride, was absent. He had consented to the marriage with willing voice, but would not trust himself within the power of the English, at Jamestown. He remained in his habitation at Werowocomoco, while the Rose and the ToTUM were being wedded, but cheerfully commissioned his brother, Opachisco, to give away his daughter. That prince performed his duty well, and then, in careless gravity, he sat and listened to the voice of the Apostle, and the sweet chant- ing of the little choristers. The music ceased, the benediction fell, the solemn "Amen" echoed from the rude vaulted roof, and the joyous company left the chapel for the festive hall of the governor. Thus "the peace" was made stronger, and the Rose of England lay undisturbed upon the Hatchet of the Powhatans, while the father of Pocahontas lived." Pocahontas dwelt at Jamestown with her husband, readily conforming to English usages, and acquiring the language with fiicility. She never expressed, and doubtless never felt, a re- gret at having abandoned her people. Indeed the union was in every point of view so auspicious, that Sir Thomas Dale sent a POCAHONTAS. 227 proposal to Powhatan for the hand of another of his daughters, urging the expediency of further uniting the two races, and adding that Pocahontas would be delighted to see her sister at Jamestown. Powhatan replied that he desired no other assurance of the president's friendship than his word, which was already pledged ; that he thought he had himself given an equal assurance in the person of Pocahontas ; that one daughter was, in his opinion, sufficient at one time ; when she died, he would substitute another in her stead. But there was another reason why he must decline the offer of Sir Thomas ; he had sold his daughter, hardly a week before, to a great werowance living in the neighborhood, for the price of three bushels of roanoke. Three years after her marriage, Pocahontas, with her infant son, Thomas Rolfe, accompanied her husband and Sir Thomas Dale to England, where they arrived on the 16th of June, 1616. King James was offended with Rolfe for his presumption in marrying the daughter of a king — a piece of affectation for which his majesty has been styled by a Virginia historian, "an anointed pedant." Captain Smith, whose health had been restored, was at this time in London, preparing for a voyage to New England ; he, however, delayed his departure for the purpose of employing his influence to Pocahontas' advantage. He drew up a memorial to "the most high and virtuous princess, Queen Anne," from which, as from an authentic and contemjioraneous document of great interest, we make the following extracts : " Some ten years ago, being in Virginia, and taken prisoner by the power of Powhatan, their chief king, I received from this great salvage exceeding great courtesy, especially from his son, Nantaquaus, the most manliest, comeliest, boldest spirit I ever saw in a salvage, and his sister, Pocahontas, the king's most dear and well beloved daughter, being but a child of twelve or thirteen years of age, whose compassionate, pitiful heart of my desperate estate, gave me much cause to respect her. After some weeks fatting amongst these salvage courtiers, at the minute of my 228 POCAHONTAS. execution, she hazarded the beating out of her own brains to save mine, and not only that, but so prevailed with her father that I was safely conducted to James Town. " Such was the weakness of this poor commonwealth, as, had the salvages not fed us, we directly had starved. And this relief, most gi-acious queen, was commonly brought us by this Lady Pocahontas ; notwithstanding all those passages when inconstant Fortune turned our peace to war, this tender virgin still would not spare to come to visit us, and by her our jars have been oft appeased, and our wants still supplied. Were it the policy of her father thus to employ her, or the ordinance of God thus to make her his instrument, or her extraordinary affec- tion to our nation, I know not ; but of this I am sure, when her father, with the utmost of his policy and power, sought to sur- prise me, having but eighteen with me, the dark night could not affright her from coming through the irksome woods, and with watered eyes, give me intelligence, with her best advice, to escape his fury ; which, had he known, he had surely slain her. James Town, with her wild train, she as freely frequented as her father's habitation ; and during the time of two or three years, she next, under God, was still the instrument to preserve this colony from death, famine and utter confusion, which, if these times had once been dissolved, Virginia might have lain as it was on our arrival to this day. " Since then, this business having been turned and carried by many accidents from that I left it at, it is most certain after a long and troublesome war, after my departure, betwixt her father and our colony, all which time she was not heard of, about (wo years after she herself was taken prisoner, being so detained near two years longer ; the colony was by that means relieved, peace concluded, and at last, rejecting her barbarous condition, was married to an English gentleman, with whom at this present she is in England ; the first Christian ever of that nation, the first Virginian ever spoke English, or had a child in marriage by POCAHONTAS. 229 an Englishman, a matter surely, if my meaning be truly con- sidered and well understood, worthy a Princess' understanding." Thus recommended, Pocahontas gained the friendship and esteem of the king and queen, and her acquaintance was eagerly sought by persons of the highest rank, many of whom declared " they had seen English ladies worse favoured, proportioned and behavioured." She was known as the Lady Rebecca. Her por- trait was taken at this period, and represented her in the fashion- able English costume of the day. The following inscription was appended to it : Matoaka, als Rebecca, Filia Potentiss : Princ : PowHATANi Imp : Virginia. Matoaka, als Rebecca, Daughter TO THE Mighty Prince Powhatan, Emperour of Attanough- KOMOUCK, ALS VIRGINIA, CONVERTED AND BAPTIZED IN THE CHRIS- TIAN Faith, and Wife to the Worshipful Mr. John Rolfe. .^TATIS su^ 21 A.D. 1616. Before his departure, Smith visited her at Brentford, whither she had retired with her husband, to escape the smoke and din of the city. She had been told, though with what design we are not informed, that he was long since dead, and when he was suddenly introduced into her presence, she was so overwhelmed with joy at his restoration, and with resentment at the imposi- tion, that she turned away and buried her face in her hands. She remained silent for three hours, being left to herself to recover her equanimity. Smith was somewhat annoyed at this result of her emotion, "repenting himself to have wi'it that she could speak English." She finally yielded to entreaty and con- versed freely with Smith and other guests. She thus addressed the captain : "You promised my father that whatever was yours should be his, and that you and he would be all one. Being a stranger in our country, you called Powhatan father ; and I for the same reason will now call you so." But Smith represented to her how jealous the king and court were of any undue assump- tion of royal or noble state in those who were of plebeian descent, and m-ged, in combating her proposition, that if his majesty had 230 POCAHONTAS. been offended with her husband for having married one of royal birth, how much more so would ho be likely to be if a lady of royal birth were to bestow the title of father upon an adventurer like himself. But Pocahontas could not understand his reasoning, and continued in a loftier tone : " You were not afraid to come into my father's couuti-y, and cause fear in him and all his people but me, and are you here afraid to let me call you father ? I tell you then I will call you father and you shall call me child ; and so I will forever be of your kindred and country." History has preserved no further details of the career of the "Numpareil of Virginia," as Smith was wont to call her, until we arrive at the period of her death, early in the year 1617. This neglect and indifference are quite inexplicable, especially on the part of an author like Hume, who never once mentions her name. Pocahontas and her husband were at Gravesend, preparing to return to Virginia, the treasurer and council of the colony having provided them proper accommodations on board the ship George, commanded by Captain Argall. That Mr. Rolfe's position might be in some degree assimilated to the rank and quahty of his wife, he was made secretary and recorder-general of Virginia. But before embarking, Pocahontas fell sick, and after a brief illness died, in her twenty-second year. Her death, we are told, was a happy mixture of Indian fortitude and Christian submis- sion ; she affected all those who saw her by the lively and edifying display of piety and virtue which marked the closing moments of her life. Late researches have disclosed the place of Pocahontas' burial. The original entry in the register of the parish of Gravesend, inaccurate, however, in two particulars, was dis- covered but a few years ago by the rector. It runs thus : "1010: March 21. Rebecca Rolfe, wyffe of Thomas Rolfe, gent, a Virginia lady borne, was buried in yc chauncell." But as the present church at Gravesend was erected subsequent to the year 1616, the grave of Pocahontas can no longer be pointed out, POCAHONTAS. 231 though the position of the chancel of the former edifice may be indicated with a sufficient degree of accuracy to reward the pil- grim whom a pious regard I'or her memory may attract to her resting-place in Kent. The character of Pocahontas is one upon which the historian and biographer may weU delight to dwell. In all those qualities which mankind have agreed to regard as the peculiar and most winning atti-ibutes of woman — humanity, tenderness, modesty, sensibility, constancy, disinterestedness — she may safely be af- firmed to be without a rival. But not alone in the essential virtues of her sex was she worthy of admiration ; her foresight, when the interests of her friends required it, and her intrepidity, when danger threatened them, give a strong relief to the other- wise too mellow coloring of the picture. Had Pocahontas been carefully nurtured under a mother's jealous eye, surrounded by the appliances of civilization and the influences of Christianity, her character would still have been one of the loveliest in history ; but, when it is remembered that she was the untutored offspring- of a barbarian monarch, that her virtues were intuitive, not called forth by culture, and that she was trained and bred amid lawlessness and violence, we are compelled to regard her as an exceptional being, created for a special purpose, and furnished with the moral superiority requisite to enable her to effect it. She was an essential link in the chain of circumstances which was to lead to the colonization of Virginia and the estab- lishment of the white race in America. Had not Pocahontas preserved the life of Smith, and, with his life, saved the James- town settlement from ruin, in 1607, we may be very sure that the Pilgrim Fathers would not have embarked in the Mayflower in 1620. "Pocahontas," to employ once more the language of Mr. HiUard, " has been a powerful, though silent advocate of the race to which she belonged. Her deeds have covered a mul- titude of their sins. When disgusted with numei'ous recitals 232 POCAHONTAS. of their cruelty and treachery, and about to pass an unfavor- able judgment in our minds upon the Indian character, at the thought of Pocahontas our rigor relents. With a softened heart, we are ready to admit that there must have been fine elements in a people from among whom such a being could spring." We may add, that the union of so many quahties honorable to the female sex and to the human race, should never be forgotten when forming an estimate of the character of the American aborigines. The infant son of Pocahontas, Thomas Rolfe, bereft of a mother's care, was left at Plymouth, his father judging it in- expedient to remove him to Vii-ginia. His early education was directed by Sir Lewis Stukely, but as that gentleman was soon after beggared and disgraced by the treacherous part he took in the proceedings against Sir Walter Raleigh, young Rolfe was transferred to the care of his uncle, Henry Rolfe, of London. He afterwards settled in Virginia, where he had inherited a large tract of land which had belonged to Pow- hatan, and where he attained to fortune and eminence. His descendants, at the present day, are numerous, wealthy, and influential. The extreme intricacy of the various branches and connections of the family, renders it impossible to present a com- plete genealogical table. We may give, however, the following brief and distinct steps by which one of the remarkable men of America was wont to trace back his descent, through six gene- rations, to the peerless daughter of Powhatan : 1. I POCAHONTAS, JOHN ROLFE. 2. TnoMAs Rolfe, tlioir only son, married in Virginia. POCAHONTAS. 233 Jane Rolfe, liis only daughter, married to Kobert Boiling. John BoLLrNo, their only son, married in Virginia. Jane Bolling, one of six children, married to Colonel Richard Ran- dolph, son of Col. Wm. Randolpli, of Yorkshire. g_ I John Randolph, their son, mar- I ried Frances Bland. 7. JOHN RANDOLPH of Roanoke, one of four sons. Jane Boiling is thus spoken of by Hugh Garland in his biography of John Randolph, her grandson : " The portrait of Mrs. Randolph — Jane Boiling — is still extant. A more marked and commanding countenance is rarely to be met with. If the portrait be true to nature, none of the Indian complexion can be traced in her countenance. Her erect and firm position, and square, broad shoulders, are the only indications of Indian descent. The face is decidedly handsome, while the lofty, ex- panded, and well-marked forehead, the great breadth between the eyes, the firm, distended nostril, compressed lip and steady eye, display an intellect, a firmness, and moral qualities truly heroic and commanding. Worthy descendant of the daughter of Powhatan !" One of the historians of Virginia, Mr. John Burk, thus writes of the descendants of Pocahontas in 1804: "The virtues of mild- ness and humanity, so eminently distinguished in Pocahontas, remain in the nature of an inheritance to her posterity. None 30 234 POCAHONTAS. of them have been conspicuous in arts or arms ; no great states- man or consummate general has issued from the loins of Pow- hatan since his imperial blood has mingled with the whites. But then, there is scarcely a single scion from the stock which has not been in the highest degree amiable and respectable, and for the want of the more imposing and showy qualifications, we must principally look to the affluent circumstances of the family, which generally take away the motive to exertion and enterprise. The author of this history is acquainted with several members of this family, who are intelligent, and even eloquent, and who, if fortune do but keep pace with their merits, should not despair of attaining a conspicuous and even exalted station in the com- monwealth." The same language might be applied with equal propriety to the posterity of the Lady Rebecca at the present day. Her descendants continue eminently distinguished for the qualities which adorn social life, and remain faithful to the maxim which they seem to have adopted, that the post of honor is a private station. There are probably few pedigrees in the country which give such unfeigned gratification to those whose lineage they record, as that which connects the family of which we have spoken with the King of the Powhatans and the Nonpareil of Virginia. ■.«;"?(„ J^ELL G¥YI¥ It has been the custom with the biographers of Fell Gwynn to introduce their narrative with an apology and an explanation. Mrs. Jameson, though well aware that the portrait and accom- panying sketch of Felly would be the most agreeable feature of her "Beauties of the Court of Charles II.," thought proper to offer three pages of excuses for her temerity ; and Mr. Peter Cunningham, who, six years ago, was the first to do the poor orange girl justice, took a similar precaution before presenting his manuscript to Sylvanus Urban, gent. We shelter ourselves behind these authorities, and, in the following quotations, make their apologies our own. Thus writes Mrs. Jameson : "It is, at least in one sense, rather a delicate point to touch on the life of Nell Gwynn ; we would fixin be properly shocked, decorously grave, and becomingly moral ; but as the lady says in Comus, 'to what end?' It were rather superfluous to set about proving that Fell was, in her day, a good-for-nothing sort of person ; in short, as wild a piece of frailty as ever wore a petticoat. In spite of such demonstrations, and of Bishop Burnet's objurgations to boot, she will not the less continue to be the idol of popular tradition, her very name provocative of a smile, and of power to disarm the austerity of virtue and 235 236 NELL GWYNN. discountenance the gravity of wisdom. It is worth while to in- quire in what consists that strange fascination, which, after the lapse of a century and a half, still hangs round the memory of this singular woman. Why is her name still familiar and dear in the mouths of the peoj)le ? Why hath no man condemned her ? Why has satire spared her ? Why is there in her rememhrance a charm so far beyond and so different from mere celebrity ? . . . "A woman, when she has once stepped astray, seldom pauses in her downward career, ' till guilt grows fate that was but choice before,' and far more seldom rises out of that debasement of person and mind, except by some violent transition of feeling, some revulsion of passion leading to the other extreme. In the case of Nell Gwynn, the contrary was remarkable. As years passed on, as habit grew, and temptation and opportunities in- creased, her conduct became more circumspect, and her character more elevated. The course of her life, which had begun in the puddle and sink of obscurity and profligacy, as it flowed, refined. For the humorous and scandalous stories of which she is the subject, some excuse may be found in her i^lebeian education and the coarseness of the age in which she lived ; when ladies of quality gambled and swore, what could be expected from the orange girl ? But though her language and manners bore to the last the taint of the tavern and the stage, hers was one of those fine natures which could not be corrupted ; the contaminating influence of the atmosphere around her had stained the surface, but -never reached the core." Mr. Cunningham's biography, as contributed to the Gentle- man's Magazine, thus opens: "A pious and learned divine, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, preached the funeral ser- mon of Nell Gwynn ; and the house on the Park side of Pall Mall in which she is known to have lived, though altered in its outward appearance since her time, now shelters the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. What so good a man as Archbishop Tenison did not think an unfit subject for NELLGWYNN. 237 a sermon, will not be thought, I trust, an unfit subject tor a series of papers ; for the life that was spent remissly may yet convey a moral. . . . The English people have always enter- tained a peculiar liking for Nell Gwynn. There is a fascination about her name that belongs to no other woman of her particular class and condition. Thousands are attracted by it, they know not why, and do not stop to inquire. It is the jjopular impres- sion that, with all her failings, she was a woman with a generous, open English heart ; that when raised from poverty and the lowest origin to affluence, she reserved her wealth for others rather than herself ; and that the influence which she possessed was often well exercised and never abused. Contrasted with others of a far superior rank in life and tried by far fewer temptations, there is much that marks and removes her from the common herd. For Nell Gwynn, pretty, witty Nell, there exists a tolerant and kindly regard which the following pages are designed to illustrate, and may perhaps serve in some measure to extend." Thus fortified by adequate examples, and placing ourselves under the protection of the precedents we have cited, we proceed with our delicate task. The horoscope of Nell Gwynn's nativity, still preserved in the museum at Oxford, states that she was born in London on the 2d of February, 1650. Her father, as was proved a century afterwards, was Captain Thomas Gwynn, of the army, the descendant of an ancient family in Wales. A cellar in the Coal Yard in Drury Lane was undoubtedly the spot in which she first saw the light — though probably there was httle enough to see. Her associations must have been of the most degrading kind ; for the Coal Yard, then an obscure and infamous resort, afterwards became notorious as one of the residences of Jona- than Wild. Her first occupation, when perhaps ten years old. was that of bar-tender, "to fill strong water to the gentlemen," as she herself expressed it ; and her second was to sell oranges 238 N E L L G W Y N N . at Drury Lane Theatre, standing, with her fellow fruit venders, in the front row of the pit, with her back to the stage. The famiUar cry, "Oranges, will you have any oranges?" must have come clear and invitingly from the lips of Nell Gwynn. The theatres had been closed for twenty-three years, during the wars of the Protectorate and the exile of the sovereign. They reopened with the restoration of Charles 11. in 1660, with a splendor altogether unusual in those days, and to an eager and enthusiastic public. The old craved for an amusement they had long been denied, while the young were feverishly interested in the revival of an entertainment they had heard so praised. Two new theatres were built, the King's, or Drury Lane, erected on the site of the present edifice, and the Duke's, in Portugal Row. Two features added new zest to the fervor of the theatrical revival ; Charles IL was the first English monarch who visited the play-house and witnessed a performance there, his prede- cessors having invariably summoned the players to the halls or cockpits attached to their palaces ; and during his reign, women's parts were, for the first time in the history of the British stage, enacted by women. Tlie stage was lighted with wax candles ; the pit was uncovered, for the sake of light, as the performances commenced at three in the afternoon, so that, in case of rain, that part of the audience arose in disorder and went home. The dresses were magnificent, for the king, the queen and the duke gave their coronation suits to the actors, and the gentry contributed their court and birthday equipments which had been worn but once. Local scenery was also now for the first time introduced. Drury Lane opened on the afternoon of the 8th of April, 1663, Miss Eleanor being a girl of thirteen. In her capacity of orange girl, she owed deference and obedience to a superior known as Orange MoU. It was thought beneath the character of a gentleman to chaffer with the fruitwomen over the price of N E L L G W Y N N . 239 their goods, but it was deemed eminently becoming to bandy words with them and to exchange equivocal jests. The first mention of Nell Gwynn in English literature occurs in Pepys' Diary for Monday, the 3d of April, 1665. Pepys was at the Duke's Theatre, and mentions the fact that he sat next to " pretty witty Nell of the King's House," as the only redeeming feature of the entertainment. Nelly had now become an actress herself, though by what means or through whose influence wc are not informed, even by the omnipresent Pepys. We know little or nothing of her during the plague and the great fire of London of the year 1666 ; but she again appears in the diary, on the 8th of December, 1667, in the character of Lady Wealthy, in " The English Monsieur," a comedy written for Nelly by the Hon. James Howard. Pepys thus commends the play and the players : "To the King's House and there did see a good part of the English Monsieur, which is a mighty pretty play, very witty and pleasant. And the women do very well ; but, above all, little Nelly ; that I am mightily pleased with the play, and much with the house, the women doing better than I expected ; and very fair women." His next reference to her, somewhat later, runs thus : " Mrs. Kneps brought to us Nelly, a most pretty woman, who acted the great part of Celia to-day very fine, and did it pretty well. I kissed her, and so did my wife, and a mighty pretty soul she is." He concludes the day's chronicle with an approving summary of all he had done during the twenty-four hours, " specially the kissing of Nell." Dryden now claimed the services of the young actress in his new tragi-comedy of " Secret Love, or the Maiden Queen," the plot of which had been suggested to the poet by the king. It was performed on the afternoon of the 2d of February, 1668. Mr. Pepys was of course present, and thus records his opinion : " The truth is, there is a comical part done by Nell, which is Florimel, that I never can hope ever to see the like done again by man or woman." Her part, though arduous, must have been 240 N E L L G W Y N N . an vmusually attractive one, for we are told that she was con- stantly on the stage ; that her dialogue was loose, merry and rattling ; that she went mad in one act, appeared in male attire in another, and danced a jig in the fifth. She also spoke the epilogue in behalf of the trembling author. Pepys speaks ad- miringly of her demeanor when disguised as a young gallant, and adds, "She hath the motion and carriage of a spark the most that ever I saw any man have." One of Nelly's earliest lovers was Lord Buckhurst, and her defenders claim, that whatever opinion the pubHc may entertain of the morality of London in the reign of Charles IL, it at least argues something for the taste of the humble orange girl, that her lover was considered and looked up to as the best bred man of his age ; that he had distinguished himself in the war against the Dutch ; he had written the best song of its kind, and bitter yet elegant satires ; he was a patron of every species of merit ; while his table was one of the last to exhibit the traditional hospitality of the English nobleman. He seems to have loved Nelly sincerely, and in a sonnet to her beauty declared that "All hearts fall a-leapiug wherever she comes, And beat night and day like my Lord Craven's drums." The two lovers kept a merry house at Epsom during the midsummer months of 1G68. Nelly retm-ned to the stage in August, resumed some of her former parts, and created the character of Mirida in "All Mistaken," in which, being impor- tuned by a fat lover and a lean one, she tells the fat one she will marry him when he is leaner, and the lean one when he is fatter. In 16G9 occurred the great change in Nelly's condition — " one that removed her from many temptations, and led to the exhibi- tion of traits of character and good feeling which more than account for the fascination connected with her name " — she became the mistress of the king. Buckhurst resigned her in NELLGWYNN. 241 consideration of an ofl&ce and a pension of £1,000, the promise of an earldom and an ambassadorship to France. Nelly con- tinued to perform aU her theatrical engagements, dividing her time between Whitehall and Drury Lane, until the spring of 1670, when Dryden's new tragedy of "The Conquest of Gran- ada," was postponed on account of her absence. After giving birth, on the 8th of May, to the future Duke of St. Albans, the first of the name, she resumed her study of the character of Almahide, the last she was destined to play. Charles became more fond of her than ever, fascinated by her charming per- formance of this character — an effect thus commemorated by Granville : "Granada lost, behold her pomps restor'd, And Almahide again by kings ador'd." Nell Gwynn is described to have been in person considerably below the middle size, but formed with perfect elegance ; the contour of her face was round, her features were delicate, her eyes bright and inteUigent, and often positively closed by the merry laugh which pervaded her face ; her cheek was usually dimpled with smiles and her countenance radiant with hilarity, but when at rest it was soft and even pensive in its expression ; her voice was sweet and well modulated ; her hair glossy, abund- ant, and of a light auburn ; her hands were singularly small and beautiful, and her pretty feet so very diminutive as to aflford occasion for mirth as well as admiration. The inconstant Charles, during the very height of his fancy for Nelly, became also violently enamored of one of the maids of honor to the Duchess of Orleans, M'Ue Louise Ren^e de Penencourt de Qu^rouaille, a young lady of nineteen years. She returned the monarch's passion, and was created Duchess of Portsmouth. Nelly did not consider this infidelity on the part of his majesty as any excuse for unfaithfulness on her own, and took the rivalry of Madame Carwell — as her French name was 31 242 NELL GWYNN. commonly pronounced — in thorough good part. Charles, at this period, lodged Nelly in a house on the south side of PaU Mall, with a garden towards St. James's Park, and sent her a lease for a term of years. She, considering the gift in its present shape unworthy of the King of England, returned him the papers with a merry jest at his expense. Charles admitted the justness of the reproof by conveying the house free to Nell and her repre- sentatives forever. " The truth of this story," says Cunningham, "is confirmed by the fact that the house which occupies the site of the one in which Nelly lived, now No. 79, and tenanted by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, is the only freehold on the south or park side of Pall Mall." The antipathy prevailing at this period between the Protest- ants and Catholics doubtless contributed to swell Nell Gwynn's popularity with the people, by contrasting her with the French lady, her rival. She was an English girl — a Protestant — of humble origin, and had been a favorite during her short career upon the stage, and was both a beauty and a wit. Carwell was a French girl — a Cathohc — of noble birth, beautiful indeed, but destitute of wit. Nelly became a popular idol ; and the chroni- cles of the day furnish a multitude of instances of her sway over the hearts of the people. She was one day riding in her coach at Oxford, when the mob, mistaking her for Madame Carwell, gathered round her, and commenced abusing her. She looked out of the window, in no wise disconcerted, and said, "Pray, good people, be civil : I am the Protestant one." The angry crowd became at once respectful. A goldsmith having made an elegant service of plate to be presented by the king to Madame Carwell, the people crowded round the windows to see it. On learning for whom it was intended, they burst into violent denunciations of the king, wished the silver was melted and poured down Carwell's throat, and unanimously declared "it had been much better bestowed upon Madame Ellen." NELL GWYNN. 243 Madame de Sevign6 wrote thus from London upon the rival favorites : " Querouaille is laying up money and makes herself feared and respected by as many as she can ; but she did not foresee that she should find a young actress in her way, whom the king dotes on. She cannot detach him from her for an instant. The actress is as haughty as the Duchess of Ports- mouth : she defies her, makes light of her, steals the king away from her, and boasts of his preference. She is young, lively, careless, indiscreet, wild, and witty ; she sings, dances, and acts her part with a good grace ; has a son by the king, and hopes to have him acknowledged." Prints, epigrams, songs, and libels were constantly published upon this fruitful theme — the two favorites. In these popular invasions of the king's private life, Nelly invariably triumphed over her French competitor. One of her retorts upon the duchess was reduced to verse, and in this form has been preserved. It runs thus : "The Duchess of Portsmouth one time supped with the King's Majesty: Two chickens were at table when the Duchess would make 'em three; Nell Gwynn being by, denied the same: the Duchess speedily Reply 'd, 'Here's one, another two, and two and one make three.' " "Tis well said, lady,' answered Nell; 'O King, here's one for thee, Another for myself, sweet Charles, 'cause you and I agree ; The third she may take herself because she found the same !' The king himself laughed heartily, whilst Portsmouth blushed for shame." The favorite expletive of Charles II. was " Odd's fish!" and NeUy used to divert him exceedingly by making free with this expression at unexpected moments. She gave a concert one night to the king, the duke his brother, and some half dozen of their intimate associates. The principal singer, Bowman, sang several of those extravagantly loyal songs which retain their popularity even to this day, and upon the conclusion of the entertainment, the king expressed himself delighted. "Then, 244 NELL GWYNN. sir," said Nelly, "to show you do not speak like a courtier, I hope you will make the performers a handsome present." The king felt in his pockets, and said he had no money ; he asked the duke to lend him some. The duke made a search, and declared that he had none either. Nell turned to the other guests, and, assuming the king's air and accent, exclaimed, " Odd's fish, what company have I got into !" The following expedient was resorted to by Nell, to induce the king to pay some attention to the affairs of the nation. One of the lords of the council, whom Charles would not permit to speak to him of business, complained to Nell of his provoking negligence. Nell laid him a wager of a hundred pounds that she would hit upon a scheme that would bring the merriest prince ahve to the council that very night. She sent for Killi- grew, the manager of Drm-y Lane, and desired him to dress himself as if he were going on a journey, and to burst uncere- moniously into the king's apartment. She then told him what to say in reply to his certain "odd's fish," or perhaps more vio- lent explosion. He did as he was bid, and was received with a " What, Killigrew ! are you mad ? Did I not order that nobody should disturb me ?" " Oh, I don't mind your orders — no, not I," returned Killigrew ; "and I'm going as fast as I can !" "Why, where are you going to?" asked his majesty. "To hell !" replied the comedian, "to fetch up Oliver Cromwell from thence, to take some care of the national concerns ; for I am sure your majesty takes none." Charles went that night to the council, and Nelly won her wager. Nell Gwynn gave birth to a second son on the 25tli of December, 1C71 ; he was named James, out of compliment to the Duke of York, and, like his elder brother, acknowledged by the king. Soon afterwards, Charles was seized with a mania for creating titles and distributing orders and offices. Nelly saw peerages and earldoms showered right and left upon persons whom she thought less deserving of such distinctions than the NELL GWYNN. 245 king's own flesh and blood. So she appealed to the source of all her favor, her wit, and resolved to make an effort, in her own quaint way, in behalf of her eldest boy. So, while he was one day romping with his father, she said, abruptly, "Come hither, you little bastard !" The king, very much shocked, scolded Nell roundly ; she replied, with an air of demure submission, " I'm very sorry ; but I've no better name to call him by, poor boy !" The king laughed, felt the implied reproach, and admitted the plea. Charles Beauclerc, his eldest son by Nell Gwynn,was soon created Baron of Heddington and Earl of Burford, and, some- what later, Duke of St. Albans, Registrar of the High Court of Chancery, and Grand Falconer of England. He was betrothed by the king to Lady Diana de Vere, the daughter of the twen- tieth and last Earl of Oxford, and, in point of rank, the first heiress of the three kingdoms. "Though the lively orange-girl," says Cunningham, "was not spared to witness the marriage, yet she hved to see the future wife of her son in the infancy of those charms which made her one of the most conspicuous of the KneUer Beauties, still so attractive in the collection at Hampton Court." The idea of establishing a hospital at Chelsea for the veterans of the war, is believed to have originated with Nell Gwynn. The corner-stone was laid by the king in the spring of 1682, and the student of the history of his reign will not readily believe that he would have urged the building forward with the zeal he did, unmoved by some influence from without. The tradition is, that Nell was one day riding in the city in her coach, when an invalid soldier stopped at the open door of her carriage and solicited charity. He had been in service in the civil war, he said, and had lost a limb while fighting for the royal cause. He was now friendless and totally destitute. NeU Gwynn hastened to the king and laid the case before him. The interest thus awakened in behalf of one sufferer soon led to the reflection that there must be many others, disabled at Worcester and Marston Moor ; 246 NELL GWTNN. and that the veterans who still lingered in the ranks of the stand- ing army which the wars of the restoration had produced, must soon give way to younger and more active substitutes. What would become of them, thus deprived in advanced years of their only means of livehhood ? They would be dependent upon public charity and the casual bounty of the sympathetic. These reflections induced in Nell's mind the idea of an asylum for the crippled remnants of the war — an idea in which she enthusiasti- cally persevered, never letting her royal lover rest till her benevolent purpose was accomi^lished. There are several facts which strongly support this popular tradition. Nelly was a soldier's daughter, and her early suffer- ings and privations had been those incident to a soldier's life. The benevolence of her character was well known, and her quick sensibilities would have been naturally enlisted in behalf of such patriotic sufferers as her war-worn proteges. She is still the idol of the pensioners, and with them the memory of Nell is sacred. But the circumstance most corroborative of the tradition is the fact that her portrait serves to this day as the sign of an old ale-house contiguous to the hospital. Sixty years ago, an inscrip- tion beneath the portrait, now illegible, chronicled in positive terms the part NeU had played in founding and erecting the hospital. The Rev. Daniel Lysons, in his Environs of London, published in 1795, speaking in the present tense, says : "Under- neath the portrait is an inscription attributing the foundation to her desire." This inn and the sign form part of the background in Wilkie's famous picture of the Chelsea Pensioners. Long may she swing, exclaims Cunningham, with her favorite lamb, in the row or street thus commemorated forever ! Charles II. was now approaching his end. Having prolonged a revel through Sunday night till Monday morning, he swooned away and lay for several hours in apoplexy, all hope being aban- doned by his physicians. He revived, but expired on the follow- ing Friday, the 6th of February, 1685. Though not absolutely NELLGWYNN. 247 his dying wish, yet his last recommendation to his brother and successor, James II., was in these pathetic and memorable words : ■' Let not poor Nelly starve." Of this request, Charles James Fox says, in his History of James II., "that it is much to his honor ; and that they who censure it, seem, in their zeal to show themselves strict moraUsts, to have suffered their notions of vice and virtue to have fallen into strange confusion." Mrs. Jameson remarks of the dying speech, that it is one among the few traits which redeem the sensual and worthless Charles from utter contempt. NeU was to have been made Countess of Greenwich, had the king lived, if we may credit the following passage in a manu- script folio entitled "The Royall Cedar:" "Hellenor or Nel- guine, daughter to Thomas Guine, should bein advanced to be Countes of Greeniez, but hindered by the king's death." She went into mourning and sincerely lamented the loss of him whom so few others regretted ; hers was no fictitious sorrow for the death of the Cham of Tartary, as all official assumption of black was then termed. The king's straitened circumstances had before compelled her " to boil a portion of her plate ;" and now, if not arrested for debt, she was outlawed for the non-payment of several long-standing biUs. During her outlawry, Otway, the poet and dramatist, and tutor to her son, died miserably of starvation ; this afflicted her more than her own destitution. King James, however, remembered his brother's dying request, and in the midst of his own pressing needs, caused the sum of £730 to be paid to one Richard Graham, "to be by him paid over to the several tradesmen, creditors of Mrs. Ellen Gwynn, in satisfaction of their debts, for which the said Ellen stood out- lawed." In the same year, he made her also two separate presents of £500 ; and caused Beeswood Park, near Sherwood Forest of merry memory, and a demesne of the crown, to be settled upon her for life, and after her death, upon the Duke of St. Albans. He afterwards made her an aUowauce of £1,500 a 248 NELL GWYNN. year. These acts of kindness towards Nelly gave rise to the rumor that she went to mass and was converted to popery, as it was well known that James desired to reestablish the Romish worship in the kingdom. The rumor was groundless ; Nelly always remained a Protestant. Eleanor Gwynn survived her lover little more than two years. She conducted herself with the strictest decorum, spending much of her time in devotion and a portion of her narrow means in beneficence. Her health began to dechne, and Dr. Lower, the first doctor in London, who had long visited her as a gossip, now attended her as a physician. She sank rapidly, and Lower bethought him of the propriety of sending for a clergyman. A satire which had been lately published represented her as pining upon her death-bed, and as saying, " Send for Dr. Bnmet, or I die." But Bishop Burnet considered her "the wildest and indiscreetest creature that ever was in a court," and Lower thought best to apply to a less intolerant divine. Dr. Tenison, afterwards Arch- bishop of Canterbury, was then vicar of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields and Nell's residence in Pall Mall was within the limits of his parish. He was known to be a liberal and courageous minister in those difficult days of the church. Lower asked his attend- ance, and brought him to the dying woman's bedside. On the 9th of July she made her will, revoking all former bequests. There is nothing peculiar in this instrument, beyond the artlessness with which she styles herself a spinster, and recommends herself "whence she came, in hopes of a joyfu resurrection," giving and devising all her property whatsoever " to her dear natural son, his grace the Duke of St. Albans, and the heirs of his body." But the requests contained in a codicil added three months later, are worthy of more specific mention. In this she begged that she might be buried in the church of NELLGWYNN. 249 St. Martin's-in-the-Fields ; that Dr. Tenison would preach her funeral sermon ; that her son the duke would give £100 to Dr. Tenison for taking poor debtors out of prison during the conaing winter ; that, to show her charity to those who differed from her in rehgion, £50 might be applied to the use of the poor of the Romish faith of the parish of St. James ; that her present servants might have mourning and a year's wages beyond the wages due ; and that his grace would be pleased to lay out £20 yearly for the release of poor debtors on Christmas day. She is also said, though no such provision occurs in the will, to have left a considerable annual sum to St. Martin's church, on condition that on every Thursday evening in the year, there should be six men employed, for the space of one hour, in ringing, for which they were to have a roasted shoulder of mutton and ten shillings for beer. Another authority adds that the ringers of St. Martin's enjoy this donation to this day. One month after signing these her last bequests, Nell Gw3'nn died, in November, 1687, her last hours and indeed the last years of her life having been spent in sincere repentance and " in all the contrite symptoms of a Christian sincerity." She was buried on the night of the 17th, in St. Martin's-in-the- Fields, and Dr. Tenison preached her funeral sermon, urging her benevolence, her penitence and her meritorious death as examples to all who heard him. Though the funeral was not an ostentatious one, the expenses amounted to £375, and were exactly met by the next quarter's allowance, which, by the way, King James ordered to be continued to her son. The Duke of St. Albans accepted the pecuniary responsibility placed upon him in the codicil to his mother's wiU, and signed an acknow- ledgment to that effect. Dr. Tenison did not escape censure and persecution for his bold and charitable act. He was compelled to denounce as a forgery a sermon published and cried about the streets as the one that he had preached over the coffin of Nell Gwynn. His 32 250 N E L L G W Y N N . application for the vacant see of Lincoln, in 1691, was opposed by the young Queen Mary's advisers, on the ground that "he had preached a notable funeral sermon in praise of Ellen Gwynn." But the queen rephed, "What then? I have heard as much, and this is a sign that the poor unfortunate woman died penitent ; for, if I have read a man's heart through his looks, had she not made a truly pious end, the doctor never could have been induced to speak well of her." The excellent vicar was appointed to the see, and as we have said, lived to fill with honor and renown the Archbishopric of Canterbury. The whole tenor of contemporaneous testimony, as well as of later criticism, is that of apology if not even of justification. We have already cited Tenison, Queen Mary, Mrs. Jameson, Cunningham, Fox, Pepys and others, and might multiply favora- ble opinions to any extent. Colly Cibber avers that "if the common fame of her may be believed, which in my memory was not doubted, she had less to be laid to her charge than any other of those ladies who were in the same state of preferment." Douglas Jcrrold, in the preface to his drama of " Nell Gwynn, or the Prologue," thus ardently assumes her defence : " Her whole life proved that error had been forced upon her by circumstances rather than indulged by choice. It was under this impression that the following little comedy was undertaken ; under this conviction an attempt has been made to show some glimpses of the 'silver lining' of a character, to whose influence over an unprincipled voluptuary we owe a national asylum for veteran soldiers, and whose brightness shines with the most amiable lustre in many actions of her life and in the last disposal of her worldly effects." Mrs. Jameson adds that Nell introduced into court "the same frolic gaiety, the same ingenuous nature, and the same kind and cordial benevolence which had rendered her adored among her comrades. Her wit was as natural and as peculiar to herself as the perfume to the flower. She seems to have been, as the Duchess de Chaulnes expressed it, ' femme NELLGWYNN. 251 d'esprit, par la grace de Dieu.' Her bon-mots fell from her lips with such an unpremeditated felicity of expression, and her tone of humor was so perfectly original, that even her maddest flights became her, as if, says one of her contemporaries, she alone had the patent from heaven to engross all hearts The truth is, Nell had a natm'al turn for goodness which survived all her excesses ; she was wild and extravagant, but not rapacious or selfish ; frail, not vicious. At the time that the king's mistresses were everywhere execrated for their avarice and arrogance, it was remai'ked that Nell Gwynn never asked anything for her- self, never gave herself unbecoming airs, as if she deemed her unhappy situation a subject of pride ; there is not a single instance of her using her influence over Charles for an unworthy purpose ; but on the contrary, the presents which the king's love or bounty lavished upon her, she gave and spent freely ; and misfortune, deserved or undeserved, never approached her in vain." Mrs. Hale thus adds her tribute of exoneration : " Poor Nelly was the victim of circumstances, not the votary of vice ; and of the inmates of that wicked and corrupt court, she alone has won pity and forgiveness from posterity. She deserves this, for she was pitiful to others." The title of Duke of St. Albans still exists in the person of the fifth of the name. Nell's eldest son lived to distinguish himself at the battle of Belgrade, and to die a knight of the garter. He was the father of eight sons by the Lady Diana de Vere. Of the second and third duke of the name, nothing of moment is known, but the fourth brought the almost for- gotten title conspicuously before the public, by marrying, about the year 1825, the widow of the millionaire Coutts. She had begun life as an actress, imder the name of Harriet Mellon. As she had no children by either the banker or the duke, she left the enormous wealth which the former had willed to her, to the exclusion of his children by a previous marriage, to her step grand- daughter Angela Burdett, ou the condition that she 252 NELL GWYNN. should assume the name of Coutts in addition to hei' own. This was the origin of the enormous wealth of Angela Burdett Coutts, and in this way is " pretty witty Nell " connected with the richest private woman in the world, and the most munificent benefactress of modern times. LADY MARY ¥ORTLEY MONTAGU. Lady Mart Pierrepont was the eldest daughter of Evelyn, Duke of Kingston, and of the Lady Mary Fieldmg : she was the own cousin of Fielding the novelist. She was born at Thoresby, in Nottinghamshire, in or about the year 1690 ; she lost her mother at the age of four years, having at the time two sisters younger than herself. Her biographers differ widely upon the subject of her education, one asserting that the early dawn of her genius awakened her father to the necessity of sedulously cultivating her natural gifts, another attributing her proficiency wholly to her own indomitable perseverance. Under whichever influence it was that her youthful studies were prosecuted, there can be no doubt of her precocious excellence in Greek, Latin, and French. Bishop Burnet superintended her education at a later period, and read and corrected her manuscript translation of the Encliiridion of Epictetus. That she was a favorite with her father in her early years, and that whether he cared to foster her talents or not, he at least appreciated them, is evident from the following anecdote of her first public triumph. The gentlemen of the famous Kit- cat Club, of which her father was a member, having met to choose toasts for the year, the whim seized him to nominate her, 2S3 254 LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. then but eight years old, on the ground of her superior beauty. The other members demui'red, alleging that the rules of the club forbade them to elect a beauty, whose claim to the honor depended ujion report alone. So Lord Kingston sent for Lady Mary, that she might defend his choice and substantiate her claim by her actual presence. She came, sumptuously dressed, and was received with acclamations. Her health was drunk with all the honors, and her name engraved in due form upon a drinking-glass. She was passed from lap to lap, caressed, kissed, and flattered by the Kitcat statesmen, wits, artists, and poets ; her father ordered her picture to be painted for the clubroom, that she might be enrolled a regular toast. As she grew up, while still pursuing her studies with unwea- ried ardor, she assumed, at intervals, the direction of the various departments of her father's household. The most important duty she was thus called upon to fulfiU was that of carver at table, upon the public days of the borough. To prepare herself for this service, she took lessons three times a week of a pro- fessor who taught the art scientifically, and on occasions when she was to exercise her skill, ate her own dinner an hour or two beforehand, in order that her strength might not give out, nor her own appetite interrupt her devotion to the appetites of others. No one was allowed to assist her, every joint being taken to her in turn, and her father's exclusive duty being to push the bottle. It was an honor to be served by her, and an oflcnce to be omitted, so that we are told that "the most incon- siderable among the guests — the curate or squire's younger brother — if suffered through her neglect to help himself to a slice of the mutton placed before him, would have chewed it in bitterness, and gone home an affronted man, half inclined to give a wrong vote at the next election." Thus passed her youth, the scenes which we have described not being sufficiently frequent to interrupt her leisure or become a disturbing cause in the seclusion of her life. LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 255 Her most intimate friend was Mrs. Anne Wortley, daughter of Admiral Montagu, the first Earl of Sandwich. Her brother, the Honorable Edward Wortley Montagu, a scholar and a poli- tician, the companion and intimate associate of Addison, Steele, and Congreve, saw Lady Mary, then in her twentieth year, by accident, in his sister's room. It was not the fashion, nor could it have been the interest, of the wits of those days to associate with ladies — the latter having been qualified by education and habit for no avocations better than card-playing, tea-drinking, or the retailing of scaiidal. The meeting of the two compelled an introduction, and the scholar left the apartment dazzled by Lady Mary's beauty, charmed by her wit, and gratified beyond mea- sure by her cultivation and classic tastes. He was allowed by his sister to read the letters which passed between them, and did not disguise his admiration of the sentiments and style of her correspondent. Anne Wortley died soon afterwards, and her brother and Lady Mary, who had both of them very nearly avowed their love, continued the epistolary intercourse. They soon became engaged : from one of the lady's letters written upon the subject of marriage, we make the following extract : "If we marry, our happiness must consist in loving one another ; 'tis principally my concern to think of the most prob- able method of making that love eternal. You object against living in London : I am not fond of it myself, and readily give it up to you, though I am assured there needs more art to keep a fondness alive in solitude, where it generally preys upon itself. There is one article absolutely necessary — to be ever beloved, one must be ever agreeable. There is no such thing as being agreeable without a thorough good humor — a natural sweetness of temper enlivened by cheerfulness. Whatever natural funds of gaiety one is born with, 'tis necessary to be entertained with agreeable objects. Anybody capable of taking pleasure, when they confine themselves to one place, should take care 'tis the place in the world the most agreeable. 256 LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. " Whatever you may now think (now perhaps you may have some fondness for me), though your love shoukl continue in full force, there are hours when the most beloved mistress would be troublesome. People are not forever (nor is it in human nature that they should be) disposed to be fond ; you would be glad to find in me the friend and the companion. To be agreeably the last, it is necessary to be gay and entertaining. A perpetual sohtude, in a place where you see nothing to raise your spirits, at length wears them out, and conversation insensibly falls into dull and insipid. When I have no more to say to you, you will like me no longer. How dreadful is that view ! I shall lose the vivacity which should entertain you, and you will have nothing to recompense you for what you have lost. Very few people that have settled entirely in the country, but have grown at length weary of one another. The lady's conversation generally falls into a thousand impertinent effects of idleness, and the gentleman falls in love with his dogs and his horses, and out of love with everything else. I am not now arguing in favor of the town ; you have answered me on that point. But 'tis my opinion, 'tis necessary, to be happy, that we neither of us think any place more agreeable than that where we are." Lord Kingston, who knew that Mr. Wortley possessed a large landed property, had cordially approved the match. But when the marriage contract and settlements came under consideration, and Mr. Wortley, whose observation had been drawn towards the pernicious effects of the practice of entail, declined settling his real estate upon his first male child," Lord Kingston refused to continue the negotiation, declaring that he would never see his grandson a beggar. Mr. Wortley tartly rejoined, that he would never blindly bestow wealth upon one who might be unworthy to possess it — who might prove a spendthrift, an idiot, or a villain. The match was broken off, though the lovers still corre- sponded and often met in secret. Lord Kingston presented anoth- er suitor to his daughter, threatening her with imprisonment LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 257 in some remote place, and with the pittance of £400 a year after his death, if she persisted in disobeying his wishes. She replied by letter that her aversion to the man he proposed was _ too great to be overcome ; that she should be miserable beyond belief ; but that she was in his hands, and that he might dispose of her as he thought fit. To her astonishment, he took this answer as a compliance, and proceeded with the prehminaries of the wedding. Lady Mary then consented to a stolen interview and a clandestine marriage with the man whom, against her will, she had leai'ned to love. In her letter appointing the time and place occurs the following passage : " You made no reply to one part of my letter concerning my fortune. I am afraid you flatter yourself that my father may be at length reconciled and brought to reasonable terms. I am convinced, by what I have often heard him say, speaking of other cases like this, that he never will. Reflect now for the last time in what manner you must take me. I shall come to you with only a nightgown and petticoat, and that is all you will ever get by me. I told a lady of my friends what I intended to do. You will think her a very good friend when I tell you she proffered to lend us her house. I did not accept of this till I had let you know it. If you think it more convenient to carry me to your lodgings, make no scruple of it. Let it be where it will ; if I am your wife, I shall think no place unfit for me where you are." The lovers were privately married by special license, bearing date August 12, 1712, Lady Mary being in her twenty-second year. They remained in the country for three years, their estab- lishment being too limited to permit a residence in London. Upon the death of Queen Anne, in 1714, they removed to the city, Mr. Wortley's previous political course having marked him as an earnest supporter of the new administration. Lady Mary soon made her appearance at St. James's ; and her beauty, elegance and vivacity at once secured for her a foremost place 33 258 LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. in the court of George the First. The rival wits, Addison and Pope, professed and doubtless felt the deepest admiration for her uncommon genius. That of Pope ripened in after years into a more tender sentiment ; to the bitter malignity into which her iudifterence provoked him, we shall have occasion to refer in the proper place. In June, 1716, Mr. Wortley resigned his situation as lord of the treasury, in order to accept an appointment as ambassador to the SubUme Porte. His wife, whose deep attachment he was far from requiting, resolved to accompany him, with her infant son, and commenced in August their arduous journey over the continent of Europe. Lady Montagu enjoyed for a long time the reputation of being the first Enghshwoman who had had the curiosity and spirit to visit the Levant ; but it seems probable that both Lady Puget and Lady Winchester had visited Constan- tinople before her. Pope wrote her a letter soon after her departure, in which he used this language: " May that person for whom you have left all the world be so just as to prefer you to all the world ! I believe his good understanding has engaged him to do so hitherto, and I think his gratitude must for the future." Lady Mary's letters to her friends, but principally to her sister. Lady Mar, describe in vivid colors the incidents and episodes of the adventurous journey. She extols the cleanliness of Rotterdam, observing that the Dutch maids wash the pave- ment of the street with more industry than the English maids do the London bed-chambers. She rhapsodizes upon the romantic banks of the Danube, and is amazed at the magnificence of Vienna and the chaste elegance of Schoenbrunn. The poverty of Bohemia and the snows of Hungary somewhat dampen the enthusiasm of the aristocratic traveller. Through Raab, Buda, Belgrade and Peterwaradin, she pushes on to Adrianople. Her first letter, written at this point, was addressed to her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales ; her second, to Lady Rich, a LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 259 member of the princess' household, is one of the most famous in her pubhshed correspondence, from the discussions to which it gave rise. As Lady Montagu's chxim to hterary distinction rests upon her epistolary merit, we shall not hesitate to quote largely from the descriptive portions of her letters. The follow- ing is her account of a visit to the bagnio at Sophia, one of the most beautiful towns in the Turkish empire, and famous for its hot baths. After mentioning the hall of entrance, she says : " The next room is a very large one, paved with marble, and all round it are two raised sofas of marble, one above another. There were four fountains of cold water in this room, falling first into marble basins, and then running on the floor in little chan- nels made for that purpose, which carried the streams into the next room, something less than this, with the same sort of marble sofas, but so hot with steams of sulphur proceeding from the baths joining to it, it was impossible to stay there with one's clothes on. . . . The first sofas were covered with cushions and rich carpets, on which sat the ladies ; and on the second their slaves, behind them, but without any distinction of rank by their dress, all being in the state of nature, that is, in plain English, stark naked, without any beauty or defect concealed. Yet there was not the least wanton smile or immodest gesture among them. They walked and moved with the same majestic grace which Milton describes our general mother with. There were many among them as exactly proportioned as ever any goddess was drawn by the pencil of a Guido or a Titian, and most of their skins shiningly white, only adorned by their beautiful hair, divided into many tresses, hanging on their shoulders, braided either with pearls or ribbons, perfectly representing the figures of the Graces. "I was here convinced of the truth of a reflection I have often made, that if it were the fashion to go naked, the face would be hardly observed. I perceived that the ladies of the most delicate skins and finest shapes had the greatest share of 260 LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. my admiration, though their faces were sometimes less beautiful than those of their companions. To tell you the truth, I had the wickedness to wish secretly that Mr. Jervas could have been there invisible. I fancy it would have very much improved his art, to see so many fine women naked, in different postures, some in conversation, some working, others drinking coffee or sherbet, and many negligently lying on their cushions, while their slaves — generally pretty girls of seventeen or eighteen — were employed in braiding their hair in several pretty fancies. In short, it is the women's coffee-house, where all the news of the town is told, scandal invented, etc. They generally take this diversion once a week, and stay there at least four or five hours, without taking cold by immediately coming out of the hot bath into the cold room, which was very surprising to me. The lady that seemed the most considerable among them entreated me to sit by her, and would fain have undressed me for the bath. I excused myself with some difficulty. They being, however, all so earnest in persuading me, I was at last forced to open my shirt and show them my stays, which satisfied them very well ; for I saw they believed I was locked up in that machine, and that it was not in my own power to open it, which contrivance they attributed to my husband. "Adieu, madam; I am sure I have now entertained you with an account of such a sight as you never saw in your life, and what no book of travels could inform you of, as it is no less than death for a man to be found in one of these places." Mr. Wortley remained two months at Adrianople, whither the Sultan Achmet III. had removed his court from the capital of the empire. The letters of Lady Mary give lively pictures of the domestic manners and official ceremonies of the Turks. She even obtained admission to the seraglio, and her pages devoted to this visit actually glow with the ardor of her admiration of the lovely Fatima. She adopted the Turkish dress and wrote to her sister that it was admirably becoming — consisting as it did LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 261 of a pair of thin, rose-colored damask drawers, very full and reaching to the shoes ; of a fine white silk gauze smock, with wide shirt sleeves, and closed at the neck with a diamond button, but "through which the shape and color of the bosom are very weU to be distinguished ;" of a tight-fitting waistcoat of white damask, fringed with gold and fastened with diamond buttons ; of a girdle, four fingers broad, made of exquisite embroidery on satin, and fastened in front with a clasp of diamonds. Her head-dress was a talpock, a cap of light shining silver cloth, jauntily fixed on one side of the head. In this dress, which she found a very effective disguise, she visited many places of interest incognita, jostling janizaries in the bazaars and drinking sherbet at the camp. On her arrival at Constantinople, and after giving birth to a daughter, she devoted herself to the study of the language, under the direction of one of Mr. Wortley's dragomans. She was already a proficient in French and Italian, and had considerable knowledge of the German, so that, as she was compelled to speak all these and Turkish besides, she felt herself in danger of losing her English. "I live in a place," she says, "that very well represents the Tower of Babel : my grooms are Arabs ; my foot- men, French, English and Germans ; my nurse, an Armenian ; my housemaids, Russians ; half a dozen other servants, Greeks ; my steward, an Italian ; my janizaries, Turks ; so that I live in the perpetual hearing of this medley of sounds, which produces an extraordinary effect upon the people that are born here ; for they learn all these languages at the same time, and without knowing any one of them well enough to read or write in it. There are very few men, women, or even children here, that do not have the same compass of words in five or six of them. As I prefer English to all the rest, I am extremely mortified at the daily decay of it in my head, where, I'll assure you, with grief of heart, it is reduced to such a small number of words, I cannot recollect any tolerable phrase to conclude my letter with, and 262 LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. am forced to tell your ladyship very bluntly, that I am yours, etc." During the heat of the summer months, it was the custom of the European embassies to withdraw to the various villas situated upon the borders of the Bosphorus. Lady Montagu chose the delightful retreat of Belgrade village, about fourteen miles from the capital. In the deep glades and charming forest scenery of this spot, she spent the season of 1717, and a portion of that of 1718. It was here that occurred the incident to which she owes her fame, even more than to her literary excellence. She observed the prevalence of a custom which was called ingrafting — now known as inoculation — which consisted of the introduction, into the blood of a patient, of matter taken from a small pox pustule — a process which invariably produced a milder form of the disease than if taken in the natural way. She examined the subject with philosophical curiosity, and in the following graphic letter gives the result of her observations : " Bklgradk, Ap. 1, O. S. 1717. " Apropos of distempers, I am going to tell you of a thing that wiU make you wish yourself here. The small pox, so fatal and so general amongst us, is here entirely harmless, by the invention of ingrafting, which is the term they give it. There is a set of old women who make it their business to perform the operation eveiy autumn, in the month of September, when the great heat is abated. People send to one another to know if any of their family has a mind to have the small pox ; they make parties for this purpose, and when they are met — com- monly fifteen or sixteen together — the old woman comes with a nut-shell full of the matter of the best sort of small pox, and asks what vein you please to have opened. She immediately rips open that which you offer to her, with a large needle — which gives you no more pain than a common scratch— and puts into the vein as much matter as will lie upon the head LADY MAKY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 263 of her needle, and after that, binds up the Uttle wound with a hollow bit of shell ; and in this manner opens four or five veins. The Grecians have commonly the superstition of opening one in the middle of the forehead, one in each arm and one on the breast, to mark the sign of the cross ; but this has a very ill effect, all these wounds leaving httle scars, and is not done by those who are not superstitious, who choose to have them in the legs or that part of the arm that is concealed. "The children or young patients play together all the rest of the day and are in perfect health to the eighth. Then the fever begins to seize them, and they keep their beds two days, very seldom three. They have very rarely above twenty or thirty in their faces, which never mark ; and in eight days' time they are as well as befoi'e their ilhiess. Where they are wounded, there remain running sores during the distemper, which I don't doubt is a great relief to it. Every year thousands undergo this operation ; and the French ambassador says plea- santly, that they take the small pox here by way of diversion, as they take the waters in other countries. There is no example of any one that has died in it ; and you may believe I am weU satisfied of the safety of this experiment, since I intend to try it upon mj^ dear little son. " I am patriot enough to take pains to bring this useful invention into fashion in England ; and I should not fail to write to some of our doctors very particularly about it, if I knew any one of them that I thought had virtue enough to destroy such a considerable branch of revenue for the good of mankind. But that distemper is too beneficial to them, not to expose to all their resentment the hardy wight that should undertake to put an end to it. Perhaps, if I should live to return, I may, how- ever, have courage to war with them. Upon this occasion, admire the heroism in the heart of your friend, etc." She kept her word in regard to a trial of the process upon 264 LADY MARY WORT LEY MONTAGU. her son. She chronicles her success in a letter from Belgrade to Mr. Wortley at Pera, nearly a year afterwards : "March 23, 1718. " Ye Boy was engrafted last Tusday, and is at ys time sing- ing and playing and very impatient for his supper. I pray God my next may give as good an Account of him I cannot engraft ye girl ; her nm-se has not had ye small Pox." Mr. Wortley was recalled late in the year 1717, his embassy having failed through causes which it would be useless to detail here. He did not start upon his return tiU June of the following year. He and his family pursued their way through the Archi- pelago, of which Lady Mai-y wrote admirable descriptions in prose, commencing with the following proem in verse : " Warm'd with poetic transport, I survey The immortal islands and tlie well-known sea; For here so oft the muse her harp has strung, That not a mountain rears its head unsung." They landed at Tunis and thence crossed the Mediterranean to Genoa. They then proceeded to England through Turin, Lyons and Paris, Lady Mary dispatching numerous letters from every point to friends at home. They arrived late in October, 1718. Lady Mary was received with great favor by the Princess of Wales, afterwards Queen Caroline, and she at once resumed at court the position she had left, adding to her previous reputation as a wit and a beauty, that of a philosophical traveller and an observant inquirer. She was induced by Pope to fix her resi- dence in the celebrated village of Twickenham, where for a time the two rivals continued to live in harmony and mutual esteem. She speculated deeply in South Sea stock, and was in the receipt of letters from the Secretary of State promising her further investments in the seductive scrip, and from Mr. Pope, advising LADY MARY WORTLBY MONTAGU. 265 her to buy, as "he is informed from the first and best hands that it will be a certain gain." She sat for her portrait to Sir Godfrey Kneller, Pope being present at the sittings, and, when the picture was finished, writing an impromptu sonnet to the beauti- ful original upon the cover of her manuscript book of letters. Lady Mary now resolved to devote herself to the propagation, in her native land, of the Byzantine process of inoculation. We have said that the operation had not yet been performed upon her daughter ; this child was fortunately reserved to be the first example of inoculation in England. After interesting the royal family in the subject, she caused the little Mary to be ingrafted with matter taken from a dying patient, by Dr. Maitland, who had been the physician to the embassy in Turkey. No evil consequences followed, and the result, proving that the success of the experiment was in no manner connected with climate or other variable influences, encouraged Lady Montagu to persevere in her beneficent purpose. Dr. Maitland's second operation was performed one month afterwards, upon a son of Dr. Keith, and was eminently successful. But the public now began to view the innovation with suspicion and dread, and three months elapsed before another trial was made. The Princess Anne was taken dangerously ill with the small pox, and the Princess Carohne, her mother, wishing to secure her other children from the infection, but not yet daring to subject them to the ordeal, begged the lives of six condemned criminals, who were promised the royal pardon, if, after inoculation, they escaped death by the disease. They were ingrafted by Dr. Mait- land on the 9th of August, and were set at liberty upon their recovery from the mild distemper which ensued. One of them, indeed, who had had the small pox in his youth, was not affected at all, and this new illustration of the operation of the system was considered sufficiently interesting to counterbalance the easy escape of the criminal. In April, 1722, eleven charity- children of the parish of St. James were successfully ingrafted, 34 266 LADY MAKY WORTLEY MONTAGU. - and the Princess of Wales, at last convinced of the entire safety of the process, caused her daughters Amelia and Carohna to undergo the operation. Sustained by this illustrious example, ingrafting made rapid progress throughout the kingdom. At last a death occurred, then another, and finally a third. This made three deaths out of one hundred and eighty-two inocu- lations, or one in sixty, whereas the proportion of mortality, in cases of the small pox communicated naturally, had usually been one in six. The medical profession and the clergy now rose in unanimous reprobation of the practice, and Lady Montagu's beneficent exertions were treated as the crazy efforts of a woman whose head had been turned by a long residence in a barbarous land. The i^rincipal medical objections were the following : that as inoculation did not induce the veritable small pox, it could not secure the patient from having it — an argument which was satis- factorily answered by sending one of the inoculated and recovered Newgate prisoners to Hertford, where the small pox was raging, and keeping him in bed ten days with a man grievously afilicted by the distemper, without his being in the slightest degree affected ; that inoculation might induce other diseases, should the variolous matter be taken from unhealthy subjects— a state- ment which the records of the hospitals amply disproved ; and that it was folly purposely to have a disease which one was not at all sure to have even by accident — a frivolous piece of reason- ing, sufficiently answered by the fact that the small pox carried off two million victims annually in Russia alone, and that it was invariably fatal in England in two cases out of eleven. But the medical objections thus raised did not operate so powerfidly upon the public mind as the moral and rehgious arguments adduced by the prejudices and bigotry of the age. The idea of bringing diseases upon oneself was denounced as " a Circassian impiety." Lady Montagu was stigmatized from the pulpit as a poisoner and a murderess, instigated by quackery, LADY MAEY WOETLEY MONTAGU. 267 atheism and avarice. The author of an anonymous pamphlet invoked the interference of parhament against a system by which ' ' every quack may now be a hirehug of the devil, and like the banditti in Italy, be ready to do the drudgery of removing lives, under the mask of a cure, inoculating death instead of a disease." The Rev. Mr. Massey preached a sermon from the second chapter of Job, in which he represented the boils upon the body of that afflicted personage as the result of an inoculation performed upon him by the devil. This assertion of the whimsical divine was turned against him by an epigrammatist, who maintained that Job was much benefited by the operation ; as thus : "We're told by one of the black robe The Devil inoculated Job ; Suppose 'tis true what he does tell, Pray, neighbor, did not Job do well?" Another divine asserted that it had never yet come into men's minds to take the work out of nature's hands, and raise diseases by art in the human body. To this Dr. Maitland replied that the practice of physic was founded upon the principle of curing natural by raising artificial diseases, and asked if bleeding was not an artificial hemorrhage, and purging an artificial dysentery. The epigrammatists on the other side pursued the same argu- ment in this wise : "What, sir, may I ask, is correction at the cart's tail, but the noble art of muscular phlebotomy ? What is breaking on the wheel, but the art of making dislocations and fractures, and differs from the wounds and amputations only by the manner and intention ?" Other theological arguments were, that the voluntary taking of a disease was a usurpation of the sacred prerogative of God : that we ought not to do evil, that good may come of it ; that fear was a dangerous element in the small pox, and that inocu- lation increased the causes of fear, by lessening our faith and trust in Providence. These allegations were in turn denied and 268 LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. refuted, and for years the warfare was waged with great acri- mony and virulence. Common sense at last prevailed, and the " Circassian impiety" spread throughout the civilized world. As early as the summer of 1723, Lady Montagu wrote : " Lady Byng has inoculated both her children ; the operation is not yet over, but I beheve they will do very well. Since that experi- ment has not had any ill effect, the whole town are doing the same thing, and I am so much pulled about, and solicited to visit people, that I am forced to run into the country to hide myself." Somewhat later she wrote: "I know nobody who has hitherto repented the operation, though it has been very troublesome to some fools, who had rather be sick by the doctor's prescription than in health in rebellion to the college." Still, such had been the annoyances endured by her in her beneficent crusade, that she afterwards admitted that "if she had foreseen the persecution and obloquy she was to endure, she would not have attempted to introduce inoculation." She, nevertheless, lived to see herself ranked as a benefactress, and to read in statistical journals cal- culations by which she was proved to have saved 139,652 lives out of every million inhabitants in the kingdom. Steele's Plain Dealer thus eulogized her in 1724 : "It is an observation of some historian that England has owed to women the greatest blessings she has been distinguished by. In the case we are now upon, this reflection will stand justified. We are indebted to the reason and the courage of a lady for the introduction of this art, which gains such strength in its progress, that the memory of its illus- trious foundress will be rendered sacred by it to future ages — a good so lasting and vast, that none of those wide endowments and deep foundations of public charity which have made so much noise in the world deserve at all to be compared with it." For three-quarters of a century, inoculation continued to be practised in Europe and America, as a means of modifying and rendering harmless a disease to which all were subject, from which none could declare themselves exempt, and which, when it LADY MARY WOETLEY MONTAGU 269 did not destroy the patient, usually left him mutilated and dis- figured. Lady Montagu prepared the public, in a measure, for Jenner's more valuable process, that of vaccination, which, instead of being an amelioration, was a prevention. He met with vexa- tious and discouraging opposition, certainly, but whether his final success would have been as speedy or as complete had not Lady Mary battled with similar prejudices before him, may very well be matter of doubt. The quarrel of Lady Montagu with Pope was the nest promi- nent event in her life. The poet had sought for a time to render her the one bright feature in the society which thronged his villa. Upon the accession of George II., her political sentiments attract- ed her towards Sir Robert Walpole and Lord Hervey, while Pope's proclivities drew him towards Bolingbroke and Swift. He had noticed too, with jealous dissatisfaction, that the preeminent position which he had wished her to hold, through his patronage and as an effect of his public and acknowledged admiration, she had obtained, and was able to maintain, by her own merits and as a tribute to her genius and humanity. Illiberal and malicious by nature, the great poet could not brook this competition, and levelled all his sarcasm, both in conversation and in verse, at the brilUant and independent beauty. She retorted vigorously, and the town was divided by their quarrel into two hostile and aggressive parties. Pope's invectives often passed the limits of propriety, and when called upon to explain or retract, he suc- ceeded by adroit prevarication in evading every direct charge. Warburton, Warton and Dr. Johnson concur in condemning his conduct, the former, his most zealous panegyrist, confessing that "there were allegations against him which he was not quite clear of." The present age, knowing little of the bard of Twickenham but through the works which he has consigned to immortality, cannot readily conceive to what excesses of malignity he allowed himself to be carried in this affair. But, as one of the biographers of Lady Montagu has aptly remarked, " time has annihilated their 270 LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. animosities, and the controversy may now be dispassionately viewed. How much a character may suffer under the authority of a great name ! The magic of Pope's numbers makes us unwilling to know that they were not always the vehicle of truth." The life of Lady Mary, from this period till the year 1739, offers few sahent points worthy of biographical notice. She revolved in the circles of fashion and literature, her influence naturally attracting about her the best authors of the day. She suggested an alteration in the fourth act of Young's " Brothers," which he readily made ; another which she advised proved im- practicable, and Young requested her to make a secret of the flaw, that he might try an experiment on the sagacity of the town ; adding, that the players were fond of it, and " si populus vult decipi, decipiatur." She was always a sincere friend to Fielding, her cousin, who dedicated to her his first comedy of "Love in Several Masks." In 1739, her health seriously declined, though her disease, cancer, was in its incipient stages. She resolved to visit Italy, and bade a long adieu to her daughter, by marriage Lady Bute, and to her husband, who promised to rejoin her, but whom she never met again. She abandoned without regret the gay and absorbing scenes of a London fashionable life. She travelled for several years through France, Italy and Switzerland, consenting in 1743, to meet her reprobate son, under a feigned name, at Valence in France. This young man was already notorious as one of the most eccentric, dissipated and worthless of British subjects. He had requested the interview for the purpose of inducing his mother, if possible, to persuade her husband to settle his estate upon him — this being optional with the father, by his refusal to entail his property, on the ground, as he had himself expressed it, that his eldest son might be either a spendthrift, an idiot, or a villain. The event showed the wisdom of his conduct, as these three characteristics were combined in happy proportions in LADY MAEY WOETLEY MONTAGU. 271 young Mr. Montagu's character. He left his mother, promising amendment and an economical hfe, and immediately repaired to Mont^limar, " where he behaved himself with as much vanity and indiscretion as ever." Having been invited to visit Louvbre, on the banks of Lake Isco, in the Venetian territory, she fixed her summer residence there, taking possession of a deserted palace, laying out a garden, and devoting herself to the avocations and pleasures of a country life. She superintended her vineyards, and was happy in the society of bees and silkworms. Her daughter sent her constant supplies of books from London, to read all of which she said it would be necessary for her to hire relays of eyes like pos- tillions. The letters written during this period to the Countess of Bute, exhibit her character in the most agreeable light, and while they show that she sincerely enjoyed her retirement from the world, prove how closely domestic ties still bound her to society, and that aifection for her daughter and her family was still the dearest sentiment of her heart. Her passion for reading, and the extent to which she indulged it, drew upon her the mild rejiroaches of the countess, to which she made the following reply : "Daughter! daughter! don't call names; you are always abusing my pleasures, which is what no mortal will bear. Trash, lumber, sad stuflf, are the titles you give to my favorite amusement. We ha,ve all our playthings ; happy are they who can be contented with those they can obtain. Those hours are spent in the wisest manner that can easiest shade the ills of life, and are the least productive of ill consequences. The active scenes are over at my age. I indulge with all the art I can, my taste for reading. If I would confine it to valuable books, they are almost as rare as valuable men. I must be content with what I can find. As I approach a second childhood, I endeavor to enter into the pleasures of it. Your youngest son is perhaps at this very moment riding on a poker, with great delight, not at 272 LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. all regretting that it is not a gold one, and much less wishing it an Arabian horse, which he could not know how to manage. I am reading an idle tale without wit or truth in it, and am very glad it is not metaphysics to puzzle my judgment, or history to mislead my opinion. He fortifies his health by exercise ; I calm my cares by oblivion. The methods may appear low to busy people ; but if he improves his strength, and I forget my infirmities, we both attain very desirable ends." In 1758, Lady Montagu abandoned her solitude and estab- hshed herself at Venice. She here saw a great deal of company, receiving such persons as she believed visited her out of curiosity merely, in a mask and domino, as her dress of ceremony. She became indifferent to her personal appearance, and wrote thus of her looks : " I know nothing about the matter, as it is now eleven years since I have seen my figure in a glass, and the last reflection I saw there was so disagreeable, that I resolved to spare myself the mortification in future ;" adding, in regard to her health, "It is so often impaired, that I begin to be as weary of it as mending old lace ; when it is patched in one place, it breaks out in another." Upon the death of Mr. Wortley, in 1761, she returned to England, at the urgent sohcitation of her daughter, after an absence of twenty-two years. Her health had already seriously declined, and the progress of her disease was violently accelerated by this abrupt change of chmate. She died on the 21st of August, 1762, in the seventy-third year of her age, remembered and lamented by such of her own generation as survived her, but little known to a city from which her long residence abroad had totally estranged her. The first publication of her letters took place the following year under very singular circumstances. She had employed a portion of her leisure during the latter years of her life in making copies of the letters she had written during Mr. Wortley's embassy, in two quarto volumes. While travelling to England, in 1761, she gave these books to a clergyman at Rotterdam LADY MARY WOETLEY MONTAGU 273 named Sowden, to be disposed of as he thought proper. Upon the death of Lady Montagu, her son-in-h^w, the Earl of Bute, bought them from Mr. Sowden for the sum of £500, and had them transferred to Loudon. No sooner was this done, however, than three volumes of "Letters of Lady M y W y M u," appeared, published by Beckett and edited by the notorious Captain Cleland. Mr. Sowden, being applied to for an explanation, stated that some weeks before he parted with the manuscripts, two English gentlemen had visited him and obtained his permission to look over the volumes. He was called away during their stay, and on his return found that both books and visitors had disappeared. The manuscripts were returned the next day, with profuse apologies on the part of the gentlemen, who made sundi-y awkward attempts to account for their mysterious conduct. Tlie subsequent publication of the letters convinced Mr. Sowden and Lord Bute that the intervening night had been spent by an army of amanuenses in transcribing the contents of the volumes at the expense of Mr. Beckett. In spite of the questionable shape in which they were thus given to the public, no one doubted their authenticity. Smollett, then proprietor and conductor of the Critical Review, thus bears testimony to tJieir merit : "The publication of these letters will be an immortal monument to the memory of Lady M. W. M., and will shew, as long as the English language endures, the sprightli- ness of her wit, the solidity of her judgment, the elegance of her taste, and the excellence of her real character. These letters are so bewitchingly entertaining, that we defy the most phlegmatic man on earth to read one without going through with them, or after finishnig the third volume, not to wish there were twenty more of them." Lady Mary herself seems to have held a similar opinion at an early date, and indeed to have anticipated publi- cation, for she wrote thus in 1724 to Lady Mar: "The last pleasure that fell in my way was Madame de Sevign^'s letters ; very pretty they are, but I assert without the least vanity, mine 35 274 LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. will be full as entertaining forty years hence. I advise you, therefore, to put none of them to the use of waste-pajDer." Other more complete editions have since been published, under the auspices of Lady Mary's relatives. Her letters have taken their place in English literature as models of epistolary compo- sition, and it woidd be difficult to decide in what branch of her delightful art the writer most excelled, whether in lively descriptions, in natural and familiar similes, in the happy employment of anecdotes, in the philosophy of her reflections, or in the idiomatic graces of her style. Lady Wortley Montagu has received justice as a writer, not as a benefactress. At least she has been denied that sort of justice which consists in burial honors and in the tribute of a national monument. Westminster Abbey has opened its massive portals to less worthy occupants than she, and for her least merit she might have claimed a resting-place in the Poets' Corner. The cathedral at Lichfield contains the only cenotaph to her memory, and this does not stand over her remains. It was erected, thirty years after her death, by a woman, Henrietta Inge, who seems to have been alone in the desire to acknowledge a debt, due not only from England but from the human race. The monument represents Beauty, in female form, weeping over the ashes of her preserver, inurned beneath her. To appreciate the force of this conceit, the reader must transport himself, in imagination, to the period when beauty, health, life, were at the mercy of that virulent scourge, the small pox, when no prevention was known and when cure was a matter of chance, not of calculation ; when a young and delicate woman of less than thirty years, struggling against the prejudices of centuries, the superstitions of a credulous age, and the resistance of the pulpit and the faculty, and finally triumphant over them, con- ferred upon Western Europe the greatest medical and social boon which it had then been given to man or woman to bestow upon their race. MARIE ANTOINETTE Marie-Antoinette-Josephe-Jeanne, Archduchess of Austria, daughter of Francis I. and Maria Theresa, Emperor and Empress of Germany, was born at Vienna, on the second of November, 1755. She received a briUiant though superficial education un- der the eyes of her illustrious mother ; every opportunity was taken to impress upon her infant mind an adequate idea of the superiority of herself and her sister archduchesses to the off- spring of every other royal house. She was apt and zealous, and made rapid progress in the study of languages, of drawing and of music. At the early age of fourteen years, Marie Antoi- nette was an accomplished and majestic princess. She was slight and gracefid, and of imposing bearing ; her lofty manner of car- rying her head at once attracted the observer. Her hair was Ught brown, long and silky ; her forehead high and somewhat projecting ; her nose aquiline, with nostrils dilating at the least emotion ; her eyes were blue and penetrating ; her teeth white, and her lips full and well-defined. Her expression was animated, though her smile was pensive. Her complexion was of dazzling purity, and her skin so white that, in her portraits still to be seen at Schoenbrunn, it seems to cast a shade on the satin of her royal vestments. 2TS 276 MARIE ANTOINETTE. The relations of Austria and France had long been those either of open warfare or secret enmity. Since the time of Henry IV., every battle fought and every treaty signed be- tween these two powers, had deprived Austria either of a contiguous province or a tributary kingdom, and by these suc- cessive losses either France, or some one of her allies, had profited. Maria Theresa, viewing with alarm this decline of Austrian influence, formed the astute plan of converting her dangerous neighbor into a complaisant ally ; and the treaties of 1756 and '58, uniting the two powers in one scheme of operations, permitted Austria to commence, unopposed, a series of devastations in the north of Europe. Not long afterwards, an alliance between the houses of Bourbon and of Austria, seeming to subserve the interests of both courts, was agreed upon, and Marie Antoinette was contracted to Louis, grandson of Louis XV., and dauphin, by the death of his father, the Duke de Berry. A change at once took place in the occupations of the archduchess. She was placed under the immediate care of the Abb6 de Vermond, a worldly-minded ecclesiastic, who in- structed her in the usages of the French court and the collo- quial idioms of the language. He is also believed to have fully acquainted her with the laxity of French morals, and with the liberty which had been and still might be enjoyed by queens residing in the French metropolis. Maria The- resa likewise gave her long lectures upon poUtical and in- ternational topics, advising her in her choice of companions, and dictating to her the attitude she should assume in her double character of Archduchess of Austria and Queen of France. That she earnestly desired her daughter to become a bond of union between the two powers, it would be idle to doubt or deny ; but that she hoped to make of an im- pressible girl of fifteen years, an instrument of treason fatal to France and to him who would so shortly ascend the throne. MAEIE ANTOINETTE. 277 is neither probable nor possible. It is certain, however, that Marie Antoinette manifested sufficient interest in the fortunes of her country to deserve, in a measure, the contemptuous epi- thet of Autrichienne which her French subjects soon bestowed upon her. Marie Antoinette left her home eai'ly in April, 1770. The streets of Vienna, through which her route lay, were thronged with men and women anxious to extend to her their parting be- nediction. As she passed, her cheeks were seen to be bathed in tears, while she covered her eyes with her handkerchief or her hands. From time to time she leaned out of her carriage, to take one last look at the home which she could not expect soon to revisit, and which inexorable fate had decreed she should never more behold. She arrived at Compi^gne, in France, on the 14th of the month; she was there received by the whole royal family, and presented by Louis XV. himself to the daujihin, her betrothed ; on the 16th her marriage took place at Versailles. Twenty mil- lions of francs were spent in festivities and public rejoicings. The bouquet, with which the pyrotechnic display concluded, was formed of thirty thousand rockets, and the colored lamps with which the gardens of the palace were illuminated, were counted by hundreds of thousands. The city of Paris celebrated the nuptials of the prince a fort- night later, on the 30th of April. An exhibition of fireworks was given upon the Place Louis XV., and here, in the midst of disor- ders occasioned by the negligence of the police, and by the ob- struction of one of the principal outlets by masses of building stone, an indiscriminate massacre of unoffending persons took place at the hands of assassins believed to have been paid by parties opposed to the alliance. Twelve hundred men, women and children were either slain or wounded. Marie Antoinette wept when she learned the extent of the calamity ; the Parisians shrugged their shoulders, and contented themselves with saying 278 MAEIE ANTOINETTE. that a reign thus inauspiciously commenced could not be hap- pily consummated. The character of Marie Antoinette furnished a happy con- trast, not to say a compensating balance to that of the danj^hin ; her character, so to speak, completed his. While he was grave, retiring and contemplative, she was fond of gaiety, of the plea- sures derived from intimacy and social intercourse, of music and dancing. She drew him gently from his solitude into the amusements and frivolities of the palace, and sought to render him more at home in the midst of a court so shortly to be- come his own. She succeeded in gaining the aflection of the king, and adroitly avoided giving offence to Madame Dubarry, the favorite. She cherished a hearty detestation of the se- vere exactions of court formality, and never failed to throw them off when an opportunity occurred, to the indescribable horror of the Duchess of Noailles, the most rigid martinet of the kingdom, and to whom Marie Antoinette had given the name of "Madame Etiquette." She set the regulations of this functionary at defiance, and affected the manners of a pri- vate lady to a degree which, in a court so ceremonious, could not fail to excite remark. She would chase butterflies in the park in a manner anything but regal, and would drop in to dine with the younger sons of the king without having been invited. On one occasion, while enjoying the relaxation of a warm bath, she sent for a venerable priest, and questioned him with deep interest upon the situation and requirements of his parish. The alarmed ecclesiastic endeavored to break from the room upon beholding the lady's extraordinary plight, but the dauphiuess compelled him to remain a sufficient length of time for the escapade to become public, and thus reach the ears of Madame Etiquette. Marie Antoinette dressed with taste, danced with unusual grace, and was passionately fond of masked balls by moonlight. Her delight in this last amusement, and the extent to which she . MARIE ANTOINETTE. 279 profited by the freedom it afforded, produced their natural re- sult—her character was assailed, aud she was very soon regarded as an apt pupil in a dissolute and abandoned school. One of the most remarkable of these balls was given by M. de Fleury, am- bassador of Malta. His chateau and grounds were converted, for the occasion, into the Hades and Heaven of mythology. The guests first crossed the Styx, which was a temporary river con- taining one thousand pailsful of water, and embanked by wooden dykes. They were ferried across by a pantomimist from the opera, who seems to have borrowed the manners of Corydon rather than of Charon, with such exquisite grace and bland con- descension did he discharge his duties as boatman. Farther on was a Phlegethon of spirits of wine ; a tun of that inflammable de- coction was burned upon its bosom, while a score of masked and yelling devils danced upon its borders, to the din of gongs and other utensils of pandemonium. Beyond lay the Elysian Fields, a glowing expanse of flowers and illuminations. Tables laden with viands and potables, more solid than nectar and ambrosia, reminded the guests that their appetites were not those of disem- bodied shades. Groves, dark and labyrinthian, invited the me- ditative to contemplation and retrospection. The gossip of the day alleged that they were otherwise employed, and the fact that the meditators invariably went in couples may perhaps be cited in support of the allegation. Marie Antoinette was so delighted with this feature of the entertainment that she commanded the ambassador to give a second — an order with which he reluctantly complied, as the first had cost him forty thousand francs. On the 10th of May, 1774, Marie Antoinette became Queen of France. Louis XV. died at Versailles during a storm which shook the stately palace to its foundations ; and it was in the midst of a commotion of the elements such as neither she nor the young king had ever beheld, that they passed from their happy condition of irresponsibility to that weight of care which their early years were now summoned to support. 280 MAEIE ANTOINETTE. The accession of Louis XVI., of whom it was said that "in the midst of a corrupt court, he had led an incorrupt Ufe ; in the midst of irrehgion and atheism, had preserved a pure and enhghtened devotion ; who was personally economical in the midst of unbridled luxury," was hailed with acclamation. The country was loaded with oppressive taxes and ravaged by infidelity and licentiousness, the fruit of a long and infamous reign. The hope entertained by all classes that the new king would take measures to remove these evils, was expressed in the surname popularly given to him — le Desire ; but as this title implied a reproach upon his predecessor, he declined accept- ing it. He applied himself diligently to redress the grievances of the nation. One of his first acts was to exempt his people from the tax known as that of "happy accession" — the tax which we have already mentioned as exacted by Francis I. in favor of his mother, and by Henry II. in behalf of his mistress. Marie Antoinette likewise signalized her advent to the throne by a general amnesty of those who had offended her. To the Marquis of Pont^coulant, Major of the Life-guards, who, recol- lecting her declaration that she would never forget one of his epigrams at her expense, was preparing to hand in his resig- nation, she said: "The queen cannot remember the quari'els of the dauphiness, and I now request that the Marquis of Pont^- coulant will no longer recollect what I have blotted from my memory." Following the example of the king, she renounced the tax known as the " Queen's belt," as it was one which bore heavily upon the laboring classes. One of the court poets thus made the sacrifice the theme of a graceful compliment : "Renounce, fair queen, your noblest due? Renounce the bless'd, the regal zone ? Yet, what imports this belt to you — Since that of Venus is your own ?" Marie Antoinette soon interested herself in the political MAEIE ANTOINETTE. 281 affairs of the nation, and made her influence especially felt in the dismissal and appointment of ministers. The Duke d'Aiguil- lon, who held the two portfolios of War and of Foreign Affairs, and who had been the creature of Mme. Dubarry, shared the fate of the favorite ; exile was the portion of both. The other ministers were succeeded by men more worthy of the confidence of the nation. This general rotation in office was termed the St. Bartholomew of the Cabinet ; " not," however, according to a popular epigram, "a massacre of the innocent." The queen petitioned the king for a palace which should be exclusively her own, and " where she might do as she liked." He gave her the Petit Trianon at Versailles, as one peculiarly suitable to her, "as it had always been the country seat of the favorites of the kings." She accepted the gift on condition that his majesty would never visit it unless invited. Its name was changed to " le Petit Vienue" — one of the numerous cases in which Marie Antoinette merited her invidious sobriquet of Autrichienne. Here she amused herself-by dressing in white muslin, and enact- ing the dairymaid in a thatched cottage erected for the purpose. That which appeared a cottage, however, proved, upon a nearer inspection, to be a sumptuous ball-room. The demeanor of the queen towards the ladies of the royal family was neither prudent nor praiseworthy. She took from the dowager aunts their prerogative of doing the honors of the court, and left them at liberty to withdraw to Bellcvue and Meudon, like veterans invalided in the service. She offended Ukewise her royal sisters-in-law, by affecting to look down upon them not only from the throne which she tenanted as queen, but from the steps of that throne which she occupied as archduchess. Domestic discord and mutual recriminations flowed naturally from these hostile pretensions. The more seri- ous portion of the court, thus led to combine for mutual sup- port, formed, imperceptibly, a germ of opposition ; while the queen, collecting about her the younger and more thoughtless 36 282 MARIE ANTOINETTE. members of her society, spent her time in the frivolities and — it would be vain to deny it — in the excesses which characterized the epoch. AU her amusements were of a sort that lowered her in the public estimation. Marie Antoinette gave birth, on the 20th of December, 1778, to a princess, who was chi-istened Marie-Th^r^se-Charlotte. The king disguised his chagrin at the sex of the infant, and the court and the city rejoiced over the auspicious event. The queen kept her room on New Year's Day, and amused herself, in company with the king's younger brother, the Count d'Artois — after- wards Charles X. — in classing the ladies of her society according to a sliding scale of beauty. The hst was divided into seven categories or columns, at the head of which were the following descriptive adjectives : Beautiful, Pretty, Passable, Plain, Ugly, Hideous, Abominable. The queen was the only tenant of the column of the Beautiful ; two of her favorites were alone judged worthy to figure in the category of the Pretty ; while all the rest were indiscriminately huddled together under the contumehous designations of the Hideous and Abominable. The queen, upon her restoration to health, conceived a vio- lent fancy for an interdicted and unqueenly amusement — the private performances of the Montansier Theatre at Versailles. These were of a character so gross that they were never ex- hibited before the public proper, but took place at a late hour, after the regular audience had been dismissed. Marie Antoinette stole noiselessly from her bedroom, and, meeting her brother-in- law d'Artois, repaired to the forbidden rendezvous. One night, on returning to the palace in a carriage driven by the young prince himself, she found the gates closed and all access pro- hibited. "What!" exclaimed the royal coachman to the sentinel, "don't you know me, fellow?" "I do, your royal highness," was the reply, "but my orders leave me no discretion whatever." " Do you know me ?" said the queen, appearing at the carriage window. "Certainly, your majesty; but you cannot pass this MARIE ANTOINETTE. 283 gate." "Send for the captain of the guards," she returned, indignantly. That functionary made his appearance, but reite- rated the declaration of his subordinate. The queen implored and his royal highness menaced ; finally, she wept and he swore. The two truants succeeded at last in making their entrance through a remote and unguarded passage-way. Marie Antoi- nette groped her way to her room, and went to bed in the dark. She appeared before the king the next morning : " Sire, I have come to learn whether I am to be a prisoner in my own palace, and if I am to be again exposed to the humiliation of not being able to return when I please." "Madame," retorted the monarch, " I am the master of my own house ; and when I have gone to bed, I presume that the household generally have followed my example." Having dehvered this rebuke, he left the room, without giving the queen time to reply. Her majesty continued, during this period big with future events^the period in which Washington, Franklin, Lafayette, made their names familiar and immortal — an existence of frivo- lity which has, perhaps, never been equalled upon a European throne. She spent her mornings, during the winter of 1780, in attending the exercises of her illustrious brother d'Artois upon the tight rope. His highness was extremely ambitious of rival- ing his professor, Placide, and took daily lessons at the Petit Vienne, clad in knit tights, a spangled waistcoat, and a crimson girdle fringed with gold. The queen, with a select circle of ladies, applauded his elevations, his distortions, and his somer- sets. In the evening, she gambled or danced. She even made a histrionic attempt in an exhibition of amateur theatricals, and endured the indignity of being violently hissed by her royal husband, while performing the character of the Marquise de Clainville, in La Gageure Imprdvue. After this expression of opinion, Louis XVI. walked out of the theatre, adding a supjile- mentary criticism in the form of a sustained and well modulated yawn. 284 MARIE ANTOINETTE. The death of Maria Theresa imposed a temporary check upon the levities of the court of Versailles. The queen lamented in secret and in silence the loss of the empress her mother, while the palace assumed, with evident distaste, the emblems of an uncongenial mourning. The more ostentatious amusements of the royal circle were laid aside, but this unwilling deprivation was largely compensated for by the renewed zest with which they hidulged their passion for the gaming table. On the 25th of October, 1785, Marie Antoinette gave birth to a son — the wretched martyr Louis XVII. The king aban- doned himself to the most extravagant joy, taking the heir to the throne in his arms, and speaking of him and to him as Monseigneur and Monsieur le Dauphin. The king's brother, Monsieur de Provence, who was next in the line of succession, probably felt, for he certainly manifested, some little chagrin at this tardy continuation of the direct male line. Could he have lifted the veil of futurity, however, he would have seen how little the dauphin, that child of calamity, was to interfere with the rights he had learned to consider inalienable from himself. In the same year occurred the terrible affair of the queen's necklace. " Watch closely that miserable intrigue of the neck- lace," said Talleyrand, at this time a very young man, but thus early giving proof of his infallible perspicacity ; " I should not be at all surprised if it overturned the throne." From the records of the trial of Cardinal de Rohan, one of the implicated parties, before the parliament of Paris, we derive the following narrative, which must be considered as the official version of the intrigue. Messieurs Bohmer and Bossanges, jewellers, were the posses- sors of a diamond necklace valued at one million six hundred thousand francs. They caused it to be offered to the queen at that price ; her majesty ardently desired its purchase, but the king would not consent to so extravagant an application of the royal resources. In the household of the queen was a certain Madame de Lamotte, a woman of abandoned character, MARIE ANTOINETTE. 285 and the wife of a man equally notorious. These worthy peo- ple conceived the idea of obtaining the necklace for them- selves, and in the execution of their scheme did not hesitate to involve both the cardinal and the queen. They discovered in the streets of Paris a young woman named Leguay d'Oliva, whose resemblance to Marie Antoinette had struck them as remarkable. They easily induced her to lend them her aid, though it appeared that she was far from comprehending the full extent of her complicity. They dressed her in magnifi- cent garments, ensconced her in an arbor in the park of Ver- sailles, with directions to deliver a rose and a letter with which they furnished her into the hands of a nobleman who would accost her at the stroke of midnight. She was also to whis- per in his ear, as she gave him the letter, "You know what it means." The meeting took place ; the Cardinal de Rohan — the nobleman in question — received instructions to negotiate for the purchase of the diamonds by the queen, and M'Ue Leguay, having received from Madame de Lamotte one third part of the fifteen thousand francs promised her for her par- ticipation in the transaction, withdrew to Brussels, where she resided up to the period of her arrest. The cardinal, supposing that his instructions relative to the diamonds came from the queen herself, had an interview with the jewellers, from whom he obtained the necklace, promising payment in the queen's name, and himself signing notes for the full amount, payable at various dates. He then gave the neck- lace to Madame de Lamotte, to be by her transmitted to the royal piu-chaser. The cardinal's notes were not paid at matu- rity, and the jewellers, in their alarm, at once applied to the queen. She pleaded entire ignorance of the whole affair, which soon reached the ears of the king. The cardinal, M'Ue Le- guay and Madame de Lamotte were arrested and tried before the parliament of Paris. The substance of the argument of the cardinal's advocate was, that the Lamottes sold them in 286 MARIE ANTOINETTE. detached lots for their own account. The cardinal and M'Ue Leguay were acquitted of fraud, though the former was con- demned to pay the one million six hundred thousand francs ; Madame de Lamotte was sentenced to be whipped in the public streets, to be branded upon both shoulders, and to spend the rest of her life in the hospital of la Salpetribre. This, as has been said, was the turn given to the affair by the argument presented in behalf of the cardinal. It did not, however, convince the public, a large portion of whom chose to consider both the queen and de Rohan as implicated to the full extent of their apparent complicity. The episode of M'lle Leguay was looked upon as an adroit device, invented by the king himself to save the credit of his guilty wife, and to divert the gathering storm of indignation. In this point of view, the necklace was really placed in the hands of Marie Antoinette, the cardinal depending upon her for the means of redeeming his obligations. Whether it was that Calonne, the minister of finance and Marie Antoinette's creatxu-e, was un- able to supply such sums from the treasury without excit- ing suspicion, or whether the queen imagined that the jewel- lers would grant a renewal to their royal debtor — the notes successively fell due and an exposure was threatened. At this juncture, it is supposed that her majesty gave the diamonds to Madame de Lamotte with instructions to restore them, and that the faithless confidant betrayed the trust. It matters little whether the queen was really a party to the transaction or not, the effect produced upon the public mind by a trial involving her name and compromising the throne would have been the same in either case. It was fore- seen that the trial would end in establishing the queen's in- nocence, and that a scapegoat would be selected to bear the brunt of the outraged public sentiment. The harrowing details of Madame de Lamotte's punishment shocked the Parisians and kindled fresh disgust for Marie Antoinette. The necklace MARIE ANTOINETTE. 287 remained a rankling and festering thorn in the conscience of the nation, till it galled them into the high fever of revo- lution. Talleyrand was right when he coupled the fall of the monarchy and the diamonds of the queen. Madame de Lamotte, after an incarceration of nearly a year, effected her escape and sought refuge in London. An ambassador sent by Marie Antoinette to treat with her for the purchase of a compromising document in her possession, succeeded, after an anxious and difficult negotiation, in obtaining, for the sum of one hundred thousand francs, a manuscript history of the affair, written by Madame de Lamotte herself, which, however, she af- terwards published in full. Although the queen's previous conduct justified the French people in their assumption of her guilt in this unhappy affair, many weighty circumstances con- spire to relieve her of any share in it whatever. The cardinal and Marie Antoinette had long been enemies, and he was pro- bably the last person in Prance whom she would have made her accomplice in a dangerous intrigue of this nature. The jewellers, it may be added, were never indemnified for the diamonds which they placed in the grand almoner's hands ; and the heirs of the jewellers and the representatives of the car- dinal are still, in this present year, 1858, engaged in litigation before the imperial courts. The espousal by France of the cause of American Independ- ence and the consequent war with England, terminating in the Peace of Versailles, in 1783, added to the internal difficulties of the country, by increasing the public debt. The queen was popularly regarded as the cause of the embarrassments of the treasury, and she received, in consequence, the odious sobriquet of Madame Deficit. The pubhc discontent was augmenting rapidly, while a taste for republican principles had been dis- seminated by the result of the struggle in America, and by the persuasive advocacy of Rousseau. There seemed to be but one method left of procuring the means necessary for carrying 288 MARIE ANTOINETTE. on the government. This was to make the landed property of the clergy and nobles bear its due share of the national expenses — a tax from which it had hitherto been exempt. The Notables were convened in 1787 to discuss this delicate point ; they were dismissed the same year, after an ineffectual attempt to resolve the question. Calonne, and his successor, Brienne, successively resigned. Necker was recalled ; the king, by this step, comjjletely throwing himself, to the great dissatisfaction of the queen, into the arms of the popular party. By the advice of the new minister of finance, the States- General, a body composed of the representatives of the three estates of the kingdom, the clergy, the nobles and the people, were summoned to meet on the 1st of May, 1789. The deputies of the third estate soon acquired the ascendency, and, declaring themselves the sovereign legislators of the kingdom, assumed the title of National Assembly. The king, instead of pursuing a course of conciliation, chose, in deference to the advice of Marie Antoinette, to take two steps which, more than any other, hastened the course of the revolution. He proceeded to collect masses of troops in the vicinity of Paris and Versailles, in the hope of overawing the assembly ; and then dismissed from the public service the only man — Necker — whom the people judged worthy, at this juncture, to hold office. Paris at once burst into flame ; dense and turbulent masses of people thronged the streets, the enemies of the queen and court assuming the tri- colored cockade as their badge. The soldiers refused to fire upon them, and the army, fraternizing with the citizens, formed the fiiinous militia known as the National Guard, choosing Lafayette for their general. The Bastille was taken on the 14th of July, 1789 ; and then commenced the flight of the nobles, disguised under the apologetic designation of "emigration." The royal family, consisting of the king and queen, their daughter, born in 1778, their son, the dauphin, born in 1785, one of the king's brothers. Monsieur, and his sister, the Princess Elizabeth, were MARIE ANTOINETTE. 289 left at Versailles to stem the torrent alone. Marie Antoinette wrote the most pressing letters to the absentees : "if you love your king, your religion, your government, your country, return ! return ! ! return ! ! !" But these appeals were unavail- ing, and the deserted queen, who had so iU borne prosperity, and who had been the frivolous occupant of a dissolute throne, entered that phase of her career in which she was to become a heroine in adversity, an example in history, and a saint in martyrdom. The National Assembly, having usurped the legislative power, proceeded with zeal in the reformation of abuses. Louis XVI. virtually abdicated his divine right, and with his family remained at Versailles. Early in October, a report was circulated in Paris that the king was preparing to retire to Metz, there to negotiate for the suppression of the Assembly by the intervention of foreign arms. A turbulent multitude at once rushed to the Hotel de ViUe, clamoring for what they declared the two great necessaries of life, Bread and Blood. To proceed immediately to Versailles and prevent the king's depar- ture, and even to force him to return with them to Paris, was the determination at once adopted. The scene that followed was one of the most frightful and yet grotesque of the revolution. Men with faces blackened at the forge, their red sleeves rolled up to their elbows, armed with muskets pillaged from the Bastille or with rich Damascus blades stolen from the armorers, fish-women, decked in all their finery of yellow-washed chains and tawdry lace caps, women of infamous life, seated astride of cannons, their dishevelled hair entwined with branches plucked from the public gardens, their breath noisome with liquor and foul with oaths, — the whole ribald mass singing, shouting, cursing, laughing, dancing, stopping at every tavern to tipple, and recruiting tributary swarms at every corner — rushed along the quays and through the suburban town of Sevres to the verdant and smiling lawns of Versailles. The king, 37 290 . MARIE ANTOINETTE. returning from the chase, met the forerunners of the hideous assemblage. They were prevented, however, by the speedy arrival of the National Guard, under Lafayette, from proceeding to extremities that night. The king, distracted by opposing coimsels, urged the queen to fly. She replied that nothing should induce her, in such an extremity, to separate from her husband. " I am the daughter of Maria Theresa," she said, " and though I know that they seek my hfe, I have learned not to fear death." The rabble bivouacked in the park of the chateau. At six o'clock in the morning a furious mob besieged the avenues to the palace, and a gate being opened by persons bribed to betray their trust, rushed into the vestibides and antichambers of the royal apartments. Two members of the body guard freely gave up their lives in defence of the threshold confided to their vigilance. The queen escaped in the garments in wliich she had slept, treading the floor with unslippered and noiseless feet. The mob burst in, and found the bed stiU warm. In their rage and disappointment, they pierced it with their bayonets. The body guard remained firm in its allegiance to the royal family. Fifteen of their number were taken, and the two who had been slain were decapitated, their bloody heads being im- paled upon pikes and carried in triumph thi'ough the streets of Versailles. Three others, with the halter already about their necks, were saved by the intercession of the king, who appeared upon the balcony, and, with trembhng lips and faltering voice, promised to return to Paris that day, there to reside for the future. The queen, regardless of danger to herself, hkewise appeared upon the balcony, with her son and daughter. The mob, bent upon trying her courage to the utmost, and intuitively sensible of the comfort she must derive from the presence of her children, determined she should come forth alone. A terrific shout rent the air: "Away with the children! the queen! the queen alone!" Marie Antoinette withdrew for an instant, placed MARIE ANTOINETTE. 291 her children in the king's arms, and then reappeared upon the balcony unattended. Though expecting instant death, she was serene and fearless. This noble contempt of personal danger filled the fierce spectators with admiration ; a deafening cry of " Yive la Reine !" succeeded to the mutinous bacchanal, and for a moment the revolution was arrested. These events had transpired at an early hour in the morning ; at noon, the royal party and their escort set out for Paris. The horrible multitude, now elated by triumph and maddened by the sight of blood, accompanied them on their way. The heads of the two slaughtered , guardsmen, elevated aloft and borne in front of the procession, served as the banners of the motley army. A ragged urchin stood on each step of the carriage of the queen. Ujion the cannon, dragged as before by the popu- lace, sat the same abandoned women, yet more dishevelled and riotous than ever, from the effects of their bivouac in the park. Oaths, obscene jests, unearthly yells, mingled with revolutionary lyrics, drunken calls to arms, and frantic rigadoons, were the sights and the sounds which met the eye and the ear of the shrinking queen during the seven long hours that the journey lasted. Loaves of bread, stuck upon the points of lances, were waved on high, as the emblems of that plenty which the king's return was expected to produce. "Hurrah for the baker!" shouted the crowd, referring to the king; "hurrah for the baker's wife and the little ajaprentice !" they added, thus desig- nating the queen and the dauphin. At last they reached the Tuileries, once a palace, now a prison. For a century, it had been uninhabited, having been abandoned for Marly, Versailles and St. Cloud. The miserable captives, shivering with cold and faint with hunger, found neither fire nor food within its cheerless walls ; they slept that night upon couches hastily prepared in the basement. Marie Antoinette now passed two years of misery. Sur- rounded by spies, reminded by daily experience that the walls 292 MARIE ANTOINETTE. had ears, unable to take the air except in the garden of the palace, and then subject to insult from a brutal populace, the unhappy queen devoted herself to the education of her children, Marie-Therbse and Charles-Louis. She was often in peril of assassination at the hands of her own guards. But her character was purified and elevated by these trials, and she redeemed the levity of her youth by her fortitude under affliction. The threats of the people and the tyranny of the Assembly became at length so outrageous, that the king resolved to seek safety in flight. The Marquis de Bouillee, military commander at Montmedi, in the province of Lorraine, was stiU devoted to the royal family, and the province under his command was yet faithful to its sovereign. A plan of escape was formed, a large portion of the details being intrusted to the cautious and skillful management of the queen herself. Bouillee formed a camp at Montmedi of the most steadfast of his troops, upon the pretext of attempting a military movement on the frontier. Detach- ments were posted along the route the fugitives were to follow, the suspicions of the people being lulled by the explanation that they were to protect the passage of a convoy of military stores expected from Paris. The passport of a Russian lady about to leave Paris with her family was procured for the use of the party. Madame de Tourzel, the governess of the royal children, was disguised as the Russian lady, the dauphin and his sister as her two daughters, Marie Antoinette as their governess, and the king and the Princess Elizabeth as their attendants. On the night of the 20th of June, 1791, the whole party made their escape, without attracting notice, from the Tuileries. A carriage was waiting for them at a short distance, and this they succeeded in reaching. They passed the barrier-gate in safety, and were soon upon the high road to Chalons. The dauphin, too young to comprehend the danger, fell asleep at his mother's feet. The spirits of the travellers rose as they left Paris behind them, and as they approached, on the third day, the scene of their MARIE ANTOINETTE. 293 anticipated rescue, they relaxed their precautions, and became fatally confident of the happy issue of their scheme. An accident to the carriage had delayed them somewhat, and had deranged the carefully calculated time table of their progress. The courier who was to precede them three hours, was, on the third day, but five minutes in advance, the whole party being four hours behind hand. This caused the scouts awaiting them at an appointed station to suppose their flight had been prevented, and as their own movements were exciting suspicion, they reluctantly withdrew. They had hardly departed when the royal carriage arrived. Its occupants were thus thrown into the utmost perplexity and dismay ; they kept on, however, and arrived without molestation at Chalons. Here the king was recognized in spite of his disguise ; those who made the discovery, however, had the humanity to keep the secret. The next station was Ste. Menehould, and here the relay master, a man named Drouet, who had been to Paris the year before and had seen the king, was struck by the resemblance of the Russian lady's servant to his majesty. Not being convinced, however, he compared his features with the engraving of the royal head upon a fresh issue of assignats, several of which he had lately received. Doubting no longer, he made a hasty survey of the other travellers ; he successively discovered the queen, the dauphin, and the Princess Elizabeth. Fearing to give the alarm, lest an attempt to capture them might be bafiled by the assist- ance of the royal troops which he doubted not were hanging about the town, he determined to precede them on their route and intercept them at the station of Varennes. After the car- riage had started, he rode ofi" upon a swift horse to sound the alarm. The royal party, not being expected at Varennes, found neither horses nor troops in readiness. Drouet had ample time, therefore, to arouse the town. The road was barricaded and the carriage surrounded. The travellers were rudely seized, and 294 MARIE ANTOINETTE. compelled to alight ; they were conducted close prisoners to the house of the mayor — a magistrate who varied his municipal functions by keeping a small variety store. His wife was moved to tears by the intercessions of Marie Antoinette, who exhausted all her powers of fascination ; but the woman, though deeply touched, rephed that she could not befriend her without en- dangering her own life. The miserable fugitives were obhged to retrace their steps amid the barbarous insults of an infuri- ated mob. Two soldiers, who had sought to save the queen, were chained upon the outside of the carriage. Pitchforks and scythes were brandished about the heads of its occupants, and provincial functionaries assembled to utter maledictions upon their fallen sovereign. A nobleman, who Uved upon the route, made his way through the rabble to kiss the king's hand ; the savages instantly tore him limb from limb. Two deputies, sent by the Assembly to meet the king and queen, joined them at Epernay. Barnave was so won by the dignity and resigna- tion of the queen that he ever afterwards supported her cause. Potion, his colleague, was coarse and brutal, and taking the dauphin upon his knees, twisted his hair till he cried. The queen snatched the boy away, saying : " Give me my son; he is accustomed to being treated tenderly, and does not rehsh such rudeness." The captives at last entered Paris ; the Na- tional Guard abstained from presenting arms, and the sullen and ominous silence of the crowd presaged the horrible catastrophe which was to close the fearful drama. The treatment of the prisoners was now worse than before. They were strictly watched within the palace, and if they desired to breathe the fresh air, were compelled to do so before the hour fixed for opening the gates of the gardens to the pubUc. Marie Antoinette slept with guards posted at her bedside, though sepa- rated from them by a glazed partition. One night, they entered her room and sat down upon her couch. Her blood, whether that of a French queen and an Austrian archduchess, or merely MARIE ANTOINETTE. 295 that of an outraged woman, must have boiled at this atro- cious indignity. Her hair now turned white, her eyes sank in their sockets, and the beautiful hoyden of the groves of Marly became, at the age of thirty-seven, a broken and hopeless in- valid. On the 20th of August, 1792, the Tuileries were attacked, the Swiss guard massacred, and the venerable palace sacked by a drunken mob. The Assembly hastily passed a decree, dethroning the king and overturning the monarchy. The whole royal family were present at this terrible session ; the dauphin sleeping in his mother's arms, his sister and Madame Elizabeth weeping piteously, whilst the king and queen retained, even in this extremity, the wonted dignity of their demeanor under affliction. The Temple, a gloomy building formerly occupied by the Knights Templars, was appointed by the Assembly for their residence, and upon the third day of their expulsion from the Tuileries they were established within its fatal walls. Their confinement was not irksome at the outset. They were allowed to spend their time together, and experienced a sad pleasure in the absence of care and their relief from re- sponsibility. Their faithful servant, Clery, attended them. The king instructed the dauphin, his son, in the duties and virtues which would best ornament the throne. The queen and Ma- dame Ehzabeth made the beds and swept the floors. They breakfasted at nine, and walked in the garden at one ; exposed, however, to the insulting jests of the officers of the watch. In the evening, they read aloud ; Racine and CorneiUe were the favorite authors of the ladies and children, the king preferring Hume's History of the English Rebellion, seeming to discover in the fate of Charles I. a melancholy foreshadowing of his own. The dauphin said his prayers to his mother at night, lowering his voice when the commissioners were near, that they might not hear him invoke, in behalf of his unhappy pa- rents, the aid of the Almighty against the National Convention. 296 MAKIE ANTOINETTE. The municipality now redoubled their precautions. The captives were deprived of the use of pen, ink and paper, that they might not communicate with the emigrants. Sewing materials were next removed, lest they might serve as the means of correspondence. Their knives, scissors and bodkins were seized, that the prisoners might not scratch desperate appeals for aid upon crockery or glass. An old woman who had been appointed to assist them in the coarser duties of the house- hold, went crazy, and as she was proved to have lost her senses while in the service of the queen, Marie Antoinette was ordered to take charge of her. A teacup having been misplaced, the municipality accused Madame Elizabeth of having stolen it. The king underwent his trial in January, 1793, and was condemned to death. He met his fate heroically on the 21st. The historian Mignet has given in a brief sentence the moral of this fVightful tragedy: "Louis XVI. inherited a revolution from his ancestors. He perished the victim of passions which he had had no share in exciting ; of those of his supporters to which he was a stranger ; and of those of the multitude which he had done nothing to awaken. History will write, as his epitaph, that with more strength of mind, he would have been a sovereign without an equal." The execution was over at half-past ten ; and a band of assassins, singing a triumphal song beneath the windows of the Temple, first informed the queen of the accomplishment of the judicial murder. She fell upon her knees, and prayed that she might soon rejoin the martyr. The royal family were now treated with increased severity. They had no servant whatever, and performed for each other the duties of menials and hirelings. A plot for the deliverance of the queen was formed, but she refused to profit by the chances of escape it afforded. "What- ever pleasure it would give me to leave this place," she said, " I cannot consent to be separated from my son. I can feel no enjoyment without my children ; with them I can regret MAKIE ANTOINETTE. 297 nothing." Their food was now of the coarsest kind ; their clothing was rude and squalid. The few ai'ticles of furniture which had been allowed them were removed, and their pockets were searched for money. Eighty-four louis d'or, given by the Princess Lamballe to Madame Elizabeth, were taken from her. The jailers were allowed and even encouraged to taunt them with their misfortunes. But the inhumanity of the government was not yet exhausted. Marie Antoinette had been tortured as a wife, but was still capable of suffering in her feelings as a mother. On the 3d of July, the Convention ordered that the dauphin should be taken away and placed under the care of the infamous Simon, an agent of Robespierre. "What am I to do with the boy?" asked Simon ;" banish him ?" "No." " Kill him ?" "No." "Poison him?" "No." "What then?" " Get rid of him !" Marie Antoinette surrendered her son without resistance, beyond the unavailing remonstrance of tears. She recommended submission to him ; but for two days he refused to eat. His childish instinct told him he should never see his mother on earth again. But by his father's death, he knew he had become Louis XVII. of France, and, young as he was, he resolved to behave as became a king, though friendless, fatherless and forlorn. The broken-hearted queen was completely prostrated by this cruel separation. Her only consolation was to gaze through a crack in the waU, where she was allowed to stand, and watch her son, during his daily walk upon a remote tower of the prison. She was happily ignorant of the horrible treatment which he afterwards underwent, in furtherance of the infamous purpose of the government. He was kept in a state of abomi- nable filth, deprived of air, exercise and proper food. He was made to drink intoxicating hquors, and taught to sing blasphe- mous songs. His constitution was soon undermined, his body becoming diseased and his mind obtuse. The Convention resolved to hasten his death by subjecting him to the horrors 38 298 MARIE ANTOINETTE. of solitary confinement. He was left alone in a huge and deso- late room, with no occupation by day and no light by night. His bed was not made for six months, and he wore the same shirt till it fell in rags from his back. Madame de Stael pleaded for him in vain. " Women of France," she wrote, " I appeal to you ; your empire is over, if ferocity continues to reign ; your destiny is ended, if your tears do not prevail. Seek out the royal infant, who will perish if bereaved of his mother, from the unheard-of calamities which have befallen him." Death relieved the unfortmiate prince in Jime, 1795. He had sur\'ived his mother two years. A month after her separation from her son, Marie Antoinette was removed by order of the Convention from the Temple to the Conciergerie. She was here confined, in the midst of thieves and cut-throats, in a damp and gloomy cell, watched day and night by an ofiicer of poUce. Her only amusement was to knit a pair of garters from the ravellings of a bit of filthy carpet, using two goose quills for needles. She was indebted to the jailer and his wife for the clothes she wore, and even for the food she ate, for that which the government supplied was unfit, not merely for a queen, but for any human being. On the 15th of October, Marie Antoinette was conducted before the Revolutionary Tribunal — a body which has been aptly described as " a court of assassins and a jury of cannibals." The audience were little better, the hall having been packed with mercenaries of both sexes — the scum and dregs of the city. The queen was dressed in black ; her manner was dignified, even tranquil ; her features were ravaged by suffering, but nothing could alter the serene majesty of her demeanor. She had resolved, upon the first interrogatory which should be ad- dressed to her, to make the following reply : "I have no answer to make you. Assassinate me, as you did my husband." But upon second thought, she deemed it best to follow the example of the king, and to perish leaving her murderers without pretext MARIE ANTOINETTE. 299 and without excuse. Circumstances aided her in this resolve, and Marie Antoinette closed her career on earth with two of the most magnificent exhibitions of fortitude ever given to a woman to display. "The awful moment will live forever," says her foster-brother Weber, "when Marie Antoinette, flushed with indignation, made her assassins turn pale in their tribunals, and extorted shouts of admiration from the wretches hired to insult her." Fouquier Tinville, the public accuser, had drawn up the act of arraignment. It shows the embarrassment under which he had labored ; he had been directed to denounce without proof, and in endeavoring to obey this order, he betrayed the weakness of his cause ; his murderous instincts had abandoned him in presence of his queenly victim. He opened the court by asking the prisoner her name. "Marie Antoinette of Lorraine," she replied, "late Archduchess of Austria." "Your rank?" "Dowa- ger of Louis XVI., late kmg of France." "Your age?" "Thirty- eight years." The accusation was then read. It described Marie Antoinette, the widow of Capet, as having been, like Fr^degonde and Brunehaut, the blood-sucker of the French, and charged her with having embezzled, in connection with Calonne, many millions of French money ; with having sent a portion of it to her brother the Emperor of Germany, and thus enabled him to make war upon the republic. After these capital charges, came others, either puerile or atrocious : she had chewed bullets, said the act, for the Swiss guard ; she had been an unnatural mother ; she had worn too many shoes ; she had carried pistols in her pockets ; she had forestalled the markets and monopolized the necessaries of life ; and empty bottles had been found under her bed. In support of these charges, the public accuser produced a pair of scissors, some needles and thread, and a lock of the king's hair. He concluded by declaring that the French people had been too long the victim of the infernal machinations of this modern Medicis ; and while invoking a speedy retaliation for her 300 MARIE ANTOINETTE. crimes, hoped that justice would be tempered by conscience and humanity. The trial lasted nearly twenty-four hours, during Avhich the august victim obtained hardly one moment of repose. It was the object of her judges to break down her mental powers and means of resistance by reducing her physical strength : they gave her insufficient food, and when, during the heat of the discussion, she asked for water, and a compassionate gendarme, upon her second request, gave her a glass, he was severely reprimanded, and even lost his place. The defenders of the queen, Chauveau-Lagarde and Trou9on-Ducoudray, fiUed their dangerous office with zeal and courage, convinced, however, of the uselessness of their endeavors. The case was committed to the jury at four in the morning of the 16th of the month ; after an hour of seeming deliberation, they returned a unanimous verdict of guilty. The president, Hermann, asked the queen if she had anything to say before judgment was pronounced. Without condescending to answer, she signified by a motion of her head that she had not. The sentence was then read. Marie Antoinette, unmoved and mi- daunted, turned to Ducoudray, and, placing two gold rings and a lock of hair in his hand, desired him to give them to the surviving members of her family. She was conducted back to her prison, the drums eveiywhere beating to arms, to assemble the forces which were to occupy the streets leading to the scaffold. She now wrote in her cell the memorable and touch- ing letter to Madame Elizabeth, which that unfortunate lady was never destined to read. She then threw herself upon her pallet, and covering her feet with a blanket, slept tranquilly for two hours. She was disturbed at seven o'clock by the entrance of a constitutional or republican priest, who bore an order for ad- mission from the Revolutionary Tribunal. The queen declined accepting his services. He persisted, saying, " Your death is MARIE ANTOINETTE. 301 soon to expiate" — "My errors," interrupted the queen, "not my crimes !" The priest's manner became more respectful, though he refused to leave her, as he said, till the axe had done its work. Marie Antoinette now cut off her hair with her own hands, and, arrayed in white, she awaited the fatal hour. At eleven o'clock, the executioner and his assistants burst into the dungeon. The queen's hands were bound be- hind her back, and she was placed, with the executioner and the priest, in an open cart. She was denied the privilege which had been accorded to the king, of proceeding to the scaffold in a closed vehicle. Her last wish, as she had just written to Madame Elizabeth, was to meet her fate with the same fortitude that her husband had shown ; she gathered all her strength, and perhaps was never so truly majestic as in this closing scene. As the dismal procession started, the priest said to her, " Courage, madame ! now is the time for courage !" "Courage!" she replied, "I have shown it for years; think you I shall lose it at the moment when my sufferings are to end ?" The National Guard lined each side of the route, which was purposely extended, and lay through the most populous quar- ters of the city. For two long hours did the cart continue to advance. The multitude gave vent to their savage joy in oaths, jests and songs, and even taunted the queen with the epithets, " Fredegonde !" " Medicis !" " Messahna !" As she passed the church of St. Roch, the spectators who crowded the steps insisted upon stopping the vehicle, that they might have a better and longer view of the victim ; but the patience and resignation of Marie Antoinette were exhausted, and shrugging her shoulders and muttering the words "vile wretches" be- tween her teeth, she turned her back upon them. The scaf- fold was erected upon the spot which, nine months before, had been moistened with royal blood. As she approached it, a few tears fell from her eyes upon her knees. The daughter 302 MARIE ANTOINETTE. of the Ccesars ascended the steps with unshaken courage. " Adieu, once again, my children," she said, "I go to join your fathei'." She met her fate as became a queen and the daughter of Maria Theresa. The body was buried beside that of the king, and consumed with quick lime. The bones were transferred to St. Denis twenty years later, upon the resto- ration of the Bourbon dynasty, and expiatory chapels were built in unavailing atonement for a crime, the memory of which neither time nor regrets can ever efface. " Thus died," says Lamartine, " this queen, frivolous in pros- perity, sublime in misfortune, intrepid upon the scaffold ; the idol of the court, and afterwards the personal enemy of the Revolu- tion. This Revolution the queen neither foresaw, nor under- stood, nor accepted ; she rather irritated and feared it. The peo- ple vuijustly cast upon her all the hatred with which they perse- cuted the ancient regime. They attached to her name all the scandal and treason of the court. Rendered omnipotent with her husband by her beauty and her wit, she invested him with her unpopularity, and dragged him by her love, to destruction. The charming and dangerous favorite of an antiquated, rather than the queen of a new monarchy, she had neither the pT-estige of ancient royalty — respect ; nor that of a new reign- — popularity ; she only knew how to fascinate, to mislead, and to die." " The manners of the queen," says Alison, " accelerated the Revolution ; her foreign descent exasperated the public discon- tent. If in early youth her indiscretion and familiarity were such as prudence must condemn, in later years her spirit and magna- nimity were such as justice must admire. She was more fitted for the storms of adversity than for the sunshine of prosperity. Years of misfortune quenched her spirit, but did not lessen her courage ; in the solitude of the Temple, she discharged, with ex- emplary fidelity, every duty to her husband and her children, and bore a reverse of fortune, unparalleled even in that age of calamity, with a heroism that never was surpassed." MARIE ANTOINETTE. 303 Thomas Jefferson has recorded an unfavorable opinion of Marie Antoinette, based upon personal observation. " This an- gel," he writes, " as gaudily painted in the rhapsodies of Burke, with some smartness of fancy, but no sound sense, was proud, disdainful of restraint, indignant at all obstacles to her will, eager in the pursuit of pleasure, and firm enough to hold to her desires or perish in their wreck. Her inordinate gam- bling and dissipations, with those of the Count d'Artois and others of her clique, had been a sensible item in the exhaus- tion of the treasury, which caUed into action the reforming hand of the nation ; and her opposition to it, her inflexible perverseness and dauntless spirit, led herself to the guillo- tine, drew the king on with her, and plunged the world into crimes and calamities which will ever stain the pages of mo- dern history. I have ever believed, that had there been no queen, there would have been no revolution. I should have shut up the queen in a convent, putting harm out of her power, and placed the king in his station, investing him with limited powers, which, I verily believe, he would have honestly exercised, according to the measure of his understanding." The belief that had there been no queen, there would have been no revolution, was doubtless an opinion which Mr. Jefler- son himself lived to modify. But that Marie Antoinette's in- fluence in the terrible scenes in which her destiny involved her, was to hasten, intensify and embitter a revolution which was in any case inevitable, there can be but little doubt. As a queen and the head of society, she has left an example which it would be unsafe and immoral to follow ; as a wife, a mother and a woman, when, with the loss of her throne she fell from her high estate, her heroism, resignation and forti- tude were such as to endear her to the world, and to make her story memorable in all tongues and to all time. THE MAID OF 8ARAG0SSA The city of Saragossa unfurled the royal standard of the Bourbons early in the year 1808; Napoleon at once dispatched General Lefevre to reduce the rebellious capital. It was not in a situation to sustain a siege ; its defences consisted of an iU- constructed wall, twelve feet high and three broad, its continuity interrupted from time to time by a crumbling house, originally,* perhaps, a fort or an arsenal, but now dilapidated by the effects of time and neglect. The neighboring churches, convents and public buildings were all in too ruinous a condition to be ser- viceable in repelling the assailants. The city was populous, con- taining fifty thousand inhabitants, but among them there were but two hundred and twenty regular soldiers ; and the entire artillery, when collected and prepared for action, consisted of sixteen old and inefficient cannon. A hill, called El Torrero, overlooked the city at the distance of a mile, and upon this com- manding site the French planted a portion of their siege-train and batteries. They commenced their operations in a careless but confident manner, well aware of the slender resources of the city, and asserting that it was inhabited by priests, cowards and women. They did not dream that this city of cowards was to make the 39 305 306 THE MAID OF SARAGOSSA. most desperate and heroic resistance known in the annals of warfare, and that from among the women of whom they thus hghtly sjioke, was to arise a deUverer for the Sjjaniards. For months the invaders were rejjulsed at each successive assault; the besieged endured every misery and made every sacrifice which it was possible for patriotism to suggest or heroism to achieve. On the second of June, a Saragossan, bribed by French gold, fired a powder magazine within the walls. The inhabi- tants, involved in the falling ruins, stunned and bewildered by the explosion and the conflagration that ensued, were paralyzed and powerless ; the French pushed thek trooi^s forward to the gates. A massacre rather than a battle followed ; the ram- parts were choked with dead bodies, and defence seemed no longer possible. "At this desperate moment," we are told, "an unknown maiden issued from the church of Nuestra Seiiora del Pilar, habit- ed in white raiment, a cross suspended from her neck, her dark hair dishevelled, and her eyes sparkling with supernatural lus- tre. She traversed the city with a bold and firm step ; she passed to the rampart, to the very spot where the enemy were pouring in to the assault ; she mounted to the breach, seized a lighted match from the hand of a dying engineer, and fired the piece of artillery he had failed to discharge. Then, kiss- ing her cross, she cried, 'Death or Victory !' and reloaded her cannon. Such a cry, such a vision, could hardly fail to awaken enthusiasm ; it seemed that heaven had brought aid to the just cause ; her cry was answered — ' Viva Agostina !' and the French were driven back." Southey, in his " Peninsular War," gives the following de- scription of the same scene : " The sand bag battery before the gate was frequently destroyed, and as often reconstructed under the fire of the enemy. The carnage here throughout the day was dreadful. Agostina Zaragoz, a handsome woman of the lower class, about twenty-two years of age, arrived at this battery with THE MAID OF SARAGOSSA. 307 refreshments, at the time when not a man who defended it was left ahve, so tremendous was the fire which the French kept up against it. For a moment the citizens hesitated* to re-man the guns. Agostina sprang forward over the dead and dying, snatched a match from the hands of a dead artilleryman, and fired off a six-and-twenty pounder ; then jumping upon the gun, made a solemn vow never to quit it alive during the siege. The Zaragozans rushed into the battery ; the French were repulsed here and at all other points with great slaughter." General Lef fevre, mortified at this reverse, resolved to reduce Saragossa by famine, while harassing it by bombardment from El Torrero. The horrors of these measm'es were somewhat alle- viated to the inhabitants by the intrepidity, omnipresence and benevolence of Agostina. She visited and tended the wounded, encountering every species of danger to rescue men and women from tumbling walls or exploding bombs. She supplied food to the sick and starving. But in the meantime, the French had, step by step, rendered themselves masters of half the city, and Lefevre, confident that the hour of triumph had arrived, sent to Palafox, the Spanish general, the following laconic summons to surrender: "Head-Quarters, Santa Engracia : Capitulation." Pa- lafox received this dispatch in public, and turning to Agostina, who stood near, asked her what answer he should return. Mak- ing her words his own, he replied with equal laconicism: "Head- Quarters, Zaragoza : War to the knife." Nothing in the history of war, says the writer whom we have quoted, has ever been recorded to resemble the consequences of this refusal to sur- render. One row of houses in a street would be occupied by the Spanish, the opposite row by the French. A continual tempest of balls rent the air ; the town was a volcano ; the most revolt- ing butchery was carried on for eleven days and eleven nights. Every street, every house, was disputed with musket and poig- nard. Agostina sped from rank to rank, everywhere taking the most active part. The French were gradually driven back, and 308 THE MAID OF S A R A G S S A . the dawn of the 17th of August saw them relinquish their long- disputed prey and take the road to Pampeluna. "Saragossa," says Wordsworth, in his Convention of Cintra, "has exemplified a melancholy, yea, a dismal truth, yet consola- tory and full of joy, that when a people are called suddenly to light for their liberty and are sorely pressed upon, their best field of battle is the floors upon which their children have played ; the chambers where the family of each man has slept ; upon or under the roofs by which they have been sheltered ; in the gar- dens of their recreation ; in the street or in the market-place ; before the altars of their temples, and among their congregated dwellings, blazing or uprooted." Palafox, after rendering proper funeral honors to the com- batants who had perished, endeavored to recompense the few who survived. He bade Agostina choose her own reward, pro- mising, in the name of the city, that her request, whatever it might be, should be cheerfully granted. She modestly asked to retain the rank she had usurped, that of an engineer of artil- lery. She was at once made a sub-lieutenant, and was authorized to wear the arms of Saragossa. She was known thenceforward as Agostina Zaragoz, or the Maid of Saragossa. In November of the same year, the siege was renewed by the French under Marshals Moncey and Mortier. The place was invested, all the outworks were carried, and a furious bombard- ment ensued. The besieged fought with desperate valor, Agos- tina now tending the wounded, and now aiding in manning the batteries. She took her former station at the PortiUo, with the same cannon she had served before ; and once said to Palafox, as he was passing, "See, General, I am with my old friend." She frequently headed assaulting parties, sword or knife in hand. Though constantly exposed, she was never wounded. She was once, liowever, nearly suffocated by being thrown into a ditch and covered with bodies of the dead and dying. The general assault was made on the 27th of January, 1809, and the French THE MAID OF SARAOOSSA. 309 established themselves in the breaches. "Long after the walls of Zaragoza fell, the city itself resisted. The stern contest was continued from street to street, and from house to house. In vault and cellar, on balcony and in chamber, the deadly warfare was waged without any intermission. By the slow and sure pro- cess of the mine the assailants worked their terrific path, and daily explosions told loudly of their onward -way. Meantime the bombardment was fierce and constant, and the fighting incessant. Every house was a post; the crash of falhng buildings was con- tinual. While the struggle was yet fierce and alive, came pesti- lence into those vaults and cellars where the aged, and the women and the children, lay sheltered from the storm of shells. They sickened in vast numbers, and died where they lay. Thus fell Zaragoza, after a resistance of sixty-one days !" It capitulated in February, 1809. Agostina was taken prisoner by the French, and, hj|,ving caught the infection already so fatal to her countrymen, was placed in the hospital. Not being expected to recover, little attention was paid to her. Feeling herself reviving, however, she disguised her symptoms of convalescence, and soon after effected her escape. She seems to have removed subsequently to Seville, and it was there that Lord Byron saw her, walking sedately upon the Ala- meda, or Prado, decked with the orders and medals bestowed upon her by the Junta. Nothing is known of her after life. She died in obscurity, in 1857, at the age of 71 years, and was buried with mihtary honors. The stanzas in Childe Harold, in which Byron has commemorated her valor and immortahzed her story, are so famUiar that we should not quote them here, were it not for the fact that her negligent countrymen have left to foreigners the duty of chronichng her deeds, thus rendering the English poet, as it were, her sole biographer, and perhaps the only author, with the exception of Southey, in whose works her memory will live. The verses, too splendid ever to become hackneyed, are as follows : 310 THE MAID OF SARAGOSSA. " Is it for this the Spanish maid, arons'd, Hangs on the willow her unstrung guitar, And, all unsex'd. the anlace hath espous'd, Sung the loud song and dar'd the deed of war ? And she whom once the semblance of a scar Appall'd, an owlet's 'larum chill'd with dread, Now views the column-scattering bay'net jar. The falchion flash, and o'er the yet warm dead Stalks with Minerva's step where Mars might quake to ti-ead ! "Ye who shall marvel when you hear her tale. Oh ! had you known her in her softer hour — Mark'd her dark eye that mocks the coal-black veil — Heard her light, lively tones in lady's bower — Seen her long locks that foil the painter's power, Her fairy form, with more than female grace, — Scarce would yon deem that Saragossa's tower Beheld her smile in danger's Gorgon face, Thin the closed ranks, and lead in Glory's fearful chase. "Her lover sinks — she sheds no ill-tim'd tear; Her chief is slain — she fills his fatal post ; Her fellows flee — she checks their base career; The foe retires — she leads the rallying host ; Who can appease like her a lover's ghost? Who can avenge so well a leader's fall? What maid retrieve when man's flush'd hope is lost? Who hang so fiercely on the flying Gaul, Foil'd by a woman's hand before a batter'd wall?" But the memory of the Spanish maid has not been perpet- uated in song alone. Wilkie has commemorated her glory upon canvas, and Mr. J. Bell in marble. The fine picture of "The Defence of Saragossa," by the former, painted in 1827, in Madrid, and afterwards engraved, contains, standing in con- spicuous positions, the figures both of Palafox and Agostina, and professes to give their portraits. That of the latter, however, is doubtless somewhat idealized. The statue by Mr. Bell, which was exhibited at the British Academy in 1853, represents the heroine standing on the ramparts ; a cannon-ball has just killed a THE MAID OF SARAGOSSA. 311 priest— the ecclesiastics having shared nobly in the defence of the place — from whose dying hand she has snatched a crucifix, which she holds up to incite the people to further resistance ; in her other hand is a lighted fusee, with which she is about to fire a cannon. At the base of the figure is the spirited answer which she dictated to Palafox — Guerra al cuchillo. To Enghshmen alone is the Maid of Saragossa indebted for the preservation of her honorable renown — to Southey, Byron, Wilkie and Bell. The silence of the French is easily explained ; the indiiference of the Spanish, though it may be accounted for, is nevertheless to be deplored. Researches made at the request of the author of these pages in the libraries of Madrid,^ reveal the singular fact that no authentic record of her history or devo- tion has been preserved in the Spanish language — a fact suggestive to those who may have an opinion yet to form upon the state of Spanish hterature and upon the vitality of Spanish patriotism. ' By his Excellency Don Oalderon de la Barca, Gayaugos, and General San-Eoman. iiu^m l-^: ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. It is with unfeigned satisfaction that we yield to the dictation of the chronological progression to which our plan confines us, and cross the ocean westward in quest of the next subject for our gallery. True, we have once done so already ; but it was at a summons less gratifying than that which now constrains us. Having sketched, in rajiid succession, the lives of the Assyrian queen, the Roman matron, the Grecian wife ; the Spanish sovereign, the French peasant, the English benefactress ; the Indian princess, the Scottish martyr, the Spanish heroine ; we turn with unaffected pleasure to the inspiring life of the American missionary, whose most affecting story we have now to chronicle, pursuing its wondrous vicissitudes from the school-house of Massachusetts to the jungles of Rangoon. Anne Hasseltine was born in the village of Bradford, Mas- sachusetts, on the 22d of December, 1789. Of her infancy we know nothing, and but little of her youth. At the age when her character began to develop itself, she manifested great activity of mind, a hvely and restless disposition, and an eager relish for amusement and recreation. With aU this, she was fond of books and was an assiduous student. She was educated at the Academy of her native town. Here she first displayed those 40 SIS 314 ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. qualities which so distinguished her in later life — strength of mind, precision of thought, and indefatigable perseverance. Her memory was retentive, her disposition ardent, her resolu- tion unconquerable. Her schoolmates regarded her as their superior, while her preceptors believed her destined to attain unusual excellence, and perhaps achieve some enviable renown. The momentous change in her character which led her towards the path in life she ultimately chose, took place in her fifteenth year. She was then engaged in a round of the pleasures natural to her age, in frequent attendance at balls and assemblies, and neglecting even the commonest duties of that religion in which she had been brought up. A casual glance at a book upon female education, in which the terrible denunciation, " She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth," was the first sentence which met her eye, amazed her by the applicability of the passage to herself. She became serious and made good resolutions for the future. But an invitation to a First of January ball drove her scruples from her mind, and she was one of the gayest of the party who danced the New Year in. Her conscience reproached her, but she quieted the officious monitor by the reflection that as she had broken her resolutions, it was evident she could not keep them, and that therefore it was useless to make others. During the first four months of 1806, according to her own account, she scarcely spent a rational hour. The time set apart for study was spent in preparing the even- ing's toilet and in devising games and froUcs of which she was to be the heroine and the queen. Her gaiety so far surpassed that of her friends, as to suggest a vague apprehension that she had but a short time in which to pursue her career of folly, and would be suddenly cut off. A revival of rehgion now drew the attention of the village to serious affairs. Miss Hasseltine attended a course of conference meetings, and under their influence, realized the importance of leading a religious life. She lost all rehsh for amusement, ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 315 became melancholy and dejected, and often wept in secret over her deplorable condition. She felt that she was led captive by Satan at his will. She sought counsel at the hands of her preceptor, and received from him encouragement to persevere. Her conversion seems to have been an arduous one, her soul often rising in rebellion, and, as she deemed, her worldly aspira- tions requiring the mortification of the flesh by a rigidly sparing diet. She shut herself up in her room and longed for annihila- tion ; could she have destroyed the existence of her soul with as much ease as that of her body, she asserts that she should quickly have done it. But she was not long left in this distress- ing state. Her prayers were at length answered ; her pride was humbled in the dust, and in sorrow and contrition she laid her soul at the feet of Christ, pleading his merits alone as the ground of her acceptance. This beneficent change was thorough and permanent. She at once entered zealously upon the duties of rehgion, and with the exception of one or two fluctuations in the ardor of her devotion, due to her natural susceptibility and to her extreme youth, she never gave her friends reason to reproach her with indifference, though she often accused herself of unfaithfulness and hardness of heart. She publicly professed herself a disciple of Christ, in September, 1806, becoming a member of the Congregational church in Bradford. "I am now," she wrote in her journal, "renewedly bound to keep His commandments and walk in His steps. Oh, may this solemn cove- nant never be broken !" The following passage, written upon her seventeenth birth- day, is remarkable, not only as a clear and concise statement of her feelings on that anniversary, but as a specimen of her powers of composition: "Dec. 22 — I am this day seventeen years old. What an important year has the past been to me ! Either I have been made, through the mercy of God, a partaker of divine grace, or I have been fatally deceiving myself, and building upon a sandy foundation. Either I have, in sincerity and truth. 316 ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. renounced the vanities of this world, and entered the narrow path which leads to life, or I have been refraining from them for a time only, to turn again and relish them more than ever. God grant that the latter may never be my unhappy case ! Though I feel myself to be full of sin and destitute of all strength to persevere, yet if I know anything, I do desire to lead a life of strict religion, to enjoy the presence of God and honor the cause to which I have professedly devoted myself. I do not desire my portion in this world. I find more real enjoyment in contrition for sm, excited by a view of the adorable moral perfections of God, than in all earthly joys. I find more solid happiness in one evening meeting, where divine truths are impressed upon my heart by the divine influences of the Holy Spirit, than I ever enjoyed in all the balls and assemblies I have attended during the seventeen years of my Hfe. Thus, when I compare my present views of divine things with what they were, at this time last year, I cannot but hope I am a new creature, and have begun to live a new life." Early in the following year, yielding to the request of several of her townsmen and to her own desire to be useful to others, she took charge of a few scholars. She opened the first day's exercises with prayer, " astonishing the little creatures by such a beginning, as probably some of them had never heard a prayer before." She was thus engaged, at intervals, in various towns, at Salem, Haverhill, Newbury. Though always anxious to en- lighten the minds and form the manners of her pupils, her first desire was to plant in their infant souls the seeds of a religious life, and this portion of her duty she executed with the zeal and fidelity of one who must give an account of her stewardship. In the month of June, 1810, a general association of the Congregationalist clergymen of Massachusetts was held at Brad- ford. A paper, urging the importance of establishing, in the United States, a mission to the heathen, and signed by four young clergymen anxious personally to engage in the arduous ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 317 work, Adoniram Judson, Samuel Nott, Samuel J. Mills, and Samuel NeweU, was presented to the associatiou. A special committee, directed to report upon the document, recognized the imperative obligation and importance of missions, and sug- gested the appointment of a board of commissioners for foreign missions, for the purpose of devising the ways and means of promoting the spread of the Gospel in heathen lands. Mr. Judson made the acquaintance of Miss Hasseltine during the session of the association, and soon afterwards made her an offer of marriage, including, of course, a proposition to accompany him upon the mission to India to which he expected to be speedily appointed. Miss Hasseltine felt deeply the difficulty and delicacy of her situation. On the one hand, her affection for her parents, the ties of home and country, the general opposition of public opinion to the enlistment of women in the missionary cause — one universally deemed wild and romantio and altogether in- consistent with prudence — and her natural hesitation to assume an office so responsible, combined to deter her from accept- ing the commission ; while, on the other, her attachment to Mr. Judson, her desire to follow his fortunes whatever they might be, her adventurous and intrepid spirit, all operated to induce her to consent. The question of duty was independent of these considerations, and she gave it a long and prayerful consideration. "An opportunity has been presented to me," she writes in her journal, "of spending my days among the heathen, in attempting to persuade them to receive the Gospel. Were I convinced of its being a call from God, and that it would be more pleasing to Him for me to spend my life in this way than in any other, I think I should be willing to relinquish every earthly object, and in full view of dangers and hardships, give myself up to the great work." In October, she wrote thus : "I have at length come to the conclusion that if nothing in Provi- dence appears to prevent, I must spend my days in a heathen 318 ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. land. I am a creature of God, and He has an undoubted right to do with me as seemeth good in His sight. Jesus is faithful : His promises are precious. Were it not for these considerations, I should, with my present prospects, sink down in despair, especially as no female has to my knowledge ever left the shores of America to spend her life among the heathen ; nor do I yet know that I shall have a single female companion. But God is my witness that I have not dared to decline the offer that has been made me, though so many are ready to call it a wild, romantic undertaking. If I have been deceived in thinking it my duty to go to the heathen, I humbly pray that I may be vmdeceived and prevented from going. But whether I spend my days in India or America, I desire to spend them in the service of God, and be prepared to pass an eternity in His presence." Miss Hasseltine's determination was strongly disapproved by many whose opinions she had been accustomed to respect. Some doubted her capacity, some criticised her motives. " I hear," said a lady whose conscience was evidently under easy control, "that Anne Hasseltine is going to India. What for, may I ask?" "Because she thinks it her duty," was the reply; "would not you go, if you thought it your duty?" "Perhaps I might," responded the lady, " but then I should not think it my duty." The consent of Mr. and Mrs. Hasseltine was now to be obtained. The letter of Mr. Judson to them upon this subject is, perhaps, the most remarkable application ever addressed to parents in reference to parting with a beloved daughter. After stating that he had been referred by her to them, he proceeds thus : "I have now to ask whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring, to see her no more in this world ; whether you can consent to her departure for a heathen land, and her subjection to the hardships and sufferings of a missionary life ; whether you can consent to her exposure to the dangers of the ocean ; to the fatal influence of the southern ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 319 climate of India ; to every kind of want and distress ; to degi-ada- tion, insult, persecution, and, perhaps, a violent death ? Can you consent to aU this for the sake of Hun who left His heavenly home, and died for her and for you ; for the sake of perishhig immortal souls ; for the sake of Zion, and the glory of God ?" It has heen truly said that a man capable of writing thus, under such circumstances, covdd be actuated by none of the ordinary motives which govern human actions, and that a father giving up a daughter to such an alhance and such a destiny, could be moved by no impulse inferior to the constraining love of Christ. In fact, nine-tenths of mankind are totally incompetent to appreciate, or even to comprehend, the sacrifices and submission of the Hasseltines, parents and daughter, in this painfid con- juncture. The Board of Commissioners met at "Worcester in September, 1811, and Mr. Judson and several others earnestly solicited an immediate appointment. Notwithstanding the insufficiency of its funds, the Board resolved to establish a mission in Birmah, and accordingly commissioned Mr. Judson and four of his associates. The marriage of Mr. Judson and Miss Hasseltine took place in the Congregational church of Bradford, on the 5th of February, 1812. The next day, Mr. Judson and his partners in the enterprise were ordained as missionaries in the Tabernacle church in Sa- lem ; and on the 19th of the same month, Mr. and Mrs. Judson and Mr. and Mrs. Newell sailed from Salem, in the brig Caravan, for Calcutta. " America !" exclaims the departing exile, " my native land, must I leave thee ! Must I leave thee, Bradford, my dear native town ! Must I leave my parents, my sisters and brothers, my friends beloved and all the scenes of my early youth ! Yes, I must leave you all, for a heathen land, an uncon- genial clime. Farewell, happy, happy home, but never, no, never to be forgotten !" It may be well to state here the reason why Mrs. Judson is regarded as the first American female missionary, notwithstanding 320 ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. the fact that Mrs. Newell accompanied her. It is that Mrs. Jud- son resolved to devote herself to the cause at a period earher than that at which Mrs. Newell came to a similar determination. Mrs. NeweU's journal shows this ; after mentioning Anne Hasseltine's resolve, she wrote : " How did this news affect my heart ! Is she willing to do all this for God ; and shall I refuse to lend my httle aid, in a land where divine revelation has shed its clearest rays ? Great God, direct me, and make me in some way beneficial to immortal souls !" We shall have occasion to mention, mcident- aUy, the dispensation which rendered Harriet Newell the proto- martyr of American missions. The passage was attended by no incidents other than those usual in a voyage to the tropics. The 27th of February having been appointed by the well-wishers of the mission on land as a day of fasting and prayer for its prosperity, the day was kept as such by the missionaries at sea. The captain, a young man, placed all the resources of the ship unreservedly at their disposal. Divine service was held regularly in the cabin on Sundays. Out of deference, perhaps, to the character and errand of their passen- gers, the officers and seamen refrained from the use of profane language. The sudden change of the climate as the vessel approached the torrid zone, produced a debihtating effect upon the health and spirits of Mrs. Judson. Want of exercise was assigned as the direct cause of this depression, and jumping the rope suggested as the most efficient cure. This animating remedy was tried with success, and during the remainder of the voyage Mrs. Judson enjoyed perfect and unremitting health. On the one hundred and twelfth day, the Caravan came in sight of land, the towering mountains of Golconda being just dis- cernible in the distance. The ship at last entered the river Hoogly, a branch of the Ganges. Here Mrs. Judson seems to have been truly enraptured at the lavish prodigality of nature. The tropical odor rising from the islands is described as fragrant beyond description ; the pakn groves, the bowers of mango trees, ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 321 the Hindoo cottages built in the form of hay-stacks beneath over- shadowing trees, the brilliant green rice fields, the neat English country-seats, the indolent, half-clad natives — all these striking features of the land which she was now to call home, passed suc- cessively before her wondering gaze. On the 18th of June, the missionaries landed at Calcutta. They proceeded the next day to Serampore, fifteen miles up the river, the seat of the English mission, where they were invited to stay till their associates in the ship Harmony, now due from Philadelphia, should arrive. They were welcomed to India by the venerable Dr. Carey, then engaged in translating the Scriptures into the Bengalee dialect. The Serampore Baptist mission, under his care and that of Messrs. Marshman and Ward and their wives, was in as flourish- ing a state as the bare toleration afforded it by the East India Company would allow. Ten days after the arrival of the Caravan, Messrs. Judson and Newell were summoned to Calcutta and ordered to quit the comitry without delay. The government had resolved to permit no further extension of a system which had already taken deeper root than they desired. Yexatious as this order was, it was impossible to avoid comphance, and Mr. and Mrs. NeweU sailed on the 1st of August for the Isle of France. As the vessel could accommodate but two passengers, Mr. and Mrs. Judson were allowed to remain two months longer in Calcutta. During this interval, they became convinced that their former sentiments upon the subject of Baptism were unscriptural, and after a long and conscientious examination of the subject, adopted Baptist principles and were baptized on the 6th of September, in the British chai^el. This change of opinion greatly enhanced the difficulties of their situation. It sundered their connection with the Congregationalist Board upon which they were dependent, while it offered no guaranty that the Baptist societies at home, which had yet made no provision for the maintenance of mission- aries, would decide to ailbrd them aid. They were, moreover, 41 322 ANNE HASSBLTINE JUDSON. undetermined in what locality to fix their permanent abode ; they could not stay in Hindostau, and the Bu-man Empire, where they had originally intended to settle, was now the seat of war between the English and Birman governments. Should these difficulties be arranged, it was the desire of Mr. Judson to estabhsh himself at Rangoon, the capital of a kingdom of seventeen millions of inhabitants, and where there was but one solitary missionary, Mr. Felix Carey. While they were deliberating, the Bengal government sent them a peremptory order to depart, and to embark on board a vessel bound to England. Preferring to follow Mr. and Mrs. Newell to the Isle of France, they found a captain just weighing anchor for that place, and courageous enough to give them pas- sage, though without a permit from the police. They embarked with Mr. Rice, who had arrived in the Harmony, at the dead of night, and dropped down the river for two days, when a govern- ment dispatch arrived, forbidding the pilot to proceed fm-ther, as passengers were on board who had been ordered to England. A succession of adventures now kept the missionaries in constant anxiety. On one occasion, Mrs. Judson was compelled to take a boat, rowed by six natives, and proceed in seai-ch of their bag- gage. The river was rough, the sun scorching hot, and Mrs. Judson entirely alone, in the midst of men who could administer no other comfort than might be contained in the words, " Cutcha pho annah, sahib." The whirligig of time, which may reasonably be supposed to be a kaleidoscope capable of producing the most amazing combinations, has brought about few changes more striking than are embodied in the dissolving views of Mrs. Jud- son's career. The daughter of New England parents, the pupU and preceptress of a Massachusetts seminary, afloat, at the age of twenty-three years, upon a Hindoo river, in a Calcutta boat manned by Hoogly watermen, and proceeding in quest of baggage which the authorities might have confiscated or an alarmed cap- tain thrown overboard — such a picture of the vicissitudes of life ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 323 certainly belongs to that volume which treats of the truth that is stranger than fiction. The police of Calcutta finally relented, and Mr. and Mrs. Jud- son and Mr. Rice were furnished with a pass to the Isle of France, on board the vessel they had quitted, the Creole. They em- barked, and prepared for a residence upon the island by studying the French language, which still prevailed there, notwithstanding its capture by the English. The few passengers besides them- selves proved totally uncongenial, and spent their Sundays in playing cards and chess on deck, while the missionaries held wor- ship in the cabin. Distressing news awaited them on their arrival ; Harriet Newell, who had given birth to an infant during her passage from Calcutta, had died shortly after reaching land. "0 Death," writes Mrs. Judson, "could not this infant mis- sion be shielded from thy shafts !" Mrs. Newell had died happy and composed, the first American to perish in the discharge of what she felt to be a duty towards the heathen. She had received her physician's condemnation with uplifted hands, exclaiming : " 0, glorious intelhgence !" Her remains were buried in a solitary patch of ground in the environs of Port Louis, and at a later period a monument was erected over her grave, by the American Board of Commissioners. Mr. Judson and Mr. Rice now endeavored to render them- selves useful in the land where accident had brought them — the former by preaching to the English garrison, the latter by conduct- ing worship in the hospital. Early in March, 1813, Mr. Rice sailed for the United States for the purpose of awakening an interest in foreign missions among the Baptist churches ; his success was such that in a Uttle over a year, the Baptist General Convention was formed in Pliiladelphia. One of the first acts of this body was to appoint Mr. and Mrs. Judson as their missionaries, leaving it to them, however, to select the field of their labors. But long before this intelligence reached them, they had determined to attempt a mission at Penang, a Malay island on the coast of 324 ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. Malacca. Unable to procure a passage thither, they sailed in May for Madras. There, but one vessel, the Georgiana, was advertised as about to sail, and that one bound to Rangoon, whither it had been their intention to proceed when they first left America. They embarked on board of this vessel on the 22d of June. Mrs. Judson, knowing that there was not a single Euro- pean female in all Birmah, engaged an Englishwoman at Madras to accompany her. By a strange fatality, and as if Mrs. Judson was providentially destined to share alone with her husband the glories and perils of the Birman mission, this woman fell dead upon the deck as the vessel weighed anchor. They arrived in July, after a perilous passage. Nothing remained of the numerous English attempts to establish a mission at Rangoon, with the exception of the teak- wood mission house in the environs, then inhabited by Mrs. Carey, the native wife of the last incumbent of the station. Mrs. Judson was sick, and was carried, seated in an arm-chair, from the ship to the house, by four natives, who supported the chair by means of bamboo poles borne upon their shoulders. Mr. Judson walked by her side. On reaching the mission house, she was hospitably cared for, and speedily restored to health. Her first aim, as well as that of Mr. Judson, was to acquire the language. This she found extremely difficult, having none of the usual aids except a fragment of a manuscript grammar, begun by Mr. Carey, and six chapters of Matthew, likewise translated by him. They hired a teacher, whose duty, at first, as he did not understand English, was to pro- nounce the Birman names of such objects as his pupils pointed out. To acquire the names was in this way comparatively easy, but to familiarize themselves with the verbs and with the struc- ture of the language was a labor requiring the utmost diligence and perseverance. The studies which it was thus necessary to pursue before they could attempt any communication with the natives, were from time to time agreeably varied. In September, the devoted couple ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 325 commemorated the Saviour's death by communing at his table ; and on the 11th of December, Mrs. Judson visited, for the first time, the wife of the Viceroy. While waithig for this lady, the favorite of his highness, his inferior wives examined her gloves, bonnet and ribbons in mute curiosity. When the vicereine appeared, smoking a long silver pipe, they withdrew to a dis- tance and crouched upon the ground. Her highness was affable and polite. She inquired if Mrs. Judson was her husband's favorite, that is, if she was one of many, and the sultana of his harem. At last the viceroy himself came in, clad in a long robe and carrying an enormous spear. He, too, was courteous, and carried his condescension so far as to ask Mrs. Judson to join him in a glass of rum. In April, 1814, Mr. Carey returned from Calcutta, bringing with him letters from home. Mrs. Carey was drowned in August of the same year, and Mr. Carey left Eangoon for Ava. Mr. and Mrs. Judson were therefore once more alone. The latter wrote thus to a friend at this period : " Could you look into a large open room which we call a verandah, you would see Mr. Judson bent over his table covered with Birman books, with his teacher at his side, a venerable looking man in his sixtieth year, with a cloth wrapped round his middle and a handkerchief round his head. They talk and chat- ter all day long with hardly any cessation. My own teacher comes at ten, when, were you present, you might see me in an inner room, at one side of my study table, and my teacher the other, reading Birman, writing, talking, etc. I have many more interruptions than Mr. Judson, as I have the entire management of the family and servants. This I took ujion myself, for the sake of Mr. Judson's attending more closely to the study of the language ; yet I have found by a year's experience, that it was the most direct way that I could have taken to acquire the lan- guage. As I am frequently obliged to speak Birman all day, I can talk and understand others better than Mr. Judson, though he knows more about the nature and construction of the language." 326 ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. Of the difficulties which they had to encounter, Mr. Judson thus writes : " When wc take up a western language, the simi- larity in the characters, in very many terms, in many modes of expression, and in the general structure of the sentences, its being in fair print — a circumstance we hardly think of — and the assistance of grammars, dictionaries and instructors, render the work comparatively easy. But when we take up a language spoken by a people on the other side of the earth, whose very thoughts run in channels diverse from ours, and whose modes of expression are, consequently, all new and uncouth ; when we find the letters and words all totally destitute of the least resem- blance to any language we had ever met with, and these words not fairly divided and distinguished, as in western writing, by breaks and points and capitals, but run together in one con- tinuous line, a sentence or paragraph seeming to the eye but one long word ; when, instead of characters on paper, we find only obscure scratches on dried palm leaves, and called a book ; when we have no dictionary and no mtcrpreter to explain a single word, and must get something of the language before we can avail ourselves of the assistance of a native teacher, ' hie opus, hie labor est.' " Another difficulty which they experienced in this early stage of their mission, was the impossibility of finding synonymes in the Birmese dialect for many of the words and ideas which form the very basis of the Christian rehgion, such as God, heaven, eternity, etc. The Birman idols pass through various gradations of exist- ence, from a fowl to a deity, and arrive at perfection and happi- ness upon ceasing to exist. In Mrs. Judson's time, Gaudama, their last deity, had been in bliss, that is, in a state of annihila- tion, for about two thousand years. His believers, however, with a wonderful inconsistency, still worshipped a hair of his head, for which purpose they repaired to an enormous pagoda, in which it was enshrined, every eighth day. Mrs. Judson avers, and it will easily be believed, that it was exceedingly difficult to convey to ANNE UASSELTINE JUDSON. 327 such people any idea of the true God and the way of salvation by Christ. The people often said to her, after an ellbrt to under- stand her teacliiugs — -"Your religion is good for you, ours for us." In January, 1815, Mrs. Judson, being in somewhat feeble health, embarked for Madi'as, hoping to profit by a change of au'. She would not allow Mr. Judson to leave the studies and labors of his mission. The viceroy permitted her to take a native wo- man with her, thus violating, in her behalf, the strict law wliich forbids Birmese females to quit the country. The captain of the ship refused to accept any remuneration for her passage, and the English physician at Madras declined, with courteous wishes for her welfare, the seventy rupees which she sent him upon her restoration to health. She returned to Rangoon in the summer, and in September, gave birth to her first child, a son. She had no physician nor attendant whatever, except Mr. Judson. With that fervor of devotion to the cause wliich characterized her, she consecrated her infant to the service in which its parents were engaged. " May his hfe be spared," she wrote, " and his heart sanctified, that he may become a missionary among the Birmans." Her prayer was not answered ; the child died at the age of eight months, and was buried in the mission garden. The afflicted mother, seeking to know with what end the dispensation was sent, found it in the consciousness that her heart was too much bound up in her chdd, as she felt him to be her only source of innocent recreation in that heathen laud. She bowed to the stroke, but prayed that the lesson might be so improved that God would stay His hand, saying, "It is enough." The prospects of the missionaries now perceptibly brightened. Mr. and Mrs. Hough arrived at Rangoon in October, bringing with them a printing press and types. Two tracts, in Birmese, were published ; one containing a view of the Christian reli- gion ; the other being a catechism for children. Of the former, one thousand copies were printed, and of the latter three thousand. An edition of eight hundred copies of Mr. 328 ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. Judson's translation of the Gospel of Matthew was commenced. In March, 1817, Mr. Judson was visited by the first inquirer after divine truth that he had yet seen in Birmah — for he could not conscientiously apply that epithet to the many in- different persons who, from curiosity or other motives, had casually conversed with him upon the subject. By August, Mrs. Judson had collected a little society of females, to whom she read the Scriptures on the Sabbath. One of these pupils declared her belief in Christ, asserting that she prayed to him every day. It appeared, subsequently, that this woman, being of a prudent turn of mind, and wishing to be prepared for any emergency, also believed in Gaudama, whose hair, enshrined in the pagoda, she continued to worship with fervor. A few children committed the catechism to memory, and amused them- selves by frequently repeating it to each other. Mr. Judson now felt himself qualified to enter upon a more extended sphere of exertion, by publicly preaching to the natives in their own idiom. He set sail, in December, for Chittagong, in Arracan, for the purpose of obtaining the aid of one of the native Christians residing there. An accident to the vessel compelled her to change her course — a disaster which subjected Mr. Judson to the most annoying delays, prevented him from accomplishing the object he had in view, and kept him seven months from the scene of his labors. On his return, in July, 1818, he learned that events of an alarming nature had occurred at Rangoon, and that the preservation of the mission had been due to the firmness and fearlessness of his wife. We return to the period of his de- parture, the previous December. Mrs. Judson lived without molestation for some weeks, being an especial favorite of the viceroy and his family. The vicereine frequently sent her an elephant, upon which she accompanied her on her excursions. On these occasions Mrs. Judson conversed with her principally on the subject of religion, and, at parting, gave her translations, tracts and catechisms. When Mr. Judson ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 329 had been gone three months, a native boat arrived, twelve days out from Chittagong, bringing the intelligence that Mr. Judson's ship had not arrived there. Upon the heels of this distressing information, the viceroy and his friendly family were summoned to Ava, the cajDital, leaving Mrs. Judson absolutely without friends in the government of Rangoon. A menacing order was now sent to Mr. Hough, requiring him to appear at the court- house and give an account of himself. The teachers, domestics and adherents of the mission were thrown into consternation by this message, so unlike any they had ever received from the au- thorities. Mr. Hough was subjected to a most frivolous examina- tion, the scribes of the court registering, with the utmost forma- lity, his answers to inquiries as to the names of his parents and the number of his suits of clothes. This was kept up for two days, but when he was again summoned on the third day, Sun- day, Mrs. Judson resolved to appeal to the newly appointed vice- roy. Her teacher drew up a petition, and Mrs. Judson, gaining access to his highness, boldly presented it to him. The viceroy at once commanded that the American Christians should be no more molested, and it appeared that Mr. Hough's examination was owing to a suspicion that he was a Portuguese Catholic, three of whom were known to inhabit Rangoon, and whose expulsion from the country had been ordered by the king. Though the mission was thus preserved, its influence was greatly impaired, only twelve of Mr. Judson's thirty Sunday hsteners daring to re- turn to the mission house again. The cholera commenced to rage at this period, and as the season was unusually hot, its ravages were correspondingly violent. The natives, attributing the infec- tion to evil spirits, endeavored to expel them by firing cannon in the streets and beating their houses with clubs. Through the exertions of Mrs. Judson, however, not an individual among the adherents of the mission succumbed to the epidemic. Mr. Judson had now been absent nearly seven months, and no tidings whatever had been received from him smce his departure. 42 330 ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. Rumors of war between England and Birmah now compelled such British ships as lay at auchor at Rangoon to leave the harbor, while the imminence of an embargo rendered it impossible that others should arrive, thus destroying the only chance of Mr. Jud- son's return. But one ship remained, and in this, Mrs. Judson and Mr. and Mrs. Hough embarked for Bengal. A defect m the stowage of the cargo resulted in their detention, and Mrs. Judson, regarding this interruption of her voyage as providential, resolved once more to confront the p.erils which beset the mission, and, though ignorant whether her husband were alive or dead, disem- barked and retm-ned to her abandoned home. Her courage and constancy were rewarded by the safe return of Mr. Judson within the ensuing fortnight. The prospects of the mission were further brightened by the arrival, the following year, of Messrs. Coleman and Wheelock with their wives, from Boston, bearing credentials from the Baptist Commissioners. Mr. Judson, believing himself now quahfied to preach in pub- lic, and being furnished with sufficient tracts and translations, resolved to erect a small chapel or zayat, in which to preach and to converse with all comers upon rehgious subjects. It was located near the mission, and upon a road much frequented by the worshippers m a neighboring j^agoda, and hence known as Pagoda Street. This attempt was a hazai'dous one, inasmuch as the tran- quillity the missionaries had hitherto enjoyed was owing to the retirement in which they had lived, and as this favor would in all probability be withdrawn, should they enter upon a more ambitious career. The zayat, built of bamboo and thatch, was nevertheless opened in April, 1819, and the first public exhorta- tion was delivered to an inattentive and disorderly audience of fifteen persons. Following the custom of the native preachers of the coimtry, Mr. Judson sat upon the floor, speaking and dis- tributing tracts in that posture. From time to time, an inquirer would come and spend the greater part of the day, promising to return, but usually faihug to do so. Mrs. Judson presided, on ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 331 these occasions, at the female school in an interior apartment. On the 30th of April, a man named Moung Nau, or Nau the mid- dle-aged, and destined to be the first Birman convert to Christ- ianity, visited the zayat. He paid but little attention and excited no hope. But upon a subsequent visit, he expressed sentiments of repentance for his sins and faith in the Saviour, to whom he proposed to adhere forever and worship aU his life long. He was baptized on the 19th of June, the event causing the most heartfelt joy to all interested in the mission. On the following Sunday, they sat for the first time at the Lord's table with a con- verted Birman ; and Mr. Judson enjoyed a privilege to which he had been looking forward for years — that of administering the sacrament in two languages. From this time forward, the zayat was constantly attended by throngs of visitors, many impelled by idle curiosity, a few by a spirit of serious inquiry. Mr. Judson was often advised to obtain the patronage of the king — the Lord of Life and Death — the Owner of the Sword ; as the new religion, if approved by him, would spread with rapidity through the realm ; but if, as at present, it remained in open hostility to the estabhshed faith, converts could not hope to escape persecution and might reasonably expect death. In October, two other Birmans presented themselves at the zayat, professing their faith in Christ, and requesting to be bap- tized, but in private. Mr. Judson advised them, as they had so httle faith as not to be willing, if necessary, to die in the cause, to wait and reconsider the matter. They came again, earnestly re- questing baptism, not absolutely in private, but at least after sunset and in a retired spot. Mr. Judson felt that he could not con- scientiously decline the request, and appointed the morrow for the ceremony. " The sun," he writes, "was not allowed to look upon the timid, humble profession. No wondering crowd crowned the overshadowing hill. No hymn of praise expressed the exulting feeling of joyous hearts. Stillness and solemnity pervaded the scene. We felt, on the banks of the water, as a little, feeble, sohtary 332 ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. band. But, perhaps, some hovering angels took note of the event with more interest than they witnessed the late coronation." It now seemed evident, that for a vigorous and effectual prose- cution of theu' labors, the favor of the monarch must be obtained. Mr. Judson and Mr. Colman procured a boat and started in De- cember, 1819, upon their voyage of five hundred miles up the Irra- waddy to Ava, the seat of government. Aware of the necessity of accompanying their petition with an offer of presents, they took with them a fine edition of the Bible in six volumes, each volume being covered with gold leaf and inclosed in a rich wrapper. They obtained access to his Birmese majesty, who listened with apparent interest to the reading of the petition. His answer, delivered through an interpreter, was as follows : "In regard to the objects of your petition, his majesty gives no order. In regard to your sacred books, his majesty has no use for them ; take them away." Thus repulsed and discouraged, the mis- sionaries returned to Rangoon. Mr. Judson now continued his labors with success, and in July, the number of baptized converts amounted to ten, only one of whom was a woman. Mrs. Judson was suffering from a severe attack of Uver complaint, and her husband accompanied her to Calcutta, and from thence to Serampore ; the appearance of favorable symptoms induced them to return to the scene of their usefulness in January, 1821. But a dangerous relapse convinced Mrs. Judson that recovery was impossible beneath a tropical sun, and induced her to embark in August for America, by way of Calcutta and Great Britain. She arrived in New York in September, 1822. Her Indian constitution could not bear the extreme contrast presented by a New England winter, and she was compelled to forego the delightful intercourse with her parents and sisters in which she had hoped to spend the few months of her sojourn, and to seek the more temperate meridian of Baltimore. The Rev. Dr. Wayland, who at this period became intimately acquainted with her, thus speaks of her in his Memoir ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 333 of her husband : " I do not remember ever to have met a more remarkable woman. To great clearness of intellect, large powers of comprehension, and intuitive female sagacity, ripened by the constant necessity of independent action, she added that heroic disinterestedness which naturally loses all consciousness of self in the prosecution of a great object. These elements, however, were all held in reserve, and were hidden from pubhc view by a veil of unusual feminine delicacy. To an ordinary observer she would have appeared simply a self-possessed, well-bred and very intelligent gentlewoman. A more intimate acquaintance would soon discover her to be a person of profound religious feeling, which was ever manifesting itself in efforts to impress upon others the importance of personal piety. The resources of her nature were never unfolded until some occasion occurred which demanded delicate tact, unflinching courage, and a power of resolute endurance even unto death. When I saw her, her complexion bore that sallow hue which commonly follows resi- dence in the East Indies. Her countenance at first seemed, when in repose, deficient in expression. As she found herself among friends who were interested in the Birman mission, her reserve melted away, her eye kindled, every feature was lighted up with enthusiasm, and she was everywhere acknowledged to be one of the most fascinating of women." In spite of the opinion of her London physicians, that she could not live if she returned to the East, Mrs. Judson, some- what improved in health, embarked at Boston, in June, 1823, for Calcutta. The voyage was propitious, and at the close of the year she rejoined Mr. Judson at Rangoon. She found the mission at the height of its prosperity — Mr., now, by the action of Brown University, Dr. Judson, having completed the trans- lation of the New Testament, having gathered a church of eighteen native members, and having been strengthened by the arrival of Mr. and Mrs. Wade, and the return of Mr. and Mrs. Hough. More than all, the "religion-propagating teachers," as 334 ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. they were called, had been left unmolested, and their efforts had not as yet, at least, awakened the spu-it of persecution. Dr. Price, a newly arrived member of the mission, having been summoned, in his medical character, to the capital, Dr. Judson accompanied him, and having found favor with the em- peror, resolved to leave the church at Rangoon under the care of his associates, and attempt the establishment of a station at Ava. He felt impelled to this step not only by the natural desire of bearing the message of salvation to "the regions beyond," but by the conviction that the principle of toleration, exhibited in the sufferance of a Christian church in the metro- polis, would thus be established for the whole empire. While awaiting the return of Mrs. Judson to Rangoon, he made the necessary preparations for their passage up the river, aad on her arrival these were so far completed that her baggage was taken from the ship to the Irrawaddy boat. The ascent of this noble stream through the heart of a region consecrated to the worship of idols, was at once interesting and painful to Mrs. Judson. Their progress was slow, as the current ran rapidly ; but the season was cool and the weather delightful, and they suffered no great discomfort during their six weeks' voyage. On arriving at Ava, they resolved to remain in the boat till a house could be built upon the land which the king had given Dr. Judson upon his previous visit. One fortnight sufficed for the erection of a build- ing, which, though affording them shelter, was no protection against the heat, constructed entirely, as it was, of boards. Dr. Judson at once commenced his evening and Sabbath services, while his wife proceeded successfully with her domestic arrange- ments and her infant school. War now broke out between the Birman government and the East India Company of Bengal. Rangoon was attacked in May, 1824, by an army of 6,000 Enghsh and native troops, and surrendered without resistance. The American missionaries there underwent many perils, and finally escaped to Bengal. ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 335 The missionaries at Ava at once fell under suspicion. Three Enghshmen residing there were arrested, examined and confined. Dr. Judson was arrested on the 8th of June by a posse of a dozen men, one of whom wore the garb of an executioner. "Where is the teacher?" was the first inquiry. Dr. Judson stood forth. The executioner at once seized him, threw him on the ground, and bound him with a slight, though tenacious whip- cord. In spite of the entreaties of Mrs. Judson, and of her offers of money to the executioner, they dragged him off to the court-house, where the king's order concerning him was read. He was thrown into the death-prison, there to await his fate. Mrs. Judson, in this terrible emergency, did not suffer her presence of mind to desert her. Before submitting to the examination which she knew she would be called upon to under- go, she destroyed all her letters and the minute record of daily occurrences it had been her habit to keep. Otherwise, they would have been exposed to an accusation of maintaining a cor- respondence with the enemy, and of furnishing them with regular bulletins of the state of the country and the progress of events. A guard of ten ruffians was posted before the house ; the ser- vants were placed in the stocks, and Mrs. Judson, with four of her Birman pupils, was barred up in an inner room. The guard passed the night in carousings and indecent revelry. Mrs. Judson ascertained the next morning that her husband and the other white foreigners were confined in the death-prison, and were manacled with three pairs of iron fetters each. Her activity, invention and resources, under these harassing circum- stances, display her character in glowing colors. She besought a magistrate, to whom she gained access, to allow her to apj)eal to some responsible member of the government ; she caused a letter to be conveyed to the king's sister, in which, with unavail- ing eloquence, she begged her to sue for the release of the teachers. With presents of tea and cigars, she softened the hearts of her guards, and with the promise of a rich offering to 336 ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. the governor of the city, she obtained permission to speak to her husband through the bars of the grating. Dr. Judson, heavily- ironed and stretched upon the bare floor, crawled to the half- open door, and hastily gave her some directions relative to his release. She was dragged away before any plan of action had been concerted between them. Milder councils seem now to have prevailed in the bosoms of the officials, for the foreign prisoners were removed that same evening to an open shed in the prison inclosure, where Mrs.- Judson, who was not admitted to see them, was allowed to send them food and mats to sleep upon. The mission house was now visited by the fiscal officers for the purpose of confiscating any articles of value they might find. "Where are your gold and jewels?" asked the royal treasurer. "I have no gold or jewels," Mrs. Judson replied, "but here is the key of the trunk containing the silver ; do with it as you please. But remember, this money was collected in America, by the disciples of Christ, and sent here for the purpose of building a house for the teacher, and for our support while teaching the new religion. Do you think it right to take it?" She made this inquiry, well aware that the Birmans scrupulously avoid diverting from its destination money devoted to a religious object. The matter was laid before the king, who ordered the silver to be set apart, that it might be restored to the teacher, if, upon due examination, he were found innocent of the charge of espionage. Tor seven months the situation of the missionaries remained unchanged. The keepers of the jjrison were all branded crimi- nals, and bore the name of their offijnce burned into the flesh of their foreheads, cheeks or breasts. The chief jailer was familiarly called the tiger cat ; and he strove to deserve the hideous designation by the playful ferocity with which he would ply his hammer while fastening manacles, or affiictionately clasp his victims in his arms in order to get a better opportunity to ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 337 prick or pinch them. Mrs. Judson, on one occasion, "made a great effort to surprise her husband with something that should remind him of home. She planned and labored, till, by the aid of buffalo beef and plantains, she actually concocted a mince pie. Unfortunately, as she thought, she could not go in person to the prison that day ; and the dinner was brought by smiling Moung Ing, who seemed aware that some mystery must be wrapped up in that pecidiar preparation of meat and fruit, though he had never seen the well-spread boards of Plymouth and Bradford. But the pretty little artifice only added another pang to a heart whose susceptibilities were as quick and deep, as, in the light of the world, they were silent. He bowed his head upon his knees, and the tears flowed down to the chains about his ankles. He thrust the carefully-prepared dinner into the hands of his associate, and as fast as his fetters would permit, hurried to his own little shed." There was hardly a single member of the government, of high or low degree, to whom Mrs. Judson did not gain admit- tance and whom she did not beseech, in winning or despairing accents, to intercede in her behalf. From stores which seemed inexhaustible, she provided gifts with which to meet the rapacious extortions of jailers, governors, servants, and even of the royal family. The only European female in the place and the only foreigner suffered to remain at liberty, she seems to have been providentially designed as the ministering angel of the Birman prison. Dr. Wayland offers the following tribute to her charac- ter and services : " Perfectly familiar with the Birman language, of a presence which commanded respect even from savage barbarians, and encircled her with a moral atmosphere in which she walked unharmed in the midst of a hostile city, with no earthly protec- tor, she was universally spoken of as the guardian angel of that band of sufferers. Fertile in resources, and wholly regardless of her own privations or exposure, she was incessantly occupied in 43 338 ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. alleviating the pain or ministering to the wants of those who had no other friends. " Rarely does it happen that the moral extremes of which our nature is susceptible are brought into so striking contrast as in the present instance. On the one hand might here have been seen the most degraded of mankind inflicting in sport the most horrid cruelties month after month upon their fellow men, some of whom had sacrified every earthly comfort for the good of their tormentors ; and on the other hand there was seen, in the midst of this horde of ruffians, a lady whose intelhgence and refinement had lately won the admiration of the highest circles of the British metropolis, soothing the sorrows of the captive, providing and preparing food for the starving, consoling the dying with words of heavenly peace ; heedless of meridian suns and midnight dews, though surrounded by infection, devoting herself with prodigal disinterestedness to the practice of heavenly charity, and sustain- ing the courage of men inured to danger and familiar with death by the example of her own dauntless resolution." From an obituary poem written some years later by Mrs. Sigourney, we quote the following lines : " Stern sickness smote her, but she felt it not, Heeded it not, and still with tireless zeal Carried the hoarded morsel to her love ; Dared the rude arrogance of savage power To plead for him, and bade his dnngeon glow With her fair brow, as erst the angel's smile Arous'd imprison'd Peter, when his hands, Loos'd from their chains, were lifted high in praise !" The war still continued, and was prosecuted on the part of the Birmans with commendable energy but with unvarying insuccess. Mrs. Judson abandoned all hope of escape before a cessation of hostilities. She spent several hours of every day at the house of the governor, giving him all information in her power, and asking in return some slight alleviation of the ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 339 prisoners' situation. At last, as a great favor, she was permitted to build a bamboo hovel in the prison inclosure, and here Dr. Judson passed the two cold months of the winter. For three weeks Mrs. Judson was now absent from the dungeon, and when she returned, it was to bring a pale and puny infant of twenty days to its father in the prison yard. " No person," says an eye-witness, " not thoroughly conversant with the secret springs of feeling which made his the richest heart that ever beat in human bosom, would be at all able to appreciate the scene. His first child slept beneath the waters of the Bay of Bengal, a baby-martyr, without the martyr's conflict ; ^ the second, his 'meek, blue-eyed Roger,' had his bed in the jungle graveyard at Rangoon ; and here came the third little wan stranger, to claim the first parental kiss from the midst of felon chains. " Mrs. Judson had long previous to this adopted the Birmese style of dress. Her rich Spanish complexion could never be mistaken for the tawny hue of the natives ; and her figure of full medium height, appeared much taller and more commanding in a costume usually worn by women of inferior size. But her friend, the governor's wife, who presented her with the dress, recom- mended the measure as a concession which would be sure to conciliate the people, and win them to a kindher treatment of her. Behold her, then, her dark curls, carefully straightened, di'awn back from her forehead, and a fragrant cocoa-blossom, drooping like a white plume from the knot upon the crown ; her saffron vest thrown open to display the folds of crimson beneath ; and a rich silken skirt, wrapped closely about her fine figure, parting at the ankle, and sloping back upon the floor. The clothing of the feet was not Birman, for the native sandal could not be worn except upon a bare foot. Behold her standing in the doorway — for she was never permitted to enter the prison — ' We find no authority for this statement whatever; it is doubtless incorrect. 340 ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. her little blue-eyed blossom wailing, as it almost always did, upon her bosom, and the chained father crawling forth to the meeting !" Dr. Judson whiled away a portion of his prison hours in composing a poetical address to the daughter born under such distressing auspices. These he committed to memory and after- wards to paper. We select the following stanzas from this sad monody : " Sleep, darling infant, sleep ; May neaven its blessings shed In rich profusion, soft and meek. On thine unconscious headl "Why ope thy little eyes? What would my darling see? Thy sorrowing mother's bending form? Thy father's agony ? " Wouldst mark the dreadful sights. Which stoutest hearts appall — The stocks, the cord, the fatal sword, The torturing iron mall? " No, darling infant, no ! Thou seest them not at all ; Thou only mark'st the rays of light Which flicker on the wall. "Stretch, then, thy little arms. And roll thy vacant eye. Reposing on thy mother's breast In soft security. " Ah, all alike to thee. Thy mother's grief or mirth ; Nor know'st thou one of all the ills Which mark thy mournful birth. " Go, darling infant, go, Thine hour has passed away, The jailer's harsh, discordant voice Forbids thy longer stay. ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 341 "God grant tliat we may meet In happier times than this, And with thine angel mother dear Enjoy domestic bliss. " And when, in future years, Thou knowest thy fatlier's tongue. These lines will show theo how he felt, How o'er his babe he snng." The defeat of the Birman army, aud the advance of the Eng- lish from Rangoon up the Irrawaddy towards Prome, threw the court at Ava mto the utmost consternation. The prisoners were treated with renewed severity, being loaded with additional fetters and crowded hke sheep into close and unwholesome pens. The governor wept at the appeal which Mrs. Judson in tliis darken- ing hour addressed him, but reiterated his inability to aid her. Indeed he had received, he said, ordei'S to assassinate the foreign- ers privately, and the most he could do, in endeavoring to avoid the execution of the order, was to put them out of sight. The death of Bandoola, the leader of the army, plunged the city into deeper anxiety than ever : one of its immediate effects was the removal of the prisoners — a measure which was announced to Mrs. Judson by one of her attached servants, who came running to her with a ghastly countenance, and, in trembling accents, gave her the direful information. She hurried into the streets, and interrogated the passers-by ; she hastened to the river and scanned its descending course ; she sent to the place of execution — that being an errand she could not perform herself. Her tried and faithful friend, the governor, condemned her to despair by the last words he uttered : " You can do nothing more for your husband ; take care of yourself." The heroic woman returned mechanically home, and for a time her heart sank beneath this accumulation of sorrows. Gathering her courage once more, she packed up the few ar- ticles of value she possessed, and deposited them at the governor's 342 ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. house. Then committing her own cottage to the care of two servants whose wages, in this extremity, she was unable to pay, and taking with her her daughter, now three months old, her two adopted children, Mary and Abby Hasseltine, and her Bengalee cook, she set off in the direction of the river's course. She obtained a covered boat, in which she accomplished two miles, or half the distance to Amarapora. She then procured a cart, in which, through the blinding glare of the sun and dust, she performed the rest of the weary road. She now learned that the prisoners had been sent on two hours before, and though literally exhausted by fatigue, she resolutely pursued her way towards that "never-to-be-forgotten place, Oung-pen-la." Here, beneath a low projection in front of a shattered, roofless building, which was called the prison, sat the foreigners, more dead than alive, chained together, two by two. They had been driven barefoot, beneath a mid-day midsummer sun, over eight miles of blistering sand, from Ava to Oung-pen-la. The agony of Dr. Judson was such — for his feet were cut to the bone— that he longed to throw himself into the river ; his horror of suicide alone prevented him. One of their number had succumbed upon the road. They expected to be burned alive, a report to that effect having been in circulation at Ava ; the view of a dozen Birmans attempting to form a thatch of leaves for the prison, was the first intimation they had that the building was intended for their permanent confinement. It was at this juncture that Mrs. Jud- son arrived. "Why have you come ?" were her husband's first words ; " I had hoped you would not follow, for you cannot live here." She had no food either for herself, her children, or the prisoners ; the jailer, however, took her to his house, and estab- lished her in one of the two rooms which it contained — a mere receptacle for grain, of which it was nearly full. Here, in the midst of filth and misery, she was destined to spend the six next wretched months. Another sore trial speedily came to aggravate her already ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 343 desperate situation : Mary Hasseltine, the eldest of her adopted children, was taken with the small pox the day after their arrival. In the prison lay Dr. Judson, his feet so dreadfully mangled that he coxold not move ; at home, pillowed amongst the grain, lay httle Mary, a Birman orphan, tended by a Christian nurse, delirious with fever, and so horribly disfigured that her face became one festering scar. Backwards and forwards from the pen to the prison went Mrs. Judson, carrying food to the one and comfort to the other, bearing her infant in her arms from morn to eve, and sleeping at night upon a bamboo mat. She inoculated Abby Hasseltine and the jailer's children, whose play was hardly interrupted by the scourge thus modified. Her fame spread, and all the children in the village, big and little, came to her for inoculation. In spite of previous vaccination, she herself caught the contagion ; and her baby, exposed at the same moment to infection and to the effects of inoculation, took the disease in its severer form, and was for three months a sufferer. At last the children recovered and Dr. Judson revived ; and then Mrs. Judson sank. Fatigue, anxiety, miserable and insuffi- cient food, broken and comfortless rest, had borne their inevit- able fruits. Her constitution seemed destroyed, and she could no longer go upon her daily ei'rand of mercy to the prison. She obtained an ox-cart and set ofi" for Ava ; there, with some difficulty, she procured the medicine-chest she had left with the governor. By repeated doses of laudanum she checked the immediate progress of the disease ; but feeling herself past recovery, she returned to Oung-pen-la, to die near the prison. The Bengalee cook burst into tears as he saw her wasted form. She crawled on to the mat in the grain-room, and there, in a situation shocking to humanity and sickening to the soul, she remained for seven weeks, her iron constitution battling with a disease which rarely spared the native and showed no mercy to the foreigner. During this illness occurred an affecting incident, 344 ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. to parallel which one might ransack the history of mankind in vain. Mrs. Judson's illness deprived her little Maria, who was still a nursing infant, of her usual nourishment, and neither nurse nor milk were to be procured in the village. The jailer, whether touched by the utter misery of the family, or moved by the offer of presents which the mother made him, suffered Dr. Judson, whom he released for an hour or two from prison upon a Christ- ian parole, to take the emaciated child in his arms and carry her from house to house, though still with a few inches of chain between his shackled feet, begging a little nourishment from compassionate mothers who had children at the breast! The armals of Rome and Lacedtemon furnish no such harrowing picture as this missionary sketch from Oung-pen-la. The Birmese government experiencing great inconvenience from the want of a rehable interpreter and translator in their negotiations with the victorious troops of Sir Archibald Camp- bell, resolved to employ Dr. Judson in that capacity, and sum- moned him to Ava. His family followed him, as a matter of course. He was sent to Maloun, where, though very ill of fever and suffering every conceivable torture, he spent six weeks in translating, and rendering other similar services to the army. Mrs. Judson, during his absence, was seized with that fearful tropical disease, the spotted fever ; knowing that her constitution was shattered, and that she could expect no proper medical assistance, she made up her mind that the attack would be fatal. The release of Dr. Price, however, from prison, at this juncture, and his presence at her bedside, doubtless aided her recovery. Her hair was shaven ; her head and feet were covered with blisters ; she lost her reason and refused nourish- ment. Her Birmese neighbors gathered around her, that they might see a Christian die; "she is dead," they said, in their hyperbolic language; "and if the King of Angels should come in, he could not recover her." ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 345 Nevertheless, the fever turned, and in a month Mrs. Judson was again able to walk. Dr. Judson was now sent back from Maloun to Ava, the officer who conducted him bearing the fol- lowing communication respecting him from the camp to the court: "We have no further use for Yoodthan ; we therefore return him to the Golden City." The functionary before whom he was brought was upon the point of dispatching him to Oung- pen-la, when the governor of the north gate, wrought upon by Mrs. Judson's tearful entreaties, offered himself as his security, obtained his release, and received both him and Mrs. Judson as guests beneath his roof. We have now arrived at the close of this long catalogue of persecutions and calamities. The triumphant advance of the English compelled the Bu-- mese government to treat with the enemy in order to save the city. Dr. Price and Dr. Judson were both made to act as com- missioners on behalf of the King of Ava, and returned with the conditions which Sir Archibald Campbell attached to his promise to leave the capital unharmed. One of these was the release of all the foreigners in the city ; and in virtue of this clause. Dr. and Mrs. Judson and their daughter took an affectionate leave of the governor, who had so often befriended them, and bade farewell forever to the banks of Ava. " It was on a cool, moon- light evening, in the month of March, that with hearts filled with gratitude to God, and overflowing with joy at our prospects, we passed down the Irrawaddy, surrounded by six or eight golden boats and accompanied by all we had on earth. "We now, for the first time for more than a year and a half, felt that we were free, and no longer subject to the oppressive yoke of the Bir- mese. And with what sensations of delight, on the next morn- ing, did I behold the masts of the steamboat, the sure presage of being within the bounds of civilized life!" Some months later. Dr. Judson, after hstening to a series of anecdotes of what different men in different ages had regarded as examples of the highest possible sensuous enjoyment, said: "Pooh! these men 346 ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. were not qualified to judge. I know of a much higher pleasure than that. What do you think of floating down the Irrawaddy on a cool, moonlit evening, with your wife by your side and your baby in your arms, free, all free ? But you cannot understand it either ; it needs a twenty-one months' quahfication ; and I can never regret my twenty-one months of misery, when I recall that one delicious thrill. I think I have had a better apprecia- tion of what heaven may be ever since." Mrs. Judson, whose fame had jireceded her to the English camp of Yandabo, was received with pax'ental kindness by Sir Archibald, and with military honors by his officers. She was fur- nished with a tent larger and more commodious than that of the general, with the delightful addition of a verandah. She felt that her obligations towards him could never be cancelled, and presumed that no persons on earth were ever happier than she and her husband during the fortnight which followed. A remark- able exemplification of the vicissitudes of life might have been witnessed at a dinner given some days afterwards to the Birman Commissioners. At sight of Mrs. Judson, seated at the general's right hand, and evidently an honored and influential guest, they shrunk into their seats with faces blank with consternation. " What is the matter with yonder owner of the pointed beard ?" asked Sir Archibald. "I do not know," she answered, " unless his memory may be too busy." Upon being urged to describe the circumstances which, doubtless, caused the ambassador's alarm, she related how she had once walked five miles to his house, to ask some favor for her husband, who was suffering with fever in prison, with five pairs of fetters about his ankles. He roughly refused her request, and at the same time, noticing her silk umbrella, seized upon it and snatched it from her hands. She begged him to give her in exchange at least a paper parasol, to protect her from the scorching heat. He jestingly replied that stout people alone were hable to sunstrokes, while she was so thin as hardly to cast a shadow ! He then drove her from the ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 347 door. The English officers did not attempt to restrain their in- dignation, at this narrative ; the trembling subject of it, perfectly aware of what was passing and clammy with perspiration, sat in abject fear of immediate death. Mrs. Judson, after a mischievous, but momentary, enjoyment of his dismay, whispered to him, in Birmese, that she had forgiven him and that he had nothing to fear. The Judsons soon descended the Irrawaddy to Rangoon, their former home, now in possession of the English. On their way down the stream, they noticed a signal of distress from the shore. It proved to be Lieut. Campbell, who had been robbed, wounded and deserted by his own boatmen. He Avas taken on board and tenderly cared for. He afterwards wrote the following account of his sojourn upon the Irrawaddy boat : " My eyes first rested on the thin, attenuated form of a lady — a white lady ! the first I had seen for more than a year ; and now the soothing accents of female words fell upon my ears like a household hymn of my youth. My wound was tenderly dressed, my head bound up, and I was laid upon a sofa bed. With what a thankful heart did I breathe forth a blessing on those good Samaritans ! With what delight did I drink in the mild, gentle sounds of that sweet woman's voice, as she pressed me to recruit my strength with some of that beverage ' which cheers but not inebriates !' She was seated in a large sort of swinging chair, of American con- struction, in which her slight, emaciated, but gi'aceful form ap- peared almost ethereal. Yet, with much of heaven, there were still the breathings of earthty feeling about her ; for at her feet rested a babe, a little, wan baby, on which her eyes often turned with all a mother's love ; and gazing frequently vipon her delicate features, with a fond, yet fearful glance, was that meek mission- ary, her husband. Her face was pale, very pale, with that ex- pression of deep, sad, serious thought which speaks of the strong and vigorous mind within the frail and perishing body ; her brown hair was braided over a placid and holy brow ; but her 348 ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. bauds — those small, lily hands — were quite beautiful ; beautiful they were and very wan ; for, ah ! they told of disease, of death, death in all its transparent grace, when the sickly blood shines through the clear skin, even as the bright poison lights up the Venetian glass it is about to shatter. " I remained two days with them ; two delightful days they were to me. Mrs. Judson's powers of conversation were of the first order, and the many affecting anecdotes that she gave us of their long and ci'uel bondage, their struggles in the cause of reli- gion, and their adventures during a long residence at the court of Ava, gained a heightened interest from the beautiful and ener- getic simplicity of her language, as well as from the certainty I felt that so fragile a flower as she in very truth was, had but a brief season to linger on earth. When I looked my last on her mild, wan countenance, as she issued some instructions to my new set of boatmen, I felt my eyes fill with prophetic tears. They were not perceived. We never met again ; nor is it likely that the wounded subaltern was ever thought of again by those who had succored him." Upon their arrival at Rangoon, the Judsons found the city invested by the revolted Peguans, the mission house in ruins, and the converts scattered to the winds. It became necessary, therefore, to seek a new station for their labor of love. A site having been selected by the English civil commissioner as the capital of the provinces ceded to Great Britain, and having received the name of Amherst in compliment to the governor- general of the East India Company, they determined to be its first settlers. They took down the zayat and sent the boards forward to be again put up in a similar form. On arriving at the station, Captain Fenwick, in command there, at once gave up his house to Mrs. Judson, and withdrew to a tent in the cantonment. They found several huts already built by the con- verts who had preceded them in colonizing this wildest of Birman jungles. During the rainy season the infant settlement made ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 349 steady progress, comprising fifty houses, exclusive of the bar- racks, by the end of July. Dr. Judson was now called away by business connected with the government. He seems to have left his home without prophetic intimation that he was bidding an eter- nal farewell to her who had preserved his days upon earth and had aided him in making his name immortal. They parted, indeed, confident of a speedy reunion, and looking upon the coming separation as a comparatively light trial, after their many dangers and vicissitudes. She at once, upon his departure, commenced the construction of a permanent building for their residence. Into this she moved on the 14th of September, and on that day wrote to Dr. Judson the last letter he ever received from her. " For the first time since we were broken up at Ava," she said, "I feel myself at home. Poor little Maria is still feeble. I sometimes hope she is getting better ; then again she declines to her former weakness. When I ask her where papa is, she always starts up and points towards the sea May God preserve and bless you, is the prayer of your affectionate Anne." She was soon afterwards attacked by remittent fever. From the first she felt a strong presentiment that she should not recover. Captain Fenwick procured her a physician and a European nurse from the forty-fifth regiment, and everything which it was possible to do in that savage wilderness, was readily and zealously done. From time to time the fever abated, but its last approach no medical skill could avei't. She lay for two days, senseless and motionless, on one side, her head reclining on one arm, her eyes closed. Her last word was an exclamation of distress in the Birman language, and at eight o'clock on the evening of the 24th of October, she ceased to breathe. The assistant super- intendent of Amherst placed her remains in the coffin prepared to receive them, and on the evening of the 25th, her funeral took place. It was attended by all the European officers of the station, and the first female American missionary went to her 350 ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. long home under a British military escort, but unaccompanied by a single friend born upon the same hemisphere with herself, and with perhaps not a professor of religion in the procession. She was buried beneath a hopia tree, about fifty rods from the house where she had resided ; a small rude fence was erected around the grave, to protect it from incautious intrusion. Intelligence did not reach Mr. Judson of " the catastrophe which had deprived him of one of the first of women and the best of wives," till late in November, and shortly after his return to Amherst to weep over her grave, inexorable fate called upon him to consign to it the mortal remains of his last and still infant child. " Together," he wrote to Mrs. Hasseltine, at Bradford, "they rest in hope, under the hope tree, which stands at the head of their graves ; and together, I trust, their spirits are rejoicing after a short separation of precisely six months." The Board of Missions did not allow the grave of Mrs. Judson to remain without a proper tumular tribute to her worth. A marble tablet was procured and sent out to Amherst, where it was placed at the head of the Christian mound. One phrase of the brief biography carved upon it read thus : " She arrived, with her husband, at Rangoon, in July, 1813 ; and there com- menced those missionary toils which she sustained with such Christian fortitude, decision and perseverance, amid scenes of civil commotion and personal affliction, as won for her universal respect and affection." In any other form than that of an inscription, where severity of style and a strict adherence to facts are essential to good taste, this language would have been totally inadequate. The American reader will hardly need to be told, after perusing this succinct account of the character, achievements and sufierings of Mrs. Judson, that his country has never produced her superior. She was highly intellectual and yet delicately feminine ; scrupulously religious, and yet free from asceticism or ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. 351 bigotry ; chivalrous without temerity ; of undaunted perseverance and heroic courage, rising superior, at the call of duty, to the fear of peril or the certainty of death, amidst dangers and per- plexities unparalleled in the history of modern missions ; she was a model of conjugal affection, maternal devotion, and mis- sionary ardor. If the question were asked why, thirty years after her death, she does not enjoy that jiopular renown which has been the portion of many inferior women, we might answer that it is in a measure owing to the fact that her vii-tues were exhibited upon a field in which all mankind do not acknowledge the propriety or the necessity of laboring ; partly to the fact that one rehgious denomination is not apt to herald and rejoice in the merits and successes of another, and that Mrs. Judson is thus, outside of her own church, represented, not as the heroine of Christianity, but as the enthusiast of a sect ; not as the pioneer of a faith, but as the teacher of a creed ; and again, to the indisputable fact that the mass of a nation are not easily wrought upon by influences gathered in lands so remote as Birmah, or in pursuits so seemingly illusory as the saving of hea- then souls. The world has read with more emotion of the philan- thropy of Florence Nightingale than of the martyrdom of Anne Hasseltine ; she who nursed Caucasians at Scutari will be ever more famiharly famous than she who ransomed Malays at Ran- goon ; the Angelic Vestal of the hospitals upon the Bosphorus will enjoy more enduring honors than the Apostle of the zayat of Chin-India. It has been eloquently said of the memory of Mrs. Judson, that "it will be cherished in the churches of Birmah, when the pagodas of Gaudama shall have fallen ; when the spires of Christian temples shall gleam along the waters of the Irrawaddy and the Salwen ; and when the Golden City shall have lifted up her gates to let the King of Glory in." Others, less sanguine in the missionary cause, will doubtless feel that the actual and more useful sphere of Mrs. Judson's influence is and will be at 352 ANNE HASSELTINE JUDSON. home, with the church, with the Christian, with the professor and the convert, with pastors and their flocks, with all, indeed, whose inquiries may be directed, whose faith sustained, whose trials sanctified and whose life chastened, by the contemplation of an inspiring and radiant example. IW"^ ,JI 1^ ■ V^ 1 V \ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^■l "W ^IB ' tK^^^^^^^^^m "^ ^ 1 M ■l^'^^tevi^dL* R L 1^ I ^ a£^^^ ^^HH ■^ 1 ^^^ m^K^ t ^^^BB^^^^Kt^mS^ ^^^^^^^^^^1 -s..; ^ ip^iifl '^"yi^Kr''-i - '■^.--'-- ««i»ip^^H^ y .■^ ^iW ^^j^^P^^ ^^ ^ ^I^P^., r^< ' ^^ ^^M^C^MIfili-' T' ■■ ^*^^|; CHARLOTTE BRONTE Charlotte Bronte was the third of six children, and was born a,t Thornton, in the parish of Bradford, Yorkshire, on the 21st of April, 1816. Four years afterwards, her parents re- moved to Haworth, her father, the Rev. Patrick Bronte, having been appointed curate of the village. Of the six children, the eldest, Maria, was but a few months over six years old ; their mother, always delicate, of late an invalid, and now sinking under the constant drains upon her strength, kept her room, rarely seeing her infant boys and girls, and unrepiningly await- ing the event which was to make them motherless. The father, not naturally fond of children, spent his time either in his study or by the bedside of his wife, and saw as little of them as she. They were thus left to themselves, and their favorite occupation was to wander hand in hand over the bleak and heathery moors which sloped upward from the parsonage. The portion of his society which Mr. Bronte spared them was not calculated to inspire them with the geniality natural to childhood. He gave them nothing but potatoes for dinner — not that he could aflford them no other diet, but because he wished to bring them up in simple and hardy habits. He sought to render them indifferent to dress, and on one occasion seeing 45 853 354 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. a row of tiny boots warming before the fire, he committed them to the flames, because the legs were made of colored, and conse- quently coquettish, leather. He found a silk dress in his wife's drawer, in which she had inadvertently left the key, and con- sidering it a shade too gay, he cut it into shreds. When he was angry, he sternly repressed the rising expletive, but took his revenge by firing pistols out of the back-door, as fast as he could load them. Mrs. Bronte, who was patiently dying up stairs, would endeavor in vain to defend her ears from the annoying detonations. The reverend gentleman's wrath seems always to have been speechless, and he appears to have argued that his duty as a Christian merely required him to suppress his rage in its first outward manifestation, allowing him to give it full career in any secondary form. Thus, he dispensed with objurgation, but he fired pistols instead ; he condemned the unruly member to silence, but he crammed the hearth-rug up the chimney in compensation, and made the house odious with the smell of burning woollen ; he suppressed the hasty word, and then con- sidered himself entitled to saw the chairs in halves and render his home intolerable. Mrs. Gaskell, the biographer of Charlotte, styles this "antique simplicity." Mrs. Bronte died in 1821, and the six childi'en became more retiring and spiritless than before. The father dined alone, in order, we are told, to avoid temptation at the children's table, as he was compelled to be very careful of his diet ; but as his daughters' only food at that meal consisted of potatoes, it is fair to suppose Mr. Bronte influenced by some other cause — perhaps misanthropy, perhaps eccentricity. The children had no play- mates nor companions whatever. This isolation attached them more strongly to each other, while it rendered them precocious and old before their time. They had no books suited to their age, and solemnly read the London Times with the dimpling and pouting mouths sacred from time immemorial to Red Riding Hood and Little Bo Peep. CHAKLOTTE BRONTE. 355 In July, 1824, Mr. Bronte sent Maria and Elizabeth to a school at Cowan's Bridge, established for the education of clergy- men's daughters, and in September of the same year, took Charlotte and Emily. This is the school branded under the name of Lowood in Jane Eyre. Here the four wretched girls endured miseries the consequences of which, upon their minds and bodies, were visible in their whole after lives. Their food was so loathsome, that they often preferred starving to touching it ; their long shivering walks to service on Sundays in winter, where they sat chattering in a damp, unwarmed church, and eating a cold dinner between the sermons, was to them the most comfortless day in the whole trying week ; then' sleeping rooms were crowded and badly ventilated, and at least one of the teachers, whom Jane Eyre impales under the name of Miss Scatcherd, was a sour and merciless task-mistress. Maria and Ehzabeth Bronte sank under the unchristian treatment and the foul diet of this seminary. They were taken home by their father, who had not been even aware of their illness, and both died m the year 1825, one in the spring, the other in the sum- mer. Charlotte thus became the eldest daughter and the re- sponsible sister at the age of nine years. She returned with Emily to Cowan's Bridge immediately after the death of Elizabeth, the father being evidently ignorant of the dangerous character of the institution. They remained there, however, but a few months, being removed before their situation, already precarious, became altogether hopeless. The household now consisted of the following persons : of Mr. Bronte, still solitary and morose ; of his wife's elder sister. Miss Branwell, a conscientious and kindly woman, though preju- diced and precise, who had been invited to superintend the fa- mily ; of Tabby, a deaf and dumb, though attached, old woman ; of Patrick Branwell Bronte, a boy of great promise and pre- cocious development ; of Emily and Anne, playmates and companions, and of Charlotte, the motherly sister of the three 356 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. motherless children. Their occupations and sports seem to have been exclusively sedentary and literary ; they wrote and acted plays, edited magazines, and composed romances, tales and poems. By the middle of the year 1830, Charlotte, now four- teen years old, had accumulated twenty-two volumes of her own manuscripts, all of which were carefully labelled, cata- logued and preserved. Her writing was so exceedingly minute, that no compositor could have deciphered it without the aid of a magnifying glass. The published fac-simile of a page re- minds one of the Declaration of Independence scratched upon a ten cent piece. A fragment of her composition at this pe- riod gives the list of the painters whose works she desired to see. Among them were Guido, Titian, Raphael, Michael Angelo, Correggio, da Vinci, Vandyke, Rubens, and Fra Bartolomeo. She had at this time, of course, never seen a painting in her life to which one could conscientiously apply the name. The biographer of Charlotte Bronte gives the following de- scription of her personal appearance at the age of fifteen : " She was a quiet, thoughtful girl, very small in figure— ' stunted ' was the word she applied to herself — but as her limbs and head were in just proportion to the slight, fragile body, no word in ever so slight a degree suggestive of deformity, could properly be applied to her ; with soft, thick, brown hair, and pe- cuhar eyes, of which I find it difficult to give a description, as they appeared to me in her later life. They were large and well-shaped : their color a reddish brown ; but if the iris was closely examined, it appeared to be composed of a great variety of tints. The usual expression was of quiet, listening intelli- gence ; but now and then, on some just occasion for vivid in- terest or wholesome indignation, a light would shine out as if some spiritual lamp had been kindled, which glowed behind those expressive orbs. I never saw the like in any other hu- man creature. As for the rest of her features, they were plain, large and ill set ; but, unless you began to catalogue them, you CHARLOTTE BEONTE. 357 were hardly aware of the fact, for the eyes and power of the couiiteuaiice overbalanced every physical defect ; the crooked mouth and the large nose were forgotten, and the whole face arrested the attention, and presently attracted all those whom she herself would have cared to attract. Her hands and feet were the smallest I ever saw ; when one of the former was placed in mine, it was like the soft touch of a bird in the middle of my palm. The delicate long fingers had a peculiar fineness of sensa- tion, which was one reason why all her handiwork, of whatever kind — writing, sewing, knitting — was so clear in its minuteness. She was remarkably neat in her whole personal attire." In January of the year 1831, Charlotte Bronte again went to school, but not at the deadly seminary of Cowan's Bridge. The scene of her studies was now Roe Head, some twenty miles from Haworth, an old-fashioned, roomy, cheerful country house, in which the Misses Wooler kept a girls' academy. The neighbor- hood was romantic, the scenery bright and chequered, the cli- mate airy and bracing. Beneath a mouldering stone in a conti- guous park, in the midst of secular yew trees, were believed to repose the remains of Robin Hood ; not far off was Lady Anne's Well, where the lady was long since eaten by wolves — the water of the fountain becoming possessed of remarkable medicinal pro- perties every Palm Sunday, at six o'clock in the morning ; the ghost of a certain reprobate Captain Batt haunted a lane which crossed a desolate common, while a bloody footprint, in a bed- chamber of Oakwell Hall, lent a fearful interest to that ancestral mansion. Indeed, so prevailing did such superstitions seem to be at Roe Head and its vicinity, that the pupils of Miss Wooler invented a ghost for their own private horror, and located her — for a rustling silk gown betrayed her sex — in an unoccupied third story, and often listened to her waihngs from the foot of the second flight of stairs. Miss Wooler was an intelligent, amiable person, and as she received but few pupils — never more than ten — was able to treat 358 CHARLOTTE BKONTE. them as members of her family. She proposed to put Charlotte in the second class, as she had not been well grounded in gram- mar, but this suggestion caused such a flow of tears that Miss Wooler promoted the sensitive pupil at once. The new scholar amazed the old ones by her knowledge of poetry, and of the au- thors from whom their elegant extracts were taken ; by her handwriting, which resembled print ; by her total abstinence from animal food ; by the contrast of her extraordinary mental powers with her evident physical weakness, and by her interest in politics and her violent partisan worship of the Duke of Wel- lington. She was an indefatigable student and a favorite with her companions, though her constant application made her an unwill- ing participator in their sports. She told them ghost stories at night, and practised the art of rising to a climax so adroitly, that she elicited screams and brought on palpitations at will. She re- ceived her first bad mark at the close of her second year — an event which deeply agitated the little community. Charlotte wept ; Miss Wooler felt that she herself must have been to blame, in setting her too long a task ; the scholars were all indignant and inclined to mutiny. So the bad mark was withdrawn ; Char- lotte dried her tears, and the pupils resumed their allegiance — with the exception of one whose sensibilities were so profoundly stirred, that during the remaining fortnight of the term she deli- berately refused to submit to the regulations of the school, and set Miss Wooler at defiance. This steadfast friend is shadowed forth in the Jessie Yorke of Shirley ; another of her intimate friends, at this period, being faintly portrayed under the name of Caroline Helstone. Charlotte returned home in the summer of 1832, and resumed her superintendence of the household and of her younger sisters. They continued their walks over the moors and among the quar- ries, rarely visiting the village and as rarely crossing a threshold. They taught Sunday school regularly, and in this relation — one of preceptress and pupil, not of companionship on equal terms — CHARLOTTE BRONTE. 359 consisted the whole of their association with the members of their father's j^arish. A letter written by Charlotte to Carohne Helstone wiU give a just idea of her acquirements and of her powers of discrimina- tion at the age of eighteen : "You ask me," she wrote, "to re- commend you some books for your perusal. I will do so in as few words as I can. If you like poetry let it be first rate ; Mil- ton, Shakspcare, Thomson, Goldsmith, Pope — if you will, though I don't admire him — Scott, Byron, Campbell, Wordsworth and Southey. Now don't be startled at the names of Shakspeare and Byron. Both these were great men, and their works are Like themselves. You wiU know how to choose the good, and to avoid the evil ; the finest passages are always the purest, the bad are invariably revolting ; you will never wish to read them over twice. Omit the comedies of Shakspeare and the Don Juan, perhaps the Cain, of Byron — though the latter is a magnificent poem — and read the rest fearlessly ; that must indeed be a depraved mind which can gather evil from Henry VIII., from Richard III., from Macbeth, and Hamlet, and Juhus Caesar. Scott's sweet, wild, ro- mantic poetry can do you no harm. Nor can Wordsworth's, nor Campbell's, nor Southey's — the greatest part of his at least ; some is certainly objectionable. For history, read Hume, RoUin, and the Universal History, if you can ; I never did. For fiction, read Scott alone ; all novels after his are worthless. For divinity, your brother will advise you there. I can only say, adhere to standard authors, and avoid novelty." In July, 1835, Charlotte Bronte accepted an invitation from Miss Wooler to assist her in her labors as an instructress. She found her new life monotonous and her duties trying, but she was, upon the whole, happy, till her health failed and her nervous system became decidedly disordered. She fell into despondency, and as she herself described it, was irritable and touchy. Miss Wooler removed her seminary to another less salubrious situa- tion, and this too affected Charlotte's delicate organization. But 360 CHAllLOTTE BRONTE. she still struggled bravely on in the career at heart so distasteful to her. The three sisters met at home at Christmas, iu 1836. They talked over their cares and anxieties, and laid plans for the future. On the 29th of December, Charlotte, resolved to ask some opinion upon her poetry less prejudiced than that of a sister or a father, forwarded a letter to Mr. Southey — the first link in a long chain of adventurous correspondence. She received his reply three months afterwards, at the academy : it was earnest and kind, though depressing, and, as she thought, strin- gent ; it dissuaded her from a hterary life. For a time, she obeyed the unwelcome advice ; but her despondency grew upon her, and, iu her twenty-first year, she wrote to a friend that "her aberrations of memory warned her pretty intelligibly that she was getting past her prime." It became evident, in 1838, that she was overtasking herself, her physical weakness being such that at any sudden noise she turned sick and lost all self- control. The county physician recommended a return to the beloved moors of Haworth and the society of her family as the only means of saving her reason or her life. She went home, and her health and spirits returned. She refused an offer of mar- riage, and spent a year in that painful servitude — the situation of governess. She wrote a tale which she afterwards con- demned, and no portion of which has ever been pubhshed. She now spent two years in Brussels, for the purpose of per- fecting herself in the French language, and qualifying herself for the duties of a teacher. The death of her aunt, by which she and her sisters came into the possession of small legacies, enabled them to indulge the idea of making such alterations in the Haworth parsonage as would adapt it to the requirements of an academy. Charlotte returned home in January, 1844, alarmed by the tidings which reached her of her father's incipient blindness. She discussed her plan of opening a girls' school with her sisters, CHARLOTTE BRONTE. 361 and wrote to the friends she had made during her residence at Hoe Head and at Brussels. She intended to print her circulars as soon as she received the promise of one pupil ; but June, July, August, September, and October passed, and not one pupil was obtained. Her brother Branwell was ruining his health and character in a tumultuous course of London dissipation ; her father, nearly sightless, lamented his own misery and his son's disgrace in helpless woe ; and she herself spent the bitter days in the apprehension of a similar loss, her eyes having been severely affected by her long ill health, her early habit of minute writing, her sleepless nights and her silent tears. At last, Bran- well, discharged from his situation as private tutor, came home, a confirmed drunkard and an irreclaimable opium eater. The impossibility of continuing his city life drove him to additional draughts of liquor and doses of opium, for the purpose of drowning recollection, and, perhaps, of stunning conscience. The wretched sisters used to he awake at night listening for the report of a pistol, till their eyes and ears became deadened with the strain. A ray of light broke over their gloomy path in the autumn of 1845. At this period Charlotte accidentally took up a manuscript volume of verse, by her sister Emily. She read several poems, and thought them terse, vigorous and genuine. Upon this, Anne, the youngest, produced a volume of compositions of her own, and asked her sister's opinion. Charlotte found them sweet, sincere and pathetic. The three resolved to arrange a small selection of their poems, and, if possible, get them printed. Being averse to personal publicity, they adopted ambiguous signatures, not wishing to take masculine names, on account of the deceit, nor yet wilhng to declare themselves women, on account of the prejudice with which they conceived authoresses were regarded. Charlotte assumed the name of Currer Bell, Emily that of Ellis BeU, and Anne that of Acton Bell. Charlotte immediately commenced the ungracious task of writing to the 46 362 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. London publishers. For a long time she received no answer ; at last, in January, 1846, Messrs. Aylott and Jones, of Paternoster Row, made an encouraging reply. They agreed, after some correspondence, to publish a volume of 250 pages, in long primer, at the expense of the authors. Charlotte sent the manu- script and an installment of £31 10s., and requested that the proofs might be forwarded for the authors' correction. The volume was issued, and the public and the j^ress allowed it to pass almost unnoticed. The Athenajum of July 4th referred briefly to the volume, assigning the highest place to EUis Bell, and styling him " a fine quaint spirit." Currer came next in the reviewer's estimation. The sale of the work never indemni- fied the sisters for their pecuniary advance, and Messrs. Aylott and Jones decided that they could not advantageously continue their business relations with the future authors of Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey. In the autumn of this year, Charlotte took her father to Manchester, to be treated by Dr. Wilson, a distinguished ocuhst. An operation for the cataract, attended with great anxiety and some danger, was finally successful. In the midst of these cares, and in spite of the failure of their late venture, Charlotte and her sisters were preparing for their second literary effort. Bach of them had written a tale in prose, Charlotte contributing The Professor, Emily, Wuthering'Heights, and Anne, Agnes Grey. The three were sent forth together, and then they were sent forth separately ; no publisher would take them in any number or in any shape. "The Professor" came back, on one occasion, to Charlotte, with a rough refusal, on the day her father was to undergo the operation. The three manuscripts went begging to every bookselling door in London, to be coldly and contemptuously repulsed by all. It was at Manchester, in uncomfortable hired apartments, in a monotonous suburb of that monotonous town, with her father lying sightless and silent in an adjoining room ; with her dissolute, dying brother rendering CHARLOTTE BKONTE. 363 the quiet home at Haworth almost disreputable ; with her sisters dependent on her for care and nurture ; with her own health shattered, and her hopes and aspirations rudely and bitterly quenched, that Charlotte Bronte commenced that master-piece of fiction, Jane Eyre. She had not advanced far in her work, when her father was able to go home to Haworth, his sight and strength gradually re- turning. Little, very little is known of the j^rogress of the wonderful romance. Charlotte only wrote when the spirit prompted, sometimes passing weeks and months in barren un- productiveness. Then the cloud would pass from her mind, and every moment which could be stolen from her household or filial duties would be eagerly devoted to urging forward the precious manuscript. At these times, she was, as it were, possessed by her subject, but even then never neglected her ordinary domestic routine, and threw down pencil and pa- per, and checked the flow of inspiration, to run and peel the potatoes for the now inefficient Tabby. She wrote upon small scraps of paper, in pencil, using a piece of planed board for a desk, afterwards copying her manuscript in a clear, delicate, print-like hand. Once or twice a week, in the evening, she read what she had written to her sisters, they in turn reading their own compositions, in their various stages of advancement. It was dui'ing a discussion which once ensued, that Charlotte re- solved to make her heroine entirely devoid of personal attrac- tions. ' ' She told her sisters that they were wrong, even morally wrong, in making their heroines beautiful as a matter of course. They replied that it was impossible to make a heroine interesting on any other terms. Her answer was, 'I will prove to you that you are wrong ; I will show you a heroine as plain and as small as myself, who shall be as interesting as any of yours.' As the work went on, the interest deepened to the writer. When she came to Thornfield, she could not stop. On she went, writing incessantly for three weeks ; by which time she had carried her 364 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. heroine away from Thornfield, and was herself in a fever which compelled her to pause." Thus passed the year 1846, and thus commenced that of 1847. " The Professor" was still plodding his weary way from publisher to pubhsher ; Mr. Bronte was bearing his inflictions in silent stoicism, and sharing his parochial duties with his curate, Mr. NichoUs ; Branwell was receiving periodical visits from she- riffs' officers, who invariably invited him to pay a little bill or ac- company them to York. Charlotte lost her appetite, and de- scribed herself as " looking grey, old, worn and sunk," and on one occasion wrote to a friend, " My youth is gone hke a dream, and very little use have I ever made of it. I shall be thirty-one next birth-day." But Jane Eyre made good progress, and at last Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey found a pubhsher will- ing to assume the risk, though " upon terms somewhat impover- ishing to the two authors." A courteous letter received from the publishing house of Messrs. Smith and Elder, declining to accept " The Professor," but giving sufficient and discriminating rea- sons, and accompanying the refusal with an intimation that a work in three volumes would meet with careful attention, de- cided Charlotte to offer them Jane Eyre. On the 24th of Au- gust, she forwarded the manuscript, directing the publishers to address, in future, Mr. Currer BeU, under cover to Miss Bronte, Haworth, Bradford, Yorkshire. The copy was read by a gentle- man connected with the firm, and he expressed his admiration in terms so strong that Mr. Smith attached no value to his opinion. Upon reading it himself, however, he acknowledged that his partner's eulogistic language had not been unworthily bestowed. The book was accepted, and published on the 16th of October, 1847. The immense success which this fascinating work subsequently obtained, was due wholly to the discrimination of the public, and in no degree either to the favorable or adverse criticisms of the press. Neither the jom-nals nor the magazines seem to have CHARLOTTE BRONTE. 365 thought it worthy of more than a passmg, and often non-com- mittal, notice. When the tide of pubhc favor set in, early in December, the Examiner awarded it the benefit of a studied and very commendatory article. The authoress was slowly and gradually acquainted with her good fortune. The following ex- tracts from successive letters to her pubhshers, will show in what manner she was affected by the critical notices of her work : "The notice in the Literary Gazette seems certainly to have been indited in rather a flat mood, and the Athenfeum has a style of its own, which I respect, but cannot exactly relish ; still, when wc consider that journals of that standing have a dignity to retain, which would be deranged by too cordial a recognition of the claims of an obscure author, I suppose there is every reason to be satisfied. " The critique in the Spectator gives that view of the book which will naturally be taken by a certain class of minds ; I shaU expect it to be followed by other notices of a similar nature. The way to detraction has been pointed out, and will probably be pursued. The notice in the Examiner gratified me very much ; it appears to be from the pen of an able man who has understood what he undertakes to criticise ; of course approbation from such a quarter is encouraging to an author, and I trust it will prove beneficial to the work." On December 10th, she wrote a paragraph which told that her labors had at last met with their reward : " Gentlemen, I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter inclosing a bank post biU, for which I thank you." The sisters now determined to acquaint their father with the successful result of Charlotte's literary efforts. They had hitherto concealed from him their labors and correspondence, that they might not add theu* own anxieties to his, though he asserted afterwards that he suspected something of the kind, as his children were perpetually writing, and not writing letters. Charlotte went into his study, taking with her a copy of Jane 366 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. Eyre, and two reviews, one favorable, one adverse. The follow- ing conversation then ensued : " Papa, I've been writing a book." " Have you, my dear ? " " Yes, and I want you to read it." "I am afraid it will try my eyes too much." " But it is not in manuscript ; it is printed." " My dear, you've never thought of the expense it will be! It will be almost sure to be a loss, for how can you get a book sold ? JSTo one knows you or your name." " But, papa, I don't think it will be a loss ; no more will you, if you will let me read you a review or two, and tell you more about it." Thereupon she read him the reviews, and left him to peruse the book himself. When he came into tea, he pronounced a criticism quite as guarded as that of the Athenaeum ; " Girls," he said, " do you know Charlotte has been writing a book, and it is much better than likely ?" The secret of the authorship of Jane Byre was now known to four persons — ^the three Brontes and their father. Beyond them, not an individual in Gi'eat Britain, not even the publishers, knew or suspected the truth. But every reader in the land sought to penetrate the mystery by twisting the incidents to suit this or that locality, or by directly charging some popular author with the responsibility of the unacknowledged production. The first edition was sold before even the question of sex was satisfactorily disposed of, and the third was put to press just as popular opinion had settled upon two points ; that Jane Eyre was the work of a new and untried hand, and that the writer was to be sought for amid the wild scenes described in the novel — amid the racy and strongly-characterized inhabitants of the North and West Ridings. Still, it does not appear that any one in Haworth at this period either felt the interest or took the trouble to put two very evident facts together, and draw an CHAELOTTEBEONTE. 367 inference therefrom: Jane Eyre was by Currcr Bell, and for a year past the Haworth postman had carried daily batches of letters, magazines, reviews, to Miss Bronte, to be dehvered to Currer Bell. Village postmen are usually confidential, and it is doing no injustice to the worthy gossips of Haworth to suppose them often wondering, with the carrier, who this Currer Bell could be. Indeed it is not necessary to indulge in conjecture at all, for Charlotte once overheard the postman, at the outset of her correspondence, inquire of Mr. Bronte where one Currer Bell could be living. On that occasion the letter was not directed to the care of Miss Bronte, and doubtless the postman had made a similar inquiry at every house he had visited. Yet for two years and a half Haworth remained in profound ignorance of the ill- guarded secret. Charlotte's first visit to London occurred in June, 1848, under the following circumstances : — A publisher in America had made an arrangement with Messrs. Smith and Elder for early sheets of the next work by Currer Bell. The firm subse- quently heard that a similar bargain had been made between another American and another London house. On inquiry they discovered that the publishers of Wuthering Heights, by Emily, and of Agnes Grey, by Anne, and who at this time were about issuing Anne's second work, "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall," had assured their American correspondent that, to the best of their knowledge, all three books were by the author of Jane Eyre. They therefore promised him early sheets of Wildfell Hall, as a work by Currer Bell. Upon being acquainted with these facts, Charlotte and Anne at once resolved to proceed to Paternoster Row, and there prove their separate identity. They appeared unannounced before Mr. Smith, who, up to this mo- ment, was ignorant whether Currer Bell were a man or a woman. They were dressed in black, and, at first sight, seemed unattract- ive and uninteresting enough. Charlotte produced Mr. Smith's letter, at the same time informing him that Currer and Acton 368 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. Bell stood before him. "When the first surprise was over, Mr. Smith began to suggest plans for their amusement during their stay, but Charlotte was firm in her resolution to leave London as she had entered it, unknown. She went, however, with her sister and the ladies of Mr. Smith's family, to the opera, noticing that the finely-dressed visitors glanced with a slight and graceful supercihousness at her plain, high-made country garments. They went to church on Sunday, and to the Royal Academy on Mon- day, returning home, well laden with books, on Tuesday. Char- lotte writes thus of the consequences of her visit: "A more jaded wretch than I looked, it would be difficult to conceive. I was thin when I went, but I was meagre indeed when I returned, my face looking grey and very old, with strange deep lines ploughed in it, my eyes staring unnaturally." They had passed in London as the Misses Brown, and appear to have been looked upon as shy and reserved little countrywomen, with not much to say. Branwell Bronte died, after a profligate and mis-spent life, on the 24th of September, 1848. It was the first death in the family since Charlotte had been of an age to reaUze the full import of such an event. She gave way at the crisis of her brother's fate, sinking beneath an attack of bilious fever at the moment of his agony. He had resolved on standing up to die, and met his doom in that position. The wretched household bore the dis- pensation in meek submission ; but when, three months later, Emily sickened and followed Branwell to the tomb beneath the old church pavement, then the father and his two remaining children lost all courage. It was when Charlotte's soul was thus wrung by calamity that the Quarterly Review, containing a flip- pant and scornful notice of Jane Eyre, was laid before her. She seems to have expressed a silent opinion of the article by placing a number of sentences from it in the mouth of a hard and vulgar personage in the novel of "Shirley," upon which, in the midst of her distresses, she was zealously engaged. CHARLOTTE BRONTE. 369 Charlotte had thus lost a brother and a sister in the space of three months. The year 1849 opened with the premonitions of another bereavement. Anne faded and drooped before the rapid advance of tubercular consumption. In Maj^, the sea air was recommended, and Charlotte took her fast-sinking sister down to the sands of Scarborough. Anne died at the sea-side, and Char- lotte, construing a few words she had uttered into a wish to that effect, buried her — " Wliere tlje sonth sun warms the now dear sod, Where the ocean billows lave and strike the steep and tnrf-covered rock." Charlotte was now alone out of six children who had been born to her mother, and out of the four with whom she had grown up into life. The first chapter which she wrote after the death of Anne she entitled "The Valley of the Shadow of Death." Perhaps the desolation of the unhappy woman was cheered by the labor of love upon which she was engaged, for Shirley Keeldar was intended as a portrait of her sister Emily ; perhaps, on the contrary, the realization of her bereavement was rendered all the more intense and poignant by the constant presence in her mind's eye of her who was forever lost to the outward vision. But she wrote steadily on, sitting desolate in the room where lately three kindred spirits had communed in sympathy, until, in September, the work was done. It was published on the 26th of October. The earliest reviews mortified her exceedingly by the unanimity with which they agreed that the author must be a woman, for she felt that the critic unconsciously lowered his standard when judging of the productions of a female pen, and she preferred to be measured in a more impartial scale. But the secret was divulged during the month following the publication. The author could hardly be other than a person thoroughly familiar with the scenes in which the story was laid — West York- shire, the scene of the Luddite riots. A letter published in a 47 s 370 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. Liverpool paper emitted the suggestion that the writer must, from internal evidence, be an inhabitant of Haworth, and added that there was but one person in Haworth capable of the effort — Miss Bronte. Suspicion being thus directed, and conjecture being thus brought to a focus, the mystery was speedily dissolved, and when, towards the close of the year, Charlotte made a second visit to London, it was to acknowledge the authorship and discard her pseudonym. She was forced, much against her will, into what appeared to her a whirl of dissijoation. Her shy, retiring manners never quite left her, and it was with a nervous shrinking and hesitation that she met each successive new acquaintance. On her return to Haworth, she found that "Airedale, Wharfedale, Calder- dale and Ribblesdale," and, indeed, the whole West Riding, were rife with the excitement consequent upon the disclosure that the wonderful Currer Bell was a Yorkshire clergyman's daughter. The peculiar interest attaching to the life of Charlotte Bronte ceases, in a great degree, with her assumption of an individual existence. She was now involved in the usual round of occupa- tions incidental to a literary career. She went again to London, where she sat for her portrait, in crayon, to Richmond ; she attended the French plays, and saw Rachel ; she admired the Crystal Palace ; she attended popular and artistic gatherings ; she received anonymous tributes of admiration ; she edited a new edition of the works of her sisters ; she travelled in Scotland ; she heard d'Aubigne preach, and she visited Miss Martineau at Ambleside. She commenced "Villette" late in 1850, but had made but little progress at the close of 1851. She wi'ote with evident distaste, constantly interrupted by attacks of sickness and by fits of indifference and even disgust. With a work produced under such circumstances, she was naturally dissatisfied, and besought her publishers to allow her the shelter and protection of an incognito, unless such a course should tend to injure their interests. She dreaded to see the large advertisement, "New Work by Currer Bell," though she acknowledged that these C H A R L T T E B R N T E . 371 hiunors were "the transcendentalisms of a retired wretch." She seems to have felt that her powers were waning, for she thus rephed to suggestions for very obvious improvements in Villette : " With many of your strictures I concur : I doubt whether the regular novel reader will consider the agony piled sufficiently high — as the Americans say — or the colors dashed on to the can- vas with the proper amount of daring. Still I fear they must be satisfied with what is offered ; my palette affords no brighter tints ; were I to attempt to deepen the reds or burnish the yellows, I should but botch." The acclamations of delight which welcomed the book upon its pubhcation in January, 1853, relieved her from an oppressive weight of apj)rehension. Just before she left Haworth for London to correct the proof- sheets of Villette, her father's curate, Mr. NichoUs, who for eight years had been an admiring yet silent witness of her virtues, and whose respect had rijjened into a fervent affection, made known to her the state of his feelings. She had not suspected his attach- ment, when the avowal was made. It was vehement and passionate. Charlotte promised a reply on the morrow, intend- ing, if her father should give his consent, to make a favorable one. But Mr. Bronte, who disapproved of marriages in general, was particularly opposed to this one, and his daughter was glad to quiet his agitation and set his fears at rest by engaging to give Mr. NichoUs a formal refusal. She did so, without thought for herself, though certainly, at the age of thirty-seven, she might have been safely left to the dictates of her own judgment, even in so serious a matter as matrimony. Mr. NichoUs resigned his curacy, and Charlotte, suflering deeply from the pain which she had thus been made to inflict, was glad to profit by the opportunity presented by the approaching appearance of Villette, to revisit London, and temporarily absent herself from Haworth. Mr. Bronte seems to have spent a poi-tion of his time during her absence in reflecting upon his own selfishness, and in recon- ciling himself to the possibility of his daughter's marriage. By 372 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. degrees his prejudice was conquered and his obstinacy quelled. In Ajiril, 1854, Mr. Nicholls paid a visit to the parsonage, and it was then agreed that, he should resume the curacy, and in due course of time be received as an inmate of the house. Mr. Nich- olls proposed the month of July as a fitting period, but Charlotte seems to have thought this unnecessarily sudden. She never- theless visited London and Leeds for the purpose of making her modest jjurchases, and was quite ready for the grand occasion, which was even hastened beyond Mr. Nicholls' hopes, and ap- pointed for the 27th of June. On that day, Charlotte Bronte was married, Mr. Bronte refusing, at the last moment, to enter the church, and declining to give the bride away. This duty was performed by Miss Wooler, of Roe Head, one of Charlotte's cherished friends ever since her schoolgirl days. The bride and bridegroom then departed upon their wedding-tour, and spent the midsummer months amid the romantic scenery of KiUarney and Glengaritf. We have but one more paragraph to write in this sad and ch"eerless history. Charlotte Bronte survived her marriage some- what less than a year, and on the morning of the 31st of March, the bell of the old Haworth church rang forth her passing knell. On Easter Sunday, while the Christian woi-ld was rejoicing in the recurrence of its joyous anniversary, the stricken parent commit- ted to the earth the mortal remains of his sixth and last child, and then the father and the husband, shutting the door of the parsonage upon the ready sympathy of the villagers, sat down in silence to bear their grief alone. " The story of the Bronte family," says the Rev. Henry Giles, " reads like the nari'ative of a family devoted to mortal doom. It is as if the spirit of an olden tragedy were embodied in a mo- dern form, as if the Idea of Fate were translated into reality ; as if the Myth and Mystery of a Grecian legend were twined into English fact. "We might truly call that clerical residence ' the house of the dying' — as the place around it was literally the CHARLOTTE BRONTE. 373 place of the Dead If every biography, at the best, seems but a tragedy from the beginning, if no hfe remains beyond the present for the soul, then this and every other biography not only seems, but is, a tragedy ; a tragedy in the beginnhig and the end ; a tragedy inconsolable and immeasurable in its infinite despair." The reader of Charlotte Bronte's story will find some com- pensation for the pain it can hardly fail to cause him, in the consciousness that during her short and blighted career she won a name that will never die, and inscribed her signature upon im- perishable tablets. She has taken rank as the first female writer of fiction that England has produced ; and her works are rated as classics even in the magnificent literature of the English tongue. It will be no smaU consolation to those who are saddened by her mournful biography, to remember that the works thus conceived in woe and brought forth in travail, will be as enduring as the language in which they are written, and that she who was denied every human blessing and was tried by eveiy temporal affliction, died in possession of two immortalities — one which she inherited beyond the grave and one which she had earned for hei'self on earth. Charlotte Bronte is no more ; Jane Eyre shall live for- ever. \ i 1 ^»' ••\. VICTORIA The lapse of centuries has brought about few more striking changes than are exhibited in the contrast between the biographies of modern female sovereigns and those of ancient times. Queens are not what they were. Time was when the history of her Majesty was a history of her kingdom. He who reads the history of Isabella, reads the history of Castile and Aragon ; the story of the Catholic Queen is inseparable from that of the expulsion of the Jews, the conquest of Granada, and the voyages of Columbus. The historian of Mary Stuart is the historian of Scotland ; the biographer of Elizabeth must, to a certain extent, be also the biographer of Shakspeare, Raleigh and Drake. But all this has been materially changed. The daughters of royal houses have seen their best days ; there will never be another Maria Theresa. Something more potent than a Salic law excludes them. The British constitution permits the queen to be virtuous, amiable and charitable ; it does not allow her to be sagacious, learned or acute ; she may be good, she cannot be great. The crown was once a symbol ; now it is a head-dress. The impossi- bility of doing justice to Isabella without constant mention of Ximenes and Torquemada is apparent to all; or to Mary of Scotland, without repeated reference to Murray and John Knox ; 8T6 376 VICTORIA. but it is not incumbent upon the biographer of Victoria to allude, even distantly, to Palmerston or Spurgeon. Isabella and her reign were one and the same thing ; Victoria and her reign are two very distinct themes. The one falls within the province of Mrs. Jameson ; the other within that of Macaulay. Our duty, therefore, as we understand it, is to say a few words of an exemplary mother of a family, who is also, incidentally, an excellent queen. That Alexandrina Victoria should ever have ascended the English throne is, perhaps, the only remarkable event in her life. George III. left five sons, the elder, of course, the heir, the others in all likelihood forever debarred from the succession. The heir, the Prince of Wales, reigned as George IV., and died childless ; the second son, the Duke of York, died without reign- ing, and likewise childless ; the third son, the Duke of Clarence, reigned as WiUiam IV., and died childless ; the fourth son, Edward, Duke of Kent, died without reigning, but left one child, a daughter ; and to her, thus remote from the inheritance, descended the patrimony of the house of Hanover and Bruns- wick. Edward, Duke of Kent, was the best of King George's sons. He was honest, sincere, high-minded. The firmness of his prin- ciples and the austerity of his manners caused him to be dis- hked, and even persecuted, by the elder members of the royal family. His income was small, and though the son of a king, he barely possessed the means of maintaining his rank respect- ably. He lived for a long time in Germany, and there, in 1818, married Victoria Maria Louisa, the youngest daughter of the Duke of Saxe Coburg, and the widow of the Prince of Lei- ningen. The Duchess of Kent proved herself equal to the duties which Providence assigned her — those of the mother of the future Queen of Great Britain. She was a lady of high principle, her natural strength of character and constancy of purpose being agreeably tempered by a gentle disposition and great amiability of manner and address. She was beloved by all, and her regency VICTORIA. 377 of her first husband's principality, before the majority of her son by him, caused her to be deeply respected. Shortly after her marriage with the Duke of Kent, it became evident that the duke might be called to the throne of England, and that the child whose birth was soon expected, must succeed him. He was anxious that his offspring should be born in the country where it might be destined to rule ; but he was absolutely without the means necessary for the journey. He was residing at Amorbach, a small town in Germany, and from there wrote to his relations and friends in England for the requisite remit- tances. In one of his letters he wrote thus: "The interesting situation of the duchess causes me hourly anxiety ; and you, who so well know my views and feehngs, can easily appreciate how eagerly desirous I am to hasten our departure for old England. The event is thought likely to occur about the end of next month. My wish is that it may take place about the 4th of June, as that is the birthday of my revered father ; and that the child, too, like him, may be a Briton born." The royal and noble friends to whom the duke had applied for assistance, declined affording it ; he was indebted for the means of reaching his country to persons of comparatively ob- scure condition. He arrived with his wife at Kensington Palace in time for his daughter to see the hght upon British soil ; upon the 24th of May, 1819, his first and only child, Alex- andrina Victoria, was born. At this moment, her uncle, George IV., was upon the throne, and between her and the succession stood his possible issue ; and failing that, her uncle of York and his issue ; and failing them, her uncle of Clarence and his issue ; and faihng them, her own father. That she should have event- ually obtained the crown by the successive disruption of every link in the sequence, will ever be a notable feature in the his- tory of her house. The Duke of Kent hved but eight months after the birth of his daughter, and his widow was left, if not in penury, at least with 48 378 VICTORIA. very inadequate means for the proper education of her child ; her husband had died in debt, and she was frequently reminded of his obligations. Her energy was untiring, however, and she struggled successfully with aU the difficulties which beset her jjath. The poetess, L. E. L., alluded to the discouragements under which the duchess labored, in these lines : " Oh ! many a dark and sorrowing hour Thy widowed heart had known, Before the bud became a flower — The orphan on a throne." Victoria was delicate in constitution, and her mother's first eflforts were directed to strengthening and invigorating her frame. She was encouraged to ramble in the fields, to romp in the play-ground, and walk upon the sea-shore. She sat by her mother at her meals, and was allowed none but the simplest kinds of food. They were rarely seen apart ; they slept in the same apartment ; the mother, when not herself the teacher, was nevertheless present at the teachings of others, sharing as it were the tasks and amusements of her daughter. The physical, intellectual and moral training of Victoria, during her childhood, wei'e such as a devoted mother, a cultivated woman, and a sin- cere Christian, already awake to the possible transcendent des- tiny of her child, and consequently keenly sensible of her own responsibility, could either herself afford, or obtain at the hands of persons specially qualified for the duty. The following pas- sage has reference to Victoria, at the age of five years : " When first I saw the pretty and pale daughter of the Duke of Kent, she was fatherless. Her fair light form was sporting, in all the redolence of youth and health, on the noble sands of old Ramsgate. It was a fine summer day, not so warm as to induce languor, but yet warm enough to render the fanning breezes from the laughing tides, as they broke gently on the sands, agreeable and refreshing. Her dress was simple ; a plam VICTORIA. 379 straw bonnet, with a wHte ribbon round the crown, a colored mushii frock, looking gay and cheerful, and as pretty a pair of shoes on as pretty a pair of feet as I ever remember to have seen from China to Kamschatka. Her mother was her companion, and a venerable man, whose name is graven on every human heart that loves its species, and whose undying fame is recorded in that eternal book where the actions of men are written with the pen of truth, walked by her parent's side, and doubtless gave that counsel and offered that advice, which none were more able to offer than himself — for it was William Wilberforce. His kindly eyes followed, with parental interest, every footstep of the young creature, as she advanced to, and then retreated from, the coming tide, and it was evident that his mind and his heart were full of the future, whilst they were interested in the present." When Victoria was six years old, her mother appointed the Rev. George Davys her preceptor ; his fidelity and zeal proved the wisdom of her choice. The Baroness Lehzen was associated with him as instructress. Up to her eleventh year the prin- cess was totally unaware of her claims upon the succession, or of any possible concatenation of events by which her condition in life would be materially changed. In 1827, the Duke of Toi'k died, and in 1830, King George followed him; the acces- sion of King William, whose two daughters were already dead, placed her next the throne. Her education was now such as would best fit her to wear the crown. Without overtasking her mental or physical energies, her instructors plied her with every species of knowledge by which a queen might profit. They read together the numerous treatises which had been written — for the most part in the continental languages — upon the education of a princess. She was made familiar with the lives and actions of all who had conferred honor upon the human race, whether as sove- reigns, statesmen, scholars, inventors, discoverers, benefactors, poets or divines. While yet in her teens and not yet in her major- ity, she spoke English, French and German with equal fluency ; 380 VICTORIA. she read Italian, and translated Virgil and Horace ; she was a pro- ficient in mathematics, and showed decided talent in all branches connected with the science of numbers. Accomplishments were not neglected, and the princess danced, sang, and sketched from nature. She laid aside a portion of her pocket money, to aid her mother in gradually extinguishing the indebtedness of her father. A sound religious training lay at the base of the fabric thus reared, and Victoria was made to reahze that as she was to reign over a nation professedly Christian, she must prove, by her pri- vate conduct and in her domestic life, her right to the glorious title of Defender of the Faith. At the age of fifteen, Victoria had a companion in her studies and recreations — a boy four months younger than herself — Al- bert- Franz- August-Karl-Emanuel, the second son of the Duke of Saxe-Coburg, and her own cousin, on her mother's side. The friendship of cousins is matter of tradition, and Victoria and Al- bert are believed to have presented, in their own example, a fresh illustration of its truth, by evincing a strong attachment at this early period of their lives. The confirmation of the princess took place in July, 1835, at the Chapel Royal, St. James's, the royal family only being present. The Archbishop of Canterbury delivered a pathetic and parental exhortation, reminding Victoria of the duties she must soon be called upon to fulfill, of the respon- sibilities her station in life imposed upon her, and of the struggles for which she must prepare between the allurements of the world and the claims of the throne. The old king frequently shed tears, and nodded his head in fervent assent to the archbishop's impres- sive periods. The little princess was herself dissolved in tears. Victoria attained her legal majority on the 24th of May, 1837 ; lier eighteenth birthday was kept as a general holiday through- out the United Kingdom — the gracious anniversary being worthily commemorated with bells, flowers and fire. Four weeks after this event, upon the 20th of June, the King of England died in his seventy-second year, and the crown passed to the line of his VICTORIA. 381 younger brother. At five o'clock in the morning, Victoria was informed by the Archbishop of Canterbury of the demise of her uncle, and of the vacancy upon the tnrone. The sovereignty of the most powerful nation of the earth lay at the feet of a girl of eighteen. That day Victoria entered upon public Hfe. The grand officers of state, the privy councillors — a hundred or more of the highest nobility in the realm — assembled in Ken- sington Palace. It has been truly said that the pen and pencil have endeavored in vain to do justice to this imposing and af- fecting scene. The herald made his portentous announcement — ' ' We publish and proclaim that the high and mighty princess Al- exandrina Victoria, is the only lawful and liege lady, and, by the Grace of God, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Defender of the Faith." At these formidable words, so fraught with blessing or calamity to the fair young lady they con- cerned, she threw her arms round her mother's neck and wept upon her bosom. Her uncle of Sussex, the last and youngest of her father's brothers, was about to kneel and take the oath of allegi- ance, when she playfully but resolutely stopped him, saying, "Do not kneel, uncle ; for I am still Victoria, your niece." The Duchess of Kent, lately the mother of a princess royal, now the mother of a queen, fell gracefully into the second rank, and from that time forward treated her daughter as a superior, whom etiquette required her to approach with respect and address with deference. If the queen needed advice, henceforward, she was to ask it of her councillors, not of her family. One month later, on the 17th of July, Victoria made her first public appearance as sovereign of the nation. She pro- rogued Parliament in person, addressing the members of the two chambers from the throne in the House of Lords. Her pallor betrayed her emotion, but her manner was composed, and her bearing at once child-Uke and royal. Her voice was distinct, though tremulous. It was a proud day for Great Brit- ain ; the people unreservedly gave away their hearts, the prey 382 VICTORIA. to love at first sight. And they have never regretted the spon- taneous, precipitate act. One of the first measures of Victoria was to pay from her own privy purse the remaining debts of her father — those wliich she and her mother had been unable by their united economies to hquidate. The people contrasted the queen's conscientious ap- plication of her resources with the conduct of her grandfather, George III., vmder similar circumstances. His father, Frederick, Prmce of Wales, left behind him numerous obligations, not one farthing of which did George, on coming to the throne, think proper to discharge. Victoria I. was crowned in Westminster Abbey on the 28tli of June, 1838. The venerable pile was dressed with unusual, unprecedented splendor. Every nation in Christendom, and several out of its pale, had sent their representatives, and the maiden queen was " consecrated" — to use the solemn continental expression — in the midst of the most imposing and gorgeous assemblage which this century has witnessed, whether in West- minster Abbey, Notre Dame de Paris, or the Kremlin of Moscow. Victoria kneeled and devoutly implored the divine guidance for herself and a blessing for her people. From that time forward, she has discharged with exemplary fidelity every duty which devolved ujDon her as a queen, and has sought to enlarge the sphere of her duties as a woman, that by discharging those also, she might offer a model to the mothers, wives and sisters of her subjects. She felt how imperatively needed was an example of strict virtue on the British throne. One of the royal spectators of the ceremony of the coro- nation was His Serene Highness the Duke of Saxe and cousin of Coburg, of whom we have already spoken. He had come with his father, Ernest- Anton-Karl Ludwig, who had lately con- tracted a second marriage. They were both favorites at court and popular with the people. Coming events cast their shadows be- fore — persistent, lengthening, sunset shadows. Rumor diligently V I C T E I A . 383 coupled the cousins of Brunswick and Gotha. Tlie prince went to Italy for the winter, but was not forgotten at Buckingham Palace during his absence. The rumor crept into the public prints, but was at once indignantly denied by the ministerial journals — a measure which naturally gave it greater currency than ever. Prince Albert found the portrait of the Queen awaiting him on his return to Coburg, and in October, 1839, he embarked upon his third visit to Loudon. All doubts were now set at rest, the ministerial journals held their peace, and in the following month the queen summoned her privy council, and communicated to them her intentions in regard to a matri- monial alliance. The Tenth of February witnessed the royal wedding, and the service read alike over rich and poor united the Queen and the Prince Consort. Few princesses, and cer- tainly very few queens, have ever been able to assert, as the Queen of England may, that her choice was so guided by incli- nation and preference, that her exalted rank was in no wise consulted ; and that, had she always remained the daughter of a duke, her course would stiU have been the same. There is, in fact, not the slightest reason to doubt, that had she never come to the throne, she would stiU have married her cousin. Fortunately, however, the love match was not without its politi- cal expediency, or at least presented no international disadvan- tages, or the privy council might possibly have interfered. By the regularity with which, at reasonable intervals, Queen Victoria has become, eight successive times, a mother, she has furnished a theme of innocent mirth to thousands, and has caused weak political economists to groan over the frightful extrava- gance necessitated by so many royal christenings. Her subjects, however, see abundant cause for rejoicing in the bounteous dispensation. The first born — Victoria Adelaide Louisa Mary, Princess Royal of England, and for a time presumptive heiress to the throne — has, in this present year, been happily married to Prince Frederick William of Prussia. The second, Albert 384 VICTORIA. Edward, Prince of Wales and heir apparent, now in his eighteenth year, is said to have lately caused his mother some anxiety by the zest with which he enters into the pleasures natural to his age. The French ambassador might administer consolation in the words with which he lately sought to soothe the enraged Minister of State, at Paris, whose son had run away with an actress and a million: " Mon Dieu, il faut que jeunesse se passe!" "Good gracious, young men will be young men !" And so will Princes Royal. Upon the birth of this son, the queen caused his duchy and other property to be put into the hands of responsible commis- sioners, to be held, protected and judiciously managed for him tiU he should come of age. Here again the nation had an oppor- tunity of contrasting the conduct of Victoria with that of George TIL, who, upon the birth of his first son, laid hands upon the Duchy of Cornwall and aU other property to which he was entitled, appropriated the rents and proceeds, and, instead of accounting for them to him, when he attained his majority, sent him to demand a settlement from Parliament. The contrast is rendered still more striking, when it is remembered that the income of Victoria is hardly more than half that of George III. Of the remaining children of her majesty, the world knows little more than their names. Alice Maud Mary was born in April, 1843 ; Alfred Ernest in August, 1844 ; Helena Augusta Victoria in May, 1846 ; Louisa Carolina Alberta in March, 1848 ; Arthur Patrick William Albert in May, 1850, and Leopold in May, 1853. There is every reason to believe that this large family group is one of the best guided and trained in England, not altogether because they are the offspring of the queen, and may command the best instruction, but because they are the children of Victoria, and claim, by inheritance, the nurture of one of the best of mothers. The technical duties of the queen are few and easily dis- charged. She opens and prorogues parUament, in language of VICTORIA. 385 course not her own, but that of her constitutional advisers. She affixes her signature to bills which have passed through the previous stages of enactment. She holds and exercises the par- doning power, using but not abusing it — never allowing a false sympathy or a dangerous facility to interfere with the due course of law, or thwart the ends of justice. It is her province to sign the death-warrants of persons condemned to die, but of this painful duty she has, at her request, been relieved. In short, the prescribed functions of an Enghsh sovereign are so entirely a matter of form and routine, that a queen is as well able to j^erform them as a king, and one queen as another. It is not as a ruler, but as an example, not as the head of the state, but as the head of society, that Victoria's name will be forever held in affectionate remembrance by her people. The sovereign may choose the manner in which he will execute this part of his mission. It is at the option of the king or queen to set the fashion of a lax morality and a pliant con- science ; the monarch may freely offer to the world the revolting spectacle of profligacy on the throne and pollution in the palace. He has no accounts to render, and is amenable to no laws. As if she regarded this immunity but as an incentive to a more conscientious ordering of her private life, Victoria's conduct has in every phase and situation been such that her acts might safely be subjected to an immediate and searching scrutiny. She has been the model of female royalty. She has imparted dignity to her court, and has invested even fashion with respectability. It is but rendering justice, however, to her mental qualifications, to state that she has on several occasions differed from her council- lors upon affairs of state, and that whenever she has insisted that deference should be paid to her personal will, the event has shown the superior wisdom of her opinion. With the occupations of the queen — those which belong to her public life — the reader is doubtless already sufficiently ac- quainted. She regulates the etiquette of the court ; she gives 49 386 VICTORIA. the sanction and countenance of her presence to such national, industrial or agricultural enterprises as seem entitled to the honor ; she shows herself to the people on occasions of festivity, and in the pageantry of an official ceremony or national rejoicing, is her- self the central and conspicuous figure. She receives and returns the visits of foreign sovereigns. She cherishes art and artists, not lavishing thousands upon those already favored and flourish- ing, hut seeking to encourage by timely approbation and patron- age those whose talents render them worthy of it, and whose youth or obscurity makes such recognition valuable. She pen- sions such persons as seem to her to have a claim, not so much upon the nation's public bounty as upon the queen's privy purse. She is a regular attendant at religious service. She is liberal though discreet in her charity ; her exjienditure is regulated by a prudent economy, and she is never in debt. But her peculiar and surpassing merit is, that she not only furnishes a model for all queens who may come after her, but that she sets before every woman in her kingdom a pattern which, in their several ranks and stations in life, they may safely and honorably follow. Upon few, very few queens, may this sweeping eulogy be pro- nounced. The privacy of Victoria's domestic hfe was, in the earlier years of her reign — as, indeed, it still is, though in a less degree — invaded by the curiosity of the public and the importunity of the press. An army of reporters followed her in midsummer to the Highlands and accompanied her in early autumn to the Rhine. But her subjects were the better and happier even for the appa- rently trivial details of her majesty's vacation thus spread before them in print. The citizen, confined to the desk or imprisoned behind the counter, breathed freer, though in the close atmo- sphere of London in July, as he read of the queen's leisure among the zephyrs at Blair Atholl, Glen Tilt or Balmoral ; of the national pibroch played by the royal piper beneath her majesty's window ; of the sprig of fresh heather presented to her as she VICTORIA. 387 awoke ; of the glass of cold spring water with which she com- menced the day's libations ; of her horsemanship upon a Shetland pony ; of her unobtrusive worship in a village church ; of her participation in the excellent sport of deerstalking, and of her delicate sippings of a beverage which, were we speaking of a fox- hunter or a bagman, we would call Highland whisky, but as we have reference to a lady and a queen, we will designate as moun- tain dew. The same citizen, cloyed with gratification at his sove- reign's holidays spent in her own realms, was the next year flattered in his national pride by a contemplation of her majesty abroad. He saw the princes of the German Confederation cluster to meet her in the vaUey of the Rhine — Brunswick and Saxe and Coburg and Holstein ; he saw Metternich rush post-haste from Vienna to Nassau, to administer the hospitalities of his bacchana- lian realm, and dispense to kings, princes and grand dukes, his precious vintage of Johannisberg. He observed with complacency that among the assembled monarchs the Queen of England was by far the most powerful and the most respected. As he rejoiced at her majesty's freedom from care and the trammels of court etiquette, and thus took pleasure in her absence, so he was delighted at her return, that he might bask again in the sunshine of her presence. If the queen is loved at home, she is admired abroad. In America there exists a more profound and abiding respect for Victoria than perhaps for any other living person. A practical people, we recognize and appreciate the value of her example to rulers and the ruled. It is a striking commentary upon our polit- ical consistency, that we acknowledge and pay homage to virtue and merit in a hereditary sovereign, and proverbially scrutinize, with little regard to their sohd qualifications, the claims of our own elective officers. Who shaU reconcile our enthusiastic reverence for the virtuous administration of a woman raised to power by the accident of rank, and the constitutional levity and indifference with which we pronounce upon the fitness of 388 VICTORIA. those whom we are to promote to office by the exercise of our birthright ? The Enghsh are unfortunate, in one respect, in their national anthem and their j^iitriotic lyrics — they can be sung by no one but themselves. There is Httle in the Marseillaise which does violence to the feelings or the pride of other nations, and of late years Americans have as fervently joined in the chorus as the French — in fact, in view of certain contingencies, much more so. There is nothing in the Star-spangled Banner in which all Europe might not join ; it prays only that the flag of the country may continue to float over the land where it is now acknowledged. There is but one line in the two English anthems to which we can with propriety assent. We can hardly be expected to express the desire, in melodious cadence, that Britannia may rule the waves, as we take too deep an interest in our own weak, but truly gallant navy ; nor that the queen's enemies may be ' ' scat- tered," as, unfortunately, we may yet be, politically, included among them ; we cannot call upon Providence to "confound the politics," or "frustrate the knavish tricks," of all nations besides Great Britain, as we might be saying a bad word for a portion of our own diplomacy ; but one line we may repeat as loudly as the most loyal Englishman, and in its sentiment we may and do as heartily concur — God save the Queen ! EUGENIE. In the month of January, 1853, a perplexing rumor startled the Parisians. The Emperor Louis Napoleon had lately been at Compibgne, hunting the stag and paying court to a Spanish countess. At this period, the private life of their sovereign was such as to afford the inhabitants of the metropolis plentiful topics of scandal, and to exert a decidedly unfavorable effect upon the character of any woman to whom he showed attention. Little was known of the Spanish lady who was now the object of his suit ; she was said to be of mixed parentage, and it was asserted that her Scottish and Spanish descent were plainly indicated, the one by her blue eyes, the other by her olive skin. Her character was disparagingly spoken of, not that anything whatever to her discredit was known, but because she was the guest of an unmarried man, and one whose dissolute habits were matter of notoriety. The public regarded her, however, with Uttle interest, supposing her merely a candidate for a dubious honor, and not for an instant supposing that his majesty was this time in earnest. Suddenly, the report was spread that Louis Napoleon was to marry the lady in question, whom, still according to report, he was unable to win upon other terms. The Parisians wiU long 390 EUGENIE remember the explosion of discontent which was the immediate consequence of these tidings, which were soon after authenticated. In all classes of society, the opposition was profound and violent. The exasperation and disgust of the city were manifested in every possible form. The ministers handed in their resignations ; specu- lators took the alarm and sold their stocks at a ruinous loss ; epigrammatists railed and scandal-mongers tattled. The dead walls in the faubourgs were found defaced in the morning by daubs and doggerel, done over night in chalk and charcoal ; the lithographers issued roundelays in halting verse, and for a time the poetasters flourished. It became the fashion for persons who had a reputation for facetiousness to preserve, to go about with a pin, with which they pretended to prick themselves, that they might wake up and find it a ridiculous dream. The emperor's advisers reasoned with him in vain ; his enemies rejoiced in con- templating the possible consequences of so serious a mistake. No woman ever received a welcome so chilling from a i^eople whose sovereign she was to become ; and no woman ever issued so triumphantly from a distressing ordeal. We have spoken without concealment of the spirit and temper with which the Parisians were disposed, at the outset, to regard the young Spaniard, that we may have the satisfaction of chronicling, with equal impartiality, the amiable processes by which she has con- quered their prejudices and won their cordial sympathy. On Saturday, the 22d of January, Louis Napoleon received the Council of State, the Senate and Legislative body, at the Tuileries, and formally announced to them his intended marriage. From his address delivered on this occasion, we extract the pas- sages referring especially to the lady of his choice : "Messieurs: "I yield to the wish so often expressed by the country, in announcing to you my marriage. "The alliance which I contract is not in accordance with the EUGENIE. 391 traditional requirements of our national policy, and therein lies its advantage. France, by her successive revolutions, has been often abruptly separated from the rest of Europe ; a wise govern- ment will seek to restore her to the pale of the ancient mon- archies. But this result will be more surely attained by a frank and straightforward pohcy, and by loyal conduct, than by regal alliances, which create a false security, and often substitute family interests for those of the nation. Moreover, the example of the past has implanted a superstition in the minds of the people. It cannot be forgotten that for seventy years foreign princesses have ascended the throne only to behold their race dispossessed by war or revolution. One woman alone seemed to bring happiness with her, and to Hve longer than the others in the memory of the people ; and that woman, the kind and amiable wife of General Bonaparte, was not of royal blood. . . . . When, in the presence of Europe, a man is raised, by the force of a new principle, to a height equal to that of the oldest dynasty, it is not by seeking to give a character of antiquity to his escutcheon, and to introduce himself, at all costs, into a family, that he consoUdates his position. It is rather by ever remembering his origin, by preserving his distinct character, and by frankly adopting before the world the title of PARVENU — a glorious title, when obtained by the suffrages of a free people. Thus obliged to depart from precedents "followed to the present day, my marriage became a private matter, and nothing remained but the choice of the person. " She who is the object of my preference is of distinguished birth. French in heart, by education, by the recollection of the blood shed by her father in the cause of the empire, she still possesses the advantage, as a Spaniard, of having no family in France upon whom it would be necessary to bestow honors and fortune. Her mental qualities will render her the ornament of the throne ; her courage will render her its support in the hour of danger. A Catholic, she wiU join me in my prayers for the 392 EUGENIE. happiness of France. She will, in short, I trust, by her grace and goodness, seek to revive the virtues exhibited in the same position by the Empress Josephine. "I come, then, gentlemen, to announce to France that I have chosen a woman whom I love and respect, in preference to one who would be comparatively unknown to me, and an alliance with whom would have presented advantages not unmingled with sacrifices. Without disdaining any one, I yield to my inchnations, after having taken counsel of my reason and my convictions. In placing domestic happiness and the qualities of the heart above dynastic prejudices and the calculations of ambition, I shall not, I am sure, be less strong by being more free. "I shall soon, at Notre Dame, present the empress to the people and the army. The confidence they have in me assures me of their sympathy ; and you, gentlemen, when you have learned to appreciate her whom I have chosen, will acknowledge that on this occasion also I have been inspired by Providence." This address, which — in the passages we have not quo- ted — was not without unfortunate allusions, produced a most favorable effect upon the pviblic mind. It is true that the Paris- ians expressed the opinion, that if Louis Napoleon were so strongly prepossessed in favor of a marriage with a lady of merely patrician birth, he should not have suffered himself to be rejected by so many royal and grandducal houses. But as the several repulses which he had undergone were not known beyond Paris, the effect of the speech was eminently salutary upon the country at large. The step appeared bold and gener- ous to those who were ignorant that he had, in a measure, been goaded into it by a state of things which had obtained the name of a "matrimonial blockade." The French nation was, in fact, gratified that the emperor possessed the power to set his foot upon the shackles of routine, and that he was thus enabled to espouse a countess, from inclination, while the first Napoleon EUGENIE. 393 had felt himself compelled to divorce his wife, that he might marry an archduchess, from policy. Eugenie de Montijo, Countess de Teba, was born in Granada, in the year 1827. The following brief table will give a more distinct view of her descent than could be furnished in any other form : ON THE father's SIDE. The FiEST Count de Teba, created by Ferdinand, for va- liant conduct before Granada, in 1492. ON THE mother's SIDE. Me. Kiekpateiok, of Con- LeatL, Scotland, married to Miss Wilson, of Gallaway. Palafox, his lineal descend- ant, Commander of Saragossa in 1808-9. William Kiekpateiok, their son, married, at Malaga, to Ma- j ria, eldest daughter of tlie Ba- ron Grivegnde. CoTTfTT DE MONTIJO MaEIA MaNTTELA, | and Teba, his son, ^^^^^^'^ *° their eldest daughter. Eugenie de Montijo, the eldest of two daughters. M'Ue de Montijo was educated partly in Spain and partly in France. She lost her father at the age of twelve years, after which event she was rarely separated from her mother. She en- tered society at an early age, and was for a long time the orna- ment of the ball rooms of Madrid and Paris — for she remained unmarried till her twenty-sixth year. The associations of her mother were with the best families of Madrid, although, being merely the daughter of a consul at Malaga, much opposition had been made to her marriage with the Count de T6ba. The latter, 50 394 EUGENIE. being a grandee of Spain, was obliged to obtain the consent of the king before he couki wed the more humble object of his affections. But the Scottish heralds set to work with such dili- gence and produced so satisfactory a pedigree for Miss Kirk- patrick, that Ferdinand VII. exclaimed, after perusing it, " Let the good man marry the daughter of Fingal !" Fingal's grand- daughter was destined to become the Empress of the French. It is difficult to convey a correct idea of Eugenie's perso- nal appearance in words ; the difficulty of the task will, however, be compensated for by the pleasure afforded by the use, in this case, happily, permissible, of the present tense — a charming tense in which to wi'ite, when a woman's beauty is the theme. Her majesty is slightly above the middle height ; her shoulders are large, but exquisitely moulded. Her head is small, her bust full, her neck long, but swanlike, and in its movements inimitably graceful. Her forehead is high and broad ; her eyes, which are by no means large, are greyish-blue, and set unusually close to- gether, the eyebrows being beautifully arched. Her mouth is small, her nose thin and slightly aquiline. Altogether, her face is small, but derives force from the upper part of the head, which is broad and intellectual, yet graceful. On the whole, these ele- ments scarcely seem to constitute personal beauty of a high order ; the secret of Eugenie's name and fame, as the most lovely occupant of a European throne, lies in that ethereal, spiritual en- dowment called expression. The prevailing characteristic of this expression is pensiveness, mingled with gentleness and extreme sensibility. She has made more friends by her grace than Louis Napoleon has made enemies by his artillery. The simplicity of her manners, coupled with her chai-ms of face, become in time, by a process almost inscrutable, impressed on the mind to such a degree as to affect the imagination, and the beholder seems to discover traits beyond mere beauty — strength, firmness, and dig- nity of character — that strength, lirmness, and dignity which be- long to womanly grace, greatness and goodness. EUGENIE. 395 The civil marriage of the emperor and M'lle do Montijo took place on the iiight of Saturday, the 29th of January, at the Tuilc- ries, the religious ceremony being solemnized the next day at Notre Dame. The population of Paris manifested the most in- tense curiosity and interest in the event, but were exceedingly • sparing of their applause. The imperial carriage was received everywhere along the route with a hum of voices and sup- pressed exclamations, but with nothing which by any flight of imagination could be construed into enthusiasm. Her majesty was still an entire stranger to the people, and, thus unsupported by any personal popularity of her own, her position as the bride elect of Louis Napoleon gave her no especial claim to a cordial recognition. The city was still under the influence of the squibs and jibes which for ten days had been circulating from mouth to mouth. After the ceremony, the emperor led the empress to the balcony of the Tuileries, and, saluting the people, presented her to them as their future sovereign — as far as the Salic law would permit. The Americans who witnessed the scene will not soon forget it — for they felt it to be one of the most painful they had ever beheld. Hardly a man raised his voice or lifted his hat. The emperor was visibly moved, and the empress seemed to shrink back as, if chilled to the heart ; she must have realized that to satisfy the curiosity of a multitude is a very different thing from awakening their sympathy. Still the impression which she had made, during this trying day, was eminently favorable, and the people went to their homes quite dis- posed to accord to the fair and amiable stranger that national and individual protection which she seemed by her manner to implore. Nearly all classes of society had some reason to thank the empress for her indirect influence upon their pleasures on this oc- casion. The lovers of spectacles were gratified by the procession, the illuminations, and the gratuitous performances at the thea- tres ; the army by a double ration of wine ; the schoolboys by a 396 EUGENIE. two days' vacation ; the victims of the emperor's displeasure by the announcement of four thousand pardons, or recalls from exile ; and the poor by her majesty's refusal of a diamond neck- lace, and her request that the sum voted for its purchase might be spent in works of benevolence. A certain woman of the lower orders must, upon learning this charitable act of the em- press, have regretted an unconsidered expression, which she had let fall a day or two before. She had read, upon an official bul- letin, that the Municipal Council were to invest six hundred thousand francs in jewelry, and unphilosophically coupling this enormous outlay with a circumstance which had severely af- fected her at the grocer's, she exclaimed, "Why, that's why oil has gone up three cents a pound !" This is but an instance among thousands of the disposition manifested, at the outset, to regard her majesty with distrust, if not with aversion. The happy pair spent the honeymoon at St. Cloud, occasion- ally appearing in an open carriage upon the Bois de Boulogne, followed by another carriage containing the four ladies of the palace. The promenaders treated them with respect, with cour- tesy even, but until her majesty began to assume an individual character, and to challenge the esteem of the nation for her many private virtues, we repeat that as the wife of Louis Napoleon, she was regarded with indifference, though without hostility. The epigrams at her expense continued, and for one month she was the theme of jests always telling but often indelicate, and gene- rally more remarkable for their ill-nature than their wit. The spectacle would have been a melancholy one, had her good name been in the slightest degree damaged by it. Such was not the case, however, and the Parisians were soon glad to forget that they had treated her with coldness and spoken of her with ob- loquy. The empress at once set about conciliating, by gracious and graceful acts, the good will of the nation. As the etiquette of the palace compelled her to hve almost in isolation, and as she EUGENIE. 397 was unable to inquire for herself into the necessities which it was her desire to relieve, her charities could only be bestowed through others. This circumstance gave to her benevolent acts a character which benevolence should never have — that of ostentation, and an appearance of being designed for effect. The newspapers in the interest of the government seemed to vie with each other in the effort to render the generosity of the empress odious, with such nauseous pertinacity did they dwell upon the theme. That she eventually triumphed, even in spite of this unscrupulous and injurious service, is not one of her least claims to admiration. The empress made her first appearance, after her marriage, before the assembled fashion, nobility and wealth of Paris, on the night of the 7th of February, at a ball given by the Senate to their majesties, at the Luxembourg. This was an occasion of interest to the ladies, as the great question remained yet unde- cided whether her majesty's taste in dress was such as it be- hooved an empress to possess. The question was satisfactorily settled that night ; her majesty was deliciously habited in white satin, wearing a pearl necklace around her neck and violets in her hair. No one will at the present day dispute her claim to be considered the first milliner of France ; a claim in which, perhaps, her advisers and coadjutors in matters of taste, M'Ues Vigneron and Palmyre, might be recognized as entitled to their share. She has, by the natural effect of the accession of a young and beautiful woman, stimulated all the arts to which female charms are wont to apply for extrinsic embellishment. Many branches of trade and manufacture have revived under this auspicious influence. With one fashion the name of the empress will be connected as long as the fashion lasts ; and, in view of the many advantages claimed for it, and in defiance of the whirl- wind of jests which it has provoked, exclusively on the part of male scoffers, it is likely to endure as long as the generation for which it was invented. The English sovereign may proscribe 398 EUGENIE. it, and confirmed punsters may riddle it with their light artillery, but a mode which her Graceful Majesty has sanctioned and sanctified by her example, must possess in itself elements of durability which will enable it to sm'vive both the opposition of her sister queen and the malevolence of the wits. Thei-e are few salient points in the life of Eugenie, since her elevation to the throne. She has in a measure purified the court, not raising it, of course, above the ordinary standard of Parisian nioraUt}'', but at least correcting many abuses which had lowered it beneath that standard. She has visited the Fortress of Ham with the emperor, and the apartments in which the Pretender of Boulogne was confined. She has more than once been in imminent danger of death, exposed to missiles directed against his majesty, and has always displayed courage and self- possession. She has honored by her presence the inauguration of asylums and institutions of benevolence, and has herself endowed and assumed the financial responsibility of Model Lodg- ing-houses for the poor. She has visited the Queen of England at Windsor Castle, and has received her Britannic Majesty at Versailles. She has wept over the mutilated heroes of the Siege of Sebastopol. She has sat for her portrait to Vidal, Winter- halter and Dubufe. During her summers spent at Biarjritz or Eaux Bonnes, where the formality of a court life may be, in a great measure, thrown off, she has interested herself personally in the condition of the humbler classes, and has given the indi- gent abundant cause to mention her name with blessings. Above all, she has given an heir to the French throne — as far, that is, as she can, herself, control the succession. Eugenie has exercised a political influence which it will be the pleasure of the future historian of the reign of Napoleon III. to acknowledge and his duty to record. She has strengthened his hold upon the throne, by endearing herself to the people. She has, in a degree, softened the rigors of his sway. By the logic of beauty, by the tenderness of feeling so happily expressed EUGENIE. 399 in her features, her air and manner, by the force of feminine tact and the influence of a benevolent heart, she has secured for the imperial throne that which, without a woman's cooperation, it never would have obtained — the sympathy of the people. She has reconciled many who would have been won by no other means. She has diverted men's thoughts from perjury and massacre to more agreeable subjects of contemplation. She has associated, in the mind of the nation, ideas which the emperor would have kept distinct — she has coupled benignity with power, and amenity with majesty. The yoke is less galling than it was, and possibly may yet be still further lightened. These results have been attained largely through the subtle but irresistible influence of the personal appearance, manner and character of the empress. The very opposite of her sister queen, and inferior to her in masculine force of understanding, it has been given to her to exercise, under auspices totally different and upon a nation having few traits in common with the English, an influence not unlike that which we have described as exerted by Victoria. Though different in kind and less in degree, the example of the foreign and adopted empress is not by any means unworthy of being favorably mentioned in connection with that of the native and legitimate queen. By asserting that she has assisted to maintain Louis Napoleon upon the throne and to prolong his rule over the nation, we do not mean to claim that she has rendered a service to mankind, or that the world in general owes her a debt of gratitude. With questions relating to the government of France and to the means by which Louis Napoleon obtained power, we have no- thing to do ; we wish simply to declare that the empress has discharged her duty to her husband in a manner that will cause her to be remembered in history. She has fulfilled her obhga- tions, in an exalted rank and upon an extended field, with honor to the country and with credit to herself. In one respect superior to her model — the Empress Josephine — she is in all 400 EUGENIE. others her worthy successor, and the Parisians of this genera- tion, like those of the last but one, may daily contemj^late the charming spectacle of goodness, beauty and charity upon the throne. THE END. ;z^f/^'^ ^UIBRARYO/;^ %0JnV3J0^ '^tfOJIlVDJO^ .^WEUNIVERy/A ^lOSANCflfj> ^^tllBRARYO/^ ^^tllBRAR^ ^.KOJIWD: ^OFCAllfO^V — " ' ~ o ^ ^OFCAllFOff^ ^OAavaaiii^ .^v^^•UNlV[R5•/A o o ^ "^/iajAiNn^iw^ ^OFCAIIFOP^ ~~ o ^OFCAlIIFOff^ ^OAavaaiii^ ^ r" o 3 tl. 3 O "^/sa^AiNn-aftV ^OFCAIIFOP^ ^OFCAllFOff^ >&Aavaani^ "^Abvaaii-ii^ .^WEUNIVEI1 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL I Ill ■i?Aavaani^ >&Aavaan# ^lOSANCElfj>. ^a^AINOJlW' ^^UIBRARYQf^ ^^lUBRARYQ^ %ojnv3jo'^ .\WEllNIVERy/A v^lOSANCElfj-^ %a3AiNn3ftv^ ^lOSANCElfjv ^j,OFCAllF0% (j(OFCAllFORi^ "^/^a^AiNiiaViV >&Aavaan-i^ ^'CAavaan-^'^ .5jrtEUNIVERy//> ^lOSANCElfj-^ «3130NVS01^ "^/iaJAINnJftV^ 4s> ,^^l■llBRARYO/c ^tfOJIlVJJO^' ,^lrtE•UNIVERy/A o <'5133NVS01^ ^^lOSANCElfjv. ■%83AIN(13\\V" ^tllBRARYO/C. i^tllBRARYQc ^aOJIlVJJO'*^ ^ o , v/ja3AiNn3Wv ^.OFCAllFOff^ ^OFCAilFO/?^ ^OAavaaiii^ >&Aavaall■l'^'^ ^lOSANCElfj>. ^^IUBRARYOa, ^^lUBRARYQ^^ aWE UNIVERS/a ^lOSANCElfj. 8 fe- ■ %a3AIN(1-3l\V^ 'A '^ '^TOJITVDJO^^ '^iOJITVJ-JO'f^ ^OFCAIIFO% ^OFCAIIFO%. ^ ,^WE■UNIVER5•//, ^vS;lOSiWCElfj> ^\