I ILLINOI S UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN PRODUCTION NOTE University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library Brittle Books Project, 2013. COPYRIGHT NOTIFICATION, In Public Domain. Published prior to 1923. This digital copy was made from the printed version held by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It was made in compliance with copyright law. Prepared for the Brittle Books Project, Main Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign by Northern Micrographics Brookhaven Bindery La Crosse, Wisconsin 2013 ;,--. 'y : ____r:_ _- . R { No. 8. " Evening Telegraph " Reprints. - ~- , SOUVENIRS OF IRISH OVER FOOTPRINTS EUROPE. BY EUGENE DAVIS. REPRINTED FROM THE "EVENING TELEGRAPH." THE FREEMAN'S JOURNAL, LIMITED, PRINTERS, DUBLIN. . r a. .: _. i7;~, O~-CC~ P iq/Lja~I~Y9Ui: luac~~~~- 64...'~ ;i tik .; t trt b6 h " v, 331 Z. '4 Y ' K t l- (tom ' DL y q ' (/ :\ , J yr.' s INDEX. Antwerp, 2 Arras: the town : its defence by O'Neill, 59 Owen Roe Brussels and its Buildings, 20 : Royal Library, 22 Bruges : described, 26 Belgian Convents, ard their Irish connections, 27 Berwick, Duke of (portrait), 35 Bretons and Celts : a comparison, 69 Byrne, Miles, 94 Barry, the Cork Artist, 95 Blessington, The Countess of, 96 Brigades, Irish : their achievements ; 51, 54, 68, 107 Conry, Dr., Archbishop of Tuam, 7 Clare, Lord (portrait), 32 Clarke, Henry, 93 Chillon Castle, 113 Cremona, the town of, 114; its siege and de- fence, 115 Curran, Amelia, 119 Connellan, P. T., 123 Cassell, Commendatore, 124 Callanan, J. J., 135 Coimbra, 135 Colleges, Irish ; Paris, 108; Rome, 121 Douai, 47 Dunkirk, 67 Dillon, Arthur, 84; Count Theobald Dillon, 84 ; Viscount Dillon, 113 Duffy, Sir Charles Gavan (portrait), 107 Deputation to France in '48, An Irish, 101 Edgeworth, Maria, 82 Emmet, Robert, 93 Fontenoy, Description of, 53; varying accounts of the battle, 57 Fitzgerald, Lord Edward (portrait), 85 Goldsmith, Oliver, 16 Ghent, 37 Genappe, the Irish defence of, 41 Geraldine, The Fair, 115 HIuy: where Sarsfield died, 32 Hutchinson, Lady (portrait), 83 Hickey, Baron, 108 Kemble, John ; at Douai, 49 Kirby, Monsignor, 121 Louvain ; the University, 3 ; the Irish College, 7; Church of St. Pierre, 12 Landen : scene of Sarsfield's last battle, 26 Lever, Charles (portrait), 30 Lally, Tollendal, Count, 55, 77; his Indian career, 78; his execution, 80 Lisbon, 135 Lacy, Count Peter Landlords, Irish, at Rome, 124 Mooney, Father Donat, 9 Montaign, 20 Malplaquet, the battle of, 51 Monks of St. Patrick, 63 Morlaix : an Irish memory, 68 Madden, R. R. (portrait), 96 Morgan, Lady, 98 Moore, Thomas (portrait), 98 Maclise, Daniel (portrait), 99 Meagher, Thos. F. (portrait), 102 MacMahon, Marshal (portrait), 103; his Irish sword, 104 Mitchel, John (portrait), 106 Murphy, Professor Mortimer, 106 Morphy, Michael, 107 McCarthy, Denis Florence, 110 Mountcashel, Lord, 111 Montoris, 124; the graves of O'Neill and O'Don- nell, 125; the church, 128 Meehan, Father C. P., 125 Military Associations of Ireland with France, 43 Namur, 31 O'Clery,Brother Michael, 9 O'Brien, Charles, of Clara, 13 O'Beirne : how he saved Brisack, 67 O'Carroll, Major John, 13 O'Sullivan, Mark ; his distinction as a linguist, 17 O'Halloran, Professor ; an adventurous career, 16 O'Neill, murder of Bernard, 25 O'Sullivan: Family in the Netherlands, 39 O'Connell, Daniel (portrait), 43 O'Connell, Count, 46 O'Neill, Owen Roe, (portrait), 57 O'Leary, Father Arthur (portrait), 62 O'Meara, General, 67 O'Connor, Arthur, 89 O'Brien, William Smith, 101 O'Mahony, Colonel John, 105 O'Shea, John Augustus, 107 O'Daly, Father Dominick, 134 40313 azi'I:P iv INDEX. Preston, General: defence of Louvain, &c., 11 Plunkett : Family in Belgium, 39 Pamela (portrait), 86; her tomb, 87 Prout, Father (Francis Mahony), 106 Ramillies, The Irish at the Battle of, 30 Rouen and its Irish Records, 69 Russell, Thomas, 89 Rowan, Archibald Hamilton, 92 Rome, Church of St. Clements, 122 Stapleton, Dr., of Tipperary, 12 St. Brigid (portrait), 26 Sinnich, Dr., of Cork, 38 St. Omars, College of, 45 St. Edmund's College at Douai, 50 Saxe, Marshall (portrait), 54 St. Malo, 61 St. Frachra, 73 8t. Germain, 81 Sheridan, Brinsley (portrait), 81; Phil Sheridan, 108 Stephens, James, 103 St, Gall, 113 St. Isidore ; the Irish Franciscan Monastery, 117 Salamanca : the Irish College, 136 St. Kilian, 137 Sultana, An Irish, 133 Soldiers for Germany, Tall Tipperarymen, 138 Tyrone, Hugh, Earl of, 2 Tournay, 37 Teeling, Bartholomew, 91 Thaddeus, the portrait painter, 95 Tomb of the Earls, 126 Taaffe, Count, 138 Waterloo, 23 Wolfe Tone, Theobald (portrait), 90 Wadding, Rev. Luke, 116 !' Wogan, Chevalier, 135 Wurzburgh, 137 Ypres: the Irish Abbey, 30 SOTUVENIRS OF IRISH FOOTPRINTS INTRODUCTION. DARE say that very few outside the circles of the in- veterately prejudiced or the invincibly ignorant will have the hardihood to deny that Ireland has left indelible footprints on the Continent of Europe. A few months' travel abroad, particu- larly in the Latin countries, would convince the most confirmed cynic that Irishmen can look back with legitimate pride on the history of their exiled forefathers in the forum and on the battlefield. It is quite true that-at least since the days of old King Dathi-the Irish never attempted to be lords and masters of any portion of the Continent. It is equally true that they never plundered the French or Spaniards under pretence that they had a God- given mission to civilisesuch peoples bypauperising them; nor did they flaunt a pirate flag on tin high seas for the benefit of Irish Slylocks and the ad* vancement of Irish commerce. The fact is that these Irishmen of past generations had such a large amount of what may be called spirituality in their systems that they very often sacrificed the mate- rial or practical to the ideal. They could fight for an abstract notion--for love, for glory, for liberty; but they never knew how to take up arms for a countinghouse or a till. They might under certain given circumstances develop into cru- saders; but they never could become a nation of shopkeepers. Hence their feats on the Continent have not been productive of any material advan- tage to the land of their birth. If we were a money-making race, if our souls were confined to the pages of a cheque-book, we might sneer at the records of those soldiers and scholars of our race who forgot in the past to attend to their banking accounts. The stolid philosopher who botanizes on his mother's grave, and the scrip-and-bullion man whose Heaven is the Exchange, can see no- thing heroic in the death of Sarsfield, or nothing useful in the labours of Brother O'Clery. The modern generation of Irishmen, however, clinging to the traditions of their sires, are still wedded to those Platonic ideas, the fundamental principle of which is that mind ought to be cultivated above matter, and that we have not been exclu- sively created for the worship of the golden calf. It may therefore be assumed that we neither despise nor ignore the services rendered to the cause of learning by our scholars abroad, while a record of the heroism of our soldiers under foreign but friendly flags may be still regarded by us with feelings of respect and admiration. In these pages I purpose following, so to speak, those old-world sages and warriors of our race in their tournaments in the classic halls of univer- sities as well as in their tournaments on the field; and if annals such as these have any moral at all, it must be that chivalry and intellectuality are qualities by no means foreign to the Irish character. OVER EUROPE. Irish Footprints over Europe. CHAPTER I. ANTWERP TWELVE YEARS AGO-ITS IRISH ASSOCIATIONS-THE EXILE OF THE O'NEILLS- THEIR WANDERINGS IN BELGIUM-PEN AND INK SKETCH OF LOUVAIN-- HISTORY OF ITS GREAT UNIVERSITY. NTWERP was the first city on the Continent which I visited ; and, like many others which I - had seen subsequently, it recalled to mind more than one Irish association. Here in these quaint old Belgian streets, almost three hun- dred years ago, a band of Irish exiles wended their chequered way in a pilgrimage over Europe, com- prising Hugh Earl of Tyrone, his Countess Catharina, and his three sons, Hugh, John, and Bernard; Art Oge; Cathbar and his wife, Rosa O'Doherty, who subsequently in the days of early widowhood became the bride of Owen Roe O'Neill; Naghtan, son of Calvagh or Charles O'Donnel, and many other scions of illustrious houses in the North, who had to take shipping from the shores of Lough Swilly on that memor- able 14th of September, 1607, and seek abroad for the existence which it was not permitted them to enjoy at home. In the course of their triumphal procession through Belgium the exiles remained for several days in Antwerp. Arch- dukes, distinguished officers, burgomasters, eccle- siastical and lay dignitaries, thronged around them, and tendered them the expression of their deepest respect. In vain did Edmonds, the English Ambassador at the French Court, protest against such demonstrations of friendly regard. He was highly wroth with the authorities in the Lowlands for the sumptuous entertainments to which they were treating Tyrone and his followers. That a " notorious rebel " like O'Neill--a churl who had dared to stand up for Faith and Father- land in defiance of the " Crown " and its lawful rights-should have his entree to Royal Courts and partake of Royal or official suppers, was a grave scandal in the eyes of such a dainty Constitu- tionalist as Edmonds. Other English agents abroad howled at the feet of the exiles; but the natives paid no heed to such clamour. Palaces, museums, and studios of art were thrown open to the illustrious strangers; and it is recorded that they spent many an hour in the famous cathedral of the town, studying the masterpieces of Reubens, the exquisitely carved stalls, and the Bishops' Throne in the choir, with its Gothic tabernacle-work, its realistic foliage, and its figures of saints and apostles-a production of art quite unique in its way. At that time Antwerp had an Irish college, where young Irish- men were trained for the priesthood prior to their return to the old land. There is no trace at present existing of this seminary; but we are in- formed by the annalists of the epoch that its superiors and students gave Tyrone and his fol- lowers a right royal reception, and sometimes at- tended them in procession through the streets. At that time Antwerp was in the zenith of its splendour. Its line of quays along the yellow Scheldt was as magiifice)at as it was picturesque; and often no less than two thousand vessels could be seen lying at anchor on the waters of the river. Five hundred loaded waggons entered the city gates daily, and five thousand merchants met twice a day in the Ex- change. Wealth then flowed through all the- arteries of the town. The fine arts were patronised. Commercial zeal worked hand in hand with in- tellectual enthusiasm; for was it not the era when a shopkeeper would give thousands of guilders for- a tableau, and the famous blacksmith, Quentin Matsys, took the easel in order to win the love of the master-painter's daughter ? Like Venice, however, Antwerp fell from its high estate. The} navigation of the Scheldt fell into the hands of the Dutch at the union of the Seven Provinces, and the river was subsequently closed by the Peace of Westphalia in 1648-some forty years after O'Neill and his kinsmen had visited it in all the plenitude of its glory. So long as Dutch rule swayed its marts Antwerp was all but a ruin, com- mercially. When the revolution of 1830 raised Belgium from its position of a province to that of an independent state, Antwerp began to prosper once more, particularly since 1862, when the re-, moval of its old ramparts gave more expansion to its activity. I may add here parenthetically that it was on those ramparts Thomas Franois Meaghers stood in his student days-an incident in his lifev Irish Footprints over Europe. which he alluded to with such graphic eloquence several years afterwards in Conciliation Hall, Dublin, when he indignantly refused to abhor or stigmatise the sword. If, however, the walls have disappeared, Antwerp is no less for that fact an entrenched camp, for forti- fications on a far wider circle, and built on the most modern scientific systems, contributed and still contribute to make it absolutely impregnable. It was under a beautifully tinted autumnal sky that I caught the first glimpse of classic Louvain. Its dark medieval facades were aglow with pris- matic colours; its winding streets were a confused mingling of light and shade; while the chimes or carillons, pealing from the towers, shed a subtle melody over the town. Louvain is situated in South Brabant, and stands on the banks of the pleasant Dyle, some sixteen miles east of Brussels. THE UNIVERSITY OF LOUVAIN. External View-Reproduced from a Photograph. It was for a long time the residence of the Dukes of Brabant, and had in the Middle Ages flourishing woollen manufactures which gave employment to 150,000 workmen. The weavers turned out to be a turbulent race-with the result that several thousands of them were expelled by the authori- ties, and Louvain, like Antwerp, became a decay- ing centre. Its population is now only one-sixth of what it was several hundred years ago, and its present listless and dreary aspect contrasts singu- larly with the appearance it bore when the click of the loom was heard in every second house, and the democrats of those days would make periodical visits to the Town Hall, and fling a baker's dozen of magistrates heels over heads out of the win- dows ! Its only staple industry just now is svMe- what of the Guinness type; 200,000 casks of beer are annually exported, and the quality of the liquid is considered excellent wherever it is quaffed outside the precincts of the town. In the town itself it is, however, execrable, the dregs of the brewery being exclusively reserved for the in- habitants. Few can understand why a man can- not be a prophet among his own; but everybody who knows anything about it understands why Louvain beer, which is as palatable as the nectar of the gods throughout the length and breadth of Flanders, is unspeakably undrinkable in the town itself. On the generally sound and wholesome principle that a man should always prefer the wines or beers of the country in which he travelsto any foreign imports-granting, of course, that he be not afflicted with the virus of teetotalism- I made all conscientious efforts to patronise this white but slightly yellowish liquid. I sipped it in this "brasserie" and in that, and even pro- ceeded to headquarters and quaffed a glass thereof to the health of the director of the establishment, making wry faces all the while, much to the di * gust of the obliging functionary; but I could not relish its insipidity. It looks at a distance like absinthe diluted with water; but it has not the dangerously inspiring fire or stamina of the French or Swiss commodity. To any thirsty visitor who may find himself perspiring on a sultry day in the streets of Louvain I would recommend a foaming glass of "faro," a Brussels beer, which in colour is not so blonde as Bass, and yet not quite so brune as Guinness. The spring in the oasis may be very well in its way, but it cannot compare with the "faro" when quaffed by one who is agonisingly in want of a drink. Louvain is, as your readers are aware, the seat of one of the oldest existing universities. It Imay be classified with those of Paris, Bologna, Padua, and Salerno, and still remains a monument to the learning of those medieval times which the captious critics, or rather the sciolists of modern schools so flippantly regard as ignorant. It was founded in 1425 by a Bull o Pope Martin V., authorising the chapter of the cathedral of St. Peter's to form classes for the education of the young. Shortly after its establishment it at- tained a European reputation, and scholars flocked to its halls from nearly every portion of the Coe* tinent-from the cities and towns amid the pri- meval forests of Germany, the vineyards of the Cid, the hill-sides and valleys of Greece, the re- cesses of Hungary, and the Lowlands. It was not till the 17th century that Irishmen frequented in large numbers this remarkable institution. Irish Footprints cver Europe. A few of our countrymen studied within its precincts prior to that epoch, but records of them are very hard to find. However, more of this THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY. View of a Section of one side, the remainder being in harmony-From a Photograph. anon. The curriculum of the university, like that of the other learned establishments of the day, was almost exclusively ecclesiastical,"embrac- ing Theology, dogmatic and moral; the Scriptures, the Liturgy, Canon Law, Church History and Tradition. Speculative philosophy formed the basis of the intellectual training of the alumni. Those were days, of course, when in the domain of abstract thought Plato's theories, leavened with the Christian spirit, ruled the roast; when Bacon's inductive method was still undreamt of, and, when"experimental investigations into the laws of bodies had not yet become the hobbies of master minds. The chief questions discussed in these halls at the time I refer to were themes that had a wondrous attraction for the public opinion of A CORNER OF THE STONE CORRIDOR. From a Photograph. Europe, but which are now rarely, if ever, dis- cussed outside the confines of ecclesiastical semi- naries or monasteries. Entity and essence, the attributes of the Son of God, the damning point in the latest heresy or the most profound item in the latest dogma, were problems that convulsed learned Europe at that time, and formed ma- terials for many a thesis in which the doctors of Padua would cross intellectual swords with the doctors of the Sorbonne, and objections to any given theory would be made in Louvain, to be awarded a ready and echoing answer from the active brain-machinery of Salerno. When the number of students in Louvain rose to 6,000, and the fame of its professors was contributing to ren- der it the rendezvous of the talent of Europe, the big-wigs of the Sorbonne took umbrage at its growing proportions, and strained every nerve to outrival their colleagues on the banks of the Dyle. The contest between both learned corporations ultimately ended, however, in a drawn battle, Irish Footprints over Europe. although Paris could boast of having nurtured some of the most intensely speculative geniuses of the day, among them being the unfortunate Abe- lard, whose Platonic propensities were neverthe- less not strong enough to save him from the temp- tations of the "sweet soft passion." There were many illustrious scholars who spent a large por- tion of their lives in the University of Louvain, and of whom I shall have occasion to speak further on in these articles. There was one, however, who merits immediate attention at the hands of a chronicler-the celebrated Jansen, whose name is attached to the Jansenistic heresy. Here the eccentric theologian resided for some time, medi- tating over and developing the theories which had caused such a wide and profound sensation in Europe, and which brought down on their author's head the condemnation of the Holy See. The Louvain University pursued the tenour of its way for almost four hundred years. The tenour THE DOUBLE STAIRCASE LEADING FROM THE CORRIDOR. From a Photograph. was not, it must be added, an altogether even one; for this Arcadian retreat of learning was sometimes ruthlessly broken in upon by vandal snemies from without and restless spirits within. The turbulent weavers, to whom reference has been already made, had, I fear, but a scanty share of respect for the occupants of the University. In the estimation of the woollen manufacturers, stu- dents and professors were probably considered to be no better than idle dawdlers or the vainest of dreamers; for even then there was a certain in- cipient relish for utilitarianism in humanity. However that may have been, the handymen of the loom and the votaries of learning sometimes dealt each other sound drubbings in the city streets. If the eye of a young philosopher ever rolled in fine frenzy, it must have been under the contact of the weaver's sturdy fist with that optic -a contact that may have had sometimes its origin or cause in the jeers of some of the wilder students at the crass ignorance or horny hands of the toilers. Democracy even then could turn on the heel that sought to crush it, although Democ- racy was in its swaddling clothes at the time. On other occasions the Dutch or some other foreign foe would cross the border, and the students would abandon their musty tomes, and gird on their swords, and stand by the side of the weavers, and gallantly defend the town against the in- vaders. They had not forgotten Horace's maxim, that it was sweet and honourable to die for one's country; and many of these gilded youths sealed their devotion to the Fatherland by their hearts' blood shed in its service. Scholars were soldiers as well in those "brave days of old." And when the town was saved, or when peace was signed,those juveniles, or rather those of their number who sur- vived, would dip once more into the pages of Cor- nelius a Lapide, and turn from the tocsin of war to the inspiration of classic or scholastic lore. A time was, however, coming when the labours of the students were to be suspended for almost a generation, and the halls of the University were to be diverted from their original purposes. It was immediately after the epoch when the Ency- clopedia was startling the world with new but absurd and impossible theories; when Voltaire was pouring the vials of his wrath on Christianity from his hermitage in Ferney; when Jean Jacques Rousseau was penning his "Confes- sions," his "Nouvelle Heloise," and his "Con- trat Social" in Swiss chalets or in the faubourgs of Paris; and when Condorcet was sapiently dis- osvering the advent of the much-talked-of mil- lennium. The teachings of these philosophers had their inevitable result in the Reign of Terror of 1793. The Revolution of 1789 was the legiti- mate revolt of a leag-injured and outrageously oppressed people against unscrupulous and exact- ing taskmasters. The overthrow of the hated Bastille was the overthrow of an old world and the foundation of a new; but unfortunately the Irish Footprints over Europe. democratic movement of that day fell into the hands of sanguinary dare-devils like Marat and Robespierre, and paved the way ultimately for the dictatorship of a Napoleon. In that awful cataclysm Republicanism of the European school received a staggering blow, from which it has not by any means as yet recovered, and from which it is not likely to recover for some time to come. It was in the midst of this revolutionary whirlwind that the French troops entered the town of Louvain, and by orders of their commander-in- chief, ratified by the Paris Directory, the time- honoured University was immediately suppressed. The professors were summarily dismissed, and the students dispersed. And so ended for a time the career of this learned institution. The build- ings of the University were converted into hospi- tals and barracks, and Louvain itself became a garrison town. When Napoleon's triumphs were over, and the Imperial captive, after his defeat at Waterloo, was imprisoned in St. Helena, Lou- vain began to breathe freely once more. The in- habitants immediately inaugurated a popular movement for the restoration of the University. The old building still stood as formerly in the heart of the town, but its interior resembled that of a huge mausoleum. After several petitions to the Dutch Government, its portals were once more opened in 1817 to the students, and profes- sors were appointed to conduct the classes. It never, however, recovered its ancient prestige. The Revolution of 1830, which made Belgium an independent nation, lent some additional vigour to the institution, and shed a brighter glow over its collegiate halls; but their medieval splendour had gone for ever. Louvain, it must be added, is not the only university whose ancient laurels exist no longer. In fact, of all the universities of the Middle Ages not one to-day holds intact its past prestige. Padua and the Sorbonne, Bologna and Salerno, are but shadows of their former selves. Still Louvain keeps up its old traditions very valiantly indeed. It now contains some seven or eight hundred students, and seventy-five profes- sors. Twenty of the forty-five colleges which were formerly attached to it still belong to the "alma mater." The Irish College, of which I shall speak more fully in the neat chapter, was, I may observe, swept away by the French Revolution. In the etchings in this chapter our artist gives rom photographic views descriptions of the exterior of the University, a severely chaste and venerable edifice, which, with the exception of sundry im- provements, is practically the building founded by ONE OF THE PILLARS OF THE STONE CORRIDeR. Frea a Phtograph. John the Fourth, Duke of Brabant, in 1428. In the other etchings we catch a glimpse of the corridors of the University where professors and students for so many hundred years promenaded during recreation hours, discussing knotty preb- lems and dissecting scholastic subtleties; and the gorgeous library, containing many thousands of antique tomes, the central passage of which is lined with pedestals, on which stand the buest of some of the more prominent of the professors whose high intellectual attainments did so much for the prestige and the glory of this time- honoured institutioia Irish Footprints over Europe. 7 CHAPTER II. THE OLD IRISH COLLEGE AT LOUVAIN.--IRISH REFUGEES-BROTHER O'CLERY, ONE OF THE FOUR MASTERS-GENERAL PRESTON AND HIS IRISH TROOPS-THE DEFENCE OF LOUVAIN IN JUNE, 1634-ANOTHER DEFENCE 200 YEARS LATER. HE old Irish College of Louvain is now, and has been for many years, a Christian Brothers' institu- tion. It is a ilain, unpre- tentious three-storeyed edi- fice; but the sombre air of antiquity that hovers around it has peculiar charms of its own for the student and the traveller. This historic pile stands at the corner of the Rue de Pantalu, to the rere of an enclosure which is separated from the street by a dingy and mouldering wall. This enclosure was in other days the "cours d'honneur" of the col- lege; but it is at the present moment a compara- tively barren waste, relieved only by a few stunted trees that seem-particularly in the hoar winter time-to be so many gaunt weird spectres, keeping watch and ward over the solitude around. Over the door of the edifice one reads the inscription-" Institut Saint Antoine, Dirige par les Freres de la Charite." When, in 1878, I visited the establishment for the first time, the courteous superior pointed me out in the hall en- trance the slabs under which lie buried the mortal remains of Dr. de Burgo, former Bishop of Elphin, and Rosa O'Doherty, the wife of Owen Roe O'Neill, and other sons and daughters of the old land. Owing to the fact that the slabs, situated, as they were on the floor, had been trod- den by several generations, the inscriptions on the marble had become almost quite effaced. Shortly afterwards one of the Irish students of Louvain, the Rev. James Ryan, D.D., of the Archdiocese of Cashel, had the slabs taken up from under foot in the cloister passage and placed as mural adorn- ments. Father Ryan was at the same time for- tunate enough to secure the services of the Rev. Dr. Ruyssens, Professor of Archaeology in the Uni- versity, who was enabled to procure correct copies of the effaced inscriptions. I may add here that the Rev. Father Cary, O.S.F., and Father O' Hanlon rendered Father Ryan all the necessary assistance in this laudable and patriotic undertak- ing of hia. The following is a copy of the mural tablet in the cloister now reared to the memory of the learned Bishop of Elphin:- D. O. M, Hic Iacit vt voluit Illmo. ac Rmo. D. Fr. DOMENICO DE BURGO, Nobilis Familiae, Ex S. Ord. Praed. Epis. Elphinensis In Hibernia Qvi Pro Deo ac Rege Suo Plurima Passus Profugus obiit In HocCollegio Lovan. Antonii De Pad, Frum mem. Hib. Die Ia Anni, 1704, aet 75. R. I. P. The second tablet, which is in honour of Rosa O'Doherty, contains the following epitaph:- D.O.M EXCELLENTISSIMA . DOMINA. ROSA . O'DOHERTY. Dynastarum. Inisonie , Filia . et. Soror. alti. sanguinis. decus. Morum. temperantia . et. splendidis. conjugiis. auxit. Primum . nupta. inclyto . heroi. D . Caffarro. O'Donnello. Tirconnallie. Principis. Germane. Dein excellentissimo. Domino.. Eugenio. O'Neillo. Catholici. in . ultonia. exercitus. Archistratego. Utramque. fortunam. experta. et. miseriam. rata. coelum. studuit. benefactis. mereri. Septuaginta . major., denata. Bruxellis. I. Novembris. Anno. MDCLX. Suo. cumr, primogenito. Hugone. O'Donnello. Priestolator . Hic . Carnis. Resurrectionem. Dr. Conry, the illustrious Archbishop of Tuam, who was a political refugee in Europe in those days, and whose remains are interred in St. Anthony's cloisters, was the founder of the insti- tution. The first practical step made by Dr. Conry to supply the growing wants of Irish ecclesiastical students in Flanders was to petition the Spanish monarch, Philip III. (who was then lord and master of the Lowlands) for the erection and endowment of a Franciscan convent in the city and University of Louvain. His Spanish Majesty immediately acceded to this request; for we find him on the 21st of Septemer, 1606, signi- Irish Footprints over Europe. fying his pleasure to the Archduke Albert, Governor of the Low Countries, that Dr. Conry's petition should be at once granted, and that one thousand Spanish ducats be allocated every year for the support of the college. The foundation- stone of the new edifice was laid by the Prince and Princess Albert and Isabella, the former of whom was the seventh son of Maximilian II., Emperor of Austria, and the latter the daughter of Philip II. of Spain, both being enthusiastic friends and patrons of literature and the fine arts. Several distinguished Irish scholars and soldiers flocked from France and Holland to attend this in- teresting ceremonial; all the fathers or professors of the University were present in their ecclesias- tical costumes; while the students, arrayed under their respective banners, thronged in their thousands, and cheered the Archduke when he exclaimed-"I lay this stone in the name of the Irish nation, for the glory and good of the Irish refugees who may come here to obtain that educa- tion which is denied them by unscrupulous tyrants in their own collegiate halls at home!" Cries of "Long Live Ireland!" given impression to in the Latin, French, and Flemish tongues, rent the air, and the entire scene was one of un- bounded enthusiasm. When the edifice was shortly afterwards com- pleted, it was attached to the University by a special Bull of Pope Adrian VIII., its first presi- dent being Nicholas Aylmer, and one of its earliest students being the scholarly Nicholas French, who was subsequently consecrated Bishop of Ferns. St. Anthony's College soon became one of the chief schools on the Continent. Youths from all portions of Ireland came hither to pursue their ecclesiastical studies. Some remained in the land of their adoption to fill professorial chairs with the utmost credit to themselves, or to act the part of zealous missionaries in Switzerland and the Netherlands. Others-who formed, by the way, the considerable majority-returned to their native land in all manners of disguises in order to keep the lamp burning in the sanctuary, and lay down their lives, if necessary, for the Faith which they cherished, for the creed which had been banned and proscribed from sea to sea. The "Guide Fidele de Louvain" says of them- ",We have often seen, and still can see, among these religious a number of distinguished men who make themselves capable by study and virtue to go and defend the Catholic religion in Ireland. There'are even many of them who have under- gone trials, imprisonment, and cruel tortures for their Faith." Among the Bishops andfArch- bishops who belonged to, or were educated at St. Anthony's, may be mentioned Hugh MacCaghwell, appointed Archbishop of Armagh in 1626; Thomas Fleming, consecrated Archbishop of Dublin in October, 1623; Florence Conry, appointed Arch- bishop of Tuam in 1608; Boetius MacEagan, ap- pointed Bishop of Elphin in 1625; and Hugh Bonaventure Magennis, nominated Bishop of Down and Connor in 1630. Dr. MacCaghwell, who had been for a time one of the professors of the college, was the author of several theological treatises, some of which were handbooks in the University courses. It is recorded that in his theological lectures he adopted the method and opinions of the celebrated Duns Scotus, another Irishman, whose airy abstractions of thought, and whose refined subtleties he always cham- pioned with the utmost metaphysical ingenuity. Just as he had been appointed Primate of All Ireland by Pope Urban VIII., and was about to risk his life in the execution of his episcopal duties in Ulster, he was stricken down at Rome with a fatal illness, and was buried in the ceme- tery of the convent of St. Isidore, in that city. His panegyric was preached in Louvain by Nicholas Vermulaens, an eminent Flemish divine, who, alluding to the remarkable scholarship and the comparatively short career of the deceased, said-"The life of great geniuses, like that of the flower, is brief and transitory; and the purple is oftener the apparel of death than of life." Thomas Fleming, Archbishop of Dublin, was not the least illustrious of the occupants of that his- toric see. "Passionately fond of the ancient literature of Ireland," writes Father Meehan, "he generously entertained Michael O'Clery in the convent of Dublin; and it was .under that poor roof that the chief of the Four Masters found bed and board while transcribing a goodly portion of the material which was subsequently incorporated in the 'Annals of Donegal.' " Dr. Fleming proceeded at a very early age to Lou- vain, and made such considerable progress in his studies that before he entered his thirties he be- came one of the most distinguished professors of the college. It was, it may be added, under his tutorship that John Colgan developed his early intellectual tastes, and was enabled subsequently to render such good and lasting services to Irish literature. The first guardian of St. Anthony's was none other than Father Donatus Mooney, who, in a sense, may be called the founder of the Irish historical school established within the precincts of that institution. While Donatus Mooney was pursu- 8 Irish Footprints over Europe. ing his novitiate in the monastery of Multifernan, in Ireland, he fell under the ban of the authorities, and had to go through the crucible of prison torture for a considerable period, at the conclusion of which he was released on the condition that he should seek a home outside the British isles. There were in our own day embodied in Father Meehan's " History of the Rise and Fall of the Irish Fran- ciscan Monasteries." St. Anthony's College will live chiefly in history as the institution where Brother O' Clery, the lead- ing light of the Four Masters, matured that re- CIIURCH OF ST. PIERRE, LOUVAI, priests and ecclesiastics then as there are priests and ecclesiastics now whose presence in the country was highly distasteful, if not absolutely obnoxious, to the powers that be. Father Mooney, however, did not care to eat the bitter bread of exile too long. After having filled a pro- fessor's chair in several colleges in France, and spent some years in St. Anthony's, he returned to Ireland, and was elected Provincial of the Fran- ciscan Order in the Chapter held in Waterford in 1615. He subsequently retired to Louvain, where, in the learned calm of that University city, he wrote in Latin the history of the Irish Fran- ciscans, a work of much erudition, which has been markable talent of his, and that untiring capacity for intellectual research, thanks to which we owe the "Annals." It was in these cloisters, under the shade of these trees in the courtyard,that he paced up and down often and often, dreaming of the "magnum opus" which he was about to under- take, sketching its proportions with his mind's eye, or lost in enthusiasm at its scope and grandeur. It was in one of these little cells, chastily and severely furnished, that he often sat down to his table, and burned the midnight taper in careful study of the ancient Irish MSS. which formed the glory and attraction of the library of the college in those days in the eyes of most of the Irish Footprints over Europe. scholars of Flanders. Brother O'Clery was a native of Donegal, and could trace his lineage to the brehons of the house of Tyrconnell. Learning was the traditional characteristic of his family, and well and faithfully did O'Clery adhere to the family tradition. Shortly after he conceived the idea of compiling the "Annals,"he left Louvain for Ireland in 1620, seven years before the flag of the Confederation waved from the towers of St. Canice. The pilgrim wandered over Ireland with his intellectual scrip and scallop shells, plunging into musty archives, copying antique registries, and picking up here and there, in cot and shieling, the oral records of great deeds done or fights fought in this old land of ours in the chequered morning of its national existence. When he had concluded his researches he retired with two scions of his own family and one of the O'Duigenans of Ros- common to the Friary of Donegal, that sanctuary of Irish lore, standing within touch of the billows, in solitude and seclusion, of which D'Arcy M'Gee so weirdly sings in his lines:- "Whene'er I go, a pilgrim, Back, dear holy isle, to thee, May my filial footsteps bear me 'To that abbey by the sea- To that abbey, roofless, doorless, Shrineless, monkless, though it be .' r Some two hundred and fifty years ago it had its roof, its shrine, its portals, and its monks. Here for a decade worked these four masters with the zeal and enthusiasm of the clerics of medieeval monasteries, far from the clamour of the crowd and the giddy tumult of life, awaking each morn only to hear the swish of the waves on the desolate shore, and retiring to rest each eve with the same orchestral music pouring its lullabies into their ears. Even the cynic Bolingbroke, who at one time pined, and pined in vain, for cloisters where the cult of learning should be exclusively carried out, might have found his beau ideal realised in this literary retreat away in distant Donegal. ? Should the reader wish to know what opinion the agents of the English Government had of the Irish Friars of Louvain he can learn it from the following extract from a report of one William Turnbull to his British Majesty:- " Having among my acquaintances of the Irish nation here recovered the copies of the petitions which accompany this despatch, I thought it my duty to send them to your Majesty, to the end it might be made known in Ireland what factions and dissensions are now reigning among them. The 'perfidious Machiavelian Friars at Louvain,' fear- ing this, seek by all means to reconcile their countrymen in their affections, and to combine both those who are descended from the English race and those that are mere Irish in a league of friendship and concurrence against your Majesty and the true religion now professed in your king- doms." The allusion to the Machiavelianism reigning in the cloisters of St. Anthony's and the sneer at the "mere Irish" are charming spirits of pre- judice in their way. The document itself clearly shows how vigilant the English "Mouchards" on the Continent were in looking after not only British interests, but Irish refugees as well. After having performed more than its part in supplying Ireland with priests throughout the Penal Days, St. Anthony's College was, so to speak, swept away by the Revolution. In 1817, when the University of Louvain was re-estab- lished, the college was given over to the Christian Brothers, in whose possession it still is. The Irish students who pitched their tents on the banks of the Dyle since 1817 were attached to a purely Belgian institution, the College du Saint Esprit, the ecclesiastical department of the Uni- versity. The alumni of St. Esprit enjoyed far more freedom than do the Levites of Maynooth or Carlow. They were not caged within stone walls ten months out of twelve. They were as free to stroll about the town outside class hours, when- ever it pleased them to do so, as their colleagues of the law and medicine. They could even give entertainments in their rooms, sing songs, and utter extempore speeches, provided, of course, that they kept their mirth and joy within reason- able bounds. The genial professors who super- vised the inner working of the college were general favourites, for they had always the knack of more than tempering justice with mercy, avoiding every- thing in the shape of stony rigidity, and pleased to see youth disporting itself innocently, after it had a victorious tussle with the profound syllogisms of Bouvier or the lighter lore of Gury. One evening-I shall not for obvious reasons parti- cularise the year or even the decade-one of the most respected prelates of the South of Ireland, since deceased, happened to steal a march on the young men from his diocese who were studying in Louvain. Having been informed by the porter of the number of the cell occupied by one of these gentlemen, his lordship moved gently up the staircase, and was soon surprised to hear a de- cidedly un-Gregorian and jubilant song surging through the keyhole of the room which he in- tended to visit. He paused aghast for a few mo- ments, and listened. "Fill the Bumper Fair!" had just been completed, and "God Save Ireland" was being intoned in spanking style. His lord- 10 Irish Footprints over Europe. ship summoned up courage immediately, and opened the door. Here, indeed, was a tableau for episcopal eyes to see! A half-filled bottle of John Jameson's whiskey, flanked by four glasses, and accompanied by the proper "materials," stood on a table, around which sat four Irish students, en- joying themselves to their hearts' content! When that right rev. prelate returned to Ire- land his report had the effect of seriously di- minishing the contingent of Irish students in Louvain. In 1878 they had dwindled down to five, representing respectively the dioceses of Ross, Cloyne, Ossory, Kerry, and Down and Connor. In 1884 the last of Irish ecclesiastics ordained for Irish missions left Louvain for ever, bearing with him the green Irish flag of the Hibernian alumni, emblazoned on one side by the arms of Leinster, Munster, Ulster, and Connaught, and on the other by the arms of the University. This gentleman, who belonged to the diocese of Ossory, deposited the precious relic in St. Kieran's College, Kil- kenny, where it remains on this day, a mute wit- ness of the fact that Ireland proper no longer treads the cloister of Louvain. The only Irishmen at present residing in the town are those who a e being educated in the American College, and who are destined for American missions. We now leave for a moment the record of Irish scholars for that of Irish soldiers, in dwelling on the glorious part taken by General Thomas Preston and his Irish troops in the defence of Louvain in the summer of 1635. Preston, who was Owen Roe's great rival in Ireland as well as on the Con- tinent, was the fourth son of the Viscount Gor- manstown, was educated in the Lowlands, and be- came one of the most distinguished of European officers. In the year 1634, during the Vice- royalty of Stafford, Preston visited Ireland, and raised a"regiment numbering 2,400 men, recruited chiefly from the counties of Dublin, Wexford, and Carlow. This regiment Preston brought with him to Belgium for the service of Philip IV. of Spain, whose possessions in Flanders were being threatened at the time by 'the joint forces of France and Holland. The united armies of the latter powers were composed of 50,000 infantry, 11,000 horse, and 200 pieces of artillery. On the 20th of June they crossed the Dyle, quite close to Louvain, and eventually on the feast of St. John the Baptist halted right under the walls of the university town. The inhabitants of Louvain had only four regiments with which to oppose the march of this formidable contingent, two of these regiments being Walloons, one German, and the 'ther Irish, the latter being commanded by Pres- ton. These were shortly afterwards reinforced by the students of the University, and by the "bourgeois," who had formed themselves into a company mustering some six hundred men. About sunset on the first day, when the enemy was straining every effort to press his advanced works, General Preston harangued his troops in impressive terms, calling on them to attack the besiegers. The Irish at once dashed into the enemy's entrenchments, and drove them back after a half-hdr's fight. On the following night Preston, at the head of his men, made a sortie from one of the gates, and repulsed the French with such admirable success that the latter resolved to abandon their works and meet the defenders in open battle. The Germans envied the laurels so chivalrously won by the Hibernians. "To- night," said the colonel of their regiment, "we must entrench ourselves on the suburban Montagne de la Cygne. Let us prove to the besiegers and the besieged that Germans are as brave as Irish- men." The colonel was as good as his word, for before the dawn of the following morning the " mountain" was in his hands. On the 29th of June two hundred and fifty men, one third of whom were Irish and were led by Preston, stole a march on the enemy, and routed several battalions of the besiegers from an outer post around the town, the Irish general immortalising himself on the oc- casion by his skill and intrepidity. Despite the overwhelming forces that sought to capture Lou- vain, Preston conducted the defence with such as- tonishing astuteness, and adopted at the same time such an aggressive attitude, that the French and Dutch batteries had to be abandoned. The siege was immediately raised, the Dutch having been shortly afterwards driven back to their native swamps, and the French having been compelled to seek shelter in Lille. An old Louvain chronicler in his account of the siege says:-" The town was saved by the Irish. Their valour and intrepidity were extraordinary. Never since the days of ancient Rome did Belgium see such warriors on her soil." Philip of Spain loaded Preston with valu- able presents on the occasion of his victory, and raised him to a high and responsible post in the German army. With Preston's feats in other por- tions of Europe I shall have occasion to deal later on in this series. It may not be out of place here to mention that in a later siege of Louvain, in 1830, when the Belgians were fighting gallantly for their national independence, a score or so of the Irish students of St. Esprit doffed their soutanes for soldiers' uniforms, and defended one of the bridges on the 11 Irish Footprints over Europe. Dyle successfully against the Dutch. The ten survivors of those brave young Irishmen subse- quently received an enthusiastic ovation at the hands of the inhabitants, and were presented with golden medals, in compliment to their valour, at the conclusion of the campaign. The Church of St. Peter in this city, contain- ing as it does the ashes and bust of Dr. Thomas Stapleton, the only Irishman who filled the exalted position of Rector of the University, must be an object of interest to every Irish visitor. The edifice was founded in 1040, but having been twice burned, the existing building is not older than 1430. CHAPTER III. SKETCH OF THE TIPPERARY MAN WHO BECAME RECTOR OF THE LOUVAIN UNIVERSITY-THE TOMBS OF O'BRIEN AND O'CARROLL, OF CLARE, IN THE VAULTS OF THE HOLY TRINITY -THE EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURES OF PROFESSOR O'HALLORAN ON THE CONTINENT- THE HOLY TRINITY COLLEGE OF LOUVAIN, WHERE DANIEL O'CONNELL STUDIED--AUTO- GRAPHS AND FORGERIES-OLIVER GOLDSMITH'S RESIDENCE IN THE UNIVERSITY TOWN. HE interior of St. Peter's, like the interior of many other mediaeval churches, is weirdly but beautifully sombre. Its darkest recesses are some- e, what relieved by the rich = colourings of the paint- ings from Flemish masters that deck the walls; while the quaint old pillars that still defy the ravages of time, and the superb pulpit of massive oak, with its carved figures and its allegories start- ing,so to speak,vividly from the wood, impress the spectator with the idea that the architects of the past knew well how to plan edifices that might shelter a decade or so of generations and still look the storm as steadily in the face as ever. We rear our stately piles nowadays with something approaching electric speed; we trick them out in meretricious finery, and admire them with snug complacency, crying out the while, with Keats, that a thing of beauty is a joy for ever. Yet if we could only see a few inches be- yond our noses we might discover that our gilded architectural creations are like the apples gathered on the Dead Sea shore-consumptive at heart and doomed to immediate decay. Thoughts such as these often occurred to me while I gazed on the facade of Notre Dame in Paris or sauntered through the glorious aisles of San Pietro in Rome. Here in St. Peter's of Louvain, too, the traveller has occasion to reflect on the fact that the architects who planned the edifice, the deft as well as sinewy hands that built it, and the sculp- tors and painters whose genius embellished it with such lasting grandeur, must have passed away for ever without leaving any heirs of their name or fame behind. Dr. Stapleton, whose remains are interred in this church, was a native of the county Tip perary, having been born in the little town of Fethard. Early in life he found that no oppor- tunities were afforded him of acquiring a suitable education in his native land. He accordingly pro- ceeded to Louvain, where, after a brilliant curriculum, he bore off the degree of Doctor of Canon Law, and was shortly afterwards nominated to the position of president of the College of Mechlin. He was subsequently promoted from this post to the more exalted one of " Rector Mag- nificus" of the University of Louvain, and became at the same time one of the canons attached to St. Peter's. While attending to the responsible duties of both these offices Dr. Stapleton found time to take an active and patriotic interest in the administration of St. Anthony's Irish College in the town; for it was under his auspices that the first complete fount of Gaelic type that ever existed was manufactured in that establishment. There was, however, a Gaelic fount working there shortly before Dr. Stapleton became rector, a fount that produced such works as the "Irish Catechism" of Dr. Conry; Dr. Hugh MacCagh- well's " Mirror of Penance," published in 1618; the " Glossary," written by the illustrious annalist, Michael O' Clery, in 1643, and other volumes from the pens of such distinguished Irish hagiologists as Colgan, Gernon, and MacGilla- cuddy. In a manuscript catalogue of the books that issued from the Irish College of Louvain, and bearing the date of 1675, I find the following allusion to this Gaelic fount:- "In a plain chest is preserved the type of the printing press; the key is over the chest. In the pulpit there is one silver chalice belonging to the convent of Donegal, a small case of the relics of various saints, and the silver seal belonging to 12 Irish Footprints over Europe. O'Donnell. In the first of the upper rooms in a small chest is the Irish type with its own forms; also several copies of Colgan's works, Ward's 'St. Rumold,' the 'Fochloir' (O'Clery's 'Glossary'), and some skins for the covers of books." From the "History of the Franciscan Order," published in 1630, we learn that " the Irish Con- vent of Louvain, for the salvation of souls in the THE OAK PULPIT OF ST. PETER'S. (From a PhotQograph.) kingdom of Ireland,had established in the yearl611 a printing press with the proper type for the Irish letters, which, on account of the prevailing heretical rule, was heretofore impracticable to the Catholics of that kingdom, and printed some books in the Irish language, to the great advantage of the faithful." It may be added here that Father Hussey composed in Louvain a metrical Irish catechism in two hundred and forty verses, which a century later was published by Donlevy as an appendix to the latter's famous catechism in the same tongue. There are other poems by the same rev. writer which are still preserved in the archives of the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin. Dr. Stapleton completed the Gaelic fount re- ferred to, and published through its medium an "Irish Grammar for Students," which soon be- came a class-book not only in-Louvain but also in several other Continental universities. From records of the time it is evident that Dr. Staple- ton did all in his power to mitigate the horrors of the Penal Days in Ireland. He was, however, too "rebellious" in spirit to have any appreciable influence with the British authorities of those days. Moreover, had he not been guilty of the unpardonable transgression of having had a mass of Irish Louvain seditious literature smuggled into Ireland with the view to undermine his Majesty's glorious constitution in this country ? To the left of the high altar in St. Peter's one can see the Stapleton Memorial. In a niche stands the bust of the illustrious Irish scholar, represent- ing him in his declining years, after he had won all the intellectual laurels he ambitioned. The features are rather rough and rugged; but the high grappling brow is deeply impressive, and the head is of purely classic mould. At the right of the bust stands a statuette of Science, in the shape of a young maiden with bowed head and dis- hevelled locks, holding in one of her hands a broken lamp. To the left one sees a statuette of Fate, with a grinning skull in his fleshless palm. Overhead is the ghastly figure of Death wieldir g his traditional scythe. There is a Latin inscrip- tion on a tablet which is attached to the wall immediately underneath the bust. In the Church of the Holy Cross of Louvain lie buried the remains of two brave Irishmen-of whom I shall have more to say when I reach Ramillies-Charles O'Brien, of Clare, the colonel, and John O' Carroll, a major, of what old annalists called the "Legio Hibernia." Latin epitaphs are carved on their tombs. Both these warriors, who were mortally wounded almost at the same moment as they were fighting side by side at the head of Clare's Dragoons on the battlefield of Ramillies, now sleep side by side in the vaults of the Holy Trinity of Louvain. Among the more eminent of the lay professors of Louvain who held chairs in the University im- mediately prior to its suppression by the French Revolutionists, I find one who bears the suspiciously Irish nomenclature of O'Halloran. 13 Irish Footprints over Europe. An adventurous Hibernian this same O'Halloran must have been, if we are to trust the testimony of an old Louvain archaeologist, who told me wondrous things about him. Like Bagenal in his day, and O'Shea in ours, O'Halloran scoured INTERIOR OF ST. PETER'8. Showing the Screen, Pulpit, and High Altar. (From a Photograph.) Europe from end to end with a pilgrim's knap- sack on his back. It is said that he used to boast with pride in the library of Louvain University that he had trodden more square feet of the Con- tinent than any man either living or dead! True, he did not push the programme of his explora- tions beyond the confines of Europe. In regard to extent of travel, he could not, I admit, hold a farthing candle to Buck Whalley, who for a bet made in Daly's Club, Dublin, did actually play ball against the walls of Jerusalem; but O'Hal- loran knew Europe as well as a scrupulous and scholarly Low Churchman knows the Thirty-nine Articles. He had palmed himself off in Madrid as a full-blown " caballero," with his features dyed to the properly sallow height of tint, and the proportions of his muscular frame displayed to best advantage under the folds of the inevitable mantilla. In that beautiful land of olive groves and garlic O'Halloran disported himself with all the ease of the gayest of butterflies. His suave manners, his oily tongue, and his herculean build must have told on the romantic hearts of the lan- guishing senoritas of the South, with some of whom this Irish knight-errant used to hold innocent flirta- tions-just to pass the golden hours away when the clamour or excitement of the Puerta del Sol would pall on his sight. We discover him subse- quently twisting his tongue around the guttural German in a little village on the banks of the Rhine; paying his respects throughout the sum- mer at the shrine of "bock-bier" in Munich; wearing a turban and sporting a fez on the banks of the Bosphorus, where he studied the Khoran; and though a Christian, accomplished the hitherto unparalleled feat of entering a mosque, shoeless and prayerful, in the disguise of a Mus- sulman! If the Grand Vizier had only the faintest idea of such a sacrilegious escapade on the part of O'Halloran that worthy would never have become professor in the University of Louvain; for he would, if caught in the act, have been flayed alive, and his body would have been artistically carved by dutiful knives in order to appease the anger of the mighty Allah. O'Halloran, having been eventually suspected of instigating a rebellion against the Sultan, had to fly from the imperial police, and proceeded to Russia, where he lived, wrapped up in luxurious furs, till he got lost one bleak evening in the snows of Siberia; and, after a merciless winter spent in that solitude in at- tempts to regain the haunts of civilisation, he at last found means to steer his course to Norway and Sweden. It is recorded of him that in his travels through these new countries as well as in his travels through France and Italy he hardly ever entered a post-chaise. To-day the biggest boor going-if he have but a plethoric purse-can cover in a very short time two-thirds of the habitable globe, lolling on a dainty cushion, and dissecting men and things from the window of a railway compartment, and come home with a three-volume dissertation on his experiences abroad. Such a fellow knows as little of the habits and customs of the people he has seen as I do of the South Sea Islanders. O' Halloran, however, was living at a time when the steam engine was still undreamt of. He scorned to have recourse to the free-and- easy conveyances of his day-even when he had to cross the Alps, trudge up and down the Ap- ennines, or bivouac on the heights of the Pyrenees. 14 Irish Footprints over Europe. He tramped on foot with jaunty step all over the Continent. He had sown the last of his wild oats before he returned to Louvain. On reaching that town his unquestionable talents were recognised by the directing committee of the University, who offered him the chair of European literature in the college of the Holy Trinity in that town. O'Halloran was pre-eminently well fitted for such a position. He was proficient in at least eight European languages. He wrote verses equally well in Eng- lish and Irish, and could turn a sonnet in the sweet Tuscan tongue with as much bewitching finesse as if he were born and reared within sight of the Duomo of Florence and had spent his nights over the poems of Petrarch. We have the authority of Father Victor de Buck, the distinguished Bol- landist, for the statement that O'Halloran penned remarkably creditable Flemish verses-a feat that no foreigner to Flanders ever accomplished or ever will accomplish. Like all great scholars, the Professor had his weak points. Nature with a sly malice of her own loves to create imperfec- tions-at least in flesh and blood-to remind us, I fancy, as Philip's slave used to remind his master, that we are but mere mortals after all. Nature gave Byron a fine intellect ; but she took care to dilute the wine with water by cursing him with a lame leg. Professor O'Halloran's foible was an overweening vanity-a foible, by the way, com- mon to most people who find themselves well pro- vided for physically and intellectually. He had a splendid physique, to be admiied by pit and gal- lery, and sound and brilliant talents to catch the fancy of even the most dyspeptic critics in the Press box; and it is no wonder that under such cir- cumstances he should have swaggered in very for- midable war-paint behind the footlights believing in nobody so much as in himself. Like the cele- brated German barber, O' Halloran came to the conclusion that the only three great men whom the eighteenth century produced were himself, Voltaire, and the King of Prussia! The poor Pro- fessor, however, with all his high notions, cannot say with the Roman bard:-" Non omnis moriar." Despite all his talents and accomplishments he is now almost as much forgotten as if he never lived. He has left no learned tomes after him to create a school or keep his name before the pub- lic; and although I spent many a weary hour in the University library with my archaeological friend, hunting up every possible record in which I may have alighted on topography of his grave, I failed piteously in the attempt. Like the wild twes of the forest, he shed his fragrance on the air for a little while, and then melted like its aroma into empty space! Peradventure, the only Irish historical import- ance that can be attached to the personalty or career of.O'Halloran is the fact that he was at one time a professor of Daniel O'Connell. It is not generally known that the great Irish Tribune, before going to St. Omer's, studied for a year or two in the College of the Holy Trinity of Lou- vain-an establishment which still exists as the College des Josephites, and which would well merit the attention of a visit at the hands of the Irish tourist in Belgium. The Holy Trinity Col- lege in the last century was chiefly the haunt of the juveniles of wealthy or aristocratic houses. Its alumni were, however, of very tender years, for it was only a preparatory school at the best of times. It was here where the scion of Derrynane first learned the French language, in which, we are told, he was such an adept throughout his sub- sequent career. An officious cicerone pointed me out what he called O'Connell's autograph on one of the doors of this institution; but, unlike the Jew Appels, I felt myself conscientiously bound to be incredulous. The autograph was evidently written with a large bodkin in a Vere Foster schoolboy hand; but it had a suspiciously modern look about it that crushed every tempta- tion I may have had to subscribe with beating heart to its authenticity. A waggish guide tried to play on me the scurvy trick of passing off a scrawl on the wall of a tum- ble-down rookery in Genoa as the autograph of Christopher Columbus. When I visited Verona a short time ago I was almost wheedled into the belief that a "William Shakespeare," which I had seen scribbled over the so-called tomb of fair Juliet in that town, was in the great dramatist's handwriting, till on reflection I discovered that that illustrious Britisher had never set foot in Italy. I found out shortly afterwards that the autograph was penned by one of the ever-increas- ing troop of British'tourists who affect the southern peninsula-one of those trumpery Shakespeares who visited the place in the fifties of the present century, and who on the strength of having the same name as the immortal William, audaciously hoodwinked the simple-minded Veronese into the idea that he was a lineal descendant of the Bard of Avon! I must not, however, in all justice, make the sweeping declaration that all the autographs one sees abroad are not authentic. Every man of the English, American, and, I fear, I must add, Irish tourist type is not satisfied with himself while in Rome until he has profanely carved the 15 Irish Footprints over Europe. outlines of his obscure name on the broken pillars of the Forum or on the walls of the Colosseum. I saw a few score of such nomenclatures, "born, perhaps, to blush unseen," but still blushing very .. r,- - , PORTION OF THE EXTERIOR OF ST. PETER'S. visibly indeed from the leaning tower of Pisa; I have seen the same very questionable caligraphic, ornaments in the interior of the turrets of Notre Dame, and beheld them even elbowing their im- pudent way to the pillars of the Arc du Triomphe, cheek-by-jowl with the names of the illustrious Generals of the First Empire ! What informa- tion posterity will glean from the autographs of these globe-trotters Heaven only knows ! I might say here that the only authentic auto- graph of a great man on stone walls abroad, be- fore which one can bow down in simple faith and sincere admiration, is that of Lord Byron on Bonivard's pillar in Chillon, carved as it is in the fine large Roman hand of the wandering Childe Harold. When I saw it in the springtide of 1886, as I was exploring the beauties of Lake Leman, I had made sufficient inquiry, circumstantial and other- wise, to warrant me in upholding its authenticity. There are no autographs of Oliver Goldsmith on post or pillar in Louvain, although the bard was, we are told, at one time a resident of the city, where he earned his bread by piping on his flute in the streets, or teaching English in return for French in the chambers of the students. It is also on record that the eccentric but ood- natured Irish troubadour used to attend classes in the University, and enjoyed quite a peculiar de- light in the study of botany. Louvain cannot take to itself the credit of having awarded a de- gree to the genius who was considered a blockhead by the white-kidded gentry of Trinity. Heidel- berg University honoured "Noll" with the title by which Johnson in subsequent years almost in- variably addressed him. The house in Louvain in the top garret of which Goldsmith vegetated for a few months has been long since demolished; but the Town Hall, which the poet so much ad- mired, is still as bewilderingly beautiful as it was in his day, with its exquisitely sculptured facades and its stately walls, in which there are hundreds of niches where the statues of the scholars and warriors of Flanders, dust-worn but majestic, look down from the far past, as it were, on the pigmies of to-day, who have replaced the giants of yesterday in the square below. 16 Irish Footprints over Europe. CHAPTER IV. 4'SULLIVAN FROM KERRY-HIS LINGUISTIC FEAT IN THE UNIVERSITY---HIS KINGLY STOCK ASD) KINGLY NOTIONS-=A STUDENTS' CAF --OTHER IRISH MEMORIALS IN LOUVAIN-THE CHATEAU CESAR, ONCE THE HOME OF HUTGH O'NEILL-THE IRISH PASTORAL OOLLEGE-IRELAND'S DEAD IN MONTAIGU---FAREWELL TO LOUVAIN-FIRST VISIT TO BRUSSELS. ARK O'SULLIVAN, who mhailed from the Kingdom of Kerry, was, I believe, the last Irish lay student who walked the corridors of the University of Lou- vain, where he enjoyed a "bourse d' etudes" founded in that city during the penal days by one of his ancestors. * When I met O'Sullivan for the first time, in 1878, he had been for fourteen years a resident of Louvain. His name figured on the University roll, and I verily believe he used to attend lectures once in a while, say with every new moon; but I quite forget just now what particular kind of diploma he was in quest of. He may have ambitioned becoming a big-wig of the schools, a barrister at the Brussels Bar, a luminary in the Belgian medical firmament, or a possible rival of De Lesseps in the engineer- ing department. In any case, he had determined to live and die on Belgian soil. He had become so much acclimatised to the land of his adoption, and had mixed so much with its inhabitants, that he was more Belgian than the Belgians themselves. Yet, withal, although he spoke English with a decidedly foreign accent, his tongue in wagging never lost its peculiar Irish witchery, and he kept up his acquaintance with Gaelic authors to the end. One day, while he was attending the Literature and Language class in the University, the Professor and himself had quite :an interesting passage-at-arms. The' Professor, who was a most accomplished linguist and a disciple and admirer of the great Mezzophanti, determined on testing the knowledge of his pupils in the various tongues. None were found competent to discuss any subject with the learned man in more than three languages-Latin, French, and Flemish -until it came to the turn of the Irishman, who, to the utter bewilderment of his colleagues, kept up a running fire with the Professor not merely in Latin, French, and Flemish, but in Greek, Italian, Spanish, and German as well; and eventually, when Mark put a poser to his an- tagonist in Irish, and the latter failed to reply, a cheer rang from the lips of the assembled students, and O'Sullivan was dubbed by universal acclaim the Irish Polyglot of Louvain. Mark and I used sometimes saunter out of the town in the mellow autumn evenings to a pretty little rustic cafe in the environs, where, seated on the teirace outside, we would discuss philology A CAFE RESTAURANT IN THE SUBURBS OF LOUVAIN, FREQUENTED BY STUDENTS. and faro beer till the twilight shadows warned us off. Mark was, like the wonderful Professor Mortimer Murphy of Paris, a "peripatetic encyclopedia of information." His mind was, if I may so speak, a well-stocked granary of facts and dates; and yet his conversation was not that of a pedant or a dry-as-dust archmologist, for he used to garnish every theme he discussed with the spicy attic sauce of wit and humour, expressed in the mellifluous accents of his Kerry brogue. He was a confirmed sceptic, however, on most points. Although not much over thirty years of age at the time, he had outgrown nearly all his en- thusiasm, and looked on the world as a stage, and on life as a comedy. The only subject that evoked anything approaching passionate ardour on his part was the proud record of the family of which he was a member. "I am the son of a kingly stock," he would say, "'and, despite all the democratic drivelling of the age, I hold that 17 Irish Footprints over Europe. blue blood has more sterling honour in its cur- rent than red!" Max O'Rell, an irrepressible literary wag, it was who said that he never yet met an Irishman who did not boast of being a lineal descendant of one of the monarchs of ancient Erin. " Those monarchs of ancient Erin must have been 'grands gaillards' in their day," added the witty writer, "for they evidently practised Mormonism before the coming of the Mormons !" O'Sullivan would scorn to acknow- ledge himself a mere scion of the Princes of Beare. He would go back for his ancestry a'thousand and odd years before the building of the Castle'of Dunboy, till his fancy would be lit up with radiant visions of the Ard Righ, his Ollames and Brehons,'his bards and pages standing on the field of a cloth of gold, and dispensing justice to a grateful and contented people. Mark, or, as he would classically put it, Marcus, was a Royalist, and would have no objection to don the purple of his ancestors--if the purple and the throne were to be had for the asking. Sometimes a group of gay, rollicking students would invade the cafe, and sing lively ditties over their cups. War, wine, and woman-that in- THE ROYAL THEATRE, BRUSSELS. separable trio-formed the burden of almost every chorus. Republican lyrics were generally tabooed by the Louvain students; bat when a few strays and waifs from the Brussels University came down off and on to these monarchical regions the "lMarsellaise" would burst gloriously from their parted lips, to the inexpressible anguish of Mark, who once confessed to me that though the "Boyne Water" was bad enough, Rouget de Lisle's piece of lyrical buffoonery was infinitely worse! One evening in particular we found our- selves much interested in the antics of a Cockney tourist, dressed in orthodox tweed, and gazing on all the surroundings with the air and attitude of one who had just dropped from a higher sphere. The afternoon was more than usually sultry, and our tourist was evidently a thirsty soul. "I say, guv'nor," exclaimed the Britisher, " have you got any gingerbeer ?" The proprietor of the cafe grinned and looked into vacancy. "I say, guv'nor," cried the exasperated tweed-suited visitor, "get me gingerbeer, or sodawater or lemonade, or lime juice, or anything in that line, you know." The governor jabbered a reply in Flemish to the effect that English was not spoken on his premises, whereupon the Britisher rose in - --J= -L~StE ~ THE NEW EXCHANGE, BRUSSELS. high dudgeon, called him a stupid loon, and shrieked for a cup of tea. The landlord under- stood, or thought he understood, and soon after- wards came out with a bowl of transparent liquid called "tisane," made from a decoction of herbs, and said to be as much a cure for all ills on the Continent as whiskey is supposed to be in certain quarters of Ireland. What a wry face that Cockney assumed while sipping the strange beverage! And how he reviled the stupidity of those foreigners who had nothing better to give a fellow to drink ! And yet this pompous prig did not understand that he was for the time being in a country where the Blue Rib- bon Army is quite an unknown factor, where, con- sidered in a certain sense, teetotalism is scouted as the craze of fanatics, and where, nevertheless, drunkenness is by no means as rife as it is in the slums of London or the pur- lieus of Manchester. There are some people who judge foreign habits and customs from their own peculiar standpoint. A bull-fight in Madrid is condemned by delicately-reared gentry, who go with light hearts pigeon-shooting around the manors of Kent. Folk are altogether too fond of looking on themselves as paragons of perfection, and thanking God with the Pharisee, that they are 18 Irish Footprints over Europe. not as others ! Virtue elbows vice and vice elbows virtue in every country under the sun. No nation in this respect can lay claim to the palm of any self-sufficient superiority. O'Sullivan and I made many pilgrimages to places of interest in and around Louvain. One of these was the historic Mont Caesar, or "Castrum (Osaris," as it is called in the scholastic annals of the town A gloomy, venerable, and yet romantic pile is this castle of the great Roman. Popular tradition has it that the edifice was built by Julius of that name during his sojourn among "the bravest of the Gauls." Here Charles, Archduke of Austria, the son of Philip and Joanna of Castille, known in history as Charles the Fifth, spent his dreamy youth, working out ambitious designs; and here he came in subsequent years, after he had worn a jewelled crown, attired in the humble habit of a monk weary of the cares of life, and sick of the world's vanities. Here, too, was the residence of the poet and historian, Puteanus, the worthy disciple of the scholarly Justin Lipsis. Within these sombre bastions wended the foot- steps of Hugh O'Neill and his fellow-exiles in 1607, when they took up their temporary resi- dence in Louvain, where they received a warm ovation at the hands of the sturdy Flemish burghers. Tyrconnel and his friends lived, we are told, in the city; but by the express wish of the Archduke Albert, Hugh O'Neill had his home in the old Castle of Caesar. It was here the illustrious Irishman received deputations from ROYAL PLACE AND ST. JAMES, BRUSSELS. the Irish students of the University and letters of sympathy and congratulation from the Irish prelates and scholars of Paris, Rome, and Douay. Was it not something, after all, to have seen the crumbling towers over whic'h the Red Right Hand of Ulster floated in the breeze s ome two hundred and eighty-two years ago? Was not this time- worn edifice a veritable Irish monument in the heart of Flanders? "When Christmas came," writes Father Meehan, "the burgomeister and the chief citizens of Louvain waited on O'Neill, and, according to custom, paid him and O'Donnell all the usual compliments, making them presents and sending minstrels to perform in their resi- dences." Another Irish writer, the Rev. Mr. Treacy, adds that the heart of O'Neill must have gladdened as he sat in the spacious hall of the old pt'lace of Charles V. and listened to Irish martial airs played in his honour by the countrymen of " Godfrey the Great, the shining Western Star !" There are other Irish associations, equally in- teresting, connected with this castle. It was at one of its gates, which is now little better than a ruin, that Preston and his Irish troops camped for several nights during the memorable siege of Lou- vain, to which reference has been made in a pre- ceding chapter. A few yards distant, situated be- tween the rocky stairs and the road which leads to the canal, stood the old Irish Dominican Convent, some of the cloisters of which establishment still survive the ravages of time. Historians state that it was Richard Bermingham, of the Convent of Athenry, who procured for the Irish Dominicans their house on Mont Cesar. Its first rector was Oliver Burke, a native of Galway. The site of the institution is now almost altogether occupied by private houses of comparatively modern growth. Before taking possession of the convent near the castle the Irish Dominicans had their residence in the Rue St. Jacques. When they left Mont Caesar they opened a convent in a street in Louvain which is called to this day "la Rue des Dominicains Irlandais." Among the alumni of this Irish Dominican College were Dr. Christopher French, of Galway, and the Rev. Dominick de Burgho, the latter of whom, after passing through a severe ordeal of persecution in Ireland, was driven into exile, and, though offered an abbey for his own use by the King of France, preferred to share the poverty of his brothers in Mont Csar. Various pilgrimages were also made to the site once occupied by the Irish Pastoral College of Louvain-an institution which must not be con- founded with St. Anthony's. This establishment was founded in 1625, and had for its object the education of Irish secular ecclesiastics destined for the Irish Mission. The pathway through life of many of these devoted men lay from Louvain to Ireland, and fr m Ireland to the Tower of Lon- don, where the block and axe lay in wait for Irish Footprints over Europe. their summary execution. O'Sullivan called this college "a nursery of martyrs," and he was literally as well as figuratively correct in his de- finition. The College itself, with its colossal archway spanned by the inscription, " Collegium Hibernorum," has long since disappeared, and where it stood in the Rue des Orphelins one now beholds a children's hospital. It may be of in- terest to note that when the venerable building was vacated by the Irish in 1773, the Freemasons of Louvain became its'owners, and held their first banquet in its quaint old chapel. The building fell into ruins in the beginning of this century, and was never restored. Among the distinguished visitors to this establishment in the heyday of its glory was the illustrious Cornelius a Lapide, whose commentaries on the Scriptures embrace many and many an ample tome. Its most dis- tinguished rector was Edmond O'Reilly, who was subsequently consecrated Archbishop of Armagh. He was in his early days a pupil of Cornelius, when the latter held a professional chair in the University. Dr. O'Reilly, according to Dr. Renehan, was not "a reed shaken by the wind; he was not a man clothed in soft garments nor versed in that finesse and pliancy which prevail in the palaces of kings; he knew not how to tem- porise, but he knew how to contend and suffer for justice' sake." The distinguished prelate died, full of years, in 1669, in the ancient Royal College of Saumur, on the banks of the Loire. Our last pilgrimage was to Montaigu, a village situated a few miles north-east of Louvain. Here sleep a large number of Irish dead--soldiers and ecclesiastics, whose remains lie in unknown graves. There is, however, in this quaint old cemetery a large slab erected to the memory of Dr. John O'Sullivan, of Kerry, who was professor of Theology in the Irish Pastoral College, and one of the most distinguished scholars of Flanders in the last century. The inscription on the slab is now completely effaced, but I learned on excellent authority that the ecclesiastic whose memory it hcnours was born in the townland of Cappacusheen, in the barony of Dunkerron, within the shadow of Mangerton. I have been told-but I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the statement-that a roughly-hewn stone still marks the site of the house in which he first saw the light-lying at a side of the old road that extends from Sneem to Kenmare. O'Sullivan left the "Kingdom" at an early age, and having prosecuted his studies with much success in the University, he was very soon afterwards promoted to a professor's chair. Montaigu, where his grave can still be seen, is at present a favourite resort of pilgrims. It was after this visit to the home of Ireland's dead that I saw Mark O'Sullivan for the last time; for early next day I proceeded to Mechlin, and from thence tc Brussels. A year or so subsequently an Irish friend in Namnur wrote to me to Paris informing me that the Hibernian Polyglot was no more. Peace to the ashes of this brilliant though erratic genius ! I had my first idea of Brussels on the same even- ing from the lips of an hotel proprietor, who told me in unctuous accents that it was a "petit" Paris. As I had at the time only a very rudi- S.. - ---- --- -, COURT OF JUSTICE, BRUSSELS. mentary notion of the French capital--a city which I had yet to visit-I failed to appreciate mine host's observation at its proper value. Since then, however, I have become wiser, and can therefore in all justice subscribe to its truth. Brussels is indeed a miniature of the big town on the banks of the Seine, and is in social life a pocket edition of that ponderous volume, the pages of which extend from Montmartre to the Quartier Latin. I confess I do not like these miniatures. Imitation, they say, is the best kind of flattery. Well, the Parisians ought to have a superlatively high opinion of themselves if they turn their gaze on Brussels, doing its level best to copy the Boulevards and the Bois de Boulogne. There is, candidly, too much of the ape in the imitative mania of these people to command anything like, respect or admiration. Although Brussels is the capital of an independent nation, it takes its social code from the foreigner. There is an absence of what I may call the spirit of nationality in the citizens. True enough, they would fight to the death for their liberty if Frank or Teuton crossed the border; they take pride in their ancient Flemish language, and still uphold some of the quaint customs and habits of their fore- fathers. But how happens it that snobocracy wields such fatal influence over the burgesses r 20 Irish Footprints over Europe. have known genteel as well as shabby-genteel circles in Brussels where the Flemish tongue was considered as vulgar a mode of expression as the Irish would be in the drawingroom of a Dub- lin West Britisher. High-born dames, daintily unpatriotic, flock to Paris off and on to consult Woerth, the sovereign man-milliner of the Rue de la Paix, on the latest cut of a ball-dress or the shape of the newest corset. Parisian art fashions the fans of Brussels, gilding them with etchings of Naiads and Hemydryads, Bacchants and Graces, modelled from the tiny faces and still tinier figures of the hoydens of St. Cloud. Cambric handkerchiefs and pretty foulards are all Parisian importations. The beautifully small feet of the dames and damsels of fashion are encased in Parisian leather, wrought into ex- quisite shapes by the hands of Parisian boot- makers. I verily believe that there may be found here and there throughout the city certain noble ladies who send to Paris for their lace, although Brussels lace-next, of course, .to the Irish-is considered to be the best and prettiest in Europe. And then when these ladies retire to the privacy of their chambers, and dive into the mys- teries of the toilette-table, fthe rouge which they coyly apply to their lips and the rice-powder with which they ruthlessly besmear their lovely coun- tenances are fabricated within a stone's throw of the Seine. Articles having the Parisian brand upon them are in most cases preferred to the na- tive creations--it is so very, very fashionable, and such good form, you know, to share the deli- cacies partaken of by the dainty duchesses and dowager duchesses of the great Faubourg St. Ger- main! As for the uglier portion of humanity in Brussels, it naturally takes its cue from the fairer. The dudes of the Belgian capital are imitation jewels of the genuine commodity on the boulevards. The Brussels shopkeeper is a second edition of his Parisian colleague-a little smuttier perhaps in appearance and a little less polite in his, language' and habits, but still the resemblanoe between both is too striking to be ignored. French politics, moreover, have more interest for the Brussels folk than their own. They will read with bated breath reports of the proceedings in the French Chamber of Deputies, and yawn lazily over the harangues one hears in their own dull, stolid Parliament at home. There is one feature in their imitative art that has, strange to say, been hitherto to a great extent neglected. They have not as yet created a spurious Belgian Boulanger-the inevitable hero with the blue sparkling Celtic eyes, the blonde beard, the richly caparisoned black steed, and the other equally interesting accessories that frame in the tableau of the coming ruler of France. I would not be astonished to hear any of these mornings that a brand-new Boulanger has started to life on the asphalt of the capital of Flanders. Brussels can never be a happy hunting-ground for tramcar shareholders, laid out as it is on hills and in valleys like a village in the Oberland. It is divided into the upper and lower towns, in the former of which the tinselled aristocracy loll their lazy lives away, the abyss at their feet being relegated to the multitude, washed and'unwashed. In the fashionable quarter stands the King's Palace, where poor, inoffensive Leopold seeks shelter, as Louis of Versailles did in his forge, to screen himself from the feuds and bickerings of party cliques. Here also we find the Parliament House and the park, within which was once situated the old chateau of the brave Dukes of Brabant. The Palais de Justice, or, in other words, the Brussels Four Courts, an etching of which is given in this paper, is considered a beauti- ful building by others than Cook'r tourists; while the Theatre Royal and the New Exchange might well merit a similar compliment. Irish visitors to Brussels will, however, take more interest in sauntering into the Place Royale, where stands, to the right of St. James's Church, the King's Library. In this building there are veritable treasures of Irish archeological lore, a summary of which must be reserved for a succeeding chapter. 21 22 Irish Footprints over Europe.a CHAPTER V. THE BRUSSELS ROYAL LIBRARY-A LEARNED PROFESSOR IN THE ROLE OF A DANCING DERVIS--- IRISH MSS.-A COLLECTION OF JACOBITE RELIQES--A VISIT TO WATERLOO-THE GRAVE IN WHICH A MARQUISS LEG LIES BURIED-MURDER OF BERNARD O'NEILL IN BRUSSELS-THE O'NEILLS AND THE O'DONNELLS IN THE BELGIAN CAPITAL-A PEN-AND-INK SKETCH OF THE FIELD OF LANDEN. HE Brussels Royal Library is one of the most valuable of its kind in Europe. It is peculiarly rich in old MSS in the Latin, Greek, Flemish, Irish, French, and Spanish languages. The building itself is separated from the street by a court-yard, at the outer door of which stand two of King Leopold's sentinels. Entering by the inner portal the visitor mounts a stone staircase, and on arriving at the second landing he discovers, to his left, a door over which is written, "Section des Bourgignons," or the Burgundy section--a part of the Library exclusively devoted to manu- script literature. Having had a note of intro- duction to the amiable and learned librarian, M. Reubens, I was afforded by that gentleman every facility in exploring the purely Irish department. " There are still some of your countrymen," he said, " who cannot visit Brussels without coming to see the Burgundy collection; but they are very few." The large room, in which I found myself, had nothing abnormal in its aspect. Budding historians, and historians who may have already blossomed; antiquated antiquaries and elderly spinsters of the blue stocking texture pored through their spectacles over the dusty tomes of past centuries at the various tables, trying to decipher characters that looked sus- piciously like hieroglyphics, and taking copious notes of the contents. One of the group to whom I was presented by M. Reubens, a venerable pro- fessor from one of the German universities, was in a veritable ecstasy as I entered. He had dis- covered some new theory on the origin of the cockle shells which were found on the summit of the Apennines. "I know now how they got there," exclaimed the Teuton, in a paroxysm of joy, "and mehercule ! I will give the world a book that shall confound Voltaire in his version of the story." I have seen some young and beardless bards when they read for the first time their pro- ductions in all the glory of print; I have seen more than one author hug his first book to his bosom as a father would his babe; I have seen the light in the child's eyes when toy soldiers in buskin and cakes of sugar-candy are poured liberally into his lap; but I never witnessed such an expansion of delight on any of these countenances that could compare with the aureole that had settled down on the parchment face of this happy professor. Despite the rheumatics at- tendant on old age, he actually pirouetted around the room like a dancing Dervish. Had he not made a grand discovery, and would not his name, as some poetaster put it, go ringing down sempiter- nally through the corridors of fame? The profes- sor's revelations, I must judiciously add, are not yet in the publisher's hands, nor, I fancy, are they likely to be. The MSS of the Irish part of \this section are in Latin and Gaelic, the oldest of which date so far back at 1410. Some of the folios treat of St. Brendan, the founder of the See of Ardfert, and enter into exhaustive details of the man who is re- puted to have set foot on American soil before Christopher Columbus. I find in the same col- lection learned essays by Thomas Fleming, entitled "De Rebus Hibernicis," written ' 4 in 1612 ; poems in SARSFIELD. Latin on the state of Ireland, in a bulky quarto volume ; Lives of Irish Saints, by Brother Clery; a list o the Franciscan Provincial monks who refused to adopt the tenets of Lutheranism,'among'them being Dermot O'Fogarty, Donald O'Cuenan, and Der- mot M'Egan O'Donocha. Much time and labour were expended on the latter folio, a note in the last page of which informs us that it was finished in the Irish footprints over Europe. Friary of Donegal on the 7th day of August, 1613. Next in order is a poem in Gaelic, entitled "Slios Daill Gulban M'Neill" (1642), followed by Clery's Wars of the Irish and the Danes, a translation of which into English has been pub- lished from the pen of Dr. Todd, and may be found in the Master of the Rolls series in the read- ingroom of the Royal Irish Academy. This MS., which contains a very graphic account of the battle of Clontarf, was written in Donegal, and concluded there in November, 1635. I happened on a letter penned on a fly-leaf of this folio by Eugene O' Curry calling into question the author- ship of a certain Gaelic poem, and dated Dublin, October, 1853. One of the most interesting curiosities in the series is a Latin volume, "Liber Purcelli et Monei," a comprehensive history of the Franciscan Order in Ireland by Fathers Pur- cell and Mooney, a beautiful English version of which we owe to the talented pen of Father C. P. Meehan. On the flyleaf of this MS. I read that Brother Anthony Purcell collected most of the materials for it by the express order of Provincial Brother Donat Mooney. Another large folio em- braces a Life of St. Patrick and a copy of his "Purgatorium," a French MS stranslation of which, illustrated by an Irish monk, holds a high place of honour in the Burgundian section. In addition to these we have the obituary of the monks of St. Anthony's of Louvain, where we find such names as Blake, Fleming, de Burgo, Eugene M'Carthy, Peter Morphy, and Patrick O'Connor, the last of whom is referred to as a lay brother and "arte sartor." Next in order are the lives of St. Brigid and St. Brendan of Clonfert, in Irish; a duodecimo volume contain- ing the martyrology of Ireland's saints, by Brother Clery, and characterised by all that ecclesiastic's careful penmanship and exquisite formation of letters; a Discussion on some Irish antiquities, signed " Flann MacAodhegan," who professed to come from the village of Flannmacaodhegan ("mirabile dictu!"), in the county of Tipperary. The title page of this production displays the imprimatur of Malachy, Archbishop of Tuam, dated Galway, Kalends of December, 1636, and of Richard, Bishop of Kildare. Among the others are fragments of the Annals of Ireland; "Lebhar Iris na Domhneill," the book of O'Donnell's Poems--Jacobite relics brimful of love and romance, and yet displaying a weird and melan- choly spirit peculiar to the Irish harp; the theological works of Richard, Archdeacon of Kilkenny ; St. Bernard's Panegyric of St. Malachi, with a portrait of the distinguished Irish prelate; Essays by Laurence O'Dolan, who facetiously called himself "the Gentleman Friar;" and a large map of the battle of Fontenoy, supposed to have been drawn on the morning of the fray, and giving the names of the chief combatants, among whom, strange to say, none of our country- men figure. The author of this map must, like Voltaire, have had a rabid antipathy to the "mere Irish." It would be impossible for me in the limited space at my disposal to enumerate all these Irish MSS. in the Burgundian section. Suffice it to say, that they would well repay the inspection of any Irish tourist who may be spend- ing a holiday in Brussels. Unlike most other Old World MSS., they are not, however, illuminated to any appreciable extent. Art does not seem to have been patronised with anything like zeal in the cloisters of St. Anthony's, where most of these relics were penned by the untiring monks. I may add here that when St. Anthony's Col- lege was broken up these MSS. were transferred to the Jesuit house in Mechlin, and from thence to the Brussels Rcyal Library, where, I am glad to say, they form very palatable literary pabulum for Flemish and German scholars. Not a stone's throw from the Library lies the spot in the Rue Royale where an Irishman (who apologised for being one on the plea that a man born in a stable was not necessarily a horse), the Duke of Wellington, tripped it on the light fantas- tic toe a few evenings before the battle of Waterloo. A discussion took place a few years ago in the Press between certain learned authorities regarding the precise topography of the ball-room; batthe weight of logic in the argument lay with those who conten- ded that the entertainment was held in a shed to the rere of one of the houses of the street in ques. tion. The ball was given by the Duchess of Rich- mond, one of the then leading belles of Brussels society. How faithfully Byron must have put on record the romance of that scene of pleasure in the following lines:- There was a sound of revelry by night, And Belgium's capital had gathered then Her beauty and her chivalry, and bright The lamps shone on fair women and brave men : A thousand hearts beat happy ; and when Music arose with its voluptuous swell, Soft eyes look'd love to eyes that spake again, And all went merry as a marriage bell ! Waterloo, which is situated some ten miles from Brussels, is a favourite resort of British tourists. Wagonettes ply every morning from the Hotel d'Angleterre and other inns to the historic field, and return in the evening. Before the visitor has time to take a look at his surroundings, and go back in fancy to that eventful June day in 1815, 23 Irish Footprints over Europe. he is actually set upon by a horde of relic-vendors and guides, who jabber and shriek in a mongrel dialect, half Flemish, half English. Of relics there is a glorious and, it appeared to me, an ever-growing superabundance. Among those that fetch fancy prices I may enumerate such valuable knick-knacks as a nail from the heel of Welling- ton's boot; an imitation gold button from the uniform of Blucher; one of the "sole surviving" feathers in Grouchy's cocked hat; and ahalf-decayed grinder of Napoleon the First! The "Little Cor- poral," by the by, must have had a colossal jaw, for no less than a thousand of his grinders have been sold on the plain of Waterloo since 1815; and as for the number of Wellington nails, they would keep an ordinary shoemaker in stock in that article for the length of his natural life; fiver or two to get possession of the trumpery article ! And then-O ye heavens !-what a locust of guides broods over Waterloo! What unmitigated gibberish falls from their per- petually wagging tongues! "'Me vill show Monsieur," lisps one, "de house of Paris vere Vellington did coucher before de battle!" "Do Monsieur vish," chimes in a second, "to view de tomb of de Marquis of Anglesey's leg?" A third, if he suspects you of entertaining any anti-British proclivities, will volunteer to point you the spot where the Old Guard of Napoleon died but did not surrender. These guides, I may here paren- thetically observe, are as cunning as foxes. If you happen to be a German, they will pass a glowing panegyric on Blucher-at the rate of a penny a line! If you be a' loyal subject of her British THE BATTLEFIELD OF LANDEN. From etching taken on the spot. while Blucher 'buttons and Grouchy feathers are, to use a very hackneyed but a no less expressive platitude, more numerous than3ethe autumn leaves of Valambrossa. Human credulity must be a fathomless ocean in very deed; for nobody- not even the most brazen-faced of relic-vendors-- has as yet sounded its depths. A man may be the cream of astuteness at home; he. may not be caught by any amount of chaff or birdlime among his own; but give him a Gladstonian bag and send him 'to "'foreign parts" and you will see how naively confiding the animal becomes. He will laugh to scorn the authenticity of a relic of Brian Boru that may be shown him in the neigh- bourhood of Kinkora, but if the collar-bone of Julius Cesar be submitted to his inspection in the Roman Forum he may be wheedled into believ- ing it to be genuine, and may actually put down a Majesty, Wellington's praises will be sounded, subject to a similar tariff. Should you have the tongue and the air of a spruce Parisian dandy, these wretches will actually shed crocodile tears over the defeat of the mighty Napoleon. In fact they are, in the happy words of St. Paul, "all things to all men." Apropos of the nether limb of the Marquis (which had to be amputated in the house of M. Paris on the field after the battle), the boot that encased the noble foot is still preserved under the old roof tree, and brings'in a goodly revenue to the proprietor who charges each visitor a franc entrance fee for its inspection; while the leg itself lies in state within a lordly coffin in a grave honoured with a monument and an epitaph beneath the branches of a weeping willow ! Waterloo is situated on the outskirts of the forest of Soigne, which Byron erroneously 24 Irish Footprints over Europe. called Ardennes, and is a straggling and com- monplace village. The house opposite the village church, in which the Duke of Wellington took up his headquarters, is, I believe, still in existence, and has been for over half a century a kind of English Mecca for English tourists in Belgium. It is not generally known that Brussels was the scene of the brutal murder of Bernard O'Neill, one of the most promising sons of the great Hugh of Dungannon. The boy was one of the exile band that had left Lough Swilly for the Continent some years previously. Donatus Mooney, under whose care the youth was placed on his father's arrival in the Low Countries, tells us that the crime was committed in the Belgian capital on the 16th of August, 1617. From the record left us of the sad event by the distinguished Franciscan we learn that young 'O'Neill was only nine years of age when he was appointed page to the Archdukes. When he was admitted to the Court everyone regarded him with affectionate admiration, blessed his in- nooent soul, and called him "the young rosebud redolent of choicest virtues." Bernard was a very handsome boy, was very fond of books, and was assiduously devoting himself to the study of military science. According to Mooney, these qualities provoked the jealousy of some secret enemy of his house, "for, alas!" adds the chronicler with truth, "it is the fate of genius to be looked upon with jaundiced eye, while no one envies the thing that .crawl(and slimes its way along." He had been four years in the service of the Archdukes, when, on the date already referred to, two of his domestics, one a French and the other an Irish boy, entered his apartments and found him with his hands tied behind his back, strangled on his bed. Father Meehan, with his usually en- terprising research, made several endeavours to discover the names of the assassins, but the only information which he could glean on the subject is contained in the letter of the Archbishop of Otranto, Papal Nuncio at Brussels, to Cardinal Borghese, in which it is said that the deed was done by two Walloons, one offwhom was valet to the defunct and the other footman to Don Hugh, his cousin, who lived in the same house with him. Bernard's remains were shortly afterwards con- veyed to Louvain, and interred in the chapel of the Irish Franciscan Convent of that city, where they still repose. When the father of the young page first set foot on Belgian soil he was the recipient of a magnifi- cent ovation at the hands of all classes of the com- munity alike. Having reached Notre Dame de Hal, celebrated by the pen of Juste Lipse, O'Neill and his illustrious fellow-exiles were met by a deputation of officers-Irish, Belgian, and Spanish -of the Archduke's army, who tendered their guests a cordial welcome. There they were also met by Henry O'Neill, accompanied by Spinola, Generalissimo of the Spanish army; and at the latter's invitation the Irish exiles proceeded to Mariemont, the hunting seat of Albert and Isa- bella, both of whom hailed the visit with genuine delight. Shortly afterwards O'Neill and his com- panions were entertained at a banquet in Brus- sels, which was attended by many of the celebri- ties of the day, among them being the Duke d'Aumale, the Marquis d'Assuna, the illustrious Cardinal Bentivoglio, then Nuncio of Pope Paul V. in the Lowlands; Colonel Henry O'Neill, and the Spanish Ambassador from the Court of Madrid. Father Meehan informs us that Spinola was the entertainer on the occasion, and appointed the places of honour for his guests; O'Neill oc- cupied Spinola's own chair at the centre of the table; Bentivoglio was on his right hand; Tyr- connell, the sons of O'Neill and Maguire were placed on the same side; while the opposite side was filled by the Duke d'Aumale, the Spanish Ambassador, the Duke d'Ossuna, Viceroy of Sicily, the host himself, and many other dis- tinguished personages. The entertainment must have been carried out on a gorgeous scale, for ac- cording to O'Keenan " it was a banquet of which A FLEMISH FEUDAL CASTLE. a king might be proud, and there was gold and silver plate of which any crowned head in Christendom might not have been ashamed." Brussels was therefore a veritable oasis in the desert to those "poor exiles far away," who had gone through so many tribulations in the land of their forefathers. It may not be irrelevant to state here that O'Neill and his friends were enter- tained also in the country houses, chateaux, or castles of the Flemish nobles. The Chateau de Dupont, an illustration of which is given in this 25 Irish Footprints over Europe. paper, opened its portals on more than one occa- sion to the illustrious refugees. After a few weeks' sojourn in the Belgian capital I proceeded to Landen-a spot which will be al- ways associated in history with the name of Patrick Sarsfield-a dreary, desolate locality, re- minding one of the Roman Campagna in'miniature, with its apparently endless plains, its tangled brushwood, and its uninviting wastes. Its utter solitude is barely relieved by a few scattered elm trees, bare of trunk, that gather themselves at the summit into umbrella roofs. The river Gette flows past as lazily as the Schelde, while the only bustle of life that breaks in on the grave-like silence all around is the snort or whistle of the steam engine as the train moves by. Landen is on the rail line from Liege to Velm. If the tourist takes ticket from Brussels or Louvain to the latter town, he will have the advantage of passing by the outskirts of the battle scene, and taking notes at his leisure, for Belgian trains jog along in a Paddy-go-easy fashion that seems to suit the phlegmatic temperament of the average Fleming. A rough-hewn cross still marks the spot where the decisive combat of the day was fought, and where, according to tradition, Sarsfield received what afterwards turned out to be his death- wound. A visit to Landen, despite its forbidding: aspect, is assuredly one of the most interesting pilgrimages that could be made by any Irishman who finds himself in the heart of Flanders. CHAPTER VI. THE QUAINT OLD TOWN OF BRUGES-IRISH NUNS, NOVICES, AND PUPILS IN BELGIUM-THE EDUCATIONAL TRAINING IN BELGIUM--CONVENTS--LIFE WITHIN THEIR WALLS-PATRICK'S DAY IN A LITTLE TOWN IN FLANDERS-THE SHAMROCK DROWNED IN DUTCH GIN-A BEVY OF IRISH MAIDENS--THE HISTORIC CONVENT OF YPRES-THE SHRINE WHERE THE BANNERS LAY. RUGES is another of those old continental towns that live more in the past than in the present. Its former grandeur contrasts singu- larly with its actual decay and decrepitude. Its streets are now for the most part dreary wildernesses of brick and mortar, while the grass grows lustily on its lonely quays, and a silence as of the grave broods over the fallen city. Some four hundred years ago Bruges was a most prosperous commercial centre. Thither flocked the Lom- bardian and Venetian traders, exchanging the manufactures of India and the produce of Italy for the merchandise of Germany and the Baltic. Argosies from Venice or Genoa filled its harbour, while the Dukes of Brabant made it the seat of their gorgeous court. The dark, grim palaces of the past remain, but they look more like mausoleums than habitable homesteads ; and indeed they are' the mausoleums where the pristine glory of Bruges lies interred for ever. The brave burghers of the middle ages have dis- appeared; the "tournays graced by chieftains of renown," as Southey puts it, are now no longer \eld within its bastioned walls; the troubadour who sang sweet love-songs to Flemish dames, the melting strains of which made many a bodice flutter, is now but a shadowy memory; while the toil of the mart and the lustre of chivalry are buried with the generations of far away years. I know of no- sight so dismal as that of a decaying city. The wreck of genius in hoary old age is a very sad spectacle to behold; but the wreck o� a once powerful '\ aggregate of citizens is sadder still. And ST. BRIGID. yet these continental towns have for the day dreamer a peculiar charm even in their senility, for the dead walls and mouldering arches speak sermons to him who has eyes to see and ears t hear. Longfellow himself felt the spell of this witchery when he walked these desolate streets and stood under the belfry of "this quaint old Flemish city." The inn near the cathedral in which the American poet heard the wondrous 26 Irish Footprints over Europe. carillon and wrote that wondrous poem of his is still pointed out, while the grave of John Van Eyck, marked with a painted plaster cast of the illustrious painter, and situated almost opposite the Hotel de Ville, is the object of many a pil- grimage. The Cathedral is, externally, an uncouth edifice, but it is certainly in its interior the handsomest church in Flanders. Magnificent paintings from the brushes of Peter Porbus, Van Oost, and others deck the walls; while on either side of the high altar is a fine marble tomb symbolical of death. This cathedral, or, as it is called, "l'Eglise St. Sauveur," ought to be visited by every Irishman who finds himself in Flanders; for within its sacred precincts a portion of the mantle of Brigid, the Irish Saint, has been religiously preserved for centuries. The relic is to be found in a chapel in the south aisle on the Gospel side of the altar. There is a niche in the wall of this chapel having a small frame, with folding doors, in which the treasure is deposited. I am indebted to the Rev. William Brady for some interesting facts concern- ing'this Irish souvenir. From his statement it appears that in the church of St. Donatus, formerly the Cathedral of Bruges, an edifice which was destroyed by revolutionary fanatics, i 11j A CORNER OF THE OLD TOWN OF BRUGES. was found a leaden or zinc plate on which is written a short account of the life of Gunelda, daughter of Godwin Count of Essex, Sussex, and Kent, and sister of Harold, the last of the Saxon Kings of England. After the Battle of Hastings she and her mother fled from Exeter in ships of Bruges, and found shelter in Flanders. She died in 1087, leaving a magnificent set of jewels to the chapter of St. Donatus, together with this relic of St. Brigid. Her tomb in the cloisters of the church was violated by the French Republicans in 1804, when the plate was found under the head of the princess, and fortunately saved from destruc- tion. The plate is kept in the sacristy of St. Sauvers. The most ancient account we have, except the one on the leaden plate of the relic, is to be found in an inventory of relics preserved in the church of St. Donatus, and written about the year 1300. This inventory is now printed, and can be seen in Vol. III. of a learned work entitled, "Le Beffroi." It says that in the fourteenth century this tunic was set in a precious reliquary having the form of a mantle. This cloak reliquary is mentioned in an inventory of objects given by the chapter of St. Donatus to the care of Giles of Ghent, cure and sacristan of the church, the 8th of August, 1347, under this designation -"Item, Mantellum Beate Brigid." It may be added that in 1866 this relic was extracted~ and placed in its present'reliquary. In Bruges, as well as in other towns and cities of Belgium, there are convents where Irish nuns or novices reside, and where young ladies from Ireland receive their education. The Ursuline Order is most patronised by our fair countty- women. This order was founded by St. Angela Merico at Bresica, in Italy, about the year 1537. It was introduced into Canada as early as 1639, and into the United States in 1727. One of these convents where the Irish most do congregate is that of Thildonck. A very amiable young lady corres- pondent of mine, who studied in this establish- ment, has been good enough to furnish me with some interesting details on the subject, from which I learn that Thildonck was founded just one century ago. The little village in which the con- vent is situated is some sixty miles from Antwerp, and is approached by Malins or Mechlin. It developed from being a small shed into a magnifi- cent building, capable of sheltering some six hundred inmates, and is now the mother convent of the Ursuline convents in Belgium. The com- munity consists of one hundred nuns, the majority of whom are told off to teach, as the order is a purely educational one, the lay sisters acting as domestics and looking after the various farms be- longing to the establishment. Assembled within its scholastic walls are pupils of almost every na- tionality-English blondes and French brunettes, blue-eyed, dark-haired Irish maidens, and dark- 27 Irish Footprints over Europe. eyed, dark-haired Italian; Scotch of the rousse or auburn tint, and German gretchens of the flaxen; cream-skinned Austrians and large-orbed damsels from the glowing lap of the East; while the West Indies and North and South America contribute their quota also to the galaxy of budding woman- hood. The secular educational training is of a very high order of merit, comprising as it does the French, English, German, Flemish, and Italian languages, and musical morceaux from the great masters. Besides these accomplishments THE URSULINE CONVENT, NEAR WESTPELAER. the girls are taught to acquire others; and dainty, tapering fingers may be seen from day to day ac- tively engaged in needlework of every description, or etching promising pictures on canvas. The gymnastic department is also well attended to on the wise principle of the necessity of having " mens sana in corpore sano." Though, of course, Thildonck is a Catholic convent, there are a number of Protestant ladies educated within its walls. At one time it had on its roll no less than one hundred and fifty English-speaking pupils, the vast majority of whom belonged to the so-called Re- formed Church. No distinction is, however, made between girls of various creeds. All without ex- ception go to the Catholic chapel in the convent, in which Mass is celebrated at 6 a.m., and Bene- diction is given every evening. Attached to the convent is a chaplain known as "Monsieur le Di- recteur," who has the spiritual control of the flock. It may not be out of place to mention here that no attempt is made to interfere with the religious belief of any of the pupils who are not Catholics, while the parents of these latter always receive due notice that if they send their children to the convent the rules and regulations of the establish- ment must be obeyed by them as well as by others. An English head-mistress gives instruction every morning in English to the pupils of the lower classes who do not know French sufficiently well to allow them to attend the French classes, These little strangers, however, pick up a smat- tering of the Gallic tongue in a month or two, and after the lapse of a year can babble in it with as much volubility as minxes from Montmartre. The number of pupils averages three hundred. These are divided into three sections, known. respectively as "les grandes," "lea moyennes," and "les petites"-the old, middle-aged, and young of the girlish community. Each section occupies different parts of the school, and has its own teachers, play-grounds, and apartments. These sections are subdivided into classes-the first having ten, the second four, and the third three. The classes take their names from colours, each pupil being known by the rosette she wears. The first section sports, for instance, the whites, the reds, the blues, the greens, the violets, the pinks, the orange, the greys, the browns, and the amarantes. The scholastic life here is the essence of regularity, each day being fully occupied. The pupils rise at 5 a.m. in the summer, and at 5.30 a.m. in winter, and always retire to rest at 8 p.m. These Flemish convents stand usually in grounds beautifully laid out. They are also provided with large orchards, and thus the house is kept well supplied with fruit throughout the entire year. Once a week the pupils make an excursion into 1 . t ,f " ' ' A ,/ I Y1 THE BENEDI(TINE ABBEY AT YPRES. the neighbouring country, attended by three or four of the sisters. On different occasions also dra- matic performances take place in the large "salle,'" in which the entire community assembles in order to witness the performance, all the roles in the piece being filled by the pupils, some of whom may possibly become theatrical stars in after years. In my rambles throughout Belgium I have visited not a few of these conventual estab- lishments, and I can safely state that they are per- fect in their way from every point of view. The "pension" required is hardly one-half of the "-0 ' - - 111 9 _P r , -r ~yl 28 ir Irish Footprints over Europe. amount demanded in similar establishments at home, while they afford to young ladies the ad- ditional advantage of acquiring a profound know- ledge of at least one of the foreign languages. I was glad to observe that the proportion of Irish pupils in these establishments is very consider- able. W'hen I happened to be sojourning in St. Frond a few other students and myself secured permission from the director of the seminary on St. Patrick's morning to have a day's "outing" in the town. Having heard that there was a number of our fair compatriots in the convent over the way, we proceeded at once to pay our devoirs to the interesting exiles. Our little group repre- sented on the occasion the four provinces of Ire- land. One who could have qualified for a commis- sion in the battalions of Finn if he had lived in that romantic age, for his frame was taller than a Roman spear, came from the hills of Kerry; another hailed from the town of Belfast, a third was a son of the Marble City, and another had seen the light for the first time on the shores of Clew Bay, in the West. We had come from all points of the Irish compass. Wending our way through the antique streets of St. Frond, each of us having a buttonhole provided with a shamrock fresh from the Irish land, we adjourned to a quiet hotel, and conscientiously drowned the trefoil in a beaker of Holland's gin. Our gaiety on the occasion was somewhat damped by the fact that there was no Irish dew available for the wetting ceremony, one of our number having written too late in the month to his friends in Ireland for a black bottle of Jameson's. We, however, made the best of a bad bargain, and were as merry under the circumstances as strangers can well be in a strange land. After one or two customary toasts were disposed of we sauntered out into the Flemish country, visiting the points of interest all around, and inhaling the fresh breezes of the illimitable plains. Our promenade over, we wended our way to the convent, and asked to see the Irish ladies. The Superioress, after much difficulty, consented to the interview, which took place in the parlour, the only condition imposed being that the conversation should be held in either French, or, if in English, in presence of several of the English-speaking nuns of the com- munity. Shortly afterwards a bevy of most be- witching damsels burst on our ravished sight. They were all kindly Irish of the Irish, and each pretty bust was decked with a shamrock. The greeting, I need hardly add, was most cordial on both sides. We found that they, too, came from the four points of the Irish compass; and the mer- riest hour in a lifetime was spent on that occasion in wit, laughter, and repartee, even though we were throughout all these moments under the active surveillance of several sisters. The Irish girls, however, were not entirely happy at the beginning of the interview. They had a grievance, and a very serious grievance it was, particularly when it was explained to us by the prettiest of rosebud lips we had ever seen. From time im- memorial-so runs the platitude-the Irish pdpils of St. Frond Convent had been permitted to celebrate St. Patrick's Day in the establishment by parties, in which tea and bonbons formed the creature comforts. This year, however, the permission was refused on the plea that the Ger- man girls insisted on having a festivity on the German national anniversary, the Belgians on the Belgian, and the Italians on the Italian! Why, said these coy damsels-why will the Irish girls have all the fun, and we have none? So in order to obviate the possibility of confusion becoming more confounded, the good mother superioress decided on abolishing all national fetes in the establishment. We, of course, sympathised with the Mobes from Innisfail, one of whom archly confessed at the close of the meeting that our visit made more than amends for the suppression of their conventual gala. Another convent, a full description of which I purpose giving in my next chapter, is the historic one of Ypres. The illustration of the building given in this paper was forwarded to the author by the Superioress. The chapel in the interior of the grounds is the shrine where the banners conquered by the Irish Brigade lay for many a year en- shrined. As Davis wrote:- "The flags we conquered in that fray Look lone in Ypres choir they say. We'll win them company to-day Or bravely die like Clare's dragoons." Irish Footprints over Europe. CHAPTER VII. THE TOWN OF YPRES-THE IRISH BENEDICTINE CONVENT-THE BANNERS DEPOSITED IN THE CHAPEL BY MURROUGH O'BRIEN OF CLARE-" THE BRAVE OLD LORD -HOW THE IRISH IMMORTALIZED THEMSELVES AT NAMUR---CHARLES LEVER IN BELGIUM-HUY, WHERE SARSFIELD DIED---THE VAULT WHICH WAS ONCE THE TOMB OF PETER THE HERMIT- CONFLICTING OPINIONS OF THE EARL OF LUCAN. PRES is a drowsy town, its streets and alleys being comparatively deserted despite the fact that it shelters some fifteen thou- sand inhabitants. It was at one time a very large commercial centre, when its hardy burghers numbered 200,000 souls, and 4,000 looms worked merrily away within its walls. The two only memorials of its past grandeur are the Town Hall and the Benedictine Convent. Of the former building there is nothing particular to be said. The Benedictine Convent was founded in 1612, and was endowed by King James II.'s Queen for the daughters of the Irish officers who followed her husband's fortunes in Ireland as well as in France. This convent was one of the three Irish nunneries established on the Continent, the remaining two being the Dominican Convent of Lisbon, and that of Brussels, of the same order. The little chapel in Ypres is a veritable "bijou" of ecclesiastial architecture in its interior-rich with ornaments and brilliant with fiescoes from master hands. For years and years, over the mahogany stalls in this miniature sanctuary hung suspended the tattered banners of England--the trophies won on many a glorious battlefield by the soldiers of the Irish Brigade-- mute but eloquent memorials of the military prowess of our race. Beneath these standards knelt and communed from year to year many Irish maidens whose hearts must have throbbed at the sight of the colours won by the matchless bravery of those fathers and brothers of theirs whose knight-errantry was so well known and appreciated throughout the length and breadth of Europe. The tattered banners are, however, no longer keeping watch and ward by the taber- nacle; and the Irish nuns themselves have almost altogether passed away. Where the conquered banners, hung up by Murrough O'Brien "as an offering to God and Fatherland," are lying at present, I cannot say; but on the floor which has been appropriately called "the roof of an Irish necropolis" we can still read the names of Dame Margaret Arthur, Madame Butler, Dame Marie Benedicte DLalton, Dame Marie Scholastique Lynch, Dame Marie Bernard Lynch, and Dame Marie Benedicte Byrne-the latter lady, who was born in Dublin in 1775, and who died in Ypres in 1840, having been the last of a long line ofi Irish abbesses of the - convent. When Leo CHARLES LEVER. XIII. was Nuncio a1 Brussels it is recorded that he paid a visit to the Irish abbey at Ypres, and dedicated a small chapel in the convent garden on that oc- casion. A few years ago the reception of the last Irish novice, a Miss Kearney, took place within the historic edifice. Not very far from Ypres lies the village of Ramillies, the scene of the famous battle between the Duke of Marlborough and the Marshal de Villeroy. The arrangements of the French General for the fight have been severely censured by all critics; while the ability of Churchill and the vigour with which he followed up his first success, have been commended on all sides. "After the usual cannonade," says O' Callaghan, "the French having been generally attacked at from two to half-past two in the afternoon, were beaten by between six and seven in the evening. The Allied pursuit did not cease until about two next morning. Villeroy was utterly defeated, losing fifty-four cannon, eighty-seven standards, and almost 10,000 men killed, wounded, and mia. sing." The regiment of Clare was stationed at Ramillies under its colonel, Charles O'Brien, the fifth Lord Clare, Marchal de Camp, or Major- General in the French army. The entire regiment, Irish Footprints over Europe. composed exclusively of Irish, held the village until Marlborough's sweeping success to its right rendered a further defence impossible. The Irish were the last to leave the field. "Lord Clare himself," says an Allied writer, "was noted iii the French army for his intrepidity in action,. and at Ramillies we see Clare's regiment shining with trophies and covered with laurels even in the midst of a discomfited and routed army." Accord- ing to another chronicler, Churchill's English regiment fared very badly at the hands of the Irish, who captured its colours and shattered its ranks. These colours were subsequently de- posited in the Irish Benedictine Abbey of Ypres by Lieutenant-Colonel Murrough O'Brien. Lord Clare on that eventful day received no less than six wounds, of which he died a few days after- wards in Biussels. His remains, as I stated in a previous chapter, lie interred in Louvain. Among the other Irish officers who perished on the same occasion were several chevaliers of St. Louis, bearing the old Ulster name of O'Cahan or O'Keane. Eugene O'Keane fell at the head of his company pierced by a score of bullets. His brother Charles commanded the Grenadiers of the regiment in the village of Ramillies when a cannon ball carried away his legs, and he was despatched on the field with twenty more wounds by the English soldiery. Immediately before his death he was recognised by an Ulster officer of the same name in the English army, who had the unfortunate Charles interred the day after the en- gagement with due military honours in the village of Ramillies. At this time and for years afterwards Irishmen found themselves by a fateful necessity fighting in opposing armies. Anglo-Irish soldiers met their Franco-Irish countrymen on many a field in France and Flanders. Lord Charlemont, who deplored this circumstance in the course of a conversation he had with an illustrious Irish officer in the Austrian service, remarks-"'My most particular friend, the brave and truly amiable General O'Donnell, when speaking on the sub- ject, often wept." Even in the throes of the great French Revolution Irishmen were found on both sides, for there were Irish Royalists as well as Irish Red Republicans. O'Connell, a student at St. Omer's, was a sympathiser with the Bourbons; Henry Sheares was an ardent advocate of the Jacobins. The trip from Waterloo to Namur lies through what was called the "cockpit of Europe." And a veritable cockpit it has been for the Dutch and the Spanish, the French and the English chanti- cleers. This portion of Belgium ought to be proud of its historic associations, although in all proba- bility the generations of Flemings that witnessed "the pomp and glorious circumstance of war" in their midst considered such international duelling a frightful nuisance. The peasants who dwelt near the conflux of the Samabre and the Meuse could admire Mars and Bellona disporting themselves as best they might at a respectful distance; but when the divinities put up at their village hostelries, burned down ther haystacks, and scuttled their granary stores, these simple, un- sophisticated rustics might well be excused if they turned up their noses at the prospect of an armed engagement in their secluded valleys. And, besides, they had a perfect right to protest against the injustice of having their portion of Flanders turned into an arena for the bloody sport of European gladiators. Why should they become the scapegoats of the Great Powers? What under heaven had they to do with any feuds that may crop up between the Saxon and the Gaul ? Here stood the little village of Ramillies, where the Duke of Marlborough, as I have already stated, gained one of his most famous victories over the combined forces of France and Bavaria. Here lies the little hamlet of Genappe where the Ger- mans swooped down on Napoleon's carriage, and were within measurable distance of capturing Napoleon himself on the night after the battle of Waterloo; while between Quatre Bras and Nivel- les we catch a glimpse of the estate presented by the King of the Netherlands to the Duke of Wel- lington in an elaborate gush of gratitude for that soldier's services on the field. The historic road leads on to the heights overhanging Namur, from which the visitor enjoys a delightful view of the rock-bound citadel and the pleasant valley of the Meuse at his feet. Namur itself is the capital of the province of that name. and is still a strong fortress, with a population of some 30,000. Our own Sterne, in his wanderings over Europe, pitched his tent in Namur for several weeks, and paid visits to the Porte St. Nicholas, which he subsequently de- scribed with such graphic power in the pages of ' Tristram Shandy," in connection with the ex- ploits, more or less mythical, of his uncle Toby. Irish soldiers displayed their bravery to best advantage on two occasions in this town. They were in 1692 chiefly instrumental in capturing the fortress under the banners of Louis XIV., and the glorious victory achieved by the French and themselves in storming the battlements were befittingly celebrated by Racine and Boileau. Namur was, however, retaken by the English 31 Irish Footprints over Europe. under William III., after a siege of ten weeks, in 1695, despite the stubborn resistance of the Irish brigadiers, whose heroism throughout the entire ordeal commanded the admiration of friends and foes alike. Namur, it may be added, / is also famous in Irish annals as being one of the resting-places of the O'Donnells and O'Neills in their pilgrimage to Rome; while modern re- cords tell us that it was ../. one of the favourite re- sorts of Charles Lever during his residence in Belgium. The Irish nove- LORD CLARE, list had, however, his fixed home in Brussels, where he penned his two best works of fiction, "Harry Lorrequer" and 'F Minister to Leopold's Court. Lever was just then a very prominent figure in the social world of the Belgian capital. His charming conversa- tional powers, his innate grace of manners and deportment, and his growing fame as a litterateur opened to him the doors of many an eclectic salon. Lever was, moreover, like Moore, one of those dainty commoners who dearly love a lord, and who think themselves unspeakably happy if they can rub their skirts against the purple robes of the princes, kings, and Grand Moguls of the age. There are some eyes that are wonderfully fascinated by the sight of family trees of an antediluvian stem; there are other orbs that are democratically blind to the beauties of such spectacles. The question of taste is an open one, and is destined to remain an open one to the end of time. Lever, however, did not confine his society to the Patrician nobodies of his day in Brussels. He devoted many of his hours to A VIEW OF HU, WHERE SARSFIELD DIED. "Charley O'Malley," in 1840.' 41, and '42. The companionship with literary lions; for the aria. author of these rollicking Irish tales was at the tocracy of talent-which is,.after all, the only aria. time physician to the British Embassy, and an tocracy worthy of the name--had its charms for intimate boon companion of Sir H. Seymour, the one who was himself a member of that selee' 32 Irish Footprints over Europe. circle. Just about that epoch Brussels used to re- ceive periodical visits from Dumas pere, the head of that fiction-factory known as "Dumas et Com- pagnie," who had the habit of earning twenty pounds a day and spending forty. Dumas and Lever met, and, being both Freemasons in literature, fraternized. As the author of "Charley O'Malley," had all the emotional qualities--the wit, the passion, and the verve of the genuine Gaul -it is no wonder that he made a very favourable impression on the whole-souled though erratic Frenchman. Level's Irish yarns, spun in toler- ably good Fiench, must have 'been peculiarly palatable to Dumas, who loved to listen to the drollest of stories. Our Irish novelist had also at the same time the privilege of dining at the same table with Monsignore Pecci, who in our own day was elevated to the curule chair in the Catholic Church as Leo XIII. Monsignore Pecci was then Papal Legate at Brussels, and in that capacity attended the Ambassadorial dinners,tat which Lever was always a welcome guest. The present Pontiff, I am informed, still cherishes lively and agreeable souvenirs of his chats with the Irish litterateur. Lever had, it may be furthermore observed, a rather varied experience of life on the Continent. Having, like Goldsmith, secured the degree of Bachelor of Medicine in the oldUniversity of Heidelberg, in Germany, he returned to Dub- lin, where he started a students' club, based on the lines of clubs of a similar character flourish- ing in the Vaterland. Some years after he had given up his post in the British Embassy at Brussels with the view of devoting himself ex- clusively to literature, Lever took up his residence in Florence, where he lived the life of a "grand seigneur," keeping a brilliant stud, driving in a gorgeous equipage through the streets, and attended by footmen dressed in stunning liveries. He was afterwards Vice-Consul in Spezzia, and filled a consulate in Trieste. Wherever he resided he was popular, and left behind him many friends, all of whom had practical experience of the truth of the observation, that an Irishman who can be a gentleman as well as a wit is the centre of every circle in society and the delight of his own. The only other Irish association con- nected with Namur is the diocesan seminary of the town, where up to a few years ago at least a few ecclesiastical students from Ireland used to be trained for the priesthood. Not very far from Namur the traveller happens on Huy, a town which also has its Irish associa- tions. Huy boasts of a population of 8,000, and is situated in a picturesque site on the banks of the Meuse. The old citadel, dating back for hundreds of years, has been remodelled on the approved plan of modern fortifications, and com- mands the passage of the valley of the Meuse, quite close to the Abbey of Neufmoustier, which was founded by Peter the Hermit on his return from the first crusade and the capture of Jerusalem in 1115. The remains of the great Russian were at first interred in this sacred edifice, but they were removed to Rome in 1643. The abbey itself has long since disappeared, but a portion of the cloisters still remains. The peculiar interest which Huy must have for every Irish tourist is derived from the fact that it was within its walls the indomitable Sarsfield breathed his last. It is always cruel to dispel a sweet illusion; but the cruelty is often necessary in the interests of his- torical truth. Some of my readers have, no doubt, been trained to believe that Sarsfield fell on the field of Landen, exclaiming-"Oh, would that this blood of mine were for Ireland !" Tradition tells us that he used these words ; John Banim endorses the traditional account in his "Boyne Water," and Thomas Davis emphasises its ac- curacy; but, after all, tradition cannot in such matters be depended on with very much security. It is, however, historically certain that Sarsfield did \not expire on the field of Landen. From "Les Lettres Historiques, 1693," as well as other equally authentic sources, we learn that Lucan, whose name was originally given in the list of the dead on the evening of the battle, was just then only wounded, and that he was on the fol- lowing day removed on a litter to Huy, where he died. Plunkett, a contemporary of Sarsfield, says--"The Earl of Lucan, after doing actions worthy of himself, was desperately wounded, and thereby fell into a fever, of which he died soon after." Romance is very good in its way; but the historian or the biographer has not the privi- lege of the poet to indulge in that savoury dish. To do justice to Sarsfield's glorious memory, how- ever, it must be added that even his enemies ad- mired his pluck and valour. A Williamite chronicler, writing of him, says:-"He gained as much honour by his generosity and humanity to the English in that fatal battle as by his bravery and conduct in the field." Mr O'Conor, the learned author of tie "Military History of the Irish Nation," who, by-the-by, commits the error of stating that Sarsfield fell fighting at Landen, gives expression to the truth that "Ar- minius was never more popular among the Ger- mans than Lucan was among the Irish; to this day his name is venerated, for no man was ever more 33 Irish Footprints over Europe. attached to his country." As doctors differ, Mr. John Cornelius O' Callaghan must be allowed the free judgment to assert that "compared with the commanders of the old native race, such as Hugh O'Neill in Elizabeth's and Owen Roe O'Neil in Cromwell's time, Sarsfield was no better than a puffed Palesman." However that may be, the fact remains that Sarsfield ended his life at Huy,but the question is-has the Irish soldier a grave in that town ? So far as I am aware no stone or monument marks his last resting-place. Does any of our Irish archaeologists know where his remains lie interred ? If so, the present writer would wish to have full information on such an interesting subject. CHAPTER VIII. THE DUKE OF BERWICK A SON OF JAMES II.--HE MARRIES SARSFIELD'S WIDOW-THE SECOND EARL OF LUCAN-IRISH BOURBON EXILES IN OSTEND-GHENT, THE LAST RESTING-PLACE OF ONE OF THE BISHOPS OF FERNS-FEATS OF IRISH VALOUR IN TOURNAY-IRISH DESERTERS FROM THE ENGLISH ARMY JOIN THE FRENCH-THE IRISH COLLEGE OF TOURNAY. HE Duke of Berwick, al- though not an Irishman by birth or blood, was never- theless too closely associated with the Irish Brigade on the Continent to be passed S' over in silence in a series of papers such as this purports to be. The part he took in the battle of Landen, and his subsequent marriage with Sarsfield's widow, might almost have made him a naturalised Hibernian. He was, moreover, in Ireland one of the popular heroes of his day. His name crops up in many a Jacobite ballad side by side with that of Lucan, and his devotion to the Jacobite cause was celebrated at cross-road festivities in im- promptu lyrics by the wandering bards or "fileas" of the period. James II. was just then, curiously enough, our beau ideal of a Heaven-sent deliverer. We were breathing an atmosphere of gushing loyalty-not, be it observed, to an Irish, but to an alien monarch, whom we glorified into an idol- never dreaming till rather late in the day that the object of our fetichistic worship was as rotten at the core as a Dead Sea apple, and had feet of the veriest clay. The loyal fanaticism of the age had, however, in it a dash of chivalry which may go far to redeem a little of its more blatant buffoonery. Young James Fitzjames, who was sub- sequently known as the Duke of Berwick, had every reason to become an enthusiastic adherent of the Jacobite cause, for he was a son of James II. of England. His mother was that celebrated court beauty, Acabella Churchill, sister of the first Duke of Marlborough, whose dark blue eyes and rich red lips awoke the inspiration _of the tinselled troubadours of the hour. Dame Arabella gave birth to this "enfant de l'amour" in France, where he received his education, his military in- structor being General Count Francis Taafe, one of the most intelligent and accomplished Irish, officers in the French service. From early boy- hood Fitzjames gave signs and tokens that he had little of James II.'s churlish blood in his veins. He was brave and daring to a fault. He had, moreover, a willowy and herculean frame and a face that might be taken as a model in its early youth of that of an Adonis. His fire-baptism occurred in Hun- gary during the armed campaign between the Turks and the Austrians. He proceeded sub- sequently to Ireland, where he tried to render all the assistance in his power to the Jacobites. After having spent some years in this country, he re- turned to the Continent, and, with Sarsfield, took one of the leading parts in the battle of Landen, where, by a strange coincidence, he fell into the hands of the enemy through the instrumentality of his uncle, Brigadier Churchill, of the English army. The young man was conveyed almost im- mediately to Antwerp, where he was detained a prisoner for over six months, at the expiration of which term he was exchanged for an English prisoner of war. His services to the French and Jacobite cause were at once rewarded by the ducal coronet of Berwick. He had scarcely been bom- barded into the ranks of the titled nobility when he proceeded to Huy in quest of Sarsfield's widow, who, with her only child, Francis Edward Sarsfield, a boy of some three or four years of age, was residing at the time at that town. The Countess of Lucan's maiden name was the I 34 Irish Footprints over Europe. Lady Honor de Burgo, second daughter of the Earl of Clanricarde. At the period in which the Duke of Berwick paid her this visit she was still quite young and even girlish in her manners, despite her widow's weeds, and was remarkably pre- possessing in appear- ance. Her own rela- tives, as well as those of her late husband, had so completely aban- doned her that she was compelled to live in almost absolute poverty N \ in Huy. Berwick's heart grew full of pity DUKE OF BERWICK. for the desolate beauty, and as pity is akin to love in such cases, he soon became so enamoured of the fair relict that he offered her his hand, which was graciously accepted. The marriage took place immediateiy afterwards, when the Duke, who thus became the adopted father of Sarsfield's son, trained the youngster in all the departments of military science, and showed a decided interest in his welfare. The Duchess, after bearing her husband several scions of the Berwick stock, died some years subsequently, and when the Duke contracted a second matri- monial alliance, Francis Edward Sarsfield was practically abandoned by his stepfather; for, al- though the latter had a post in the Spanish ser- vice, he was in very narrow circumstances, his pension of 3,000 livres a year having been reduced to 2,000, and for three years having been left totally in arrear, with the result that in 1714 he was 3,000 livres in debt. The unfortunate noble- man shortly afterwards died at St. Omer's in "poverty and affliction of spirit." Meanwhile the Duke of Berwick was making an illustrious name for himself on the battlefields of Europe, and passed away in the French service after having defeated the allies at Almanza and recovered Savoy for the Bourbons. Ostend is another of those Belgian towns that can boast some Irish historical associations, for it was during several years the home of over a score of Franco-Irish officers who were exiled fromFrance by the Revolutionary party for their unswerving loyalty to the Royalist cause. These soldiers, bear- ing such names as Blake, Burke, O'Donnell, and Dillon, were, like most of their fellow-countrymen who had taken up arms under the Bourbons, very staunch adherents of King Louis. In other words, they were Monarchists or Loyalists to the very marrow of their bones. For the Lilies of France they would gladly risk everything, even life itself; but when the "Fleur de Lys" lost its once magic power, and was replaced by the Tricolour, they had no opportunity of doing it yeoman service any longer. Proscribed in the land of their fore- fathers and expelled from the land of their adop. tion, those Irishmen waited patiently here in Ostend for the'return of the Bourbons to Versailles. Although they ardently desired to unsheath the sword, there was no crusade possible in France in which they could engage. The Vendean insur- rection did not hold out to them any prospect of success. They would not join the battalions of the Republic; and even when Napoleon burst like a meteor on the European firmament they were not dazzled by his lustre, for he, too, represented the growing power and influence of the new epoch that refused to acknowledge a Bourbon regime. They had all the passionate faith of that romantic troubadour who used to go about from prison door to prison door singing, "O Charles! O mon Roi !" in the hope that the long-lost Dauphin would start from his mystic dungeon, as if by magic, and return in triumph to the throne of his ancestors. Years and years passed away, and the Bourbons and their aristocracy still roamed over Europe, depending on the charity of European monarchs for a wretched subsistence. At last, in 1814, their exile came to an end. Five venerable Irishmen left Ostend in that year for Paris-the remnants of the score of Irish exiles who had taken refuge in that Belgian town in 1793. All the others had crossed the mysterious Rubicon before they could set foot on French soil, or take their stand once more under the Bourbon banner. Ostend is now a very fashionable watering-place, to which Englsh tourists usually go in the summer months to be fleeced. The fleecing process is nearly always borne by these gentry with the utmost good humour, for Toms and Dicks and 'Arries do not expect to share the companionship of perfumed counts and chevaliers at a continental "table d'hote" without paying the piper for such a very special privilege. Moreover, when an Anglo-Saxon bank clerk goes to Antwerp for a fort- night's holiday, and gets introduced to the daughter of a Russian prince or the widow of a Spanish grandee, and takes promenades on the beach with such stately stems of the old nobility, must he not spend an odd louis off and on in pur- chasing bouquets or investing in bonbons for the petted darlings? Does not his plebeian heart ex- pand with tremulous delight throughout these Irish Footprints over Europe. mild flirtations with the daughters of the gods? True it is that when he has reached the end of his purse he will find himself deserted by these arch beauties, and a glimmering suspicion may flash on his mind that they may be trumpery articles after all, and that he has fallen a victim to sirens ori- ginally reared in the slums of Paris, Berlin, or Vienna; for wherever one discovers a casino, there one is always sure to hit on a veritable mine of bogus aristocratic ore. In a week's stay in Ostend I was introduced to no less than a score of counts and a baker's dozen of live marquises. Their an- cestors, they told me, won their spurs and parchments as Crusaders in the Holy Land, and the blood of each of them was as pure-so I was informed-as the purest drop circulating in the veins of a Howard or a Montmorency. When, however, one of these noble lords, after dilating on the grandeur of his ancestry, would wind up by asking the loan of a ten-franc piece, "just till to- morrow, you know,"I became slightly incredulous, and kept a firm grip of my silver. I did not be- lieve then, nor do I believe now, in the theory of stumping up in hard cash in order to be graciously allowed to come between the fragrant nobility of these people and the wind. Despite this locust of adventurers there are, however, a goodly number of genuine Belgian nobles and their families to be found in Ostend during the season. These latter follow the Court as chickens follow the mother hen. While King Leopold and his spouse reside in Laeken these but- terflies of fashion disport themselves on the slopes of the Montagne de la Cour in Brussels, within ten minutes' drive of the Palace; but when Royalty takes up its bed and whisks itself off to Ostend, as it does annually, all the courtiers follow suit, for it would be a crime against the canons of respectability to be seen in the streets of Brussels at a time when Royalty is taking its bath elsewhere. King Leopold himself is rather brilliant in society. Men who are not over- burdened with ability usually are; and Leopold has not yet signalised himself in any particular way either as a ruler or a diplomatist. His wife, however, does for him anything that is going about in the shape of government or political intrigue, just as Marie Antoinette used to do while her stupid lord was blowing the bellows in the Royal smithy of Versailles. Marriage in such cases can- not be pronounced a failure, for wives like these possess far more than the ordinary market value. Leopold's Queen is, if we are to believe Court gossip, a great stickler for etiquette. She models her receptions after those of the last century which took place in the Trianon near Paris. Her flunkies wear the powdered wigs, the gold lacings, and the frilled knee-breeches of the valets of the Louis. Her Majesty's ladies of honour take precedence in serving her in accordance with the rank they hold in the pages of Gotha's Almanac. The proprieties of the Belgian Court are also to a certain extent based on those of the Spanish. Most people are, for instance, acquainted with the rigid law that used to govern the daily actions of the sovereigns of Madrid. "In perusing these regulations," says Voltaire, "one can easily know what all the monarchs of the Peninsula have done every hour of their lives, and will do, from Philip II. down to the Day of Judgment." A Spanish queen it was who obliged her sick hus- band to support an excessive heat (which eventually killed him), simply because the Duke d'Uzede, who alone had the right to quench the fire in the royal chamber, happened to be absent on the occasion! The wife of Charles II., while riding one day on a runaway horse would have perished were it not that two cavaliers came to the rescue and lifted the fainting lady from the saddle. They were both sentenced to death for "having touched the person of the queen"--an awful crime, it seems, in those days-and would have paid the penalty on the block were it not for the tears and intercessions of the fair sovereign herself. Madame Campan tells us a curious anecdote of Marie Antoinette, the moral of which shows how far Court etiquette could go in France under the regime of the Bourbons. One evening in. midwinter, and at a moment when the fagots were burning very low in the Royal grate, the Queen was engaged in her toilette for a ball, and happened to be standing "decollettee" in the room, when a very noble dame entered, and claimed the honour of placing the fur foulard on her Majesty's naked shoulders. Just as she was about to perform this service, another dame nobler still intervened, followed shortly after- wards by a third cf higher nobility, who was suc- ceeded by a fourth, who was sister to the King, and who alone had the privilege under the circum- stances of obliging the fair sovereign. The fur fou- lard was thus for several minutes passed from hand to hand with sundry bows and compliments, while the poor queen stood shivering in the cold-for the greater honour and glory of courtly etiquette! King Leopold's spouse still clings to these noble traditions, for she would go herself through such a freezing performance under similar circumstances. The King and Queen may be seen any evening during the season walking by the Digne, a wall 86 Irish Footprints over Europe. some forty feet high and half a mile in length, which extends from the sea to the ramparts. It is a kind of public promenade, and commands a wide extent of dunes and flat sands to the sea. On the beach are some one hundred bathing machines, while the "plage" is crowded with bathers of both sexes, "decorously clad," as the formula goes, in tight-fitting bathing costumes. The journey from Ostend to Ghent or Gand is not a long or wearisome one. Between Bruges and the latter town lies a grand canal, bounded by high banks on either side, lined with tall trees, and graced by the presence of beautiful villas and well-kept gardens. It may be remembered that Dante, in his "Inferno," compares the embank- ment which separated the River of Tears from the Sandy Desert with that which the Flemings have thrown up between Bruges and Ghent against the assaults of the sea. Ghent is another of Belgium's decaying cities. A few hundred years ago it had within its walls a force of armed citizens num- bering 80,000, while the weavers reached a total of 40,000. These burghers, however, became de- moralised and emasculated by prosperity. "In- toxicated," writes an old annalist, "with the ex- tent of their riches and the fulness of their free- dom, they rebelled against their sovereign, Philip the Good, but were eventually crushed," with the result that they lost a large portion of their trade, and were heavily fined for their foolish insubor- dination. Ghent has a certain interest for the Irish tourist, derived from the fact that the Church of St. Niciholas in that city is the last resting-place of one of the most patriotic of the Irish Bishops of the Penal Days, the Right Rev. Nicholas French, of Ferns. It was in that quaint old town where the whole-souled prelate passed his declining years, exiled from the land of his birth. His remains were placed at the foot of the grand altar of St. Nicholas. A slab of the purest marble, decorated with a cardinal's hat and armorial bearings, contains a touching as well as truthful inscription to his memory. St. Nicholas's is one of the most ancient of Flemish churches, and was at one time a necropolis for the celebrities -of the epoch, just as the Cathedral of St. Bavon was, where one still sees in a subterranean chapel the tombs of Hubert Van Eyck and his beautiful sister, also a painter, who refused several flatter- ding offers of marriage in order, as she said, to con- secrate herself wholly to the cult of art. Tournay, another old Belgian town, is remark- able for having been on two occasions the scene of Irish valour. The first occasion was in 1709, when the allied armies under the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene assembled in June for the campaign of Flanders a very numerous and a well- equipped army, described by an annalist of the period as "all choice troops, all eager to engage, and all flushed with the hopes of penetrating into, and of plundering France." The French, however, were not caught napping; for they were so skil- fully posted under the leadership of Marshal Vil- lars that the enemy could only commence active operations by besieging Tournay. That town was well fortified, but the garrison was small, and their resources were far from abundant. The French and Irish soldiers, who held the fortress, continued the struggle, nevertheless, from the 7th of July to the 3rd of September; but they had eventually to surrender, on the condition, how- ever,that the Irish were to be treated as prisoners of war on the same terms as their Gallic comrades, for the Hibernians, who fought on this occasion on the French side, were a corps formed by a cer- tain M. de Parpaille of deserters from the English army. These Irishmen, according to a contem- porary account, "achieved wonders in one of the sorties, and ruined a great deal of the enemy's works." The second occasion to which reference is to be made was immediately after the battle of Fontenoy, consequent on which success the French and Irish troops marched to Tournay and wrested that town from the hands of the enemy. At the operations against Tournay the Lord Clare and Earl of Thomond was wounded by a bomb, leading on his brigade in an heroic assault on the battlements. After the capture of Tournay, the victorious army took possession of Ghent, where a quantity of new clothing and equipments for the English regiments were found among the spoil, and were distributed gratuitously as trophies to six Irish regiments in compliment to their ser- vices by Louis XV. and Marshal de Saxe. It was, by-the-by, immediately after these Irish triumphs on the Continent that the so-called Irish Parlia- ment-the legislature of a colony of English settlers in Ireland-passed an act that all Irish officers and soldiers who had been in the service of France since October 8, 1745, should be dis- abled from holding any real or personal property in this country; and that any such real or personal property in possession, reversion, or expectancy should belong to the first Protestant discoverer! Such was the servile, sectarian, abject, and flunkeish character of the Dublin peers and com- moners of that day. The brave Irish exiles, how- ever, could afford to trample on the edicts of such a wretched House, and laugh to scorn its harmless parchments. 87 Irish Footprints over Europe. Tournay may be also remembered in Irish annals as another of the Belgian towns that ex- tended a cordial welcome to O'Neill, O'Donnell, and their followers. When the arrival of the exiles was announced, the entire population, we are told, with Mgr. d'Esne, the Archbishop, at their head, came to meet and conduct them through their ancient city. The Irish enjoyed the hospitality of the citizens for a few days, and were subsequently entertained at a banquet in Brussels. Mgr. d'Esne was a very enthusiastic friend of the Irish refugees, and took a deep in- terest in Irish affairs generally. One of the Arch- bishops of Cashel, the Right Rev. David Kearney, was, it may be added, consecrated by this eminent Belgian prelate. Mgr. Maximilian Villain, the latter's successor, founded a college for the train- ing of Irish ecclesiastical students, and in his will made provision for Irish orphans and widows who had sought refuge from persecution in his cathedral city. Father C. P. Meehan quotes the following passage from this testament:-"During my career, whether as canon or bishop, I have always entertained a warm affection for poor Irish students, and after my death I would have them recommended to the deans, chapter, and other notables of Tournay as most deserving youths who had to leave their country for the Faith." The Irish College of Tournay, like several of the other Irish colleges on the Continent, disappeared towards the close of the last century, when Maynooth and the relaxation of the Penal Laws en- abled young Irishmen to be educated at home. Tournay, therefore, must have a double interest for the Irish tourist; for in walking through its mediaeval streets he can call back to mind that far away shadowy past when Irish scholars sat in its academic halls and Irish soldiers manned its battlements. If the dead dust of the old cathedral city could speak what tales would it not have to tell of the learning and martial prowess of those exiled forefathers of ours ? CHAPTER IX. ILLUSTRIOUS IRISHMEN IN BELGIUM--DIPLOMATISTS AND DIVINES-DR. JOHN SINNICH OF CORK -THE PLUNKETTS AND THE O'SULLIVANS-GENERAL THOMAS PRESTON--HIS VALOUR AND INTREPIDITY-HE BECOMES GOVERNOR OF GENAPPE, AND DEFENDS THE TOWN WITH HIS IRISH REGIMENT AGAINST THE DUTCH-A DISSERTATION, ON THE LADIES OF FLANDERS- VILLAGE FAIRS AND DANCES-A CONTENTED PEASANTRY. HERE is but scanty ma- terial in existence regard- ing the lives of several Irishmen who were in their day rather pro- minent figures in the Lowlands, and whose names are now quite forgotten in the land of their birth or ancestry. It was only in a haphazard excursion through the pages of an old encyclo- paedia in the Brussels Royal Library that I dis- covered some of the data which I give in this paper, the remainder having been furnished me by Monsieur Everarts, a distinguished Flemish archeologist, whom I knew in Louvain to have taken such a deep interest in everything Irish that I actually caught him on many occasions in the act of poring studiously over the pages of a Gaelic grammar! To this gentleman I am in- debted for some very important and hitherto un- published information regarding a few Irish foot- prints on the Continent which I purpose laying under contribution later on. I may add that I have never met a foreigner who could rival this talented and industrious scholar in the know- ledge of Irish history and of Irish Jacobite literature. To meet such an entertaining gentleman in the byways or on the highways of life abroad is, I fancy, ample compensation for the misfortune of having once encountered a Knight of the Legion of Honour (and a Bachelor of the Sorbonne to boot) who once asked me why Ireland did not put up with police rule just as the other remaining shires of England did! What a pull-down for our national "amour propre," surely, to hear our country referred to as if she were as much part and parcel of England as York or Kent! There are, however, Con- tinental scholars by the hundred who could teach this chevalier many a sound and solid lesson in Irish geography. Of the illustrious Irishmen who settled down in Belgium, Dr. John Sinnich is the best known, and may be ranked, perhaps, as the foremost. This eminent divine was born in West Cork in one of the opening years of the seventeenth century. Like many others of our race in that day, he was compelled to seek for education in a foreign land, 88 Irish Footprints over Europe. and with that object in view he entered Louvain University, where he soon won the highest of thonours. In the old records of that establishment I find him referred to in very flattering Middle Age Latin as an Hibernian scholar, whose thesis for a doctorate in theology in the "aula maxima" was listened to with admiring attention by the most distinguished savants of Flanders. After having secured the cap, Dr. Sinnich was appointed to a theological chair in the university, and was known in the town as "le celebre Irlandais." Too much learning, however, as well as too little, is a de- cidedly dangerous thing; for we find the doctor later on bringing down the thunderbolts of Rome on his devoted head by enouncing propositiosn of a suspiciously heretical character, although the formal denunciation of his theories was not made till December, 1690, some thirty years after their author had passed away, when Alexander VIII. occupied the chair of Peter. The learned Irishman wrote and published several tracts, the doctrines of which were patently Jansenistic. Jansenius, who, by-the-by, was bishop of historic Ypres, used to receive Dr. Sinnich occasionally in his palace in that town ; and probably it was in the course of the conversations they had to- gether that the Corkman became an ardent disciple of the great prelate. Dr. Sinnich died in 1666, and his remains were interred in the cemetery of Louvain. A FLEMISH BELLE. The Plunketts are another of those rish families whose ramifications have extended to Belgium. One of these, who, I believe, belonged to the " Hamilcar" Pluhkett branch, of Rathmore and Fingal, was Joseph Plunkett, a soldier of fortune, who left Ireland after the Treaty of Limerick, and spent most of his life campaigning in Flanders. Contemporary accounts allude to him as a dashing officer, brave and chivalrous, and combining in his person the herculean proportions of the Irish- man and the grace and elegance of a courtier of Versailles. After having unsheathed his sword on many a hard-fought field, he died eventually in the service of Austria in 1778. Another of the same family was Jean Joseph Ferdinand Plunkett, member of the Equestrian Order of Brabant, who was created Baron Plunkett de Rathmore by William I., King of the Low Countries, on the 8th of July, 1816, in recognition of his many and im- portant services to the Crown as a diplomatist. The O'Sullivans of famed Dunboy have also made their mark in the Netherlands. Coming hither from the coast of Beare, in Ireland, they attained to very high positions in the military and political departments of the State. Jean Patrice O'Sullivan was one of the most dis- tinguished public men in Belgium some fifty and odd years ago. He rose to the rank of councillor of' the nation, and was appointed successively Chevalier of the Order of the Dutch Lion and member of the Equestrian Order of West Flanders. He was a very impressive Parliamentary orator, and was one of the most popular idols of the day. Alphonse Albert Henri Comte O'Sullivan, a scion of the same stock, was born in Bruges in 1779, and was sent at an early age to Paris, where he prosecuted his studies at the Lycee Napoleon of that city. With the aid of a generous allowance from his family, he was enabled to force his way into the gilded salons of the Directory and the Empire, where he boasted of having danced on more oc- casions than one with the Empress Josephine. Re- turning to Belgium shortly afterwards, O' Sullivan was appointed representative of the Low Countries at Berlin, from which post he was pro- moted to that of Minister at St. Petersburg, where he became the intimate friend of the Czar Nicholas, from whom he received the Cross of a Chevalier of the Order of St. Anne. When the Belgian Revolution of 1830 broke out, he threw up his post under the Dutch Crown, as all his Irish sympathies went out to a people "rightly strug- gling to be free." The diplomatist became a soldier, and fought bravely on the battlements of Antwerp in the cause of Belgian independence. When at last the hardy Flemings and the bold, impetuous Wallons shook off the foreign yoke, and Leopold I. was crowned King of the new-born nation, O'Sullivan's spirit of self-sacrifice and the services he rendered to the Revolution were not forgotten; for he was in 1831 sent to Vienna as the representative of Belgium, and was elevated 39 Irish Footprints over Europe. in 1838 to the rank of Plenipotentiary Minister, when he was commissioned by his Government to repair to Constantinople in order to arrange a treaty of commerce with Turkey. His diplomacy on the banks of the Bosphorus was so pre- eminently successful that all the conditions of the Belgian Cabinet were in a few weeks subscribed to by the Sultan and his advisers. In recognition of this triumph he was immediately afterwards gazetted baron, and in due course of time his name appeared as Count O'Sullivan on the Court roll. He was also at the same period nominated Commander of the Orders of Leopold, the Sultan, and Gregory the Great. He passed away in the beginning of the fifties, loved and revered by all Belgians, who had no more faithful friend and no more devoted champion than he. His son, the second Count O'Sullivan, holds now, I believe, Here it will be only necessary to follow his fortunes to the little town of Genappe, situated some fourteen miles from Brussels, where he gained other triumphs in military skill and daring. After the Louvain episode, the adventurous Irish- man participated for years in all the conflicts that took place between the Spaniards and the Dutch. As an eminent authority, Mr. Matthew O'Conor,. has it, " The history of Belgium throughout the whole of that interval presents a perpetual succession of sieges and combats, in all the glories of which Preston and his Irish regiment had a large share." Like Owen Roe O'Neill, Preston was an Hiberno-Spanish cavalier. "The sword in his hand," as Aubrey de Vere very appropriately says of the former, "was a Spanish sword, but the hand was an Irish hand." O'Neill and Preston were .. . . . { , ,. - -e . _ .. ..m ' , . . . . . ." } t . i --- ; L - GENAPPE, WHERE THE IRISH HELD THE FORTRESS. (Photographic View of the Ramparts). a high and important post in the Belgian diplo- matic service; while the Plunketts still have living representatives in the land of Flanders. The name of another Irishman, General Thomas Preston, is also intimately associated with Belgian history. My readers may remember the re- ferences I made to this descendant of the Gor- manstowns, who, with his Irish regiment, accom- plished such doughty feats at the siege of Louvain. in a sense the Lee and the Washington of that period. Fighting in the same cause, they were inveterately jealous rivals. Preston, however, had the good luck to have secured a wider fame on the Continent than O'Neill; for somehow or other he holds a more'important place in Dutch and Spanish annals than does his illustrious countryman. Preston and his slashing Irish regiment happened in the summer of 1641 to be quartered in a forti- 40 Irish Footprints over Europe. fled castle in Genappe, when the Prince of Orange advanced to besiege that town. The garrison, we are told, having been reduced to great straits by the Dutch, Preston, at the head of five hundred Irish infantry and two guns, sallied from his position, and having drawn a considerable num- ber of the enemy into an ambuscade, this feeble detachment succeeded in cutting off an entire regiment of the Dutch, notwithstanding all the efforts of Spic, who commanded Prince Frede- rick's cavalry. This gallant action enabled the Spaniards to throw three thousand veterans and some supplies of provisions into the town, of which Preston was immediately proclaimed governor. He held this responsible position till the garrison had exhausted all their provisions and ammuni- tion. Further resistance being useless, Preston was obliged to capitulate, after having lost in the struggle eight hundred soldiers of his own regiment. The capitulation, however, was in its conditions honourable to the Irish Governor and his men; for on his part it was stipulated that the Governor, officers, and soldiers should evacuate the town with their arms, baggage, colours flying, drums beating, and "balle en bouche," under an escort from the Dutch army, till they reached the city of Venlo. It was furthermore agreed on, that the Governor should be "furnished with two twelve-pounders and ten tons of powder and ball." "When the Governor," writes an old annalist of the epoch, "marched out, not like one beaten, but rather like one going to battle, he dismounted from his horse and saluted the Prince of Orange, who in turn saluted him. And in sooth this siege cost the Dutch very dear, for they lost there a great number of captains and valorous officers. As for the besieged, and Preston in par- ticular, they earned for themselves the most con- summate glory, and this was willingly accorded to them by the plaudits of their veriest enemies." Here ends Preston's military career on the Con- tinent; for immediately afterwards he was sum- moned to Ireland, where he entered the service of the Supreme Council of Confederates. Apropos of his hatred of O'Neill, who commanded in the same army, it may be observed that in the fatal divisions resulting from Rinuccini's excommunication, Preston sided with Lord Ormond's party, and sent a messenger to inform the Nuncio that he disre- garded the censures fulminated from Mary- borough. "Sustained by eight bishops and divers theologians," he wrote, "I hold your censures to be invalid; and as for O'Neill, I have pursued him to Maryborough, fully resolved that either he or I shall fall in mortal combat." "These two geneials," observes the Nuncio, "were exceedingly jealous of each other, and their mutual aversion may be said to have commenced in Flanders, where they were both signally distinguished, so much so that Putaneus has bestowed the highest encomiums on Preston for his defence of Louvain. Preston was hot, prone to anger, and exceedingly im- petuous; and if the phlegmatic caution that marked all the actions of Owen Roe O'Neill entitled him to be called the Fabius of his day, we can discover the prototype of Preston in the person of Marcellus." We have little more to add concern- ing this officer. It is lamentable to think that in his old age he forgot or forswore the principles of his youth to the extent of accepting the pardon of his life and the gift of an estate from Oliver Cromwell, who created him Viscount Tara by letters patent, dated 1650. Senility is the only plea that can be put forward on behalf of this change of front on the part of a soldier who was one of the bravest of his race on scores of battle- fields throughout the length and breadth of Flanders. I have now done with Irish memorials in Bel- gium. Before proceeding to France in our ex- peditionary tour, it may not be inappropriate to say a word or two about the social aspect of the Belgian character. The Belgian character, na- tionally speaking, is identical; but socially it is twofold; for the common motherland owns two distinct races, who speak different tongues and follow different customs-the Flemings and the Wallons. Of the Wallons I'need only says that their patois is French, as is also the natural bent of their minds. They are French in their light, airy mood,their quick discernment, and their frank good nature. The Flemings bear, on the other hand, a strong resemblance to Germans, although it must be added that they are not at all so phlegmatic as the average Berliner or Bavarian. Like the Wallon, the Fleming has the bump of patriotism well developed on his cranium-that is to say, if there be such a bump in existence, an observation which proves, by-the-by, that I can lay no claim to be considered a phrenologist. The Fleming himself is an honest, unassuming fel- low. He is rough and tncouth at times, and in the humbler strata smells offensively of garlic; but take him for all in all, he is one of these men whose good qualities grow on you gradually from social intercourse, and for whom you are glad to entertain an ever-increasing esteem. Not being over-scrupulously polite in his manners, neither is he vicious. Mephistopheles says, and with truth, that the society where most vice abounds is 41 Irish Footprints over Europe. always the most polite. The Fleming's ways of life are simple, and his morals could not, I dare say, be found fault with by even the rigid Mr. Stead himself. Hence it is that there are so few Flemings in that rather numerous brood of well- dressed adventurers and titled pickpockets who infest the leading capitals of Europe. Flanders may have its footpads, who will honestly and above-board knock you over, and relieve you of your hard cash; but it cannot produce the dainty and the perfumed thief, who, while bandying elegant compliments with you, manages to become master of your watch and chain. Of Flemish womankind I would speak with all due deference. The belle of the town, with her pancake hat sit- ting jauntily on tresses that ripple down almost to her eyebrows, is nearly always a bewitching creature. She has not the subtle grace, the light, trivial sentimentalities, or the pretty wee feet of the Parisienne; but the colour in her cheeks is healthier, her step is more elastic, and her man- ner more natural. In the country she is plump, ruddy-faced, and alluring, a nymph of the Nora Creina category, whose gold and flaxen locks scorn any hd dgear and defy the sun. There is a remarkable similarity between the Flemish country belle and the German gretchen. Both are distinctly Teuton. Thanks to their dislike for tight-lacing, their waists have a certain well- preserved rotundity not altogether disagree- able to behold; while their deep blue eyes look liks tiny round bits of azure stolen from the waters of Lake Com'o. The Flemish lady, how- ever, I regret to say, has one defect. Sitting in a picturesquely languid pose for a painter or a sculptor, she may be all perfection, but when you converse with her, and her tongue begins to wag, many of the charms of her beauty evaporate; for that hard and uncouth Flemish tongue of hers puckers her pretty lips into such ugly shapes that the mouth which but a moment ago was delicious while it remained mute, now becomes a very monster of deformity. Certainly the Flemish language bears a striking resemblance to the Euscara of Spain-a dialect which, if we are to be- lieve an old legend, gave Satan himself the lockjaw when he attempted to speak it. I fancy that in the cause of gallantry, the Belgian Parliament should pass an act making it penal on any members of the fair sex to respond to any protestations of love in that unlovely tongue. If Venus herself spoke in Flemish on Mount Ida she could never have secured the golden apple. There are cases on record in other countries where a breach of promise of marriage arose out of the mere fact of a young man happening to gaze on his fail affianced while she was doing justice to a chicken at table or plunging into the delicacies of tomato sauce--she looked so prosaically active, to be sure, on such occasions; but it is a far greater shock to the nerves of a sentimental lover, after his gush- ing proposal is over, to find the sweet mouth which he asked to be his, falter the willing "yaw" in the ugliest of contortions. Flemish social life may be best appreciated at the village festivals or "kermesses," which take place throughout the country at certain fixed intervals. Here in the fair-green we can see the merry-go- rounds; the tents where the champion athletes and the champion acrobats of Flanders astonish the native for the consideration of a penny en- trance fee; improvised theatres where fifth-rate actors and actresses perform; tournaments in which the harlequins of the gutter promenade with the majesty of monarchs; stalls where the vendors of taffy and sugar-candy are driving a roaring trade in catering for the palates of noisy urchins and romping maidens; and the fortune- teller's waggon,in the dark and mysterious interior of which grizzly beldames whisper to the simple rustic girl the revelation that one fine morning some noble prince or some "preux chevalier" will come to woo her and to win her, and bear her away in triumph to his own gorgeous palatial halls! Maidens, whose young men are away in a garrison town doing their alloted terms of military service, step up these waggons, and earnestly ask if Jean or Jacques or Francois is still true to his lady-love, or if some fine dame from the city has taught him to forget the darling of his native village. And the old witch grins for a moment or two; her dry blue lips part, displaying a toothless mouth; and sometimes she answers yes, and sometimes she answers no; but her re- plies are, generally speaking, as vague and almost as solemn as those of the Pythoness of that far-away time in which, just as in the present,fools had to pay for their crass credulity. And then in the even- ing the whole green is lit up with Venetian lanterns, the bands play inspiriting music, and the couples whirl around to the melting measures of a waltz. Here and there the "sabots"of the rustic girls clatter when the national dance, which is somewhat like our own jig, is struck up in the welkin, and the boys in blouse indulge in the most fantastic hops, while casting sheep's eyes on the fair partners who gyrate before them. And so, when the carillon rings out the witching hour of midnight, the music of the orchestra is hushed, the lamps are quenched, and the clamour of merry 42 Irish Footprints over Europe. laughter dies away on the green as the last of the villagers has disappeared into his humble home, and a solemn silence reigns around. A compara- tively happy and contented race are these Flemings. In these calm Arcadian plains-we do not allude here to the mining districts-they have no grind- ing taskmasters to contend with, they are the sole gainers by that which the honest sweat of their brows brings them in; no Shylocks are watching around, seeking whom they may devour. Removed alike from the luxury of the rich and the penury of victimised serfs, these Flemish peasants are splendid specimens of a class that found its happi- ness only when it won its national independence. CHAPTER X. IRISH MILITARY ASSOCIATIONS IN FRANCE-THE BANNERS PRESENTED BY KING LOUIS TO THE IRISH BRIGADE---" ALWAYS AND EVERYWHERE FAITHFUL ! "-CAREER ON THE CONTINENT OF GENERAL COUNT O'CONNELL, AN UNCLE OF THE TRIBUNE--DANIEL O'CONNELL'S STUDENT DAYS AT SAINT OMER--EXTRACT FROM HIS CORRESPONDENCE-A DESCRIPTION OF THE OLD TOWN WHERE HE LIVED HIS BOYHOOD'S HOURS. DO not envy the Irishman who can step for the first time on French soil without feeling his heart throb faster, or without finding himself carried back in fancy to a past that speaks so eloquently of his countrymen's military prowess under the Bourbon flag. There is something that appeals to our better nature while we are gazing on a land .or which half a million of our kith and kin perished on many a battlefield throughout Europe in the last century. The records in the Ministry of War at Paris prove the authenticity of this num- ber, and give all due credit to the spirit of self- sacrifice that animated these Irish exiles in the advancement of the interests of France all over the Continent; for it must be remembered that these soldiers of our race were by no manner of means mere mercenaries. They were not, for instance, like the Swiss, who, while remaining steadfast patriots as long as they camped amid their own hills and mountains, ceased to be actuated by any such disinterested motives when they went abroad. The man who would fight to the death on the slopes of the Righi against an invader, became in France, in Austria, and in Italy a military adventurer, who, with an eye to business, offered his sword to the highest bidder. It mattered not to him what cause he defended or what banner he served, provided the commissariat of the army he joined was plentiful and his pay was satisfactory. He would take up arms one day with the Dutch against the French, and be found on the morrow rallying to the Bourbon banner in as invasion of Holland ! Abroad he adopted the profession cf a soldier for a living, just as one, stung by necessity, would become a scavenger in order to stave off starvation. He was a mere machine. His heart was closed to all noble in- stincts. The Iiish exile of those days, however, belonged to quite a different category. Honour and valour, faith and fatherland, were on his lips no clap-trap platitudes or idle shibboleths. They represented an idea for which he would willingly lay down his life if necessary. If he enlisted in DANIEL O'CONNELL. the ranks of any particular army, it was with the determination of remaining loyal to the country whose soldier he was as long as he wore its uniform, and with the ulterior object of turning his military experience to the best advantage on the hillsides of his native land. If we peruse at- tentively the history of those Irish exile warriors, we find that they had never given up the dream- 43 Irish Footprints over Europe. wild and fantastic though it might appear to the worldly-wise of the nineteenth century--of one day returning to the Emerald Isle to do battle on her behalf against the odious oppression to which she was being subjected. They never abandoned the hope of setting up happy homes and altars free on the fields from which they had been so ruthlessly banished. Nor are there wanting impartial authorities to do justice to the bravery and de- votion of these men. Dean Swift, who was a con- temporary of some of them, had to admit:-" I cannot but highly esteem those gentlemen from Ireland, who, with all the disadvantages of being exiles and strangers, have been able to distinguish themselves by their valour and conduct in so many parts of Europe, I think, above all other nations." When in 1791 the dissolution of the Irish Brigade in France took place the Irish were thanked in warm and generous accents by the representatives of the reigning monarch. A few years subsequently some Irish refugees assembled in Coblentz, and presented to the Count de Provence, afterwards Louis XVIII., an address in which we find the following passage:-" The officers, non-commissioned officers, and soldiers of the Irish Regiment of Berwick, filled with the sentiments of honour and fidelity which are hereditary among them, entreat Monseigneur to place at the disposal of the King the devotion which they made of their lives in order to support the Royal cause, and to employ their arms with confidence on the most perilous occasions." Whereupon the Count de Provence replied:-'"I have received, gentlemen, with genuine sensibility the address you have presented to me. I will cause to be forwarded to the King as soon as pos- sible the expression of your sentiments towards him. I answer you by anticipation that it will alleviate his troubles, and that he will receive with pleasure from you the testimony of fidelity. S. . As for myself, gentlemen, be well con- vinced that your last act will remain for ever en- graved on my soul, and that I shall reckon myself happy as often as I shall be able to give you proofs of the feelings with which it inspires me towards you." When the Count became King of France after Napoleon's downfall he was not unmindful of the services of the Irish Brigade; for, present- ing some of its survivors (among whom were the Irish exiles from Ostend referred to in a preced- ing chapter) with the "drapeau d'adieu," or fare- well banner, he said:-"Gentlemen, we acknow- ledge the inappreciable services that France has received from the Irish Brigade in the course of the last hundred years-services that we shall never forget, though under an impossibility of re- quiting them. Receive this standard as a pledge of our remembrance, a monument of our admira- tion and of our respect; and in future, generous Irishmen, this shall be the motto of your spotless flag-' 1692-1792. SEMPER ET UBIQUE FIDELIS.' " This banner, it may be added, represented an Irish harp on white silk, and was embroidered with shamrocks and lilies. Speaking of the Irish Brigade generally, we may apply to them the ap- propriate words of Mr. O'Conor : -"Let no one asperse the character of the Irish because they fought so often ,under foreign colours. Exiled, persecuted, and loyal, they lent their valour to the States which supported their outlawed reli- gion, their denationalised country, their vow of vengeance, or their hopes of freedom. Viewed carelessly at a distance, their varied services seem 4'-- _ ._ : ~~~~---..._ -_.":_- _.- , . -- .. .. ..- m - PORTION OF THE INTERIOR OF THE CHAPEL ATTACHED TO ST. OMER'S COLLEGE. evidence of an unprincipled Pr etorian race; examined in detail, with references to the creed, politics, and foreign relations of Ireland at each 44 Irish Footprints over Europe. period, they only prove an amount of patriotism and valour which, if concentrated at home in national service, would have mlade Ireland all we could wish her." It was with such thoughts and associations floating in my mind that I crossed the Belgian frontier, and found myself in the sunny land of France. After a day's rest in Lille, the first town under the Tricolor where I could discover any footprints of the Gael was Saint Omer. Here it was that Daniel O'Connell studied after his de- parture from the Josephite College of Louvain. Saint Omer is situated in the department of the Pas de Calais, and is a rather redoubtable fortress, its fortifications being two or three miles in circuit, while the ramparts are planted with elm trees, and look somewhat picturesque at a dis- tance. It is a quiet old town, and although its streets are broad and its general aspect is compara- tively pleasing, it looks somehow or another as if it had seen better days. And if all accounts be true, it was at one time a kind of French Clon- macnoise; for here stood the celebrated Abbey of St. Bertin, the richest of the Benedictine Order (where Childeric III., the last of the Merovingian monarchs, passed away), flanked by twenty-five convents, where learning was much patronised in the so-called dark ages. The population of Saint Omer now numbers some 20,000, a genial, unas- suming muster of citizens and citizenesses, the flower of whom meet twice a week in the pleasant summer evenings in the square, under the shadow of tall grey brick houses, to hear the inspiriting music of the, local orchestra as it dis- cusses a variety of airs from Rouget de l'Isle's "Marseillaise" down to Offenbach's "Gendarmes." Outside the town peasant proprietors work bravely and manfully against many difficulties. They cultivate a broad extent of marshes which were drained by their hardy forefathers, the drainage having been effected by ditches forming, so to speak, a labyrinth isolating every field. Each of the farmers has a boat of his own, in which he con- veys his agricultural tools and produce. This district looks to the travelled eye like a rural Venice in miniature; while the floating islands lend it at times a fairy-like aspect. One of the few spots worth visiting in the town itself is the Rue St. Bertin, where one can still see the mouldering remains of the famous abbey of that name aheady referred to, which was once the noblest Gothic structure in French Flanders. This abbey, it must be stated, was suppressed at the outbreak of the Revolution of 1792. The Con- tention, curiously enough, spared the edifice; but the officials of the Directory sold it for the materials, having unroofed and stripped it of its woodwork, while leaving the walls comparatively uninjured. Somewhere about the fifties of this century the magistrates of the town displayed the Vandal instincts within them by issuing an order that these walls should be razed to the ground on the trumpery plea that some of the unemployed workingmen in the district should get something to do. The only fragment that escaped destruc- tion on this occasion was a stately tower, dating from the thirteenth century, in which Becket sought an asylum when he was a fugitive from England. ONE OF THE SIDE DOORS OF THE COLLEGE OF ST. OMER. Before entering into the few details at my com- mand concerning Daniel O' Connell's life at Saint Omer, it may not be out of place to give the reader a brief account of O' Connell's uncle, who was one 45 Irish Footprints over Europe. of the most distinguished Irish officers in the ser- vice of France. This dashing "militaire" was the youngest of twenty-two children, the issue of one marriage, and was born in Darrynane, in the county of Kerry, in the month of August, 1743. Having been sent by his father, Daniel O'Connell, at the age of fourteen, to France, he received a solid education; and having preferred military life to any other, he won his first spurs during the seven years' war in Germany. When the campaign was over he became attached to a "genie" corps, and soon became one of the lead- ing military engineers of France. He subse- quently crowned himself with glory at the siege and capture of Port Mahon, in Minorca, from the English in 1779, and was nominated for his bravery major in the Regiment of Royal Swedes. He had attained the rank of lieutenant-colonel in the same regiment when an unsuccessful attack was made in 1782 by the French floating batteries on Gibraltar. In this desperate assault, in which he was second in command, a portion of his ear was swept away by a ball, while a shell from the Eng- lish mortars burst at his feet and inflicted no less than nine wounds on his person. After a long and almost fatal illness he recovered, and was ap- pointed colonel-commandant of a German regiment of 2,000 men in the service of France, which he reorganised so sucessfully that he was shortly afterwards promoted to the responsible position of Inspector-General of all the French Infantry. Step by step O' Connell mounted from the humble position of second lieutenant to this high and respected rank without the aid of friends or patrons, and solely through his own surpassing merit. When the French Revolution, however, overturned the Bourbon throne, O' Connell refused to serve the Republic. He would not desert the white flag of the Louis. He had the same worship of Royalty which subsequently characterised his illustrious nephew, Dan-a worship which hardly knew any bounds, and which actually prompted the latter on one occasion to wade knee deep in the waters of Old Dunleary in order to welcome the last of the Georges to the shores of Ireland. The spirit of modern progress had not touched the hearts of either uncle or nephew in this respect. Monarchy, for them, remained environed in its apocryphal "right divine" to the very end. Although O'Connell, the Military Inspector, was hard pressed by Carnot to continue his services in the same post, he absolutely declined the offer, and joined the French princes in exile in Coblentz. In 1793, en route for Kerry, he had an interview with Pitt in London, and laid before that states. man a plan for the restoration of the Bourbon family to the French throne, which, however, had no practical effect.' He was soon afterwards put in command of an Irish Brigade of six regiments in the British service; but he virtually abandoned that post by returning in 1802 to France, where he was taken prisoner on the charge of treason, and where he remained a captive till the Bour- bons came back in 1814, when he was released, and his sufferings were compensated for by a countship in parchment and a generalship in the army. He was for years subsequently a prominent figure - . EXTERNAL VIEW OF THE COLLEGE. in the Bourbon Court in Paris, where his past sacrifices in the Royalist cause were appreciated by all, and by none more than by the Duke and Duchess of Berry. When in 1830 another revolution wrecked the Bourbon craft, and Louis Philippe mounted the throne with the Tricolor, Count O'Connell refused to take the oath of fidelity to the new sovereign. He was accordingly de- prived of his military rank, and retired to the country seat of his son-in-law at Madon, near Blois, on the banks of the Loire, where he passed away on the 9th of July, 1833, in the ninetieth year of his age. A contemporary French writer says of him :-"He had never in the season of his prosperity forgotten his country or his God. Loving that country with the strongest affection, he retained to the last the full use of her native language; and although master of the Spanish, Italian, German, Greek, and Latin, as well as French and English languages, it was to him a source of the greatest delight to find any person capable of conversing with him in the pure Gaelic of his native mountains." The Count's remains lie interred in that secluded little valley of the Loire where he spent the last three years of his eventful life. 46 Irish Footprints over Europe. While the uncle was winning military laurels for himself all over Europe the nephew was study- ing at Saint Omer. Daniel O'Connell and his younger brother had been sent to the college of that town at the expense of another uncle of theirs who resided at Darrynane. The future Repealer was about seventeen years at the time, and had the reputation of being considered one of the cleverest boys in his class. Following up the in- struction which he had previously ieceived at Louvain, O'Connell soon became as proficient in the French tongue as any pupil in the establish- ment. In one of his letters to his Darrynane uncle, reproduced in Mr. Fitzpatrick's recently pub- lished correspondence of O' Connell, he says:--"In this Colledge (sic) are taught the Latin and Greek authors, French, English, and Geography, besides lessons given during recreation hours in music, dancing, fencing, and drawing." In another com- munication he writes:-"I got second prize in Latin, Greek, and English." Off and on the pupils assembled in a large hall of the college improvised into a theatre for the occasion, and held private theatricals, in which we may presume the Irish boys took no unimportant part. For a few weeks each summer the pupils who did not re- turn home for their holidays were lodged in the country house of the college, situated in a pleasant valley scarcely six leagues from the town. O'Connell was not a very assiduous letter-writer at this epoch. There were various reasons why he should not have been. Firstly, a letter from Saint Omer to Kerry, or from Kerry to Saint Omer, cost the recipent something like six shil- lings' postage in those days; and, secondly, there was no possibility of having an answer to one's note for forty days after it had been posted. The college where O'Connell studied was founded in 1596 by Father Parsons for English refugee priests. This same institution is referred to as having been the educational nursery of some of Queen Elizabeth's future opponents, and of some daring spirits who afterwards took part in the Gun- powder Plot. Murray states-I do not know on what authority-that Daniel O'Connell was trained here for the priesthood; but it is certain that just then the establishment was open to lay as well as to ecclesiastical students from England and Ireland. With the Revolution of 1793 the college was suppressed, only to start up, so to speak, like a phoenix from its ashes in 1802, under the name of "Le College Communal," which became later on the Lyceum of Saint Omer. A photographic view of the Lyceum, which still flourishes in the old town, is given in this paper. The Lyceum still maintains no small amount of its former prestige, although the numbers of Eng- lish and Irish students within its precincts is not so large as it was in the last century. The educa- tional curriculum is all that could be desired in the Lyceum, and the old Irish traditions of the institution are not forgotten. The view of the building in the present paper is that of the facade giving on the recreation courtyard. The other sketches represent respectively the interior of the old chapel attached to the college, in which O' Connell must have communed and meditated for many an hour, and a lateral door of the sacred edifice, which is regarded as a very venerable as well as artistic piece of architecture. CHAPTER XI. O'CONNELL IN THE ENGLISH COLLEGE, DOUAI-JOHN SHEARES, THE UNITED IRISHMAN, AND HI1 HISTORIC HANDKERCHIEF-FELLOW STUDENTS OF O'CONNELL AT DOUAI-A DOUAI ANNUAL CARNIVAL-ST. EDMUND'S COLLEGE, WHERE IRISH STUDENTS ARE STILL LOCATED-THE BATTLE OF MALPLAQUET-THE O'BRIENS AND THE O'DONNELLS ON THE FIELD OF BATTLE- "FORWARD, BRAVE IRISH ! N the morning of the 18th August, 1792, O'Connell left Saint Omer, and on the evening of the same day reached the neighbouring town of Douai, where he was received as a student in the English College. Some writers fall into the error, by-the-by, of as- serting that O' Connell was an alumnus of the Jesuit College of Douai; but I have it on the authority of the keeper of the municipal archives of Saint Omer that there was no such establishment in existence throughout that district in 1792 nor had there been any for a generation previous. The statement of this gentleman is furthermore con- firmed by[an eminent Douai clergyman, the Rev. Father Fossato, O.S.B., who writes to me to the effect that it was at the English College of that town O'Connell prosecuted his studies. By a 47 Irish Footprints over Europe. strange freak-or, shall I call it irony ?-of fate this very college, under whose roof O'Connell may have conceived the elementary ideas of his moral force doctrine, is now, and has been for the past ninety-six years, a military barracks! In fact, the young Irishman had to leave it in the beginning of 1793, just as the French troops were making it their habitation and their home. The students' refectory is now a mess-room, and the former class halls are promenades for the soldiery in wintry weather. The illustration of the build- ing in this paper gives us a glimpse of a sentry- i~~tss~~~i----. ;-~" '. the little chapel, which was subsequently con- - -.* box at either side of the chief entranace; while tog the right we can still see the groined windos aofnd verted into amet in artillery storehouse. Andreds of years ago, are now depositories for hardware goods, or marts where the ring of the auctioneer's hammer is heard as he knocks down his twopenny-ha'penny gimcracks to the highest bidder! Even Imperial Caesar's dust may stop a bunghole! O'Connell, in one of his letters from Douai, dated September 14th, 1792, to his Darrynane uncle, says:-" The pension here is twenty-five guineas a year; but we get very small portions at dinner." The young man's appetite was evidently dissatisfied with the microscopic viands that are usually served up on Continental tables. Variety of dishes may tickle the jaded palate; but the average Irishman, particularly if he be young, prefers, I dare say, a good substantial joint to all the tit-bits of the longest menu of the first of Parisian cooks. However that may be, young O'Connell was not quite happy in the College of Douai; and when the rumblings of the great Revolution grew more and more menacing, and when, owing to England's hostility to France, the lives of British subjects in the latter country were hasdly worth a month's lease, Daniel took ad- vantage of the opportunity offered him to write to his uncle, asking permission to return to England. Just as the letter containing this permission ar- rived, the College happened to be confiscated by the members of the municipality, who seized on all the plate and furniture of the establishment, and turned professors and students out of doors. O'Connell's violin was included in the general spoliation-a circumstance which may have con- tributed to the intense dislike for France and Frenchmen which was then, as it was afterwards, one of his most salient characteristics. The entire circumstances under which he quitted the country must have gone very far towards moulding his mind in what may now be looked on as a decidedly conservative cast. The excesses of the Revolu- tionary party made him shudder even at the very whisper of the word Revolution. So far as France was concerned, he was pleased to ignore the causes that led up to the popular upheaval; he would, doubtless, have considered his pity wasted on the beast of burden in the shape of man chained to the fields, or the pale, hollow-checked, desperate artisan earning starvation wages in the reeking attics of the big city; he was too essentially aris- tocratic, despite his democratic leanings, to de- nounce, as they should be denounced, the land- leeches who had lived and waxed fat in France on the life-blood of the people for centuries up to 1789. He only saw the devastating guillotine, and the sinister countenance of that arch-executioner, Robespierre, looming in the distance. The incipient virtues of the Revolution he had no consideration for; while he was blind to every- thing save to its crimes and horrors. This College was founded in 1569 by Cardinal Allen-firstly, for the education of English Catholic ecclesiastics, and later on for that of the English Catholic laity as well. Douai was chosen as the site of this establishment because it was hidden away in a quiet nook of the land, and was at the same time within easy reach of British soil, and moreover, because it was the seat of a university which flourished up to 1793, when, like many other ecclesiastical institutions in 48 Irish Footprints over Europe. France, it languished for some years till happier days came, and saw it revived and restored at Lille. Among the names of the Douai students who suffered martyrdom for their championship of the Catholic faith in England I find those of Fathers Parsons, Campion, and Cuthbert Mayne. There were in the College in or about O' Connell's time several young men who made lasting repu- tations for themselves in after-life. Here it was where John Philip Kemble, one of England's lead- ing tragedians, learned the elements of Rhetoric. Kemble at a very early age played various children roles in his father's theatre. Kemble senior was, however, in full harmony with the far from com- mendable spirit of the age in which he lived--a is in the position of one who having once trodden in dreams the smiling plains of some delightful Arcadia, grows sick of this jog-trot commonplace world of ours, and pines for the lustrous beauty which he had beheld through the magic lantern of his fancy. John Philip Kemble was one of these inveterate idealists. He accordingly threw up his class books at Douai at the age of nineteen, and returned to England, where he almost immediately afterwards became a favourite in Drury Lane, London, gaining the reputation of being a tragedian of consummate skill. His play- ing of the parts of Coriolanus, Cato, and Macbeth crowned a fame that had been already solidly established. Kemble retired from the stage in THE COLLEGE IN DOUAI WHERE O'CONNELL STUDIED. (Now a Military Barracks.) spirit which, though it relished comedy and tragedy on the stage with infinite gusto, refused, nevertheless, to tolerate comedians and tragedians in society off the stage. The father ambitioned a more "respectable" career for his son,and with that view sent him to the Catholic seminary of Staf- fordshire, and from thence to the English College of Douai, where he studied for several years. No juvenile, however, can strut behind the footlights or taste the sweets of popular applause with any- thing like absolute impunity. Once the young eye fastens its gaze on an ocean of admiring faces, and once the young ear is charmed with the plaudits of pit and gallery, it is very hard for the stripling to escape from the fascination 'f stage life. He 1817, and took up his residence at Lausanne, on the banks of Lake Leman, in Switzerland, where he lived the life of a recluse, and where he peace- fully passed away in 1823. His brother Charles Kemble was also educated at Douai, and after- wards distinguished himself in the sphere of light fantastic comedy. Of quite different tastes and inclinations were two other Douai students of that epoch: one who became subsequently an eminent Catholic divine and antiquary, and who attained the rank of Vicar Apostolic of the Midland district in England, Dr. Milner; and the Rev. John Lingard, also D.D., who penned the famous "History of England." Such are the names of a few of O'Connell's illustrious con- 3 Irish Footprints over Europe. temporaries in Douai. Those who might wish to know more about this historic institution may be referred to Dodd's "Church History of England," and "The Douai Diaries" in the "Records of Eng- lish College," in both of which volumes the Col- lege and its inmates are treated of in quite an ex- haustive manner. O'Connell left Douai on the 17th of January, 1793. A curious anecdote is told in connection with his departure from the shores of France, which, I fancy, may be appropriately reproduced in these pages. P oceeding to Calais from Douai, he took shipping for Dover at the former town; and when the barque on which he was a passenger sailed outside the circle of French waters, the youth nonchalantly flung the tricolor cockade (which all residents in France were compelled to wear at the time) overboard, and looked as proud of the feat as if he had with a wave of his right hand restored the Bourbons to the throne of their ancestors! Was he not a typical nephew of the General in his devotion to the Lilies of France? It was on the occasion of the same voyage that he exchanged some hot words with John Sheares, the United Irishman from Cork, who had just returned from Paris, after having in the Place de la Concorde soaked his handkerchief in the blood of Louis XVI. Douai itself is a town of some eighteen thousand inhabitants, situated pleasantly on the banks of the Scarpe, and is surrounded with fortifica- tions now too old to be very redoubtable. Like Brussels, it is a straggling centre of population, containing far less souls to the square mile than Lille or Calais. Like the former, however, it is distinctively Flemish in its aspect. The carillon rings out its dulcet measures hour by hour from the magnificent belfry that looms in the market- place above the Gothic Town Hall. The denizens of Douai have, or used to have, an annual gala day in the early part of July, during which knights clad in antique armour flashed through the streets in all the glory of their war paint, escorted by patrician dames and damsels of the choicest brand, in the rere of whom filed a proces- sion, composed of bloused farmers and rustic beauties tricked out in all kinds of gewgaws, and bearing a giant of osier standing thirty feet high in his sandals, arrayed in a stunning coat of mail, and accompanied by his tall and portly spouse and a family brood of proportionate width and girth worthy the c; ',ensions of those darned fools of old who tried to scale the steps of starry Olympus in their warfare on the mighty Jove. Of the origin or history of this gigantic osier and his matrimonial incumbrances, I am as ignorant as I am of Volapuk. The whole procession was an elaborate enigma. Some of our sapient guide- books might contain a solution of the mystery; but I cannot dare to unravel it. The pro- babilities,however, are that this colossal osier must have been a hero in the flesh in the brave days of old, and as hero-worship is not yet an extinguished or even a decaying cult in any part of the civilised world, it would be the utmost folly to quarrel with the inhabitants of Douai if they keep up, though it be in harlequin style, one of those grand traditions of theirs which glorifies a great man. Moreover, is it not well to be merry betimes ? Surely we have not been born to pose through life in the attitudes of weeping statues, crying our eyes out perpetually over the cares and troubles, the pains and penalties of existence. I once knew a German who was never known to smile. He was rich in the world's wealth, and rich in the love of a fair young wife and a health- ful progeny; and yet that man pined and drooped, and drooped and pined, and ultimately kicked the bucket in the full noon of manhood. And why ? Simply because he could not enjoy his night's nap without reading beforehand " The Sorrows of Werther !' If that man had taken proper exercise in the open air, and danced through a few carnivals every year, instead of mooning over pages of maudlin woe and sentimentality, the desolate partner of his bosom would not now be on the lookout for a new lord and master. I do not ;ee, therefore, why these people in Douai should it have their annual fling, and propitiate the god )f pleasure after their own innocent fashion,. 11abelais it was, I think, who said that a ripple ;f laughter on one's lips was infinitely better than : melancholy tear in one's eye. I must not, however, moralise further. Returning to Douai, I may add that the mantle of the Irish and English scholars of past centuries has fallen on the shoulders of the monks of the Benedictine Order in that town. The English College, which these latter ecclesiastics have in charge, is called St. Edmund's, :nd is the legitimate successor of the establish- ment in which O'Connell studied. Two of its most zealous professors are the Rev. Charles O'Neill, the worthy prior, and the Rev. P. W. Fossato, a gentleman to whom I am indebted for the illustrations appearing in this chapter. St. Edmund's, it may be observed, was originally established in Paris in 1611 by the monks of the English Benedictine Congregation. When the con- niunity of St. Gregory left Douai, and finally took up quarters at Downside, near Bath, St. Edmund' 50o Irish Footprints over Europe. was revived at Douai. The object of this insti- tution is to educate youth principally for the priesthood, and so continue the work of the Irish, English, and Scotch foundations established in the town throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It is, I may add, exclusively occupied by English, Scotch, and Irish students just now, and contains a debat- ing club, in which Irish intellect holds its own very probably against all competition; while it affords special facili- ties for the study and the speaking of French. The juveniles who have a spark of the genius of a Gounod or a Wag- ner in them display its effulgence in the Col- lege Brass Band, from SEAL OF ST. EDMUtND' S the repertory of which COLLEGE. Irish music is by no means rigidly exclud- ed. In addition to these attractions, the youth bitten with a mania for quill-driving will find a virgin field open to his exertions in the pages of a sparkling little magazine, "The Edmundian," printed and published within the College walls. On the whole, St. Edmund's of Douai is indeed one of the best institutions of its kind in France. Douai must be also remembered in Irish annals as one of the resting places of the O'Neills and O'Donnells in their pilgrimage over the Con- tinent. They came hither from Arras, and were received with great pomp and eclat by the civil and military authorities. Their first visit was to the historic college, where they were feted by the rev. superior, Father Cusack, while the students recited original odes extolling Hugh's many victories, and congratulating him on his escape from Ireland. It was in Douai, too, where Father Conry, afterwards Archbishop of Tuam, met the exiles, and "embraced them, while tears of joy trickled down his face." The path of the refugees here as well as elsewhere was in every sense a march of triumph. Before proceeding to Fontenoy the Irish pilgrim on the Continent should direct his steps to the pretty little village of Malplaquet, near Mons, where the Irish Brigade once made a gallant stand. The occasion on which our countrymen displayed their valour to such advantage occurred shortly after the capture of Tournay, referred to in a preceding chapter. The allies, flushed with victory, and having such experienced commanders at their head as Prince Eugene and the Duke of Marlborough, attacked the French and Irish, who were led by the Marshal de Villars. The latter took up a strong position in the territory about the village, with woods to the right and left, and an open country between and to the rere of those woods. The French army consisted of one hundred and twenty battalions and two hundred and sixty squadrons, being in number generally inferior to the enemy. A chronicler says, speaking of the condition of the French forces :-"The Marshal de Villars, among his grave apprehensions respect- ing the campaign he had to make against an enemy so superior in numbers and artillery, particularly refers to his perpetual fear each day of being without bread--adding how, as he passed through the ranks of his army, the poor soldier struggling to subsist on a half or a quarter ration, would address him in the words of the Lord's Prayer- 'Give us this day our daily bread !' " Prince Eugene and the Duke of Marlborough assumed the offensive on this occasion. Their troops were, according to the annals of the period, well primed with cognac, and were fired to enthusiasm by the military music, so much so that they advanced "not like men but devils against the infernal gulph of the French entrenchments." The fight at close quarters was fierce and bitter in the extreme, and lasted for several hours,until Marshal de Villars having been severely wounded, the French and Irish troops made an excellent retreat to Quesnoy and Valenciennes. The French and the allies lost respectively severa! thousand men in that engagement. Thirty-two Allied colours were captured by French and Irish alike, and were solemnly presented a few months afterwards as trophies by the King to the chapter of the Cathedral of Notre Dame. The Irish who fought on that day under the white flag were Lee's, Dorrington's, O'Donnell's, and Galmoy's infantry Segiments, and Nugent' celebrated cavalry regi- ment. Speaking of the part taken by his fellow- countrymen in the fray, Count Arthur Dillon says :--"They were posted towards the centre in the opening of the wood of Sart, having the Swiss Guards on their right and the Brigade of Champagne on their left. It was towards this point that the enemy direted their greatest efforts. These three brigades, after having sustained for upwards of three hours the murderous fire of a battery of twenty pieces of cannon, repulsed so many as three of these attacks, in which the enemy suffered a considerable loss. They were at last obliged to retire, because four battalions who 51 Irish Footprints over Europe. secured their flank having abandoned their post, the enemy were about to turn them. They re- turned, notwithstanding this, to the charge, and .fter having gained some advantages, they received orders to retreat altogether, which they executed after the wounding of the Marshal de Villars." A leading French historian of Louis XIV's wars, ob- serving how Lieutenant-General Albergotti having marched against the enemy attacked them so well as to drive them from the ground they had gained, and to force them to betake themselves to the ex- tremity of the wood, adds, "The Irish Brigade, at whose head were the Comte de Villars and the Marquis de Nangis, overturned all that came in their way." The allied troops, who, according to Marlborough's biographer, Archdeacon Coxe, "recoiled a considerable way before the impetuous onset of the Irish, were British and Prussian." An interesting incident in this battle was an :isolated combat which took place between the 18th Royal Irish Regiment of Foot in Marlborough's army and the Royal Regiment of Ireland in the French service, in which, however, the latter came off second best owing to their inferiority in num- bers and ammunition. John O'Callaghan gives in his interesting volume a passage from a letter ad- dressed to John O'Connell by the Baron Cantillon de Ballyheigue, county of Kerry, Lieutenant- Colonel of the Third Regiment of Hussars in France, and President of the War Council in Paris in 1843. "A celebrated painter," writes the Baron from Paris, "has reproduced a picture which .is at present my -property, an historical subject concerning my family and yours. It treats of my great grandfather, who was likewise the uncle of Mary O'Connell, the wife of Maurice, your grand uncle. The subject is drawn from the archives of the Minister of War at Paris. This picture represents Captain James Cantillon at the battle of Malplaquet in 1709 charging at the head of the grenadiers of the Irish regiment of Dorrington the English troops commanded by the Duke of Mar'. borough. The official documents explain the suu- ject of it in this manner: "When the left of the French army, taken in flank by the right wing of the enemy's army, under the orders of the Diike, began to recoil, the Marechal de Villars brought up quickly as possible the Irish Brigade, which was in the centre. It attacked with fury the English troops, whom it repulsed. Cantillon, at the head of the Dorrington Grenadiers, first ap- proached the enemy's line, exclaiming to his men, "Forward, brave Irishmen! Long live James III. and the King of France!" He had his sword broken in the combat, and fell mortally wounded in the midst of the ranks of the English inf ntry." The painter has represented Cantillon, sword in hand, pointing out the enemy's troops to the Irish, and holding up his hat in his left hand, while uttering these memorable words. The action of the Irish troops at Malplaqnet was verily worthy of the martial traditions of the race to which they belonged. Although they were worsted in the fight, they displayed splendid courage and behaved themselves throughout the struggle with singular skill and chivalry. CHAPTER XII. .A VISIT TO THE VILLAGE OF FONTENOY-THE HAMLET AS IT NOW STANDS---SITE OF THE GREAT BATTLE-THE BATTLE OF FONTENOY--LALLY TOLLENDAL'S IDEA, AND HOW IT WAS APPRO- PRIATED BY THE DUKE OF RICHELIEU-THE GLORIOUS CHARGE AND VICTORY OF THE IRISH. HE valley of the Schelde, in which the historic vil- lage of Fontenoy is situ- ated, is pleasant enough to the view, particularly if one looks more after the pastoral than the purely picturesque in nature. It is a quiet agricultural nook, where turnips and potatoes grow in abundance, and where vetches wactually run riot in all directions. And yet we are there in very close proximity to the mining dies- tricts, alive with rope-walks, tan-yards, limekilns, and safety lamps, where thousands pass their lives away without having been able to gaze even once on the noonday sun. Odd guffaws of smoke, borne on the eddying breeze, greet the traveller in these secluded plains, reminding him of the presence of the collieries and iron foundries hard by ; and in the evening one may encounter a group of prematurely old men with coal-black faces and lowering brows passing moodily on. These un- fortunate miners seem to have lost all buoyancy of spirits. The milk of human kindness-if it were __ I__~ _ 52 Irish Footprints over Europe. admissible that they ever had any-must have been changed to gall-so much so, in fact, that they rarely converse with each other when the hard day's work is over. They enjoy no relaxa- tion properly so-called, and their pent-up feelings have therefore no safety-valve at their command, save at those very rare intervals when they rush up in despair from the bowels of the earth and take up arms against capital, burning down the ware- houses and spreading destruction far and wide with the force and frenzy of lunatics. On occa- sions such as these the entire district becomes a scene of civil war. Socialist emissaries from Paris and Berlin plan these periodical rebellions. They gather the miners in dozens in dark places, and speak to them in bated beath of the wrongs they suffer; they tell them that the only remedy for their galling ills is a general rising against society. They point to the gleaming axe and the blazing torch as the ready instruments of vengeance; and then, when they have worked up the toilers to a proper pitch of indignation, they discreetly retire from the scene, leaving their victims to battle as best they can with the military forces of the Crown. And then, of course, the usual run of events takes place. Some of the miners are shot down like dogs, a few hundred others are sent to prison, while the remainder return, cowed, cuffed, and submissive, to the mines. And so the grim farce ends for the moment, till the next opportunity comes the way and the next holocaust is effected. Fontenoy lies some five miles south-east of Tournay, on the old post road to Ath, near the village of Bourquembrays. It is a straggling hamlet, comprising some twenty or twenty-five low-sized cottages, the red-tiled roofs of which give them a somewhat picturesque appearance. A little antique church, flanked by a solemn grave- yard, stands at the cross-roads in the very centre of the village. Near the Escaut and not far from Fontenoy lies the town of Saint Antoine (now called St. Antoing), where the Prince de Ligne owns a beautiful chateau, the tower of which com- mands a very fine view of the surrounding country. Half a mile of cultivated land separates this town from Fontenoy. Here any microscopic mound one might meet with is called a hill by the peasantry; and if there happened to be a decently-sized hill in the vicinity I have no doubt it would be turned by them into a mountain, for Belgians, living for the most part in a country which is as flat as the Bog of Allen, fall into the natural mistake of mak- ing pyramids out of molehills. A Fleming who never saw a mountain in his life is as often to be met with as a Tipperaryman who never saw the sea. De Barri's wood, consisting chiefly of fir and pine trees, is three-fourths of a mile from Fon- tenoy. The plain of the battlefield' itself is now bare and under cultivation. Mr. Alfred Webb, who visited the historic site some years ago, says that "the roads pass over it as a private road passes through a demesne with us. The different properties must be well defined in some way, but there is no appearance of the divisions. The country looked parched and desolate, especially to eyes accustomed to our dear land of 'green valley and rushing river.' . . . For the most pait the ground was dry and dusty. The people were busily engaged in preparing for winter crops with their wooden harrows and rude ploughs, drawn by cows and horses. From the plain we could see down into St. Antoing; and across the river to the spire and houses of the adjacent city." To Mr. Webb's description of the scene I have but little to add. It was in the autumn of 1878 that I paid a flying visit to Fontenoy. I was lucky enough on my arrival to be introduced to a centenarian-a veteran who had served in the Grande Armee of Napoleon, and who was de- lighted to find a fresh listener to the story of his past exploits. The aged soldier told me that he was for years in receipt of a daily allowance of two and a-half francs for services render ed on the battlefield. "It is enough," he said, "for my modest wants; for an old militaire like myself lives more on the memory of the past than he does on a two-sou loaf." Garrulity is one of the weaknesses of old age, and the veteran was of course exceed- ingly garrulous. I let him have his way, for his narrative was unusually interesting. After hav- ing given me a vivid account of his campaigns under the Great Napoleon, winding up with the disastrous battle of Waterloo, the aged soldier broke forth into expressions of burning enthusiasm when he spoke of the martial powers of the Em- peror and the fascinating influence which he exercised over his battalions. "Ah, voyez vous," he cried, "I could have died for him ! And when he was taken off by the English to St. Helena something inspired me with the idea that he would come back once more and put himself at the head of his children. Did he not return from Elba? And why should he not return from St. Helena ? And so I waited for many and many a year, always on the look-out for my emperor. When the news of his death appeared in the news- papers, I would not believe it. I said, 'Napoleon is not dead; he shall come back.' And when they told me that the hero's remains were later on transferred to the Invalides of Paris, I thought the 53 Irish Footprints over Europe. story a fable, and was still incredulous. It is only of late that I doubt that he still lives. And if he came back to-day, he would not, alas! find two of his old Guard surviving to give him the old familiar military salute!" The veteran's eyes swam in tears and his voice grew husky with emotion as he concluded. I might observe that this man was not by any means the only one of Napoleon's troops who had an unshaken faith in their master's return for years after he had passed away. An anecdote is told of Prince Jerome Bonaparte that goes to confirm this fact. Jerome was from thirty to forty years of age a living image of his immortal uncle in the flesh. He had the eyes and the features of the Little Corporal ; and he wore no beard or moustaches in order to make the resemblance more striking. Long years after the hero of Austerlitz had been gathered to his forefathers, Jerome was proceeding on a tour of pleasure through a little hamlet in the South of France. He was mounted on a white horse, and, passing through the square, he saw a group of veterans armed with crutches who, the moment they gazed on him, raised an enthusiastic shout of welcome, crying out, "Vive 1' Empereur," and fairly beside themselves with joy at the idea that the idol of their hearts was back once more on his native land! These veterans were, like many others, fixed in their belief that their great captain would start some day, even if it were from his ashes, to lead them on again to glory and to victory. Standing at the outskirts of Fontenoy, the old soldier pointed me out De Barri's wood and St. Antoing in the distance, and recounted in sympathetic terms the story of the famous battle. A granduncle of his fought that day under the banners of the Marshal de Saxe. A traditional account of the conflict passed from generation to generation in his family. He spoke in warm and admiring accents of the "brave Irish, without whom we," he said, "would have had to retreat ingloriously from the field on that occasion." "The Irish," he observed, later on, "had always a chivalrous love for France, and I have often felt aggrieved that France does not appreciate that affection better. :We have only given Ireland Hoche and Humbert and a few battalions; Ireland has given us half a million of men, who died in defence of our country." And so we chatted and chatted till the evening came on, when I was com- pelled to return to Tournay. A short time after- wards I was informed that the venerable warrior had passed away. His dying words were still, "Long live the Emperor!" Marshal Saxe was at the battle of Fontenoy com- mander-in-chief of the French forces. Of Saxe's personality it may be necessary to have a few words to say. His father was Augustus II. King of Poland, and his mother was the Countess of Koenigsmarck, a Swedish lady of high rank and MARSHAL SAXE. commanding beauty. Augustus happened to be travelling in Sweden "incog." when he met this attractive young nymph. A mutual attachment sprang up between the pair, the result being that he induced her to leave her home, and he bore her away in triumph to Warsaw, where, however, Court etiquette forbade him from making her his queen, as, although she was of high aristocratic lineage, she could not lay claim to any royal descent. His Majesty evaded the Court regula- tions by contracting a clandestine union with the Countess-a union, by-the-by, which would for morality or respectability's sake be called to-day a morganatic one, but which, in those rude old times, was not palmed off under such a high- sounding designation. Maurice, Count of Saxony, afterwards Marshal Saxe, was the eldest son of the King and the Countess. He was born in Dresden, October 19, 1696, and at twelve years of age girded on a sword, and fought through various campaigns. At his mother's earnest request he married when he was only fifteen years of age a very wealthy German heiress, the daughter of Count Loben. The union was by no means a happy one. Saxe was one of the most inconstant of husbands. His flirtations with the dames of honour of Versailles furnished 54 Irish Footprints over Europe. tit-bits of scandal for the chroncilers of that day, and exasperated the injured lady to such an extent that she demanded and obtained a divorce from her volatile spouse. 'Saxe was a man of large size and ext aordinary personal strength. In the closing years of his life, and after the triumph he achieved at Fontenoy, the French were most eager to shower as many laurels as possible upon him. A few members of the Academy were anxious to tender him a seat in that learned institution; but Saxe knew his own defects: he was quite well aware of the fact that he could read and write only very indifferently, and that spelling was not at all in his line, so he politely declined the honour of being known to posterity as one of the Forty Immortals. The Duke of Cumberland, who com- manded the English, Dutch, and Austrian con- tingents at Fontenoy, was the second son of George II., a phlegmatic Teuton, whose only activity of temperament was displayed whenever he sa.v any opportunity of shedding blood. Years after he had been worsted at Fontenoy he was sent to the Scotch Highlands to crush an attempted Jacobite rebellion; and he did his work so well and so effec- tively that still in the old Border songs he is re- ferred to as the gory butcher of men and women. It may have been this tradition of the Scots which inspired Thomas Davis to dub this typical Royal desperado "the bloody Duke of Cumberland" in his famous ballad of Fontenoy. The allied forces, who camped for some time in Brussels prior to an attack on French Flanders, consisted of 21,000 British and 32,000 of other nations, of whom 22,000 were Dutch, 8,000 Hanoverians, and 2,000 Austrians. At the historic review at Soignies they were reputed to be the finest troops in Europe. The French army, led on by Saxe, and accompanied by Louis XV. and the Dauphin, comprised 18,000 men who were engaged in the investment of Tournay, 6,000 who were guarding the bridges over the Schelde, and 40,000 remaining to give the allies battle. With these latter were the whole of the Irish infantry regiments of Dillon, Clare, Buckley, Roth, Lally, and Berwick, and the cavalry regiment of Fitzjames. The Irish Brigade, composed as it was of these regiments, was under the command of Charles O'Brien, sixth Viscount Clare and ninth Earl of Thomond, who was subsequently known as the Marechal de Thomond. Marshal Saxe's position was on the north side of the Schelde, and the Marshal's purpose in making a selection of such a site was to prevent the allies from coming to the rescue of their brethren in Tournay. On May 11th, 1745, the famous battle took place, corn- mencing at nine in the morning, and not ending till three in the afternoon. The Duke of Cumber- land opened the attack on the French lines at the head of some 15,000 men, chiefly British and Hanoverian, accompanied by twenty pieces of cannon, and, despite the destructive cross-fire from Fontenoy, actually penetrated into the centre of the French column. "There was one dreadful hour," writes the Marquis d'Argenson, who was on that occasion one of the Royal attend- ants, "in which we expected nothing less than a renewal of the affair at Dettingen; our French- men being awed by the steadiness of the English, and by their rolling fire, which is really infernal, and, I confess to you, is enough to stupefy the most unconcerned spectators. Then it was that we began to despair of our cause." Battalion after battalion and squadron after squadron of theFrench fell back in confusion and dismay before the Eng- lish troops. If the Dutch, according to O' Cal- laghan, had at that moment burst through the redoubts from Fontenoy to St. Antoing in support of Cumberland, the French would have been irretrievably beaten. The Duke of Richelieu having proceeded to re- connoitre the advancing column, was met by Colonel Lally, who, according to an old chronicler, was " impatient that the devotion of the Irish Brigade was not turned to account." " This battle," says Michelet, "was lost without remedy if the Irishman Lally, animated by his hatred against the English, had not proposed to break their column with four pieces of cannon." "As an adroit courtier," he significantly adds, " the Duke appropriated to himself the idea "and the glory of its success." Hurrying back with his mind full of Lally's happy suggestion, he laid the new plan before the King, observing that the battle would be gained by its adoption. Louis having ap- proved of the plan of action, the six Irish regiments of infantry, stationed behind De Barri's wood, held themselves in readiness for the combat. They were, however, put into a certain state of confu- sion by the disorganised French and Swiss Guards who were falling back upon them. They never- theless presented a very fine military spectacle. Vengeance was burning in their hearts-- vengeance for wrong and oppression, national ruin and spoliation. The watchword in the old tongue of the Gael, "Cuimhnigidh ar Luimnech agus feall na Sassonach"' '-"Remember Limerick and Saxon perfidy"--passed in hissing accents from rank to rank as they were chafing impatiently for the fray. While the French and Swiss were to attack in other directions, the Irish regiments 55 Irish Footprints over Europe. were to fall on the enemy's right or British flank. The immortal Lally made on this occasion a short speech to his men, in which he said-"March against the enemies of France and of yourselves without firing until you have the points of your bayonets at their breasts." Richelieu at last gave the word of command, the Maison du Roi and the Carabineers galloping down on the Cumberland column, while the reformed infantry brigades, headed by the six Irish regiments, under Lord Clare, advanced in serried ranks against the right flank of the foe. Thomas Davis describes these Irish warriors at that moment in graphic and thrilling language:- How fierce the look these exiles wear, who're wont to be so gay. The treasured wrongs of many years are in their hearts to-day, The treaty broken ere the ink wherewith 'twas writ could dry, Their plundered homes, their ruined shrines, their women's parting cry; Their priesthood hunted down like wolves, their country overthrown. Each looks as if revenge for all were staked on him alone. On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, nor ever yet elsewhere, Rushed on to fight a nobler band than these proud exiles were ! That portion of the British immediately opposed to the Irish belonged to the Coldstream Regiment of Foot Guards, bearing with them two pieces of cannon; they had the advantage of being on rising ground, while the Brigade had to ascend without pulling a trigger. An Irish historian, speaking of the charge says :--"The Brigade being now sufficiently near the British, prepared to give them that formidable tempest of bullets which was reserved for the last moment in order to be dis- charged with the more deadly effect. The Irish suffered accordingly. Lord Clare was struck by two bullets, and owed his life to the cuirass he wore, while Colonel Dillon was slain at the head of his regiment, and a large number of other Irish officers and soldiers were likewise killed and wounded." The raking fire, however, did not damp the military ardour of the exiles. The old Gaelic cry was taken up, and they fell with cold steel on the British. An old chronicler has it that they actually pushed their bayonets into the faces of the English, who were obliged to retreat. Of the twenty cannon belonging to the late allied column fifteen pieces, with two colours, were won by the Irish Brigade. Right down before French fury and Irish wrath the British troops were driven -helter-kelter from the field. The military prowess of the Irish Brigade reached its apotheosis at Fontenoy. The charge is thus delineated by the loving pen of our national poet:- Like lions dashing at the fold when mad with hunger's pang, Right up against the English line the Irish exiles sprang. Bright was their steel, 'tis blcody now, their guns are filled with gore, Through shattered ranks and severed files and trampled flags they tore. The English strove with desperate strength, paused, rallied, staggered, fled. The green hill side is matted close with dying and with dead. Across the plain, and far away, passed on that hideous wrack, While cavalier and fantassin dash in upon their track, On Fontenoy, famed Fontenoy, like eagles in the sun, The Irish stand with bloody plumes-the field is fough* and won ! CHAPTER XIII. CONFLICTING OPINIONS REGARDING THE IRISH AT FONTENOY-FLATTERING NOTICE OF THEM IN THE WAR OFFICE ANNALS OF PARIS-THE SCENE AFTER THE BATTLE-KING LOUIS HONOURS AND COMPLIMENTS THE IRISH BRIGADIERS-THE SIEGE OF ARRAS-OWEN ROE O'NEILL APPOINTED GOVERNOR OF THE TOWN-HIS HEROIC RESISTANCE-MISS MORAN, THE IRISH VIVANDIERE- ' SEVEN IRISH SOLDIERS, ALL CHOICE MEN "-DESCRIPTION OF ARRAS. OLITENESS, like other arts, fine and superfine, is liable at times to be abused. The juvenile who Swould stand for half an hour of a wild March day in the streets of Pat is with head unsovered while conversing with a lady, just to show his callow enthusiasm for the sex, and who bows off and on before the beauty like a atage courtier, may be the very essence of good breeding; but considering that his gallantry may cost him a cold, and a cold may cost him his life, it would not be going too far to say that he is a consummate idiot. Exaggerated politeness is to be found in almost every rank of society in France. It pervades all manners of outdoor and indoor habits and customs. Duellists bow and smirk to each other with gushing gentility before probing each other's ribs with pistol shots. There is even on record the story of a French army one time saluting the enemy with doffed hats before begin- ning the engagement. A somewhat similar cere- monial took place at Fontenoy. "Gentlemen cI Irish Footprints over Europe. the French Guard ," cried Lord Hay to Saxe' s troops, "Fire!" "Fire yourselves, gentlemen from England; we never fire first!" was the re- joinder of the Commander of the French Orenadiers. All historians recount this interest- ing anecdote, and agree on the interchange of com- pliments that passed between the advanced guards of the rival armies; but these annalists by no :means agree on the role played by the Irish in the battle itself. Michelet and other eminent historians give the Irish Brigade all due credit for the important part it took in deciding the fortunes of the day on the battlefield of Fontenoy. There are, however, writers--French as well as English--who either ignore altogether the presence of Irishmen at that aengagement, or who deny that the victory achieved by Saxe on that occasion must be attributed to Irish pluck and valour. Carlyle, for instance--that fierce, intolerant pen-and-ink swashbuckler, who never had any profound love for Ireland--wrote an intensely dramatic account of the battle of Fontenoy in his "History of Frederick the Great," without even once referring to the Irish. Of course, nothing else could have been expected from the fanatic who said in substance that the Irish rat should, by heavens! be squelched by the British -elephant ! Voltaire is hardly less hostile than the author of "Sartor Resartus" to Ireland and the Irish. In his poem on Fontenoy the only allusion which he makes to our fellow-countrymen was embodied in the distich in which he observed that "Clare and the Irish learn from us (the French) how to avenge the wrongs of their king, their country, and their Church." In his "Siecle de Louis XIV." Voltaire, describing the historic battle, casually mentions the Irish as having par- ticipated in the fray, but does not, like Michelet or d'Espagnac, acknowledge that they saved the Lilies of France from defeat and disaster by their daring and victorious charge on Cumberland's column. Voltaire's opinion of the Irish was always far from flattering. Our forefathers were in his eyes a forlorn race, who were wallowing in ignorance and superstition. Somewhere in the third tome of his "Romans" he spins a very ex- traordinary and an altogether incredible yarn of Oriental life, and winds up by the remark that the Irish alone could believe such a preposterous story! Beeton, the English biographer, makes no deference whatsoever to the Irish at Fontenoy, simply observing that the English were defeated on that field because they were not supported by ahe Dutch. Even the omniscient and would-be impartial Murray is loth to do full justice to the Brigade, when, after o'bserving that though the result of the fight was unfavourable to the English, the skill shown by their commanders and the bravery of the troops were highly credit- able to them, he significantly adds that the for- tune of the day "was in some measure decided by the Irish battalions in the pay of France." It must not, however, be forgotten that Bolt, an English contemporary historian, writes in these sympathetic terms on the subject :-"A great part of the French infantry was broken ; several of their squadrons were i outed, and the French monarcht shuddered for the fate of the day. Such was, in fact, the furious bravery of the British infantry OWEN ROE 0 NEILL. From a portrait in Flanders, painted from life. that Marshal Saxe was now reduced to his last sole, and principal effort to retrieve the honours of his army. This was in bringing up the Irish Brigade, a corps on whose courage and behaviour he entirely depended for a favourable decision of so great, so dubious, so well-contested a battle. The Irish Brigade being drawn up were sustained by the Regiments of Normandy and Voisseaux, and marched up to the British line without firing, and routed them from the field." A very old and valuable document still preserved in the archives of the Ministry of War in Paris informs us that "at the battle of Fontenoy, fought May 11th, 1745, the Irish Brigade distinguished itself. in the most remarkable manner in the presence of the King and the Dauphin; for indeed it was this Brigade that principally contributed to restore the battle, which had commenced in a most unfavour 57 Irish Footprints over Europe. able manner, and to achieve the complete victory which was afterwards gained." On the whole, it is satisfactory to note that, with the exception of a few prejudiced authorities, the general weight of testimony with regard to the victorious feat of the Irish at Fontenoy is on the side of Bolt, Michelet, and d' Espagnac, all of whom unequivocally attri- bute the triumph of that day to the exiles. As the British and the Hanover ians retreated from the field, Louis gave orders that his forces should be rearranged for a Royal review. En- thusiastic cries in French and Irish greeted the King and Marshal Saxe as the former rode to his post of observation, and the latter, disabled by wounds, was borne on a litter through the ranks. Hats sitting jauntily on the tops of bayonets were raised all along the line; while "the battle standards, tattered,'' riddled, as they were, by the enemy's shot, waved triumphantly in the breeze, and officers and men were congratulating each other on the superb victory which they had achieved. It was a scene never to be forgotten, for its pathos and its picturesqueness--a meet theme for the painter's brush or the poet's pen. Louis, after some time, rode with the Dauphin through the ranks, complimenting the several corps as he passed along. When his Majesty was approach- ing the spot where the Irish Brigade was drawn up, the Dauphin dismounted, ran forward, and em- braced the brave Lally, who, it may be remem- bered, was the first of the Irish to charge the enemy's column sword in'hand. Lally just then "was seated on a drum in face of the shattered remains of his regiment, having on each side of him several English officers, whom he had himself disabled and made prisoners." The Dauphin in eager accents announced to Colonel Lally the favours intended for his regiment by the King, whereupon the Irishman, with his native wit, re. plied-' 'Monseigneur, the King's favours in this case are like those of the Gospel-they descend upon the blind and the lame." While speaking, the brave officer pointed to Lieutenant-Colonel O'Hegarty, wounded by a bayonet in the eye, and his major, whose knee was pierced with bullets. A few moments afterwards Louis came on the scene, and, leading Lally into an open space in front of the battalions, nominated him Brigadier- General-the announcement of the honour awarded him being greeted with peals of applause from French and Irish alike. Next day, according to Lally's biographer, Lieutenant-General Count Arthur Dillin, the King went to the camp of the Irish and thanked each corps one after the other for the services they had rendered him. Among the other Irishmen whose bravery was acknowledged by Louis XV. may be mentioned Lieutenant-Colonel Stapleton, of Berwick's regi- ment, who was gazetted Brigadier-Generai; Lieu- tenant-Colonels de Lee and Cusack, of Bulkeley's and Roche's regiments, who received pensions from the Crown; while commissions of colonel and lieutenant-colonel and the crosses of St. Louis were awarded to a score or so of the minor officers. In the list of names of the Irish dead on the field of Fontenoy we find the Kennedys and MacNamaras, the Dillons and the Kearneys, the Byrnes and the Kellys, the O' Sullivans and the O'Hanlons, and many other scions of this old irrepressible race of ours, whose dust now lies in the quiet little churchyard of Fontenoy, far away from the bosom of the land that bore them. When the news of the victory reached the English Court, King George II. and his Ministers were put into a state of the utmost consternation. The preponderating part taken by Irish exiles in the defeat of the British infuriated the Monarch, who, however, had the good sense to see that it was after all only a just retribution for the cruelty and oppression indulged in by his minions in the land from which these brave avengers were re- fugees. "Accursed," he said, "be the laws'that deprive me of such subjects !" The intelligence was received with deep but undemonstrative de- light by the Irish people at home, many ot whom began to cherish the idea that the victors of Fon- tenoy, their fathers or brothers, their friends or relatives, who were gaining so many martial honours abroad, would come back with flying colours to the island of their best love and strike a final and effective blow for her national de- liverance. While France sang joy for Fontenoy, And Europe hymned our story, the alien colony in Ireland, true to its traditions, chafed in impotent rage, and denounced, in all the moods and tenses, the "wretched mercenaries and treacherous soldiers who were betraying their king and country (sic) by entering the French service and defeating hisMajesty's devoted troops!" Dublin Castle put on its weeds of woe, and was for some time afterwards plunged in sorrow and tribulation ; while some of its more learned lacquies burst forth into gibbering jeremial.s on the degeneracy of the mere Irish, who, instead of going, as they were told, to Hell or Connaught, had the very bad taste to cross the seas, and flout and humble in the dust on far foreign fields the proud Imperial standards of England ! We may take Arras as the next stage of our Irish. 58 Irish Footprints over Europe. pilgrimage over Europe. Arras occupies an im- portant place in the military annals of France as the citadel which was held so gallantly and so long by Owen Roe O'Neill with his Dutch and Spanish forces against the French in 1640. Owen ' ) _ -, ARRAS, THE TOWN SO GALLANTLY DEFENDED BY OWEN ROE O'NEILL-MISS MORAN, THE IRISH VIVANDIERE. Roe O'Neill is as familiar a figue in the history of Ireland as he is in those of Spain and Flanders. He was, perhaps, the greatest Irish General who fought in Continental armies. He was the son of Art O'Neill, brother of Hugh of Tyrone, and was born in 1599. At the age of eight years he accompanied his uncle and the other illustrious exiles to France, and became very early in life a student of the University of Louvain, from whence he proceeded to Salamanca, where he com- pleted his civil and military education. He en- tered as sub-lieutenant the Spanish service, in the records of which his name, "Don Eugenio O'Neill," may still be seen. In five or six years lie won to such an extent the golden opinions of his superiors by his tact, skill, and bravery, that he was brevetted colonel. In his student days in Louvain he conceived a romantic attachment for Rosa O'Doherty, the sister of Sir Cahir O'Doherty, of Ulstei, who was residing at the time in that university town. Not wishing to propose for her .hand until he had secured a sufficiently remunera- tive post in his profession, he did not press his suit just then. When, however, he had attained the :rank of colonel, he hastened back to Flanders to claim her hand if it still was heis to give. To his great joy he found her free to listen to his proposal. She had remained unwed during the interval, hoping against hope that her lover would oome back from Spain to make hier his own. They were accordingly married in Louvain, despite the opposition of her brother, Sir Cahir, for whoe sneaking servility to the powers that were, Owen Roe entertained the heartiest contempt. Shortly after he had brought his bride to Spain, he organised an Irish regiment in the Spanish service, and at the express wish of Ferdinand, Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo, who was just then appointed Governor-General of the Netherlands, O'Neill returned to the north of Europe, where he and his Irish subalterns took an active part in the bloody battle at Avein, in Luxembourg, against the French forces commanded by Chatillon. The Plince Cardinal, who was a man of consummate military talent, had a very profound admiration for the Irish in the Spanish service. Before he was nominated to the Governor-Generalship of the Netherlands he marched at the head of 17,000 men to besiege Nordlingen, then occupied by the Swedes; and during the operations before this place he had occasion to witness the daring ex- ploits of the Irish. When Owen Roe O'Neill reached Flanders, he was forwarded by the Car- dinal a packet containing a commission appointing him Governor of Arras-a town which was then threatened by the French forces. O'Neill ac- cepted the post of honour, which was also a post of danger, with a calm self-confidence which, by- the-by, was his constant characteristic. Owen Roe was received in Arras with much pomp and eclat, the civil and military authorities having turned out in procession to welcome him on his arrival in their midst. With a practical com- mon sense and activity that never deserted him, he immediately set to work to put the town in a poper condition of defence. He divided the citizens into three distinct corps, each performing all the duties of disciplined soldiers side by side with regulars both by day and night. The plan of action adopted by the Governor from the start was to hold the town if possible against the mightiest odds till the Prince Cardinal, who hovered at the rear of the approaching French lines at the head of 30,000 Spaniards, should either defeat the enemy or send reinforcements into the feeble garrison. Twenty-four days after the com- mencement of the siege the French had completed their outworks. While the Prince Cardinal did not wish to risk the only army on which Spain relied for its possessions in the Netherlands by attacking the besiegers in the rere, O'Neill, on the contrary, made repeated sorties, in which the French suffered heavily. On the occasion of one of these sorties a few men of the garrison having been taken prisoners, Marshal Chatillon, the 59 Irish Footprints over Europe. Commander of the French, congratulated himself in a despatch to Richelieu, stating that he made some prisoners, and amongst others "seven Irish soldiers, all choice men." O'Neill decided on a general sortie on the morning of the 30th of July, when he put himself at the head of the citizens, who, armed with muskets, hatchets, and1 other available weapons, sallied out of the gates at erly dawn, and dashed headlong into a battery which the French were just then completing. "O'Neill's Irish musketeers," writes O'Conor, "kept up a steady firea on the Swiss, who defended the battery with their accustomed bravery, till, no longer able to maintain themselves in their position, they fled back to their camp in confusion. The assailants were now attacked by Marshal Meilleraie in person, but they retired in good order, after having slain some two hundred of the French. As soon as they got into the town they exhibited a cartoon from the flag-staff represent- ing rats and cats, and when some prisoners who had fallen into the hands of Meilleraie were asked for an explanation of this allegory, they told him that the rats should devour the cats before O'Neill would surrender the town to the French." Frequent attacks were made on the town; but all these were valiantly repulsed. Around the Place of Arms the fighting was most intense; and Antoinette Moran, the Irish "vivandiere," took a rather prominent part in most of the melees. Miss Moran wore the costume of the female camp follower of Spain. She was dressed in a uniform corresponding generally to that of the regiment. A light blue-grey spencer, fitted close to the shape, with three rows of small brass buttons in front, while the remainder of her clothing consisted of a petticoat and inexpressibles of red cloth, laced boots, a man's oiledskin hat, with the number of the regiment on it, and a brass plate on her arm bearing her name. There was about her, as there was about the other "vivandieres," an air of smart- ness, and occasionally an air of coquetry, when in the interval of repose they would indulge in in- nocent flirtations with the officers; but it must be said that, in the Spanish or Dutch army at least, they observed a very passable decorum of manner. Their innate taste for dress triumphed over the near approach of their costume to the male attire; for the smart set of the hat, the gigot sleeves, the bustle (females used to wear bustles then as now), the scantiness of the petticoat, and other sly little feminine arrangements, redeemed them from any very pronounced masculine appearance. Miss Moran and her sister "vivandieres" used to be seen with their baskets of provisions in every part of the trenches, and, at a later period of the siege, in the breaching battery, where the daring amazons would seize on any abandoned rifles they met with, and pour a raking fire into the enemy's ranks. Arras was, however, reduced by famine eventually to the last extremity. A defeat sus- tained by the Piince Cardinal encouraged the French to mine the walls, and on the 3rd of .August the French Mai shals sent a trumpeter to- the besieged to inform them that if they did not send deputies to treat of a capitulation their persons and families should be subjected to all the acts of hostilitythat the rigour of arms could inflict. Notwithstanding this threat, O'Neill refused to surrender. In the night-time he made frequent sorties on the French who were working at the mines; and an Irish soldier, accompanied by one of the citizens, having got himself lowered from the walls in a basket, succeeded in making prisoners of two French engineers. Finally, however, De Chatillon sprang a mine near the gate of St. Nicholas, and having effected a breach wide enough to allow forty men to pass abreast, the other Marshals hastened to make ready for an assault. O'Neill having given over all hope of succour fom the Cardinal, and being anxious to. provide for the safety of the citizens, proposed certain honourable stipulations to the Marshals, which were accepted. These were to the effect that 'Dom. Eugenio O'Neill, and all the captains, officers, and soldiers, as well of cavalry as of in- fantry, who are in the pay of his Catholic Majesty, shall retire from the city of Arras with their arms, baggage, drums beating, colours flying, ' balle en. bouche,' and matches lighted. They shall be escorted in all safety with their horses and pro- perty to the town of Douai." This was the close. of one of the most memorable sieges recorded in French history. A garrison composed of 1,500 foot (among whom were many Irish), commanded by Owen Roe O'Neill, and cut off from all reinforce- ments of men and provisions, held Arras against the three most distinguished Marshals of France and a large army, from the 30th of June till the 10th of August. Marshal Meilleraie himself ad- mitted that O'Neill and his garrison had done every thing that could have been expected from braves soldiers. Shortly afterwards O'Neill was waited upon inw Brussels by a deputation from the Northeln Irish, then in arms, who begged of him to come to Ire- land and put himself at the head of the national army of Ulster. O'Neill, acting on the advice of' Luke Wadding, and after having secured the ap- 60 I rish Footpr:nls over Europe. probation of Urban VIII., accepted the command, and set sail from Dunkirk in a frigate (the St. Francis) with his sons, Henry, Bryan, and Con, and other Irish soldiers. A week afterwards he dropped anchor at Castledoe. On his subsequent career in Ireland we have nothing to say in these papers. Suffice it to observe that he never re- turned to the Continent, having died in Cloughocter Castle on the 6th of November, 1649. His widoiv, Rosa, survived him for many years, living chiefly in Louvain, where, as I pointed out in a preceding chapter, her remains lie interred in the old Irish College. O'Neil's death was a cruel loss to Ireland. If he had been spared, it is more than probable that history would never have recorded any Cromwellian butcheries, for Oliver would have met his match, and perhaps his superior, in the Irishman whose military prowess was universally acknowledged on the Continent. Thomas Davis represented very vividly the con- dition of the people of Ireland deprived of this soldier chief:- Sheep without a shepherd when the snow shuts out the sky, Why did you leave us, Owen? Why did you die ? And then how graphically he is described in the following two lines of the same ballad:- Sagestin the council was he-kindest in the hall; &ure we never won a battle, 'twas Owen won them all ! The bards of Owen's day gave utterance to the popular grief in touching accents. A few of O'Daly's verses, translated by Clarence Mangan, may serve as a sample of these extremely pathetic elegies:- Oh. mourn, Erin. mourn ! He is lost, he is dead, By whom thy proudest flag was borne, Thy bravest heroes led; The night winds are uttering Their orisons of woe; The raven flaps his darkling wing On the grave of Owen Roe- Of him who suould have been thy king-. The noble Owen Roe. Alas,. hapless land ! It is ever thus with thee ! The eternal destinies withstand Thy struggles to be free; One after one thy champions fall, Thy valiant men lie low, And now sleeps under shroud and pall The gallant Owen Roe- The worthiest warrior of them all- The princely Owen Roe ! Carte, the celebrated historian speaking of O'Neill, says:--"He was a man of few words, cautious and phlegmatic in his operations, and a great adept in concealing his feelings." Strange to say, he had none of the sparkling enthusiasm of the Celt in his nature; but he had a judgment and discretion, combined with a rare courage, and splendid military talents, which, if he had lived longer, might have made him the saviour of his country. Arras, the scene of his most famous exploit on the Continent, is the capital 'f the Department of the Pas de Calais, and is situated on the Sca pe. It is one of these rare old French towns in which the almost altogether lost art of chivalry is still cultivated-the only blur on its escutcheon being that it had the misfortune to give birth to Robespierre, that most unvarnished type of human monsters. It is divided into three parts, the "cite" or old town, the "ville" or the new town, and the citadel surmounting both, which is con- sidered the best fortified stronghold in the northern portion of France. Around Arras are uninscribed graves where the dust of the Irish soldiers who fell defending the town,lies enshrined. This spot is but one of the many "campi santi" all over Europe where the Knighthood of Erin sleeps its last sleep, "reposing on its banners, and cradled in its glories !" CHAPTER XIV. FATHER ARTHUR O'LEARY-HIS CAREER IN SAINT MALO-HIS LOYALTY TO THE HOUSE OF HANOVER-AN IRISH BEAR 1N BOULOGNE-SUR-MER--THE MONKS OF THE SCREW--DR. O'BEIRNE OF ST. OMER'S---O'LEARY'S DEATH-SAINT MALO, PAST AND PRESENT. AINT MALO, on the French coast, is another Irish landmark on the Con- tinent; for it was in that I little town where the somewhat erratic genuis, the celebrated Father O'Leary, studied for the Church, and where he spent the first twenty-five years of his missionary career. This ecclesiastic played such an important part in the political life of Ireland towards the close of the last century that anything concerning him must have a dis- tinctively historical value. Arthur O'Leary was born in the year 1729, of humble parents, in the parish of Fanlobbus, near Dunmanway, in the county of Cork. Like some others of the same name, he, too, claimed that royal-or, to put it __ Irish Footprints over Europe. more correctly, princely--ichor was flowing through his veins; for were not his ancestors the doughty chieftains of Hy-Laoghaire or Iveleary, lords of the city of Rosscarbery and its environs, and scions of that far-famed Ithian race, the primeval members of which held sway between Macroom and Inchegeelaha for many and many a troubled year? His lines thus fell on places where the rights and privileges of blue blood were as scrupu- lously respected as they were in the Vendee; and it is more than probable that it was amid these associations O'Leary became for the first time imbibed with those principles in which he was a consistent believer throughout his after life. O'Leary, the peasant lad, belonging as he did to the proscribed Church, and being brought up amid all the horrors of the Penal Days, soon dis- covered that he could not gratify at home his desire for knowledge. Being, moreover, inclined to a religious vocation, he left Ireland while he was still in his teens, and proceeded to the Capuchin Convent of Saint Malo, in Brittany, where he passed through the usual educational curriculum,and was duly promoted to holy orders. During the quarter of a century which he spent in this establishment he was a most assiduous .student, and proved himself a very accomplished scholar. In the course of his career here an event occurred, the moral of which demonstrates very effectively his strange but fervid loyalty to the House of Hanover, and to the English Constitution at a time when his fellow-countrymen were groaning under an odious and detestable tyranny, and owed as little devotion to the Court of St. James as the serfs of the Sugar Plantations owed to their grinding taskmasters. It happened that throughout the seven years' war between the French and the English in the last century many British soldiers, most of whom were Irish and Catholic, were taken captives by the army of Louis, and were imprisoned at Saint Male. The appointment of a chaplain to these men having become necessary, Father O'Leary was appointed to the post. While he held this position the French Prime Minister, the Duc de Choiseul, sought to wean the Irish troops from their illogical allegiance to King George,and have them enrolled in the Irish Brigade, then fighting under th Bourbon flag. With this object Father O'Leary was approached, and was requested to use his in- fluence with his fellow-countrymen in Saint Malo, and effect if possible their conversion; but the chaplain firmly declined the proposal. It is only just to Father O'Leary's memory to record here lhis own explanation of the attitude he assumed on this occasion:-"I thought it," he says, "a crime to engage the King of England's soldiers and sailors in the service of a Catholic monarch against the Protestant Sovereign. I resisted the solicitations, and ran the risk of incurring the displeasure of a Minister of State and of losing my pension; but my conduct was approved of by the divines of the monastery to which I belonged." The office of chaplain having ceased at the termina. tion of the war in 1763, O'Leary was asked to accept the post of abbe in the French Court; but he declined this offer also under cover of the plea that he was "a loyal subject of his British Majesty," and could on no account forswear his allegiance to that "righteous sovereign." Unlike most of the Irish priests of his day,Father O'Leary was a devoted adherent of the Georges. If he had gone to Versailles, instead of returning to Cork, he would have been the right man in the right place as an "abbe de la cour;" for he had all that suavity of manners and a grace and facility of expression, added to a dignified air and deportment, which were among the essential characteristics of the Royal chaplains of those days. Father O'Leary during his twenty-five years' sojourn in France used to spend his holidays in exploring the country on foot. He used to walk from the Convent of St. Male to the feet 62 Irish Footprints over Europe. of the Pyrenees, or promenade all the way from the gates of Pax is to the banks of the Rhine backwards and forwards within a month. Mark Twain's tramp abroad was petty and insignificant compared with that of Father Arthur. The rev. gentleman had a curious adven- ture while he was on a visit to a brother clergy- man in Boulogne-sur-Mer. He wvas strolling one evening along the quays, when he happened to encounter a large crowd of people forming a circle around a bear and his keeper. Father Arthur, piqued by curiosity, edged his way into the fore- front in order to witness the performances of this wonderful animal, whose fame for several days previously had gone the rounds of all Boulogne, for this was no ordinary bear. He was, in fact, a trained and disciplined beast; for he could mark with his paw on the sand the hour of the clock; he could nod to the gentlemen, and make an Oriental salaam to the ladies with a grace and affability quite foreign to members of his grizzly order. On the occasion in question the keeper, armed with a long steel-pointed pole, kept the beast at his work, and every five minutes pocketed the coins of admiring spectators. The bear, having been hard-pressed all day, eventually grew rather tired of the performance,and showed a disposition to sulk, when the keeper gave him two or three sharp pricks with the goad, whereupon the animal cursed and shouted in a language the meaning of which was understood by none present except by Father Arthur O'Leary himself, who immediately exclaimed-"Cianos tha'n thu, a Phadring?" ("How do you do, Pat?") "Slan go raimh math agut!" (Pretty well, thank you !"), rejoined the bear. Father O'Leary lost no time in summoning the Mayor of Boulogne to the scene and explaining the situation to that official, who discovered that some blackguard fishermen had actually sewed up a poor Irishman in a bear' skin,and were making a pile of money by exhibit ing the extraordinary animal. The skin wa immediately ripped open,and after some difficult Pat stepped forth in Adam's original costume, t< the astonishment of the men,and to the utter con fusion of the women, who turned and fled in the wildest dismay. According to Sir Jonalh Barrington, the bear afterwards told O'Leary that he was very well fed and did not care much about the inconvenience of the clothing, only they worked him too hard. The fishermen, he said, found hin.m at sea o a hen-coop, which had saved him froic going to the bottom with a ship in which he ha< a little venture of dried cod from Dungarvan, an< which was bound from Dungarvan to Bilboa. He could not speak a word of any language but Irish, and was delighted to find a fellow-countryman to whom he could explain his grievances. Whenr Father Arthur subsequently returned to Ireland this anecdote was one of many others with which he would set his friends into roars of laughter ak convivial tables. When shortly afterwards Father O'Leary hap- pened to be strolling through the streets of Nancy, he fell into the company of several officers, county gentlemen, and others in the square of the town. The conversation having turned on the eternal Irish question, a farmer from Burgundy asked- "If Ireland stood ' encore?' " " Encore !" ex- claimed an English courier, "encore,to be sure she does-we have her yet, I assure you, monsieur." "Though neither very safe nor very sound !" in- terposed an officer of the Irish Brigade, looking daggers at the Anglo-Saxon. "And, pray, monsieur," rejoined the Englishman, turning to the farmer, "why do you say ' encore ?' " "I heard," replied the Frenchman, "that Ireland. had been worn-out by the great number of people that were living in it." Father Arthur used to, in explanation of this anecdote, observe that the idea of Ireland prevalent in Burgundy was that of a large house where the English were wont to send their idle vagabonds, and from whence the vaga- bonds were drawn out again as they were wanted to fill the ranks of the army. After his departure from France O'Leary divided his time between Cork, Dublin, and London. In Dublin he became a member of that rather profane order, the Monks of St. Patrick, better and more appropriately known as the Monks of the Screw. This association was founded by Barry Yelverton, afterwards Lord Avonmore, and was composed of peers and commoners, scholars and orators, poets and pressmen. They used to meet once or twice a month in order to indulge in a favourite feast of reason and chicken and the flow of soul and champagne. Pleasant Ned Lysaght used to cross legs under the table with John Philpot Curran. Flood and Grattan, Charlemont and Day, George Ogle, Bowes Daly, and many other sparkling wits of that far too evanescent but nevertheless glorious era of Irish legislative independence, were proud to belong to the order, and often enjoyed its "nights and suppers of the gods." Sallies of humour and ready repartee rippled melodiously from the lips of these jovial monks; and loud typhoons of laughter often rang around the festive board when Curran and Lysaght donned their armour of wit, and took part in the tournament like a pair of the drollest of harlequina 63 Irish Footprints over Europe. On one of these occasions Curran and O'Leary entered the lists to entertain the company. " Reverend father," exclaimed Curran, " I wish you were St. Peter." "And why, counsellor, would you wish that I were St. Peter ?" asked BIRD'S EYE VIEW OF SAINT MALO, THE HOME OF FATHER O'LEARY. O'Leary. "Because, reverend father, in that case," observed Curran, "you would have the keys of Heaven, and you could let me in." " By my honour and conscience, counsellor," replied the ecclesiastic, "it would be better for you if I had the keys of the other place, for then I could let you out!" O'Leary, it must be added, never participated in any of the more boisterous festivi- ties of the "monks," the radical propensities of whom suggested to Curran the idea of calling himself and his brethren the "Monks of the Screw," and inspired him to write the following lines on the order:-- " While sober be wise and discreet, And humble your bodies with fastir. When'er you have nothing to eat. "' Then be net a glass in the convent Except on a festival found, And this rule to enforce I ordain it A festival all the year round !" O'Leary was residing in London when the Re- volution burst over France. From the very incep- tion of the Revolutionary movement the rev. father was, of course, bitterly but consistently opposed to it. He had been a French priest of the old regime for twenty-five years. The prin- ciples he imbibed in the wilds of West Cork were fortified tenfold on the coast of Saint Malo, where the veneration for Royalty prevails among nearly all classes even to the present day. The polished manners of the choice Bourbon nobility, in whose midst he had moved, left their impress on him; and his devotion to the ancient nobility-naturally snough-prompted him to weep over their fall, or dlenounce in burning language what he considered to be their outiageous spoliation. It is no wonder, therefore, that in a sermon preached by him in St. Patrick's Chapel in London he should have used the following language in alluding to the leaders of the French democracy:-"By decree the French declare that they are willing to give assistance to all who wish to procure liberty. By this decree the desperate, the licentious, the dissolute of all nations, who would wish the over- throw of their respective countries in order to enrich themselves with the spoils of the peaceable and the virtuous, were sure to find allies and confederates." Language somewhat similar to this has, if I mistake not, been applied to the Irish democracy of modern days by men who would have it lie tame and submissive for ever in order that their own cellars may continue to be provided with the choicest wines, and their larders may never fail of provisions. The "licen- tious" and the "dissolute" of all nations are not found among the people. They are to be met with among the peers and paladines of long descent,and the Shylock gentry who pamper themselves on the spoils wrung fiom the horny hands of labour The idle dudes,who form the bulk of the tinselled nobility,possess a goodly portion of swag,to which they have as little right as any average footpad who knocks down a belated wayfarer and relieves him of his watch. The shibboleths of "robbery' and "spoliation" flung in the teeth of the people's champions by these kid-gloved moralists sound as awkwardly as a sermon on the beauty and efficacy of virtue from the lips of Satan. As Mephistopheles in "Faust" wisely remarked, "that which you call the 'better blood' makes the worst person; and as for the ' best,' the devil himself would blush for them!" Father O'Leary was such a staunch champion of the British Government under the peculiar circumstances of the time that his orthodoxy became suspected in Ireland, and among the other stories circulated regarding him was one to the effect that, like Lord Dunboyne, he too meditated giving up the priesthood in order to become a benedict. John Butler, the twelfth Lord Dunboyne, had been for twenty-three years the Catholic Bishop of Cork,and was the first instance on record, with the exception of Archbishop Browne of Dublin, of a Catholic prelate changing his religion. If Lord Dunboyne had not inherited the family title and estate, the probabilities are that he would have remained faithful to h' clerical vows to the end. At a very advanced age, however, he was raised to the peerage by the death of his nephew, Pieice Edmund Butler; and, professing a desire to perpetuate his lineage, he begged of the Holy See to permit him to marry. 64 Irish Footprints over Europe. The Holy See, of course, refused to accord him any such dispensation, but the prelate was never- theless determined to carry out his own wishes :irrespective of the opposition of the Pope and the Propaganda. He shortly afterwards espoused a beautiful girl of some seventeen summers, who was a relative of his own, and the daughter of Theobald Butler, of Wilford, in the county of 'Tipperary. There was no issue of this unhappy marriage; and the aged prelate passed away some years subsequently, after having made on his dying bed as ample a reparation as possible for his unfortunate apostacy. At the time of Lord Dunboyne's marriage Father O'Leary, who, as I have said,was also accused of meditating a similar :step, thus replied to his calumniators--"I do not consider Lord Dunboyne as a model whom I should copy. With his silver locks, and at an age when persons who had devoted themselves to the service of the altar in their early days, should, like the Emperor Charles V., rather think of their coffins than of the nuptial ring, that prelate married a young woman. Whether the glowing love of truth or Hymen's torch induced him to change the Roman Pontifical for the Book of Common Prayer, and the psalms he and I often sang together for a bridal hymn, his own con- science is the most competent to judge or deter- mine. . ... Your correspondent may rest assured that I am not one of the trio mentioned in his letter." To the credit of the Irish Catholic Church be it said that the apostates in its hierarchy and priesthood could be easily counted on one's fingers No Catholic ecclesiastics all the world over have been as pure, as steadfast, or as devoted in their faith as the Irish. The remaining two apostates referred to in the trio were Dean Kirwan, Bishop of Ardagh, and Dr. Thomas Lewis O'Beirne, who afterwards became Pro- testant Bishop of Meath. Dean Kirwan was edu- cated at Louvain; while O'Beirne passed through his educational course in various French colleges, and finally in St. Omer's. Returning to the latter establishment from his holidays in Ireland, he happened to be thrown into the society of two travellers in the inn of an English country village ; and having spent an entertaining evening in their company he was agreeably surprised on the fol- lowing morning when he discovered that his com- panions were none other than Charles Fox and the Duke of Portland, both of whom invited him to their London residences and promised him their patronage. O'Beirne had all the polish and elegance of manners that characterised Irish ecclesiastics of that day who were educated on the Continent, and soon became such a prominent figure and general favourite in the gilded salons of the British capital that he soon abandoned the idea of further prosecuting his studies for the Church, and embraced the Anglican faith. Having no small share of literary attainments, he acted for some time in the capacity of secretary of the Duke of Portland, and in his leisure moments translated two dramas from the French, and was assisted in their adaptation for the stage by the Duchess of Devonshire; but the produc- tions, when played behind the footlights, proved to be abject failures. On Lord Fitzwilliam's appointment to the Irish Viceroyalty, O'Beirne, who in the meantime had entered Holy Orders, accompanied him as chaplain and private secretary, and was shortly afterwards rewarded for his ser- vices by the opulent Bishopric of Meath, valued at �8,000 a year. He held this post up to his death; and it was a strange and curious coin- cidence that he should have been the Protestant prelate of a diocese in which at the same time his brother, who was also educated at St. Omer's, was discharging the functions of a Catholic parish priest. Of Father O'Leary little more remains to be told. His devotion to the House of Hanover brought him the reward of a Government pension. On this ticklish subject we have the authority of a well-informed correspondent of O'Leary's biographer, the late learned Father Buckley, of Cork, who writes as follows on the part which the Friar took by the advice of Pitt in the union of the Irish Parliament with the Imperial :-"Pitt promised the emancipation of Catholics and the repeal of the Penal Laws if he (O'Leary) would acquiesce. He did; and so silence was deemed consent. Pitt obtained the Union, then resigned his office, and, tricky enough, said he could not keep his promise. The memory of this disaster weighed upon his mind, so that, dying, he often exclaimed-' Alas! I have betrayed my poor country !' " Like other Irishmen, O'Leary was hoodwinked by false promises and wheedled by glozing bunkum. The treaty stone of Limerick had for him no damning souvenirs of violated oaths and undisguised treachery. Posterity m Ireland may forgive him for his credulity ; but his acceptance of hush money cannot under any circumstances be condoned-particularly when it is known that his influence was so great that had he opposed the Union it is problematical th t that ill-fated measure could have been carried out by Pitt and Castlereagh. A few months before the end came, Father O'Leary, accompanied by a Irish Footprints over Europe. medical friend, crossed the Channel to France in search of health. He was, it seems, sorely shocked by the contrast which the country presented with its condition in the experience of his youth and early manhood. The whole aspect of society had undergone a radical change. Democracy, it ap- pears, ruled the roast to such an extent that the Friar, while he was on one occasion visiting the charred ruins of a chateau in Brittany, exclaimed -"Alas! there is not now one gentleman in the entire of France." He returned to London dis- gusted and afflicted in spirit with what he had seen, and died in that city on the 8th of January, 1802. His remains lie interred in the churchyard of St. Pancras, in that city, while a monument bearing an appropriate inscription and erected to his memory may still be seen in St. Patrick's Chapel. Saint Malo, the scene of Father O'Leary's mis- sionary labours for a quarter of a century, contains some ten thousand inhabitants, and is a favourite resort for fishermen. A brisk trade is being carried on here in cordage and fishing nets, which are manufactured with much skill and taste. Saint Malo has, however, seen better days. One hundred years ago it was a thriving centre of population, although its wealth, speaking gene- rally, was not acquired by very scrupulous means, In the old times, when smuggling between Saint Malo and several English ports was carried on in spanking style, the citizens were enabled to give handsome dowries to their daughters. Now, alas! many of the fair ones have to depend on their faces for a fortune, and seldom or never succeed in winning the hands of men who earn respectable incomes; for here, as well as else- where throughout France, portionless girls, no matter how well reared or educated they may be, must either resign themselves to the cheerless lot of elderly maidenhood or else become the wives of labourers. The sailors of Saint Malo are the best in France. The poet Jean Richepin, who lived among them for several years, says that their chests are of cast iron and their sinews are of oak! In past years, it may be remembered they manned scores of privateers, and pirated along the English coast. The English in turn re- torted by treating Saint Malo to periodical atten- tions of shell and shot. Traditions of those days still linger around the hearthsides of the old town, where tales are told of the brave Gallic tar who scuttled many a Carthaginian brig and peppered the white hills of Dover. CHAPTER XV. 0IOW O'BEIRNE SAVED BRISACH BY A BLACKTHORN ARGUMENT--BRIGADIER GENERAL O'MEARAr GOVERNOR OF DUNKIRK-O' MORAN FROM ELPHIN-HOW THEY BEAT THE ENGLISH FROM THE WALLS OF THE TOWN--IRISH EXILES IN MARLAIX-THEIR LOVE OF IRELAND-THE O'NEILLS AND O'DONNELLS IN ROUEN-THE FRENCH KING'S HIGH OPINION OF HUGH OF TYROE-A TOUR THROUGH BRITTANY---SIMILARITY BETWEEN THE IRISH AND BRETON CHARACTERS--AN ANECDOTE OF THE SAILORS OF BOTH PEOPLES. SPOKE in the last chapter of Dr. O'Beirne, Pro- testant Bishop of Meath. I have now to refer to an ancestor of his who attained eminence in the French . army throughout the cam- paign against the Allies in the beginning of the last century. The O'Beirne of that day won undying laurels for his defence of the old town of Brisach, on the German bank of the Rhine. The French garrison comprised only four battalions and six independent companies when it was attacked and besieged by Prince Eugene. The Prince was favoured in his design of seizing on Brisach by the comparative confusion and disorder arising from the fact that no less than 1,200 labourers were employed in strengthening the fortifications. He intended to take it by sur- prise, and having received ample information regarding the interior of the town through a valet who had a passport under pretence of purchasing wine for his master, the Prince made his first move on the night of the 9th of November, which pre- ceded the day when a quantity of hay was ex- pected by the garrison to arrive in the town. With the view of capturing the stronghold by a ruse, the Prince despatched the Governor of Fribourg with 4,000 select German and Swiss infantry, preceded at some distance by fifty vans ostensibly of hay, but in reality containing men and arms concealed, while the same vehicles were accompanied by a number of officers disguised as drivers in peasant costume. The vans reached the 68 I ih Footprints over Europe. town at eight o'clock in the morning, favoured by a dense fog, and three of them had actually penetrated within the gate when, a ;cording to the original French account of the attempt on Brisach, a "Sieur de Beirne, Irlandois," or Mr. OLD BRISACH, ON THE BANKS OF THE RHINE, SAVED BY THE GALLANT O'BEIRNE. O'Beirne, the Irishman, who was standing at his post as sentry, asked the drivers who they were and why they were not at work on the fortifica- tions like the other peasants. Some thought to hoodwink O'Beirne with a yarn about the hay which was expected in town, but the Irishman was not to be caught by chaff of that kind, and peremptorily addressed himself to one of them, who turned out to be Lieutenant-Colonel of the Regiment of Bareuth: "Where do you come from, and what is the meaning of those strange faces ?" The Lieutenant-Colonel having given no reply, the Irishman fell on him and belaboured his ribs ewith the butt end of his musket. The officer, not at all relishing the value of such a blackthorn argument, rushed to one of the vans for a rifle, and in his haste awkwardly displayed to view the "armed contents" of the vehicle. He, however, got hold of the firearm, and he and several of his comrades discharged their weapons, happily with- out effect, on O'Beirne, who, alone against so many adversaries, deemed prudence the better part of valour on the occasion, retreated behind a huge rock, from which spot he shouted, "Aux armes!" "Aux armes," at the highest pitch of his voice, and with such good results that the garrison were apprised of the danger that threatened the town, and drove the enemy, minus their baggage, outside the gates with a loss of two hundred dead and wounded, the losses on the side of the besieged being only from fifteen to twenty. " Thus," says O' Callaghan, " was a single Irishman, furnished with no better weapon than a stick, the medium of frustrating at Brisach, as his better armed countrymen had done at Cremorne, an enterprise of Prince Eugene which, if attended with success, would have been very injurious to France. The importance of Brisach to the French will be best conceived from the fact that Louis XIV. had to employ 40,000 chosen men, 120 cannon, and 40 mortars the year before for its reduction." Returning to our explorations on the northern coast of France, we come to Dunkirk, where Bri- gadier-General O'Meara, O'Moran, and other Irish officers covered themselves with glory in 1793. O' Meara was the son of a veteran captain of the Regiment of Clare, and entered the French service in the Irish Regiment of Roth at a very early age. Contemporary accounts refer to him as being "a typical Irishman, tall, broad-shouldered, and stalwart; beloved as a good officer, and esteemed as a man of general knowledge." While doing garrison duty in Dunkirk a young lady of the town, admiring his military "prestance," con- ceived a romantic affection for the officer, who did not tarry to reciprocate the sweet feeling, with the result that he led her to the altar, and became the happy owner not only of herself but of the handsome dowry which she brought him. Step by step he rose in the ranks, until at the time we refer to he was brigadier-general, and at a comparatively early period of life. O'Meara used to boast in the mess tent over a bottle of rich, red Bordeaux of his ancestry and their glories, asserting that he was the lineal descendant of Cormac Cas, King of North Munster, whose spouse was the golden-haired Samhair, the winsome daughter of Ossian, the famous warrior bard of Pagan Innisfail. Before the French Revolution the various O'Mearas, almost all of whom came from Tipperary, were officers in the Irish Brigade, and held posts varying from that of sub-lieutenant to that of colonel. Some of them were chevaliers of St. Louis, while two of the sons of the Brigadier-General were colonels under Napoleon, one of them having been gazetted by the "Little Corporal" a Baron of the Empire. While O'Meara of Dunkirk was regaling his comrades-in-arms with gushing storieso f the feats of his royal line, O' Moran would be setting his own group of listeners into fits of laughter by tales of quite a different character; for he had many an amusing yarn to spin regarding his family in Elphin, county Roscommon, where his father at the time was plying the honest trade of a shoemaker. O' Moran was a plebeian to the marrow of his bones, and was not ashamed of his plebeianism. Sometimes O' Meara and himself used to have arguments at times over the question of ancestry-its uses and abuses. On one occa- 67 Irish Footprints over Europe. sion O'Moran slided into such a withering de- -nunciation of the rights of royalty that O'Meara's eyes glai ed like those of a tiger, and seemed to say, "How dare you turn your gaze up to mine, you low-bred cur?" 0O' Moran, comprehending the General's meaning, lost none of his usual coolness, and replied with the following sally-"Well, 'mon General,' if a cat can look at a king, a cobbler's son can look at a kingly O'Meara!" Whereupon the scion of the Royal House of North Munster relaxed his solemn frown, fell into a fit of uproarious laughter, and clinked his glass, as a brother would,with this unsophisticated son of the people. Still it was no less true- though O' Moran himself sternly refused to acknowledge the flattering impeachment-that his sires were an ancient Connaught sept, whose territory extended between Belanagare and Elphin, in the county Roscommon. It may be of interest to note that one of the class, James O'Moran, who was born in Elphin in 1739, was one of the hundred and odd Irish Royalists who lost their heads under the knife of the Jacobin guillotine of 1793 for their refusal to acknowledge the peculiar Republican regime of that day. The Irish Brigade had been suppressed before 1793; but a large number of the officers and men joined the various French regiments, and fought under the Tricolor. It was in that year that the English and their allies, commanded by the Duke of York, laid siege to Dunkirk. Its French garrison was at the time commanded by the Brigadier-General O'Meara, to whom I have just alluded. The Duke of York summoned Dunkirk to surrender, and invested it with 30,000 men. The fortifications of the town were in a most de- plorable condition, and the garrison, consisting of only 3,000 men, was totally insufficient to defend them. When the Duke of York's messenger was introduced to O'Meara the latter raised himself to his full height, and, having heard the sum- mons to surrender read, he answered, in tones of freezing scorn-"I shall defend Dunkirk at any odds with the brave Republicans whom I have the honour to command." The intrepid Irishman was as true as his word, for he and his followers valiantly fought the English and their allies till eventually the Duke had to raise the siege in disgust and abandon fifty-two pieces of artillery. And so the pluck and valour of an O'Meara saved Dunkirk, as the wariness and courage of an O'Beirne had saved Brisach. O'Moran, too, played a very gallant part throughout the siege of Dunkirk. Placed as he was in command of the right wing of the French army, he surprised the allies on more occasions than one, and proved himself a worthy representative of the martial prowess of his countrymen abroad. Not very far from Dunkirk is Morlaix, a seaport. town in Brittany, of which a well authenticated and affecting anecdote is told which may not be inappropriately reproduced in these pages. For some short time under the First Empire the Irish Legion had their quarters within its precincts. Situated as the town is in a parallel line towards Cork and Waterford harbours, the Irish officers and men would sometimes stroll down to the beach in the eventide and gaze wistfully out to sea, hoping to catch a glimpse of the dear old Comeragh Mountains in the distance. Bearded, warriors who had fought under the Bourbon flag,. and who subsequently "marched to glory" in Napoleon's Grande Armee all over Europe, would gather on the shore with their faces turned to- wards the north, listening to the swish of the waves on the glistening sands, or conversing in low and tremulous accents of the island where they spent their guileless youth, exchanging souvenir for souvenir, chatting of its weird legends and its quaint traditions, its crystal streams and its purple mountains, till the tears would swell to each eye, and the veterans who never knew fear while shot and shell showered around them, grew pale in the gloaming and trembled like women when they thought that they might never see again the land of their best love, or lay their weary war-beaten bones in the bosom of her emerald soil! Here, too,. their sons or nephews, the young soldiers of the Guard, who were born in France, and who had never visited the island of their sires, would assemble and ask each other what paradise was this beyond the waves of which their fathers spoke in such affectionate terms, and for which they would proudly die. Surely, they thought, the country which could evoke such homage must needs be more beautiful than even "la belle France," where the skies are so blue and the fields so green. And then these juveniles would indulge in dreamful projects-for the land of youth and that of dream- land are the same--of crossing the sea and tread- ing the soil of that Hy Brazil laved by the wooing waves, where the dust of their forefathers, the kerns and gallowglasses of Innisfail, lay enshrined. The love of these Irish exiles, young and old, for the land of their birth or origin was as intense as it was sublime. No other race in far foreign climes looks back with such a tender gaze or so fondly adores the cradle of its existence as does the Irish. The feeling that prompts them 68 Irish Footprints over Europe. to do so may be laughed at by the cynic and scorned by the mere materialist; but, despite the lessons of the cold philosophy of the age, it is and shall ever remain the noblest of their charac- teristics. Rouen is famous in Irish annals as the spot where the illustrious Irish refugees, O'Neill and O'Donnell, and their followers, resided for some time after having escaped from the persecution of English rule in Ireland. The "goodlie com- panie," as the old chroniclers called them, landed at Quilleboeuf, on the Seine, on the twenty-first day, as Father Meehan tells us, after they lost sight of the headlands of Donegal. When Henry IV., King of France and Navarre, the most courtly gallant and the bravest soldier in Europe,heard of the arrival of the exiles,he asked-- "Is there another soldier in the world but Tyrone and myself?" While O'Neill and his kinsmen were paying their respects to the Governor of Normandy, who received them with the utmost courtesy, the ladies proceeded by boat up the river, the French people, on learning that they were Irish fugitives, being enthusiastic in their regard for the welfare of the band. The English Ambassador, highly wroth at the reception which was accorded the refugees, besought the King to hand them over to him in order to have them transported to England; but, after waiting two days for an audience, his Majesty refused the Englishman's insolent request, and told him that he would not suffer any one on French soil to molest noblemen and gentlemen who were com- pelled to fly their country on account of many and serious grievances. "On the 15th of October, 1607," writes Father Meehan, in his admirable work, "The Flight of the Earls," "O'Neill, the Earl, the ladies, and all their followers set out for Rouen. The whole party consisted of thirty- one who went on horseback and forty on foot. They had two carriages for the ladies, and three wagons to convey their luggage. Before leaving Rouen, whose magnificent churches astonished them, they ascended St. Catherine's Hill, which commands a beautiful prospect of the city. S. . From Rouen they travelled as rapidly as they could to Amiens, where they tarried for some time to visit its great fortifications and the splendid cathedral, where they were shown the head of St. John the Baptist. Their stay there was, however, brief; but all who had heard of their flight and arrival gave them warm welcome and cordial greeting, especially when they learned that the English Ambassador at Paris had done his utmost to get possession of their persons." n previous chapters I have chronicled the triumphal passage of the exiles through Arras, Brussels, Louvain, and other towns. Later on I shall have occasion to speak of them on their arrival in the Eternal City, which was destined to be the term of their wanderings over Europe. The Irish traveller on the Continent would do well to visit Brittany; for there, he might almost say, he will find himself among his own. It seems even as if the climate had caught the infection of race, for on the Breton as on the Irish coast there is a rather decided moisture in the atmosphere unknown in other parts of France, and rains are by no means rare. I have spent some very pleasant weeks in the province, and found the people as genial, as good-natured, and as warm- hearted as if they were "Kindly Irish of the Irish, neither Saxon nor Italian," despite the fact that that melancholy ocean created by the late Lord Beaconsfield out of his own inner conscious- ness pours its eternal wailings into their ears. Brothers of the Irish in that they are Celts, they are a brave and hospitable people. Travelling among them I was surprised to find what I may be permitted to call duplicates of what I had seen years before in Ireland: the hoary cromleach, the ruins of the Druid's altar, and the rings where belts of fire blazed in the long ago to glorify the Sun. Bal and Astarte were worshipped here as they were amid the hills of Innisfail. The great primeval forests, where the Breton Pagans as- sembled, and where, in the whisperings of the breeze through the oak tree and chestnut, they fancied they heard the accents of an unknown divinity, still stud the province. In the humble homesteads beside the crackling fire vanithees tell tales that are told in Ireland even to-day around the welcome turf in the long winter evenings; tales of fairy mythology, in which changelings, fairy men and fairy women, the merrow maiden and merrow man, the Leanhaun Shee and the Leprechaun, wizard knights and Balors of the Evil Eye, figure as shadowy characters; tales of apparitions and fetches of warriors like Finn of Fomosian chiefs, and tales of deeds of mighty prowess which call back to the mind sweet, in- nocent memories of the days of our prattling childhood. The Bretons are, like their forefathers, a vividly imaginative race. They see gorgeous palaces in the piles of roseate clouds that camp above the setting sun in a gorgeous summer's evening. Some of them still believe they her the songs of mermaids by the seashore in the moonlit nights. They cherish with love and fondness all their old legends and traditions, and 69 Irish Footprints over Europe. to such a small extent have they merged their individuality in that of the nation at large that the traveller who has seen the rest of France, and who penetrates into this province for the first time, will ask himself has he crossed any frontier, and looks in vain for custom-house officers to examine his baggage. To their credit be it said, they speak the tongue of their ancestors in all the country districts, as well as, partially though it be, in such towns as Rennes and Nantes. A Press colleague of mine, Baron Platel, the "Ignotus" of the "Figaro," told me on one occasion during my residence in Paris a curious anecdote dealing with the Bretons and the Irish. The Baron was born and reared in a country-house by the Breton sea, and at various times during his boyhood he had opportunities of meeting Irish sailors, who landed at a neighbouring port. "I knew," he said, "by their dress and by their accent that they were foreigners, for I could swear they were neither Bretons nor French. Well, I saw the Breton sailors shake their hands, and I heard them converse together in Gaelic. Off and on, it is true, they failed to comprehend each others' meaning, but on the whole they understood each other with facility. On the first occasion I was so much piqued by curiosity at this extraordinary scene that I asked a bluff old Breton captain who the foreigners were. 'Sacre! sacre!' muttered the veteran sea-dog between his teeth, 'they are not foreigners to us-they are Irish. Their language and ours is almost the same!' " To-day in Paris the Breton colony keeps up its individuality. Its members are represented in the Press by the "Revue Celtique," and they have their monthly Celtic dinners, at which the Deputies and Senators, the essayists and novelists, the Pressmen and poets, the dramatists and painters of Brittany dwell in song and story over the glories, the traditions, the history, and the beauty of that brave old Celtic land from whence they came with light hearts to face the difficulties of life in the streets and on the boulevards of the capital. CHAPTER XVI. A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF PARIS--PEN-AND-IINK SKE/CH OF THE CHARACTERISTICS OF ITS INHABITAN+TS --THE IRISH-AMERCIAN RENDEZVOUS IN THE RUE ROYALE-THE THEATRES AND OPEN-AIR MUSIC HALLS--THE REAL MEANING OF ENTRANCE FREE "-ENROLLED AS A MEMBER OF TRE CLAQUE !-RACE COURSES-ABSINTHE DRINKING OUTSIDE THE CAFES-THE LADIES OPF P:ARIS-THEIR GRACE AND REFINEMENT---THE EIFFEL TOWER. 'ITTLE national vanity is not only not a vice in a people, but it may even be considered a virtue, if in- dulged in or practised within reasonable limits. It is often the incentive to mighty deeds, the creator of sublime feelings, and the very essence of that self-respect without which a nation, like the in- dividual, would be a base and contemptible factor in the world's social economy. The Muscovite can be as proud of his steppes and the Laplander of his snows as the Spaniard is of his olive groves or the Roman of the ruins of his Forum. True enough, this sentiment of national vanity may be cairied to ridiculous excesses, and become under certain circumstances a great absurdity. The Frenchman had up to the fall of the Second Empire an exaggerated national vanity which was near becoming his ruin. The disaster of Sedan, the ignominious capitulation of Metz, and the wholesale defeat of his battalions by the Teuton invaders, opened his eyes to the truth, and chastened him to a very considerable extent indeed. The love of the Frenchman for France MADELEINE CHURCH. is, however, cold enough when compared with the love of the Parisian for Paris. Victor Hugo called the gay capital the brain of France and the heart of the world's fashion and amuse- ment. His city is in the eyes of the average 70 Irish Footprints over Eurpe. Parisian the queen of all cities, as beauteous as Cleopatra, and as prodigal of her favours; the sanctuary of intellect, and the shrine of refine- ment. He may go off to the seaside for a few weeks every summer; he may visit the casinos of Dieppe and Trouville, or pitch his tent in Os- tend; but the hotels which he frequents must be conducted by Parisians; he must be served at table by Parisian waiters, and the theatricals he attends must be carried on by Parisian artistes. Even then he falls a victim to the nostalgy of the boulevards; and it is with a light heart he returns to that happy hunting-ground of his which lies between the Madeleine and the Bas- tille. Like most of his newspapers, he takes only a languid interest in any events occurring outside the fortifications. He would yawn over the details of a big fire in America; but his heart would beat and his eyes would glisten over a re- porter's interview with Woerth, the ladies' tailor, in the Rue de la Paix. The doings and the opinions of Paulus, the music-hall singer, are realised by him with infinite gusto; while a Presidential election in the States or a Nihilist outbreak in Russia are flat, stale, and unprofitable themes, to which he is as indifferent as he is to the financial condition of the Republic of Chili. In fact an item of news recording how Sarah Bern- hardt sprained her ankle, or gravely announcing that the "brave general" did not partake of the morning's cafe au lait with his usual appetite, would pique his curiosity more than the death of an Emperor or a Ministerial crisis in England. Under these circumstances it is no wonder that he should display a profound ignorance of foreign affairs. He is so engrossed with the business of his own city that he has neither the time nor taste to occupy himself with that of the world in general, Yet Paris is, perhaps, the most cosmopolitan of cities. Representatives of all semi-civilised races, and of mostly all civilised ones, rub up their skirts against each other on the boulevards. Here the Russian Prince sips his perfumed wines in the Jockey Club, while his wife and daughters, lolling in an open easy carriage, and smoking dainty Turkish cigarettes, drive up the Champs Elysees, and around the lake in the Bois de Boulogne, where the wealth and fashion of Paris, the "monde" and the "demi-monde," fair circus riders and wrinkled dowager-duchesses, spick-and-span dudes, and elegant marchionesses, gaudily attired adven- turesses and bankers who act as cavaliers, nobles and swindlers, the "':creme de la creme" of Bourbon knightships, and the rag-tag and bob- tail of roguery, in broadcloth and jewellery, con- gregate in all their tinsel finery to admire and be admired, to smirk and bow, and bandy oily platitudes to each other in a Babel of tongues. In Paris one may enter a cafe the proprietor of which is a son of the Alps, and quaff "the little white wine of the Pays de Vaud," a beverage which I never could take without making the wryest of faces, but which nevertheless goes down the average Swiss throat with the mellow sweet- ness of the honey of Hymettus. Elsewhere one may betake himself to a Strasbourg beer-shop, where the ale of the Rhine or the sparkling Bavarian liquid is most patronised by Austrians and Germans; and should you go up the Rue Royale, and peep in at the Irish-American Bar, you will, if you are an Irishman, find yourself among your own, where the smiling face of a Connaughtman beams its welcome upon you from behind the counter, and where Hibernians from all the four provinces, with the patriotic aim of supporting and encouraging home manufacture take an odd glass of Guinness or John Jameson Quite close in the same street, as well as in the streets in the immediate vicinity, are English establishments where the 'Arries, who belong chiefly to the better confraternity, will tickle your ears with the choicest slang, while quaffing beakers of Bass or sipping thimble-full glasses of Old Tom. Lower down along the boulevards are Spanish and Italian, Greek and Hungarian houses, where the dusky children of the South, pas- sionate and fiery as the sun of their native lands, chatter and gesticulate in a manner that would astonish the cooler and unsophisticated native of northern climes. To the pleasure seeker or the epicurean Paris is a bewitching fairyland. Should he be theatrically inclined, he has no less than sixty theatres to choose from, one dozen at least of which are exceedingly well-appointed in decora tion as well as in the superior talents of the troupes; the Comedie Francaise, where Racine and Moliere among the ancient, and Sardou and Dumas among the moderns, delight and inthral the audience; the Odeon, where Francois Coppee holds his own,, and wins the applause of the students; the Grand Opera, where Verdi and Gounod sit, so to speak, enthroned; the Theatre Libre, where the young talent of France, the budding playwrights and comedians of the land, conceive daring and original thoughts, or assume daring and original characters; the tragic and diaphonous Sarah, winsome Judic, Coquelin 71 Irish Footprints over Europe. the elder, clad in the flowing robes, and crowned with the orthodox peruke of one of the doctors of Moliere, Coquelin the younger, the manipulator- in-chief of the monologue, and hosts of others, the more or less admired of the Parisian popula- tion invariably command the admiration of the foreigner as well. In the warm summer evenings, when most of the theatres are closed for the annual holiday, and those that remain open are literal furnaces, the visitor can call in at one of the four or five open-air music-halls in the Champs Elysees and enjoy himself under the shadow of the trees over his coffee, while listen- ing to the songs and beholding the antics of the third-class actors and actresses on the stage. The unwary tourist is, however, generally always "taken in" during his first visit to one of these establishments. Over the rustic gateway his eye catches a signboard with the alluring inscription, "Entree Libre," or entrance free. He goes in unsuspectingly, as does a fly into the spider's parlour, and takes his seat in an arm-chair close to the stage. Shortly afterwards he calls for a cup of coffee or a glass of beer, and having taken off the beverage, he asks the price, and is amazed to be told that the insignificant drink costs two francs and a half. So you see that ".Entrance Free" is a little bit of word-jugglery to deceive the credulous. Many are caught by this seductive signboard. I was hardly a week in Paris when I was pinned and fleeced-financially, of course-- within its precincts. The burnt child dreads the fire with far less intensity than I di eaded that same music-hall for years afterwards throughout those salad days of youth, when the purse was light and the Fates were unpropitious. One evening, however, accompanied by a fellow-countryman, I was passing up the Heavenly Fields, when a fellow suspiciously resembling one of these lank, seedy, bullet-headed Bohemians, who may be found loafing all day long around the doors of third-rate Continental playhouses, approached me, and asked if we would not come into the music- hall-a glass of beer being only sixpence apiece on that particulary evening. My comrade and I, baited by this rosy-coloured tariff, accepted the stranger's proposal; and we soon found ourselves in the midst of as motley a group of poor devils as ever I gazed on, seated at the end of the garden facing the stage, and comprising in all some half-dozen oddities, ill-kempt, ill-clad starvelings, whose hollow cheeks and over-lustrous eyes told of want ad hunger, but whose long flowing locks were proof enough that they belonged to that vast array of artistes who throng the attics and stable lofts of Paris. 'rAnd apropos of the word "artiste," I may be allowed to mention here that it is a more comprehensive term on the banks of the Seine than it is on the banks of the Liffey. The editor of a newspaper is an "artiste," and so is his office-boy; for they both belong to the glorious guild of journalism, which is ranked as one of the fine arts abroad. The operatic star of the period is an "artiste," and so is her clever little maid who looks after her lady's bodice, manipulates her tresses, and tricks her out in gewgaws of paste-jewellery for the evening's per- formanoe. The hall porter of a theatre is an "artiste." Returning to my story, I have to add that when the "prima donna" of the establish- ment, a painted, powdered peice of elderly goods, tripped it lightly over the stage, and bowed to the audience, the stranger, who appeared to be the chief of our group, addressing us in bated whisper, said-"Now, my friends, when I give you the signal to clap, clap; and when I tell you to be mum, be mum!" The features of my brother Irishman, usually very ruddy indeed, grew sickly pale at this revelation. He looked, as Mark Twain would put it, tolerably unwell; but as there was no decent escape from the position in which we found ourselves, we burst out laughing at the idea that we had just become a pair of improvised clappers, members of the confraternity of the "claque;" so we bore up bravely with our lot for the remainder of the evening, and grinned. On retiring to rest at midnight, we found the palms of our hands as purple as the robes of kings! Having said so much of the Parisian, my fair readers may ask if I have nothing to say of the "Parisienne." Well, the more interesting por- tion of humanity is practically the same all the world over--be its representative the snow- slkinned maid of the North, or the dusky quadroon of the South. Nigger women alone must take a back seat in the gallery; yet I dare say there are nigger men who consider these mates of theirs handsome, for there are peculiar people about who can see a thing of beauty in the brow of Egypt. The Parisienne is, generally speaking, a willowy lady, whose features, though somewhat pale, incline to a mild olive tint; whose hands and feet are cocuettishly small, and whose toilette is always in harmony with the latest vogue of fashion. She of all others knows the practical art of dress to perfection. Whether it be the "grande dame" of the Faubourg, in whose Vene- tian laces is enshrined much of the balm of Araby, or the winsome little shop-girl with the laughing eyes and the slightly retrousse nose, the 72 Irish Footprints over Europe. Parisienne may well bear off the cake for taste and distinction of manners. Her gait is poetically graceful. Unlike some awkward English girls, who usually take elephantine strides while "doing" the boulevards, she barely puts one foot before the other in a promenade, and nevertheless glides briskly along like a swan or a dream of walking music. In society she is a siren of sirens in polish of deportment, although in many cases she has little of the serpent in her frank, generous nature. Her conversation is sparkling and witty -that is to say, if she be privileged to take part in a conversation; for if she be a spinster, she must curb her tongue and nurse its undeveloped powers until she can exercise it on the husband who is selected for her. Married ladies and widows, however, have no such muzzles on their fair lips; and they talk and talk of everything under the sun, from the latest Ministerial crisis to the cut of the latest bonnet, discussing as they go on the last play written by Dumas or the last novel penned by Daudet, the best costumes of the Diva Bernhardt, and the tenderest sonnets of the poet Coppee, never dealing with any subject pro- foundly, but touching it on the surface with a native delicacy peculiarly their own. I am not, however, in a mood to pile virtue after virtue on the pretty head of the Parisienne. All over Europe, and across the big fish pond may, per- haps, be found the same idyllic woman-that: sweet seraphic creature who has all of the angel in her save the wings; and I do not know that the daughters of Paris can legitimately presume to possess a monopoly of the perfections of the sex. CHAPTER XVII. FIACHRA, AN IRISHMAN, THE PATRON OF THE JEHUS OF PARIS-HIS MISSIONARY LABOURS IN THAT CITY-DUNS SCOTUS AT THE SORBONNE-HIS TRAGIC DEATH IN COLOGNE--IRISH STUDENTS IN THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS---DR. MICHAEL MOORE, OF DUBLIN, RECTOR OF THE SORBONNE -KEATING, MACGEOGHEGAN, AND ITS OTHER ALUMNI-THE PLACE DE GREVE, WHERE THE GALLANT COUNT LALLY TOLLENDAL WAS EXECUTED--HE MEETS HIS DEATH AS A SOLDIER AND AN IRISHMAN. NE of the earliest Irish exiles in Paris was St. Fiachra. The exact time in which this holy man was prosecuting his mis- sionary labours on the banks of the Seine is not known nor can it be as- certained. It is, how- ever, certain that it must have been somewhere near the close of the fifth century. Many of my readers will, I daresay, be astonished to learn that Fiachra, the Irishman, was the patron saint of the cabbies of Paris. At an age when scepticism was unknown,and long before Diderot and Voltaire produced their Encyclopedia, St. Fiachra had his shrine, and was duly honoured by the Jehus of the big city. Now the veneration for the Saint is not so marked, but it is nevertheless profound. The "cochers," who call their vehicles "fiacres," in honour of the Irish missionary, meet here and there in groups on the Saint's day, and celebrate his anniversary as best they can. The record of St. Fiachra's labours on behalf of Christianity in Gaul is meagre enough. All that is known of him in exile is that he spent most of his time in Paris, then a small town, spreading over a little island in the Seine, on which Notre Dame now stands, and the adjoining quays; and that he was distinguished for his extraordinary zeal and piety. In regard to his previous career in Ireland, it may be mentioned that he was Abbot of Conwall, or Conbhail, in the barony of Kilmacrenan, and that he built a church near Kilkenny called after him Killifiachra, a sacred edifice which was sub- sequently dedicated to his memory. It is said that he was also Abbot of Clonard. Touching his birthplace, one of his biographers gives it as Idrone, on the banks of the river Barrow, and tells us that he died in or about the year 600. The Irishman who visits the Latin Quarter of Paris, and who catches a glimpse of the far-famed Sorbonne, will inevitably be reminded of Duns Scotus, although, of course, the building in which that eminent theologian pontificated has long since ceased to exist. The name of the Sorbonne itself will, however, remain imperishably con- nected with that of the celebrated Duns. 73 Irish Footprints over Europe. Cities, we are told, contended for the honour of claiming Homer as one of their denizens, although while Homer lived they gave him a stone when he asked for bread. Nations quarrel over the glory of having given birth to Scotus. English- men assert that the famous divine belonged to their own nationality; Scotchmen would have us believe that he was a son of the land o' cakes; while Irishmen stoutly protest that he was a true- born Milesian. One eminent authority says that he was a native of Dunse, in Berwickshire, and goes the length of stating that the ruins of the old homestead in which he first saw the light can still be pointed out in that locality ! According to the Irish version of his life, Duns Scotus was born at Thalhmon, or Taghmon, in the present county of Wexford, although there are some who would give Downpatrick credit for having been his birthplace. Nearly all versions agree on the point that he was educated in England, and was for some time a professor in one of the learned institutions of that country. He proceeded from thence to Paris, and defended in the Sorbonne, before the theological magnates of that day, in a public thesis, the Immaculate Conception of Mary. This disputation continued for over a week, in the course of which Scotus demolished no less than 2,000 objections to his theory, and came triumphantly out of the ordeal. The worth and solidity of his arguments made a lasting impres- sion on the theology of the Catholic Church-so much so, in fact, that the doctrine he propounded towards the close of the thirteenth century was solemnly proclaimed a dogma of the Catholic Community in the nineteenth. His success was so great that he was immediately nominated professor of the university, and from his curule chair by the Seine he as ardently defended his own theological opinions as he combatted those of the Thomists. A writer who assisted at his lectures in the Sorbonne says that he "resolved the knottiest syllogisms of his adversaries as Samson did the bands of Dalilah"-the result being that he converted the leading lights of the university and its thousands of students to his own theories. His cheese-paring logical dis- crimination eventually won him the title of the "subtle doctor." In 1318 he was sent to Cologne to found a university, and on reaching that city he was met by the inhabitants and carried on their shoulders to the cathedral. His name and fame spread all over Europe, and the schools applauded him as the most learned of professors. After having spent several years in the new university Duns Scotus died in a rather strange manner. Attacked one day with a stroke of apoplexy, he was buried alive, and, when later on his coffin wa& opened, the analysts who saw his remains stated their conviction that he must have knocked out his brains against the lid. A facetious chronicler of the day said that he well deserved the title of "subtle," his subtlety having commenced before his birth, for no one has yet been able to track him to his first appearance in our world, and having ended in the bosom of mother earth, where he would not give his fellow men the satis- faction of knowing at what precise moment he passed away. Some centuries afterwards Luke Wadding collected and published in several volumes the writings of this illustrious scholar. Many Irishmen received their educational train- ing within the walls of the Sorbonne. Throughout the Penal Days the number of Hibernian students was particularly large. Shortly after Duns Scotus departed from Paris, Thomas Palmer, usually styled Thomas Hibernicus, became a Fellow of the University, and subsequently a pro- fessor of theology. One of the rectors of the University was Michael Moore, a native of Bridge- street, Dublin, who rose to that high rank by the sheer force of talent and merit. Michael Moore having received a good classical educational at home, repaired to France, where he commenced his ecclesiastical studies in the Irish College of Nantes. He subsequently proceeded to Paris, where he concluded his education course, and, having returned to Ireland, was in due course of time ordained a priest by Luke Wadding, Bishop of Ferns. His zeal and ability proved to be so remarkable that he was soon promoted to the position of Prebendary of Tymothan and Vicar- General of Dublin. Owing, however, to the fact that it was practically impossible for him, in fact of the religious persecution that was raging all around, to fulfil his priestly functions in the capital, he was compelled to exile himself once more, and settled down in Paris, where he forced the doors of the most eclectic social salons, held converse with the titled magnates and literary men of the day, and won the esteem and friendship of Cardinal Noailles, that great ecclesiastic of whom it is written that "he loved what was good and did it." His Eminence encouraged the Irish priest in his career, and viewed with the utmost satisfaction his appointment to the chair of Greek, Hebrew, and Philosophy in the Sorbonne, and his subsequent elevation to the presidency of the College of Navarre and rectorship of the University of Paris. Thus it happened that the two greatest universities of the Middle Ages were at one time 74 Irish Footprints over Europe. governed by Irishmen--Louvain by Dr. Stapleton, of Tipperary, and the Sorbonne by Dr. Moore, of Dublin. It may be added that Pope Innocent XII. was so well pleased with Dr. Moore's rector- ship that he made a donation of two thousand crowns a year to the institution. His Holiness Clement XI. esteemed Moore so highly that he placed one of his nephews under his tuition. Though honours of which any man might legiti- mately feel proud were being showered upon him in the land of his adoption, his heart remained unalterably attached to the land of his birth. He was most assiduous in looking after the welfare of the Irish students in Paris. After many years spent in useful labours the venerable scholar died in the College of Navarre on the 22nd of August, 1726, and his remains were interred in the chapel of the old Irish College, an establishment to which he bequeathed his valuable library. Dr. Moore was not only a distinguished professor, but also an erudite and successful author, several of his works written in Latin and French being still treasured in ecclesiastical seminal ies Another prominent Irish 'alumnus" of the Sorbonne was Cornelius Nary, of the county of Kildare. Young Nary received his early classical education at a hedge school in Naas. After having been raised to the priesthood by Dr. James Phelan, Bishop of Ossory, he proceeded to Paris, where, according to a contemporary writer, his transcendent talents, enhanced by unremitted application, soon opened the way for literary honours. In 1694 he acquired superior distinc- tion as a canonist, and took out a degree of Doctor of Laws in the University of Paris., On securing this diploma he resolved to return to Ireland to pursue his missionary labours in that country; but on his arrival in London he was persuaded by his friends to accept in that city the post of chaplain to the Earl of Antrim. He, however, threw up this position shortly afterwards, and proceeded to Dublin, where he was appointed to the charge of the parish of St. Michan's. Dr. Nary soon became one of the most eminent con- troversialists of the age. "During the registra- tion of 1704," writes a contemporary chronicler, "Dr. Nary clung with the affection of a father to his flock; he was one of the 1,080 priests who submitted to the process of that penal ordeal, his sureties on that occasion being Nicholas Lincoln, in Capel-street, and John Butler, of Ormond-quay. This learned and truly-beloved pastor continued unmolested in the government of the parish until his death, which occurred on the 3rd of March, 1738." Among the other distinguished "alumni" of Paris may be mentioned Thomas Messingham the author of a "Garland of Irish Saints;" John Macgeoghegan, who wrote a "History of Ireland," which John Mitchel has brought down to our own day; Malachi O' Queely, the friend of John Colgan, and author of a learned dissertation on the islands of Arran; Geoffrey Keating and Sylvester O'Halloran, the celebrated historians; Neil O'Glacan, first among physicians; and Dr. William Coppinger, the apostle of asceticism. "The Sorbonne is situated quite close to the Cluny Museum, off the Boulevard St. Michel, and was originally founded for sixteen poor students by the Chevalier Robert de Sorbonne, from whom it took its name. Small at first, it gradually assumed larger and larger proportions, till it became the standard school for theology and canon law, while the disputations that took place within its walls swayed to a certain extent the Church in France, and gave it that Gallican tinge which only wholly disappeared a short time ago. The existing edifice was built by Cardinal Richelieu; but since 1853 modern wings have been added, and very little of the original remains. For several hundred years it was exclusively the seat of philosophy and theology. Since the Revolution, however, the sciences and letters have been added to its programme, three of the five faculties of the Academy of Paris being in the hands of its directing committee. The University contains very spacious lecture and anatomy halls, a splendid museum of national history, and a library of some 100,000 volumes. The church attached to the University is visited by the tourist chiefly for the purpose of seeing the tomb where the illustrious Richelieu sleeps his last sleep. It may be interesting to know, in con- clusion, that there are still Irish associations clustering around the Sorbonne. In the roll of its students one meets Irish names belonging either to the descendants of the old Irish Brigade, Irish-Americans, or natives of Ireland who are preparing for the law, medicine, or engineering. Some eminent Irish professional men in Paris took out their degrees in the establishment; and although, of course, it has lost, through the force of competition, much of its early pomp and eclat, the examinations within its precincts are severe enough, and qualification for a degree is extremely difficult. Not very far from the Sorbonne the traveller happens on the Conciergerie and the Place de Greve, associated with the memory of an Irish- man, C ount Lally Tollendal, one of the heroes of 75 Irish Footprints over Europe. Fontenoy. It was in the Conciergerie where Lally spent the last weeks of his life, and it was in the Place de Greve where he was executed. Never was there a more atrocious stigma on the escutcheon of any Government than such an execu- tion. Lally had won undying glory at Fontenoy; he had spent his youth and manhood in the service of France, not only in Europe but in the West Indies, and France rewarded the gallant soldier by delivering him up to the executioner's axe. On the trumpery charge brought against him of treason to the king I shall have occasion to speak in my next chapter. Here it is only necessary to enter into a few details concerning his death. Sentence of capital punishment having been passed upon him by partisan judges, and the Crown having refused to interfere, Lally, who had been previously imprisoned in the Bastile, was transferred to the Conciergerie, where common criminals were confined. " On hearing of the unjust doom," writes a contemporary historian, "Lally specially denounced as utterly false the allegation of his having betrayed the interests of the king, and naturally devoted, in the strongest terms of indignant despair, the political and legal authors of his uamerited destruction to general execration here and Divine vengeance hereafter. Then, seeming to recover from this vehement outburst of passion, and pacing to and fro for some time, while directing one hand beneath his dress towards his heart, and with the other seeking a pair of compasses he had been using for geographical purposes, he affected to kneel down as if to pray, and suddenly attempted to wound himself mortally with the instrument, which penetrated four inches, but without effecting his object. He was, of course, not allowed to repeat the blow; and the blood-stained compasses were handed to the venerable Aubrey, cure of the parish of St. Louis, who did his utmost to console the General." Though he stabbed himself as a hero, he repented as a Christian. Despite the fact that the king gave instructions that every respect should be shown him in his last moments, it was decided that his execution should take place by day; that the prisoner before quitting the jail for the scaffold should have his mouth secured by a gag to prevent him from speaking, and that he should be conveyed to the Place de Greve in a common executioner's cart. At half-past four in the afternoon of the 10th of May, 1766, he was gagged and conveyed to the square. Among the crowd who assembled on the occasion were many of his enemies, who clapped their hands with joy over the scene, and otherwise conducted them- selves, as Horace Walpole put it, in a manner only worthy of so many Iroquois, prisoner-tormentors, or barbarians. "At five o'clock," writes one of his biographers, "on the arrival of the vehicle in which was Lally, he got out, and, assisting the chaplain to mount the scaffold, ascended it with the firmness of a soldier, in the presence of an immense assemblage, not merely of the mob and of trades- people, but of all the military men and all the Court. Then, walking around the scaffold. to draw, apparently, the more attention to the gag which prevented his speaking, and raising his hand to Heaven as taking it to witness his innocence, the dying veteran submitted his neck to the executioner, by whom his head was severed from the body with two strokes, in the sixty-fifth year of his age." So perished the gallant Lally, "by the combined villainy of the peculator, the politician, and the lawyer, in an age, as regards France, of a putrid colonial and a putrefying national morality too clearly symptomatic of the terrible Revolution which in less than thirty years was to lay the whole of the then existing political and social system of that country in ruins." The Place de Greve, where this judicial murder of an illustrious Irishman took place, was the large square in front of the old Hotel de Ville. From time immemorial executions were the order of the day on that fatal spot. It was here, too, that the first victims of the Revolutionary terror were swung up to lamp irons and hurled into eternity. Since the demolition of the old houses on its northern and western sides, ncthing now, how- ever, remains of the Place de Greve save its site. ___ __ 76 Irish Footprints over Europe. CHAPTER XVIII. THE TOLLENDAL FAMILY ORIGINALLY OF LOUGHREA--SIR GERARD LALLY--HIS MARRIAGE WITH A FRENCH BRUNETTE-COUNT LALLY'S EARLY LIFE-AS A BOY HE MOUNTS THE BREACH OF DBARCELONA-HIS SECRET MISSION TO THE RUSSIAN COURT, WHERE HE INTERVIEWS DE LACY OF BALLINGARRY-HIS CAREER IN INDIA-HIS HATRED OF ENGLAND-VOLTAIRE DEFENDS HIhM AGAINST THE CALUMNIES OF HIS ENEMIES-FRANCE MAKES REPARATION TO HIS SON FOR THE FATHER'S BRUTAL MURDER-THE LAST OF THE LALLYS-A WONDERFUL ODYSSEY. OUNT THOMAS ARTHUR LALLY, who was thus beheaded in the Place de Greve, belonged to a very old Irish family. The Lallys were originally the - '.O'Maoilalaidh or O'Mull- allys; but in the course of 'time the name was abbreviated for convenience rake. The Lallys were chieftains of the district lying around the present town of Loughrea, ex- tending from the mountain of Aughtee, in the south, to the barony of Longford, in the east. These Milesian magnates were beloved by their clans, and never had Feach M'Hugh O'Byrne, of Wicklow, or MacCarthy Mor, of Cork, more faith- ful kerns and gallowglasses than they. The Lallys held their ground for some time after the Anglo- Norman invasion. Eventually, however, they were compelled to retire to Tuam, where they installed themselves in the Castle of Tulach-na- Dala. Throughout the seventeenth century they fought with the people for what was then con- sidered to be the people's cause. King James found in the head of the family--who, by-the- bye, was the father of the subject of our present sketch-one of his bravest and staunchest sup- porters. With the Treaty of Limerick the Lallys -comprising five brothers in all in the direct line -set sail for France and took service under the Bourbon Lilies. The eldest of these, Sir Gerard Lally, received on landing hearty hospitality in the chateau of the Marquis de Bressac, where he remained for several months, forgetting for the moment his pangs of exile and his military ambition in presence of the dark eyes of his host's daughter, a bewitching brunette, who was by no means very eager to repel his soft advances. Lally, who was an officer of superior merit, and a comely and a comparatively young man, soon 'ade such a favourable impression on the French girl's heart that he was permitted by her to pro- pose for her hand to the Marquis. The old Bourbon,after carefully examining the parchments of the family of Lally Tollendal, and satisfying himself that the Lallys had as much noble ichor in their veins as he had himself, graciously vouch- safed to become the Irishman's father-in-law; and the nuptials took place shortly afterwards amid considerable pomp and eclat. The eldest son of this marriage was the ill-fated Count Lally, whose death was recorded in the last chapter. He was born in Romans, Dauphine, in 1702, while his father was commanding the Lally Regiment in the Irish Brigade. When only five years old young Lally was brought to the camp of the Irish Brigade, in order, as his father said, that he should at least smell powder before being raised to the rank of corporal. At the age of twelve he mounted the breach of Barcelona side by side with his gallant sire, after which feat he was sent back to college, where he passed through a very successful curriculum, having become, in particular, a thorough adept in Con- tinental languages. In February, 1728, he waa gazetted full captain in Dillon's Regiment, and took part in various campaigns, distinguishing himself on every occasion by his military tact and personal intrepidity. In 1737, the year after his father's death, he proceeded to England, ,Scotland, and Ireland, in order to discover if there was any possibility of a general uprising in favour of James II.'s son, to whom he was as devotedly attached as was Sir Gerard to Shemus. Having satisfied himself that there were thousands of Jacobites still in Ireland and Scotland, he hastened back to the Continent, and put himself in communication with the Pretender, advising the latter to allow him to proceed to Russia, where the Peter Lacy, of the family of the Ballingary Lacys held the very exalted rank of Field Marshal, and whose sympa- Irish Footprints over Europe. thies were well known to be on the side of the Jacobites. The Pretender having consented to this arrangement, Lally was about to proceed on his journey, when Cardinal Fleury approached him, and gave him instructions to do all in his power at St. Petersburg to detach Russia from her alliance with England, and induce her to join hands with France. Lally accepted the mission with much alacrity, and soon reached the Court of the Empress Anne, into whose good favour he soon ingratiated himself, with such success that the alliance between Frank and Muscovite would have become an accomplished fact were it not for the unfortunate vacillation of the Cardinal. Field Marshal Lacy and the Sobieskis, in view of his Eminence's attitude, could not see their way to do anything just then for the Stuarts; and the consequence was that Lally returned to France determined to enter the _National service once more. Nominated Major of the Regiment of Dillon in 1741, Lally joined in the various cam- paigns that took place, and, as we have already explained, was chiefly instrumental in turning the tide at Fontenoy against the Dutch and the English. Several years afterwards he was ennobled for his services by letters patent as Earl of Moenmoye, Viscount of Ballymote, and Baron of Tollendally; and at the siege of Santlivet, having been instructed to dislodge the Dutch from that fort, he rushed at the head of the troops through the trenches, and, having been wounded on more occasions than one,was almost swallowed up in a mine laid for him by the enemy. He was, however, eventually victorious in his attack, and well merited the encomium passed upon him by no friendly English chronicler, who said that he was taken such notice of throughout the siege as to be esteemed one of the best soldiers in all France. A general European peace having been pro- claimed by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle on October 18, 1748, Lally was for some time forced to repose on his laurels. He was once more called into action in 1756, when the Prime Minister was approached by a deputation from the French East India Company, begging of him to send out Lally to look after French interests in that portion of the world. "Our company," they said, "plunged as it is in demoralisation, requires an able man to set matters right, and Lally is such a man." Tl,, Prime Minister replied to the effect that the Irishman was too much a man of honour and action to be diplomatically discreet amidst such surroundings. The deputation, however, having insisted on his appointment, the King signed his nomination, and gazetted him Lieutenant-General and Commander-in-Chief of all the French establishments in the East Indies. Having re- ceived instructions to put down abuses of all kinds in his new sphere of labour, Lally, at the headx of over two thousand men and a small fleet, set sail from Brest in May, 1757, for the coast of Coromandel, which he did not reach for eleven months afterwards, owing to contrary winds as well as to sickness on board. Lally, on landing, determined immediately on reforming the French. administration in Pondicherry. His enthusiastic desire, however, was to sweep the English, bag and baggage, from India, by reducing Madras and recruiting on his side an army of Sepoys. This desire on his part is intelligible enough. He would not have had the grit or passion of the true man in him if he did not hate and detest the power which was grinding down with unprece- dented barbarity his hapless fellow-countrymen at home. In a communication to the Paris authorities, he said :-"All my policy is in these five words-' No English in the Peninsula.' " The Irishman who met his foes so valiantly at Fontenoy was to meet them once more under In- dian skies. He found on his arrival that the financial affairs of the French Company were de- plorable; that that body was up to its ears in debt, and that it was chiefly composed of knaves and sharpers, whose only object was to enrich themselves on the general spoil. He was,' how- ever, a brave man, and was determined to do his duty. He accordingly mustered as many soldiers around him as possible, marched on Cuddalore, and having taken that town by storm, captured the Fort St. David as well, and returned in triumph to Pondicherry. Shortly afterwards he headed an expedition against the Rajah of Tanjore, to enforce payment of a bond in the Company's possession for 5,600,000 rupees. Colonel O'Kennedy, one of Lally's officers, entered the town to negotiate the matter with the Indian dignitary; but unfortunately at that precise moment news reached Lally that the French Admiral was about to leave the Indian coast for the Isle of France, whereupon a general retreat was made to Pondicherry, where the Admiral was found to persist in his determination, and did actually carry it out. The limits of space prevent me from recounting Lally's subsequent capture of Madras, his siege of Fort St. George, his with- drawal from that town before overwhelming English reinforcements and the base intrigues against him in Pondicherry. I cannot, however, refrain from quoting a letter of his to the Prime 78 Irish Footprints over Europe. Minister, in which he depicts his situation in India in the following harrowing passage :--"I have not yet beheld the shadow of an honest man here. In the name of God, withdraw me from this country, for which I am not made. Hell has vomited me into this land of iniquities, and I wait, like Jonas, for the whale." The most remarkable feature about the entire situation in India was that the opposing forces, the French and English, who were snarling at each other's heels for the golden spoils, were commanded by two Irishmen. While Lally was the French Generalissimo, Colonel Coote, of Limerick, and a relative of Lord Carberry by marriage, hap- pened to be at the head of the British ! And to do Coote all due justice, here is what he says of his opponent:-"Nobody has a higher idea than I have of General Lally, who, to my knowledge, has struggled against obstacles which I believed unconquerable, and has conquered them. Nobody at the same time is more his enemy than I, as seeing him achieve what he has achieved to the prejudice of my nation." Coote's superior numbers, and the utterly de- moralised condition of the French troops, at last, however, prevailed ; Pondicherry was captured,and Lally was taken prisoner by the English, and conveyed to Madras. Voltaire, to whose credit, at least, be it said that he was one of Lally's most outspoken champions, speaking of the manner in which the English treated their captive, says:-"'Owing to a dangerous illness from which he was suffering, Lally requested that his departure for England should be post- poned, but the authorities turned a deaf ear to his appeal. A day or two afterwards they carried him by force into a merchant vessel, the captain wf which treated him with inhumanity throughout the entire voyage. He was granted no comfort beyond pork broth. This English captain be- lieved that it was in this manner an Irishman in the service of France should be treated!" Lally arrived in London in due time, and was in the course of a few weeks released on parole. Having crossed the Channel, he visited one of his old friends and compatriots, Robert M'Carthy, Earl of Clancarty, who had taken up his residence in Boulogne-sur-Mer. M'Carthy attempted to dis- suade Lally from proceeding to Paris, as public opinion, he said, was being very actively worked up against him by his enemies in that city; but the Irishman was on that account all the more eager to face his foes and defy them. His chivalry in this instance eventually cost him his life. He was arrested and immured in the Bastille for almost four years as a "suspect;" and when his trial before a commission of civil judges on the charge of high treason was decided on, Lally pro- tested against such a tribunal. "As a soldier," he exclaimed, "I demand to be tried by court- martial." This justice even was denied him; and all hope of his being saved was given up when the death was announced of the fair, petted favourite of Louis XV. Madame de Pompadour, the celebrated court beauty, who was the left- hand queen of that monarch, entertained the utmost sympathy for the brave Irishman, and as the feeble sovereign was as clay in the potter's hands in those of the clever and seductive Pompadour, it was generally considered that he would never sign a decree for Lally's decapitation. His mistress would have snatched the goosequill from the king's grasp, and might, perhaps, have administered a sound chastisement to the royal hide, if he dared to do so. Unfortunately, how- ever, for Lally, Madame de Pompadour fell into indifferent health, and died, leaving Louis XV. in the unscrupulous hands of his Premier, the Duke of Choiseul, who detested the Irishman with all the gall and venom of his petty saturnine nature. The brutal execution of Lally took place shortly afterwards, and created widespread disgust among the Irish battalions in the service of France. Colonel Butler, a very brave and devoted Franco- Irish soldier, was so much affected by the injustice done to his gallant countryman that, appearing at the head of his regiment, he took the cockade from his hat and indignantly trampled it under foot, solemnly swearing that he would never more serve a king or a people who with such ingrati- tude so ungenerously sacrificed his friend and countryman, the brave Count Lally. Butler kept his word, and shook the dust of France from his feet, followed by a score or so of other Irish officers, who were equally disgusted with the atrocity of this judicial murder. There are even English writers who have done justice to Lally's spotless integrity. John Stuart Mill says of him:-" Nothing whatsoever was proved except that his conduct did not come up to the very perfection of prudence and wisdom, and that it did display the greatest ardour in the service, the greatest disinterestedness,fidelity, and perseverance, with no common share of military talent and of mental resources." A day was soon to come, however, when Lally's character would be rehabilitated. Before his death he wrote a solemn letter to his son, then a boy in college, en, joining on him, for the sake of Ireland and the family honour of the Tollendals, to vindicate his 79 Irish Footprints over Europe. father's memory. And well and successfully did the boy carry out this dying wish, once he reached manhood's estate. In 1777 young Lally, having collected all the necessary evidence, published a memoir in which he refuted the base calumnies that had been so sedulously put in circulation against his sire. So great was the effect of this publication that Louis XVI., in council and by the unanimous opinions of the magistrates, and for reasons equally demonstrating the injustice and the illegality of the fatal sentence passed twelve years previously, pronounced that sentence of no authority, and publicly cancelled it. In this manner was Lally's memory vindicated, and all possible reparation made to his son. On the promulgation of the Royal decree, Voltaire, who had defended Lally in the darkest hour, and who had branded his death as " a murder committed with the sword of justice," happened to be lying on his deathbed in Paris. On May the 26th, 1778, four days before his decease, the old man wrote to the Count's son to congratulate him on the success of his labour of filial love. " The dying man revives," he writes, "on learning this great news. He embraces very tenderly M. de Lally. He sees that the king is the defender of justice. He will now die content." Young Lally turned out to be more of a student and politician than a soldier. He was created Marquis of Lally Tollendal, Peer of France, was on several occasions Minister of State, and died in March, 1830, a member of the Royal Academy of France. As he left behind him no male issue, the title, through special privilege, passed into the hands of the Count d'Aux, who had some years previously married Lally's only daughter, Elizabeth Claude de Lally Tollendal. The Count, however, declined the honours secured him through his spouse, and so the grand, proud name of Lally Tollendal exists no longer on the Continent. The descendants of the Aux family keep, nevertheless, in their pos- session all the heirlooms and memorials of the famous Irish family, which had become incor- porated in theirs by the Count's nuptials with Mademoiselle de Tollendal. And so ended this wonderful odyssey. I have dwelt so long on the eventful career and tragic death of Count Lally Tollendal for the very good reason that he was perhaps the most remarkable Irishman who won his spurs beneath Continental skies. Tried in the crucible, he has come out as' pure as refined gold. He was as brave, as ardent,. and as devoted a soldier as ever drew sword for the Lilies of France.. Thanks to his military talent, Fontenoy did not become for France what Waterloo afterwards became-a field of shame and disaster. He did his best to save the East Indies for his king. He indulged in the dazzling dream of hoisting the Bourbon banner over Cashmere, and bringing the banks of the Ganges under the rule of Versailles. With the irrepressible hatred. of England strong in his soul, he aimed at driving the English troops from a land on which they had become leeches, and he hopefully looked forward to the day when the Hindoo would smeke the pipe of peace under his fig-tree, and be the happy citizen of a happy State, governed by a friendly Power, instead of being the victim of British adventurers and British stockbrokers. If he failed in realising these ambitious projects, it was through no fault of his own. Harassed and worried by the French East India Company, dis- couraged by the corruption which he discovered in administrative circles, and left with a mere handful of men to battle against overwhelming numbers of British troops, he had to give up the struggle, and allow England to put the Indian Continent and all its swag into her capacious wallet. Accused of treason, he was forced to die a traitor's death. The king and the magistrates of hir adopted country vindicated his memory in after years by cancelling such a monstrous accusation. And thus it happened that in his person the honour and integrity of the old Irish race were. done justice to, and acknowledged by the very men who treated Lally to the guillotine in the Place de Greve twelve years previously. __ .5 0 Irish Footprints over Europe. 81 CHAPTER XIX. SAINT GERMAIN, THE HOME OF IRISH JACOBITE EXILES--THE PALACE WHERE THEY HAD THEIR SOIREES-RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN'S ELOPEMENT WITH A FAIR SINGER-SHERIDAN AND LADY PAMELA FITZGERALD-MISS IARIA EDGEWORTH, THE IRISH NOVELIST, IN PARIS-HER FATHER' S EXPULSION FROM PARIS-HER RELATIVE, THE ABBE EDGEWORTH, AT THE EXECU- TION OF LOUIS XVI.--HIS 'CAREER AND DEATH-LADY HUTCHINSON AND ROBESPIERRE- SHEARES IN THE FRENCH CAPITAL. T. GERMAIN, one of the suburbs of Paris, was for many.::ears the home of - illustrious Irish exiles, for here, in the Palace of the Ca Bourbons, James II., after the disaster of the Boyne, held his court, and was surrounded on state occasions by many of the veterans who fought his battles in Ireland, and who clung to him even more closely in the even- ing of his life, when there was no longer any serious hope of re-establishing the Stuart dynasty. The Dillons and the M'Carthys, the O'Neills and the O'Donnells were among James's cavaliers in St. Germain; and here in the court balls officers of the Irish Brigade out for a holiday would be seen tripping through the minuet with the win- some daughters of France. In these gilded halls, under the subdued light of waxen tapers ensconced in the candelabra overhead, "eyes looked love to eyes that spoke again," and matrimonial alliances were settled whereby many a French lass ex- changed her Gallic name for one bearing the stamp of an "0" or "Mac." This palace was, however, no Capuan retreat for Ireland's exiled officers. The aged amongst them resided here continuously; but those in active service could only visit it once or twice during the year, save in time of peace or public tranquillity. St. Germain can be reached from the St. Lazare Station, and is situated some fourteen miles from Paris, on the left bank of the Seine. Standing on an eminence it commands a very fine view of the city. The chateau so intimately associated with Irish souvenirs can still be visited by the tourist, who will find himself deeply interested while ex- ploring the wonders of its museum. It was once the Palace of the Kings of France. Louis XIV., however, grew weary of the town, and transferred his household gods to Versailles on his way to St. Denis, where the royalties of the land now repose in the rigid dignity of death. The rooms are still pointed out where Shemus used to pass his moody hours away, walking with bent frame and tottering footsteps along the oaken floor, and sighing still for the golden bauble of kingship which was never again to come into his possession. Here, too, are chambers sacred to the memory of his unfortunate son the Pretender, who wasted / his life away in hunting a shadow and in dream- ing Utopian dreams. The chateau itself is of brick- work, and is surrounded / by wide and deep ditches arched by picturesque bridges. The apartments are very handsome, and, BRINDSLEY SHERIDAN. possessing as they do an historic interest, are always visited by the intelligent traveller. St. Germain, I may add, is now a favourite summer residence of the Parisian. It is, in other words, the Monte Carlo of the dog-days, when its southern prototype, sweltering under the torrid rays of a July sun, is deserted for the cooler climes of the North. Nature and Art have combined to embel- lish the romantic spot. Like Versailles, it has a decidedly Old World air about it. Its edifices, dating back to the Middle Ages, recall the glories of the past to the mind's eye, while its magnifi- cent forest, some five thousand square acres in extent, the marvellous terrace of Leonora, and the Pavilion of Henri IV. make it a thing of beauty and a joy for ever. To the Irishman who finds himself in Paris, St. Germain ought to be in itself a treasure-trove. Before the Revolution Paris was for a time the residence of some of our Irish notabilities of that day. The first of these was Richard Brinsley Sheridan, of Dorset-street, Dublin, the wonder- ful but erratic genius, who rose to be one of the Irish Footprints over Europe. leading orators and dramatists in England. Sheridan's first visit to France was made under rather romantic circumstances. Sheridan at the time had not long left Whyte's learned academy in Grafton-street. He had just only settled down in London when he met and fell in love with Miss Linley, a beautiful young singer of some sixteen summers, in whose honour he used to indite many an amorous poem, full of the fire and en- thusiasm of youth. It was of this bewitching cantatrice he wrote the following verse, which has, by-the-by, a refreshing frankness peculiarly its own: When blest with the smiles of my fair I know not how much I adore, Those smiles let another but share And I wonder I prized them no more. Then whence can I hope for relief for my woe When the falser she seems still the fonder I grow. When the poet and the fair singer met the latter had already been betrothed to an old fogey of some means-a certain Mr. Halhead, who, despite the snows of age, worshipped the very ground an which she trod. Seeing, however, that she conceived a passionate attachment for Sheri- dan, the elderly suitor, with a generosity and self-sacrifice worthy of a Roman, abandoned all claim to the lady's hand, and settled the sum of �3,000 on her. Her parents, being of the worldly- wise class, and entertaining a deep-rooted aver- aion to giving their daughter to a dare-devil Bohamian like Sheridan, the Irishman decided on making her his wife despite all opposition. With this object he bore her off to Calais, where the interesting couple were married in March, 1772. They proceeded from Calais to Paris, and resided for some time in the French capital, living rather luxuriously on Mr. Halhead's handsome allow- ance. On their return to England Sheridan for- bade his wife to reappear on the stage. The nightingale wished to sing, but the nightingale's owner was inflexible in his determination that she should not sing save in her own house and among her own friends. Mrs. Sheridan was a very ambitious woman, and felt the restraint very severely-the result being that the marriage turned out to be a comparative failure. She died, however, in 1792, and some five months afterwards we find Sheridan ingratiating himself into the favours of Madame de Genlis, with the view of obtaining the hand of Pamela, that lady's real or adopted daughter. He was pressing his suit, and with some chances of success, when Lord Edward Fitzgerald crossed his path, and had very little difficulty in dislodlging him from Pamela's affections and taking himself the vacant place. Sheridan consoled himself over his loss by marry- ing, in 1795, Miss Ogle, the daughter of the Dean of Winchester. The second Mrs. Sheridan, if report be true, had for years past entertained a tender passion for Lord Edward, and it is said that the hopelessness of her love for the United Irishman was the cause of her early death. May not this state of things in his household be after all the just retribution of fate for the Gallic levity Sheridan displayed in his lines on "Love and Marriage": Still the question I must narry, Still a wayward truant prove, Where I love I must not marry, Where I marry cannot love. Were she comely ten times over, All that heaven to earth allows, I should be too much her lover Ever to become her spouse. Verses such as these often come home like curses-to roost. Sheridan, it is unnecessary to add, picked up these eccentric notions in the literary salons of Paris, where he was on several occasions a very prominent and welcome figure. The Irish Edgeworths were also about this time society lions in the gay French capital. Mr. Edgeworth, of Longford, the father of the famous novelist, Miss Maria Edgeworth, visited France with his family after the peace of Amiens, and after a tour in Lyons, Marseilles, and other pro- vincial cities, settled down for some years in Paris, where his daughter wrote some of her novels and beguiled her leisure hours in the whirl of fashion- able life. Miss Maria had years before formed in these circles many interesting acquaintances, among them being Madame de Stael, the gifted daughter of a gifted lady, who was well known as Madame Neckar, the wife of the Minister of Louis XVI. Both Blue-Stockings became almost immediately very intimate friends, and through the instrumentality of the clever Frenchwoman, Miss Edgeworth was duly presented to Lord Edward's future mother-in-law, Madame de Genlis, the favourite of the Duke of Orleans and the reigning though rather "passee" beauty of the period. Madame de Genlis being a highly intellectual, although in style and character a somewhat frivolous lady, was most entertaining in society, and as she had around her such fair flowers as Madame de Stael, already mentioned, and Madame de Hondelot, the petted Julie of Jean Jacques Rousseau, and other accomplished ladies, whose attributes of mind and physique were, what rarely happens, on a par, Miss Edge- worth soon felt the influence of French thought, 82 Irish Footprints over Europe. and became an adapt in French epigrammatic conversation,althoghashe never wholly abandoned the more or less rigid conventionalities of her early English training. Among her male acquaintances and admirers were Kosciusko, the Pole, and a Swede named Edelcrants, an aristo- cratic and wealthy youth, who began by loving her romances, and wound up by loving herself, He eventually offered his hand in marriage to the Irish girl ; but for some reason or another she was induced to decline the offer, although in her subsequent writ- - -'ings, in her " Ennui" and "Leonora," she LADY H NS gives unmistakable evi- dence of a romantic attachment to that favoured suitor. It may be remarked, too, that the persistence with which she clung to "the single state of bliss" in after years was the outcome of her devotion to the same gallant swain. Shortly afterwards a near relative of hers, the well-known Abbe Edgeworth, won a niche in the temple of fame as the chaplain and confessor of the unfortunate Louis XVI., who was the last in the Place de la Concorde to wish that monarch "God-speed" on his journey to eternity. The Abbe Edgeworth was an Irishman not only by blood, but also by birth. He was born in Edgeworthstown in 1745, and as his father had to emigrate to France, the future priest was educated in the Sorbonne University, where he passed through the usual curriculum with distinguished honours. Having been duly ordained, the Abbe Edgeworth, who was celebrated all over Paris for his learning, was appointed by a Royal decree confessor of Madame Elizabeth, the King's sister, and friend and adviser of the family of Louis XVI. He thereupon was awarded a suite of apartments in the Palace of Versailles, and soon became one of the leading figures in the Court. When the monarchy was overthrown, and a Republican form of Government was established in its stead, the Irish priest suffered all the penalties of outlawry, but was enabled to secure a safe hiding-place in Choisy, where he remained concealed till sentence of death was passed on Louis XVI., when, with a courage and a deter- mination that did him credit, he braved the anger of the law, and rushed to the side of the King on the scaffold in the Place de la Concorde on the ever memorable 21st of January, 179, where he fung his arms around the victim's neck, and is reported to have said, just as the knife of the guillotine pressed the Royal neck, and the Sovereign was being beheaded: "Louis, son of St. Louis, ascend to Heaven!" It has been questioned in certain quarters if the Abbe Edgeworth made use of these words, inasmuch as there is no men- tion made of them in his autobiography; but it must be remembered that the Irish clergyman was very modest of character and shrunk instinc- tively from taking the credit of things which he had nevertheless achieved. It may therefore be looked upon as probable that the phrase alluded to really fell from his lips on the solemn occasion when he was parting from his patron and bene- factor. The Abbe fortunately escaped from the Place de la Concorde and fled to England in 1796. Pitt offered the exiled priest a pension, but the latter declined the subsidy with thanks. He afterwards joined Louis XVIII. at Blankenburg, and accompanied him and his family to Mittan, where he peacefully passed away in a green old age. The King's daughters stood weeping by his bedside when dying, and Louis himself wrote the epitaph that marked his tomb. A faithful and devoted adherent to the Bourbons, he was no less a pure-souled and a patriotic lish- man. At one time Miss Marie Edgeworth's father, who happened to be residing in Paris under the Directory, was expelled from that city on the suspicion of being the brother of the Abbe Edgeworth. Mr. Edgeworth retired to Passy, from whence he wrote to Napoleon informing the latter that he was the first cousin of the cele- brated priest, and not his brother; but in any case he said he was proud of the relationship. Napoleon revoked the decree at once, declaring at the same time that the expulsion was carried out without his knowledge. In the year 1814 Miss Edge- worth's brother, Lovell Edgeworth, happened to be travelling from Geneva to Paris, when he was arrested and conveyed to the capital, where he was immured as a suspect till peace was pro- claimed. Miss Edgeworth having in the mean- time gone back to England, returned to the old familiar haunts in Paris in 1820, and took up her residence in the Place du Palais Bourbon, where she entertained the elite of the city for some years right royally. As France was then governed by a Bourbon, her relationship with the Abbe Edge- worth proved to be an open sesame to the Palace and to all the salons of the Faubourg St. Germain. Here it was where she passed the happiest years of her life, honoured and admired by all classes for her solid if not brilliant intellectual qualities, as well as for those graces of deportment and 83 Irish Footprints over Europe. those powers of amiable and witty conversation which are always so well appreciated in French society. Another Irish lady who figured in Paris during the Revolution was Lady Hutchinson. This accomplished woman was the wife of John Hely Hutchinson, and the daughter-in-law of that other Hely Hutchinson, the place-hunter, of whom it was said: "If England and Scotland were given to him he would solicit the Isle of Man for a potato garden!" Lady Hutchinson's hus- band, who was then a lieutenant-colonel in the English army, visited in her company the French camp near Paris, and actually witnessed the flight of Lafayette. Lady Hutchinson, though she never donned the Phrygian cap, was nevertheless, strange to say, a sympathiser with the Revolu- tionists-so far as their ideas of liberty and the Rights of Man were concerned, though of course she never sanctioned the sanguinary horrors of the Reign of Terror. This Irish lady had a host of friends in the French capital in those stormy days. It is recorded of her that she had the courage to approach Robespierre one day when that fiend in human flesh was at the height of his power, and that she actually remonstrated with him over his Nero-like savagery. "It is well for you," exclaimed the� monster, "that you are neither a Frenchwoman nor a duchess!" There were in that wretched epoch not a few of our own kith and kin who were treated by the Revolutionary party to the tender mercies of the guillotine; but there were others who sympa- thised with the Mountain Party, and who were as much Red Republicans as any. While the officers of the Irish Brigade, generally speaking, clung faithfully to the Bourbons, a few joined hand in hand with Danton; and other Irishmen, chiefly the new arrivals in France, carried head- long by circumstances and with bitter memories in their hearts of the oppression under which they had groaned at home, became sworn foes of tyranny to the extent of proclaiming that every means were justifiable to establish on a firm basis the power of the people. The divergent opinions of Irishmen in Paris on this question may be in- stanced by the fact that after the Abbe Edge- worth, of Longford, had embraced King Louis on that fatal day in the Place de la Concorde, and after the head of that monarch had been severed from the trunk by the pitiless guillotine, Henry Sheares, of Cork, stooped to the ground and sapped his handkerchief in the royal blood, crying out: "Death to kingly tyranny !" CHAPTER XX. THE DILLONS IN FRANCE--COUNT ARTHUR DILLON'S GALLANTRY ON THE SCAFFOLD-LORD EDWARD FITZGERALD IN PARIS-HIS MARRIAE? WITH PAMELA IN TOURNAY-LADY PAMELA SPENDS THE OPENING YEARS OF HER WIDOWHOOD IN HAMBURG-HER MARRIAGE WITH CONSUL PITCAIRN---HER DIVORCE-RETURN TO PARIS---ER DEATH--HER GRAVE IN THE CEMETERY OF MONTMARTRE--THOMAS RUSSELL IN THE FRENCH CAPITAL-DR. M'NEVEN, ANOTHER UNITED IRISHMAN, IN THE MILITARY COLLEGE OF PRAGUE-HIS RESIDENCE IN PARIS- GENERAL ARTHUR O'CONNOR, OF '98 FAME, IN FRANCE. HE DILLONS who fought in the service of France were mostly the descend- ants of Arthur Dillon, who was born in Roscommon in 1670, and left Ireland after the siege of Limerick. Thanks to his merits Arthur soon rose to an important position in the ai my, and was created Count by King Louis. An- other Dillon, Count Theobald, who first saw the light in Dublin in 1745, emigrated to France at an early age, and won in a very short time a general's epaulettes. Having been sent on one occasion to drive the Austrians out of Lille, he fell a victim to the insubordination of his troops, who, hap- pening, through no fault of Dillon's, to have been deprived of their pay for several weeks past, fell on their officers, and having assassinated the brave Irishman, burnt his body in the market- place of Tournay. His murderers were after- wards executed, and the Legislative Assembly decreed the honours of the Pantheon to Dillon's remains. His grandson, who was, I believe, the last of this particular line, Count Theobald Dillon, died in Paris in 1874. There was another Count Dillon, who figures rather prominently in the annals of the Revolutionary epoch. A devoted 84 Irish Footprints over Europe. champion of the Bourbon cause, he worked in secret against the Republic. His features were chiselled with such perfect harmony, and his figure was so lithe and elegant in its officer's LORD EDWARD FITZGERALD. uniform, that he was known as "le beau Dillon" in the fashionable circles of the capital. Having fallen under the ban of the Mountain Party, Count Dillon was put under arrest, and having been judged guilty of treason by the Revolutionary tribunal, was shortly afterwards summarily guillotined. It is recorded of him that when several fair daughters of France and himself, who were the victims on the occasion, mounted the scaffold the executioner called on one of the ladies to bend her neck to the sacificial knife. Turning a piteous gaze to Dillon, she asked him to go on first in order to give her courage to pass through the ordeal. "Anything to please a lady !" exclaimed this typical Franco-Irishman, while he bowed gracefully to the fair one, and a sweet smile lit up his handsome face. Then turning to the populace with quite another expression of countenance, he shouted-"Long live the King !" and thrusting his head into the half moon of the guillotine, was immediately beheaded. We have now reached the epoch when the leaders of the United Irishmen were beginning to enter into friendly relations with French Re- publicans. One of the first of the former to visit Paris was Lord Edward Fitzgerald. He settled down in an apartment off the Champs Elysees in that city towards the close of October, 1792. Thomas Paine and he soon met in the reunions of the Palais Royal, and as Paine held a high place in the Revolutionary councils of the day, Lord Edward soon became initiated into the Jacobin Club, and threw himself heart and soul into the Republican movement. On November 18th of that year various members of the English and Irish colonies in Paris assembled at White's Hotel to celebrate the victories gained by the armies of France. Mr. J. H. Stone occupied the chair on the occasion, and among the toasts drunk with enthusiasm I find the following-"The Armies of France: may the example of its citizen soldiers be followed by all enslaved countries till tyrants and tyranny be extinct." At the same banquet an address was proposed to the National Convention. Citizens Sir Robert Smith and Lord Edward Fitz. gerald having addressed the audience, and having publicly renounced their titles, the speedy aboli- tion of hereditary and feudal distinctions was proposed and carried by acclaim. For his parti- cipation in this Republican festival Lord Edward was dismissed from the English army. Shortly afterwards the United Irishman, going with his friend Stone to a Parisian theatre to see a play called "Lodoiska," his attention was arrested by the dazzling beauty of a young lady who, in com- pany with two other ladies and a gentleman, sat in a box near his own. After the curtain had fallen he was introduced by Mr. Stone to the fair one, who turned out to be Pamela. The birth and parentage of Pamela have been often dis- cussed; but they have not been determined, nor are they ever likely to be. According to one version she was born in Fogo, Newfoundland, and was the illegitimate daughter of a certain Mr. Coghlan or Seymour and Nancy Syms. Coghlan brought the woman and child some years after- wards to London, where he cruelly abandoned them. It was about this time Mr. Forth, who was commissioned by the Duke of Orleans to procure in London a little English girl as a com- panion for his children,as well as a handsome chest- nut for his Highness's stud, had an interview with the mother, and secured her consent to hand him over the child. Forth, in writing to the Duke on the matter says, laconically enough :- "I have the honour to send your Highness the finest mare and the prettiest little girl in all England." Ac- cording to another version, Pamela was the daughter of Madame de Genlis and the Duke. It was a notorious fact that Madame de Genlis had contracted a "liaison" with the chief of the house of Orleans, and that she on one occasion absented herself from the Court for six or seven months, at the expiration of which, it is alleged, she gave birth to the future Lady Edward. Sir Bernard Burke, it is stated, inclines to the belief that this 85 Irish Footprints over Europe. version is the correct one. In any case, Pamela was brought up in the Orlean~ household with the other children of the Duke, under the tutelage of their governess, Madame de Genlis. As to the personal charms of Pamela in her early youth, there is no difference of opinion. She is described as one of the most beautiful girls of her time. In the Palace of Versailles the visitor can still see a painting in which she is represented. The around her neck. Over one shoulder a yellow scarf is negligently thrown* her hair raised, frizzled, and slightly powdered, is bound by a pale blue ribbon, from which a bunch of cherries stuck at random gives a little air of coquetry to an otherwise simple attire. The portrait of Pamela given in this paper is by another hand and in a different attitude. Pamela and Lord Edward were mparried at r ! Portrait of Pamela, sketched from a painting in the Palace of Versailles. canvas is a large one, and the figures are almost life-size. To the right sits Madame de Genlis, twanging her harp, while in the centre is Made- moiselle d' Orleans, also sweeping the strings, and reading from a music-book held by Pamela, whose face is seen in profile. The outline of the mouth, nose, and chin is classically perfect. In the downcast eye there is a gazelle-like expression. She is clad in white, the gown fitting closely Tournay in the beginning of December, 1792, in presence of Madame de Genlis and the Duke of Orleans, after wards King of France, both of whom signed the marriage deed as witnesses. With the career of the young couple in Ireland we have nothing to do in this paper. It may be only ap- propriate to mention here that after Lord Edward's death, amongst the papers seized at Leinster House were found some documents prov- 86 Irish Footprints over Europe. ing that his widow had been as deeply implicated as himself in the National conspiracy. The con- sequence of this discovery was that an order of the Privy Council was issued commanding her to quit Ireland. In 1799 she went to Hamburg with Srovelling tastes, and contrasted very wretchedly indeed with the gallant Lord Edward. Mrs. Pitcairn, finding eventually that it was impossible for her to remain under the conjugal roof, secured a divorce from the American, and having resumed THE TOMB OF PAMELA. Madame de Genlis. Here she was induced to give her hand to United States Consul Pitcairn, by whom she had one daughter, whose name and place of residence have always remained shrouded in mystery. Pamela's second marriage proved a very unhappy one. Pitcairn was a man of low, the name of Fitzgerald, shd retired to a quiet country retreat in one of the French provinces until the Revolution of 1830 raised to the throne the very man who was more than suspected of being her half-brother. Pamela was in consequence of this event tempted to visit Paris, but she re- 87 Irish Iootprints over ' Europe. ceived such scanty attentions at the hands of Louis. Philippe and his family that she retired to a con- vent in the suburbs, where she died on the 9th of November, 1831, at the age of 55, and was buried in the cemetery of Montmartre, the prin- cipal mourner at her funeral being Prince Tally- rand. Speaking of the closing years of her life, Dr. Madden, one of the best and most competent authorities on the subject, writes:-'"Pamela lost PAMELA. (R eproduced from a work entitled "Ireland in '98.") all her beauty, and grew to an enormous size. After her death her body swelled considerably. The attendants found it impossible to get the remains into the coffin which had been prepared for her, and as another could not be found sufficiently large, the undertaker's servants had to force down into the coffin that body once so beautiful, so much praised and admired. That was the last act in the drama of a life which pro- bably contained more light and shade than falls to the lot of most Court beauties. Such was the sad fate of the most beautiful woman of her day." Pamela's grave, it must be added, was often visited by Louis Philippe, who appeared to have regretted deeply that he had neglected the desolate lady in the closing years of her exist- ence. Owing to a neglect in the purchase of the grounds of the cemetery, many years subsequently the remains of this once lovely woman were on the eve of being consigned to the "fosse com- mune," where the unknown dead of Paris sleep their last sleep, huddled in confusion together, when an Irish resident of Paris discovered the tomb, surrounded by cypress trees; and on a com- munication being sent to the Duke of Leinster, the remains were transferred to the family vault in the little churchyard of Thames Ditton, near London, where they now repose side by side with all that is mortal of Lord Henry Fitzgerald, the beloved and faithful brother of Lord Edward. On the opening of Pamela's coffin previous to its removal from Montmartre, in presence of the Vis- count O'Neill de Tyrone, Count O'Connell, and other members of the Irish colony of Paris, there were found two gold pieces, which were handed over to the family as souvenirs. The only piece of cloth found with the bones was a portion of a scapular. It may be added that the marble tomb- stone on her grave was broken by the bursting of a shell during the siege of 1870. The illustra- tion in this paper is taken from a photograph of what was once Pamela's tomb in the cemetery of Montmartre. Another United Irishman who resided for some time in Paris was Thomas Russell, one of the founders of that body. Russell was born in Kilshannick, county Cork, in 1767, and after having undergone five years' imprisonment at Fort St. George for his political creed, was thrown on the world in a foreign country, home- less and comparatively friendless. It was then the summer of 1802. After visiting Rotterdam in company with Emmet, Sweeny, and other re- fugees, Russell settled down in Paris, having re- mained for some time in the house of a Mrs. elaney, an Irish lady, whose husband filled a high post in the French Government service. Though some of his political colleagues entered the French army, Russell declined to do so, and awaited the arrival of Robert Emmet. Emmet reached Paris in due time, and after several in- terviews with Napoleon, Russell and he decided on a'second insurrectionary movement in Ireland. Shortly afterwards Russell followed Emmet to Dublin, where he remained in seclusion till Sep- tember, 1803, when he was arrested by the no- torious Major Sirr. Tried before a Special Com- mission in Downpatrick, he paid the penalty of his unselfish devotion to the Irish National cause by dying on the scaffold. This judicial murder took place on the 21st of October, 1803, and twenty-four hours after sentence of death had been passed on him. James M'Neven was one of the Irishmen of his day who were educated on the Continent. His uncle, William O'Kelly Neven, left Ireland years before James was born, and settled in Germany, where he attained such eminence in the medical 88 Irish Footprints over Europe. profession that he was gazetted baron, and was appointed physician to the Empress Maria Theresa. When James M'Neven reached his twelfth year he was sent for by his uncle to re- ceive his education in Germany, where he re- mained for almost a decade, having studied in the old Military College of Prague, and having finally graduated in Vienna University at the age of twenty. The future United Irishman, frequent- ing as he did the salons of his uncle the baron, associated with the leading literary and politcial lights of the Austrian capital, and became an adept in the German language. He returned to Ireland in 1794, and practised at the medical pro- fession for some years in Dublin. Having taken a prominent part in the United Irishmen move- ment, Di. M'Neven was arrested on March 12, 1798, and was imprisoned in Fort George, where he devoted much of his time to study and re- search. Here he translated many of the writings of Ossian from the original Gaelic. On his re- lease in 1802, he passed the summer in Switzer- land, travelling through that country on foot, and giving the world his experiences in a publi- cation of much interest. Having visited his re- lations in Vienna, he proceeded to Paris in 1803, in the hope that Napoleon would attack England in the most vulnerable part of her conquests- Ireland. Full of enthusiasm for the cause of Irish liberty, Dr. M'Neven asked for and ob- tained a commission in the French army. When, however, Napoleon decided on his mad- cap Egyptian expedition, instead of going to the relief of the Irish, Dr. M'Neven threw up his commission in disgust, and in June, 1805, set sail from Bordeaux for New York, where he spent a useful and honourable career as professor in the College of Physicians, and where he died on the 12th of July, 1841. A nother United Irishman of note, Arthur O'Connor, settled down in Paris after the failure of 1798, and, having married the daughter of Condorcet and become a naturalised Frenchman, passed many years of his life under the sunny skies of France, where his children and grand- / THOMAS RUSSELL. children still reside, honoured and respected by all who know them. Arthur O'Connor was well and favourably received in French political and social circles, and was regarded as a man of the utmost probity and truth. He believed to the end in the creed of Irish Republicanism, although he despaired of the possibility, unless under cer- tain circumstances, of an Irish Republic starting into existence in the course of his own lifetime. O'Connor, who was a general in the French service, passed away at a good old age at his residence, the Chateau de Bignon, on the 25th of April, 1852. 89 Irish Footprinas over Europe. CHAPTER XXLI. WOLFE TONE IN PARIS-HIS INTERVIEWS WITH CARNOT AND CLARKI---THE HOCHE AND HUMBERT EXPEDITIONS TO IRELAND-BARTHOLOMEW TEELING, HUMBERT'S AIDB-DR-CAMP-HIS DEATH -HAMILTON ROWAN'S ESCAPE TO FRANCE-HE WITNESSES THE HORRORS OF THE REIGN OF TERROR-ALOST LYNCHED BY THE MOB IN PARIS---OBERT EMMET IN TILE FRENCH CAPITAL -EMMET'S CHATEAU AT ARGENTEUII-HENRY CLARKE, THE IRISHMAN, WHO BECAME NAPOLEON'S MINISTER OF WAR---THE IRISH LEGION IN THE SERVICE OF FRANCE-ITS FLAG IN NOTRE DAME ON THE OCCASION OF NAPOLEON'S OXRONATION-THE EMPEROR THANKS THE IRISH---CAREER AND DEATH OF MILES BYRNE IN FRANCE. HEOBALD Wolfe Tone's name is imperishably asso- ciated with that of Hoche in the military annals of- Franoe and Ireland. The record of Tone's career on -- French soil is given in full in his memoirs. Here it will be only necessary to make a rapid resume of the extraordinary efforts he put forth on the Continent in the cause of Irish nationality; his sublime and chivalrous devotion to the political gospel of which he was, perhaps, the leading apostle ; the apparently in- surmountable difficulties he overcame, and the masterly diplomacy which he exercised in his negotiations with the representatives of the French Government. Wolfe Tone, having been in 1795 expatriated by the Dublin Castle authori- ties, proceeded to the United States, where he immediately set to work to carry out the mission entrusted to him by the Directory of the United Irishmen, according to the terms of which he was to ask, and if possible obtain, the assistance of a foreign Power in order to effect the establishment of an Irish Republic on Irish soil. With this object he drew up a memorandum of the Irish case for the French Minister at Washington, who, after some consideration, decided eventually on the propriety of communicating with the Paris Directory on the subject. The result of this communication was that Wolfe Tone left New York for Paris provided with several letters of introduction, one addressed to Monroe, the United States Minister in that city, who received the Irish emissary very warmly, and promised him all the aid in his power. Shortly after his arrival on the banks of the Seine, Tone had an interview with Citizen Charles de la Croix, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, to whom he submitted a report explaining the aims and objects of the United Irishmen Brotherhood, chief among which were the utter subversion of British rule in Ireland, the abolition of all religious disabilities, and the proclamation of an independent Republic in that country. In this interview, as well as in his subsequent interviews with Carnot, the grandfather of the present executive head of the French Republic, Wolfe Tone took care not to base his plea c ~for assistance on any -, purely sentimental grounds, although, of , course, it seemed , probable enough that a nation which pro- WILLIAM THEOBALD WOLFE fessed to be the TONE. friend, and aimed at being the deliverer of all oppressed peoples, would take a lively in- terest in striking their chains from the limbs of the Irish. Tone required only a " quid pro quo." France was anxious to crush that here- ditary foe of hers, whom French writers called "the perfidious Albion." In order to assist her in doing so, Tone promised an army of United Irishmen who were ready to start a revolution and invoke the God of Battles, on condition that a French expeditionary force, provided with arms and munitions of war, were landed on the Irish coast. For months and months Tone pressed these views on the Directory. On one occasion, while the Paris officials and he were discussing the number of men that should be sent to invade Ireland, Tone cried out in a fit of impatience-- "With regard to myself, I would go if you but gave me a corporal's guard for an escort." In the course of these negotiations Wolfe Tone was introduced by Carnot to General Clarke, a 90 Irish Footprints over Europe. Franco-Irish soldier, who promised to facilitate his mission. At last, thanks to the zeal and activity of Hoche, and despite the knavish apathy of the Admiral Villaret, a portion of the French Fleet, in one of the corvettes of which Wolfe Tone took his post as "Chef de Brigade," set sail from Brest for Bantry Bay. I need not enter here into any details explanatory of the failure of that ex- pedition. Suffice it to say that when Tone re- turned to France, sick at heart, he nevertheless resumed active operations to secure the services of a second invading force. Difficulties, however, beset him on every side. His friend and Ireland's, the brave and intrepid Hoche, had passed away. Carnot, another of Ireland's friends, was expelled from the Republican Executive; and Napoleon's star was in the ascendant. Wolfe Tone had no confidence in the budding dictator; yet, thanks to the Irishman's energy in Hamburg, the Humbert Expedition was carried out, but also proved eventually a failure. Before, however, the news of Humbert's defeat reached Paris, a few dozen United Irishmen, headed by Napper Tandy, embarked in a fast-sailing cruiser, and reached the Isle of Raghlin, where the fatal intelligence was communicated to them, and from whence im- mediately afterwards they escaped to Norway. Wolfe Tone himself had taken part in the Humbert Expedition, being installed in the capacity of French adjutant-general in Hardy's vessel, the "Hoche," which was captured by the British off Lough Swilly. The United Irish leader had become such a proficient in the French language that his identity was not for some time discovered till an aristocratic cad, named Sir George Hill, who had known him personally years before, be- trayed him into the hands of the enemy at a dinner given to the French officers by the Earl of Cavan at Letterkenny. He was immediately put under arrest, and conveyed to an inner room, where he was ordered to be ironed. Seized with a momentary indignation at such an insult, he flung off his French uniform, exclaiming--' These fetters shall never degrade the revered insignia of the free nation which I have served!" Re- suming his usual calm, he offered his limbs for the irons, manacled in which he said-"For the cause which I embraced I feel prouder to wear these chains than if I were decorated with the Star and Garter of England!" At his subsequent mock trial the irrepressible champion of Ireland's rights asked for the death of a soldier. "Let me be shot," he cried, "by files of Grenadiers. This is the only favour I have to ask as an officer of the French Republic." His request was barbarously refused. He was sentenced to be hanged, and, rather than thus die, it is alleged that he at- tempted suicide, and succumbed to a self-inflicted wound in the Provost Marshalsea Prison on the 19th of November, 1798. His son, Matthew Tone, who had shared in the perils of the same expedition, was also about the same time tried and executed. Bodenstown Churchyard, in Kil- dare, now holds all that is mortal of the illus- trious founder of the United Irish Brotherhood. The part taken by the exiled Irish in the in- vasion of Killala would be incomplete without a notice of another true and faithful soldier, Bartholomew Teeling, who died in early youth a martyr to the cause of Irish freedom. Teeling, who belonged to an ancient Irish family estab- lished in Ulster, was, perhaps, the most ardent of the men of '98. Burning with a desire to take up arms for his country's independence, he embarked for France in order to "learn the soldier's glorious trade," and entered the army of the Republic under the name of Beron. It is recorded of him that before his final return to Ireland with the French army he paid a secret visit to this country in the interests of the organisation to which he belonged. It was during this visit, it seems, that, according to his nephew, he "especially won the confidence and affection of Lord Edward Fitz- gerald, who became attached to him with all the ardour of his fine nature." "I am inclined to think," adds the same authority, significantly, "that there was another of the Geraldines, too, who took some interest in the fate of the young soldier. I saw a ring which was presented to him by one of them. It is a plain gold hoop, and the characters ' Erin Go Bragh' are inscribed on it. . . . He wore it the night previous to his execution, when he sent it to his brother as the dearest pledge he had to leave of fraternal love." It will be observed that there is in the fore- going paragraph a discreetly veiled hint, which, if put more plainly, must mean that a romantic attachment subsisted between Lord Edward's sister and Bartholomew Teeling. This ring is at present in the possession of Mrs. Justice O' Hagan. I must add, however, that one of the living repre- sentatives of the family holds the theory that the ring in question was Humbert's gift to his re- spected ancestor. Returning to Paris in the autumn of 1797, he mixed very much in the society of Tone, Lowry, and other United Irish- men. In the Killala expedition of the following year he was appointed aide-de-camp to Humbert, having previously held the rank of captain in the French service. In the campaign in Ireland 91 Irish Footprints over Europe. Teeling saved Humbert's life on one occasion, and distinguished himself as a brave officer in the battle of Ballinamuck, where he was included in the general surrender of the French army and identified as "a British subject." A cartel was immediately concluded for the exchange of pri- soners; but no stipulation, unfortunately, was made for the Franco-Irish officers in the posses- sion of the enemy. Lake claimed Teeling, and refused to give him up, whereupon Humbert said that had he known that such a claim would have been made, before he would have surrendered his officer he should have perished by his side-he would have a rampart of French bayonets raised around him. Teeling was shortly afterwards tried by courtmartial in the Royal Barracks, where his attitude was worthy of a Roman of the olden heroic days. In his dying declaration he said that England had no claims on him as a subject, that he acted as a French officer, and that he did what he conceived to'be his duty. "I did not desert my post," he exclaimed. "I did not endeavour, as a conscious traitor, to save myself by flight." Walker's "Hibernian Magazine," a "loyal" periodical of that day, gives the following account of the closing scene of Teeling's life: "At the place of execution he conducted himself on the awful occasion with a fortitude impossible to be surpassed, and scarcely to be equalled. Neither the intimation of his fate nor the near approach of it produced on him any diminution of courage. With firm step and unchanged countenance he walked from the prevot to the place of execution, and conversed with an unaffected ease while the dreadful apparatus was preparing. With the same strength of mind and body he ascended the eminence. He then requested permission to read a paper which he held in his hand. He was asked by the officer whose immediate duty it was whether it contained anything of a strong nature. He replied that it did, on which permission to read it was refused, and Mr. Teeling silently acquiesced in the restraint put on his last moments." So perished in the twenty-fourth year of his age one of the most - chivalrous soldiers who ever drew sword for their country's independence. Archibald Hamilton Rowan, another of the United Irishmen, had some interesting adventures in Paris and elsewhere throughout France to- wards ene close of the last century. Having escaped from Howth in an open boat at a time when a price was on his head as a "traitor," Rowan landed at a small bay called Roscoff, near the Port St. Paul de Leon, where, as ill luck would have it, he was arrested as a suspect by the Committee of Public Safety. Next day he was despatched to Brest, where he was interned in a military hospital, and accused of being an English spy. Being able to disprove the absurdity of such a charge, he was shortly aftewards released, and was instructed to re- port himself at the Revolutionary head- quarters in Paris. On his arrival he was very . courteously received by Robespierre, who order- ed that the Irishman v should be furnished with everything he re- quired at the expense of the nation. Rowan ARCHIBALD HAMILTON lived in the city throughout the entire Reign of Terror. He as- sisted day after day at the executions in the Place de la Revolution, "and though," he says, "I was standing a hundred paces from the scaffold, the blood of the victims often streamed under my feet." In trying subsequently to escape to the United States, Rowan had another series of ad- ventures. Leaving Paris for Rouen in a small boat on the Seine, he was noticed by a revolu- tionary leader on the banks of the river, who im- mediately denounced the Irishman as a deputy who was escaping with the swag of the nation. Rowan was forced to land at the Porte Chaillot, and was at once surrounded by the infuriated populace, who shouted for his blood, and gave ex- pression to the ominous cry, "A la lanterne!" Although his passports were forthcoming, he was nevertheless conducted to the Mayoralty of Passy, where he was tried and acquitted of the charge brought against him, after which ordeal the crowd, satisfied that he was no traitor, returned with him to the waterside. "Here," he writes, "I found everything in my boat exactly as I had left it-some bottles of wine, a little silver cup, and gold-headed cane, all safe though at the mercy of hundreds, who, while they would without ceremony have tucked me up to the lamppost, would not touch an article of my property." Rowan arrived safely Lin Rouen, and in the be- ginning of June, 1795, embarked from Havre for New York. It may be added that Rowan had previously spent several years travelling through Spain, Portugal, and Italy, and that in 1781 he married in the Dutch Ambassador's chapel in Paris a young Irish lady, the beautiful and ac- complished daughter of Walter Dawson, of Lisanisk, near Carrickmacross. 92 Irish Footprints over Europe. Robert Emmet resided for some time on two occasions in the French capital. The first occasion was in 1798. He had just then had the honor of being expelled from Trinity College by Lord Chancellor Clare for having in the Historical Society of that institution the courage of ex- pressing his honest Republican convictions. The young man had several interviews with the United Irish chiefs then living in the French capital. On the occasion of his second and last visit in the autumn of 1802, Emmet had various consultations with Tallyrand, ex-Bishop of Autun, the then Minister of Napoleon, who seemed very anxious to strike at England through Ireland, despite the fact that both countries were at peace at the time. Napoleon and Emmet also interchanged opinions on the subject; but the former, strange to say, was never very enthusiastic on the project of a French invasion of Ireland. He preferred even- tually mooning around the Pyramids, and ad- dressing high-falutin harangues to his troops on the banks of the Nile, to storming Dublin Castle and driving the English red-coats out of Ireland. If he had poured his battalions into this country he would have crushed his arch-enemies, and would never have ended his days crownless and throneless in the ignominious ease of St. Helena. While Emmet was endeavouring, but in vain, to persuade the "Little Corporal" to come to the assistance of the Irish, Thomas Russell and others were preaching the United Irishman's creed in the pages of the "Argus," an anti-English news- paper, published in Paris. Week after week Frenchmen were being informed through its columns that Ireland owed no allegiance to the British Crown, and longed for an oppor- tunity to cut the cable that bound her to Britain, and establish her independence on a purely Republican basis. During this period ROBERT EMMET. Emmet resided with his brother Thomas Addis in the Chateau of Cormeil, near Argen- teuil, one of the most pleasant and picturesque of Arcadian retreats around Paris. Up to at least 1885 this chateau was in the possession of the de Castellane family, and was then occupied by the Marchioness of that name, who always spoke of the Emmets as "les chevaliers Irlandais"-Irish knights of honour, "sans peur et sans reproche." A trip to Cormeil ought to interest every Irish tourist, from the fact that around it cluster so many associations of the Emmet family; for even the rooms once occupied by the patriot brothers can still be seen, and visited. Towards the close of the last and the beginning of this century there was one man born of Irish parents in France who rose to the highest position in the land under Napoleon and Louis XVIII. That man's name was Henry Clarke. The son of an humble father and mother, he became Duke of Feltre, and was at one time given over the full control of the Ministry of War. Clarke first saw the light in 1765, in Landrecies, and entered the service of his adopted country in 1781. At the age of 27 he displayed such military skill and daring throughout the campaigns in which he had figured that he was gazetted lieutenant-colonel, and in 1793 was nominated general. Ik 1795 he was sent by the Revolutionary Executive on a secret mission to Vienna, and from thence to Italy, in order to watch the movements of Napoleon, who was then suspected of harbouring those ambitious dreams which were afterwards realised in such an extraordinary fashion. Clarke, how- ever, was an astute diplomatist, and was never very scrupulous on points of honour or conventionality. He saw Bonaparte's star rising, and knelt down and worshipped it, so to speak, with such apparent fervour and cunning dexterity that he was imme- diately taken into the great man's good graces; and when Napoleon, in 1807, reached the zenith of his power he repaid Clarke by making him Minister of War.' This'most important post the Irishman held from that year till Napoleon's downfall in 1814. Clacke had in the meantime been raised to the dignity of the Dukedom of Feltre, and in 1815, on the return of Louis XVIII. to the Tuileries, served under that monarch. His supposed friendship for Napoleon earned, however, for him the hostility of the Bourbon courtiers to such an extent that he was shortly afterwards sent into an honourable exile to Rouen, where he died in 1818. Clarke does not seem to have been in particularly good odour with his fellow-Irishmen in France. Wolfe Tone and Emmet speak of him in any but good terms. Indeed his conduct to- wards several officers of the Irish Legion would warrant one in believing him to be a poor speci- men of an Hibernian; for it was by his orders that several sterling Irish soldiers, such as Captains Jackson,Town, Lawless,and Miles Byrne, were expelled from French territory for no other reason than that they had remained faithful to the very Napoleonic Eagles of which the Duke 93 Irish Footprints over Europe. himself was supposed to be such a disinterested champion. The Legion to which these officers belonged had done good service in the cause of France, and was no unworthy successor of the Irish Brigade, which had been dissolved in 1792. The Irish Legion was established in 1803, as soon as hostilities broke out between England and France, after the brief peace of Amiens. The Irish then in France, seeing in the new situation another possible chance of striking a blow for the deliverance of their country, deputed Thomas Addis Emmet to ask the First Consul to authorise the formation of such a Legion. Napoleon having given the necessary "imprimatur," Adjutant - General M'Sheehy was charged to execute the decree, and repaired to Morlaix, where he had no difficulty in organising a corps almost exclusively composed of his own fellow-countrymen. Shortly after its formation Captain Tennant and Captain William Corbet were deputed by the Legion to go to Paris to be present at the coronation of the Emperor in Notre Dame. Both officers were presented with a magnificent flag by the newly-crowned sovereign, who thanked the Legion through them for its fidelity to France. On one side of the colours were inscribed the words-"NapoleonL,Empereur des Francais a la Legion Irlandaise," while on the reverse was a crownless harp, bearing the inscription, "L' Independance d'Irlande." The Irish Legion, it may be furthermore mentioned, was the only foreign corps to which Napoleon en- trusted an Eagle. The career of the Irish Legion in the service of France was worthy of the palmy days of Irish valour and heroism. Throughout France, Germany, Austria, Italy, and Spain they followed the fortunes of the great Commander- not, be it said, so much out of love of the chief, as acting on the hope that he would one day re- ward their chivalry and self-sacrifice by enabling them to return to Ireland with his old Guard, and effect the liberation of that country. That hope, however, proved to be but a dazzling dream. Most of these men, outlaws from the land of their birth, officers who held honourable positions at home before the Rebellion of 1798, peasants and sons of peasants who handled the pike on the slopes of Oulart and on Vinegar Hill, former camp followers of Michael Dwyer on the Wicklow mountains or in the valleys of Imale and Glen- malure-all these and such others were never des- tined to feast their gaze again on the emerald award of the isle that bore them. When, owing to Castlereagh's intrigues and English influence exercised through other channels on the Bourbon monarch, the Irish Legion was dissolved in 1815, some of its brave soldiers emigrated to North and South America, and others were drafted into the Foreign Legion. Several of the officers broke their swords in disgust and scattered themselves over the Continent ; while others carried their trusty bucklers with them to fresh fields and pastures new in Chili 2 and Peru, where they won fame and wealth ., a , and high rank, thanks s3 ~I/ to their talents and BARTHOLOMEW TEELING. integrity. As the men- tion of a few of the names of the leading officers of this Irish Legion may be of interest, I give them here :-Lieutenant John Sweeny, of the city of Cork; Colonel Ware, one of Kilmainham's former jail birds; Austin O'Malley, of Killala ; Captain William Barker, of Vinegar Hill fame ; Lieutenant Derry, of the county Down; Lieutenant Pat MacCann, of Dublin; Pat Gallagher, of the same city, who guarded Lord Edward Fitzgerald from the myrmidons of the "law" in 1798; Chevalier Terence O'Reilly, and many others well worthy of being included in the glorious beadroll of Ire land's brave soldiers on the Continent. Miles Byrne was perhaps the noblest Roman of them all. Having fought valiantly throughout the entire Wexford campaign of 1798, he was gazetted second lieutenant in the Irish Legion in December, 1803. For 33 years he served under the colours of France, having in 1830 secured the rank of "Chef de Bataillon." Byrne lived to a good old age, and was for over a generation the friend and protector of every young Irishman who tried his fortunes in the city of Paris. John Mitchel, who was a personal friend of his in the French capital in 1860, gives the following graphic pen and ink sketch of the veteran- "Walking on some of these bright winter even- ings along the avenue of the Champs Elysees, you may see a tall figure, the splendid ruin of a soldier "d'elite," bearing himself still erect under the weight of eighty winters. Aged as he is, the impression which his aspect gives you is not that of feeble venerableness. The grey eye is keen and proud; the thin face is bronzed and worn by war and weather; and the whole bearing of tha antique Roman head gives the idea not of de- crepitude but of a certain dashing gallantry. In truth he is one of those rare beings who never grow old. You perceive that he has the cross of 94 Irish Footprints over Europe. an officer of the Legion of Honour, and twined with the rosette of that order is the chocolate coloured ribbon of the St. Helena medal-a de- coration which our Anglo-Saxon brethren do not sadmire. He has marched over half Europe, and stood full often at the head of his regiment on the rough edge of battle throughout Spain, Ger- many, and Greece." There is another Irishman still living, and still in exile, old and venerable now, who in the days of his youth and early manhood spent many an hour conversing with Miles Byrne in the Luxem- bourg Gardens in Paris. This Irishman, who was a '48 refugee, and who subsequently started a revolutionary movement for Irish independence, was a disciple as well as an intimate friend of the warrior, who received his baptism of fire under Father John Murphy in '98. Thus in the persons of these two exiles was demonstrated the con- tinuity through three links of the Irish national struggle. Miles Byrne died at Paris on the 24th of January, 1862, in the eighty-second year of his age, and lies interred in the cemetery of Montmartre, where a befitting slabstone still records the story of his eventful life. CHAPTER XXII. THREE CORK PAINTERS IN PARIS--BARRY, MACLISE, AND THADDEUS-THE COUNTESS OF BLESSING- TON-HER MAUSOLEUM IN THE GRAVEYARD OF ST. GERMAIN-LADY MORGAN IN THE FRENCH CAPITAL-THOMAS MOORE IN ST. CLOUD, WHERE HE WROTE HIS "LOVES OF THE ANGELS'S --A PATRICK'S DAY BANQUET'ON THE BOULEVARDS-THE LOVE LUNACY OF PROFESSOR DIONYSIUS LARDNER -HE FLIES TO PARIS---HIS GRAVE IN NAPLES-DR. R. R. MADDEN OF DUBLIN-HIS WANDERINGS OVER EUROPE---HIS STAY AT BORDEAUX, PARIS, ROME, NAPLES, AND LISBON. ARRY, the Cork painter, resided in Paris for some years before the Revolu- tion. He spent his time in studying masterpieces of art in various galleries of tLe city, public and private. Personally Barry pas a typical illustration of the "genus irritabile," being ill-humoured, over-sensitive, and quarrel- some. His art squabbles in Paris and in Rome show that he was generally always on the war- path, fighting not merely to hold his own corner, but to storm and capture the corners of others. Having lived for some time in Bologna, in Italy, he was elected member of the Clementine Academy of that city, and presented the institu- tion shortly afterwards with a painting, "Philoctetes in the Isle of Lemnos." After five years spent in Rome, Barry returned to London. hIaclise, another Cork painter, was also for several years a familiar figure in the art salons and literary cafes of Paris; while a third, Mr. Jones, was the last representative in the French capital of those artistic abilities that have never failed to bud and blossom on the banks of the Lee. Mr. Jones took up his residence in Paris in the be- ginning of the present decade. He was quite a young man at the time, but gave promise of making his mark one day or another in the pro- fession of his choice. At that time I used to meet the Cork artist occasionally; and it was with very great pleasure indeed that, some years after I had left Paris, I learned that the celebrated portrait painter, Thaddeus, was none other than he. I may add that Thaddeus's first success was an oil painting, "Le Bracconier," which was deemed worthy of a place in the Paris Salon. For the first three decades of the present cen- tury Paris became the home of a few Irish cele- brities, among whom were the Countess of Blessington, Lady Morgan, Thomas Moore, and Dr. Madden. Marguerite Blessington was the daughter of a country gentleman named Edmond Power, and was born in Knockbrit, near Clonmel, in the county Tipperary, on September 1, 1790. At the early age of fourteen and a half she was, by order of her parents, married to a Captain Farmer, "who," we are told, "inspired her with nothing but feelings of terror and detestation." Captain Farmer was a man of unbridled passions and subject to ridiculous fits of jealousy-so much so, in fact, that the brute used to maltreat his child-wife almost daily, and eventually terrorised her to such an extent that she fled from his roof for ever. Captain Farmer proceeded to India 95 ___ Irish Footprints over Europe. almost immediately afterwards, while Mrs. Farmer, having spent several years of her life in Dublin, settled down eventually in London, where she pursued a literary career with some success, and lived comfortably enough on the proceeds of her pen. In 1815 she made the acquaintance of Lord Blessington, a gentleman of much intellectual capacity, who became a fer- vent admirer of Mrs. Farmer's writings, and subsequently made a deep impression on that lady's heart. When in October, 1817, the news reached Mrs. Farmer of her husband's death, she had already made a name for herself in the world of letters. The young widow, who was then only 28 years of age, and in the perfection of matured beauty, was a general favourite in society. "Her form was," according to Dr. Madden, " exquisi. tely moulded, with an inclination to fulness, but no finer proportions "could be imagined; her movements were graceful and natural at all times, in her merriest as well as in her gravest moods." Four months after Captain Farmer's R. R. MADDEN. death his widowwas mar- ried to Lord Blessington. In1822 Lord Blessington broughthis bride to Paris, en route for Italy. After spending some time in the gay capital they paid a visit to Ferney, the hermitage of Voltaire; the banks of Lake Leman, the scenes associated with the names of Jean Jacques and the volatile 'Madame de Warrens, the homes of Gibbon and Byron in Lausanne, and from thence to Italy, where, amid many other persons of note, they met and entertained that young and superlatively handsome creature, the Countess Guiccoli, who forgot her marital vows in her passion for the author of "Childe Harold." Lady Blessington turned this trip of hers to good account, for it enabled her to procure material for a work in three volumes, entitled "The Idler in Italy," which was published in London several years afterwards. In June, 1828, the Blessingtons fixed their residence in Paris, having taken up their abode in the Hotel de Terrasse, Rue de Rivoli. Subsequently they rented a palace owned by Marshal Ney in the Rue de Bourbon, the windows of which looked out on the Tuileries Gardens. The Hotel Ney, as it was called, was gorgeously furnished by Lord Blessington, who worked "on a scale of magni- ficence more commensurate with tUL income of a prince of an ancient line than with that of an Irish landlord." Here, with her own exquisite grace and affability,she reigned virtually as queen for several years, receiving three times a week during the season all the elite of Paris, courtiers and diplomatists, Ministers and Deputies, painters and men of letters, all of whom were charmed with her highly intellectual conversation and fascinated by the unaffected elegance of her manners. "I declare," said the poet Alfred de Musset, "this Irish lady is a Parisienne ' jusqu' au bout des ongles' "-to the very rose of her finger tips. Lady Blessington subsequently resided in tHE COUNTESS OF BLaSSINGTON. London, at Gore House, having left Paris on the occasion of Lord Blessington's death, an event which plunged her in almost utter loneliness ; for if she detested her first spouse she certainly loved the second. In 1849 she returned to the banks of the Seine, ac- companied by her nieces and the preux chevalier, Count d'Orsay, a French nobleman who con- tracted an unfortunate alliance with Lady Blessington's step-daughter, Harriett Blessington. The Count, who lived separated from his wife, was a devoted admirer of the Lady Blessington; and were it not for the relationship that existed between them, it is probable that the widow would have given him her hand in marriage, if he were free to accept it. As it was, he became Lady Blessington's "cher ami," and presided over her hospitalities in a handsome fiat in the Rue de Cirque, near the Champs Elysees, where she re- ceived Prince Louis Napoleon, afterwards Emperor of the French, and many other notabilities. A 96 Irish Footprints over Europe. few months afterwards the talented lady passed away, and was buried in the little cemetery of St. Germain, where a mausoleum in the shape of a pyramid of granite, standing on a square plat- form on a level with the surrounding ground, but divided from it by a deep fosse, whose sloping sides are covered with green turf and Irish ivy early in life, and made her living by the pen in London. Returning on a visit to this country, she happened to be introduced to a surgeon named T. C Morgan, who, though a widower, had such a very fair dose of sentiment in his nature that he fell, as the phrase goes, head and ears in love with the wild Irish girl, who, however, did not recipro- THE TOMB OF MARGUERITE, COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON. (From a Photograph by Count D'Orsay). transplanted from Clonmel, still honours her memory and records the story of her chequered career. Within the vault are two inscriptions, one from the pen of Barry Cornwall, in English, and another, in Latin, by Walter Savage Landor. The sketch of the mausoleum given in this paper is taken from a photograph. made on the spot by Count d'Orsay in 1850. Lady Morgan was another of those daughters of Erin who won the esteem and admiration of society in Paris. Miss Sydney Owenson-for such was her maiden name-was born in the city which she herself at one time called dear dirty Dublin. She was the daughter of the well-known Owenson who was eccentric enough to abandon light comedy in order to become a wine merchant, and still more eccentric to give up his shop in order to swagger once more in all the glory of war- paint behind the footlights. She left Ireland cate the passion. In the first place, Miss Owenson had years previously been enamoured of a dashing cavalry officer, to whom she was still devoted, although she had not heard of him or from him for a considerable period of time. Secondly, if she would contract a "marriage de raison," she was ambitious enough to decline to become the spouse of a mere commoner. Morgan bores her with his assiduities for several months,but she per- sistently refused to listen to his suit. At last one day the Duke of Richmond, who took a lively interest in Surgeon Morgan, pleaded his cause with great vehemence before the young authoress, who eventually remarked: "I shall remain single unless some more tempting inducement than the mere change from Miss Owenson to Mrs. Morgan be offered me." The Duke took the hint. One week afterwards Morgan was knighted, and won the wild Irish girl. Although she married, of 97 Irish Footprints over Europe. course not through love for himself, but through love for the title, she soon learned to appreciate his disposition, and even to conceive for him such a solid affection, that their married life was, as things go, a comparatively happy one. In the autumn of 1815 Sir T. and Lady Morgan settled in Paris, where they became intimate friends and acquaintances of Generals Lawless and Corbett, and many other gal- lant refugees of '98 then residing in the French capital. At one of the suppers which she gave in honour of those brave officers, - General Corbett LADY MORGAN. congratulated her on the faithful pen-and-ink picture she drew of his escape in '98 from Kilmainham Prison in her novel, "The O'Briens and the O'Flahertys." All who came within the circle of Lady Morgan's acquaint- ance were fascinated by her personality. She became a shining star, so to speak, in the social firmament of the gay capital. One newspaper, the "Journal de Paris," speaking of her, says: "She is almost worshipped in our fashionable salons." At this time she wrote a volume dealing with France, in which she is politically liberal but re- ligiously bigoted. The same remark applies to her book on Italy, which she penned during her subsequent residence in that country. Lady Morgan had, however, valuable experiences of Continental life, which could not but bave made her productions entertaining. She is reported to have done the passage of the Alps in a half-trot, half-gallop, on the back of a mule, and to have posed in various classic attitudes in the studios of leading painters in Florence, Rome, and Genoa. She visited Belgium in 1830, and subsequently we find her attending lectures in Heidelberg, and amusing herself like a gilded bird of fashion in the bowers of Baden-Baden. She used to break these foreign tours at times by returning to Dublin, where she led the society of that era in her mansion in Kildare-street or at the Castle balls. A local wag, who had a weakness for rhyme, gives the following pithy description of the Eblana of those days:-- "Och, Dublin city, there is no doubtin', Bates every city 'upon the say ; For 'tis there you'd hear O'Connell spoutin' And Lady Morgan a-makin' tay !" Lady Morgan died in London in 1859. The present generation, it may be added, do not ap- preciate her writings as warmly as did the genera- tion in which she lived. Her style is too turgid for the chaste fancies and severely rigid tastes of modern "dilettanti." Thomas Moore spent several years of his life on the Continent. He proceeded in 1819 to Italy, and met his old ftiend Byron in Venice. It was in this romantic city of the Doges that the author of "Don Juan" made the Irish poet a present of those memoirs, which, however, for obvious reasons were never published. Moore also visited Rome, where he be- came the bosom friend of the celebrated Canova, under whose tutelage he explored I the wonderful ruins 1 on' the banks of the Tiber. After doing Florence, Bologna, and various towns in Switzerland, Moore took up his residence * in St. Cloud, a beauti- ful suburb of Paris. T. MOORE. His cottage lay on a gentle slope overlooking the Seine, quite close to the forest, in the umbrageous depths of which the Irish bard wrote his "Loves of the Angels." Day after day throughout the late spring, the warm summer, and the mellow autumntide Moore used to ramble through the sinuous pathways under the elms or take his seat on the grassy sward, "moulding his verses and drawing on the stores of his wealthy imagination." Here, too, he commenced his "Life of Sheridan," and penned some of his delightful Irish melodies. His learned retreat was sometimes broken in upon by visits from Washington Irving, and from many Irishmen in Paris, some of whom must have com- municated to him the spirit of a few of his more rebellious poems. On St. Patrick's Day, 1820, some of his fellow-countrymen, including Mr. Richard Dillon, of Dublin, a '98 refugee, enter- tained Moore in the Restaurant of the Cadran Bleu, on the Boulevards. As, however, the announcement was made that Mr. Wellesley Pole Long, nephew to the Duke of Wellington, was to preside on the occasion, Miles Byrne and other Irish officers in the French service declined to attend, for the very good reason that as soldiers who had fought against the English in Ireland, as well as in Spain and Portugal, they would not feel it very agreeable to be listening to speeches 98 Irish Footprints over Europe. and toasts laudatory of the heroes of Waterloo. One of the French officers, however-Lieutenant Tom Warren, of Dublin-not having heard of the announcement, was present at the dinner, where everything passed off tolerably well-some of his own inspiriting melodies having been sung by Moore himself--till after the departure of the guest and Mr. Wellesley Long, when the parties at table continued the festivities by proposirng and responding to the toasts of several well-known Irishmen. When, however, the toast of Reynolds, the infamous informer of '98, who was, strange to say, present on the occasion, was proposed, Lieu- te ant Warren turned down his glass and asked indi(nantly if they were to drink the health of such a dastardly wretch. Confusion immediately reigned around the festive board, the banquet was abruptly broken up, and Warren was arrested by a patrol of French police, but was immediately afterwards released on showing his officer's card. The very fact of Reynolds's presence at such banquet, coupled with the fact more extraordinary still of his toast having been proposed, points to the conclusion that this St. Patrick's dinner was rather a feast of flunkeys than an Irish national entertainment. Returning to Moore, it is only necessary to add that he resided in St. Cloud from 1819 to 1822, when he returned to England, and spent the remainder of his life in the sweet com- panionship of his Bessie, to whom, unlike other erratic geniuses caught in the matrimonial webs, he proved to be a faithful and devoted husband. Some eighteen years after Moore's departure, Dionysius Lardner became a denizen of Paris under rather peculiar circumstances, which shall be presently explained. Denis Lardner was born in Dublin, and was trained up for the law. Pre- ferring, however, to be a professor, he took out the degree of B.A. in Cambridge, and was shortly afterwards given the chair of Physics and Moral Philosophy in the University of London, on his promotion to which post he discarded the name of Denny and trumpeted himself to the world as Dionysius, a bit of braggadocia which brought down the biting sarcasm of Father Prout and others on his devoted head. The professor's life was smooth sailing enough till 1840, when, though he had no longer the ardour or romance of a juvenile, he changed his books for women's looks, and fell deeply enamoured of a pretty girl still in her teens. May and December pulled very well together for some time, till the fair one dis- covered that her senile lover had a wife living, when she at once determined to put her case in the hands of the lawyers, the result being that a verdict of �6,000 was brought in against the un- fortunate professor for having tampered with the lady's honour. Not being able to foot such a formidable bill, Denny fled to France, and pro- ceeded subsequently to the States, from whence he returned to Paris in 1845, where he settled down for more than ten years, and where, it may be added, he wrote, or rather compiled, in twelve volumes, his "Museum of Science and Art." Lardner died in April, 1859, at Naples, where his remains still lie interred. Richard Robert Madden, a gentleman to whose historical researches on the '98 movement lovers of Irish literature owe much, spent no incon- siderable portion of his life on the Continent. Dr. Madden was a native "of Dublin, and left Ire- land in 1820, when he attained the twenty- second year of his age, owing to a pulmonary attack, which necessi- . ftated his removal to a DANIEL MACLISE. sunnier clime. His last glimpse of Erin was taken outside the head- lands of Cork, where he embarked for Bordeaux. Eleven days afterwards he reached the Southern city, and faced the world, in a strange land, with eleven guineas in his pocket. Having taken lodgings in the skymost chamber of a house in the Rue Chapeau Rouge, he proceeded in quest of employment all over the town, looking chiefly after a clerkship in a merchant's office; but fortune, somehow or other, did not favour him just then, and he had to abandon all hopes of settling down in Bordeaux. Shortly before he had decided to try his luck elsewhere he had some hot words with a certain Mr. Gouldsbury, the result of which was that young Madden sent that worthy a challenge through Captain Raynes, a Corkonian friend of his; for in those days hot words brought on a duel. We of the present generation wash out the insults we receive by appealing to the law courts, and we staunch the wounds dealt to our honour with the balm of the guinea, for gold can now heal all the ills which flesh is heir to; but our ancestors were not quite so practical as we. No duel, however, took place in the present instance, for Gouldsbury apologised to Dr. Madden for the wrong he had done him. Dr. Madden left Bordeaux for Paris, doing a journey of five hundred miles by diligence. 99 Irish Footprints over Europe. Arriving in the capital, he installed himself in a hotel in the Rue Neuve des Bons Enfants, where he felt the smart of straitened circumstances, con- ceiving at the time a certain delicate aversion to writing to his parents for the sinews of war. After some few weeks he succeeded, thanks to his previously acquired knowledge of medicine, in obtaining a situation in an apothecary's shop on the Boulevard des Italiens, and it was while he held this post that he was introduced to Tom Moore, who was then residing at St. Cloud. The French clerks in the "pharmacie" had no very great love for their young comrade, for he was looked upon, like many another Irishman, as a true-blue son of " Perfidious Albion." Things came to a crisis one fine day when one of the French lads, a hot-headed Gascon, and Madden came to blows. As the average Irishman reaches his best at the fists, Madden proved more than a match for his opponent. The latter, feeling that he must succumb, exclaimed in a white rage, "Je suis Francais," whereupon the other, dealing him a final stroke, cried out, "Eh bien ! Je suis Irlandais," and won the fight. Madden spent some six months in the apothecary's establish- ment; but finding the pulmonary disease trouble- some once more, he proceeded southwards to Rome by diligence, and Walked from that city to Naples in a few days. In Naples he joined in practice with Mr. Reilly, an eminent Irish surgeon then residing at the feet of Vesuvius. It was here, I believe, he made the acquaintance of Lord and Lady Blessington, to whom during his stay he acted as medical adviser; and it was to a large extent this appointment which enabled him subsequently to write the memoirs of Lady Blessington and her contemporaries-a book which when published took the literary world by storm and evoked the sincere praise of even the most bilious of critics. On his return to England Dr. Madden filled various important posts, and in the discharge of his duty had to travel over more than one-half of the habitable world. The late Edmond O'Donovan and John Augustus O'Shea, at present of Paris, could not have held a candle to the worthy doctor as a globe-trotter. He knew the banks of the languid Bosphorus as well as he did those of the fragrant Liffey, and was as much at home sitting under the cedars of Lebanon as he would be while enjoying the cool shade of the elm trees hard by Sandymount. In 1843 he was sent as special correspondent to the Peninsula by the editor of the London "Morning Chronicle," and resided chiefly in Lisbon, where, by the by, one of his talented countrymen, that sweet but now almost forgotten Irish poet, J. J. Callanan, passed away the evening of his life, and where he sleeps in an humble graveyard romantically situated within earshot of the Southern sea. After spending three years in the land of bulls and orange groves, Dr. Madden proceeded to Paris, and there, too, fulfilled his duties as a Pressman to the complete satisfaction of his employers. He returned subsequently to England, and as we have had to deal exclusively with his life on the Continent, it only remains for us to add that the distinguished historian died in Dublin in February, 1886, and lies buried in the old churchyard of Donnybrook, sheltered Dy the very cypress which forty years previously he had had removed from the grave of the Great Napoleon in St. Helena and transplanted to the emerald soil of Ireland. As an Irish "litterateur," Dr. Madden has rendered very many valuable services indeed. He has rescued from oblivion many records of the lives of the United Irishmen; and therefore his memory is worthy of all honour at the hands of his fellow-countrymen. ' 100 Irish Footprints over Europe. CHAPTER XXIII. VISIT OF AN IRISH DEPUTATION TO PARIS IN 1848-INTERVIEW OF SMITH O'BRIEN, MEAGHER, HOLLYWOOD, AND OTHERS, WITH LAMARTINE, THE POET-PRESIDENT-JAMES STEPHENS AND JOHN O'MAHONY IN PARIS--STEPHENS' FRENCH TRANSLATIONS OF CHARLES DICKENS' NOVELS ---THE TWO IRISH MARSHALS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE--NIEL AND MACMAHON-ORIGIN OF THE MARECHAL NIEL ROSE-BIOGRAPHY OF MARSHAL MACMAHON-THE PRESENTATION TO HIM OF AN IRISH SWORD IN THE CAMP OF CHALONS-AN IRISH KING OF FASHION AND AN IRISH DUELLIST IN THE GAY CAPITAL. HEN that patentmediocrity, Louis Philippe, who ruled France with an umbrella instead of with a sceptre, and who abjured the purple of kings for the broadcloth of the "bour- geois," was hurled from power in the early part of 1848, and a Republic, with the poet Lamartine at its head, was estab- lished on the ruins of the Monarchy, the heart of Ire- land thrilled once more with hope and confidence. Just as many Irishmen expected aid from France in the preceding generation for the recovery of their national rights, so in '48 there were enthusiasts who fancied that a French expeditionary force, organised for the relief of Ireland, was not merely one of the possibilities but one of the probabilities of the immediate future. An address to the French people, congratulating them on the restoration of the Republican form of Government having been voted at a meeting of the Confederates held in the Music Hall, Lower Abbey-street, Dublin, Smith O'Brien, Thomas Francis Meagher, and Hollywood were appointed as delegates to proceed to Paris and offer the congratulations in question to President Lamartine. Hollywood, who was a silk-weaver, was " seleted in order to \ symbolise the union of the trades with the Young Irelanders, and to endorse the action of Frenchmen who had raised Albert, the working man, to a WILLIAM SMITH O'BRIEN. post in the new Cabinet as the re- presentative of labour. Although Lamar- tine, in his " Histoire de la Revolution de 1S48," says that the object of the deputation was to procure arms for an insurrection in Ireland, Sir Charles Gavan Duffy states that it had in view simply the awakening of French sympathy for Ireland. "They were not," writes the latter authority, "authorised to negotiate an invasion or even to solicit arms or officers from the Pro- visional Government. They would not have placed Ireland under the feet of France any more than under the feet of England. . . . But what England did for Flanders, what Holland did for England, what France did for America, France might have done for Ireland-permit and encourage individual citizens to come to her aid. And this is what they expected." Richard O'Gorman, Eugene O'Reilly, and Lord Wallscourt accom- panied the deputation to the French capital, where they were received by Martin M'Dermott, Paris correspondent of the "Nation," and by Ledru Rollin, who had some years previously stood on Tara by O' Connell's side, and whose sympathies for Ireland were strengthened by the fact that he had become the husband of an accom- plished and patriotic Irish lady. Ledru Rollin was the leader of the French Democrats, and played a very important role in the '48 drama. The delegates, escorted by several Irish residents in Paris, presented themselves to the President. The address having been read in French, Lamartine, according to one report, mistook his visitors for English Chartists, and thanked them as such for their devotion to the French Republic. According to another authority the poet of the "Meditations" made no such mistake, and is reported to have said with peculiar significance: "Policy imposes a seal on our lips; but our hearts do not throb the less warmly for Ireland." The British Govern- ment on this occasion threatened to withdraw the Embassy from Paris if Frenchmen encouraged the Irish agitation, whereupon Lamartine, who be- longed to the pap-and-daisy school of maudlin sentimentality, and had none of the stamina of the practical revolutionist in his system, while 101 Irish Footprints over Eurrpe. professing to have infinite good will for Ireland made the humiliating admission that France could not interfere in the internal affairs of the British Empire. This admission was printed by the British Government and posted on all the police stations in .Ireland. After having visited Lamartine, the delegates had somewhat encourag- ing interviews with Rollin and Louis Blanc, made a round of the popular clubs, and paid their re- spects to the Irish College, where the students, to the number of one hundred, accorded them an enthusiastic ovation. O'Brien, Meagher, and O'Gorman addressed the juveniles, who re- sponded with ringing cheers. The president, Dr. M'Swiney, who was thoroughly averse to ) the idea of honouring the Young Ireland chiefs, censured several of the students, seven or eight of whom were under menace of ex- pulsion for nearly THOS. F. MEAGHER. a week. One of these latter, it may be added, is now an Arch- bishop in this country, and is as impenitent an Irishman to-day as he was in the hot fervour of youth in Paris in 1848. O'Gorman and Eugene O'Reilly remained in the French capital after the departure of the deputation, as Smith O'Brien wished them to acquire in the National Guard as complete a knowledge as possible of military matters. O'Reilly, it may be added, took part in the subsequent insurrection, or rather attempted insurrection, in Ireland, and having escaped to the Continent, won his spurs gallantly as Lieu- tenant of Lancers under Charles Albert of Sardinia, and finally rose to be a Commander of a division in the army of the Sultan in Constantinople, where he was known as the O'Reilly Bey. After the abortive effort in Ballingarry the Irish colony in Paris was recruited by several political refugees, among whom may be mentioned John O'Mahony, James Stephens, O'Donnell, of Limerick; John Walter Bourke, of Cork; and Colonel Michael Doheny. Doheny proceeded from Paris to New York, Burke and O'Donnell returned to Ireland when the Peace of Warsaw reigned in that country, but Stephens and O'Mahony re- mained for several years denizens of the gay capital. Having established themselves in a pair of snuggeries under the same roof in the very heart of the Latin Qua.ter, the exiles commenced life in a foreign land under rather adverse circumstances. O'Mahony was in receipt of a small income from a farm near Mitchelstown, which he had given over in trust to his sister, Mrs. Mandeville. Stephens was an engineering student on the Great Southern and Western Railway when the call to arms sounded in 1848. O'Mahony became cor- respondent of an Indian newspaper, to the pages of which he contributed some very interesting letters; but as no cheques came back in return, he was forced to abandon the pen and seek his fortune in that most precarious of precarious posi- tions, a professorship of English in the French capital. Stephens used also to give lessons; but as he had plenty of time on hands he utilised it by translating several of Charles Dickens's novels into French. All these translations appeared in the feuilleton column of he "Moniteur Uni- versel," and were paid for at the handsome rate of three sous a line. Alexander Dumas pere and Gustave Flaubert congratulated Stephens on his command over the French tongue, and there is very little reason to doubt the fact that the Irish refugee would have become a distinguished French "litterateur" if he had pursued a literary career in Paris. His thoughts and dreams were, however, elsewhere. He had stood by Smith O'Brien throughout the ill-fated campaign of 1848; he had been for weeks a refugee on the Irish hills; he had been Doheny's companion in a nook amid the crags overlooking Bantry Bay, and sat by Doheny's side while that beautiful song, "I've Run the Outlaw's Wild Career," was being written; he had dared all for the national cause, and was determined to dare all and do all for it again. Accordingly when he received in 1855 or thereabouts a favourable repgrt from several Irish exiles in America, he determined to fling aside the pen and throw himself into his country's service once more. Stephens resolved to confine his efforts to Ireland, England, and Scotland, while O'Mahony was to work on the American Continent. The name I.R.B. was given to the home organisation; that in America was called the F.B., by O'Mahony, who, being an able Irish scholar, bestowed that title o~ithe body in compliment to the memory of Finn and his fol- lowers-heroes, we are told, who were taller than Roman spears, and whose sinews were cast in iron. With the subsequent career of Stephens and O Mahony in Ireland and the United States I have nothing to do. Suffice it to say that Stephens, some months after his escape from Richmond Prison in 1865, returned to Paris, where he had interviews with Emile Ollivier, Napoleon III.'s 102 Irish Footprints over Europe. right-hand man, and was received in several salons of the Faubourg St. Germain, one of his hosts and intimate friends being the Marquis de Boissy, whose wife, the widow of Count Guiccioli, played such an important part in the life and destiny of Lord Byron. Stephens shortly after- wards proceeded to the United States, but re- turned to Paris, where, with the exception of another trip westward, he resided until 1885, . when, with several other Irishmen, he was expelled from France at the instigation of // the British Govern- ment, of whom the then French Prime Minister, Jules Ferry, was the abject tool and lacquey. Stephens, who JAMES STEPHENS. in the meantime had selected Brussels as his residence, had the satis- faction of reading in the newspapers some three weeks afterwards the report of Ferry's ignoble fall. He resided for some years in the Belgian capital, but has lately returned to Paris on an un- derstanding given by President Carnot that in his case, as well as in those of the Irishmen who were expelled with him, the rights of hospitality on French soil should not be violated a second time. Mr. Stephens and his devoted wife now occupy an apartment in the neighbourhood of the Arc du Triomphe, where the war-worn exile leads a life of study and retirement. It is unnecessary to add that he has still as firm a confidence in the ultimate triumph of the national cause as he had in the palmiest days of his eventful career. The military glory of Ireland's sons did not shine with diminished lustre under the Second Empire. Two of the Marshals created by Napoleon III. were the descendants of the old Irish families of O'Neill and MacMahon. The former, whose name was Frenchified into Niel, commnanded as General the third army corps in 1859, iwhen the French army was sent to help King Victor Emmanuel to drive the Austrian out of Italy. General Niel had commanded and fought with such eminent ability and courage that when peace was concluded he was created a Marshal of France. He had been severely wounded in the campaign, and suffered besides from the fever of the Italian marshes. One day during his illness a peasant woman brought him a whole basket of wild roses from the Campagna. Niel had always been ex- tremely fond of roses, and as most of them were new to him, they served to amuse him until they were withered. He observed, however, that one particular shoot had not faded and died like the others, but had grown into a beautiful green plant of some ten inches in length. Scarcely knowing why, Niel determined to keep the shoot, and when he returned to Paris he placed it with an expert floriculturist, under whose care it bore next spring four lovely buds of a pale lemon tinge. At that time General Niel was ordered to receive the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour, symbolic of the highest military rank then known in France, together with his commission of Marshal of France. After the first solemn ceremony was over he went to the reception given by the Empress, who was then in all the perfection of her beauty, and presented to her a curious yellowish rose of artistic shape and dainty per- fume, but different from any she had ever seen. After he had told the story of the flower, the dark eyes of Eugenie shone brilliantly as she said-- "Now, Monsieur le Marechal I shall christen this rose for you." "Do so" said the Franco-Irish soldier, bowing very low, whereupon the Empress, lightly putting the flower to her lips, exclaimed -"It is named the Marechal Niel, in honour of the soldier 'sans peur et sans reproche,' as gallant in the salon as he is brave on the battlefield!" Such is the origin of the Marshal Niel rose, which became immediately the fashion in eclectic circles in Paris. Niel cherished the flower to the end of his life, and would not have parted with it for all the gold in the Bank of France. The Marshal had all the characteristic traits of his Franco-Irish parentage, and has left an honourable and im- perishable name on the modern military annals of the country which he served so faithfully and so long. Marshal MacMahon was born on the 13th of July in the quiet chateau of Sully, and was the sixteenth son of Count Maurice MacMahon, who married a certain Mademoiselle Riquet de Caranam at Brussels in 1792. Young MacMahon having passed with honours through the military academy of St. Cyr, was on the 1st of October, 1827, nominated to a sous-lieutenancy, and rose from that humble post to the highest position in the State by his own sheer merit and industry alone. His first spurs were won in Algiers, where, at the age of 22, he was awarded the Cross of the Legion of Honour for bravery on the battlefield. On the conclusion of the African Campaign we find Lieutenant MacMahon acting as aide de camp of General Allard at the siege of Antwerp, and 103 Irish Footprints over Europe. winning the epaulettes of Captain. On his return to Africa in 1833 he assisted at the siege of Constantine, and though wounded in the conflict by a splinter from a shell, he nevertheless mounted the breach and was the first to plant the French flag on the ruins of the rampart. At the early age of 34 Mac Mahon received his brevet of Lieutenant- Colonel in the Foreign, Legion, and subse- quently exchanged into the 9th Regiment of 9 the Line, when he was ordered to march against the brave Abd- el-Kader. MacMahon, MARSHAL MACMAHON, Ex- in the various engage- PRESIDENT OF THE ments in which he took FRENCH. part, was always in the van, and distinguished himself to such an ex- tent that in 1848 he was nominated Brigadier- General. Having been promoted to the rank of General of Division in 1852, he was in August, 1854, ordered to proceed to the Crimea; and when Napoleon III., wearied of the protracted length of the siege of Sebastopol, asked Marshal Niel what was the best plan to capture that stubborn town, the Franco-Irishman replied-"Take the Malakoff, Sire, and Sebastopol is yours!" "Take the Malakoff" was the order given by the Emperor to another Franco-Irishman, MacMahon, who took the Malakoff, and thus hastened the fall of Sebastopol. It is recorded of him that before doing this daring deed he said-"I will take the Malakoff or I will never leave it alive," and when the bullets were showering around him in the attack, and his aide de camp was begging of him to take shelter from the storm, he observed-' 'Do not trouble me; I am surely master of my own skin." After a long and severe struggle he at last won the day, and announced his victory to the Emperor in the following laconic style:--"J'y suis; j'y reste." ("Here I am, and here I purpose to remain!") When the campaign was over MacMahon was entrusted with the supreme com- mand of the Army of the Reserve, and was sub- sequently appointed Senator. When war was declared on Aiu"ria by Napoleon III., the Franco- Irish soldier was the man who struck the first fatal blow at the army of Francis Joseph by the splendid and daring capture of Magenta-a tri- umph which won for him the title of Duke and a Marshal's baton. His countrymen at home beheld with no small amount of admiration the military success of MacMahon; and when the late Mr. A. M. Sullivan started in the "Nation" news- paper a fund with the object of presenting a sword of honour to the newly-created Marshal, the country respond- o ed to the call. A sum of �800 was collected. J Mr. Fitzpatrick, the well-known Irish artist, who is, I believe, at present residing in London, sup- plied a very hand- some design for the sword, the manufacture of which was en- trusted to Mr. MARSHAL MACAHON'S Patrick Donegan, IRISH SWORD. goldsmith and jeweller, of Dame-street. The blade was of the Celtic pattern; it was ornamented with Irish tracery copied from some old Irish manuscripts, and bore the following inscription in French on one side and in Irish on the other :-"Oppressed Ireland to the brave soldier, Patrick Maurice MacMahon, descendant of her ancient Kings." A deputation left Ireland to present the Marshal with the sword at Chalons. On Sunday, the 9th of September, 1860, the presentation took place before the Marshal's staff and a gallant array of officers, three of whom were Generals of Irish origin. MacMahon replied to the address as follows :-"Gentlemen, I am exceedingly touched by the sentiments which you have addressed to me, and I request you to say to the Irishmen whom you represent how grateful I feel for the testimony of esteem and sympathy which you offer me in their name. This testimony, by its spontaneous. character, has proved to me that the verdant Erin has preserved those chivalrous ideas that vivacity and warmth of heart which have at all times dis- tinguished her. I shall one day leave to my eldest son Patrick this magnificent sword. It. shall be for him, as it is for me, a new pledge of the close ties which ought to unite him for ever to the noble country of his ancestors." In 1864 MacMahon was appointed Governor-General of Algiers, where he resided till the declaration of war in 1870, when he returned to France. The leading events of that struggle and the important patt played by MacMahon at Sedan and subse. 104 FrishT Footprints over Europe. quently in suppressing the Commune, are so well known, and the record of them is so fresh in the memory of the reader, that it would be unneces- sary to recapitulate them in this paper. Suffice it to say that MacMahon passed through the cam- paign with scrupulous honour and integrity. The gallant Irish soldier was elected President of the Republic in 1873, and held that eminent post till the beginning of 1879, when he resigned. Although he was by no means so much at home in the arena of statesmanship as he was under cover of the tent or on the battlefield, it must be said of him that he was chivalrously loyal to the Republican Constitution, and refused, so long as he was President, to lend a hand directly or in- directly to a Monarchical restoration. Since 1879 he has lived in retirement and seclusion, having exchanged the sword for the pen, and devoting most of his time to his memoirs. If the tocsin of war, however, sounded again, the venerable old Marshal would, I dare say, be found once more in the van. Of all the pen-and-ink pictures of the man the following is to my mind the most faithful, as it certainly is the most graphic-" His height is not remark- able; but that body, all steel and iron, is made for the march, for the camp, for the charge. His countenance is calm and mild as the green valleys of his own ancestral island, and the energy of his COLONEL JOHN O'MIAHONY, mind never banishes HEAD CENTRE OF THE the serenity of his FENIAN BROTHERHOOD. visage behind its veil of an undefined sadness. His eyes ai e well set, his glance is bright and thoughtful, his moustaches fall carelessly over his lips after the fashion common among the old Chasseurs d'Afrique. His face is open and frank, his attitude is at once noble and modest; there is about him that in. describable air of aristocratic carelessness that bespeaks the gentleman who has grown old in the camp. He loves not the world of fashion; he cales little for politics, and I believe he would sooner mount to the assault of a battery than ascend the Parliamentary Tribune. His tribune you will find in the tower of Malakoff, from whence he speaks to the Russians from the rifle's mouth, or at Kabyl, from whence he chases the Arab ambush, or in the breach of Antwerp and Constantine." Under the Second Empire there were two notable Irish residents of Paris well worthy of mention. One was at one time a prominent Irish politician, the other is at present a member of the Irish Parliamentary Party. The former in the heyday of youth held high revel in the gay capital. He was on one occasion arrested in the Champs Elysees, as he was riding along in a gorgeous equipage drawn by six bays and attended with lacqueys in liveries of green and gold. Having been brought to the police station he was charged with having violated the law by driving in a carriage drawn by six horses, as it was laid down that no person save the Emperor could lay claim to such a privilege. After a few hours' imprison- ment the Irishman was released on the under- standing that for the future he should content himself with an equipage of five steeds. The second Irishman alluded to was one of the most remarkable duellists of his day in Paris. The Bois de Bologne, or, in other words, the Belgian frontier, must have witnessed many of his exploits with the pistol or the foil. Although he stood by O'Connell's side fighting the battle of Catholic Emancipation in Ennis in 1828, he is still hale and hearty and as active and vigorous as any of his colleagues who may happen to be in the fifties. 105 Irish Footprints over Europe. CHAPTER XXIV. FATHER PROUT, JOHN MITCHEL, JOHN AUGUSTUS O'SHEA, TIHE TWO ODONOVANS, PROFESSOR MORTIMER MURPHY AND ALF O'HEA IN PARIS-PHIL SHERIDAN, JOHN SAVAGE THE POET, AND MACKAY, THE LIMERICK MILLIONAIRE, IN THE SAME CITY-MEMBERS OF THE PRESENT IRISH COLONY-MORPHY, BARON HICKEY O'NEILL DE TYRONE, O'CONNELL AND O'AHONY- THE IRISH COMPANY IN THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR-" UNITED IRELAND" IN PARIS-THE PASSIONIST CHURCH IN THE AVENUE HOCHE-THE IRISH COLLEGE, ITS ORIGIN AND HISTORY. -MONG the leading members of the Irish colony of Paris under the Second Empire I might mention the names of Father Prout, John Mitchel, the two O'Dono- vans-Edmond and Wil- liam-John Augustus O'Shea, and Professor Mortimer Murphy. They all belonged more or less to the Bohemia of litera- ture, and as denizens of that kingdom reflected credit on the land that bore them. Father Prout. whose real name, by-the-by, was Francis Mahony, spent many of his early years on the Continent. Trained first in a Jesuit college in France, he proceeded to Rome, where he became an alumnus of the Irish College, and where he penned his immortal poem on the Shandon Bells. Having been duly ordained, he returned to Ireland and commenced his missionary career in the diocese of Cork; but his penchant for profane literature, ill adapted as it was to a conscientious fulfilment of his clerical duties, tempted him shortly afterwards to give up his curacy and try his fortunes in the world of letters in London, where he spent a goodly portion of his life as a contributor to "Frazer's Magazine," and became an intimate friend of Thomas Carlyle, who, strange to say, had the knack of making many acquaintances among Irish literary men, such as, for example, Gavan Duffy, John Edward Pigot, William Allingham, William J. Fitzpatrick, and others. Prout was for many years in Paris the special correspondent of the London "Globe." His contributions to that newspaper were the most brilliant literary efforts of the day, and were nearly all written in the reading-room of "Galignani's Messenger," in the Rue de Rivoli, where John Mitchel used also pen his weekly letters to the Dublin "Irishman" and the New York "Daily News." Prout was a wonderful linguist, as well as being a wonderful versifier. He translated the "Groves of Blarney" into Greek and Irish, and could spin a French rondeau with as much deft skill as Sainte Beuve or Theodore de Banville, while his ditties in the Tuscan tongue were written in as pure an Italian as if their author had been born and reared under the shadow of the Duomo of Florence. Towards the close of his life Prout broke his goose-quill and retired to a monastery in one of the suburbs of Paris, where he died in 1868. His remains were afterwards transferred to Cork, and now repose in the Shandon Churchyard within earshot of the bells which owe nearly all their glory to the creative genius of his muse. John Mitchel resided in Paris on different occasions with his wife and family. His daughter Henrietta, who became a Catholic and joined the Order of the Sacred Heart, died in a convent of that community, and was buried in the ceme- tery of Montmartre. The yj Irish colony, however, which had been for years # established in Paris, was that in which JOHN MITCHEL. Professor Mortimer Murphy shone a bright particular star. Murphy came originally from the county of Cork. Having reached the Continent early in life, he became in turn a ship carpenter and hotel tout, a champion vaulter in an Austrian circus, and Professor of Hebrew in a college in Hamburg. He acted subsequently as secretary in France to Murphy, the Irish giant, and lectured in Germany on William Shakespeare. While in Brussels he wrote on the staff of the "Independ- dance Belge," and filled the post of tutor to Charles Lever's children on the banks of the Arno. When, after half a lifetime spent in various parts of Europe, he at last settled down in Paris he became professor of languages, of which he knew thirteen as well as any native. He was for years every evening the centre of a group of Irishmen who used to sip coffee and smoke cigarettes in a 106 Irish Footprints over Europe. nook of the Cafe Cluny, on the Boulevard St. Michel-students of the Sorbonne, political refugees of Young Ireland or the I.R.B., special correspondents, compositors from "Galignani," Notre Dame and Pantheon guides, who usually hailed from Munster, and French and German teachers who first saw the light on the pleasant plains of Kildare or in the neighbourhood of the Dublin Coombe. In this select group the Pro- fessor was the observed of all observers. He was a little dapper man, white haired and bespectacled, rather bilious in appearance, but possessing, nevertheless, a Corkonian " bonhommie" of his own which charmed the circle in which he moved. Murphy in those days was an intense Republican. Night after night he used to fulminate his thunderbolts on Napoleon the Little, and pour withering sarcasm on the Napoleonic regime. His choler was, however, at no time raised to such a pitch as it used to be when one of the Irish boys would whisper that the Emperor meditated con- ferring on him the ribbon of the Legion of Honour, for Mortimer had as much contempt for honours as Colonel John Hay, who wrote:- " As the meek beasts in the Garden came flocking for Adam to name them. Men for a title to-day crawl to the feet of a king !" So vast was the Professor's store of general in- formaion that he was known in the Latin Quarter as a walking encyclopaedia. John Augustus O'Shea was another luminary in the same orbit. The Irish Bohe- mian was John Mit- chel's successor as Paris A 4