Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 1. No 1, June 1850. Various
me, then, just begin with monsieur," said the dwarf, pointing to the last speaker; and a shout of laughter closed the sentence.
A brief and angry dispute now arose as to what was to be done, and it is more than doubtful how the debate might have ended, when Gougon, with a readiness all his own, concluded the discussion by saying,
"I have it, messieurs, I have it. There is a lady here, who, however respectable her family and connections, will leave few to mourn her loss. She is, in a manner, public property, and if not born on the soil, at least a naturalized Frenchwoman. We have done a great deal for her, and in her name, for some time back, and I am not aware of any singular benefit she has rendered us. With your permission, then, I'll begin with her."
"Name, name – name her," was cried by thousands.
"La voila," said he, archly, as he pointed with his thumb to the wooden effigy of Liberty above his head.
The absurdity of the suggestion was more than enough for its success. A dozen hands were speedily at work, and down came the Goddess of Liberty! The other details of an execution were hurried over with all the speed of practiced address, and the figure was placed beneath the drop. Down fell the ax, and Gougon, lifting up the wooden head, paraded it about the scaffold, crying,
"Behold! an enemy of France. Long live the republic, one and 'indivisible.'"
Loud and wild were the shouts of laughter from this brutal mockery; and for a time it almost seemed as if the ribaldry had turned the mob from the sterner passions of their vengeance. This hope, if one there ever cherished it, was short-lived; and again the cry arose for blood. It was too plain, that no momentary diversion, no passing distraction, could withdraw them from that lust for cruelty, that had now grown into a passion.
And now a bustle and movement of those around the stairs showed that something was in preparation; and in the next moment the old marquise was led forward between two men.
"Where is the order for this woman's execution?" asked the dwarf, mimicking the style and air of the commissary.
"We give it: it is from us," shouted the mob, with one savage roar.
Gougon removed his cap, and bowed a token of obedience.
"Let us proceed in order, messieurs," said he, gravely; "I see no priest here."
"Shrive her yourself, Gougon; few know the mummeries better!" cried a voice.
"Is there not one here can remember a prayer, or even a verse of the offices," said Gougon, with a well-affected horror in his voice.
"Yes, yes, I do," cried I, my zeal overcoming all sense of the mockery in which the words were spoken; "I know them all by heart, and can repeat them from 'lux beatissima' down to 'hora mortis;'" and as if to gain credence for my self-laudation, I began at once to recite in the sing-song tone of the seminary,
"Salve, mater salvatoris,
Fons salutis, vas honoris:
Scala cœli porta et via
Salve semper, O, Maria!"
It is possible I should have gone on to the very end, if the uproarious laughter which rung around had not stopped me.
"There's a brave youth!" cried Gougon, pointing toward me, with mock admiration. "If it ever come to pass – as what may not in these strange times? – that we turn to priest-craft again, thou shalt be the first archbishop of Paris. Who taught thee that famous canticle?"
"The Père Michel," replied I, in no way conscious of the ridicule bestowed upon me; "the Père Michel of St. Blois."
The old lady lifted up her head at these words, and her dark eyes rested steadily upon me; and then, with a sign of her hand, she motioned to me to come over to her.
"Yes; let him come," said Gougon, as if answering the half-reluctant glances of the crowd. And now I was assisted to descend, and passed along over the heads of the people till I was placed upon the scaffold. Never can I forget the terror of that moment, as I stood within a few feet of the terrible guillotine, and saw beside me the horrid basket, splashed with recent blood.
"Look not at these things, child," said the old lady, as she took my hand and drew me toward her, "but listen to me, and mark my words well."
"I will, I will," cried I, as the hot tears rolled down my cheeks.
"Tell the Père – you will see him to-night – tell him that I have changed my mind, and resolved upon another course, and that he is not to leave Paris. Let them remain. The torrent runs too rapidly to last. This can not endure much longer. We shall be among the last victims! You hear me, child?"
"I do, I do," cried I, sobbing. "Why is not the Père Michel with you now?"
"Because he is suing for my pardon; asking for mercy, where its very name is a derision. Kneel down beside me, and repeat the 'angelus.'"
I took off my cap, and knelt down at her feet, reciting, in a voice broken by emotion, the words of the prayer. She repeated each syllable after me, in a tone full and unshaken, and then stooping, she took up the lily which lay in my cap. She pressed it passionately to her lips; two or three times passionately. "Give it to her; tell her I kissed it at my last moment. Tell her – "
"This 'shrift' is beyond endurance. Away, holy father," cried Gougon, as he pushed me rudely back, and seized the marquise by the wrist. A faint cry escaped her. I heard no more; for, jostled and pushed about by the crowd, I was driven to the very rails of the scaffold. Stepping beneath these, I mingled with the mob beneath; and burning with eagerness to escape a scene, to have witnessed which would almost have made my heart break, I forced my way into the dense mass, and, by squeezing and creeping, succeeded at last in penetrating to the verge of the Place. A terrible shout, and a rocking motion of the mob, like the heavy surging of the sea, told me that all was over; but I never looked back to the fatal spot, but having gained the open streets, ran at the top of my speed toward home.
WOMEN IN THE EAST
Within the gay kiosk reclined,
Above the scent of lemon groves,
Where bubbling fountains kiss the wind,
And birds make music to their loves,
She lives a kind of faery life,
In sisterhood of fruits and flowers,
Unconscious of the outer strife
That wears the palpitating hours.
There is a gentle, calm repose breathing through the whole of this poem, which comes soothingly to the imagination wearied with the strife and hollowness of modern civilization. Woman in it is the inferior being; but it is the inferiority of the beautiful flower, or of the fairy birds of gorgeous plumage, who wing their flight amid the gardens and bubbling streams of the Eastern palace. Life is represented for the Eastern women as a long dream of affection; the only emotions she is to know are those of ardent love and tender maternity. She is not represented as the companion to man in his life battle, as the sharer of his triumph and his defeats: the storms of life are hushed at the entrance of the hareem; there the lord and master deposits the frown of unlimited power, or the cringing reverence of the slave, and appears as the watchful guardian of the loved one's happiness. Such a picture is poetical, and would lead one to say, alas for human progress, if the Eastern female slave is thus on earth to pass one long golden summer – her heart only tied by those feelings which keep it young – while her Christian sister has these emotions but as sun-gleams to lighten and make dark by contrast, the frequent gloom of her winter life.
But although the conception is poetical, to one who has lived many years in the East, it appears a conception, not a description of the real hareem life, even among the noble and wealthy of those lands. The following anecdote may be given us the other side of the picture. The writer was a witness of the scene, and he offers it as a consolation to those of his fair sisters, who, in the midst of the troubles of common-place life,