The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851. Various
his intention to marry Dame Rose, and offers money to her he has betrayed, in order to bribe her to silence. The band of harvesters appears, bearing in triumph the last sheaf, adorned with flowers and ribbons. The grandfather, Remy, full of joy, pronounces a discourse of rude and simple eloquence on the beneficence of Providence, and of the sun He causes to shine, after which a collection is proposed in favor of the orator and his granddaughter. Every one gives his offering. Dame Rose puts in a new five-franc piece, the father Fauveau a penny, Sylvain his watch, wishing that it were his heart, a child brings an apple, and finally the last contributor approaches. This is Denis Ronciat: seeing the seducer of his child, the indignation of the old man breaks out, he rejects the offering, and falls as if struck with apoplexy, pronouncing a sort of mysterious malediction, which freezes with horror all who hear it. In the second act Claudie is still at the farm, her grandfather having been sick there for two months. She has been engaged as a servant to the farmer Fauveau, but has not given the least hope to Sylvain, who has been constant in his attentions. Dame Rose, in the mean time, has fallen in love with him, and is astonished that he has not declared himself. Denis Ronciat, seeing his rival preferred, explains to the rich widow why the lover she desires will not present himself, and from vengeance and vanity divulges the secret of poor Claudie. Here we expect a storm of insults and reproaches to fall on the head of the dishonored girl. But, as in the rest of the work, the author has laid aside the ordinary traditions, customs, and conventionalities, to draw from the resources of her own genius. While all are preparing to expel the domestic who has deceived every body by her air of candor and innocence, the old man, whose reason has been wandering, listens. He recalls his recollections, and his presence of mind returns at the critical moment. He rises, throws his arms around his granddaughter, and naively recounts the story of the seduction and abandonment of Claudie: how she believed in Denis, and gave him her heart without distrust; how Denis shamefully abused her confidence, and abandoned her, when duty obliged him more than ever to be faithful. The old man adds that he himself had neither reproached nor cursed her, but that he consoled her, that he took her child upon his knees, and loved it, and despaired when it died. Finally he demands who would presume to be severer toward his child, and feel her wrong more keenly than he. His simplicity, magnanimity, and goodness, overpower all who hear him. A more gentle sentiment than even respect and pity takes possession of every heart. The devotion of the old man raises the fallen girl, and in the admiration he inspires the fault of Claudie is almost forgotten. But it is too late. The old man takes the arm of his daughter, and leads her away with him. When the curtain rises for the last scene, Dame Rose has retained Claudie and her grandfather at the house, a riot in the village having prevented their departure. Denis has come near being stoned to death. Finally he consents to repair his crime by marrying her he has betrayed. He is refused. Then Sylvain offers himself to Claudie, but she says she is unworthy of him, and refuses obstinately. Dame Rose, Fauveau, and even Sylvain's mother, try vainly to change her resolution. The old man at last decides, by saying that he reads her soul, and knows that she loves Sylvain. His authority makes her give a silent consent, and here the curtain falls. Claudie has been brought out in elegant form by a Parisian publisher. Why should not some poet attempt a version into English?
Several new Plays and Operas have lately attracted attention in Paris. Paillasse, in five acts, by MM. Dennery and Marc Fournier, produced at the Gaieté in November, was one of the greatest hits during the latter part of 1850. The character of the conventional French mountebank, Paillasse, the vagabond juggler of fairs and streets, was regarded as one of the finest creations of Frederic Lemaitre, and in one of the Christmas revues a symbol of the piece passed before the eyes of the audience as one of the types of the past year. It has since been brought out in London with quite as much success, Madame Celeste (the quondam star of our Bowery?) in the character of the wife of the mountebank. The musical season at Paris has been signalized by the production of two successful operas. L'Enfante Prodigue of Auber is running a prosperous career at the Académie de Musique. General opinion speaks highly of the music, and the piece appears to be one of the most ingenious of M. Scribe. At the Opera Comique another opera by Scribe and Halevy, La Dame de Pique, has been brought out with success. The libretto, taken from a Russian tale, translated by M. Merimée, is one of the most fantastic Scribe has constructed. It is founded on an old story about the Russian Empress Elizabeth, who had found out the secret of invariably winning at play by means of three cards, of which the Queen of Spades (la Dame de Pique) was one.
M. Combet, a Protestant clergyman of Cevennes, has just published at Paris in three volumes a work of great interest and value, under the title of Histoire de France sous le regne de Henry III. par Mazerai. It comprises a full, conscientious and philosophic account of the French religious civil wars, from the beginning of the Reformation down to the establishment of religious liberty under the Consulate. To the original work of Mazerai, M. Combet has prefixed an elaborate introduction, while he has added in the form of an appendix whatever relates to more recent matters, with copious notes and commentaries. The whole constitutes an invaluable contribution to the history of the modern religious movement.
Some new contributions to the history of labor have just appeared at Paris. The most important is the Histoire de la Classe ouvriere depuis l'esclave jusqu'au Proletaire de nos Jours, by M. Robert (du Var), four volumes. Less general and comprehensive in its aim is Le Livre d'Or des Metiers, Histoire des Corporations ouvrieres, by Paul Lacroix and Ferd. Serre, six volumes. Both these books are written without an intention to establish any special theory or system.
The Rev. G. R. Gleig, author of The Subaltern's Furlough, Saratoga, &c., is now Inspector-General of Military Schools, and lives in London.
Leopold Ranke, whose "Lives of the Popes of Rome" is familiar to American readers, has lately discovered in the National Library at Paris an important long lost MS., by the Cardinal Richelieu. In the MS. memoirs of the Cardinal, deposited at the Office for Foreign Affairs, an imperfection has existed, in the total absence of a series of leaves from the most interesting part of the collection. These appear to have been found accidentally, by M. Ranke, in a bundle of papers, gathered from some of the old mansions in Saint Germains. It has been a disputed question whether Richelieu was the real author of the works under his name; whether he availed himself of the literary abilities of others, contributing no more from his own resources than here and there an observation or a fact. These disputes have had reference to the Memoirs, the Testament, and the Histoire de la Mère et du Fils; for there seems to be good reason for believing that the books published previous to his political elevation, such as the De la Perfection du Chrétien, the theological tracts, and his political treatise of 1614, were written by him with no more than the ordinary aids of authorship. It is possible that the fragment, discovered by M. Ranke, may afford additional evidence on this curious subject, which was lately debated in the Academy.
Of bad spelling George Sand writes, apropos of some newspaper controversy in Paris, that so far from bad spelling being a proof of want of capacity, she has a letter of Jean Jacques Rousseau, in which there are ten faults of spelling in three lines. Moreover, she assures us, that she herself frequently makes a lapsus pennæ for which a school-boy would be chastised.
Lola Montes has made her debut in the literary arena, by the publication in the feuilleton of a daily newspaper of the first portion of what she calls her "Memoirs:" a quasi-impertinent epistle to the ex-king of Bavaria. Since, the publication has been suspended. It promised merely scandal, without wit.
The Count de Montalembert has been elected a member of the French Academy, in place of M. Droz. The election gives little satisfaction outside the Institute; but the Count is not without eminence as a man of letters. Some of his religious tracts are written with great eloquence and pungency.
The seventh and last volume of the Glossarium Mediae et Infimae Latinitatis has just been published by the Didots at Paris. It is a perfect repertory of information as to the middle ages, and cannot be dispensed with by any one who aims to study the institutions, history, and monuments of that period.
A complete grammar of the Coptic language has been brought out at Berlin, by Professor Schwartze.
The Italian Revolution.—Books relating to the late revolution in Italy and the events which preceded it are now published in that country in considerable numbers.