TOLER ESCORT EPSELTITIETTVEI ITT TTT 
 
 FF eT gem ms ete oc te sep wed 
 
 pa are oom 
 
 AAPEUNUUREESUUU CERO R ROSES ONY) t 
 Vireprersense 
 
 oat 
 “a 
 
 seteeretesayseeere 
 Vrsere eres 
 
 Vaevesbenyeaies 
 Aer eben 
 
 reerevenenras 
 rat 
 ty cesenest 
 
 Pt reRtnage 
 VUCOUARECSUESES US COUOECCELEGERT ES 
 
 s 
 y 
 a vies 
 i con 
 CEUUUAURUSUSUSUREOUUESOECETORT) 
 ottag 
 teed t 1 seaseasten 
 i. rar PULLS CATR 
 CNR bet ey ech eee at 
 PEORY LCS, See ee nat 
 Pant | Tree err ey 
 
 
 
THE UNIVERSITY — 
 
 OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY 
 
 313 
 G 25Ff 
 
 BOOKSTACKS 
 
 
 

 

 

 

 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 TROTH AND FICTION. 
 
 A Hovel. 
 
 BY <4) 
 CHARLES GAYARREB, 
 1 
 
 AUTHOR OF ‘“‘ THE HISTORY OF LOUISIANA,”’ ‘* PHILIP II. OF SPAIN,” “‘ THE 
 SCHOOL FOR POLITIOS,”’ ETC., ETC. 
 
 LS 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 G. W. Carleton & Co., Publishers. 
 
 LONDON:<S. LOW, .SON. & CQ. 
 M.DCCC.LXXII. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by 
 CHARLES GAYARRE. 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. G 
 
Fl te a 
 
 Swe 
 
 t. ie 
 
 lms at 1,'@ 
 
 AUG hi DS 
 ’ 
 
 oe tf a . ; 
 LC LAA EM 
 LAAY 
 
 Ghis Work 
 
 Is 
 Q. RESPECTFULLY PEDICATED 
 D TO 
 
 THE UNKNOWN AND FUTURE FRIENDS 
 WHOM 
 icy 
 
 IT MAY MAKE FOR ITSELF. 
 
 569747 
 
Jo BE fOLLOWED BY 
 
 AUBERT DUBAYBT, 
 
 A SEQUEL TO 
 
 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
C GEN teks Neb oS: 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 FERNANDO DE LEMOS AT THE COLLEGE OF ORLEANS....... 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 emer tA NID, PUELUG . 9 « «6 cus «peice duis cline soe ee ememie mes 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE RICH AND THE POOR STUDENT, FERNANDO DE LEMOS 
 AND ‘RODERIC TREVIGNE....... nS EE oe ahaa i ae oe 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 THE BLEEDING NOSE AND THE CURSE OF THE GYPSY...... 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 TREVIGNE, THE POOR LAD EDUCATED AT THE COST OF THE 
 ‘STATE, TURNS OUT TO BE A GRANDEE OF SPAIN. FER- 
 NANDO DE LEMOS TRAVELS IN EUROPE. ......0. cee eeeee 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 LOUIS PHILIPPE AND THE HANGMAN OF PARIS, A STRANGE 
 
 PROPHECY SUBSEQUENTLY VERIFIED. .........eeeee.0-- 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 CONTINUATION OF FERNANDO’S TRAVELS IN EUROPE....... 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE MARQUIS AND HIS BROTHERS. A STRIKING EFFECT OF 
 THE VOLUNTARY OBSERVANCE OF THE RIGHT OF PRIMO- 
 EIEN. .  Sakedin tare ceebie Seed r Rea e ee ne edaae 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 FERNANDO’S ADVENTURES IN THE PYRENEES........060.-. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 FERNANDO, THE BANDIT AND HIS DAUGHTER. WHY THE OLD 
 PRIEST OF THE MOUNTAIN REFUSED TO BECOME A BISHOP. 
 
 11 
 
 19 
 
 30 
 
 39 
 
 49 
 
 60 
 
 70 
 
 83 
 
 94 
 
 106 
 
8 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 FERNANDO JOINS AT RONCAL, IN-NAVARRE, HIS SCHOOLMATE, 
 TREVIGNE, COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THE CARLIST ARMY.. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 THE BATTLE OF RONCAL BETWEEN THE CARLISTS AND CHRIST- 
 INOS, DEATH OF TREVIGNE............- + 2:8 3 eee ee 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 FERNANDO RETURNS TO LOUISIANA, AND BECOMES ACQUAINT- 
 ED WITH TINTIN CALANDRO, THE CRAZY SEXTON OF THE 
 ST. LOUIS CEMETERY, BUT IN WHOSE UNSETTLED BRAIN 
 THERE YET LURKS MUCH WISDOM..... 2 0 ce 0 oe tele s eve ls sists 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 IN WHICH IT IS SHOWN THAT THERE IS NO BETTER SCHOOL 
 FOR PRACTICAL AND MORAL INSTRUCTION THAN A GRAVE- 
 
 NWABD us.ue't oced os avses's buss gu an bse seine Ries all 
 2 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 IN WHICH FERNANDO AND TINTIN CALANDRO RELATE TO 
 EACH OTHER MANY INTERESTING THINGS IN THE ST. 
 LOUIS CEMETERY... efeeees eer eesreceoe ee tees ese eeseeeeseee 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 O’NEIL THE ATHBIST ..........¢. waved se ea we usdce ae tee 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 TINTIN CALANDRO, THE GRAVE-DIGGER, REFUTES THE ARGU- 
 MENTS OF O’NEIL, THE SCHOLAR AND THE ATHEIST...... 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 VALDECK, THE RICH GERMAN MERCHANT, AND ANAYA, THE 
 PORTUGUESE DS ELW sie cine ate efelielein 64 a teleie re .blele noel cise tenance nena 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 SOMETHING ON THE JEWS.—THE WHITE AND BLACK PEAS OF 
 PAPILLON, THE JUSTICE OF THE-PHACH....... occ ene 
 
 116 
 
 128 
 
 136 
 
 149 
 
 162 
 
 175 
 
 191 
 
 208 
 
 222 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 A JURY TRIAL.—THE FORCE AND VITALITY OF PREJUDICES, 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 THE OLD CHIEF JUSTICE AND HIS BLACK SERVANT TOM.... 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 BETTER BE A PIONEER THAN A LAWYER.—TINTIN CALANDRO’S 
 HALLUCINATIONS. ee f®#eee eer ree tere eveeree es eeeveseeevrseaneven ee 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 MASTERS AND SLAVES.—TINTIN CALANDRO’S VATICINATIONS 
 DEE MEB NESS WUC E aia dine <'x sicko dias 6's ss\5.4 eule 60a eee ee wclan tore 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 THE STATESMAN.—BETTER BE A DOG THAN A POLITICIAN.... 
 
 * CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 OLD ZABET THE BLACK WOMAN, AND HER PHILOSOPHY.... 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 CHRISTMAS EVE.—THE MUSICIAN AND THEOLOGIAN,....... 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 THE ELOQUENT MADMAN..........20e Riete Wiote ear elare aeons Tams 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII, 
 
 DOMINIQUE YOU, THE PIRATE see @e@eee eeeeeevreveeeveee ee eee? 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX, 
 THE FATE OF THE DAUGHTER OF AARON BURR REVEALED. 
 GENERAL JACKSON AND THE CORSAIRS OF BARATARIA.... 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 THE CARNIVAL OF VENICE IN THE ST. LOUIS CEMETERY.—THE 
 ACTRESS GRISELDA AND THE SPANISH DUKE.—BACKBONE 
 AND SADFISH, OR GOOD AND BAD LUCKE..... we ei eie/s)sleleiee-s 
 
 202 
 
 242 
 
 206 
 
 268 
 
 285 
 
 293 
 
 304 
 
 820 
 
 389 
 
 304 
 
 364 
 
10 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER. XXXI. 
 
 ‘CONTINUATION OF THE STORY OF BACKBONE AND SADFISH, 
 OR GOOD" AND BAD LUCK... wie cis ccccscic ses elcle theeie gana 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 END OF THE STORY OF BACKBONE AND SADFISH.—DEATH OF 
 TINTIN CATANDRO wisye ccc sc oe eres ele c.crnie cis ob © einhelereleterenarenemene 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIIl. 
 
 WHAT WAS THE VEILED PORTRAIT BEQUEATHED BY TINTIN 
 CALANDRO TO FERNANDO.—THE PRINCESS OF LAMBALLE, 
 AND JOSEPH LAKANAL, THE REGICIDE AND THE LAST PRIN- 
 CIPAL OF THE COLLEGE OF ORLEANS. ......cescescccccsees 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 FERNANDO DE LEMOS RETURNS TO NEW ORLEANS, AFTER THE 
 WAR OF SECESSION.—THE PORTICO OF 8T. CHARLES HOTEL. . 
 
 CHAPTER XXXYV. 
 THE DABNEY FAMILY,—THE APPARITION......eseeeeeeeeees 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI, 
 
 THE TWO WIDOWS.—JANE DABNEY AND HER LOVER, LUDOVICO 
 BAR BRA RIN I cars crete atersteteneistere eseeeeeoeevoeee ees eeveeeeteeeeeeeeee @ 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 GABRIEL THE FRIEND OF JANE DABNEY, CALLS ON COLONEL 
 LUDOVICO BARBARINI, HER DESTROYER.—A FASHIONABLE 
 BA Lilivs telore's ote otarseetetele ie ete 20". 68.5.2 8) 6.2 Ota 2 0 8 6 eeeeeseee eee ee 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 THE OLD SPANIARD ALVAREZ.—A CHAPTER ON IMPULSES..... 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 A DUEL.—COLONEL LUDOVICO BARBARINI DIES LIKE A PRINCE. 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 CONCLUSION OF THE STORY OF THE DABNEY FAMILY......... 
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 WHAT HAPPENED TO FERNANDO DE LEMOS IN NEW ORLEANS 
 AFTER THE END OF THE SECESSION WAR......eseereceee 
 
 315 
 
 385 
 
 395 
 
 404 
 
 414 
 
 425 
 
 436 
 
 446 
 
 456 
 
 466 
 
 479 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 FERNANDO DE LEMOS AT THE OLD COLLEGE OF ORLEANS. 
 
 Tue ehurch of St. Augustin, at the corner of Hos- 
 pital and St. Claude streets, now stands on a portion 
 of a large tract of land once appropriated to the Col- 
 lege of Orleans, the first educational institution of 
 Louisiana which was incorporated by her Legislature ; 
 it flourished for a short time, with a promise of dura- 
 tion ; but it soon disappeared, leaving few traces of its 
 existence save a fragment or two of its long dormito- 
 ries, which have been converted into private dwellings, 
 and save also a few sexagenarian gentlemen, who, by 
 their classical attainments: and refined manners, show 
 that the defunct institution was not without its merits, 
 and had, in some instances at least, accomplished the 
 purpose for which it had been erected. I, Fernando de 
 Lemos, was about seven years old when my name was 
 registered in the records of this Alma Mater, which 
 was then under the direction of Jules Davezae, a highly 
 polished gentleman of the old school and a native of 
 St. Domingo. It is difficult to determine which pre- 
 dominated in him—the gentleman, or the scholar. I 
 incline to believe that there was in his organization a 
 
 happy combination of both characters, in equally bal 
 (11) 
 
12 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 anced proportions. I even now, after the lapse of so 
 many years, delight in the remembrance cf his affec- 
 tionate accents, and of the expression of genial benev- 
 olence which overspread his face whenever he addressed 
 any one of his youthful subordinates. We used to call 
 him Titus, in memory of the Roman emperor of that 
 name; and it was not inappropriate after all; for if 
 Titus was the delight of mankind, Davezac was the 
 delight of his juvenile subjects. For some cause or 
 other, which we never knew—whether he abdicated, 
 or was decapitated—certain it is that his reign was not 
 long, and he was succeeded by another native of St. 
 Domingo, named Rochefort. Many of the French, 
 when driven from that Island by the negroes, had fled 
 to the neighboring one of Cuba, from which they had 
 again been expelled when Napoleon invaded Spain. 
 About four thousand of that unfortunate population 
 had at last taken refuge in New Orleans, where they 
 met with much sympathy and the most liberal support. 
 Most of them were energetic and industrious; some 
 were highly educated ; and the hospitable inhabitants 
 of the city had not been backward in offering them 
 opportunities to better their fortunes. J am not sure 
 that there was not in the College Board of Regents a 
 majority composed of the exiles of St. Domingo; which 
 shows the extraordinary facility with which they had 
 affiliated with the natives of Louisiana, and the marked 
 influence which they had acquired in a short time. 
 
 It was to that influence, as well as to his own merit, 
 that Rochefort was indebted for his appointment. Be- 
 sides being the principal—the head of the collegiate 
 establishment—he had charge of the highest Latin 
 class, and was professor of literature. He was himself 
 no despicable poet, and had made very elegant transla- 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. ‘13 
 
 tions of the best odes of Horace, which he delighted 
 to read to his pupils. Whenever not engaged in teach- 
 ing, he used to walk rapidly in a long gallery, into 
 which his private apartments opened, sometimes thump- 
 ing the floor violently with his club-foot, as if with a 
 stick, drinking cup after cup of coffee, and occasionally 
 giving vent to a shrill, short, abrupt whistle. It was 
 probably his way of crowing, when he had found at 
 last some felicitous expression of which he had been 
 long in search. Whether it was due to the profuse 
 quantity of Mocha which he imbibed, or whether he 
 really possessed the divine “ afilatus,” it seemed to us 
 that he had what we considered ought to be the in- 
 spired look of the favorite of Apollo and of the Muses. 
 His brow expanded finely, and he was bald on the top 
 of his head, from which, what remained of his hair 
 fell in silky curls down his neck. There was always a 
 sort of flush over his face, as if produced by some in- 
 ward excitement, and his eyes were wonderfully lus- 
 trous. Beyond the Latin classics, the histories of 
 Rome, Greece and France, he hardly knew anything. 
 The darkness which surrounded the little bright spot 
 where he dwelt, was welcome to him; it made more 
 brilliant, by circumscribing it, the only light for which 
 he cared. He was a monomaniac in his aversion to 
 mathematics, and could not bear any allusion to that 
 science. If such a subject was introduced, he became 
 nervous and fretful. It was like presenting water to a 
 mad dog. A wag of our class pretended that he had 
 ‘surprised, one day, our venerated tutor casting up two 
 and two on a sheet of paper, and coming slowly to the 
 conclusion, after repeated efforts, that it’ made four. 
 Rochefort occupied for his residence the second story 
 
 of a very large building, in the lower part of which 
 
14 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 were some of the classes. In that second story there 
 were several rooms, which he gave to such of his pupils 
 as had pre-eminently distinguished themselves in those 
 high classes of which he had the special charge. The 
 occupancy of these rooms withdrew their fortunate 
 tenants from subjection. to any other authority than 
 that of Rochefort. Irom that moment they were priv- 
 ileged beings ; they acted as they pleased, without con- 
 trol from the ordinary proctors, and were amenable 
 only to him for their acts. He frequently invited them 
 in turn to his table, and as frequently took them to the 
 theatre, (at their own expense, however,) whenever the 
 drama to be acted was deemed by him of a suitable 
 character. He was a bachelor, and they were his 
 adopted family by reciprocal consent. The other pu- 
 pils called these envied few the principal’s body guard. 
 In fact, it was an aristocracy which, although estab- 
 lished as the reward of intellect and labor, was unpop- 
 ular among the pupils, and disliked even by the pro- 
 fessors and proctors. It was a sort of house of peers, 
 which every outsider seemed to think it his duty to 
 rail against and to pull down, if possible ; but it stood 
 firm against all assaults. It was particularly galling 
 to the inferior teachers, to the proctors, and the police- 
 men of the institution, to witness the secret freaks of 
 these magnates, without daring to interfere or denounce 
 them. It was always a grand day to us (for why should 
 I not admit that I was one of those magnates), when 
 we were summoned to accompany our chief to the 
 theatre of Orleans street, the only one then existing. 
 The number of the selected was usually limited to six. 
 On such occasions Rochefort put himself at the head 
 of the squad, and marched with an air of proud satis- 
 faction through the streets of New Orleans. Conscious 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 15 
 
 of being the observed of all observers, he seemed to 
 gay plainly to the idlers who gazed at us: “ Look on, 
 my friends, look on; for you see with me spes pa- 
 trie.”* After the theatrical entertainment was over, 
 when on our way back to our classical home, he would 
 ask us our opinion as to the merits of the play, and of 
 the actors, and either approve or correct our judgments. 
 It was evidently a source of great annoyance to him, 
 if not of grief, that his brother was one of those come- 
 dians. Of course, he never alluded in his criticisms to 
 the manner in which that brother had performed his 
 part on the stage, and we as sedulously avoided to ven- 
 ture on that tacitly forbidden ground—the more so, 
 because Rochefort, the actor, who was a very respecta- 
 ble individual in his every-day character, was not 
 always equally worthy of praise in those which he pro- 
 fessionally assumed. 
 
 At our time of life, most of the actors and actresses 
 whose performances we had witnessed, loomed up like 
 wonderful personages whom we could not too much ad- 
 mire ; and we used to experience quite a shock when 
 our chief, revising our judgments one after the other, 
 poured his bucket of cold water on our enthusiasm, and, 
 almost to our regret, showed the many imperfections 
 which we had taken for real beauties. We, not un- 
 naturally, concluded that he was a most severe, if not 
 unjust, critic. Every dollar which he could save from 
 the requirement of his personal wants, and from the 
 contributions which he generously granted to the sup- 
 port of his brother’s family, he invested in books. He, 
 therefore, had accumulated a large library, to which we, 
 the privileged few, had free access. This liberality was 
 more than once the cause of my being reprimanded and 
 
 * The hope of the country. 
 
16 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 punished. Our chief had issued an ukase that, at ten 
 o'clock at night, all Eghts were to be extinguished in our 
 rooms, and that we were to betake ourselves to our bed 
 without unnecessary delay. I must confess that, gener- 
 ally, I was obstinately bent on sitting up late, notwith- 
 standing the danger of disobedience, and I frequently 
 disregarded the hour of the curfew, particularly when 
 I had picked up in the adjacent library, a book which 
 enticed me to rebellion against the prescribed rule. 
 Hence, on more than one occasion, I was startled by 
 the voice of our worthy principal, who had to my dis- 
 may got out of bed and who shouted to me: 
 
 ‘“ Fernando, bring to me to-morrow before sunset, ten 
 pages of Tagine translated into the very best French, 
 mind you ;” mentioning the chapter and book. 
 
 I always suspected, however, that he was very mag- 
 nanimous to me, and that he voluntarily abstained from 
 noticing many of my midnight transgressions; for 
 sometimes, in the morning, he would say to me with a 
 tone of assumed severity : | 
 
 “T believe, sir, that you sat up late last night—is it or 
 is it not true ?” 
 
 I knew how to parry the blow when I thought that [ 
 had been transgressing. 
 
 “Tt may be so, sir,’ I said; “‘I beg pardon for what 
 I have done. My only excuse is, that I had not noticed 
 the flight of time ; for I was rather in a vein of inspira- 
 tion, and indulged in writing some verses.” 
 
 “Verses! child, verses! what was it about? Show 
 them to me,” he would say, with eager curiosity, rub- 
 bing his hands, and with an irrepressible chuckle of sat- 
 isfaction. 
 
 “ Allow me, sir, if you please, to polish them a little 
 before submitting them to your judgment.” 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 17 
 
 “Very well; that is right; polish, polish away. I 
 give you until to-morrow.” 
 
 Thus, I more than once found myself set down for a 
 poetical effusion, within twenty-four hours’ notice, no- 
 lens volens. But we of the upper-tendom never felt 
 more grand than when old Tyrteus, (ve had thus 
 nicknamed him after the club-footed Greek poet who, 
 chanting his hymns at the head of the Spartans, led 
 them to victory,) invited us to dine at his table, with 
 the announcement that, the convivial entertainment be- 
 ing over, he would read to us one of his original pro- 
 ductions. Good wine and good cheer prepared us for 
 the august ceremony, and, when he had done reading, 
 he could easily discern that we were sincerely and hon- 
 estly in ecstasies. How could it be otherwise? The 
 stomach is more grateful than the heart, and its grati- 
 tude rose up in savory vapors to the brain, which it pre- 
 pared for approbation of the intellectual dish that made 
 its appearance, after a more substantial one had been 
 duly relished by the flesh. Besides, were we not greatly 
 complimented by being taken as judges? We felt as 
 consequential as an areopagus of Greek critics would 
 have been, had Apollo deigned to descend from high 
 Olympus to submit to the decision of their tribunal. 
 By Jupiter! I cannot but smile even now, on recollect- 
 ing the scene which we then exhibited. _ Whosoever 
 you are who may peruse these lines, if you have seen 
 the well-known engraving representing Walter Scott 
 reading one of his poems to an assembly of his literary 
 friends, you have the proper model before you to group 
 us as artistically; and you may be able to draw a pic- 
 ture equally pleasing to you and to ourselves. But, to 
 be strictly truthful in your representation, do not forget 
 to suffuse our cheeks with a glow of intense self-impor- 
 
18 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 tance. On these occasions, old Tyrteeus usually dismiss- 
 ed us with a paternal admonition in the blandest style, 
 saying: ‘Now, boys, return to your studies with in- 
 creased emulation ; behave well; and above all, culti- 
 vate the muses, if you wish for a repetition of this en- 
 tertainment.” 
 
 Poor Rochefort! years afterwards I visited him on 
 his death-bed; infirmities having compelled him to re- 
 sign as principal of the college. He had gradually be- 
 come pinched in his circumstances, and, in consequence 
 of it, he had been under the dire necessity, from time 
 to time, to sell his books. It was to him like parting 
 with pieces of his own flesh. Still, he had a goodly 
 number of them remaining, and his last looks had the 
 consolation to rest on them. When the visit I speak of 
 was paid to him, senatorial honors had just been con- 
 ferred on me. He had heard of it; and, when I made 
 my appearance, he exclaimed, “ Mortturus te salutat, 
 O pater conscriptus! * Let me kiss, child, those eapi- 
 tolian lips before I am wafted across the Styx by old 
 Charon. Os magna locuturus,+ I predict. Ha, ha! 
 Macte animo, puer.{ You are my work, boy; you are 
 my work—never forget it!” 
 
 Alas! old Tyrteeus has long since gone to his last 
 place of rest; and, true to his wishes I have never for- 
 gotten him. Let these lines be the proof of my fond 
 and grateful remembrance. 
 
 * He who is soon to die, salutes thee, O conscript father! 
 
 + A mouth which is destined to speak great things. 
 } Strive on with increasing courage, boy! 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 PROFESSORS AND PUPILS. 
 
 We had another remarkable personage among our 
 teachers. It was Teinturier, the professor of mathema- 
 tics, a bachelor too like Rochefort. He was tall and 
 wiry, as thin as a lath, and as sallow as the oldest piece 
 of parchment extant. His small, round, pumpkin-like 
 head, was covered with dense crispy hair which began 
 to be silvered with age. His food consisted of only two 
 things—bread and milk—bread well baked—which he 
 broke carefully, systematically and almost mathemati- 
 cally into fragments of equal size, and which he cast 
 into a large bowl of boiling milk. Once in the course 
 of the day, and once in the course of the night, he 
 took a teaspoonful of coffee. Such being his diet, his 
 thinness is not to be wondered at. He never walked 
 but trotted, with his eyes always closed. God only 
 knows how he found his way; it must have been by 
 instinct. His absence of mind was such, that he not 
 unfrequently went north, when he should have gone 
 south. More than once the urchins of the city, to 
 every one of whom his eccentric figure was well- 
 known, had hailed him with: “Ho! ho! old Teintu- 
 rier, whither are you trotting ?” 
 
 * You impudent imps of darkness,” he would reply, 
 *¢ you know very well I am going to the college. I am 
 afraid I am a little too late.” 
 
 ‘How came you then, old crazy ow1,” would young 
 
 (19 ) 
 
20 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 America shout with frolicsome boldness, “to turn your 
 back on it, like a naughty boy, playing truant and run- 
 ning away from school.” 
 
 Thus addressed, the dreamer, stopping short, uttered 
 all sorts of exclamations of surprise, and looking like a 
 bewildered somnambulist on his waking up in a strange 
 place, would start in the right direction with quickened 
 pace. | 
 
 Teinturier was passionately fond of horticulture, 
 and had in one of the suburbs of the city a very large 
 garden and orchard famous for their vegetables, their © 
 flowers and fruits. Often he was seen working the 
 whole night by moonlight. He allowed himself but 
 very little sleep. This was a systematic rule with him, 
 although nature would enforce her claims despite his 
 will ; so that, even when walking, or rather trotting, he 
 was sometimes half asleep ; and at the dinner table, or 
 in a friend’s parlor, or in the professor’s chair, it 
 happened that he occasionally departed, without being 
 conscious of it, for the land of dreams. He snapped his 
 fingers at the sun, and maintained that it was an absurd 
 prejudice to be afraid of its heat. Hence, in the hottest 
 months of the year he would strip himself stark naked, 
 and work lustily in his garden in this primitive costume 
 of Adam, thereby demonstrating, as he said, his pro- 
 position, that the white man could, in July and August, 
 brave the canicular rays with impunity. In that con- 
 dition, and when thus occupied, he looked very much 
 like a half-boiled lobster trying to escape from the cook 
 and bury itself in the ground. Besides being an excel- 
 lent gardener and making handsome profits as such, 
 and besides being a professor of mathematics with a 
 good salary, Teinturier had another string to his bobw— 
 which was, to tune pianos, and great was the call on 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. . 21 
 
 him for that purpose. He was also exceedingly fond 
 of natural history, so much so, that, whenever we 
 were not prepared for our lessons and had been neglect- 
 ful in our prescribed studies, we used, on his enter- 
 ing the class, to present to him in the most artless 
 manner we could assume, a string of insects about 
 which he would descant most learnedly—we fanning the 
 discourse with our questions, until the hour which was 
 allotted to our class had glided away. There was some- 
 thing ludicrous in the amazement which his face showed 
 on such occasions, when we notified him that the time ~ 
 was out and that we had to attend another class; but 
 recovering himself, he would say good humoredly : 
 
 “Well, well, how time flies! It is really prodigious. 
 Who could have believed it? Still, my young friends, 
 we have not been uselessly employed. Have we? 
 Natural history is very curious and attractive. It must, 
 however, be used only as an amusement—an innocent 
 and instructive recreation. There is but one thing 
 worthy of being denominated a science. That is, ma- 
 thematics. It is the Alpha and Omega of all knowl- 
 edge—the great-I am—the pervading spirit of the uni- 
 verse. Good-bye, my lads; go again and carefully over 
 - the lessons which you were to recite to-day, and we will 
 have a grand time of it to-morrow. He who may 
 deserve to be put at the head of the class, shall have a 
 prize— mind you—a full basket of fruit, and even 
 popish indulgences for some future peccadilloes.” After 
 having thus delivered himself, he smiled benignantly, 
 closed his eyes and trotted away. 
 
 There was with the class a favorite joke, in which 
 we sometimes indulged — which was—when he was 
 preparing to depart for the day, to present him with 
 toads, frogs, bugs, butterflies, and all sorts of insects 
 
22 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 which we had caught. He invariably pinned them to 
 his hat and his sleeves, and went home, moving like a 
 somnambulist, apparently unaware of being followed 
 by a host of little blackguards who made themselves 
 merry at his expense, and whose shouts and jeers testi- 
 fied their glee. We sometimes served another trick on 
 our worthy professor. His chair was like those appro- 
 priated to the district judges in New Orleans, and look- 
 ing somewhat like church pulpits. On his ascending 
 into it, he used, before commencing his course of instruc- 
 tion, to rest awhile with his elbows.n his desk and with 
 his chin in the palm of his hand, whilst gathering his 
 thoughts. On such occasions, particularly during the 
 dog days, we sometimes observed that, absorbed in re- 
 flecting on what he had to say, he ended in nodding 
 very suggestively. As soon as such a symptom was dis- 
 covered, the class became so silent that a pin might 
 have been heard to fall. All eyes were riveted on the 
 drooping head of the professor, and when it was evident 
 that Morpheus had triumphed over the god of angles 
 and triangles, we noiselessly crept from our seats, closed 
 doors and windows to produce the darkness favorable to 
 slumber, and deserting the room, left the man of equa- 
 tions to his undisturbed repose, which sometimes was 
 of long duration. On his waking, he would mildly 
 remonstrate against our conduct. But, on our assur- 
 ing him that we had been guided only by respectful 
 considerations, that we thought he looked fatigued and 
 unwell, and that we had been afraid of his over exert- 
 ing himself on our behalf, he would seem to be much 
 relieved, and would say with much benignity : 
 
 “ Well, my children, I thank you heartily. It was 
 very kind on your part to show such regards to me, al- 
 though it was very wrong on mine to fall asleep; for 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 23 
 
 it was my duty to be awake, and duty must always be 
 performed. But what were you doing whilst I slept ?” 
 
 “Oh! we were all on the piazza, knee deep in Eu- 
 clid, amusing ourselves with algebra and trigonometry, 
 settling equations and solving problems.” 
 
 Bless you, boys; you console me for my accidental 
 dereliction of duty. Then no time has been lost, and 
 my conscience is at ease. You will be an honor to the 
 State and to myself.” 
 
 There was one thing which this man, who had in 
 him so much of the milk of human kindness, utterly 
 abhorred. It was poetry. If, to tease him, we spouted 
 some passage from the French classics, he flew into a 
 fit of indignation: 
 
 What, boys! what! what do I hear? What non- 
 sense is this? In my presence, too! This is positively 
 to be lacking in respect to me. Poetry! pish! pshaw! 
 What is there in that thing called poetry? What does 
 it prove? What is it good for? Does it demonstrate 
 any truth? Did any two persons ever agree as to its 
 merits ? What constitutes its essence? What is poetry, 
 and what is not? As well might one attempt to ana- 
 lyze the substance of a shadow. Will poetry build a 
 bridge, or a house, or a fortification, or an engine? 
 Will it steer a ship, or calculate the march of the heay- 
 enly bodies? Mathematics, boys, mathematics! It 
 sums up everything. What would the world be with- 
 out mathematics ? The Creator himself is nothing but 
 the most sublime of all mathematicians. A poet! 
 Fie!” and he would grin like a monkey sick at the 
 stomach and ready to faint. That any one should have 
 been so foolish as to write a comedy, or a tragedy, was 
 @ puzzle to him. | 
 
 “ But, Mr. Rochefort,” we would say to him, “ main- 
 
24. . FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 tains that poetry does more to ennoble mankind than 
 ‘anything else.” 
 
 “Mr. Rochefort ! ha! ha! a mere coiner of rhymes! 
 a manufacturer of jingling sentences. A fine authority, 
 truly! a man who could not go through one of the 
 simplest operations of the multiplication table! and 
 you quote him, and to my face, too! You who, under 
 my tuition, are every day discovering and appropriat- 
 ing some of the celestial beauties and secrets of mathe- 
 matics! A truce to this nonsense. Allow, my boys, no 
 such follies to divert your attention from serious studies, 
 or you will give me much pain.” Then he would 
 stride away, tossing his head in disgust, and emitting 
 between his teeth a sort of sibilant sound, which, be- 
 ginning like a half-suppressed hiss, ended in a dry, con- 
 temptuous, hysterical laugh. 
 
 It must be confessed ‘that Rochefort richly repaid 
 the compliment by his aversion to mathematics. It was 
 as intense as Teinturier’s hatred of poetry. Sometimes, 
 as one of our best practical jokes, one of us who be- 
 longed to Itochefort’s privileged class of literary gran- 
 dees, on seeing him coming, would put himself in his 
 way, and bending over his slate, would seem to be en- 
 gaged in some absorbing occupation. 
 
 “Ah! ah! child,” would old Tyrtzeus cheerily ex- 
 claim as he approached,.“ you are trying your hand at 
 some stanzas, are you? An ode, perhaps? Is it French, 
 or Latin? Let me see, let me see!” And he would 
 eagerly bend over the slate. Then followed the angry 
 expostulations : 
 
 “What, sir! What hieroglyphies are these? Is it so 
 that you waste your precious time ?” 
 
 “Sir, I am studying my lesson of mathematics. I 
 am Asti one of the problems of Euclid.” 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 95 
  Buclid! Euclid! Whois he? Oh! ...tIsee... 
 
 some of Teinturier’s nonsense. Good God! that some 
 of my best pupils should be exposed to be spoiled by 
 that man, their imagination chilled, and their poetic 
 fire extinguished just as it began to expand !” 
 
 And thumping his fiercest thump with his club foot, 
 he would limp away with extraordinary fleetness, as if 
 pursted by the ghosts of Archimedes and Newton. 
 When at a safe distance from the mischievous joker, 
 he would turn round, cast a reproachful glance at the 
 student and his slate, and then, emitting his shrillest 
 whistle—sharp, angry and menacing—would resume his 
 flight. 
 
 Another oddity was our professor of drawing. His 
 name was Selles, and, like Rochefort, he was from the 
 island of St. Domingo. Selles was a superb gentleman. 
 His body had been cast in a large mould, and was fine- 
 ly proportioned. His countenance was imposing, and 
 his large blue eyes beamed with a majestic expression. 
 From the consciousness of his possessing these advan- 
 tages, with a sonorous voice, and other physical as well 
 as mental qualifications, the excellence of which was 
 no doubt greatly exaggerated in his own estimation, he 
 had come to the conclusion that he would have been 
 the most illustrious actor in the world, if his gentle 
 birth had permitted him to go on the stage. As it was, 
 and in his present situation as a teacher, he consoled 
 himself with occasionally assuming tragic attitudes, and 
 declaiming passages from Corneille and Racine, for the 
 profit and delight of his pupils. We took care to en- 
 courage him in these exhibitions; for we preferred 
 forming an idle audience to drawing eyes, noses, mouths 
 and ears. Therefore, one of us would sometimes turn 
 
 round from his desk and humbly beg Selles, as he 
 : : 
 
26 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 passed along our benches, muttering his long Alex- 
 andrines, to be so kind as to show us how Talma, the 
 great French actor in Paris, spoke a particular passage. 
 He -generally consented with alacrity to gratify such a 
 desire, always admonishing us, however, that the inter- 
 ruption to our labors would have to be a short one, and 
 that we must promise him to return to our pencils with 
 renewed gusto. The promise was readily made, of 
 course, and the exhibition began much to our amuse- 
 ment, but it occasionally ended tragically for one of us, ~ 
 who happened to be so unfortunate as to be tickled 
 into an outright burst of laughter by his contortions. 
 
 “Oh! you laugh, little rascal,’ would the trage- 
 dian exclaim, “when you should weep, or be terror- 
 stricken! I will teach you better manners, and better 
 taste.’ And he would shower cuffs on the luckless sin- 
 ner, who then shed tears as he ought to have done be- 
 fore, or pretended to do. After this, our professor 
 would be unapproachable for several days, permitting 
 not the slightest attempt at conversation with him, and 
 contenting himself with uttering in a low grumbling 
 tone some verses, as he walked royally erect, but with 
 ill-eoncealed vexation, between the rows of the artists 
 in embryo whom he had in charge, and who looked ~ 
 sadly dejected ; for they knew what was coming. On 
 such occasions he would always complain, as he bent 
 over our shoulders, that our drawings were greasy, and 
 he would shout : | 
 
 “ Why do you not wash your hands, little pigs? Mind 
 you, I am going through a regular course of inspection. 
 Show your drawings, all of you.” 
 
 Obedient to the command we held up our sheets of 
 paper; and as he stepped from one pupil to the other, 
 he would yell out: “ Butter, sir, butter! nothing bnt 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. Nae 
 
 butter !”’ and, as he strode along, the words would ring 
 fiercer and fiercer and with more tragic intonations : 
 
 “ Butter, sir, butter, butter all over! I will report 
 you, little wretches, I will; and you shall have nothing 
 but dry bread at dinner.”’ 
 
 It was literally terrific ; we actually sobbed, and felt 
 as if the earth were giving way under our feet, whilst 
 the overwhelming denunciations’ poured thick and fast 
 upon our devoted heads. I doubt whether Talma, 
 Garrick, Booth, Keane, or Macready, ever produced 
 such an effect on their audiences. - 
 
 Another individual, a cousin of Teinturier, who had 
 no other name that we knew of than that of George, 
 was another eccentricity. George was one of our proc- 
 tors, and had charge of the police of one of the classes 
 which occupied rooms in the first story under the apart- 
 ments of Rochefort, the principal. George was an old 
 man with a socratic face, and with powdered hair gath- 
 ered behind into a well trimmed and neatly tied cue 
 which hung down over his coat. Like Teinturier, he 
 had a passion for horticulture, and possessed a small 
 garden of about forty feet square in the immediate vi 
 cinity of the college. There he spent all the time which 
 he could spare. The poor fellow must certainly have 
 felt very happy, when retreating from the torments in- 
 flicted upon him by the unruly boys whom he had to 
 manage, and whom he did not manage at all, for he was 
 the weakest of mankind. He could not have controlled 
 a class of the most timid girls, and much less a quick- 
 silver assemblage of Southern boys. Lambs and kids 
 might have taken the liberty to gambol on the should- 
 ers of old Socrates, as we called him, without his being 
 able to summon sufficient resolution to interrupt their 
 frolics. It was one of the freaks of the class, when the 
 
28 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 spirit of mischief got into them, to bombard old Socrates 
 with paper bullets, aiming particularly at his cue, whilst 
 he was promenading gravely between the rows of desks, 
 and seeing that every pupil was at work. Whenever 
 he was hit, he turned round sharply, and looking at the 
 supposed delinquent, he would say in a deprecating 
 tone: ; 
 
 “You did it, sir. I beg you to put an end to this 
 pleasantry.” 
 
 This charge was always met with an indignant de- 
 nial by the accused, who affected to feel much aggrieved, 
 even when he was really guilty of the offence. If the 
 assault was continued too long, without his being able 
 to discover those who waged against him this unmer- 
 ciful guerrilla warfare, old Socrates would stop short in 
 his methodical walk, and, casting a sweeping look over 
 the whole class, would say: 
 
 “ Gentlemen, I give you notice that I am going to 
 halloo—halloo—halloo—if you don’t cease these fool- 
 eries.” 
 
 At this very moment, perhaps a paper bullet would 
 alight on his short upturned nose, or some other tender 
 part of his face, to which attack he replied with a shriek, 
 and with these words which he shouted with all the 
 strength of his lungs: 
 
 ‘Mr. Rochefort, help! Help, help, Mr. Rochefort,” 
 dwelling on each syllable so as to make it a yard long. 
 “ Mr. Rochefort, I am in danger of being murdered. 
 Here is a rebellion on foot, you are wanted to quell it.” 
 
 This appeal to Jove was answered from above with 
 two or three violent thumps of the club foot, and an 
 Olympian whistle, which instantly “ re-established or- 
 der in Warsaw,” whilst we, the magnates, who dwelt in 
 the upper region, heard Jove mutter contemptuously 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 29 
 
 between his teeth: ‘‘Imbecile! imbecile! What an 
 imbecile !” 
 
 I do not believe that there ever was so restricted a 
 spot on earth, where so many oddities were assembled, 
 as within the learned precincts of this college. . Each 
 would deserve a particular description, without omit- 
 ting, as too humble, the ubiquitous Bruno, our mulatto 
 steward and common messenger, Vincent the door- 
 keeper, with his wry neck and doleful commtenance, and 
 black Marengo, the unmerciful and murderous cook. 
 But I am afraid of tiring my readers, if [have the good 
 luck to have any. All these reminiscences are connec- 
 ted with one of a romantic nature, which I shall pro- 
 ceed to narrate. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE RICH AND POOR STUDENT, FERNANDO DE LEMOS AND 
 RODERIC TREVIGNE. 
 
 THERE were in the college of Orleans only a few 
 day scholars. They were youths who, generally on 
 account of the poverty of their parents, could not afford to 
 be full boarders. Most were admitted on half pay ; others 
 did not pay ut all, being sent by the Board of Regents, 
 every member of which had the privilege to select a 
 poor boy, who, on the recommendation of his patron, 
 and on the assurance of his family being in destitute 
 circumstances, was’ entitled to be educated gratis. 
 Those who were thus selected by the Regents, were 
 designated as “charity students” by those who had 
 been more favored by fortune. This was ungenerous 
 and mean; but, alas, even children are not free from 
 the blemish of upstart insolence. Among those “ charity 
 boys” who composed the plebs, or populace of the in- 
 stitution, and who were treated with lofty disdain by 
 some of the sons of wealth, was a lad called Trevifio. 
 We had frenchified his name, and we pronounced it - 
 Trévigne. His father was a Spaniard, who lived in a 
 hut on Bayou road, midway between Bayou St. John 
 and the city. Who that Spaniard was nobody knew, 
 or cared to know; for he certainly was the most unso- 
 viable of human beings. Poor himself, he had mar- 
 
 ried, shortly after his arrival in the country, a very 
 (80) 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 31 
 
 poor woman—so that it was what the French quaintly 
 designate as “the marriage of thirst and hunger.” He 
 had never called on the Spanish consul, to whom prob- 
 ably his existence remained unknown, although he 
 looked like an educated gentleman, and one who had 
 seen better days; nor had he presented his respects to 
 the euré of the parish, Father Antonio de Sedella. 
 This individual, however, was an authority, and not 
 to be neglected ; for whenever with his broad-brimmed 
 hat; his eyes humbly bent to the ground, his long white 
 beard, his coarse brownish gown tied round his waist 
 with a rope from which hung a crucifix, and with his 
 bare feet resting on sandals, he made his appearance in 
 the streets, the most profane among pagans, catholics, 
 or protestants, took off his hat. Almost every body, 
 high or low, poor or rich, among the natives and 
 among the foreigners who had resided in New Orleans 
 any length of time, had always solicited an introduc- 
 tion to the holy man, who, although in the receipt of 
 avery large income as the curé of a wealthy parish, 
 dwelt from choice, near the cathedral, in a cabin which 
 a slave would have thought an intolerable grievance to 
 occupy, and who slept on the thinnest of mattresses 
 spread over hard boards. As to the Spaniards, or those 
 of Spanish origin, they kept up a sort of daily inter- 
 course with the priest. The fact is, that no baptism 
 was thought to be effectual, except performed by him, 
 that the idea of wedding without his ministry could 
 not be entertained for an instant, and that one would 
 have died in despair, if not consoled by the certainty of 
 being escorted by him to the grave. 
 
 Once on a Sunday morning, Father Antonio had 
 not made his appearance as usual, to say mass at the 
 cathedral, which, on that day, was always crowded to 
 
32 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 suffocation. Another priest presented himself to offi- 
 ciate at the altar. At that sight the emotion became 
 indescribable. ‘‘ Father Antonio is sick; perhaps he is 
 dead.” ‘These words ran in a low murmur among the 
 excited assembly. There was a rush, and in a few 
 minutes the church was empty—every one, men, 
 women and children, striving to be the first to arrive at 
 Father Antonio’s house, if house it could be ealled. 
 Informed probably of the coming of this mighty tide 
 of human beings, by the roar which preceded it, the 
 old man stood on the sill of his door, and waving his 
 hand to command silence, said : 
 
 “Tam in good health, my children, and I thank you 
 for the anxiety and the motives which have brought 
 you here. Return to church to fulfill your duties to 
 God; the explanation why I stay away is very sim- 
 ple. Lam for the present suspended by the bishop, 
 and cannot, until authorized by him, perform the fune- 
 tions of my ministry.” 
 
 The immense crowd had become suddenly dumb and 
 silent from amazement. They seemed to have been. 
 petrified, for they were motionless and breathless for 
 awhile. But the storm soon burst out. 
 
 ‘¢Down with the bishop,” was the ery repeated by 
 thousands. ‘“ Let us drive him away, let us hang him. 
 What! Father Antonio suspended! A saint prohib- 
 ited from saying mass! A good joke, to be sure! Is 
 the world coming to an end? Let us carry him by 
 foree to the cathedral.” 
 
 These were the sentiments vociferated by the multi- 
 tude, and Father Antonio, notwithstanding his protest- 
 ations, was seized by robust arms, placed in a large 
 cushioned chair, carried in triumph to the church, 
 and deposited with tender care at the foot of the main 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 33 
 
 altar amidst deafening shouts. When released from 
 the embraces of his admirers, the priest, with his back 
 to the altar, and with his face towards the enraged 
 mass of people that heaved and swelled before him 
 like the waves of an angry sea, presented to them the 
 crucifix, saying: 
 
 ‘In His name, peace to man on earth, and glory to 
 God in heaven. [am sorry, my children, that I must 
 reprimand you for having used force to bring me here. 
 Your love for me has blinded you, and I will do pen- 
 ance for it on your behalf. But I cannot officiate as 
 you desire. I am suspended, as I have told you, by a 
 legitimate authority, and I owe obedience to my supe- 
 rior without questioning his motive, or the wisdom of 
 his decision. I beg you therefore to disperse, and to 
 return quietly to your respective homes.” 
 
 For the first time in his life the holy man was dis- 
 obeyed, and met with actual rebellion. He had hardly 
 ceased to speak, when the fury of the people knew no 
 bounds. ‘‘'T’o the Bishop’s palace,” was the cry. ‘ Let 
 us give him a lesson, the confirmed hypocrite! Let us 
 make him dance a cotillion of our invention! Let us 
 hang him to the lamp-post! Let us make him sing his 
 mass set to a music that he never heard before!” Ut- 
 tering these threats and all sorts of imprecations, the 
 multitude was soon on its way to wreak its vengeance 
 on the prelate, who, fortunately, had time to fly from 
 its fury and leave the city. 
 
 Thus it may be inferred from what I have related, 
 that Father Antonio was no mean personage, and yet 
 it was such a personage that Trevifio, a Spaniard by 
 birth to boot, had treated with conspicuous indiffer- 
 ence. It was portentous. So thought every body, and 
 
 every body was not well disposed towards this sullen 
 2% 
 
34 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 stranger, who kept a cigar shop at the corner of St. 
 Philip and Condé, now Chartres street, in a miserable 
 shanty of a building which stood up there, but which 
 looked as if it did not intend to stand up long. Seated 
 the whole day behind a few boxes of the fragrant weed 
 which he sold, the poor Spaniard hardly made enough 
 to keep soul and body together, for he was very unpop- 
 ular. Those who entered his shop never could entice 
 him into a chat. He was as dumb as an oyster, as - 
 solemn as a cathedral, and exhibited his cigars to his 
 customers in the most freezing manner, neither recom- 
 mending them, nor seeming to hear any remark made 
 to their disparagement, or praise. It was with him: 
 “take them or not, as you please;” he did not care. 
 It was also thought to be a remarkable peculiarity, for 
 one who dealt in pure Havana, that he did not smoke 
 himself. What did it mean? Had the man com- 
 mitted a crime, and was he so sick at heart with re- 
 morse, that he could not use tobacco, that universal 
 comforter? These were questions which were mooted 
 at, the time, but never answered. He was so frigid 
 and so methodical, that he would have been set down 
 as a mere lugubrious automaton rather than a man, if 
 there had not been in his eye something which told of 
 a life, stagnant in the present, but convulsed and 
 stormy in the past, whereby there hung perhaps some 
 dreadful tale of passion and of woe. Those eyes haunt 
 me yet. What there was in them I never could ex- 
 plain to myself, nor could I in the least describe, but 
 when they rested on me, probably without distinguish- 
 ing what object I was, so far away from the living re- 
 alities around him were those thoughts in which he 
 seemed absorbed, that I felt that strange and myste- 
 rious creeping of the flesh which is sometimes pro- 
 
- FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 35 
 
 duced by a vague, uncalled for, and undefinable ap- 
 prehension of being in the invisible presence of some- 
 thing unearthly. 
 
 That unsociable Spaniard would, I bélieve; have been 
 so thoroughly hated by the Hole: population, that his 
 shop would have had no customers at all, if intense 
 sorrow, and even despair, had not been unmistakably 
 stamped on his brow. It was impossible to hate one 
 who seemed to hate himself, and to be blasted by the 
 wrath of heaven, if not by his own wickedness or folly. 
 Yet, whatever were the agonies of that man, he sought 
 the sympathies of none. He avoided the company of 
 his fellow creatures, and withdrew into a solitude peo- 
 pled only with his own dismal thoughts. He paid and 
 received no visits. He was seen every morning, pre- 
 cisely at the same hour, wending his way with a firm 
 and steady step from his distant residence to his cigar 
 shop, from which he returned only in the evening to 
 his home. His family was composed of his wife, a son, 
 and two daughters. As he passed gloomily through the 
 long rows of houses, greeting nobody, and greeted by 
 none, more than one old crony of a black woman, look- 
 ing at him steadfastly, shook her woolly head with 
 mysterious importance, as if that head was oppressed 
 with some thought too big to come out. The wife of 
 that raven-like individual was a very industrious woman, 
 who always appeared cheerful, and who contributed to 
 the support of her family by assiduously sewing for the 
 ladies of the city. She was a universal favorite ; per- 
 haps it was, in some degree, on account of the disfavor 
 visited on her lord; for such isthe human heart. When 
 she was interrogated as to her husband’s peculiarities, 
 she would answer carelessly that he was a hypochondriac, 
 and turn the conversation into another channel. Her 
 
36 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 two daughters, as they grew up, assisted her with all 
 their might. They had been educated by the Ursuline 
 nuns, and did credit to those charitable sisters. Al 
 though very handsome, they were very modest, and 
 even of a shrinking disposition. Their beautiful features, 
 when enlivened with a smile, still retained a slight tinge 
 of melancholy. Was it not natural, when they lived 
 within the shadow of such a father? Jor the very rays 
 of the sun seemed to darken as they fell on him who, 
 either from some motive of economy, or for some other 
 reason, was always dressed in deep black, as if m mourn- 
 ing, and looked like the incarnation of woe. . 
 Shortly after I had become an inmate of the college, 
 the only son of the individual whom I have attempted 
 to sketch, entered its precincts as a ‘‘ charity student ” 
 by the appointment of one of the regents, as I have 
 already stated; that is to say—he was to be educated 
 gratis. ‘The koy was of about. my own age, seven 
 years old. As he was a “ charity student,’’ he was con- 
 sidered of course as not belonging to what was denomi- 
 nated the “respectable set.” Roderic Treviiio, or 
 rather Trévigne, as we called him, was as beautiful as 
 he was bashful, too beautiful and bashful for a boy. 
 His hair was as black and glossy as a raven’s wing ; 
 his forehead was high and as smooth as polished marble. 
 All his features were as delicate as taste inspired by 
 love could have imagined. His complexion was slightly 
 olivaceous, and bespoke of his Spanish and Southern 
 origin, but his skin was so soft that one would have taken 
 it for a tissue of satin. The pure line of his eyebrows 
 seemed to have been limned by an artist’s hand. His 
 eyes were like two orbs of jet, half concealed under the 
 long silky eyelashes which grew round them like an 
 oriental curtain. There was in them a dreamy expres- 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 37 
 
 sion, which it is not usual to observe in eyes of that 
 color, and which gave them an indescribable charm. 
 We immediately took to each other, and we became 
 friends at first sight. The modest, girlish look of the 
 new comer attracted the attention of all the youthful 
 inmates of the college, and, not long after he had be- 
 come one of us, a boy called Verdier, and who was the 
 most odious little creature in the world on account of 
 his intensely envious disposition, approached him on 
 one occasion, and said in a sneering tone: “ How is 
 Miss Trévigne to-day?’ A blow from the timid and 
 girlish looking boy on the big ugly nose of Verdier was 
 the unexpected answer, and Trévigne fought so bravely, — 
 that henceforth nobody was tempted to call him a girl. 
 He was studious, but never distinguished himself pre- 
 eminently. As we grew up, however, we kept in the 
 same classes,—although [ was much ahead of him in 
 every one of them. He seemed to be proud of my 
 superiority and to love me the more for it. 
 
 Verdier was also one of our class-mates, and the 
 antipathy between him and Trévigne increased as they 
 grew older. Trévigne never joined us in any of our 
 sports, but, whilst we were thus engaged, kept out of 
 our way, apparently occupied in studying one of his 
 lessons, or stretched on the grass, gazing at the vault 
 of heaven, or gravely walking with me when he could 
 win me from our companions, and retain me at his side 
 by affectionately throwing his arm over my shoulders. 
 Most of the boys ceased to notice one who showed such 
 marked indifference to them, and who, after all, was 
 but a “ charity student ”—one who came in the morn- 
 ing, rather shabbily dressed, with a mere crust of bread 
 and a piece of cheese in his satchel for his breakfast, 
 who had to return home at twelve o’clock for what was 
 
38 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 supposed to be but a meagre dinner, and who, in the 
 evening, ceased to be one of them, as he was compelled 
 by his poverty to sleep beyond the precincts of the 
 college. He was not one of their set—he could not be 
 —why then-should they care for him? He was a 
 “charity student”—a mere nobody. Even among 
 children, although not in the same degree as among. 
 men, to be poor is to be possessed of something repel- 
 lant and refrigerating, which keeps off the fellowship 
 of those who are, or who fancy that they are—rich—so 
 that I had Trévigneall to myself. Verdier alone would 
 occasionally force himself on us, with the evident inten- 
 tion of giving pain to Trévigne, but without going so far 
 as to give him the right to resent it, and therefore without 
 exposing himself to punishment. He would even 
 assume sometimes the garb of sympathy, the better to 
 wound the somewhat morbid sensibilities of my gentle 
 friend. Ob! how cordially I hated him for it! 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 THE BLEEDING NOSE, AND THE CURSE OF THE GYPSY. 
 
 Verpier was one of the sons of a rich sugar planter, 
 and, in consequence of it, considered himself as im- 
 measurably above those who had not that peculiar ad- 
 vantage. This was in his eye a title of nobility. The 
 son of a wealthy cotton planter might come next to 
 
 him and to all those who, like him, belonged to the 
 ' molasses aristocracy. ‘The issue of a great merchant, 
 or of a distinguished lawyer, or physician, was one, to 
 be sure, who might be permitted to oceupy a stool in 
 the hall of the barons, provided all the arm-chairs were 
 reserved for Verdier and his compeers. But, as to 
 those who proceeded from the loins of druggists, small 
 traders, small farmers, mechanics, pedagogues, and 
 such contemptible fry, they were merely the mud-sills» 
 of the social edifice of which he was one of the Corin- 
 thian: pillars. He was fond of talking of the luxuries 
 of his home, particularly in the presence of those of 
 his companions whom fortune had not treated so gra- 
 ciously. Although a toady to those whose parents had 
 the reputation of being far more wealthy than his own, he 
 envied and maligned them intensely, and rejoiced when- 
 ever something disagreeable happened to them. He 
 was a thickset boy, with small grey eyes much resembl- 
 ing those of a hog, and with well-knit and powerful 
 protruding jaws indicating great capacity of mastica- 
 
 (39) 
 
40 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 tion and corresponding sensual appetites. He had 
 sandy hair which stood up like bristles on the back of a 
 boar, and he had a jaundiced complexion characteristic 
 of the envy which festered in his breast.’ To complete 
 his portrait, I shall only add that he was gifted with a 
 burly nose almost lapping over a wide and thin-lipped 
 mouth, which was not embellished by the evident 
 malignity of its eternal smile. That nose was truly a 
 ‘remarkable feature. It seemed to be always snuffing 
 something from afar ; and that something was, as we 
 all knew, some paintul news for one or other of his 
 comrades. When the ill wind which brought evil to 
 one of us, struck the broad nostrils of that nose, it 
 heaved with a tremulous motion of pleasure. On the 
 contrary, if some good fortune happened to any one of 
 Verdier’s .acquaintances, and particularly to any one 
 of those he called his friends, that nose swelled, as- 
 sumed a purple hue, and bled profusely. I confess that 
 I always saw with marked satisfaction the hemorrhage 
 of that proboscis, as I well knew the cause of it. 
 On such occasions he used to say that he was troubled 
 with too much blood in the head, and that he was much 
 relieved by its running out through his nasal organ. 
 But we were not his dupes, and we were fond of ad- 
 ministering to him that kind of relief. Thus, when- 
 ever we heard of some windfall to any one of his friends, 
 we were eager to announce it to him, and we said to 
 each other: “Let us go and make Verdier’s nose 
 bleed!’ Whenever he received any delicacies from 
 his parents, he was sure to come and eat them in the 
 presence of Trévigne, whom he invited to share them 
 with him, but in a manner which strongly tempted me 
 to knock him dewn. I need not say that his invitation 
 was always refused. One of his tricks was, to des- 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 41 
 
 cribe with affected pathos, within the hearing of Tré- 
 viene, the hardships of some poor family whom he pre- 
 tended to know, and whom he would be happy to 
 relieve through his father’s benevolent assistance, if 
 that family’s foolish pride—a pride clothed in rags—did 
 not stand in the way of their would-be benefactors. 
 The art which he exhibited in lacerating the feelings of 
 Trévigne with claws concealed under a velvet paw, 
 was truly wonderful. The fact is, that he seemed to 
 have made a most minute study of my friend’s heart, 
 and wherever there happened to be any sore point in 
 that heart, he had in readiness a venomous shaft to aim 
 at and strike that particular point, right at the time 
 when the most harm could be done. Indignant at the 
 pertinacity of Verdier’s hostility to my friend, I had at 
 last begun to agitate the question in my own mind, 
 whether I should not be justified in waging savage war, 
 for my own special gratification, against one who might 
 be considered as a common enemy. | 
 One day, perched on the remaining fragment of a 
 ermnbling old wall, about six feet from the ground, Ver- 
 dier was making a mock auction of a rusty, double-bar- 
 reled gun without astock. There was a crowd of boys 
 bidding in fun. He stretched his arm the better to ex- 
 hibit the article when he saw me approach with Tré- 
 vigne, who, to look at it, raised his head, over which it 
 happened to hang perpendicularly at that moment. 
 Down came the heavy piece of iron, as if it had escaped 
 accidentally from the hand which held it. The sharp 
 breech of the gun struck Trévigne in the middle of the 
 forehead at the root of his hair, and he fell senseless on 
 his back, whilst) a stream of blood spouted from his 
 wound. I thought he was killed, and with malice 
 prepense. To spring upon Verdier with the fury of a ti- 
 
42 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 ger, to pull him from his elevated position, to strike him 
 down to the ground, and almost to strangle the sus- 
 pected felon to death, was but the affair a a moment, 
 although he was stronger than I was. But I was so 
 angry, that I had been suddenly endowed with the 
 strength of manhood, and there was no telling how Ver- 
 dier would have rent in that deadly struggle, if one of 
 our proctors, who was not far off, had not come to his 
 rescue. I felt as savage as the fiercest of the Co- 
 manches; and the other boys, gathering in affright 
 round the prostrate form of Trévigne, who seemed to 
 be dying, had not recovered sufficient presence of mind 
 to turn ae attention to the two combatants. Tré- 
 vigne recovered from the wound, although he long suf- 
 fered from headaches in consequence of the blow which 
 had inflicted it, but he carried to the grave the scar 
 which it left. Not long after this event, I was stretched 
 on the green sward seh our play-grounds, with Trévigne 
 by my ae to whom I was reading an ode of Hoe 
 when there came Verdier, who, in the most conciliating 
 manner he could assume, said to us: 
 
 You, Trévigne, think that I am your enemy, and 
 you, Fernando, think also that I am hostile to him. 
 Well, now, I am going to prove that you are both 
 in error, by my giving to you a wholesome piece of 
 advice, as you will see. That well-meant advice is, 
 that you do not expose yourselves after this indiscreet 
 fashion—you, Fernando, publicly teaching a lesson to 
 Trévigne—and you, Trévigne, learning that lesson 
 from Fernando. It will confirm what the whole school 
 says already: that it is you, Fernando, who pushes Tré- 
 vigne up the ladder, and that, without’ you, he could 
 not have kept tip with us in the classes. It is humiliat- 
 ing to Trévigne—very; and I deeply regret it !” 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 43 
 
 Hardly had he done speaking, when he was several 
 yards off, his small grey eyes twinkling, and his probos- 
 cis dilating as he walked away in the full enjoyment of 
 his malicious remarks, whilst he left me speechless with 
 astonishment, and Trévigne pale with mortification. 
 Our friendship became better cemented every day, as 
 we went through the regular course of studies pursued 
 in the college. The last year we had to remain there 
 had arrived; and, during a vacation occurring in the 
 month of August, Trévigne and myself were saunter- 
 ing in the public square in front of the cathedral. Not- 
 withstanding his efforts to conceal his real state of 
 mind, I could observe that he was greatly dejected. 
 
 “Trévigne,” I said, ‘‘ what is the matter with you? 
 Have you secrets for me? What troubles you, my 
 friend?’ He continued silent for a minute or two be- 
 fore he replied : 
 
 “ Fernando, J feel that it will soon be my duty to sup- 
 port my family. A father and a mother who are grow- 
 ing old, and my friendless and destitute sisters, have a 
 right to look tome. I must make money for them and 
 for my own maintenance. Make money! How I hate 
 the very thought! And I have good reasons for it; 
 for I feel in the very marrow of my bones that the fac- 
 ulty yof making money is not in me. Men are born 
 with a certain aptitude and adaptation for the vocation 
 Nature intends them for. I am puzzled to discover 
 what she meant that I should be. Alas! I am con- 
 scious, and perhaps you are also aware of it, that I am 
 incapable of those pursuits by which a living, if not a 
 fortune, is made. Hence those anxieties which sadden 
 me. I am constitutionally a dreamer—a drone in the 
 bee-hive of a dollar-chasing society—a beggar warming 
 himself and gilding his rags with the rays of an over- 
 
44 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 heated faney, which burns with an inward fire that will 
 only glow and irradiate to produce useless weeds, in- 
 stead of those luxuriant harvests which have an ascer- 
 tained value in the market. I curse myself in vain for 
 my incurable infatuation and incapacity. Instead of 
 preparing myself, as I ought, for the stern realities of 
 a laborious and humble :ife, instead of thinking of suc- 
 ceeding my father in his cigar shop, and of repaying the 
 State for the costs of the education which I owe to her, 
 by qualifying myself to be a meritorious justice of the 
 peace, (this was said with a ghastly smile,) I take re- 
 fuge in the land of romance. Notwithstanding all I 
 can do to chase away the vagaries of a morbid imagina- 
 tion, I completely fail, to my intense mortification. I 
 for ever fancy myself living in courts and palaces, among 
 knights, paladins, and high-born dames. It has become | 
 an incessant and fatal obsession bordering on madness. 
 I am haunted in my sleep by visions of splendor which 
 mock at the squalidness of my waking hours !” ‘ 
 He laughed bitterly and as if in scorn of himself. 
 “How would Verdier sneer,” he said, “if he could 
 guess at such folly! But alas, what is more to be 
 dreaded than the shafts of his malignity, is the con- 
 sciousness that this madness of mine will destroy my 
 usefulness, and that I shall remain for life a good-for- 
 nothing pauper, incapable of being of any assistance to 
 myself, or to those who are dependent on my exertions.” 
 At this moment, he was interrupted by wild shrieks 
 and the confused clamor of many voices. The shrieks 
 were uttered by a woman, and the clamor was raised by 
 a number of juvenile ragamuffins who were in pursuit 
 of her. Mariquita, surnamed “ Za calentwra,” was well 
 known to every body in New Orleans. She was an old 
 Spanish gypsy, who for years had appeared to have no 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 45 
 
 other domicil than the streets of the city. Whence and 
 how she came there, and how she contrived to live, no- 
 body knew or cared. She would vanish completely at 
 times, and, on her re-appearance, mischievous boys who 
 loved to tease the poor creature, would say to her: 
 “Where do you come from, old Mariquita? Tave you 
 returned from the sabbath of the witches? Where have 
 you hidden the broomstick on which you rode ?? O! how 
 - she cursed them, the old gypsy! Verily, she could not 
 be beaten at that. And how the urchins would shout 
 with glee and clap their hands, as she became m@re and 
 more infuriated by their taunts! She used to station 
 herself at the foot of one of the towers of the cathe- 
 dral, where she chose to beg for alms, and there is in 
 existence an admirable picture made by a distinguished 
 artist, representing the hag cooking her food at night, 
 in that spot which was one of predilection with her. The 
 reflex of the light.on her face as she bends over the fire 
 on which her kettle stands, produces a striking effect 
 amidst the enclosing darkness. She was called “la 
 calentura,’ * because she seemed to be always shaking 
 with the ague. 
 
 Mariquita was of a diminutive size; her complexion 
 denoted her origin, and her tiny features drawn up into 
 a knot of wrinkles made her face look like a boiled ap- 
 ple. The most conspicuous point in that face was her 
 little nose, on account of the noticeable manner in 
 which it was besmeared with snuff. At the time when 
 I introduce her to the reader, she stood at bay where 
 now is erected the equestrian statue of General Jack- 
 son. She put me in mind of an owl venturing into 
 daylight out of its habitual shelter, and attacked by the 
 small fry of the feathered tribe. After the same fash- 
 
 * Calentura means ‘fever’? in Spanish, 
 
4G FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 ion, a score or two of boys were pecking at poor Mari- 
 quita, and some of them seemed to be'intent on pulling 
 off the blue and yellow striped kerchief which she wore 
 round her head. They flew at her, each in his turn, 
 amidst the shouts, the jeers, and the loud glee which 
 her stout defence elicited. Surrounded by those ma- 
 licious imps, she kept wheeling round with great alert- 
 ness to ward them off, and she foiled every attack by 
 directing her sharp claws at the faces of her youthful 
 persecutors. She seemed convulsed with rage. At 
 last ope of the urchins, at the very moment we were 
 thinking of interfering for her protection, availed him- 
 self of the opportunity of a front attack by one of his 
 companions, and charging in the rear, carried away the 
 coveted head-dress before Mariquita could turn round 
 to meet him. Her disheveled locks, white as snow, fell 
 down her shoulders, and yells of triumph sounded in her 
 ears. To the astonishment of the little blackguard 
 crew, who expected a fresh outburst of passion on the 
 part of their victim, she stood stock still, as motionless 
 as a statue. Her piercing shrieks and violent gesticu- 
 lations had. suddenly ceased. Ridiculous in her impo- 
 tent fury, she had become imposing in the calm attitude 
 she had assumed. Deadly pale, self-collected, and hold- 
 ing her feelings apparently under complete subjugation, 
 she bent on her tormentors a long steady look, so full 
 of the most intense hatred, that they shrank before it, 
 and gathered into a cluster, as if to guard against some 
 impending danger. They seemed to be bewildered at 
 the sudden transformation which they witnessed. The 
 old gypsy thus addressed them with slow and distinct 
 emphasis, strikingly contrasting with the rapid, inco- 
 herent, and inarticulate manner in which she used to 
 speak : 
 
FERNANDO.DE LEMOS. AT 
 
 “Vile race of vipers! ignoble brood worthy of your 
 swinish parents, get you home to your styes. I curse 
 you in the present and in the future; I curse you from 
 the crown of your heads to the sole of your feet; I 
 curse you in every joint of your bodies and in the very 
 marrow of your bones; I curse you in the flesh and in 
 the spirit ; I curse you with fire and with water, with 
 known and unknown pestilences, and with what is the 
 - direst of all evils—subjugation by a merciless foe. Do 
 you think, unmannered imps of transported convicts, - 
 that the gray hair of the daughter of Eblis, of the last 
 representative of a long line of eastern seers, can be 
 insulted with impunity? Listen, you wretches; know 
 that the blear-eyed avenger will come; I read your fate | 
 in those yonder stars which are now appearing one 
 after the other over your heads. before you descend 
 into your graves, and some of you will have bloody 
 ones, and those that have them will be the most fortun- 
 ate, you will be trampled under the iron-shod heels of 
 conquest. Your very slaves, those blacks who now un- 
 tie your shoe-strings, will strut in these very streets 
 with glittering bayonets; they will lord it over you; 
 they will drag you, to jail like felons; they will be your 
 judges and your legislators ; and you will crouch under 
 the lash like curs; unheard-of indignities will be heap- 
 ed upon you; and you will not even know how to kill, 
 or to die. Avaunt! And when what is to come shall 
 have happened, remember the words of the poor old 
 gypsy who has been so long your foot-ball and play- 
 thing.” 
 
 She turned away from them and saw us standing 
 within a few feet of her. To our surprise, she looked 
 at Trévigne with ineffable tenderness, and said to him: 
 “ Not to thee, my son, not to thee do these curses cling. 
 
48 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 I spoke to the young ravens, and not to the eaglet, who 
 shall yet take his flight to the sun, now hidden by 
 stormy clouds.” She kissed her withered hand to him 
 and hurried away, talking wildly to herself in an un- 
 known language, and with her long white locks stream- 
 ing behind her, a sport to. the evening breeze. She was 
 soon lost in the distance and in the increasing shades 
 of night. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 TREVIGNE, THE POOR LAD EDUCATED AT THE COST OF THE 
 STATE, TURNS OUT TO BE A GRANDEE OF SPAIN, —FERNAN- 
 DO DE LEMOS TRAVELS IN EUROPE. 
 
 A suorr time after the incident which I related in 
 the preceding chapter, my friend Trévigne lost his 
 mother ; and, after having headed the meagre procession 
 which escorted his wife’s coffin to the burial ground, 
 old Trévigne, his father, took to his bed. Those who had 
 seen him at the funeral, had been impressed with the 
 conviction that his days would not be long in the land. 
 His uneven, irregular steps, his pallid cheeks and his 
 sunken eyes, were unmistakable signs that the heart 
 which had struggled against so much woe and so much 
 of the unrelenting decree of fate, would struggle no 
 more. Some vital chord had snapped in that mysteri- 
 ous organ of the human body, and it was evident that 
 the workings of the. organ itself would soon cease. 
 Anxious to show my sympathies when death and sor- 
 row had entered the household of him whom I loved 
 so much, I was with Trévigne every day, offering my 
 services and consolations, but I never was permitted to 
 enter the patient’s room. The end was rapidly ap- 
 proaching, when, one morning, Trévigne came out of 
 the bed-chamber of the sick man with tears in his eyes, 
 and said to me: “ My father is dying, and wishes for 
 the first time to see Father Antonio. Hasten to bring 
 
 3 (49) 
 
50 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 him here.” This was something unexpected, consider- 
 _ing the patient’s antecedents and idiosyneracy. I de- 
 parted with full speed, and the priest was soon at the 
 post where he was desired. ‘The sick man ordered 
 every body out of the room, and remained closeted 
 more than two hours with the minister of God. At 
 last the door opened, and Father Antonio appeared. 
 He was much agitated, and informed us that the pa- 
 tient had expired in his arms after confession and after 
 having received the consolations of religion; he took 
 leave of the afflicted family, assuring them that he 
 would soon return. There was in the priest’s face an 
 expression which I could not but notice. It seemed to 
 be a compound of horror and pity, and I observed that, 
 as he walked out of the house, he crossed himself re- 
 peatedly. After having assisted my friend in paying 
 his last duties to the dead, hearing that my mother 
 was sick in a distant part of the State where she was 
 visiting her sister, I departed hastily to meet her. On 
 my return to the city two months afterwards, what was 
 my surprise, when, calling at the house of Trévigne, I 
 found it closed and uninhabited! I inquired of a 
 neighbor what had become of Trévigne and his two 
 sisters. He could give me no information, and said 
 they had moved away in the night, nobody knew 
 whither. I felt bewildered at the strangeness of the 
 circumstance, but the idea occurring to me that Father 
 Antonio might throw light on it, I was soon knocking 
 at his door. The priest opened it himself, and wel- 
 comed me with a benevolent smile. “I guess,” he 
 said, .““ what brings you here. You wish to know what 
 has become of Trévigne.”’ I nodded assent. ‘I could 
 tell you, but you must curb your impatience. He de- 
 sires to be the first to communicate to youthe informa- 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 51 
 
 tion you seek after. You will receive a letter from him, 
 probably before long. In the meantime, check your 
 eurlosity. Go home, have no anxiety, your friend is 
 doing well; but, when devoutly inclined, pray for the 
 soul of his father.” He tapped me gently on the cheek 
 as if I had not ceased to be a boy, and dismissed me 
 after having given me his blessing. Not long after 
 this interview with Father Antonio, I received the fol- 
 lowing letter : | | 
 
 “ Manprip, September 20, 18—. 
 
 “ Dear Fernanpo,—It is a trite and true saying: 
 that there is more romance in the realities of life than in 
 the tales of fiction. You loved the half-starving son of 
 the keeper of a cigar shop; I hope you will not 
 cease to entertain the same feeling for the Count 
 of Trevifio, grandee of Spain, and the head of one 
 of the most illustrious and wealthiest houses of 
 that kingdom. My beloved sisters are engaged to 
 be married, one to the Duke of A , and the 
 other to the Marquis of C— My heart is over- 
 flowing with gratitude to God. I flatter myself that 
 I shall never forget the humble condition from which 
 it has pleased Him to raise me. In remembrance 
 of it, I have already appropriated a large sum to the 
 erection of a hospital for the poor in this city. As to 
 the events which compelled my father to fly from 
 Spain, and to conceal his rank and misfortunes even 
 from his wife and children, they are of such a nature 
 that it is better not to allude to them. It would be the 
 saddest of tales. It harrows my very soul to think of 
 it. My consolation is, that my father was more to be 
 pitied than blamed. I owe to the efforts of the Infan- 
 te Don Carlos, brother of the king, my restoration to 
 
 
 
 
 
52 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 forfeited rank and wealth. He and my father had 
 grown up together almost from the cradle, and were 
 united by the ties of the tenderest and firmest friend- 
 ship. He calls me his son, and treats me as such... 
 
 “ Mariquita ¢a calentura, the prophetess whom you 
 may remember, is here with me. This deyoted menial 
 of our house had managed to follow my father against 
 his will, and notwithstanding his threats. He never 
 permitted her to approach him in New Orleans. The 
 poor thing kept faithfully his secret, contrived to live 
 God knows how, and thought it was happiness enough 
 for her to look at my father as he passed along in the 
 streets. It is amusing to see how she queens it now. 
 Well, she has a right to be indulged in anything she 
 pleases, and to cut all sorts of antics. She bore adver- 
 sity stoutly, but joy has somewhat crazed her. My 
 felicity would be complete if you could come to me. 
 But I know and respect the ties which bind you to 
 Louisiana. Far be it from me to try to loosen them. I 
 will myself ever remain true to her, and will not for- 
 get that I was born in her bosom, although now a 
 Spaniard. [I hope however to welcome you in my 
 new home, on some day or other, if you are ever free 
 and disposed to travel. 
 
 “Tsend you a draft for ten thousand dollars, to be 
 secretly distributed among the destitute in New Or- 
 leans by Father Antonio. But let those who may ob- 
 tain relief not know whence it comes. I insist on 
 that.’ The rest related to matters of a confidential 
 nature, which could not be of any interest to the reader, 
 and is therefore suppressed. 
 
 I was leaving the post-office with this letter in my 
 pocket, when I met Verdier. ‘‘Oh! oh!” said he, “I 
 ain glad to see you at last; I missed you so much! JT 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. - 53 
 
 have been wanting to know what has become of the 
 Trévigne family. There are many rumors about their 
 sudden and nocturnal disappearance. It is generally 
 believed that they were so heavily in debt, that they 
 had to run away from their creditors like scared rats. 
 Their grocer, [ am told, who trusted them so much, 
 itouch he was repeatedly warned to be cautious, is 
 in for two hundred dollars.” 
 
 “This is news to me,” said 1; “but to put an end 
 at once to such reports as may be circulated by good- 
 natured people, who take too lively an interest in the 
 affairs of the Trévigne family, I wish you to have it as 
 extensively known as possible that I”am ready to pay 
 all their debts.” | 
 
 *¢ Indeed, indeed !” exclaimed Verdier. “If so, they 
 surely cannot have debts and have not duped any 
 body. You would not gratuitously assume the risks 
 of such an engagement, that is clear; nor should I be 
 astonished if you knew where they ae 
 
 “T do,’ said I, and taking the letter out of my 
 pocket, it delighted me to pour into his ears, slowly, 
 and drop after drop burning like liquid fire, as I well 
 knew, all the information which I had just received 
 eoncerning Trévigne. I watched Verdier’s face as I 
 spoke. It became pale, then yellow, then red. “He 
 gasped for breath; a sickly smile contorted his lps, 
 which stammered out these words : 
 
 “Upon my honor, I am so happy to hear of sucn a 
 change in Trévigne’s circumstances. I have always 
 been his friend, although I know you never gave me 
 eredit for it. Don’t you forget, when you write, to 
 compliment him on my part.” 
 
 He had hardly finished this sentence, when his. pro- 
 boscis, which had been swelling like an angry and ven- 
 
54 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 omous snake, squirted a jet of blood which would 
 have struck me full in the breast, if I had not hastily 
 retreated. I left him leaning against a lamp-post, with 
 his big nose bleeding profusely, and I went away re- 
 joicing at the self-inflicted torture, which, by a just 
 dispensation of Providence, ever exists in the breast of 
 the envious. | 
 
 Years elapsed. Bowed down with bad health, dis- 
 appointments and grief, I crossed the Atlantic. When 
 J arrived in Paris in the beginning of August, three of 
 the best physicians of that city who met to examine 
 my condition, agreed in declaring, to use a familiar lo- 
 cution, that I was in a very bad way, and advised me, 
 as the favorable season for it was not yet over, to try 
 the mineral waters of Leuk, or Louéche, as the French 
 eall it, in Switzerland. I did’so, and I found it no 
 very attractive place. It seemed to me that I was at 
 the bottom of a well of two thousand feet. I confess 
 that I did not feel much admiration for the gloomy 
 mountains which towered perpendicularly around me, 
 and of which the most forbidding and the most famous, 
 if I recollect right, was the Guemmi. They were as- 
 cended and descended by the means of a succession of 
 ladders, that hung down over places which otherwise 
 would have been impracticable, and it was one of the 
 few amusements of the visitors of these springs to gaze 
 at the peasantry of the country, males and females, 
 when they risked life and limbs in such perilous as- 
 cents and descents with burdens on their heads, or shoul- 
 ders. At the distance from which we looked at them, 
 they appeared to us like large bugs, or other insects, 
 issuing out of the earth and creeping on the sides of 
 the mountains. Those who frequented Leuk, or Loue- 
 che, for their health, (for I cannot suppose that any one’ 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 55 
 
 ever came to so dull a locality for any other parpose) 
 had to bathe with a sort of fanatic perseverance during 
 three mortally tedious weeks, at the rate of five hours 
 a day, in large contiguous pools, or basins, which con- 
 tained each from fifteen to twenty persons. Before 
 the bathers floated small tables on which they took 
 their breakfast, and on which, when that was over, were 
 set materials for writing, reading, playing cards, or 
 chess, or any other game, as they pleased. Those who 
 liked it better, kept up, much to the annoyance of 
 others more seriously engaged, a rattling conversation 
 with friends who stood in the galleries which hung 
 over the pools. The object of such prolonged bathing 
 was to produce a cutaneous eruption, which made one 
 look like a scarlet-fever patient.. The lucky individual 
 who had the most abundant and the reddest eruption, 
 bragged of it, and looked down with lofty superiority on 
 those whose skin had not been heated into so fine a 
 crop of fiery-looking pimples. J was one of those un- 
 fortunate beings who soaked themselves in vain for hours, 
 morning after morning, in tedious succession. My skin 
 remained obstinately determined not to redden at all. 
 
 I happened one day to be moping in a retired spot 
 over the unimproving condition of my health, when I 
 saw the German prince of Vied approaching. I had 
 frequently met him at the baths, but we had never be- 
 come acquainted with each other. He took a seat on the 
 bench on which I sat, and bowing to me, said: 
 
 “¢T have observed with regref, sir, that you appear to 
 suffer a great deal, and that you do not improve. The 
 waters seem to be doing you no good.” 
 
 “No good whatever,” I replied, ‘“‘and it is a sad dis- 
 appointment to one who has come from so very far in 
 pursuit of health.” 
 
5G FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 ‘‘ From so very far?” echoed the prince. ‘“ Are you 
 not a Frenchman %” 
 
 “No, sir,’ was my reply ; and, as I saw that he seem- 
 ed to expect that I should say more, | added: “I am 
 an American.” 
 
 “Ha! From what part of America?’ 
 
 Remarking the curiosity and interest which he evinc- 
 ed, I answered with asmile: “ From the United States 
 in general and from Louisiana in particular.” 
 
 “Indeed! indeed!” he exclaimed. “ Well, I am glad 
 of it, for I like to talk and be informed about your 
 country, to which hosts of our Germans are emigrating. 
 It has been thus far a heaven-blessed country, with the 
 most splendid destinies if you remain virtuous and wise. 
 My brother has traveled all over the United States, and 
 has brought back a most valuable collection of plants, 
 minerals, animals, birds, fishes and other curiosities.” 
 
 We had a leng conversation, which seented to be 
 much relished by my new acquaintance. Irom that day, 
 that amiable gentleman frequently sought me, inquired 
 kindly after my health, and apparently took much pleas- 
 ure in eliciting from me all! the information I could give 
 him on the political and social condition, the agricultur- 
 al, commercial, financial and various other resources of 
 the vast territory over which waves the Star-Spangled 
 Banner. One day he said to me: ; 
 
 **T come to bid you farewell. I am going away, and 
 I advise you to do the same. The watering season is 
 almost over. Leuk does not suit your case ; believe me, 
 for I am somewhat of a physician. Return to Paris, 
 winter there, amuse yourself, drive away the blue-deyils, 
 and, next summer, visit Carlsbad. That is the place for 
 you, above all. On your way thither, you will have to 
 pass thraugh my liliputian principality. Don’t hastily 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 57 
 
 jump over it with those long American legs which are 
 accustomed to so much space. But stop at , where 
 I reside. Here is my card; send it to me as soon as 
 you arrive. It will afford me much gratification to 
 show you my brother’s collection. It will put you in 
 mind of home, and it will gladden your heart to sce so 
 many things from your fatherland. It will be like a 
 sunny glimpse of your native heath.” 
 
 I thanked him, as I ought, for his extreme kindness. 
 “Tn the meantime,” he continued, “ when you go to 
 Paris, consult Koreff, ex-physician of the king of Prus- 
 sia, who lives in that city. He is a man of genius, but 
 a most unprincipled fellow. Be on your guard. Tell 
 him that [ commend you to his care and skill, and that I 
 beg him not to be extortionate, as he is apt to be. Do 
 not scruple to repeat my very words.” 
 
 According to the prince’s advice, I saw Koreff, and 
 delivered, as smoothly as possible, the message which had 
 been sent to him. “ Ho! ho!” he exclaimed; “I recog- 
 nize the prince. It is just like him. Well, what does 
 he complain of? Princes must pay like princes. But I 
 shall be moderate with you.” 
 
 As his idea of moderation might be very different 
 from mine, and as the prince’s warning was still fresh 
 in my mind, I insisted on knowing precisely what he 
 would charge for his attendance. “ ‘Ten francs a visit,” 
 he said. “Is that too much? 
 
 “Tt will be pretty heavy on me,” I replied, “should 
 it be of long continuance; but let it be so.” Thus I 
 secured the services of the “man of genius,” without 
 exposing myself to the extortions of the “ unprincipled 
 fellow,” as the prince had called him. Would to God 
 that I had thus been cautious all my life! 
 
 I frequently met the doctor in the saloons of Paris, 
 
 3* 
 
 
 
58 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 and heard it whispered that he was a Prussian spy. He 
 was a man of sparkling wit and vast erudition, but his 
 morality was rather worn threadbare, and its elbows 
 came out of its sleeves, as witnessed by the bill of five 
 hundred thousand franes which he had the audacity to 
 present to the Scotch duke of Hamilton, for having 
 attended during six months Lady Douglas, the daugh- 
 ter of that nobleman. The duke refused to pay, and 
 was stepping into his carriage for his final departure 
 from France, after having tendered thirty. thousand 
 franes to Koreff, when he was arrested and had to give 
 security for the sum claimed, before he could be set at 
 liberty. The indignation of the faubourg St. Germain 
 was intense. The arrest of the duke under such cir- 
 cumstances was considered an insult to nobility through 
 out the world. When the cause came for trial, the court 
 showed as much excitement as the noble faubourg. 
 Hardly had the counsel for plaintiff-begun, when the 
 presiding judge stopped him, saying: “It is useless for 
 you to proceed. ‘The court is sufficiently informed and 
 will hear no more. Sit down, Mr. barrister; let the 
 plaintiff come forth and stand up at the bar.” 
 
 The plaintiff obeyed. “ We regret,” continued the pre- 
 siding judge in the name of his colleagues, and with a 
 harsh tone, “that the defendant has tendered and deposit- 
 edin court for your benefit thirty thousand franes. Itis an 
 exorbitant remuneration to which you are not entitled. 
 But it is not within the discretion of the court not to 
 award you what the defendant is willing to pay. Judg- 
 ment is therefore rendered in your favor for thirty thous- 
 and frances, but you shall pay the costs. When you pre- 
 sented your monstrous claim and instituted this suit, 
 you must have relied on the supposed probability, that 
 the duke would rather pay what you asked, than per- 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 59 
 
 mit the details of his daughter’s infirmities and of the 
 treatment you prescribed, to be brought before the pub- 
 lic. Your nefarious speculation shall be defeated. The 
 court must say that you are a disgrace to your profes- 
 sion, and we hope that the minister of justice will take 
 it into consideration.” 
 
 Such is the synopsis of what the court said. As de- 
 sired by the tribunal, the minister took the case in hand, 
 and withdrew from the “man of genius,” who had 
 stooped to,be an “unprincipled fellow,” the license to 
 practice his profession in France. 
 
CHAPTER VI. _ 
 
 LOUIS PHILIPPE AND THE HANGMAN OF PARIS.—A STRANGE 
 PROPHECY SUBSEQUENTLY VERIFIED. 
 
 I BECAME acquainted at Leuk with Casimir Périer, 
 the son of the famous minister of that name under 
 Louis Philippe. He had lately returned from Spain, 
 where he had been an attaché to the French embassy. 
 He gave me the most interesting details on the civil 
 war which was then raging in that country between 
 the Carlists and the Christinos. I never tired of listen- 
 ing to his relation of the public events which he had 
 witnessed, and to his delineations of the characters of 
 the principal actors on that bloody stage. I learned 
 from him, to my intense chagrin, that Trévigne had 
 not kept aloof from that fratricidal war, and that he 
 was in the camp of Don Carlos. “Isabella,” said 
 Périer, “has no general whom she can oppose success- 
 fully to such leaders as Trévigne and Zumalacarregui, 
 particularly the latter, who is a great captain by inspir- 
 ation, and who, if he live, will in the end put Don 
 Carlos on the throne.” O! how I longed to be 
 with the beloved companion of my boyhood, and to 
 bear him away, if possible, from the danger which I 
 thought he had sought without necessity! <A civil 
 war! the most abject and dreadful of all wars! 
 ‘““ What possesses him?” I said to myself. ‘Could he 
 not, like many others, refrain from taking a part in 
 that sanguinary struggle which has converted Spain 
 
 (60) 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 61 
 
 intoa pandemonium? Why should he wish to lose so 
 soon what he has so lately gained?’ Thus I reasoned, 
 
 forgetful of my rooted belief in destiny. But such are 
 
 the inconsistencies of man. His convictions, his ac- 
 tions and his feelings often clash together in glaring 
 contradictions. 
 
 I left Leuk without having experienced the slightest: 
 benefit from its waters. Just as I approached the city 
 
 of Dijon, the former capital of the old duchy of Bur- 
 
 gundy, the public coach in which I was, stopped at a 
 small village, and took in a passenger. He was the 
 thinnest and sallowest man I had ever seen. He put 
 me in mind of those long hollow reeds, called sarba- 
 canes, which I used in my boyhood to kill small birds, 
 with arrows propelled through the tube by the mere 
 force of my breath. We engaged in conversation. In 
 the course of it, | mentioned that I had been trying the 
 waters of Leuk. - 
 
 “I see,’ he said peevishly, “that you have been 
 duped like myself, and made a fool of, excuse the ex- 
 
 ‘pression. Those abominable physicians, those patented 
 
 charlatans, whom we have the weakness to consult, and 
 who thrive on the rich fund of credulity with which 
 Nature has endowed mankind, had reduced me to the 
 condition of a chronic simpleton ; for they had, during 
 a quarter of a century, sent me. every year to some 
 watering place. But, thank God, I am cured at last of 
 my folly, and, as 1am much older than you are, allow 
 me, for your profit as an invalid, which you seem to 
 be, to relate what has recently happened to me. You 
 see, sir, how thin I am, although I have a most excel- 
 lent appetite and unequaled powers of digestion. This 
 extraordinary thinness has always made me extremely 
 miserable, for my greatest ambition is to be fat.” 
 
62 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 Here his head drooped to his breast, as if yielding 
 to the weight of a too painful thought, and he sighed 
 heavily, as if oppressed with much affliction. “ Yes, 
 sir,’ he continued in a tone of tndignation, caused 
 probably by his feeling too acutely the harshness with 
 which he was treated by Providence and the physi- 
 cians. ‘J have been striving in vain for the last forty 
 years to gain flesh. I contented myself at first with 
 devouring an enormous quantity of turkeys, capons, 
 beefsteaks, mutton chops, Irish potatoes and other far- 
 inaceous substances, but to no purpose. I went to 
 England, associated with none but London aldermen, 
 studied their diet, conformed to their habits, drank in- 
 numerable casks of porter, and remained as thin as 
 ever. In despair I threw myself into the hands of the 
 learned faculty of medicine. They converted me into 
 an alembic of drugs, and when I became rebellious at 
 last, they sent me successively to every known water- 
 ing place in Europe. I come now from Mont D’Or, 
 where, after using the waters internally and externally 
 for a whole month, I complained to the physician of 
 the place that I was growing thinner, if possible. 
 
 ““* Have faith and patience,’ he answered. ‘Do you 
 not meet occasionally in your walks, an individual who 
 is almost as large as an elephant, and who seems im- 
 bedded in a ton of lard, which melts into heavy drops 
 as he moves along? Well, when he came here, three 
 months ago, he had less substance than yourself. Now 
 he is a mountain of flesh. In vain do I tell him to 
 stop. He goes on drinking, bathing and swelling, so 
 delighted is he with the change which has taken place 
 in his person. He maintains that he cannot take too 
 much of a good thing. Itis the fanaticism of corpu- 
 lence.’ 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 63 
 
 “Of course, with such an instance of the efficacy of 
 the waters before my eyes, it would have been very 
 wrong to despond. I determined to persevere. But, 
 the*next day, when in my bath as punctually as usual, 
 the door of the room next to mine opened, somebody 
 entered, and I overheard the following conversation : 
 ‘Doctor,’ said a gruff voice in tones of subdued anger, 
 ‘I have sent for you to convince you by actual exhibi- 
 tion, that I am growing fatter and fatter. I consult 
 you every day; you soothe me with fair promises, and 
 you regularly pocket your fees without succeeding, 
 with all your scientific prescriptions aided by the mar- 
 velous virtues of your mineral waters, in removing one 
 ounce of flesh from my ribs.’ 
 
 “¢ Have faith and patience,’ replied the doctor. ‘ Do 
 you occasionally meet in your walks a prodigiously thin 
 man ? 
 
 “¢ Certainly,’ answered the patient. ‘I could not 
 but notice him. He is a shadow, an impalpable thing, 
 a sort of condensation of vapor assuming somewhat the 
 indistinct lines of a human shape. What then? 
 
 “¢¢ Well, when he came here, my dear sir, he was fat- 
 ter than you are. Will you continue to say: What 
 then ? 
 
 “TI heard no more, I jumped out of my bath, and de- 
 parted in a hurry for home, swearing an eternal adieu 
 to all watering places.” Thus spoke the man of bones 
 and. no fiesh. 
 
 When I arrived at Paris on my return from Leuk, I 
 endeavored, as I had done before, to correspond with 
 Trévigne. But civil wars play sad havoc with the 
 transportation of mails; my letters did not reach their 
 destination. Although my physica! and mental suffer- 
 ings at the time were such as to make every minute of 
 
64 - FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 existence appear to me an age of agony, I determined 
 to lash myself into active life. I went sight-seeing, 
 and figured in society as it is said in common parlance, 
 with a smile on my face and a suppressed groan at the 
 bottom of my heart. I saw the gorgeousness of palaces 
 and the squalidness of the haunts of the poor. I was 
 presented to the king. He had been under the roof. 
 of my grandfather in Louisiana, and one of my kins- 
 men had come to his relief when he was proscribed 
 and in want. He remembered it, and treated me 
 with kindness. The king has now no other roof to 
 shelter him than the vault of an English tomb, his sons 
 are in exile, and he who witnessed their royal splendor 
 has also felt the vicissitudes of fortune, and is in his" 
 own native land a ruined man, a political outlaw, a 
 sort of nondescript being who is declared to be wethout 
 rights. ‘Truly it is sad to live many years. The king 
 spoke well and impressively, and was fond of showing 
 that he possessed that faculty. Like Ulysses, mores homi- 
 num multorum vide et urbes.* One who pretended to 
 know him thoroughly, told me that he had no decision 
 of character, and maintained that, should his sister, 
 Madame Adélaide, die before him, whom she entirely 
 governed, he would appear before the world in the 
 light of a weak and irresolute man. Was there any 
 truth in this assertion? The fact is, that the king fell 
 from the throne a short time after the death of his royal 
 sister and adviser, and made on that occasion a lament- 
 able display of pusillanimity and vacillation. About 
 five years before that memorable event, all the legiti- 
 mist journals and organs came out with one common 
 accord in favor of universal suffrage. Meeting one of 
 
 * Like Ulysses, he had visited many cities, and seen the manners and 
 customs of many men. 
 
 > 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 65 
 
 the staunchest partizans of the dynasty for which Louis 
 Philippe had been substituted, and knowing that he 
 was among the most influential of that party, I asked 
 him for an explanation of that abrupt deviation from 
 their old and cherished principles. 
 
 “Tt is,’ he said with vehemence, “to pull down the 
 rascal who pollutes the Tuileries.” Meaning Louis 
 Philippe, of course. 
 
 “What will you put in the place of thé democratic 
 crown of the citizen king?’ I asked. 
 
 *¢ A republic,” he reniied: “will certainly spring up 
 from the gutters of Paris.” 
 
 ‘What next ?” 
 
 “The republic will be of short duration.” 
 
 “What will follow ?” 
 
 “A dictator, perhaps a Napoleon.” 
 
 “Ts it in this way,” I said, “ that you intend to bring 
 back the Duke of Bordeaux ?” 
 
 “Yes. We shall not be again such fools as to have 
 recourse to foreign bayonets. Our plan is to gorge 
 France with the sweetmeats of a republic, and next, 
 with the rotten flesh-pots of an upstart imperial regime, 
 until she vomits the poisonous substance on which she 
 shall have feasted. Then weshall have, not a transient, 
 but a permanent restoration of the elder branch of the 
 Bourbons. After having swallowed the republic and 
 the empire and found them indigestible, the French will 
 have no further experiment to make, and will return to 
 their old line of kings and to the monarchy of St. Louis, 
 with such modifications as the present may require to 
 suit modern wants and ideas. It is evident that insti- 
 tutions which lasted a thousand years, had in them 
 something better than can be offered by those which 
 spring up like mushrooms from the rank soil of revolu- 
 
66 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 tions, and which perish as rapidly. Duration is the 
 test of the goodness and fitness of human institutions. 
 We want the very populace of Paris to make that dis- _ 
 covery. We want the masses, the common laborers, 
 those who work with arms bare to the elbow, who wear 
 dirty shirts and wooden shoes, to go by a spontaneous 
 movement to the frontier, recall Henry V, and carry 
 him back in popular triumph to the palace of his ances- 
 tors.” 
 
 By the soul of the Cumzean Sybil, this legitimist had 
 read accurately in.the book of fate! For, thus far his 
 predictions have been accomplished. ‘The question of 
 reform and universal suffrage shattered the throne of 
 the citizen king—then came the republic with Ledru- ’ 
 Rtollin and Lamartine—then the empire with Louis 
 Napoleon. The second empire has sunk into an ocean 
 of blood. What next? We must wait, time will 
 answer. 
 
 The last occasion on which I met the king was at the 
 Tuileries, at a ball to which I had been invited. Among 
 other things he said to me: “I do not wish to be 
 a prophet of evil, but . . . (and he seemed to hesitate 
 a little) much as I admire the Americans and their 
 institutions, (was it not Irish blarney, O king!) they 
 cannot be as a people, entirely above those passions 
 which are inherent in human nature. You have con- 
 flicting interests and ambitions, and unappeasable jeal- 
 ousies. You have the puritans in the North and the 
 cavaliers in the South, democracy with its levelling rod 
 in one section of the country, and aristocracy with 
 slavery raising its haughty head in the other section, - 
 and creating a social elegance, a superiority of breed- 
 ing and race which must excite the intense hatred of 
 your antagonists, who will be made to feel their in- 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. . 67 
 
 -feriority in that talent of government and statesman- 
 ship, and in that nameless and indescribable refinement 
 and charm of manner which have always characterized 
 all aristocracies. Hence deadly conflicts, the conse- 
 quences of which it is impossible to foresee. You will 
 perhaps before long, like the rest of mankind, have 
 political convulsions and social transformations. We 
 live fast in this age. You are young enough to see 
 many wonderful changes in this ever-changing world! 
 Should the wind of revolution ever blow down your 
 paternal house in Louisiana, sowvenee vous que las 
 France est la patrie des exilés, et qwelle a un cour 
 pour toutes les infortunes.”* This was graciously and 
 royally spoken, and made me bow low in return, but I 
 wish that there had been less of the spirit of prophecy 
 init. Where is now the Orleans dynasty? and what 
 of me? Alas! 
 
 I am fond of contrasts. Therefore, after having 
 visited the king, I called on Sanson, the hereditary 
 public executioner of Paris. J had heard that he had 
 a liniment which had remarkable curative powers. 
 This was at once a pretext for approaching that famous 
 personage, famous although at the lowest step of the 
 social ladder. A servant received me courteously, and 
 ushered me into a very extensive library opening on a 
 beautiful garden, in which was an elderly man who, I 
 was told, was Sanson, and who was watering flowers 
 with tender care and with the same hand which had 
 eut off so many heads. He soon came to meet me, and 
 I was struck with his polished address. I stated the object 
 of my visit, and informed him that I had come from 
 the United States in quest of health. 
 
 * Remember that France is the home of the exile, and that she has a 
 heart that sympathizes with all misfortunes. 
 
63° FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 “Ha! indeed,” he said, “ you are from the United 
 States! I have always taken the liveliest interest in 
 your country, and pray, from what particular State are 
 you?” 3 
 
 “From Louisiana.” 
 
 “Ho! ho! Louisiana! A singular coincidence! 
 I have just been reading with pleasure a historical 
 essay on that subject. by one of her native writers. I 
 am glad to see you, for I assure you that I have always 
 desired to meet somebody well acquainted with that 
 ‘former colony of Tranee. She has never ceased to be 
 a favorite with me, and for particular reasons. My at- 
 tention was turned to her in my early boyhood. Will 
 you permit me to inquire after her present condition ?” 
 
 He put to me many questions which showed that he 
 was really interested in the subject. He was so minute- 
 ly acquainted with her topography, with the peculiari- 
 ties of her soil, and with her innumerable and intricate 
 water courses, with her commercial and agricultural re- 
 sources, with her political and social history, that I~ 
 looked at him with much surprise, and said: ‘ Surely, 
 sir, you must have been in Louisiana.” 
 
 “Never,” he replied, “ but at the beginning of the 
 French revolution, which deluged this country with 
 blood, my father had resolved to fly with his family to- 
 Louisiana, and I prepared myself for it by procuring as 
 much information as I could about our intended home. 
 Had we been able to execute our plan”... 
 
 He paused, hung down his head, and did not finish 
 the phrase. Something like. the shadow of painful 
 memories had flitted over his face, as I thonght, but he 
 soon renewed the conversation with animation. He 
 certainly was more accurately and extensively informed 
 in relation to the condition, history, laws, polities and 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 69 
 
 resources of the United States, than any statesman I 
 ever met in France. I was amazed at the variety and 
 depth of his erudition, which he seemed to pour out 
 with evident pleasure, but, I must say, without pedantic 
 affectation. He had readily seized, I suppose, a rare 
 opportunity afforded him to communicate his intellec- 
 tual wealth: There was no ostentation, however, and no 
 want of good taste, and I must confess that I took pains 
 to draw him out as much as was consistent with pro- 
 priety and good breeding. In the strangeness and 
 novelty of my situation there was something which de- 
 lighted me, but I had at last to call his attention to the 
 particular object of my visit. I wanted his liniment. 
 
 “What is the nature of your disease?’ he inquired. 
 I stated it with details. He listened attentively, and 
 replied: 
 
 “T am no mean adept in medicine, for which I have 
 a natural turn, and which I have studied a good deal. 
 I regret to say that my liniment will do you no good.” 
 
 I insisted on trying it, rather to leave some remunera- 
 tive souvenir of my visit, than to make an experiment 
 of the virtues of the drug. But he peremptorily re- 
 fused to sell it, ‘because his conscience,” he said, 
 “did not permit him to receive money for what could 
 be of no service to me.” I rose to retire, Sanson ac- 
 companied me to the door, and bowed me ont according 
 to the requirements of the most punctilious etiquette. 
 When I reached le boulevard des Italiens, | met a 
 friend who asked me where I came from. I replied: 
 ‘Trom the house of one of the most learned and re- 
 fined gentlemen of France.” 
 
 “¢ Who is he?” 
 
 “The hangman of Paris.” 
 
CHAPTER VIL. 
 CONTINUATION OF FERNANDO’S TRAVELS IN EUROPE. 
 
 Art the end of the winter, I went to a fancy ball at 
 the hotel of the Spanish ambassador. There, of course, 
 I saw many Spaniards, and heard of the news of the 
 day—the death of Zumalacarregui. The general im- 
 pression was, that with him had died all hope of suc- 
 cess for the cause of Don Carlos. His genius was 
 already turning the scales in favor of the pretender, 
 when a bullet cut short his career. O Providence! a 
 crown is lost, the fate of a nation is changed—by what? 
 —a little piece of lead, which was sped in one direc- 
 tion rather than in another by a fellow paid two cents 
 a day to do that kind of work. The Spanish ambassa- 
 dor representing Isabella II was in high glee. I 
 thought of poor Trévigne, whose fortune was waning 
 with that of the prince for whom he had staked so 
 much. I resolved to seek him in the spring, and see 
 what could be done to save him from being crushed by 
 the fall of the edifice he had attempted to build. I was 
 sauntering gloomily among the brilliant assembly which 
 had met on that evening, when I passed by Madame 
 Ancelot, the wife of an academician, and herself an 
 authoress of some distinction. She took my arm to 
 promenade. We met several men of letters, among 
 others, Balzac the novelist. He wore the costume of 
 
 (70) 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 71 
 
 a monk, a fat and jolly monk of the good old time, 
 and his natural proportions admirably suited the char- 
 acter he had assumed. In the course of conversation, 
 Madame Aneelot alluded to his supposed habits of 
 extravagance. 
 
 *¢ Ah!” he said, “ I see that you are like the rest of 
 the world. How can I be extravagant? Where are 
 my means to repose on the gilded and luxurious couches 
 of a Sardanapalus, or to give the feasts of a Belshaz- 
 zar ?” 
 
 “But,” replied the lady, “you are the most success- 
 ful novelist of the day, and your works are numerous.” 
 
 “True; but they give me only a very poor and un- 
 certain income. My works are bought in foreign coun- 
 tries, in Russia, in Belgium for instance, where they 
 are surreptitiously printed for the market of the world, 
 much more extensively than they sell in France. But 
 this does not benefit me, as you well know, on account 
 of there being no international copyright. He who 
 wishes to read any one of my novels does not purchase 
 it; he sends for it to the circulating library. Asa 
 proof of the truth of what I say, I assure you that I 
 am willing to part with the copyright of my existing 
 books and of others which I shall engage to write if 
 required, for a bare annuity of fifteen thousand frances. 
 You see that, for an extravagant man, I am very 
 modest.” 
 
 We had hardly left him when we met de Tocque- 
 ville. The lady complimented him on the immense 
 success of his celebrated work: ‘Democracy in 
 America.” 
 
 “ Success! Let us understand each other,” he said 
 with a smile. “If you mean success as to reputation, 
 you are right. It has made me famous. But if you 
 
ae 
 
 72 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 mean success as to the sale of the book, you are in er- 
 ror; my publisher groans piteously.” 
 
 “Ts it possible ! ” exclaimed the lady. 
 
 “It is but too true,’ replied de Tocqueville with a 
 slight philosophical shrug of the shoulders. “ Only five 
 hundred copies were sold in the first year after its ap- _ 
 
 ~ pearance, and the sale, instead of increasing, diminishes. 
 
 Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of As- 
 calon, to check literary ambition.- It is perhaps better 
 to circulate those encouraging lies which give to men 
 of letters such alluring incomes derived from the pro- 
 ductions of their brains.” He bowed to us and passed 
 on. | 
 I turned to Madame Ancelot and said to her: “I 
 hope that your charming volumes, so fascinating in 
 every page, have remunerated you more handsomely.” 
 She opened her fan, and looking steadily at it as if 
 she was seeking in its brilliant texture for a reply, she 
 said in a playful tone: “ I will answer you on another 
 occasion. Look round. Is not this a fairy scene and 
 an appropriate meeting ground for illusions of all sorts ? 
 Is this the time and the place for the introduction of 
 truth in the coarse apparel and with the unpainted 
 cheeks of a buxom country girl? No. Let me only 
 say to you for the present, that the republic of letters 
 is like other republics in one respect. Although of longer 
 duration than her sisters, for she is immortal, whilst 
 they are from the earth and perishable, her rewards are 
 not always for her most meritorious sons. You have 
 heard Balzac and de Tocqueville. Bear in mind, how- 
 ever, that dramatic compositions are what pay the 
 best, when successful. Be like Scribe, the most fecund 
 of all our dramatists, and you will be a man of wit and 
 wealth—a happy but unfrequent combination.” 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 73 
 
 “QO Paris, city of mud and smoke, where virtue is 
 but a name!” ete., ete. Faith! It is Rousseau who 
 speaks thus, not I. Oh! no. Ido not want to quarrel 
 with the friends I have left within her imperial walls, 
 particularly those daughters of Eve who told me that 
 they worshiped the very mud of her streets, and would 
 preter being chambermaids within her magic precincts 
 than duchesses in provincial towns. Could Madam de 
 Stael breathe any where else, and has she not informed 
 posterity that she liked the sight of the gutter of the 
 “rue du Bac,” where she resided, better than that of 
 any other spot on earth out of the city which she idol- 
 ized? O Paris! How many throw themselves into the 
 vortex of thy dissipations, to be stunned into a sort of 
 oblivious indifference to the past and the present, 
 or to inhale thy atmosphere of voluptuousness, 
 which, better than any chemist’s drugs, deadens 
 pain and makes conscience insensible under the 
 sharp tooth of remorse? There is in thy fra- 
 grant and sparkling cups of Circean festivities a subtle 
 and delicious poison, with which a moral suicide may 
 be but too easily perpetrated. The heart then becomes 
 a sepulchre in which the soul lies cold and dead, until 
 a voice calls for its resurrection. What voice? Per- 
 haps thou mayest answer that question for thyself, O 
 reader! But let that pass. One thing I know, that in 
 the stimulating hot-houses of that great city, which 
 claims to be the capital of the world, and in which 
 the accumulated civilization of centuries strengthens, 
 fertilizes, and heats the intellect into its highest artifi- 
 cial development, a resolute will, feverishly excited by 
 so many causes, and braced up by the magnetic in- 
 fluence and congeniality of mind acting on mind, can 
 triumph over the weakness of the diseased body and 
 
 4 ‘ 
 
aaa 
 
 74 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 conquer physical pain with more ease than elsewhere. 
 One can rise from the couch where hours of agony had 
 been endured, one can put on the elegant dress pre- 
 pared by the most fashionable tailor, and, although de- 
 bilitated by a long fast, turn night into day whilst toy- 
 ing with the frivolous, or gathering wisdom and learn- 
 ing from the sage. 
 
 The clock, had struck the midnight hour in the 
 saloons of General Cass, our minister plenipotentiary 
 at Paris, when Lady B , one of England’s fairest 
 daughters, said to me: 
 
 “Had you nothing better to do than to talk fora 
 whole half hour in the curtained embrasure of that 
 yonder window, with that odious man who denies the 
 immortality of the soul, and is an avowed infidel and 
 materialist. You keep bad company, and your friends 
 will become uneasy.” 
 
 I bowed in acknowledgment of the flattering inter- 
 est taken in my behalf, and I replied that I had been 
 discussing that very subject of materialism, and pro- 
 testing against the threatened annihilation of my soul 
 by my witty and erudite antagonist. The “ odious 
 man” she spoke of was a physician who enjoyed a 
 world-wide reputation, and with whom I had the good 
 luck of having become intimate. 
 
 “ But,” said I to Lady B , ‘do not be so indignant 
 with the doctor. He may not be a materialist after 
 all, as he pretends.” 
 
 ‘“‘ How so?” she said with an expression of surprise 
 in her countenance. 
 
 “It is an inference of mine,” I replied, “ which is 
 founded on what I am going to relate. You may have 
 heard that an immense crowd fills, every day, the sa- 
 loons of the great physician, from noon to six o’clock 
 
 
 
 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 75 
 
 in the evening. The patients are admitted in turn to 
 his presence. He is unapproachable during those 
 hours, except to suffering humanity. As a proof of 
 his regard, he had kindly exempted me from the rule. 
 One day, when I had something of importance to com- 
 municate, I called at the time I knew him to be so 
 much engaged. 
 _ “Pierre,” I said to the servant who was in atten- 
 dance, ‘ carry my card to your master. I must speak 
 to him without delay, and without being seen by the 
 crowd of invalids who might complain of preference 
 granted to me, if I were admitted before those who 
 have preceded me here.’ 
 ‘He returned after a few minutes, and said: ‘I will 
 conduct you, according to the doctor’s instructions, to 
 his bed-chamber, which is accessible through a secret 
 passage. There you will please to wait until I am per- 
 mitted to take you to his office.’ 
 “The doctor, you know, has the misfortune of be- 
 
 ing a bachelor like myself. What was my astonish- 
 ment when I entered his bedroom! From the ceilings 
 to the floor, the walls were covered with none but mag- 
 nificent oil paintings representing sacred subjects. At 
 the head of the bed was a prie-dieu, on which there 
 was a superbly illustrated copy of the Gospels, which 
 was lying open. There was a red velvet cushion to 
 kneel on at the foot of the prze-dieu, which was sur- 
 mounted by a beautifully carved ivory Christ on a 
 gilded cross. After a little while, I was led to the 
 presence of the medical philosopher who seemed to de- 
 dight in being a cynical unbeliever. Guessing at what 
 had passed in my mind, he said with a laugh, not un- 
 mixed, I thought, with some embarrassment of man- 
 ner: ‘ You are surprised, are you not ? 
 
76 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 ¢ Certainly,’ I replied. ‘Who would not? Faith! 
 My first impression was that I had. been introduced by 
 mistake into the bed-chamber of the archbishop of 
 Paris.’ | 
 
 “<¢ Well, well, my friend,’ he said in a half jocose 
 and half serious tone, ‘I hear and see so many unclean 
 things during the day, that, on my retiring at night, I 
 like, before going to sleep, to refresh my eyes when 
 looking round my room.’ 
 
 “Several times since, I have tried to refer to this 
 singular circumstance, in the hope of obtaining further 
 light on it, but he has always glided from the subject, 
 and I had to desist, because I saw that it was his de- 
 sire to have it forgotten.” 
 
 “Who would have suspected it?” exclaimed Lady 
 
 B 
 
 
 
 “It shows, madam, that there is some truth in the 
 old saying: ‘ Zrust not to appearances.’ ” 
 
 Ha! ha! ha! Thus laughed the old Countess of 
 V. , when I called on her, one evening, to enjoy 
 her bewitching conversation, so rich in anecdotes of the 
 court of the Emperor Napoleon I. She had been one 
 of the ladies of honor of Josephine, and of course was 
 full of gossip on all the celebrated characters of that 
 epoch. “Ha! ha! ha! So, you have been paying 
 a visit to the necromancer, Mlle. Lenormant? © Don’t 
 deny it; don’t blush; I saw you enter, as my carriage 
 drove through the rue Tournon, where she resides.” 
 
 “ Why should I deny it ?’ I replied. ‘Is she not a 
 celebrity ? Did she not have the honor of being per- 
 mitted to appear before the Congress of Sovereigns 
 who met at Aix la Chapelle in 1815, to show them how 
 a pack of cards may be pregnant with the fate of na- 
 tionalities and individuals? Why then should I not 
 
 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 77 
 
 admit that I had the curiosity to put te art to the 
 test ? 
 
 “ T have in my turn the curiosity,” said the eb 
 “to know what she has predicted to you, if it can be 
 communicated.” 
 
 “ Willingly. Let me say first, that my patience was 
 sorely tried, for I had to dance attendance during sev- 
 eral hours, so crowded her large parlor was with women 
 who had preceded me, and some of whom appeared to 
 be educated and refined. I was the only man there, 
 which circumstance, I confess, disconcerted me not a 
 little. But I put on a bold face, and entering into 
 conversation with some of the ladies, I turned into 
 ridicule my own apparent credulity. They told me, 
 however, that I was wrong in thus treating the subject 
 so slightingly. ‘They assured me that their own expe- 
 rience had taught them, year after year, that Made- 
 moiselle Lenormant knew the past and the future, as 
 well as the present, a fact which I was not disposed to 
 dispute, since I was soon to ascertain for myself what 
 I was to think of it. At last, my turn came to consult 
 the sibyl. I presented myself at the entrance of the 
 closet where she had been giving audience. The door 
 stood open, but a heavy tapestry curtain hung from the 
 lintel to the floor. There I found a portly old woman, 
 who, with one hand, had lifted up the curtain, and 
 who, with the other, beckoned me in. She riveted her 
 eyes on me for a minute or so, and I felt as if a pair 
 of gimlets were boring into me. Wonderful indeed 
 were those smail round eyes whose keen, steady and 
 sharp stiletto-pointed look seemed to penetrate to the 
 inmost depths of my soul. Nothing else was remarka- 
 ble in her, nor was there anything visibly diabolic in 
 the room where she held intercourse with her fortune- 
 
78 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 telling cards, or with spirits from another world. She 
 was fat and coarse, putting me in mind of those female 
 janitors who are so common in Paris.. She made me 
 sit by her at a table on which her cards were spread. 
 Whilst she was pretending to arrange them in the 
 required sibylline order, I observed that she stole fre- 
 quent glances at me in a large mirror which was ap- 
 pended to the wall in front of us. Whether it was in 
 my features, or in her cards, or in the polished surface 
 of the mirror that she read, I do not know, but certain 
 it is, that she appeared to have known me from the 
 cradle and to have never lost sight of me. She un- 
 folded my intellectual and moral organization with as 
 much precision as if she had dandled me on her knees, 
 and as if I had grown up within the shadow of her 
 petticoat. She told me strange things of the past, 
 strange things of the future, things which have hap- 
 pened, and things which have not yet happened. At 
 last, dropping her greasy cards, and looking at me she 
 said: ‘ Have you any questions to put ? 
 
 ‘¢¢ Since you invite me to do so, I will ask one ques- 
 tion, only one,’ I replied. ‘ How many friends have I 
 got ? 
 
 “She again consulted her pasteboard revealers of 
 destinies, and said gravely: ‘ You have but one friend, 
 and he is now in great danger. He is threatened this 
 year with a bloody grave. Should he parry the im- 
 pending blow, his life will be long and prosperous.’ 
 
 “T thought of Trévigne, and felt a sort of supersti- 
 tious alarm creeping over me. ‘Is that all? she said. 
 
 “¢ Yes.” But correcting myself, I added: ‘I will 
 only put another question. Shall I ever recover my 
 health ? 
 
 “'To my astonishment, she threw down her cards, and 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 79 
 
 thus addressed me: ‘ Of course, I am not a sorceress, 
 my dear sir, but I. am somewhat of a physician. Tell 
 me the symptoms of your infirmity.’ 
 
 *¢ Of course, | am not a sorceress.’ Here was an 
 opportunity offered me to interrogate her on her art, 
 and to relieve certai perplexities which she had pro- 
 duced in my mind. - But pride, that stiffmecked pride 
 which has been a stumbling block to me on so many 
 occasions, stood in my way, and I shrank from appear- 
 ing to attach sufficient importance to her profession to 
 question her about it. Otherwise, who knows? She 
 might have revealed to me the means by which she 
 had persuaded so many people that she possessed the 
 art of divination. I have since regretted my reserve 
 on that oceasion, and shall probably continue to regret 
 it. Should I ever be ruined by a revolution, as she 
 has foretold me, the art which she has sa successfully 
 practiced, if I had been initiated in it by her, would 
 be something to fall back upon, and I might make a 
 comfortable living by becoming a fortune-teller.” I 
 smiled when uttering this last phrase, but there was no 
 corresponding smile on the face of the old countess. 
 She looked pensive and grave. 
 
 “My young friend,’ she said, “there are many 
 mysterious things in this world, to which we must not 
 allude, under the terrible penalty of being held up to 
 ridicule. May God, however, avert from you the ca- 
 lamity with which you have been threatened by the 
 sibyl !” 
 
 ‘¢ But is it true,” said I to the countess, “‘ that she had 
 really predicted to Josephine the fall of Napoleon, when 
 he was at the zenith of his power, and that she was in- 
 earcerated for it?” . 
 
 “Tt is true,” she answered. *“ Josephine had prom- 
 
80 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 ised the Lenormant not to mention it to the emperor, 
 but she was so thoroughly alarmed, that it was easy for 
 her lord to discover that she had something unpleasant 
 on her mind, which she attempted to conceal from him, ° 
 and he terrified _her into a confession.” 
 
 “Tt must have been no difficult task,” I observed, 
 “to frighten a being so gentle and loge as to have no 
 will of her own when opposed to his.” 
 
 “As to that,” she said, laughing, “ you are romane- 
 ing as some historians and memoir writers haye done. 
 Josephine, good and kind as she was, had her faults like 
 us common mortals, and she was not always so gentle 
 as not to have a will of her own in opposition to that of 
 her Olympian spouse. Will you have an instance of 
 it?” 
 
 “My weight in gold for it!’ I pxclinmisd. 
 
 SY Ol shall heee it for les3,” she continued. “ The 
 German campaign had begun. The French armies were 
 eda the Rhine, and Napoleon was to leave Paris 
 for Strasbourg on bh way to Vienna and other eapitals. 
 It was aes that J osephine had begged to follow him, 
 and had insisted on it with no small persistency. ‘He 
 might be wounded ; she must benear him. Otherwise, — 
 the anxieties that would assail her, when she could not 
 forget that he was in the midst of so many dangers, 
 would be too agonizing to be endured. Her health 
 would fail; she would die, and see him no more.’ She 
 had renewed her request again and again with all the 
 blandishments of conjugal tenderness, and with that ir- 
 resistible grace which she was known to possess. It had 
 all been in vain. Napoleon had sternly resisted her en- 
 treaties. It was not long before the time fixed for his 
 departure arrived. It es to be at midnight on a par- 
 ticular day. Superfluots it is to say, that all was ready 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. Si 
 
 at the appointed hour. The coaches were drawn up 
 before the palace, the cavalry escort at its post, and the 
 torches lighted. The rigid punctuality of the imperial 
 master was well known. What was the general aston- 
 ishment, when, at a quarter past twelve, Napoleon had 
 not appeared! Half past twelve! One o’clock, and no 
 emperor! The excitement became intense. What had 
 happened? What could have happened? He was 
 known to be in the apartment of Josephine, and the 
 doors of the august bed-chamber still remained closed. 
 The numerous suite of attendants lost themselves in the 
 wildest conjectures, and some of them have told me that 
 they became so nervously excited as to feel ready to 
 yell. At last, when the clock struck two, the door of 
 the room of the empress was opened and flung back 
 with violence. The heavy, clumsy and irregular steps 
 which were heard approaching, could not be mistaken, 
 and the emperor, with his thick campaign boots on and 
 with his famous gray coat and cocked hat, was seen hasti- 
 ly coming down the broad marble flight of stairs of the 
 Tuileries. The drums beat, the trumpets sounded, the 
 torches flung around a more vivid light, the men of the 
 escort stood erect in their saddles, tightening the reins, 
 and with spurs ready to strike, the horses tossed their 
 manes as if they understood the time for action had 
 come, the officer who stood at the door of the carriage 
 opened it wide, uncovered and bowed down to the 
 ground as the emperor almost rushed inside and took his 
 seat. Just at that moment, something as light as a cloud 
 drifting before the wind, and as white as new-fallen snow, 
 floated down the stairs through the line of guards, and 
 glided into the emperor’s carriage, where it placed itself 
 by his side. It was ‘the empress in her night dress. 
 The thunderer looked at his mate, as it were with speech- 
 4% 
 
82 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 less wonder, but only for a second did he thus look be- 
 fore he shouted: “ Postillions, full gallop.”* Onward 
 started the imperial train like a whirlwind. 
 
 “T was at that time at Strasbourg, of which my hus- 
 band was in command. No words can express my sur- 
 prise, when one morning an orderly officer called on 
 me and said: ‘The empress is in Strasbourg, and has | 
 ordered me to invite you to bring to her without delay 
 all your wardrobe. She has arrived from Paris in her 
 night clothes with the emperor, and wishes to choose 
 among your wardrobe the most appropriate dress to 
 suit herself.’ 
 
 “¢ You are stark mad,’ I said to the officer. 
 
 “ «No, madam,’ he replied, ‘I am perfectly sane, as 
 you may convince yourself by repairing to the presence 
 of the empress, as she desires.’ 
 
 “When I appeared before her with several servants 
 bearing the most select of my dresses, she received me 
 with peals of laughter, and seemed to relish with as 
 much glee as a speiled child the prank she had played. 
 We continued to laugh heartily, as she tried, one after 
 the other, every piece of apparel which I had brought. 
 She was full of hope that, having contrived to come 
 thus far, she would be permitted to go farther, but in 
 that she was disappointed. Thus you see that, gentle 
 and submissive as she is represented to have been, the 
 graceful creole of Martinique had sometimes a will of 
 her own. Hence I will echo, with an addition, the old 
 saying so often quoted: trust not to appearances, and to 
 reputations made by historians, memoir writers and au- 
 thors of romances.” 
 
 * Ventre A terre. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE MARQUIS AND HIS BROTHERS.—A STRIKING EFFECT OF 
 THE RIGHT OF PRIMOGENITURE. 
 
 Ar last the time came which I had fixed for my de- 
 parture, to meet Trévigne in Spain. I stopped in Or- 
 leans one day, to see its curiosities. Among other things, 
 I had determined to visit the house of Agnes Sorel, the 
 celebrated favorite of Charles VII. On one oceasion 
 she appeared in traveling costume before her royal loy- 
 er, who had almost lost the whole of France, and who 
 lived in inglorious sloth in the petty city of Bourges. 
 
 “ Whither are you going, gentle Agnes,” said the as- 
 tonished king. 
 
 “Tt was predicted to me long ago,”’ she replied, “ that 
 I was destined to be the mie par amour of the king of 
 France. You are dethroned, and Bedford reigns in 
 Paris. To him therefore I go.” 
 
 The youthful monarch blushed, and, stung to the 
 quick, sprang to arms. The result was, that the Eng- 
 lish were expelled from France, and Joan of Arc led 
 him to be crowned in Rheims. Blessed be the patriot- 
 ism of women, from Judith to the maid of Saragossa! 
 There is none nobler and more unselfish. Such being 
 my feeling on this subject, it was in keeping with it 
 that I should have been in search of the histori¢ dwell- 
 ing of that damsel, who, if she loved sinfully, had a 
 
 soul to hate the oppressors of her country. My guide- 
 (83) 
 
84. FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 book had informed me, that the house of which I was 
 in quest was in a secluded street, not far from Royal 
 street, the main thoroughfare of the city of Orleans. 
 Down that beautiful street, therefore, I strolled, looking 
 right and left for some genial face I could venture to 
 address, for I am very sensitive, and easily put out of 
 joint by a churlish answer. Fortunately, I spied an 
 honest burgher with a face as placid as the moon, who 
 stood on the threshold of his store, gazing vacantly and. 
 listlessly at loiterers like myself. I approached him hat 
 in hand, and asked him if he would do me the kindness 
 to point out where was the house of Agnes Sorel. The 
 suddenness of the question and its unexpectedness 
 seemed to make him lose his equilibrium, but, soon re- 
 covering the habitual composure out of which he had 
 been startled, he answered, with a countenance beam- 
 ing with satisfaction at the opportunity of obliging a 
 stranger : 
 
 “Certainly, sir, with the utmost pleasure. You have 
 only to turn round and to look at the opposite side of 
 the street. There, as you see, is the house of Agnes & 
 Co., but I was not aware that Sorel was one of the 
 firm.” 
 
 Turning round as I was told, I saw in glittering gold 
 letters over the top of the front door of a dry-goods store : 
 Agnes & Co.  Convulsed with laughter, I fairly ran 
 away, leaving the astonished citizen staring at me, and 
 greatly in doubt, I presume, whether there was not a 
 screw loose in my brain. This unromantic ineident 
 made me give up Agnes Sorel altogether, and go back 
 to the dinner which was waiting for me at the //otel de 
 Lrance. 
 
 After dinner, I was examining and criticising the 
 Lasteless statue of Joan of Are erected on a public 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 8 
 
 Cx 
 
 square, when I was accosted by a very fat woman, who 
 looked like a monstrous cheese gifted with the power of 
 locomotion, and down whose forehead and cheeks per- 
 spiration trickled most profusely. 
 
 “ Mon gentilhomme,” she said, wiping her face, 
 “will you believe that I have been quizzed the whole 
 day by the inhospitable people of this city? I am from 
 Nantz, and, having at last by dint of hard labor scraped 
 up sufficient means to visit Paris, that wonder of the 
 world, I have stopped here, on my way to the capital, 
 merely to-see the statue of the glorious maid of Orleans, 
 who drove out of it the perfidious English. As soon 
 as I had breakfasted, I asked the landlord for the statue 
 of the maid of Orleans, and he sent me here, where I saw 
 this statue with the name of Joan of Are inscribed on its 
 pedestal. I have for hours been inquiring for the maid 
 of Orleans, and every body has sent me back to the same 
 spot, until [ am tired to death, and when, at last driven 
 out of all patience, I showed some temper, and asked 
 what on earth this Joan of Arce had to do with the 
 maid of Orleans, they laughed in my face; and pray, 
 sir, why do you laugh also ?” 
 
 I explained to her how Joan of Are and the maid of 
 Orleans were but one and the same person. She seemed 
 much relieved and very grateful for the information, 
 and thanked me‘warmly. ‘“ Voyez vous, monsieur,” 
 she said, “ce n’est gue la France qui produit de pareilles 
 semmes.” * I thought of many other heroines, but I 
 said nothing, and I left the fat woman in ecstatic con- 
 templation of the object of her admiration. 
 
 I tarried at Tours to visit its cathedral and the beau 
 tiful environs of that city. I deviated to my left from 
 the straight road to Bordeaux, and went to Loches, 
 
 * Do you see, sir, it is only France that can produce such women. 
 
86 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 where is the famous castle in which Louis XI im- 
 mured some of his prisoners of state. There, are still 
 exhibited the iron ring in the wall, apocryphal or not, 
 to which the cage that held captive Cardinal La Balue, 
 was said to be suspended, and the engines of war which, 
 by the faint light filtering through a small aperture into 
 the dungeon, an unfortunate duke of Milan drew on 
 the walls, to while away the long dreary hours of his 
 solitary confinement. I came out of these subterranean 
 chambers with a breast panting for the free air of 
 heaven. Loches is full of the memories of Agnes So- 
 rel. Icontemplated with interest the reeumbent statue 
 on the tomb erected to her. At her head kneel two 
 angels, who seem to pray for mercy. How softly and 
 profoundly sleeps the marble shaped into that beautiful 
 human form! How exquisitely chaste were the features 
 of the dead in their eternal repose, if chaste was not 
 the heart of the living! ‘ Alas!’ says an old chronicle, 
 “she sinned grievously, but she was gentle and forgiving, 
 and not undeserving of forgiveness herself, for she was 
 liberal to the poor, and gave much to churches and mon- 
 asteries. May her soul have been thereby redeemed !” 
 
 I had a letter of introduction for the Marquis of 
 B , which I delivered. He resided in a little jewel 
 of a castle which had been a hunting seat for Charles 
 Viland Agnes Sorel in the magnificent forest of Loches, 
 which is no longer in existence. In later times, the 
 stone bust of Francis the First had been put in a niche 
 above the main entrance. J was received with muclif 
 cordiality, and was made at once to feel as much at 
 ease as if I had been intimate for years with the family. 
 I passed three days under that hospitable roof. The 
 marquis was very rich and lived with much splendor. 
 His mother was on a visit to him. I was struck with 
 
 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 87 
 
 the veneration with which she was treated. She was 
 attended by her chaplain in clerical habit. She 
 asked me if I liked music. ‘ Passionately,’ I re- 
 plied. She proposed to play for me; I bowed pro- 
 foundly and led her to the piano. She beckoned to the 
 chaplain, a young man, who, immediately obeying her 
 summons, stood up back of her chair, and sang a piece’ 
 from the gone-out-of-fashion opera of “Joseph sold by 
 his brothers,” whilst she accompanied him on the in- 
 strument. I enjoyed the whole scene richly. The ma- 
 jestic old lady, when she walked, seemed to tread on 
 a platform made up of thrones. When she rose to pass 
 into another apartment, a lacquey, who was always at 
 hand, opened the folding doors and closed them after 
 she had passed. Although her husband had been dead 
 ten years, she still wore deep mourning, and her dress 
 was of antique pattern. She courtesied after the fashion 
 in use in the age of Louis XIV, and, although perfect- 
 ly courteous and even kindly affable, it was evident 
 that a minute never flung its shadow across the dial 
 during which she was forgetful of her rank and blood. 
 The architecture of the building, its interior decora- 
 tions, the manners, feelings, thoughts and language of 
 its inmates took me back to at least the age of Henry 
 IV, the white-plumed hero of Navarre. The illusion 
 was complete. The pyramids of Egypt could not have 
 interested me more than these people, who, although 
 wearing a modern dress, save the dowager marquise, 
 had remained what their ancestors were three hundred 
 years ago. What stone-cemented monument of the 
 past can be more attractive than living antiquated rel- 
 ics of flesh and blood ! 
 
 The every-day dinner of the marquis was superbly 
 served, and showed that guests might be expected— 
 
88 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 which expectation was realized; for traveling equip- 
 ages never failed to stop at the dinner hour, whilst I 
 was there. Once it was the Prince of P He was 
 returning from Pau. ‘How remarkable,” he said, in 
 the course of conversation, “is the type of distinction 
 which characterizes the Bearnese population! The 
 postillion who drove me when I left Pau, was so like 
 Henry IV, that I was tempted to throw myself out of 
 my carriage and say to him, ‘Sire, take my seat, and 
 let me take yours.’ ”’ 
 
 The young marquise was one of the most peatitafal 
 women of France. I was seated by her side at the ta- 
 ble. She said to me with her peculiarly melodious and 
 gentle laugh: | 
 
 “Ta! ha! Ihave caught your eye resting on this 
 breast-pin of mine. You think, no doubt, that it is not 
 in harmony with the richness of my costume, and you 
 are right; for it is not intrinsically worth two cents. 
 But it is, nevertheless, the most precious of all my jew- 
 els. During the emigration, my poor father was com- 
 pelled to make a living by manufacturing pins, and 
 peddling them in the streets of the cities of Germany. 
 At the restoration of the Bourbons, when he came back 
 to France, he presented me with this coarse pin which 
 he had made with his own hands, and which I always 
 wear.” 
 
 I bowed in silent acknowledgment and appreciation 
 of her feelings, but thus addressed her mentally: “ Sure- 
 ly, if your ancestors had not been among those who dis- 
 tinguished themselves in Palestine during the first 
 crusade, you would not have ventured on the avowal 
 that your father had been reduced so low as to be a 
 pedlar. Upstarts do not make such confessions.” Her 
 husband was a Bayard, a true knight w:thout fear and 
 
 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. §9 
 
 without reproach. It was indeed an immaculate fam- 
 ily, as pure as crystal, and profoundly venerated in the 
 whole province. So rigid were they in their morals, 
 that any misconduct which affected the character of 
 any one of their servants, was looked upon by them as 
 a serious household calamity. 
 
 One day, as I walked on the terrace of the castle 
 with the intendant, or business man of the family, I ex- 
 pressed my surprise and my gratification at having met 
 with such curious fossils, such well-preserved remnants 
 of the heroic ages. 
 
 “Oh!” he exclaimed, “if you knew them as well as I 
 do, your surprise would have no bounds. Let me relate 
 to you an anecdote, in illustration of what I mean. 
 The old marquis, when he died, left three sons. Ior- 
 tunately they were all of age, and you will soon under- 
 stand why I mention it as a fortunate circumstance. 
 A few days after that nobleman’s death, the dowager 
 marquise summoned her sons to her presence in her 
 private apartment, and addressed them as follows : 
 
 “« My sons, I have desired your attendance here in 
 order to settle definitively your lamented father’s inher- 
 itance. I will now proceed to give to each of you his 
 respective share. Our homme @’ afaires, here present, 
 (pointing to me) has clearly explained to my satisfac- 
 tion that your father’s estate ought to be divided, ac- 
 cording to existing laws, into three equal parts, after 
 having deducted the amount of whatever just claims I 
 may have on it. I have no doubt that such is the law 
 as he says, for I have much confidence in him. Poor 
 France! They have made of late so many laws for 
 her, that it is not extraordinary if they have manufac- 
 tured such a one among the rest, with which, after all, 
 it is quite in keeping. But such a law cannot exist for 
 
90 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 our family, although it may exist for France. We have 
 flourished for centuries under another regime, and for 
 us that regime can never cease to be. ‘Therefore let 
 all things stand for us now, as it stood before for our 
 ancestors. “Hence, monsieur le marquis, being the 
 eldest, this is your share, as in the good old time (giv- 
 ing him almost the whole of the inheritance), and you, 
 the younger sons, here is what comes to you (allowing 
 them a mere pittance), and now our homme @ affaires 
 has explained to me that, in order that this should be 
 valid and permanent, it 1s necessary that there be on 
 your part, messicwrs les cadets,* certain . . . what does 
 hecallit?....ho!.... Dhaveit .... renuncia- 
 tions, I believe. Is it not so? (turning to me, who nod- 
 ded assent). Renunciations then be it. My memory, it 
 seems, has not failed me. Well, everything is ready, 
 my sons, as I am informed, according to my directions, 
 at the notary’s office. You will have merely to order 
 the deeds to be read to you and to sign them. Go, with 
 my blessings on you, and let this be speedily settled 1 
 
 “Those three men rose without saying one word, fol- 
 lewed me to the office of the notary, who read to the 
 younger sons the acts by which they gave up their 
 equal shares in a princely inheritance. I kept my eye 
 on them, sir, and I assure you that there was not a mo- 
 ment’s hesitation. Calm, resolved, true to a cherished 
 principle, obedient to parental dictation, the two broth- 
 ers flung away a million each, as if it had been the 
 wretched stump of an extinguished cigar. The third 
 one accepted their shares with as much indifference 
 and as a matter of course, without expressing regrets or 
 thanks. Ma foi, Cest bien beau, monsieur.” + 
 
 “ True, it is bzen beau,” I replied. “ But what has be- 
 
 * Cadet means a younger son. t+ Faith! This is very fine, sir. 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 91 
 
 come of the two younger brothers, those wonderful 
 prodigies of self-abnegation? I take in them the deep- 
 est interest.” 
 
 “ What has become of them?” said the homme @ af- 
 Jarres, echoing my question ; “ Look to the right... . 
 way off .... on the verge of the horizon. Do you 
 see yonder chateau ?” 
 
 “Yes; it looks like something of importance.” 
 
 “Tt is something of importance, and it belongs to one 
 of them.” 
 
 “ Indeed !” 
 
 “ Now look to your left. Do you discover in that 
 valley, and almost hidden by an intervening forest, but 
 still looming up above it, that grand-looking structure ?” 
 
 “T see something towering up like some proud feu- 
 dal manor.” 
 
 “Good. That belongs to the other brother.” 
 
 “Ho! ho! I am glad to know that they are both 
 so well off,” I remarked. 
 
 “Well off!” repeated the homme @ affaires, with a 
 slight intonation of indignant surprise at the words 
 used. “They are very rich, sir, perhaps richer than 
 their eldest brother.” 
 
 “ How did that happen? They must have been pro- 
 digiously clever, if they could in ten years, for you told 
 me, I believe, that their father died ten years ago, make 
 such large fortunes! What business did they under- 
 take which turned out so extraordinarily remunerative ?” 
 
 * Business! business! Why, sir, there are things 
 in this country which your American mind will hardly 
 comprehend. We have here, notwithstanding nos rév- 
 olutions égalitavres,* a number of very wealthy manu- 
 facturers, merchants, grocers, or other such people, who, 
 
 * Our leveling revolutions. 
 
92 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 having made millions in trade, or God knows how, and 
 having but one daughter or two, desire for them, very 
 naturally, what they do not possess; or, to speak more 
 properly, the girls themselves save their parents the 
 trouble of desiring anything on the subject, for they do 
 aud overdo themselves the desiring part. What a de- 
 lightful thing it would be, thinks Miss so and so, to be- 
 long to the family of that grand Marquis of B——, and 
 to sport such old armorials on one’s carriage! The 
 most exclusive dcor in Europe would be opened to me, 
 and my dearest friends, Eugenie and Clara, would die 
 of spite. Thus speculates day and night the busy brain 
 of a beautiful girl, fresh from the convent, and just in- 
 troduced to all the vanities of the world. Thus it hap- 
 pened that papa came one day, hat in hand, to the 
 homme @ affacres of the grand marquis, and threw out 
 some hints as to the possibility of arranging an alliance 
 between his millions and the coronet of one of the pen- 
 niless brothers. Another wealthy man imitates this ex- 
 ample. Their daughters are beautiful, well educated, 
 refined in manners and as noble-minded as any prin- 
 cess. Why should they not be countesses? Now your 
 question is answered as to tle sudden acquisition of 
 wealth by the two brothers of the marquis.” 
 
 He paused, and, taking out of his gold snuff-box a 
 pinch with which he deliberately regaled his nostrils, 
 whilst seemingly meditating on what he had related, 
 he said: ‘ Disregarding the sublimity of the moral side 
 of the renunciation made by the younger sons, and their 
 willing sacritice of pecuniary interest on the altar of 
 primogeniture as it had existed for their race during 
 centuries, it strikes me, sir, that, in a purely business 
 point of view, it was a good operation, considering the 
 circumstances under which it was made. Should the 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. ; 93 
 
 estate have been equally divided into three parts, the 
 importance of the family would have been diminished, 
 the prestige of its antique splendor done away, the 
 fame resulting from the magnanimous immolation of 
 self-interest to principle, not acquired, and the two mar- 
 riages of which I have spoken, not effected. Three no- 
 blemen, bearing an historical name, would have sunk 
 lower as to social position, and two plebeian girls would 
 not have risen to.a higher sphere. But as it is, there 
 has been a reciprocal improvement of the -aristocratic 
 and democratic elements by their blending together, in- 
 stead of that deterioration which is produced by jeal- 
 ousies and the conflict of adverse interests and prejudices. 
 Besides, had things taken a different course, I should 
 not have been greatly benefited, myself, as I am now, 
 by having become the administrator of three princely 
 estates. What think you of it?” 
 
 “T think,” said I, smiling at the question, “that your 
 point of view is a shrewd one, and that there is in you 
 a happy compou: d of the philosopher and of the man 
 of business.” 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 FERNANDO’S ADVENTURES IN THE PYRENEES. 
 
 My next visit was to Chinon, a decidedly ugly pro- 
 vincial town. I stopped at the Hotel of the Green 
 Oak, where I ate a very foul dinner served in very 
 filthy dishes, and drank bad water and bad wine in the 
 least dingy of the glasses which I could pick among 
 those offered to me. I sallied, after my uncomfortable 
 dinner, to look out for the house of Rabelais, who was 
 born at Chinon. Rabelais was a priest and euré of 
 Meudon, near Paris, in 1545. It was then that he 
 published his Pantagruel, which made him famous. He 
 died in 1553 in his seventieth year. He was versed in 
 the use of eight languages—French, Italian, Spanish, 
 German, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and the Arabic. He 
 was a theologian, a grammarian, a poet, a philosopher, 
 a physician, a jurisconsult, and an astronomer. It was 
 not without misgivings, I confess, that I began my 
 search, for I remembered what had befallen me in 
 Orleans, when inquiring for the house of Agnes Sorel. 
 I went to the public square at six o’clock in the after 
 noon, Every body was there. I took notice of a very 
 tall, very large and very rotund individual who was 
 promenading in solitary grandeur, with the breast flaps 
 of his coat thrown back, to show probably the immacu- 
 late purity of his snow-white vest. and with the swallow 
 
 (94) 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 95 
 
 tail of that coat oscillating transversally behind him, 
 az he walked pompously with elephantine steps. Surely, 
 said [ to myself, this grand personage must at least be 
 the mayor of the town, and to him I may venture to 
 apply with a better chance of information than to any 
 other quarter. JI approached him respectfully, address- 
 ing him in these words: 
 
 “Tam a stranger, sir,in this place. Will you please 
 to tell me where I can find the house of Rabelais ?” 
 
 “ Rabelais! Rabelais!” herepeated musingly. “ Do 
 you say Rabelais? Well, I declare, that is strange. I 
 never heard of that individual before, and yet I know 
 every man, woman and child in Chinon. You must be 
 mistaken, sir. J assure you that there has never been 
 any one here of that name, at least since I was born.” 
 
 “Tt was, in truth,” said I, “long before you were 
 born, for he resided in this place several centuries ago.” 
 
 “ And pray, sir,” he said, looking askance at me as 
 if he suspected me of the intention of quizzing him, 
 ““what makes you suppose that I can possibly know the 
 dwelling of a man who died before the deluge?” This 
 was rather tartly said. 
 
 “* Because,” I replied, “I supposed that Rabelais, 
 Pantagruel and Gargantua were as well known in 
 Chinon, as Cervantes, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza 
 in La Mancha in Spain.” 
 
 “A great error, a very great error of yours, sir. 
 These people are totally unknown here. I assure you 
 of it, on my honor.” 
 
 He bowed me off majestically after this emphatic 
 declaration, resuming his walk with more solemnity 
 than before, and with a more accelerated oscillation 
 of his coat. tail. This reminded me of what a stage 
 driver, near whose exalted seat on the top of his vehicle 
 
96 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 I had placed myself, the better to see the e.untry I was 
 traveling through, had said to me when we passed in 
 front of a beautiful little chateau encircled by a rapid 
 and lovely stream which, as it ran onward, hugged the 
 walls of the turreted building, making it look as if it 
 rose from the very bed of the river. JI inquired who 
 was the owner of it. The coach driver answered, with 
 a contemptuous toss of the head: 
 
 “Tt belongs to the baroness Dudevant, she who calls 
 herself George Sand and dresses like a man. ‘They say 
 that she is somebody in Paris, but zcz ce n’est pas grand 
 chose.”* So much for fame and the glory of this world! 
 
 I passed through La Vendée, which acquired such 
 historical renown in the famous civil war that followed 
 the fall of Louis XVI. Near Niort, the public coach, 
 or diligence, as it is called in France , stopped at a small 
 village to change horses. We were two in the coupé, 
 which, as is avin known to travelers on the continent 
 of Europe, contains only three seats. The French dil- 
 gence is divided into three separate compartments of 
 which the coupé is one, and fronts the horses. It is 
 the most sought after. Its middle seat is the least 
 comfortable; an old gentleman. presented himself to 
 occupy it. I heard the postillion address him with 
 much respect as Count of St. Hermine. That name 
 recalled to my memory the following passage in one of 
 the dispatches of the Marquis of Vaudreuil, Governor 
 _of Louisiana, who, on the 15th of May, 1751, thus wrote 
 to one of the French ministers at home: 
 
 “The situation of the Lady of St. Hermine, wko 
 came to this colony thirty years since, by virtue of a 
 lettre de cachet,+ obliges me to represent to you that 
 
 * But here she is not much of anything. - 
 t+ An arbitrary order of arrest issued by the government. 
 
 ~ 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 97 
 
 this lady is at present unable to support herself here 
 any longer, on account of the extreme destitution to 
 which she is reduced by the death of Mr. de Loubois, 
 with whom she had always lived. I beg permission to 
 send her back gratis to France in one of the king’s 
 ships. Moreover, the lettré- de cachet has expired, and . 
 the lady is very old.” 
 
 After refusing at first the corner seat, which, being a 
 young man, I though it incumbent on me to offer him, 
 the count, yielding to my pressing invitation, at last 
 accepted it with many thanks, and I thus found myself 
 placed between my two traveling companions. They 
 both were of about the same age, and both wore the 
 decoration of the legion of honor. The diligence 
 rolled on heavily, and for awhile we remained per- 
 fectly silent. I observed that the two gentlemen occa- 
 sionally stole glances at each other, which seemed to 
 revive recollections of the past. One said to the other: 
 
 “Tf I am not greatly mistaken, we have met before, 
 although it is many years ago.” 
 
 “J was making the same reflection,” was the reply. 
 
 An explanation followed, and it resulted, that they 
 had been companions in arms in the days of the 
 republic, the consulate, and the empire. The conver- 
 sation became very animated, and very interesting to 
 me. They fought their battles over again, recalled 
 many incidents of their campaign life, and gradually 
 approached the questions of the day. It was soon ap- 
 parent that one was a legitimist, and the other a Louis 
 Philippist. They agreed on nothing in their politics, 
 but still they expressed their conflicting opinions with 
 mutual forbearance and courtesy. At last, General 
 Defrance, for such was the name and rank of the other 
 eentleman, said to the Count of St. Hermine: 
 
 5 
 
98 FHRNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 ‘“‘ After all, my dear sir, time and experience soften 
 opposition, and even aversion. At the end of a long 
 life one is apt to take a very different, or at least a very 
 modified view from the one entertained in the begin- 
 ning of it. We find, when the frost of age matures 
 and mellows our judgment, that there are very few 
 things worth quarreling about, and hardly any evils un- 
 mixed with good. I confess for my part, that more 
 than one change in my former feelings has come over 
 me. Jor instance, born in the lowest ranks of the peo- 
 ple, I had imbibed all their prejudices against the 
 clergy and against the order to which you belong, 
 count. Well, sir, the worthy chaplain of my regiment 
 under the empire, by his many virtues and admirable 
 traits of heroism, and the sanctity of his life, reconciled 
 me with the cassock, and, after that, at the battle of. 
 Wagram, I relinquished my long entertained hostility 
 against the noblesse.”’ | 
 
 The count remained silent, but [ remarked that he 
 had assumed a more erect position, that his eye 
 flashed, and that an expression had stolen over his 
 face which seemed to say: Ha! ha! is justice ren- 
 dered at last ? 
 
 “You remember the Duke of Montmoreney, my 
 dear count,” resumed General Defrance. ‘“ You will 
 admit that he was not above mediccrity. At the time 
 the battle of Wagram was fought, he was on the 
 staff of Marshal Davoust. He had been very ill for 
 several weeks and altogether incapable of duty. On 
 the day on which the battle was foreseen to take place, 
 at dawn guns began to be heard, and the marshal, 
 mounting his horse, galloped to a hill, from which he 
 examined with his glass the position of the enemy and 
 the movements which were going on. We of the staff 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 99 
 
 were also absorbed in the contemplation of what was 
 before us. ‘The marshal, having finished his observa- 
 tions and turning round, saw with astonishment the 
 Duke of Montmorency on horseback-within a few steps 
 of him. We all wondered how he had got there at all. 
 He looked like a ghost, or as Sif he was soon going to 
 be one. 
 
 *¢¢ What on earth are you doing here, Mr. de Mont- 
 morency? exclaimed the marshal. 
 
 ““< My duty,’ was the simple reply. ‘I heard the 
 firing of cannon. I asked my servant what it meant. 
 He told me it was the beginning of a battle. I ordered 
 him to put me on my horse, and here I am.’ 
 
 “¢T commend your spirit, sir, said the marshal, ‘ but 
 you have acted very imprudently. You have endang- 
 ered your life by coming out of your bed to join me, to 
 whom you can be of no service in the condition in 
 which you are. I thank you, but beg you to retire.’ 
 
 “Mr. de Montmorency refused, pleading that he was 
 bound to be at his post on such an occasion, and that he 
 could not fail to do so. The marshal expostulated in 
 vain. Mr. de Montmorency persisted in his determin- 
 ation to be at his post. It was a duty which he could 
 not forego. 
 
 “<Very well, duke, said the marshal, ‘since you 
 speak of duty, you must not forget that I have also a 
 duty to perform—which is, to see that those who are in- 
 trusted to my care shall not expose their lives without 
 necessity. Thus far | have spoken to youasafriend; but 
 now, as your superior officer, I command you to retire.’ 
 
 “The duke drew himself up in his saddle and re- 
 plied: ‘I will disobey you, marshal. Un jour de bat- 
 aille un Montmorency wa jamais eula fievre.* 
 
 * On a day of battle a Montmorency never was known to be sick. 
 
100 FERNANDUV DE LEMOS. 
 
 “The marshal put spurs to his horse, and we flew | 
 over the ground. The battle had fairly begun, and 
 lasted the greater part of the day. Montmorency, or 
 rather his horse, kept up with us, for the reins had es 
 eaped from his feeble hands; he reeled in the saddle 
 like a drunken man, and clung to the mane of the noble 
 animal, which seemed to be aware of the responsibil- 
 ity of its charge and which followed us with fidelity. 
 When the last gun was fired, Mr. de Montmorency, as 
 if conscious that he was now permitted to yield his post 
 and be conquered by the infirmity of nature, fell from 
 his horse like a bag of corn. We picked him up, and 
 carried him to his quarters in a complete state of insen- 
 sibility. On that day, sir, I gave up all the bitter hos- 
 tility which I had entertained against the noblesse, and 
 I came to the conclusion, that there must be something 
 ‘ood in an institution which could inspire an ordinary 
 man like Mr. de Montmoreney with such heroism.” 
 The count acknowledged this observation with a slight 
 bow, but made no other response. 
 
 When I reached Oloron, a town of six to eight 
 thousand inhabitants, situated at the foot of the 
 Pyrenees and divided into two parts by a stream which 
 runs through it, and which, in the language of that lo- 
 cality, is called Ze gave, I learned that thirty thousand 
 men under General Harispe were stationed along the 
 frontiers of Spain, and prevented communication be- 
 tween that country and France. On one side of the 
 stream, or gave, which divides Oloron into two parts, 
 there is a considerable Spanish population composed of 
 merchants, who are large dealers in wool which they 
 import from Aragon and Nayarre. They live agglom- 
 erated in one quarter of the town, and form, as it were, 
 asmall Spanish colony in France. As I wished to 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 101 
 
 have a foretaste of Spain, I alighted at a posada, or 
 Spanish inn, in preference to the more comfortable 
 Lotel de France. I found the posada answering exactly 
 the description of the like establishment in Gil Blas and 
 other works on Spain. I was ushered into an immense 
 kitchen, where were assembled all the family of the tav- 
 ern-keeper and his numerous employees. The apart- 
 ment was not only a kitchen, but also a dining-room and 
 a parlor, and the dinner which I had bespoken was 
 cooked in my own presence. When “ mine host,” An- 
 tonio, was informed that I was an American, and that 
 I had no other motive in going to Spain, at a critical 
 time, than that of seeing and serving a friend, he became 
 very enthusiastic, his eyes flashed, and he walked up to 
 me, cordially shaking both my hands which he eagerly 
 grasped, and saying to me: “Sefor, you have a gener- 
 ous heart.” 
 
 From that moment he became as devoted to me as if 
 I had been an ancient chieftain of his tribe, or clan. 
 There was nothing that he was not willing to do on my 
 behalf, and I was invited to put him to the test. I took 
 him at his word, and told him that I had determined 
 to cross the frontiers at any hazard and join my friend 
 in the Carlist army. 
 
 “Well,” said he, “if you are bent on it, I will go and 
 speak to a trusty mountaineer, who, I am sure, will 
 agree to take you across the Pyrenees for two hundred 
 dollars in gold. He will hardly do it for less, in conse- 
 quence of the ‘great dangers to be encountered under 
 present circumstances.” 
 
 “ Then let us see him at once,” I said, “ and close the 
 bargain.” 
 
 We departed together, and, after a pretty long and 
 cough walk through crooked and ill-paved streets, we 
 
102 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 arrived, in the outskirts of the town, at an isolated and 
 dilapidated house of a rather forbidding appearance. 
 He knocked at a door, which was opened by a man 
 whom my tavern-keeper saluted by the name of Ben- 
 detto, and to whom he introduced me withall the for- 
 mality of the Spanish etiquette. J dismissed ‘ mine 
 host,” assuring him that I could find my way back. 
 
 Bendetto was a splendid fellow in the prime of life, 
 with a hooked nose like the beak of an eagle, and with 
 eyes with which it seemed that he could, like that royal 
 bird, have gazed at the sun. His dark hair emerged in 
 ringlets from under his red Phrygian cap. His broad 
 chest and muscular limbs, which combined elegance with 
 strength and great powers of endurance, were clad in 
 picturesque garments that reminded me of the garb or 
 costume usually ascribed on the stage to Calabrian and 
 Spanish bandits, or smugglers. He welcomed me to 
 his roof with a highly polished courtesy, which was 
 hardly to be expected from a man of his condition. 
 
 “T understood,” I said, “that you will take me safely 
 across the Pyrenees for two hundred dollars. Is it a 
 bargain ?” 
 
 “Yes, sefior,” he replied with a low bow, “ provided 
 you do not go to assist the Christinos.” 
 
 “T go,” I answered, “neither to assist the Christi- 
 nos, nor their adversaries. I go merely to see a cher- 
 ished friend from whom I have long been separated, 
 and who is now in the Carlist army.” 
 
 “Then it is a bargain,” he said with emphasis. 
 
 I drew out of the side-pocket of my coat two hun- 
 dred dollars in gold which I put on the mantel-piece, 
 and Bendetto’s hand had ‘just reached the glittering 
 pile, when he said: “ May I know the name of that 
 friend of yours?” 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 103 
 
 “I have no objection. It is the count of Treviiio.” 
 
 He dropped the gold as if it had burned his fingers, 
 and exclaimed, “ Santa Maria! El conde!/* Take 
 back this gold. May my hand be paralyzed for ever, if 
 I receive any remuneration for serving a friend of ed 
 conde { I was born on his domains, sevor, and those of 
 my blood have for centuries served his ancestors like 
 faithful vassals.” f 
 
 He gave a shrill whistle, and a beautiful girl bound- 
 ed in with the soft and light spring of a fawn. 
 
 “‘ Daughter, ese caballero,’+ he said, “es amigo del 
 conde” and, turning round to me, he added, whilst 
 pointing to his daughter, “cand the conde is god-father 
 to the nivia”’ (girl). , 
 
 She dropped me an exquisitely pretty courtesy, and 
 expressed her gratification at meeting a friend of the 
 count, with as much. dignity and grace, and in as choice 
 language, as if she had been rocked in her cradle by a 
 duchess. She wore a black velvet boddice fitting close 
 to her sylph-like waist, and opening in front on her 
 breast, to show a snow-white linen underdress edged 
 with the richest lace; a Moorish silver chain of deli- 
 cate workmanship was thrown over her neck, and held 
 up a gold medallion of the Madonna glittering on her 
 bosom. Her petticoat was of red cloth with’ black 
 stripes, and. did not seem to have the slightest preten- 
 sion to conceal any portion of the silver embroidered 
 blue stockings, which ran into the most tiny satin shoes 
 which I ever saw encasing a woman’s feet. I almost 
 fancied that I saw flashing the polished seabbard of the 
 deadly little dagger, which Spanish women are said to 
 be fond of wearing at the garter of the right knee. 
 Her luxuriant hair was as black and glossy as the ray- 
 
 * Holy Mary! The count! + This gentleman isa friend of the count. 
 
104 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 en’s plume. Two braided tresses of it hung down 
 almost to her heels, and were decorated at their ex- 
 tremities with bunches of wild mountain flowers tied 
 together with a gilt ribbon. Truly, she was something 
 to gaze at, when she moved about the room with the 
 elastic step of a goddess treading on clouds. She re- 
 minded me of Byron’s description of the daughters of 
 Spain : 
 
 Yet are Spain’s maids no race of Amazons, 
 
 But formed for all the witching arts of love. 
 
 Though thus in arms they emulate her sons, 
 
 And in the horrid phalanx dare to move, 
 
 "Tis but the tender fierceness of the dove, 
 
 Pecking the hand that hovers o’er her mate ; - 
 
 In softness as in firmness far above 
 Remoter females famed for sickening prate. 
 
 But Bendetto brought me down from my poetical 
 flight to the sober realities of life, by asking me when 
 I intended to depart. 
 
 “‘ As soon as you are ready,” I replied. “ But what 
 are the preparations which I have to make, and how 
 shall I carry through yonder troops and across yonder 
 mountains some pretty heavy baggage, which I should 
 not like to leave belund ?” 
 
 “ All that you have to do is to provide yourself with 
 a hunter’s dress, such as we all use here; have a brace 
 of pistols in your belt, and a carbine slung across your 
 shoulders, stout nail-studded shoes, and a sharp-pointed 
 iron stick which will be of great help to you in ascend- 
 ing and descending some difficult paths. I shall be 
 accoutred like yourself; but if you carry in your knap- 
 sack a respectable quantity of biscuits, a good sized 
 flask of the best cognac, and as many puros (cigars) as 
 you can find room for, we may not find it amiss on our 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 105 
 
 way. As to your baggage, it must go in another di- 
 rection than the one we shall take. It will, however, 
 be safely conveyed to you not long after you shall have 
 reached the conde’s camp.” 
 
 By e conde, Bendetto always designated Trévigne, 
 as if there had been no other conde, or count, in the 
 world. After a pause he added: “I promise, sevior, to 
 depart with you the day after to-morrow at day-break.” 
 
 5* 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 FERNANDO, THE BANDIT AND HIS DAUGHTER.—WHY THE 
 OLD PRIEST OF THE MOUNTAIN REFUSED TO BECOME A 
 BISHOP. 
 
 BEnvDETTO was one of those smugglers, or contraband- 
 ists, who, from time immemorial, have waged war in 
 the Pyrenees against the commercial restrictions of 
 France and Spain, and who had long anticipated the 
 modern doctrine of free trade and no custom-house. 
 Those men have no idea whatever that they are doing 
 anything illicit or immoral. On the contrary, they 
 take pride in their hereditary profession. When they 
 excel in it, they become popular among the frontier 
 people, and almost rise up to be considered heroes on 
 account of their manifold encounters with the police, 
 their romantic adventures, daring courage and _hair- 
 breadth escapes. Bendetto was true to his word, and 
 ready to set off on our perilous journey when I pre- 
 sented myself at the appointed time. Dolores, the 
 daughter of my guide, accompanied us ten miles to a 
 spot where she was to part company with us, in order 
 to stay with an aunt of hers in the neighborhood dur- 
 ing the absence of her father. When she bade us fare- 
 well and good speed, and when I saw her turn fear- 
 lessly into a lonesome path which seemed to lead her 
 into a wilderness of rocks and precipices, I asked Ben- 
 detto whether he did not think it hazardous, to let her 
 go by herself into a region which did not appear secure 
 
 (106) 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 107 
 
 even for men. He slowly and deliberately drew two or 
 three heavy clouds of smoke from his cigar, and, with- 
 drawing it from lips which curled with a peculiar 
 smile of tranquil pride, he said: 
 
 “ Sefior, the daughter of Bendetto has nothing to fear 
 as long as she treads the earth within the shadow of 
 these, her native mountains. She is known to every 
 man, woman and child in this community, loved and 
 respected by all. None but a stranger would venture 
 to attempt aught against her in the most secluded and 
 God-forsaken spot, if there be any such in this lovely 
 and grand country. But should there arise any real and 
 serious danger, the nia (the girl) is as swift of foot as 
 she is stout of heart, and were she to shout a ery of 
 alarm, men would spring up from under these stones 
 to defend her. Jesides, although very gentle, she 
 would not be unequal to her own protection. Aye! 
 amigo mio (my friend) she is exceedingly sweet of tem 
 per. But, by the Holy Virgin,” and here he crossed 
 himself, “the girl is not unlike the bee, which can 
 sting fiercely although full of honey.” 
 
 Just as the sun was disappearing behind one of the 
 highest mountains which stood before us, and leaving 
 piled up on the verge of the horizon his wide-spread 
 pavilions of celestial splendor, which night seemed loth 
 ‘to approach, I descried at the bottom of a valley a 
 small village of about one hundred houses. The spire 
 of a modest church loomed up in the distance, and its 
 chimes, which the evening breeze brought to our ears, 
 announced to us the angelus, or the salutation to Mary, 
 which in Catholic countries is repeated three times a 
 day. We soon arrived at the pastor’s residence, which 
 was an old building almost entirely covered with a 
 dark green mantle of ivy. It looked like an appro- 
 
108 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 priate hermitage for Time himself, if Time, instead of 
 continuing, as he ever will, to be the creator, the de- 
 stroyer, and the beautifier of every thing in this ever- 
 changing world, had thought proper to abdicate his 
 scythe and turn hermit. I almost fancied, however, 
 that I saw him sitting on a rough stone bench under 
 the porch of the building I have described, and that he 
 had taken the shape of the more than octogenarian 
 priest, whose hospitality Bendetto told me we would 
 claim for the night. That individual addressed the 
 venerable looking man with the most profound respect. 
 
 “T thank God, father,” he said, “ that you still look so 
 strong and so healthy. May you be preserved to your 
 flock many years to come !” 
 
 “Thank you, my son, for your good wishes,” replied 
 the priest, rising and saluting us both with an expres- 
 sion of benignity which it is difficult to forget. ‘I am 
 the servant of the Lord. His will be done in every 
 thing! I have long been working in His vineyard 
 according to my humble capacities; and sometimes I 
 am almost disposed to think that I am entitled to be 
 dismissed, and to give way to younger and more efli- 
 cient laborers. But the Master knows best.” 
 
 “Former favors at your hands,” said Bendetto, 
 “have emboldened me, father, to apply for a night’s 
 shelter under your hospitable roof.” 
 
 “‘ Blessed be the stranger who comes in the name of 
 the Lord !” said the patriarch priest, whilst raising his 
 right hand to confer on us the blessing which he ex- 
 pressed, and which we received with our foreheads 
 bent towards the ground. He invited us to come in 
 with the most genial cordiality, and we were soon 
 seated round a comfortable fire, for the evening was — 
 quite cold in that mountainous region. 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 109 
 
 Shortly after we were seated, Bendetto drew from 
 one of the pockets of his jacket, a beautiful pair of em- 
 broidered slippers which he presented to father Hu- 
 bert, for such was his name, as an offering sent by Dolores, 
 whose work they were, and surely they did credit to 
 her skill and taste. 
 
 “Bless me!’ exclaimed the priest, “how have I 
 deserved such kindness? It is singular how much af- 
 fection is shown to me by every body! Now, sir,” turn- 
 ing to and addressing me, “will you believe it? Here 
 is that sweet girl, Bendetto’s daughter, for whom, hea- 
 ven knows, I never did anything which ever deserved 
 thanks, who never fails in loving and unceasing atten- 
 tions to me. Every body is constantly loading me 
 with favors, with services of all sorts, and I may 
 say, with filial caresses, when I do not remember that 
 I ever had the opportunity of doing anything for them. 
 Truly, it passes my understanding. For instance, here 
 is Bendetto, who, if common report speaks the truth, 
 which I hope it does not, is a sort of wild scapegrace, 
 and who, they say, is not always walking in the straight 
 path of the law; and yet he never passes by my door, 
 whether engaged in his madcap expeditions or not, 
 without thinking of me and bringing me valuable pre- 
 sents. Now, Bendetto, what have I ever done for you 
 except pray God to reclaim you from your evil ways, 
 if you have any 2” 
 
 Bendetto, whose stern features were smoothed into 
 an expression of womanly tenderness as he gazed at the 
 simple old man, replied with a humorous twinkle in his 
 eye: | 
 
 “Of course, father, you never did any thing for me, 
 nor for any body else in this wide world. Your long 
 life has not been a perpetual sacrifice for the good and 
 
 > 
 
110 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 comfort of others. Oh! no, no. Who speaks to the 
 contrary? Who talks such nonsense? But, neverthe. 
 less, it is our whim and our pleasure, for miles and 
 miles round, without any cause or reason whatever, to 
 think ourselves your children, and to strive to show 
 which of us loves you the best after his own fashion. 
 So that, you had better make up your mind about it, 
 and trouble yourself no more about the why and the 
 wherefore.” 
 
 “You hear him?’ said -the priest, addressing me. 
 “How singular! How unaccountable! By the by, 
 how kind he was to me in bringing you here, and how 
 kind it is on your part to have come with him! 
 Don’t you see,” he added, with a benevolent smile 
 which illuminated his face; “you are, although a per- 
 fect stranger, like the rest of them, doing me a favor 
 which I never can return.” 
 
 He was interrupted by a young girl, who had come 
 in evidently to set the table for supper. 
 
 “ Pepita,” said the priest, “is there in the larder any 
 thing for these guests of mine? And...and... 
 Pepita,” . . . he now spoke, as I thought, with hesita- 
 tion and a faltering voice, “you might . .. you might 
 
 . if absolutely necessary . . . and if nothing else 
 is at hand... you might, I say, kill a pair of my 
 doves. They have multiplied a good deal of late, and 
 are somewhat in the way of one another . . . although, 
 poor things, they are so gentle and so sweet, and they 
 know me so well and love me so much, that I am not 
 exactly sure that I am justifiable in depriving them of 
 their natural right to live. It isa question. What do 
 you think, Pepita, what do you think of it?’ 
 
 ‘“¢Pshaw !” said the girl, with an impatient toss of her 
 pretty head, “ you are always, father, troubling yourself 
 
FERNANDO -DE LEMOS. Lis 
 
 about your doves. You will never be reduced to the ne- 
 cessity of eating any one of them as long as there is any 
 one of us living. The gentlemen, I hope, will be pleased 
 with their supper, which will soon be ready.” She 
 dropped a courtesy to us, and gracefully tripped out of 
 the room. 
 
 “Did you hear her?’ said the priest. ‘There is 
 absolutely no end to what they do for me. How could 
 I ever have deserved such uniform and sleepless kind- 
 ness? Will you believe it? The girls of the village 
 have actually taken possession of my household. They 
 control it as they please, they do every thing needful in 
 it, cleaning and sweeping the premises; and each one in 
 turn brings me my breakfast, dinner and supper. They 
 feed and clothe me when in health, and nurse me when 
 sick. In their zeal they create wants for me, merely to 
 supply them, when in fact I need nothing. Is it not 
 really puzzling? For I cannot imagine what I have 
 done for these people. Besides, what makes it still 
 more strange is, that I am never called on to pay for 
 any thing. Was the like of it ever seen? Perhaps it 
 is... yes... no doubt it is,’ he added musingly, 
 and as if communing with himself, “because I never 
 have any money.” 
 
 Just as he arrived at this solution of the question 
 which perplexed him, the supper was brought in, much 
 to Bendetto’s satisfaction and to mine. It consisted of 
 a delicately roasted kid, of mountain trout, of delicious 
 milk, cheese, and various other good things, to which 
 we did ample justice, for we had traveled long that day, 
 and our appetites had been proportionately sharpened. 
 As to tather Hubert, he took only a cup of goat’s milk 
 with a small crust of bread and a few dried figs. 
 
 In the course of the evening, father Hubert told me 
 
112 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 that he had been educated in Toulouse ; that it was the 
 largest city he had ever seen ; that he had been the pas- 
 tor of this secluded village in the mountains for sixty- 
 five years, and that, during all this lapse of time, he 
 had never been farther than thirty miles from his resi- 
 dence. During this long run of years, faint echoes of 
 the great events of the world had barely reached him. 
 They had made noimpression on his memory, and, if they 
 had, they would have been soon forgotten. The sim- 
 plicity of his mind did not exclude a faultless logie, 
 when treating of such subjects as were within the lim- 
 ited grasp of that mind. His faculties were not im- 
 paired by age. ‘They were such as they had ever been; 
 only, they had crystallized into a small lump. But that 
 lump, whatever was its size, was still crystal of the 
 purest transparency. He had read very little beyond 
 some of the writings of the fathers of the Church, the ~ 
 Old and the New Testament, and his breviary. When 
 I mentioned some controversial works which had at- 
 tracted the attention of the world, he shook his head. 
 “J have never heard of them,” he said, “and if 
 they had been within my reach, I never would have 
 glanced at their contents. What did their authors aim 
 at? What good could they do, if they succeeded in 
 sapping the belief in the divine origin of what is uni- 
 versally admitted to be the purest system of morality 
 that ever was devised, even if it be considered as mere 
 morality? As to myself, I have always believed im- 
 plicitly in the revealed truths of Christianity. I have 
 never had a doubt. Belief came to me as naturally as 
 the faculty of breathing. I have never reasoned relig- 
 ion. It has been with me a matter of instinct and feel- 
 ing. I believed without effort, and with as much ease 
 as I exercise any of the functions appertaining to my 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. | 113 
 
 organization, and because I could not do otherwise. To 
 live was to believe. Once, a veteran of the old impe- 
 rial guard told me that he always knew when Napoleon 
 had arrived and joined the army, even had he been 
 sixty miles off from his presence. I asked him how he 
 knew it. ‘I knew it instantly, he replied; ‘I smelt 
 him in the air—nay—I felt him.’ Thus it is with me 
 in relation to the Saviour, I know His existence, His 
 divinity, and His ubiquitous presence instinctively. 1] 
 smell Him in the air—nay—lI feel Him !” 
 
 I asked him if he had never been tempted to leave, 
 for a larger sphere of action, the retired spot where he 
 had spent so long a life. 
 
 “Twas tempted once,” he replied. ‘ It was when 
 the first consul rebuilt our altars and reopened our 
 churches. A kinsman of mine, whom I had never 
 seen, remembered that I was alive. How wonderful! 
 I cannot understand it, do you? How kind it was on 
 his part, and how bounteous is Providence in giving 
 -me so many friends, when I never did any thing for 
 any body! ‘That kinsman, to whom I thought that I 
 was completely unknown, and who, it seems, had _ be- 
 come a power in the state, wrote to me and offered me 
 a bishopric. I never was so astonished in my life. It 
 was perfectly overwhelming. I, a bishop, and in a 
 palace! I felt a swimming of the head, a sort of ver- 
 tigo. The demon of pride had entered into me, but I 
 crossed myself, and he departed. Then I interrogated 
 myself, and I asked if I had the necessary qualifications 
 to be a bishop. The unhesitating and emphatic ans- 
 wer was: no. But had I been qualified, could I have 
 left my beloved flock? Few indeed among the old 
 people of this valley are those whom I did not baptize, 
 instruct and marry ; and have I not done the same for 
 
114 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 all their children and grandchildren? Could I also 
 abandon the dead in yonder cemetery? Could I think 
 of no longer praying for their souls in sight of their 
 tombs. Was I no longer to decorate those tombs with 
 flowers? Then I thought also of my doves, which, under 
 my protection, have multiplied so much. They are so 
 numerous, will you believe it, that I no longer know how 
 many they are. They dwell in a little wood close to my 
 house, at the extremity of my garden. Whenever they 
 see me, the whole flock is on the wing. They strive 
 which will be the first to be on my shoulders, or on my 
 head. They take their food from the palm of my hand. 
 They clap their wings, they spread their tails, they stretch 
 their necks, they keep cooing... cooing, as if they 
 were saying tender things to me, and they look at me 
 as doves alone can look. No idolized monarch, return- 
 ing to his capital after a triumphant campaign, ever 
 was greeted by his subjects as my doves greet me in 
 the morning. ‘They are so kind to me! And yet 
 what have I done for them beyond giving them some 
 erain for my own amusement? Providence too is so 
 much to be thanked for having inspired these innocent 
 creatures with such love for the hand that nourishes 
 them. What right then, I said to myself, have I to 
 abandon after having taught them to rely on me? 
 Ought I not to remember that the dove is a sacred 
 bird? Was it not a dove which first brought into the 
 Ark the welcome proof of the cessation of God’s 
 wrath? Did not the Holy Ghost descend in the shape 
 of a dove to sanction and consecrate the baptism of 
 our Saviour? I wish you had not determined to depart 
 at day-break to-morrow. I should have taken much 
 pleasure in introducing my winged friends to you. 
 But to return to my kinsman and to his proposition to 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 115 
 
 make me a bishop, I lost no time in writing to him, 
 and giving the reasons which I have mentioned for not 
 accepting his munificent offer. I never thought of it 
 since, nor did he, I suppose, for this was the first and 
 the last time that I ever heard from him.” 
 
 The worthy man stopped here, and seemed to be 
 reflecting. After a minute or two of silence, he said: 
 “I am puzzled, however, to find out the motive which 
 could have induced a man to whom I was unknown, 
 to pass over so many learned priests, conspicuous no 
 doubt for their merits, and to ferret me out—me, an 
 obscure cwré in this obscure spot. It must have been 
 the natural affection and affinity of kindred blood. 
 What is your understanding of it ?” 
 
 I gave an evasive answer, for I could not make up 
 my mind to destroy the illusions of a soul so simple 
 and so pure, by suggesting that his kinsman had proba- 
 bly been moved by interested motives, and had only 
 thought of strengthening himself by increasing his 
 family influence when giving him a bishopric. He dis- 
 missed us early to our rest, after our having joined him 
 in prayer, and I went to bed thinking of the Christian 
 philosopher who had preferred his doves to the crosier, 
 the mitre and the palace of a high dignitary of the 
 Church of Rome. This was the cause, I presume, of 
 my dreaming, that night, that I saw father Hubert 
 carried up to Heaven, seated as it were on a cloud 
 of doves, each one of which had on its head a bishop’s 
 mitre. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 FERNANDO JOINS AT RONCAL, IN NAVARRE, HIS SCHOOLMATE 
 TREVIGNE, COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THE CARLIST ARMY. 
 
 We departed next morning long before father Hu- 
 bert and the sun were up. Our journey was an ex- 
 hausting and perilous one, through mountain passes 
 where it seemed only safe for the chamois to tread. But 
 there was excitement in it, and the scenery was of the 
 wildest and grandest. Bendetto entertained me with 
 old ballads and all sorts of peculiarly Spanish stories. 
 Toward noon we were within one mile of the frontier, 
 and had struck into a path which, as Bendetto informed 
 me, would lead to a habitation where we could obtain 
 some refreshment and rest awhile, when, on our turn- 
 ing round a jutting rock, we stumbled as it were on a 
 score of policemen, or gendarmes, who were probably 
 returning from some expedition for the protection and 
 enforcement of the revenue laws of France. The com- 
 manding officer immediately advanced toward us, and, 
 addressing Bendetto, whom he seemed to know, said to 
 him in a bantering tone: 
 
 “ Friend Bendetto, [am glad to meet so noted a per- 
 sonage as you are. I hope that you have nothing to 
 fear from an examination of your papers.” 
 
 To inquire for passports, with which we were not 
 provided, for the very reason that they could not have 
 
 been granted under present circumstances, since all 
 (116) 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 117 
 
 communication with Spain was prohibited, and to ar- 
 rest us, was but the affair of one moment. 
 
 “J hope you will excuse me, friend Bendetto,”’ con- 
 tinued the same individual, “if I take you back to the 
 point from which you started, always giving you, for 
 your comfort, the benefit of this stranger’s company, 
 and if I insist on your explaining to the proper and 
 competent authority why you are so near the Spanish 
 frontier, through passes only known to yourself, with- 
 out having complied with the formalities imposed upon 
 all who wish to travel. Evil tongues, you know, accuse 
 you of being an inveterate smuggler, although it has to 
 this day been impossible to catch you in the act.” 
 
 I was greatly disturbed at the idea of retracing my 
 steps under an escort of French gendarmes, but Ben- 
 detto looked perfectly indifferent to what had happened. 
 We were then standing in a very narrow gorge between 
 two ridges of mountains running in parallel Imes within 
 rifle shot, and covered with stunted pines and thick 
 bushes. Suddenly we heard the scream of an eagle on 
 the right, and another on the left, as if the royal birds 
 were disposed to enter into conversation with each oth- 
 er. These two screams were followed in quick succes- 
 sion by the angriest and loudest tones that ever came 
 out of the throats of those favorites of Jove. Surely, 
 said I to myself, there must be a number of them as- 
 sembled and quarreling over their prey, and I looked 
 round, but in vain, to see if any one of them would 
 show itself on the wing. In the meantime, Bendetto 
 had lighted a cigar with much composure—what a Span- 
 iard would call sostego, and, offering another to the 
 commander of the French forces, said : 
 
 “And so, Lieutenant Bernard, you are determined 
 that I shall not accomplish the object which I have in 
 
118 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 view, whatever it is; and, if I interpret your present 
 intention correctly, I am your prisoner.” The French- 
 man gave an unequivocal nod. 
 
 “ This is unfriendly and uncourteous, Lieutenant Ber- 
 nard,” continued Bendetto. “ Besides, to go back 
 would be very inconvenient to me and to this gentle- 
 man who is my companion, and whom [I serve in the 
 capacity of a mountain guide, which, I believe, is a le- 
 gitimate occupation. Wherefore, supposing I should 
 not be disposed to care to be interrupted in it, and 
 that I should make up my mind to resist you, what 
 then ?” 
 
 ‘That, methinks,’ replied the person. addressed, 
 ‘would be a perilous undertaking,” and he glanced at 
 his men, who, while we had been parleying, had econ- 
 trived to surround us on all sides. 
 
 ‘Tt looks like it, I confess,” said Bendetto, “but ap- 
 pearances are very deceitful, Lieutenant Bernard, and 
 more than one man has been defeated in his best laid 
 plans, at the very moment when he thought he had 
 clutched success. We, Spaniards, say that there are a 
 thousand leagues between the cup and the iip. Shall I » 
 prove it to you ?” 
 
 To this question which had been put in a rather de. 
 fiant tone, the French commander made no other reply 
 than to say: “ Attention, gendarmes. Secure the pris- 
 oner, and then, forward, march !” 
 
 Hardly had he spoken these words, when he fell back 
 three steps at least, so startled was he by the deafening 
 eagle ery which burst from Bendetto’s broad chest. 
 Quick as lightning up sprang from the stunted pines 
 and from the dense bushes on each side of the gorge 
 about two hundred men with red caps on their heads, 
 and in their hands glittering muskets which were ley- 
 
FERNANDO DE LEOMS. 119 
 
 eled at us. It reminded me of the well-known passage 
 in the “ Lady of the Lake :” 
 
 Instant, through copse and heath, arose 
 Bonnets and spears and bended bows; 
 On right, on left, above, below, 
 
 Sprung up at once the lurking foe; 
 From shingles gray their lances start, 
 The rushes and the willow wand 
 
 Are bristling into axe and brand 
 
 And every tuft of broom gives life 
 
 To plaided warrior armed for strife. 
 
 Bendetto, however, did not wave his hand like Rod- 
 erick Dhu, and the red caps did not sink into the earth. 
 On the contrary, they remained in full view and evi- 
 dently ready for hostile action. 
 
 “ Lieutenant Bernard,” said Bendetto, “those men 
 are Carlists, who are so near their native heath that they 
 have mistaken the soil of France for their own. Be- 
 sides, the frontier line is not very accurately drawn, I 
 believe. Be it as it may, if you wish to go to head- 
 quarters and report this invasion, let me pass on quiet- 
 ly. For if I make a signal, I will bring upon you 
 forces which you cannot resist. Look round, and see 
 if discretion would not advise even desperate valor to 
 retreat, when facing such odds. Now, shall I pass on- 
 ward without interruption, and shall we part as friends ?”’ 
 
 “Go unpunished for the present, bandit, but as friends 
 we do not part,” said the lieutenant haughtily. 
 
 “‘ Please, however, to remember,’ replied Bendetto, 
 “that you are in the power of the bandit, and that he 
 releases you scot free.” 
 
 Thus ended this episode of our journey, and, in a few 
 minutes, we were in Spain, escorted by those who had 
 saved us from captivity. It was not long before I 
 
120 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 clasped Trévigne in my arms, and, overcome with fa- 
 tigue, I threw myself on my friend’s iron camp-bed, 
 and slept as if I had never intended to awake. 
 
 I found the Carlist army, ten thousand strong, in the 
 valley of Roncal near the frontiers of Aragon and 
 France. Don Carlos, the pretender to the crown pos- 
 sessed by Isabella II, was present, and I had to go 
 through the formality of an introduction to his Royal 
 Highness. The prince received me graciously. 
 
 ‘You bear a Spanish name not unknown to me,” he 
 said. “I hope that you return to the country of your 
 ancestors with the intention of making it a home. 
 Spain is now distracted by a civil war, which, with the 
 blessing: of God, may soon be at an end, and it will then 
 be in my power to reward gratefully and liberally those 
 who shall have periled all on behalf of the right cause.” 
 
 From the manner in which these last words were ut- 
 tered and from the Jook wnich accompanied them, it 
 struck me that the prince was under the impression 
 that I had come with the purpose of being one of his 
 adherents. I thought that it was proper to undeceive 
 him at once, and I told him that my grandfather having 
 been sent to Louisiana in the service of Spain and hay- 
 ing occupied a high position in that province, where he 
 had married and where he had died, and the province 
 itself having become one of the United States, I owed 
 my allegiance to the country of my birth. Being an 
 American by the will of Providence, this cireum- 
 stance and other ties would connect me forever with 
 Louisiana. 
 
 “ Nevertheless, I admire and venerate Spain,” I said, 
 “and I hope that she will soon enjoy that political tran- 
 quillity and stability so necessary to the development of 
 her physica) and intellectual resources. My sole object 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 121 
 
 in coming here was to see once more, before returning 
 home, the cherished friend of my boyhood.” 
 
 “ Bueno, bueno! Very well, very well,” replied the 
 prince. “ Treviiio is worthy of all the devotion of his 
 friends, and he is the best of mine.” 
 
 Whilst expressing this sentiment, the prince laid his 
 hand on Trévigne’s shoulder as if he leaned on him for 
 support. After an interview of half an hour’s duration 
 with which he favored me, he dismissed me with the 
 impression that he was a man of limited intelligence 
 and unconquerable prejudices, of obstinate will, and 
 with a heart which would have been uniformly good 
 and kind, if he had been tutored from infancy as he 
 should have been. 
 
 The Christinos were approaching on all sides, and 
 the Carlists were almost hemmed in. It was evident 
 that perhaps the last act of that long death-struggle 
 was soon to be performed. Although their enemy was 
 much superior to them, not only in numbers, but also in 
 equipment and in resources of all kinds—such resources 
 as an organized and established government ever posses- 
 ses over insurgent bands—yet the Navarrese and the in- 
 habitants of the Basque provinces did not seem to be 
 discouraged. They flocked to the standard of Don 
 Carlos with an eagerness which must have seemed un- 
 accountable to those who did not understand their mo- 
 tives. Outside of Spain the general impression was, 
 that her northern provinces were supporting the cause 
 of despotism—the rey netto—the absolute king in the 
 person of Don Carlos, in opposition to the constitutional 
 and liberal government of Isabella. This was an error. 
 That part of Spain had always been in the enjoyment 
 of greater liberties than the rest of the Peninsula. They 
 had many fweros, or privileges, which they wished to 
 
 6 
 
122 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 retain. The tendency of the new government was to 
 sweep away those privileges, and to establish through- 
 out the kingdom an uniformity of laws. All Spaniards 
 were to be on the same footing, and no political, local, 
 or social distinctions were to exist for an Aragonese, or 
 a Basque, or a Navarrese, which an Andalusian or any 
 other citizen could not possess, and wece versa. The 
 fact is, that Aragon, Navarre, and the Basque provinces 
 may be considered as having been republics under the 
 form of a monarchical government, but republics not ex- 
 cluding the appreciation of noble birth or race, which 
 with them was as intense as in Athens and Rome. 
 Among those fweros, or privileges, immunities and lib- 
 erties, I shall, asa specimen, mention a few of those ex- 
 isting in the valley of Roncal in Navarre, where the 
 Carlist army was encamped. No native of that valley, 
 for instance, could be compelled to perform military 
 service unless a prince of the blood commanded in per- 
 son, and every native had also the privilege granted to 
 both sexes of wearing, at the marriage ceremony, a 
 fac-simile of the crown of Navarre, besides the posses- 
 sion of other privileges of which those mountaineers 
 were exceedingly jealous and proud. The distinctions 
 which I have mentioned partly originated in a histori 
 cal event of an ancient date. 
 
 In the year 800, or thereabout, if I recollect rightly. 
 the Moorish king Abderahman, after having ravaged a 
 great portion of Spain and recently defeated King San- 
 cho of Navarre, was approaching the valley of Roncal 
 on his way across the Pyrenees to France. “ His host,” 
 says an old chronicle, “ was innumerable, flushed with 
 the confidence gained by a long series of victories, and 
 gorged with spoils. The Ronealese thought that resist 
 ance was impossible. ‘The whole population of the val 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. | 123 
 
 ley assembled to determine what they had todo. After 
 mature deliberation, after having listened to the senti- 
 ments of cold-blooded old age and to those of impetu- 
 ous youth, the men resolved unanimously that they 
 would kill all the women and children, to save them 
 from the disgrace of captivity in the hands of unbeliev- 
 ers and blasphemers of tier holy religion, and that, af- 
 terward, they would rush on the Moslem dogs, and 
 perish with arms in their hands, but not without ven- 
 geance. The women, in whose presence this singular 
 determination had been taken, had, in their turn, some- 
 thing to say. One of them thus addressed the superior 
 BEX : 
 
 “The resolution which you have taken shows you 
 possessed of very little sense, and demonstrates that you 
 have but a very impertect knowledge of what your 
 mothers, wives and daughters really are. Do you think, 
 forsooth, that we are capable of allowing ourselves to 
 - be made prisoners by the accursed pagans whom we 
 soon expect to appear among us? Are we not the same 
 breed of women, who, century after century, have shown 
 their unchangeable nature? Are we not the descend- 
 ants of those females who helped our ancestors in driy- 
 ing away from this hallowed soil the Carthaginians, the 
 Romans and the Goths, baffled in their successive at- 
 tempts to conquer our unconquerable race? Do you 
 not see that you thereby weaken yourselves and strength- 
 en the enemy! Are your ranks so full that you can 
 discard us? No. Give us arms, put weapons even in 
 the hands of our children, and let us all perish together 
 on the slaughtered bodies of those unmerciful invaders.” 
 
 “This is, I confess, a very sensible idea,” said the 
 president of the assembly, “ and it is very strange that 
 it did not occur to us. We accept your suggestion 
 
124 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 sefora, and, with the assent of all present here, let it 
 be done as you propose.” — 
 
 Thus the whole Ronealese population prepared them- 
 selves for death. They took a strong position along a 
 gorge through which they conjectured that the Moors 
 would pass. Abderahman, not suspecting any resist- 
 ance from a few mountaineers, was advancing careless- 
 ly, and, meeting no human being on his passage, con- 
 cluded that all the inhabitants had fled terror-struck. 
 He entered the defile where he was expected, and, when _ 
 the whole of his army was fairly engaged in it, there 
 came headlong an avalanche, not of stones, not of snow 
 from the mountain sides, but of infuriated men, women 
 and children, whose fierce shouts were repeated by a 
 thousand echoes. The surprise, the novelty, the strange- 
 ness, and the almost insane fury of the attack, the im- 
 mense clamor of a frenzied multitude wrought up to 
 the highest pitch of despair, produced a panicin the 
 Mussulman army. The soldiers of the Crescent, who had 
 performed prodigies of valor in a hundred battles, fled 
 like frightened sheep. The pursuers glutted themselves 
 with slaughter, and King Abderahman himself fell into 
 the hands of the Spaniards. The spoils were of untold 
 value, for the Moors had accumulated a very large quan- 
 tity of plunder, with which they had encumbered them- 
 selves, despite all the efforts of their commanders to in- 
 duce them to leave it behind in some safe places. There 
 never was a more absolute and decisive victory. 
 
 The whole population of the valley met again where 
 they had assembled before, when it had been resolved 
 that the women and children should be put to death. 
 The men said to the women : 
 
 ‘You have more than kept your word. Therefore 
 we shall award to you the best part of the spoils, and 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 195 
 
 we give you as your share Sultan Abderahman. Put 
 him to ransom, and, in exchange for his liberty, let 
 him pour into your laps all his misgotten treasures.” 
 
 “ Very well,” replied the women. “ We accept your 
 award, and we shall avail ourselves of the opportunity 
 to teach you to appreciate us better than you have 
 done. Ha! ha! You thought that we might consent 
 to be the willing and abject slaves of that miscreant, 
 and, in your wisdom, you determined to put us to death. 
 We showed you that something better might be done. 
 Now you think that, for the sake of gold, we will spare 
 the life of that infidel who has brought desolation into 
 our country, and whose hands are red with the blood 
 of our brethren. We will show you our disinterested- 
 ness after having shown you our courage, and our re- 
 solve to die when necessary.” 
 
 Having thus spoken, they took Abderahman to a 
 bridge, and, cutting off his head, stuck it on the point 
 of a lance on that bridge. King Sancho of Navarre, 
 who arrived shortly after with such forces as he had 
 been able to recruit in haste, and with which he in- 
 tended to harass the Saracens on their march to France, 
 granted to the Roncalese as a reward for their prowess 
 the privileges which I have recited, and to the valley a 
 coat of arms consisting of a field of azure, with three 
 mountains argent, spanned by a gold bridge lined with 
 lances, and surmounted with the turbaned head of King 
 Abderahman. This is not exactly in the language of 
 heraldry, with which I am not familiar, but it is suffi- 
 ciently descriptive for the purpose intended. 
 
 The inhabitants of that valley, who pretend to be as 
 old as their own Pyrenees, and as pure in their unmixed 
 blood as the recently fallen snow on the tops of their 
 native mountains, were so proud of their antique valor 
 
126 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 and other antique virtues, that they had, by the most 
 stringent regulations and laws, endeavored to guard 
 themselves against the introduction of any foreign ele- 
 ment. Thus if any Roncalese wished to sell any real 
 estate, he could not do it without the consent and sanc- 
 tion of the community. The inhabitants of the valley 
 were first to determine if the purchaser was acceptable 
 to them. If the sale was one which could not be 
 avoided, three of the notables among them were ap- 
 pointed to estimate the value of the property, and a 
 proportionate tax was levied on each inhabitant accord- 
 ing to his means, in order to enable the three notables 
 to buy the estate at the assessed price. It thus became 
 the property of the community, and, as soon afterward 
 as it was sold to a person who gave all the guaranties 
 of morality, religion and birth which were deemed re- 
 quisite to entitle him to become a denizen of the val- 
 ley, the amount levied by taxation was refunded 
 according to the proportion paid by each. As to Jews, 
 heretics, protestants, Moors, and persons condemned, 
 or even suspected, by the Inquisition, the intrusion of 
 any one of them would have produced an earthquake. 
 None but a Christiano viejo y rancio, that is, a Chris- 
 tian so old as to be rancid, according to the quaint 
 meaning of the Spanish expression, could have dwelt 
 within the shadow of these orthodox mountains. The 
 idea that a Navarrese, a Basque, or an Aragonese, was 
 to lose his peculiar autonomy, and possess only the 
 name and rights common to all Spaniards, without re- 
 taining his time-honored local privileges, exemptions, 
 or liberties, his hereditary immunities, customs and 
 prejudices, and his cherished distinctions of race and 
 nationality, could not be tolerated by those proud moun- 
 taineers. T be assimilated to a half Moorish Andal- 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 127 
 
 usian, or a swinish Gallician, was preposterous, and 
 fired their blood with indignation. There a man is 
 just an Aragonese, a Basque, or a Navarrese, newt, a 
 Spaniard. Hence the obstinate and heroic struggle for 
 Don Carlos, under whose rule acy hoped to remain 
 wnat they had always been. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF RONCAL, BETWEEN THE CARLISTS AND 
 CHRISTINOS.—DEATH OF TREVIGNE. 
 
 One evening I was sitting by the side of Trévigne, 
 on the brow of a mountain which commanded a full 
 view of the army of the Christinos, whose numerous 
 fires were blazing in the valley below. 
 
 “Trévigne,” I said, “I see that a battle is at hand, 
 and I almost wish that you may lose it; for a victory 
 would only prolong a contest in which | think that you 
 cannot succeed, and which will expose you to more dan- 
 gers. Jam aware that, under present circumstances, 
 you cannot abandon with honor the prince’s cause, but, 
 if you are defeated, it will be impossible not to acknowl- 
 edge that cause to be lost. Should such be the case, [ 
 flatter myself that. neither you, nor his Royal Highness, 
 will persist in this civil war.” 
 
 “What the prince will do, I do not know,” replied 
 Trévigne; “but, as to myself, I shall have, I am con- 
 vinced, nothing to say in the matter; for I may as well 
 confess to you, my friend, that I have a presentiment, 
 and my presentiments never deceived me, that I am to 
 perish in the next battle. Nay—you need not look at 
 me reproachfully, as if I were abandoning myself to 
 some improper apprehension. It will not prevent me 
 from doing my duty to the last, and with as much en- 
 ergy as if I were animated with the hope of success. 
 If it be a delusion, it can do no harm. Besides, I fear 
 
 (128) 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 129 
 
 not death. It never had any terrors for me. The 
 ‘idea of separation, it is true, from those we love, is 
 very painful. But then that separation must take 
 place one day or other. What matters it, after all, 
 whether it comes now, or to-morrow, or a few years 
 hence. I shall have shown my gratitude to the prince 
 who restored me to the possession of my ancestral 
 rights and splendor; I shall leave my wife and my 
 children in the enjoyment of high rank and great 
 wealth; and I know that I shall be faithfully and 
 fondly remembered by you as long as you live. This 
 is comforting enough. Providence has been very 
 bountiful to me, and if it be decreed that I am to close 
 my career in the prime of life, why should I repine? 
 Have not all my most earnest wishes been gratified ? 
 Compare Trevifio, the ragged boy and the inmate of a 
 hovel in Louisiana, with Trevifio the grandee of .Spain 
 the head of a house illustrious for centuries, the com- 
 mander of an army and the main support of a pretender 
 to the crown of Spain. Most fervently do I thank God 
 for all that he has done for me. But it is the destiny 
 of those patrician families who have adorned the annals 
 of history, to live in perpetual storms. Such also has 
 been the fate of my ancestors from time immemorial 
 I do not remember one of them who had a quiet and 
 easy life. Dwellers on the alpine heights of society, 
 they had often to meet the thunderbolt and the ava- 
 lanche. Itwas the natural consequence of their exalted 
 position. Therefore, you will admit that the dangerous 
 course in which I am engaged is at least in conformity 
 to family precedents.” 
 
 This last phrase was delivered with a smile, but that 
 smile was sad, indeed. He added: 
 
 “ Besides, this world is very prosaic and humdrum. 
 
 6* 
 
130 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 Materialism and utilitarianism are the gods of the age, 
 I do not belong to it certainly, and in it I feel out of 
 place. What would be Lope de Vega, Murillo, Cordova 
 the great captain, or Isabella the Catholic and sublime 
 queen, or the brightest genius who ever honored the 
 human race, when compared to a money-making ma- 
 chine that promises to put a dollar in every body’s 
 pocket? Would not every body run after the machine, 
 and let genius freeze in the cold? I have been a 
 dreamer, as you well know, since my infancy, and I 
 am afraid that, like Don Quixote, I am a little cracked 
 about chivalry. I am conscious that I am an anachron- 
 ism in flesh and blood. I ought to have existed in the 
 days of the Cid. What is such a madman as I am good 
 for in the days of bankers, stockjobbers, demagogues, — 
 and mud worshipers? Might it not be a blessing, if 
 death:removed me from an uncongenial world to an- 
 other where perhaps eternal bliss awaits my soul? There 
 isa passage in Scott’s ‘Old Mortality’ which speaks 
 my feelings through the lips of Claverhouse better than 
 I could do myself, and which has remained indelibly 
 fixed in my memory. ‘It is not the expiring pang, 
 says the noble chieftain, ‘that is worth thinking of in 
 an event that must happen one day, and may befall us 
 in any given moment—it is the memory which the sol- 
 dier leaves behind him like the long train of light that 
 follows the sunken sun—that is all which is worth car- 
 ing for, which distinguishes the death of the brave or 
 the ignoble. When I think of death, Mr. Morton, as 
 2 thing worth thinking of, it is in the hope of pressing 
 one day some well fought and hard won field of battle, - 
 and dying with the shout of victory in my ear—that 
 would be worth dying for, and more, it would he worth 
 having lived for.’ ” 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 131 
 
 As he spoke these words with the enthusiasm of an- 
 other Graehame, a gun thundered in the valley below, 
 sending to us the reverberating echo of its angry voice. 
 It seemed an answer to Trévigne’s wish. It impressed 
 me with a sort of superstitious awe, and, glancing at my 
 friend’s face which, by the light of our camp fire, stood 
 in bold relief out of the background of surrounding 
 darkness, I felt a sharp pang shooting through my heart 
 and tears fillmg my eyes, as I thought of the loss with 
 which I might soon be afflicted.” 
 
 The Carlist army was intrenched behind a small river 
 which ran through the valley of Roneal. It had its 
 centre at the village of Isava situated on that stream, 
 and its left and right wings extended to hills fortified 
 with redoubts. The Christinos, confident in their supe- 
 rior numbers, attacked with great vigor the whole line 
 of the Carlists at seven in the morning, and during three 
 hours the fate of the battle hung uncertain, when it be- 
 came evident that the enemy was concentrating his 
 forces upon Isava, to pierce the centre of his adversary. 
 Forming themselves into a deep column, the Christinos 
 advanced steadily, being only retarded but not foiled in 
 their movements by the determined resistance which 
 they met and by their heavy losses. On the left wing 
 of the Carlists there was a body of cavalry five hundred 
 strong, posted on an eminence, more to keep the enemy 
 in check by a demonstration than to act effectually, for 
 they had received the order not to allow themselves to 
 be drawn into any serious engagement, but to hold 
 themselves in readiness, should there be any danger of 
 defeat, to move rapidly to the quarters of Don Carlos, 
 which were a little back of Isava, and to escort him to 
 a place of safety. As I had resolved when I entered 
 Spain, not to participate in the civil war, I had taken 
 
182 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 my stand with that corps, which occupied a spot con- 
 veniently proper to enable me to observe the various 
 phases of the battle. I soon acquired the conviction, as 
 I looked at the plain below, that the heavy column 
 which was step by step pushing forward on Isava with 
 irresistible doggedness, would carry it before long, un- 
 less soon broken and thrown back by a successful charge 
 of cavalry supported by light artillery. The moment 
 was so critical, that, in spite of myself, my excitement 
 rose to the highest degree of intensity, particularly 
 when Trévigne put himself at the head of a body of 
 fifteen hundred cavalry which he had kept in reserve 
 on his nght wing. I saw that he was conscious of the 
 danger which I had perceived, and that he had deter- 
 mined, by leading a charge in person to change the for- 
 tune of the day. By heaven! gallant was that charge 
 and worthy of him. Murat could not have done better. 
 But he and his brave followers receded in shattered 
 fragments, like the waves of the sea breaking on an im- 
 movable rock. Again they formed and again they 
 rushed upon the serried ranks of the enemy, only to be 
 brought down by the thrust of the bayonet, by the 
 musket shot, or the cannon ball. 
 
 I felt my heart rising to my throat, and my hand 
 “mechanically grasping one of the pistols in my holsters. 
 Almost one third of Trévigne’s men had fallen, but I 
 saw him rally them as before and form them into a 
 compact body. Waving his hand aloft and pointing 
 to the enemy, he seemed to address them in those 
 burning words which I knew must burst from his lips 
 on such an occasion. No doubt he exhorted them to 
 retrieve their former repulses, to avenge the dead, and 
 to die, or to conquer. They replied with loud hurrahs, 
 and, bending on the necks of their horses, burying the 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. Teo 
 
 spurs into their sides and loosening the reins, they came 
 upon the enemy like a whirlwind. I lost sight of them 
 for a few minutes in the cloud of dust and smoke 
 which rose over them. But I shouted involuntarily as 
 if intoxicated by the scene, when I descried them fore- 
 ing their way through the broken ranks of that terrible 
 column. Trévigne had seized a flag which he waved 
 as an encouragement and signal to his troops. But 
 every man who fell among the Christinos was replaced 
 by another, and another, and a gathering and ever in- 
 creasing mass of them surged round Trévigne like a 
 raging stream. A human tide literally poured upon 
 him. I saw his horse rear, leap forward, and fall 
 down with his master. At that sight, something like 
 a flash of lightning passed before my eyes, my brains 
 seemed on fire, and, without knowing what I was do- 
 ing, but driven on by an irresistible impulse, I 
 shouted: “Sons and lions of Navarre, follow me to 
 the rescue of your chief.’ I dashed down the hill 
 like a madman without thinking, and without caring 
 if my appeal had been responded to. But the clat- 
 ter of many hoofs came thick behind me, and yells 
 of defiance rent the air. We were all mad, I think, 
 and the horses too, for horses and men fought like 
 incarnate devils. We went through the left flank of 
 the enemy like a thunderbolt, and joined just in 
 time the almost overpowered forces of Trévigne. 
 Elated by this reinforcement they redoubled their ef- 
 forts; and, being seconded by a battalion of artil- 
 lery which with four pieces opportunely came to our 
 assistance, we remained masters of the battle-field. 
 The victory was ours, and the enemy retired. I found 
 Trévigne alive, but, to my unspeakable grief, mor- 
 tally wounded. As soon as he recovered his senses. 
 
134 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 he pressed my hand tenderly, and said in faint ac- 
 cents : 
 
 “Thank God, Fernando, I owe you this victory. 
 When I fell, I thought of you. I knew that you 
 were looking on, and I felt that you would come. 
 Another presentiment, you see, which has also turned 
 out to be true. My life ebbs fast away. The knight 
 dies on a well-fought field of battle as he creas 
 with his trusty friend by his side. It is well. Carry 
 my sword to my boy, and to my wife this portrait of 
 hers, which I always wore next to my heart. Take 
 my body to the family vault. My soul, I trust, goes 
 to where I hope to meet again and for in eternity, 
 those I loved in this world. ‘Tell the prince” 7 
 
 Death closed his lips. I kissed that pale face, BP Sh 
 was more beautiful after life had departed than it had 
 ever before appeared tome. His features had assumed 
 the expression of one who gazes at a vision of unex- 
 pected beatitude and glory. His companions in arms 
 eovered his body with the standards they had taken 
 from the enemy, and the funeral march began amidst 
 the tears and lamentations of the whole army. I had 
 to be carried on a litter, for a ball had badly wounded 
 me in the left leg, and I have retained to this day the 
 scar which it produced. The ball had penetrated to 
 the bone, glanced round it, and gone out on the other 
 side. Two months afterward I was limping on the 
 Boulevard de Gand in Paris, when I met one of my 
 college friends, whom I had left in the enjoyment of 
 the pleasures of that gay capital. 
 
 “ Halloo!” said he. ‘‘ We have all been wondering 
 for the last four months at your sudden disappearance. 
 But what is the matter with your leg?’ 
 
 “Nothing worth mentioning,” I replied. “I have 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 135 
 
 been rusticating and hunting in the country. <A fool- 
 ish game-keeper took me for a hare and gave me a 
 taste of his slugs. That’s all. By the by, what news 
 from home ?” 
 
 “ Nothing of consequence, except that Verdier, your 
 quondam chum and favorite, is dead.” 
 
 “The wretch! How did it happen? . Did he bleed 
 to death through his proboscis ?”’ 
 
 oN Os, > Lie “Aloe married an heiress as bad tem- 
 pered and ugly as she was rich. But wealth, you 
 know, has wings. An untoward law-suit deprived her 
 of it. This circumstance did not improve her looks, 
 nor her temper, and she tormented her husband so 
 pertinaciously and with such diabolical skill, that, 
 ‘tough as he was, he could not stand it and Tone him- 
 self into a coffin.” 
 
 I went away musing on this piece of news and say- 
 ing to myself: how strikingly in harmony with their 
 respective character is the mode of death of those two 
 men so widely dissimilar! Verdier, the jealous-minded 
 and the embodiment of meanness, sinks in a barrel of 
 whiskey, and the magnanimous and heroic Trévigne, on a 
 battle-field and in the lap of victory! But I stop 
 abruptly, from the fear of falling into a moralizing 
 mood like a sexagenarian spinster. Besides, I must 
 not forget that Iam in Paris, the last spot on earth 
 where it would be in good taste, to permit the face to 
 betray any gloom of the mind and any aching of the 
 heart. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 FERNANDO RETURNS TO LOUISIANA AND BECOMES AC- 
 QUAINTED WITH TINTIN CALANDRO, THE CRAZY SEXTON 
 OF THE ST. LOUIS CEMETERY, BUT IN WHOSE BRAIN 
 THERE YET LURKS MUCH WISDOM. 
 
 Suortiy after the events which I have related, I re- 
 turned to Louisiana. There was then living in New 
 Orleans a man called Tintin Calandro. His true 
 name was Augustin Calandrano, which, by the little 
 blackguards of the city who were ever at war with 
 him, had been abbreviated into Tintin Calandro. He 
 was said to be a Parisian by birth, although I suspect 
 from his name that, if he was not actually a native of 
 Italy, he was at least of Italian origin. Tintin had 
 been twenty years the sexton and watchman of the St. 
 Louis cemetery, of which he had the entire charge, and 
 he was so identified with it in the eye of the whole 
 population, that, when a person was in very bad health, 
 it was customary to say: “ He is on his way to Tintin 
 Calandro.” He had in his employment two stalwart 
 negroes, who worked for him in that line of business 
 which he had adopted, and who dug mud holes in the 
 ground for the tag-rag of mortality, and built tombs 
 above the ground for those of the dead who had pre- 
 tensions to gentility. He kept at the same time a shop 
 for marble slabs to be put on the graves of the wealth- 
 ier portion of his customers; he wrote epitaphs when 
 requested, in the lapidary style, and was even reported 
 
 (136) 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 137 
 
 to be felicitous in that kind of composition. He had 
 also the reputation of having some talent for statuary, 
 and of being no mean performer on the violin, accord- 
 ing to the judgment of those who had heard him at a 
 distance, for he was a man of solitary habits, and never 
 associated with any body. He would not therefore 
 have played for any human being. But, when he felt 
 musically inclined, he went at night to the cemetery, 
 of which he had the keys, and which was surrounded 
 by high walls; and, betaking himself to its very cen- 
 tre, so as to be as far as possible from any human hear- 
 ing, that eccentric individual would for hours entertain 
 himself with his favorite instrument. 
 
 Pale as a ghost is supposed to be, dwarfish in size 
 and as thin as a wafer, Tintin Calandro was always 
 dressed in old clothes cut after so strange a fashion, that 
 it was hard to imagine where he had got them. A long 
 curved nose, the tip of which almost reached his wide 
 but thin-lipped mouth, separated his large coal-black 
 eyes, which sometimes scintillated wildly as if lighted 
 with the fire of insanity. The forehead, which rose 
 above asharp and razor-like face, was disproportionately 
 broad and high. There seemed to be from his brows 
 to the top of his head near twice the space that there 
 was from his brows to his chin. So massive was his head, 
 that his crane-like neck and his thin face looked like 
 the blade of a knife stuck into a square block. It was 
 a singular deformity. The oddness of his appearance 
 was completed by a profusion of very white hair comb- 
 ed back from his forehead with much care and _ pre- 
 cision, and gathered behind into a cue secured with 
 a black ribbon twisted into manifold bands. His arms 
 fell down almost below his knees and tapered off into 
 the longest fingers that had ever been seen. 
 
138 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 I had been compelled, like the rest of the population, 
 to take notice of this fantastic looking manikin, and 
 had been more than once amused by the laughable 
 sight which he presented, when pursued in the streets 
 by the mischievous boys who delighted in flinging 
 brick-bats at his diminutive legs, in mere fun, and_in 
 exercising their wits at his expense. This was done, 
 however, with some degree of prudential reserve, for 
 Tintin Calandro, although overlooking these attacks 
 with good-natured patience, was very fierce when too 
 much provoked; and when he happened to lose his 
 temper, he would rush upon his youthful assailants 
 with the agility of a monkey, and no Trojan ever fled 
 from the wrath of swift-footed Achilles with more 
 rapidity and terror, than the little ragamuffins of New 
 Orleans ran from the rod with which Tintin Calandro 
 was always provided. rom long experience, however, 
 the boys had discovered a sure sign which indicated to 
 them that Tintin was teased beyond endurance, and they 
 would then abstain from trespassing any further on his 
 comfort and tranquillity. When Tintin’s clothes, which 
 habitually hung loose about his emaciated body, began 
 unaccountably to swell and bristle like the feathers of a 
 hen which is preparing to defend its brood, Tintin’s 
 assailants took care to beat a hasty retreat, and not 
 wait for the flashing rod which they had been taught to _ 
 dread. My acquaintance with that individual would 
 have probably remained superficial and distant, had it 
 not been for one circumstance which brought me into 
 contact with him, and which, leading to a long and 
 familiar intercourse, enabled me to do full justice to an 
 extraordinary character which, for a length of time, 
 had seemed to me so ridiculous. 
 
 The mortal remains of one whom I loved with an 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 139 
 
 intenseness of passion which still glows to this day 
 under the accumulated frosts of sixty winters, had 
 been deposited in the St. Louis cemetery. Since that 
 event one month had elapsed, during which, with the 
 help of a rope ladder armed with hooks of steel which 
 I flung over the walls, I had easily penetrated into that 
 asylum of the dead. Every night, at ten o’clock, no 
 storm or foul weather had prevented me from carrying 
 thither a bouquet to be laid on a recently built tomb. 
 It was the hour when her pure spirit had departed from 
 this world. Such was one of my reasons for having 
 selected it, and the other was the hope of escaping de- 
 tection at that time of night. To be suspected of a 
 parade of grief would have been hateful to me. When 
 the heart is forever crushed, there springs up from what 
 remains of it a chastity of sorrow which shrinks from 
 mortal eye. I wondered myself at the strange and 
 wild delight which I took in seeking that tomb, when 
 the tempest howled, and when in the darkness I had to 
 be guided by the flashes of lightning. I loved to draw 
 from under my cloak the flowers which I had protected 
 from the pitiless rain, and deposit them in all their 
 freshness on the cold and drenched marble. She had 
 so loved flowers! 
 
 One night when the moon was shining in all her in 
 describable glory, and was bathing the whole cemetery 
 ‘ina flood of placid light, I was standing where I used to 
 stand, and gazing at the same object. A sort of trance 
 stole over me, and I had lost insensibly the conscious- 
 ness of thought and feeling, when I was awakened by 
 a slight touch.on the shoulder. I turned round, and, 
 to my surprise, I faced Tintin Calandro. He looked 
 graver than usual, and I thought that I detected some 
 emotion in his face. He had in his hand a superb 
 
140 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 bouquet, which he laid on the tomb, saying to me with 
 a voice full of tender sympathy: — 
 
 ¢ She loved flowers—did she not? I guessed as much, 
 when I saw what you were doing night after night. 
 You look surprised—do you? You thought that no 
 human eye had observed you, but thought so erroneous- 
 ly. ° No intruder here can deceive the vigilance of Tin- 
 tin Calandro, the friend, the guardian, the watch-dog 
 of the dead. He is always at his post, and he saw you 
 the first time you came. Because I had not barked, 
 you imagined that I was asleep. Ha! ha! ha!” and 
 he chuckled with evident glee at his not having been 
 foiled. “Who can deceive Tintin Calandro any more ?” 
 he continued. “ Attempt it not, young man. If it be 
 your fancy to come here every night, and hold spiritual 
 communion with her whom the busy world calls on you 
 to forget, [am not the man to object toit. But climb no 
 longer over the walls. Come to my house ; you know, 
 no doubt, that it isclose by. Rap at the street window ; 
 it will open; and you will find on its sill the key of the 
 small gate through which I pass into the cemetery, and 
 which is exactly in front of my dwelling. When you 
 retire, your visit to the dead being paid, drop the key 
 like a letter into the small aperture which is in the 
 centre of my door, and now, good night.” Without 
 giving me time to reply, he vanished from my sight as 
 if he had suddenly melted into the invisible air. 
 
 As he was the keeper of the cemetery, and account- 
 able for all that might occur in it, he could have en- 
 forced the regulations which prohibited my being there 
 at that time of night. I felt therefore grateful tor the 
 kindness with which he had treated my trespass, and I 
 determined to comply with his request. Accordingly, 
 on the next night, at ten o’clock, I knocked at his win- © 
 
FERNANDO DE.LEMOS. 141 
 
 dow. It flew open. Nobody was to be seen, but I 
 found the promised key where he had told me. Several 
 months elapsed, during which I continued my knocks 
 at Tintin Calandro’s window and my regular visits to 
 the cemetery, but without obtaining a glimpse of him. 
 At last, one night, he appeared again at my elbow and 
 at the usual place. ” 
 
 “You have grown upon my esteem,” he said. “I 
 see that the feeling which brings you here is too deep- 
 seated to be evanescent.” He looked at me with eyes 
 which seemed to become luminous as he steadily fixed 
 them on mine, and continued: “ You must think with 
 me that something yet lives in that tomb, or else you 
 would not come here night after night, and month after 
 month, merely to contemplate the nionument enclosing 
 an inanimate object which has no perception of your 
 devotion. For you the dead is not dead, and you are 
 right. You are a man after Tintin Calandro’s heart. 
 You must be one of the few elect to whose souls revela- 
 tions are made. I should like t6 know more of you. If 
 you feel similarly disposed towards me, at midnight I 
 am always among the dead. Seek me there.” Having 
 thus spoken, he disappeared like a goblin. 
 
 A few nights after this incident, having come to the 
 cemetery later than usual, I found myself within its 
 walls, when the town clock struck twelve. Just as I 
 was preparing to depart, I heard some preluding strains 
 on the violin. They were evidently by a master hand. 
 _I knew at once who the musician was. There could 
 be at such a place, and at such an hour, no other than 
 Tintin Calandro. I listened, and was soon riveted to 
 the spot where I stood. The mellifluous notes of the 
 instrument came floating on the air, charming the ears 
 and soothing the soul. The impression conveyed by the 
 
142 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 harmonious adagid which he played, was that of repose 
 —of blissful oblivion of the cares of the world. It 
 was a hymn to the night with its balmy wings and its 
 consolations to the weary. The tunes were descriptive ; 
 they had the power of language. They told, as clearly 
 as the human voice could, that it was night—a glorious 
 and calm night-with its illumination of stars escorting 
 the unclouded moon, which sailed chastely effulgent 
 athwart the heavenly vault. They made one hear the 
 rocking of the cradle by the mother’s hand and her — 
 sweet lullaby. It was followed by a gorgeous variety 
 of fantasias chasing each other with the capricious ir- 
 regularity and the confusion of dreams, and ending 
 with the shrill crowing of the cock: Day was break- 
 ing; a coneert of birds saluted the rise of the sun. A 
 chorus of villagers broke forth, whilst moving to the 
 field where the harvest expected their sickles. Then 
 came a duet between a shepherd and shepherdess. 
 They pledged their faith to each other in accents which 
 gushed from the fervid strings of the inspired instru- 
 ment. The lovers must have stood on the bank of 
 some mountain stream; for now and then the rush of 
 a waterfall was heard during pauses in their impas- 
 sioned dialogue. Suddenly the instrument imitated 
 the beating of the drum and the loud clangor of the 
 trumpet. Alas! The shepherd had become a con- 
 script ; he was marching to the enemy. Then came 
 sweeping on the breeze distant lamentations. They 
 must have been those of the disconsolate bride. Boom, 
 boom, boom! The artillery roared. Row, row, row! 
 The musketry rattled. The fire grew gradually less 
 spirited, and finally gave way to a funeral march. The 
 body of the conscript was to be carried back to its last 
 resting-place. The organ peals! we are in a church. 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 143 
 
 The 1equiem for the dead is sung. Then the discharge 
 of the muskets of a platoon over the grave of the 
 youthful scldier, and here ends the poem. 
 
 Wild with enthusiasm, I rushed to the spot whence 
 the music had come. I found Tintin Calandro on his 
 back, stretched at full length on a tomb, with his eyes 
 fixed on vacancy and his violin lying across his breast. 
 I hugged him in my arms and exclaimed : 
 
 “Tintin Calandro, you are the greatest violinist in 
 the world. I never heard any thing like this in any 
 of the capitals of Europe. What on earth are you do- 
 ing here? You have a fortune in your bow, and you 
 will be the admiration of the eléte of mankind.” 
 
 «Thank you for your compliments,” he replied 
 gravely. “They are well meant and sincere, no doubt, 
 although they sound like extravagant flattery. But 
 you don’t know what you are talking about. What 
 makes you suppose that I care a fig for a fortune, or 
 the admiration of mankind. Neither: Paris, nor Lon- 
 don, can have for me the attractions which this ceme- 
 tery possesses. One day, or rather one night, you may 
 discover it. for the present, I am not in a mood to 
 talk. Good-by; we meet again, I hope.” This time 
 he bowed to me with great formality, and, clearing a 
 tomb at one bound with the agility of a deer, he dis- 
 appeared at once, leaving me to ponder over the eccen- 
 tric being with whom I promised myself to become 
 better acquainted. 
 
 I waited with impatience for the next night. When 
 Tintin saw me approaching, he said: “Is it me, or my 
 violin you are seeking %” 
 
 “ Both,” I replied. 
 
 “One is absent. You must be contented with one- 
 half of what you expect.” 
 
144 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 “T shall not be too exacting this time,” I answered 
 in the same tone, “ but I shall hope for better luck in 
 the future.” 
 
 Tintin Calandro wound his arm round mine, and 
 we took a stroll among the tombs. In this interview 
 and in those which followed, I discovered that Tintin 
 Calandro had received the most brilliant education. 
 Who could Tintin be? How came such a man to be 
 the sexton of a cemetery, a sort of grave-digger? I 
 soon made an effort to satisfy my curiosity and solve 
 that enigma.. That effort, however, was the first and 
 the last. “I have chosen,” said Tintin on that occa- 
 sion, “ to allow you to know more of me than perhaps 
 it was wise to do. But thus far shall you go, and no 
 farther. Let this be well understood, or all intercourse 
 between us ceases at once—much to my regret—for I 
 confess that I need your company. It has become a 
 relief to me. But remember that as long as I live, I 
 must be known outside of these walls as having no 
 greater fund of intellect and culture, than that which 
 befits the condition of grave-digger and custodian of 
 the St. Louis cemetery.” 
 
 All Hallows, a religious feast in honor of all-the 
 saints, which takes place, according to the usages of 
 the Roman Catholic Church, on the first of November, 
 was drawing near—to be followed by All Souls’ day, 
 another feast, on the second of the same month, the 
 object of which is to supplicate for the souls of the 
 dead. When these solemnities are to occur, Catholic 
 cemeteries are beautifully decorated with vases con- 
 taining flowers, with odoriferous bushes or shrubs, with 
 crowns or garlands of immortelles, or other lasting blos- 
 soms, with lighted candelabras and lamps, and such 
 other ornaments as may be deemed appropriate to 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 145 
 
 tombs, and expressive of the regrets and tender remem- 
 brances of those who have survived the objects of their 
 affection. On this occasion, all the tombs in the St. 
 Louis cemetery had been repaired, brushed up, or white- 
 washed, and looked new, save a few forgotten ones 
 which had reached the utmost stage of dilapidation. 
 On the two festivals which I have mentioned the 
 crowd was greater than usual, and never had the old 
 cemetery looked to better advantage in its holiday 
 dress. Tintin Calandro was much elated, and I found 
 him in his best mood. 
 
 “Was not my cemetery a beautiful garden to-day ?” 
 he said to me. ‘‘ What a time-honored and soul-moy- 
 ing custom! How touching is the homage to the dead ! 
 All of it is not unalloyed gold, it is true. There is in 
 it a good deal of counterfeit, sentimental tinsel, sheer 
 affectation, mere conformity to: usage without the en- 
 listment of the heart, much of the love of display, 
 much of doing as others do, much of the wandering of 
 the eye in noticing with envious admiration the vani- 
 ties of the world which are sweeping by in rustling 
 robes, and, therefore, proportionately less of religious 
 meditations and thinking of the departed spirits to 
 which the day is consecrated. Many, alas, come mere- 
 ly to see and be seen; there are idlers, triflers and even 
 scoffers in the crowd. Still it is good that there be a 
 connecting link between the spiritual world and the 
 material one, and that there be at least one day in the 
 
 year on which cemeteries shall be crowded in commem- — 
 
 oration of the dead. Now that all this multitude has 
 gone away, is it not a sight that speaks to the soul, 
 those flower-strewn and perfumed tombs? - What a 
 pleasing contrast in this solitude and profound silence, 
 with the bustle and animation which prevailed 
 
 7 
 
146 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 here during the day! At this hour comes the turn of 
 invisible visitors more grateful to me and more accept- 
 able than those in the flesh. The tenants of those 
 tombs are now moving round us in as dense a crowd 
 as the one you lately saw. They flit from tomb to 
 tomb; they inhale the perfumes of the flowers offered 
 to them. Some rejoice at the fond tokens of affection 
 which they have received; others look with mortifica- 
 tion at their neglected graves. Truly, my friend, this 
 cemetery is at the present moment full of life, but not 
 the life which you know. There is in death an exist- 
 ence you dream not of. You look at me with surprise. 
 IT read your thoughts; you think I am mad. Very 
 well, think so if you like; I have no objection. But, 
 tell me: what is death? Do you know anything about 
 it?. Do you know whence came the soul of Lazarus, 
 when recalled to the body? Was it from Heaven, 
 from Hell, or from Purgatory? Do you know if the 
 spirit of Lazarus was not at the time in or about his 
 tomb, in an expectant and transition state? Why 
 should not those whom we call the dead, remain with- 
 in our atmosphere under different conditions of exist- 
 ence, until the promised day of the resurrection? It 
 might account for some of those phenomena which the 
 pride of science rejects, because it can not explain. 
 Why, whilst awaiting the day of final judgment, 
 should not the dead retain their connection with this 
 world, and in that connection, and in the knowledge of 
 those human events which may be the consequences of 
 their own deeds when they were in the flesh, find a 
 certain degree of reward, or punishment, preparatory 
 to that final bliss, or eternal. misery, which is to be de- 
 creed in the universal judgment that is announced to 
 us ?”’ 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 147 
 
 We had, by this time, reached in our stroll an un- 
 sightly tomb made of brick, which had crumbled to 
 pieces and almost sunk into the earth. Weeds and 
 creeping vines had spread over it. I pointed it out to 
 him, saying: “ Here is neglect for you.” 
 
 “Ay,” exclaimed he, stamping his foot with indig- 
 nation. ‘ Accursed be those who neglect it! She who 
 is buried there was the daughter of a man who, to use 
 a common phrase expressive of a common idea, had 
 been eminently successful in life, for he had acquired 
 more than a mulion of dollars, although born poor. 
 The fellow was a genius for gathering and amassing. 
 His mother used to say: “I am not uneasy about Peter. 
 He will make his way; for when he comes to see me, 
 rather than go away with empty hands, he carries my 
 napkins.” By one of those freaks of the devil which 
 are but too often seen, this son of mammon, who look- 
 ed like Hyperion when in reality a satyr, and whose 
 depth of meanness was such that no plummet could 
 ever reach it, married a woman who was his very op- 
 posite in heart and mind. The antipodes had been 
 brought together. There never could have been a 
 union of more antipathetic materials. It followed that 
 she had either to die outright, or to be stupefied, or 
 petrified by a long lingering martyrdom. She was 
 stupefied and petrified. One would suppose that, as a 
 general rule, a wedlock of this nature must be barren. 
 It is not so, however; and in this particular case it was 
 fruitful, and brought into the world two girls and one 
 boy. One of the girls, when grown into womanhood, 
 surpassed her mother in loveliness, but lacked her pow- 
 ers of endurance. She was a lily of heeven dropped 
 from its choicest garden spot, and not capable of resist- 
 ing the rough winds of this earth. Her father married 
 
148 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 her to one who was congenial to himself, and not to her 
 —to one much older than she was, and whose obtuse 
 conscience was as tough as the hide of a rhinoceros. 
 But what of that? He was one of those men whom 
 nature seems to have destined to be but a sort of ma- 
 chine to coin shillings. If the shillings come out fast 
 and bright out of the human mint, that is all which is 
 expected of the workmen; their vocation is fulfilled. 
 Such a son-in-law was, of course, after old Peter’s heart, 
 and the leper and the angel were united. In less than 
 six months the bride had withered, a coffin beeame her 
 garment, and this cold pavement here her couch. No- 
 body knew what was her ailment. The physicians 
 shrugged their shoulders, looked wise, and said that 
 nothing was the matter with her. And yet she was 
 perishing, oh, with such a melancholy smile on her 
 lips, and with eyes in which tears would often glitter 
 as morning dew on the parched grass. I could have 
 told those physicians what was the matter with her, 
 and I will tell you. She had seen the silver veil with- 
 drawn from Mokanna’s brow. That was all; that was 
 enough—and more than enough.” 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 IN WHICH IT IS SHOWN THAT THERE IS NO BETTER SCHOOL 
 FOR PRACTICAL AND MORAL INSTRUCTION THAN A GRAVE- 
 YARD. 
 
 SEATING himself on a tomb, Tintin Calandro re 
 mained silent for a few minutes. He then spoke in 
 these words : 
 
 “Ts it not in the Book of Revelations that we read ? 
 “A voice from above was heard which said: ‘“ Blessed 
 are the dead.” ’—‘ Blessed are the dead,’ said pagan an- 
 tiquity, ‘for the favorites of the gods die young.’ It 
 is an instinct of human nature to venerate and propi- 
 tiate the dead, as is testified by the tombs of Evypt, 
 Greece and Rome, without mentioning other countries 
 less celebrated. Is it not because, in all ages and in all 
 nations, man, whether in a state of civilization or bar- 
 barism, feels that there is immortality in death—that it 
 is nothing more than a change of existence? It is im- 
 possible to be a materialist and to decorate a tomb with 
 flowers. Hence I rejoice to see that decoration, because 
 materialism excludes the only guaranty which we have 
 for morality. Why should perishable matter care for 
 virtue, if matter could care for any thing? Materialism 
 is the denial of God; and if there is no God, if our 
 brief material existence here is followed by annihila- 
 tion, why should not the strong treat the weak just as 
 the wolf treats the lamb? The study of nature teaches 
 
 us that she never does anything without an object, al- 
 (149) 
 
150 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 though we may not always discover it. Matter, once 
 created, never perishes. Science has demonstrated that 
 tous. It may be modified and decomposed, but it sub- 
 sists in a different form. Omnipotence does not create 
 to annihilate. Creation and annihilation are irrecon- 
 cilable. 
 
 “Tf matter is not to perish, why should thought and 
 feeling, supposing them to be nothing but the emana- 
 tions of matter, and therefore matter also? If that part 
 of my body which is thought and feeling perishes no 
 more than the other material portions of that same 
 body, and can only be decomposed and modified like 
 the rest, it follows that, however infinite in their frac- 
 tional number may be the atoms into which thought 
 and feeling may be divided and subdivided, each atom 
 cannot cease to be thought and feeling, and must re- 
 tain, as thought and feeling must infallibly do from their 
 very nature or essence, the consciousness or recollection 
 of the aggregation of soul and intellect of which it was 
 once a part; and if my former intellectual organization 
 is not annihilated in toto, then I am immortal and still 
 living in every remaining atom of it, notwithstanding 
 the modifications and divisions to which it may have 
 been submitted, and each atom of my intellect, however 
 separated it may be from the whole, must retain the 
 consciousness of the past, I was, and ofthe present, I am. 
 
 “ But intellect and soul are not and cannot be mat- 
 ter. Why should and how could matter think and 
 feel? Why give matter a craving for spirituality? 
 Who gave it? Did matter give it to itself? If not, 
 whence is it derived? Can matter desire that of which 
 it is not susceptible and of which it can have no idea? 
 Why is matter gifted with the capacity of believing in 
 God, when there is no God, as the materialists affirm ? 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 151 
 
 How can matter have faith in its own spiritual nature, 
 when it has no such nature? For I am told that I am 
 nothing but matter, and yet I have that faith which is 
 in conflict with that assertion, and I feel that there is a 
 spirit in me. How can matter be capable of such de- 
 ception toward itself? Why place conscience in our 
 breast? Who placed it there? Conscience, it is said, 
 is nothing but the result of education. but this is no 
 answer. If conscience is nothing but the result of edu- 
 cation, how came we to be capable of the education that 
 produces and forms conscience? How comes matter 
 to create such ilusions for itself, and be their victim 
 and dupe? How can it be its own regulator and 
 legislator? How can it be checked and controled by 
 what is of its own creation, or what is an emanation of 
 itself, as thought and feeling are said to be? When 
 that part of myself which is matter craves with an al- 
 most insatiable desire the gratification of an appetite 
 appertaining to its nature, there comes something which 
 is called my will and which conquers the appetite. Has 
 that will come out of that matter of which it is the mas- 
 ter? If not, what is it? The doctrine of materialism, 
 as taught by pretenders to science, is not true on the 
 face of it, because it would defeat. the very object for 
 which man has been created in this world, and that is, to 
 live in a social condition and to attain civilization. Can 
 we, in a purely material existence which begins and 
 ends here, conceive any room for the reciprocal rela- 
 tions of duty, and the necessities and obligations of civ- 
 ilized life? If we are nothing but matter, how have we 
 aspirations, which do not belong to, and which could 
 not proceed from, matter, because they are antagonis- 
 tic? -No. Itis because man believes in spirituality, and 
 believes in it because it is a reality, that he erects tombn. 
 
152 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 “A graveyard, my friend, is an eloquent protest 
 against the doctrine of materialism, which some wish to 
 raise to the dignity of a new creed destructive of super- 
 stition and priestly domination. Hence I love grave- 
 yards. He who builds a tomb, and who, at least once 
 a year, on a fixed day sanctified by religion, brings to 
 that tomb the tribute of his sorrow, or remembrance, 
 cannot believe that the thick mush which we have in our 
 skull and which we eall brain, can produce the poetry 
 of Homer, the philosophy of Plato, the thoughts of Pas- 
 cal, the discoveries of Newton and the astronomical eal- 
 culations of Laplace. Was Moses, that wonderful leg- 
 islator who made of the Jews an imperishable nation, 
 nothing but a lump of matter? Could Christianity, 
 which crucifies matter, have been invented by it? 
 Could the effect be at war with the cause? Could 
 what proceeds from a cause be entirely and essentially 
 different from it? Could darkness emanate from light, 
 or light from darkness? Could matter, even supposing 
 it gifted with the power of creation, or invention, have 
 produced anything so repugnant to itself as the Gospel ? 
 Could matter conceive and proclaim the apotheosis of 
 the spiritual? Would matter have brought out of its 
 womb a Jesus Christ, by virtue of the same physical 
 and gradual transmutations through which it hardened 
 itself into a piece of granite? How could matter act in 
 a manner thoroughly inconsistent with its own essence, 
 and with the laws which regulate its own existence ? 
 If those laws exist, as they undoubtedly do, did matter 
 establish them? No. There is, therefore, something 
 more potent than matter, something which mixes itself 
 with it and operates on it. It is what we call spiritu- 
 ality, something which, issuing from the bosom of God, 
 pervades the universe, and shows itself resplendent in 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 153 
 
 man, shining in him as beautiful asa light in an alabas- 
 ter lamp. It is because there is a God, because there 
 is spirituality, because there is immortality of the soul, — 
 because we know these truths from instinct, that there 
 are graveyards, and believe me, sir, a graveyard is the 
 best of schools for theology, philosophy and morality. 
 There is not a tomb here which does not convey to me 
 a lesson. 
 
 “Look at this one, for instance. It is the sepulchre 
 of one who died very young. She was beautiful and 
 rich, and, as one would have supposed, destined to a 
 life of happiness. She lived in a distant parish of the 
 State. A young man from New Orleans had won her 
 heart. He was worthy of her, but the girl’s mother had 
 another match in view. She wanted no Catholic for her 
 son-in-law, and she used all the authority of a mother 
 and the arts of a woman to prevent the intended mar- 
 riage. But that daughter was of age and had a will of 
 herown. The day for her marriage ceremony was fixed, 
 and the wedding presents had been made. On the eve 
 of that day, Arthur Sidney (let that be the name of the 
 bridegroom) called as usual on his intended bride. 
 When he knocked at the door, a note was handed to 
 him by a servant. That note informed him that the 
 marriage could not take place, and that he must cease 
 all relations with the family into which he was going to 
 enter through a sacred alliance. When he reached his 
 home, he found that the marriage presents which he 
 had made had been returned. He sent two friends to 
 inquire into the cause of this extraordinary proceeding. 
 The mother of the young lady, whom I shall call Eve- 
 lina, received them with freezing coldness, and, in the 
 presence of her daughter who remained silent and look- 
 
 ed in her pallor like a statue of marble, told them that 
 ne 
 
154 FERNANDO ,.DE LEMOS. 
 
 there were sufficient and satisfactory reasons, with the 
 consent and approbation of her daughter, to renounce 
 the projected marriage, but that she was bound in hon- 
 or not to divulge them. Two weeks afterward, Eve- 
 lina was married to the man who was the choice of her 
 mother. He was a Protestant and the son of a bishop. 
 I shall call him Waverley. Before the year was out, 
 Mrs. Waverley had become a Catholic; she had died and 
 had been buried here. 
 
 “Shortly after, Arthur Sidney received this anony- 
 mous note: ‘If inform you of what broke your marriage 
 with her over whom the tomb has now closed, will you 
 send a check of one thousand dollars to box 2312 in the 
 post-office? The prompt and short answer was the 
 sending of the sum required. The next day, another 
 communication came to Arthur Sidney. It ran‘as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 ‘¢¢ When a very young man, you had a natural son, 
 who assumed your name of Arthur Sidney—a fact of 
 which only very few were aware. That natural son 
 was, on a certain occasion, as you well know, brought 
 before one of the Recorders of New Orleans for having 
 created a disturbance in a house of ill-fame, and was 
 fined ten dollars. Your rival, acting in concert with 
 the mother of Evelina, took a certified copy of that 
 judgment and with it blasted your character, by pre- 
 senting it as having been given against you. Ask the 
 Recorder’s clerk, whether on the —— day of , he 
 did not give the certified copy to which I refer. 
 Distracted with grief, Evelina became an automaton in 
 her mother’s hands, and married as that mother desired. 
 Not long after her marriage, she accidentally knew the 
 truth. It killed her. How could it be otherwise? She 
 had wronged the object of her love,- lost him forever, 
 
 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 155 
 
 and discovered that her husband and her mother had 
 committed an atrocious crime. In her heart she re- 
 nounced them. She wrote you a letter which was in- 
 tercepted, and in which she begged your pardon; and 
 shortly after was conveyed to the grave where she re- 
 poses.’ 
 
 With this letter in his quivering hand, Arthur Sid- 
 ney stood before his illegitimate offspring: ‘ Read this, 
 sir, and see what you have done. I begged you long 
 ago, for obvious reasons, to call yourself, as you might 
 be pleased, Stephen, George, or Peter Sidney, or by 
 whatever other appellation you might prefer, but by all 
 means to avoid this confusion of name. It was your 
 pride, regardless of consequences to me, to assume the 
 name of Arthur Sidney. It flattered your vanity. Be- 
 sides, you seemed to take a malicious pleasure in annoy- 
 ing me and in proclaiming to the world, as much as in 
 your power lay, the youthful error of which I had been 
 guilty. Nay, more, you loved to pass yourself off for 
 me, and, as such, to frequent low places and make 
 dupes. In this way many of your delinquencies were 
 laid at my door, and more than one of your promissory 
 notes, which had been taken under the false impression 
 that they were mine, were presented to me as the sup- 
 posed drawer. All my remonstrances you have treat- 
 ed with mockery and insolence. You now see the cruel 
 consequence of what you have done. What have you 
 to say ? 
 
 *¢¢ T have nothing to say,’ replied the unabashed youth. 
 ‘I don’t see why you take me to task for what has hap- 
 pened. It is no fault of mine. Why did the girl make 
 a fool of herself? She ought not to have been so squeam- 
 ish about you, and turned you off for a mere trifle. Non- 
 sense! If you want to scold any body, go to her gen- 
 
156 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 tle mother and to her virtuous and disconsolate hus- 
 band,’ and he grinned a sardonic smile. 
 
 “¢Wretch! exclaimed Sidney. ‘This is the last 
 time that we meet. I suspected you to be a monster ; now 
 I have the proof of it. God has severely punished me 
 for one of the follies of my youth. May He punish 
 you in your turn as you deserve! You claim me as 
 your father. I hope that we have been both deceived 
 as to the relations which exist between us. Be that as 
 it may ; if [am your father, then may a father’s curse 
 rest on your head I’ 
 
 “ This was the last interview between father and son. 
 One morning I came to the cemetery very early ; day 
 was just breaking. Indisposition had prevented me 
 from visiting the tomb during the night as usual. In 
 my stroll of inspection I passed by the grave of Evelina. 
 What was my astonishment! A man was stretched.on 
 it at full length. I approached. O wonder! He had 
 been strangled. The rope was round his neck, and on 
 his breast was pinned this inscription : Justice done to 
 the felon. It was the body of Waverley.” 
 
 Tintin hung down his head and was silent. He 
 evidently was moved. ‘ Was there ever any clue,” I 
 said, “to discover the author of this deed ?” 
 
 “‘ Not: any,” he replied; “but, since that event, 
 Arthur Sidney never was seen in this country. What 
 became of him, I do not know. There came a rumor 
 in the course of years, that he had fought his way to a 
 high post under the British government in the Kast 
 mete 2 It is probable that he still lives, for on the 
 annual festival in commemoration of the dead, this 
 tomb never fails to be highly decorated. I interrogated 
 the man who does it. He answered that he was paid for 
 his work, every year, by the British consul, and that it 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 157 
 
 was all that he knew. The moral of this story is: beware 
 of having bastards. It is a sin, and sin has a scorpion 
 tail with which, in the end, it stings to death its parent.” 
 
 We were suddenly overtaken by a thunder storm. 
 We took refuge under the portico of a Gothic sepul- 
 chral chapel, which was a superb monument erected by 
 a Spaniard to his wife. The darkness became intense, 
 the rain descended in torrents, peals after peals of our 
 magnificent Southern thunder came thick upon each 
 other, and the lightning seemed to leap from tomb to 
 tomb, which it fitfully illuminated. At each flash I 
 gazed round, and almost expected to see some strange 
 and supernatural sight. Tintin Calandro guessed at 
 the undefinable feeling of awe which had crept over 
 me, for he said: 
 
 “You will not see any spirit abroad in such weather 
 as this, except for some powerful cause. Disembodied 
 spirits are as luxurious as when in the flesh. They are 
 all at’ home now, enjoying themselves in their snug 
 small houses. They listen with delight to the hubbub 
 of the elements, to this roaring wind and bespattering 
 rain. Each one rakes up his dry bones, hugs himself in 
 his shelter, stretches his skeleton limbs with a keen 
 sense of the enjoyment of complete repose, like an 
 epicurean in his soft and rose-perfumed bed, and, rub- 
 bing his bony hands, says to himself: how comfortable 
 Iam! Let me sleep—this is the weather to sleep. 
 Pit, pat, pit, pat, comes down the rain on our nice and 
 tight roof. How sweet! Go it, rain, and thou, O 
 wind, crack thy jaws! Fire all thy guns, and throw 
 out all thy bomb-shells, O thunder! And thou, light- 
 ning, shoot forth thy forked tongue like the arrow of 
 Jehovah! We enjoy our repose the more from its con- 
 trast with this war of the elements. 
 
158 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 “You see, my friend,’’ continued Tintin Calandro, 
 
 “the dead still live after their own way. In such a 
 night as this they relish their beds as much as you do. 
 They also, like us, love to pull the coverlets over their 
 nakedness, and to doze away. No bills to pay to-mor- 
 row! No illusions to lose! No treachery to counter- 
 act! No disappointments to encounter! No brains 
 racked! No heart bleeding! No tears shed! The 
 battle of life has been fought; their cares are over. 
 Hurrah! What a luxury to be dead! No more forced 
 attention to any of the wants of earthly existence! 
 Hurrah !” 
 
 This wild enthusiasm for death was expressed in a 
 manner to which no description can do justice. Whilst 
 he spoke, the thunder roared with increased fury, the 
 lightning flashed more vividly, and the mad wind, 
 grasping the floods of rain as they poured down from 
 above, dashed them upon the roof of our white marble 
 sepulchre, and swept over it with hurricane-like vio- 
 lence. ‘Tintin Calandro, whose personal peculiarities I 
 have already described, and who, on every-day occa- 
 sions, had so much of the fantastic and elfish in his ap- 
 pearance, looked now, when seen by the lurid light of 
 the evanescent flashes of electricity which made him 
 only visible by fits and starts, so unearthly and weird- 
 like, that I felt a creeping of the flesh as if there stood 
 near me something supernatural, After he had delivered 
 himself as I have related, bending his head and bury- 
 ing his face in his hands, he remained silent so long, that 
 I thought he had gone to sleep. J*eeling a sensation of 
 cold, [ wrapped my cloak round my body in tighter 
 folds, and retreated further back under the portico. 
 Suddenly he started up. 
 
 “Are you not tired of this storm?” he said. “It is 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 159 
 
 magnificent, to.be sure, but there may be too much of a 
 good thing. To eseape from it, [have been trying a diver- 
 sion in my own mind, and I have been thinking how 
 glorious my cemetery looks by moonlight. There is 
 nothing then equal to it. Don’t you agree with me, 
 my friend? You have witnessed it yourself. What 
 a scene worthy of the angels! It is when my cemetery 
 is but one sea of serene light, that I love to perform on 
 my violin for the dead. When I begin, I see at first a kind 
 of haze or vapor settling on each tomb. Then shadowy 
 forms glide upward through brick, marble, or granite, 
 and an immense assembly gathers for my concert. 
 Some stand up, some sit down, others recline on their 
 tombs as on sofas. The little children, bow daintily 
 they look! God bless them! Sometimes they dance 
 before me, moving their tiny feet in harmony with my 
 music. When they are tired, they trip up to me, 
 they courtesy, they kiss their fairy hands to me, and 
 thank me so prettily, that, to please them, I could play 
 the whole night. They sing in a chorus: ‘ good-night, 
 Tintin Calandro, good-night, dear Tintin Calandro,’ 
 and they vanish. If you could only see such a sight, 
 you would like to dwell for ever in my cemetery.” 
 
 “Tintin Calandro,” said I, not appearing to notice 
 these exhibitions of insanity to which I had become ac- 
 customed, and speaking with apparent earnestness as 
 if I shared his convictions, “ I should like to possess like 
 you the faculty of seeing the dead and all the wonders 
 which you have witnessed.” 
 
 “You may one day have that faculty,” he replied. 
 “Tt is, however, an invaluable privilege which it is not 
 easy to obtain. You will have to do all that is re- 
 quired to arrive at its possession. You must spiritual- 
 ize yourself; you must renounce all the appetites of the 
 flesh, and satisfy them only so far as is indispensable to 
 
160 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 keep soul and body together. In that physical and 
 spiritual union and partnership to which we are tem- 
 porarily subjected here for purposes beyond the depth of 
 our shallow comprehension, let the soul have the best 
 part of the bargain, and grant to it, as far as possible, the 
 monopoly of your existence. Reduce your body to the 
 having of merely a pittance out of the inheritance to 
 which you were born as the child of God. Give it but 
 mere crumbs out of that banquet of life during which 
 poisonous drugs are so often mixed up with the rich 
 wines that sparkle in our cups, and devils, in the livery 
 of menial fidelity and devotion, stand behind our chairs 
 with obsequious deference, and with tempting dishes 
 from which we are in vain warned to abstain by our 
 guardian angels. Never forget, friend of mine, that 
 you are a compound of matter and spirit, and that mat- 
 ter is a screen between the spiritual world and that 
 soul or spirit which dwells in you. Therefore purify 
 and thin off that matter, so as to make it of crystal 
 transparency. Then your soul will look through it as 
 through a glass, and will be enabled to have communi- 
 cation with congenial essences. But the flesh must 
 first be subjugated, and this can only be done by vol- 
 untary privations, by incessant macerations, by prayer, 
 and particularly by the discipline of secret and nobly 
 supported sorrows, resulting in a deep-seated abhor- 
 rence of earthly pleasures. When you are thus schooled 
 and thoroughly prepared, let your mind gather up its 
 loins and depart from that domain of the material world 
 to which it had devoted but too much attention. Fix 
 your thoughts intently on the dead and the spiritual. 
 Come then, if you like, to the tomb that contains the 
 mortal remains of the disembodied spirit which has not 
 as yet perished in your memory. Do it day after day, 
 and for consecutive hours. Call that spirit to you with 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 161 
 
 that power and strength of will which magnetically 
 commands obedience, and with that faith which re- 
 moves mountains. Evoke that beloved spirit, I say, 
 hardly without interruption, and with that importunity 
 which, we are scripturally told, will not meet with re- 
 fusal, and probably you will be heard and gratified. I[ 
 am almost sure that you will one day feel, that a mysti- 
 cal correspondence has been established between you 
 and the departed. You will see, through the very 
 walls of the tomb, the body which reposes there, and 
 you will see it just in the same condition in which it 
 was deposited on the day of its burial, although, were 
 that tomb opened to coarse and vulgar vision, it would 
 show nothing but disgusting decay, and perhaps noth- 
 ing but dust. O, the wonders of the grave! If you . 
 could understand the language of the dead and appre- 
 ciate their society, you would never leave my cemetery 
 to go back to the bustling and deceiving world, which 
 is nothing but a pack of damnable lies and tormenting 
 illusions, sprinkled over with a modicum of hardly per- 
 ceptible truths and half rotten morality. Never would 
 you abandon the tranquillity of this place, where there 
 is so much consolation and true knowledge—that knowl- 
 edge which comes from heaven, and not from hell. 
 Ha! ha! ha! Better consort with the dead than with 
 the living. ‘Tintin Calandro has long ago made that 
 discovery. But it is late, and the storm has almost 
 ceased; let us go, to seek oblivion in sleep, which is 
 the sweet anticipation, forerunner and foretaste of 
 death, and the object of which, I suppose, is to prepare 
 us for thut final sleep on earth which will herald us to 
 sleepless and eternal felicity in the bosom of God, or to 
 just and condign punishment under the inevitable judg- 
 ment of the liege Lord of the wicked and the good.” 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 IN WHICH FERNANDO AND TINTIN CALANDRO RELATE TO 
 EACH OTHER MANY INTERESTING THINGS. 
 
 Once, contrary to my habit, I entered the cemetery 
 during the day. The sun, however, was disappearing 
 behind the western horizon. I saw Tintin Calandro. 
 He was leaning on a tomb, his back turned to me. I 
 approached him without his being aware of it, and 
 touched him on the shoulder. When he faced me, I 
 observed that his eyes were full of tears. ‘“ What is 
 the matter ?’ said I. 
 
 “ Twin sisters,” he replied, “five years old, were put 
 in this tomb this morning. The mother has just been 
 visiting this last resting-place of her children. Oh! 
 How she kissed the cold marble! How she wept! 
 How she prayed! What pathos there is in a mother’s 
 agony of sorrow! I have never been able to witness it 
 without being overpowered by synipathetic grief. She 
 did not see me; for I was hidden behind that monu- 
 ment yonder. I longed to come up and tell her: ‘ Do 
 not weep; your children are not dead. They are 
 hovering above your head at this very moment, and 
 are crying also like yourself, because of your sorrow.’ 
 But I said to myself: ‘she will think that I am mad.’ 
 All the while, the two little girls, invisible to her, 
 were wringing their hands in despair because of the 
 
 sobs and tears of their mother, and trying in vain to 
 (162) ‘ae 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 163 
 
 make her aware of their presence. The scene was be- 
 coming intensely painful to me, when suddenly two 
 baby angels, with wings as white as a swan’s feathers, 
 eame down from heaven, and, throwing their pretty 
 arms round the necks of the children, said«to them: 
 ‘sisters, be comforted. Come up with us. We will 
 show you the wonders of our celestial home and of your 
 future one. Be not uneasy about your mother. It is 
 our mission to console her, and, to-night, we shall ap- 
 pear to her in a vision and bring her cheerful tidings 
 of her loved ones.’ And they all ascended together 
 and were soon lost to my sight.” 
 
 What strange insanity! said I to myself. But, since 
 it makes him happy, why should I attempt to shake 
 his belief in the reality of what to me is but the hallu- 
 cination of a diseased brain? Whilst this reflection 
 was presenting itself to me, I had taken notice of an- 
 other fresh grave near the one of the twin sisters. 
 “Well, Tintin Calandro,” said I, “no angel of light, 
 I suppose, will approach what remains of him who has 
 been deposited there to-day,” pointing out the tomb, 
 “for he -has left behind him almost a dishonored 
 name.” 
 
 “ Don’t be so sure of that,” he replied. “ This man, 
 it is true, had vices, and did things which he had bet- 
 ter have left undone. But human nature is a strange 
 compound, and this weak and erring specimen of mor- 
 tality was better than he had credit for. Poor sinful 
 Joubert, who is now within the hearing of my voice, 
 I will vindicate your character, at least to some extent.” 
 Then turning round to me, and fixing his luminous eyes 
 on mine, he continued in these words: 
 
 ‘You know some of the bad deeds of Joubert ; let 
 me relate to you some of the good ones, for the dead 
 
164 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. | 
 
 have no secrets for me. One day Joubert was on a 
 steamboat crossing Lake Pontchartrain. One of the 
 passengers, whom he had reasons to believe his enemy, 
 fell overboard. He threw himself into the angry 
 waves, for it was stormy, and saved the drowning man 
 at the great risk of losing his own life. What do you 
 think of that? Ha! ha! And yet every body used to 
 call him a scamp, and a scamp he was in some respects. 
 
 “Many years ago he had been the boon companion 
 of a rich young man, whom, with other parasites, he 
 had helped to ruin himself. A bankrupt in fortune 
 and in health the spendthrift died, leaving a widow 
 and a daughter. Shortly after, wealth was bequeathed 
 to that widow by a distant relation, and she married 
 again. Much time had elapsed, when it happened that 
 Joubert called on that second husband. 
 
 “¢Siry said he to him, ‘have you not found among 
 the papers of your wife a promissory note for two 
 thousand dollars, which I drew in favor of her husband 
 more than fifteen years ago ? 
 
 “<¢ Yes,’ replied the gentleman. ‘I remember hay- 
 ing seen it, although I must confess that I never thought 
 it deserved much attention, as I always considered it 
 a worthless piece of paper on account of your absolute 
 want of means. Besides, the debt is prescribed.’ 
 
 **¢ Look for it, however,’ said Joubert, ‘for I will 
 pay it to-morrow at twelve o’clock, out of a small sum 
 which I have recently inherited.’ 
 
 “He was punctual, and true to his word. The 
 promissory note was redeemed with the payment in 
 full, not only of the capital, but also of the interest 
 accrued during fifteen years. Jla! ha!” continued 
 Tintin, raising his voice to a higher key, “ what do you 
 think now of the scamp ? 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 165 
 
 “Once there was an execution issued against a 
 Spaniard living ii Condé street. The sheriff was in 
 the room, seizing and inventorying the scanty furniture 
 of that poor foreigner whom nobody knew, or cared 
 for. A few persons whom curiosity had attracted 
 were looking on, and could not but admire his stoical 
 indifference. His face might be thought a little paler 
 than usual. That was the only external indication, 
 slight as it was, of what feelings might be working 
 within. Having completed his inventory, the sheriff 
 was preparing to withdraw, when he discovered a min- 
 lature painting hanging on the wall near a window and 
 nearly concealed by the folds of a tattered curtain. 
 The officer of the law advanced to lay his hands on it, 
 when the hitherto self-possessed Spaniard bounded like a 
 tiger, and, planting himself between the officer and the 
 portrait, said in a tremulous voice: ‘ Must this be taken 
 also ? 
 
 “¢* Yes,’ was the reply. 
 
 ¢’Then,’ exclaimed the Spaniard, drawing a dagger 
 from his breast, and looking as if he defied heaven 
 and earth, ‘it shall be at the peril of your life and 
 mine.’ 
 
 “‘ At that critical moment, one of the spectators of 
 that scene whispered these words into the sheriff’s ear : 
 ‘How much is the whole debt ? 
 
 “¢ One hundred and fifty dollars, was the answer. 
 
 “¢T will pay them, on condition you tell that man 
 that his creditor, on hearing of his poverty, has relented 
 and withdrawn the execution.’ 
 
 “Tt was finally settled on those terms, and the Span- 
 iard kept the miniature he valued so much, without 
 ever knowing to whom he was indebted for it. The 
 individual who thus interfered in favor of that poor 
 
166 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 unknown stranger, had at the time only three hundred 
 dollars at his command. That was his whole fortune. 
 He divided it, as you see, into two parts, and in the 
 way I have mentioned. Whowasthat man? Joubert! 
 And now, what think you of the scamp ?’ 
 
 This time Tintin almost shouted the question which 
 he had thus been pleased to repeat thrice in the course 
 of this story. I looked at the tomb, and reverently 
 took off my hat. ‘ Well done,” said he, “and Jou- 
 bert’s spirit is deeply moved at this demonstration of . 
 respect to his memory—the more so, because, on a cer- 
 tain occasion, you were very near flying at each other’s 
 throats. But now you are both reconciled. A tomb, 
 as you see, is an excellent mediator, and charity covers 
 many sins.” 
 
 Tn our walk we came near that part of the cemetery 
 where the wall is from six to eight feet thick, and 
 honeycombed into graves where are put the bodies of 
 those who are too poor to have any thing better. On 
 the stone slab which closed one of these pigeon-holes I 
 read the name of Henry O’Neil, although the letters 
 were almost half effaced. It put me in mind of for- 
 mer days. O’Neil was an Irishman by birth and the 
 nephew of a Catholic bishop of that name, who had 
 acquired in Ireland some celebrity and possessed great 
 influence. He had been educated at a college of Jes- 
 uits in France. Coming to New York to better his 
 fortune, he had been a private teacher in one of the 
 oldest families of that city. With excellent letters of 
 introduction he had subsequently repaired to New Or- — 
 leans, where he continued to give lessons. Being an 
 accomplished scholar and versed in several languages, 
 he was advised to study law and enter the bar, where 
 his talents would have secured him a high position and . 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS.  . 167 
 
 golden harvests. But the demon of dissipation had 
 got hold of him. Instead of studying the civil code and 
 qualifying himself for the practice of an honorable 
 profession, for which he seemed eminently fitted, he 
 plunged into all kinds of excesses. He associated with 
 none but the wildest young men of the city, and be- 
 coming 
 A sorry wight, 
 He vexed with mirth the drowsy ear of night. 
 
 O’ Neil was immensely superior to his boon compani- 
 ons, on whom he exercised a sort of fascination, from 
 which, although I was not one of that set, I had not 
 altogether escaped myself; for sometimes I imprudent- 
 ly joined in the frolics of that madcap and scapegrace 
 crew, merely to enjoy the society of O’Neil. I can 
 fancy that I still see him seated at the banqueting table 
 of revelry, with lips curving with contempt for his 
 giddy and shallow-pated associates, and, as it was evi- 
 dent to me, scorning himself for the life he led. Once 
 I told him so, and he gave me no denial. Was the - 
 man under the irresistible influence of some. unaccount- 
 able spell? Are there human beings doomed to pursue 
 an unavoidable career of folly and vice, when appar- 
 ently born to a better and higher one, and compelled 
 by some malignant demon to keep splashing in the 
 sewers of society, when they have wings to soar to its 
 
 alpine summit, and there light up those beacon fires 
 - which would be signals by which others would be en- 
 couraged, and guided in that march of progressive im- 
 provement to which man is believed to be destined ? 
 Why had O’Neil thus been gifted in vain and to no 
 purpose? How came he to be afflicted with a madness 
 which destroyed his excellencies? Was he providen- 
 
168 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 tially intended only as a warning to others? But who 
 ever profited by such warnings? Be it as it may, he 
 was a puzzle tome. The eagle had stooped from the 
 empyrean vault, to associate fraternally with stinking 
 buzzards and to fatten on the same carrion. This 
 O’Neil of mine affected to be an empty-headed dandy, 
 forsooth! He, that vast repository of knowledge—he, - 
 on whom nature had conferred the mighty gift of elo- 
 quence, with which he loved occasionally to grasp any 
 subject which the caprice of the hour presented to his 
 pleased fancy amidst the confusion and uproar of bac- 
 chanalian orgies. O’Neil’s eloquence did not gush out 
 impetuously like a mountain torrent, but moved quiet- 
 ly onward like the almost insensible heaving up of some 
 vast but lazy tide of the Pacific Ocean. He spoke 
 very slowly and deliberately. He dwelt on every word, 
 which, after all, was no idle and empty word, but had 
 sufficient substance to be dwelt upon. Whilst he rolled 
 out every sentence with distinct emphasis, he always 
 pointed at you with his index, as if, with it, he intended 
 to push through your brain and heart everything he 
 said. He had a trick, when speaking, of gravely shak- 
 ‘ing his perfumed locks, and fixing steadily on you eyes 
 which struck you as being of unfathomable depth, and 
 which, as you gazed at them, seemed to grow deeper 
 and deeper. Much as I admired the genius of the man, 
 there was something in him which was very repulsive 
 tome. It was the eternal sneering smile which played 
 on his lips, and the peculiarly diabolical dry chuckling 
 with which he always closed some of his grand tirades. He 
 had also an ill-natured habit which did not raise him in 
 my estimation, but which, I confess, afforded me some- 
 times a good deal of amusement. Whenever he was 
 displeased with some presumption on the part of one 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 169 
 
 of his companions in profligacy, he would watch for an 
 opportunity, and, lifting up his ponderous intellectual 
 club, did not scruple to belabor without mercy the poor 
 fellow, and gave him no respite until he saw him 
 thoroughly humbled, and ready to admit himself to be 
 the greatest ass that ever brayed in this world! 
 
 I will relate two anecdotes which will give some 
 further insight into O’ Neil’s character. He and a young 
 Frenchman called Melville, were courting an interest- 
 ing widow. Having met at one of her parties, in the 
 course of the evening they happened to be seated, one 
 on the right, and the other on the left, of the fair host- 
 ess. It was not long before the two rivals began 
 talking at each other in a sly and indirect manner. 
 The lady was amused. It stimulated the two champi- 
 ons and carpet knights in their encounter of wits. But 
 Melville was no match for O'Neil, who, in the use of 
 polished but withering sarcasm, and in the terrible art 
 of blasting with ridicule every thing he chose, possessed 
 a Voltairian skill. His keen and bright Damascus blade 
 incessantly plunged through the defenceless breast of 
 his adversary, until the impetuous Frenchman, stung 
 into utter disregard of what was due to himself and 
 to others, so far forgot all propriety as to slap his rival’s 
 face. It was a slap given with a right good will, for it 
 resounded throughout the vast rooms. Dancing and 
 the music stopped instantly, and we looked anxiously 
 toward the fatal spot. O’Neil had not changed color ; 
 he had remained seated, perfectly composed and un- 
 ruffied, and retaining stereotyped on his lips the same 
 smile with which he had been addressing the lady, 
 when struck. But impressively shaking his index as 
 was his wont, and almost touching the Frenchman’s 
 breast with it, he drawled out these words: “ I will kill 
 
 8 
 
170 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 you to-morrow,” and, turning away from him, resumed, 
 as if nothing had happened, the conversation in which 
 he had been engaged, whilst his discomfited antagonist 
 apologized to the lady for his unfortunate vivacity, and 
 retired. What self-control! It was sublime. We all 
 felt it to be such. The next morning they met. O’Neil 
 was dressed as for a ball, and in exquisitely varnished 
 patent leather pumps. His glossy and perfumed hair 
 was artistically arranged into ringlets, and he*held in 
 his hand a delicately scented cambrie handkerchief 
 edged with lace, which he now and then passed over 
 his face. His eternal smile was on his lips, but this 
 time its expression was so cynical and mischievous that 
 it made my blood run cold. At the first fire, Melville 
 fell to rise no more. O’Neil’s ball had gone through 
 his heart; as to Melville’s, it had only grazed O’Neil’s 
 left temple and cut off one of his curls. He picked it 
 up, and put it carefully in a neat little pocket-book 
 which he drew out of his coat, saying: “ Nicely clip- 
 ped for my lady-love.” 
 
 On another occasion, I was with O’Neil at a place of 
 public resort. One of the notorious duellists of the day, 
 and they were numerous at that epoch, for it was the 
 fashion to be one, came up to us, evidently with the in- 
 tention of picking a quarrel with him, and used offen- 
 sive language. ‘“ Bah!” said O’Neil, with the utmost 
 good humor, “I see what you are driving at. You 
 desire a duel with me to show what nerves you have. 
 But allow me to say to you that you behave very stu- 
 pidly, and very unjustly to me. Your hair-brained — 
 courage is very well known. Hence, my good friend, 
 it is absurd, you will confess, to attempt to demonstrate 
 what is universally admitted. You may, however, be 
 as foolish as you please, if you like the indulgence, 
 
emit 
 
 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. Bia 
 
 whenever your foolishness does not affect others. But, 
 in this present circumstance, why-should you act so un- 
 fairly toward. me, against whom you can entertain no 
 well-founded grudge, for I have always treated you 
 with uniform courtesy and even cordiality? Why, Isay, 
 should you be so unjust as to compel me to kill you, 
 which [ will infalliby do, if I cannot honorably escape 
 from that dire necessity? I think that you are an ex- 
 cellent hearted fellow after all, although you sometimes 
 choose to demean yourself as if your brains were in 
 your heels, instead of being in the proper place. There- 
 fore it would be very disagreeable to me to put you out 
 of this world, if I cannot put some sense in that shallow 
 pate of yours ;” and he patted it familiarly and almost 
 affectionately, to the utmost confusion and bewilder- 
 ment of the professed duellist, who growled between 
 his teeth like a subdued mastiff, willing but afraid to 
 bite, and who, having lost all presence ef mind, did not 
 know exactly what to do. Iwas greatly amused, O’Neil 
 went on remonstrating, half in earnest and half in jest, 
 on the preposterousness of a duel without a cause, and 
 so worked on the feelings of his would-be adversary, 
 that the pugnacious animal apologized to him. “ That 
 is well,” continued O’ Neil with the kindest intonations 
 of voice. “I knew there is something good in you, and 
 that you are not the absolute fool you chose to repre- 
 sent yourself to be. Now let us all take a drink like 
 loving friends.” And to the bar they went, O’Neil 
 leading the tamed tiger, and smiling his peculiar sar- 
 donic smile. The whole thing was exquisitely done, 
 and must have been seen to be fully appreciated. 
 
 Will you believe that a man so gifted, did, in the 
 end, destroy himself with brandy, not on ovcasions of 
 conviviality, but in the solitude of his own chamber? 
 
172 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 At my own house he would take a bottle of Coynae 
 which he would divide into two equal parts, and pour 
 into two small crystal decanters. They were placed by 
 him at both ends of my oblong library room, as far re- 
 moved from each other as possible. He called them the 
 North and South Poles, and would, for consecutive 
 hours, pace in silence from one decanter to the other, 
 out of which he helped himself alternately, until not a 
 drop was left of the fiery liquid. Strange to say, he 
 never showed the slightest sign of intoxication. His 
 tongue only would seem a little thicker, but his mind 
 was as clear as’ever. I had made frequent remon- 
 strances against that suicidal course, but friendly as they 
 were, they had always been received with a cynical levity 
 which at last disgusted me, and I closed my lips. Hay- 
 ing absented myself for three years, a note from O’Neil 
 was handed to me shortly after my return, requesting 
 me to call on him without loss of time, for he was dy- 
 ing. [ immediately complied with his desire, and found 
 him, on the outskirts of the city, in a miserable room 
 bare of every thing save a greasy mattress on which he- 
 was stretched, and an empty bottle on the floor within 
 his reach. When I appeared, conscious, I suppose, of 
 the contrast which must have struck me between the 
 once brilliant dandy scholar and the alcoholic skeleton 
 before my eyes, he quoted the exclamation which Vir- 
 gil puts in the mouth of Eneas when relating to Dido 
 the apparition of the ghost of Hector: guantim muta- 
 tus ab illo! ‘“ How changed from what he was!” A 
 change indeed! For this Hector, this prince of the in- 
 tellect, was reduced to a mere shadow of his former 
 self. He thanked me with a husky voice for my pres- 
 ence at the last closing scene of his life, and his mind 
 soon wandered into the ravings of delirio'is imbecility, 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 173 
 
 until death brought relief to him and to me. I have, 
 ever since, not unfrequently thought of O’Neil, and I 
 have wondered how such a man could have been an 
 atheist and a drunkard. 
 
 “ Perhaps,” said Tintin Calandro, “ he was a drunk- 
 ard because he was an atheist, or professed to be one, 
 and an atheist because he was born with the innate 
 beastly propensities of a drunkard. But do you know, 
 my friend, that I have always doubted that there ever 
 existed a human being, with his intellectual faculties 
 not actually deranged, who ever denied to himself and 
 in his heart the existence of God? ‘To profess atheism 
 1s nothing but bravado, and the insolence of an intellec- 
 tual pride seeking to put itself above the level of what 
 is called the vulgar credulity of mankind.” 
 
 “O'Neil,” I replied, “pretended to be in earnest, 
 and I believe he was.” 
 
 “Pshaw! nonsense. What did he say in support of 
 his assertion that there was no God ¢” 
 
 “Nothing new. He repeated arguments as old as 
 the deluge—only the rags of ancient and modern skep- 
 ticism and infidelity re-washed, re-ironed, and made 
 smooth to help their circulation in the market.” 
 
 ** A poor compliment to the intellect you valued so 
 much in your departed friend,” said Tintin. 
 
 ‘This was not due,” I answered, “to any deficiency 
 of intellect, but to the weakness of the cause which his 
 intellect, large as it was, undertook to advocate. Strong 
 eyes may squint; thus his mental vision squinted when 
 directed to that subject. He was mad when he thought 
 there was no God, just as thoroughly mad a man is, who 
 thinks himself to be God; and let me tell you that the 
 most extraordinary man I ever met, was one who was 
 afflicted with that infirmity. He was confined in a 
 
174 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 Quaker lunatic asylum in Philadelphia, and he was as 
 sane as any of his race, and more sapient than the im- 
 mense majority of it, save on one point—he believed 
 himself God. And now I will give you, as well as I 
 can, a general view of what O’Neil used to say when 
 our conversation took a metaphysical turn.” 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 O’NEIL THE ATHEIST. 
 
  T wit not,” said O’ Neil to me, “ examine all the dis- 
 quisitions more or less fanciful of ancient and modern 
 philosophers about simple, and compound or composite 
 matter—matter purely material, or mixed with some- 
 thing apparently immaterial—matter self-existing from 
 all eternity and self-sufficient, and matter created, obey- 
 ing certain laws issuing from a source foreign to itself 
 and perfectly inexplicable—matter not God, and matter 
 God. Those learned men never understood themselves, 
 and the more I have studied their various propositions 
 and conjectures, for I will not honor their pretended ex- 
 poundings of the truth with any other name, the more 
 bewildered I have become, like every body else, I pre- 
 sume, who attempted to be enlightened by their teach- 
 ings, and who only found that they made darkness still 
 darker. I believe in matter and in matter alone, because 
 I see it, whatever its nature may be, unknown or known 
 to me in all its elements and properties ; and I do not puz- 
 zle myself with what may possibly exist beyond the range 
 of my physical and intellectual vision, because I know 
 beforehand that I could not establish any rational belief 
 on what-isimaginary. I believe simply in matter and in 
 thelaws which govern it, because I discover those laws in 
 
 part, ‘or in whole. Matter does not present itself to me as 
 (175) 
 
176 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 an article of faith. Iam to accept its existence only so far 
 as it is demonstrated to my senses. It does not expect 
 me to abdicate my reason at the foot of its throne. I 
 am not called upon to recognize in it any right of 
 dominion over me ; or if it should chance that I find 
 myself liable to submit to its action on me against my 
 will, I may, in my turn, be able to operate and re-act 
 on it with ten times more power and efficacy. It makes 
 me feel that I am something in the material world, of 
 which I am a part. 
 
 “ But when we come to what is called the immaterial, 
 I find myself in a vacuum, where there is no substance 
 and where nothing exists which I can conceive. What 
 is God? It is said to be the Supreme Being, the eter- 
 nal, infinite and omnipotent Spirit, the Creator and the 
 Sovereign of the universe. These are high-sounding 
 words, but they convey nothing precise to my under- 
 standing, no rational comprehension or appreciation 
 of that invisible, bodiless and mystic Being, residing in 
 the infiniteness of space, and generating matter out of 
 nothingness at his will and pleasure. But if the elements 
 of matter did not exist at the time of its formation into 
 what it is now, whence did it come? If God alone 
 existed previous to the beginning of the universe, mat- 
 ter must have come out of Him. Hence it existed in 
 Him under some form or other, and if existing in Him 
 in principle, He must have been material Himself, 
 whether in whole or in part, and if not entirely imma- 
 terial, then He is not a spirit. Oh, no. This is pro- 
 fanation and impiety. God is a pure spirit. Why? 
 How do I, or do you, know it? Is it because God has 
 never been seen? But is any thing escaping the detec- 
 tion of our senses a spirit? Iron may be reduced to 
 an invisible, intangible gas. But will that gas cease to 
 
 * 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 17 
 
 be matter for all that? Can we conceive existence with- 
 out substance, and what is substance but matter, al- 
 though it may be so light as not to be ponderable in hu- 
 man scales? What then is aspirit? Is it, according 
 to unsatisfactory definitions, an immaterial, intelligent 
 something, either created, as we are told, like the an- 
 gels, or prircnted but self-existing and self. sufficient be- 
 fore the commencement of time, like God—a thing 
 without a beginning and withont an end, not governed 
 by imposed laws, but by its own will? The explanation 
 is as vague and obscure as the subject itself. It is a 
 shadow holding a dark lantern to show me what is the 
 composition of another shadow. Thus the poor human 
 mind, like a tread-mill horse, is whipped forever round 
 a circle of incomprehensibilities, without advancing an 
 inch beyond the ground to which it is confined. 
 
 “ Matter with intelligence I see, and therefore I be- 
 heve in it, although it is full of mysteries. . But intel- 
 ligence unmixed with matter I have never been able to 
 discover, therefore I reject it until better informed. I 
 have the right to say to you: show me the immaterial as 
 clearly as you show me the material, before you demand 
 my acknowledgment of its existence. Besides, if God 
 is a pure spirit, free from the alloy of matter in His 
 composition, how is it that being created after His own 
 image, I am half matter and half spirit? Must I not 
 inter, that there is that in Him which must be material 
 like one half of myself, if I am Hisimage? But, leaving 
 aside those questions of the eternity of matter, or of 
 spirit, in a divided or inseparable existence—questions 
 which will never be solved—I maintain that if God is, 
 an1 if He is omnipotent, He is responsible for the prev- 
 alence of evil, which must have come out of Him, or 
 must hare existed independently of Him from the be- 
 
 Q% 
 
178 “FERNANDO DE LEMOS: 
 
 ginning. If independently of God, what becomes of 
 - the omnipotence and unity of the ruler of the universe ? 
 If evil be under His control, what shall I say of His 
 responsibility for its existence? But evil, which we 
 know to be such merely from its connection with crea- 
 ted things, must, like all created things, have proceeded 
 from the almighty Creator, and not from nothingness. 
 Hence if God drew out of Himself all things now in 
 existence, including evil, He cannot have been absolute- 
 ly and completely good in His essence, since evil co- 
 existed in Him. 
 
 “ But it is said that evil came out of the corruption 
 of man. Then why was man made susceptible of that 
 corruption ? The reply is, that if made otherwise, he 
 would not have been man. But why was man made at 
 all, when his creation led to the introduction and prey- 
 alence of evil? Where was the necessity of it? Could 
 such an imperfect work have been fashioned by the 
 hands of a perfect and omnipotent being before whom 
 the past, the present and the future are but one thing ? 
 If I can prevent a murder and do not choose to do so, 
 I am morally as much of a murderer as the one who 
 did the deed. What sovereign, if it was in his power 
 to relieve one single case of distress in his dominions, 
 and if he omitted it, would not be blamed for such in- 
 difference, supineness, or even cruelty? Thus God, in 
 permitting, no matter for what reason, the existence of 
 evil in this world, when he could have done otherwise, 
 becomes Himself the author of evil. I know the an- 
 swer. He permits evil that good may come out of it. 
 But this is the sheerest cant, and worse than cant. 
 It would be tracing up to God and deriving from Him 
 the immoral maxim that the end justifies the means, 
 Omnipot2nce becoming Jesuitical, and having recourse 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 1g 
 
 to evil in order to produce good! Bah! What sort of 
 God is this? Surely He is none forme. Iwouldrath- | 
 er, with so many millions of the martyrs of life, believe 
 in the existence of Ahriman and Ormozd, the two dis- 
 tinct and adverse principles of good and evilin Eastern 
 theology, which from all eternity have been struggling 
 against each other for supremacy. But I am told not 
 to judge God by the feeble light of my human reason. 
 What other means have I to form an opinion of Him? 
 I am also told that the finite cannot grasp tbe infinite. 
 Very well. If God has thought proper to make Him- 
 self an inexplicable enigma to my comprehension, it is 
 exactly as if He did not exist at all for me. 
 
 ‘But what shall I say, when I look at the fate of 
 man as constituting a race or species. -Can a benevo- 
 lent Deity have created that most miserable of all 
 beings ? See what David and Solomon think of human 
 life, notwithstanding all their piety and their being the 
 favorites of Jehovah. Their lamentations strike terror 
 into the heart. We know, on the other hand, what 
 view, from the remotest pagan antiquity, man has taken 
 of his own condition and destiny in this world. I refer 
 you to Homer and the oldest authors. Plato doubted ‘if 
 the gods had created us for. some serious design, or 
 merely as puppets for their own amusement.’ Sophocles 
 proclaims before a Grecian audience, “ that the greatest 
 of evils is to be born, and the greatest of blessings is to 
 die.’ Pindar said, ‘that life is nothing but the dream 
 of a shadow.’ As to Socrates, whom an oracle has pro- 
 nounced the wisest of men, he told his disciples ‘ that 
 life ought to be nothing else than a meditation on 
 death.’ If life is a curse, and this seems to be the uni- 
 versal sentiment of the thinking part of mankind, how 
 could it have been inflicted on us by omnipotent benev- 
 
180 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 olence? Hence the supposition that we were created 
 free from evil, and destined to the enjoyment of eternal 
 bliss if we had retained our innocence, but that, on 
 account of some crime perpetrated by our first parents, 
 we were ejected from paradise, and doomed to the tor- 
 tures resulting from the altered conditions of our primi- 
 tive existence. But if God foresaw the guilt of man, 
 was it not cruel to create him to be criminal, and to be 
 punished in himself and in his descendants? If He 
 had no such foresight, where is that omniscience which 
 is the essential attribute of God? Alas! Evil pre- 
 dominates over good, wickedness over-virtue, and suffer- 
 ings over enjoyments. Hence there can be no God, at 
 least such a God as Iam desired or expected to believe 
 in. I can very well understand the policy which dicta- 
 ted Voltaire’s well-known verse : 
 
 ‘Si Dieu n’ existait pas, il faudrait linventer.’ 
 If God did not exist, He would have to be invented— 
 
 which means that, as we are afraid that the public exe- 
 cutioner, with rope, ax, and gibbet, may not be sufficient 
 to protect life and property, we need, above, another 
 bugbear more dreaded than the officer of the law here 
 below. Hence, although Voltaire, the skeptic, ridiculed 
 every sort of religious worship, Voltaire, the rich man 
 and the proprietor of the chateau of Ferney, erected 
 within the shadow of his mansion a temple to God, for 
 the protection of his broad acres and of his silver 
 spoons. ; 
 “Few are willing to die, I am told, and therefore life 
 is a valuable gift; otherwise it would not be clung to 
 with such tenaciousness. And yet, how few, at sixty, 
 when they have the full experience of life, will consent 
 to live again on the same conditions, and tread their 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 181 
 
 way through the same avenue which has led them 
 to the side of the grave! They might be tempted to 
 take another road, hoping that it would be lined with 
 fewer thorns to tear their flesh, and with a greater 
 abundance of flowers and fruits to gladden their senses. 
 Jt would be another illusion, no doubt. For to live, is 
 to be hacked and covered with wounds, because life is 
 war. The very elements teach us that lesson; the 
 beasts of the field and the birds of the air repeat it to 
 us; in fact the whole of nature is at war with itself. 
 This is the spectacle offered to man’s imitation, and 
 richly does he better the instruction. For to him belongs 
 the pre-eminent distinction of nursing, fostering, caress- 
 ing, feeding and fattening dumb animals which lick his 
 hands, merely with a view to slaughter them and gorge 
 himself with their flesh, until he himself is devoured by 
 all sorts of creeping things! Our globe isa vast shambles, 
 and man, a gigantic and pitiless butcher. He has no 
 mercy for his own race, whose blood he sheds with in- 
 stinctive ferocity whenever it suits his purposes. Gene- 
 rations of our species succeed one another like the 
 waves of the sea, which,one after one, in rapid succes- 
 sion, rush to the distant rocky shore, merely to. break 
 into spray, and disappear on reaching their destination ; 
 or they wither like the leaves of the forest which 
 periodically fade and fall year after year. Why should 
 we attach more importance to the appearance or dis- 
 appearance of those successive crops of flesh and blood 
 which our race supplies, according to settled laws, or the 
 exigencies of its elemental nature? I see around me 
 nothing but the demonstration of a cold and implacable 
 self-made system of production and destruction. If I 
 am an intelligent being, partly immaterial, and if that 
 immaterial part is destined to live for ever in a state of 
 
182 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 bliss, or suffering, according to my merits or demerits 
 in my present existence, I think that I am entitled to a 
 clear revelation of the designs of my creator, as to the 
 purposes and ultimate object of my creation and as to 
 the course which I am to pursue, whilst I am in a state 
 of pretended probation. Such is not the case, however. 
 I am assured, it is true, with a tone of authority which 
 I am almost forbidden to question, that such a revela- 
 tion has been made. Where? I do not find it engraved on 
 the face of the earth, or flaming in shining letters on the 
 vault of Heaven. I am referred to a book; but that 
 book, like other books, even if it were originally in- 
 spired, has been re-copied, re-printed, translated and 
 re-translated, and transmitted to us by man; and we 
 know that whatever man touches, becomes permeated 
 with lies. But, admitting it to be divine revelation, if 
 I do not see it in that light, or if I do not understand its 
 language, or if its doctrines shock my reason, it is for 
 me exactly as if that revelation had not been made. I 
 ask a question of vital importance, and I am answered 
 in something which is incomprehensible to me. Is it 
 an answer ? | 
 
 “Tt is our boast to have over the other animals three 
 distinctive features—hope, foresight, and religious apti- 
 tude—which, as it is pretended, would not have been 
 granted to us, if we were destined to perish soul and 
 body. But this does not strike me as a logical deduc- 
 tion, unless I concede the postulate: that the more we 
 suffer, the greater proof we have of our immortality ; 
 for it must be admitted that foresight racks us with 
 fears, and that hope feeds us with disappointments. 
 When it summons a smile to our lips, some sad reality 
 presents itself to make our eyes overflow with tears. 
 As to our religious aptitude, it is but a propensity to 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 183 
 
 the adoption of debasing superstitions, rather than to 
 the correct conception of divine laws for our rule, if 
 there be any we are called on to discover and to obey. 
 I do not see that man, to-day, is nearer to the acquisi- 
 tion of new moral and religious truths than he was four 
 thousand years ago. Therefore it is false that he is 
 progressive in that spiritual character which is claimed 
 for him as his attribute and birthright, and, if he has no 
 spiritual career expanding before him as he advances, 
 he is nothing but matter, intelligent matter, it is true, 
 but, as such, he moves onward only to fall back, after 
 having ferreted out some of the secrets of that universal 
 world of matter of which he isa component part. I see 
 frequently national ignorance gradually rising into a 
 vast development of sciences and arts; and I see civili- 
 zation, like a boundless ocean, swelling up to the sum- 
 mit of the highest mountains. but that civilization in- 
 variably leads to the lowest depths of corruption. Then 
 comes some grand irresistible catastrophe—a deluge— 
 wars—pestilence—famine—an avalanche of desolation. 
 That society, those laws, those arts, that literature, those 
 sciences, that civilization, which it had taken centuries 
 to mature and establish on an apparently solid basis, 
 are swept away in an instant by some-physical convul- 
 sions, or by political earthquakes, or by the invasion of 
 barbarians. Opaque darkness overspreads the land, 
 then a little ray of light beams from some distant star 
 or other, and, by that feeble ight, we discover the huge 
 human spider again working at its web, which will 
 again be swept away, and so on without anend. There 
 may be divine benevolence in al] that; but it must be 
 confessed that a very dense screen exists between our 
 imperfect vision and that infinite benevolence. Let 
 that screen be withdrawn, let an explanation be given 
 
 
 
184 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 of the horrible mysteries by which we are surrounded, 
 and then if my heart is not filled with due gratitude, 
 and my tongue does not teem with the praise of my 
 Creator, let me be punished. 
 
 “The fact is, that the question of the immortality of 
 the soul, which is the basis of our relations with the 
 Deity, if Deity there is, is such, that, outside of revela- 
 tion, it must remain eternally unsolved. It has in vain 
 been investigated by the greatest minds of ancient and 
 modern times. The arguments for and against its 
 probability have been exhausted, and the doubgs of 
 mankind have remained the same ever since Job com- 
 plained of his hard fate, and would not be consoled by 
 his loquacious friends. The arguments on both sides 
 are so equally balanced before the tribunal of the world, 
 that the wisdom of man, in its judicial capacity, has re- 
 manded the case for further information and discussion, 
 which, if attempted, will produce no better results. 
 There are ever-glaring contradictions in the works of 
 most of those who have written on the subject, and those 
 very contradictions show the absurdity and the useless- 
 ness of such investigations. Jor instance, Cicero ex- 
 presses the opinion more than once in his Tusculanes, 
 that the soul perishes with the body, whilst he main- 
 tains its immortality in his work on the ‘ Nature of the 
 gods.’ Nay, in his speech for Cluentiusin the senate 
 of Rome, he says: ‘ We all reject the stupid fables re- 
 lated to us about the infernal regions,’ and he therefore 
 affirms that we have nothing to fear from death which 
 ‘only takes away from us the faculty of feeling pain.’ 
 
 ‘In one of his familiar letters, in which he must be 
 supposed to have expressed his real views, he says: 
 ‘Cum non ero, sensu omni carebo” ‘When dead, all 
 feeling shall have perished with me.’ Then, O Cicero, 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 185 
 
 if you were to be annihilated and to lose for ever all 
 consciousness, how could you care for the gods! Could 
 there really be gods for you, and to what purpose? 
 How limited was their power over you, if they existed, 
 since you could at any time escape from them by put- 
 ting an end to your existence! Did you not make a 
 solemn humbug of yourself when you wrote a book on 
 ‘The Nature of the gods?’ Could you, when the dag- 
 ger sent by: Mark Antony was at your throat, have 
 thanked the gods for your glorious career, when you were 
 to be annihilated into an entire forgetfulness of your past 
 existence? The poet Lucretius preached to the Roman 
 people the same doctrine of skepticism about our spir- 
 itual immortality, with all the charms of harmonious and 
 concise versification and with a terrible earnestness of log- 
 ic. It was customary to sing on the theatres of Rome: 
 Post mortem nihil est. ‘ After death there is nothing,’ 
 
 *¢ Ogesar, in his speech in the senate against inflicting 
 death on the accomplices of Catiline, although invok- 
 ing the immortal gods (per deos tummortales) says: 
 ‘Death is nothing but sleep, and, like it, relieves us 
 from grief and all miseries. It is no instrument of tor- 
 ture. Beyond it there is neither pain nor pleasure.’ 
 Ultra neque cure neque gaudio locum esse. The vir- 
 tuous Cato, in his reply, does not indignantly protest 
 against such demoralizing sentiments. On the contrary, 
 he says: ‘Cesar has spoken well and appropriately 
 (bene et composite) on life and death.’ This very Cato, 
 who also invokes the immortal gods in his speech, does 
 not however vindicate them against the epicurean doc- 
 trine of Cesar, that they are indifferent to vice or vir- 
 tue in man—which, it must be confessed, would be very 
 .ogical on their part, since virtue or vice in a being so 
 soon to be reduced to nothingness cannot be of any im- 
 
186 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 portance whatever. The same Cato, if he had been 
 persuaded of the immortality of the soul, which alone 
 can make us care for the Deity, would not have passed a 
 considerable part of the night on which he killed him- 
 self, in reading the arguments of Plato in favor of that 
 immortality. If Brutus had believed in the immortal- 
 ity of the soul and in a future state of rewards and 
 punishments, he would not have exclaimed when dying 
 by his own hands: ‘O virtue, thou art but a name? 
 The belief in annihilation necessarily excludes the be- 
 lief in virtue and in a benevolent Deity; for a being 
 who is to be dissolved into non-entity, there can be no 
 God, and if there should be a God, why should he care 
 for that God, particularly when he sees, whichsoever 
 way he turns his eyes, that evil predominates, and that 
 he is more largely visited with pain than with pleasure ? 
 For, what says Job? ‘ Man that is born of woman is of 
 few days, and full of trouble. He cometh forth like a 
 flower, and is cut down; he fleeth also as a shadow, and 
 continueth not.’ Hence the conclusion that there is no 
 God; for God without benevolence is not admissible. 
 
 “¢ Bayle, in modern times, has recapitulated and sum- 
 med up all the arguments, for and against, on these 
 questions. As to antiquity, I have shown that atheism, 
 or something much resembling it, was the result of the 
 civilization of Rome, the grandest the world ever 
 knew before the Christian era, and that a thorough 
 skepticism had invaded the breasts of the noblest citi- 
 zens of the eternal city on the virtues and the duties 
 of man. Since that era, the effects of civilization have 
 shown themselves to be the same in Paris, London and 
 New York, and in all those regions of the earth where 
 the torch of knowledge shines the brightest. Knowl- 
 edge leads to civilization, and civilization to knowledge 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 187 
 
 reciprocally, and both civilization and knowledge lead 
 to the corruption of morals, and the corruption of 
 morals to an interested disbelief in all religious creeds, 
 to a denial of the immortality of the soul, and finally 
 to atheism or pantheism. All this happening as reeu- 
 larly as the prescribed revolutions of the planets! AI 
 this under the nose of omnipotent benevolence! Hence 
 I am willing to admit that there is a creative and prim- 
 itive principle, force and power in the universe capable 
 of producing man and what man discovers, or thinks 
 he does. But I deny that there is such a God as you 
 wish me to accept. You are always falling back on 
 Christianity, because you know that, out of it, all is 
 darkness for the human mind in relation to these ques- 
 tions of life and death, of the immortality of the soul, 
 and of .the existence of a God who rewards virtue and 
 punishes crime. Hevelation is your only refuge, and 
 that proves the correctness of my position outside of 
 revelation. After all, what is revelation? ‘ Revelation 
 is truth? Thus spoke Christ. But, ‘what is truth ? 
 _ was the skeptic reply of civilization through the lips 
 of Pilate, the Roman representative of Czesar. Happy 
 are those, I confess, who believe in that revelation. It 
 is a sweet delusion, if it be one. But remember that 
 faith is a ‘gift,’ and that we are authoritatively told 
 that, ‘although many are called, few will be the elect.’ 
 ‘Consequently, until better enlightened, I say, with sor- 
 row in my heart, but with resignation to a fate which I 
 eannot avoid, that being destined, after the brief period 
 of my material existence shall be over, to be annihilated 
 like the beasts of the field and the birds of the air, there 
 isno God. Therefore ‘let us drink and be merry, for 
 to-morrow we die.’ Give me a glass of brandy. 
 
 “ You have argued that the liberty of action existing 
 
188 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 in man is a proof that he is not purely and absolutely 
 material. But this is begging the question and assum- 
 ing the truth of a disputed fact. You forget that this 
 pretended liberty of will attributed to man has been 
 an endless theme of discussion. How many have be- 
 lieved in inexorable fate—the fata by which Jupiter 
 himself was bound? Most philosophers and statesmen 
 may agree, as a matter of policy, that man ought to be 
 reputed free, for the good of society and for the sake 
 of religion and morality, which are powerful bridles to 
 the bad instincts of our nature, but do they agree that 
 he is really and actually free? Thought is the spring 
 of action, and how can he be free to act or not to act 
 in a particular way, who has not the power to think as 
 he pleases? What man has not been haunted by 
 thoughts which he could not prevent from hatching in 
 his brain, and which he strove in vain to drive away ? 
 Whence comes that thought which presents itself un- 
 bidden to my mind? Unbidden it comes, unbidden it 
 goes. I cannot recollect it, notwithstanding my desire 
 and my efforts to do so, and if not written down, it fades 
 away for ever from my memory. If my body moved 
 without my consent, I could not be said to be physi- 
 cally free; therefore if my mind thinks without my 
 consent when I am awake and when I am asleep, I can- 
 not be said to be spiritually free. Frequently my 
 thoughts or ideas conflict, and one of them gets the 
 mastery over the rest, and it is inferred that I have 
 decided for myself, and consequently that I am free. 
 But if the controled ideas came up unbidden as natural 
 and involuntary secretions of my brain, why not the 
 controling idea? Does the controling idea represent 
 me more than the controled one? No. Hence, as the 
 result of that conflict, I may be determined to a course 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 189 
 
 of action without the real exercise of any volition. 
 But if my thoughts are not the necessary and unavoid-. 
 able secretions of that brain which is a part of my 
 material organization, but are emanations from a spir- 
 itual essence in me, how come I to have simultaneously 
 pure and impure thoughts—thoughts which are at war 
 with one another? Can my intellect, or soul, or what- 
 ever you may call it, be sound and unsound? Are 
 there parts of it which are pure and others impure ? 
 It must evidently be so, for the impure cannot come 
 from the pure, and the pure from the impure. Thus I 
 am: fractionally bad and fractionally good, fractionally 
 sound and fractionally rotten—here the soil which 
 produces an odoriferous rose, there the soil from which 
 springs up a stinking and prickly weed—here the 
 domain of hell, there the domain of heaven. If the 
 former is more fruitful and larger than the latter, and 
 brings forth a superior force of wicked thoughts which 
 overcome the inferior force of honest thoughts arrayed 
 against them, I am a villain; or [ama righteous man 
 should the white thoughts of purity prevail. 
 
 “But how can I be held to be a free agent in either 
 character, when it is remembered that I ‘do not think 
 how and aylien I please ? Every body knows that some- 
 times a man wishes to think on a particular subject, and 
 he cannot, whilst, to his mortification and even despair, 
 he cannot help thinking on another, from which he 
 recoils with horror. Besides, what man, when he has 
 reached that ripe old age from which, as from a com- 
 manding stand point, hé can clearly and calmly review 
 his past life, does not come to the conclusion that, dur- 
 ing all that life, he was a slave to circumstances? And 
 what is circumstance but an apparently accidental force 
 which impels us in one direction rather than in another, 
 
190 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 whilst we delude ourselves with the idea that we are free 
 agents? We are machines, my friend, more or less 
 artistically contrived to meet the end for which we are 
 respectively destined, and such blind machines can have 
 no souls, no matter how galling this may be to our pride. 
 A soul! Most physicians, a class of men whose profes- 
 sion is to. study the human body, do not believe in it. 
 How can the soul, if immaterial, grow, expand and 
 decay with my body, and be affected by all the varia- 
 tions or modifications occurring in the condition of 
 matter? Has an idiot a soul? Is that soul idiotie in 
 itself, or is its idiocy due to the imperfections of the 
 body? Would that idiotic soul have become genius 
 and ambition in the body of Cesar, and would the soul 
 of Cesar have been palsied with imbecility, if shut up 
 in the body of the idiot? Man is composed of intelli- 
 gent and unintelligent matter, and the predominancy 
 of one over the other, according to a greater or lesser 
 degree, gives him his rank and position among his 
 species. When that temporary union of coarse matter 
 and sublimated matter, visible and invisible substance 
 or gas, or what is commonly called spirit, is dissolved 
 by what goes by the name of death, nothing remains; 
 for that union was the condition of life and thought. 
 Hence the unmortality of the soul is a chimera. There- 
 fore, as I have already said: ‘ Let us drink, eat and be 
 merry, for to-morrow we die.’ Give me another glass 
 of brandy. A bumper to annihilation! While we live, 
 let us live. Carpe diem, says Horace—the free transla- 
 tion and amplification of which is: Let us take exist- 
 ence by the forelock and squeeze out of it, whilst we 
 possess the strong hand of youth, all the sweets which 
 it contains. Hand me a third glass of brandy in. honor 
 of the three Graces.” 
 
CHAPTER XVIL. 
 
 TINTIN CALANDRO, THE GRAVE-DIGGER, REFUTES THE ARGU 
 MENTS OF O’NEIL, THE SCHOLAR AND THE ATHEIST. 
 
 _ Wuutst I was thus giving a synopsis of O’Neil’s sen- 
 timents as expressed in many conversations, Tintin Ca- 
 landro had some of those nervous twitches which in 
 him were the signs of smothered impatience, and more 
 than once had drawn from his violin some angry notes 
 like the growl of a mastiff. Before I had done, how- 
 ever, he had laid his instrument quietly aside, and had 
 closed his eyes after having taken an attitude which left 
 me in doubt whether he had fallen asleep or not. After 
 a little while, however, he shook his head, chaunting as 
 it were to himself, with a sort of musical intonation, the 
 well-known scriptural words: ‘‘‘ The fool hath said in 
 his heart: there is no God? And your Irish friend,” 
 continued he, “ was a very great fool.” 
 
 “‘ He accepted of no evidence but that which came 
 through the senses, as if what we imagine to be the 
 positive and direct testimony of the senses was not fre- 
 quently more deceptive, or at least less certain, than 
 the circumstantial evidence proceeding from the logical 
 deductions of the intellect. Pure matter and matter 
 mixed up with intelligence he believed in, because he 
 saw, or fancied that he saw such things. But intelli- 
 gence without matter he rejected, because this is a 
 
 phenomenon which had never fallen within the im- 
 (191) 
 
192 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 mediate reach of his personal observation. And yet he 
 believed in the existence of Ceesar whom he quoted! 
 How did he know that Ceesar ever existed? Which of 
 his five senses brought that conviction home to him ? 
 None.’ But this conviction settled in his mind from a 
 concatenation of evidence, perceived, not by his physical, 
 but by his intellectual vision.- Is not, for that intellec- 
 tual vision, the evidence establishing the actual exist- 
 ence of the invisible and spiritual ruler of the universe 
 as strong as that which commanded his belief in the 
 past existence of a human being whom he never saw ? 
 Hence if we believe in Czesar, we must believe in God 
 for the very same and even for better reasons, and 
 believe also in the immortality of the soul, which is the 
 necessary corrollary of the existence of the Deity. 
 Take COzesar out of history, there is a link broken in 
 the chain. Take God out of the universe, it is 
 not one link, nor two links, which are missing — 
 the whole chain vanishes. If the soul of man is 
 not immortal, crime and virtue are empty words; 
 and if such is the case, there can be no God. 
 But there is a God, because there are such ‘things 
 known to us as crime and virtue, of which the exist- 
 ence cannot be doubted, in as much as they are actually 
 found in the heart and the acts of man, who feels 
 their presence, who discriminates between them, and 
 who has invented words to express his conviction on the 
 subject by saying: this ismorally wrong, this is morally 
 right, this is crime, this is virtue. Hence the evidence 
 of God lies in that very consciousness of guilt, or of in- 
 nocence in man. It is not man himself who has put 
 that consciousness there. Of what use, and for what 
 purpose, would that consciousness be without God and 
 the immortality of the soul? How is God to reach 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 193 
 
 prosperous guilt reposing on the couch of luxury, or re- 
 ceiving homage enthroned in the seat of power? By 
 destroying that couch of luxury and that seat of power, 
 or by the pricks of conscience? But suppose Sardana- 
 palus and Nero do not feel them, what then? I am will- 
 ing, however, to admit that they are lashed by their con- 
 science, or to grant you the satisfaction of seeing them 
 hurled down from their tower of pride. Why such a 
 punishment? The object of punishment is to restrain, 
 or to correct; and why restrain or correct a being who 
 is to be annihilated at the very moment perhaps when 
 he feels the curb of restraint, or the sting of correction ? 
 Therefore punishment and reward are aimless when con- 
 fined to our brief existence. It can only be understood, 
 when resorted to for the progressive improvement of an 
 immortal being. Why should God encourage me in 
 the path of virtue, or chastise my errors, when my 
 crimes or my virtues lead to the same goal—annihila- 
 tion? Hence the logical doctrine of those who do not 
 believe in ‘the immortality of the soul is, that God or 
 the gods are indifferent to what we are doing in this 
 world, and that they neither punish vice, nor reward 
 virtue. Such a supposition shocks the universal instinct 
 of mankind; it follows that it cannot be true. It is re- 
 pugnant to our very nature, is not of it, and cannot be 
 accepted by it. ; 
 
 ‘¢ We intuitively know that God cannot be indifterent 
 to vice and virtue, and our reason must infer from it 
 that the soul of man is necessarily immortal. ‘Oh! 
 but the existence of evil is incompatible with the ex- 
 istence of infinite and omnipotent goodness.’ Thus 
 spoke O’Neil. What means this nonsensical prattle on 
 the existence of evil? What is evil? Was he sure 
 that what he thought evil was not good, and what he 
 
 9 
 
 
 
194 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 = 
 
 thought good was not evil? St. Paul tells us that we 
 see the things of this world as in a glass, darkly. How 
 is it that we do not draw lessons from the experience 
 of our own lives? When each one of us looks back on 
 his past life, does he not frequently discover in its web 
 that the threads, which at the time the weaving went on 
 seemed black to him, were in reality white, and that the 
 white ones were black? How are we to judge of the 
 proportions of a building, or of its appropriateness to 
 its object, when we see but one of the stones used for 
 its construction? Suppose an intelligent being unac- 
 quainted with the art and object of surgery. Intro- 
 duce him suddenly into a room where a man is sawing 
 off the legs of an unfortunate wretch, who is mastered 
 into motionless submission by vigorous arms or binding 
 cords, whilst his shrieks rend the air. Would not the 
 astonished witness of such a scene, either interfere with 
 impetuous indignation, or run away with terror in his 
 soul, and with imprecations on his lips against the mon- 
 ster who was thus tormenting the object, no doubt, of 
 his hatred and vengeance? His deductions would be 
 apparently logical, and yet they would be false. The 
 monster was in reality a benefactor. Thus we may 
 misinterpret the high surgery of heaven. I will no 
 more condescend to argue with a man, to demonstrate 
 the existence of God, notwithstanding the existence > 
 of evil, than I would attempt to prove to him the ex- 
 istence of the sun, if he denied it on the ground that 
 its giving light and life to nature is incompatible with 
 its scorching us with intolerable heat, with extracting 
 malaria out of the bosom of the earth, and finally pro- 
 ducing death. [would merely say to him: Here is the 
 sun, and here is also God, a thousand times more lumin- 
 ous than the sun. Woe to him who does not see both! 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 195 
 
 * Tt fills me with indignation when I see puny man 
 arraigning almighty God before his petty terrestrial tri- 
 bunal, and saying to him: I refuse to acknowledge 
 Thee because I do not understand Thy ways. Is it not 
 the climax of the most ridiculous sort of insanity! 
 Why, man does not know himself; much less does he 
 know his fellow-man. Who is not conscious that his 
 own true character is not thoroughly understood by the 
 very mother who nursed him, and by the friends of his 
 infancy who grew up with him? Do you not some- 
 times hear this exclamation : How incomprehensible is 
 that man? How inexplicable is his conduct? But 
 there are circumstances which forbid explanation ; there 
 are words which cannot be spoken. Otherwise, what 
 seeins mysterious and unaccountable would be found 
 very natural and very simple. Has it not happened 
 that you have been aggrieved by wrong interpretations 
 put on your actions—which interpretations you were 
 not at liberty to correct? And so, O skeptic, although 
 you do not know yourself, although at times you are a 
 riddle and a puzzle to your own understanding, al- 
 though you are often bewildered by the strange ways 
 of your fellow-men, yet you believe in the existence of 
 the human sphynx; and because the creator of that 
 sphynx does not make Himself as clear to you asa 
 schoolboy alphabet, you question whether there is any 
 thing beyond that primitive organic force of the uni- 
 verse which pervades it, and with the knowledge of 
 which you even refuse to trouble yourself, because in 
 reality you despair of ever attaining it, and because 
 you think that, if attained, it would have little bear- 
 ing on your happiness here. But I see man, you say, 
 O atheist! I consort with him, I embrace him with 
 my five senses, [am man myself! So it is with your 
 
196 FERNANDO. DE LEMOS. 
 
 - creator, I reply. He is as visible as man; He is vis- 
 ible in man; you may consort with him at will; and if 
 you do not embrace him with your five senses, it is be- 
 cause you choose not, and because you have voluntarily 
 and for some sinful purpose of your own, made those 
 senses blunt and obtuse; and if you are not in God 
 and part of God, who has made you after his own im- 
 age, it is because you are ungodly and have defaced 
 that image. 
 
 “Evil predominates in this world, and precludes the 
 idea of omnipotent divine benevolence. But, admit- 
 ting that it does predominate, could good be appre- 
 ciated without evil? Can there be a material sub- 
 stance without a shadow in this sun-lit world of ours, 
 and could the shadow be suppressed without a recast 
 of creation? How do we know that it would be bet- 
 ter if recast? How do we know but what there 
 is a sufficient reason for every thing that is? Without 
 misfortune, where charity? Without national calami- 
 ties, where patriotism and the sacrifice of self for the 
 public good; without the sufferings under which we 
 writhe, how could our fortitude be shown, and how 
 could the devotion of wife, or friend, be tested? How 
 could we measure the grandeur of that intellect which 
 one man possesses, and which is almost commensurate 
 with the vastness of the universe, if we had not in 
 view, as a point of comparison, another intellect so 
 dwartish that it hardly rises above the instinct of the 
 brute? How could there be valleys without moun- 
 tains? Who would know what light is, without the 
 offset of darkness? Which of us would ever remem- 
 ber that there is a God, if prosperity only was the lot 
 of man? It is only when adversity becomes his famil- 
 iat companion, when grief racks his heart, when pain 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. Bh 
 
 tortures his body, that these words burst from his 
 tremulous lips: ‘O my God! Probably God had 
 some reason of His own, for desiring not to be entirely 
 forgotten by that intelligent part of His creation which 
 He had gifted with foresight and. memory. Hence 
 pain and labor, two great institutions, which make us 
 look up to God for assistance. Let us then be satisfied 
 that what is, could not be otherwise. God had a mo- 
 tive for every one of His acts, and has wisely and nicely 
 harmonized causes and effects. Let us trust Him im- 
 plicitly and blindly, being convinced that all is well, 
 and will in the end appear to us in that light, even 
 should the present seem nothing but unmitigated evil 
 to the dull-eyed appreciation of our finite understand- 
 ing. Why not trust God to the extent that we trust 
 man? A commander-in-chief gives an order; his sol- 
 diers obey without hesitation. ‘They risk their lives or 
 limbs by rushing on death-dealing batteries, or undergo 
 without murmuring a thousand fatigues in long 
 marches. They endure hunger, thirst, cold and heat 
 with stern alacrity.. They have entire reliance on their 
 chief, and believe that he has good reasons for every 
 thing he does, although they cannot guess at them, or 
 discover them at all. Well, God is the supreme com- 
 mander of the universe. We are His soldiers. Why 
 not take it for granted that He is right in all His inex- 
 plicable manceuvres, and that it is for our ultimate vic- 
 tory over those evils which surround us, that He in- 
 flicts on us laborious marches and counter marches, and. 
 decrees innumerable and almost incessant sufferings, 
 which, if spared us, would leave us rotting in some 
 foul mire, or in some voluptuous Capua, far short of the 
 destination which He has in reserve for the being made 
 after His own image ? 
 
: a 
 198 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 “Oh! But man is not free; he is the slave of cir- 
 cvmstance, if not of an imperious destiny. Therefore he 
 is nothing but a machine. Ifa machine, he is not re- 
 sponsible, and if not responsible there is neither vice, 
 nor virtue; and if no vice nor virtue, what becomes 
 of God, or the necessity of having one? Bah! Where 
 is the proof that man is not free as asserted? The 
 proof, I think, is on the other side. Let us see. Two 
 men are placed in identical circumstances. They are 
 starving, for instance ; and, what is worse for them, their 
 families are starving also. Both have the opportunity to 
 relieve themselves and the objects of their love by steal- 
 ing without fear of detection. One says: ‘perish my wife 
 and children and myself rather than bea thief! The oth- 
 er says: ‘I shall steal a thousand times rather than allow 
 my wife, my children and myself to die of starvation.’ 
 They both act accordingly. If both have entered a 
 different path under the same circumstances, is it not 
 clear that they were not the slaves of those circum- 
 stances? Therefore they were free. Here are two 
 wheels exactly alike. They are undoubtedly machines, or 
 the part of a machine, for the same screw which con- 
 trols the movements of one, will have the same ef- 
 fect on the other, if applied to it. Thus, should 
 man be like a wheel, or machine, the screw of cir- 
 cumstance would operate on him with mechanical 
 uniformity. 
 
 “Man, it is said, does not command his thoughts. 
 They come and go unbidden, and if he is not master of 
 his thoughts, he is not master of himself, because thought 
 controls the course of action. Indeed! Is this true? 
 I wish to be illustrious, says Bacon to himself, and he 
 compels his mind to produce those stupendous works 
 which will be the eternal monuments of his genius. 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 199 
 
 Let the Iliad be, says Homer, for I need bread, and the 
 Iliad is. He might have chosen to be a carpenter or any 
 thing else to make a living. Were not Homer and Ba- 
 con free to produce or not, at will, what they have pro- 
 duced? Had they no command over their thoughts ? 
 Have I not the faculty of withdrawing as it were my 
 soul from my body, and -to plunge it into such absorb- 
 ing meditation, that the material part of my organiza- 
 tion will be entirely forgotten and its wants suspended ? 
 Is it not related of Socrates that he would at times be so 
 wrapped up in thought, that he would remain motion- 
 less, and as if in a trance for hours, in the hot rays of the 
 sun? Was not, on a well-known occasion, the intellect- 
 ual existence of Archimedes so separated from his phys- 
 ical one by the eagerness of study, that he remained ig- 
 norant of the storming of Syracuse, until he received 
 the blow of the Roman soldier who killed him? Is not 
 my mind a swift Ariel which, without the wand of Pros- 
 pero, I can send where I please? Can I not dismiss it 
 like a flash of lightning from this cemetery, and send it 
 rambling over the world?) Can I not so transport my 
 spirit out of my body, that I can look at my corpse, as I 
 sometimes do in fancy, and follow the funeral which 
 carries it to the grave, with as much distinctness of 
 vision as if the conjured up scene was a real one? Am 
 I not then the master of my own mind, and do I not feel 
 that it is distinct from the body which it can control with 
 bit and spur, as a good rider rules the fiery steed on 
 which he is seated ? 
 
 “The soul, I am told, is nothing but a secretion and 
 modification of matter, and must perish with matter, for 
 it grows and decays with the body. A blow on the 
 skull, some internal concussion or other, some physical 
 infirmity may transform genius into idiocy. <A poet 
 
200 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 yesterday spoke like an inspired bard; to-day he is a 
 driveler. What has become of his intellect? Is it un- 
 der an eclipse? I answer that it may be as bright as 
 before, but it cannot transmit its rays unbroken, undis- 
 torted and undiminished through the fragments of a 
 broken and tarnished glass. Jor instance, exquisite mu- 
 sic is heard in a room adjacent to yours. You exclaim : 
 ‘What a glorious musician!’ Let the instrument be 
 cracked, let the strings be snapped, or the keys disar- 
 ranged, and the music becomes execrable. You ex- 
 claim: ‘What a bungler!’ Yet the musician is the same. 
 It is still the great performer you had heard before. . 
 Apply this to the body and the soul. The body has 
 changed, the soul is the same, but its tunes passing 
 through an altered and defective instrument, cease to be 
 harmonious. The soul is not of, but in, the body, and, 
 being encased in it, cannot act except with such mate- 
 rial means as it can dispose of. Hence its apparent 
 strength or weakness according to the conditions of our 
 physical organization. 
 
 “ A band of barbarians have tied me to the stake and 
 torture me with demoniacal skill. I say to my writh- 
 ing limbs which are convulsed with pain and to my 
 tremulous flesh: be motionless; and they assume the 
 rigidity of a bar of iron. A shriek of agony is forcing it- 
 self through my throat. I say: be still, and it is still. 
 My soul which thus binds the body to its will cannot be 
 of the body, but is merely in it, just as the ottar of 
 rose is not of, but in, the vial which prevents its evap- 
 oration; and should the vial be broken, its contents 
 would not be altered by the accident, but would survive 
 the crystal envelope which had been given for a particular 
 purpose. Thus, if my soulis not of the body, if it controls 
 and directs it at will, if it panders to its appetites, or re- 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 201 
 
 fuses to minister to its most legitimate wants, or chooses 
 to torment it with macerations and privations, if it is its 
 master and not its slave, it is not destined to perish with 
 it, because it is of a different essence; and if it is not to 
 perish like matter, then it is to be immortal like a spir- 
 it which came into us as the breath of God. As to 
 Ceesar’s observation quoted by O’Neil, that annihilation 
 followed death, and therefore that death was no punish- 
 ment since it puts an end to all the sufferings and trou- 
 bles of life, let it be remembered that he spoke like an 
 advocate, who had assumed in the senate the defence of 
 Catiline’s accomplices against the capital penalty recom- 
 mended by Cicero. Therefore he contended for their mere 
 expulsion from Rome and the*confiscation of their pro- 
 perty, which he maintained to be a greater punishment 
 than death. But surely Ceesar could not have believed 
 what he said. He knew very well that the accused 
 would have joyfully accepted exile and confiscation of 
 property in preference to death, therefore exile was not 
 the greater punishment,-:and for obvious reasons. Ex- 
 iles have’ been recalled, confiscated property has been 
 released, but dead men never return to life. Admitting, 
 however, that- Cesar spoke as Sallustius makes him 
 speak, it was a speech for the occasion and for a partic- 
 ular purpose. It is hard to suppose that Cesar, who so 
 ardently desired such immortality as this world can af- 
 ford, seriously and really thought that his grand soul 
 or mighty intellect could be reduced to nothingness by 
 death. But, whatever was his true sentiment on this 
 subject, the popular instinct, which in such matters is 
 probably surer than individual perception, would not 
 admit that the soul of Czesar was mortal. The people 
 said and believed that the comet which appeared im- 
 mediately after Czesar’s death, was Czesar’s soul. 
 Q* 
 
202 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 _“T agree, however, on one point with your defunet 
 Irish friend—which is—that all the arguments that can 
 be used for or against the freedom of the will of man, 
 for or against the incompatibility of the existence of 
 evil with the existénce of omnipotent benevolence, and 
 for or against the immortality of the soul, have long 
 ago been exhausted; and those who are curious about 
 it must be referred to the learned disquisitions, more or 
 less lucid, which are to be found in libraries. I will 
 merely content myself with one argument in the shape 
 of a question after the Socratic fashion. What is most 
 to be desired for the improvement of man, and what is 
 it that most contributes to that improvement? I be- 
 lieve that I do not risk much in saying that the univer- | 
 sal answer will be, that it is the pursuit, acquisition 
 and fruition of truth. Hence it follows, as a natural 
 deduction, that whatever contributes to the moral and 
 physical improvement of man has its foundation in 
 truth, and is the criterion and the test of truth. There- 
 fore, to ascertain what is true, we have only to find out 
 what is beneficial to our race. If it be religion and 
 morality, for they are inseparable, the inevitable infer- 
 ence is that religion and morality are truths; and if 
 religion is the truth, or a truth, the logical sequence is 
 that a belief in free-will, in the immortality of the 
 soul, and in a future state of reward and punishment is 
 based on truth; for these doctrines or dogmas are the 
 foundations of all religions, and none can deny that re- 
 ligion improves and renders man virtuous and trusty. 
 This is the view which the practical sense and experi- 
 ence of mankind take of it. . Let us illustrate it by an 
 example. Two men stand before you—one of them 
 has no faith in the existence of the soul, much less in 
 any accountability to God for his actions, but believes 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 203 
 
 only in the existence of his transient self, and in the 
 pursuit of his own individual welfare, as a paramount 
 right vested in him by nature. The other is firmly 
 convinced that his immortal soul is answerable to God, 
 for all his deeds whilst he runs here through his short 
 career of joys and sorrows. Which of these two men 
 will you choose for the keeper and guardian of your 
 treasure, life, or honor? Surely the believer, and not 
 the skeptic. I leave you to draw your own conclusions 
 from the motives which have determined your choice. 
 The same reasoning applies to Christianity. It is true 
 because it is perfection, and would make man perfect, 
 if strictly followed ; and if it is perfection, it will hard- 
 ly be maintained that it can have come from man, who 
 is imperfect, and if it does not come from man, it must 
 have come from God, and if from God, it must have 
 been revealed. This is Pascal’s reasoning, and you will 
 permit me to believe that Pascal is fully as good au- 
 thority as O’Neil. But enough of this. O’Neil knows 
 better now. One thing at least he is sure of ; it is that 
 he has a soul which has not perished tah his body. 
 
 As to myself, I need no information on the subject 
 from philosophers or metaphysicians. I deal too much 
 with the dead, not to know that all is not dead which 
 appears dead.” 
 
 “Tintin Calandro,” I said, “I have listened to you 
 with much pleasure, and, I hope, with profit. Alas! I 
 am far from being the Christian I ought to be. I have 
 been wayward and headstrong and selfish in my world- 
 ly career, and thé dupe of my ungoverned passions. 
 But my mother’s faith and the prayers which she 
 taught me to lisp in my ‘childhood, whilst kneeling at 
 her feet with my hands clasped eee and my eyes 
 riveted on her angelic face, have sunk too deep in the 
 
204 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 memory of my heart ever to be forgotten. I will try 
 yet to become what she desired me to be. I have al- 
 ready, in more than one terrible ordeal through which 
 it has been my fate to pass, submitted with resignation 
 to the will of God, and I have on those occasions re- 
 peated to myself, whilst my brow sweated with the 
 agony of grief, the words of a very old inscription in 
 Spanish, which, in my travels, I read on the frontis- 
 piece of the heavy stone gate of the castle of Coarraze 
 in Bearn, at the foot of the Pyrenees, in which castle 
 the great Henry IV of France was raised.” 
 
 “Ha!” exclaimed Tintin with lively interest, ‘ what 
 is it? I amas fond of moss-covered inscriptions as of 
 tombs.” ) 
 
 “Tt van thus :” I replied, “ ‘Zo gue ha de ser, no puede 
 faltar’ What must be, cannot facil. And here is the 
 origin of it as told me on the spot. There was a Span- 
 ish nobleman, who, centuries ago, fled from the wrath 
 of his sovereign and took refuge at the court of the 
 king of Navarre, who resided at Pau. The king of 
 Spain demanded the surrender of his subject; the king 
 of Navarre refused, and pleaded the sacred rights of 
 hospitality. The Spanish monarch was not satisfied, 
 and threatened war against his weaker neighbor, who, 
 fearing the consequences of it, entered into a negoti- 
 ation which ended in a compromise, as is generally the 
 case. The king of Navarre would not arrest the fugi- 
 tive and deliver him up, nor would he permit him to 
 be arrested by the emissaries of Spain, within the pre- 
 cincts of his royal domain of Coarraze which had been 
 assigned for the residence of his guest ; but he consent- 
 ed to his being seized any where else on his territory. 
 The persecuted nobleman was secretly informed of the 
 agreement between the two sovereigns, and cautioned 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 208 
 
 not to venture out of the privileged grour.ds where he 
 would remain safe. Time flew, and the fugitive be- 
 came very tired of his confinement. He had recourse 
 to every sort of amusement and occupation, but in vain. 
 At last, with the permission of his protector, he took 
 to building and to making improvements. He erected 
 pavilions, and added wings to the main edifice. Ie 
 even raised a lofty tower from which he could run his 
 eyes over the broad expanse of country on any part of 
 which he could not set his foot. He would every day 
 walk to the principal gate of that royal residence, and, 
 standing on its threshold, would gaze wistfully at the 
 public road which ran by it. One day that gate struck 
 him as not being in good taste and in harmony with 
 the rest of the premises. He had it pulled down, and 
 ordered another to be put up. He drew the design 
 himseif, and it became with him a labor of love to have 
 it properly executed. Every day he was among the 
 workmen, superintending them and correcting their 
 blunders. But, strange to say, notwithstanding all his 
 efforts, the gate, being finished, looked not, and never 
 could be made to look, as if it stood plumb. It seem- 
 ed to have a horror of the perpendicular; it always 
 leaned in one direction or the other. The nobleman 
 got out of all patience with his workmen. Day after 
 day he was amongst them, wondering at this architec- 
 tural singularity which he strove in vain to alter, and 
 sometimes, in his wrath and disappointment, using 
 harsh language and threats which they bore with exemp- 
 lary meekness. 
 
 “<Ttis not plumb, you raseally blockheads,’ he would 
 say. 
 
 “<« Pardon us, my lord, it is plumb.’ 
 
 “ Hence endless disputes, and repeited examinations 
 
206 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 and verifications of the position of the stubborn gate. At 
 last, one day when the contest had waxed very hot about 
 the gate being in the perpendicular line or not, one of 
 the mechanics who had always contradicted the noble- 
 man with the most teasing pertinacity, putting himself 
 in the middle of the public road, and taking a minute 
 and critical look at the gate, said in the most provoking 
 manner : 
 
 “<« Well, I consent to be flay ed alive, if any one stand- 
 ing here as I do, does not admit that ne gate is pertfect- 
 ly perpendicular; and this is certainly the most PIERRE 
 point to look at it.’ 
 
 “The enraged nobleman, forgetful of his tees 
 rushed out tosee if the fellow was right or not, and was 
 immediately seized by some of the workmen, who were 
 the disguised emissaries of the king of Spain. The un- 
 fortunate prisoner met his fate with dignified calm- 
 ness. 
 
 “¢¢T am ready.to follow you,’ he said, ‘ without your 
 using constraint. But do me at least one favor before 
 carrying me away. Set this gate plumb.’ 
 
 “ His wish was immediately complied with ; there was 
 no longer any difficulty in obtaining the perpendicular. 
 ‘And now,’ continued he, ‘but one thing more; put 
 this inscription on the gate: Lo gue ha de ser, no puede 
 fultar. What must be, cannot fail.” ’ 
 
 “ T like that Spaniard,” said Tintin Calandro with a 
 sort of childish but earnest simplicity. ‘“ What was his 
 name ?” 
 
 *T do not know.” 
 
 “Tam sorry for it: I should like to inquire for him 
 among the dead and learn the end of his story. The 
 fact is, that there is something which strikes me in it. 
 It is this: we are never satisfied with what we are per- 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 207 
 
 mitted to achieve, and there is always in a man’s life 
 some gate or other which he has determined to set 
 plumb; and, neglecting every thing else, he works at 
 it until the gate crushes him. Will you believe it ? 
 The very gates of my cemetery are not plumb. It used 
 to worry me. Now [I am content to let them stand as 
 they are, without any more fretting about it; for it may 
 be the perfection of wisdom to let things remain as they 
 happen to be on this earth, be they in or out of the per- 
 pendicular line, without for ever worrying every body 
 to set or keep every thing plumb.” 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 VALDECK, THE RICH GERMAN MERCHANT, AND ANAYA, THE 
 PORTUGUESE JEW. 
 
 In one of my day visits to the St. Louis cemetery, I 
 found Tintin Calandro, much to my astonishment, read- 
 ing a newspaper. He was seated near a grave which 
 his two faithful black subordinates had been digging. 
 “Why, my friend,” I exclaimed, “are you retaking in- 
 terest in the affairs of this world ?” 
 
 “Oh!” said he with a melancholy smile, ‘it is long, 
 very long since [ bade farewell to this busy world of 
 ours, and, as you well know, I am not disposed to go 
 back to it. But somebody dropped this newspaper on 
 yonder tomb, and I picked it up. When you spoke to 
 me, I was thinking of the singular impression which a 
 newspaper produces on one who, like myself, lives in a 
 cemetery. It is here rather than anywhere else, that a 
 philosopher must listen to those distant echoes which 
 come from the hubbub beyond these walls, and which 
 make him appreciate more keenly the repose he enjoys 
 and his placid intercourse with the dead. What jost- 
 ling of each other among men outside of this place! 
 What high and what groveling ambition! What ad- 
 verse interests! What intrigues, and counter intrigues ! 
 What sleepless passions! What deafening noise! What 
 incessant tumult! What lying! What cheating! 
 What envying and slandering! What open and secret 
 
 murders! And yet what does it amount toin the end? 
 (208) 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 209 
 
 One day, my lord Cupidity, or whatever may be the 
 appellation of that other thing which most stings man 
 into action, is brought to me in a coffin, in the shape 
 of a corpse, with all its past failures, successes, hopes 
 and disappointments, nailed at Jast between four planks. 
 Another name is added to the never-ending list of obit- 
 uaries, and the fullest and longest life shrinks within 
 the span of an epitaph. The scene in the church-yard, 
 in Shakspeare’s Hamlet, is the one most to my taste in 
 all the works of that author. Poor prince! His mother 
 was an adultress! His uncle and stepfather a fratri- 
 cide! His friends would have sold him at any time, 
 and cheap enough. The woman he had loved commit- 
 ted suicide, and he was haunted by his murdered fath- 
 er’s ghost! No wonder that he found the atmosphere 
 of a church-yard so congenial, and that he took a mel- 
 ancholy pleasure in apostrophizing the skull of Yorick, 
 who had been his boon companion in more than one 
 merry revel.” 
 
 Tintin Calandro was interrupted in his reflections by 
 a messenger who brought him a note. He glanced at 
 it, and said to me: “I am instructed to have ready at 
 five o’clock in the afternoon, to-day, the family tomb 
 of the wealthy merchant Valdeck. Well, it shall be 
 ready. He dies full of years, and honored by all, after 
 what, I believe, may be said to be a long career of un- 
 interrupted prosperity.” 
 
 “T happen to know better ‘fen that,” I replied. 
 “‘ He was near being ruined twice, a nae not unusual 
 with merchants. The first time, he became insane for 
 a while, and, on the second occasion, he was near at- 
 tempting ee own life in a fit of despair. Now that he 
 is dead, and is coming to dwell within your dominions, 
 you are bound to take some interest in knowing some 
 
210 HERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 thing of his life, and I shall therefore relate to you a 
 few of its main incidents. | 
 
 “ Valdeck was of an excellent German family. He 
 fell in love, on the romantic banks of the Rhine, with 
 a girl who was his inferior in birth and very poor. His 
 father forbade his intended marriage. Valdeck did 
 not respect the prohibition, and married according to 
 the dictates of his heart, in consequence of which he 
 was disinherited. He came,to New Orleans with a 
 light cargo of German goods, which he peddled along 
 the banks of the Mississippi, and in the interior of the 
 then territory of Orleans, which was subsequently pro- 
 moted to be the State of Louisiana. He became ac- 
 quainted with most of our planters, pleased and inter- 
 ested them in his behalf, for he was a man of ‘education 
 and refinement of manners, and when, in the course of 
 time, he set up as a commission merchant, he was so 
 extensively patronized by them, that, in a few years, 
 he rose to the first rank in our mercantile community. 
 But there came one of those periodical crises, which, 
 like epidemics, afflict our country. There had been a 
 feverish mania for speculating in cotton. The higher 
 the staple was sold, the more greedily was it bought, 
 as if it had been destined to go up indefinitely. Val- 
 deck was a man of good ‘sense, and yet he lost it on 
 that occasion. It seems that there are, at times, great 
 commercial or political fits of insanity for communities 
 as well as for individuals. History teaches us that 
 nations have gone mad more than once. Valdeck had 
 been seized with the contagion of the hour, and had 
 speculated largely. He learned with dismay that his 
 drafts on England and Germany for more than three 
 hundred thousand dollars had not been accepted, and 
 were coming back on him. He was aware that he 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 211 
 
 could not meet those obligations, and that he was to go 
 into bankruptcy. In those days this was more serious 
 than in ours. To be a bankrupt was a thing which 
 sounded badly in many ears, and made cheeks turn 
 pale. This shows the barbarous condition in which 
 New Orleans was, when such a prejudice of the dark 
 ages still prevailed against such an easy way of settling 
 old debts. Valdeck himself had antediluvian Ger- 
 manic notions on the subject. He thought that no act 
 of any legislature and no decree of court could dis- 
 charge him from the payment of a just debt. The 
 consequence was that he lost his mind at the prospect 
 of ruin and disgrace which rose before him. 
 
 “ Fortunately Valdeck’s wife, according to European 
 habits in the mercantile classes, had kept herself well 
 informed of her husband’s business. She had not con- 
 fined herself to playing a part in the parlor, or in the 
 nursery, but she had always acted as if she took much 
 interest in commercial operations in general, and par- 
 ticularly in those of her husband. She had gradually 
 drawn him into communicating to her all his plans, by 
 the apparent eagerness with which she listened to him. 
 He had even permitted her to read, when she pleased, 
 the business letters addressed to or by him, and he had 
 frequently used her as his secretary, for which occupa- 
 tion she showed the utmost readiness and capacity. 
 She had looked into his books under the playful pretext 
 that she wished to be able to act as his clerk, should he 
 ever be compelled to retrench his expenses. In fact, 
 without alarming his pride, and without appearing to 
 exercise intermeddling influence over him in matters 
 which were not within her department, she had ac. 
 quired considerable authority over him,-and she acted 
 as an invisible and unfelt check, although a real and 
 
212 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 effective one. She knew the frequent wrecks to which 
 merchants are liable, and, although she did not pretend 
 to pilot the ship in which her husband’s fortune and 
 reputation were embarked, yet she desired to be on 
 deck to spy the horizon and perhaps to discover in 
 time the breakers ahead. With true feminine instinet 
 and vague sagacity she had tried to dissuade Valdeck 
 from his late cotton speculations, but unfortunately she 
 had failed. The current of example which drove him 
 onward with a host of companions in folly, was too 
 strong for her to arrest. Her worst fears were more 
 than realized. Not only was her. husband ruined, but 
 he became insane. She, however, did not lose her 
 presence of mind and fortitude under the crushing 
 afflictions which had visited her. She asked for an 
 interview with the presidents and cashiers of two of 
 our banks, and through them she obtained leave to ap- 
 pear before the respective directions of those two 
 institutions, to which she demonstrated that it was 
 their interest to come to the relief of Valdeck, because 
 a timely loan of three hundred thousand dollars would 
 prevent her husband from failing, and thereby would 
 not only save the credit of one of our first merchants, 
 but also ward off heavy losses which otherwise would 
 fall on the banks and on certain influential firms, con- 
 nected in their relations with her husband’s house. She 
 spoke with such an astonishing knowledge of business, 
 and with such a depth of feeling as a woman and a 
 wife, that, exciting the admiration and commanding 
 the confidence of those she addressed, she obtained the 
 desired loan. She paid all the drafts when presented, 
 and, gradually making her husband understand that 
 his house was as firm as ever, she restored him to rea- 
 son, to his family and to society. 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 213 
 
 * Years had elapsed, and Valdeck would have been 
 cited as the richest merchant in New Orleans, were it 
 not that he had a rival in Anaya, the Portuguese Jew. 
 Valdeck was fond of show and lived with magnificence, 
 giving profuse and costly entertainments. Hence he 
 had acquired reputation for generosity and had become 
 very popular. He had been twice elected a senator in 
 the State legislature without his desiring it, and other 
 honors had been tendered him, which he had refused 
 as incompatible with his avocations. He had but one 
 son, to whom he was devotedly attached, but whom he 
 ruled despotically. It was in his nature to be a despot 
 like his own father, and, forgetting what he himself had 
 suffered in consequence of it under the paternal roof, 
 forgetting that he was the disowned and the disinherited 
 for no other cause than that of having married to please 
 himself, he was pursuing toward his son the same 
 course which had been pursued toward himself. He 
 had been a slave; he had resented it bitterly ; and yet, 
 in his turn, he was making his son a slave. So little do 
 we profit by the lessons which we receive ! 
 
 *¢ Anaya, the Jew, had a different turn of mind. He 
 was a man of remarkable energy and of indomitable 
 will, it is true, but that will became exceedingly pliant 
 when in contact with that of his daughter Esther. 
 Anaya was a widower, and Esther was ‘the sole 
 daughter of his house and heart.’ He was a small, 
 lean, dark visaged man, as nimble as a weazel, and 
 whose foot hardly touched the ground in his rounds of 
 business through the streets of New Orleans. He 
 seemed to be walking on springs, and was never seen 
 without a sort of half-formed smile on his thin lips and 
 a twinkle in his eye, which some interpreted as expres- 
 sive of self-satisfaction at the consciousness of his being 
 
914 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 a razor so superlatively polished and sharp. He lived 
 entirely for business, having no idea outside of it and 
 unconnected with money making. Every evening, a 
 little before sunset, he took a walk with Esther, whose 
 magnificent shape and eastern face—such as painters 
 have loved to gift with the celebrated female charac- 
 ters of the Bible, made every one turn round to east a 
 lingering look at the splendid Jewess, for there was no 
 mistaking the origin attested by such features. There 
 was in her marvelous beauty a sort of effulgence, 
 which a lover might have thought sufficient to light up 
 the very temple of Solomon and add to its splendor, 
 had she lived when it existed and had she appeared 
 there to worship the God of Israel. That royal poet 
 and philosopher might have been tempted to make her 
 the theme of one of his songs, and might have chosen 
 er as the sultana of his soul. Whatever may have 
 been the physical and intellectual discrepancies which 
 were conspicuous between the father and the daughter, 
 and they were many, those two beings agreed and were 
 congenial at least in one thing—the love of retirement. 
 Anaya lived in an humble house, and Esther was 
 always modestly dressed. No diamond ever sparkled 
 on her person, and she was but an indifferent customer 
 for milliners. It is not surprising, therefore, that Anaya 
 was said by some to be the Jew of Jews, and meaner 
 than the meanest of his race. There was a faint rumor, 
 however, that he secretly gave largely to the poor of all 
 religious denominations. But who had ever seen it, or 
 could swear to it? ‘Pooh! a Jew isa Jew,’ was the 
 reply to any who attempted to throw in a word in favor 
 of Anaya, and this pithy sentence silenced at once all 
 opposition. . 
 “ Valdeck was an ambitious and ostentatious man, 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 215 
 
 and his hobby was to be the first—a sort of Casar— 
 among the moneyed men of the city. But, notwithstand- 
 ing his'large credit, notwithstanding the profusion of 
 his household expenses, and perhaps on account of it, 
 the public obstinately believed that he was not so rich 
 as the modest and hard-saving Portuguese Jew, and it 
 was rumored that the name of Valdeck ranked a little 
 lower than the name of Anaya in the estimate of the 
 banks. Valdeck was cut to the quick, and, although a 
 man of generous impulses, allowed the worst feelings 
 of his nature to prevail so much over the best, as to 
 make him gradually harbor in his breast the greatest 
 aversion for Anaya, based on an intense jealousy. It is 
 not astonishing that what has happened frequently 
 should happen again. ‘This world of ours, in its rota- 
 tory movements is but a repetition of old things, and, 
 notwithstanding it is so fond of changes, it is constant- 
 ly, after a little while, resuming and putting on its cast- 
 off garments. Hence Solomon said with truth that 
 there was nothing new under the sun. Well, precisely 
 because Valdeck’s son and Anaya’s daughter should 
 have kept apart from each other, they came together 
 and mutual love ensued. Esther did not hestitate to 
 make an avowal of her feelings to her father as soon as 
 she ascertained their existence. The old man listened 
 quietly, and, drawing Esther to his bosom, kissed her 
 brow and said : 
 
 “¢ Two words... . two words of warning, daughter. 
 Hear a short story. I was at the battle of the 8th of 
 January gained, in 1815, by General Jackson. Val- 
 deck was there also. A cannon ball struck me down, 
 lacerating a considerable portion of my body. I must 
 confess that the surgeon in attendance immediately 
 declared that the wound was not mortal, and this may 
 
216 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 palliate to some extent the cruel levity of Valdeck’s 
 remark on that occasion.’ 
 
 “*¢ Father, father, what did he say? exclaimed Es- 
 ther, growing pale. 
 
 *¢ Well, he said, on hearing of my misfortune, ‘ It 
 may be a fit retribution, and a gentle hint of Provi- 
 dence to the Jew, by which let us hope that he will 
 profit. The Shylock has taken so many pounds of flesh 
 out of Christian hearts, that it is just that a shot from 
 a Christian gun should have carried off some of his 
 own.”’’ 
 
 “ Esther sank into her father’s arms and wept bitterly. 
 “¢ Daughter, continued Anaya, ‘I know that the son 
 is not responsible for the father’s harshness of heart. 
 You have my consent to act as you please in this mat- 
 ter. But beware that the unfeeling jester does not jest 
 at you.’ | 
 
 “Tn his turn, Valdeck’s son opened himself to his fa- 
 ther. ‘My son,’ replied he dryly, ‘marriage is a very 
 serious thing—very. I must reflect on the subject, for 
 your sake.’ 
 
 “Karly on the next morning he entered his son’s 
 room. ‘I have,’ he said, ‘ given due consideration to the 
 communication which you made to me yesterday. For 
 the present, I will not express either approbation or 
 disapprobation, of your choice. You are yet very 
 young, and I wish you to travel before you settle in 
 life. You shall depart to-morrow in one of my ships, 
 and make yourself personally acquainted with all my 
 correspondents in Europe. Jn two years you will come 
 back.’ 
 
 * The disconsolate youth, after having written a hasty 
 letter to Esther, in which he informed her of what had | 
 happened, and pledged himself to eternal constancy, 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 217 
 
 obeyed his father as he was wont to do in all things. 
 The ship which carried him away carried also a let- 
 ter addressed by Valdeck to the Austrian minister of 
 foreign affairs in Vienna, and president of tle emperor’s 
 eabinet council. It ran thus: 
 
 «¢ Princr,—A circumstance, which I always thought 
 one of the most pleasant events of my life, once put it 
 in my power to render to your excellency a service, 
 which you spontaneously assured me would never be 
 forgotten. You had the kindness to say, that if I ever 
 asked you afavor, it should be granted. I now take the 
 liberty to remind you of a promise which you so gra- 
 ciously made. You will soon be informed of the arri- 
 val in Vienna ot my son, recommended to the great 
 banking house of Rothschild & Co. It is my desire 
 - that he should be arrested, under the pretext of his be- 
 ing connected with some of those political intrigues 
 which are always kept on foot by those disorganizers 
 who are so numerous and so active in Europe. I beg 
 that he be shut up in some fortress, but treated with 
 gentleness whilst thus imprisoned. The bankers I have 
 mentioned to your excelleney will be instructed to pro- 
 vide liberally for all his wants. My object, in depriv- 
 ing my son of his liberty for a little while, is to save 
 him from the consequences of a foolish amour. 
 
 “¢¢ T have the honor, prince, to be, with the most pro- 
 found respect, your excellency’s most humble and faith 
 ful servant.’ | 
 
 “The puissant man in Vienna remembered the debt 
 of gratitude which he had promised to discharge, and 
 the young traveler was arrested in compliance with his 
 father’s request. As soon as he was informed of the 
 
 10 
 
218 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 fact, Valdeck made no secret of it. He publicly and 
 contemptuously said, that he would incarcerate his son 
 for his lifetime rather than allow him to marry a Jew- 
 ess. His object was to wound, and he did wound. 
 Two weeks afterward he received this brief note from 
 Anaya : 
 
 ‘“©¢Sir,—My daughter has just married a Jew like 
 myself. She hopes that your son’s imprisonment will 
 soon cease, as there is no longer any cause for it.’ 
 
 “ One year after this incident, there was another finan- 
 cial crisis. Again Valdeck had been imprudent, and 
 had not resisted the temptation of speculating im- 
 mensely in cotton. There seemed to be some fatality 
 about such an infatuation. The liabilities which he 
 was suddenly called upon to meet were five hundred 
 thousand dollars, and all his resources, owing to the 
 stringency of the times, had become unavailable. Val- 
 deck was an exceedingly proud and sensitive man, with 
 all the prejudices, as I have said before, which had pre- 
 vailed so long against bankrupts in his native country. 
 Besides, the day had not yet come, even for this new 
 and most progressive part of the world, although it _ 
 was now approaching, when the more bankruptcies 
 a man goes through, the higher his credit, and the 
 greater his weight and consideration in society. Val- 
 deck had not changed his old conviction—that no law 
 can free a man from the moral obligation of paying his 
 debts. He was also antiquated in many other respects, 
 and particularly as to what was understood as honor in 
 former times. Evidently the man’s brain had a taint ~ 
 of insanity, or was prepared for it. Otherwise, how 
 could he, in the nineteenth century, entertain notions 
 
FERNANDO DE iEMOS. 219 
 
 so little in harmony with those new gospels which had 
 lately beamed on the world, and introduced such 
 changes in religion, morality, philosophy, politics, and 
 the usages of social intercourse? Sane, or not, on one 
 thing 6 was inflexibly determined—which was—not to 
 be a bankrupt and poor, and survive it. He had not 
 learned the art to become a bankrupt, remain rich, and 
 retain a quiet conscience. He had not adopted the con- 
 venient maxim: ‘ What every body else does, I am jus- 
 tified in doing.’ I mention this as another proof of his 
 predisposition to insanity. Hence it follows that he 
 did not think of putting aside under his wife’s petticoat 
 the greatest portion of his property, which he could 
 thus have saved from the seizure of his creditors, or 
 rather of his creditor, for he had learned that Anaya 
 the Jew had bought up all his liabilities, and had him 
 in his gripe. This added to the intenseness of his des- 
 pair, which became so ungovernable, that he resolv- 
 ed to put an end to his life. He wrote a letter to 
 his son, in which he informed him of his unchangeable 
 resolution, and gave him instructions as to certain things 
 to be done after his death. Enclosed was another let- 
 ter to be delivered to his wife. It was seven o’clock 
 in the evening when he sealed that communication to 
 his family. 
 
 **¢ Peter, said he to his black body-servant, ‘you 
 will carry this letter to my son at half-past twelve 
 to-night. Take care not to fail. You will knock him 
 up, because it is important that he should receive it 
 precisely at the time which I mention.’ 
 
 “ The negro, who had some misgivings as to his being 
 able to keep awake and be ah ae came to the con- 
 clusion after much sage cogitation, that it was better 
 
 to deliver the letter immediately, and thus make sure 
 
~ 220 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 that it would reach its destination at half-past twelve, 
 as desired by his old master. Besides, servants are 
 remarked to have frequently a natural blundering dis- 
 position to do the very reverse of what they are told. 
 This accounts for the reception of the letter several 
 hours before the intended one. On reading it, the 
 young man ran to Anaya’s house. It was eight o’clock. 
 The Jew was in his closet, deeply engaged in examin- 
 ing some papers, which examination he now and then 
 interrupted to make additions to an interminable col- 
 umn of numbers which spread before him. The 
 youth flung himself at Anaya’s feet, exclaiming : 
 
 “<Q, pray, spare my father; he is in your power. I 
 know how much he has wronged you. But, be gener- 
 ous, save him from ruin and death. Do not force him 
 into bankruptcy; stop the arm that will soon be lifted 
 up for self-destruction. At midnight he will cease to 
 live. You know him well, and you cannot doubt that 
 he will do what he contemplates.’ 
 
 “<¢ You forget, young man,’ said Anaya with a stern- 
 ness which was the more alarming from the icy tone of 
 the speaker, ‘you forget that I am a Jew, not a Chris- 
 tian ; and that my religion permits me to exact a tooth 
 for a tooth and an eye for an eye.’ 
 
 “ At that moment a door opened, and Esther walked 
 up to her father without appearing to notice the youth, 
 who had remained in the same posture. She put a fin- 
 ger on her father’s shoulder, and, looking imploringly 
 in his face, she said with a calm voice made still more 
 impressive by its gentle tone: 
 
 «Father, pardon your enemy whose son is at your 
 feet. Pardon him for my sake. I know you will, for 
 you have never refused me any thing.’ 
 
 “ Without waiting for an answer, she kissed his brow 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 221 
 
 and quietly withdrew as she had entered. Anaya laid 
 his elbow on his desk, and bent his forehead to rest it 
 on the palm of his hand. In that attitude he remained 
 several minutes. The suitor for mercy continued on 
 his knees, breathlessly expecting the decision of him 
 who held in his power his father’s life and mercantile 
 reputation. It seemed to him that the beating of his 
 heart must have been audible in the awful silence of 
 that room. At last, Anaya drew up painfully a deep 
 sigh, as if he was mourning over the sacrifice of some 
 cherished plan at the accomplishment of which he had 
 long aimed, and, taking a pen, wrote these words to 
 Valdeck : 
 
 ¢¢ Srr,—I am your only creditor, as you know. I fore- 
 go my well-matured and successful scheme of ven- 
 geance. Your obligations shall not be protested. I 
 will grant you what terms you may desire. My notary 
 is known to you. Call on him; he will have received 
 my instructions, and your affairs shall be satisfactorily 
 settled. Hesigned: ‘ Anaya the Jew.’ 
 
 “ He handed the note open to the young man, who 
 glanced at it, and who, after kissing Anaya’s hands in 
 a transport of gratitude, darted like a deer to return 
 home and save his father. Valdeck did not fail as was 
 generally expected, and re-established his fortune, which 
 became larger than before. Truth requires it to be 
 said that he was profoundly grateful, and sought. the 
 Jew’s friendship with as much perseverance and earn- 
 estness as he had been sedulous before in avoiding all 
 contact with him. But the Jew checked all his ad- 
 vances. He remained cold and distant, and contented 
 himself with being a mere acquaintance for Valdeck, 
 to whom he would barely touch his hat as they met, 
 and then passed on.” 
 
t 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 SOMETHING ON THE JEWS. THE WHITE AND BLACK PEAS 
 OF PAPILLON, THE JUSTICE OF THE PEACH. 
 
 A week later, I visited Tintin Calandro. ‘ You 
 have neglected me,” ‘he said, “since Valdeck’s funeral. 
 It was a grand affair. The whole city, it seems to me, 
 escorted him to his last place of repose; and, what 
 pleased me exceedingly, was the presence of Anaya. I 
 kept my eye on him. He came close to the grave, 
 looked at it fixedly, and I thought I saw tears glisten- 
 ing in his eyes. Something had evidently touched and 
 softened his heart. I wonder what can be the feelings 
 of a man who stands by the tomb of his enemy, and 
 who can say: ‘I havesaved him from ruin, from despair, 
 and from destruction at his own hands.’ Faith! Lama 
 Christian by birth and conviction, but I assure you that, 
 at that moment, I envied that Jew.” 
 
 “Since you take so much interest in Anaya,” I 
 said, “let me tell you, Tintin Calandro, that Valdeck’s 
 will has just been opened. It contains these words: 
 ‘Joseph Anaya is the man whom I esteem the most in 
 this world, and whom, with my dying breath, I love to 
 proclaim my benefactor. I hereby appoint him my test- 
 amentary executor, and I bequeath to him, as a feeble 
 testimonial of my feelings toward him, the sum of one 
 hundred thousand dollars, which I beg him to use in the 
 
 c( nstruction of a synagogue, should he deem proper so to 
 (222) 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 223 
 
 do. After what he knows to have passed between him 
 and me, I hope that he will feel that he cannot refuse 
 me this last favor.’ ”’ | 
 
 “Bravo!” exclaimed Tintin, “and what has aye 
 done ?” 
 
 “He has accepted the trust and the legacy, but only 
 to distribute the amount of the legacy among the Chris- 
 tian charity institutions of the city.” 
 
 “ Bravissimo !” ejaculated Tintin, rubbing his hands 
 as if he wanted to strip them of their skin. 
 
 “Stop,” said. I, “it is not all. Anaya has declared 
 that he would carry into execution Valdeck’s desire as 
 to the building of a synagogue, but that it should be at 
 his own expense.” 
 
 Tintin leaped full three feet high, and, when again 
 safely resting on solid ground, exclaimed: “By my 
 good soul, this is as proud a Jew as ever was any Pay- 
 nim warrior, or Christian knight in the days of chivalry. 
 He is an honor to his race. When he dies, I shall seek 
 his friendship in the realm of spirits. Then only will 
 it be permitted to poor Tintin Calandro, the grave-dig- 
 ger, to 24g oach on a footing of Se Anaya the 
 rich Jew.’ 
 
 A moment of silence ensued. It was broken by Tin- 
 tin, who said to me: “ Do you know that, in the midst 
 of these tombs, where I have nothing better to do than 
 to think, Ihave frequently meditated on the Jews, and 
 have come to the conclusion, that they are the most 
 wonderful race that ever lived. What has become of 
 the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Medes, the Persians, the 
 Greeks, the Romans and the other nations of antiquity ? 
 Either swept away, or entirely different for the worse, 
 from what they were formerly. The Jew alone—the 
 Jew of to-day is the Jew of the past. Here isa people, 
 
294 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 and the only one, whose history begins with the creation 
 of the world. Their. religion, their legislation, their 
 population in its number, their literature, their preju- 
 dices, their customs and manners have remained the 
 same, whether existing in Judea as an independent na- 
 tion, or dragged collectively into captivity, or individ- 
 ually dispersed throughout the earth after their nation- 
 ality had been shivered into fragments. They still say: 
 We are a chosen people, we are the elect of the Lord, 
 we shall be restored to the Holy Land, we were and 
 are distinct, and shall ever be distinct from the rest 
 of mankind. There is but one God—it is the God of 
 Israel, and the Messiah is still to come. Is it not a 
 most remarkable fact, that it is the only nation in the 
 world which never worshiped persistently a multiplici- 
 ty of gods? Although some of them occasionally 
 strayed into idolatry, yet pantheism and paganism ney- 
 er were institutions with them, as among the other na- 
 tions. Can there be a greater phenomenon than the 
 immutability of that people? They seem to be suscept- 
 ible of neither expansion, nor contraction. What a 
 miracle that a nation of five or six millions of souls 
 should have so long retained its existence and identity, 
 after its being rooted out of its native land? God 
 grasped the Jews like a handful of sand and flung them 
 to the four quarters of the horizon, and yet each grain 
 remains imperishable and unmixed. It is as if some 
 drops of the water of the Red Sea had been cast into 
 the Atlantic Ocean, and still retained their distinctive 
 color and their original composition, after resisting a 
 fusion into which ‘they could not be lashed by the 
 storms of successive centuries. What has not perished 
 among those things which existed four thousand years 
 ago? The Jew alone floats like the ark over the vast 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 225 
 
 deluge of destruction. He is a wreck, it is true, but a 
 wreck gifted with the awful privilege of bidding defi- 
 ance to time, the resistless. 
 
 “Take a Jew in any part of the world, and how does 
 he differ from a Jew in the days of Moses? Simply in 
 dress. He has the same religion, the same laws, the 
 saime moral principles, the same observances and cere- 
 monies prescribed by the legislator of Mount Sinai. 
 He still believes in the same promises; and the ungrat- 
 ified hope which his heart still cherishes has traversed 
 with unimpaired strength the barren wilderness of forty 
 centuries. In the French, the English, the Spanish, the 
 German Jew, it is the Jew who predominates over the 
 Frenchman, the Englishman, the Spaniard and_ the 
 German. First, the Jew, and then any thing élse you 
 please. Neither blood nor water will wash out his na- 
 tional and primitive type. The seal of Jerusalem is on 
 his brow. Is it possible to refuse to believe that he is 
 singled out, marked and put aside for the accomplish- 
 ment of some grand purpose, to which he has been des- 
 tined by Heaven from all eternity, and that he is em- 
 phatically a providential instrument? Take a Greek 
 family, for instance, and carry them to England. After 
 five hundred years of residence in that country, will 
 there be on the face of the descendants of that family a 
 peculiar expression which will say to all beholders: 
 there goes a Greek? Why this miraculous prerogative 
 which sets the Jew apart, and which prevents him from 
 being confounded with any other of the sons of man ? 
 There he stands, an eternal and never changed senti- 
 nel, listening to the voice of prophecy sent to him by 
 the faint echo of distant ages, and watching for the 
 shadow of Jehovah as He passes, after having disowned 
 His light and His substance in His Son. Truly there 
 
 10* 
 
226 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 is a divinity that hedges that people. Religion was 
 their breath and life, and the worship of God was mixed 
 up with every act of their daily and most common 
 avocations. Their history is so entirely and so abso- 
 lutely theological, that you could not write one page of 
 it, if that theology was suppressed. Jehovah was their 
 King, and can no more be struck out of the records of 
 their national existence than the sun from heaven. 
 That history is but one long series of predictions and a 
 concatenation of typical and foreshadowed events, from 
 Adam and Eve the parents of mankind, down to the de- 
 struction of Jerusalem by Titus and the final disper- 
 sion of the Jews. If the importance of a nation is to 
 be determined by the consequences to humanity result- 
 ing from its existence and the part which it has per- 
 formed, then, among the greatest nations of antiquity, 
 there is none which does not sink into insignificance 
 when compared with the Jews. 
 
 “Take them at the birth of Christ, for instance, and 
 take the Romans at the same epoch. Put Christianity 
 in one scale, and the victories, the legislation, the liter- 
 ature and civilization of the Romans in the other, and 
 see which will kick the beam. Which, for the last nine- 
 teen centuries, has had the most influence on the des- 
 ‘tinies of our race? The answer cannot be doubtful. 
 Select Ceesar as a type of the Roman people, and Christ 
 as the representative of the Jewish, and see how incom= 
 mensurably the one yields to the other. Look at all 
 mankind, and tell me if you can discover any portion 
 of it that possesses so signally as the Jews all the char- 
 acteristics of predestination. Tbe Romans and the Jews 
 are the two grandest figures among the nations of the 
 earth. They were the selected champions of the Al- 
 mighty for a particular mission. ‘That of the Romans 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 29% 
 
 was, to bring the whole world into the unity of despot- 
 ism and establish the centralization of physical and in- 
 tellectual power for the spreading of pagan civilization. 
 That mission being fulfilled, Rome passed away. That 
 of the Jews seems to be, as predicted, to subject all na- 
 tions to the unity of Christianity through and by Him 
 whom they crucified and of whom they bear testimony 
 in their very unbelief. That mission is not yet accom- 
 plished. Hence the Jews still exist with undiminished 
 vitality. God works slowly. Time is for Him as if it 
 were not. At the end of the first century there were 
 five hundred thousand Christians, and about six millions 
 of Jews. In the nineteenth century it is estimated that 
 there are three hundred millions of Christians, and still 
 the same stationary number of Jews. This dispropor- 
 tion will probably continue to progress until the time 
 destined for the end, and until no testimony is any long- 
 er necessary to establish that the man God was crucified. 
 They are preserved intact, as witnesses and actors in the 
 sublime drama of Calvary. In the meanwhile, the Jews 
 show themselves more observant of their laws, religion 
 and time-honored usages, than any other people would 
 probably be of their own, if placed in similar circum- 
 stances. We seldom or never hear among them of di- 
 vorces, adulteries, and other offences which crowd our 
 criminal courts with defendants against State prosecu- 
 tions. Who ever saw a Jew beggar? Who ever heard 
 of a Jew not able to make a living: How very few 
 of them, if any, are carried to our charity hospitals ? 
 They certainly appear to love one another much more 
 effectually than we Christians love our .brothers in 
 Christ, and they lend to one another a more readily 
 helping hand than we are prepared to do among our- 
 selves. Now that they are no longer kept ina state of 
 
228 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 degradation and oppression, they exhibit a remarkable 
 aptitude for the cultivation of the arts and sciences. As 
 bankers, traders, lawyers, and as the possessors of the 
 secret of acquiring speedy wealth, we know their won- 
 derful capacity ; and it must be acknowledged with much 
 satisfaction, that, since they have ceased to be a univer- 
 sal subject of contempt and reprobation, they have be- 
 come much more liberal in their feelings and views, and 
 - that, if they reject the corner-stone of Christianity, they 
 practice at least one of its fundamental principles— 
 which is—charity toward all men. ‘So Israel shall be 
 saved.’ Let us hope for the accomplishment of this 
 prophecy. This gradual softening and humanizing of 
 those whom Moses characterized as a ‘ stiffnecked’ peo- 
 ple, may be the beginning of that desired end.” 
 Whilst he was delivering these sentiments, we stray- 
 ed to a place where a tomb hardly raised itself above 
 the weeds which grew around the modest structure. I 
 stooped to read the inscription, and saw that it was to 
 the memory of Papillon, a justice of the peace who had 
 flourished during the days of my boyhood, and acquired 
 some celebrity for his peculiar mode of exercising the 
 powers intrusted to him. He had established as a judi- 
 cial rule, and as a guide to his private and official con- 
 science, that, as the altar must support the priest, so the 
 court must support the judge, and, as he had no regular 
 salary, but had to look to the costs for his living, he had 
 to watch over this contingent and precarious revenue 
 with a keen eye, and no hen was so solicitous about 
 gathering its chicks under its wing, as Papillon was in 
 gathering the costs in his court. He had with great sa- 
 gacity and good luck selected as his constable a man 
 named Pindar, whose skill in swelling the bill of fees 
 in every suit was unparalleled. Pindar had the advan 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 229 
 
 tage of knowing everybody in New Orleans, which 
 knowledge was of invaluable advantage to the justice 
 in deciding every case. That magistrate, shortly after 
 taking his oath of office, had proclaimed that the ad- 
 ministration of justice should be prompt, and that the 
 law’s proverbial delays should be unknown to suitors 
 before his tribunal, and therefore that he never would, as 
 other judges do, ‘take time to consider.” He preferred 
 giving judgment on the spot, when the arguments of 
 counsel were fresh in his mind. “ After all,” he would 
 say, taking a pinch of snuff from a capacious horn box, 
 “the first impulse is the best and the safest, and I will 
 trust to that.” 
 
 In accordance with this maxim and determination on 
 his part, and in the interest of the public as he alleged, 
 the justice, as soon as a snit had been gone through, 
 wrote his judgment ex-abrupto, invariably with this 
 preamble: ‘ Considering the law and evidence applica- 
 ble to this case,” etc.,—and these sacramental words 
 were followed by the usual conclusions for plaintiff or 
 defendant, without at all stating the law and evidence 
 on which the judgment was based. In fact, the justice 
 had very little trouble in coming to those conclusions, 
 for they were generally settled in his own mind before 
 the trial of most cases, and by a very simple process. 
 Every day a list of all the cases to be tried on that day 
 _ was laid before him by constable Pindar, with whom 
 he never failed to have a confidential interview before 
 the opening of fhe court, and during which a short dia- 
 logue ensued. “ Well, Pindar,” he would say, “ which of 
 these rascally parties is most able to pay costs?” And, ac- 
 cording to Pindar’s answer, Papillon wrote this memo: 
 randum in his docket book: “ N.B., judgment to be giv 
 en in this case for defendant, or judgment for plaintiff.” 
 
230 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 Another peculiarity of Papillon’s administration of 
 justice was: that he never refused an application for a 
 new trial. “It increased the costs,” said he, “ and gave 
 satisfaction to the applicant.” When the parties litigant 
 were reported by Pindar to be of about equal pecuniary 
 means to pay the costs, then Papillon would decide 
 according to the merits of the case, if those merits were 
 so clear as to leave no doubts in his mind. Otherwise, 
 _ he consulted two peas which he always carried in his 
 pocket. In his jokes with Pindar over a bottle of wine, 
 he used to call those two peas his “ associate justices on 
 the bench.” One was white, and the other black. 
 Thrusting his hand into his breeches pocket, Papillon 
 drew at random one of the peas, whenever he was em- — 
 barrassed about the side he was to decide for. Black 
 was for defendant, white for plaintiff; and he entered 
 judgment accordingly by and with the advice of one 
 or the other of his peas. Notwithstanding these judi- 
 cial eccentricities Papillon was very popular; for he 
 had a splendid cook, and gave frequent dinners on 
 Sundays. Every Saturday, he would say to his con- 
 stable: “‘ Pindar, my friend, what is the condition of 
 the larder?’ By larder he meant the fee bill which 
 had accrued during the week. Generally, the con- 
 stable’s short answer was: “ Fine, sir, extra fine.” 
 Then the justice would take his seat with a face beam- 
 ing with benevolence, and would say to such of the 
 lawyers as practiced the most before him, and who, on 
 that day of the week, took care.to be present at the 
 opening of the court, in anticipation of what would be 
 forthcoming: “ Gentlemen, the dignity and peace of 
 the State require that there should be a good under- 
 standing between the bar and the bench. Hence I 
 invite you to dinner to-morrow at five o’clock, to dis- 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 231 
 
 cuss, with all the learning and the acumen which you 
 are known to possess, the merits of a royal turbot, a 
 fat capon, a corpulent turkey, a haunch of venison, or 
 a sirloin of beef, as the case may be.” 
 
 When Papillon died at last of an indigestion, the - 
 glory of those inferior courts of which he was the chief 
 ornament departed for ever. He was soon followed to 
 the grave by the incomparable and inconsolable Pindar, 
 who succumbed to his grief and to his too frequent 
 potations to drown it. Between the conflicting effects 
 of grief and grog, that mirror of constables yielded the 
 ghost, after refusing the most tempting offers on the 
 part of other justices of the peace who strove to secure 
 his services. He had heroically declared that he would 
 serve no other man after having served Papillon. AL 
 though lean and hungry, he had remained true to that 
 determination and to his devotion to the memory of 
 that great magistrate. A rare example of fidelity in 
 these dege. erate days! 
 
CHAPTER XxX. 
 
 A JURY TRIAL.—THE FORCE AND VITALITY OF PREJUDICES. 
 
 “JT wit relate to you,” said Tintin Calandro, “ an 
 anecdote about a jury, which will be the fellow to that 
 of your justice of the peace. I have it from a member 
 of the New Orleans bar, a Frenchman by birth, whose 
 name was Delpit, and who had acquired some reputa- 
 tion in the management of criminal cases. In one of 
 the parishes of the State one of his compatriots had 
 married into a Creole family, and had quarreled with 
 Cornelius, the brother of his wife. The Frenchman, 
 having been naturalized, had been appointed by the 
 Governor sheriff of the parish, and was ordered, one 
 day, to serve a writ on his brother-in-law, who had con- 
 ceived a deadly hostility to him. In the fulfillment of 
 his duty he went to the house of that brother-in-law, 
 and found him seated in the porch of the dwelling with 
 a double-barreled gun in his hand, and evidently expect- 
 ing the visit of the officer of the law. The sheriff 
 opened the front gate to enter. 
 
 “<«Stop,’ exclaimed Cornelius, ‘ one step more, and I 
 fire; 
 
 “¢ You know very well,’ said La Grange, (that was 
 the Frenchman’s name,) ‘ that I come in obedience to 
 an order of court. As sheriff of the parish I am com- 
 pelled to serve this writ on you.’ 
 
 “Whilst thus speaking, he exhibited a paper and 
 
 goo 
 
 ROW 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 933 
 
 advanced to deliver it. He was met by a discharge of 
 the double-barreled gun which stretched him lifeless on 
 the green sward. Cornelius remained quietly at home, 
 as if nothing had happened. His friends and relations 
 came to him and urged him to leave the country. It 
 was clear that his case admitted of no defence, and — 
 nothing but flight could save him from the gallows. 
 ‘What do I care? replied the stolid fellow to all their 
 entreaties. ‘Hang me if you please, but I will not fly.’ 
 
 “ True to his word, he remained in his house until 
 he was at last arrested and put in jail. Again his 
 friends and family begged him, for their sake, if not 
 for himself, to seek safety in flight. They could easily, 
 they said, secure his escape. But he continued to be 
 deaf to all their appeals. His constant reply was: 
 ‘Hang me if you please, but I will not fly.’ Seeing 
 his invincible obstinacy, they told him to employ at 
 least a lawyer. ‘No,’ said he, ‘hang me if you please, 
 but I will employ no lawyer.’ All those who took an 
 
 “interest in him, and who, being connected with him by 
 blood, shrank from the disgrace of having one of their 
 family die on a gibbet, were in despair, and, having 
 determined to save him if possible, in spite of himself, 
 resolved to employ counsel for him at their own ex- 
 pense. They sent to the city a letter which brought 
 ‘up Delpit. 
 
 “<T had received a good fee,’ said he, who himself 
 liked to tell the anecdote, ‘but, by heaven, what de- 
 fence could I make? So, when the trial came on, after 
 my having challenged the most intelligent jurors and 
 every foreigner, and accepted only those who, I pre- 
 sumed, might be partial to my client, or be stupid 
 enough to be befogged, and not know their right hand 
 from the left, 1 thought I had done all that could be 
 
934 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 expected, for I had microscopically examined the in- 
 dictment and the other proceedings, without finding 
 the slightest flaw. It was a desperate case, and, what 
 made it worse, my client peremptorily objected to the 
 usual plea of insanity.’ 
 
 “Gentlemen of the jury,’ said the prosecuting at- 
 torney, after the evidence had been heard, ‘ the prisoner 
 at the bar is accused of murder. His crime is so: un- 
 provoked, so cold-blooded, so unjustifiable and so well- 
 established, and his guilt so undeniable, that it would 
 be insulting your understanding, and wasting your time 
 and that of the Court, to go into any argument on this 
 occasion. I leave, therefore, the case in your hands 
 without further observation. You will remember your 
 oath and do justice to the State and the accused.’ 
 
 “¢ Tt became my turn tospeak. I felt confused ; for 
 there never had been a more atrocious and a less de- 
 fensible murder. I talked about the moon and the 
 sun, and the four elements, for I did not know what to 
 say. But I had to say something, and I launched out 
 into a roaring ocean of pathetic nonsense. I tried to 
 stun and distract the judge and jury with a cataract of 
 words and a whirlwind of passion. When I had done 
 and was endeavoring to recover my breath, the District 
 Attorney, who conducted the prosecution for the State, 
 rose and said dryly °’ 
 
 “¢ Gentlemen of the jury, he law and evidence in 
 this case have been laid before you. The eloquent 
 counsel who has just addressed you has not been able, 
 notwithstanding his well-known skill in managing af- 
 fairs of this nature, to present to you the shadow of a 
 defence in the defericeless case of which he has taken 
 charge. He has in reality attempted none, as you may 
 have observed. What he has said, merely because he 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 935 
 
 was bound to say something, needs no refutation—nay 
 —is not susceptible of any, as he has offered nothing 
 substantial and tangible; for his words were but empty 
 sounds, signifying eothinees ; and, to do him justice, let 
 us admit that it could not be i haten As I have 
 said before, [ submit the case without further com- 
 ment.’ 
 
 « The judge, in ashort charge, echoed the language of 
 the District Attorney, and delivered the indictment to 
 the foreman whom he appointed. Every body expected 
 a verdict on the spot. But no. To the astonishment 
 of all, the jury asked to retire to their room of delib- 
 eration, to which they were conducted by the sheriff. 
 There they remained an hour. What had been astonish- 
 ment at first, rose to the highest pitch of amazement. 
 The Court, its officers, the mermbers of the bar, and the 
 numerous spectators who had witnessed the trial had a 
 blank look, which was beginning to assume a ludic- , 
 rous aspect, when at last the jary made their appear- 
 vance. Their names were called, the twelve answered. 
 The foreman handed the verdict on which they had 
 ‘agreed to the clerk, who read aloud: ‘ Not guilty.’ 
 
 «¢ What!’ exclaimed the judge, who was a natural- 
 ized foreigner, ‘this is not possible. Mr. clerk, read 
 that verdict again.’ 
 
 *¢ Not guilty,’ repeated the clerk in a more sonor- 
 ous voice. 
 
 “The judge became pale with indignation, and shout- 
 ed fiercely: ‘Gentlemen of the jury, you are discharg- 
 ed,’ adding between his teeth in a less audible tone, 
 ‘and may the devil take you to where you ought to 
 be!’ 
 
 “What a triumph for the counsel of the accused ! ” 
 continued Tintin Calandro. ‘“ He swelled with self- 
 
236 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 importance, and addressed the warmest congratulations 
 to his client, who received them rather coldly. But 
 something puzzled him. What had he said which had 
 produced so marvelous a result? He was determined 
 to discover it, for it might be of immense service to 
 him in other cases-of a similar nature. Impressed with 
 the importance of obtaining the desired information, 
 he ran after the foreman of the jury, whom he discoy- 
 ered at a distarice slowly wending his way home. He 
 thanked him/for the verdict rendered in behalf of his 
 client, and asked him as a favor to tell him which of 
 his arguments had induced the jury to acquit the ac- 
 cused. The foreman hesitated, and tried to avoid an- 
 swering the inquiry. The man of law became more 
 pressing. 
 
 *¢ You had better not be so urgent,’ said the impor 
 tuned juror, ‘for my answer might offend you.’ 
 
 “¢ Offend me! exclaimed the astonished attorney. 
 ‘That is impossible. If I insist so much on your do- 
 ing me the favor to gratify my curiosity, it is because ~ 
 I expect to obtain information which may be of conse- 
 quence to me professionally. Therefore, pray, tell me, 
 which of my arguments acted on you so powerfully ? 
 
 “¢Pish! pish ? grunted the foreman, whose polite- 
 ness at last gave way to his impatience, ‘since you will 
 have it, let me tell you that the jury did not pay the 
 slightest attention to your address to them. We ac- 
 quitted the prisoner, because we could not put up with 
 the idea that a Creole should be hung for a French- 
 man.’ 
 
 “ Here is certainly,” said Tintin, rubbing his sharp 
 nose, “as striking an instance of prejudice as I ever 
 knew.” 
 
 “T admit it, Tintin Calandro,” I replied, ‘ and what 
 
 >) 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 237 
 
 astonishes me, is the existence of the same feeling 
 among all the descendants of Europeans in America 
 against the source whence they came. The Cubans, 
 the Mexicans and the inhabitants of South America, 
 even of unmixed Spanish blood, detest the Spaniards. 
 The natives of the French West India Islands, and of 
 St. Domingo in particular, and of Louisiana and Can- 
 ada, have no very decided sympathy for the Frenchmen 
 who settle among them; and the Anglo-Saxon Ameri- 
 cans are not supposed to entertain much partiality for 
 the English.” 
 
 ‘There may be several reasons to be alleged for it,” 
 said Tintin Calandro, “ but I will not venture to give 
 even a single one. The witty and sage Fontenelle 
 once observed, that, if he had his hand full of truths, 
 he would clutch them tight, and not allow one, if he 
 could, to slip out between his fingers, because he had 
 no taste for martyrdom. In this way he managed to 
 keep egotistically free from all troubles and to live a 
 hundred years. A lesson to you and to me.” 
 
 “Tintin,” I answered, “prejudice is inseparable from 
 _ human nature. All the philosophers of the world will 
 not eradicate it, and they themselves are not free from 
 its sway. There is not one man whose mind, like his 
 body, does not cast a shadow, and the stronger the light 
 which falls on either, the stronger the shadow. Preju- 
 dice is the shadow which projects from the mind. But 
 Louisiana is not the only field where prejudices have a 
 luxurious growth. Follow me a thousand miles or 
 more to the west, where I shall put some actors on the 
 stage. Two members of Congress from this State were 
 traveling once through Ohio, on their way to Washing- 
 ton City. One of them was an Irishman by birth, the 
 other a native of Louisiana. The coach in which they 
 
938 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 were, broke a wheel on a part of the road which ran 
 through a thinly inhabited section of the country. The 
 passengers were informed that the detention would last 
 several hours, so that the two gentlemen from Louisi- 
 ana determined to explore the environs of the place 
 where the accident had happened, and seek shelter 
 against a cold drizzling rain which had set in. After 
 wandering for some time, they arrived at a log-cabin 
 embedded in a cluster of trees. There they found a 
 woman whose flaxen hair and lily complexion showed 
 her to be purely Saxon; but they were astonished at 
 the mahogany color and kinky hair of her young chil- 
 dren. Whilst they were wondering at this phenome- 
 non, a big strapping Hercules of a negro entered the 
 cabin, and was introduced to her visitors by the woman 
 as her husband. -After a while, the black man went 
 away. ‘The native of Louisiana and the native of Ire- 
 _ land were shocked, and could not refrain from express- 
 ing their feelings to the Saxon female, who, thereupon, 
 showed great distress of mind and began shedding a 
 flood of tears. Pained at the effect which they had 
 produced by their reproaches, and, reflecting that it 
 was but poorly rewarding the woman for her hospitality, 
 they tried to soothe her, and even to find an exense for 
 what she had done, by Jaying it at the door of the ed- 
 ucation she had received, and attributing her want of 
 self-respect to the absence of a prejudice, which ex- 
 isted in them with a vigor entirely due perhaps to cir- 
 cumstances. 
 
 ““¢ T)o not distress yourselves about me, gentlemen,’ 
 said the woman. ‘It is not over what I have done 
 that I am erying, but about my sister, who has done a 
 great deal worse,’ and she went on weeping more pro- 
 fusely than ever. 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 239 
 
 “¢ (Jo0d heavens!’ exclaimed the horrified gentlemen. 
 “What can she have done ? 
 
 “¢O Lord! O Lord! ejaculated the woman, blub- 
 bering and wringing her hands. ‘ Will you believe it, 
 _gentlemen? She has married an Irishman !’” 
 
 Tintin laughed. ‘Certain people,” he said, ‘ com- 
 plain of the prejudices of the white inhabitants of the 
 Southern States against the negro; and yet the negro 
 is the most prejudiced of all human beings. What he 
 despises the most on earth, is what he calls the ‘ white 
 trash’ that is imported from Europe; and it is* that 
 very white trash—it is those poor hewers of wood and 
 drawers of water in a distant country, where they know 
 nothing of negro nature and of the condition of that 
 portion of the human family, who feel the most sym- 
 pathy for the imaginary sufferings of those imported 
 sons of Africa! Really, this is a funny and a sad 
 world. One day, I saw a young negress, evidently a 
 native of Louisiana, and as evidently a spoiled child of 
 the land, black though she was and a slave, standing 
 like a block of ebony at the corner of St. Peter and 
 Royal streets. She had a basket on her head, which 
 she, with graceful ease, kept in equilibrium, and she, 
 held her arms akimbo on a beautifully shaped waist. 
 She was very cleanly dressed, and handsome for one of 
 her race. She was staring at a long line of dirty Ger- 
 man emigrants who had just landed, and who, two by 
 . two, were ascending Royal street. Her eyes were 
 flashing, her lips curled, and her nostrils dilated with 
 scorn. She reminded me of the statue of Apollo look- 
 ing at the serpent Python, and preparing to let loose 
 his unerring shaft at the monster—which shows what 
 far-fetched comparisons sometimes present themselves 
 to the mind. Spying one of her class on the opposite 
 
940 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 side of the street, she hallooed to her and said: ‘ Gos- 
 sip dear, what cattle are these? Whence do they 
 come, and where do they go?’ Never shall I forget 
 the scene. Mrs. Siddons herself could not have thrown 
 more contempt into her voice. On another occasion, 
 in a political riot which occurred on a day of election, 
 an individual was killed before the house of a gentle- 
 man, who related the anecdote to me. ‘I looked out,’ 
 he said, ‘and saw the dead body stretched out in the 
 street right in front of my door. At that moment my 
 dinner was announced to be in readiness. I was so 
 shocked by what I had seen, that, instead of going to. 
 my dinner, I stepped into my little garden back of the 
 house, which I paced thoughtfully, with my head hang- 
 ing down. My cook, a small, soft-hearted and soft- 
 spoken colored woman, came up to me in a sort of 
 stealthy and cat-like fashion, and, in an affectionate 
 whining tone which hardly rose above a whisper, said 
 to me: ‘O master! master! Don’t take it so much 
 to heart. That thing, after all, that lies yonder, is 
 nothing but a Dutchman.’ 
 
 “What a trayi-comedy,’ continued Tintin, “the 
 life of man is!) I wonder which predominates in it— 
 the horrible, or the ridiculous! »And I wonder still 
 more that any philosopher who looks at the hideous 
 spectacle, does not take refuge like me in a cemetery.” 
 
 “Men of your keen sensibilities and of your turn of 
 mind,” I replied, ‘‘had better keep out of the vortex 
 of the world, which would make of their light-skinned 
 bodies but one sore. It is otherwise for those to whom 
 nature has given a bad heart, or no heart at all, a sharp 
 intellect, a good stomach and a plentiful stock of per- 
 severance and energy. Such a physical and mental 
 organization is said to be an infallible element of suc- 
 
 99 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 941 
 
 cess. It qualifies its possessor to meet with advantage 
 the multifarious and ever-varying exigencies and trials 
 of life, which, for the greater portion of mankind, is a 
 death struggle for bread. In all professions and pur- 
 suits he who is the most adroit gladiator, and who 
 wields his weapons the most skillfully, has the best 
 chance. For most men, principally among the educa- 
 ted, success is the sole aim and object of existence— 
 that kind of success which secures wealth, worldly 
 honors and pleasures. If that is the case, as I suppose 
 it will be admitted to be, then success becomes with 
 them a question merely of mathematical calculations, 
 with which the rigid principles of virtue and the im- 
 pulses of a kind heart must not be permitted to inter- 
 fere; and yet it cannot be denied that even those cal- 
 culations, accurately precise as they may be, are subor- 
 dinated to that mysterious and incomprehensible agency 
 called good, or bad luck. But success, whatever may 
 be its cause and the qualities which secure it, is so daz- 
 zling, and covers imperfections and even crimes with a 
 sheet of light so powerful, that it blinds the eye of the 
 multitude to every thing else than to its overpowering 
 effulzence. Mankind may quarrel with the Deity, but 
 never with the idol of success, before which it is al- 
 ways prostrated and burning incense. Therefore why 
 should he who aims at the success which procures 
 wealth, fame, rank, power, care for really possessing 
 virtues and merits of any kind, when they will surely 
 be supposed to exist in him as soon as success is 
 achieved ?” 
 
 “This is a misanthropical and incorrect view of the 
 question,” replied Tintin Calandro. ‘Success attends 
 the good as well as the wicked. Success and failure, 
 joy and happiness, contentment and discontent, with 
 
 11 
 
949 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 miseries of all sorts, are showered here and there upon 
 the heads of men in the same manner that rain falls 
 occasionally, and apparently at random, over the sur- 
 face of the earth. A breeze springs over the bosom of 
 the ocean. ‘The sails of one ship will catch it, and those 
 of another will not. This one will arrive in time to sell 
 her cargo at an enormous profit. The other will be too 
 late in the market, and will meet with nothing but dis- 
 aster and ruin. But what of that? Do you remem- 
 ber Falstaff on the battle field, pointing to the dead 
 body of Sir Walter Blunt and saying: ‘ There is honor 
 for you.’ Well, I say in my turn,” and he pointed at 
 the same time to a tomb, “There is success for you. 
 Success, or no success, have the same end. What mat- 
 ters then the temporary difference, flitting like a shadow, 
 which may exist between them ?” 
 
 “Whose tomb is it?’ I inquired. 
 
 “That of a judge who died lately,” replied Tintin. 
 “Do you know any thing of him ?” 
 
 I looked at the marble slab. “Oh! oh!” I exclaim- 
 ed, “I can give you, Tintin Calandro, a sketch of his 
 life, if you desire it.” | 
 
 “Do so, I pray. JI am at leisure, and may derive 
 some information, moral and philosophical, from your 
 narrative, which will give me food for reflection.” 
 
CHAPTER XXT. 
 THE OLI) CHIEF-JUSTICE AND HIS BLACK SERVANT, TOM. 
 
 ‘ THERE reposes one,” I said, “ who lived eighty-four 
 years, and who, from an humble threshold rose by pa- 
 tient labor and by slow steps to wealth and reputation. 
 His name was Francis Xavier Martin, and he was born 
 in Marseilles in France, as the inscription tells you. 
 He was poor, and, when only fifteen years old, he had 
 the energy to leave his home and family, and go to a 
 distant land with the hope of bettering his prospects in 
 life. He came to the British provinces of North Amer- 
 ica, which were then in the beginning of their struggle 
 with the mother country for independence. This youth 
 joined the rebels with the expectation of rising to fame 
 and command, like all those who attempt a military 
 career. An incident destroyed all his illusions. Being, 
 on one occasion, sent to reconnoitre, he came back spur- 
 ring his horse to its utmost speed, and shouting lustily : 
 ‘The enemy is upon us.’ The troops rushed to arms, 
 thinking themselves surprised, and, with the heroic de- 
 termination to die, or conquer, advanced in the direction 
 pointed out by the scout. Stern resolution was on ev- 
 ery soldier’s face, for every soldier knew that he was to 
 meet a foe worthy of his steel, and that a beloved coun- 
 try looked for salvation to the serried ranks and glitter- 
 ing bayonets of its sons, But what peals of laughter 
 
 (243) 
 
944 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 shook the sides of the heroes of the hour, when they 
 encountered a long line of red flannel shirts hung up 
 by washerwomen to dry in the sun! Young Martin, 
 who, not being yet bronzed by the buffetings of life, 
 was keenly sensitive to ridicule like a true Frenchman, 
 fairly ran away from the jeers of his tormentors. ‘The 
 fact is, that he was so near-sighted, that he could not see 
 farther than the tip of his nose. This incident took 
 place in Virginia, and Martin, although gifted with 
 very little imagination, fancying that he still heard 
 in his wake the shouts of derision of a whole army, 
 kept on his flight until he reached North Carolina. 
 There he found himself without those government ra- 
 tions on which he had existed, and as threadbare as a 
 fleeced lamb. I must live some way or other, thought 
 he; and, after much anxious cogitation, the best thing 
 the poor fellow found to do, was to engage to carry the 
 mail on horseback from place to place through a certain 
 district of North Carolina, in defiance of mud, cold and 
 rain, and for a mere pittance that hardly enabled him 
 to keep soul and body together. To improve the strait- 
 ened condition to which he was reduced, he determined 
 to trade, and, as he had no capital beyond a few dollars 
 scraped together by hard savings, he began with pro- 
 curing stale newspapers as a gift, or at a great discount 
 on the original price, after they had been read by the 
 subscribers in the town from which he started on his 
 mail-carrying expeditions. These he sold on the way 
 to such people as wished to know how the world wag- 
 ged. When passing by some farmer seated on a stile, 
 or when arriving at a village, he would shout: ‘ Great 
 news! great news! Battle at Trenton!. Immense 
 slaughter at Brandywine! or as the case might be, he 
 would announce some other startling event. The next 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 945 
 
 step up the ladder for this aspiring youth, was to be 
 employed as a compositor in a printing establishment, 
 There he worked with indefatigable industry at the 
 types intrusted to him, whilst his mind was diligently 
 improved by study in his scant leisure hours, and dur- 
 ing those he stole from the time which nature, if listen- 
 ed to, would have allotted to sleep. After a while, he 
 became one of the editors of a small paper, and, having 
 had the good luck to win the golden opinion of a great 
 jurist of North Carolina, he was received as a student 
 of law in the office of one eminently qualified to guide 
 him. 
 
 “He was in due time admitted to the bar, and, hav- 
 ing a clear, strong and logical intellect, he could not 
 but become a sound and learned lawyer. An eloquent, 
 or even a pleasant speaker he could not be. No one 
 can be an orator without possessing the glowing soul 
 and the fervid imagination of a poet. Martin had none 
 of those glorious attributes of the choicest specimen 
 of human organization. He was as dry as a hard baked 
 brick-bat. Being known, however, as a safe and trusty 
 counsellor-at-law, he made a decent living, and won the 
 esteem of the community among which he resided. 
 When President Washington visited North Carolina, 
 he was on the committee charged with the duty of 
 receiving that great man with appropriate honors. It 
 was one of the circumstances of his life of which he 
 loved to talk. When Washington, whom he had never 
 seen before, showed himself to his admiring eyes in a 
 eoach and four, with that majestic bearing which is at- 
 tributed to kings, and which made that illustrious in- 
 dividual look like the very incarnation of intensified 
 aristocracy, the young Frenchman, who had been dream- 
 ing of Cincinnatus with spade and plough, and dirt- 
 
246 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 stained, hard-fisted hands, was rather disconeerted. The 
 committee conducted this Louis the fourteenth of _re- 
 publicanism to his apartments, but, before entering 
 them, Washington said with a smile to those who rever- 
 ently surrounded him: ‘ Gentlemen, I am in the habit 
 of attending to the comforts of my horses before think- 
 ing of mine. Please therefore to be so kind as to lead 
 me to the stables.’ And to the stables the founder of 
 an empire went with a measured and august step, not as- 
 sumed, but prescribed to him by nature. With placid 
 dignity he patted his horses, and gave the minutest 
 directions to his groom, much to the edification of the 
 astonished committee. When Louisiana was ceded to 
 the United States, Martin came to the newly acquired — 
 territory, where he thought that a fertile field was 
 open to him. His anticipations were realized, for he 
 became attorney-general, and afterward chief-justice 
 of the State of Louisiana. He was an upright, fearless, 
 and just man, and, being a thorough master of the 
 commopr and the civil law, a combination of knowledge 
 seldom found in any jurist, he became an honor to the 
 bench, and to the State which had adopted him. His 
 decisions in many important cases are worthy of being 
 forever remembered. They will remain permanent 
 w onuments of his abilities and legal erudition, and of 
 ¢ sterling honesty which was always above temptation 
 :nd suspicion; but they lack that judicial eloquence 
 which is admired, for instance, in Lord Mansfield. 
 Judge Martin wrote two histories, one of North Caro- 
 lina and the other of Louisiana, which I have read 
 with pleasure and much profit, but they are as lifeless 
 as the minutes and records of proceedings in a court 
 
 of justice. 
 “ Judge Martin was a man rather below the ordinary 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 247 
 
 size, with a large and expressive head. He was so near- 
 - sighted that, when he read or wrote, his robust and 
 fully developed nose.touched the paper and sometimes 
 was tipped with ink. He walked along the streets of 
 New Orleans with his eyes closed, and with tottering 
 and hesitating steps, feeling his way like.a blind man, 
 absorbed in thought, probably lost in utter darkness, or 
 at best guiding himself only by the twilight of his 
 imperfect vision, running one of his hands abstractedly 
 over the side walls of the houses, mechanically and un- 
 consciously twirling round with his index the iron 
 catches intended to hold fast the outside shutters of 
 windows and doors, muttering to himself half formed 
 sentences, and frequently ejaculating in a dolorous under- 
 tone these words: ‘poor me! poor me!’ He was 
 always shabbily and sometimes dirtily dressed, for he 
 could not see with his own eyes what was the condition 
 of his clothes, which, after all, he had a profound aver- 
 sion to renew, being of an extremely penurious dis- 
 position. He had to trust to his black housekeeper for 
 information as to the necessities of his wardrobe, and 
 any one who knows the carelessness of that incorrigibly 
 shiftless race, can be at no loss to form for himself an 
 idea of the peculiar physiognomy of the judge’s ap- 
 parel. His uncouth and odd figure used to attract the 
 attention of the juvenile blackguards of the city, who 
 loved to serve him with tricks which the old gentleman 
 bore with philosophic serenity, for he never permitted 
 his displeasure to go beyond a slight expression of dis- 
 gust manifested by something which parteok of the 
 snort and the grunt. He never recognized any of his 
 acquaintances or friends, who passed by him in the 
 streets in perfect incognito. J requently, on address- 
 ing him, they had to name themselves, when he did not 
 
948 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 know them by the sound of their voice. Everywhere, 
 and invariably, Judge Martin kept his eyes closed, and ~ 
 very few, I believe, ever caught a glimpse of their color. 
 His conversation was argumentative, and he was fond, 
 after the Socratic fashion, of proceeding by questions, 
 which he accompanied with a grunt. Questions after 
 questions, logically linked together, each one more 
 shrewd and insidious than the other, and leading to 
 some conclusions to which he vigorously drove the per- 
 son interrogated, whilst he emitted grunt after grunt, 
 was the sum total of his colloquial powers. He was 
 not destitute of humor, and relished a joke. I am not 
 sure that he did not prefer a coarse one. On such oc- 
 casions, when pleased, he showed his satisfaction by 
 Jaughing after a fashion peculiar to himself. He threw 
 his heavy and massive head back, opened his mouth 
 wide without uttering a sound, and drew up to his 
 bushy eyebrows the deep wrinkles of his face. There 
 was something striking in that silent laugh. When he 
 met with a knotty point of law which perplexed him, 
 his habit was to drop in, as it were in a friendly way, 
 at the offices of those lawyers for whom he had the 
 most consideration, and who were not interested in the 
 case he had under advisement. After a few minutes 
 of desultory conversation, he would slyly approach the 
 subject which he had in mind. ‘ Well, counsellor,’ he 
 would say, ‘ suppose such a point, what would be you 
 views on it?) Whetever opinion the counsellor might 
 express, the judge would take the other side, raise ob- 
 jections after objections, insinuate plausible doubts, 
 puzzle the counsellor, and, after having pumped his 
 antagonist dry, would leave his office with his usual 
 grunts, and with ejaculations of: ‘poor me, poor me, 
 as soon as he. was again in the street and thought him- 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 249 
 
 self alone. Thus he went round, repeating the same 
 scene until he was satisfied with the result of his in- 
 vestigations. When, after having duly weighed a case, 
 he found that the arguments for and against were 
 equally balanced, it is said that he wrote two judg- 
 ments adverse to each other, which he would read to 
 his associates, and between which he desired them to 
 decide, as he was ready to adopt either of them as cor- 
 rect. It is related that, one day, he had thus prepared 
 two judgments, one for the plaintiff and the other for the 
 defendant. The decision for the defendant was adopt- 
 ed by the court. As chance would have it, the two 
 judgments got mixed up, and Judge Martin, to the 
 dismay of the court, delivered from the bench the one 
 which was in favor of the plaintiff, and which had been 
 rejected. The defendant, either from his own impulse, 
 or from a hint which he received, made an application 
 for a rehearing, which was granted, and the error was 
 rectified. 
 
 “A great imperfection in that excellent judge and 
 honest man was his extreme avarice. It was jocosely 
 said, that, on principles of economy, he had never mar- 
 ried. He lived in the vicinity of the city in a brick- 
 yard which he owned, and hardly spent two hundred 
 dollars a year out of a salary of five thousand. His 
 household was composed of an old black man and _ his 
 wife, and of Tom, his confidential body servant, carrier 
 and driver, for the judge sported a rickety antediluvian 
 buggy drawn by a one-eyed, halfstarved horse. In 
 regulating the economy of his household the judge had 
 said to his black cook and to her husband: ‘I intend to 
 be a generous master. I will furnish you with a room, 
 but you must feed yourselves and supply my table with 
 decent fare, beside cleaning the house in which we all 
 
 tie 
 
950 FERNANDO DE LEHOS. « 
 
 reside, and which is yours as well as mine. This is all 
 require of you; the rest of the time is yours, and what- 
 ever money you may make and save after having nour- 
 ished me, and kept my clothes in a good state of repairs, 
 is your absolute property.’ Such was the peculiar idio- 
 syneracy of the judge, that I am convinced he thought 
 himself very generous on that occasion. It may easily 
 be imagined what fare he had, and what an infinite va- 
 riety of stains and patches adorned his garments, which 
 really were a nondescript curiosity. Fortunately, he 
 had the appetite and the digestive powers of an ostrich, 
 and could not distinguish between a rotten cabbage 
 stump and a luxurious, cauliflower. When he dined 
 out, he swallowed with indiscriminate voracity all that 
 was piled upon his plate. His apartment never was 
 swept, his scanty furniture never dusted, and the 
 spider festooned his ceilings with its airy drapery, se- 
 curely conscious, I presume, of reaching old age in un- 
 disturbed repose. From this den the miser would come 
 out, year after year, to ascend the bench in the hall of 
 justice, where he was transformed into an impartial, 
 high-minded and inflexible judge, far above courting 
 popularity, shedding on the subject before him the rays 
 of his luminous but cold intellect, and pouring the treas- 
 ures of his vast erudition with a profusion and appro- 
 priateness which won the confidence and excited the 
 admiration of an appreciative bar, largely composed of 
 men of exalted talents. It was no longer Shylock, but 
 Daniel come to judgment. 
 
 “Tom, the body servant of Martin, was as much of a 
 character in his way as the personage he waited upon, 
 and was well known throughout the State; for he never 
 failed to accompany the judge in his annual circuit. 
 The slave looked on his master as a sort of helpless 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 951 
 
 grown-up baby of whom he had to take care, and for 
 whose safety and welfare he was accountable to the 
 State, of which that master, as he proudly knew, was 
 one of the highest dignitaries. Tom very naturally 
 came to the conclusion, that, notwithstanding the color 
 of his skin, he was a man of much importance, and even 
 assumed authority over the great personage whom he 
 considered as his ward. Tor instance, when at home, 
 where Tom had full sway, the judge rose from his seat, 
 Tom would sometimes say: ‘ Where are you going, sir ? 
 ‘IT am going to take a walk.’ ‘What! without 
 consulting me! Don’t you know it is raining ? or— 
 ‘Do n’t you know that you have walked enough to-day ? 
 Sit down, sir, sit down ;’ and taking his master by the 
 shoulder, Tom would gently force him back to his seat. 
 The judge was overheard once, saying to his faithful 
 companion in a hotel where he had stopped : 
 
 “<T'om, Tom, have I dined to-day? Humph! humph! 
 humph?! three grunts as usual. 
 
 “What! what! replied Tom in a scolding tone. 
 ‘What a question, sir? Are you getting clear out of 
 your mind? Don’t you recollect you ate a whole duck? 
 
 **Oh! very well then, very well, all’s right. 
 Humph! humph! humph!? Three grunts. 
 
 “One day Tom said to him: ‘I want a whip for our 
 buggy.’ 
 
 “¢ Well, Tom, if you want a whip, buy a whip, of 
 course. I do not see any objection to it.’ 
 
 “ After a while, Tom came to him, whip in hand. 
 ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I want a dollar,’ 
 
 «¢ A dollar from me! Monstrous! What for? On 
 what tenable ground do you establish your petition ? 
 
 “* To pay for the whip.’ ; 
 
 ~«*Why, Tom, I thought you were 1 man of sense. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
952, FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 Did you not buy the whip for your own accommoda- 
 tion ? 
 
 “<T bought it for your buggy, sir.’ 
 
 “<¢My buggy! Our buggy, you mean. Yu called it 
 yourself our buggy. Don’t you ride in it as wellas I 
 do? Tush! Don’t trouble me any more about it.’ 
 
 “Tom might have replied: Master, if we are in part- 
 nership, you ought at least to pay for one half of the 
 whip. Tom might have had some other points to urge, 
 but did not think of them, and failed to argue his mas- 
 ter into recognizing the justice of his claim. Besides, 
 opinionated and conceited as he was, there was one sub- 
 ject on which he never hazarded a domestic conflict— 
 which was—anything bordering on the law—anything 
 concerning legal rights or claims. ‘I can rule the old 
 man, as my master,’ Tom would say, ‘ but as judge, it 
 is no go. He is too mighty awful on de law. He 
 can’t be beaten there by anybody. God Himself would 
 think twice of it before fighting my master on de civil 
 law, de common law, and de criminal law. Better not, 
 sir, better not.’ When thus delivering himself, Tom 
 looked perfectly awe-struck and reverently sank his voice. 
 
 “This eccentric black man possessed a good deal of 
 sense and a good deal of humor. Judge Martin, being 
 once on a judicial tour throughout the State, was occu- 
 pying the same room with one of his associates on the 
 bench, who was an Irishman by birth and a gentleman 
 of fine abilities, a scholar and a wit. Tom, who was in 
 attendance on them, now and then had a word to put in 
 with all the freedom of speech of a privileged servant. 
 ‘Tom, Tom,’ said the judge, ‘where did you get the 
 expression you have just now used. Have you not been 
 long enough with me to learn to speak pure Fnglish ? 
 Do you intend to disgrace me, sir ? | 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 2538 
 
 “¢T beg pardon, master,’ replied Tom. ‘ Have the 
 kindness to excuse me. If I talk broken English, it is 
 due to my having lately kept bad company ;’ and he 
 glanced with a mischievous smile on his thick lips at the 
 Irish gentleman, who relished the joke at his expense, 
 and who gave it circulation by repeating it. 
 
 “Tom thought himself very learned in the law, al-- 
 though as I have already said, it was the only subject 
 on which he never ventured to enter into a conflict with 
 his master, and was frequently heard expounding it with 
 the most comical gravity to his ebony friends, for whom 
 his word had indisputable authority. Poor Tom! He 
 died in a distant part of the State, where he had follow- 
 ed his master who left him there, when taken sick, as 
 he could not spare time to wait for his recovery. The 
 tavern-keeper, at whose house he had departed from this 
 world, knowing the peculiar relations which existed be- 
 tween Tom and the judge, had him decently buried, 
 and sent to the latter a bill of twenty dollars for the 
 costs of the funeral. The judge broke out into the 
 fiercest grunts he had ever been heard to emit, and re- 
 fused to pay the bill, because the expenses had been un- 
 authorized and excessive ; and one dollar, which he ten- 
 dered, was, he said, all that could be required for the 
 burying of a negro. The landlord sued the judge in 
 the parish where Tom had died; but the judge excep- 
 ted to the jurisdiction of the court on the ground of his 
 being domiciliated in the Parish of Orleans. The plea 
 was sustained, and the plaintiff was thrown out of court 
 with costs. Pitiful human nature! What shades and 
 lights there are in the character of a man! And must 
 they not be all faithfully, although regretfully, repro- 
 duced, to give a correct knowledge of the individual to 
 be portrayed, and to adorn a tale, or point a moral ? 
 
254 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 “ Chief-Justice Martin (for he had reached that dis- 
 tinction) had resigned on account of his growing infirm- 
 ities, before he died at the age of eighty-four, leaving 
 to a younger brother his whole fortune amounting to- 
 about five hundred thousand dollars, which he had slow- 
 ly and patiently acquired cent after cent, by depriving 
 himself of every comfort during a long life. Some years 
 before his death, the chief-justice had summoned from 
 France his brother with the intention of making him 
 his heir. That brother was a sexagenarian bachelor, 
 although the chief-justice could never see in him but the 
 boy with whom he had parted more than half a century 
 ago. He called him by the familiar, childish name of 
 Mimi, a diminutive, no doubt, and an appellation which 
 dated from the nursery. Mimi operated a revolution 
 in the way of the chief-justice’sJiving. He compelled 
 him to have decent lodgings, and to keep a substan- 
 tial table affording a wholesome variety of food, and en- 
 livened with the presence and use of wine. © The chief- 
 justice grunted more than ever, and even gave vent. to 
 plentiful groans and remonstrances, but Mimi, who had 
 some pecuniary means of his own and who felt his in- 
 dependence, threatened to return to France if he was 
 not allowed to regulate the household as he pleased. 
 The chief-justice, conscious of the helplessness of old 
 age and isolation, and having Tom no longer at his el- 
 bow, succumbed at last and surrendered at discretion. 
 But he would frequently complain of the extravagance 
 of his sexagenarian brother, and say piteously: ‘ That 
 prodigal boy will be the cause of my ruin, and will 
 send me to die in the charity hospital.’ 
 
 “The chief-justice, knowing from his own judicial 
 experience that the more lengthy a testamentary will 
 is, the more liable it is to give rise to litigation and to 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 255 
 
 be declared null and void, had taken care to make his 
 with Spartan brevity and to bequeath in three lines, 
 under his own handwriting, all his earthly possessions 
 to his brother. And yet a law suit sprang from that 
 instrument, short as it was! It was alleged that the 
 chief-justice, having become entirely blind, could not 
 have written the will himself. But there was the hand- 
 writing so well known to all. There was the signature 
 to which every member of the bar could swear. A 
 fact is a fact, and there was the fact. It was further 
 alleged that the bequest of the chief-justice’s fortune 
 to his brother, who had become a naturalized citizen 
 five years after his arrival, was a fraud intended against 
 the State, which was entitled by an existing law to ten 
 per cent. on all inheritances claimed by foreigners ; 
 that the universal legatee was a mere trustee who was 
 to divide the greater portion of the legacy among 
 numerous nephews and nieces whom the testator had 
 in France, and who would be the real heirs to be bene- 
 fited by the will without paying what was due to the 
 State ; and that the apparent legacy of the whole for- 
 tune to one of the heirs only, because be was natural- 
 ized, was what is called in law a jfider commissum, 
 which was a subterfuge invalidating the will. But 
 Mimi, being interrogated on oath, declared that he was 
 a bona jide legatee, and that he had made no promise 
 to the testator, and was under no obligation to divide 
 among the other heirs what he inherited to their detri- 
 ment. Judgment was rendered in favor of the will, 
 and thus the chief-justice was successful even after 
 death as he had been throughout life. Posthurious 
 honors also were rendered to him. His bust in marble, 
 resting on a handsome column, adorns the hall of the 
 Supreme Court. It is no ordinary face. What strongly 
 
256 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 marked features, and how indicative to a physiognomist 
 of the chararter of the man who possessed them! The 
 dark side of that character was avarice and want of 
 charity. The chief-justice had been very poor, anid 
 entertained a morbid apprehension of falling back into 
 that dreadful condition. Hence he clung to a dollar 
 with as much desperate tenacity as a drowning man to 
 any thing which his hand seizes. He had made his 
 way without any pecuniary assistance from any body. 
 Why should not others do the same? If they did not, 
 it was because they were worthless. Let all work and 
 economize as he had, and there would be no indigence. 
 As to contributions to religious missions, to the erection 
 of churches, or to the propagation of morality in some 
 shape or other, it was all a humbug in his estimation— 
 a thing got up for the benefit of a few designing moun- 
 tebanks and to soothe the sentimental nerves of a pack 
 of old women. With regard to establishing or sup- 
 porting schools, colleges and literary or scientific insti- 
 tutions with the assistance of his purse, he thought 
 that he was under no obligation whatever to make any 
 contribution. He had educated himself. Why should 
 not others do likewise? Hence, during his long career, 
 he showed himself incapable of any charitable impulse, 
 and always turned a deat ear to applications for dona- 
 tions of any sort and for any purpose ; nor did he, even 
 on his death-bed, as his will proves, think of giving 
 any thing as a souvenir to friendship, or as a tribute to 
 the poor. He never knew the exquisite luxury of re- 
 lieving distress. He rather chose never to expose him- 
 self to the sharp tooth of ingratitude. He must, 
 however, have enjoyed, I suppose, the gratification 
 afforded by the pride of success, for it cannot be denied 
 that he was the sole architect of his own fortune.” 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 BETTER BE 4. PIONEER THAN A LAWYER.—TINTIN CALANDRO’S 
 HALLUCINATIONS. 
 
 “Sucu instances of successful industry and perse- 
 verance are numerous in this new country,” said Tintin 
 Calandro. “I know one in point and quite as remark- 
 able as the one you have related. A young Swiss, 
 called Emmanuel Brie, came here in 1803, shortly 
 after the cession of Louisiana to the United States. 
 He was of a good family and classically educated. He 
 brought letters of introduction to some of the most 
 distinguished members of the New Orleans bar, who | 
 advised him to adopt their profession, and who offered 
 him every facility to enable him to follow that advice. 
 
 “<¢ Thanks for your kindness,’ said Emmanuel, ‘ but 
 I will be a farmer. I think with Cicero, that of all 
 the professions and pursuits which may bring wealth 
 to man, the best, the most fruitful, the most pleasant, 
 the most worthy of a free man, is that of the farmer.’ 
 
 “His friends laughed at his illusions: ‘ You are 
 dreaming, whilst you should be awake to the sad reali- 
 ties of life,’ said one of them, who was at the head of 
 the New Orleans bar, and who was making thirty 
 thousand dollars a year. ‘You are fresh from the 
 bench of the schools, and you are full of the Bucolics 
 of Virgil. You know by heart, no doubt, the poetical 
 effusions of Horace about his Sabine farm. But Horace 
 
 (257) 
 
258 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 and Virgil were the favorites of the master of the 
 world. They saw what they described through the 
 aurea mediocritas which they possessed. Will you 
 have in your rural retreat that gilt mediocrity of for- 
 tune which the Latin poet recommends? No. Your 
 horizon will have the copper hue of poverty. Far 
 from erecting their tent in a distant and savage land, 
 they lived in the vicinity of Rome amidst the enjoy- 
 ments of the highest civilization, and of boundless 
 wealth which, if not their own, was in the possession of 
 admiring patrons, too happy to minister to their com- 
 forts and wants. They had slaves to work for them ; 
 they were gentlemen of leisure residing in voluptuous 
 villas, rather than farmers. You might as well fancy 
 that the real peasant is like those opera rustics who figure 
 on the stage in clean cambric linen, with perfumed 
 hair, soft hands adorned with rosy nails, and a shep- 
 herd’s crook decorated with ribbons at two dollars a 
 yard, amidst an Arcadian scenery which never existed 
 save on painted canvas, where sheep and cattle look so 
 dainty that they would be admitted into a lady’s bou- 
 doir. They sing the charms of a pastoral life after the 
 fashion of Seneca, who eloquently descanted on the 
 advantages of poverty when promenading in his gor: 
 geous gardens, and living alternately, like a Sardana- 
 palus, in his urban and rural palaces. How many slaves 
 can you buy to begin with ? 
 
 ““¢]T have none but these two vigorous hands of 
 mine 
 
 “«Bah! this is sheer folly. You are not used to man- 
 ual labor.’ £ 
 
 “<T have a strong will.’ 
 
 “<« But exposure and an unhealthy climate will make 
 you sick.’ 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 259 
 
 *“¢¢T will conquer the climate and every other obsta- 
 cle.’ ‘ 
 
 «¢Very good. Make the experiment, and ina short 
 time you will come back to the city. Remember that 
 the law is the profession suitable to your education, and 
 that my office, my books and my counsels will ever be 
 at your service.’ 
 
 « Emmanuel Brie had only a few hundred dollars at his 
 command, and therefore could not aspire to purchasing 
 any farm or plantation in those parts of the country 
 which gvere densely settled. He had the intrepidity to 
 go as far as the Washita district, then a perfect wilder- 
 ness. He bought from the United States a tract of 
 land, cut down the first tree, built himself a log-house, 
 and planted corn and potatoes. He had no neighbor 
 within forty miles, save a few Indians. He was not 
 disheartened, however, and went on working with a 
 stout heart, and making to himself a home in the midst 
 of primeval forests. He had been absent about a year 
 when he returned to New Orleans, and visited his 
 friend, the great lawyer. 
 
 “Ah! ah! exclaimed the light of the bar, ‘you 
 have come back sober-minded this time. You have had 
 enough of your country paradise.’ 
 
 “¢ Not in the least,’ replied Emmanuel, ‘I just begin 
 to appreciate it, and he related all that he had done; 
 ‘and what will astonish you still more,’ continued he, 
 ‘is, that I have come here only to buy a few things 
 which I need for my approaching marriage. The 
 daughter of a pioneer like myself consents to be my 
 wife. She will cook, wash, milk and take care of the 
 household whilst I plough.’ 
 
 “Good God!’ exclaimed the lawyer, ‘this is the 
 most intense case of insanity which has ever fallen un- 
 
260 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 der my observation. To marry, when rich, is a hazard- 
 ous undertaking; but to marry, when poor, is more 
 than man ought to dare !’ 
 
 “The insane youth, however, was not deterred by the 
 remonstrances of his learned friend. He married as he 
 had intended, and thought himself a wealthy man when 
 he was able to buy a slave. The district of Washita, 
 where Emmanuel had established himself, was gradually 
 settled in the course of years, and his lands rose great- 
 ly in value. He became in time a wealthy cotton 
 planter, the owner of a hundred negroes, and the head 
 of a numerous family of children to whom he took care 
 to give a liberal education, habits of industry, and those 
 principles of honor and morality which had guided him 
 through life. He who had refused to be a lawyer, was 
 compelled by the solicitations of the inhabitants of the 
 parish in which he lived, to become a judge, and gave 
 great satisfaction in that office—which shows that the 
 study of law, paradoxical as it may seem to be, is 
 not absolutely necessary as a previous condition to a 
 popular administration of justice. Although he had 
 tilled the ground with his own hands, the farmer Em- 
 manuel had retained and cultivated his literary tastes. 
 He wrote interesting articles for newspapers and con- 
 tributed essays to reviews. Notwithstanding his lead- 
 . ing so long a rustic life, outside of the precincts of 
 civilization, he ‘never lost the original polish of his 
 manners, and remained a beautiful type of those gentle- 
 men of the old regime, of whom we always read 
 with admiration the fascinating description, whilst we 
 feel refreshed and peculiarly fortunate, if we have the 
 advantage of occasionally meeting some fossil relic of 
 that almost forgotten race. He was generous and hos- 
 pitable, and the palm of his hand was always open to | 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 261 
 
 relieve distress. I heard Judge Emmanuel, on this 
 very spot, when he was very old, give a sketch of his 
 life to a friend. He had come here to pay a tribute of 
 respect to the memory of that distinguished lawyer 
 who had treated him with so much kindness when he 
 first arrived in this country. On that occasion, I heard 
 him say: 
 
 “¢T still think at the end of my career, as I thought 
 at the beginning of it: that Cicero was right when he 
 advocated a country life as the safest, the most pleasant, 
 the most dignified, and the most befitting a free man. 
 The proof of it is afforded me whenever I leave my 
 distant home to visit New Orleans. When I look 
 round me in this thriving and fast-growing city, I see 
 an appalling number of wrecks in the midst of much 
 prosperity. The lawyers and merchants who, fifty years 
 ago, were making so much money, and who laughed at 
 me when I shouldered my ax for the wilderness, have, 
 almost without an exception, died in debt and left their 
 families in destitution, whilst [ am prosperous beyond 
 “my expectations. My numerous children are in com- 
 fortable circumstances, and my grand and great-grand 
 children have sprung up around my hearth, blessing 
 me with a luxuriant harvest of love, to delight my 
 ' sight and fill up the granary of my heart. I am now 
 ready to depart like an old patriarch, in peace with the 
 world and with myself.’ 
 
 “So you see,” said Tintin Calandro to me, “that, to 
 obtain success, it is not always necessary to have a bad 
 heart and a cold calculating head.” 
 
 “ Aoreed,” I replied, “ but exceptions, you know, 
 only prove the rule. The success of the farmer Em- 
 manuel, being that of an excellent man, is exceedingly 
 gratifying to me, but I am not as convinced as he is, 
 
262 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 that rural property is safer than any other, and that ag- 
 ricultural life is freer from vicissitudes than that of men : 
 engaged in other pursuits, at least in our country. The 
 history of those splendid plantations which dot the 
 banks of the Mississippi, three hundred miles on both 
 sides of the mighty stream, would, if written, be a cur- 
 ious one, made up of fearful changes and catastrophes. 
 A planter, for instance, succeeds after a life of toil in 
 establishing a sugar or cotton estate, productive of a 
 princely revenue, which at his death he leaves free from 
 debts to his family. Shortly after he has departed, that 
 plantation, which used to make large crops, no longer 
 yields enough to cover expenses. In a few years it has 
 to be sold to a stranger, and the family that was born 
 to the manor sinks for ever. Where are they, the heirs 
 of wealthy parents? They were up above the clonds, 
 now they are down in the mud, and the swift-coming 
 wave of oblivion sweeps over them. Woe to those who 
 fall in civilized society! They have seldom time to rise 
 before they are crushed under the iron-shod feet of the 
 rushing multitude in hot chase after some , alluring 
 phantom.” 
 
 “This is not the fault of that kind of property so 
 much valued by farmer Emmanuel,” replied Tintin Oa- 
 landro, “ but it is due to a want of industry and econo- 
 my, and is rather to be attributed to those false ideas, 
 false habits and false education prevailing in Louisi- 
 ana. ‘There is nothing conservative in your moral and 
 social atmosphere, nor in your public polity, nor even 
 _ in the sacred hearths where ought to burn the fire of 
 the family circle. There is no secret and consecrated 
 place for household gods. There is here no civil, polit- 
 ical, religious, or even natural authority. There is no 
 help, or charity, for the laggard or loiterer by the way- 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 263 
 
 side, who should be digging in the gold mine below, in- 
 stead of looking up at the wonders of the sky above his 
 head. Every one for himself, and the devil take the 
 hindmost in the general rush into Mammon’s mint for 
 the largest share of the coin on which he sets his stamp. 
 Every one is born an enlightened and free thinker, in- 
 dependent of all ties but those imposed and removable 
 at pleasure, acknowledging no superior, because every 
 body is as good as every body else and a god to himself, 
 recognizing no other power than that which is assented 
 to or granted for the time being, and which is to be 
 withdrawn or set aside at will like an inconvenient or 
 worn-out garment. I will not go into details on this 
 sad subject. I will merely ask you how many men, in 
 the broad breadth and length of Louisiana, live in the 
 paternal house in which they were born? Very few, 
 indeed, if any, you will admit. As to any one dwell- 
 ing under his grandfather’s roof, either in cities or in 
 the country, I venture to say such a phenomenon is 
 hardly to be found. On those who do not care for the 
 past, the future will frown, for that future well knows 
 that, in its turn, it is destined to be the past. What 
 the world in its present course of reform and innova- 
 tion, particularly on this continent and in this republic, 
 calls prejudices and errors, has been the deep-laid foun- 
 dations and the sills of the social edifice every where 
 since the beginning. They are the roots of the oak, 
 burying themselves in the earth like foul things, and 
 not admired like that noble tree’s leafy head, which is 
 gilded by the rays of the sun, and to which the winds 
 sing their wild melodies. But dig out those roots, and 
 the fallen oak would soon rot among reeking weeds. 
 Hence nothing can be stable here, neither families, nor 
 wealth, rank, position, laws and ideas, nor any. thing 
 
264 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 else. They lack roots. ‘To build here is to build on 
 quicksand. Besides, the prosperity of the Southern States 
 reposes on African slavery—an institution which is bat- 
 tered down by the converging fire of irresistible batteries 
 inside and outside of the United States. I hear the 
 rumbling of the voleano. I shall not live long enough 
 to see its eruption, youmay. Universal suffrage, the doc- 
 trine of equality, the enthronement-of pride where hu- 
 mility should be kneeling, the blasphemous apotheosis 
 of the populace whose voice is proclaimed to: be the 
 voice of God, the deification of brutal appetites, the 
 worshiping of the body and the ostracism of the soul, 
 the inverting of secular pyramids so as to make them 
 stand on ite apex as a new basis, the sceptre of pow- 
 er and command given to the blind and uncultivated 
 intellect of the multitude, rather than to the innate and 
 nurtured genius of the heavenly chosen few, the put- 
 ting of the feet where the head should be, and the pre- 
 ference of the secretions of the toe over those of the 
 brain, the intoxicating incense burned in honor of the 
 many-headed monster whose thousand altars are minis- 
 tered to by the self-constituted priesthood of greedy 
 demagogues, the locust swarm of new-fangled notions 
 obscuring the light of the sun, the adoption of false and 
 unnatural dogmas, the hatred of all superiorities made an 
 article of faith for the lower classes, the inevitable tyr- 
 anny of irresponsible majorities, the introduction among 
 you of Tarquin’s levelling rod, the certain and not very 
 distant emancipation of your slaves, probably and finally 
 a civil war on a larger scale and fiercer than the world 
 has ever seen, these are the causes which will produce 
 in your republic a chaos of evils sufficiently horrible to 
 gladden the heart of his satanic majesty. Hurrah! 
 What work there will be for grave-diggers like me! 
 
 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 265 
 
 The graves of armies! The graves of liberty, of order, 
 of morality, of political honesty, of national patriotism! 
 The grave of the Constitution of the United States! 
 The grave of State sovereignties! Hurrah! Hurrah 
 for the grave-diggers! But, hist! hist! Don’t you 
 eee here | there}. .°.-. there +’. ~ .Jhow ‘le 
 strides with imperial majesty !” 
 
 “ Who? who?” said I, carried away and thrown into 
 a state of contagious excitement by Tintin Calandro’s 
 wild look and maniac-like language. 
 
 “ Who?” he screamed. “ Why, Julius Cesar! Ave, 
 imperator! I salute thee,O emperor! Why dost thou 
 revisit this globe? Art thou in search of the Great 
 Unknown who is to imitate thee and become the master 
 of this continent? Ave, imperator! I salute thee 
 again, and again, O sublime chief of a sublime peo- 
 ple!’ And Tintin, shouting hurrah for Cesar, and 
 hat in hand, rushed frantically after the phantom of 
 his own creation, and was soon lost to my sight among 
 the tombs. It was one of those fits of insanity which 
 oceasionally seized on the strong mind of that unfor- 
 tunate man, and conquered it with the ‘force of a 
 demon. 
 
 Musing on the strange hallucinations which clouded 
 an intellect so lucid and so rational in its main texture, 
 I was leaving the grave-yard, when, at the gates I met 
 a funeral. Hastening to pass by it with my hat off, in 
 token of respect for the dead, I was stopped by a friend 
 of mine who was in the numerous cortege accompany- 
 ing the corpse to the place of its sepulture. He lived 
 some distance below the city on the bank of the 
 river. 
 
 “Ts that you?’ I said. “TI confess that I am aston- 
 shed to meet you so far from your plantation, where 
 
266 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 your presence, I know, is so necessary at present, when — 
 you are taking in your sugar crop.” 
 
 “JT heard,” he replied, “that this lady was dead, 
 whom we are burying. As I had no time to lose, if I 
 wished to be present at her funeral, I ordered my 
 swiftest horse to be saddled, and I rode full speed 
 without drawing breath, to pay her this last tribute 
 of regard.” 
 
 ‘She must have been a very dear friend, or relative.” 
 
 “No. I never saw her. But she was no ordinary 
 woman and deserved to be honored, as a noble example 
 to be set before those of her sex who, in these days of 
 turpitude, show so little principle and such a laxity of 
 morals on a certain subject.” 
 
 *¢ Who was she, and what do you mean?’ 
 
 “ Accompany me to the grave, and, when the cere- 
 mony is over, I will give you the explanation you de- 
 sire.”’ 
 
 According to his request I joined the procession, and, 
 after the funeral rites had been performed and the crowd 
 had dispersed, my friend thus addressed me: 
 
 “The lady whose last remains we have brought here 
 was a native of Louisiana, and the wife of a Spanish 
 naval officer, who continued in the service of his coun- 
 try in the Island of Cuba, but who, nevertheless, had 
 bought a sugar plantation in the parish of St. Charles, 
 where his wife and numerous children resided. The 
 proximity of the Island of Cuba permitted him to visit 
 them frequently. It is an old Roman proverb: ‘that 
 the foot of the proprietor fertilizes the soil” The Span- 
 ish officer was generally absent from his estate. The 
 consequence was that he made poor crops, and at last 
 died in debt. His wife, who had brought him a hand- 
 some dowry, for which she had a mortgage on the 
 
‘FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 267 
 
 plantation, had, whilst he lived, renounced the riglits 
 which she had under the mortgage, in order to enable 
 him to borrow money. Her lawyer, after her hugband’s 
 death, told her that the renunciation which she had 
 made was null and void, because certain formalities 
 had not been observed at the time, and that she and 
 her children would be entirely ruined, if she did not 
 avail herself of that circumstance to screen the planta- 
 tion from a seizure by her husband’s creditors. 
 
 “¢ Ts this really the law? she said. ‘ Yes, madam,’ 
 replied her counsel. 
 
 “¢¢ Well, then the law sanctions an infamy. My hus- 
 band’s debt was incurred with my knowledge and con- 
 sent for what I thought to be for our common benefit, 
 and I well understood, at the time, the engagement I 
 had entered into—which was, that the lender of the 
 money should be paid in preference to my own claims. 
 Shall I now repudiate that debt and disgrace my hus- 
 band’s memory and myself, under the pretence of a 
 want of legal formalities? No. Let that just debt be 
 paid, even if I and my children are to starve to-morrow. 
 Honor before bread, is my motto, and must be that of 
 all my descendants.’ 
 
 ‘“¢ Much pressure was exercised on her by friends and 
 relatives to induce a change of resolution. She was 
 immovable, and died shortly after in the utmost pov- 
 erty. This is the reason why I rode twenty-four miles 
 post-haste and almost killed my best horse, to be pres- 
 ent at her funeral.” 
 
 “Tt is well that she is dead,” said I, “‘for she did not 
 belong to this progressive age. She must have been 
 full of moth-eaten prejudices. She would have been a 
 standing reproach to the present generation of women, 
 many of whom keep concealed under their ample petti- 
 
268 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 coats the plunder stolen by their husbands from their 
 creditors, and who, if they had known the out-of-the- 
 way conduct of your old lady, would have overwhelmed 
 her with maledictions, if not with stones, for her want 
 of maternal love.and prudent consideration for her own 
 welfare. She evidently had not been philanthropically 
 and philosophically educated in our public schools at 
 the expense of the tax-payers; she must have sewed 
 her husband’s breeches instead of writing epileptic 
 poetry; she must have read her prayer-book instead 
 of the epistle of Héloise to Abélard, and the novels of 
 Dumas and Eugene Sue; she must have thumped her 
 churn for butter instead of thumping her piano for ex- 
 ecrable music, whilst languidly howling amorous senti- 
 ments. But I remember that the Spaniards say: del rey 
 y de la inquisition, chiton*—which suggests to me this 
 modification of the saying I have quoted: of conteypo- 
 rary vices and follies, and of the goddess of modern 
 civilization, mum! I will recommend, however, the 
 good widow’s tomb to Tintin Calandro, to whom I 
 shall relate what you have told me. He will take most 
 tender care of it.” 
 
 “ Who is Tintin Calandro ?’ 
 
 “Surely you must have heard of Tintin Calandro, 
 the sexton and grave-digger of the St. Louis cemetery.” 
 
 “Oh! yes, now I remember. I had forgotten Tintin 
 the crazy.”’ : 
 
 “True,” said I, “Tintin the crazy. But there is 
 method, and reason, and sublimity in his madness at 
 times, and always much kindness and nobility of feel- 
 ing in his heart. I even suspect that it is the too ex- 
 quisite organization of that heart which is the cause of 
 the disorder in his brain.” 
 
 * Of the King and of the Inquisition, mum! 
 
CHAPTER XXITI. 
 
 MASTERS AND SLAVES.—TINTIN CALANDRO’S VATICINAYLIONS 
 ON THE SUBJECT. 
 
 A Few days afterward, I was passing in Rampart 
 street, when at the corner of that street and of Conti, 
 I met a funeral which attracted my attention. It was 
 an expensive one, such as is reserved for the privileged 
 few who die rich. The hearse was superb; the coffin 
 was of solid mahogany with gilt carvings. The whole 
 clergy of New Orleans were.present. An immense con- 
 course of blacks, of both sexes, formed the procession. 
 Two white men, besides the priests, were the only at- 
 tendants of the Caucasian race to be seen. They walked 
 bareheaded immediately behind the chariot which car- 
 ried the corpse. It was an unusual and strange sight. 
 I inquired whose funeral it was. I was answered, as I 
 expected, that it was that of a negro. My curiosity 
 was excited. I followed the procession, and my aston- 
 ishment reached its climax when I saw a magnificent 
 mausoleum open its portals, and the black man’s coffin 
 deposited in the sepulchral vault of one of our most 
 aristocratic families. After the obsequies of the de- 
 parted were over, I approached one of the officiating 
 priests with whom I happened to be acquainted, and I 
 asked him if he could give me an explanation of what 
 I had seen. 
 
 “T can,” he replied. “Years ago, a Sicilian mar- 
 
 (269) 
 
270 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 ried the daughter of a wealthy widow. Her family 
 consisted of the daughter who had married that for- 
 eigner, and of a son. Shortly after that ill-fated alli- 
 ance, the son and son-in-law had a violent quarrel. 
 The Sicilian’s threats were fearful. They were looked 
 upon, however, as the mere ebullitions of evanescent 
 wrath, and inspired no disquietude. All the parties I 
 speak of lived on a sugar plantation not very distant 
 from the city. One day, when Chastelar, the son of the 
 widow, was in his field, overlooking his negroes who 
 were at work, and armed with a gun with which he had 
 provided himself in the hope of meeting a bear which 
 had lately been discovered on the premises, one of his 
 slaves, on seeing him turn round and strike into a road 
 which led into a dense sugar-cane field, threw down his 
 
 hoe and followed him. | 
 
 “¢¢ What do you want? said the master. 
 
 “<¢T want to watch over you,’ replied the negro. ‘I 
 am satisfied your brother-in-law is concealed in the 
 canes and that he intends to kill you.’ 
 
 ““« Nonsense! Go to your work, and trouble me no 
 more with your foolish fears.’ | 
 
 “The slave did not obey, and, falling on his knees, 
 begged not to be dismissed. Chastelar, without paying, 
 any further attention to the negro’s obstinate entreaties, 
 went on his way, whistling an opera tune. He had not 
 gone far, before the Sicilian, stepping out of his hiding- 
 place, pointed his gun at the object of his hatred, whose 
 back was turned, and who apprehended no danger. 
 But the negro had been as watchful and keen-sighted 
 asa hawk. Keeping close to his master, he had been 
 looking right and left and over his shoulders. He no- 
 ticed a waving of the top of the canes; he heard a 
 rustling sound; he saw a man emerge from the dense 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. O71 
 
 green mass of foliage, and a gun take its murderous 
 aim. Quick as thought and with a warning shriek he 
 sprang upon his master, and covered him with his body 
 as with a shield. He received the buckshot destined 
 for that master and fell at his feet. Chastelar wheeled 
 round and fired in his turn at his intended murderer, 
 who dropped dead. Fortunately, Baptiste (that was the 
 negro’s name), had only been dangerously wounded, 
 when the probability was that he would be killed. It 
 is needless to say that he was attended by the best phy- 
 siclan and tenderly nursed. As soon as he recovered 
 his health he was set free, and became the body ser- 
 vant of his former master whom he refused to leave, al- 
 though a handsome pension for life had been offered 
 him. In the course of time Chastelar died. A clause 
 in his will prescribed the funeral which you have seen, 
 whenever the ceremony should be required. The two 
 white men who followed the hearse as mourners, are his 
 sons. The testator further ordered that his faithful 
 Baptiste, when dead, should be placed by his side in the 
 family tomb. His wish has been complied with, as you 
 have witnessed.” 
 
 The priest had just departed, when Tintin Calandro 
 came. I related the anecdote to him. “ It does not 
 surprise me,” he said, “ I know one of the same nature. 
 In the town of Opelousas, in the parish of St. Landry, 
 there resided a French merchant whose commercial op- 
 erations were extensive. He owned a herculean negro, 
 called Jasper, who had been so disorderly and rebel- 
 lious, that he had loaded him with chains. Jasper had 
 been for some time dragging these heavy ornaments in 
 the streets of the small.town in which he lived, when 
 the three-story brick store of Vernon, his master, took 
 fire. The rush of the devouring element was so rapid, 
 
272 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 that, in a few minutes, it enveloped the whole edifice. 
 Vernon, remembering that a box which was in his attic ~ 
 conti.med valuable papers, ran up to get them, when, 
 lo! the staircase, undermined by the conflagration, fell 
 with a crash which resounded like a death knell in his 
 ears. The crowd outside screamed with horror. The 
 lambent flames were already closing round Vernon, who 
 was seen at a window, measuring with his eyes the 
 depth of the abyss below. ‘A ladder! a ladder! 
 shouted the excited multitude who contemplated the 
 dreadful scene, but no ladder was at hand. The wife 
 of Vernon had fainted, and his children were wringing 
 their hands in despair. ‘Twice, with a bundle of papers 
 pressed to his breast, the unfortunate man had shown 
 himself at the window, as if determined to attempt 
 the fearful leap, twice his heart had failed him, and he 
 had retired. But the pursuing flames had soon brought 
 him back to the same spot, and already their shooting 
 tongues could be seen, like that of a huge serpent, lick- 
 ing his shoulders and hissing for joy at having reached 
 their victim. At that moment, Jasper presented him- 
 self under the window. Opening his sinewy arms and 
 displaying his colossal breast, he shouted to his master, 
 ‘ Never fear ; throw yourself down on me; [ll break 
 your fall and save you.’ There could no longer be any 
 hesitation. Master and slave, locked in each other’s 
 arms, rolled on the ground, but fortunately both rose safe 
 and sound—the master, with his valuable papers in his 
 right hand, and the slave, with his rattling chains. 
 ‘Jasper, my dear rascal,’ gasped Vernon with ‘a voice 
 almost choked with emotion, ‘you are free; run to the 
 blacksmith and have your chains knocked off. Then 
 come to me, for I have something more to do for you.” 
 
 “Well done,” I exclaimed. “Such things speak 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. PALS, 
 
 volumes in favor of that unfortunate race. Many 
 noble and touching stories could be related of the mas- 
 ter and of the slave which would show, that the in- 
 stitution which is the basis of Southern society is not so 
 demoralizing as represented. Masters and slaves have 
 no doubt committed crimes in their respective relations 
 to each other, but it is unquestionable that those rela- 
 tions are wonderfully misunderstood where they do not 
 exist. Under the softening influence. of Christianity 
 and of an education which is becoming every day more 
 extended and more liberal, the master is growing more 
 indulgent, more humane and more affectionate, and the 
 slave more attached and more contented, because he 
 feels that he is treated justly and kindly, and that he is 
 improving physically and morally. If left to themselves, 
 the slave and master would with harmonious recip- 
 rocity work out their mission of laborious partnership, 
 of cheerful obedience on one side, and friendly protec- 
 tion on the other, bound together in a patriarchal mode 
 of existence by the links of duty and love, and mindful 
 of the mandates of St. Paul: ‘Servants be obedient to 
 them that are your masters according to the flesh, with 
 fear and trembling in singleness of your heart, as unto 
 Christ. .. and ye masters, do the same things unto them, 
 forbearing threatening.’ But alas, they are not left to 
 themselves ; the master is chafed by systematic calumny, 
 and the tempter creeps intothe Eden of the African, say- 
 ing to him: ‘ Eat of this fruit of knowledge, and thou shalt 
 be free, and thou shalt not work, and thou shalt be equal 
 to the white race.’ Would to God that those who are ac- 
 tuated by pure and sincere motives, would come and 
 judge for themselves, and not pass judgment at a distance 
 on what they know nothing of! All those who have acted 
 otherwise, and who have honestly and conscientiously 
 pps 
 
274 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 studied African slavery on the spot where it grows and 
 flourishes, have been agreeably surprised. They have 
 seen blemishes and abuses inseparable from all human 
 institutions, but also much that is commendable. I re- 
 member a French physician of much merit, who had 
 been at home a red republican and somewhat of a 
 duellist, and who, after some years of residence in New 
 Orléans, once said to me: ‘If I had met you in France, 
 and if you had said one word in defence of slavery, I 
 would have fought you, such would have been my in- 
 dignation! Now that I know what slavery is, I should 
 run into the other extreme and could not help insulting 
 an abolitionist, because [ am convinced that the blacks 
 of Louisiana are the happiest peasantry on the face of 
 our globe.’ There certainly was here some exaggeration 
 of views and feelings, but it shows how widely men will 
 conscientiously disagree with themselves when looking 
 at the same object from a different stand-point. 
 
 “T will mention another instance of the like nature, 
 among many others, although it may appear a little 
 strange that I should again bring another physician into 
 play on the same subject. A doctor Bosco had been at 
 the head of a hospital at Odessa. He had been decor- 
 ated by the Emperor Nicholas for the services he had 
 rendered to humanity during the prevalence or the 
 plague. But Bosco, although a man of much brain, had 
 heated.it into a diseased condition by inappropriately 
 wearing the Phrygian cap of liberty, which suited the 
 head of a Greek near three thousand years ago, but 
 surely not a modern Sarmatian skull. It acted as an 
 extinguisher, to a considerable extent, on the bright 
 flame of his intellect and obscured his judgment. He 
 had greedily adopted the flattering doctrine for some, 
 that all men are born free, equal and self-sufficient like 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 2975 
 
 God, and no allowance was to be made in this matter 
 for time, place, and other circumstances. A Cossack was 
 as capable of self-government as an Athenian of the 
 days of Pericles. Lvidently the doctor had a generous 
 soul, which had run mad from over indulgence in dan- 
 gerous illusions, and which required a straight jacket 
 to prevent mischief. Why should there be a Czar, a 
 nobility and serfs in Russia? He was for an ex-abrupto 
 solution of that question. Therefore our Esculapius 
 had determined to cure the social body of all its ills in 
 his native country, by administering to it the panacea 
 of revolution, and had entered into a conspiracy for a 
 topsy turvy improvement of his fellow-citizens in par- 
 ticular and of the world in general. The consequence 
 was, that he had to abandon a brilliant position and fly 
 with his wife, his daughter and three grown up sons, all 
 of them very refined and worthy of a better fate than 
 that of having a father with equality, fraternity and 
 liberty on the brain. He came to Louisiana, where 
 I had the honor of making his acquaintance, and I 
 found him to be a very interesting man even in his 
 crotchets. 
 
 **¢T had such a horror of slavery,’ he said to me, 
 ‘that, had I been able to speak English, I never would 
 have come to your State, but would have settled in 
 Massachusetts under the shadow of the Bunker Hill 
 monument. I soon discovered, however, that I could not 
 exercise my profession successfully and make a living 
 anywhere in the United States, except among a French 
 population, whose language I possess. Hence I am 
 here ; and, although I retain my same old opinions and 
 feelings, yet I must confess that I am agreeably disap- 
 pointed, and that I found out that your slaves, so far as 
 physical comforts go, are superior to a great portion of 
 
 % 
 
276 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 the European peasantry, and have even as much intelli- 
 gence and morality.’ 
 
 “¢ Well, doctor, I replied, ‘I suppose that we 
 Americans, who are horrified at the slavery of white 
 people in Russia and at the tales of hellish oppression 
 which we hear, would, like yourself in this country, dis- 
 cover there a very different state of things from what 
 we dream of, if we were to visit the dominions of his 
 imperial majesty, the autocratic ruler of that immense 
 territory from which you have fled.’ 
 
 “¢T would strangle the emperor, if I could,’ continued 
 Bosco, ‘put down all the nobility, emancipate all the 
 serfs and carve for them handsome farms out of the 
 estates of their lords, but, at the same time, I am 
 too honest a man to disguise the truth, and not to 
 admit that no set of laborers on the face of the earth, 
 not even your own slaves, can be compared with ad- 
 vantage to the Russian serf in the enjoyment of a home 
 full of comforts and plenty. Yes, sir, go into a serf’s 
 cabin, and he will give you, as a stranger, a hearty wel- 
 come. His good wife will spread before you on a clean 
 table cloth a frugal, simple, but abundant meal. You 
 will have white bread, eggs, meat, milk, potatoes and 
 other esculents, with a variety of vegetables at will. If 
 you spend the night with him, you will have a blazing 
 fire until you go to bed, and, when you retire to rest, 
 you will have a weather-tight room, sheets as white as 
 snow and warm covering.’ ” 
 
 “<This a gratifying description, doctor, of the condi- 
 tion of those people.’ ” 
 
 ““ Tt may be so to you, but their stupidity and fanati- 
 cism shock me. It passeth the understanding. For if 
 I say to a peasant: “ My friend, you seem very comfort- 
 able here,” he will answer: “Yes, sir, thanks to our 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 277 
 
 father the czar,” and, doffing off his cap, he will turn 
 reverentially and bow to a coarse portrait of the empe- 
 ror, Which always hangs on the wall of a Russian hut. 
 Such servility is intolerable.’ ” 
 
 ““¢T have attentively listened to you, doctor,’ I said, 
 ‘and you confirm me in a conclusion to which I came 
 long ago: that nothing but improper pride is at the 
 bottom of much of the discontent existing in this world. 
 All that I have to say in the way of comments on the 
 information you have imparted to me about the Russian 
 serf, and for which Iam thankful, is, that if the Emperor 
 Nicholas, Alexander, Peter, or whatever may be his 
 name, should give me all I desire or need to constitute 
 complete happiness or contentment, I would, although 
 born a free and enlightened citizen of the greatest and 
 purest of all past, present and future republics, hang up 
 his portrait in my bed-chamber, and three times a day 
 salute the cherished image. I should think it but a dog 
 cheap exhibition of gratitude.’ ” 
 
 “The doctor’s only answer was a lofty smile, which I 
 construed into an intimation that I was a very mean- 
 spirited and chicken-hearted fellow. I felt rebuked and 
 humbled, which did me good, for I knew I had the 
 reputation of having a proud temper, which I wished 
 to be subdued, if that enemy existed in my breast. 
 Shortly after, the yellow fever came with all its might 
 and glory, like a grand monarch possessed of the divine 
 right to pick among his subjects those whom he chooses 
 to appropriate to his special service. I followed to- 
 their respective graves in Baton Rouge the doctor’s 
 wife, then one of his sons, then another, and another— 
 all three gone. Next, the doctor’s turn came. He 
 stretched himself on the bed where so many of his 
 family had breathed their last, and had the good fortune 
 
278 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 to die. Slightly modifying Madame Roland’s celebrated 
 exclamation when on her way to the guillotine, I said 
 to myself: O liberty, what follies are perpetrated in thy 
 name! The daughter of Bosco was the only member 
 of that family who remained alive. She was an ac- 
 complished musician, and, with a sad heart, she was 
 beginning to give lessons of music to have bread, when 
 a rich European, rather boorish, and in point of culture 
 very inferior to her, offered his hand.  She_hesita- 
 ted. Friends and sympathizers advised her to accept. 
 What could she do? She was alone in the world, des- 
 titute, and in a foreign land. She yielded, and with 
 her uncongenial mate she returned to the land of ‘un- 
 equal rights. What has since become of her, God only 
 knows. It is to be hoped that, henceforth, whenever 
 she met with superiority of rank or fortune, she, unlike 
 her father, accepted her inferiority with contented 
 humility, and never forgot the family sacrifice which 
 had been made at the altar of that Moloch of pride, 
 which repudiates all authority and hierarchy, to inaugu- 
 rate the license of thought and speech, and the anarchy 
 of action.” 
 
 “Tf the characteristic of truth,” said Tintin Calandro, 
 “is universality and duration, and if the distinctive fea- 
 ture of error is to be local, circumscribed and transitory, 
 then slavery, with its various modifications, is an insti- 
 tution founded on truth, for it has existed throughout 
 the world since the beginning of historical records, un- 
 til recently when it has begun to shrink into a smaller 
 compass. It had thrived for centuries every where, un- 
 der forms more or less visible, and with chains more or 
 less heavy. It seemed to be a spontaneous and natural 
 growth indigenous to our globe. But, like all sublunary 
 things, whether it came from hell, or from heaven, it is 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 279 
 
 bound to disappear, at least in name, and the sooner in 
 consequence of its having openly lasted so long. It is 
 hoary with age and must decay, but not perish entirely, 
 for nothing once created ever perishes, be it spiritual or 
 material. Ideas are decomposed merely to reappear 
 with modifications; social and political institutions are 
 struck down, apparently to rot, but they germinate 
 again from the earth with a change of foliage which 
 conceals the identity of the roots; all matter crumbles 
 into dust and vanishes, only to assume another compo- 
 sition and organization; the name, the shape and the 
 complexion of things will be altered, but the substance 
 will eternally remain. Be it as it may, the whole civ- 
 ilized world, as it is called (Heaven save the mark !) 
 now thunders forth that slavery, as we have it here, 
 where the white man avowedly owns the black man as 
 “property, and not clandestinely as white masters own 
 white slaves in philanthropic communities where sancti- 
 monious cupidity throws a veil over the title deeds of 
 bondage, is contrary to Christianity and a- monstrous 
 sin. It is not true, however, for the God man and 
 His apostles would not have hesitated to denounce it as 
 they denouneed all other sins. On the contrary, they 
 respected and sanctioned it, as they respected and sane- 
 tioned the authority of Ozsar. We hear it bawled out 
 on all sides that slave communities are necessarily im- 
 moral. All cant, all cant! Nothing else. The Ro- 
 mans, during four hundred years, were the most moral 
 and religious people that ever lived. Although they 
 were pagans and slaveholders, and although they had 
 the right to repudiate their wives as they pleased, there 
 was not among them during’ that long period of time, 
 one single divorce; and, although they had the power 
 of life and death over their children, that tremendous 
 
280 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 power never was abused. The cry also is: slavery 
 stupefies the master and the slave. It is false again, as 
 false as Judas, for the Athenians had more genius, more 
 refinement, more wit and more taste than all the mod- 
 ern free nations of the earth put together; and it can- 
 not be denied that, in America, slavery has Christian- 
 ized the savage blacks imported from Africa and great- 
 ly improved their moral, intellectual and physical con- 
 dition. Nevertheless slavery, African slavery, against 
 which such a hue and ery is raised, whilst the slav- 
 ery of whites is allowed to slumber peaccfully else- 
 where, must succumb at last. It is merely a question 
 of time. Whether that time is near, or distant, must 
 be left to the sagacity of the wise to determine. To 
 my mental vision it is clear, that: the abolition of slay- 
 ery in the United States is comparatively near. Free 
 States and slave States, aristocracy and democracy, can- 
 not live long in fraternal embrace. It is a law of na- 
 ture. It has pleased God to create irreconcilable an- 
 tagonisms like fire and water. Your slaves shall be 
 freed by the superior force of an intruding hand, and, 
 as it is another law of nature that distinct races, partic- 
 ularly like the black and white which cannot commingle 
 and fuse into a heterogeneous compound, shall not ex- 
 ist together on a footing of equality, the Caucasian race 
 will annihilate the African, and, in less than a hundred 
 years, the. black man will become as rare as the red man. 
 
 “There might be a chance, if not to escape from, at 
 least to retard, those evils with which you are threaten- 
 ed. Take the initiative, emancipate gradually your 
 slaves, give them an appropriate education, institute a 
 sort of feudal tenure, let thém be attached to the glebe, 
 and into them let the spirit of the Scottish clans be in- 
 fused. Your negroes are naturally aristocratic in their 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 281 
 
 instincts, and, besides, they hate all foreigners, all those 
 who are not born on their native soil. Put them un- 
 der the sway of heréditary chiefs; let them be the vas- 
 sals of those chiefs, and let the chiefs be their patriarchal 
 heads. Let them have interests in common—a bond 
 of union between the protected and the protectors. Let 
 the negroes have all the civil rights you enjoy, and 
 some of the political, under proper restrictions. Let 
 them have a country, let them have property. Improve 
 them morally and intellectually, as much as practica- 
 ble; elevate them to you instead of descending to them, 
 but keep them distinct and apart, and beware of debas- 
 ing amalgamation. Let them be loved, loving and 
 prosperous vassals and tenants. Then, if they are not 
 an element of force, they may not be an element of 
 weakness, and perhaps of danger. When the inevita- 
 ble struggle shall come between the Southern States on 
 one side, and the Northern and Western States on the 
 other, aim above all at forming a strong government, 
 if you wish to avoid the worst of all fates—that of a 
 conquered people; and the only strong and durable 
 government which the world has ever seen is the aris- 
 tocratic, as is exemplified by Rome, Venice, England, 
 and particularly France, whose aristocratic monarchy, 
 ten centuries old, perished shortly after it became auto- 
 cratic under a cardinal’s blood-red hat.” 
 
 But, Tintin Calandro,” I said, “you are dreaming 
 of impossibilities. You are forgetting that you live in an 
 age essentially democratic, in which numbers will, with 
 the rod of majorities, rule despotically over crushed and 
 obedient minorities.” 
 
 “Then your hour of trial will soon be at hand,” re- 
 plied Tintin; “and your five millions of slaves will de- 
 sert you, and you will be overwhelmed.” 
 
982 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 “You forget, Tintin Calandro, that the Federal cen 
 sus only gives us a little above three millions.” 
 
 “The census is false and deceptive like your ‘ Dec- 
 laration of Independence,’ which, as to the principles 
 it proclaims, is nothing but a pack of fallacies. The 
 planters, as you well know, never gave but a very in- 
 complete list of their slaves. To diminish taxation, 
 more than one-third was omitted.” 
 
 “Well,” said I, laughing at his rueful countenance, 
 “‘we can afford to wait a good while, I suppose, for the 
 happening of the awful catastrophe which you an- 
 
 nounce. The horizon is not so dark after all. Words | 
 
 of fury are often but empty sounds; it is not every 
 blustering wind that uproots the sturdy oak; and 
 threatened men live long.” 
 
 “‘ Lay not this flattering unction unto your soul,” re- 
 plied Tintin with increasing animation; “‘rather fly 
 from this doomed land and from the rain of blood 
 which will deluge it; fly from it, as the wife of Lot 
 once fled from the city which the wrath of heaven was 
 to blast, but, wiser than her, do not look behind. Take 
 along with thee thy earthly goods, and God speed thee 
 as thou runneth, for the hand of the spoiler is waxing 
 strong.” 
 
 Struck with the vehemence of his manner, I inter- 
 rupted him, and said: “Tintin Calandro, my friend, 
 you are running wild, almost mad ; compose yourself.” 
 
 “Oh! oh!” he exclaimed; “ that is but an old and 
 stale story. When Cassandra cautioned the Trojans 
 against their impending fate, and when the man on 
 the walls of the sacred city of Palestine cried: ‘ woe to 
 Jerusalem, and woe to myself!’ they were said to be 
 mad by those they wished to save. But the Greeks 
 and the’ Romans justified those prophets of evil, and 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 283 
 
 made good the lamentations which had been derided 
 and despised. When the soothsayer said to Cesar: 
 ‘beware of the Ides of March,’ he was waived aside as 
 a madman, oraquack. But when the dagger of Brutus 
 flashed in the senate, which of the two had acted mad- 
 ly, the soothsayer who had given the warning, or the 
 dictator who had disregarded it? Have you heard of 
 the well-authenticated supper of Cazotte, the crack- 
 brained, with Condorcet, Champfort, La Harpe and other 
 celebrities? At the festal board, when wine sparkled 
 in the cup and witty jests enlivened the passing hour, 
 he predicted to them the horrors of the French revolu- 
 tion. Pointing his finger at Condorcet the strong- 
 minded, the atheist, and the advocate of the right of 
 women to vote and be elected to office, he said : “ You, 
 marquis, will die in a prison by your own hand, to es- 
 cape being publicly beheaded by your revolutionary 
 accomplices and associates in destroying the work of 
 - ages; you, La Harpe, the favorite and enthusiastic disci- 
 ple of Voltaire, and the scoffing infidel, will haunt the 
 confessional like a nun, and be as fanatically pious as a 
 Carthtsian monk.” Thus he went on, telling each 
 guest what his fate would be, and he ended with pro- 
 phesying his own, which was to perish on the scaffold. 
 O, how they roared, the half inebriated philosophers, 
 deists and atheists, when they heard these predictions ! 
 They were particularly tickled at the idea that La 
 Harpe would put on the cassock. How they toasted 
 La Harpe, the future saint, and Cazotte, the resuscitated 
 Calchas! What bumpers they drank to the new pro- 
 phet! Why should they have been afraid? Was not 
 Cazotte known to be half mad? And being half mad, 
 was he to be believed, when he pretended to read in 
 the book of destiny? Well then, why should I com- 
 
284 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 plain, I, poor Tintin Calandro, the old grave-digger 
 and the ghost-seer? Why should I not be laughed at 
 when I say: Look! look at the gigantic vampire of 
 fanaticism whose dark shadow projects itself over this 
 continent. Poor Tintin Calandro is mad!” And he 
 slowly and musingly walked away repeating to him- 
 self mournfully: ‘ Poor Tintin Calandro is mad! mad! 
 mad! mad!” 
 
 I was accustomed to Tintin’s fits of insanity, but, I 
 do not know why, there was something in this scene 
 which shattered my nerves. An unaccountable and in- 
 vincible gloominess came over my soul. J hastened 
 home, drank a whole bottle of champagne, but felt 
 more blue than before. I tried to read, but could not, 
 went to bed in self-defence, and had dreadful dreams. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 THE STATESMAN.—BETTER BE A DOG THAN A POLITICIAN. 
 
 Tue next time I met Tintin Calandro, I was sur- 
 prised at the extreme cordiality with which he greeted 
 me. He took both my hands and shook them heartily 
 again and again, saying: “I esteem and love you 
 more than ever. I have learned that a comté de sa- 
 lut public,”* and in uttering these words a visible tre- 
 mor passed over his whole frame, and his habitually pale 
 face became still paler, “ but what am I talking about ?” 
 said he correcting himself; “I mean that a Committee 
 of the Democratic party has called on you to invite 
 you to run for an office to be obtained by the popular 
 vote, and that you have refused, thank God! So, my 
 dear Fernando, you are not disposed, it seems, to turn 
 politician, to be a buzzard living on the carcass of the 
 social body, which, the more putrified it is, the more 
 abundant and luscious food it offers to those foul birds.” 
 
 I wondered at such utterances from the mouth of 
 my recluse friend, and I replied: “ No fear of that, 
 and there are several reasons for it. The first duty of 
 aman is to know himself. Well, I know that the cut 
 of my coat, such as it has pleased nature and her ad- 
 junct operatives, to wit, circumstances, to make it, does 
 not: permit me to hang it on a pole in the market-place 
 
 * A Committee of Public Safety. 
 
286 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 with any reasonable hope that it may ever become a 
 popular flag. Besides, I remember an advice which 
 was given me by a great man, who could speak on the 
 subject with full and special knowledge. It was in 
 1829. I was returning to New Orleans from Phila- 
 delphia, where I had obtained the honor of being ad- 
 mitted to the distinguished bar of that city, after hav- 
 ing successfully, and therefore proudly, passed through 
 a severe examination conducted by such men as Sar- 
 geant, Duponceau and Dallas. On my way home, I 
 spent some days in Washington, which loomed in my 
 youthful mind as the Olympus of all that was admira- 
 ble and noble in this world. I was welcomed with 
 much kindness by Henry Clay, who had more than 
 once been an honored guest in my family. On the 
 day fixed for my departure, I called on him to take 
 leave. Whilst he had my hand grasped in his, he said: 
 ‘Well, young man, what do you intend to do when 
 at home? What course of life have you sketched for 
 yourself ? 
 
 “*T thank you for the inquiry, Mr. Clay,’ I replied. 
 ‘It is probable that I shall try to rise in my profession, 
 and then why should I not have the legitimate ambi- 
 tion to become a statesman 3 and, in imitation of stim- 
 ulating examples which I have before me, why should 
 T not attempt to serve my country to the best of my 
 abilities, although in an humble manner ? 
 
 “‘ Never have [I since. forgotten the expression of his 
 eye and of his lips on that occasion. Squeezing with a 
 sort of nervous pressure my hand, which he still held 
 tightly, he said in the richest tone of his peculiarly musi- 
 cal and sympathetic voice, and with a shade of melan- 
 choly which flitted over his face like a light cloud 
 across the luminous disk of the sun: 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 287 
 
 ““¢ Beware and reflect. Statesmen are few, politicians 
 are many. I have been thus far, I believe, one of the 
 most successful politicians in the United States, and 
 yet, allow me to say to you before we part, what I have 
 said to my own sons: be a dog rather than: a_politi- 
 cian.’ 
 
 “T frequently met Mr. Clay afterward, when the wind 
 of political adversity had withered his hopes, when dis- 
 appointments after disappointments had soured his 
 heart, when the hounds of party warfare barked at his 
 heels, when friends had proved untrue, when partisans 
 had dwindled away before the prospect of failure, 
 when the people had become cold before their former 
 idol, when enemies had gathered with a triumphant 
 flourish of trumpets round the noble stag at bay, 
 when slander had done its best to blacken and tarnish 
 the pure and bright panoply of gold with which the 
 great commoner thought he had armed-his illustrious 
 name, when an occasional savage scowl sat on his fur- 
 rowed brow, when his thin lips curled with contempt, 
 when sometimes a fierce flash shot from his eyes as 
 from those of an eagle looking round from the altitude 
 of his eyrie for a prey to pounce upon. Then it was, 
 on my hearing, even at the warm and social board of 
 friendship, the bitter sarcasm and the sneering laugh 
 which: sometimes betrayed the galled and jaded soul 
 within, that I repeated to myself more than once: 
 ‘be a dog rather than a politician.” It is not that I 
 am insensible to the glory of being a martyr in a great 
 cause. But great causes are not of frequent occurrence, 
 and is not a martyr at will, he who wishes it. If I 
 might make some concessions to the ‘ prince of dark- 
 ness, whom Shakspeare proclaims to be a ‘ gentle 
 man, to gratify the ambition of being, like Pitt, the 
 
288 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 ruler of a great nation, I would not condescend to burn 
 a tallow candle to the scullions of his satanic majesty’s 
 kitchen, to be the emasculated governor of an equivo- 
 cally sovereign state, or an obscure senator in Congress. 
 But, to be less figurative; I do not mean to say that 
 _ there are not circumstances under which I should not 
 accept office. I hold that any public or political situa- 
 tion, which is spontaneously tendered with expectations 
 that the commonwealth will be benefited by the accep- 
 tance, no member of that commonwealth has a right 
 to refuse, whatever his tastes, inclinations, or interests 
 may be, whatever is his distrust in his own capacity, or 
 whatever discomforts or even dangers might result to 
 him from that acceptance. The most sacred and im- 
 perative duty which civilized society imposes upon a 
 citizen, is that of answering without hesitation the call 
 of his country. But we are living in an age when no 
 office is tendered, because it is hunted after by too 
 many humanitarian terriers and bloodhounds, because no 
 people will go to a Cincinnatus at the plow, and, taking 
 him by the collar, will compel him to become dictator 
 and save Rome. I have not read in any code of mor- 
 ality, or of national law, that a man, to conquer the 
 opportunity of serving his country for a consideration 
 indispensable now to patriots, is bound to engage against 
 acrowd of them in a free fight, after the fashion of 
 hungry curs snarling and tearing one another to pieces 
 over a bit of bone in the gutter. And if this is not 
 sufficient, dear Tintin, let me introduce you into a room 
 where you will witness a scene the recollection of 
 which never will fade away from my memory. Do 
 you see that majestic octogenarian on his death-bed ? 
 Do you see a boy standing by that bed? Do you see 
 those feeble and trembling hands laid on his head 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS 289 
 
 to bless, whilst these words are addressed to him: ‘Son 
 of a cherished daughter, you are still very young, and 
 — yet I commit to your care your widowed mother. Be 
 dutiful and loving to her, and her support through life. 
 My career has been very long, and, when I review it 
 at this solemn hour, I see nothing in it which makes 
 me afraid of meeting my God and Creator, who now 
 summons me to His presence. My conscience is calm 
 and my death is serene, as you see. I have never vol- 
 untarily wronged any one, and no man, or woman, can 
 address to me a just reproach. Live as I have done, 
 that you may die as I die. Whatever may be your 
 temptations, and whatever the errors into which you 
 may be betrayed, for some are inseparable from human 
 nature, be sure to keep clear of such as would make 
 _ you forfeit your own esteem. Be always a gentleman 
 from the root of your hair to the very sole of your feet 
 and in the very marrow of your bones. March steadily 
 in the path of honor, although it may bristle with 
 thorns that will tear your flesh at every step, for the 
 path of honor is also the path of true religion. Now, 
 farewell, I bless you, and may God sanction the bless- 
 ing !’ 
 
 “ When he ceased to speak, I raised my eyes which 
 streamed with tears. He was dead; I gazed at his face. 
 The expression left on it was that which one may sup- 
 pose to be communicated by the sweet recollection of a 
 life well spent. By heaven, Tintin Calandro, whenever 
 I have been tempted into any action on the nature of 
 which I entertained doubts at the time, I have stood 
 before the portrait of him I speak of, and which I have 
 always carried with me wherever I went, for I felt it 
 to be my guardian angel and monitor, and I have said 
 to the image of the departed: would you do it, grand- 
 
 13 
 
eee meee 
 
 290 FERNANDO DE-LEMOS. 
 
 father, if alive, or would you approve of it? Believe 
 it or not, as you please, I always have read the answer 
 in those calm blue eyes which were fixed on me, and 
 whenever my determination was taken according to 
 that answer, I saw, or fancied I saw, a smile steal over 
 his lips. You see, my friend, why I can not be a bob- 
 tail and tag-rag politician, if you have any conception 
 of what I should have to stoop to, and of the terror 
 with which, in that case, | should approach that por- 
 trait. You see also that [ am as mad as you are, for, 
 if you are under the influence of ghosts, 1 am under 
 the spell of a painted canvas.” 
 
 “No madness, no madness,” exclaimed Tintin Calan- 
 dro. “The ancestral soul was there, speaking to your 
 soul in answer to your appeal. Spirits love to hover 
 round their portraits and even to dwell in them, when 
 held sacred by their descendants, or by those who 
 loved them when in the flesh. O God! O God! what 
 mysteries there are in this world, of which man knows 
 nothing, because of his incredulity !” 
 
 He seated himself on a tomb and buried his face in 
 his hands, which was his habit when he felt some un- 
 controlable emotion. After a while he looked up. 
 Tears were trickling down his cheeks. ‘TI also have a 
 portrait in my bed-chamber,” he said. “ When I die, 
 which will be before long, it shall be committed to your 
 care, with the request that every day, as my represen- 
 tative, you kneel before it and do homage to her whom 
 you will see for the first time, and whose eyes will beam 
 on you as if still instinct with life. Do that, and, with 
 the consent of Almighty God, I will appear to you, and 
 give you such proof of our spiritual existence after 
 death and such comfort to your grieving soul, as I may 
 be permitted to bring.” 
 
- FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 291 
 
 At that moment, deafening shouts were heard and 
 the tramp of many feet. It was a political procession 
 filing off alongside of the walls of the cemetery with 
 flags and emblematical devices, for we were on the eve 
 of a presidential election. They had a band of music 
 marching in front of them. Suddenly the electrifying 
 notes of the Jfarseillaise burst upon us. “ What ? 
 what? what is that?’ shrieked Tintin Calandro, his 
 whole frame quivering with intense excitement, and his 
 eye flashing with that wild light peculiar to insanity. 
 “A Jacobin club! A procession of cut-throats! It is 
 the rising of the people ! The upheaving of the sewers ! 
 A torrent bursting from hell! They are the demons of 
 faubourgs St. Marceau and St. Antoine.” He looked 
 round terror-struck, as if for help. “ Beat them back,” 
 he shouted with frantic energy. “Keep them off, 
 charge them, give us time to fly. Where are the body- 
 guards? O God! It is too late. O horror! Do you 
 see that fiend there ?—there, there—the fiend in human 
 shape who carries on a pike that angelic head dripping 
 with gore. It is her head—the head of beauty, virtue 
 and innocence! It is the noblest blood that ever flowed 
 in mortal veins.” 
 
 Poor Tintin fell into convulsions, uttering the most 
 dismal yells of agony. I took him in my arms as if he 
 had been a child, for his diminutive and emaciated 
 body only weighed a few pounds, and I flew rather 
 than ran across the cemetery to my friend’s humble 
 abode. I knocked at the door with such force as to 
 batter it down. It was promptly opened, however, and 
 an old negro woman whom I knew, and whom every- 
 body else knew in New Orleans under the appellation 
 ot Zabet, surnamed the “ philosopher,” made her ap- 
 pearance. ‘It is not the first time,” she said, “that I 
 
292 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 have seen him in this condition. Carry him to bed. 
 This will last some days, but, with tender and careful 
 nursing, he will recover, poor thing!” She opened an 
 inside door, and, for the first time, I entered Tintin 
 Calandro’s bed-chamber, which was the second room 
 from the street. It was plain and rude enough; it 
 looked like the cell of an anchorite. A few hard 
 planks, raised above the floor and covered with a thin 
 mattress, constituted his bed. At its head a crucifix 
 was appended. There were two or three straw-bottom- 
 ed chairs, a dilapidated sofa, a Yankee wooden clock, 
 a round pine-wood table in the centre with a copper 
 candlestick and his violin, a wash-stand in a corner with 
 a cracked bowl and pitcher, a Bible and a complete 
 edition of Swedenborg’s works resting on dusty shelves. 
 Above the mantelpiece of a chimney which looked as 
 if fire had not been made in it for years, hung a large 
 frame which, as I conjectured, contained the portrait 
 of which he had spoken. I say that I conjectured, be- 
 cause the painting, whatever it was, happened to be 
 covered with a thick black crape veil. I wanted to go for 
 a physician, but the negress, with some degree of scorn 
 at the suggestion, I thought, said that it was not neces- 
 sary, and that she knew what was to be done better 
 than any doctor. Seeing that the patient was a little 
 more calm, although still delirious, and having perfect 
 confidence in his nurse, I retired, and, on my way 
 home, I became so absorbed in turning over in my 
 mind certain suspicions which had been produced by 
 this late incident, that I ran foul of a lamp-post, against 
 which I violently struck my head, and was near being 
 picked up by the night-watch as a drunken man. 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 OLD ZABET THE BLACK WOMAN, AND HER PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 As Zabet had predicted, the illness of Tintin Calan- 
 dro continued several days. I passed most of my time 
 in watching over my suffering friend. He had recover- 
 ed his senses at last, but great debility had been the 
 result of the violent fever which had followed the 
 paroxysms of insanity which I had witnessed in the 
 graveyard. I had improvised for myself a sort of bed 
 in a room which preceded the chamber of Tintin, and 
 which was dignified with the name of parlor. There I 
 slept every night, to be, when wanted, in attendance on 
 one who was for me an object of love and admiration, 
 notwithstanding the mental infirmity with which he 
 was afflicted. I must also confess that I was attracted 
 to him by an intense curiosity excited by the mystery 
 which shrouded the existence of one, who evidently was 
 very different in reality from what he wished to appear. 
 I had for companion in my vigils the faithful Zabet, who 
 entertained me with amusing stories of the colonial life 
 of our ancestors, and of whom I shall proceed to give 
 a biographical sketch. I think that she is quite worthy 
 of it, as one of those singular characters possessed of a 
 decidedly marked physiognomy, who abounded in the 
 Louisiana of the past, and who seem to have since 
 withered and disappeared under the leveling system by 
 which everybody is made as much like everybody else 
 
 (293) 
 
294 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 as a sheep is like another sheep. We have sunk to the 
 platitude of monotonous and uniform mediocrity. 
 
 For the population of the past Zabet was as much of 
 an institution as the city council, or Cabildo, and as 
 curious and favorite a monument in flesh and blood, as 
 the cathedral wasin brick and mortar, or the antiquated 
 convent of the Ursulinesin Condé street. At the time 
 I met her at Tintin Calandro’s, she pretended to have 
 run a career of very near a hundred years. She was 
 born in the house of Madam de Gauvrit, the widow 
 of an officer who had served under Bienville, the founder 
 of New Orleans. The widow had made a pet of the 
 young negress, and had emancipated her by testament. 
 Elizabeth, or Zabet, as she was called by contraction, 
 after having acquired her freedom, had successively 
 hired herself out as a chambermaid and hair-dresser to 
 several of the most aristocratic Jadies of the colonial 
 epoch. The word aristocratic is here correctly employ- 
 ed, because there was then an aristocracy in Louisiana; 
 and it is now ridiculously used and misapplied, because 
 there is no longer among us a legitimate shadow of any- 
 thing of the sort, for our society is thoroughly plebeian 
 and democratic. But to return to Zabet. Although 
 she knew neither how to read nor write, she spoke very 
 pure and even elegant French, without being aware 
 of it and without being acquainted with one single 
 grammatical rule, but merely from the force of memory, 
 association and habit. The magpie of Horace, or Virgil, 
 if they had one, must have chattered in metrical 
 language. I have in my possession a letter of one of 
 the beauties of the court of Louis XV. The style is as 
 classical as that of a muse, and the orthography as bad 
 as that of a cook. The last lady whom Zabet had served 
 was the wife of the colonial prefect Laussat, who hand- 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 295 
 
 ed over Louisiana to the United States after having re- 
 ceived it from Spain, like a decanter of wine, ora 
 sponge cake, which circulates round the convivial table. 
 The day on which the French flag was lowered before the 
 American almost broke Zabet’s heart. She wept as if 
 the greatest calamity had befallen her. On being asked 
 what was the matter with her, she replied that she did 
 not know what to do for a living, and that her former 
 occupation was gone. 
 
 “J have heard,” she said, “that this new government 
 proclaims that all white folks are equal. Well, if the 
 old French woman who sells sausages in the market- 
 place is as good as the wife of Governor Claiborne, 
 hen there are no longer ladies in the land, for, since 
 aunty, the pork-pie seller, cannot rise above what she 
 is, 1t is clear that madam the governess must come 
 down to her, in order that they both. may be on the 
 same level. Having always waited on ladies, I am not 
 going to wait on any other of my sex of an inferior de- 
 gree, howeverrich their dresses may be, and whatever 
 may be the loads of diamonds they carry on their 
 heads, or round their necks; and_ besides, if, according 
 to this government, all white women are equal, although 
 one is nothing but a stinking rag, and the other a piece 
 of silk embroidered with gold, I don’t comprehend 
 why my black skin makes me inferior to a white female 
 thief, or a white mushroom of the gutter, to whom I 
 feel that I am much superior by my feelings and educa- 
 tion. Therefore, in my humble opinion, I am as much 
 entitled as she is to be the equal of anybody; and 
 please, how can I be a servant to my equal? TZhat’s 
 my philosophy, do you see. O Lord! O Lord! If I 
 cannot be a chambermaid and a hair-dresser, as I used 
 to be, how shall I live ?’ 
 
296 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 But the grief of Zabet did not last long. She was a 
 woman of spirit and action; she kept her word, and 
 ceased to be a menial. Her next appearancv in public 
 was as a seller of delicious cakes which she delicately 
 made with her own hands, and of pecans, those luscious 
 nuts so much appreciated in Louisiana.” She stationed 
 herself under the porch of the cathedral, and, as she 
 knew everybody that she cared to know, and was 
 reciprocally known, and as she had always been a 
 favorite with the ele of the population, she carried on 
 a brisk trade. She was complimented on her spirited 
 resolution to be independent in a free country, and 
 pieces of silver rained into her basket. To all her blue 
 blooded patrons who had a kind word for her, she be- 
 haved with the highflown courtesy of the old regime 
 to which she was so much attached, and was profuse in 
 humble thanks expressed in well set phrases. If any 
 allusion was made to her change of occupation, she 
 would say: “It is as evident as the Holy Virgin is the 
 mother of God, that, if one cannot live by the dressing- 
 comb, one must live by the broomstick ; and, if not by 
 the broomstick, let it be by the wash-tub, or in any 
 other way, so it be honest. Do you see, that’s my 
 philosophy ; and old Quemper, the schoolmaster, has 
 told me that it is as good as any other: and old Quem- 
 per knows everything on earth.” 
 
 When church hours had elapsed, Zabet would migrate 
 from the porch of the cathedral to the arcades of the 
 court-house next to it. There she was in the way of 
 the lawyers, judges and jurors, who seldom passed her 
 without stopping for a little chat, when they had any 
 time to spare, for she was keen and sarcastic, old Zabet, 
 a sort of black Diogenes in petticoat. Faith! Shehad - 
 a tongue as sharp pointed as her needle, and, when she 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 297 
 
 chose, she was very entertaining. Moreau Lislet, Living- 
 ston, Mazureau, Grymes, Judge Martin, and other lumin- 
 aries of the bar and bench, would linger before her bask- 
 et, picking up a handful of her pecans, and, whilst crack- 
 ing them, would crack jokes with her, and would ask for 
 some information on the usages and habits of the last 
 century, and laugh at some scraps of good humored 
 scandal, or some piquant anecdote which she would re- 
 late ; for old Zabet was a living chronicle and a pic- 
 turesque painter of past things and events. When she 
 sold her merchandise to those she liked, she was all 
 smiles and graciousness, and had always something 
 pleasant to say. Those she disliked were treated with 
 the utmost indifference. She would hand her cakes or 
 nuts to them with a sort of grim solemnity of manner, 
 without looking at them, and would pocket their money 
 in silence. Sometimes, when their backs were turned, 
 she would toss up her head and cast at them a glance 
 full of intense disgust. In the beginning of the even- 
 ing, and as the sun went down, she would operate an- 
 other migration, and station herself at that entrance of 
 Jackson square which is in front of the cathedral, 
 where all the promenaders who came there to inhale 
 some fresh air were bound to pass by her. She would 
 examine with a critical eye all those who went by, and, 
 when she had by her side some ebony or orange colored 
 female friend, to whose discretion she could trust, she 
 would thus unbosom herself to her companion, particu- 
 larly when in a dyspeptic or sour humor, which happen- 
 ed occasionally, for Zabet, in common with many other 
 philosophers like herself, was not exempt from being 
 fretted by those vexations of life which frequently fol- 
 low too close on each other’s heels : 
 
 “O dear! O dear! Look at that popinjay. How he 
 
 tBx 
 
298 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 swells! He thinks that he is somebody, because he has 
 a sugar plantation. Bless me! He forgets that his 
 grandfather. used to blacken the shoes of Governor 
 Galvez, and that the governor tossed to him that piece 
 of land, like a penny to a beggar, as a reward for his 
 clever exercise of the brush. My stars! Gossip, if you ain’t 
 afraid of being struck blind, look at that other fellow yon- 
 der, the marquis of cotton bags, whose purse-is so fat and 
 whose brain is so thin. I heard him say, the other day, 
 that his family was the best in the State. O Christ! 
 That old Zabet should hear such things, and not dare to 
 open her lips! Why, why, dear gossip, his grandfather 
 was a convict, who, harnessed like a horse, used to pull 
 the Government’s barges up the river. Ha! ha! Shut 
 up your umbrella, my gossip, the rain is over, sure; 
 for here is a walking rainbow. See how she struts, 
 Madame La Princesse, with all her colors flying! Up- 
 on my word! She thinks she is some pumpkins, because 
 she wears a cashmere shawl and a velvet dress, although 
 the weather is almost suffocating. She don’t permit 
 one of her black girls to lift up her head in her pres- 
 ence. If the poor thing raises her eyes, she is called 
 insolent, as if a cat was not permitted to look at a king. 
 To be sure, she ought to have plenty of dresses in store, 
 _ and she ought also to know how to make them, for her 
 mother was the milliner of the baroness of Carondelet. 
 Give way, give way, mercy on me! That dashing 
 equipage, with those crazy bay colored horses, has almost 
 knocked my basket off the banquette and run over me. 
 Jeremiah! What changes in this world! I haveseen the 
 father of their proprietor standing behind the coach of 
 Governor Miro!” Thus would Zabet vent her spleen ; 
 but she would invariably wind up with: “ Patience! 
 patience! There is no more wisdom in quarreling with 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 299 
 
 upstarts than in picking burrs. I will sell them my 
 eakes,and.... spit. Zhat’smy philosophy.” 
 
 Sometimes, in the midst of her pungent remarks, 
 Zabet’s face would assume an expression of triumph. 
 * At last, at last!’ she would exclaim. ‘JI see one of 
 our old blooded stock. Here is a gentleman coming, - 
 and no mistake. There is royal blood for you, gossip, 
 mark it, and know it again when you see it. Pll get up 
 and courtesy.” Or, “ look at that timid lady, modestly 
 and plainly dressed, who walks as if she was afraid of 
 being in the way of somebody. Royal blood again, 
 gossip, royal blood! May God bless her for ever! 
 Honor to whom honor isdue. ~Zhat’s my philosophy. 
 Old Zabet cannot be deceived. She knows who is who, 
 and which is which. There is no fooling her with false 
 colors. She knows what milk every baby has sucked, 
 and she can tell, a mile off, a canary bird from a jack- 
 daw. But mum! To be silent and not open my lips 
 when the cold wind would give me the tooth-ache, 2s 
 my philosophy.” 
 
 Apart these outbursts of feelings in which she occa- 
 sionally indulged when she could be heard only by con- 
 fidential ears, Zabet was naturally affable and kind, and 
 was a great favorite with high and low, notwithstand- 
 ing her studied reserve toward the latter. Even chil- 
 dren seemed to entertain for her a sentiment. of venera- 
 tion, and abstained from plaguing her. It is true that 
 she was fond of them, and generally had an apple or a 
 cake to give. They called her: “old aunty that will 
 never die ;” and the only liberty they were ever known 
 to take with her in a playful manner, was to say: “ old 
 aunty, how are you to-day? It is said that you will 
 neyer die. It is your philosophy, we hope, to live for 
 ever and give us apples. Is it not?’ The sum total 
 
300 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 of human excellence, according to her peculiar notions, 
 was to have royal blood. When,speaking of an individual, 
 she said sententiously : ‘royal blood,” she had blown the 
 last and finishing blast of the trumpet of praise ; nothing 
 was to be added. I once asked her what she meant by 
 royal blood. ‘She replied that she meant those to whom 
 kings had given a small picture, or design, which 
 they wore on their seals, or on the pannels of their car- 
 riages, or which they hung up in frames at home. 
 Thus a coat-of-arms and royal blood had become insep- 
 arably connected in Zabet’s mind. On one occasion, I 
 maliciously asked her what she thought of the family 
 of Grandmaison. ‘‘ Extra royal blood,” she answered. 
 “‘ How is it then, Zabet,” I said, “that Eugene Grand- 
 maison is such a conceited, mean, perfidious, stupid, 
 good-for-nothing wretch, that a cur would hardly con- 
 descend to be fed by him?” She looked much distressed 
 by my question, and, after a little cogitation, she re- 
 plied: “I must confess that it is a thing beyond my 
 comprehension, and which grieves me to the heart. I 
 cannot account for it. There must have been some- 
 thing wrong in the hatching, somehow or other. The 
 devil must be at the bottom of it. But still, royal 
 blood is royal blood. TZhat’s my philosophy.” 
 
 Once, in 1815, on her being pointed out to General 
 Jackson, as he happened to pass by the cathedral, he 
 stopped before her basket, picked a few of the nuts, for 
 which he gave her a dollar, shook hands with her, in- 
 quired about her health, and expressed his satisfaction 
 at her looking so well notwithstanding her great age. 
 When he departed, Zabet, looking long and steadfastly 
 at the retiring hero, said to the by-standers: “The gen- 
 eral is a stranger to me; I know nothing of him. But 
 he is royal blood, sure; else he would not have behaved 
 ashe did. TZhat’s my philosophy.” . 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 301 
 
 The old woman was fond of visiting me, because she 
 had discovered that I never tired of listening to her 
 anecdotes and stories, which were so graphically de- 
 scriptive of the feelings and manners of the past. How 
 different was that past from the present when seen 
 through the spectacles of the narrator! On entering 
 my apartment, she used to sink into an arm-chair after 
 haying deposited her basket on the floor, blow for a few 
 minutes, and exclaim, when she had some cause of vex- 
 ation to complain of: “ My son,” for she always ad- 
 dressed me by that endearing appellation, “my heart 
 burns,” and then she would relate what had excited her 
 , indignation. 
 
 “ Aunty,” I said to her on one of those occasions, “ 1 
 wonder that you allow your heart to bwrn so often. 
 It might consume it in the end. This is not sound phil- 
 osophy-on your part.” 
 
 “Why not?’ she replied with vivacity. ‘A heart 
 that is not susceptible of burning is like rotten wood. 
 It is not good for any thing; there is nothing in it. It 
 is as cold as ice and lifeless. I pray God that my heart 
 may never cease to burn, whenever there is a cause for 
 it. Zhat’s my philosophy. Ah! This poor world is 
 now topsy turvy. Who had told me, when I dressed the 
 hair of the Countess of Galvez, that old Zabet would see 
 such times as these would have killed me outright. 
 But old age becomes tough, and can bear much aftlic- 
 tion. It is hard though, very hard, when I meet a 
 dochan* in the market place, or in the streets, to hear 
 myself thus addressed in an imperious tone: ‘ Negress, 
 how dare you to brush by me so close? Keep your dis- 
 tance. Don’t you know who I w? O Lord! 
 
 * This word in the Creole vocabulary of the blacks in L< uisiana means 
 a person of very low birth. 
 
302 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 O Lord! I say to myself: You are right, darling. 
 _ Don’t I know who you are? Dirt, dirt, dirt !” and she 
 would spit with disgust. ‘ Well, well,’ she would say, 
 resuming the subject, “thank God, there is a compen- 
 sation for every evil; for, the next moment, I meet 
 ‘royal blood, and it is a kind shaking of my bony black 
 hand, and making way to me as to a lady, and, ‘ good- 
 bye, Aunty Zabet, remember to come and see me, and 
 get a bottle of wine, or a dress, or something else that 
 may please you.’ This shows that we must take things 
 as Heaven sends them, although the heart may be per- 
 mitted to burn a little, and no harm done. TZhat’s my. 
 philosophy. But the world is getting worse every day, 
 my son. ‘There is no denying that. For instance, you 
 are a very nice young, man, blood royal, and all that, 
 but you are not to be compared with your father, and 
 neither he nor you could have come up to your grand- 
 father’s standard, Governor Lemos. It would have 
 been worth traveling a whole day to see him bow to a 
 lady, or take a pinch of snuff. You can’t conceive 
 what that was.” 
 
 Evidently old Zabet was laudator temporis acti, as 
 Horace says. Tradition reported that she had been 
 rather fast in her youth, although she was now very 
 pious. When this was hinted to her, she took it in 
 good part. “ Admitting that to be true,” she would 
 say laughing, and showing a wonderful set of white 
 teeth of which she was very proud, “admitting that to 
 be true, pleasure and the ball-room when young, prayer 
 and the church when old, that’s my philosophy.” 
 
 She had accidentally become acquainted with Tintin 
 Calandro, and had taken hugely to him. She had soon > 
 persuaded herself that he was a person who, like a child, 
 required to be looked after, and had discovered that, 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 303 
 
 not only was he partially mad, but also, that he nour- 
 ished in his soul a secret sorrow, which he did not per- 
 mit to be probed even in the most delicate manner. 
 During twenty years, before attending to her own avo- 
 cations, which I have described, she had, early in the 
 morning, performed the functions of housekeeper for 
 Tintin Calandro, and prepared his modest breakfast - 
 consisting of two eggs and a cup of coffee, and, in the 
 evening, before retiring, she attended to his frugal sup- 
 per which was made up of a bowl of hot milk, a crust 
 of bread, and a dish of vegetables, for Tintin Calandro 
 never took any dinner. ‘ He never eats,” said Zabet, 
 “between sun up and sun down. Is it not queer? But 
 the poor thing is crazy, and as harmless and innocent 
 as a new-born baby. He will go to paradise, sure.” 
 Notwithstanding the long duration of these intimate 
 relations between Zabet and Tintin Calandro, she knew 
 nothing of his past life, except that, many years ago, on 
 his arrival in New Orleans, he-had waited on the bish- 
 op, had remained several hours closeted with him, and, 
 through the recommendation and influence of that pre- 
 late, had obtained the position which he now occupied. 
 
 Not only had that excellent creature, old Zabet, 
 watched over Tintin Calandro with sisterly affection, 
 but, as if she still had more time and benevolence to 
 spare, she had also adopted a white orphan boy, to 
 whose education and support she devoted her hard 
 earnings. On her being asked why she had not chosen 
 one of her own race, she had replied: ‘* A white woman 
 took care of me in the cradle, and I, in my turn, will 
 take care of a white child. Gratitude is my philosophy.” 
 
 Such is the associate I had when nursing Tintin Ca- 
 landro, and, in two weeks, we had the gratification of 
 seeing him as well as before. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
 CHRISTMAS EVE.—THE MUSICIAN AND THEOLOGIAN. 
 
 It was on Christmas Eve. In the morning I had 
 received a note from Tintin Calandro, informing me 
 that, at night, he would give a concert to the spirits of 
 the dead. I had been invited to several parties for that 
 evening. I was hesitating which to accept, when Tin- 
 tin’s note was delivered. I no longer hesitated, I de- 
 clined them all. I knew that a feast was prepared for 
 me alone, which in excellence would far exceed any 
 other which could be offered. Fortunately the weather 
 was beautifully serene and mild. When night came, 
 not a cloud could be discovered on the horizon. The 
 sky was transparent, all the stars were at their post. 
 The smallest and the most distant gleamed with vivid 
 distinctness. They all shone with a brilliancy which 
 seemed to me unusual even in our Southern climate. I 
 met Tintin Calandro walking thoughtfully in one of the 
 alleys of the cemetery. As I approached, he signified 
 to me with a wave of his hand not to address him. I 
 seated myself on a tomb, and waited. Tintin paced to 
 and fro, wrapped up in meditation. Suddenly he took 
 his violin, and seemed to try its powers by a magnifi- 
 cent prelude, in which he attacked and conquered all 
 the difficulties of his art. Instinct with life and pas- 
 sion, the bow moved with electric rapidity, and, under 
 
 (804) 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 305 
 
 its fiery contact, the strings glowed with sympathetic 
 ardor, drawing increasing inspiration from the very 
 sounds emitted with such profuse wealth and variety 
 under the magic touch of genius. It was the eloquence 
 of harmony. The instrument had assumed a soul; it 
 had became a living thing. It was the enthusiasm of 
 the poet—the voice of the prophet reading in the skies 
 the decrees of Jehovah. One could almost have fan- 
 cied hearing it shout like the Sybil of Virgil: Deus, 
 ecce Deus. ‘The God comes, here is the God.” [I lis- 
 tened, as it were with a feeling of delightful intoxica- 
 tion, and the inspired musician laid before me the fol- 
 lowing poem, which he had the marvelous art to make 
 me understand as clearly as if it had been written down 
 in human language: 
 
 ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was 
 with God, and the Word was God.” Christ was there. 
 ‘“‘ Before Abraham was, I am.” The crucified of Je- 
 rusalem was present at the creation. Hallelujah! hal- 
 lelujah! Then came a chorus of angels rejoicing at the 
 birth of man, followed by a grand adagzo picturing the 
 holy repose of Paradise, Adam and Eve walking hand- 
 in-hand in the presence of the Lord in blissful inno- 
 cence, their lips whispering to each other the chaste 
 language of conjugal love, and their hearts full of grat- 
 itude for their creator. They separate, Adam being 
 called away by some manly occupation, and Eve to at- 
 tend to her favorite flowers. Sweet melodies float 
 around her as she strolls from one perfumed bush to the 
 other in dreamy contentedness. Suddenly a prolonged 
 hiss is heard. It is the serpent’s. The bow of the mu- 
 sician glides swiftly over the strings of his instrument 
 in imitation of the movements of the wily reptile on the 
 flowery ground. ‘The tempter’s flattery is addressed to 
 
306 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 the willing ears of deluded vanity in the softest and 
 most voluptuous strains, which swelled gradually into 
 the loud and thivk-rushing notes of exultation at ex- 
 pected triumph, when the fatal asseveration was made 
 to the woman: ‘Eat; ye shall not surely die; for God 
 - doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your 
 eyes shall be opened; and ye shall be as gods, know- 
 ing good from evil.” A world of sorrows ensues. 
 What wailings! what gnashing of teeth! what lamen- 
 tations! Thunder seems to roll round the sublime mu- 
 -sician. It is the curse of God on the guilty pair—di- 
 vine wrath tempered with mercy—a Saviour is prom- 
 ised—the Saviour eternally existing from the beginning. 
 But, before he shall come, ages must elapse. Mean- 
 while the reign of the arch enemy begins. Listen: the 
 marvelous instrument bursts into bacchanalian songs— 
 a wild chaos of sounds expressive of the demoniacal - 
 raptures of Heli, which sings the epithalamium of the 
 nuptials of the sons of God with the daughters of man. 
 Lo, the roar of the cataracts of Heaven! ‘The cataracts 
 falling—falling—falling! The seas—the vast seas swell- 
 ing—swelling—swelling until the highest peak of the 
 earth is covered! The deluge is universal, and the ark 
 calmly floats over the watery grave of the world. 
 The seed, however, from which the Saviour is to come, 
 is spared. But again, the most syren-like and ener- 
 vating music that ever greeted human ears lulls the 
 very wind. It is the worship of Astarte, or Venus, the © 
 adoration of the senses, the deification of the flesh, the tri- 
 umph of the idols over the one God. Paganism reigns 
 supreme, and the degradation of mankind is complete. 
 A chorus of rejoicing demons appalls the heart ; over 
 the prostrate form of the human race hope wings its 
 flight, and despair howls its maniac laughter. But, O 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 307 
 
 joy! Hear the angel’s salutation to Mary. It arrests 
 departing hope and gladdens despair. The miraculous: 
 child is born! The long-silent harp of David vibrates 
 again, and repeats one of the most soul-stirring songs 
 of the royal poet and prophet: “The Lord said unto 
 my Lord: sit thou at my right hand, till I make thine 
 enemies thy foot-stool;” thus giving assurance of salva- 
 tion to mankind. Then comes the wild barbaric clamor 
 of Oriental music. It is the adoration of the Magi, 
 which is followed by floods of melodies poured down 
 from the most distant heights of heaven. It is the 
 adoration of the celestial hosts. Hallelujah! ‘ Glory 
 to God above, and peace to man on earth!” The in- 
 strument stopped. The sudden silence was not without 
 its effect. It seemed to continue and increase the over- 
 whelming influence which held me spell-bound. I 
 imagined myself before the manger of Bethlehem and 
 I fell on my knees in mute prayer. When I rose, I saw, 
 to my amazement, Tintin Calandro standing erect on a 
 tomb, and, from that elevated position, looking round 
 as if his eyes were surveying a large audience spread 
 far and wide before him. 
 
 “T see here many,” he said, “who, in the flesh, 
 doubted that spiritual existence of which they are now 
 convinced from their own personal experience. I see 
 also many who, in their new existence, have retained 
 their disbelief. in Christ as well as their vicious and 
 wicked idiosyncracies. They were not Christians in the 
 world of the living, and they have not become Chris- 
 tians in the world of the dead. But I tell you all, on 
 this anniversary of the birth of the Saviour of mankind, 
 that it is not too late for such of you as are unbelievers, 
 to throw yourselves into his loving arms and accept his 
 tendered forgiveness. I know that some learned men 
 
308 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 have said, for it is the privilege of learning to raise 
 doubts on all subjects, where is the proof that Christ 
 ever existed ? Had they never read, or had they for 
 gotten the much admired Tacitus, the great historian, 
 a skeptic and a scholar like themselves? Had they not 
 been told that it pleased Nero to set Rome on fire, in 
 order to give to himself a representation of the burn- 
 ing of Troy, whilst he sang with accompaniment of 
 the lyre Virgil’s description of the destruction of that 
 city? Did he not affect to be indignant at being sus- 
 pected of such a deed? It was an atrocity of what he, 
 the excellent Nero, was incapable. It became his duty, 
 as he pretended, to ferret out those who had perpetra- 
 ted the grim joke of burning Rome and setting it at 
 his door. What did he finally imagine to divert sus- 
 picion from himself? He accused and prosecuted an 
 ~ ‘immense multitude’ of men, writes Tacitus—ingens 
 multitudo. Who were they? ‘ Those who were com- 
 monly called Christians.’ Qwuos vulgus Christianos 
 appellabat. Why were they commonly called Chris- 
 tians? ‘Tacitus will again answer you: ‘ that name was 
 derived from Christ’—auctor nominis hujus Christus. 
 Who was that Christ? Come forth, Tacitus, and con- 
 tinue to give your testimony. He says: ‘ that Christ, 
 who, under the reign of Tiberius, had been put to death 
 by the procurator Pontius Pilatus’ Christus qué 
 Tiberio omperitante per procuratorem Pontium Pila- 
 tum supplicio affectus erat. Put to death in Jerusalem 
 only twenty-seven years before the conflagration of 
 Rome, and yet those who believed in him in the latter 
 city already formed an ‘immense multitude” The credo 
 ot the apostles is repeated almost word for word in Tacitus. 
 It is impossible to agree more explicitly on a statement of 
 facts, and it is equally impossible to suppose that there 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 309 
 
 was a conspiracy between Tacitus and the apostles to 
 invent-Christ. The apostles might have been accused of a 
 pious fraud to establish a new religion for some purpose 
 of their own, or they might have been suspected of so 
 much partiality or zeal for the doctrine which they 
 preached, that they might have been rejected as pre- 
 judiced witnesses, but not so with Tacitus, who cor- 
 dially hated and despised what he designated ‘as a 
 mischievous superstition which, temporarily suppressed, 
 had again broken out not only in Judea, where the evil 
 had originated, but even in Rome.’ These are his 
 words. Jtepressa quein presens exitialis superstitio 
 rursus crumpebat, non modo per Judeam originem 
 hujus mali, sed per urbem etiam. Thus the existence 
 of Christ, the judgment of Pilate, the crucifixion, and 
 the incredible spread of the ‘superstition’? which 
 originated in those events, are recorded by the im- 
 mortal pen of Tacitus. 
 
 “ What shall I say of that ‘immense multitude ’— 
 mgens multitudo—the contemporaries of Christ—who 
 also proclaimed that he had lived and been crucified 
 under Pontius Pilate? What was that multitude? Was it 
 made up of cowardly and prevaricating fellows of low 
 degree who propagated a falsehood with whispering 
 breath and in dark corners? No. It was composed of 
 the educated and uneducated, of the high in rank and 
 of the humble in station, of experienced age and of 
 artless youth, of the chaste virgin, of the virtuous matron 
 as well as of the repentant courtezan, ofthe scarred war- 
 rior and the timid civilian. What did they do with as- 
 tounding and unwavering perseverance? They firmly 
 and openly maintained what they knew to be true. 
 Primo correpti qui fatebant. Under what cireumstan- 
 ces ? When arrested, when brought before the tribunals 
 
310 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 of irritated and prejudiced judges, when death stared 
 them in the face, when infuriated wild beasts were 
 ready to spring upon them at the bidding of a ferocious 
 populace. Would those who, after eighteen hundred 
 years, maintain that Christ never existed, be willing 
 to shed one-drop of their blood, or endure the slightest 
 torture, to assure the triumph of their negation ? 
 Surely not. What becomes then of such negation, 
 when met by the affirmation of those countless martyrs 
 who have continued to die to this day in an uninter- 
 rupted line of soldiers of the cross, which, starting from 
 Calvary, now encircles the globe? Tacitus informs us 
 that the followers of Christ were ‘hated’ — mvisos. 
 Why? Because of their purity of morals which sepa- 
 rated them from a corrupt world, and because Christ 
 himself had predicted to his disciples. that enmity. 
 ‘They were less convicted, says Tacitus, ‘of the 
 crime of arson,’ of which they were accused by Nero, 
 ‘than of hatred against mankind.’ Haud perendé in 
 eruemine incendi quam odio humani generis convicti 
 sunt. Hatred against mankind! It is not astonishing 
 that he who knew so little what Christianity was, should 
 have called it a mischievous superstition. 
 
 “Sixty-two years after the death of Christ mentioned 
 by Tacitus, under the reign of Trajan, Pliny the 
 younger, another classical authority, and proconsul of 
 Bithynia and Pontus, writes to the emperor to consult 
 him on the manner in which he is to proceed against 
 the Christians. ‘ A very large number of people,’ he 
 says, ‘of every age, of every rank and of both sexes 
 are compromised in this matter, and others will, in the 
 course of time, be in the same condition. Not only 
 the cities, but also the villages and the country are in- 
 undated with this contagious superstition.’ Remark 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 311 
 
 this expression: awundated. Could there be such an 
 inundation without an undoubted and undeniable cause ? 
 Thus, at that enlightened epoch, in those days which 
 immediately followed the luminous age of Augustus, 
 the crucifixion of Christ in Jerusalem was an acknowl-- 
 edged fact of general notoriety. Could an ‘immense 
 multitude, spreading from Judea to Rome, have be- 
 lieved in a fact alleged to have happened only twenty- 
 two years before, within a short distance of the capital 
 of the world, if that fact had not actually taken place ? 
 Would not the Roman authorities, who were so anxious 
 to suppress what they called a mischievous superstition, 
 have not said to the deluded people: ‘ You fools, the 
 whole of Jerusalem testifies that no Christ ever existed 
 there. His crucifixion is a fiction. There never was 
 a Pontius Pilate.’ But they could not say then what 
 is now said. It could too easily have been disproved. 
 They knew that they could not hold such language to 
 the contemporaries of Christ, to those perhaps who had 
 witnessed his agony on the cross of Calvary. They 
 denied his divinity and his miracles; but his existence 
 and the peculiarity of his death, Oh! no. This would 
 have been too absurdly mendacious. Such a piece of 
 folly was reserved for the modern effrontery of skepti- 
 cism, after the lapse of eighteen hundred years of ac- 
 quiescence on that point. But the Jews themselves, 
 who deny the divinity of Christ, admit his existence 
 and his miracles in that celebrated work called the, 
 Talmud. They even confirm the performance of his 
 miracles which they attribute to a wrong cause, such, 
 for instance, as his having obtained superhuman powers 
 from the possession of the real name of God, which he 
 had stolen from the sanctuary of the temple. 
 
 “Two hundred and fifty years before Christ, under 
 
312 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 the Egyptian king, Ptolemy Philadelphus, and by 
 his orders, the Old Testament was translated into 
 Gieek, and thus made known, not only to the Greeks, 
 but also tc the whole civilized world, among which 
 that language was universally spread as the language 
 of science, literature and the fine arts. In that Old 
 Testament, thus translated, we find the predictions 
 which announced the Messiah, and which therefore 
 could not be subsequent interpolations. More than 
 two thousand years before Christ, the Jewish nation 
 was ushered into existence. Coeval with that national 
 birth was the Messiahanic idea—the idea that this 
 chosen people carried within its bosom a blessing which 
 was to spread over the whole world. it is announced 
 to Abraham, when ordered to move away to the land 
 destined to him by the Lord. Years after, when he 
 attempted to sacrifice his son Isaac in obedience to 
 what he thought the will of God, he received a clearer 
 and more positive assurance, that all the nations of the 
 earth should be blessed, not in him, but in his posterity. 
 The same prophecy is made to Isaac, and after him to 
 Jacob, and, on his death-bed, Jacob himself gives a 
 new sanction to the preceding predictions. To his sons 
 assembled round him, and from whom were to spring 
 the twelve tribes of Israel, he announces what is to 
 happen to every one of them and the birth of the Sa- 
 viour from the loins of Judah, on a predestined day 
 which is to be marked by a particular event. 
 
 “When Israel, flying from Egypt, met the princes of 
 Moab in arms on the banks of the Jordan, we again 
 find on the lips of Balaam, a stranger to Israel, the 
 announcement of the Messiah. Then comes the royal 
 poet and prophet. In a psalm which glows with di- 
 vine inspiration, and in which he speaks of the secrets 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. ole 
 
 of heaven as if revealed to him, he thus announces 
 them: .‘ The Lord hath said to me, Thou art my son ; 
 this day have I begotten thee.’ ‘Ask of me, and I 
 shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and 
 the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.’ .. . 
 
 “When the days of the captivity of Israel were ap- 
 proaching, several hundred years before Christ, Isaiah 
 proclaimed his advent, his sufferings and his triumphs, 
 with a clearness, a precision and a fullness of language 
 which cannot be surpassed, and which must remove all 
 doubts even from the most incredulous mind. He 
 speaks with the assurance and the lucidity of a histo- 
 rian who has witnessed the facts which he relates. His 
 words are so accurately descriptive that one would sup- 
 pose him present at the performance of the grand 
 drama of Calvary, and yet seven centuries separated 
 him from the day on which it was acted. 
 
 “One hundred years elapse since that prediction, and 
 the people of Israel are captives in Babylon. To con- 
 sole them, Daniel announces the coming of the Redeem- 
 er six hundred years before it is to happen. He fixes 
 the epoch and describes the circumstances attending it 
 with an accuracy which future events proved to have 
 been almost mathematical. It was the will of God 
 that prophet after prophet should, from time to time, 
 renew the assurance of the promised Messiah. Five 
 hundred years were yet to elapse, when the voice of 
 Haggai addressed the people of Israel in the same 
 strain on the same subject. What a chain of evidence 
 remaining unbroken through such a long series of ages 
 and events, from Eve to whom God said ‘that her seed 
 should bruise the serpent’s head,’ down to the gener- 
 ation Among which Christ was born ! 
 
 “ This belief in the coming of a miraculous personage 
 
 14 
 
314 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 who was to change the face of. the world, and redeem 
 the human race from the abyss of woes in which it was 
 plunged, was common to almost all the nations of anti- 
 quity, however divers and distinct, and unconnected 
 with one another. It was a uniform hope; it was a 
 universal tradition; it was a dim recollection of a 
 promise given by the infinite mercy tempering the rigor 
 of an inevitable judgment, which inflicted punishment 
 for some great crime perpetrated by man shortly after 
 his creation. On the extreme confines of Asia, Confu- 
 cius had spoken of the coming of the true saint who 
 was to bless and to save. Virgil, referring in one of 
 his immortal poems to the oracles of the Sybil of 
 Cume, had announced, in conformity with those 
 oracles, the birth of a mysterious child, son of Jupiter, 
 who was destined to efface from the bosom of the earth 
 the vestiges of the foot of the demon of iniquity, and 
 to inaugurate a new order of things. ‘See, he says, 
 ‘how, at the birth of that cherished child of the gods, 
 the whole world is agitated and moved from its basis; 
 how all earth, and all the seas, and the heavens in their 
 profoundest depths, and all things, rejoice at the bliss 
 which the coming age is to bring.’ Not only had the 
 world, in which there are so many differences of belief 
 and opinion, agreed as to that extraordinary expecta- 
 tion, but also as to the time for the occurrence of its 
 realization. Tacitus, whom I have already quoted, and 
 whom I love to quote to pagans, because he is for them 
 an authority which they dare not impeach, says, when 
 he comes to the reign of Vespasian: ‘It was a 
 widely-spread conviction that, according to ancient sa- 
 cerdotal writings, precisely at that epoch, the East was 
 to prevail, and that men coming out of Judea were to ° 
 possess themselves of the government of all things!’ 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 315 
 
 The rationalistic philosophers of the 18th century, sub- 
 jugated by the irresistible proof of the evidence bear- 
 ing on that subject, had frequently admitted this 
 unanimity of the expectation of a Messiah. Voltaire 
 has written: ‘It was from time immemorial a maxim - 
 among the Indians and the Chinese that the sage would 
 come from the ast.’ Volney, in his celebrated anti- 
 Christian work entitled ‘the Ruins,’ has written this 
 remarkable phrase: ‘The sacred and mythological 
 traditions of the past had spread throughout the whole 
 of Asia the belief in a great mediator, a final judge, a 
 future saviour, king, god, conqueror and legislator, who 
 would bring back the Golden Age, and deliver man- 
 kind from: the reign of evil.’ Another distinguished 
 author, Boulanger, using a more sweeping phraseology, 
 has declared: ‘That ail the nations of the earth had 
 entertained an expectation of that kind.’ It was the 
 Northern Pole to which their hope pointed with the fi- 
 delity of the magnetic needle, without their knowing 
 that they were looking to the realization of the predic- 
 tion of Jacob on his death-bed. 
 
 “Thus it was the traditional belief of man that his 
 race had once committed some awful transgression, for 
 which it had been doomed to its present existence, and 
 that a Redeemer was to come. That belief was more 
 definite, more precise among the Jews; it was inter- 
 woven with their national life. The promised Messiah 
 was the breath, the soul of Israel. His pre-existence 
 went back to the creation of the world. Take the 
 Messiah out of the Bible, and there is nothing left of it ; 
 there is not an inch of solid ground on which Judaism 
 can stand; for a historical record, false in its main 
 point, must be rejected in toto as being unreliable. But 
 there is none which carries within itself such ecmplete 
 
316 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 evidence of its being true; and when came the time 
 for the accomplishment of that miracle which it an- 
 nounced and which was to remain perpetual in its dura- 
 tion, there appeared a man who said: ‘I am He’ 
 Who was that He? A Jew of the tribe of Judah, of 
 the house of David, according to the prophecies. As 
 long as he preached in the name of God and worked 
 miracles to prove his mission, he was safe, although the 
 doctrines which he proclaimed were not such as were 
 acceptable to the rulers and authorities of Jerusalem. 
 Besides, the self-sacrificing, poor and humble being, who 
 exacted from his followers a complete renunciation of 
 the goods of this world, was not the glorious and con- 
 quering Messiah with whose reign the national vanity 
 had flattered itself. Any man in Israel had the right 
 to assume, and assumed with impunity, the part of a 
 prophet and of an envoy of God. But to say: ‘I am 
 God,’ was blasphemy, and that blasphemy was punish- 
 ed with death. Hence the scene before the chief of the 
 priests, when Jesus said: ‘ Hereafter shall you see the 
 son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and 
 coming in the clouds of heaven.’ Then the high 
 priest rent his clothes, saying: ‘ He hath spoken blas- 
 phemy; what further need have we of witnesses? 
 Thus the Jews sentenced Christ to death in conformity 
 with their laws. But the sentence could not be execu- 
 ted without the permission and sanction of the Roman 
 procurator who represented Ceesar.. Hence their taking 
 him to Pilate; hence the remark of that magistrate: 
 ‘What has that man done? I see no guilt in him.’ 
 A Roman could not have spoken otherwise. For, ac- 
 cording to Roman ideas, it was no crime for a man 
 to say: ‘I am a god, or I descend from a god? 
 And how natural was it also for a Roman to say with 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 317 
 
 contemptuous indifference: ‘He isa Jew; he is one of 
 you; he is subject to your laws; he belongs to your 
 jurisdiction; do what you please with him. I[ wash 
 my hands of it.’ If Jesus had been a Roman, the arm 
 of Rome would have been stretched for his protection. 
 How natural also is the sneering answer, steeped in that 
 eynicism of doubt which is but too often the result of 
 what is called the highest degree of extreme civilization | 
 —a cynicism which is eclectic in its bearings and applica- 
 tions, which precludes faith in anything, and which 
 pricked its ears when hearing Jesus say that he an- 
 nounced the truth! The reply of the skeptic Roman 
 of the Augustan age was: ‘ What is truth? Isit nota 
 simple and credible story? So credible that one almost 
 fancies having witnessed it. Do you doubt its authen- 
 ticity, brethren of the spiritual world? Ask the millions 
 of Jews scattered over the face of the earth. Every 
 one of them will say like one man: ‘It is true, I was 
 there.’ The Jew is imperishable; he never changes. 
 He was present on Calvary through his ancestors and 
 saw what they saw. He will tell you that Christ was 
 crucified, and that it was for blasphemy. Ha! ha! 
 spirits, God knows what He is about. He foresaw that 
 the existence of His son might be denied in the course 
 of time, and He provided for it. He needed the Jews, 
 to testify to certain things as a nation and in a body. 
 Therefore He embalmed them as it were with His own 
 hands to prevent their dissolution, and He made them 
 what they are to serve His purposes. If instead of re- 
 pudiating Christ, they had adopted him as their Mes- 
 siah, it would have been said: out with them! It 
 is a conspiracy on their part, in order to assume a 
 religious supremacy over the world by the propagation 
 of this cunningly devised fable. They would have been 
 
318 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 witnesses suspected of interest; they might have been 
 accused of a pious fraud. But surely they are to be 
 believed, when they attest the existence of one whom 
 they rejected as an impostor and crucified, and whose 
 death has ever been to them a bitter and abundant 
 source of reproach and opprobrium, and of indeserib- 
 able sufferings for eighteen centuries. 
 
 “There would be as good grounds to doubt the exis- 
 tence of Cesar and of Alexander as that of Christ. 
 The historical records which relate the deeds of those 
 two great men are not more authentic than those which 
 recite the life of the Saviour. The deeds of the He- 
 brew, as to their importance and the duration of their 
 effects, are far superior to those of the Greek and the 
 Roman. Who cared for OCeesar or Alexander as soon 
 as they had perished? Who cares now for their mem- 
 ory? Who would die, or undergo the most exquisite 
 tortures of martyrdom, rather than not proclaim that 
 they once existed, and that they still live, and are 
 invisibly omnipresent, and are entitled to the same 
 veneration which was accorded to them during their - 
 life time? Who would have his limbs torn from his 
 body, rather than not prostrate himself in the dust 
 at the bare mention of their imperial names? There 
 are none. But at the time when the drama of Calvary 
 was acted, and before the generation passed away that 
 had witnessed it, thousands in Jerusalem and thousands 
 in Rome, and elsewhere throughout the whole civilized 
 world, were ready to die in the hands of the public ex- 
 ecutioner and under the fangs of wild beasts, to main- 
 tain in the face of a multitude howling for their blood, 
 the truth of what they believed to be an unquestiona- 
 ble historical fact. Is there another one supported by 
 better proofs in unbroken concatenation? You would 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 319 
 
 in vain challenge heaven and earth to produce a more 
 striking and marvelous co-operation of attestations, than 
 were those successive predictions through a long series 
 of ages, which announced the happening of a particular 
 event, and which were confirmed and justified by the. 
 manuer in which it was in the end so strictly accom- 
 plished. 
 
 . “Thus it is established beyond the shadow of a doubt, 
 by sacred and profane authorities, that, at the epoch ok 
 the highest civilization of the Roman empire, there 
 lived a man who declared himself to be God in a large 
 and enlightened city of that empire, that an ‘ immense 
 multitude,’ engens multitudo, believed it at the time, 
 and that their number has been steadily increasing ever 
 since, during an uninterrupted series of eighteen hun- 
 dred years. What a unique and unparalleled phenom- 
 _ enon !” 
 
CHAPTER XXVIL 
 
 THE ELOQUENT MADMAN. 
 
 “THe Bible was the preface to the Gospels,’ con- 
 
 tinued Tintin Calandro. ‘“ Judaism was the vestibule 
 of Christianity. I have shown you the spiritual pre-ex- 
 istence of Christ in the Bible; I will show you his bod- 
 ily and actual existence in the Gospels. In Adam was 
 the germ of Christianity ; in Jesus its full and final de- 
 velopment. During the first two thousand years of the 
 history of the Jewish people, it was in a state of incu- 
 bation. During the last eighteen hundred years it-has 
 introduced itself into the history of all the civilized na- 
 tions of the earth; and that history could not be writ- 
 ten, if it were attempted to suppress Christianity from 
 its pages. You have seen the figure of Christ reflected 
 from the clear mirror of the Biblical records. You 
 have also seen it chiseled in the imperishable granite 
 of Roman history by Tacitus, in which is repeated al- 
 most verbatim the profession of faith of the apostles. 
 Shall I call him St. Tacitus? But no; he is a pagan. 
 From his annals let us pass to those of the apostles 4 
 Do I not hear from behind yonder tomb a voice which 
 says: ‘Where is the proof of the authenticity of the 
 Gospels? Greater, I reply, than the proof of the an- 
 thenticity of the works of Tacitus. That authenticity 
 
 proves itself by its own internal evidence. The Gos- 
 (320) 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 321 
 
 pels were written by four different men, who manifestly 
 did not consult together on the subject. They are as 
 distinct as possible in their style and in the selection 
 of what they relate, and yet every one of them so faith- 
 fully and strikingly represents, under different aspects 
 and circumstances, the same ineffable character, that 
 their respective hands seem to be guided by the same 
 inspiration. Had they attempted a fiction, they would 
 not have possessed and exhibited this sublime uniform- 
 ity of inventive creation. Take the Gospel of St. Mat- 
 thew. If it is a work of the imagination, the author of 
 it, as the inventor of Christ, would be as marvelous as 
 Christ himself. So would St. Mark, so would St. Luke 
 and St. John. One would be sufficiently wonderful, 
 but four! Never. That is impossible. Besides, how 
 can the authenticity of the Gospels be questioned, when 
 it is recollected that they are nothing else than the 
 public records of public facts? The doctrines of Christ 
 were preached, in the very beginning, on the recom- 
 mendation and after the example of the Master, from 
 the tops of houses, in the fields, and in the streets of 
 cities. He was publicly put to death after a public 
 trial. The Christian society which sprang from the 
 cross was not a secret one. They, in less than twenty- 
 two years since the death of Christ, had become, ac- 
 cording to the testimony of ‘Tacitus, an “immense mul- 
 titude,”—ingens multitudo—disturbing the tranquillity 
 of the master of the world. /atebant, they confessed 
 openly their creed. In the face of such publicity of 
 belief and doctrine, it is hard to imagine that the Gos- 
 pels, when they appeared, should not have met with 
 direct contradictions and refutations, if they had con- 
 tained anything not in strict harmony with what was 
 professed to be the well-known character of Christ, al- 
 14* 
 
322 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 ready received and worshiped as such by an ‘immense 
 multitude.’ Althongh subsequently attacked by Celsus 
 and Porphyry who lived, the former in the first and 
 second century after Christ, and the latter in the second, 
 that attack was not as to their authenticity. Nay, 
 apocryphal gospels were published, which were imme- 
 diately branded as such, and, like all counterfeits, only 
 went to establish the value of the genuine article. The - 
 Gospels therefore were only confirmatory and preserva 
 tive of what was already known as true by the vast 
 Christian community to whom they were addressed, 
 and by whom they were accepted as coming from 
 Apostolic authority. Hence what folly is it to deny 
 now their authenticity! It isa late folly, the folly of 
 rationalism, the folly of infidelity reduced to despair 
 before the irresistible evidence of truth, for infidelity 
 well knows, that once the existence of Christ established 
 and the history of his life admitted, acquiescence in 
 his divinity must follow as an inevitable sequel. 
 “What mortal was ever heralded into the world like 
 Jesus? Was there ever a man whose birth was an- 
 nounced twenty centuries before it took place? Cer- 
 tainly none. Jesus is the only exception, and, if -in this 
 exception he is above all men, then he must be more 
 than man. Was there ever one among the sons of 
 Adam who could show his own pre-existence like Jesus ? 
 Then it follows that Jesus could not have been a man 
 like us, but must have been the incarnation of the spirit 
 of God. And was his life like the life of any man that 
 ever preceded or followed him to this very day? 
 What is the synopsis of that wonderful life? Try to 
 realize it in all its sublime grandeur, if you can, and. 
 transport yourselves back to the time and to the coun- 
 try in which he made his appearance in the flesh. Look 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 393 
 
 at a map; look at Judea, occupying a central position 
 among the nations of the earth, retaining to the last its 
 adamantine belief in the One God in the midst of uni- 
 versal paganism, and in close geographical connection 
 with idélatrous Greece and Egypt, with Assyria and 
 the other great empires of the gorgeous East, and with 
 Rome the mistress of the world. Look at Jerusalem, a 
 great and rich city. Surely such a spot, on which shone 
 the reflected light emanating from the most civilized 
 parts of the earth, even admitting that it possessed none 
 of its own, was not the locality where the most stupen- 
 dous fraud which had ever been seen could have been 
 successfully prepared and executed, particularly when 
 you remember that the civilization I speak of, had, at 
 that epoch, attained a degree of intellectual splendor 
 which hardly pales before the civilization of modern 
 times. There was not in Rome and Jerusalem such an 
 agelomeration of darkness and credulity, as to permit us 
 to suppose that any man could have passed himself there 
 for the God of the universe in the eye of an ‘immense 
 multitude.’ And yet, what did one day happen? A 
 - Jew, about thirty years old, who had been known as a 
 carpenter by trade, says to some of his fellow-citizens 
 in humble life like himself: ‘I am the Christ you ex- 
 pect: I am the only Son of God, I am God. Your 
 father Abraham rejoiced to see my day; before Abra- 
 ham was, lam. He that will believe in me shall have 
 eternal life. Was that man laughed at? Was he lock- 
 ed up as crazy and as too dangerous in his insanity to 
 be permitted toroam at liberty? No; andwhy? Be- 
 cause every one knew that he was not insane, but, on 
 the contrary, that he was one gifted with the soundest 
 ‘and even the most luminous mind. 
 
 “In order to appreciate the miraculousness of what 
 
324 ’ FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 he has achieved, only suppose that one should suddenly 
 say to an assembled multitude in this city: follow me, 
 obey me, believe on me: I am the greatest and best of all 
 men. Would not the multitude turn away from him ~ 
 in disgust? ‘Oh! oh! would they not probably ex- 
 claim: ‘So you are the greatest and best of mankind, 
 as you pretend. Very well, prove it by your works.’ 
 Who does not see that any one thus proclaiming him- 
 self the first of his race, and claiming its allegiance by 
 virtue thereof, would necessarily raise to himself almost 
 insuperable difficulties in the way of whatever end he 
 might aim at? How much greater would his difficul- 
 ties be, should he proclaim himself God Almighty, the 
 Creator of the universe! Such athing had never been 
 attempted before, nor has it since, because any one at- 
 tempting it would inevitably and instantly be called 
 upon to make good his word. To assume publicly the 
 obligation to perform the part of God, and be God the 
 omnipoteut, is something so stupendously bold that the 
 imagination cannot realize it, and yet this is what Christ 
 has done. And how did Christ act that part? Look 
 into the gospels, and you will see that the doctrine 
 which he preached and which established what is called 
 Christianity, is perfection itself and would produce it in 
 all its effects, if strictly and faithfully complied with. 
 This is the greatest of his miracles. Hence Christiani- 
 ty cannot be of man who is imperfect, and if not of 
 man, then it must be of God. To greedy and selfish 
 men, such as they all are in general, whom Jesus met 
 in the by-ways, on the high roads, on the sea shore, in 
 the fields, or in the crowded lanes of cities, he said: 
 ‘Renounce your earthly goods, renounce all worldly 
 pleasures and all that makes life desirable here, cheek 
 your appetites and passions, sanctify your souls, mortity 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 325 
 
 your flesh, follow me, be my disciples, be poor, bee for 
 your daily bread, or work for it and nothing beyond, 
 For so doing, you shall surely be vilified, and- tortured 
 and hated; you shall be rewarded in heaven only, for 
 my kingdom is not of this world... O wonder! They 
 followed him on such conditions, lived as he prescribed, 
 humble and abjectly poor, and proclaiming what he had 
 told them to proclaim. They at last died martyrs of 
 their faith, and frequently in the exquisite agonies of a 
 lingering torture, rather than acknowledge that Jesus 
 was not God. What amiracle! Some who, very na- 
 turally, doubted his word, for that word was passing 
 strange, put to him this pertinent question: ‘Thou 
 sayest thou art the Son of God. Where is the proof 
 of it? He might have been satisfied with the answer: 
 ‘Do not the blind see, the deaf hear, and the paralytic 
 walk? But he adds: ‘I was born and I have lived 
 amongst you, which of you has known me to commit a 
 sin? And this, indeed, wasthe strongest proof which 
 he could give of His divinity. The skeptics were si- 
 lenced, and some believed. But why should I go into 
 the details of his life? Read the Gospels, I say; read 
 those records written by four different historians, sub- 
 lime in their unity and similarity of description of a 
 character so far above any human standard which ever 
 was known before, or has been known since. Is that 
 life, is that death, the life and death of a man? The 
 spontaneous answer in the negative must burst from the 
 conscience of humanity, because it knows itself but too 
 well. 
 
 “ Was Christ a self-deceiver? No. He could not per- 
 suade himself that he was God unless he was mad, and 
 there is in him such external and internal evidence to the 
 contrary, that none ever seriously brought such a charge 
 
326 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 soo 
 
 against him. Was he an impostor? There may be a 
 possibility or a feasibility of imposture in one who pre- 
 tends to be a prophet, or the delegate of God, but, as I 
 have already said, the assumption of divine omnipotence 
 and perfection is an imposture which man cannot at- 
 _tempt. The mere shadow of God which he would 
 profanely try to carry on his shoulders would be too 
 much for him. Its weight would crush him instantly. 
 But why an impostor? What had he to gain by it? 
 What were the attractions of his self-imposed career ? 
 Humiliation, poverty, the stone of the wayside for his 
 pillow, the canopy of heaven for his sheltering roof, the 
 sneers and gibes of enemies, the betrayal of friends, 
 persecution, flagellation, the crown of thorns, crucifixion 
 and an ignominious and cruel death. Besides, he had 
 announced that his mission would be closed by that 
 death, that he would resuscitate, that he would appear 
 to his disciples, and before them be glorified and ascend 
 to heaven. Why assume these impossibilities, if he 
 was not God? Was he not giving those he had de- 
 ceived sure means and opportunities to be undeceived ? 
 Oh! But he did not, of course, accomplish these things ; 
 the programme failed, and his disciples testified to what 
 had never happened, in order to gratify the pride of fanat- 
 ical obstinacy and establish the divinity of their leader. 
 But to what purpose ? and what interest had they in so 
 doing? What did they make by it, except as St. Paul 
 said: ‘to be in prison, lacerated with stripes above 
 measure, beaten with rods and stoned, and to be often 
 in journeyings, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, 
 in perils of their own countrymen, in perils by the 
 heathens, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilder- 
 ness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren, 
 in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in 
 
FERNANDCG DE LEMOS. 327 
 
 hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and naked- 
 ness.’ ‘This is what the disciples of Christ gained by 
 preaching his doctrine and affirming his divinity. 
 
 ‘“‘T have brought before you the spiritual pre-existence 
 and the bodily existence of Christ. In-both is the God- 
 head visible. Does not Christ still survive on earth 
 where he once lived? Is he not still the bread of life, 
 as he proclaimed himself to be near two thousand years 
 ago? According to all present appearances and ac- 
 cording to all probabilities, if we look into the past and 
 into the future, must we not come to the conclusion 
 that he spoke the truth, when he said: ‘The heaven 
 and the earth shall pass, but my word shall never pass.’ 
 What philosopher ever had the audacity to preclaim 
 the eternal duration of his doctrine and of the school 
 which he had founded? None. What legislator’ has 
 ventured to declare the endless immutability of his laws 
 in this ever-changing world? None. Every one knows 
 that Time would have replied to the boldness of such 
 asseverations: ‘Thou liest, puny man,’ and would have 
 proved the lie by one stroke of his scythe. What con- 
 queror, what founder of an empire ever dared to say to 
 his lieutenants assembled near his death-bed, at that 
 solemn hour when he felt the sceptre escaping from his 
 erasp and the crown dropping from his head: ‘ Be of 
 good cheer, I have overcome the world. No power on 
 - earth, not even the gates of hell shall prevail against 
 you and against what I have done? If Alexander, if 
 Cyrus, if Ozesar, Charlemagne, Tamerlane, or Napoleon, 
 had indulged in the temerity of uttering such a declar- 
 ation, how ludicrously presumptuous it would appear, 
 when we see recorded in history what happened after 
 them. Christ alone could say to his apostles when pre- 
 paring himself for the gibbet of Calvary: ‘Be of good 
 
328 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 cheer. I have overcome the world” And have not 
 their successors ample reason to be of good cheer? Is 
 not Christ still triumphant, and even more triumphant 
 than ever, after a long lapse of ages? Does not Chris- 
 tianity, after eighteen centuries, continue to be the 
 head and heart of civilization, and what would become 
 of that civilization, if Christianity, folding under its 
 arm the Bible and the Gospel, departed from among us 
 never to return? Would it not be as when the soul de- 
 parts from the body? Would not society be a putrefied, 
 worm-engendering corpse ? 
 
 ‘Tf there is any thing to which man is attached, it is 
 the absolute and complete right of thinking as he 
 pleases, and of being without restraint the lord of his 
 own intellect, and an anointed monarch holding undis- 
 puted sway over himself. In the defence of that 
 privilege so dear to his very nature, he has always re- 
 sisted the tyranny of power on the throne, the dictation 
 of theology in the temple, and of science in the schools, 
 and yet Christ says to him:.‘I am the light, and the 
 truth and the way.’ He commands us to abdicate the 
 royalty of our mind, to lay aside the sceptre of our will, 
 to become the vassals of his own mind and the tools of 
 his own will, and during eighteen centuries millions 
 have obeyed and still obey that injunction! To none 
 but God could such a sacrifice be made. None but 
 God could have exacted such self-immolation and 
 worked the miracle of obtaining it. He who died as 
 man, in such hearts still survives as God. Throughout 
 the world, millions to this day kneel to him in complete 
 intellectual servitude, and exclaim: ‘ Thou art the light, 
 the truth and the way.’ 
 
 “ You who listen to me, denizens of; the tomb, did 
 you ever, when in the flesh, dream of loving and being 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 329 
 
 loved? How many of you did succeed in that aspira- 
 tion? How sad would be the tale of your affections. 
 How long did they last? How loug did, you love? 
 How long were you loved? To what degree? With 
 what disinterestedness? How many times did you de-_ 
 ceive, or were deceived? How often were love and 
 friendship but thorns in your bleeding hearts? And 
 of love, that coveted prize in the lottery of life, if you 
 were so fortunate as to obtain a large share, how much 
 remained of it after your death? Grant that a 
 prayer is still said in your behalf, grant that flowers 
 occasionally decorate your tomb, grant that your name 
 still escapes from the lips of pious sorrow. Soon time 
 effaces you from the memory of a once bereaved, but 
 now consoled mourner, and sends also to the grave the 
 few who may have retained a lingering remembrance 
 of you. Yet a little while, and no longer comes to you 
 that ethereal breath of love which is so refreshing to the 
 soul; yet a little while, and you are as if you had never 
 existed. 
 
 “But there is one man, on whose tomb still sits the 
 same love which wept at the foot of the cross of Calva- 
 ry, the same love which the frost of eighteen centuries 
 has not made cold, and which, gifted with eternal 
 youth, is selfreproducing, and is as pure, and as intense 
 as on the day it sprang into existence. There is one man 
 _ whose bloody feet are daily kissed by thousands of men, 
 women, and children, who kneel before his sacred effi- 
 gy. There is one man whose gibbet is still glorified. 
 There is one flagellated and crucitied convict, before 
 whose image, love on its knees and prostrated in the 
 dust, is intensified into ecstasy and sees him sitting on 
 the right hand of God. That convict is Christ, and 
 were he not God, he could not have operated such a 
 
300 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 miracle. Who among the sons of men is loved fifty 
 years after his death? Which of them among the most 
 illustrious in war, in science, in the arts, and in litera- 
 ture? Nameone. Do I hear one of you, spirits, say : 
 Mahomet? But Mahomet is venerated by the Moslem, 
 and not loved. ‘God is great, and Mahomet is his 
 prophet, he exclaims. But when did the followers 
 of the camel driver of Mecca give proof of such inef- 
 fable love for him as the Christian gives to Jesus? And 
 not only has Jesus done this for himself, but he has also 
 granted to his apostles and to his saints the privilege 
 of inspiring through him eternal love and veneration 
 for themselves. He who is :still loved, and who still 
 lives after centuries of death, was not and is not a man, 
 but is God. 
 
 “Tf to be thus loved is miraculous, what shall I say 
 of being worshiped? It is something still more mi- 
 raculous; it is the miracle of miracles. The pride of 
 man is such, that there is nothing which he would cov- 
 et more ardently than the felicity of being worshiped. 
 To this, the strongest of human passions, is due the un- 
 extinguishable thirst for power which characterizes him 
 —particularly that kind of power which makes mortal 
 man bend the knee in abject humiliation before his fel- 
 low-worm. But, on the other hand, and perhaps in 
 consequence of our intense desire of being worshiped 
 ourselves, there is nothing which we hate so much as to 
 be compelled to worship one of our race. When thus 
 prostrating ourselves before the idol at whose disposal 
 are our honor, our fortune, and our life, we concentrate 
 within ourselves our secret indignation and lasting pro- 
 test. We watch keenly for the day of weakness which 
 inevitably follows the day of strength, when our master 
 towered over us with lofty insolence. Woe to the vile 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 321 
 
 creature who, aping the Deity, has foreed mankind to 
 burn incense before his nostrils! The hour of retalia- 
 tion will come, and the offending reptile will be bruised 
 under the heels of an avenging Nemesis, and, if it be 
 true that there is but one step from the capitol to the 
 Tarpeian rock, it is no less true that there is also but 
 one step from the altar to the sewers of the street. 
 Were it possible for a man to cause himself to be wor- 
 shiped like a God, we know that, on one day, or on the 
 other, he would be pulled down by the hands of his 
 worshipers from the usurped Olympus of his divinity, 
 that he would be dragged with a rope round his neck 
 through mud and mire, and be nailed to the pillory of 
 eternal opprobrium. Such is the invariable teaching 
 of those annals of the human race in which the pen of 
 the historian has been providentially destined to regis- 
 ter the judgment of God against the pride of man. 
 There is but one exception to that universal rule, and 
 that exception is Jesus. He was worshiped during 
 life, and has never ceased to be worshiped after death. 
 Seated on the stool of ignominy and not on the car of 
 triumph, he has conquered with the weapons of hu- 
 mility and self-sacrifice the tribute of an adoration 
 which is paid to him to this day, and which can plead 
 at the bar of the world a prescription of eighteen hun- 
 dred years. Temples after temples, statues after statues, 
 have been erected to the rulers of the earth. Where 
 are those statues, where are those temples? Can your 
 ' finger point out a corner of the earth, where the eye 
 can discover a living remnant of that populace of gods 
 created by flattery? Temples, gods, and statues have 
 long since crumbled into dust, and even that dust has 
 been swept away. Jesus alone stands erect on his ever- 
 increasing altars, not in an obscure nook of the earth, 
 
atv. FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 but over its broad surface, among barbarians, and 
 among those nations most renowned for their luxurious 
 and skeptic civilization. The prolific vitality of the 
 love of which he is the object knows no bounds. Ar- 
 chitecture, poetry, music, painting, sculpture, have ex- 
 hausted themselves and accomplished prodigies in sup- 
 port and in manifestation of that adoration which grows 
 and expands with time. He has not triumphed alone; 
 His apostles and his disciples have shared in his glori- 
 fication, and are still loved and venerated for his sake. 
 What king, what conqueror, what master of the world 
 ever did the like for himself and for his leutenants ? 
 If this is without a precedent, if this cannot have been 
 the work of man, he who achieved it is none, but is God. 
 “ What makes his triumph more strikingly marvelous 
 is, that the children of the earth, the Titans of infi- 
 delity, have never ceased to strike at him and his al- 
 tars, each with his one hundred arms, but the impotent 
 malignity of their attack has only demonstrated his eter- 
 nal and invincible strength. Out of the clouds and 
 dust of every contest he has come out with greater 
 splendor. Genius has protected him against genius, 
 science against science, philosophy against philosophy, 
 the sword against the sword, and the eloquence of logic 
 against the eloquence of sophistry. He has gathered 
 unto himself and forged into a shield all the weapons 
 which were leveled at him, and whenever, during the 
 darkness which had overspread the battle field, he was 
 thought to be at last prostrate on the ground never to 
 rise again, returning light showed him standing victo- 
 rious, calm, serene, the ever-adored Lord of the innu- 
 merable hosts of the faithful, to whom he had said 
 when few in numbers and sorrowful: ‘Be of good 
 cheer, I have overcome the world.’ 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 333 
 
 “ Did ever man frame any institution, or any system, 
 or any laws or doctrines so perfect, that they were not 
 susceptible of improvements and presented this singular 
 phenomenon: that it could not. be within the power of 
 human ingenuity to find their substitute, or equivalent, 
 or any thing approaching to their excellence? And 
 yet this is the case with Christianity, which extorts this 
 confession of its perfection even from its most violent 
 enemies—a confession showing the strange insanity of 
 the war waged against it. Christianity is of a triple 
 essence made up of humility, charity and fraternity. 
 Hence it is the only religion which is capable of encir- 
 cling the whole of mankind within its embrace. It is 
 not confined to any locality, or to any mode of govern- 
 ment. There is no country which would not become 
 an Eden, if thoroughly christianized in theory and. 
 in practice, instead of being a mere semblance and 
 counterfeit, and assuming a name to which it is not en. 
 titled. There is no government, be it monarchical, 
 aristocratic, or democratic, which would not answer the 
 purposes and expectations of man, if its veins were 
 injected with the pure unadulterated blood of Christi- 
 anity. Universal charity and fraternity are fine things 
 to talk about, but they do not exist without humility, 
 and where is humility to be found outside of Christi- 
 anity ? Charity, fraternity and equality are the eternal 
 themes of revolutionists and reformers, who declaim 
 against the ignorance and prejudices of the past, the 
 absurdities and abuses of the present, and who distrib- 
 ute with profusion, on handsomely ornamented cards, 
 their bewitching promises of a golden future, to all 
 those who will follow in their footsteps, to be conducted 
 by them to the distant land where the expected millen- 
 nium awaits them, whilst in the meantime they realize 
 
334 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 it for themselves, and for the saints manufactured after 
 their own fashion, amidst the wild orgies of unre- 
 strained lust and plunder. O charlatans drunk with 
 pride! Where, outside of Christianity, do you discover 
 charity, fraternity and humility erected into a doctrine ? 
 { do not say equality, for it is not in the Gospel, but an 
 invention of the devil, the father of all lies; and, 
 wherever preached and adopted as the equivalent or 
 synonym of fraternity, it will work satanical mischief 
 and perturbation. Do you discover the doctrine of 
 humility, charity and fraternity in the mythological 
 religions of Egypt, Greece and Rome, in the Druidism 
 of the Gauls, or in the wild Scandinavian creeds? Is 
 there a particle of this glorious trinity in the Buddhism, 
 Brahminism, fetichism and other idolatries of India and 
 Africa, or in any of the crude and savage worships of 
 the American Indians? Is there any of it in Mahom- 
 etanism, that uncouth plagiarism of the bible and Gos- 
 pel, or even in the temporary dispensation of Judaism ? 
 No. It is a doctrine peculiar to Jesus and to Jesus 
 alone. It is repugnant and abhorrent to the pride of 
 man, and therefore if Jesus had partaken only of hu- 
 man nature without any of the divine in him, such 
 would not have been the doctrine which he would have 
 established, and such would not have been its duration 
 and its capacity of universal expansion. <A doctrine! 
 Ah! My brethren of the world of spirits, have you 
 any idea of the difficulty of creating a doctrine and of 
 procuring its absolute, undisputed adoption by even a 
 few disciples within a restricted locality? What shall 
 I say of a doctrine which is to extend to the confines 
 of the earth, which is never to pass away, and which, 
 like the high and lofty One, ‘inhabiteth eternity ? 
 Before Christianity, was there any doctrine, either of 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 335 
 
 religion, or of morality, which aspired to universality ? 
 Was there any doctrine at all in the religions of antiq- 
 uity? Was there any thing else in them than gorgeous 
 ceremonies? Is there any doctrine in the still existing 
 religions of Buddhism and Brahminism ? What sort of 
 a doctrine is that which squats inert and unprogressive 
 in the cradle where it was born, and which disdains 
 that proselytism which is the characteristic of truth ? 
 What is the doctrine of the Koran beyond what is bor- 
 rowed from the Bible and mixed up with error and 
 imposture? ‘There is but one God. God is great, 
 and Mahomet is his prophet.’ That is all. And how 
 was that doctrine, simple as it is, to be propagated ? 
 Listen : ‘Go and subjugate the world, said Mahomet 
 to his followers. Why? Because Mahomet was not 
 ‘the light, the truth and the way.’ Hence the sword 
 was to be his apostle and missionary. What was the 
 command of Christ? ‘Go and convert all the nations 
 of the earth. How? Merely with the Word, merely 
 with the force of persuasion. Such is the difference 
 between the march of truth and that of error. 
 
 “« Neither Socrates, nor Plato, would ever have been 
 able, nor will any other philosopher ever be able, to 
 create and establish a doctrinal system like Christianity. 
 There are two reasons for it: first, because such perfec- 
 tion is beyond the reach of man, and next, because 
 philosophy proclaims that man ought not to subject and 
 enslave his own judgment to the judgment of another, 
 for any one man is as good as any other, and ought to 
 hold in his estimation nothing more precious than the 
 independence of his own mind. Then philosophy, or 
 science, also maintains that man ought not to believe in 
 any word purporting to come from God, because it is 
 philosophically or scientifically demonstrated that God 
 
336 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 neverspeaks to man. But if man must not believe either 
 in God, or in man, what will he believe in? Philoso- 
 phy answers: he must believe in himself and in noth- 
 ing else. Then every one must be his own teacher, 
 or at liberty to dissent from the one he may have 
 chosen, or who may have been imposed on him. But 
 is it not clear that, where one believes only in one’s 
 self, there can not be disciples, of course? Where there 
 are no disciples, there is no master or teacher. Where 
 there is no master, there are no acquiescence or assent, 
 and no unity. Where there are no acquiescence, or as- 
 sent, and no unity, there can be no doctrine. Hence, 
 outside of Christianity, there can be nothing but incred- 
 ulity, because there is no authority to: teach, and no 
 right to command obedience. Its authority is derived 
 from its celestial origin, and it is the only religion which 
 has proof of such an origin. Inecredulity is powerless to 
 build anything, and, whenever incredulity gives up its 
 attempted work in despair of finishing it, there is noth- 
 ing on which it can fall back, except it be Christianity. 
 Therefore Christianity cannot be modified, or replaced. 
 It is perfect and eternal, it meets all the wants of man ; 
 it contains principles. and doctrines so mathematically 
 true, that they must prevail forever, not only on this 
 earth, but also in those innumerable spheres which are 
 probably inhabited by intelligent beings, and which 
 appear to us like a golden dust scattered over the infi- 
 -niteness of space. What conclusion must we come to, 
 brethren of the grave? It is that Christianity is of 
 God, and that Christ is God.” * 
 At this moment, the shrill crowing of a cock: was 
 heard. Tintin Calandro stopped abruptly. The cock 
 
 * Some of the theological views expressed in these pages have been 
 borrowed from Lacordaire. 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 337 
 
 crew again. ‘Tintin looked round as if seeking for the 
 intruding bird and seemed strangely agitated. I soon 
 saw that the wild light of insanity flashed from his eyes. 
 He passed his hand over his forehead repeatedly, as if 
 endeavoring to recall departing reason. He shook dis- _ 
 consolately his long gray hair which streamed down 
 over his shoulders. The cock crew a third time. 
 “Thus didst thou crow,” he shouted, “ when Peter de- 
 nied his divine Master, and thus has the world ever 
 crowed over every act of successful treachery—over 
 every cowardly but money-making retreat from the 
 exposed position of perilous duty—over the triumph of 
 purple-clad vice sneering at virtue in rags—over the 
 trampling down of every thing that is noble, beautiful 
 and refined under the iron foot of senseless pride, vin- 
 dictive jealousy and brutish force. Thus crew the 
 world when the sons of illustrious knights, whose name 
 sounded like the valor-inspiring blast of the clarion, 
 were driven into exile from their ancestral and time- 
 honored roofs by the multitudinous viper brood of re- 
 bellious scullions and footmen, when the worshipers of 
 the goddess of reason slaughtered the ministers of the 
 true God and blasphemed thy name, O Christ! Thus 
 crew the world, when the descendant of St. Louis and 
 the heir of a hundred kings, died on a scaffold like a 
 common malefactor, and when the martyred daughter 
 of the Ceesars met with the same fate. Thus I heard 
 the chanticleer of hell crow, when the gory head of the 
 fairest, noblest, purest daughter of France, whom the 
 angels themselves must have loved, was carried on a 
 _ pike by the hand of a woman amidst a crowd of exult- 
 ing fiends. Thus it crew, when that sight sent me a 
 howling maniac through the streets of the modern 
 Babylon, and has ever since made me the fit companion 
 15 
 
338 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 of the dead. But if the world crows, I will crow too, 
 for I belong to him who said: ‘Be of good cheer; I 
 have overcome the world.’ ” 
 
 Here Tintin began to imitate with frantic energy 
 the shrill notes of the harbinger of day. Irushed to 
 him and lifted him from the tomb on which he stood. 
 I pressed the poor maniac to my breast, and kissed his 
 brow. It was hot and feverish. ‘ My friend,” I said, 
 “you are ill. Take my arm, and let us go home.” He 
 complied with my request mechanically, for I am con- 
 vinced that he had ceased to be conscious of my pres- 
 ence. When we reached his house, we found the faith- 
 ful Zabet already at her post, for day was beginning to 
 break. She crossed herself on seeing the ‘condition in 
 which he was. “Bless me!” she exclaimed. ‘ One of 
 his fits is on him. O Jesus, how long will it last?” She 
 took charge of the old man, and we put him to bed like 
 a child. I left him in the hands of his kind nurse, and 
 went home, musing on the strange Christmas night which 
 I had passed. I was worn out with fatigue and emo- 
 tion, and I tried to rest. I fell asleep, but the most fan- 
 tastic and tormenting dreams crowded upon me. At 
 one time, for instance, I fancied that the overseer of my 
 plantation had turned out to be Robespierre in person, 
 whom, to my horror, I surprised boiling a negro in one 
 of my sugar kettles in the name of equality, liberty 
 and universal fraternity. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 DOMINIQUE YOU, THE PIRATE. 
 
 Notwirustanpine the careful and affectionate atten- 
 dance of Zabet and of myself during a week, Tintin 
 Calandro did not appear to grow better, so that I deter- 
 mined to have recourse to one of my medical friends, 
 with whom I was on a footing of great intimacy, and 
 in whose talents and experience I had the most implicit 
 confidence. ‘Tintin had become very feeble, and was 
 thinner and paler, if possible. He was consumed by 
 a slow fever, and, at a certain hour of the night, was 
 liable periodically to a sort of nervous fits, which were 
 followed by a lethargy out of which it was difficult to 
 rouse him. Doctor Rhineberg was unremitting in his 
 attentions. Under the influence of his skillfal treatment, 
 I had the satisfaction of seeing Tintin gradually return- 
 ing to such health as he usually possessed, and this is 
 not saying much. Once, however, he had a relapse. I 
 sent for the doctor, who promised to come at ten o’clock 
 at night, when a crisis was expected in the patient. But 
 he made his appearance much later. “ Don’t blame me,” 
 he hastened to say as he entered. “I am exhausted; 
 I have been several hours at the side of a dying and 
 now dead man, and Ineed some rest.” Thus speaking, 
 
 he threw himself on the old rickety sofa which cracked 
 (839) 
 
340 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 and seemed ready to break under his weight, and with 
 a yawn, he inquired how his patient was. 
 
 “In a profound sleep, or rather in one of his habitual 
 fits of lethargy,” I replied. 
 
 ‘Well, let him sleep,” said the doctor. ‘“ His state 
 _ of lethargy is due to general debility. The poor fellow 
 is worn out. He may rally to some extent from his 
 present prostration, and we may send him back alive to 
 his paradise of a cemetery. But it will not be for long. 
 Thus passeth away the glory of this world.” | 
 
 Having uttered this trite sentence, the doctor stretch- 
 ed himself at full length, and fell into a snoring slumber. 
 In half an hour he woke up. “Faith!” he said, “I 
 stood in want of some refreshment. The dying man 
 whom I have already mentioned clung to my skirts and 
 chose to take me for his confessor. A strange whim, is 
 it not? He also instituted me his universal legatee, 
 whereby I am now in possession of this trinket,” and 
 the doctor exhibited a small dagger, which he handed 
 over to me for examination. The blade was four inches 
 long, thick, broad, and terminating in a very sharp 
 point; it was exactly in the shape of the head of a 
 lance, and its two edges were as thin and keen as that 
 of arazor. On the blade were engraved these words 
 in Spanish: Quzen ami amo offendere, de mi la venganza 
 espere. “* Who offends my master, in me meets the 
 avenger.’ This sentence was repeated on the massive 
 silver sheath. The handle was of carved ebony, and 
 its upper end represented the grinning head of a tur- 
 baned negro. , 
 
 “Look at it well,’ said my friend, “for this little 
 weapon drank the life blood of a stout heart—the heart 
 of Lafitte.” | 
 
 * Lafitte!” I exclaimed. “ Which Lafitte ?” 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 341 
 
 “Lafitte of Barataria,” he replied, “Lafitte the 
 smuggler, the outlaw, the pirate, at least by reputation 
 —Lafitte the companion in arms of General Jackson in 
 the defence of New Orleans—he who refused the tempt- 
 ing bribes of the English to help them in the invasion 
 of Louisiana—he who with his dare-devil men perform- 
 ed so conspicuous a part in the battle of the eighth of Jan- 
 uary.” 
 
 “‘Hasten to tell me the story,” I said. “ My curios- 
 ity is intensely excited, and I am all ears.” 
 
 “Two weeks ago,” resumed the doctor, “I was called 
 upon to visit a sick man in St. Philip street, No. 117. 
 Dominique You was his name. Wrapped up in a 
 morning-gown, he was reclining in a large arm-chair 
 with his slippered feet resting on a stool covered with a 
 tiger’s skin. ‘The monstrous head of the animal, exhib- 
 iting a terrific row of teeth and glaring with ferocious 
 eyes, was remarkably preserved and made to retain all 
 the appearance of life. My new patient had been original- 
 ly a man of powerful make, but he now was attenuated 
 and feeble. He was evidently a stranger,and occupied 
 a room in one of those furnished houses which are kept 
 for the accommodation of the public, and which are so 
 numerous in this city. His physiognomy was remark- 
 able and not easily to be forgotten. It was massive 
 and of the Leonine style. It looked as if the monarch 
 of the forest had assumed the human form, but still re- 
 tained something of his primitive type. A thick bushy 
 hair, falling like a shaggy mane over his shoulders, 
 added to the effect. His voice was deep toned and 
 sounded like a subdued roar, as it came out of the large 
 cavities of his broad chest. He invited me take a seat 
 by his side. 
 
 “¢T am recently from South America,’ he said, ‘and 
 
342 FERNANDO DE LEMOS 
 
 I was on my way to France, when my health, which 
 had become very bad for some time past, failed me en- 
 tirely here. Jam completely conquered by my implac- 
 able disease, and I pull down my flag to it at last. I 
 consult you, not with the expectation of being saved, 
 for I suspect that this is the beginning of the end, but 
 because I have some reasons of my own to know pre- 
 cisely how long I am to linger. Remember that I want 
 no childish concealment. The truth must be told me 
 plainly. Is that agreed to? 
 
 “JT nodded assent, and, after a thorough examination 
 of the part where the disease was, I said to him: ‘ You 
 are suffering from an ossification of one of the valves of 
 the heart.’ 
 
 “He looked at me with a calm but searching eye, 
 and merely said in an interrogating tone: ‘ Mortal? 
 
 “¢ Mortal,’ I replied. ‘There remains nothing to do 
 but to try to alleviate your sufferings.’ 
 
 “‘ He remained unmoved under this sentence of death. 
 Wrapped up in thought for a little while, he seemed to 
 forget my presence. But, returning to the object of 
 my visit, he said: ‘ How many days have I to live? 
 
 “¢ Very few.’ 
 
 “<«Thank you, doctor, for your frankness. Now I 
 have a favor to ask. Will you come and stay with me 
 half an hour every day? I need a little company and 
 do not desire to die as if abandoned by the whole crea- 
 tion. I will remunerate you largely.’ 
 
 “T promised to comply with his wishes, and, true to 
 my word, I visited him every day with increasing in- 
 terest, [ must confess, because there was in the fortitude 
 with which he bore his sufferings a sort of majesty 
 which won my admiration. I believe that he became 
 aware of it, for ere long he seemed to warm up to me. 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 343 
 
 One day he said: ‘Doctor, do you believe in Gad, in 
 the soul and in its immortality? I answered in the 
 affirmative. 
 
 “*You are not then,’ he said, ‘a materialist like al- 
 most all the members of your profession ? 
 
 *¢ Certainly not.’ 
 
 “¢ Well, your belief is mine. So far, so good; and 
 now, pray, tell me if you think that one having such a 
 belief is necessarily susceptible of remorse for having 
 committed what is generally understood to be a crime 2’ 
 
  ¢ Necessarily, no; probably, yes.’ 
 
 *¢¢ What is a crime, doctor ? 
 
 “«¢ Any wicked or atrocious act, I suppose, which is 
 a grave violation of a human or a divine law.’ 
 
 ““<Setting aside divine law, he said, ‘for I always 
 give a wide birth to religious discussions, 1 am then a 
 criminal, according to your definition, for I certainly 
 have violated human laws even to the shedding of 
 blood, and yet, although I believe in God and in the 
 immortality of the soul, I have no remorse. I assure 
 you that I am as calm and easy as if I did not stand 
 guilty in the sight of man.’ 
 
 “ «Surely, said I, ‘ your own conscience must tell you 
 that you are under the obligation of obeying the laws 
 of the civilized society of which you are a member, be- 
 cause if society was not entitled to have its laws en- 
 forced, good or bad as they may be, it could not exist, 
 and man would return to his original isolation and 
 helplessness in his primitive state of nature.’ 
 
 “¢Bah! Doctor; what is conscience but the acciden- 
 tal result of education? Conscience is an elastic word 
 which may be stretched to meaning this or that. What 
 is against the conscience of one man, is not against the 
 conscience of another. Some call it an interior light. 
 
344 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 What sort of interior light is it? A very dim one, I am 
 afraid, if it exists at all. Catch a man in a forest and in 
 that state of nature you allude to, what interior light 
 will there bein him? Should he be very hungry, and 
 should he meet another biped of his own species de- 
 vouring a deer or some other animal, would he not help 
 himself to a slice, or to the whole of it, without asking 
 leave? And if he encountered resistance, would he 
 not knock on the head, if he could, the successful hun- 
 ter, and perhaps eat him too? What interior light 
 would tell him that he is wrong? I have read some- 
 where that conscience is the testimony of the heart 
 given before the tribunal of reason. Pshaw! This is 
 copper-spangled stuff—there is no gold in it—only a 
 glittering definition—but as empty as a drum. Is con- 
 science the voice of God, secretly whispering to us 
 within the dark chambers of our passions and appe- 
 tites? This is metaphysical nonsense and nothing else. 
 No, sir; conscience, after all, can only be that judg- 
 ment which we pass in our own mind over our actions; _ 
 and is not that judgment the result of education, and, 
 if education, in its turn, is the result of an infinite 
 variety of accidental circumstances, how diversified and 
 unreliable must that judgment be which we call con- 
 science !’ 
 
 “¢ The susceptibility,’ I replied, ‘ of being educated 
 into that intellectuality which man has attained and 
 which he may carry still further, constitutes his gran- 
 deur, and his superiority over the rest of animals. In 
 all ages, in every country possessing the slightest en- 
 lightenment, under whatever form of government, un- 
 der whatever systems of laws, under whatever relig- 
 ious creeds, and whatever are the differences of race, 
 the people have, as it were spontaneously and instine- 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 345 
 
 tively, agreed as to the recognition rather than the 
 establishment of certain moral laws which they deem a 
 crime to violate. ‘The universal concurrence of the 
 civilized portion of mankind in the adoption of those 
 moral precepts and laws, demonstrates that the capacity — 
 of appreciating them is a component part of our organ- 
 ism, in which it lies dormant until developed into 
 gradual expansion in due time, and according to the 
 designs of Providence. It is in this sense that con- 
 science may be ealled the voice of God. That voice 
 may be more or less imperfectly heard, in proportion 
 to the less or more correct education one has had the 
 good fortune to receive in conformity with those moral 
 laws of which I have spoken; but, when that voice is 
 heard at all, however indistinctly, it is the duty of every 
 one to lend to it an attentive ear, and to obey it so far 
 as comprehended. He who should disregard it, would 
 be guilty in the eye of God and man. But allow me 
 to bring to a close our philosophical discussion. My 
 other patients await me. I must leave you for the 
 present to your meditations, which may perhaps oper- 
 ate a beneficial change in the state of your mind, and 
 make you look with hope and pleasure to that future 
 existence in which you have expressed belief. In the 
 meantime, I will prescribe an anodyne which I recom- 
 mend you to take before going to bed.’ 
 
 - “On my next visit, after having examined his condi- 
 tion, which I found to be worse, I seated myself near 
 him to keep him company, as he had begged me to do, 
 during as much time as I could spare. He looked at 
 me uneasily, I thought, and with some hesitation and 
 awkwardness of manner he said: ‘ Doctor, how do you 
 account for that extraordinary impulse which sometimes 
 constrains a man to make confessions injurious to his 
 
 15* 
 
346 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 reputation, and often imperilling his life? How comes 
 he to speak, when he has such powerful reasons to keep 
 his own secrets ? 
 
 “<T have reflected very little on the subject,’ I re- 
 plied. ‘I presume, however, that sometimes men act 
 as you say, under the pressure of a feeling of remorse 
 which they are unwilling to acknowledge to themselves, 
 and which seeks relief. in confession and atonement, 
 although, and perhaps because, it may lead to the seaf- 
 fold. It is probable that frequently it originates in 
 that impatience of solitude which is innate in man, who 
 is evidently born for sociality. A solitude of thought! 
 A solitude of feeling! It may become at times so op- 
 pressive that it cannot be endured. The long pent-up 
 agony of the soul in the barren desert which sin has 
 made around it, seeks the companionship of sympathy, 
 of pity, even of reproof or contempt, rather than ac- 
 cept the horrors of the frozen loneliness to which it 
 finds itself condemned. But why such a question ? 
 
 “¢ Because I feel a growing and unaccountable tempta- 
 tion to give you a sketch of my life.’ 
 
 “You had better not. It might agitate you to look 
 into the past, and you need the utmost quietude. Be- 
 sides, what good could it do you ? 
 
 «e It would be the gratification of an almost irre- 
 sistible impulse, and, as my life is ebbing fast away, any 
 gratification which i may procure is not to be disdained.’ 
 
 “¢ Dying men,’ I remarked, ‘when they are con- 
 scious that their last hour approaches, frequently have 
 confessions to make which will be fit only for the ears 
 of a priest. Shall I send for one?’ 
 
 *“¢ No, no,’ he said in a rather excited tone, ‘no 
 priest forme. The ghostly mountebank, because of his 
 shaven crown, would expect me to ask forgiveness at 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 347 
 
 his hands, and I have none to ask, although you see in 
 me an outlaw and the perpetrator of many bloody 
 deeds, one whom the sword of human justice, if invoked 
 by you, would soon put out of this world, were it not 
 that he is already in the gripe of death. I have a 
 strange desire to unbosom myself to you, and to nobody 
 else. If caprice, it is the caprice of a dying man, and 
 as such is entitled to kind consideration. I shall not 
 trespass beyond the limits of that time which you 
 usually allow me, and for which I am sincerely grateful.’ 
 
 “ With agesture of resignation to his will, I dropped 
 into the arm-chair which had become to me a familiar 
 seat, and I prepared myself to listen. He continued in 
 these words :” 
 
 “<¢JT was born in Bayonne, France, of respectable 
 parentage, that is to say, in the estimation of the world, 
 whatever it might be in reality. Whenin thecradle, I 
 was nearly killed by a rooster which attacked me 
 furiously. When I was six or seven years old, it seem- 
 ed to me that every human being, young and old, male 
 and female, was disposed to continue against me the 
 war first begun by the rooster. My father and mother 
 incessantly quarreled with each other, and their ill 
 humor expressed itself in kicks and cuffs to my address, 
 which were perhaps parentally intended for my physi- 
 eal improvement by hardening my body. On my going 
 to school, all the boys entered into a coalition against 
 me. They conspired together against ‘my peace of 
 mind and my bodily comfort, day and night. Each one 
 of them emulously strove to surpass his juvenile allies 
 in the perpetration of tricks and pranks upon me. As I 
 was not of a very enduring temper, [fought them with 
 obstinacy, and I was regularly punished by the usher 
 who acted the part of police officer over us, for having 
 
348 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 been the aggressor, when I was the aggressed. I dis- 
 tinguished myself in my studies, and invariably, every 
 year, I carried away the prizes in every one of the 
 classes to which I belonged. Yet I received but cold 
 commendation from my teachers, who seemed eager to 
 console my class-mates for their inferiority. When, on 
 vacation-day, I went home loaded with honors and with 
 the consciousness that I deserved a family ovation, I 
 was received with indifference, whilst my brother, who 
 was a dunce, was welcomed with enthusiastic affection. 
 The public journals contained flattering biographical 
 notices of all those pupils who obtained prizes. In re- 
 lation to me they were always silent. ‘It is true my 
 name was mentioned, but it was a mere item in the list 
 of the successful contenders. My parents died when I 
 was still a minor, and one of my uncles became my 
 tutor. He cheated me out of a considerable portion 
 of my inheritance, and so played his cards that he 
 largely increased at my expense the share of my brother, 
 who subsequently became the husband of his daughter. 
 On reaching my majority, and on my going to Paris, I 
 married into the family of a merchant of St. Denis 
 street, and became his partner. My wife committed 
 adultery with one whom I considered my most intimate 
 friend, and my father-in-law swindled me out of all my 
 property. That intimate friend was not satisfied with 
 robbing me of my wife. Having perpetrated forgery, 
 he fastened it on me, and he had the art, on my trial, to 
 convince the court by the most skillfully arranged cir- 
 cumstantial evidence, corroborated by his own direct 
 testimony against me, that I was guilty of what he had 
 done, and I was sentenced to hard labor for ten years. 
 I was then twenty-five. At the expiration of several 
 weary long years, I managed to escape. You may 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 349 
 
 easily imagine that, whilst in durance vile as a felon, I 
 had possessed sufficient opportunity and leisure to pon- 
 der over human life as arranged for us by the Creator, 
 and to analyze minutely all that had happened to me in 
 particular since my infancy. I came to the conclusion, 
 after much reflection, and after a scrutinizing review of 
 all I had experienced, as well as read and been told of, 
 that life, in and out of society, either in a state of civ- 
 ilization, or in a state of nature, is war, open or clandes- 
 tine, but certainly war, war with a smile or war with 
 a frown, war with the sword or war with the pen, war 
 under the peaceful garb of the civilian as well as under 
 the cuirass of the soldier, strategy in the tented field 
 and strategy in the gilded saloon, stratagems, false as- 
 surances, invasions of time-honored rights, diplomatic 
 lies in the line of business, plunder open or concealed, 
 cheatings under the mask of honesty, invidious stabs in 
 the back, sweetened poison tendered to the lips of the 
 unguarded, sly homicides in a thousand gentle ways— 
 in substance and to sum up: a perpetual struggle in ey- 
 ery family, and between man and man wherever they 
 meet—the strong living at the expense of the weak in 
 the infinite chain of created beings—among the human 
 race—among the animals, the birds, the fishes, and the 
 insects—the elements themselves being in irreconcilable 
 conflict—nay the whole of nature convulsed with in- 
 testine war. So far as I was concerned, society had be- 
 gun the hostilities under which I had suffered so long 
 without retaliation. I swore at last that I would better 
 the instruction received, and, in my turn, wage war with 
 a vengeance. 
 
 * As soon as I had set myself free, I inquired about 
 my bosom friend, who, it must be admitted, was largely 
 in my debt. I learned that he had purchased a beau- 
 
350 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 tiful country seat distant eighty miles from Paris. One 
 morning, there was a great commotion in that chateau 
 and for many miles round. The Don Juan and his 
 paramour, my former wife, had been found stabbed to 
 the heart in their adulterous bed, with this inscription 
 on the wall of their chamber: ‘Wonder not; they 
 have reaped what they deserved; justice is done.’ 
 Need I say whose deed it was? Was this a crime, doc- 
 tor? no, sir, it was war, Just war’ in a good cause. It 
 was taking by surprise the castle of the enemy, and put- 
 ting the garrison to the sword. This was legitimate, and 
 strictly according to the rules of war, a war which they 
 had begun. Shortly after this event, my foot was on the 
 deck of a vessel bound to New Orleans. I had heard 
 of Lafitte and of his settlement at Barataria with his bold 
 band of freebooters. He also was of Bayonne, and I 
 had known him at school. I remembered him as a mild 
 and inoffensive boy. I concluded that, if common re- 
 port did not belie him, he had greatly changed since he 
 had grown into manhood. JI met him again in his 
 stronghold and he gave me a hearty welcome. Myreal * 
 name is Raymond. I assumed then the name under 
 which I am now known: Dominique You. I had 
 brought with me fifty desperadoes. On this my first 
 interview with Lafitte, I said to him ; 
 
 “¢T come not here to join your troop and to be un- 
 der your command, but to be your ally and friend, if 
 you have no objection. ‘To each one his own responsi- 
 bility. You call yourself a privateer sailing under let- 
 ters of marque from Carthagena and scowl at the im- 
 putation of being a bandit, although your rough-hewn ~ 
 companions, when you are not with them, perpetrate 
 deeds which savor more of the corsair than of the pri- 
 vateer. Your position is equivocal ; mine shall be open, 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 351 
 
 frank, and above-board. I intend to be a pirate, and 
 to hoist the black flag. I will be no half-way man, I 
 wish for no quarter, and will give none. I am already 
 an outlaw, and a willing one, and will continue to be 
 one, even if, on any future trial, I should be held inno- 
 cent by a verdict in my favor. I am determined to set 
 at defiance all laws, and to know none but those which 
 I shall establish for my own government and that of my 
 crew. ‘There is room enough here for both of us. Let 
 us not interfere with each other, but, in cases of neces- 
 sity, unite for our common protection.’ 
 
 ‘“« He agreed to it, on condition that, when operating 
 in concert with him, I should do nothing without his 
 consent, and that, when acting on my own hook, I 
 should, on my return from my expeditions, refrain from 
 communicating to him any atrocity, as he called it, 
 which I might have committed. I shrugged my shoul- 
 ders at the scruples of one, who, being in for an ounce, 
 shrank from being in for a pound. Lafitte, after all, 
 was not a complete man, and not above mediocrity. He 
 was nothing but a smuggler, not good enough to “ make 
 an honest living by hard work ” according to the com- 
 mon phraseology of the moralist, and not bad enough, 
 as the same moralist would probably say, to push the 
 logic of evil to its utmost consequences. A sneaking 
 smuggler! Pshaw! Ifa smuggler, why not the open 
 iron-handed corsair? This is what I became at once, 
 without hesitation, I tell you. With the black flag at 
 the top of my mast, I swept over the seas, and princi- 
 pally over the Gulf of Mexico. It was a grand life, 
 full of emotions, which in your dull plodding career, 
 doctor, you cannot conceive. I felt like one of the old 
 Seandinavian kings battling against winds and waves, 
 and against mankind, and enforcing this universal law 
 
352 FERNANDO DE L&MOS. 
 
 of nature: render unto the strong what belongs to the 
 strong. Lyo swum leo. Wemade of Barataria, which 
 was our usual rendezvous, another Eldorado. What 
 piles of gold, silver and merchandise I have seen there ! 
 What mad revels under the ever-green magnolias and the 
 broad canopy of the moss-eovered live-oaks! What a 
 keen relish we had of life, for we knew that we might for- 
 feit it at any moment, and we hastened to make the most 
 of it! The United States had set a price on our heads, 
 and from the navy of all the nations of the earth we had 
 nothing to expect but a broadside, and short shrift if 
 made prisoners. On land I permitted my men to do 
 what they pleased, I was only their boon companion. 
 But at sea I was their absolute chieftain, and a stern 
 one too. The most rigid discipline was enforced; and 
 on its slightest violation a blow from my boarding ax 
 clove the head of the offender. Such are the exigencies 
 of war, doctor. Thereis, I assure you, an indescribable 
 charm in that career of constant danger and of what 
 you would call crime. I burned every vessel I took, 
 and everybody on board had to walk the plank. You 
 shudder! But again, doctor, this is nothing but one of 
 the unavoidable necessities of war. It was not to do an 
 act of cruelty for the pleasure of being cruel. lt was to 
 destroy all evidence against us. After all, our victims, 
 as a blustering attorney-general would designate them 
 in a set speech before a jury, were doomed to die one 
 day or other, at random. Of what consequence was it, 
 if I assumed to fix the epoch of that inevitable event ¢ 
 Of what importance are the duration of anything so 
 brief as life and the mode of its termination ? Why not 
 crush an obnoxious man with as much indifference as a 
 buzzing fly? How do we know but what the fly has as - 
 much right to live as we have, and is of equal weight 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. B50 
 
 with any one of us in the eye of the Creator? The fact 
 is, that I have never been able to see the difference in 
 guilt, if guilt there is, between an emperor who causes 
 a million of men to be killed for his own purposes of — 
 grand scale robbery, and a pirate who butchers a few 
 of the bipeds to whose race he appertains, merely for pet- 
 ty plunder, and to silence voices that might tell on him. 
 The one seeks gold and safety in a bucket of blood, the 
 other, glory, wealth and power in an ocean of the same 
 liquid. The world, however, awards a halter to the free- 
 booter and a throne to the conqueror. This is the judg- 
 ment of man; the judgment of God remains to be 
 known. But to return to our story. On the third of 
 January, 1813, there occurred an event which, some 
 years afterward, had consequences which I have ever 
 since bitterly regretted, although I have become noth- 
 ing but a solid mass of stone, or bone; and this ossifica- 
 tion of the heart, doctor, of which I die, is nothing 
 perhaps but the ultimate result of the gradual transform- 
 ation I have undergone.’ 
 
 “This was said with a tone and with a smile which 
 made me shiver. What sense of deeply remembered 
 wrongs and sufferings it implied! That man had evi- 
 dently been fatally hammered into the hard material he 
 had become.” 4 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 THE FATE OF THE DAUGHTER OF AARON BURR REVEALED.— 
 GENERAL JACKSON AND THE CORSAIRS OF BARATARIA. 
 
 “ We were,” continued Dominique You, “in the lati- 
 tude of Cape Hatteras on the coast of North Carolina, 
 when we met a small schooner named the ‘ Patriot,’ 
 which had been dismantled by a late storm, and which 
 was bound from Charleston, South Carolina, to New 
 York. She was a vessel famous for her sailing quali- 
 ties. After many successful privateering cruises against 
 the English, she was going home loaded with rich spoils, 
 and with her guns stowed below—which circumstance 
 made her incapable of defence. We boarded her. She 
 was commanded by an experienced captain, and had for 
 sailing master an old New York pilot noted for his skill 
 and courage. Such men could not be allowed to live 
 to tell tales, and perhaps avenge their mishap at our 
 hands, even if sparing them had not been contrary to 
 the regulations of our association. They were slaught- 
 ered and thrown overboard with the rest of the crew. 
 After this execution my men rushed down below, and 
 brought up to the deck a woman of surpassing beauty, 
 deadly pale, but showing no other signs of terror. She 
 looked at us with a sort of serene haughtiness which 
 
 was truly wonderful. She made such an impression on 
 (354) 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 368 
 
 me, that I can almost fancy her now standing in this 
 chamber precisely as she stood on that deck. 
 
 «Who are you? I said to her. 
 
 “¢ Theodosia Burr, the daughter of Aaron Burr, ex- — 
 . vice-president of the United States, and wife of Joseph 
 Allston, governor of South Carolina.’ 
 
 “<A grand conquest, exclaimed one of my men, 
 ‘and we shall have a jolly time with her.’ And he ad- 
 vanced toward her, followed by the rest of the crew. 
 She stepped back with an offended look of queenly 
 dignity. J planted myself in front of her. 
 
 *¢< Back, my men,’ I shouted, ‘back at the peril of 
 your lives. Don’t you know better? Don’t you know 
 that I sanction death, but no outrages of the kind you 
 contemplate? Death to prisoners is a necessity of the 
 war we wage. [very vessel we take is to be scuttled, 
 and every soul on board must perish. That is our 
 covenant. In that we are justified on the principle of 
 self-defence. But what you intend doing would be, not 
 only a mean and cowardly act, but also an atrocious 
 crime, because useless for our protection, and not an 
 indispensable sacrifice which we must make to it. 
 Death is in the bond which I signed, but not rape. 
 Back then, back!’ 
 
 “ They murmured and seemed-to hesitate. I put my 
 hand on one of the pistols which I had in my belt, and 
 they slowly and sullenly retired to their quarters, leay- 
 ing me alone with the lady. 
 
 ¢¢Sir,’ she said, ‘I thank you; you have more than 
 saved my life.’ 
 
 “<T regret, madam, that I cannot do more; that life | 
 is forfeited.’ | 
 
 “<Ttis well. When must it be?’ 
 
 “ « Now.’ 
 
356 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 “<T am ready; the sooner done, the better for me 
 and for yourself, for I am in your way and a source of 
 peril to you.’ 
 
 “JT had the plank laid out. She stepped on it, and 
 descended into the sea with graceful composure, as if 
 she had been alighting from her carriage. She sank, 
 and rising again, she, with an indescribable smile of 
 angelic sweetness, waved her hand to me as if she 
 meant to say: farewell, and thanks again; and then 
 sank forever. By the living God! she must have been 
 a splendid creature.” 3 
 
 “Wretch!’’? I exclaimed in a burst of indignation. 
 “flow dare your lips thus profane the name of God! 
 And how dare you confess to me such horrors! Were 
 you not dying, I would have you arrested and hung!” _ 
 
 “Precisely, doctor, precisely ; but I am dying. Pray, 
 sit down; I am safe from human justice; and, as to 
 your making a scene here under present circumstances, 
 it would be decidedly vulgar and in bad taste. If you 
 cannot hang me, listen at least. You may, when I am 
 dead, repeat the story for the information of whom it 
 may concern.” 
 
 “T sank back into my seat as if spell-bound. Domi- 
 nique resumed his relation in these words: ” 
 
 “‘T spare you the history of our other expeditions. 
 Suffice it to say that we baffled all the efforts of the 
 United States navy to put a stop to our depredations. 
 Toward the end of the next year, a powerful English 
 fleet had gathered in the Gulf of Mexico, and Louis- 
 iana was threatened with the invasion which subse- 
 quently took place. You know what happened. Tempt- 
 ing offers were made to us in the name of the British 
 Government, if we consented to put.at its disposal the 
 minute knowledge we had of the ceast of Louisiana 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 308 
 
 and assist the invaders. Had we consented to be their 
 guides, Louisiana would have been lost. But we were 
 Frenchmen, and the sworn foes of England. Besides, 
 we had always been secretly entertained with generous - 
 hospitality in New Orleans, and honor as well as grati- 
 tude, of which bandits are not always destitute, pre- 
 vented the possibility of our lifting up our hands against 
 that city. It was agreed, on the contrary, that we 
 should offer our services to the Americans, provided the 
 past should be forgotten and full amnesty granted. 
 Hence Lafitte’s famous letter to Governor Claiborne, 
 who, as it is well known, rejected his offer. This is a 
 matter of history with which you are familiar, no doubt. 
 But General Jackson, on his arrival in New Orleans, 
 being informed of our propositions, desired an interview 
 with Lafitte and sent him a safe conduct for himself 
 and for one of his companions. Lafitte chose me to 
 accompany him. We were introduced into a room 
 where we found the general alone, and standing with 
 his back to a chimney in which there was a blazing fire. 
 He bowed courteously as we entered. [or a moment 
 he looked keenly at us. He seemed to be making a 
 critical survey of what he probably thought to be dan- 
 gerous ground. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘do you speak 
 English ?? We answered in the affirmative. 
 
 “<T am glad of it,’ he said, ‘for we shall need no in- 
 terpreter. Which of you is Lafitte?’ 
 
 “¢ You have him before you in my person,’ replied 
 Lafitte, ‘and my friend here is named Dominique You.’ 
 
 “ Again a scrutinizing glance from the general. 
 Meanwhile, we had returned the compliment, and had 
 been examining the commander of the United States 
 forces. He was of middle size, spare, wiry, evidently 
 all steel. His hair was erect and bristling like the quills 
 
358 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 of the porcupine. There was in that stiff hair, in that 
 chin, in that mouth, in that nose, in those gray eyes, 
 and in the deep furrows of that face and forehead an 
 expression which could not be mistaken. It clearly 
 said to the physiognomist: I have a will of my own 
 which no mortal can change or influence. I immedi- 
 ately felt a strong sympathy for him. What a magnifi- 
 cent corsair he would have made, if driven into it by 
 circumstance—that despotic and omnipotent ruler of 
 man ! 
 
 “<« Lafitte,’ said the general, ‘ how many men can you 
 bring to me? ” 
 
 “<¢Three hundred, atl splendid fighters too.’ 
 
 “The general smiled with grim satisfaction. ‘I 
 need every soul of them all,’ he said, ‘for the defence 
 of Louisiana. I am short of men, and particularly of such 
 as are capable of working artillery. My guns are few 
 and must be well managed. I will confide most of them 
 to you. Governor Claiborne and everybody else 
 around me, save General Villeré, are for refusing your 
 services. I will dare to accept them. I will go further ; 
 T will, as I have said, intrust you with my artillery.’ 
 
 “< We will render to you, general, a good account of 
 it,’ said Lafitte. 
 
 “*¢T rely on your word. The world calls you bandits ; 
 I will call you gentlemen, and treat you as such. You 
 are Frenchmen, and you will surely not forget that it is 
 against the hereditary enemies of France that we are 
 in arms. If you have committed crimes, let British 
 blood wash you clean ; let your services in a just cause 
 redeem your guilt. The United States will forgive all 
 violations of their laws on your part. Prepare your: 
 selves to receive on a well-fought field the baptism of 
 regeneration.’ 
 
FERNANDO OE LEMOS. 359 
 
 “¢ General,’ I replied, ‘ whatever we have done, we 
 acknowledge no other judge on earth than ourselves. I 
 must confess that, according to certain articles of the 
 code of morality which governs the so-called Christian 
 nations, we must be considered as having in us more 
 of the bandit than of the gentleman. Nevertheless, 
 bandits of our calibre, whatever may be their crimes, 
 never betray, but keep inviolate their plighted faith.’ 
 
 “<¢Vet us shake hands on that,’ said the general, ‘ for 
 were you to betray me, nothing would remain for me 
 to do, after reposing so much trust In you in opposition 
 to the advice of all those in authority here, but to blow 
 my brains with the same hand that you grasp.’ 
 
 “< Tf you die only in consequence of treachery on our 
 part,’ replied Lafitte, ‘you will live long, general.’ 
 
 “Very well, gentlemen. From this moment you 
 are in the service of the United States, and you shall 
 soon receive my orders.’ 
 
 “ He then bowed us out of the room. Doctor, some- 
 body, I believe, wrote a book on the ‘ Curiosities of 
 Literature.’ If you ever write one on the ‘ Curiosities 
 of History, do not forget to mention in it that three 
 hundred smugglers and pirates had the singular luck to 
 be courted at the same time and their assistance invoked 
 by Great Britain and the United States; that they con- 
 tributed to save Louisiana from foreign conquest, and 
 thus were instrumental in restoring peace between those 
 two powerful belligerents.” 
 
 *‘ Here he stopped, and gasped for breath. I motioned 
 to him to take rest. After a little while he thus con- 
 tinued his narrative: ” 
 
 “On the 8th of January, 1815, when the battle had 
 begun, and the artillery was roaring on both sides, 
 Jackson came galloping rapidly along the lines. When 
 
360 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 he reached my battery, he stopped short his foaming 
 horse: ‘ By the eternal!’ he exclaimed. ‘What does 
 it mean, Dominique? How come your guns to be 
 silent ? 
 
 “« Because, general, I never waste time in using bad 
 powder.’ 
 
 “He turned to an officer who was near him, and 
 thundered out: ‘If, in five minutes, Dominique has 
 not got such powder as he approves, I will make your 
 Avil fly from your shoulders.’ 
 
 “T soon had the powder which I wanted, and the 
 British were uot slow in discovering that at their costs. 
 When the general returned, he stopped again, and 
 waving his hat over his head, shouted: ‘ Hurrah! 
 Dominique, your fire is splendid.’ 
 
 “<« By St. Andrew, your patron,’ I replied, ‘I will 
 make it a point, general, to keep up this fire until the 
 victory is yours. You shall not repent of having trust- 
 ed the bandit Dominique.’ 
 
 “ After the defeated Britons had retreated with 
 humiliation from Louisiana, we determined also to 
 abandon our old nests within her western bays, inlets 
 and lakes. We broke up our establishments and went 
 to South America. One day, talking with Lafitte of 
 our past life, which was so strikingly in contrast with the 
 peaceful, easy and law abiding one we were leading, I 
 thought that, as our copartnership had so long ceased to 
 exist and the responsibility of all my acts was entirely 
 mine, I was released from the agreement I had entered 
 into with him when I first joined him at Barataria. 
 Partly for that reason, and partly because I was some- 
 what heated by the convivialities of which we had 
 both partaken, I ventured on the once forbidden ground, 
 and I related some remarkable scenes of which I had 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 361 
 
 retained a vivid recollection—among others, the superb 
 manner in which Theodosia Burr had met death. 
 Lafitte, who had always had a sort of womanly tender- 
 ness lurking in some corner of his heart, became excited - 
 and abusive. Harsh words passed between us. He 
 entirely lost the command of his temper and struck me 
 in the face. Swift as lightning my dagger was buried 
 in his breast, and he fell at my feet. Thus he had the 
 good fortune of a sudden death, whilst I have been 
 lingering under the torture of this incurable disease. 
 But I feel’ exhausted. . = . my breath fails... : 
 What ip-ibh yi. TS ..1, :). suffocate, doctor, I 
 suf%, 8.02? . 
 
 “He did not complete the utterance of the word. 
 His sufferings were ended in this world. I was pre- 
 paring to depart, when the nurse said: ‘ According to 
 the request of your late patient, now dead, I present to 
 you this dagger which he bequeaths to you, this letter 
 and this small package.’ I opened the letter. It was 
 short and ran thus : , 
 
 “¢ Dear Docror,—I thank you gratefully for your kind 
 attendance, which I did not deserve and which I hardly 
 expected, considering the light in which you must have 
 regarded me. Lafitte is of historical importance in 
 your state. I bequeath to you the dagger which put 
 an end to his existence. I am alone in the world and 
 care for nobody. You are entitled to the most liberal 
 remuneration for your medical services, and particularly 
 for the gratification which you afforded me in keeping 
 me company every day, perhaps for a longer time than 
 you could well spare. I will repay you munificently 
 for what you have done on my behalf. In the package 
 which will be delivered to you are certain papers in 
 
 16 
 
362 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 which you will find an accurate description of a place, 
 where J left buried an immense treasure. It is in that 
 part of Barataria Lake called the ‘Temple.’ I had 
 determined not to touch it, except on the happening of 
 a certain contingency. That contingency had occurred, 
 and I was on my way to the place I have mentioned, 
 when I became too ill to execute my intentions. That 
 treasure shall be your fee. I need no longer any thing. 
 The war of life is over with me in this world, Shall it 
 continue in the next ? Signed: DommyrquE, — 
 THE BANDIT.’” 
 
 The Doctor stopped, took back the dagger which I 
 was still retaining in my hand, and thrust it into ‘his 
 coat pocket. 
 
 “ Quick! quick!” said I eagerly. ‘‘ Tell me what 
 you found in the package. J am anxious to know how 
 rich you will be.’ 
 
 “Tt was closely and carefully enveloped,” said the 
 - doctor, “and secured with a large black seal bearing 
 the impress of a cross made with two daggers sur- 
 mounted by a skeleton’s head. My first impulse was 
 to break the ominous seal; the next, followed by im- 
 mediate action, was to throw it into the fire, where it 
 was speedily consumed.” 
 
 “ By the gods,” I exclaimed, “ and why ? 
 
 ‘Simply because there are dwelling’ in man two 
 spirits at war with each other—the one good, the other 
 bad. On that occasion, the good spirit prevailed over 
 its antagonist. The bad one had prompted me to opén 
 the package; the good one whispered to me: Thou 
 must not break such a seal; it is of the devil. Thou 
 shalt not pollute thy honest hands with a treasure 
 which reeks with blood and smells of murder. The 
 result was what I have stated. Now, good nigh 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 363 
 
 Tintin Calandro sleeps well and does not need mé for 
 the present.” 
 
 I shook my departing friend’s hand with a more 
 energetic grasp than I had ever done before. Poor 
 Rhineberg! I alone ever appreciated him to his value. 
 He was a genius of a physician. As a lecturer on the 
 science to which he was so devoted, he would have 
 attracted crowds in Europe and become famous. I 
 haye heard many members of his profession express 
 that opinion. But, alas, he had the simplicity of a 
 child, and had an incurable modesty which sometimes 
 fretted me into anger. He could not blow his horn to 
 attract attention, and never thought of advertising his 
 truly admirable cures, and would not have permitted 
 others to do it for him, so morbidly afraid was he of ap- 
 pearing to resort to any mountebank practices. Add 
 to these fated deficiencies in his character an inexhaust- 
 ible fund of charity. Hence his merit remained under 
 the bushel, and competitors, not worthy of untying the 
 strings of his shoes, easily out-stripped him in the race 
 of success. He lived and died poor, leaving to me 
 Dominique You’s dagger, which killed Lafitte. The 
 deadly weapon hangs over the mantelpiece of my fire- 
 place in my library, and daily recalls to my remem- 
 brance my departed friend Rhineberg, and his refusal 
 of the treasure which lies concealed in the “ ‘Temple ” 
 in Lake Barataria. 
 
CHAPTER XXX. : 
 
 THE CARNIVAL OF VENICE IN THE ST. LOUIS CEMETERY.— 
 “THE ACTRESS GRISELDA AND THE SPANISH DUKE. — 
 BACKBONE AND SADFISH, OR GOOD AND BAD LUCK. 
 
 Accorpine to the prognostics of the doctor, Tintin 
 Calandro continued to improve, although it seemed to 
 me that the aberrations of his mind were more marked 
 than before. He had lately spoken repeatedly of re- 
 turning to his usual avocations in the St. Louis ceme- 
 tery, when came Shrove-Tuesday, or mardi gras. In 
 the evening of that day, happening to call on him, he 
 said tome: “I must have a night of it with my friends 
 the dead. They are all rejoicing at my convalescence, 
 and they are bent on celebrating it with a ball. I will 
 play for them an overture on the occasion. Then, I 
 will leave them to their own musicians; for they have 
 good ones among themselves, I assure you.” I ear- 
 nestly remonstrated against the determination he had 
 taken. I begged him not to forget that he was still 
 very feeble, and that fatigue and exposure might bring 
 on a relapse. But I pleaded in vain, so that, at nine 
 o’clock, we departed together for the cemetery. When 
 Tintin had passed its gate, and when he trod on the 
 sacred soil within its gray walls, he looked round with a 
 glow of satisfaction on his weird face; his step became 
 more firm and his whole body seemed invigorated. 
 
 “Ho! ho! he exclaimed. “I knew that they ex- 
 (364) 
 
 * 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 365 
 
 pected me; see how they flock round and greet poor 
 Tintin Calandro. Good night, my friends, good night. 
 I am sincerely glad to meet you again in my capacity 
 of a denizen of this world, which I am soon to quit, but 
 only to join you for ever in the spiritual one. In the 
 meantime, we will have for once a merry time of it. 
 The broken-down old man will play for you, although 
 his heart is full of grief. Come on, not a moment is to 
 be lost, for I cannot stay long with you. My keeper 
 here,” he said with a smile and pointed at me, “ will 
 not permit it. Sit down all of you on those tombs ; 
 be silent and motionless, or you will confuse me; my 
 head is weak. That’s right, very well, that’s the way 
 I like it; and now, hurrah for the carnival of the 
 spirits! Here it goes, four in hand and a crack of the 
 whip—folly unchained, and the devil chasing it with a 
 halloo.” 
 
 Seizing with a frantic grasp the violin which I had 
 carried for him, he dashed the swift bow on the strings, 
 over which it swept in a semi-circle, electrifying them 
 into the production of a grand musical storm, in which 
 all sorts of melodies seemed to rush pell-mell in a wild 
 gallop. Listen to this joyous burst of all known in- 
 struments, acting sometimes in harmonious concert, and 
 sometimes engaged in emulous contest for pre-eminence 
 —a perfect and complete orchestra. One could hear 
 the gleesome castanets of the Spanish fandango, the 
 sprightly tunes of the Neapolitan dances, the German 
 waltz, the old French minuet, the modern cotillion, the 
 Russian mazourka, the Scottish reel, the American jig, 
 and all the favorite dancing airs of most of the nations 
 of the earth, successively following one another, or 
 blending together with the most striking and admirable 
 effect. Fast came the squeaks of Punchinello, the shrill 
 
~ 
 
 366 A°VANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 laugh of the Merry Andrew, the rush of the pleasure- 
 intoxicated crowd wx‘rling round under the spell of the 
 demon of the hour. New and then the wildest and 
 most unearthly shouts clove through the hot and dense 
 bacchanalian atmosphere. It was the devil’s halloo 
 urging the sons and daughters of carnival to speed 
 faster iz their race of mad frolic, and faster went the 
 whirlwind of feet, more piercing the squeaks of Punch- 
 inello, more sharp the laugh of Merry Andrew, and 
 more brilliant, more fascinating, more soul-ravishing the 
 strains which gushed like a torrent from the super- 
 natural instrument of the maniac. I have since heard 
 the celebrated Carnival of Venice executed by Pag- 
 anini. But Tintin Calandro was more wonderful than 
 Paganini and Rossini. Never did they produce in me 
 such emotions. So intense grew my excitement, that 
 I felt as if a sort of hallucination was coming over me. 
 I fancied that I saw the scene which Tintin depicted, 
 and that an irresistible attraction was drawing me with- 
 in the vortex of the insane crew that shot by with a 
 velocity which it made me giddy to look at, as if it had 
 been a living reality. Fortunately, the musician stop- 
 ped. I drew a long breath. 
 
 “ Spirits,” said Tintin, ‘‘I have done, and sufficient- 
 ly prepared you for the enjoyments you expect to have. 
 Now, quick, select your partners for the dance, the ball 
 is open, and let me see you begin the sport.” 
 
 Tintin remained a little while with folded arms, look- 
 ing round with as much interest as if he really saw 
 something pleasant to his sight. ‘‘ Very well, very 
 well,” he said. All goes well. Now I leave you. A 
 good night to you and a merry one until the cock 
 crows.” And, taking me by the arm, he whispered: 
 “Hist! hist! listen. Is it not truly a creditable per- 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 367" 
 
 formance-~a very fair orchestra? The leader of it was 
 the chief musician in the St. Philip Theatre, when first 
 established. I will tell you, as we walk home, what 
 befell him, poor fellow, under the Spanish colonial gov- 
 ernment of Louisiana: . 
 
 “Ernest Vanderlingen was a portrait painter of con- 
 siderable talent and an excellent performer on the violin. 
 He had in an eminent degree those peculiarities of 
 temper and habit which are said to be the common 
 characteristics of artists, and he had led for several 
 years a sort of Bohemian life, during which he had 
 visited all the capitals of Europe, in each one of which 
 he had sojourned some time, making a living by his 
 brush and violin. At Prague he had married a gypsy, 
 and the ofispring of that union was a daughter called 
 Griselda. [I do not now recollect what were the cir- 
 eumstances which brought that family to New Orleans, 
 but, shortly after their arrival in this city, Vanderlin- 
 gen lost his wife, and there remained nothing to con- 
 sole him save an infant girl on whom all his aftections 
 centered at once. True to her origin, she was an ad- 
 mirable specimen of the gypsy style of beauty—the 
 large, dark and lustrous oriental eyes, the olivaceous » 
 complexion, the glossy and silky hair, raven-like in its 
 hue, the exquisitely delicate hands and feet, the oval 
 face, the nose and mouth so pure in their outlines, the 
 pearly teeth, the whole body full of symmetry and grace 
 and as flexible as the willow. She was indeed a thing 
 of beauty and passion—beauty redolent with youth, life 
 and innocence—and passion yet asleep—but which, in 
 its slumber, looked as if it could wake up suddenly and 
 rage with uncontrollable fury. Any one believing, as 
 many do, that the gypsy originally came from the far- 
 famed land of Egypt, would have been apt to fancy, 
 
368 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 when beholding Griselda, that such must have been the 
 witchery of the charms of Cleopatra. Her father being 
 the leader of the orchestra of the St. Philip Theatre, 
 she had become early acquainted with actors and ac- 
 tresses. She conceived a fondness for stage life, and, 
 at sixteen, she made her appearance on the boards. She 
 carried the audience by storm; it was a perfect furor. 
 At the time when the enthusiasm she inspired was at 
 its height, there came to New Orleans a young’ grandee 
 of Spain, called Villalva, who was a distant relation of 
 the Baron of Carondelet, then governor of Louisiana. 
 Villalva became so desperately in love with this howr2, 
 that he carried it so far as to propose matrimony, on 
 discovering that he could not gratify his passion in any 
 other way. The spirited girl refused, on the ground 
 that she could not rise up to him and would be con- 
 temptuously rejected by his family. His reply was: 
 ‘I will then descend to you, and only beg to be accept- 
 ed by you and your parent.’ 
 
 “ One day, the whole population of New Orleans was 
 convulsed with the news that the young duke of Villal- 
 va, allied to several of the royal houses of Europe, had 
 joined the troop of actors of the St. Philip theatre, and 
 was shortly to appear in a celebrated piece of Lope de 
 Vega, in which two lovers, being crossed in their love, 
 meet with a tragic end at their own hands. It is use- 
 less to say that, on the evening of the expected per- 
 formance, every seat was taken and the theatre crowded 
 to suffocation. Even a large crowd remained outside, 
 talking excitedly, and gazing at the building into which 
 they could not penetrate. In the royal box always 
 reserved for the use of the representative of his Catho- 
 lic Majesty, the Baron of Carondelet sat alone. His 
 family had stayed at home, probably as a sign of dis- 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 369 
 
 pleasure at the course pursued by their relative, and the 
 usually benign face of the baron was observed by all to 
 wear a striking expression of sternness. The curtain 
 rose; Griselda and the new actor, with all the blue 
 blood of Spain in his veins, were greeted with enthusi- 
 astic shouts and plaudits. They both acted admirably, 
 with the most extraordinary spirit, and almost with 
 genius like inspiration. But, during one of the enétre- 
 acts, when the actors were behind the scenes, the duke 
 received the following note: 
 
 **¢ Most DISTINGUISHED srrR,—I hasten to warn you 
 against the perils which threaten your excellency and her 
 whom you love, although I am afraid it is too late. But 
 I could not doit sooner. The theatre is now surrounded 
 with troops; escape is impossible. At the end of the 
 play, you and Griselda will be arrested. T'wo ships 
 are ready to sail by order of the governor. One will 
 carry Griselda to some unknown fortress, and the other 
 will take your excellency to Spain, where the king, at 
 the request of your family, will provide against your 
 not being able to perpetrate what is called an incom- 
 prehensible folly. Signed: A Frrenp.’ 
 
 ‘This note was communicated by the duke to Gris 
 elda, and their resolution was instantly taken. The 
 final act of the play remained to be performed. The 
 scene in which the lovers had to express their despair 
 at the inevitable separation to which they were des- 
 tined, was portrayed with such pathos, that the whole 
 audience was melted into tears, and held its breath in 
 awful suspense, when the heroine of the play invites 
 ner lover to plunge his dagger into her breast rather 
 than allow her to be the bride of another. But what 
 
 Loe 
 
370 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 was the horror of the assembly when the blow was 
 struck in earnest, and a purple stream gushed from the 
 . bosom of Griselda, who reeled and fell on the stage! 
 Shrieks after shrieks rose from every part of the thea- 
 tre. But among those shrieks there was one which 
 never could be forgotten by those whose ears it ap- 
 palled. It burst out of the agonizing heart of the 
 father of Griselda, clear, frightfully distinct, and recog- 
 nized by all. He leaped frantically from the orchestra 
 to the stage, and lifted up his dying daughter in his 
 arms. She looked at him with a smile, and said: 
 ‘Father, I die happy.’ These were her last words. 
 Meanwhile, the young duke had approached the box 
 of the governor, which was close to the stage, and, 
 shaking his bloody weapon in his face, exclaimed: 
 ‘ Baron and loving cousin, tell the king and my family 
 what you have seen. I defy you all, and I go to join 
 her from whom no human power can now separate me.’ 
 These words were hardly uttered when the sharp blade 
 was buried to its hilt into his own breast, and he fell 
 dead by the senseless form of Griselda. From that 
 day Vanderlingen became mad, and was confined in a 
 lunatic asylum, until he was brought here. Poor 
 thing! How terrible it is to be mad! I should not 
 like to be mad. It is too shocking. Mad from grief! 
 O horror of horrors! Mad from grief! Such was the 
 fate of Vanderlingen. Thank God, Tintin Calandro 
 is not mad, not mad from grief. No. Oh! no. Iam 
 not mad, not I. I am not mad.” I took him home 
 whilst he kept repeating to himself: “ thank God, poor 
 Tintin Calandro is not mad—not mad from grief.” 
 
 A few days afterward, I was with Tintin Calandro in 
 the St. Louis cemetery, examining a tomb which had 
 been offered for sale. It was a monument of plain 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 871 
 
 white marble surrounded by an iron railing, and over- 
 shadowed by a-willow tree whose drooping branches 
 seemed to weep in sympathizing sorrow. This tomb 
 was located in a retired spot, near two of the enclosing” 
 walls which met at right angles. It had been con- 
 structed for a I'renchman who had grown old in New 
 Orleans in the pursuit of wealth without attaining it, 
 but who had unexpectedly inherited a large fortune in 
 his native country, whither he had determined to re- 
 turn without loss of time, and enjoy what remained to 
 him of life. Hence the tomb which he had prepared 
 for himself was advertised for sale to the highest bid- 
 der. There was an air of repose about it which must 
 have been inviting to all spirits weary of the torments 
 of existence. We were withdrawing from that spot, 
 when a doleful-looking man, on the verge of old age, 
 approached us, and said to Tintin that he had come to ~ 
 ‘buy the tomb in question. On his being told that it had 
 just been sold, the stranger heaved a deep sigh of dis- 
 tress, and his already very gloomy face assumed a more 
 sombre hue. 
 
 “Good God!” he exclaimed. ‘Shall I forever be 
 disappointed in every thing I desire, and shall I not 
 even be buried as I choose? JI had set my heart 
 on having this tomb. It follows as a matter of course 
 that I cannot have it. I ought not, however, to be as- 
 tonished, for it is of a piece with every thing that has 
 happened to me since my infancy—a beautiful con- 
 sistency and harmony running through the whole dra- 
 ma from beginning to end. And pray, sir,” he said, 
 turning to Tintin, “ who is the fortunate purchaser of 
 the last object I coveted in this world ?” 
 
 “His name is Thomas Backbone,” was the reply. 
 
 “Heavens!” cried the stranger. ‘Can this be pos- 
 
372 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 sible? Still is the same man in my way, even on the 
 very brink of the grave—that man who was born to be 
 the bane of my whole life!” 
 
 As he remarked our astonishment, he invited us to 
 take seats on a bench which was close by in one of the 
 alleys of the cemetery, promising us an explanation of 
 the language he had used. After we were seated, he 
 thus addressed us : 
 
 ‘““My name is John Sadfish, and the person to whom 
 I have alluded is Thomas Backbone, my first cousin, 
 both of us natives of Philadelphia. We were left desti- 
 tute orphans by our parents, whom we lost in early life 
 and who were Catholics. Fortunately we had an ec- 
 centric, kind-hearted old Quaker uncle, an inveterate 
 bachelor, who took care of us without finding fault with 
 the church in which we had been born. He amply 
 provided for our wants, for he was rich and generous, 
 and sent us both to school with the determination to 
 make thorough and brilliant scholars of us if possible, 
 (that was his hobby) and with the explicit declaration 
 that he-would leave the bulk of his fortune to Thomas, 
 or to me, according to the superiority which one might 
 acquire over the other. Thomas plodded heavily through 
 his studjes—a f espectable student by his ox-like plough- 
 ing “and steady labor in a hard field, but as dull and 
 ponderous as lead. As to myself, I was always at the 
 head of every class I was in; yet, strange to say, and 
 unaccountable as it was to me, the fame of my success 
 never spread out of the college walls, whilst Thomas’ 
 negative career as a student was, by some inexplicable 
 hocus pocus, or freak of luck, magnified into one of 
 brilliant achievements. Many said, it is true, that he 
 was.a confirmed blockhead, but others maintained that 
 something—they could not exactly tell what—would 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 373 
 
 yet come out of that head, and that in that block, rough- 
 hewn as it was from the quarry, and valueless sand-stone 
 as it appeared to be, more than one vein of gold would, 
 in the course of time, be discovered. I was then puzzled 
 at the obstinacy with which these conjectures were en- 
 tertained by some people in relation to my desperately 
 stupid cousin. But, as I grew older, my wonder ceased, 
 for I discovered that in this world of obliquities, it fre- 
 quently happens that, by some optical illusion, the buz 
 zard on the hill is taken for an eagle, and the eagle in 
 the valley is taken for a buzzard. What is high up 
 basking in the light, is supposed to be worthy of it, and 
 what is low down in the deep shadows, must be foul 
 and creeping. Be it as it may; we had gone at last 
 through our intended course of collegiate education, and 
 the day when our academical probation was to cease, 
 rapidly approached. We were at Cowhurst College in 
 New Jersey. That institution had of late been losing 
 ground, and the public patronage was gradually with- 
 drawing itself. Therefore it had been resolved by the 
 trustees and managers of that establishment, to have a 
 grand display and flourish of trumpets at the end of the 
 scholastic year. Long before the time for the closing 
 of the exercises and the beginning of vacation, adver- 
 tisements and invitations had been extensively circu- 
 lated, and a great concourse was expected from New 
 York, Philadelphia, Boston and other places, to witness 
 the exhibition of the merits of the scholars who were to 
 make their exit, and the distribution of prizes and di- 
 plomas. The élite of the étz, the cream of the cream 
 of the intellectual and financial aristocracy of the coun- 
 try was to be there. A grand prize in. particular was 
 to be contended for. It consisted in a gold medal bear- 
 ing the effigy of Washington on one side, and on the 
 
374 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 other an eagle with outspread wings, carrying the globe 
 of the earth in its talons and the thunderbolt of Jove 
 in its beak. This was the reward to be given to that 
 pupil of Cowhurst College who should be deemed te 
 have treated with the most ability, a theme on whick 
 we had been given ample time to reflect and to write. — 
 
 “ The subject was: ‘The Destinies of America.’ Of 
 course, America meant the United States, for the Uni- 
 ted States are America, it being ascertained beyond ¢ 
 doubt by our most distinguished naturalists, that om 
 enlightened and freeborn citizens constitute alone the 
 genus homo on this continent, and that all the othe: 
 bipeds who are outside the sacred precincts of our self 
 sufficient and perfect government, which diffuses moral 
 ity, civilization, religion, wealth, education, happiness, 
 republicanism and many other isms, with the liberality 
 and beneficial effects with which the sun diffuses light, 
 have no claim whatever to be ranked much above the 
 kangaroo.” 
 
CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 CONTINUATION OF THE STORY OF SADFISH AND BACKBONE, 
 OR GOOD AND BAD LUCE. 
 
 ‘“‘T workep day and night with indefatigable ardor,” 
 continued Saditish, “fon the grand Homeric subject which 
 had been laid before me. Besides the literary fame 
 which was to be acquired, there was another stimulant 
 for me—which was, that my uncle’s accumulated treas- 
 ures were to be the reward of my success. The mo- 
 mentous day of judgment for me was fast drawing near. 
 Qn the one preceding it, the pupils contending for the 
 prize had to submit their contributions to a conclave of 
 men of letters, who were to meet at Cowhurstville, and 
 who were to be presided over by no less a personage 
 than John Adams, whose presence the Trustees of Cow- 
 hurst College were exceedingly rejoiced at having se- 
 cured. My composition had been transcribed with the 
 utmost calligraphic skill on the most beautiful paper I 
 could find, for I knew the value of appearances and 
 how repulsive is an illegible scrawl. Being neatly rolled 
 up and tied with a blue ribbon, it was lying on a chair, 
 whilst I was dressing to appear before the assembled 
 tribunal, to which each competitor was to present in 
 person his lucubration. Judge of my dismay, when, 
 after being dressed, I looked in vain for my manuscript! 
 It was impossible to account for its mysterious disap- 
 pearance, and too late to repair the mischief done and 
 
 make another copy. I became ill from vexation, and 
 (375) 
 
376 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 took to my bed. A strong fever set in; I was delirious 
 for several days, and, when I recovered my senses, I 
 discovered that a dog, which Thomas Backbone had 
 trained to pick up anything. it found in its way, and to 
 fetch it to him, had entered my room unperceived, and 
 that, attracted, it seems, by the glittering roll of paper 
 adorned with ribbons, it had taken hold of it and car- 
 ried it to Backbone, who had the audacity to use it as 
 his own. My composition procured for him the much 
 coveted medal and a flattering commendation from the 
 venerated lips of John Adams. It was published in 
 most of the leading papers of our principal cities, and 
 made Backbone famous. When I reproached him with 
 his treachery and his impudent imposture, he laughed 
 and said : ‘that he did not know at the time who the writer 
 was; that, after all, it was a waif, a windfall which he 
 thought he could avail himself of ; that it was his dog’s 
 treasure-trove; that what belonged to his dog, whose 
 possessory rights he was not called upon to question, 
 belonged to him, until a superior right to the property 
 was made out; that it was a present from his canine 
 friend, and that a given horse is not to be looked in the 
 mouth.’ He fought me off with such madeap logie, af- 
 fecting to treat the whole affair as a capital joke. But 
 the worst of it was, that before I could inform my uncle 
 of the trick of. siteh I had been the victim, the old gen- 
 tleman died suddenly, leaving to me a mere pittance, 
 and the bulk of his fortune to his other nephew, who, 
 as he believed, had reflected so much honor on his fami- 
 ly. Thus a dog had ruined one man, and enriched an- 
 other. So much for what we generally call good luck, 
 and bad luck! But was it really an accident, and had 
 not that dog risen to the dignity of a providential agent ? 
 
 “T need not say how low-spirited I became. All my 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 3 bi 
 
 hopes were blasted at the beginning of my career. It 
 was the first blow struck at my young heart, and, on 
 that account, it was more keenly felt than all those 
 which I subsequently received; for man becomes 
 metallic, when laid out too long on the anvil, and har- 
 dens under the hammer of an unrelenting destiny. But 
 I had not then gone through that delectable process of 
 induration. Hence my health visibly declined, and I 
 was getting worse every day, when the first clerk of the 
 Seeretary of State at Washington informed me, at the 
 request of his wife to whom I was distantly related, 
 that important despatches were to be sent to France, 
 and that, if I consented, he would have me appointed 
 the bearer of them—thus giving me at the cost of the 
 government the opportunity of a trip across the ocean, 
 by which my health might be benefited, and of a pleas- 
 ant visit to a foreign country, which then attracted 
 universal attention by the mighty revolution that had 
 shattered to pieces the oldest monarchy of Europe. I 
 accepted the proposition with gratitude. This was in 
 1792. Iwas kindly received by our minister plenipo- 
 tentiary, who insisted on my becoming his guest, add- 
 ing playfully that be liked to keep all Americans as 
 close to him as possible, particularly the young and in- . 
 experienced, for fear that they should be mistaken for 
 aristocrats, whose manners they are very fond of imitat- 
 ing, and have their heads chopped off before he could be 
 made aware of their danger. Two weeks after, I was . 
 greatly surprised, when, at one of the evening recep- 
 tions of our minister, [ saw Thomas Backbone come in 
 with his usual imperturbable composure. There was 
 leaning on his arm another Thomas—no less than 
 Thomas Payne, of half Quaker and half Voltairian 
 breed, the world-renowned philanthropic innovator, 
 
 - 
 
378 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 the author of ‘Common Sense,’ of the ‘Age of 
 Reason,’ of the ‘Rights of Man,’ and other works, in 
 which he attempted to prove, that, before his advent on 
 earth, there never had been any common sense or 
 reason in ‘it, and that he alone had discovered the 
 ‘rights of man’ buried under the rubbish of ages 
 since the original creation of the universe. I gazed 
 with curiosity at the ubiquitous demagogue who had 
 made himself so conspicuous at the same time—in Eng- 
 land, France and America--in England where hang- 
 men had burned his writings and himself in effigy, and 
 from which he was a fugitive—in France, where he 
 was to be hugged at first to the tender bosom of Robes- 
 pierre, as long as he sang to the tune of that apostle of 
 the goddess of reason, and where he was to be incarce- 
 rated and doomed to the guillotine, which he narrowly 
 escaped, as soon as it was discovered by the knights of | 
 the Carmagnole and the proclaimers and champions of 
 the ‘rights of man,’ that he was not quite as much of a 
 blood-thirsty tiger as they expected—in America, where 
 the once popular advocate of our independence was to 
 run the risk of being assassinated by an unknown hand, 
 and where, forgetting that he lived in an age of progres- 
 sive virtue, the reformer of society died a drunkard on 
 his farm near New Rochelle in the State of New York, 
 - leaving a rotten carcass, to which a Quaker burial was 
 refused by that religious society, to which his family, if 
 not he, had belonged. It is laughable to think of what 
 occurred, when the conversion of Payne was attempted 
 a few days before his death. That attempt was made 
 by the founders of a new church, called ‘ New Jerusa- 
 lem” This ‘New Jerusalem’ came from Baltimore 
 in the shape of a soul-saving deputation. The spokes- 
 man of these missionaries told the dying man, that they 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 379 
 
 did not find fault with him on account of his opposition 
 to the Bible, such as it was generally interpreted— 
 which interpretation, of course, could have no sense for 
 the author of ‘Common Sense ; -but that they had dis- 
 covered in the New Jerusalem the true key to the Holy 
 Book—a key which had been lost for many centuries, 
 and which would open to him the sealed casket of 
 eternal truths. ‘Go to,’ was the cynical reply, ‘if 
 that key has been so long lost, it must be too rusty to 
 be of any use.’ As you see, Payne was not consistent. 
 He forgot that he also was the finder of a very rusty key 
 —the key to the ‘ rights of man, and that, notwithstand- 
 ing the antediluvian date of the manufacturing of that 
 key by the eternal blacksmith, he thought that it could 
 yet fit the lock of the ‘age of reason.’ Perhaps an ami- 
 able, but surely an eyotistical and vain-glorious delusion. 
 
 * Let us return to Backbone, from whom we have di- 
 gressed. On learning my departure from home, my loy- 
 ing cousin, either in a spirit of imitation or from a 
 vague instinct that he might profit by any mishap of 
 mine, had taken to ship and landed in England. One 
 morning, Backbone who, the evening before, had in- 
 dulged too freely in convivialities with a certain set of 
 rakes and radicals, woke up with an excruciating head- 
 ache. He rang for some tea. When brought, it was 
 cold and vapid. He flung it with cup and saucer at the 
 waiter; who beat a hasty retreat. Another pull at the 
 bell, and another waiter appeared. ‘Sirrah,’ bawled 
 out Backbone, who liked to borrow words from the 
 Shakespearean vocabulary, ‘send or bring me my boots, 
 I charge thee. How is it that they are not at my door? 
 Waiter vanished, and the boots came up according to 
 order, but they were an extravagantly worn-out pair, 
 and not the glossy new ones which he had taken off 
 
380 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 when he went to bed. In a fit of rage, for there is 
 something of the hotspur in Backbone, he seized one 
 of these relics of the past, and knocked on the head 
 with it the unfortunate menial who had them in charge. 
 The fellow reeled under the blow, but, soon recovering 
 himself, took a theatrical attitude. folding his arms 
 on his breast, with an “évident exhibition of extreme 
 self-importance, he said : 
 
 “<¢ Are you aware, sir, of what you have done ? 
 
 «Yes. I have knocked you down with an old rag 
 of aboot. What then? 
 
 “<Do you know who Iam? 
 
 ““¢ No, nor do I care a chew of tobacco to know it. 
 My name is Backbone, damn you, and I am an Ameri- 
 can, ready to meet you or any body else.’ 
 
 “¢ An American!’ exclaimed he of the bruised 
 head. ‘How fortunate! Then, I can open myself to 
 you in all security. Sir, you have before you Thomas 
 Payne, who, being hunted by bailiffs like a wolf, has 
 been reduced to take this disguise to escape from them, 
 and whose only crime is an attempt to pull down the 
 tyrannical Guelphs from the throne of England, and 
 transform the velvet-lined and gilded seat of the Plan- 
 tagenets into the raw-hide bottomed chair of an Amer- 
 ean Cincinnatus.’ : 
 
 “The United States were then in the honeymoon of 
 their institutions. They had the credulity and inno- 
 cence of youth, for they had just sprung up into a new 
 type of existence. They greatly admired Thomas 
 Payne and the principles contained in their own de- 
 claration of independence. In the intoxication of pat- 
 riotism, many then believed, notwithstanding the pro- 
 test of nature staring them in the face, that all men 
 were born free and equal; and, in case this should be a 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 381 
 
 unere figure of speech, they felt sure at least, that, in 
 such +1 republic as they had lately inaugurated, the most 
 virtuous and the most enlightened citizens would al- 
 ways be called to office by acclamation. They believed 
 in it with as much faith as little children believe in 
 Mother Goose, despite the indignant cackling negation 
 of the geese in the poultry-yard, as to the human part 
 which one of their feathered tribe is made to assume. 
 But the tales of the political nursery, where manhood 
 gallops childishly on a stick with only the shirt of folly 
 on, are often as fabulous and nonsensical as those of the 
 nursery where is rocked the cradle of infancy. Back- 
 bone was not yet free from the leading strings with 
 which he had been raised. The consequence was, that 
 he flung himself at the feet of Payne in a paroxysm of 
 contrition, and begged pardon, after the fashion of sav- 
 ages, for having flogged his idol. That pardon was 
 magnanimously granted, and Payne told his worshiper 
 that he was anxious to reach Dover, where he wished to 
 embark for Calais, because he had been elected to the Na- 
 tional Convention of France by the department in which 
 that city is situated, although*a foreigner and personally 
 unknown. Payne had not a cent in his pocket. Backbone 
 lent him what he needed, and they crossed the straits 
 together with American passports, Backbone as _ the 
 master and Payne as the valet. On arriving at Calais, 
 Payne learned that several other departments had also 
 elected him—an Englishman—in preference to French- 
 men—him who knew nothing of France, and who 
 neither spoke nor understood one word of French. 
 Evidently we were in the ‘Age of Reason,’ or such a 
 thing could not have happened. Payne acted with 
 proper courtesy. As he had been first elected by the 
 department of the Pas de Calais, he accepted that 
 
38? FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 election in preference to the election of much more in-. 
 fluential departments, such, for instance, as the depart- 
 
 ment in which Versailles is located—Versailles, which 
 owed its birth and prosperity to kings, and which had 
 chosen for its representative their most mortal enemy. 
 
 When Payne and Backbone landed at Calais, they 
 found the garrison under arms; an officer presented 
 the national cockade to Payne, and the prettiest woman 
 of that town pinned it to his hat. The artillery boom- 
 ed on all sides, and the cries of ‘Long live Thomas 
 Payne’ rent the air. With risible inconsistency, to 
 this Sans-culottes and Jacobin all the honors hitherto 
 granted only to royalty were enthusiastically paid, and 
 were received, as usual, with the blushing modesty and 
 
 humble disclaimer of a ‘friend of the people. All 
 
 the fat and lean burghers of the place down to the 
 very mendicant at the corner of the street, agglomer. 
 
 ated themselves into a patriotic rabble, and, escorted 
 by the whole of the military, conducted Thomas Payne 
 to the city hotel, where he was harangued by the 
 mayor and city council, as the new representative of 
 
 the French people—and tfuly, a new sort of represent- 
 ative he was, who did not comprehend one word of the 
 compliments paid to him by those he represented, and 
 who could uot return his thanks, except by repeatedly 
 placing his hand on his heart and. bowing profusely. 
 
 What a farce! Well, Backbone, as the friend of Payne, 
 
 partook of the ovation, and, in that capacity, had be- 
 come and still was a lion in Paris, where I met him at 
 every one of our minister’s receptions. ‘To what was 
 
 he indebted for his distinguished position? Was it to 
 
 his merit? No: to an old pair of boots. If that pair | 
 of boots had not been brought to him instead of his 
 own, he would not have cracked the head of the boot- 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 383 
 
 black ; and, if he had not cracked the head of the boot- 
 black, he would not have been the friend of Thomas 
 Payne; and, if hot the friend of Thomas Payne, he 
 would have remained the same insignificant Backbone . 
 that he was before. Was ¢hes the inexplicable and vague 
 thing we call luck? Or was it the practical joke of 
 some mischievous hobgoblin or elfish buffoon? But, 
 mark the sequel. 
 
 “One day, our minister sent for me. I found him 
 in his library with an old lady of great dignity 
 and majestic presence, to whom he introduced me, 
 saying with a smile: ‘This lady, with whom I have the 
 honor of being intimately acquainted, has a proposition 
 to make to you. It is of much importance, and I hope 
 that it will suit you to accept it.’ I turned to the lady, 
 whose scrutinizing looks were fixed on me, as if deter- 
 mined to read me like a book, and whose communica- 
 tion I expected with much curiosity. She beckoned 
 me to a chair in front of her, and said with much ealn- 
 ness of manner and directness of language : 
 
 ‘‘T am the dowager duchess of Montgolfier. To: 
 morrow, at day-break, I am to be arrested, and my 
 property is to be confiscated after I am sent to the guil- 
 lotine. My life I no longer value, but I wish to save 
 my property for my grandson, the Prince of Blanche- 
 fort, who is my heir and the only representative of my 
 family. To save that property, I have, by the advice 
 of my friends, among whom I reckon your ambassador, 
 resolved to become an American by marrying one of 
 your nationality. rom the knowledge which I have 
 obtained of your character through him, I say to you: 
 will you be my husband-in-law and in name only, be 
 it understood? If you accept, you will live in my 
 house as the ostensible head of the family, as long at 
 
384 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 least as this reign of terror shall continue, but perfectly 
 free as if not married at all. To oneto whom [ shall 
 owe so much, and who, in the eye of the world, is to oc- 
 cupy the position of my husband, it is my duty and 
 pleasure to be grateful, and I am determined to donate 
 to him by my marriage contract five hundred thousand 
 francs. But, no time is to be lost, and the ceremony must 
 take place this very day in this very room, where the 
 American flag protects me. Do you accept ? 
 
 ‘“‘T was completely stunned, but, after some hesita- 
 tion, [ was persuaded to assent to an act which, I was 
 assured, would be considered as an immense service to 
 the noble lady, and which would be of much advantage 
 tome. All being settled, I departed to provide for the 
 accomplishment of some necessary formalities. I was 
 walking rapidly in the rwe Vivienne, when I met Back- 
 bone. J communicated to him what had happened, 
 and, to do him justice, I must say that he seemed to be 
 rejoiced at my good luck. Perhaps he felt a twinge 
 of conscience at having robbed me of my uncle’s for- 
 tune, and thought that any self-reproach which he ad- 
 dressed to himself, might be softened, if he saw me in 
 better circumstances and no longer suffering from the 
 consequeuces of his treachery. We had hardly parted, 
 when passing before a house which was in the way of 
 construction, a brick, escaping from the hands of a 
 mason who was working at the top of the house, laid 
 me senseless on the ground. Backbone carried the 
 news to the embassy, and, as it was impossible to wait 
 for my recovery, and as an American was needed at 
 any price within a specific time, my inevitable cousin 
 took my place. Thus five hundred thousand franes 
 were lost by one man, and gained by another, in cone: 
 quence of the fall of a briek, i 
 
CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 END OF THE STORY OF SADFISH AND BACKBONE, OR GOOD 
 AND BAD LUCK.—DEATH OF TINTIN CALANDRO. 
 
 A¥TER a pause, Sadfish resumed his story in these 
 words: “I studied the civil law in Paris during my 
 residence in that city, and, I may say, with a success 
 which elicited commendation from the learned profes- 
 sor under whose care I had placed myself. When Lou- 
 isiana was ceded to the United States, I thought that 
 new country would afford me a fine field, and I de- 
 parted for its distant shores. I arrived in New Orleans 
 in time to see Claiborne’s installation as governor of 
 the newly acquired territory, in 1803. I was admitted 
 to the bar, and was practising with very encouraging 
 results, when Backbone turned up on the banks of the 
 Mississippi in quest of adventures and speculations. 
 He had lost his French wife, and was a widower with- 
 out having been a husband in reality. JI would have 
 bribed him to go away, if it had been in my power. I 
 felt that his presence would be fatal to me, and so it 
 happened. A client of mine had bought claims to an 
 immense tract of land; Backbone had purchased the 
 adverse ones. It ended ina lawsuit. The whole case 
 turned on a single word. The question was, whether 
 in a certain phrase of an original deed there was 
 the connective, and, instead of the alternative, cr. 
 Backbone had a duly certified copy of the original, 
 
 17 (385) 
 
386 . FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 which was believed to be lost, and the word and 
 was init. That made out his case. Several witnesses 
 were ready to swear that théy had frequently seen the 
 original title, and distinctly recollected that it con- 
 tained the conjunction ov, instead of and. That testi- 
 ‘mony, if admitted, would have been decisive in my fa- 
 vor. But would it be admitted, and, if admitted for 
 what it was worth, would it have the desired effect in 
 the face of the duly certified copy of the original ? 
 With considerable ability, I think, I had the trial post- 
 poned, in the hope of finding the lost document. I was 
 indefatigable in my researches, and I discovered at last 
 what I had so diligently sought. The alternative or was 
 -in it, and success was certain. My fortune was made, for 
 -I had stipulated, as a contingent fee, for one half of the 
 claim, if I succeeded. On the other hand, if I failed, 
 besides getting nothing for all my labor, had to pay 
 the costs. I had concealed my luck from my client 
 and every body else, in order to produce a surprise in 
 court. ‘The jury was empanelled and sworn, and my 
 adversary opened the case. When the certified copy 
 of the deed was presented, I opposed its reception as 
 evidence, in as much as the original was in existence 
 and in my possession. ‘There was a great sensation, 
 which I enjoyed hugely. I drew the instrument slowly 
 from my coat pocket, to the blank dismay of the attor- 
 ney on the opposite side, and I unfolded it with a sort 
 of triumphant solemnity, when, lo! the phrase with 
 the alternative on which I relied was not there. I had 
 sat up late the preceding night, a drop had fallen from 
 a tallow candle on the manuscript, and, after I had re- 
 tired to rest, a mouse had nibbled away at the greasy 
 spot; it was impossible to determine what the missing 
 phrase was, and whether it contained the conjunction 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 387 
 
 or instead of and. It was my turn to shake, and not 
 without reason. ‘A capital trick !’ exclaimed my op- 
 ponent with an exulting laugh, ‘but it will not impose 
 on this intelligent jury ; and the intelligent jury gave 
 a verdict against me without leaving their seats. A 
 drop of tallow and a mouse had turned the scales of 
 justice. 
 
 “T had reached the age of forty, and felt the want 
 of a companion for the remainder of my life. I cast 
 my eye on a widow of thirty-five, who, besides other 
 attractions, was abundantly supplied with the flesh- 
 pots of Egypt. It followed of course, that Backbone 
 did the same. We became rivals. The widow coquet- 
 ted with us both for a long time, and so committed 
 herself, that, in the opinion of the public, she could 
 not do otherwise than marry me, or Backbone. I felt 
 therefore certain of the prize; for the widow had in 
 secret informed me of her having decided in my favor, 
 but for some reason or other, best known to herself, 
 she wished it not to be divulged for some time. This 
 I did not much object to, because it was a pleasure to 
 me to witness the efforts of Backbone to cut me out, 
 as I had the comfortable assurance that they would 
 be fruitless. The greater his hopes, the keener would 
 be his disappointment in the end; and had I not the 
 right to indulge in the enjoyment of some revengeful 
 feeling against one who had done me so much harm ? 
 But, one day, when I was at the feet of the widow, 
 giving vent to impassioned utterances of eternal love, 
 I suddenly remained with my mouth wide open, with- 
 out being able to articulate a sound, or to close my 
 gaping lips. She stared at me with amazement, and 
 discovered for the first time, that the beautiful teeth 
 which she admired so much were false. The fact is, 
 
388 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 that I sported a full set, an upper and lower one, so 
 exquisitely made that it was impossible to detect it, 
 without the most minute and persevering observation. 
 The artist had surpassed himself; it was the work of a 
 man of genius. But, on this occasion, the springs 
 which supported the upper teeth had suddenly got out 
 of order, and hence the accident. My widow became 
 convulsed with laughter, and I rushed out of her pres- 
 ence like a madman. As the adventure would have 
 made her ridiculous as well as myself, she did not reveal 
 it, but, the next day, she took care to make it known 
 that Backbone had always been the choice of her 
 heart, and they were soon married. A little gold 
 spring had robbed me of a wife. I felt smashed for 
 ever—perfectly overwhelmed with the conviction of 
 my unavoidable bad luck. 
 
 “Jn my despair, I abandoned my profession and New 
 Orleans, and I plunged into the far West, where I be- 
 came acquainted with all the trappers, and became a 
 trapper myself. At the end of three years I had se- 
 cured an immense quantity of furs, with which I ex- 
 pected to realize a fortune in Europe. I brought them 
 to New Orleans in perfect condition and chartered a 
 ship. My cargo was soon.on board, and I was pre- 
 paring to depart with it, when I met Backbone, who 
 said to me with a grin: ‘ I hear, cousin, that you have 
 been speculating in furs. J am going to do the same, 
 for it brings me good luck to follow in your tracks.’ 
 My stomach rose up to my throat, and, casting on him 
 an indignant look, I went away without giving a reply, 
 and with gloomy apprehensions. My vessel glided down 
 the river with the fairest wind imaginable, but she stuck 
 two months on one of the sand-bars at the Balize. At 
 last she got loose, but what with tempests and calms, 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 389 
 
 what with being put out of her course and having re- 
 pairs done in ports whither she was driven by stress of 
 weather, she was five months before reaching her des- 
 tination. On the day she entered the harbor she was 
 bound to, a vessel loaded with furs for Backbone had 
 arrived after a very short passage. Doth cargoes were 
 landed at the same time. Mine, from the delays I have 
 mentioned and which had taken place in hot climates, 
 had been eaten up by moths; his was in the best state 
 of preservation, and sold proportionately high in conse- 
 quence of the destruction of mine. Thus two great 
 commercial operations of the same nature, were indeb- 
 ted to so little an insect as a moth for their final and 
 widely different results. Why talk of human foresight 
 and skill to secure success ¢ 
 “Sick at heart, sick of the world, sick of myself and 
 sick of Backbone in particular, | determined to bury 
 myself in a rural retreat among cows, mules and ne- 
 groes, and I bought a sugar plantation on the bank of 
 the Mississippi. It was asuperb bargain according to 
 the opinion of the best judges. I paid one fourth cash, 
 and for the balance I gave my notes at one, two, three 
 and four years. Everybody said that those notes would 
 be paid out of the crops, and I thought that it was not 
 unfair to suppose that everybody must be right. I felt 
 therefore ‘somewhat elated. But, when I heard that 
 Backbone had discounted my notes, I had the presenti- 
 ment of some impending calamity. My crop, however, 
 was magnificent, and my neighbors complimented me 
 every day on my prospects, when, precisely at the time 
 of the highest rise in the river, a crawfish, during the » 
 night, pierced through my levee and produced a cre- 
 vasse which could not be stopped. I was a ruined man. 
 My plantation and negroes were sold at auction, and 
 
390. FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 adjudicated to Backbone for one third of their value. 
 Such is my recent mishap, and I had resolved that it 
 should be the last. I had saved out of the general wreck 
 one thousand dollars which I wished to invest in a tomb, 
 and then have done with a burdensome life. I should 
 have been in time to buy the desired tomb, had I not 
 been deceived by a sudden irregularity of my watch, 
 which I had always known before as the best time-keep- 
 er that had ever been manufactured. But God’s will be 
 done! The end is in harmony with the whole tenor of 
 my life. It could not be otherwise, I suppose, without 
 marring some pre-arranged fitness in matters and things, 
 which is beyond my own comprehension. but, since there 
 are grinding stones, there must be something created to 
 be ground. This may account for my fate. , Be it as it 
 may, I am tired of it. Good-bye, gentlemen ; lam off to 
 hang myself.” 
 
 ‘ Halloo !” exclaimed Tintin Calandro, “surely, you 
 are not mad enough to do it.” 
 
 ‘‘T am wise enough to do it,” he replied. “A man, 
 whose destinies have successively been shaped and con- 
 trolled by a dog, a brickbat, a drop of tallow and a 
 mouse, a set of false teeth, a moth, a crawfish and the 
 spring of a watch, is justified in putting an end to so 
 deplorable and humiliating an existence. He has no 
 business to live at all. Therefore I go hence with the 
 firm determination to close my ridiculous and lamenta- 
 ble career.” | 
 
 He walked away a few steps; then turning round, he 
 looked at us with the most rueful countenance, and said 
 in a dolorous tone of voice: “ Mind what I tell you, 
 gentlemen. Backbone will be in the way as usual, and 
 will prevent me from hanging myself, because I de- 
 sire it.” 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 391 
 
 We saw him, after that, move rapidly toward the 
 main gate of the cemetery and step out into the 
 street. We had hardly lost sight of him, when a 
 Joud clamor arose. We ran out to the place whence it 
 came, and we found Sadfish dead in the midst of an 
 excited crowd. Just as he was crossing the street, a 
 pair of fiery horses which had run away, and against 
 which the coachman struggled in vain, had come rush- 
 ing on with the speed of a whirlwind, notwithstanding 
 the weight of the splendid carriage to which they were 
 harnessed, and had dashed upon poor Sadfish before he 
 could get out of the way. The horses, however, had 
 not gone far after the accident, without being stopped, 
 and their proprietor, returning to the spot where he 
 was aware of having involuntarily injured one of his 
 fellow-beings, was alighting out of the carriage, to as- 
 certain the condition of the man he had run over. We 
 asked who he was, and were told that it was Backbone. 
 We were struck with a feeling of awe, and felt as if we 
 had witnessed something supernatural. Backbone had 
 his relative put in his carriage, and drove with the 
 inanimate bedy to the luxurious home, where, whilst 
 living, the unlucky defunct had never set his foot. I 
 took eare to inform backbone of the circumstance con- 
 cerning the tomb. He seemed to be moved. by it, and 
 in that tomb he had the body of Sadfish deposited, after 
 a decent funeral which he conducted in person. From 
 that day he became a different man in his looks, demean- 
 _ or and actions, for he was henceforth observed to be as 
 thoughtful and religious as he had been gay and world- 
 ly, and as generous to the poor as he had been close-fist- 
 ed and selfish. Did he wish to make atonement for 
 the past? As to Tintin and myself, it was gratifying 
 to us, who could not but have taken a deep interest in 
 
392 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 the sad story which we had heard of such uninterrupted 
 bad luck, to know that he who, throughout life, had 
 been defeated in all his pursuits and aspirations, had at 
 last. succeeded, after death, in securing the tomb which 
 he had coveted for his resting-place. 
 
 Lent had come, and Tintin Calandro had fasted with 
 such rigidity, that he had been reduced to extreme 
 weakness, and had become so thin that he was almost 
 shadowy. I remonstrated in vain. He not only per- 
 severed in his spare diet, hardly sufficient to support 
 life, but, notwithstanding his debility, he never would 
 give up his nightly visits to the cemetery. On Good- 
 Friday night, I met him there at his favorite spot; he 
 was holding his violin as if preparing to use it. When 
 he saw me he said: “‘This has always been to me a 
 very solemn day—the day when our Saviour expired 
 for us on the cross! Only think of it, my friend. The 
 Godhead consenting to assume in the human shape the 
 agony of all the sufferings and punishments deserved 
 and to be deserved for all the past, present and future 
 crimes of mankind! What an accumulation of guilt! 
 An infiniteness of sin, and, in proportion to it, the agony 
 of a voluntary expiation! And the Holy Mother, who 
 knew the extent of that agony which divinity alone 
 could inflict upon itself, and could be strong enough to 
 bear, she stood by and witnessed it! What must she 
 also have suffered! Listen: I have composed a stabat 
 mater dolorosa.” 
 
 He began to play. How long it continued I cannot 
 tell, for the prodigious performance had soon held my 
 senses captive and thrown me into a trance. There 
 never had been, nor ever will be, I think, such musie 
 heard on earth. ‘Tintin Calandro surpassed himself on 
 this occasion, and really ceased to be human for me. 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 393 
 
 I fancied him to be a musician from the celestial spheres. 
 By the spell he wielded I was transported to Judea, on 
 Mount Calvary, and the whole scene of the crucifixion, 
 in its minute details, appeared to me with all the awful 
 distinctness of reality. I did not imagine—I saw. Such 
 was the vividness of my impressions, that I remained 
 absorbed in them a long time after the music had ceased. 
 I was brought back to myself by Tintin’s*touch on my 
 shoulder. “It is time to go,” he said. I walked with 
 him, as usual, to his dwelling, and, on my bidding him 
 ' farewell, he requested me to call on him on the next 
 day at twelve o’clock, to receive some communication 
 which he wished to make, for he felt that his end was 
 at hand. I begged him to select another hour, because, 
 at the one he had fixed, I had another engagement— 
 which was, to meet the newly-elected principal of the 
 College of Orleans, a distinguished exile from Europe, 
 who, it was thought, would breathe a more vigorous life 
 into that institution, which had fallen into astate of decay. 
 
 “ Who is he?” inquired Tintin Calandro. 
 
 *‘ The celebrated and learned Lakanal,’”’ I replied. 
 
 Tintin gave a piercing shriek, as if he had been 
 struck to the heart by a dagger. “ What!” he ex- 
 claimed with the wildness of returning insanity. ‘“ La- 
 kanal! the member of the National Convention of 
 France, the friend of Couthon, St. Just, and Robes- 
 pierre! Lakanal the regicide, the murderer and spolia- 
 tor of nobility. He, to breathe life into any thing, he, 
 the destroyer! Ha! ha! ha! When did Satan create 
 aught but evil? I cannot but laugh when I think of 
 it. He, Lakanal, revive the College of Orleans! A 
 good joke, truly, by Beelzebub his patron! I tell you, 
 my friend, the College of Orleans is dead. Never shall 
 it recover from the blight brought to its walls by that 
 
 1 Wie 
 
394 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 accursed man, Where he shall pass, the grass itself is 
 doomed to wither, and nothing shall grow there any 
 more. Joseph Lakanal, the apostate priest, the bloody 
 Jacobin, permitted to be the parental guide and the ex- 
 ample of the youths of Louisiana! No, no, it shall not 
 be. Mind me, and remember my words. Before you 
 die, no vestige shall remain of that college where he is 
 now installed» Hardly a brick shall be left to show 
 where the buildings stood, and posterity shall be igno- 
 rant of the spot, where the first educational establish- 
 ment of Louisiana once existed with honor. Lakanal 
 the atheist! Oh! he shall not triumph here as he once © 
 did on the banks of the Seine. He shall soon depart, 
 cursing for his want of success the people who welcomed 
 him, instead of attributing it to his own wicked self. 
 O the wretch! On the spot where he now blasphemes 
 Heaven in secret, a church shall yet erect its cross- 
 adorned tower, the shadow of which will suffice to re- 
 deem and purify the now polluted ground.” 
 
 Whilst he thus spoke, he kept moving restlessly 
 about his room, sobbing in anguish and wringing his — 
 hands. Suddenly he fell on his knees, uttering this 
 prayer: “‘ Mayest Thou, O God, in Thy infinite mercy, 
 spare Thy servant the misery of again breathing any 
 longer in the same atmosphere, with one who has re- 
 pudiated Thy name and deserted Thy altars !” 
 
 All this scene had taken place in a much shorter 
 time than it has taken me to relate it. The effect which 
 I had produced by mentioning the name of Lakanal, 
 had been to me a painful surprise. As soon as I had 
 recovered from the shock I had received, I attempted 
 to lift up Tintin Calandro, who appeared to have swoon, 
 ed whilst kneeling, with his head resting on one side 
 of his bed. He was dead. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 WHAT WAS THE VEILED PORTRAIT BEQUEATHED BY TINTIN 
 CALANDRKO TO FERNANDO.—THE PRINCHSS OF LAMBALLE, 
 AND JOSEPH LAKANAL, THE REGICIDE, AND THE LAST PRIN- 
 CIPAL OF THE COLLEGE OF ORLEANS. 
 
 Trytrin Catanpro had named me his testamentary 
 executor, and very little I found to execute. He had only 
 left one thousand dollars, one half of which, with his 
 scanty furniture, was to go to Zabet, his faithful nurse 
 and housekeeper ; the other half was destined for funeral 
 expenses and the purchase of a tomb. To me he had 
 bequeathed his violin and the veiled picture that had 
 always excited my curiosity. There is in the St. Louis 
 cemetery a modest monument, on the slab of which 
 there is no name indicating who reposes there. It bears 
 only this inscription: ‘“ At home at last.” Above that 
 inscription there is engraved a cross, at the foot of 
 which there is represented an angel, with one hand 
 holding a broken violin, and with the other pointing to 
 heaven — the meaning of which is, that thither had 
 gone the melody of the instrument and the soul of its 
 proprietor. This is Tintin Calandro’s tomb, in a corner 
 of the cemetery, as hidden as possible from the public 
 eye, according to his instructions. After having per- 
 
 formed all the duties which the death of my late friend 
 (599) 
 
396 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 had imposed upon me, I went to take possession of my 
 legacy. With a hand somewhat trembling with excite- 
 ment, and with the feclings of one expecting some 
 strange revelation, I drew the veil from the picture, and 
 I started back when I recognized the portrait of the un- 
 fortunate princess of Lamballe, which I instantly knew ; 
 for, when in France, I had frequently gazed with ad- 
 miration and sympathetic sadness, in the gallery of 
 paintings of the duke of Brissac, at the lovely and 
 never-to-be-forgotten features of the celebrated friend. 
 of Marie Antoinette. 
 
 Who was the princess of Lamballe, may ask one 
 little acquainted with French history. To answer that 
 question, I will state that the princess of Lamballe 
 was of the illustrious house of Savoy, the house of 
 Victor Emmanuel, now king of Italy. She had married 
 Louis Alexander Joseph Stanislas of Bourbon Pen- 
 thiévre, prince of Lamballe, and a member of the 
 royal family of France. Her virtues, her beauty, the 
 unalterable sweetness of her temper won the hearts of 
 all those who approached her, but did not secure the 
 fidelity of her young husband exposed to the tempta- 
 tions of a corrupt court. She still continued to love 
 passionately him-whose conduct grieved her heart. She 
 bore it all, however, with dignified resignation and a 
 prudent abstention from useless reproaches, hoping that 
 time and her unchangeable love would bring back to 
 her arms her erring husband. That hope was sadly 
 blasted. The prince of Lamballe, in the bloom of 
 youth, died of a lingering disease probably produced by 
 his excesses. He had wasted away his life and constitu- 
 tion. The young widow was tempted again into matri- 
 mony by the most seductive offers, but she had 
 firmly resolved to remain single, and she kept her reso- 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 397 
 
 lution. Respected by the family into which she had 
 entered and by all her household, cherished by her 
 father-in-law, the duke of Penthiévre,-who was sur- 
 named the “virtuous duke,” she soon obtained the 
 tender affection of Marie Antoinette, the brilliant queen 
 of France, for whom she, in her turn, conceived an at- 
 tachment of which she never ceased until death to give 
 the most signal proofs. Appointed superintendent of 
 the queen’s household, the princess of Lamballe was 
 cited as one of the brightest ornaments of the court of 
 France, when the revolution broke out. In the begin- 
 ning of June, 1791, the court had returned to the design, 
 previously entertained, of flying secretly from the vol- 
 eano which threatened them with its eruptions. The 
 princess of Lamballe was not to accompany the queen, 
 who did not think it prudent to have a numerous suite; 
 but she was, in a different direction, to make her way 
 to a foreign country, from which she might join the 
 royal family wherever they might be. In the evening 
 of the 10th of June, the queen informed her of her 
 intended departure that very night, which, however, 
 was postponed until the 21st. It is well known how 
 the flight of the king and of Marie Antoinette was in- 
 terrupted at Varennes. The princess of Lamballe de- 
 parted also on the 21st of June, at one o’clock in the 
 morning, and reached Dieppe on the coast of Nor- 
 mandy, from which she sailed and safely landed in 
 England. Thus she had escaped from all dangers, after 
 having saved sufficient means to live with comfort in 
 the land which had given her hospitality. Her friends 
 implored her no longer to expose her life; but her 
 heart drew her fatally back, to unite herself to the un- 
 fortunate princess to whom she had devoted her life. 
 As soon as she learned that Louis X VI, had accepted 
 
398 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 the constitution of 1790, losing all hopes of meeting the 
 queen in foreign parts, the princess of Lamballe, against 
 the earnest remonstrances of all her friends, and fully 
 aware of all the hazards to which she would expose her- 
 self, resolved-to brave them all and to share the fate of her 
 royal friend, whatever it might be. She went back to 
 Paris, where she had the consolation of no longer being 
 separated from the queen, until the revolutionary carni- 
 val of the month of August, 1792. After the famous 
 day of the 10th of that month, she followed the daugh- 
 ter of the Czsars to the Zemple, from which she was, 
 however, soon removed, to be incarcerated in the prison 
 of La Force. Jacobin ferocity would not permit the 
 two friends to have the satisfaction of remaining 
 together, when the storm of an unparalleled adversity 
 was sweeping over them. But that separation on earth 
 was not to last long. The horrible days of September 
 were brooding in the womb of that revolution, which 
 had been inaugurated to re-establish the dignity and the 
 rights of man, and universal fraternity and love. 
 
 On the 3d of that month, in the morning, when a 
 stream of blood was running at the gate of her prison, 
 she was informed that she was to be transferred to the 
 prison of the “ Abbaye.” She begged to remain where 
 she was; but a national guard approached her bed and” 
 ordered her to rise, announcing to her that her life de- 
 pended on her obedience. The national guard knew 
 better. It was a lie, to draw the victim with more ease 
 to the shambles. Inside and outside of the prison 
 there was a frightful tumult. The chamber of the 
 princess, situated in the quarters appropriated to the 
 female prisoners, was far from the wickets, and it is 
 probable that she did not hear the groans of the vic- 
 time who were slaughtered outside. But there was 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 399 
 
 gonsternation on the face of every prisoner, and the 
 sullen looks, with the atrocious expressions, of the 
 jailors, presaged but too plainly the fate which awaited 
 her. When she was dressed, she called the man who 
 had signified to her to get up, took his arm and allowed 
 herself to be conducted to the fatal wicket. There she 
 found herself in the presence of a set of monsters call-- 
 ing themselves judges, and of another set who assumed 
 to be the ministerial officers of the court. They were 
 all steeped in blood and smelling of carnage, with a 
 dash of liquor. Questions of an infamous nature con- 
 cerning the queen were put to her. “I have nothing 
 to answer,” she said. “ I neither understand nor wish 
 to understand you. Lam ready todie. A little sooner, 
 or a little later, it matters not.” 
 
 “Ah! she refuses to answer,’ exclaimed the hang- 
 man of a judge who presided that tribunal of murder. 
 “To the Abbaye.” 
 
 This word was a sentence. At the Abbaye, the word 
 was: “to La Force.” It meant the same thing: 
 death. It was a cunning device to entrap the prisoners 
 into coming out with more readiness, in the persuasion 
 that they were merely to be transferred to another 
 place of detention. Otherwise, there might have been 
 resistance. That resistance might have given trouble, 
 and produced aloss of time which the expeditious and 
 economical butchers wished to save. Violently dragged 
 outside of the wickets, the princess. of Lamballe had 
 hardly gone over the sill of the gate, when she received 
 a sabre blow on the back of the neck. She would 
 have been felled to the ground by it, had she not been 
 supported by the men who had hold of her, and who 
 compelled her to continue her tottering walk over a 
 carpet of corpses and blood, until she reached a spot 
 
 oi 
 
400 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 where both corpses and blood were satisfactorily and 
 conveniently thick. On that heap of still warm and 
 palpitating human beings she was permitted to fall, 
 where she could be and was slaughtered with comfort- 
 able ease on the part of the assassins. Her body was 
 outraged, her head separated from it, her breast ripped 
 up and her heart taken out. This was necessary, per- 
 haps, to obtain some appropriate and pure liquid for 
 the baptism of the “ Age of Reason,” just born out of 
 the amours of the Goddess of Liberty with the Demon 
 of Atheism. This was done by the apostles and mis- 
 sionaries of those who had discovered the “rights of 
 man,” among which is the sacred one of proclaiming 
 his own perfectibility, and of acknowledging no God 
 but himself. These new-fashioned saints, after having 
 assassinated the Princess of Lamballe, formed them- 
 selves into a procession of men and women, preceded 
 by fifes and drums. Carrying the head of that princess 
 stuck on a long pike, they paraded through the streets 
 of Paris, passed several times before the Hotel de Tou- 
 louse, where she used to reside, traversed the Palais 
 ftoyal, and at last carried that hideous trophy to thes 
 “ Temple,” under the windows of the queen, where 
 they howled and shouted for her, calling on the “ Aus- 
 trian woman,” with epithets which would have made 
 the fish-market blush, to come and kiss her friend. I 
 doubted not that Tintin Calandro had witnessed these 
 horrors, that he had been crazed by them, and that in 
 the mind of the poor maniac a fearful responsibility 
 had attached to Lackanal; and I resolved, if possible, 
 to gratify my curiosity in that respect.. As Tintin had 
 predicted, the College of Orleans withered and perished 
 in the hands of Lakanal. It was the last of it. That 
 personage, with whom I contrived to become well ac- 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 401 
 
 quainted, was a sour and discontented man, of whose 
 historical record I shall now give a short synopsis. 
 Joseph Lakanal, before the revolution, was a priest 
 and a professor of belles-lettres. In 1791, the revolution 
 which was to change so many things being fairly under 
 way, and running twenty knots per hour, with the gen- 
 ius of progress at the helm and a full crew of the phil- 
 osophic sailors of reform in the riggings, he was appointed 
 ** Constitutional Vicar-General,”’ a sort of ecclesiastical 
 non-descript—pretending to derive its powers from the 
 Church and from the State—an amphibious monster— 
 a strange compound, clinging with its tail to earth and 
 aspiring to thrust its horned head into heaven. In 1792, 
 there was evident progress in him as well as in France, 
 for he entirely secularized himself and became the re- 
 presentative of the department of Arriége in the Na- 
 tional Convention, in which he voted for the death of 
 Louis XVI, without appeal to the people and without 
 reprieve. In March, 1795, he executed/the mission of 
 stripping the Chateau de Chantilly belonging to the 
 prince of Condé, of all the gold, silver, copper and iron 
 -which it contained. The result of the spoliation was 
 eighteen thousand ounces of gold and silver, which he 
 deposited in the public treasury. It was reported that 
 he himself was greatly benefited by the operation, but 
 to what extent it is not known. He also seized all the 
 archives and papers of that illustrious house, and put 
 them in the possession of the government. Whilst a 
 member of the National Convention, he was one of the 
 Committee of Public Education, and, as such, made 
 innumerable reports on the subject. It was the inces- 
 sant flow of an irrepressible pedagogic diarrhea. He 
 was, however, benefited by it, because to his fecundity 
 on that occasion, and to his labors on that popular 
 
402 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 theme, he was indebted for his subsequently becoming 
 a member of the Institute. On the Ist of January, _ 
 1798, in a paroxysm of republican zeal, he had caused 
 the Convention to decree that new appellations which 
 he indicated, should be given to all the cities and towns 
 of France whose names were in the slightest degree 
 connected with royalty. This foolish measure was not 
 carried into execution. On the 17th of April, 1794, he 
 had proposed to raise a national column in commemo- 
 ration of the patriots who had perished on the 10th of 
 August, 1792. On that memorable day, one hundred 
 thousand heroes had attacked the king’s palace, which 
 was protected by two hundred Swiss, who defended 
 themselves to the last during three hours against such 
 frightful odds. What was more sensible and honorable 
 on the part of Lakanal, was his being instrumental in 
 obtaining the establishment of primary and central 
 schools. On the 7th of October, 1793, he spoke with 
 vehemence against those “sections of Paris” which 
 had risen against the National Convention. He pro- 
 posed that they should be disarmed, and that all such 
 persons as did not reside in Paris before the year 1789, 
 be expelled from that city. Robespierre, however, and 
 other brothers of the freemasonry of Jacobinism, thought 
 that the ex-priest and newly-dubbed apostle of univer- 
 sal fraternity was riding his hobby too hard, and re- 
 jected the measure which he-had advocated. 
 
 Lakanal was one of the council of Five Hundred 
 until the 20th of May, 1797. Two years afterward, 
 he was one of the commissaries of the executive de- 
 partment. But he was soon dismissed from office by 
 the First Consul, on account of his having openly de- 
 clared himself against the revolution of the 18th Bru- 
 mae. Ile became, however, one of the superiors of 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 403 
 
 the Bonaparte Lyceum, and exercised those functions 
 until 1809. He was a professor of history and of an- 
 cient literature at the Institute, at the time of the res- 
 toration of the Bourbons in 1814, but he ceased to be 
 a member of that learned body in 1816. The royal 
 government, thinking itself firmly seated, would no 
 longer tolerate in such a position one of the assassins of 
 Lonis XVI. Lakanal then came to the United States, 
 and established himself on a farm which he purchased 
 on the bank of the Ohio. From that rural retreat he 
 was induced to come out, and take charge of the Col- 
 lege of Orleans, of which he was the last principal. 
 He had been intimate with Tintin Calandro in France, 
 and with Aubert Dubayet, a native of Louisiana, who, 
 after having taken a part in our struggle for mdepend- 
 ence against Great Britain, had figured conspicuously 
 in the French revolution, and had died, when still in the 
 meridian of life, after having risen to be a member of 
 the National Convention, lieutenant-general, command- 
 er-in-chief of a French army, minister of war, and am- 
 bassador at Constantinople. I loved to hear him talk 
 of those two men, in whose memory I took a special 
 interest, and of the gigantic drama in which he had 
 been an actor. He seemed to speak frankly, freely, and 
 even with pleasure of that grand historical past in which 
 he had had his share. Although I felt no sympathy for 
 him, and although I must confess that I rather enter- 
 tained the reverse of such a feeling, yet I sedulously 
 cultivated a close and frequent intercourse with him, on 
 account of the varied information and thrilling narra- 
 tives which I elicited from him, but which, according 
 to a promise which he exacted from me, I was not per- 
 mitted to make public in any form or shape, until after 
 his death. | 
 
CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 FERNANDO DE LEMOS RETURNS TO NEW ORLEANS, AFTER 
 THE WAR OF SECESSION. — THE PORTICO OF THE ST. 
 CHARLES HOTEL. 
 
 Durie the whole of the secession war, I was within 
 the lines of the Southern Confederacy. Only some 
 time after its entire collapse did I return to New 
 Orleans, with a broken fortune and a broken heart. I 
 had loaned large sums to planters and merchants. They 
 were all ruined, and, in most cases, I was not paid one 
 cent in the dollar. But it is singular, and this shows 
 the wonderful resources of the country, that several of 
 those poor men continued to live as luxuriously as they 
 had done before they were ruined. Others, by the 
 most fortunate circumstance, happened to have wives 
 who, although by their marriage contract they had 
 brought but a beggarly account of empty boxes, turned 
 out in the end to be rich in their own right. It is true 
 the time had been*in Louisiana, under the benighted 
 administration of France and Spain, notwithstanding 
 the narrowness of intellect and the moral obliquity 
 then existing among the colonists, in consequence of 
 the moth-eaten and worn-out principles and usages then 
 prevailing, when a wife would have applied a portion 
 of her large income to the gradual extinction of her 
 husband’s debts, from her love to him and respect for 
 
 his character, and in order to save her children from 
 (404) 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 405 
 
 the stigma of having a bankrupt for a father. Sons 
 had been known as being so foolish as to work hard 
 until they had redeemed every parental obligation. 
 Even in later times, I have known one, a baron’s son, 
 and this perhaps accounts for his antiqnated behavior, 
 who was absolutely such a goose as to become an auc- 
 tioneer, and who, ascending a public stand at Hewlett’s 
 Exchange, shouted himself almost into a pulmonary 
 disease until he had paid every cent his father owed. 
 But, now-a-days, such an occurrence would be an in- 
 credible instance of the tenacity with which the be- 
 queathed rust of the dark ages still clings to certain 
 human idiosyncracies, which are so obtuse as not to 
 understand and accept the modern doctrine, that a man 
 is no more responsible for his father’s debts than for his 
 crimes, and that it is perfectly indifferent to his suc- 
 cess in life and to his social or domestic respectability, 
 that he should know who his father was, or whether he 
 ever had any father at all. 
 
 Among those who were largely indebted to me, there 
 were some to whom I had rendered personal services 
 of some importance. They had forgotten all their ob- 
 ligations, moral and legal, and I did not attempt to 
 refresh their memory. I knew that it would be useless ; 
 I knew that, if by a fiction of the law their purses 
 were empty, it was no fiction of nature that their hearts 
 were bare of all gratitude. It was but too evident and 
 sad a reality. Some had become near-sighted, and did 
 not see me when I passed them in the street. It was 
 a mere physical infirmity, of course. Others, when ac- 
 cidentally thrown into contact with me, apologized for 
 not having recognized me sooner. Four years of ab- 
 sence and my many trials had changed me so much! 
 It follows that I was bound to feel that it was my fault 
 
406 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 rather than theirs, and that their apologizing was very 
 kind. All this was quite natural, and easily understood 
 by me. Hence I could not entertain any resentment. 
 At times, I was even amused at the distant and almost 
 imperceptible nod of recognition which some addressed 
 to me, as with stiff and erect heads they strutted on 
 the side-walks. It was truly ludicrous, considering who 
 they were. Could those creatures really imagine, that 
 it was within the range of possible things, that I should 
 ask them for any favor? I survived all this, however, 
 without much effort, but what affected me seriously 
 was the utter demoralization which met my eyes on. all 
 sides. Four years had produced more corruption in my 
 native land than centuries had ever done before in any 
 country ; and, what was more appalling, all moral sense 
 had so completely departed from the community, that 
 hardly any one seemed able to discriminate between 
 right and wrong, and that what formerly would have 
 excited indignation was now looked upon as a matter 
 of course. It was a mere “ business transaction,” and 
 not a penitentiary offence. “ Every body does it,” was 
 a plea in bar to every reproach. After all, the best 
 thing a wise man can do, is to philosophically accept 
 circumstances as they are. That is what I did. With- 
 out declaiming against the new society among which I 
 was placed, I went quietly to work, and tried to come 
 to some settlement with such of my debtors as might 
 be disposed to give a penny for a pound, on condition 
 of a complete discharge. 
 
 There was one individual, however, from whom I ex- 
 pected better things. He was still very rich, a bachelor, 
 and a man of few wants. He had been very generous 
 to the Confederates, or so-called rebels, and had been a 
 Confederate himself, as long as there had been hopes 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 497 
 
 of their success, and had always enjoyed the reputation 
 of being an honest man. His name was Adolphus 
 Belmont, and he was endorser on one of the promissory 
 notes which [ owned. During the war and my absence 
 from New Orleans, a notary had demanded payment. 
 The reply had been: “If you protest this note, I will 
 deposit the amount of it into the hands of the Federal 
 general who commands here, because I am a loyal 
 citizen, and Fernando de Lemos is a rebel.” The no- 
 tary had hastily retired, under the apprehension of 
 being denounced as the agent of a rebel, and of being 
 as such sent to Ship Island, or some other equally ob- 
 jectionable place of involuntary residence. On my 
 return to New Orleans after the restoration of peace 
 and fraternity among the contending parties, I called 
 on my opulent debtor, who, after the exhibition of a 
 rugged temper, and some rough and lame explanation 
 of the language he had addressed to the notary con- 
 cerning me, finally promised to pay after a certain 
 epoch and on a certain contingency. At the time fixed 
 for payment and on the happening of the stipulated 
 contingency, he denied having made the alleged prom- 
 ise, took a judicial oath to that effect, and, availing 
 himself of the non-fulfillment of those very formalities 
 which he had prevented by his threats from being ac- 
 complished, drew me into a law-suit which I was com- 
 pelled to institute against him. One day, the following 
 dialogue occurred between one of Belmont’s friends 
 and myself: 
 
 “Well,” said he to me, “ how goes on your suit ?” 
 
 “Still hung up,” was the reply, “ but should I lose it, 
 your friend will lose more than I shall.” 
 
 “How is that ?” 
 
 “How? I will meet your inquiry by a few short 
 
408 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 questions, and please to answer me laconically and to 
 the point. Is Belmont morally bound to pay me?” 
 
 66 Yes.”’ 
 
 “Is he able ?” 
 
 €¢ Meee 
 
 “Tf you were in his place, and under the cireum- 
 stances which you know, would you do honor to your 
 signature ¢” 
 
 66 Via 's 
 
 “Then ask me no more what I mean when I say 
 that Belmont, should he defeat me through technicali 
 ties, would lose more than I shall.” 
 
 “Oh! my dear Fernando,” continued he to say, 
 “you are unjust to Belmont. He has very little brain, 
 much obstinacy, and misunderstands the case.” 
 
 “Very well,” I replied ; “ I stand corrected, and will 
 in future remember the new doctrine: that those who 
 violate moral obligations are not to be deemed dishonest 
 and disgraced, because they only ‘misunderstand , the 
 case.’ Iam glad to learn that there are no longer any 
 evil-doers in this world, but only ignorant beings who 
 have ‘misunderstood the case,’ and that there soon will 
 be a general jail delivery. After such a philanthropic 
 aud gratifying finale, let us pass to another subject. 
 What has become of the family of our common friend, 
 William Dabney, who died on the battle-field when in 
 the Confederate army ?” 
 
 The information which I received in answer to my 
 interrogatory is embodied in the following narrative: 
 
 It wag on the 15th of December, 1865. There had 
 been a heavy shower followed by a sharp wind from the 
 north, and the sun at its meridian-shone gloriously, as 
 it loves to do, on the Crescent city, more commonly and 
 generally known throughout the world under the name 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. AQ9 
 
 of New Orleans. A young man, apparently twenty 
 years of age, was walking rapidly in Common street 
 from Carondelet to St. Charles street. As he was ap- 
 proaching the corner of the latter crowded thoroughfare, 
 he unluckily put his foot on a loose brick, which belong- 
 ed tothe uneven and rather worn-out sidewalk. A 
 spout of liquid mud, occasioned by the unguarded pres- 
 sure, rose up perpendicularly, and fell back on the boot 
 which so prettily fitted his small and well-shaped foot. 
 An exclamation of disgust escaped from his lips, which, 
 although so youthful and hardly shaded by a nascent 
 moustache, indicated extreme decision of character. 
 The proprietor of the soiled boot walked with increased 
 rapidity toward the St. Charles Hotel. When he ar- 
 rived at its massive portico, he threw himself on a rick- 
 ety chair, and, leaning back against the granite walls, 
 placed his foot on one of those stools which are used by 
 those public characters who are engaged in the com- 
 mendable occupation of cleaning shoes. The youth who 
 now claims our attention was dressed with remarkable 
 elegance. He had that peculiar air which almost speaks 
 these words: ‘Iam lately from Paris, and I am besides a 
 thorough gentleman.’ The fact is, that he had just re- 
 turned from that city, whither he had been sent as a 
 bearer of dispatches from the Confederate Government, 
 a little before the surrender of General Lee. Two la- 
 dies, who, at that moment, were passing by, could not 
 refrain from permitting the look which they cast on him, 
 to linger with ill-disouised interest on his dalieeiay 
 chiseled features. 
 
 “A handsome youth truly,” eee one to the 
 other in English ; “a foreigner, no doubt.” 
 
 “Oh! no,” replied the other in the same language, 
 
 but with a slightly French accent, “he is a Creole. 
 | . _ 3 
 
410 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 No mistaking that; trust the eye of a native like my- 
 self.” 
 
 In the meantime, a little boy who claimed owner- 
 ship of the chair and stool, had taken hold of the foot 
 of his new customer, and was lustily polishing the 
 leather which had ha so lately stained. The task 
 was almost done, when a young man who seemed to 
 be sauntering leisurely and meditating on the smoke of 
 his Havana cigar, said to the one who was seated and 
 whom we have already described: “Good morning, 
 Gabriel, I hope that your father, General B is 
 well,” and, without waiting for the answer, passed on. 
 These words had hardly been uttered, when the boy 
 who was cleaning the boots of Gabriel and who was 
 scarcely ten years old, looked up with astonishment and 
 with the keenest interest full in the face of his cus- 
 tomer, and, again bending his head, resumed _ his 
 work. Two or three strokes of his brush finished it. 
 Gabriel was just rising and casting a satisfied glance 
 at his boots, when they were unexpectedly tarnished 
 by what looked like a few big drops of rain, but what 
 in reality were tears gushing from the eyes of the child, 
 whose head remained hung down as if in sorrow. “ By 
 heaven, boy,” exclaimed Gabriel, ‘you weep, I be- 
 lieve.’ The boy gave no answer, and his head 
 drooped lower on his breast. ‘ Child,” said Gabriel in 
 a soothing tone and bending toward -him, “ what ails 
 you? Can I relieve you?” These gentle words of 
 sympathy went, it seems, to the heart of the little suf- 
 ferer, for he raised his head and replied : 
 
 ‘Your name, sir, put me in mind of Shiloh. I was 
 only thinking of my father who was killed there, of 
 my poor sister Jane who is dying, and of ny, broken- 
 hearted mother,” 
 
 
 
 = 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 411 
 
 “Shiloh, Shiloh!’ repeated Gabriel. “ Take this 
 dollar, my lad, instead of a dime. You may want it 
 for your family.” 
 
 “No, no,” replied the boy, wiping his tears, “it is — 
 only a dinie you owe me. I am very thankful for your 
 kindness. I receive no alms from any body, and much 
 less from you. It would displease mother.” 
 
 “ That is just like him, sir, he is so proud!” © This 
 remark came from a juvenile boot-black, who stood by, 
 observing and noticing what I have related, whilst 
 with one hand he upheld his tattered breeches, and 
 with the other flourished his brush over his head, as a 
 signal for those who might need it. ‘ Willie,” continued 
 he, “take the gentleman’s dollar, thank your stars for it, 
 and treat me to a drink.” 
 
 Not minding the interruption, Gabriel said to 
 Willie: “It is not intended as an alms, it is a present.” 
 
 “Pardon me, sir, I cannot take it,” insisted the 
 child. “ Mother would scold me for it. But she will 
 be so glad, when I tell her that I have seen the son of 
 General B and talked to him.” 
 
 At this moment, a little girl came up in breathless 
 haste, as if she had run a long distance, and cried out 
 to Willie as she approached: “ Brother, come home, 
 sister Jane has just fainted, mother is distracted, and 
 sends for you.” ‘The boy seized his brushes and his 
 box of blacking, and departed at full speed, forgetful 
 of the dime to which he was entitled and not giving 
 time to Gabriel to hand it to him, instead of the prof- 
 fered and rejected dollar. The other urchin of whom . 
 I spoke before, came close to Gabriel with a knowing 
 look and a grin, and said to him: ‘“‘ If you give me the 
 dime you intended for Willie, Pll tell you a secret.” 
 The dime was given. “Stranger,” continued the prom- 
 
 
 
412 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 ising youth, “that fellow Willie, you see, somehow or 
 other, is better educated than we are, and thinks him- 
 self above us that work with him here, because the 
 talk is that his father was a gentleman, and his mother 
 is a lady. . But, with all that, his folks are as poor as 
 Job and always sick, and he is ashamed of people 
 knowing it, and won’t tell where he lives.” ; 
 
 Gabriel looked round, as if he had desired to see 
 again the boy who had left him so abruptly. “ Stranger,” 
 continued the other boy with characteristic pertinacity, 
 and with a nasal tone which he had not yet lost, and 
 which indicated that he was a recent importation from 
 a well-known clime where there is a hereditary dispo- 
 sition to speak through the nose, “why do you keep 
 staring so?” and, chuckling over his own smartness, he 
 added: “Tl tell you another secret for another of 
 Uncle Sam’s paper dimes, and, if you like to trade in 
 that line, Pll swap with you as many secrets as you 
 want for a dime apiece. It is cheap, ain’t it?. Iam 
 not so green as Willie Dabney. He ran away from a 
 dime; I’l] make dimes run after me.” 
 
 Gabriel turned his back on this precocious trader, 
 and, after a little hesitation, crossed the street, and 
 went up to a man who was looking complacently at 
 some articles artistically displayed at a tailor’s window, 
 and whom the badge of a copper-plate on the breast 
 designated as a police officer. 
 
 “Sir,” said he to the guardian of the public peace, 
 “did you, perchance, notice that boy who ran away so 
 hastily just now in company with a little girl ?” 
 
 “Yes, I know him by sight. He is a St. Charles 
 boot-black.” 
 
 “Well, sir, I feel some interest in that child, and I 
 should like to discover where he lives. Can you do 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 413 
 
 that for me? I will remunerate you for the informa- 
 tion. My name is Gabriel B ; here is my ad- 
 dress.” 
 
 The officer bowed a respectful assent, and took the 
 card v hich was tendered to him. © 
 
 
 
CHAPTER XXXYV. 
 THE DABNEY FAMILY.—THE APPARITION. 
 
 Two days after, at ten o’clock in the morning, Ga- 
 briel was standing in front of No. 350, in a street which 
 shall be nameless. That number was affixed to the lin- 
 tel of a small wooden gate, opening into a lot of ground 
 fenced on the street with dingy-looking pickets, which, 
 judging from the tint impressed upon them by time 
 and from their appearance of long dilapidation, must 
 be supposed to have attained a ripe old age. In the 
 back part of the lot, at a distance of a hundred feet 
 from the street, squatted a very humble tenement 
 which seemed to be crushed under the weight of years, 
 and composed of three rooms following one another in 
 a row, along side of which ran a gallery with many of 
 its balusters broken, or missing. It could not claim a » 
 higher rank than that of an octogenarian shanty,-on the 
 root of which a dense green moss had spread itself like 
 a carpet. It was evident that no paint had ever been 
 used to modify and embellish the original complexion 
 of this primitive structure, which probably had been 
 erected in the days of Spanish domination. A grayish 
 smoke issued spasmodically from the only chimney 
 which could be seen, and which seemed to have hardly 
 strength to raise its weather-beaten head above the rot- 
 ten shingles from which it struggled to emerge. Some 
 twenty feet behind this hut there was a shed, 1wnder 
 
 (414) 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. AL5 
 
 which were a rusty cooking-stove and a few wasli-tubs. 
 The whole space which intervened between the street 
 and these humble dwellings was bleak and desolate. 
 It was nothing but a monotonous patch of parched up 
 grass. A line of planks, much worn out by use and 
 half-buried in the mud, formed a path which led from 
 the street gate to this abode of indigence. Gabriel had 
 walked to within a few feet of its front door, when — 
 there came out a little girl, whom he instantly recog- 
 nized as being the one who, two days before, had come 
 for her brother at the portico of the St. Charles Hotel. 
 He well remembered that cherub face flushed at the 
 time by unusual excitement, and those long auburn 
 locks which streamed back from her brow as she sped 
 with her small shoeless feet on the hard pavement. His 
 was not the heart to have forgotten the thick heavy 
 breathing which parted those rosy lips, when, on ac- 
 count of the haste with which she had run, she could 
 hardly gasp to her brother Wille that he was wanted 
 at home by the sick and suffering. The little girl 
 gazed wonderingly at the stranger. 
 
 “Ts Mrs. Dabney at home?’ said Gabriel. 
 
 ““ Mamma has gone out to get some work,” answered 
 the softest voice that ever greeted human ears. “ Wil- 
 lie is at the St. Charles, blackening boots, and sister 
 Jane, who is sick, is fast asleep.” 
 
 “Will your mother be out long ?” he inquired. 
 
 “Oh! no, she is never out long.” 
 
 “ Could I not then wait for her coming?” he asked. 
 “ T have some work to bespeak of her.” 
 
 God forgive him for this unpremeditated deviation 
 from truth! It is to be hoped that it was one of those 
 lies which the wing of the angel of mercy brushes 
 away, before it is registered in the record book of de- 
 
416 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 linquencies. “ Walk in, sir,” said the-little girl open- 
 ing the door, and Gabriel entered a room of the most — 
 scrupulous neatness, but in which there were but three 
 straw-bottomed chairs and a pine-wood table on which 
 stood a Jamp and a work-basket. The child, with 
 inimitable youthful grace and matronly gravity, took 
 him by the hand, and leading him to one of the chairs, 
 courtesied as she offered it to him. He was hardly 
 seated, when an object appended to the wall above the 
 mantel-piece of the fire-place attracted his attention. 
 It was a lithographic portrait of General B in a 
 rough frame of oak placed in the centre of a circle of 
 immortelles entwined with black crape. Below the 
 portrait there was a crucifix, and, hanging by a black 
 ribbon to the crucifix, there was a medallion as large 
 as the palm of a woman’s hand, representing the Virgin 
 Mary weeping at the foot of the cross. It was an ob- 
 ject of art and beautifully executed, which contrasted 
 with the coarse appearance of the apartment. The child 
 noticed the interest with which Gabriel looked at the 
 portrait and its appendages. Pointing at it, she said: 
 “Do you know him?” A slight affirmative inclination 
 of the head was the answer. ‘ Do you love him?” she 
 continued. Gabriel smiled and nodded assent. “ You 
 are a confederate then?” Another nod. ‘ Papa was 
 one, and he lives no more.” An expression of sadness 
 darkened her lovely features as it flitted over them like 
 a light cloud, and she hung down her head, but, soon 
 raising it, and fixing her large beautiful blue eyes on 
 Gabriel, she said: “ When mamma is not nursing sis- 
 ter, she sits by that table, and she works and she cries, 
 and cries and works the live-long day, and she kneels 
 there before the crucifix, and she prays, and makes me 
 pray too, for the soul of papa.” 
 
 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. ALT 
 
 There was something so irresistibly touching in the 
 tones of her voice, that the eyes of Gabriel became 
 moist as he looked with tenderness at his infantine com- 
 panion. She was quick in perceiving it with the in- 
 stinctive intuition of her age, and, becoming garrulous 
 on a subject which had evidently been kept dear to her 
 heart, and had remained vivid in her imagination, she 
 continued to prattle with increasing childish confidence, 
 as she gazed at the sympathizing face which seemed to 
 woo her to unreserved familiarity. “I will show you,” 
 she said, ‘‘ how mamma makes me pray,” and, sliding 
 from the chair to which she had climbed, she knelt be- 
 fore the crucifix, and, after crossing herself and joining 
 her little hands together, she raised her eyes to the me- 
 dallion, and this short prayer was uttered in low, fer- 
 vent, and melodious accents: ““O sweet Virgin Mary, 
 the protectress of little children like me, have mercy on 
 the soul of papa, intercede for him near thy Son, our 
 Lord and Redeemer. May he, through thy intercession, 
 bless mother, sister, brother, and myself, and make us 
 every day grow better and better and more worthy of 
 his favor! In the name of the Father, the Son, and the 
 Holy Ghost. Amen!” She again crossed herself, and, 
 rising demurely, she looked at Gabriel as at a friend 
 whose approbation she courted, nor did she court it in 
 vain. What she had done was so unexpected, and was 
 done so much after the fashion, one would suppose, of 
 an infant seraph, that Gabriel was deeply moved. 
 
 “ Child,” he said, “I have no doubt the Virgin Mary 
 will be kind to you and listen graciously to your pray- 
 ers.” But, as if he wished to escape from his own 
 emotion, he said in a lighter tone: ‘“ Pray, what is 
 your name, my pretty friend ?” 
 
 “ Mary,” answered she. “ Mamma says I am called 
 
 18* 
 
418 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 after the mother of God, and that it would be a great 
 sin if I was not good, having such a name, and if I did 
 not always pray to her to keep me good.” 
 
 She paused, looked pensive for a minute or two, and, 
 turning to Gabriel, she said with a playful smile, as if 
 the consciousness had come over her that she, in her 
 turn, had a right to know who her visitor was: “ Now 
 that you have heard my name, will you please to tell me 
 ‘yours 2” 
 
 ‘¢ Gabriel,” was the reply. 
 
 “OQ! Gabriel, Gabriel!” she repeated, clapping her 
 hands with glee, “the angel Gabriel! You must be 
 good then, since you have the name of an angel. I 
 sometimes dream of him with his blue wings and his 
 flaming sword. I will show him to you;” and she ran 
 to the table of which I have already spoken, and, pull- 
 ing a drawer, she took out of it an illustrated catechism, 
 which she carried to her newly-made friend. Gabriel 
 felt quite interested in her innocent chattering and her 
 winning ways, and patted her affectionately on the 
 head. Thus encouraged, the child showed a desire to 
 sit on his knees, which he hastened to gratify ; and then, 
 opening her book, she read with wonderful distinctness 
 and appropriate emphasis the Lord’s prayer. Gabriel 
 warmly complimented her on her proficiency. She 
 looked elated with his applause, and, jumping on the 
 floor, she said with exultation : “I can read writing too, 
 and I will show it to you.” She seized a chair, and 
 got on it after having dragged it to the fire-place, and 
 raising herself on the very tip of her toes, she, with 
 some difficulty, pulled the medallion from its place, 
 pressed a spring which made it fly open, and. took out 
 of it a small piece of paper which was folded with mi- 
 nute care. As soon, however, as the child had it in her 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. : 419 
 
 possession, the vivacity of her manner instantly departed. 
 She stood in the middle of the room as if she had been 
 suddenly struck with a sort of mysterious awe, or, as if 
 she was not sure she had not ventured on forbidden 
 ground. But, whilst she seemed to be in suspense, her 
 fingers mechanically opened the paper, and, as soon as 
 it was unfolded and the characters met her eyes, she 
 was no longer able to resist the temptation. . The pa- 
 per looked as if it had been written upon with red ink. 
 Gabriel was too much taken by surprise, to think of 
 checking the indiscretion which the child might be com- 
 mitting. ‘To his greater astonishment, she kissed rever- 
 ently the sheet she had in her hand, and said: “It is a 
 letter which papa wrote from the battle field of Shiloh, a 
 short time before dying. Mother has taught me to read 
 it and to know it by heart ;” and she went on, dwelling 
 as it were on every word: 
 
 “ Drar Wrre,—lI shall see you no more on this side of 
 the grave, nor our dear ones. This is written with the 
 blood which flows from a mortal wound—a glorious 
 wound—for I died for you, for my adopted country, and 
 after having, thank God, saved the life of General 
 B There was a moment when our ranks were 
 wavering. The general saw it. He seized a flag, and, 
 putting himself at our head, he cried: ‘ Boys, follow 
 me to victory.’ I happened to be near him, and, just 
 as he was. rushing forward, I saw a Federal rifleman, 
 who, hidden behind a tree, was taking a deliberate aim 
 at him. I had only time to throw myself upon our gen- 
 eral and shield him with my body, and, as I dropped 
 at his feet, strack by the shot which had been intended 
 for him, I had the satisfaction to see our beloved chief 
 bounding onward, followed by the whole column of our 
 
 
 
420 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 pa 
 
 enthusiastic soldiers. Father Régis, the worthy chap- 
 lain of our regiment, who is now near me, will hand 
 you these lines, should he survive this war and return 
 to New Orleans, for he is as brave as a lion, priest as he 
 is, and is.always in the thickest of the fight, not to 
 strike but to heal. Farewell, my eyes are growing dim, 
 my hand is stiffening, and my head swims. Father 
 - Régis will also carry to you the sacred medallion which 
 you wished me to wear on my breast. It has not saved 
 my life, as you fondly expected, but perhaps it has con- 
 tributed to make me die a Christian. You will ob- 
 serve that a drop of my blood stains the cross before 
 which the Virgin kneels. I commend you to God and 
 to the heavenly care of her in whom you always had so 
 much faith. It will be sweet to you to know that I 
 have received all the consolations of religion from Fa- 
 ther Régis. Farewell, [ hope we shall meet again in 
 the bosom of God. Your loving husband, Dasyey.” 
 
 Whilst the child had been reading, or rather reciting, — 
 Gabriel seemed to have been petrified into a statue. 
 He was almost deprived of his senses by the sudden- 
 ness of the discovery he had made, and recovered his 
 self-possession only when the voice which had kept him 
 spell-bound ceased to be heard. _Then he felt the big 
 throbbings of his heart which was bursting with emo- 
 tion, and hé was only relieved by a flood of tears which. 
 gushed from his eyes. Springing from his seat, he 
 seized and pressed to his breast the struggling and as- 
 tonished child, imprinting kisses on her forehead, and 
 exclaiming: ‘‘ Henceforth, I am your father, Mary.” 
 At that moment the door opened, and on the threshold 
 stood a lady, riveted to the spot with astonishment at 
 witnessing such a scene, and hearing such an exclamation. 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 421 
 
 I said a lady, for it would have been evident to the 
 most superficial observer, that she was one of that class. 
 lier usually pale cheeks were slightly flushed, either 
 from the exertion of walking too rapidly, or from the 
 emotion which was caused by her finding a stranger un- 
 der her roof and under such extraordinary cireum- 
 stances. She had a small bundle in her left hand, 
 probably the work which she had gone out to get. Her 
 right hand had been raised to her breast, which it 
 pressed tightly, as if endeavoring to stifle some sudden 
 pang. In her face there was an expression of intense 
 surprise, mixed up with the indication of some physical 
 pain. She still retained the traces of exquisite beauty, 
 although she had reached more than the meridian of 
 life. But cold and sharp had blown the wind of adver- 
 ity, and soul and body were withering under its unin- 
 terrupted blast. Alas! what settled grief, what sub- 
 dued resignation, what drooping spirit pervaded the 
 features whose classical lines seemed to be slowly fading 
 away under the corroding influence of the anxieties of 
 the heart and mind! It would have been ditlicylt for 
 any person of refined feelings to pass by her in the 
 streets without stopping involuntarily, and without fol- 
 lowing her with a long lingering look. It would have 
 been difficult for such a one, not to say: “ Poor wo- 
 man! who can she be?” so striking in her were those 
 marks which tell that the heart will break, and “ brok- 
 enly live on.” Her dress, on the day on which she 
 thus presented herself to Gabriel, was that of a woman 
 in humble life, but there was something in her which 
 indicated at the first glance, that the cruel hand of an 
 irresistible destiny had pushed her from a higher sphere. 
 When Gabriel, after having deposited the child on the 
 floor, advanced a step toward her and bowed with pro- 
 
422 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 found respect, she had completely mastered the agita- 
 tion into which she had been betrayed by the unexpect- 
 edness of his presence and the strangeness of his action, 
 and she was waiting in a modest attitude of calm dig- 
 nity for the explanation which was due to her. 
 
 ‘© Madam,” he said, “ I am the son of General B 
 Was I not justified in calling here, when I heard that 
 your husband had died at Shiloh, and that sickness and 
 destitution affected your family? This sympathy was 
 natural, was it not, in one who bears my name? But 
 now,” and he took the letter which the little girl, per- 
 plexed with what had happened, still held unfolded in 
 her hand, “you will admit, I hope, the strength of 
 these credentials on which I rely to tender you my gra- 
 titude, my friendship and my support.” Whilst thus 
 speaking, he seized the hands of the poor widow, and 
 shook them with the warm cordiality of an overflow- 
 ing heart. 
 
 “The pleasure, sir, which I ‘have in seeing you,” she 
 said, “is not unmixed with pain, but you are welcome 
 here; pray, be seated ;” and then, turning to her child 
 with a look which was meant to be severe, ‘ how came 
 you, Mary,” she continued, “ to show to this gentle- 
 Diatieress Ss 
 
 “Pray, madam,” said Gabriel interrupting her, ‘*do 
 not scold this dear little one. She has been the instru- 
 ment of Providence. My father had related to me the 
 sublime sacrifice mentioned in the letter which has just 
 been read, but he had never been able to discover after 
 the battle was over, who it was to whom he was in- 
 debted for his life. Thank God, it is known now, and 
 our debt of gratitude to you, which can never be paid, 
 will entitle us at least to your unreserved friendship.’ 
 
 Before Mrs. Dabney could have time to answer, the 
 
 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 423 
 
 door which led into the next room opened softly, and a 
 young woman, apparently twenty years old, barefooted, 
 dressed in a long loose gown, and extremely emaciated, 
 made her appearance. She was in a state of somnam- 
 bulism ; her eyes were fixed on vacancy. She advanced, 
 with aslow step and an air of solemnity, toward the table 
 which was in the centre of the room, and stood motion- 
 less before it. At the first sight of this apparition, Mrs. » 
 Dabney had risen with precipitation and with open 
 arms, as if she had intended to take hold of the som- 
 nambulist, and reconduct her tothe place from which 
 she had come. But, if such was her intention, she did 
 not carry it into execution, either because she dreaded 
 what might result from her interference, or because she 
 was overpowered by her own emotion, for she tottered 
 back to her chair, and, burying her drooping head 
 between her hands, she gave way to the agony of her 
 grief and sobbed aloud. Mary ran to her, and flung 
 gently her arms round her neck, giving her affectionate 
 kisses,'and saying: “ Mamma, don’t ery, don’t cry, Ill 
 take Jane back to her room.” The person who was 
 called Jane said in a low, measured voice: “ Ludovico, 
 here I am at the altar, to receive your plighted faith. 
 You will always love me, will you?’ She then timidly 
 stretched forth her left hand to one whom she fancied 
 standing by her, withdrew it after a little while, and 
 with her right hand seemed to seek on her finger for 
 an imaginary ring. ‘“‘ Husband and wife! Husband 
 and wife, now and forever,” she murmured, and her 
 face brightened up with a transient gleam of happiness. 
 The ceremony of which she dreamed being over, she 
 turned from the table, and, with the same noiseless and 
 ghostly step with which she had entered, she walked to 
 the door of the inner room, as if she intended to retire. 
 
494 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 ‘But, on reaching it, she stopped, and with a tone of the 
 deepest indignation she exclaimed, as if another current 
 of thought had swept through her brain: “ What! You 
 say I am not your lawful wife. O villain! O villain !” 
 These words were followed by an unearthly shriek of 
 
 anguish, and she fell insensible on the floor, apparently a 
 corpse. Gabriel assisted Mrs. Dabney in carrying her 
 daughter to her bed, and, on receiving the assurance that 
 this was not an unusual incident, that no physician could 
 do any good, and that his further services on the occasion 
 were not needed, he felt that there are moments 
 when misery must be left alone, and he glided out un- 
 perceived by the afflicted mother. She was kneeling be- 
 fore the couch and bending over the figure of the 
 patient, who seemed to be gradually recovering from 
 
 her swoon, } 
 
CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 THE TWO WIDOWS.—JANE DABNEY AND HER LOVER, LUDOV- 
 ICO BARBARINI. 
 
 Two months had elapsed, during which Gabriel had 
 been unremitting in his attentions to Mis. Dabney and 
 her family. In fact, he had made himself at home under 
 the roof of sickness and destitution. All pecuniary 
 assistance on his part had been persistently refused, but 
 he was permitted to bring some delicacies, such as 
 oranges, syrups, etc.—for the invalid Jane, who remain- 
 ed invisible in her chamber, and also some slight pres- 
 ents for Mary and Willie. Mrs. Dabney insisted on 
 supporting herself by her work and that of her boy, the 
 boot-black, whom I have already introduced into my 
 nairative. Her health, however, was evidently getting 
 feebler, and her means of living move slender. Her 
 husband, an Irishman by birth, had been a commission 
 merchant, and, when the war broke out, showed himself 
 one of the most enthusiastic supporters of the so-called 
 rebellion. She had been cast away by her relatives for 
 having married a foreigner who was objectionable to 
 them; the quarrel had become more bitter in conse- 
 quence of difficulties about money matters, and recon- 
 ciliation had never taken place. On one side, there was 
 the resentment of defeated avarice, the balking of 
 interested hopes, the mortification of conscious mean- 
 ness, the humiliation of exposed selfishness; and, 
 on the other side, the wife’s pride had never for- 
 
 (425) 
 
426 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 gotten the injustice done to her husband’s character 
 by base aspersions and vindictive insinuations. It 
 accounts for the isolation in which she was found. 
 As to the friends who had gathered round her in her 
 days of prosperity, she had, as her distress increased, 
 gradually withdrawn from all communion with them, 
 and they had not been very sedulous in looking 
 after her, when gloom and clouds had settled around 
 the once brilliant object of their admiration. On tak- 
 ing possession of New Orleans, General Butler had 
 turned her out of her house which had been confiscated, 
 and had dispossessed her of her furniture. The books of 
 the commercial firm of Dabney & Co. had been seized 
 and destroyed ; at least, they could not be found. Mrs. 
 Dabney had contrived to live during the war on a small 
 sum of money which her husband had left her, when he 
 departed to join the Confederate armies, and on the sil- 
 ver ware and jewels which she had secreted from Fed- 
 eral rapacity ; she had also retained in her possession 
 some promissory notes to the amount of twenty thou- 
 sand dollars, which were her own private property. It 
 was her dowry which had thus been invested. The per- 
 sons to whom that money had been loaned, stood so 
 high in reputation and fortune before the war, that the 
 precaution of taking a mortgage had been omitted. 
 but general devastation, ruin and demoralization had 
 come hand in hand. The rich became poor, and the 
 poor, rich, and those who were thought to be honest 
 proved to have been rogues in disguise, wolves in sheep’s 
 skins. She had at last given up the expectation, once 
 entertained, of collecting anything, with the exception 
 of one claim which was represented to her as still safe, 
 if her debtor chose to behave with good faith. The 
 note which was now her only reliance against starva- 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 427 
 
 tion was drawn by one of her own sex, one who was re- 
 ported, on high authority, to have largely speculated 
 in cotton during the war, and to be as rich as she was 
 before, if not more so. She herself, it was affirmed, had 
 boasted of having a large amount of gold in her posses- 
 sion, the result of the skillful operations of which she 
 was proud. She was a thorough utilitarian, there was 
 no romance in her composition. Her head was a sheet 
 of accounts and balances, or rather, as a mathematician 
 would have said, a table of logarithms, of which the, 
 involutions and evolutions infallibly produced the 
 required root, product, or power—which was the ac- 
 quisition of money. She did not act the sister of charity 
 to our soldiers like many of her sex—not she—but she 
 had put on the gabardine of Shylock, and speculated. 
 At least it was the conviction of many, and all sorts of 
 rumors were rife on the subject. But, as this female 
 man of business has thought proper to show herself un- 
 der colors of her own which she cannot repudiate, it 
 will soon be seen whether the character ascribed to her 
 is not in perfect harmony with the one she had volun- 
 tarily assumed in her dealings with Mrs. Dabney. She 
 was, like this lady, a native of the State, and a Catholic, 
 although of a different stripe. She hada large planta- 
 tion near the town of Alexandria in the parish of 
 . Rapides, and lived in great affluence. Her name was 
 Cornelia Balfour. She was a widow like her creditor, 
 and the mother of a large family of grown up sons and 
 daughters. Being aware of these circumstances, Mrs. 
 Dabney had sent a strong appeal to Mrs. Balfour, rep- 
 resenting the whole extent of her distress. She had 
 written with some degree of confidence, for she was a 
 widow applying to a widow, a mother to a mother, a 
 woman to a woman, afiliction and isolation to wealth 
 
428 ERNANDO DE ‘LEMOS. 
 
 and social influence. It was the draft of adversity on 
 the exchequer of prosperity, not for alms, but for the 
 payment of a just debt. The reply had raised her 
 _ hopes of speedy relief, for it was conceived in these terms: 
 
 ‘‘OaAK GROVE, June 30, 1865. 
 
 “Dear Mapam,—lI assure you on oath that I have 
 not either gold, silver or greenbacks at my disposal, as re- 
 ported, and that I have not been successful in any cotton 
 speculation. I have though some very good notes, and 
 I have had the promise of some money to be paid on 
 them in a short time. I hold notes with mortgages for 
 a handsome amount, and will be certain to pay you and 
 allI owe. If I live, it is my intention to do this. I 
 am doing all in my power to collect money. Ido not 
 wish to bring suit against any one, as I know how we 
 all have suffered during the war. If you give me time, 
 it will be all settled. I will try to pay something on the 
 note ina few weeks. You can rely on my doing all in 
 my power to not delay payment. I have a greater wish 
 to pay the money than you have to receive it. I do 
 sincerely wish that I could do so now, but you can de- 
 pend on me, for I will not delay settling up. I will pay 
 you all I can on the note, and that, as soon as possible. 
 _Just give me time, and I will not disappoint you. I 
 will write you next week, and will then be able to say 
 when I can go to the city, and what amount I shall be 
 able to pay you. Hoping this will be satisfactory, ete. 
 
 CORNELIA BALFOUR.” 
 
 It was of course very satisfactory. Mrs. Dabney’s 
 heart dilated at the prospect of sure subsistence for her 
 family. Her brave boy Willie, instead of being a 
 boot-black, would be neatly dressed, and would go to 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 429 
 
 school the whole day. She indulged in visions of a 
 handsome pair of shoes for Mary, and of many little 
 comforts for her poor-sick Jane. She never thought 
 of her own wants. A few days after, there came from 
 the same source another letter, dated on the 6th of 
 July, in which Mrs. Balfour repeated: “I have notes 
 that are perfectly sure of being collected. They are 
 mortgage notes, and [ am using every means to collect 
 them without injuring any one. You may depend on 
 my word that I will do all in my power to pay that 
 debt, and that very soon. I will try to see you in the 
 course of ten days, when I hope to be able to satisfy 
 you. lam indeed very anxious to do so. Hoping that 
 you will find this satisfactory until I can do more, I 
 remain, etc., ete. CornetiA BAtrovr.” 
 
 This was, truly, making assurance doubly sure. Mrs. 
 Dabney had no longer any doubt, and she raised her 
 eyes to heaven in thankfulness to God. In her morn- 
 ing and evening prayers she even remembered the hon- 
 est debtor, and invoked blessings on her head. But the 
 delay of ten days fixed in the letter elapsed, ten more 
 went by, and Mrs. Balfour did not come. For two 
 months, Mrs. Dabney wrote letter after letter addressed 
 to Oak Grove, and, although she ascertained that they 
 had reached their destination, she received no answer. 
 This was passing strange! What meant such a change, 
 from an extreme desire to pay to complete indifference, 
 and to an ominous silence amounting to an absolute 
 denial. At last, she called on a gentleman whom she 
 knew to be a neighbor to Mrs. Balfour, and who, as she 
 had heard, had recently come to the city. That gen- 
 tleman read the letters which were communicated to 
 him, and said to Mrs. Dabney: ‘“‘ Madam, you have 
 been outrageously treated. Mrs. Balfour has been re- 
 
430 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 peatedly coming here since she wrote to you, and, if * 
 she has not called on you, or informed you of her pres- 
 ence, as she had promised, it is because she has now 
 accomplished her purposes of deception. She has 
 thrown oif the mask, because she thinks that, for 
 the future, she is perfectly safe against your claim. 
 Whilst flattering you with false hopes of payment, she 
 has caused her plantation to be sold at the suit of her 
 children and bought by them. She has, as the com- 
 mon phrase runs, arranged her affavrs. Every piece 
 of property which she has, is put out of the reach of her 
 creditors. I grieve to undeceive you, madam, but it 
 is better that you should know the truth. Mrs. Balfour 
 is what is called a very smart woman—very. You 
 never will get a cent from her.” 
 
 On receiving such bitter information, Mrs. Dabney 
 had put her claim in the hands of a member of the 
 Alexandria bar, and she was reading a letter from the 
 law firm to which he belonged, when Gabriel entered 
 the parlor with the familiarity of an old friend. The 
 letter was still lying open in her lap, and tears were fast 
 dropping on it. In answer to his anxious inquiries she 
 made him acquainted with the facts which I have re- 
 lated, and handed to him the communication which 
 had blasted all her hopes. It ran as follows: 
 
 Dear Mapam,—We have obtained judgment against 
 Mrs. Balfour after much litigation. She fought off your 
 claim, through her ingenious counsel, with the fierceness 
 of a tigress. But we cannot rejoice over our victory. 
 Mrs. Balfour has sheltered all’ her property by such ar- 
 rangements as it will be impossible to set aside. Her 
 creditors are ruined, but she remains rich and infamous, 
 Respectfully, etc., CHANCEY, FLETCHER & C0.” 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 431 
 
 Gabriel’s hand trembled with excitement as he read 
 this letter. ‘Can such things be?’ he exclaimed. 
 ‘This creature should be pilloried, and these letters 
 published. ‘This frenzied love of money has defeated us 
 in our glorious struggle, and it now sullies the dignity 
 of our adversity. The corpse of our Southern Conted- 
 eracy is wrapped up in a shroud of corruption, instead 
 of being embalmed with the pure essence of public and 
 private integrity. Woe to us! Our poor country is so 
 demoralized as not to be recognized by its own children. 
 The heroes are buried, the victims are consigned to 
 oblivion, and the survivors are turning out to be swin- 
 dlers, picking one another’s pockets. I can put up with 
 the rascality of our former gentlemen, but, when our 
 ladies aspire to graduate among thieves, I despair of 
 our commonwealth. But no, thank God, we have honest 
 men remaining, and we have a host of glorious women 
 yet alive and purifying the land. They willregenerate 
 society. Authorize me to denounce this Mrs. Balfour, 
 so that she may be proscribed by her own sex which 
 she disgraces. Wherever she shall go, let the finger 
 of scorn be pointed at her. Let the spoiler of the widow 
 and the orphans be lashed with a whip of scorpions. 
 Human justice requires it.” 
 
 “ No,” replied Mrs. Dabney, “let us trust in divine 
 justice. I dismiss this woman from my thoughts, and 
 will bear my misfortune in the best way I can, with 
 the help of Him who always makes good come out of 
 evil. But let us turn to another subject of a far more 
 painful nature, about which I have been endeavoring, 
 for several days, to gather sufficient moral strength to 
 address you. A sad scene which you witnessed in this 
 room, may have produced in your mind suspicions un- 
 favorable to the repntation of my poor dying danghter.” 
 
439 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 Gabriel waved his hand impatiently. ‘‘ Dear madam,” 
 he said, “ can you suppose me capable of... .”. 
 
 “Pray, allow me to proceed without interruption, 
 This is a matter of honor—it is a proper sensitiveness. 
 It requires the explanation to which I beg you to listen.” 
 (rabriel folded his arms on his breast, as if fortifying 
 himself against the forthcoming tale of woe which he 
 expected, and bent his head in an attitude of profound 
 attention. Widow Dabney continued in these terms : 
 
 “ A short time before the war, there came to New 
 Orleans an Italian who brought a letter of introduction 
 to my husband. His name was Ludovico Barbarini. 
 We understood that he was a refugee who had been 
 compelled to leave his country on political grounds. 
 He entered into no business, and pretended to live on 
 remittances which he received from abroad. He was 
 aman of most winning manners and of the most insin- 
 uating address, and he had gained the affection of my 
 daughter Jane, before we had discovered that he was 
 of dissipated habits. We still harbored the hope that 
 it was not too late for him to reform. He had become 
 engaged to Jane, but the marriage was postponed, be- 
 cause, as Mr. Dabney frankly said to him, it was nee- 
 essary that we should receive more satisfactory infor- 
 mation as to his character, and that he should give us 
 a personal demonstration of the sincerity of his assur- 
 ances, when he affirmed that his conduct would hence- 
 forth justify us in intrusting to his keeping the happi- 
 ness of our child, Thus matters stood when the war 
 broke out. My husband was killed at Shiloh, as. you 
 know, and, when General Butler came to New Orleans, 
 we, to avoid all contact with our enemies, repaired to 
 Baton Rouge, where we had, besides, some interests to 
 which it was important to attend. Ludovico Barbarini 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 433 
 
 had insisted on accompanying us as our natural protec- 
 tor. When in Baton Rouge, yielding to his pressing 
 entreaties, we consented to a private marriage, which 
 he wished to be kept secret for some important consid- 
 erations, until he should have an interview with the 
 Italian minister at Washington. The ceremony was 
 performed by the parson or curé of the town in the 
 presence of two witnesses, who, shortly after, were 
 compelled, with the regiment to which they belonged, 
 to go to Virginia, where they were both killed. Two 
 weeks had elapsed, when Ludovico informed us that he 
 could not avoid going to Washington, to see the repre- 
 sentative of his government, and through him to com- 
 municate with his family and with his sovereign, whose 
 displeasure at his marriage he had reasons to dread. 
 Four long months—they seemed eternal—crept wearily 
 over us, and there was no letter from Ludovico! At 
 last, after having undergone indescribable anxieties, we 
 received one in which he coldly informed us that he 
 had found it to his interest to take service in the Fed- 
 eral army, and to accept the grade of colonel. Words 
 cannot convey any idea of the anguish which we felt. 
 Another day of woe soon followed the one on which 
 we had learned that Ludovico had joined our enemies, 
 and enlisted under the banner of those who had de- 
 prived me of a husband and his wife of a father. Ba- 
 ton Rouge was taken by a body of Federal troops, the 
 town was pillaged, the Catholic church sacked, the res- 
 idence of the parson plundered, his archives destroyed, 
 and he himself killed by a stray shot. O horror of 
 horrors! Ludovico was one of the commanders of 
 those barbarians, and when, on his appearing before us, 
 he found his wife in tears, and heard the passiqnate 
 reproaches which burst from her indignant heart, he 
 
 19 
 
434 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 scowled at her, taunted her with bitter jests on the 
 grand airs she took, and found fault with her assuming 
 such liberties with him, when she was no more than his 
 mistress. We were petrified with amazement. ‘ Ay,’ 
 said he with increasing vehemence, ‘you must learn 
 better manners, and not hang up so high your flag of 
 termagant virtue and boisterous patriotism. You are 
 nothing but my paramour, my pretty rebel, and I will 
 subdue you yet, and teach you to sit obediently on my 
 fist like a tamed falcon.’ On hearing these words, my 
 daughter fell insensible into my arms, and I remained 
 speechless with terror. It seemed for a moment that 
 reason in me was unsettled and that I was verging on 
 insanity. ‘Ha! ha! he exclaimed more furiously, 
 ‘you stare at me like a wild fugitive from Bedlam. 
 You had better come to your senses, and look for the 
 proofs of that pretended marriage. Where are the 
 witnesses? Where is the priest? Where is the con- 
 tract? Methinks that all these things are necessary ;7 
 and, turning on his heels, he strode away with a demo- 
 niacal laugh which still rings in my ears. We imme- 
 diately departed for New Orleans, and what has since 
 become of the wretch we have never inquired. You 
 have seen the condition of Jane. She has but a short 
 time to live, and I know that I cannot long survive 
 her, for I have a disease of the heart which is beyond 
 cure, and which must soon terminate fatally. To the 
 only protection of our Heavenly Father I shall have to 
 leave my poor children.” 
 
 ‘‘Human protection shall never fail them as long as 
 I live,” said Gabriel with a voice choked with emotion. 
 “QO, what an excess of unrelenting and overwhelming 
 misery! What shall I do for your relief?’ His eyes 
 were suffused with tears ; he took Mrs. Dabney’s hand, 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 435 
 
 which he pressed with all the tender affection of a son, 
 and said: “ O dear mother, allow me to use that name, 
 you have more fortitude than I possess. I am almost 
 rebellious against heaven for inflicting such trials, 
 whilst you are calm and resigned. But I must leave 
 you; I feel unwell; I can hardly breathe in this room, 
 I need the open air; excuse me if I depart abruptly. 
 I thank you for having been so frank and for having 
 confided to me your sorrows,” and he rushed rather 
 than walked out of the room. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 GABRIEL, THE FRIEND OF JANE DABNEY, CALLS ON COLONEL 
 LUDOVICO BARBARINI, HER BETRAYER.—A FASHIONABLE 
 BALL. 
 
 Gapsriet had hardly passed through the small gate 
 which opened into the street before he stopped. He 
 breathed with difficulty and as if he was suffocating. 
 After a little while, he resumed his hurried walk, shak- 
 ing his fist menacingly. “ Thank God,” said he, “ this 
 time it is not a woman who has done the wrong. It is 
 a man—a Federal officer, to boot,’ and he stamped his 
 foot as if he was crushing a reptile. “ Ludovico Bar- 
 barini! I have seen the dastardly dog. Well, well, I 
 swear by the memory of Shiloh and Dabney that it 
 shall be no fault of mine, if there is not ere long one 
 rascal missing on the staff of Gen. C .” Faster and 
 more irregular his steps became as he went on, like 
 those of one laboring under the influence of some uncon- 
 trollable passion. There must have been on his face a 
 very visible expression of the feelings which convulsed 
 his heart, for more than one of those persons whom he 
 met in the streets looked at him wonderingly, as he 
 hurried on perfectly unconscious of the attention which 
 he excited. He came to the corner of Carondelet and 
 Canal streets, where an old black woman was seated 
 with a basket of cakes before her. He upset it as he 
 passed, and, being recalled to himself by the exclama- 
 
 tions of distress which he had provoked, he flung at the 
 (436) 
 
 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 437 
 
 injured woman a dollar, and was out of sisht before 
 she had recovered from the perturbation into which 
 she had been thrown. She lost no time in picking up 
 carefully her scattered ware and replacing it in her 
 basket, now blowing off the dust which some of the 
 articles had borrowed from the pavement, and now say- 
 ing to herself, wnilst she shook her head dolefully like 
 a Chinese doll: ‘“ Young massa, whoever he may be, is 
 clean méd. Somebody will be hurt soon, if the old 
 missus don’t keep him at home.” 
 
 On the next day, at eleven o’clock in the morning, 
 Gabriel was seen coming out of the office of the Italian 
 consul. There he had learned, among other particulars, 
 that Ludovico Barbarini had not left his country, as 
 was generally supposed, for political reasons, but 
 because his extreme profligacy had involved him in 
 affairs of so serious a nature, that he had been com- 
 pelled to fly. ‘‘ All the information which I have com- 
 municated to you,” added the consul when Gabriel 
 parted from him, “is strictly confidential. To none 
 else must it be known except to him who calls himself 
 Colone] Barbarini, in case you should think that what I 
 have intrusted to your honor and discretion may facili- 
 tate the success of your undertaking, although I am 
 sorry to say I do not expect for it any favorable issue.” 
 On leaving the consul’s office in Royal street, Gabriel 
 crossed Canal, and entered St. Charles street, up which 
 he walked slowly and wrapped in meditation. He 
 looked very different from what he did the day before. 
 There was no longer any agitation in his manner. He was 
 calm, entirely master of himself, and the expression of 
 his face was that of thoughtful resolution. Whatever 
 his determination, his mind was made up to accomplish 
 it, and inflexibility of purpose always cools aman. It 
 
438 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 steels the nerves and regulates the pulsations of the 
 blood. Arriving at the splendid mansion in which re- 
 sided Gen. C ——, he rang: the bell. It was twelve 
 o'clock. To the servant who answered his summons 
 he handed a ecard, which he requested to be carried to 
 Colonel Barbarini. He was ushered into a magnificent 
 saloon, in which the most conspicuous object was a full 
 size oil portrait of President Abraham Lincoln, and 
 where he was left alone. In a few minutes Colonel 
 Barbarini made his appearance. He advanced within 
 afew steps of Gabriel, and, bowing with formal courtesy, 
 said : 
 
 ‘‘“T am happy to see Captain Gabriel, whatever may 
 be the business which brings him here,” and, pointing 
 to a seat, he took one for himself. 
 
 It was impossible for any one to meet Colonel Bar- 
 barini, without being at once impressed, if not favorably 
 to his character, at least with the striking and innate 
 air of distinction with which his whole person seemed 
 to be impregnated, not because he was a truly magnifi- 
 cent specimen of mortality in his physical proportions, 
 but rather on account of a certain high bred reserve 
 which enveloped him as his natural atmosphere, and 
 which was not destitute of a mysterious sort of at- 
 traction. Although exquisitely polite, those with whom 
 he was most familiar, after his fashion of familiarity, 
 were kept at a distance without their knowing exactly 
 how, and without the possibility of their being offended. 
 Whatever he was to women, who all spoke enthusiasti- 
 cally of his elegance of manner and genial warmth of 
 feeling, to men he was coldly bland, and intense pride 
 peeped through the velvet mask which he cast over it. 
 Even his military associates, or his boon companions, had 
 never been able to detect an unguarded moment of re- 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 439 
 
 axation in his dignified urbanity. He had established 
 around himse:f an invisible barrier, beyond which the 
 closest intimacy could not venture to penetrate. There 
 was, however, something sinister on that smooth and 
 noble brow, and in those sedate dark eyes which, like 
 the ocean when unruffled, seemed to grow deeper and 
 deeper.and more unfathomable under your gaze. 
 Nature had put. there an indescribable mark, which 
 would not have escaped an attentive observer, and 
 which would have said to him: beware. There is a sort 
 of Olympian boldness of depravity which may, at 
 times, awe virtue itself into confusion, and Gabriel was 
 not proof against the snake-like fascination which he 
 felt creeping over his faculties in the presence of the 
 man he had sought, and he was vexed at this unexpect- 
 ed sensation. He soon rallied, however, and, in answer 
 to the courteous phrase which had been addressed to 
 him with some stateliness of manner, he said: 
 
 “You have guessed right, sir. I could have no 
 reason to call on Colonel Barbarini except on business, 
 and on business of an important nature.” 
 
 ‘“¢' Whatever may be the nature of that business,” re- 
 plied Barbarini, “‘ Captain Gabriel may be sure that it . 
 will afford me pleasure to gratify him, if possible.” 
 
 “ May it be so,” continued Gabriel, “but, before pro- 
 ceeding any further, and that we may come at once to 
 a correct understanding of our respective position, and 
 of the subject of which we have to treat together, it is 
 better that all disguise should be dropped. Hence I 
 ask your permission to say to you at once that I have 
 not called on Colonel Barbarini, and that I have noth- 
 ing to do with such a personage.” 
 
 “You speak in riddles, sir,’ said Barbarini, and his 
 piercing look seemed to endeavor to penetrate the hid- 
 
440 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 den meaning of those strange words. He was not long 
 kept in suspense. 
 
 “ No, sir,” continued Gabriel, ‘‘ I do not address here 
 Ludovico Barbarini, but Carlo Visconti, prince of Mas- 
 sarino.” 
 
 A slight manifestation of surprise, which was imme- 
 diately checked, a transient compression of the lips, was 
 all that he could discover in the individual on whom 
 his eyes were intently fixed. A moment of silence en- 
 sued. DBarbarini was the first to brealkx it. 
 
 “ Pray, Captain Gabriel,” he said with the utmost 
 composure, “ what excuse will you give me for this pry- 
 ing into the affairs of an utter stranger to you?’ 
 
 “No excuse whatever, prince of Massarino; I am 
 
 only exercising a right. You will understand it, when 
 I inform you that I am the intimate friend and the 
 sworn protector of the Dabney family.” 
 “fa, ha! I see it all,” said the Italian elevating his 
 eye-brows superciliously ; “‘I see through it all at one 
 glance. You are, my good sir, on a Quixotic expedi- ° 
 tion, eh? I have before me a paladin of romance, a 
 redresser of wrongs.” 
 
 “T regret to see, sir,” replied Gabriel, “ that you are 
 disposed to treat with such levity the mission which I 
 thought it my duty to assume as a man of honor. I 
 had come here with the hope, a faint one, I confess, 
 that a prince of the illustrious house of Visconti, re- 
 membering what is due to himself, to his lineage and to 
 his rank, when made aware that he is known, and on 
 an appeal being addressed to a conscience which might 
 not be entirely callous, and which might wake up to a 
 sense of justice and virtue, would not choose to remain 
 guilty of the perpetration of wrongs which it is never 
 too late to repair.” } 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 441 
 
 “J warn you,” said Barbarini, for I shall continue to | 
 give him that name, “I warn you that [ prefer the 
 paladin to the preacher.” 
 
 ** Be it so,” was the answer, “and I warn you, in my 
 turn, that I prefer the gentleman to the prince, and I 
 regret to find them not united in Ludovico Barbarini, 
 colonel of a regiment of cavalry, and disgracing the 
 epaulettes which he wears.” 
 
 Ludovico Barbarini rose from his seat without be- 
 traying any emotion, and, with a voice in which there 
 could only be detected a slight fastidiousness of tone, 
 said: “ You must be aware, Captain Gabriel, of the 
 late Confederate Army, that such a remark closes at 
 once our present interview. I understand you, of course, 
 to invite me to another, in a different place. Shall I 
 have the honor to re-conduct you to the front door ?” 
 To the front door both went, and bowed courteously to 
 each other as they parted. — 
 
 In the evening of that day, one of the largest and 
 finest houses of the city was illuminated, in consequence 
 of a sumptuous entertainment given to her friends by 
 Miss Sarah Butler. She was living with her mother 
 and a married sister. Although possessing great wealth 
 and having had of course many suitors, she had re- 
 mained single. Perhaps, as she exaggerated her home- 
 liness, she imagined that all those who approached her 
 for matrimonial purposes were fortune hunters. Per- 
 haps she was right, perhaps she was wrong ; for, if she 
 had no personal beauty, she was not repulsive, and she 
 certainly had moral and intellectual qualifications which 
 might have won the heart of a man of worth, possess- 
 ing a correct appreciation of excellence in woman. But_ 
 she had persistently rejected all offers, numerous as they 
 were, and, at the time when the incidents I am relat- 
 
 19* 
 
442 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 ing were taking place, she was about thirty-five years 
 old. She was a strict Presbyterian, but eclectic in her 
 charities. Few knew the whole extent of the good 
 which she did in secret. The clock of the cathedral 
 had just struck twelve, when Gabriel.entered one of 
 the magnificently lighted apartments. The first per- 
 son he met was Miss Sarah, who came to him with 
 a manifestation of warm and affectionate yreeting, say- 
 ing in a playfully reproachful manner : 
 
 ‘Why so late, sir knight? Many belles have been 
 looking round for you, and missing you sadly.” 
 
 “The loss is mine,” answered Gabriel. ‘“ But I have 
 been spending the evening with the Dabneys. Jane, 
 alas, is fast growing worse, and will not be long of this 
 world. Perhaps, after all, it is the best thing that 
 could happen to her.” 
 
 “How thankful I should be to you, Gabriel,” said 
 Miss Sarah, ‘‘ for having made me acquainted with your 
 suffering friends, were it not so difficult to relieve 
 them. But Mrs. Dabney is one whom it is impossible 
 to put under the slightest obligation. She is so over- 
 sensitive! She refuses the gifts of friendship, under 
 the apprehension that they may be alms, It is so pain- 
 fully shocking to know that, sick as she is, she works 
 so hard, and will not forbid that stout-hearted boy, 
 Willie, to be boot-blacking under the portico of the St. 
 Charles Hotel! You must scold her, indeed you must.” 
 
 “Not I, surely, gentle lady. Ladmire Mrs. Dabney’s 
 resolution too much for that, although I regret it for 
 your sake and mine. But do you conceive, Miss Sarah,” 
 said he, sinking his voice into a tremulous whisper, 
 “can you realize all the keenness and bitterness of the 
 torture which lies in the bare idea of being an object 
 of charity ?’ 
 
F.tiRNANDO DE LEMOS. 443 
 
 “ Ah! naughty boy,” said the lady, looking at him 
 with the complacency of maternal fondness, “you are 
 too proud yourself. This pride is in our very blood— 
 the warm Southern blood of Louisiana. But, my friend, 
 pride is sinful. After all, the meaning of the word 
 charity may be misunderstood, or misapplied. Why 
 should there be any thing humiliating in being what is 
 called an object of charity, or the occasion for the ex- 
 ercise of benevolence? If I have more than I need, 
 why should I not divide it with those whom it may 
 benefit? Why should they refuse their just share in the 
 inheritance of the goods of this world, when tendered 
 to them? Those who accept from me what I can 
 spare, amply repay me by the pleasure which I am per- 
 mitted to derive from their acceptance.” | 
 
 “This is nobly thought and nobly expressed,” replied 
 Gabriel, ‘‘and it is worthy of you, but still, in your 
 heart of hearts, I know there is someting that responds 
 to the delicacy of Mrs. Dabney’s feelings—is there 
 not ?” 
 
 “ Well, well, Gabriel,” answered the lady, evading 
 so direct a question, “you are so fond of contradicting 
 me! Instead of teasing me in this way with all this 
 nonsense, you must come to my assistance. We must 
 enter into a regular conspiracy against the pride of 
 Mrs. Dabney; we must tax our ingenuity to find out 
 something that may be acceptable. It is too harrowing 
 to think of the condition of that poor family, particu- 
 larly in the midst of this scene of gayety! It throws 
 a funeral pall over it. I reproach myself with all this , 
 display of opulence, when I remember that, not far from 
 here, there is a mother hard at work for the bread of 
 to-morrow.” ‘This was said with an earnestness which 
 showed the depth of her feelings. 
 
444. FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 “Really, Miss Sarah,’ whispered Gabriel, “do you 
 know that you are the loveliest woman I have ever 
 seen, although you are always talking about your being 
 a fright? Your soul embellishes your whole person 
 like yonder light shining through the transparent sub- 
 stance of that alabaster vase. Do you want to make 
 me fall like a lover at your feet?” 
 
 Oh, no,” said the lady, laughing, “my days of ro- 
 mance, if ever I had any, are past never to come back. 
 I will not, by entrapping you, break so many hearts 
 younger than mine. Besides, lovers are not to be trusted, 
 but friends are, and to friends secrets are told. I have 
 -one for you. Give me your arm, and lead me to yon- 
 der vacant sofa. That’s right. Now, sit by me, and 
 look as grave and wise as some hoary minister of 
 state who is to be consulted by some inexperienced 
 queen—old Cecil Burleigh, for instance, and Elizabeth 
 of England. 
 
 “Let the queen speak,” said Gabriel, with a smile, 
 “the octogenarian wisdom of her loyal subject is at her 
 service.” 
 
 “Well, then, to the point, Mr. Counsellor; let us 
 lose no time, for you are wanted for the next cotillion.” 
 
 ‘“‘T occupy the seat of honor here, and I am not in a 
 hurry to relinquish it, I am sure.” 
 
 “ Flatterer!” exclaimed Sarah, “I see that, young as 
 you are, you could play the courtier as well as any 
 Leicester, or Essex. But let us beserious. Fifteen thou- 
 sand dollars diverted from my very ample fortune will 
 hardly be missed, and would not be much, if taken 
 away from those expectations which my family may 
 legitimately entertain, and which I ought not to disap- 
 point. What would you say, if I provided for your 
 little favorite, Mary, and settled that sum on her? 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 445 
 
 Would Mrs. Dabney consider it a humiliating charity ? 
 Would she refuse it ?” 
 
 “T say,” spoke Gabriel, transported with joy and 
 amazed at the liberality of the donation, “ that you are 
 an angel, and that it would be impious to refuse an an- 
 gel’s gifts.” 
 
 “Then it is all settled,” added the generous benefac- 
 tress, giving him a slight tap on the shoulder with her 
 fan, “‘and I appoint you my minister plenipotentiary 
 for that negotiation. Now, I dismiss you, and I send 
 you to court yonder beautiful fairies, who have a better 
 title to your compliments than an old maid.” 
 
 She rose to shake hands with a venerable looking old 
 gentleman, who, thinking it was time for him to retire, 
 was seeking for her.to take leave. An artist would 
 have been delighted to paint that. magnificent head 
 crowned with long locks of hair as white as snow, 
 which fell down on his shoulders, and which were an 
 appropriate frame for a countenance beaming with be- 
 nevolence. He was one of the elders and pillars of her 
 church. As he approached, Gabriel leaped from his 
 seat with a buoyant heart and joined in the dance. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 THE O1D SPANIARD ALVAREZ.—A CHAPTER ON IMPULSES. 
 
 On the following morning, you must accompany me, 
 gentle or ungentle reader, to a princely house on Ram- 
 part street occupied by a Spaniard, called Pedro Alva- 
 rez, who, as a merchant, had made a large fortune in 
 New Orleans. He was a childless widower, and had 
 reached the age of sixty. So honorable had been all 
 his mercantile transactions during more than a quarter 
 of a century, that the most envious malignity had not 
 dared to throw on his character the slightest aspersion. 
 He was a type of the old Castilian, as generous as a 
 prince, or as a prince should be, and had always been as 
 punctilious on points of honor as a knight-errant. He 
 had reconciled two things apparently irreconcilable, 
 chivalry and commerce. ‘There never had been an ap- 
 plication made in vain to him for any benevolent or 
 scientific contribution, unless by a priest, or a mathema- 
 tician. He had a thorough antipathy for these two 
 classes of men, and how they came to be thus united in 
 his deep and relentless aversion has always remained a 
 mystery. It is hard to imagine what connection there 
 may have been in his mind between these two objects 
 of his detestation. It must have been a monomania. 
 Who is without a monomania of some sort or other, 
 
 patent; or secret? ‘“ Priests,’ he used to say, “have 
 (446) 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 447 
 
 very little in common with the religion which they 
 preach. Religion is love, religion is charity, and those 
 priests always beg, but never give. Who ever saw-a 
 priest cross the open palm of a beggar’s hand with a 
 piece of silver? Not I, faith! They grab right and 
 left, but always for themselves.” He had another pe- 
 culiarity. He never went to church, but he never al- 
 lowed a day to pass without reading a chapter of the 
 New Testament. He sometimes muttered between his 
 teeth this passage of the Gospel where Christ says : *‘ And 
 when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites 
 are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues 
 and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen 
 of men. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy 
 closet, and when thou hast shut the door, pray to thy 
 Father which is in secret.” As to mathematicians, he 
 was equally severe on them. They would, as he main- 
 tained, reduce all the operations of the brain to algebraic 
 calculations, if they could. ‘ Out upon them,” he exclaim- 
 ed with indignation.’ “ Have they not the presumption 
 to assimilate themselves to God, and to say that He is 
 only the greatest of them all? Pshaw! Algebra, geome- 
 try and trigonometry are their Holy Trinity.” 
 
 ‘“‘ Be sure of it, sir,” he would sometimes say to a 
 friend who, amused at his theological eccentricities, 
 would occasionally draw him out on the subject, “ the 
 universe is nothing but a big heart of which God is the 
 centre, and the palpitations of which are so many im- 
 pulses which carry life and motion throughout the in- 
 finite. That is the reason why God is ineffably good. 
 All impulses originate in God, who is the primitive, 
 the self-sufficient, the self-producing impulse. What are 
 the physical laws of nature? They are defined as the 
 invariable tendencies and determinations of any species 
 
448 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 of matter to a particular form, or to certain motions, 
 changes and relations which unfold themselves in the 
 same circumstances. Well, can you understand a ten- 
 dency, a course, a determination, a motion, without an 
 impulse ? What is mind? Is it a receptacle of ideas com- 
 municated or imparted? If so, how can there be any 
 communicating or imparting, without something that 
 is transferred, and how can there be any transfer 
 without motion, and any motion without an impulse ? 
 Or, is mind a mere ethereal and perennial source emit- 
 ting from its depths innate conceptions or thoughts 4 
 If so, how can there be any thing emitted or shot forth 
 without the spring of impulse? Hence nature is all 
 impulse and action, nothing but an agglomeration, or 
 rather a concatenation, of impulses descending from 
 God to the worm through the whole chain of created 
 things. Even mathematicians have impulses, although 
 half developed, because. they are made of stuff which 
 is but a poor conductor of the required electricity. 
 Why, sir, I speak advisedly on the subject ; whenever 
 I pretended to reason and calculate before acting, I 
 went astray. All my success in life came from im- 
 pulse, and all my failures from what men are so proud 
 of—reason—or what is so called. It is a fact, although 
 it may sound nonsensical, or paradoxical. Facts are 
 facts; they are as hard as adamant. My trading oper- 
 ations or speculations were mere impulses, and, never- 
 theless, I am worth five hundred thousand dollars. 
 Instinct or impulse is a good pointer ; its setting is al- 
 most infallible; it starts the true game, and not the snake 
 in the grass. Cold-blooded calculation in affairs of this 
 life is nothing but a mischievous and implacable logi- 
 cian. The moment a man betakes himself to caleulat- 
 ing, he is on the high road to rascality. All impulses, 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 449 
 
 generally speaking, are noble, because they are of God ; 
 whilst all those world-wise calculations which check the 
 impulses of the soul are bad, because of the devil. 
 Show me a grand, a sublime action in history which 
 did not come from impulse, and in which there was 
 not a complete absence of reasoning, or calculation. 
 Every act of heroism is a piece of nonsense, and yet it 
 draws tears of admiration! Even St. Paul tells us that 
 the preaching of the gospel is ‘ foolishness.’ When a 
 man is in the habit of saying; £ calculate that Pll do 
 this, or I'll do that, set him down at once for a -knave. 
 Hence I like impulsive men and impulsive nations. 
 The greatest were the most impulsive—such as the 
 people of Greece, Italy, France, and particularly Spain 
 —a country where, when the national fibre is touched 
 even by the prick of a pin, the whole nation will spring 
 up to arms in an instant, without previous concert, and 
 without thinking of the effect it may have on the rise 
 or fall of stocks, or on the sale of dry-goods. Look at 
 the women, they are a thousand times better than we 
 are. No one who ever knew his mother will deny 
 that. And why are they better? Because, as a gen- 
 eral rule, they don’t reason, or calculate. They only 
 feel, and that’s enough. Thank God, they are not logi- 
 cians; they act merely from impulse. Whenever a 
 woman reasons, she is lost at once. She becomes strong- 
 minded, and a strong-minded woman, sir, is Antichrist 
 himself.” 
 
 Some of the every-day acts of Alvarez in ordinary 
 life were as eccentric as his metaphysical and _ philo- 
 sophical doctrines. or instance, he had gradually 
 withdrawn from commerce, and yet he still kept his 
 counting-house as before, and three or four clerks who 
 did nothing but pick their teeth from morning to night. 
 
450 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 This sort of business was certainly far from producing 
 enough to pay their wages and the rent of the store. 
 ‘¢ Poor things,’ Alvarez was once heard to say in relation 
 to these clerks, ‘I do not exactly need them, but then 
 they have families to support.” At 11 o’clock, every 
 day, except Sundays of course, old Alvarez, very 
 sprucely dressed, with a glossy hat and shining patent 
 leather shoes, for he was very precise on these points, 
 would, with the utmost punctuality, make his appear- 
 ance at his counting-house, read the newspapers, smoke 
 four or five of the purest Havanas, converse with some 
 friends, who dropped in, peruse and dictate a few letters, 
 and, at two, the business of the day was over. He — 
 would slowly wend his way home, never failing to stop, 
 during warm weather, at the same soda shop, to take a 
 glass of that refreshing beverage. 
 
 On the morning which I have mentioned, old Alva- 
 rez had just finished his breakfast and was taking his 
 last bumper of malaga, when Gabriel opened the door 
 of the apartment with the familiarity and assurance of 
 one who knew that he could rely on a hearty welcome, 
 and saluted him with a “ Good morning, most worthy 
 and excellent sir; glad to see you looking so well.” 
 
 “Ah! Dearest son of a dear friend, why did you 
 not come soon enough to enliven the breakfast of the 
 solitary old man?” said Alvarez, and he folded the 
 youth caressingly in his arms. “It is not too late, , 
 though, to take a glass of pure malaga. It is sound to 
 the core, and will not sour on your stomach like those 
 thin adulterated French wines.” 
 
 “Thank you, not any for the present,” replied Ga- 
 briel. “I have something of importance to communi- 
 cate to you. Can you give me half an hour?” 
 
 “And why not, carissimo hijo mio?* The whole 
 
 * My dearest son. 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 451 
 
 day, if you need it. But how is my much esteemed 
 and much loved friend, General b ” 
 
 * Well, I hope; for I have not heard from him since 
 his late departure from New Orleans, and it is because 
 he is absent that I come to you as to a second father.” 
 
 “This is speaking, child, like thy father’s son, and I 
 like thee the better for it.” 
 
 Gabriel took a seat by the old man, and remained 
 pensive for a moment, whilst his companion was con- 
 templating him with an expression of paternal fondness. 
 “Sir,” said he, ‘I have taken the liberty to eall thus 
 early, because I have things which I wish you to say 
 to my father, in case I see him no more, for I have a 
 duel to-day.” 
 
 “Heavens! What do you say?” exclaimed the 
 Spaniard springing from his easy arm-chair with all the 
 impetuosity of a young man; “and who in this com- 
 munity will dare to raise his arm against the son of 
 General B ¢ It must be some felon, whom it is 
 impossible that-you should meet on a footing of equality. 
 I will have this affair stopped immediately.” 
 
 “Pray, my venerated friend, listen to me, and be 
 composed. This thing cannot be stopped. I must re- 
 late to you all the particulars, so that you may repeat 
 them to my father, if I fall. Otherwise, I would have 
 spared you this interview and the anxieties which it 
 will cause you.” 
 
 Gabriel first related his meeting the little boot-black 
 at the portico of the St. Charles Hotel, and then his 
 subsequent discovery of the miserable condition of the 
 Dabney family. 
 
 * And you did not come to me!” said Alvarez in a 
 reproachful tone. 
 
 “Pardon me, I had no appeal to make to your 
 
 
 
 
 
452 _ FERNANDO DE- LEMOS. 
 
 generosity, for Mrs. Dabney would receive no assist- 
 ance.” 
 
 Gabriel went on relating all that we already know, 
 with the exception of mentioning the rank and the 
 true name of Ludovico Barbarini, and other particulars 
 concerning that individual which he had promised the 
 Italian consul to keep to himself. 
 
 “This is a sad story,” said the Spaniard, when Ga- 
 briel had abuel “and the sadder because you are going 
 to risk your life against that of a scoundrel. I do not 
 well see, however, how it can be prevented. But, by 
 the by, my young friend, do you not see here the beau- 
 tiful effects of impulses? In the self-sacrificing Dabney 
 ‘on the battle-field, in the sensitive and proud mother 
 working herself to death for her children and refusing 
 assistance,’ in the deserted young wife dying of grief, 
 in the boy Willie supporting bravely his family with 
 his shoe brush, in the lovely little Mary prattling and 
 praying so touchingly, and reading to you the bloody 
 letter, in your own self coming to the rescue and beard- 
 ing that Italian bandit in his den, in your friend Sarah 
 Butler, God bless her, who opens her purse so magnifi- 
 cently for the relief of distress, what is there but a. 
 chain of impulses, the upper. end of which is in the 
 hand of the Ruler of the universe, and the whole of 
 which is working as He directs.” 
 
 “Then,” said Gabriel smiling, “ Barbarini’s conduct 
 must have proceeded merely from bad impulses, and he 
 can hardly be responsible for ... .” 
 
 ‘““ No, no, sir,’ exclaimed the old Spaniard fiercely, 
 and striking a heavy blow with his fist on the breakfast- 
 table, ‘all impulses are from a Divine source. God 
 never made a rogue or a rascal. But this fellow Bar- 
 barini, depend on it, reasoned too much; he argued, 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 453 
 
 he debated. within himself, be calculated, and, with all 
 the additions, subtractions, multiplications and divisions 
 which he made on the tablet of his brain, about what 
 he had, or had not, the right to do for the gratification 
 of his beastly appetites, he arrived at the result of being 
 a rascal. That was the solution of the problem. I will 
 wager something that he is a Jesuit, or a mathemati- 
 cian.” 
 
 *‘T will take up your bet on another day,’ said Gab- 
 riel, ‘ but, for the present, I must content myself with 
 taking leave of you and embracing you perhaps for the 
 last time. The hour appointed for the hostile meeting 
 approaches, and my second waits for me near the Or- 
 leans Theatre, where there is, as you know, a spacious 
 ball-room, which we have selected as suiting our pur- 
 pose, and which will be ready to receive us at twelve 
 o'clock.” 
 
 “Stop, we have almost an hour before us,” said Al- 
 varez, pulling out his watch. “ Let us settle a little 
 piece of business before we depart, for with you I go, 
 as I am determined to see this affair through.” He 
 went to an escritoir which was in a corner of the room, 
 opened it, wrote a few lines on a scrap of paper, and 
 returning to Gabriel, “‘ My child,” he said, “ I am some- 
 what superstitious. All impulsive men are so. I be- 
 lieve that those who bring good luck to others have 
 good luck for themselves, and I want you to have luck 
 this morning, when you cross swords with that adver- 
 sary of yours. You had iuck yesterday for Mary, and 
 you shall have luck to-day for Willie. I want to crowd 
 your hands with the very best cards, and make you win 
 the game when that Italian stands in front of you with 
 nothing but his rascality in his breeches to meet your 
 trumps. Here,” continued he, giving to Gabriel the 
 
454 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 paper he held between the index and the thumb, “ here 
 is a check for ten thousand dollars, to raise and educate 
 your little boot-black ; put it in your pocket, and let it 
 be a spell to ward off the point of the devil’s weapon, 
 when directed against your breast. Let your arm be 
 nerved by the idea that you have such good news to 
 carry to Mrs. Dabney. Pin the Italian to the wall like 
 a vile insect, which he is.” 
 
 Gabriel threw his arms round the neck of Alvarez 
 and kissed him on both cheeks. ‘ Don’t thank me so 
 much,” said the latter. “Jt is not worth it. I am 
 paying a mere debt, after all. I have been more than 
 once plundered by those Yankees, and I owe them a 
 erudge for that. I hate them—they are a close caleu- 
 lating race—all, mathematicians—every one of them— 
 creatures without impulses—nature’s unfinished, incom- 
 plete work—physiological abortions—all brain and no 
 heart. I would, at any time, have paid half-a-dollar 
 per head to have those canting blue-nosed puritans 
 swept out of this world, which they would, if they 
 could, turn into a vast steam-factory of bags of money 
 and tons of isms of all sorts; and, as I suppose that 
 your father must be responsible for having sent at least 
 twenty thousand of them, to show their ledgers and 
 books of accounts to the Supreme Judge, I owe him 
 ten thousand dollars for it, which I pay to you as his 
 representative.” ’ 
 
 “ Bah!” said Gabriel, laughing, “I know you better 
 than you do yourself. You can not impose on me. If 
 you saw a regiment of wounded and starving Yankees 
 on the ground, you would let go another check of ten 
 thousand dollars for their relief. It would be your 
 impulse, and I should admire you and love you the 
 more for it, father.” 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 455 
 
 ‘Tut! tut!” said the old man, “you are too soft, too 
 lenient, Gabriel, and I am a great deal worse than you 
 think. Yes,’ he continued with animation, “I would 
 have fought those Yankees until dooms-day. We, Span- 
 jiards, never yield. Cantabri indomiti :—the indomi- 
 table Cantabrians—is it not so that it runs in Horace? 
 Your memory is better than mine, and you are fresh 
 from Alma Mater. Well, well—but those of our race are 
 impulsive, you see, and these people here are a reason- 
 ing, philosophic set. Perhaps,” he added with a slight 
 sarcastic tone, “it is better for your commercial pros- 
 perity and worldly welfare that you should be as you 
 are. Every man to his impulses, or his nature, or his 
 training, like any other animal, and God’s will be done.” 
 His own impulse at that particular moment was to take 
 his hat, and to wind his right arm around Gabriel’s 
 left, saying: “ Let us go to the New Orleans ball-room. 
 It is time. But, Gabriel, those Northern country-men 
 of yours, seriously speaking, are a very exceptional set 
 among the sons of Adam. Ask any other man but a 
 Yankee whether white is black, and that man’s first 
 impulse will be tosay: No. Notso witha Yankee. He 
 will reason himself and will try to reason others into the 
 belief that black is white.” Thus talking, he had reach- 
 ed the street with his youthful companion. ‘“ Pietro,” 
 he said, addressing a servant who had accompanied 
 them to the front door, and who was going to close it, 
 * Pietro, leave the bottle of malaga on the table, and 
 have two clean glasses ready. I will shortly bring 
 Gabriel home with me.” 
 
CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 4 DUEL. — COLONEL LUDOVICO BARBARINI DIES LIKE A. 
 PRINCE. s 
 
 Av the corner of Bourbon and Orleans streets, Gab- 
 riel, accompanied by Alvarez, met his second, who was 
 waiting for him. The three gentlemen walked together 
 to St. Anne street, and, turning into it in the direction 
 of the river, soon stood before a massive door of di- 
 lapidated appearance. On three measured taps being 
 given, it turned noiselessly on its hinges, and Gabriel 
 with his companion entered into a dark ante-room, and 
 looked in vain for the person who had given them ad- 
 mittance. He was no where to be seen. They trod 
 their way through several gloomy passages which seem- 
 ed to be known to Gabriel, and, after going through 
 more than one large and empty apartments, they at 
 last reached the ball-room, which-fronts on Orleans 
 street. It had been in better days the Almack of the 
 city, where fashion, beauty and wealth had delighted 
 to meet. Zhere had been the gorgeous revels of taste 
 and opulence, the remembrance of which still dwells in 
 the land; there had been the night-protracted dance 
 until the early morn, the gayety of the sparkling goblet 
 and flower-decorated banquet, the fascination of social 
 intercourse enlivened by wit and refined by elegance of 
 manner ; there had been the bewitching strains of soul- 
 
 stirring music; there the warm atmosphere of love, the 
 (456) 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 457 
 
 glee laugh of pleasure and the pent-up emotions of the 
 heart palpitating under its panoply of velvet, silk and 
 lace. So much for the former splendor of this magic 
 hall of fairy-like memories. Now that splendor had 
 departed, and left no vestige of the past ; owls seemed 
 to dwell in the solitude from which the gay birds of 
 paradise had fled. Occasionally, it was still used at 
 night for political meetings, or for some entertainment 
 or other of a plebeian nature; and, in the day, more 
 than one duel had been fought within its dingy and 
 mournful walls. Ludovico Barbarini and a friend were 
 already on the spot. Another individual was present ; 
 it was a well-known surgeon of the city with his omin- 
 ous box of tools. The new comers bowed gravely to 
 the party which they found in possession of the room, 
 and the seconds of Gabriel and Ludovico, after exam- 
 ining the swords which were to be used by the combat- 
 ants and measuring their length, handed them to those 
 for whom they had been brought. Whilst Gabriel and 
 Ludovico had taken their position in- front of each 
 other, and, in order to feel each other’s skill and power 
 of muscles, were skirmishing with slight passes like 
 good swordsmen, which they both were, old Alvarez, 
 concealing his emotion under a calm exterior, and re- 
 tiring into the embrasure of a heavily curtained win- 
 dow, clasped his hands together, and, raising his eyes 
 to Heaven, said: ““O God! O Almighty self-originat- 
 ‘ ing impulse, supreme mover and ruler of the universe, 
 grant that this young man escape unhurt from the peril 
 _ which threatens him, and I will, before the close of this 
 day, give ten thousand dollars to the Charity Hospital, 
 where the poor whom Thou lovest, and the sorrow and 
 disease-stricken whom Thou pitiest, are waiting for 
 
 relief.” 
 2() 
 
458 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 He had hardly uttered these words, when he was 
 startled by a fierce clashing of swords, which showed 
 that the conflict had become more animated. The two ad- 
 versaries were about equally matched, Gabriel was more 
 agile ; Ludovico more robust. Thrusts were parried with 
 ‘the same vigor and rapidity with which they were given. 
 Now Gabriel pressed on Ludovico with such impetu- 
 osity as to drive him to the opposite wall, and now Lu- 
 dovico, returning the fury of the attack, compelled 
 Gabriel in his turn to retreat. So swift were the wea- 
 pons, that they gleamed like streaks of lightning, and 
 entwined like snakes shooting in anger their forked 
 tongues of fire. Most expert must the two adversaries 
 have been in the noble art of attack and defence, for 
 five minutes had elapsed without any wound being 
 inflicted. The experienced eye of Gabriel’s second 
 detected incipient fatigue in his friend, and said: 
 “ According to the stipulations made and accepted for 
 this meeting, the parties are now at liberty to rest.” 
 They stopped, and separated with a courteous bow. 
 Gabriel went to Alvarez, who shook his hand warmly 
 and spoke to nim words of encouragement. “My 
 young frend,” he said, “I am proud of you. The Cid 
 himself -couid not have fought better. Rest yourself 
 thoroughly, and, when you begin again, gird up all 
 your energy and strength, think of the wrongs of dying 
 Jane aud “f the rascality of this superb bandit, and 
 throw ycur whole soul into one mighty impulse—then, 
 one leap svward—one single blow at him from the very 
 depth of your heart—and he will fall dead under the 
 thuniervwit of your ees ons and irresistible arm, just- 
 ly raised to punish crime.’ 
 
 sis .v Ludovico, he had sauntered leisurely to a large 
 mirror at the extremity of the room, before which, 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 459 
 
 with the utmost composure and complacency, he drew 
 himself up to his full height, displaying the magnificent, 
 harmonious proportions of an Apollo, and trying, as it 
 were, the elasticity of his muscles. He was in a civil- 
 ian’s dress of exquisite taste and elegance. After a 
 little while, he walked back to the centre of the room 
 where the swords had remained deposited on a chair; 
 and to Gabriel, who was approaching, he said in the 
 tone of one who was receiving a favor: ‘I thank you, 
 for the pleasant exercise you have afforded me. Shall 
 we resume it ?”’- Gabriel assented with a nod, and took 
 up his sword. This time, Alvarez came out of his 
 hiding place behind the curtain in the recess of the 
 window, and, planting himself near Gabriel, fixed his 
 eyes on Ludovico. Evidently the aged Spaniard had 
 yielded to one of those impulses of which he loved so 
 much to talk; for no tigress ever glared with a more 
 deadly look at the hunter threatening her cubs, than he 
 did at Ludovico. When the two swords again struck 
 each other, it was with an angry clang which showed 
 that they were put to the utmost of their mettle, and 
 which indicated that, this time, the fatal struggle would 
 be violent and short. Whirling his sword closely round 
 the blade of Gabriel along which it glided onward, Lu- 
 dovico threw himself on his antagonist with the whole 
 weight of his body. Fortunately this impetuous thrust, 
 which Gabriel could not parry, only grazed his breast, 
 and, ripping up his vest, carried out of its side pocket 
 the check of Alvarez for Willie. Whilst Gabriel had 
 staggered back under the force of the blow, Ludovico 
 had resumed safely a defensive position, and said calm- 
 ly to Gabriel: ‘“ You have dropped, I believe some 
 love message.” Alvarez stooped to pick up the paper, 
 and, as he rose, whispered to Gabriel: “ Now, my son, 
 
460 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 is your turn for a full blooded heroic impulse and a 
 thrust worthy of it.” When putting himself again on his 
 guard, Gabriel did not cross his sword as before with 
 that of his antagonist, but, stepping back, kept it at the 
 distance of about five inches from the point of the 
 other weapon. “ Ha, ha!” said Ludovico with a sneer, 
 “you are becoming prudent.” ‘‘ Perhaps,” replied 
 Gabriel, and he retreated as Ludovico advanced, still 
 keeping his sword disengaged, but, when he came within 
 two feet of the wall to which he was pushed, he sprang 
 forward with a long leap, and his sword, hugging the 
 adverse one, which it mastered as it sped along the 
 shining blade with the velocity of electricity, buried 
 itself into Barbarini’s breast to the very hilt. Alvarez 
 caught Gabriel in his arms, and hurried him away, re- 
 peating several times to himself: “I knew that impulse 
 would carry the day.” 
 
 Night had come, and Gabriel was pacing his room 
 with uneasy steps. The fact is, that it was hardly 
 possible for him not to feel a little nervous after what 
 had happened a few hours before. He was no professed 
 duellist, and the idea of suddenly sending out of this 
 world a fellow-being, however wicked he may be, is not 
 a comfortable one to everybody. It is true, Gabriel 
 felt that he had been the mere instrument of deserved 
 punishment, but still there was something, way down 
 at the bottom of his heart, which made him wish that 
 it had been otherwise. According to usage among 
 gentlemen following the traditions of the old regime on 
 such occasions, he had sent his compliments to Colonel 
 Barbarini with courteous inquiries about the condition 
 in which he was. It must be confessed that Gabriel 
 was in astate of mind which made solitude particularly 
 irksome, and it was not without a feeling of relief that 
 
FERNANDO DE. LEMOS. 461 
 
 he heard footsteps ascending the staircase which led to 
 his room. The door opened and his messenger entered. 
 It was the same gentleman who had acted as his secorid 
 in the morning, 
 
 ** Gabriel,” he said, ‘‘ Colonel Barbarini is not expect- 
 ed to see the light of to-morrow’s sun. He expressed 
 his appreciation of your high-bred courtesy, and re- 
 quested me to carry to you his very anxious desire to 
 see you immediately.” 
 
 “To see me!” exclaimed Gabriel, greatly astonished. 
 
 “Yes. He repeated twice that he would consider 
 it a aaNpe> which he was sure you would not refuse 
 him.” : 
 
 “Oertainly not,” replied Gabriel, “ although ib can- 
 not but think that it isa strange request. The inter- 
 view will be painful to both, assuredly to me at least. 
 But, of course, go I must.” 
 
 Half an hour afterward he was entering the chamber 
 of Colonel Barbarini. He was evidently expected ; 
 for as soon as he made his appearance, two Federal 
 officers who were sitting by the bed of the wounded 
 man rose and retired, as if it had been preconcerted. 
 Fidelio, the Italian servant of the colonel, remained 
 motionless at some distance. The room was dimly 
 lighted, and the gloom which pervaded it, combined 
 with the knowledge that death was at hand, increased 
 the weight which was on Gabriel’s soul. 
 
 fal heg you, sir,” said Barbarini to him with a feeble 
 voice, “to accept my acknowledgments for this kind 
 compliance on your part with my wishes. Pray, be 
 seated, as near as possible, for I am faint, and I am told, 
 and indeed I feel, that I am not to be long of this 
 world. That thrust of yours, faith, came from a master 
 hand. I could not have done better myself.” 
 
462 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 “T hope,” said Gabriel, whose embarrassment was 
 increasing, “I hope that it is not as bad as you think.” 
 
 “ Bah! Captain Gabriel, it would be womanish to 
 indulge in idle hopes. [I am not the man to deceive my- 
 self, nor tobe deceived. By the by, let me tell you 
 that, at my earnest request, General C has pledged 
 me his word of honor that he would ignore this affair. 
 I told him that I was the aggressor, and the only one 
 to be blamed.” 
 
 “ This was quite generous,’ replied Gabriel. 
 
 “ No,” continued Barbarini, “it is only what it was 
 proper that I should do.” Then he added with a faint 
 smile: “I see that you are almost ready to admit that 
 the gentleman in me is not yet completely extinct, eh ?” 
 
 He paused, and remained silent, as if exhausted. 
 After a little while, he said: “ Fidelio, give me the 
 - cordial which the physician has prepared for this occa- 
 sion.” 
 
 The faithful servant, with tears trickling down his 
 cheeks, took a vial which was on a table, and poured 
 into a glass some of its contents, which was greedily 
 swallowed by Colonel Barbarini, who had raised him- 
 self on his elbow with much effort, and who, after tak- 
 ing the draught, let his head fall heavily on his pillow. 
 After a few minutes he looked much invigorated. 
 
 “Captain Gabriel,’ he said, “I must shorten this 
 interview which must be far from being pleasant to 
 you. I must not draw too largely on your politeness. 
 I have neither the time, nor the inclination, to be prosy, 
 nor have I invited you here to witness any pathetic 
 scene, ending with some stage-effect confessions. I 
 hate all scenes; I hate sentimentalism and cant. I die 
 without fear, as I have lived, believing neither in the 
 immortality of the soul, nor in religion. I have, since 
 
 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 463 
 
 my infancy, seen in Italy too much of what is called 
 religion, not to know that it is an unmeasurable, un- 
 fathomable humbug. That word humbug, by the by, 
 has been very properly introduced into your American 
 vocabulary. It is so very expressive! After this short 
 metaphysical preface, allow me to mention the true rea- 
 son why I wished you to be present at the fall of the 
 curtain. You know my rank. Well, I wanted you to 
 see that [ am true to it to the end. You said you re- 
 gretted that the gentleman and the prince were not 
 united in me. My intention is to compel you to re- 
 verse your verdict, as the phrase runs in your country. 
 Nobility obligates, is the motto of our order in Europe, 
 and a Visconti is not the man to forget it even in 
 America. How is Jane Dabney ?” 
 
 “ Dying,” said Gabriel. 
 
 “Ts there no doubt of it?” 
 
 “None.” 
 
 *Y never thought,” continued Barbarini, seem- 
 ingly speaking to himself rather than to his visitor, 
 “that the girl would take it so much to heart. Those 
 women of Louisiana cannot be like the rest of their sex. 
 The fact is, captain,” addressing Gabriel, “that, on 
 sober reflection, I concluded that it was a very unbefit- 
 ing, unequal match, which would complete my ruin, 
 and I availed myself of a favorable opportunity to set 
 myself free. Surely a thousand girls for one would 
 have forgotten the past, and weuld not have lived less 
 happy for it afterward.” 
 ~ “Perhaps in your country, colonel, not here,’ 
 Gabriel, dryly. 
 
 “Whew! everywhere, allow me to say, without of- 
 fence to your chivalry. Women do not break their 
 hearts for such trifles.” 
 
 > said 
 
464 HERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 “Colonel, the tone which you assume is not to my 
 taste, neither does it become you, nor the present cir- 
 cumstance.”” 
 
 “T beg your pardon,” said Barbarini meekly, and 
 he fell into a profound silence, which continued so long, 
 that Gabriel felt uncertain how to act. The wounded 
 man was motionless, his eyes were closed, and it was 
 only his hard breathing which showed that he was alive. 
 At last he seemed to revive, and he languidly uttered 
 these words : 
 
 “Captain Gabriel, excuse me for detaining you so 
 long. I have been reflecting, and I have made up my 
 mind. I say it again; I will not violate the old mot- 
 to: nobility obligates. And so, you affirm that Jane 
 has so loved me that she dies of grief for my deser- 
 tion ?” 
 
 “She is your victim, sir, in the full sense of the 
 word.” 
 
 ‘‘ Well,” said Barbarini in a more animated tone, 
 “if she has been so true to me, she shall no longer be 
 my victim, that is to say, as much as it is In my power 
 to repair the wrongs I have done. Fidelio, hand me 
 the small casket you know of.” 
 
 Fidelio laid on the bed a beautifully-chiselled steel 
 box, which Barbarini presented to Gabriel : 
 
 “Take this,” he said, “and carry it to Jane Dabney. 
 There will be found in it the duly authenticated mar- 
 riage contract which had disappeared. Fidelio, a little 
 more of that cordial. My strength is failing me too 
 soon. Thank you, Fidelio. This beverage is wonder- 
 fully invigorating, and I feel better.” 
 
 Then turning to Gabriel, he said: ‘“ Do me the favor 
 to convey to the princess my most respectful regards. 
 Tell her that I deeply regret the sad doom to which I 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 465 
 
 have condemned her. As to yourself, dear sir, I shall 
 take the liberty to beg you to be my testamentary ex- 
 ecutor. Fidelio will hand over to you six thousand 
 dollars in gold, which I have here. Let that sum min- 
 ister to the wants of the princess as long as she lives, 
 and, when she is no more, let the remainder be used for 
 the erection of a tomb, in which I wish her to be laid 
 by my side, and on the marble slab of which you will 
 inscribe these words: ‘Here lie Prince and Princess 
 Massarino, of the most noble and illustrious house of 
 Visconti” Nothing more, mind you; no date of 
 birth, and date of death; and now, kind sir, I dismiss 
 you with my warmest thanks. Jarewell, may you en- 
 joy many years of happiness!” Here his voice faltered, 
 and he had a fainting fit, but he rallied as it were by 
 the mere force of his will. He halfturned himself to- 
 ward Gabriel, and, with a graceful wave of the hand, 
 he said, in French: “‘ Adiew pour toujours. Vous di- 
 rez au moins, mon cher, que je suis mort en prince.” 
 He fell back lifeless with these words of pride on his 
 lips. 
 
 * Farewell for ever. You will at least say, my friend,that I died likea 
 prince. 
 
 20* 
 
CHAPTER XL. 
 CONCLUSION OF 1HE STORY OF THE DABNEY FAMILY. 
 
 Waen Colonel Barbarini died, the clock which was in 
 the room struck nine. By astrange coincidence, it was 
 on the anniversary of the day on which he had married 
 Jane Dabney, and at that very hour when he had pledged 
 faith to her at the altar before God and man, Leaving 
 the body to the care of the attendants who were at 
 hand, Gabriel hastened to call on Sarah Butler. He 
 was anxious to show her the document which establish- 
 ed beyond a doubt the social condition of Jane, and 
 which excluded the possibility of a stain on her repu- 
 tation. Jor several days preceding the death of Colo- 
 nel Barbarini, this benevolent lady had not failed to visit 
 assiduously those poor women, mother and daughter, 
 who evidently were approaching the end of their suffer- 
 ings. She could not banish them from her mind during 
 that night, so great was the excitement produced by the 
 tale which Gabriel had told her. In the morning, as 
 soon as she could leave her home, she hurried to the 
 abode of Mrs. Dabney, whom she found diligently ply- 
 ing her needle as usual in the room where Gabriel had 
 first seen her. Little Mary was sitting on a stool at her 
 feet, and trying to spell a book which was the gift of 
 Sarah. When the welcome visitor made her appear- 
 
 ance, Mary ran to her with eagerness. She was reward- 
 (466) 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 467 
 
 ed for this warm display of affection by repeated kisses, 
 by a gentle patting on her curly locks and the present 
 gf a beautiful doll. 
 
 “QO, I love you so much, good lady,” said the child. 
 “Take a seat’ by mamma. She is so sad! and you always 
 make her cheerful. Sit down ; in return for your kind- 
 ness to her and to me, Pll sing you a song which mam- 
 ma has long been teaching me. I know it well, now. 
 You will see.” 
 
 “ Miss Sarah,” said Mrs. Dabney, “ you indulge your - 
 pet toomuch. You will spoil her.” 
 
 “ Oh, no,” answered the lady. “I am willing to be 
 responsible for that. I don’t think it easy to spoil Mary. 
 Come, child, come to me, and let me hear your song.” 
 
 Thus encouraged, the little favorite, kneeling down 
 cheerfully, with her elbows on the lap of her patroness, 
 and her tiny hands brought together as if in prayer, 
 sang in a low silvery voice this ballad of the nursery : 
 
 The Holy Virgin laid 
 Upon His bed her sweetest. babe, 
 
 The Babe divine ; 
 And forth she went to gather flowers, 
 Where roses bloomed beneath the bowers; 
 And as she culled the lily pale, 
 And violets that decked the vale, 
 She sweetly sang, ‘‘ ll weave a crown 
 His baby brow to place upon!” 
 
 The Babe divine! 
 
 The Saviour of the world, and mine! 
 
 . In love she quickly toiled, 
 And quickly to her babe returned, 
 
 The Babe divine— 
 And found two angels clothed in light, 
 One at the left, one at the right, 
 With wings so bright, and eyes so blue, 
 Just like the heavens whence they flew; 
 
468 
 
 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 They had been singing while He slept, 
 
 And o’er the babe a watch they kept— 
 The Babe divine! 
 
 The Saviour of the world, and mine! 
 
 They knew that when she came 
 Their loving care was done for Him, 
 
 The Babe divine; 
 And as their shining wings they spread, 
 And joyful up to Heaven they sped, 
 The rustling sound, though soft and low, 
 Woke up the babe, who saw them go; 
 The Mother chid them, though He smiled, 
 Because they woke her holy child— 
 
 The Babe divine! 
 The Saviour of the world, and mine! | 
 
 She took Him from His bed, 
 
 And kissed, and kissed again His brow, 
 The Babe divine! 
 
 He kissed her too, and laughed so sweet! 
 
 While ‘‘ sleep again!” she would repeat! 
 
 And then the Holy Virgin said, 
 
 ‘*T’ll rock Thee on this lily bed! 
 
 Thou prettiest of babes that bel” 
 
 But He would sleep no more, not He!— 
 The Babe divine! 
 
 The Saviour of the world, and mine! 
 
 O Virgin Mary sweet! 
 Watch o’er the little babes that sleep! 
 Thy Babe divine, 
 Gives us the name in which we pray! 
 O! keep them holy every day! 
 She loves the babies of the earth— 
 She loves to see their joy and mirth— 
 And when they need a faithful friend, 
 A kind protector she will send, 
 Because the Holy Mother, kind, 
 With tender love still bears in mind 
 The Babe divine! 
 The Saviour of the world, and mine! 
 
FERNANDO. DE LEMOS. 469 
 
 The little songstress stopped, after having uttered 
 these lines with a rare felicity of tone and musical 
 taste in one so young. Being duly complimented and 
 caressed, she retired to a corner of the room, to play 
 with her doll. Whilst the child was thus engaged, 
 Sarah related to Mrs. Dabney all that had happened 
 the day before, and delivered to her the marriage con- 
 tract sent by Colonel Barbarini. ‘“ Next to God,” said 
 the poor mother with gratitude beaming in her face, 
 ‘““we are indebted for this to our generous young friend 
 Gabriel. Let us go into the next room, and gradually 
 break open the exciting news to Jane.” The two 
 women rose, and were soon by the bed of the patient, 
 who had been enjoying a placid slumber. Probably 
 she was disturbed by the slight noise which they made, 
 cautiously as they moved, for she welcomed them with 
 a slight waving of her feeble hand and with a smile. 
 She even spoke, but.so low, that they had to bend their 
 heads over her to catch the indistinct words. 
 
 “‘ Mother,” she said, ‘I have had such a delightful 
 sleep, the sweetest for a long time, and I feel so happy !” 
 Mrs. Dabney, expressing her satisfaction at what she 
 heard, and feeling her way prudently as she proceeded, 
 made her daughter acquainted with the tardy repara- 
 tion which had been made for her wrongs. Jane re- 
 mained unmoved, and showed no surprise: “ I knew it 
 all, mother,” she said calmly. “I saw him last night ; 
 he looked so pale, but, O, how beautiful! He said he 
 repented of what he had done, and that he had come to 
 take me to his bosom, never more to be separated. [ 
 threw my arms round him, and I heard a voice so ten- 
 der and motherly that it melted my heart. Thus spoke 
 the voice: ‘For thy sake and for thy prayers, and for thy 
 long sufferings, and for his repentance, he is forgiven,’ 
 
470 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 and we rose up to Heaven, husband and wife—husband 
 and wife.’ An expression of ecstasy settled over her 
 features. The soul had departed with the glowi ing 
 hope of eternal happiness. 
 
 Two weeks had elapsed, and the little Willie, the 
 boot-black, had not appeared at his stand under the por- 
 tico of the St. Charles Hotel. He had been kept at 
 home with his mother and sister Mary. Occasionally, 
 either one or the other of these two children, dressed in a 
 full suit of mourning, would be seen running out of the 
 old wooden gate, evidently sent on some pressing errand, 
 and eagerly bent on executing it. Gabriel and Sarah 
 Butler were the only habitual visitors at Mrs. Dabney’s, 
 and, whenever they came out, it was always with a sor- 
 rowful face. As to Mrs. Dabney, she was invisible to 
 all save to her two friends. It was reported that her 
 health had entir ely g given way and that her decline was 
 rapid. One morning, a carriage stood in the street be- 
 fore the old gate mith which we are familiar. It had 
 brought Gabriel to the humble dwelling of the poor wid- 
 ow. After a little while, Mrs. Dabney came out, lean- 
 ing heavily on his arm, and, with his assistance, got into 
 the vehicle. ‘‘ Coachman,” said Gabriel, “drive to the 
 archbishop’s mansion, Condé street, between Ursulines 
 and Hospital.” “ Aye, aye, I know the place well 
 enough,’’ replied he, as he whipped his horses and rat- 
 tled away. Gabriel gazed at the carriage as it whirled 
 rapidly onward, shook his head mournfally, and, re-en- 
 tering the lot, walked pensively toward the small tene- 
 ment in the background, probably to ae with the 
 children until Mrs: Dabney’s return. 
 
 Let us follow Mrs. Dabney to the oldest edifice in 
 Louisiana. In the history of our State are mentioned 
 in these words the erection of that building and the 
 
 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 471 
 
 continuation of its existence until the present day: 
 “This edifice was constructed for the use of the Ursuline 
 Nuns on Condé street, between Ursuline and Hospital 
 streets. They took possession of it in 1730, when it 
 was completed, and they continued to occupy it until 
 1824, when they moved to a more splendid and more 
 spacious convent, which they had caused to be built three- 
 miles below the city on the bank of the river. After 
 the State House had been burnt in New Orleans, the 
 legislature sat in the old convent, and, in 1831, its 
 sacred walls, one century after they had pealed for the 
 first time with holy anthems, and had heard soft pray- 
 ers whispered to the Virgin Mary, were converted to 
 purposes of legislation, and resounded with oratorical 
 displays and fierce, political party debates. It has since 
 resumed a character more consonant with its original 
 destination, and has become the bishop’s palace.” 
 
 At the time when the incidents of the story which I 
 relate were taking place, there lived within the walls 
 of the old convent, as the titular secretary of the arch- 
 bishop, and as the friend and librarian of that prelate, 
 an ecclesiastic who, from his great age, had felt himself 
 compelled to retire from the discharge of those duties 
 which he had been performing in Louisiana for more 
 than half a century. He had baptized and married a 
 large portion of the Catholic population of New Or- 
 leans, and was venerated as asaint. Now he seldom 
 went out, but they frequently sought him for advice in 
 the difficulties of their ordinary life and for consolation 
 in their days of sorrow. He had known Mrs. Dabney 
 when an infant; he had poured upon her head the bap- 
 tismal water of Christianity; he had instructed her in 
 the faith and qualified her for communion, when for 
 the first time she had to approach the Holy Table; he 
 
472 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 had administered to her the sacrament of marriage, and - 
 he had remained her confessor since her early youth. 
 The old man, on the day which I mention, wore a loose 
 wrapper of coarse gray cloth girded round his waist 
 with a rude cord, from which, in front, hung a crucifix 
 of ebony. His head was covered with a worn-out vel- 
 vet cap, from under which emerged a few straggling 
 ringlets of snow-white hair. His long beard, as white 
 as his hair, spread in ample folds on his bosom. His 
 broad forehead, which receded back as it rose up from 
 his eyebrows, the spiritual expression and beauty of his 
 eyes in which dwelt the melancholy of habitual con- 
 templation, his straight aquiline nose, his lips which 
 spoke decision of character, and the ascetic paleness of 
 his cheeks, formed a countenance which it was imposs- 
 ible to see, without its leaving a deep impression on 
 the memory. He was reading attentively, when Mrs. 
 Dabney entered. On his noticing how feebly she 
 moved toward him, his: natural paleness increased vis- 
 ibly, and he hastened with tottering steps to meet her, 
 saying : 
 
 “ How now, daughter, what imprudence is this? 
 You should not have come out in your condition of 
 health.” 
 
 “It matters little, father,’ replied Mrs. Dabney, 
 “you know, as well as I do, that God is recalling me 
 to Him, and my dear Jane awaits me in a better world. 
 But time presses, and I wish to have a short interview 
 with you in relation to my children, who will soon be 
 without a mother.” 
 
 The old priest took both her hands in his own, made 
 her sit by him, and looked at her like one who was 
 ready to hear her communication. 
 
 “Wather,” she said, “ you already know that, thanks 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 473 
 
 to the noble youth Gabriel, my little Willie has found 
 a protector who provides for his support and educa- 
 tion.” 
 
 “T have more than once, daughter, thanked Heaven — 
 for it, and blessed that generous Spaniard, although he 
 hates the holy priesthood so insanely, for I am not un- 
 informed as to his ways and peculiarities. His heart at 
 least is most sound, if he has got some disorder in the 
 brain. But charity covers many sins. He who, within 
 a few hours, gave ten thousand dollars to the widow’s 
 child, and ten other thousand dollars to a hospital, and 
 whose hand is habitually open for the relief of misfor- 
 tune, is surely entitled to indulgences from the Church. 
 The aberrations of intellect in such a Christian, for a 
 Christian he must be, or deserves to be, are truly de- 
 plorable. But the ways of God are mysterious, and no 
 doubt He will in due time enlighten the mind of that 
 excellent Samaritan. Besides, he is a Spaniard, and 
 there is always hope for the salvation of every one of 
 that noble race, obstinate and haughty though it 
 be, but yet so thoroughly impregnated with religious 
 convictions. A Spaniard is by birth a soldier of the 
 Church. It cannot be forgotten above, that those champ- 
 ions of the Catholic faith fought eight hundred years 
 for the cross, without asking for rest, or mercy.” 
 
 “ Amen,” said widow Dabney devoutly. “ And 
 now, father, with a heart full of gratitude, I come to 
 inform you also that a wealthy lady proposes to adopt 
 my Mary.” | 
 
 The worthy priest raised his eyes to Heaven, and 
 . seemed to offer silently a short thanksgiving. After a 
 pause, he said: ) 
 
 “ Daughter, I do not wonder at it, for what does the 
 Psalmist tell us: L have been young, and now am old ; 
 
474 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed 
 begging bread.” 
 
 “But,” said Mrs. Dabney with much hesitation, “ the 
 lady is not of our persuasion.” 
 
 “‘Ha! indeed,” exclaimed Father Anselmo, for such 
 was his name, and a slight shade of displeasure passed 
 over his face. After musing awhile, he asked Mrs. 
 Dabney of what persuasion that lady was. 
 
 “ A Presbyterian.” 
 
 “ Her name ?” 
 
 ‘Sarah Butler.” 
 
 The priest heaved a deep sigh, as if greatly relieved. 
 “T know her by her deeds,” he said; “a most worthy 
 and Christian woman, although she does not see the 
 whole truth yet. But God abides His time. And I 
 suppose, daughter, that you wish to consult.me on the 
 propriety of intrusting your child to the maternal care 
 of Sarah Butler?” 
 
 “Yes, father; your approbation has been made a 
 condition to my surrendering my daughter to her, and,” 
 she added in asomewhat deprecating tone, ‘“ I must in- 
 form you that this most liberal friend of mine has 
 promised to raise Mary in the creed which I wish her 
 to have.” 
 
 “JT will trust the generous lady,” exclaimed the 
 priest joyfully ; “for God dwells in that charitable 
 heart of hers, and I will leave the rest to Him. Be- 
 sides, my daughter, I have been struck with a sentiment 
 expressed by one of the most eloquent of our pulpit 
 orators,” and he laid his hand on a book lying open near 
 him on a small round table, “there are,” says the 
 Dominican Lacordaire, ‘Protestants among Catholics, 
 and Catholies among Protestants, without their being 
 conscious of what they are.” 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. A475 
 
 * Then, with your consent, all is settled in relation to 
 Mary,” continued Mrs. Dabney, “and I have done with 
 earth. May I not be permitted to say: “ Vow, O Lord, 
 dismiss thy servant? But, before parting with you, 
 probably for ever, pray, father, grant me your benedic- 
 tion.” 
 
 As she thus spoke, she knelt at the feet of the minis- 
 ter of God, who rose slowly, looked up to Heaven, 
 stretched forth his hands over her head and uttered his 
 blessing with all the fervor of his pious and affectionate 
 heart. When he had done, he bent his looks down. 
 Mrs. Dabney did not move; she seemed to have sunk 
 lower to the floor. He attempted to raise her, and saw 
 that she had closed her earthly career. The so long 
 broken heart had ceased to beat. 
 
 Easter came, that great festival of Christianity. In 
 the morning of that day, all the boot-black boys of the 
 St. Charles Hotel were at their post under its lofty por- 
 tico. They expected a shower of dimes, for they knew 
 it to be an occasion on which their customers would 
 like to wear clean shoes as well as clean linen. As it 
 was yet very early, there were but few persons stirring 
 in the streets. The news-boys and the boot-black boys 
 had congregated near one of the pillars of the portico, 
 teasing each other, and cracking jokes to kill time, 
 whilst waiting for the opportunity to exercise their 
 trade, by entrapping somebody into purchasing the 
 “ Times,” or the ‘ Picayune,” or stretching his foot on 
 one of the numerous stools which invited his choice. 
 Suddenly one of them said: 
 
 “By the by, what has become of Willie Dabney? 
 We have not seen his sad face for a long time.” 
 
 “What will you give me to tell you?” answered a 
 nasal voice. It was that of the hopeful youth who, in 
 
476 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 the beginning of this story, had, as he said, put Gabriel 
 on the right track and had got no reward for it. 
 
 “You are so stingy, Sam Slick!” said one of the 
 boys, and the rest assented in a chorus to this sentiment, 
 ‘You never do, or even say anything without a con- 
 sideration.” 
 
 ‘‘ Because,” answered Sam, “I want to make my way 
 in the world. But, for once anyhow, since you are so 
 beggarly that I cannot make anything out of you, Pll 
 nee your curiosity for nothing. You are so dull, you 
 never can see or hear anything that is valuable, and I — 
 must come all the way from Connecticut with matches 
 in my pocket to light up your Southern two-penny 
 candles. Listen, all of you, my hearties, and, if there 
 is any particle of latent sense in your skulls, follow my 
 example, keep your eyes open, and see whether it is a 
 mouse or a weazel that stirs around you. If you had 
 been as sharp as I am, you would have known, without 
 my telling you, that Willie has been picked up by a 
 rich man, and Mary his sister, by a rich lady, who are 
 going to educate them, and settle them in life with a 
 silver spoon in their mouth. Here is luck for you, you 
 gaping boobies.” 
 
 Various exclamations of sur prise arose among the 
 juvenile listeners. “ Wonderful,” said one, ‘ how some 
 folks are born for luck !” 
 
 “Well,” said Sam, ae I am not born for luck, Pll 
 make Tnale wait on me.’ 
 
 “ Of course you will,” squeaked a oie “you are 
 such a smart Yankee !” 
 
 “Oertainly I am smart, and the smartest boy too 
 in all creation. My mother told me so the very first 
 day she brought me out and laid me in the cradle,” re- 
 plied the recent importation from New England. “I 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS: ATT 
 
 have now fifty dollars on hand, and I came here with- 
 out a cent two months ago! When I have a capital of 
 one hundred dollars, Pll set up a shop; and, when I 
 have a thousand dollars, Ill speculate in cotton and 
 sugar. Tl become a rich merchant, or a fat-bellied 
 banker.” 
 
 “¢ And you will be elected mayor of the city,’ 
 ed one of the youthful knights of the shoe-brush. 
 
 “ And why not?” said Sam. 
 
 “ He will be governor, before we can say Jack Rob- 
 inson,” shrieked another. 
 
 * And why not?” repeated in a louder tone of as- 
 surance the undaunted object of these quizzes. | 
 That is not enough for his merits,’ bawled another. 
 “IT propose Sam for the Senate of the United States.” 
 
 “That might come to pass,” retorted Sam, “if you 
 were not too much of a goose ever to be a member of 
 the legislature and have a vote in the matter. But Pll 
 tell you all a secret gra—a—atis,” dwelling on that 
 word, and extending it so as to make it a yard long. 
 “Come here, all of you, my jewels. I want to ask 
 you two questions, and answer them myself, because [ 
 don’t believe you can, unlighted lamp-posts that you 
 are. Was not Abe Lincoln a rail splitter? Y—e—s, 
 and a great man he was, a capital joker, for whom a 
 whole nation, the greatest nation in the world, is in 
 mourning. Was not Andy Johnson a tailor? Y—e—s, 
 and you are all throwing up your caps at whatever he 
 does, and thanking him on your knees for keeping the 
 lash from your backs. Now for my secret. Open your 
 long ears. Here you see a future president of the 
 United States in Sam Slick the boot-black. I tell it 
 you confidentially. Keep it to yourselves, mind you, 
 and make your profit of it.” 
 
 > shout- 
 
478 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 “We will not keep it to ourselves. We will tell it 
 to the whole universal Yankee nation,” shouted the 
 boys tumultuously. “ Hear, hear! Hip, hip! Hur- 
 rah, hurrah! Three cheers for Sam Slick the boot- 
 black, and the future president of the United States !” 
 
CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 WHAT HAPPENED TO FERNANDO DE LEMOS IN NEW ORLEANS 
 AFTER THE END OF THE SECESSION WAR. 
 
 Ir is inexpressibly distressing for one who was born 
 in opulence, and who had always existed comfortably 
 on an inherited income, to be suddenly reduced to the 
 sad necessity of making a living, when sixty years old. 
 Besides ‘its being the hardest and the most difficult of 
 things for a high-born and high-bred gentleman to 
 transform himself into a scraper of dimes, it is, at that 
 time of life, too late for any body to become a stage 
 actor, a preacher, a physician, a lawyer, a broker, a 
 merchant, a clerk, a druggist, a charlatan, a manufac- 
 turer of yellow-backed novels, or anything whatever, 
 not even a politician or a thief. J¢ zs too late! A 
 terrible sentence uttered by fate, and from which there 
 is no appeal. What on earth then shall I do to keep 
 soul and body together, was the question which I put 
 to myself, notwithstanding I really longed for their 
 separation? J had nothing left to me beyond the violin 
 of Tintin Calandro and the portrait of the princess of 
 Lamballe, bequeathed by him to me. I was almost 
 irresistibly tempted to put an end to an insupportable 
 existence. But I am somewhat of a Christian, and I 
 doubted whether I had the right to dispose of my life. 
 Besides, I had survived the loss of one whom I valued 
 
 much more than life and fortune ; and could [ not now 
 (479) 
 
480 FERNANDO-DE LEMOS. 
 
 survive a much inferior loss? Should not I continue to 
 deposit a bouquet on her tomb, as long as I had twenty- 
 five cents to buy one, and then starve, stretched on the 
 eold marble under which she slept, if I could not hon- 
 estly earn the morsel of bread which I thought it my duty 
 to strive to get? That will I do, said I to myself, and I 
 felt greatly relieved after taking that resolution. I looked 
 round for employment of some sort, even of the hum- 
 blest. “ What!” exclaimed every friend and acquaintance 
 to whom I applied. “ What joke is this! You poor, 
 Fernando! You are too clever for that. If you were 
 really poor, that calm grand air of yours which you al- 
 ways wear, would have quickly vanished. What! you 
 say that you must work for bread, and you look as lordly 
 as a Roman senator! Pish! that stiff upper lip of a 
 feudal baron won’t pass current in Carondelet street 
 among the lords of the cotton bag, I assure you, if you 
 attempt to be a broker.” They thus seemed to agree 
 in expressing the same sentiments in different language. 
 Another said to me with a rude and well-meant kind- 
 ness: “If you really have lost every thing, the sooner 
 you blow out your brains the better. What the deuce 
 will you do in this world with your antiquated no- 
 tions? You belong to another age. Can you lie and 
 cheat? No. Then you cannot make a living. You 
 think perhaps that, perchance, somebody may need an 
 honest man, and will employ you because you are wor- 
 thy of trust and will not rob him. That is one advan- 
 tage you would present to him, to be sure, but, on the. 
 other hand, you could not help seeing him steal; you 
 would hear him le, and he would know that you de- 
 spise him at the bottom of your heart. This he would 
 not stand; he would not expose himself to blush when 
 meeting that stern eye of yours, not he. I would not 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS. . ~ 481 
 
 for one, by the gods, much as I like you, old fellow. 
 He would, I am sure, prefer one belonging to his own 
 peculiar school of morality—one who would help him 
 on a pinch, without too many scruples about what is 
 ‘right or wrong, do you understand me—even should he 
 thereby run the risk of being plundered by his em- 
 ployee. You know that birds of the same feather like 
 to flock together. Do you think that the eagle, if he 
 chanced to have a broken wing like yours, would be 
 employed by the buzzard as his carrion carver? No! 
 Rtemember that our whole social body has become by 
 the effect of our last war a topsy-turvy concern, where 
 demoralization thrones at the top, and morality is choked 
 at the bottom. Now find a place for you, if you can, 
 in this jamming of rotten materials. Good-bye, ex- 
 euse me. I have an engagement with a patriotic alder- 
 man who awaits my coming and from whom I expect a 
 decently fat job.” 
 
 Well, said I to myself, if this is true, the prospect 
 before me is any thing but flattering. Surely it is too 
 late, with gray hair, to become an apprenticed rogue, 
 and study the alphabet of rascality. It would be worse 
 than a crime, it would be a détise, as the French say. 
 In my perplexity a thought struck me, and I imme- 
 diately acted on it. I had in the Confederacy saved the 
 life of a Yankee soldier, and had learned that, after the 
 war, having settled in New Orleans, he was at the head 
 of a prosperous printing establishment of his owns I 
 went to him; he received me with great warmth of 
 manner. 
 
 ‘My dear sir,” he said, “I am happy to see yon. 
 Never shall I forget what you have done for me. You 
 come, no doubt, to order some printing. I will, of course, 
 have it done for you cheaper than for any body else,” 
 
 21 
 
482 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 “No,” I replied, “I came not for that, but to pro- 
 cure employment for a poor friend of mine. Do you 
 need a proof-reader ?” | 
 
 “ Just in time, mine left me this morning, and in his 
 stead I at once accept your friend.” 
 
 “T thank you. What will be his salary ?”’ 
 
 “ Fifty dollars a month.” 
 
 “Very well, that is sufficient. When shall 1 begin 2?” 
 
 “What, what!’ exclaimed the Yankee, staring at 
 me with an almost ludicrous expression of astonish- 
 ment. ‘ You cannot be serious.” 
 
 “T mean what I-say. When shall I be installed in 
 office ?” | 
 
 “ Don’t talk so,” said the printer. “ You, a proof- 
 reader! You, reduced to such a strait! Damn me, if I 
 permit it. Excuse my swearing, but damn me, I say, 
 if I do n’t do something better for you. I can spare a 
 few thousand dollars. Do me the favor to accept them, 
 until a situation worthy of your social position and of 
 your talents can be found.” 
 
 “Tam deeply grateful to you,” said I, pressing his 
 hand. “ But not one word more on the subject, if you 
 do not want to give me great pain. My resolution is 
 inflexible. Therefore consider, I pray, this matter 
 settled. JI am your proof-reader from to-day.” 
 
 I confess that there was in the emotion and gratitude 
 exhibited by my Northern friend a balsam needed by 
 my bruised heart. Not long after I had begun to make 
 a living by my own efforts, (it is never too late to do 
 so) I happened to be passing by the cathedral, when, to 
 my astonishment, I saw Zabet, who, notwithstanding 
 her being one hundred years old, had returned to. her 
 former place of trade with her basket of cakes. 
 
 “Ts that you, dear old Zabet?’ I said. ‘ Have you 
 resumed the occupation you bad given up?” 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS.. - 483 
 
 *¢ Alas,” she replied, ‘ I have, like all the decent and 
 resp2ctable people here, lost my little means of support, 
 which I had acquired by hard work and economy and - 
 the liberality of Tintin Calandro. But I can bear it ; 
 I have, after all, but a few days to live. What I can 
 not bear, is all that I see around me. O Christ! O 
 Christ! Only think of it! All our ladies, royal blood 
 and all that sort of thing, turned to be cooks and wash- 
 erwomen, and the real washerwomen and cooks, with 
 turnip-juice in their veins, lodging in fine houses and 
 sporting equipages! Ah, me! ah, me! I can’t stand it. 
 My philosophy is clean broken-hearted.” After a pause, 
 during which she groaned piteously and shed a flood of 
 tears, she resumed her discourse: ‘‘ And you, my son, 
 how have you fared? Have you also suffered much?” 
 
 “T am no exception,” said I, informing her that I 
 was totally ruined, and that I had turned out to be a 
 proof-sheet reader, at fifty dollars a month. She clap- 
 ped her shrivelled hands and fairly shrieked : 
 
 “Mercy on me! The grandson of Governor Lemos 
 a printer’s employee! Fifty dollars a month! Mercy! 
 Mercy! This blow finishes me. You can not live on 
 fifty dollars a month, my child. I have saved three 
 hundred dollars, which I had hoarded for a special 
 purpose; take them for God’s sake. I had destined 
 them to buy a tomb near poor Tintin Calandro’s, but 
 take the money, take it all. This world has become 
 so bad, that old Zabet does not care now where she will 
 be buried in it. I will fetch the silver to-morrow, not 
 ereenbacks, mind you. You need it more than I do. 
 You are royal blood, and I am nothing but an old ne- 
 egress.” 
 
 I thought that she would go distracted in her despair, 
 and it; was with great difficulty that I could restore her 
 
¢ 
 
 484 FERNANDO DE LEMOS. 
 
 to some composure. “ Zabet,” said I, “ the old negress, 
 as you call yourself, has offered me all that she pos- 
 sesses, when some of my friends and relatives, of royal 
 blood as you call them, have not remembered sacred 
 obligations and not bethought themselves of asking me 
 if I needed anything. JI will not allude to those who 
 have even forgotten to pay me money which they owe, 
 when they have the means to do s0, if they choose. 
 Therefore, Zabet,” continued I, smiling, “I proclaim 
 you royal blood.” 
 
 “T, royal blood !” she exclaimed in an ecstasy of pride. 
 ‘“‘T, proclaimed royal blood by one who has the right to 
 do it. Then old Zabet has had honor enough in this 
 world and regrets no more having lived so long. Now, 
 my son, I will die game as royal blood ought to die, 
 and my philosophy, far from apes shall wear eap 
 and feathers to the last !” | 
 
 “Yes,” I said, “we will die game, grandma Zabet, 
 and you shall sleep near Tintin Calandro. No longer 
 disturb yourself about my fifty dollars a month. It is 
 enough to procure for me shelter, clothing, bread and 
 cheese. With that, we, of royal blood, ought to be sat- 
 isfied, and we can afford not to care a pinch of snuff for 
 an upstart world.” I left the old soul as happy as if 
 she had been ushered into paradise by some archangel, © 
 and I went to my proof-sheets in a better mood than I 
 had been able to do before. 
 
 It was the anniversary of the death of Tintin Calan- 
 dro. I determined to visit, as usual on that occasion, 
 his tomb in the St. Louis cemetery, at his favorite hour 
 of midnight. I knelt before it and prayed fervently. 
 I felt a pressure on my right arm ; it was the grasp of a 
 hand. I looked round in astonishment, and saw noth- 
 ing. The hand retained its hold, and my mind heard 
 
FERNANDO DE LEMOS... 485 
 
 within itself these words: ‘I am Tintin Calandro, and 
 Tam at last permitted to communicate with you, my 
 friend. Think not that this is a dream and a delusion. ° 
 I will give you a substantial proof to the contrary. 
 When you go home, look at the back of the portrait of 
 the princess of Lamballe. Examine carefully the lining 
 of the canvass; you will discover a spot thicker than. 
 the rest. Rip it up, and you will find concealed there 
 five thousand pounds sterling in the notes of the Bank 
 of England. During the French revolution, in 1793, 
 they had been intrusted to my safe-keeping by a friend. 
 I never met him again on earth. He is now in the world 
 of spirits, and permits me to say to you that this sum 
 is yours. I am happy at last, and we soon shall be hap- 
 py together.” ‘The grasp was released. I ran home, 
 looked at the place indicated, and there found what I 
 been told I should find. I relate the fact as it happened. 
 What inferences shall [draw? Are there spiritual man- 
 ifestations, as believed by many, or mysterious revela- 
 tions within the soul, or merely wonderful coincidences 
 between dreams and realities ? 
 
 Now, by the blessing of God, I was once more inde- 
 pendent, and had ample means to satisfy my physical 
 wants for the remainder of the few years which, accord- 
 ing to the course of nature, 1 had to pass on earth. 
 Alas, that I could not say as much as to the wants of 
 my soul! But it was much, to be able to attend to them 
 exclusively, and to live within a world of my own—a 
 world of the imagination peopled by beings of my own 
 recollection, or creation, according to my choice, without 
 being constantly dragged out of the dreamy solitude 
 which I love, by the stern necessity of groveling expe- 
 ditions abroad, made daily in company with Mammon, 
 to rake a shilling out of the mud of the sewers of hu- 
 
 ’ 
 
486 FERNANDO DE. LEMOS. 
 
 manity, and provide an aching body with shelter, rai- 
 ment and food. Thanks to the timely revelation I have 
 mentioned, or to a mysterious and unaccountable inci- 
 dent or circumstance, I have been able to secure com- 
 fortable lodgings near the St. Louis cemetery, and my 
 windows overlook that sacred spot. There I live in the 
 utmost seclusion, waiting calmly for the end to come. To 
 while away time I have penned the preceding pages, and - 
 I was saying to myself: What next? when, opening one 
 of the morning newspapers, I saw announced the death 
 in France of Joseph Lakanal after an unusually long 
 earcer. Thus I had become free from the obligation of 
 secrecy which he had imposed upon me, and I resolved 
 to amuse my idle hours with writing a narrative, drawn 
 from the sources of information which he had opened to 
 me during his residence in Louisiana, and which I may, 
 on a future day, publish under the title of Aubert 
 Dubayet, as a sequel to this story, should I, Fernando 
 de Lemos, meet from the public a sufficiently favorable 
 reception, to embolden me to present my humble fol- 
 lower to that fastidious sovereign. 
 
 THE END. 
 
NEW BOOKS 
 
 | Recently Published by 
 G W. CARLETON & CO., New York, 
 
 Madison Square, Fifth Avenue and Broadway. 
 
 N.B.—THE PUBLISHERS, upon receipt of the price in advance, will send 
 any of the following Books by mail, POSTAGE FREE, to any part of the United 
 Btates This convenient and very safe mode may be adopted when the neighbor- 
 {ng Booksellers are not supplied with the desired work. 
 
 Yiarion Harland. 
 
 ALONE.— . . A novel. ; 12mo. cloth, $1.50 
 HIDDEN PATH.— . do. 3 A do. $1.50 
 MOSS SIDE.— ., do. A > do. * $1.50 
 NEMESIS.— 2 do. ; : do. $1.50 
 MIRIAM.— A do. : : do. $1.50 
 AT LAST.— : do. Fust Published. do. $1.50 
 HELEN GARDNER.— do. , ; do. $1.50 
 SUNNYBANK.— . do. : : do. $1.50 
 HUSBANDS AND HOMES.— do. - . do. $1.50 
 RUBY’S HUSBAND.— do. : : do. $1.50 
 PHEMIE’S TEMPTATION.— do. * “ do. $1.50 
 THE EMPTY HEART.— do. : 3 do. $1.50 
 
 Wiss Wulochk. 
 
 JOHN HALIFAX.—-A novel. Withillustration. 12mo. cloth, $1.75 
 A LIFE FOR A LIFE.— : do. do. $1.75 
 Charlotte Bronte (Currer Bell). 
 
 JANE EYRE.—A novel. With illustration, 12mo. cloth, $1.75 
 
 THE PROFESSOR.—do. : do. : do. $1.75 
 BHIRLEY.— . do. : do. ‘ do. $1.75 
 VILLETTE.— . do. : do. : do. $1.75 
 
 Hand-Books of Society. 
 THE HABITS OF GOOD SOCIETY; nice points of taste, good man- 
 ners, and the artof making oneself agreeable. 12mo. $1.75 
 THE ART OF CONVERSATION.—A sensible work, for every one 
 who wishes to be an agreeable talker or listener. 12mo. $1.50 
 ARTS OF WRITING, READING, AND SPEAKING.—An excellent bock 
 
 for self-instruction and improvement. 12mo. clo., $1.50 
 A NEW DIAMOND EDITION of the above three popular books.— 
 Small size, elegantly bound, and put in a box. - $3.00 
 
 Mrs. A. P. Hill. 
 MRS, HILL’S NEW COOKERY BOK, and receipts. 12mo. cloth, $a o¢ 
 
eee — 
 
 4 LIST OF BOOKS PUBLISHED BY 
 
 
 
 Nary J. Holmes. 
 
 "LENA RIVERS.— . ; . A novel. 
 
 DARKNESS AND DAYLIGHT.— . do. J do. 
 TEMPEST AND SUNSHINE. : do. 4 do. 
 MARIAN GREY.— . ; ‘ do. ; do. 
 MEADOW BROOK.— : : do. f do. 
 ENGLISH ORPHANS.— : do. : do. 
 DORA DEANE— . : do. - do. 
 COUSIN MAUDE.— e : do. x do. 
 HOMESTEAD ON THE HILLSIDE.— do. - do. 
 HUGH WORTHINGTON.— ; do. M do. 
 TILE CAMERON PRIDE.— . 4 do. do. 
 ROSE MATHER.— . ‘ . do. do. 
 ETHELYN’S MISTAKE.-— , do. do, 
 MILLBANK.— . ; - Sust published. do. 
 
 Augusta J. Evans. 
 
 BEULAH . . ; . Anovel. 12mo. cloth, 
 MACARIA.— , : 4 ‘ do. : do. 
 BT, ELMO.— ., : S : do. : do. 
 VASHTI.— ‘ : 4 ; do. ; do. 
 INEZ.— : : 2 : do. : do. 
 
 Robert Dale 
 
 THE DEBATABLE LAND. I2mo. cloth. 
 
 I2mo. cloth, $1 5c 
 
 Owen. 
 
 The Crusoe Library. 
 
 ROBINSON CRUSOE.—A handsome illus. edition. 
 
 SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON.— 
 THE ARABIAN NIGHTS.— 
 
 THE SCALP HUNTERS.— 
 
 THE WAR TRAIL.— i 
 THE HUNTER’S FEAST.— . 
 THE TIGER HUNTER.— 
 OSCEOLA, THE SEMINOLE.— 
 THE QUADROON.— 
 
 RANGERS AND REC ULATOHE: _ 
 THE WHITE GAUNTLFT.— 
 
 WILD LIFE,— 
 
 THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN.— 
 LOST LENORE.— . . 
 THE WOOD RANGERS.— . 
 THE WHITE CHIEF. — e 
 THE WILD HUNTRESS.— . 
 THE MAROON.— . ° 
 THE RIFLE RANGERS.— . 
 
 do. 5 
 GO,t te 
 
 Captain Mayne Reid.—Wlustrated. 
 
 | 
 | 
 
 e e 
 
 12mo. clo., 
 do. 
 
 Far West Series ape 
 
 I2mo, 
 do. 
 do, 
 
 do. 
 do. 
 
 Prairie Series 
 
 Pioneer Series 
 
 Wild For 
 
 do. 
 do. 
 
 do. 
 
 do. 
 do. 
 do. 
 
 do. 
 
 do. 
 do. 
 
 est Series dei 
 do. 
 
 $1.50 
 $1.50 
 $1.50 
 $1.50 
 $1.50 
 $1 50 
 $1.50 
 $I 50 
 $1.50. 
 $1.50 
 S150 
 $1.5¢ 
 $1.50 
 
 $1.75 
 $1.75 
 $2.00 
 $2.00 
 
 $1.75 
 
 $2.00 
 
 $1.50 
 $1.50 
 $1.50 
 
 $1.50 
 $1.50 
 $1.50 
 $1.50 
 $1.50 
 $1.50 
 $1.50 
 $1.50 
 $1.50 
 $1.50 
 $1.50 
 $1.50 
 $1.50 
 $1.50 
 $1.50 
 $1.59 
 
G. W. CARLETON & CO., NEW YORK. 
 
 
 
 Comic Books—Illustrated. 
 ARTEMUS WARD, His Book.—Letters, etc. 
 
 
 
 Do. His Travels—Mormons, etc. do. $1.50 
 
 DO. In London.—Punch Letters do. $1.50 
 
 Do. His Panorama and Lecture. do. $1.50 
 
 Do. Sandwiches for Railroad. : 25 
 
 JOSH BILLINGS ON Ick, and other things.— do. $1.50 
 DO, His Book of Proverbs, etc. do. $1.50 
 
 DO. Farmer’s Allmanax,. . : ; 25 
 FANNY FERN.—Folly as it Flies. . : aero: $1.50 
 DO. Gingersnaps do. $1.50 
 VERDANT GREEN. —A racy English college ‘story. do. $1.50 
 MILES 0’REILLY.—His Book of Adventures. do. $1.5¢ ° 
 ORPHEUS 0. KERR.—Kerr Papers, 4 vols, inone. do. $2.00 
 DO. Avery Glibun. A novel. . : . $2.00 
 
 Do. The Cloven Foot. do. do. $1.50 
 BALLAD OF LORD BATEMAN.—Illustrated by Cruikshank, .25 
 
 A. S. Roe’s Works. 
 
 A novel. .  I2mo. cloth, $1.50 
 
 TO LOVE AND TO BE LOVED.— do. . ; do. $1.50 
 TIME AND TIDE.— dos25 , do. $1.50 
 (VE BEEN THINKING.— dO. ¢ ; do. $1.50 
 THE STAR AND THE CLOUD.— -do, . ; do $1.50 
 TRUE TO THE LAST.— COM : do $1.5c 
 HOW COULD HE HELP IT?— do. . : do $1.50 
 LIKE AND UNLIKE.— EO tae ‘ do $7.50 
 LOOKING AROUND.— coy. ‘ do. $1.50 
 WOMAN OUR ANGEL,— rate pee 2 do $1.5C 
 THE CLOUD ON THE HEART.— do. . : do. $1.50 
 RESOLUTION.— doner, ; do $1.50 
 
 Joseph Rodman Drake, 
 
 12mo. cl., $1.50 
 
 THE CULPRIT FAY.—<A faery poem, with 1oo illustrations. $2.00 
 DO. Superbly bound in turkey morocco. $5.00 
 
 66 Brick ®? Pomeroy. 
 seNsE.—An illustrated vol. of fireside musings. 
 
 12mo. cl., $1.50 
 
 NONSENSE.— do. do. comic sketches. do. 27n$35§0 
 OUR SATURDAY NIGHTS. do. pathos and sentiment. $1.50 
 BRICK DUST.—Comic sketches. ° : ; ° $1.50 
 GOID DUST.—Fireside musings, wetice F : $1.5) 
 John Esten Cooke. 
 rainrax.— AA brilliant new novel. . I2no. cloth, $1.50 
 HILT TO HILT.-— do. ; : : do. $1.50 
 HAMMER AND RAPIER.— do. : do. $1.50 
 OUT OF TAE FOAM.— do, Fust published. do, $i 5¢ 
 

 
 6 G. W. CARLETON & CO., NEW YORK. 
 
 Victor Hugo, 
 
 LES MISERABLES.— The celebrated novel, 8vo. cloth. $2.50 
 Two vol. edition, fine paper, do. - 5.00 
 a In the Spanish language, do. - 5.00 
 
 Aigernon Charles, Swinburne. 
 
 \U8 VENERIS, AND OTHER POEMS.—Hlegant new ed. - $1.50 
 FRENCH LOVE-SONGS,—By the best French Authors. -. 1.50 
 Author *New Gospel of Peace.’ 
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF GOTHAM.—A rich modern satire. - $ .25 
 THE FALL OF MAN.—A satire on the Darwin Theory. -  .50. 
 Julie P. Smith. 
 
 WIDOW GOLDSMITH’S DAUGHTER.—A novel. 12mo. cloth. $1.75 
 
 CHRIS. AND OTIIO.— do. 6 Co SLE oie 4 
 THE WIDOWER.— do. do? == 7975 
 TUE MARRIED BELLE.— do. (in press). - 1.75 
 Mansfield T. Walworth. 
 WARWICK.—A new novel. - - - 12mo. cloth. $1.75 
 LULU.— do. - - ~ ‘do. - 1.75 
 HOTSPUR. — do. - - - do. 4h= Sages 
 STORMCLIFF,— do. - - - do. ee ey 8. 
 DELAPLAINE,— do. Just Published. do. - 1.75 
 Richard B. Kimball. 
 WAS HE SUCCESSFUL?— A novel. - 12mo. cloth. $1.75 
 UNDERCURRENTS. — do. - do. - 1.75 
 SAINT LEGER.— do. - do. - 1.75 
 ROMANCE OF STUDENT LIFE. do. - do. - 1.75 
 IN THE TROPICS.— do. - do. - 1.75 
 IIENRY POWERS, Banker.— do. - do. ~ LS 
 TO-DAY.— do. - do. = eas 
 
 M. Michelet’s Remarkable Works, 
 
 LOVE (I AMOUR).—Translated from the French. 12mo. cl. $1.50 
 WOMAN (LA FEMME).— do. - _do. - 1.50 
 Ernest Renan. 
 
 TIE LIFE OF JESUS.—Trans’ted from the French. 12mo.cl. $1.75 
 
 LIVES OF THE APOSTLES.— do. do... = 11675 
 THE LIFE OF SAINT PAUL-— do. do. = TAPS 
 THE BIBLE IN INDIA— do. of Joccoliot. 2.00 
 
 Popular Italian Novels. 
 DOCTOR ANTONIO.—A love story. By Ruffini. 12mo. cl. $1.75 
 BEATRICE CENCI.—By Guerrazzi, with Portrait. do. - 1.75 
 Geo. W. Carleton. 
 
 OUR ARTIST IN CUBA.—With 50 comic illustrations.  - $1.50 
 OUR ARTIST IN PERU.— do. do. . - 1.50 
 OUR ARTIST IN AFRICA.—(In press). do. - 1.50 
 
ee 
 
 LIST OF BOOKS PUBLISHED BY 
 
 Miscellaneous Works. 
 
 RUTLEDGE.—A novel of remarkable interest and power. 
 
 THE SUTHERLANDS.— do. Author of Rutledge. 
 FRANK WARRINGTON. — do. do. 
 SAINT PHILIP’S.—— do. do. 
 LOUIE.— do. do. 
 ROUND HEARTS.— do. do. 
 
 A ROSARY FOR LENT.—Devotional Readings. do. 
 
 MAURICE.—A novel from the French of F. Bechard. - 
 MOTHER GOOSE.—Set to music, and with illustrations. - 
 BRAZEN GATES.—A new child’s book, illustrated. - 
 THE ART OF AMUSING.—Book of homeamusements. - 
 STOLEN WATERS.—A fascinating novel. Celia Gardner. 
 HEART HUNGRY.—A novel. By Maria J. Westmoreland. 
 THE SEVENTH VIAL.—A new work. Dr. John Cumming. 
 
 THE GREAT TRIBULATION.—new ed. do. 
 THE GREAT PREPARATION.— do. do. 
 THE GREAT CONSUMMATION.—do. do. 
 THE LAST WARNING CRY.— do. do. 
 ANTIDOTE TO ‘‘THE GATES AJAR,”— _ - - - 
 HOUSES NOT MADE W1TH HANDS.—Hoppin’s Illus. - 
 
 BEAUTY IS POWER.—An admirable book for ladies. - 
 ITALIAN LIFE AND LEGENDS.—By Anna Cora Ritchie. - 
 LIFE AND DEATH.—A new American novel. - - 
 HOW TO MAKE MONEY; AND HOW TO KEEP IT.—Davies. 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH.—By Charles Reade. 
 TALES FROM THE OPERAS.—The Plots of all the Operas. 
 ADVENTURES OF A HONEYMOON.—A love-story. 
 
 AMONG THE PINES.—Down South. By Edmund Kirke. 
 
 
 
 MY SOUTHERN FRIENDS.— do. do. - 
 DOWN IN TENNESSEE.— do. do. hohe 
 ADRIFT IN DIXIE.— do, do. - 
 AMONG THE GUERILLAS.— do. do. - 
 A BOOK ABOUT LAWYERS.—Bright and interesting. - 
 A BOOK ABOUT DOCTORS.— do. do. - - 
 
 WOMAN, LOVE, AND MARRIAGE.—By Fred. Saunders. - 
 PRISON LIFE OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. meer J. J. Craven. 
 POEMS, BY L. G. THOMAS.— - - - 
 PASTIMES WITH MY LITTLE FRIENDS. NE re! Bennett. 
 THE SQUIBOB PAPERS.—A comic book. John Phoenix. 
 COUSIN PAUL.—A new American novel. - - - 
 JARGAL,—A novel from the French of Victor Hugo. - 
 
 CLAUDE GUEUX.— do. do. do. - 
 LIFE OF VICTOR HUGO.— do do. . 
 CHRISTMAS HOLLY.—By Marion Harland, Illustrated. - 
 THE RUSSIAN BALL.—An illustrated satirical Poem. - 
 THE SNOBLACE BALL.— do. do. . 
 
 THE PRINCE OF -KASHNA.—LEHdited by R. B. Kimball. - 
 
 = NNN DN Se 
 
 Or Ot i i eee | 
 am, 2 ere: Bt erly ee ce.) S.e. So ue) Se Se. es | OS ee Se ae Ol oe 6a eee ap . 
 
 
 
ee 
 
 3 PUBLISHED BY G. W. CARLETON & CO. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Wiiseellaneous Works. 
 
 A Lost LiFE.—A novel by Emily H. Moore . . $1.50 
 CROWN JEWELS.— do. Mrs. Emma L. Moffett. $1.75 
 ADRIFT WITH A VENGEANCE.— Kinahan Cornwallis. . $1.50 
 
 THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR IN 1870.—By M.D. Landon. $2.00 
 UREAM MuUsIc.—Poems by Frederic Rowland Marvin.. $1.50 
 
 RAMBLES IN CUBA.—By an American Lady. : ESO 
 BEHIND THE SCENES, in the White House.—Keckley. . $2.00 
 YACHTMAN’S PRIMER.—For Amateur Sailors.—Warren. 50 
 
 RURAL ARCHITECTURE.—By M. Field. With illustrations. $2.00 
 TREATISE ON DEAFNESS.—By Dr. E. B. Lighthill. . . . $1.50 
 WOMEN AND THEATRES.—A new book, by Olive Logan. $1.50 
 WARWICK. —A new novelby Mansfield Tracy Walworth. $1.75 
 BIBYL HUNTINGTON.—A novel by Mrs. J. C. R. Dorr. . $1.75 
 LIVING WRITERS OF THE 80UTH.—By Prof. Davidson. . $2.00 
 STRANGE VisiTtors.—A book from the Spirit World. . $1.50 
 UP BROADWAY, and its Sequel.-—A story by Eleanor Kirk. $1.50 
 MILITARY RECORD, of Appointments in the U.S. Army. $5.00 
 
 HONOR BRIGHT.—A new American novel. . ; . $1.50 
 MALBROOK.— do. do. do. : : . $1.56 
 GUILTY OR NOT GUILTY.— do. do. $1.75 
 
 ROBERT GREATHOUSE.—A new novel by John F, Swift . $2.00 
 THE GOLDEN OROss, and poems by Irving Van Wart, jr. $1.50 
 
 ATHALIAH.—A new novel by Joseph H. Greene, jr. . “ie 5 
 REGINA, and other poems.—By Eliza Cruger. . $1.50 
 THE WICKEDEST WOMAN IN NEW YORK.—By C. H. Webb. 50 
 MONTALBAN.—A new American novel. 4 Pee 3 oy) 
 MADEMOISELLE MERQUEM.—A novel by George Sand. . $1.75 
 TRE IMPENDING CRISIS OF THE SouTH.—By H.R. Helper. $2.00 
 NosoquE—A Question for a Continent.— do. dc ‘$2300 
 paris IN 1867.—By Henry Morford. . : ; ao Blas 
 THE BISHOP’S SON.—A novel by Alice Cary. : pe ees 
 
 CRUISE OF THE ALABAMA AND SUMTER.—ByCapt.Semmes. $1.50 | 
 ExtEN OOURTENAY.—A novel, author “ Vernon Grove.” $1.75 
 BOUVENIRS OF TRAVEL.—By Madame OctaviaW. LeVert. $2.00 
 
 VANQUISHED.—A novel by Agnes Leonard. ° Ae Wee 
 WILL-0’-THE-wisP.—A child’s book, from the German. $1.50 
 FOUR oAks.—A novel by Kamba Thorpe. : $1.75 
 THE CHRISTMAS FONT.—A child’s book, by M. J. Holmes. $1.06 
 POEMS, BY SARAH T. BOLTON. ; . $1.50 
 MARY BRANDEGEE—A novel by Cuyler Pine. : . Bis 
 RENSHAWE.— do. do. ; Tees 
 MOUNT OALVARY.—By Matthew Hale Smith, - - $2.00 
 PROMETHEUS IN ATLANTIS.—A prophécy. : , $2.00 
 
 TITAN AGONISTES.—An American novel, : : $2.00 
 

 
 eer ees oat i sop moth pent 
 
 zo . airy it 
 cy Le 2. & rit} oft, . : 7 
 
 
 
 
 
 a 7 4% ’ 
 A t . zee 
 . ‘| 
 ‘ ey a te 
 ’ n 
 ’ 4 - 
 P ‘ . r % 
 e.: 
 . Ae ’ “ 4 ; 
 y . is . 
 é 
 - 
 ; t 
 - q . F = 
 ~/ | * 2 
 - : * 
 4 ¢ 
 . 4 
 af? “as r > é 
 om 1 3 S ‘ a 
 v : : - 
 » ARR PEL MES meee 
 , pic Ri ee : 
 rr wee SA set, ‘ 
 \ Cf a HY a ‘ ? 
 = 
 . z or - . 
 o> “ >. ” A 
 5 vy 5 / ¢ 
 7 oe a 
 ~ ? $ "ae ‘ N 
 = rf 
 n 4m i ve - 
 very ae ee 
 ’ ry - y ‘ 
 
 Bones Jat rie: 
 
 - 
 a j1 & 
 
 
 
 
 ==; 
 é “ 
 ‘ 
 ~ 
 , 
 . 
 , 
 ‘ 
 y 
 4 
 * 
 , 
 - 
 - hag 
 ’ 
 
 . 
 

 

 
ot 
 
 - oar * Tees i ps wig EE ee ee 
 
 
 

 
 a htc i i naa ga fA 
 

 
 
 
 cre Pre 
 
 fi EET RATT Ci; 
 Baris: Pra EtaT ia 
 a8 ze Febceseeeteriza 
 
 Ptetedeeccktssee 
 
 
 
 feces 
 
 feteeatcig: etistiere 
 
 
 
 
 
 eecereerey 
 
 
 
 Gseaeetiteie 
 
 
 
 eegearvad 
 
 
 
 eicree 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 eacarretteccre 
 Baieedietias 
 
 
 
 
 
 dadviseinee 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 picsedee 
 eacacece 
 
 
 
 
 
 parar? 
 
 
 
 
 
 tavaeesuree 
 
 
 
 Peeeeeseasts, 
 
 
 
 edeeevereseisediccst 
 
 
 
 seeviivens 
 sear eedeeeevessercis 
 
 
 
 OPTUS eee Ci eea se catie 
 
 
 
 feisesdivs 
 
 
 
 Ne VENGSeseateseceetergscaicedis 
 
 
 
 sCCESECEUNGEHERCECECORCESCCRENCa cece eecaeeate 
 
 ne (6a 
 
 
 
 
 
 OlGaee ese Che teaces 
 
 
 
 CHECCUELECELEC CET ER Sc ebetarecateet 
 
 
 
 GeeCeeaaeuecerecarecrierceye 
 
 
 
 BRSeC ener ee eec ee later rte 
 
 
 
 receeredcleareds 
 Ri nshceeenetecctccencencasas See PCURCCEN ERECT ECE PR EE 
 
 CGeRUMeRTEDERCECECANRGKGEEA SIGE 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 SULUEER Uae ee oteee 
 EURSEAR ECE ERC ESeeaeersyieiteat 
 
 il 
 
 
 
 éetcies 
 aCe AMECHPEVESUEEEREDTCHEcededceret? 
 
 TiUSee ease 
 
 
 
 Sehasicetsedsceceicriceis 
 
 
 
 abet 
 
 
 
 Fesuceeee 
 
 
 
 LEGTTR EP ietattee 
 
 
 
 
 b EAGRERERECHTCL REC teREreRaEE 
 fas . 
 SO) Wi edetestas 
 
 
 
 CevRC ERE HERCEE 
 
 
 
 VeEdeeeceeeeUedereeetungarecceghanerae 
 
 
 
 Seer ener caitie 
 
 
 
 Sceeeeaaicesevecsevecise 
 
 
 
 Seaereaecrcecceegiarecriniees 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 eVeceeeserercse 
 dreceasceecetrs 
 
 seateseveaevediededarer 
 
 PRSPRCERCECC ECR ett ete 
 
 icrrcrsian, 
 
 secrinia 
 
 
 
 ti ‘ 
 } : : . : . 
 J AGSPRRONGEHERENECSECHASEASE PSs AVES E Coa Ceae ERLE OTE EP ASC ORS EAEERSE HLEGEEER TEAR EL ae aie 
 GEGHARRREEURGckarcaccartaahcetaaktecascansa COE cetecaeee TACK eae a ccs eer ese cece lies ies 
 (es iaeeees peer as 
 
 
 
 SUPICCRSPRADERSE 
 
 
 
 dcdieceederrversariecerel 
 
 
 
 eeedrecerdeeeisreccrs 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 OSECCOCESEG EERO RCESTaSGiRtastetane 
 
 
 
 Cceceeeeens cree cecegeeeceeeei ace 
 
 
 
 AVEOURCRASSECRCEORGECELES BECK ED 
 
 
 
 eceecr eaters: reeices 
 
 
 
 Orewetgsdsaseccecsecsss 
 
 
 
 fisteresiveds Ceneereseasccceecar 
 
 
 
 POEL ettiiug) 
 
 
 
 QUADESOKAOHAGHELGtSaGT 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 titecearr i LY vee ebreuecs 
 Si fevaratereeecervasrececseassaisoetens teadecciegeeredsicrercer Th SeCercecesueate 
 HOCERUACCERRGHLVATANERUERECTOCEULEVATSEULELAUSCRIECI INTL TTI te tr ~*4egTt i Ciecies 
 ‘ae PRCRRC RPE eeSs tatbatee PVERUAEEENCCERCEL LC CUE Cee eee etes tied. Gettarca 
 3 L[Wedseesedeorenes reided HORTECERGHARSEEESSEDES HRCCCHC EGR CTE Pipaeetrireras “seit 
 Qeclendvenkeaverecs 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 IRRRUSOROSSSSOSOLESOL IC OCS CORSO SECC Ded "sf 
 ae WeeseeSaetegeesisrertisaness DESHCRERHEAEERATRET LAER TEAST ARCA eRe GE te eaeais 
 Ggiecceedeceasiavesuseesr taecuaane ULCETECE REL ER AEa eae ute Treceere 
 PUERCO DELP heeece 
 
 
 
 SEALE CPHL A CT EEE t 
 
 SESHRECECEE CSS Etat ett 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Gat (ree 
 SUOCGHESUEREGCH SSS ESHA TESTES HERE EVEN CSE RO CHCHAS EUR R EAI E GHEE CY 2 ve Abe (08s 3 (3. ¥ ‘ 
 Feat haveccece SPRSTCERRSRSERGEE CHER eaEaPeatreceiaatceceies ‘ i paeed fe. ges at 
 
 fe Weareverecveecovecsctescsariiyses CUCVEETTERC CURE R tenses sieeiece T ee ore 3: 44 
 
 ay PORSESeRCiCeNbedezeutreorEstsdters ERECANTALERC Carta tece cee ries ‘ities 1 dbee 
 
 a 
 
 
 
 OURACESPHCENLSEPLOPCE LEASE ONSEN EH ESS 
 
 
 
 een 
 
 
 
 Sedeceseree 
 
 
 
 tr Haredeecdaree “Saree 
 
 CRGOTCESSAdRaLOt ese 
 
 
 
 LETACTRA Cet bar ee sent, 
 
 EEUACORSENR SALE YE Care ceeteeieceereyes 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 tancossad 
 
 
 
 FAT UNHSGEGRAESENRERaNGT ETS 
 
 
 
 treaties 
 
 
 
 tetra 
 
 
 
 Cae Waveveusecs 
 
 
 
 sraee i fare tiaaceae 
 
 
 
 aitr 
 
 
 
 ia PCRNOABAR ER Kaaessssias 
 
 SLSPERDAGRSH ELL OOK eeRae 
 
 
 
 
 SPC CER ECECe EEE 
 
 
 
 Pataseceeseseads 
 
 OnfGdSAGe eR CRA Rssiseacsienee 
 
 
 
 FROPTREVERS VOLE sp eet eae tes 
 UI 
 
 
 
 CRUATSORAAPR OOP RSERescecatet 
 
 
 
 SEPTATUCSERES PSEC TES UR SEC ONS coer iaeday 
 
 VaCihocoandaaneucesscarise 
 
 
 
 SEURAGUCERHC EUV ERET ERE TELE te EPAERCisei ices 
 
 
 
 {SCEGRACESRGER EA REISE EDs ree ese 
 
 
 
 SPTECELORESRARREEHCESCRHEECERTAEDON REE ES HERES, Etacecescuces 
 
 
 
 RPURETERENALED 
 (GteaGeceeatiassaszsaags 
 
 ULOPCCRCLUELLL 
 
 
 
 Cipnedravergaaa FGSPRDA EKER eee tte 
 
 
 
 AADdEsEs ECE E CEE 
 
 
 
 GRVSREN RR EGEEdiereeere Es: 
 
 CHPTHUSECEN AOD E ROT ECERPCSEnERKRAGS 
 CEOSOCSNEET ELSA bg cAseEE 
 
 CHGRERSPALUSTESPR COREA RaRS Ese serene cutaed 
 
 
 
 KULGGECL ECR ECTaCeE 
 
 
 
 HOCCSECRESLSHAP ARORA PERCH ECE ee eA te Rete 
 reiteré 
 
 [WUD DFRRECCEERSDsSeRasS 
 
 
 
 (COSTCO EECCA CECE Rees eeeiaE 
 
 
 
 FALER CHE RAGE RGa COCUCECER CERO C Cree eee 
 
 
 
 Sage eae 
 
 
 
 PORESREPRGEEGHSTASPR ESE CEES GiTE 
 
 
 
 VMttAeCReceeceeerie gece 
 
 
 
 SEUEENNGECTOMED ESE RUSS ei ueeCacedceesaseteese 
 
 
 
 
 REGKCEEGESCUCECRe HAC taeee 
 SESUGERTARGANSESK eed TPT ASR EEE 
 
 LERGCEFES ESS aeeete 
 
 
 
 
 DEVEGEGRESEZHU ARE CLE ECA ieaee 
 PEraVanteoetsrersetsazen 
 
 UFercercenisscsess ai 
 
 
 
 PEUERCSCHERCCRCCRE EL EE eae 
 i318 SEEsS 
 
 
 
 CetSeoanesane 
 
 
 
 tees ists 
 FELEMOS DE CRDEN ES CRETE 
 
 
 
 tstcitnceys 
 
 
 
 Seitns 
 
 
 
 
 
 PUatrrdareces 
 
 
 
 uu HHRAKMEK RACHEL Eee Ke ne RERAEAT LEER ERUNEG Gee deere 
 pine AEVCRCEPRER ESE PSE se ese etees SRCCEERGRAETEEOER OSCE RVC eRe bee ee 
 fe dnacetaravereearceneesiie THCRATERESLCRALFESE OCP AER GH ERE ER TEER EEC EU ECE EEE 
 Gisigheeanentseatstuasoeareavitveucatvevenyneaeizin CEUSEESCECRRe eet teER? 
 ya | 
 
 
 
 
 
 FEPRDAPTRRAGSRSREURG SPE APRCCLRADERERSRSERSPRLISSNAE POSES CER UEC STL e Ratt 
 
 
 
 GEURGUFPSORAN ERP RTA EERE 
 
 
 
 PORERSR ECAR CE ETES 
 
 
 
 ati 
 
 
 
 SRSETEAPASONTIRRLEPSNARART EGR UAEE 
 
 
 
 meer 
 SUFREUSRGPESGESESSZAOAKGNAG SESE EEC ReS ED 
 
 SELEE DCG SECOTT 
 VESUCUCSS DRT OLiceE eT 
 \PRCARPROHSENSESEH EAA EE MHEKESGITSNNGaeeeee 
 
 
 
 Peececessite 
 
 
 
 FESEUNSZANESERESHCACK ENG LAL ae CeseR 
 
 
 
 CPSCKERCAHGS ECE DE RCT eee 
 AUGPECOOSSEOUURAGRAS SEDC AT OSC RRRESTARGORSSTRGYNIEI EARS EAC eteneeeeuete 
 
 
 
 BERTREEGH HEREC RACE 
 POPU CERONGCERBRANSERZENStAseheeneae tas 
 eS 
 
 ai PORCREPE USSG eecce rage 
 
 
 
 ATHACUERC ERECT ENE a CE 
 theeveges ‘ 
 
 
 
 CARGREE Ete sere 
 
 
 
 COOLESCCKECCRKECERSCHECEE 
 POSEN ORDO eNPeenS 
 
 
 
 PEGTAASAGSSESE CRI EHKE TERR GERCES A SHEEN eet YS 
 JPSCIUUI ECCT Core ge) 
 
 
 
 TaNgteecste 
 
 
 
 Peeueeeuee 
 
 
 
 DCCL ET LARA eect ri caes 
 GCN MADERG RNS ¥ruesaseeseraaneoeeninsedtrae 
 
 TREESECSSLSSREA SEC ME ERC COREE ERE 
 
 
 
 DA PASMO RP ASU RATS WERDER AG TSG aHARED ER EL OS 
 
 
 
 
 SUPPESPECERRSEMHOTE EES ete yes 
 
 
 
 fetter 
 
 
 
 S POMS TSM RAGE TS areeeeerertes 
 5 
 4 
 
 
 
 SEGOPESSSeesieuscigase 
 
 DUNERERSORS Ease e day 
 CPSATNAMAGNOAAEGATIVAA tr eect CaN eees 
 
 
 
 
 
 FRCECKEORSEGEPRE FORE Ree erat arate 
 
 trgesas 
 
 
 
 TUCCR te ceter 
 
 FALERNENGA CCRC e Cet ss 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 OPTIC ECECEECE CIS Lere 
 
 Hea Beare 
 
 tries 
 
 
 
 SSSTELECE CORA Tce e tees 
 
 
 
 statert 
 POSERS HATA EET AeEKateRTs 
 
 Patecsecacace 
 GS AMDASTHSIESTOP EDGE Lae eest Keres 
 
 caatt 
 
 SETEHCRCER CEES hte rE 
 
 
 
 ee POCTSOTISAS AR e ate egies eres PUSEGSSLGLER NSEC EEK eR teat tery 
 
 
 
 
 
 his Raavars 
 is 
 
 
 
 POUUNCRG eh endtaegee 
 
 Baesseas 
 
 Starts: 
 
 
 
 SGTESSECERR TAC ENC HEE 
 
 
 
 caress 
 
 
 
 PS ELS ESCELI LESTE 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 toeerceter 
 eehidatiaa 
 
 Vrivtinie 
 
 fata 
 
 tsecieded: 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ate 
 
 
 
 aauecrecce 
 
 teseitence 
 
 tes 
 
 
 
 
 
 Cetencas 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 teecaiee 
 
 Sakiace 
 tite 
 terres 
 aiscae 
 
 rieaes 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 see 
 cuecese 
 Pe eee ans 
 
 
 
 tates 
 
 cecuene 
 
 
 
 dirtes 
 
 aectesre 
 
 ceteccer 
 
 ceccent 
 
 teaetee 
 
 Teticens 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 pebtiee cileer 
 
 BELLA e Laveen eTEsed 
 
 ecceiseiiticas 
 thé $i 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 
 
 aacusnignedeccn utc 3 0112 072901975 
 
 
 
 PCSCET RRL ET EERE 
 tt Prete ics