Chapter XXXII: Dublin at last 565 (5)

‘Although of different ways of thinking in politics, certain
sympathies of character and conduct united Dambergeac and myself,
and we speedily became close friends. I don’t think, in the whole
course of his three years’ residence, Dambergeac ever went through
a single course of lectures. For the examinations, he trusted to
luck, and to his own facility, which was prodigious: as for
honours, he never aimed at them, but was content to do exactly as
little as was necessary for him to gain his degree. In like manner
he sedulously avoided those horrible circulating libraries, where
daily are seen to congregate the “reading men” of our schools. But,
in revenge, there was not a milliner’s shop, or a _lingèré’s_, in
all our Quartier Latin, which he did not industriously frequent,
and of which he was not the oracle. Nay, it was said that his
victories were not confined to the left bank of the Seine; reports
did occasionally come to us of fabulous adventures by him
accomplished in the far regions of the Rue de la Paix and the
Boulevard Poissonnière. Such recitals were, for us less favoured
mortals, like tales of Bacchus conquering in the East; they excited
our ambition, but not our jealousy; for the superiority of
Harmodius was acknowledged by us all, and we never thought of a
rivalry with him. No man ever cantered a hack through the Champs
Élysées with such elegant assurance; no man ever made such a
massacre of dolls at the shooting-gallery; or won you a rubber at
billiards with more easy grace; or thundered out a couplet of
Béranger with such a roaring melodious bass. He was the monarch of
the Prado in winter; in summer of the Chaumière and Mont Parnasse.
Not a frequenter of those fashionable places of entertainment
showed a more amiable _laisser-aller_ in the dance--that peculiar
dance at which gendarmes think proper to blush, and which squeamish
society has banished from her salons. In a word, Harmodius was the
prince of _mauvais sujets_, a youth with all the accomplishments of
Göttingen and Jena, and all the eminent graces of his own country.

‘Besides dissipation and gallantry, our friend had one other vast
and absorbing occupation--politics, namely, in which he was as
turbulent and enthusiastic as in pleasure. _La Patrie_ was his
idol, his heaven, his nightmare; by day he spouted, by night he
dreamed, of his country. I have spoken to you of his coiffure à la
Sylla; need I mention his pipe, his meerschaum pipe, of which
General Foy’s head was the bowl; his handkerchief with the Charte
printed thereon; and his celebrated tricolour braces, which kept
the rallying sign of his country ever close to his heart? Besides
these outward and visible signs of sedition, he had inward and
secret plans of revolution: he belonged to clubs, frequented
associations, read the _Constitutionnel_ (Liberals, in those days,
swore by the _Constitutionnel_), harangued peers and deputies who
had deserved well of their country; and if death happened to fall
on such, and the _Constitutionnel_ declared their merit, Harmodius
was the very first to attend their obsequies, or to set his
shoulder to their coffins.

‘Such were his tastes and passions: his antipathies were not less
lively. He detested three things: a Jesuit, a gendarme, and a
claqueur at a theatre. At this period, missionaries were rife about
Paris, and endeavoured to re-illume the zeal of the faithful by
public preachings in the churches. “Infâmes jésuites!” would
Harmodius exclaim, who, in the excess of his toleration, tolerated
nothing; and, at the head of a band of philosophers like himself,
would attend with scrupulous exactitude the meetings of the
reverend gentlemen. But, instead of a contrite heart, Harmodius
only brought the abomination of desolation into their sanctuary. A
perpetual fire of fulminating balls would bang from under the feet
of the faithful; odours of impure asafœtida would mingle with
the fumes of the incense; and wicked drinking choruses would rise
up along with the holy canticles, in hideous dissonance, reminding
one of the old orgies under the reign of the Abbot of Unreason.

‘His hatred of the gendarmes was equally ferocious: and as for the
claqueurs, woe be to them when Harmodius was in the pit! They knew
him, and trembled before him, like the earth before Alexander; and
his famous war-cry, “La Carte au chapeau!” was so much dreaded,
that the “entrepreneurs de succès dramatiques” demanded twice as
much to _do_ the Odéon Theatre (which we students and Harmodius
frequented) as to applaud at any other place of amusement: and,
indeed, their double pay was hardly gained; Harmodius taking care
that they should earn the most of it under the benches.’

This passage, with which we have taken some liberties, will give the reader a more lively idea of the reckless, jovial, turbulent Paris student, than any with which a foreigner could furnish him: the grisette is his heroine; and dear old Béranger, the cynic-epicurean, has celebrated him and her in the most delightful verses in the world. Of these we may have occasion to say a word or two anon. Meanwhile let us follow Monsieur de Bernard in his amusing descriptions of his countrymen somewhat farther; and, having seen how Dambergeac was a ferocious republican, being a bachelor, let us see how age, sense, and a little Government pay--that great agent of conversions in France--nay, in England--has reduced him to be a pompous, quiet, loyal supporter of the _juste milieu_: his former portrait was that of the student, the present will stand for an admirable lively likeness of

THE SOUS-PRÉFET

‘Saying that I would wait for Dambergeac in his own study, I was introduced into that apartment, and saw around me the usual furniture of a man in his station. There was, in the middle of the room, a large bureau, surrounded by orthodox arm-chairs; and there were many shelves with boxes duly ticketed; there were a number of maps, and, among them, a great one of the department over which Dambergeac ruled; and, facing the windows, on a wooden pedestal, stood a plaster cast of the “Roi des Français.” Recollecting my friend’s former republicanism, I smiled at this piece of furniture; but before I had time to carry my observations any farther, a heavy rolling sound of carriage-wheels, that caused the windows to rattle and seemed to shake the whole edifice of the sub-prefecture, called my attention to the court without. Its iron gates were flung open, and in rolled, with a great deal of din, a chariot escorted by a brace of gendarmes, sword in hand. A tall gentleman, with a cocked-hat and feathers, wearing a blue-and-silver uniform coat, descended from the vehicle; and having, with much grave condescension, saluted his escort, mounted the stair. A moment afterwards the door of the study was opened, and I embraced my friend.

‘After the first warmth and salutations, we began to examine each other with an equal curiosity, for eight years had elapsed since we had last met.

‘“You are grown very thin and pale,” said Harmodius, after a moment.

‘“In revenge I find you fat and rosy: if I am a walking satire on celibacy,--you, at least, are a living panegyric on marriage.”

‘In fact, a great change, and such an one as many people would call a change for the better, had taken place in my friend: he had grown fat, and announced a decided disposition to become what French people call a _bel homme_: that is, a very fat one. His complexion, bronzed before, was now clear white and red: there were no more political allusions in his hair, which was, on the contrary, neatly frizzed, and brushed over the forehead, shell-shape. This headdress, joined to a thin pair of whiskers, cut crescent-wise from the ear to the nose, gave my friend a regular bourgeois physiognomy, wax-doll-like: he looked a great deal too well; and, added to this, the solemnity of his prefectoral costume gave his whole appearance a pompous, well-fed look, that by no means pleased.

‘“I surprise you,” said I, “in the midst of your splendour: do you know that this costume and yonder attendants have a look excessively awful and splendid? You entered your palace just now with the air of a pasha.”

‘“You see me in uniform in honour of Monseigneur the Bishop, who has just made his diocesan visit, and whom I have just conducted to the limit of the arrondissement.”

‘“What!” said I, “you have gendarmes for guards, and dance attendance on bishops? There are no more janissaries and Jesuits, I suppose?” The sub-prefect smiled.

‘“I assure you that my gendarmes are very worthy fellows; and that among the gentlemen who compose our clergy there are some of the very best rank and talent: besides, my wife is niece to one of the vicars-general.”

‘“What have you done with that great Tasso beard that poor Armandine used to love so?”

‘“My wife does not like a beard; and you know that what is permitted to a student is not very becoming to a magistrate.”

‘I began to laugh. “Harmodius and a magistrate?--how shall I ever couple the two words together? But tell me, in your correspondences, your audiences, your sittings with village mayors and petty councils, how do you manage to remain awake?”

‘“In the commencement,” said Harmodius gravely, “it _was_ very difficult; and, in order to keep my eyes open, I used to stick pins into my legs: now, however, I am used to it; and I’m sure I don’t take more than fifty pinches of snuff at a sitting.”

‘“Ah! _à propos_ of snuff: you are near Spain here, and were always a famous smoker. Give me a cigar,--it will take away the musty odour of these piles of papers.”

‘“Impossible, my dear; I don’t smoke; my wife cannot bear a cigar.”

‘His wife! thought I: always his wife; and I remember Juliette, who really grew sick at the smell of a pipe, and Harmodius would smoke, until, at last, the poor thing grew to smoke herself, like a trooper. To compensate, however, as much as possible for the loss of my cigar, Dambergeac drew from his pocket an enormous gold snuff-box, on which figured the self-same head that I had before remarked in plaster, but this time surrounded with a ring of pretty princes and princesses, all nicely painted in miniature. As for the statue of Louis Philippe, that, in the cabinet of an official, is a thing of course; but the snuff-box seemed to indicate a degree of sentimental and personal devotion, such as the old Royalists were only supposed to be guilty of.

‘“What! you are turned decided _juste milieu_?” said I.

‘“I am a sous-préfet,” answered Harmodius.

‘I had nothing to say, but held my tongue, wondering, not at the change which had taken place in the habits, manners, and opinions of my friend, but at my own folly, which led me to fancy that I should find the student of ‘26 in the functionary of ‘34. At this moment a domestic appeared.

‘“Madame is waiting for Monsieur,” said he: “the last bell has gone, and mass beginning.”

‘“Mass!” said I, bounding up from my chair. “You at mass, like a decent serious Christian, without crackers in your pocket, and bored keys to whistle through?”--The sous-préfet rose, his countenance was calm, and an indulgent smile played upon his lips, as he said, “My arrondissement is very devout; and not to interfere with the belief of the population is the maxim of every wise politician: I have precise orders from Government on the point, too, and go to eleven-o’clock mass every Sunday.”’

* * * * *

There is a great deal of curious matter for speculation in the accounts here so wittily given by M. de Bernard: but, perhaps, it is still more curious to think of what he has _not_ written, and to judge of his characters, not so much by the words in which he describes them, as by the unconscious testimony that the words all together convey. In the first place, our author describes a swindler imitating the manners of a dandy: and many swindlers and dandies be there, doubtless, in London as well as in Paris. But there is about the present swindler, and about Monsieur Dambergeac the student, and Monsieur Dambergeac the sous-préfet, and his friend, a rich store of calm internal _debauch_, which does not, let us hope and pray, exist in England. Hearken to M. de Gustan, and his smirking whispers about the Duchess of San Severino, who _pour son bonheur particulier_, etc. etc. Listen to Monsieur Dambergeac’s friend’s remonstrances concerning _pauvre Juliette_, who grew sick at the smell of a pipe; to his _naïve_ admiration at the fact that the sous-préfet goes to church: and we may set down, as axioms, that religion is so uncommon among the Parisians, as to awaken the surprise of all candid observers; that gallantry is so common as to create no remark, and to be considered as a matter of course. With us, at least, the converse of the proposition prevails: it is the man professing _ir_religion who would be remarked and reprehended in England; and, if the second-named vice exists, at any rate it adopts the decency of secrecy, and is not made patent and notorious to all the world. A French gentleman thinks no more of proclaiming that he has a mistress than that he has a tailor; and one lives the time of Boccaccio over again, in the thousand and one French novels which depict the state of society in that country.

For instance, here are before us a few specimens (do not, madam, be alarmed, you can skip the sentence if you like) to be found in as many admirable witty tales, by the before-lauded Monsieur de Bernard. He is more remarkable than any other French author, to our notion, for writing like a gentleman: there is ease, grace, and _ton_ in his style, which, if we judge aright, cannot be discovered in Balzac, or Soulié, or Dumas. We have then--_Gerfaut_, a novel: a lovely creature is married to a brave, haughty Alsacian nobleman, who allows her to spend her winters at Paris, he remaining on his _terres_, cultivating, carousing, and hunting the boar. The lovely creature meets the fascinating Gerfaut at Paris; instantly the latter makes love to her; a duel takes place; baron killed; wife throws herself out of window; Gerfaut plunges into dissipation, and so the tale ends.

Next, _La Femme de Quarante Ans_, a capital tale, full of exquisite fun and sparkling satire: La femme de quarante ans has a husband and _three_ lovers; all of whom find out their mutual connection one starry night; for the lady of forty is of a romantic poetical turn, and has given her three admirers _a star apiece_, saying to one and the other, ‘Alphonse, when yon pale orb rises in heaven, think of me;’ ‘Isidore, when that bright planet sparkles in the sky, remember your Caroline,’ etc.

_Un Acte de Vertu_, from which we have taken Dambergeac’s history, contains him, the husband--a wife--and a brace of lovers; and a great deal of fun takes place in the manner in which one lover supplants the other. Pretty morals truly!

If we examine an author who rejoices in the aristocratic name of Le Comte Horace de Viel-Castel, we find, though with infinitely less wit, exactly the same intrigues going on. A noble Count lives in the Faubourg St. Honoré, and has a noble Duchess for a mistress: he introduces her Grace to the Countess, his wife. The Countess, his wife, in order to _ramener_ her lord to his conjugal duties, is counselled, by a friend, _to pretend to take a lover_: one is found, who, poor fellow! takes the affair in earnest: climax--duel, death, despair, and what not! In the _Faubourg St. Germain_, another novel by the same writer, which professes to describe the very pink of that society which Napoleon dreaded more than Russia, Prussia, and Austria, there is an old husband, of course; a sentimental young German nobleman, that falls in love with his wife; and the moral of the piece lies in the showing up of the conduct of the lady, who is reprehended--not for deceiving her husband (poor devil!)--but for being a flirt, _and taking a second lover_, to the utter despair, confusion, and annihilation of the first.

Why, ye gods, do Frenchmen marry at all? Had Père Enfantin (who, it is said, has shaved his ambrosial beard, and is now a clerk in a banking-house) been allowed to carry out his chaste, just, dignified, social scheme, what a deal of marital discomfort might have been avoided:--would it not be advisable that a great reformer and lawgiver of our own, Mr. Robert Owen, should be presented at the Tuileries, and there propound his scheme for the regeneration of France?

He might, perhaps, be spared, for our country is not yet sufficiently advanced to give such a philosopher fair-play. In London, as yet, there are no blessed _Bureaux de Mariage_, where an old bachelor may have a charming young maiden--for his money; or a widow of seventy may buy a gay young fellow of twenty, for a certain number of bank-billets. If _mariages de convenance_ take place here (as they will wherever avarice, and poverty, and desire, and yearning after riches are to be found), at least, thank God, such unions are not arranged upon a regular organised _system_: there is a fiction of attachment with us, and there is a consolation in the deceit (‘the homage,’ according to the old _môt_ of Rochefoucauld, ‘which vice pays to virtue’); for the very falsehood shows that the virtue exists somewhere. We once heard a furious old French colonel inveighing against the chastity of English _demoiselles_: ‘Figurez-vous, sir,’ said he (he had been a prisoner in England), ‘that these women come down to dinner in low dresses, and walk out alone with the men!’--and, pray Heaven, so may they walk, fancy-free in all sorts of maiden meditations, and suffer no more molestation than that young lady of whom Moore sings, and who (there must have been a famous lord-lieutenant in those days) walked through all Ireland, with rich and rare gems, beauty, and a gold ring on her stick, without meeting or thinking of harm.

Now, whether Monsieur de Viel-Castel has given a true picture of the Faubourg St. Germain, it is impossible for most foreigners to say; but some of his descriptions will not fail to astonish the English reader; and all are filled with that remarkable _naïf_ contempt of the institution called marriage, which we have seen in M. de Bernard. The romantic young nobleman of Westphalia arrives at Paris, and is admitted into what a celebrated female author calls _la crême de la crême de la haute volée_ of Parisian society. He is a youth of about twenty years of age. ‘No passion had as yet come to move his heart, and give life to his faculties; he was awaiting and fearing the moment of love; calling for it, and yet trembling at its approach; feeling, in the depths of his soul, that that moment would create a mighty change in his being, and decide, perhaps, by its influence, the whole of his future life.’

Is it not remarkable that a young nobleman, with these ideas, should not pitch upon a _demoiselle_, or a widow, at least? but no, the rogue must have a married woman, bad luck to him; and what his fate is to be is thus recounted by our author, in the shape of

A FRENCH FASHIONABLE CONVERSATION

‘A lady, with a great deal of _esprit_, to whom forty years’ experience of the great world had given a prodigious perspicacity of judgment, the Duchess of Chalux, arbitress of the opinion to be held on all new-comers to the Faubourg St. Germain, and of their destiny and reception in it;--one of those women, in a word, who make or ruin a man--said, in speaking of Gerard de Stolberg, whom she received at her own house, and met everywhere, “This young German will never gain for himself the title of an exquisite, or a man of _bonnes fortunes_, among us. In spite of his calm and politeness, I think I can see in his character some rude and insurmountable difficulties, which time will only increase, and which will prevent him for ever from bending to the exigencies of either profession; but, unless I very much deceive myself, he will, one day, be the hero of a veritable romance.”

‘“He, madam?” answered a young man, of fair complexion and fair hair, one of the most devoted slaves of the fashion:--He, Madame la Duchesse? Why, the man is, at best, but an original, fished out of the Rhine: a dull heavy creature, as much capable of understanding a woman’s heart as I am of speaking bas-Breton.”

‘“Well, Monsieur de Belport, you will speak bas-Breton. Monsieur de Stolberg has not your admirable ease of manner, nor your facility of telling pretty nothings, nor your--in a word, that particular something which makes you the most _recherche_ man of the Faubourg St. Germain; and even I avow to you that, were I still young, and a coquette, _and that I took it into my head to have a lover_, I would prefer you.”

‘All this was said by the Duchess with a certain air of raillery and such a mixture of earnest and malice, that Monsieur de Belport, piqued not a little, could not help saying, as he bowed profoundly before the Duchess’s chair, “And might I, madam, be permitted to ask the reason of this preference?”

‘“Oh, mon Dieu, oui,” said the Duchess, always in the same tone; “because a lover like you would never think of carrying his attachment to the height of passion; and these passions, do you know, have frightened me all my life. One cannot retreat at will from the grasp of a passionate lover; one leaves behind one some fragment of one’s moral _self_, or the best part of one’s physical life. A passion, if it does not kill you, adds cruelly to your years; in a word, it is the very lowest possible taste. And now you understand why I should prefer you, M. de Belport--you, who are reputed to be the leader of the fashion.”

‘“Perfectly,” murmured the gentleman, piqued more and more.

‘“Gerard de Stolberg _will_ be passionate. I don’t know what woman will please him, or will be pleased by him” (here the Duchess of Chalux spoke more gravely); “but his love will be no play, I repeat it to you once more. All this astonishes you, because you, great leaders of the _ton_ that you are, never can fancy that a hero of romance should be found among your number. Gerard de Stolberg--but look, here he comes!”

‘M. de Belport rose, and quitted the Duchess, without believing in her prophecy: but he could not avoid smiling as he passed near the _hero of romance_.

‘It was because M. de Stolberg had never, in all his life, been a hero of romance, or even an apprentice-hero of romance.’

* * * * *

‘Gerard de Stolberg was not, as yet, initiated into the thousand secrets in the chronicle of the great world: he knew but superficially the society in which he lived; and, therefore, he devoted his evening to the gathering of all the information which he could acquire from the indiscreet conversations of the people about him. His whole man became ear and memory; so much was Stolberg convinced of the necessity of becoming a diligent student in this new school, where was taught the art of knowing and advancing in the great world. In the recess of a window he learned more on this one night than months of investigation would have taught him. The talk of a ball is more indiscreet than the confidential chatter of a company of idle women. No man present at a ball, whether listener or speaker, thinks he has a right to affect any indulgence for his companions, and the most learned in malice will always pass for the most witty.

‘“How!” said the Viscount de Mondragé: “the Duchess of Rivesalte arrives alone to-night, without her inevitable Dormilly!” and the Viscount, as he spoke, pointed towards a tall and slender young woman, who, gliding rather than walking, met the ladies, by whom she passed, with a graceful and modest salute, and replied to the looks of the men _by brilliant veiled glances, full of coquetry and attack_.

“Parbleu!” said an elegant personage standing near the Viscount de Mondragé, “don’t you see Dormilly ranged behind the Duchess, in quality of train-bearer, and hiding, under his long locks and his great screen of moustaches, the blushing consciousness of his good luck?--They call him _the fourth chapter_ of the Duchess’s memoirs. The little Marquis d’Alberas is ready to die out of spite; but the best of the joke is, that she has only taken poor de Vendre for a lover in order to vent her spleen on him. Look at him against the chimney yonder: if the Marchioness do not break at once with him by quitting him for somebody else, the poor fellow will turn an idiot.”

‘“Is he jealous?” asked a young man, looking as if he did not know what jealousy was, and as if he had no time to be jealous.

‘“Jealous!--the very incarnation of jealousy; the second edition, revised, corrected, and considerably enlarged; as jealous as poor Gressigny, who is dying of it.”

‘“What! Gressigny too? why, ‘tis growing quite into fashion: egad! _I_ must try and be jealous,” said Monsieur de Beauval. “But see! here comes the delicious Duchess of Bellefiore,”’ etc. etc. etc.

* * * * *

Enough, enough; this kind of fashionable Parisian conversation, which is, says our author, ‘a prodigious labour of improvising,’ a ‘chef-d’œuvre,’ a ‘strange and singular thing, in which monotony is unknown,’ seems to be, if correctly reported, a ‘strange and singular thing’ indeed; but somewhat monotonous, at least to an English reader, and ‘prodigious’ only, if we may take leave to say so, for the wonderful rascality which all the conversationists betray. Miss Neverout and the Colonel, in Swift’s famous dialogue, are a thousand times more entertaining and moral; and, besides, we can laugh _at_ those worthies as well as with them; whereas the ‘prodigious’ French wits are to us quite incomprehensible. Fancy a duchess as old as Lady ---- herself, and who should begin to tell us ‘of what she would do if ever she had a mind to take a lover;’ and another duchess, with a fourth lover, tripping modestly among the ladies, and returning the gaze of the men by veiled glances, full of coquetry and attack!--Parbleu, if Monsieur de Viel-Castel should find himself among a society of French duchesses, and they should tear his eyes out, and send the fashionable Orpheus floating by the Seine, his slaughter might almost be considered as justifiable _Counticide_.

A GAMBLER’S DEATH

Anybody who was at C---- school some twelve years since, must recollect Jack Attwood: he was the most dashing lad in the place, with more money in his pocket than belonged to the whole fifth form in which we were companions.

When he was about fifteen, Jack suddenly retreated from C----, and presently we heard that he had a commission in a cavalry regiment, and was to have a great fortune from his father, when that old gentleman should die. Jack himself came to confirm these stories a few months after, and paid a visit to his old school chums. He had laid aside his little school-jacket and inky corduroys, and now appeared in such a splendid military suit as won the respect of all of us. His hair was dripping with oil, his hands were covered with rings, he had a dusky down over his upper lip which looked not unlike a moustache, and a multiplicity of frogs and braiding on his surtout, which would have sufficed to lace a field-marshal. When old Swishtail, the usher, passed in his seedy black coat and gaiters, Jack gave him such a look of contempt as set us all a-laughing: in fact it was his turn to laugh now; for he used to roar very stoutly some months before, when Swishtail was in the custom of belabouring him with his great cane.

Jack’s talk was all about the regiment and the fine fellows in it: how he had ridden a steeplechase with Captain Boldero, and licked him at the last hedge; and how he had very nearly fought a duel with Sir George Grig, about dancing with Lady Mary Slamken at a ball. ‘I soon made the baronet know what it was to deal with a man of the N--th,’ said Jack. ‘Dammee, sir, when I lugged out my barkers, and talked of fighting across the mess-room table, Grig turned as pale as a sheet, or as----’

‘Or as you used to do, Attwood, when Swishtail hauled you up,’ piped out little Hicks, the foundation-boy.

It was beneath Jack’s dignity to thrash anybody now but a grown-up baronet; so he let off little Hicks, and passed over the general titter which was raised at his expense. However, he entertained us with his histories about lords and ladies, and So-and-so ‘of ours,’ until we thought him one of the greatest men in his Majesty’s service, and until the school-bell rung; when, with a heavy heart, we got our books together, and marched in to be whacked by old Swishtail. I promise you he revenged himself on us for Jack’s contempt of him. I got that day at least twenty cuts to my share, which ought to have belonged to Cornet Attwood, of the N--th Dragoons.

When we came to think more coolly over our quondam school-fellow’s swaggering talk and manners, we were not quite so impressed by his merits as at his first appearance among us. We recollected how he used, in former times, to tell us great stories, which were so monstrously improbable that the smallest boy in the school would scout them; how often we caught him tripping in facts, and how unblushingly he admitted his little errors in the score of veracity. He and I, though never great friends, had been close companions: I was Jack’s form-fellow (we fought with amazing emulation for the _last_ place in the class); but still I was rather hurt at the coolness of my old comrade, who had forgotten all our former intimacy, in his steeplechases with Captain Boldero and his duel with Sir George Grig.

Nothing more was heard of Attwood for some years; a tailor one day came down to C----, who had made clothes for Jack in his school-days, and furnished him with regimentals: he produced a long bill for one hundred and twenty pounds and upwards, and asked where news might be had of his customer. Jack was in India, with his regiment, shooting tigers and jackals, no doubt. Occasionally, from that distant country, some magnificent rumour would reach us of his proceedings. Once I heard that he had been called to a court-martial for unbecoming conduct; another time, that he kept twenty horses, and won the gold plate at the Calcutta races. Presently, however, as the recollections of the fifth form wore away, Jack’s image disappeared likewise, and I ceased to ask or to think about my college chum.

A year since, as I was smoking my cigar in the Estaminet du Grand Balcon, an excellent smoking-shop, where the tobacco is unexceptionable, and the Hollands of singular merit, a dark-looking, thick-set man, in a greasy well-cut coat, with a shabby hat, cocked on one side of his dirty face, took the place opposite to me, at the little marble table, and called for brandy. I did not much admire the impudence or the appearance of my friend, nor the fixed stare with which he chose to examine me. At last he thrust a great greasy hand across the table, and said, ‘Titmarsh, do you forget your old friend Attwood?’

I confess my recognition of him was not so joyful as on the day ten years earlier, when he had come, bedizened with lace and gold rings, to see us at C---- school: a man in the tenth part of a century learns a deal of worldly wisdom, and his hand, which goes naturally forward to seize the gloved finger of a millionaire, or a milor, draws instinctively back from a dirty fist, encompassed by a ragged wristband and a tattered cuff. But Attwood was in nowise so backward; and the iron squeeze with which he shook my passive paw, proved that he was either very affectionate or very poor. You, my dear sir, who are reading this history, know very well the great art of shaking hands; recollect how you shook Lord Dash’s hand the other day, and how you shook _off_ poor Blank, when he came to borrow five pounds of you.

However, the genial influence of the hollands speedily dissipated anything like coolness between us; and, in the course of an hour’s conversation, we became almost as intimate as when we were suffering together under the ferule of old Swishtail. Jack told me that he had quitted the army in disgust; and that his father, who was to leave him a fortune, had died ten thousand pounds in debt: he did not touch upon his own circumstances; but I could read them in his elbows, which were peeping through his old frock. He talked a great deal, however, of runs of luck, good and bad; and related to me an infallible plan for breaking all the play-banks in Europe--a great number of old tricks;--and a vast quantity of gin-punch was consumed on the occasion; so long, in fact, did our conversation continue, that, I confess it with shame, the sentiment, or something stronger, quite got the better of me, and I have, to this day, no sort of notion how our palaver concluded.--Only, on the next morning I did not possess a certain five-pound note, which on the previous evening was in my sketch-book (by far the prettiest drawing, by the way, in the collection); but there, instead, was a strip of paper, thus inscribed:

‘IOU
Five Pounds. JOHN ATTWOOD, Late of the N--th Dragoons.’

I suppose Attwood borrowed the money, from this remarkable and ceremonious acknowledgment on his part: had I been sober I would just as soon have lent him the nose on my face; for, in my then circumstances, the note was of much more consequence to me.

As I lay, cursing my ill-fortune, and thinking how on earth I should manage to subsist for the next two months, Attwood burst into my little garret--his face strangely flushed--singing and shouting as if it had been the night before. ‘Titmarsh,’ cried he, ‘you are my preserver!--my best friend! Look here, and here, and here!’ And at every word Mr. Attwood produced a handful of gold, or a glittering heap of five-franc pieces, or a bundle of greasy, dusky bank-notes, more beautiful than either silver or gold;--he had won thirteen thousand francs after leaving me at midnight in my garret. He separated my poor little all, of six pieces, from this shining and imposing collection; and the passion of envy entered my soul: I felt far more anxious now than before, although starvation was then staring me in the face; I hated Attwood for _cheating_ me out of all this wealth. Poor fellow! it had been better for him had he never seen a shilling of it.

However, a grand breakfast at the Café Anglais dissipated my chagrin; and I will do my friend the justice to say, that he nobly shared some portion of his good fortune with me. As far as the creature comforts were concerned I feasted as well as he, and never was particular as to settling my share of the reckoning.

Jack now changed his lodgings; had cards, with Captain Attwood engraved on them, and drove about a prancing cab-horse, as tall as the giraffe at the Jardin des Plantes; he had as many frogs on his coat as in the old days, and frequented all the flash restaurateurs and boarding-houses of the capital. Madame de Saint Laurent, and Madame la Baronne de Vaudry, and Madame la Comtesse de Don Jonville, ladies of the highest rank, who keep a _société choisie_, and condescend to give dinners at five francs a head, vied with each other in their attentions to Jack. His was the wing of the fowl, and the largest portion of the Charlotte-Russe; his was the place at the écarté table, where the Countess would ease him nightly of a few pieces, declaring that he was the most charming cavalier, _la fleur d’Albion_. Jack’s society, it may be seen, was not very select; nor, in truth, were his inclinations: he was a careless, dare-devil, Macheath kind of fellow, who might be seen daily with a wife on each arm.

It may be supposed that, with the life he led, his five hundred pounds of winnings would not last him long; nor did they; but for some time, his luck never deserted him; and his cash, instead of growing lower, seemed always to maintain a certain level;--he played every night.

Of course, such a humble fellow as I could not hope for a continued acquaintance and intimacy with Attwood. He grew overbearing and cool, I thought; at any rate I did not admire my situation as his follower and dependant, and left his grand dinner for a certain ordinary where I could partake of five capital dishes for ninepence. Occasionally, however, Attwood favoured me with a visit, or gave me a drive behind his great cab-horse. He had formed a whole host of friends besides. There was Fips, the barrister, Heaven knows what he was doing at Paris; and Gortz, the West Indian, who was there on the same business; and Flapper, a medical student,--all these three I met one night at Flapper’s rooms, where Jack was invited, and a great ‘spread’ was laid in honour of him.

Jack arrived rather late--he looked pale and agitated; and, though he ate no supper, he drank raw brandy in such a manner as made Flapper’s eyes wink: the poor fellow had but three bottles, and Jack bid fair to swallow them all. However, the West Indian generously remedied the evil, and, producing a napoleon, we speedily got the change for it in the shape of four bottles of champagne.

Our supper was uproariously harmonious; Fips sang the ‘Good Old English Gentleman;’ Jack, the ‘British Grenadiers;’ and your humble servant, when called upon, sang that beautiful ditty, ‘When the Bloom is on the Rye,’ in a manner that drew tears from every eye, except Flapper’s, who was asleep, and Jack’s, who was singing the ‘Bay of Biscay, O,’ at the same time. Gortz and Fips were all the time lunging at each other with a pair of single-sticks, the barrister having a very strong notion that he was Richard the Third.

At last Fips hit the West Indian such a blow across his sconce, that the other grew furious; he seized a champagne-bottle, which was, providentially, empty, and hurled it across the room at Fips; had that celebrated barrister not bowed his head at the moment, the Queen’s Bench would have lost one of its most eloquent practitioners.

Fips stood as straight as he could; his cheek was pale with wrath. ‘M-m-ister Go-gortz,’ he said, ‘I always heard you were a blackguard; now I can pr-pr-peperove it. Flapper, your pistols! every ge-ge-genlmn knows what I mean.’

Young Mr. Flapper had a small pair of pocket-pistols, which the tipsy barrister had suddenly remembered, and with which he proposed to sacrifice the West Indian. Gortz was nothing loth, but was quite as valorous as the lawyer.

Attwood, who, in spite of his potations, seemed the soberest man of the party, had much enjoyed the scene, until this sudden demand for the weapons. ‘Pshaw!’ said he eagerly, ‘don’t give these men the means of murdering each other; sit down and let us have another song.’ But they would not be still; and Flapper forthwith produced his pistol-case, and opened it, in order that the duel might take place on the spot. There were no pistols there! ‘I beg your pardon,’ said Attwood, looking much confused; ‘I--I took the pistols home with me to clean them!’

I don’t know what there was in his tone, or in the words, but we were sobered all of a sudden. Attwood was conscious of the singular effect produced by him, for he blushed, and endeavoured to speak of other things, but we could not bring our spirits back to the mark again, and soon separated for the night. As we issued into the street, Jack took me aside and whispered, ‘Have you a napoleon, Titmarsh, in your purse?’ Alas! I was not so rich. My reply was, that I was coming to Jack, only in the morning, to borrow a similar sum.

He did not make any reply, but turned away homeward: I never heard him speak another word.

* * * * *

Two mornings after (for none of our party met on the day succeeding the supper), I was awakened by my porter, who brought a pressing letter from Mr. Gortz:--

‘DEAR T.--I wish you would come over here to breakfast. There’s a
row about Attwood.--Yours truly, SOLOMON GORTZ.’

I immediately set forward to Gortz’s; he lived in the Rue du Heldes, a few doors from Attwood’s new lodging. If the reader is curious to know the house in which the catastrophe of this history took place, he has but to march some twenty doors down from the Boulevard des Italiens, when he will see a fine door, with a naked Cupid shooting at him from the hall, and a Venus beckoning him up the stairs. On arriving at the West Indian’s, at about midday (it was a Sunday morning), I found that gentleman in his dressing-gown, discussing, in the company of Mr. Fips, a large plate of _bifteck aux pommes_.

‘Here’s a pretty row!’ said Gortz, quoting from his letter;--‘Attwood’s off--have a bit of beefsteak?’

‘What do you mean?’ exclaimed I, adopting the familiar phraseology of my acquaintances:--‘Attwood off?--has he cut his stick?’

‘Not bad,’ said the feeling and elegant Fips--‘not such a bad guess, my boy; but he has not exactly _cut his stick_.’

‘What then?’

‘_Why, his throat._’ The man’s mouth was full of bleeding beef as he uttered this gentlemanly witticism.

I wish I could say that I was myself in the least affected by the news. I did not joke about it like my friend Fips; this was more for propriety’s sake than for feeling’s: but for my old school acquaintance, the friend of my early days, the merry associate of the last few months, I own, with shame, that I had not a tear or a pang. In some German tale there is an account of a creature, most beautiful and bewitching, whom all men admire and follow; but this charming and fantastic spirit only leads them, one by one, into ruin, and then leaves them. The novelist, who describes her beauty, says that his heroine is a fairy, and _has no heart_. I think the intimacy which is begotten over the wine-bottle is a spirit of this nature; I never knew a good feeling come from it, or an honest friendship made by it: it only entices men, and ruins them; it is only a phantom of friendship and feeling, called up by the delirious blood, and the wicked spells of the wine.

But to drop this strain of moralising (in which the writer is not too anxious to proceed, for he cuts in it a most pitiful figure), we passed sundry criticisms upon poor Attwood’s character, expressed our horror at his death, which sentiment was fully proved by Mr. Fips, who declared that the notion of it made him feel quite faint, and was obliged to drink a large glass of brandy; and, finally, we agreed that we would go and see the poor fellow’s corpse, and witness, if necessary, his burial.

Flapper, who had joined us, was the first to propose this visit: he said he did not mind the fifteen francs which Jack owed him for billiards, but that he was anxious to _get back his pistol_. Accordingly, we sallied forth, and speedily arrived at the hotel which Attwood inhabited still. He had occupied, for a time, very fine apartments in this house; and it was only on arriving there that day, that we found he had been gradually driven from his magnificent suite of rooms _au premier_, to a little chamber in the fifth story:--we mounted, and found him. It was a little shabby room, with a few articles of rickety furniture, and a bed in an alcove; the light from the one window was falling full upon the bed and the body. Jack was dressed in a fine lawn shirt: he had kept it, poor fellow, _to die in_; for in all his drawers and cupboards, there was not a single article of clothing: he had pawned everything by which he could raise a penny--desk, books, dressing-case, and clothes; and not a single halfpenny was found in his possession.[2]

He was lying as I have drawn him, one hand on his breast, the other falling towards the ground. There was an expression of perfect calm on the face, and no mark of blood to stain the side towards the light. On the other side, however, there was a great pool of black blood, and in it the pistol; it looked more like a toy than a weapon to take away the life of this vigorous young man. In his forehead, at the side, was a small black wound; Jack’s life had passed through it; it was little bigger than a mole.

* * * * *

‘Regardez un peu,’ said the landlady; ‘messieurs, il m’a gâté trois matelas, et il me doit quarante quatre francs.’

This was all his epitaph: he had spoiled three mattresses, and owed the landlady four-and-forty francs. In the whole world there was not a soul to love him or lament him. We, his friends, were looking at his body more as an object of curiosity, watching it with a kind of interest with which one follows the fifth act of a tragedy, and leaving it with the same feeling with which one leaves the theatre when the play is over and the curtain is down.

Beside Jack’s bed, on his little _table de nuit_, lay the remains of his last meal, and an open letter, which we read. It was from one of his suspicious acquaintances of former days, and ran thus:--

‘Où es-tu, cher Jack? _why you not come and see me_--tu me dois de
l’argent, entends tu?--un chapeau, une cachemire, _a box of the
Play_. Viens demain soir, je t’attendrai _at eight o’clock_,
Passage des Panoramas. _My Sir is at his country._--Adieu à demain.
‘_Samedi_.’ ‘FIFINE.

I shuddered as I walked through this very Passage des Panoramas, in the evening. The girl was there, pacing to and fro, and looking in the countenance of every passer-by, to recognise Attwood. ‘ADIEU À DEMAIN!’--there was a dreadful meaning in the words, which the writer of them little knew. ‘Adieu à demain!’--the morrow was come, and the soul of the poor suicide was now in the presence of God. I dare not think of his fate; for, except in the fact of his poverty and desperation, was he worse than any of us, his companions, who had shared his debauches, and marched with him up to the very brink of the grave?

There is but one more circumstance to relate regarding poor Jack--his burial; it was of a piece with his death.

He was nailed into a paltry coffin and buried, at the expense of the arrondissement, in a nook of the burial-place beyond the Barrière de l’Étoile. They buried him at six o’clock, of a bitter winter’s morning, and it was with difficulty that an English clergyman could be found to read a service over his grave. The three men who have figured in this history acted as Jack’s mourners; and as the ceremony was to take place so early in the morning, these men sat up the night through, _and were almost drunk_ as they followed his coffin to its resting-place.

MORAL

‘When we turned out in our greatcoats,’ said one of them afterwards, ‘reeking of cigars and brandy-and-water, d----e, sir, we quite frightened the old buck of a parson; he did not much like our company.’ After the ceremony was concluded, these gentlemen were very happy to get home to a warm and comfortable breakfast, and finished the day royally at Frascati’s.

NAPOLEON AND HIS SYSTEM

ON PRINCE LOUIS NAPOLEON’S WORK

Any person who recollects the history of the absurd outbreak of Strasburg, in which Prince Louis Napoleon Bonaparte figured, three years ago, must remember that, however silly the revolt was, however foolish its pretext, however doubtful its aim, and inexperienced its leader, there was, nevertheless, a party, and a considerable one, in France, that were not unwilling to lend the new projectors their aid. The troops who declared against the Prince, were, it was said, all but willing to declare for him; and it was certain that, in many of the regiments of the army, there existed a strong spirit of disaffection, and an eager wish for the return of the imperial system and family.

As to the good that was to be derived from the change, that is another question. Why the Emperor of the French should be better than the King of the French, or the King of the French better than the King of France and Navarre, it is not our business to inquire; but all the three monarchs have no lack of supporters; republicanism has no lack of supporters; St. Simonianism was followed by a respectable body of admirers; Robespierrism has a select party of friends. If, in a country where so many quacks have had their day, Prince Louis Napoleon thought he might renew the imperial quackery, why should he not? It has recollections with it that must always be dear to a gallant nation; it has certain claptraps in its vocabulary that can never fail to inflame a vain, restless, grasping, disappointed one.

In the first place, and don’t let us endeavour to disguise it, they hate us. Not all the protestations of friendship, not all the wisdom of Lord Palmerston, not all the diplomacy of our distinguished plenipotentiary, Mr. Henry Lytton Bulwer--and, let us add, not all the benefit which both countries would derive from the alliance--can make it, in our times at least, permanent and cordial. They hate us. The Carlist organs revile us with a querulous fury that never sleeps; the moderate party, if they admit the utility of our alliance, are continually pointing out our treachery, our insolence, and our monstrous infractions of it; and for the Republicans, as sure as the morning comes, the columns of their journals thunder out volleys of fierce denunciations against our unfortunate country. They live by feeding the natural hatred against England, by keeping old wounds open, by recurring ceaselessly to the history of old quarrels; and as in these we, by God’s help, by land and by sea, in old times and late, have had the uppermost, they perpetuate the shame and mortification of the losing party, the bitterness of past defeats, and the eager desire to avenge them. A party which knows how to _exploiter_ this hatred will always be popular to a certain extent; and the imperial scheme has this, at least, among its conditions.

Then there is the favourite claptrap of the ‘natural frontier.’ The Frenchman yearns to be bounded by the Rhine and the Alps; and next follows the cry, ‘Let France take her place among nations, and direct, as she ought to do, the affairs of Europe.’ These are the two chief articles contained in the new imperial programme, if we may credit the journal which has been established to advocate the cause. A natural boundary--stand among the nations--popular development--Russian alliance, and a reduction of _la perfide Albion_ to its proper insignificance. As yet we know little more of the plan: and yet such foundations are sufficient to build a party upon, and with such windy weapons a substantial Government is to be overthrown!