The officer of the provost-marshal, however amusing Poinsinet’s woes might have been, began, by this time, to grow very weary of them, and gave him more than one opportunity to escape. He would stop at shop-windows, loiter round comers, and look up in the sky, but all in vain: Poinsinet would not escape, do what the other would. At length, luckily, about dinner-time, the officer met one of Poinsinet’s friends and his own: and the three agreed to dine at a tavern, as they had breakfasted; and there the officer, who vowed that he had been up for five weeks incessantly, fell suddenly asleep in the profoundest fatigue; and Poinsinet was persuaded, after much hesitation on his part, to take leave of him.
And now, this danger overcome, another was to be avoided. Beyond a doubt the police were after him, and how was he to avoid them? He must be disguised, of course; and one of his friends, a tall gaunt lawyer’s clerk, agreed to provide him with habits.
So little Poinsinet dressed himself out in the clerk’s dingy black suit, of which the knee-breeches hung down to his heels, and the waist of the coat reached to the calves of his legs; and, furthermore, he blacked his eyebrows, and wore a huge black periwig, in which his friend vowed that no one could recognise him. But the most painful incident, with regard to the periwig, was, that Poinsinet, whose solitary beauty—if beauty it might be called—was a head of copious, curling yellow hair, was compelled to snip off every one of his golden locks, and to rub the bristles with a black dye; ‘for if your wig were to come off,’ said the lawyer, ‘and your fair hair to tumble over your shoulders, every man would know, or at least suspect you.’ So off the locks were cut, and in his black suit and periwig little Poinsinet went abroad.
His friends had their cue; and when he appeared amongst them, not one seemed to know him. He was taken into companies where his character was discussed before him, and his wonderful escape spoken of. At last he was introduced to the very officer of the provost-marshal who had taken him into custody, and who told him that he had been dismissed the provost’s service, in consequence of the escape of the prisoner. Now, for the first time, poor Poinsinet thought himself tolerably safe, and blessed his kind friends who had procured for him such a complete disguise. How this affair ended I know not:—whether some new lie was coined to account for his release, or whether he was simply told that he had been hoaxed: it mattered little; for the little man was quite as ready to be hoaxed the next day.
Poinsinet was one day invited to dine with one of the servants of the Tuileries; and, before his arrival, a person in company had been decorated with a knot of lace and a gold key, such as chamberlains wear; he was introduced to Poinsinet as the Count de Truchses, chamberlain to the King of Prussia. After dinner the conversation fell upon the Count’s visit to Paris; when his Excellency, with a mysterious air, vowed that he had only come for pleasure. ‘It is mighty well,’ said a third person, ‘and, of course, we can’t cross-question your lordship too closely;’ but at the same time it was hinted to Poinsinet that a person of such consequence did not travel for nothing, with which opinion Poinsinet solemnly agreed; and indeed it was borne out by a subsequent declaration of the Count, who condescended, at last, to tell the company, in confidence, that he had a mission, and a most important one—to find, namely, among the literary men of France, a governor for the Prince Royal of Prussia. The company seemed astonished that the King had not made choice of Voltaire or D’Alembert, and mentioned a dozen other distinguished men who might be competent to this important duty; but the Count, as may be imagined, found objections to every one of them; and, at last, one of the guests said, that, if his Prussian Majesty was not particular as to age, he knew a person more fitted for the place than any other who could be found,—his honourable friend, M. Poinsinet, was the individual to whom he alluded.
‘Good heavens!’ cried the Count, ‘is it possible that the celebrated Poinsinet would take such a place? I would give the world to see him!’ And you may fancy how Poinsinet simpered and blushed when the introduction immediately took place.
The Count protested to him that the King would be charmed to know him; and added, that one of his operas (for it must be told that our little friend was a vaudeville-maker by trade) had been acted seven-and-twenty times at the theatre at Potsdam. His Excellency then detailed to him all the honours and privileges which the governor of the Prince Royal might expect; and all the guests encouraged the little man’s vanity, by asking him for his protection and favour. In a short time our hero grew so inflated with pride and vanity, that he was for patronising the chamberlain himself, who proceeded to inform him that he was furnished with all the necessary powers by his sovereign, who had specially enjoined him to confer upon the future governor of his son the Royal order of the Black Eagle.
Poinsinet, delighted, was ordered to kneel down; and the Count produced a large yellow riband, which he hung over his shoulder, and which was, he declared, the grand cordon of the order. You must fancy Poinsinet’s face, and excessive delight at this; for as for describing them, nobody can. For four-and-twenty hours the happy chevalier paraded through Paris with this flaring yellow riband; and he was not undeceived until his friends had another trick in store for him.
He dined one day in the company of a man who understood a little of the noble art of conjuring, and performed some clever tricks on the cards. Poinsinet’s organ of wonder was enormous; he looked on with the gravity and awe of a child, and thought the man’s tricks sheer miracles. It wanted no more to set his companions to work.
‘Who is this wonderful man?’ said he to his neighbour.
‘Why,’ said the other, mysteriously, ‘one hardly knows who he is; or, at least, one does not like to say to such an indiscreet fellow as you are.’ Poinsinet at once swore to be secret. ‘Well, then,’ said his friend, ‘you will hear that man—that wonderful man—called by a name which is not his: his real name is Acosta; he is a Portuguese Jew, a Rosicrucian, and Cabalist of the first order, and compelled to leave Lisbon for fear of the Inquisition. He performs here, as you see, some extraordinary things, occasionally; but the master of the house, who loves him excessively, would not for the world that his name should be made public.’
‘Ah, bah!’ said Poinsinet, who affected the bel esprit; ‘you don’t mean to say that you believe in magic, and cabalas, and such trash?’
‘Do I not? You shall judge for yourself.’ And, accordingly, Poinsinet was presented to the magician, who pretended to take a vast liking for him, and declared that he saw in him certain marks which would infallibly lead him to great eminence in the magic art, if he chose to study it.
Dinner was served, and Poinsinet placed by the side of the miracle-worker, who became very confidential with him, and promised him—ay, before dinner was over—a remarkable instance of his power. Nobody, on this occasion, ventured to cut a single joke against poor Poinsinet; nor could he fancy that any trick was intended against him, for the demeanour of the society towards him was perfectly grave and respectful, and the conversation serious. On a sudden, however, somebody exclaimed, ‘Where is Poinsinet? Did any one see him leave the room?’
All the company exclaimed how singular the disappearance was; and Poinsinet himself, growing alarmed, turned round to his neighbour, and was about to explain.
‘Hush!’ said the magician, in a whisper; ‘I told you that you should see what I could do. I have made you invisible; be quiet, and you shall see some more tricks that I shall play with these fellows.’
Poinsinet remained then silent, and listened to his neighbours, who agreed, at last, that he was a quiet, orderly personage, and had left the table early, being unwilling to drink too much. Presently they ceased to talk about him, and resumed their conversation upon other matters.
At first it was very quiet and grave, but the master of the house brought back the talk to the subject of Poinsinet, and uttered all sorts of abuse concerning him. He begged the gentleman, who had introduced such a little scamp into his house, to bring him thither no more; whereupon the other took up, warmly, Poinsinet’s defence; declared that he was a man of the greatest merit, frequenting the best society, and remarkable for his talents as well as his virtues.
‘Ah!’ said Poinsinet to the magician, quite charmed at what he heard, ‘however shall I thank you, my dear sir, for thus showing me who my true friends are?’
The magician promised him still further favours in prospect; and told him to look out now, for he was about to throw all the company into a temporary fit of madness, which, no doubt, would be very amusing.
In consequence, all the company, who had heard every syllable of the conversation, began to perform the most extraordinary antics, much to the delight of Poinsinet. One asked a nonsensical question, and the other delivered an answer not at all to the purpose. If a man asked for a drink they poured him out a pepper-box or a napkin: they took a pinch of snuff, and swore it was excellent wine: and vowed that the bread was the most delicious mutton that ever was tasted. The little man was delighted.
‘Ah!’ said he, ‘these fellows are prettily punished for their rascally backbiting of me!’
‘Gentlemen,’ said the host, ‘I shall now give you some celebrated champagne,’ and he poured out to each a glass of water.
‘Good heavens!’ said one, spitting it out, with the most horrible grimace, ‘where did you get this detestable claret?’
‘Ah, faugh!’ said a second, ‘I never tasted such vile corked Burgundy in all my days!’ and he threw the glass of water into Poinsinet’s face, as did half a dozen of the other guests, drenching the poor wretch to the skin. To complete this pleasant illusion, two of the guests fell to boxing across Poinsinet, who received a number of the blows, and received them with the patience of a fakir, feeling himself more flattered by the precious privilege of beholding this scene invisible, than hurt by the blows and buffets which the mad company bestowed upon him.
The fame of this adventure spread quickly over Paris, and all the world longed to have at their houses the representation of Poinsinet the Invisible. The servants and the whole company used to be put up to the trick; and Poinsinet, who believed in his invisibility as much as he did in his existence, went about with his friend and protector the magician. People, of course, never pretended to see him, and would very often not talk of him at all for some time, but hold sober conversation about anything else in the world. When dinner was served, of course there was no cover laid for Poinsinet, who carried about a little stool, on which he sate by the side of the magician, and always ate off his plate. Everybody was astonished at the magician’s appetite and at the quantity of wine he drank; as for little Poinsinet, he never once suspected any trick, and had such a confidence in his magician, that, I do believe, if the latter had told him to fling himself out of window, he would have done so, without the least trepidation.
Among other mystifications in which the Portuguese enchanter plunged him, was one which used to afford always a good deal of amusement. He informed Poinsinet, with great mystery, that he was not himself; he was not, that is to say, that ugly deformed little monster, called Poinsinet; but that his birth was most illustrious, and his real name Polycarte. He was, in fact, the son of a celebrated magician; but other magicians, enemies of his father, had changed him in his cradle, altering his features into their present hideous shape, in order that a silly old fellow, called Poinsinet, might take him to be his own son, which little monster the magician had likewise spirited away.
The poor wretch was sadly cast down at this; for he tried to fancy that his person was agreeable to the ladies, of whom he was one of the warmest little admirers possible; and to console him somewhat, the magician told him that his real shape was exquisitely beautiful, and as soon as he should appear in it, all the beauties in Paris would be at his feet. But how to regain it? ‘Oh, for one minute of that beauty!’ cried the little man; ‘what would he not give to appear under that enchanting form!’ The magician here-upon waved his stick over his head, pronounced some awful magical words, and twisted him round three times; at the third twist, the men in company seemed struck with astonishment and envy, the ladies clasped their hands, and some of them kissed his. Everybody declared his beauty to be supernatural.
Poinsinet, enchanted, rushed to a glass. ‘Fool!’ said the magician; ‘do you suppose that you can see the change? My power to render you invisible, beautiful, or ten times more hideous even than you are, extends only to others, not to you. You may look a thousand times in the glass, and you will only see those deformed limbs and disgusting features with which devilish malice has disguised you.’ Poor little Poinsinet looked, and came back in tears. ‘But,’ resumed the magician,—‘ha, ha, ha!—I know a way in which to disappoint the machinations of these fiendish magi.’
‘Oh, my benefactor!—my great master!—for heaven’s sake tell it!’ gasped Poinsinet.
‘Look you—it is this. A prey to enchantment and demoniac art all your life long, you have lived until your present age perfectly satisfied; nay, absolutely vain of a person the most singularly hideous that ever walked the earth!’
‘Is it?’ whispered Poinsinet. ‘Indeed, and indeed, I didn’t think it so bad!’
‘He acknowledges it! he acknowledges it!’ roared the magician. ‘Wretch, dotard, owl, mole, miserable buzzard! I have no reason to tell thee now that thy form is monstrous, that children cry, that cowards turn pale, that teeming matrons shudder to behold it. It is not thy fault that thou art thus ungainly: but wherefore so blind? wherefore so conceited of thyself? I tell thee, Poinsinet, that over every fresh instance of thy vanity the hostile enchanters rejoice and triumph. As long as thou art blindly satisfied with thyself; as long as thou pretendest, in thy present odious shape, to win the love of aught above a negress; nay, further still, until thou hast learned to regard that face, as others do, with the most intolerable horror and disgust, to abuse it when thou seest it, to despise it, in short, and treat that miserable disguise in which the enchanters have wrapped thee with the strongest hatred and scorn, so long art thou destined to wear it.’
Such speeches as these, continually repeated, caused Poinsinet to be fully convinced of his ugliness; he used to go about in companies, and take every opportunity of inveighing against himself; he made verses and epigrams against himself; he talked about ‘that dwarf, Poinsinet;’ ‘that buffoon, Poinsinet;’ ‘that conceited, hump-backed Poinsinet;’ and he would spend hours before the glass, abusing his own face as he saw it reflected there, and vowing that he grew handsomer at every fresh epithet that he uttered.
Of course the wags, from time to time, used to give him every possible encouragement, and declared that, since this exercise, his person was amazingly improved. The ladies, too, began to be so excessively fond of him, that the little fellow was obliged to caution them at last—for the good, as he said, of society; he recommended them to draw lots, for he could not gratify them all; but promised when his metamorphosis was complete, that the one chosen should become the happy Mrs. Poinsinet; or, to speak more correctly, Mrs. Polycarte.
I am sorry to say, however, that, on the score of gallantry, Poinsinet was never quite convinced of the hideousness of his appearance. He had a number of adventures, accordingly, with the ladies, but, strange to say, the husbands or fathers were always interrupting him. On one occasion he was made to pass the night in a slipper-bath full of water; where, although he had all his clothes on, he declared that he nearly caught his death of cold. Another night, in revenge, the poor fellow
D’une beauté, qu’on vient d’arracher au sommeil,’
spent a number of hours contemplating the beauty of the moon on the tiles. These adventures are pretty numerous in the memoirs of M. Poinsinet; but the fact is, that people in France were a great deal more philosophical in those days than the English are now, so that Poinsinet’s loves must be passed over, as not being to our taste. His magician was a great diver, and told Poinsinet the most wonderful tales of his two minutes’ absence under water. These two minutes, he said, lasted through a year, at least, which he spent in the company of a naiad, more beautiful than Venus, in a palace more splendid than even Versailles. Fired by the description, Poinsinet used to dip, and dip, but he never was known to make any mermaid acquaintances, although he fully believed that one day he should find such.
The invisible joke was brought to an end by Poinsinet’s too great reliance on it; for being, as we have said, of a very tender and sanguine disposition, he one day fell in love with a lady in whose company he dined, and whom he actually proposed to embrace; but the fair lady, in the hurry of the moment, forgot to act up to the joke; and instead of receiving Poinsinet’s salute with calmness, grew indignant, called him an impudent little scoundrel, and lent him a sound box on the ear. With this slap the invisibility of Poinsinet disappeared, the gnomes and genii left him, and he settled down into common life again, and was hoaxed only by vulgar means.
A vast number of pages might be filled with narratives of the tricks that were played upon him; but they resemble each other a good deal, as may be imagined, and the chief point remarkable about them is the wondrous faith of Poinsinet. After being introduced to the Prussian ambassador at the Tuileries, he was presented to the Turkish envoy at the Place Vendôme, who received him in state, surrounded by the officers of his establishment, all dressed in the smartest dresses that the wardrobe of the Opéra Comique could furnish.
As the greatest honour that could be done to him, Poinsinet was invited to eat, and a tray was produced, on which was a delicate dish prepared in the Turkish manner. This consisted of a reasonable quantity of mustard, salt, cinnamon and ginger, nutmegs and cloves, with a couple of tablespoonfuls of cayenne pepper, to give the whole a flavour; and Poinsinet’s countenance may be imagined when he introduced into his mouth a quantity of this exquisite compound.
‘The best of the joke was,’ says the author who records so many of the pitiless tricks practised upon poor Poinsinet, ‘that the little man used to laugh at them afterwards himself with perfect good-humour; and lived in the daily hope that, from being the sufferer, he should become the agent in these hoaxes, and do to others as he had been done by.’ Passing, therefore, one day, on the Pont Neuf, with a friend, who had been one of the greatest performers, the latter said to him, ‘Poinsinet, my good fellow, thou hast suffered enough, and thy sufferings have made thee so wise and cunning, that thou art worthy of entering among the initiated, and hoaxing in thy turn.’ Poinsinet was charmed; he asked when he should be initiated, and how? It was told him that a moment would suffice, and that the ceremony might be performed on the spot. At this news, and according to order, Poinsinet flung himself straightway on his knees in the kennel; and the other, drawing his sword, solemnly initiated him into the sacred order of jokers. From that day the little man believed himself received into the society; and to this having brought him, let us bid him a respectful adieu.
THE DEVIL’S WAGER
IT was the hour of the night when there be none stirring save churchyard ghosts—when all doors are closed except the gates of graves, and all eyes shut but the eyes of wicked men.
When there is no sound on the earth except the ticking of the grasshopper, or the croaking of obscene frogs in the poole.
And no light except that of the blinking starres, and the wicked and devilish wills-o’-the-wisp, as they gambol among the marshes, and lead good men astraye.
When there is nothing moving in heaven except the owle, as he flappeth along lazily; or the magician, as he rides on his infernal broomsticke, whistling through the aire like the arrowes of a Yorkshire archere.
It was at this hour (namely, at twelve o’clock of the night) that two beings went winging through the black clouds, and holding converse with each other.
Now the first was Mercurius, the messenger, not of gods (as the heathens feigned), but of dæmons; and the second, with whom he held company, was the soul of Sir Roger de Rollo, the brave knight. Sir Roger was Count of Chauchigny, in Champagne; Seigneur of Santerre, Villacerf and aultre lieux. But the great die as well as the humble; and nothing remained of brave Roger now but his coffin and his deathless soul.
And Mercurius, in order to keep fast the soul, his companion, had bound him round the neck with his tail; which, when the soul was stubborn, he would draw so tight as to strangle him well-nigh, sticking into him the barbed point thereof; whereat the poor soul, Sir Rollo, would groan and roar lustily.
Now they two had come together from the gates of purgatorie, being bound to those regions of fire and flame where poor sinners fry and roast in sæcula sæculorum.
‘It is hard,’ said the poor Sir Rollo, as they went gliding through the clouds, ‘that I should thus be condemned for ever, and all for want of a single ave.’
‘How, Sir Soul?’ said the dæmon. ‘You were on earth so wicked, that not one, or a million of aves, could suffice to keep from hell-flame a creature like thee; but cheer up and be merry; thou wilt be but a subject of our lord the Devil, as I am; and, perhaps, thou wilt be advanced to posts of honour, as am I also:’ and to show his authoritie, he lashed with his tail the ribbes of the wretched Rollo.
‘Nevertheless, sinner as I am, one more ave would have saved me; for my sister, who was Abbess of St. Mary of Chauchigny, did so prevail, by her prayer and good works, for my lost and wretched soul, that every day I felt the pains of purgatory decrease: the pitchforks which, on my first entry, had never ceased to vex and torment my poor carcass, were now not applied above once a week; the roasting had ceased, the boiling had discontinued; only a certain warmth was kept up, to remind me of my situation.’
‘A gentle stewe,’ said the dæmon.
‘Yea, truly, I was but in a stew, and all from the effects of the prayers of my blessed sister. But yesterday, he who watched me in purgatory told me, that yet another prayer from my sister, and my bonds should be unloosed, and I, who am now a devil, should have been a blessed angel.’
‘And the other ave?’ said the dæmon.
‘She died, sir—my sister died—death choked her in the middle of the prayer.’ And hereat the wretched spirit began to weepe and whine piteously; his salt tears falling over his beard, and scalding the tail of Mercurius the devil.
‘It is, in truth, a hard case,’ said the dæmon; ‘but I know of no remedy save patience, and for that you will have an excellent opportunity in your lodgings below.’
‘But I have relations,’ said the earl; ‘my kinsman Randal, who has inherited my lands, will he not say a prayer for his uncle?’
‘Thou didst hate and oppress him when living.’
‘It is true; but an ave is not much; his sister, my niece, Matilda——’
‘You shut her in a convent, and hanged her lover.’
‘Had I not reason? besides, has she not others?’
‘A dozen, without doubt.’
‘And my brother, the prior?’
‘A liege subject of my lord the Devil; he never opens his mouth except to utter an oath, or to swallow a cup of wine.’
‘And yet, if but one of these would but say an ave for me, I should be saved.’
‘Aves with them are raræ aves,’ replied Mercurius, wagging his tail right waggishly; ‘and, what is more, I will lay thee any wager that not one of these will say a prayer to save thee.’
‘I would wager willingly,’ responded he of Chauchigny; ‘but what has a poor soul like me to stake?’
‘Every evening, after the day’s roasting, my lord Satan giveth a cup of cold water to his servants; I will bet thee thy water for a year, that none of the three will pray for thee.’
‘Done!’ said Rollo.
‘Done!’ said the dæmon; ‘and here, if I mistake not, is thy castle of Chauchigny.’
Indeed, it was true. The soul, on looking down, perceived the tall towers, the courts, the stables, and the fair gardens of the castle. Although it was past midnight, there was a blaze of light in the banqueting-hall, and a lamp burning in the open window of the Lady Matilda.
‘With whom shall we begin?’ said the dæmon: ‘with the baron or the lady?’
‘With the lady, if you will.’
‘Be it so, her window is open, let us enter.’
So they descended, and entered silently into Matilda’s chamber.
. . . . .
The young lady’s eyes were fixed so intently on a little clock, that it was no wonder that she did not perceive the entrance of her two visitors. Her fair cheek rested on her white arm, and her white arm on the cushion of a great chair, in which she sat pleasantly supported by sweet thoughts and swan’s down; a lute was at her side, and a book of prayers lay under the table (for piety is always modest). Like the amorous Alexander, she sighed and looked (at the clock)—and sighed for ten minutes or more, when she softly breathed the word ‘Edward!’
At this the soul of the baron was wroth. ‘The jade is at her old pranks,’ said he to the devil; and then addressing Matilda: ‘I pray thee, sweet niece, turn thy thoughts for a moment from that villainous page, Edward, and give them to thine affectionate uncle.’
When she heard the voice, and saw the awful apparition of her uncle (for a year’s sojourn in purgatory had not increased the comeliness of his appearance), she started, screamed, and of course fainted.
But the devil Mercurius soon restored her to herself. ‘What’s o’clock?’ said she, as soon as she had recovered from her fit: ‘is he come?’
‘Not thy lover, Maude, but thine uncle—that is, his soul. For the love of heaven, listen to me: I have been frying in purgatory for a year past, and should have been in heaven but for the want of a single ave.’
‘I will say it for thee to-morrow, uncle.’
‘To-night, or never.’
‘Well, to-night be it:’ and she requested the devil Mercurius to give her the prayer-book from under the table; but he had no sooner touched the holy book than he dropped it with a shriek and a yell. ‘It was hotter,’ he said, ‘than his master Sir Lucifer’s own particular pitchfork.’ And the lady was forced to begin her ave without the aid of her missal.
At the commencement of her devotions the dæmon retired, and carried with him the anxious soul of poor Sir Roger de Rollo.
The lady knelt down—she sighed deeply; she looked again at the clock, and began—
‘Ave Maria——’
When a lute was heard under the window, and a sweet voice singing—
‘Hark!’ said Matilda.
And the sun hath sunk to rest,
Seeking, like a fiery lover,
The bosom of the blushing West—
Raising the moon, her silver shield,
And summoning the stars to guard
The slumbers of my fair Mathilde!’
‘For mercy’s sake!’ said Sir Rollo, ‘the ave first, and next the song.’
So Matilda again dutifully betook her to her devotions, and began—
‘Ave Maria, gratia plena!’ but the music began again, and the prayer ceased of course.
Hid by her mantle dark and dim,
In pious hope I hither hie,
And humbly chaunt mine ev’ning hymn.
(For never holy pilgrim kneel’d,
Or wept at feet more pure than thine)
My virgin love, my sweet Mathilde!’
‘Virgin love!’ said the baron. ‘Upon my soul, this is too bad!’ and he thought of the lady’s lover whom he had caused to be hanged.
But she only thought of him who stood singing at her window.
‘Niece Matilda!’ cried Sir Roger agonisedly, ‘wilt thou listen to the lies of an impudent page, whilst thine uncle is waiting but a dozen words to make him happy?’
At this Matilda grew angry: ‘Edward is neither impudent nor a liar, Sir Uncle, and I will listen to the end of the song.’
‘Come away,’ said Mercurius; ‘he hath yet got wield, field, sealed, congealed, and a dozen other rhymes beside; and after the song will come the supper.’
So the poor soul was obliged to go; while the lady listened, and the page sang away till morning.
. . . . .
‘My virtues have been my ruin,’ said poor Sir Rollo, as he and Mercurius slunk silently out of the window. ‘Had I hanged that knave Edward, as I did the page his predecessor, my niece would have sung mine ave, and I should have been by this time an angel in heaven.’
‘He is reserved for wiser purposes,’ responded the devil: ‘he will assassinate your successor, the lady Mathilde’s brother; and, in consequence, will be hanged. In the love of the lady he will be succeeded by a gardener, who will be replaced by a monk, who will give way to an ostler, who will be deposed by a Jew pedlar, who shall, finally, yield to a noble earl, the future husband of the fair Mathilde. So that, you see, instead of having one poor soul a-frying, we may now look forward to a goodly harvest for our lord the Devil.’
The soul of the baron began to think that his companion knew too much for one who would make fair bets; but there was no help for it; he would not, and could not, cry off; and he prayed inwardly that the brother might be found more pious than the sister.
But there seemed little chance of this. As they crossed the court, lackeys, with smoking dishes and full jugs, passed and repassed continually, although it was long past midnight. On entering the hall, they found Sir Randal at the head of a vast table, surrounded by a fiercer and more motley collection of individuals than had congregated there even in the time of Sir Rollo. The lord of the castle had signified that ‘it was his royal pleasure to be drunk,’ and the gentlemen of his train had obsequiously followed their master. Mercurius was delighted with the scene, and relaxed his usually rigid countenance into a bland and benevolent smile, which became him wonderfully.
The entrance of Sir Roger, who had been dead about a year, and a person with hoofs, horns, and a tail, rather disturbed the hilarity of the company. Sir Randal dropped his cup of wine; and Father Peter, the confessor, incontinently paused in the midst of a profane song, with which he was amusing the society.
‘Holy Mother!’ cried he, ‘it is Sir Roger.’
‘Alive!’ screamed Sir Randal.
‘No, my lord,’ Mercurius said; ‘Sir Roger is dead, but cometh on a matter of business; and I have the honour to act as his counsellor and attendant.’
‘Nephew,’ said Sir Roger, ‘the dæmon saith justly; I come on a trifling affair, in which thy service is essential.’
‘I will do anything, uncle, in my power.’
‘Thou canst give me life, if thou wilt.’ But Sir Randal looked very blank at this proposition. ‘I mean life spiritual, Randal,’ said Sir Roger; and thereupon he explained to him the nature of the wager.
Whilst he was telling his story, his companion Mercurius was playing all sorts of antics in the hall; and, by his wit and fun, became so popular with this godless crew, that they lost all the fear which his first appearance had given them. The friar was wonderfully taken with him, and used his utmost eloquence and endeavours to convert the devil; the knights stopped drinking to listen to the argument; the men-at-arms forbore brawling; and the wicked little pages crowded round the two strange disputants, to hear their edifying discourse. The ghostly man, however, had little chance in the controversy, and certainly little learning to carry it on. Sir Randal interrupted him. ‘Father Peter,’ said he, ‘our kinsman is condemned for ever, for want of a single ave: wilt thou say it for him?’ ‘Willingly, my lord,’ said the monk, ‘with my book;’ and accordingly he produced his missal to read, without which aid it appeared that the holy father could not manage the desired prayer. But the crafty Mercurius had, by his devilish art, inserted a song in the place of the ave, so that Father Peter, instead of chaunting an hymn, sang the following irreverent ditty:—
The hour of prayer to sinner:
But better far’s the midday bell,
Which speaks the hour of dinner;
For when I see a smoking fish,
Or capon drown’d in gravy,
Or noble haunch on silver dish,
Full glad I sing mine ave.
Whereon I sit so jolly;
A smiling rosy country wench
My saint and patron holy.
I kiss her cheek so red and sleek,
I press her ringlets wavy,
And in her willing ear I speak
A most religious ave.
And holy saints forgiving;
For sure he leads a right good life
Who thus admires good living.
Above, they say, our flesh is air,
Our blood celestial ichor:
Oh, grant! ‘mid all the changes there,
They may not change our liquor!’
And with this pious wish the holy confessor tumbled under the table in an agony of devout drunkenness; whilst the knights, the men-at-arms, and the wicked little pages rang out the last verse with a most melodious and emphatic glee. ‘I am sorry, fair uncle,’ hiccupped Sir Randal, ‘that, in the matter of the ave, we could not oblige thee in a more orthodox manner; but the holy father has failed, and there is not another man in the hall who hath an idea of a prayer.’
‘It is my own fault,’ said Sir Rollo; ‘for I hanged the last confessor.’ And he wished his nephew a surly good-night, as he prepared to quit the room.
‘Au revoir, gentlemen,’ said the devil Mercurius; and once more fixed his tail round the neck of his disappointed companion.
. . . . .
The spirit of poor Rollo was sadly cast down; the devil, on the contrary, was in high good-humour. He wagged his tail with the most satisfied air in the world, and cut a hundred jokes at the expense of his poor associate. On they sped, cleaving swiftly through the cold night winds, frightening the birds that were roosting in the woods, and the owls who were watching in the towers.
In the twinkling of an eye, as it is known, devils can fly hundreds of miles: so that almost the same beat of the clock which left these two in Champagne, found them hovering over Paris. They dropped into the court of the Lazarist Convent, and winded their way, through passage and cloister, until they reached the door of the prior’s cell.
Now the prior, Rollo’s brother, was a wicked and malignant sorcerer; his time was spent in conjuring devils and doing wicked deeds, instead of fasting, scourging, and singing holy psalms: this Mercurius knew; and he, therefore, was fully at ease as to the final result of his wager with poor Sir Roger.
‘You seem to be well acquainted with the road,’ said the knight.
‘I have reason,’ answered Mercurius, ‘having, for a long period, had the acquaintance of his reverence, your brother; but you have little chance with him.’
‘And why?’ said Sir Rollo.
‘He is under a bond to my master never to say a prayer, or else his soul and his body are forfeited at once.’
‘Why, thou false and traitorous devil!’ said the enraged knight; ‘and thou knewest this when we made our wager?’
‘Undoubtedly: do you suppose I would have done so had there been any chance of losing?’
And with this they arrived at Father Ignatius’s door.
‘Thy cursed presence threw a spell on my niece, and stopped the tongue of my nephew’s chaplain; I do believe that had I seen either of them alone, my wager had been won.’
‘Certainly; therefore I took good care to go with thee; however, thou mayest see the prior alone, if thou wilt; and lo! his door is open. I will stand without for five minutes, when it will be time to commence our journey.’
It was the poor baron’s last chance; and he entered his brother’s room more for the five minutes’ respite than from any hope of success.
Father Ignatius, the prior, was absorbed in magic calculations: he stood in the middle of a circle of skulls, with no garment except his long white beard, which reached to his knees; he was waving a silver rod, and muttering imprecations in some horrible tongue.
But Sir Rollo came forward and interrupted his incantation. ‘I am,’ said he, ‘the shade of thy brother, Roger de Rollo; and have come, from pure brotherly love, to warn thee of thy fate.’
‘Whence camest thou?’
‘From the abode of the blessed in Paradise,’ replied Sir Roger, who was inspired with a sudden thought; ‘it was but five minutes ago that the Patron Saint of thy church told me of thy danger, and of thy wicked compact with the fiend. “Go,” said he, “to thy miserable brother, and tell him that there is but one way by which he may escape from paying the awful forfeit of his bond.’”
‘And how may that be?’ said the prior; ‘the false fiend hath deceived me; I have given him my soul, but have received no worldly benefit in return. Brother! dear brother! how may I escape?’
‘I will tell thee. As soon as I heard the voice of blessed St. Mary Lazarus’ (the worthy earl had, at a pinch, coined the name of a saint), ‘I left the clouds, where, with other angels, I was seated, and sped hither to save thee. “Thy brother,” said the Saint, “hath but one day more to live, when he will become for all eternity the subject of Satan; if he would escape, he must boldly break his bond, by saying an ave.”’
‘It is the express condition of the agreement,’ said the unhappy monk, ‘I must say no prayer, or that instant I become Satan’s, body and soul.’
‘It is the express condition of the Saint,’ answered Roger fiercely: ‘pray, brother, pray, or thou art lost for ever.’
So the foolish monk knelt down, and devoutly sung out an ave, ‘Amen!’ said Sir Roger devoutly.
‘Amen!’ said Mercurius, as, suddenly coming behind, he seized Ignatius by his long beard, and flew up with him to the top of the church-steeple.
The monk roared, and screamed, and swore against his brother; but it was of no avail: Sir Roger smiled kindly on him, and said, ‘Do not fret, brother; it must have come to this in a year or two.’
And he flew alongside of Mercurius to the steeple-top: but this time the devil had not his tail round his neck. ‘I will let thee off thy bet,’ said he to the dæmon; for he could afford, now, to be generous.
‘I believe, my lord,’ said the dæmon politely, ‘that our ways separate here.’ Sir Roger sailed gaily upwards; while Mercurius having bound the miserable monk faster than ever, he sunk downwards to earth, and perhaps lower. Ignatius was heard roaring and screaming as the devil dashed him against the iron spikes and buttresses of the church.
. . . . .
The moral of this story will be given in the second edition.
MADAME SAND AND THE NEW APOCALYPSE
I DON’T know an impression more curious than that which is formed in a foreigner’s mind, who has been absent from this place for two or three years, returns to it, and beholds the change which has taken place, in the meantime, in French fashions and ways of thinking. Two years ago, for instance, when I left the capital, I left the young gentlemen of France with their hair brushed en toupet in front, and the toes of their boots round; now the boot-toes are pointed, and the hair, combed flat and parted in the middle, falls in ringlets on the fashionable shoulders; and, in like manner, with books as with boots, the fashion has changed considerably, and it is not a little curious to contrast the old modes with the new. Absurd as was the literary dandyism of those days, it is not a whit less absurd now: only the manner is changed, and our versatile Frenchmen have passed from one caricature to another.
The Revolution may be called a caricature of freedom, as the Empire was of glory; and what they borrow from foreigners undergoes the same process. They take top-boots and macintoshes from across the water, and caricature our fashions; they read a little, very little, Shakespeare, and caricature our poetry: and while in David’s time art and religion were only a caricature of heathenism, now, on the contrary, these two commodities are imported from Germany; and, distorted caricatures originally, are still further distorted on passing the frontier.
I trust in heaven that German art and religion will take no hold in our country (where there is a fund of roast-beef that will expel any such humbug in the end); but these sprightly Frenchmen have relished the mystical doctrines mightily; and having watched the Germans, with their sanctified looks, and quaint imitations of the old times, and mysterious transcendental talk, are aping many of their fashions as well and solemnly as they can; not very solemnly, God wot; for I think one should always prepare to grin when a Frenchman looks particularly grave, being sure that there is something false and ridiculous lurking under the owl-like solemnity.
When last in Paris, we were in the midst of what was called a Catholic reaction. Artists talked of faith in poems and pictures; churches were built here and there; old missals were copied and purchased; and numberless portraits of saints, with as much gilding about them as ever was used in the fifteenth century, appeared in churches, ladies’ boudoirs, and picture-shops. One or two fashionable preachers rose, and were eagerly followed; the very youth of the schools gave up their pipes and billiards for some time, and flocked in crowds to Notre-Dame, to sit under the feet of Lacordaire. I went to visit the church of Notre Dame de Lorette yesterday, which was finished in the heat of this Catholic rage, and was not a little struck by the similarity of the place to the worship celebrated in it, and the admirable manner in which the architect has caused his work to express the public feeling of the moment. It is a pretty little bijou of a church: it is supported by sham marble pillars; it has a gaudy ceiling of blue and gold, which will look very well for some time; and is filled with gaudy pictures and carvings, in the very pink of the mode. The congregation did not offer a bad illustration of the present state of Catholic reaction. Two or three stray people were at prayers; there was no service; a few countrymen and idlers were staring about at the pictures; and the Swiss, the paid guardian of the place, was comfortably and appropriately asleep on his bench at the door. I am inclined to think the famous reaction is over: the students have taken to their Sunday pipes and billiards again; and one or two cafés have been established, within the last year, that are ten times handsomer than Notre Dame de Lorette.
FRENCH CATHOLICISM
(Sketched in the Church of N. D. de Lorette)
However, if the immortal Görres and the German mystics have had their day, there is the immortal Göthe and the Pantheists; and I incline to think that the fashion has set very strongly in their favour. Voltaire and the Encyclopædians are voted, now, barbares and there is no term of reprobation strong enough for heartless Humes and Helvetiuses, who lived but to destroy, and who only thought to doubt. Wretched as Voltaire’s sneers and puns are, I think there is something more manly and earnest even in them than in the present muddy French transcendentalism. Pantheism is the word now; one and all have begun to éprouver the besoin of a religious sentiment; and we are deluged with a host of gods accordingly. Monsieur de Balzac feels himself to be inspired; Victor Hugo is a god; Madame Sand is a god; that tawdry man of genius, Jules Janin, who writes theatrical reviews for the Débats, has divine intimations; and there is scarce a beggarly beardless scribbler of poems and prose but tells you, in his preface, of the sainteté of the sacerdoce littéraire; or a dirty student, sucking tobacco and beer, and reeling home with a grisette from the Chaumière, who is not convinced of the necessity of a new ‘Messianism,’ and will hiccup, to such as will listen, chapters of his own drunken Apocalypse. Surely, the negatives of the old days were far less dangerous than the assertions of the present; and you may fancy what a religion that must be which has such high priests.
There is no reason to trouble the reader with details of the lives of many of these prophets and expounders of new revelations. Madame Sand, for instance, I do not know personally, and can only speak of her from report. True or false, the history, at any rate, is not very edifying; and so may be passed over: but, as a certain great philosopher told us, in very humble and simple words, that we are not to expect to gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles, we may, at least, demand, in all persons assuming the character of moralist or philosopher—order, soberness, and regularity of life; for we are apt to distrust the intellect that we fancy can be swayed by circumstance or passion; and we know how circumstance and passion will sway the intellect; how mortified vanity will form excuses for itself; and how temper turns angrily upon conscience, that reproves it. How often have we called our judge our enemy, because he has given sentence against us!—How often have we called the right wrong, because the right condemns us! And in the lives of many of the bitter foes of the Christian doctrine, can we find no personal reason for their hostility? The men in Athens said it was out of regard for religion that they murdered Socrates; but we have had time, since then, to reconsider the verdict; and Socrates’s character is pretty pure now, in spite of the sentence and the jury of those days.
The Parisian philosophers will attempt to explain to you the changes through which Madame Sand’s mind has passed,—the initiatory trials, labours, and sufferings which she has had to go through,—before she reached her present happy state of mental illumination. She teaches her wisdom in parables, that are, mostly, a couple of volumes long; and began, first, by an eloquent attack on marriage, in the charming novel of Indiana. ‘Pity,’ cried she, ‘for the poor woman who, united to a being whose brute force makes him her superior, should venture to break the bondage which is imposed on her, and allow her heart to be free.’
In support of this claim of pity, she writes two volumes of the most exquisite prose. What a tender suffering creature is Indiana; how little her husband appreciates that gentleness which he is crushing by his tyranny and brutal scorn; how natural it is that, in the absence of his sympathy, she, poor clinging confiding creature, should seek elsewhere for shelter; how cautious should we be, to call criminal—to visit with too heavy a censure—an act which is one of the natural impulses of a tender heart, that seeks but for a worthy object of love! But why attempt to tell the tale of beautiful Indiana? Madame Sand has written it so well, that not the hardest-hearted husband in Christendom can fail to be touched by her sorrows, though he may refuse to listen to her argument. Let us grant, for argument’s sake, that the laws of marriage, especially the French laws of marriage, press very cruelly upon unfortunate women.
But if one wants to have a question of this, or any nature, honestly argued, it is better, surely, to apply to an indifferent person for an umpire. For instance, the stealing of pocket-handkerchiefs or snuff-boxes may or may not be vicious; but if we, who have not the wit, or will not take the trouble to decide the question ourselves, want to hear the real rights of the matter, we should not, surely, apply to a pickpocket to know what he thought on the point. It might naturally be presumed that he would be rather a prejudiced person—particularly as his reasoning, if successful, might get him out of gaol. This is a homely illustration, no doubt; all we would urge by it is, that Madame Sand having, according to the French newspapers, had a stern husband, and also having, according to the newspapers, sought ‘sympathy’ elsewhere, her arguments may be considered to be somewhat partial, and received with some little caution.
And tell us who have been the social reformers?—the haters, that is, of the present system, according to which we live, love, marry, have children, educate them, and endow them—are they pure themselves? I do believe not one; and directly a man begins to quarrel with the world and its ways, and to lift up, as he calls it, the voice of his despair, and preach passionately to mankind about this tyranny of faith, customs, laws; if we examine what the personal character of the preacher is, we begin pretty clearly to understand the value of the doctrine. Any one can see why Rousseau should be such a whimpering reformer, and Byron such a free-and-easy misanthropist, and why our accomplished Madame Sand, who has a genius and eloquence inferior to neither, should take the present condition of mankind (French-kind) so much to heart, and labour so hotly to set it right.
After Indiana (which, we presume, contains the lady’s notions upon wives and husbands) came Valentine, which may be said to exhibit her doctrine, in regard of young men and maidens, to whom the author would accord, as we fancy, the same tender licence. Valentine was followed by Lelia, a wonderful book indeed, gorgeous in eloquence, and rich in magnificent poetry; a regular topsyturvyfication of morality, a thieves’ and prostitutes’ apotheosis. This book has received some late enlargements and emendations by the writer; it contains her notions on morals, which, as we have said, are so peculiar, that, alas! they can only be mentioned here, not particularised: but of Spiridion we may write a few pages, as it is her religious manifesto.
In this work, the lady asserts her Pantheistical doctrine, and openly attacks the received Christian creed. She declares it to be useless now, and unfitted to the exigencies and the degree of culture of the actual world; and, though it would be hardly worth while to combat her opinions in due form, it is, at least, worth while to notice them, not merely from the extraordinary eloquence and genius of the woman herself, but because they express the opinions of a great number of people besides: for she not only produces her own thoughts, but imitates those of others very eagerly; and one finds in her writings so much similarity with others, or, in others, so much resemblance to her, that the book before us may pass for the expressions of the sentiments of a certain French party.
‘Dieu est mort,’ says another writer of the same class, and of great genius too.—‘Dieu est mort,’ writes Mr. Henry Heine, speaking of the Christian God; and he adds, in a daring figure of speech,—‘N’entendez-vous pas sonner la clochette?—on porte les sacrements à un Dieu qui se meurt!’ Another of the Pantheist poetical philosophers, Mr. Edgar Quinet, has a poem, in which Christ and the Virgin Mary are made to die similarly, and the former is classed with Prometheus. This book of Spiridion is a continuation of the theme, and perhaps you will listen to some of the author’s expositions of it.
It must be confessed that the controversialists of the present day have an eminent advantage over their predecessors in the days of folios: it required some learning then to write a book, and some time, at least, for the very labour of writing out a thousand such vast pages would demand a considerable period. But now, in the age of duodecimos, the system is reformed altogether: a male or female controversialist draws upon his imagination, and not his learning; makes a story instead of an argument, and, in the course of 150 pages (where the preacher has it all his own way) will prove or disprove you anything. And, to our shame be it said, we Protestants have set the example of this kind of proselytism—those detestable mixtures of truth, lies, false sentiment, false reasoning, bad grammar, correct and genuine philanthropy and piety—I mean our religious tracts, which any woman or man, be he ever so silly, can take upon himself to write, and sell for a penny, as if religious instruction were the easiest thing in the world. We, I say, have set the example in this kind of composition, and all the sects of the earth will, doubtless, speedily follow it. I can point you out blasphemies in famous pious tracts that are as dreadful as those above mentioned; but this is no place for such discussions, and we had better return to Madame Sand. As Mrs. Sherwood expounds, by means of many touching histories and anecdotes of little boys and girls, her notions of Church history, Church catechism, Church doctrine;—as the author of Father Clement, a Roman Catholic Story, demolishes the stately structure of eighteen centuries, the mighty and beautiful Roman Catholic faith, in whose bosom repose so many saints and sages;—by the means of a three-and-sixpenny duodecimo volume, which tumbles over the vast fabric, as David’s pebble-stone did Goliath;—as, again, the Roman Catholic author of Geraldine falls foul of Luther and Calvin, and drowns the awful echoes of their tremendous protest by the sounds of her little half-crown trumpet: in like manner, by means of pretty sentimental tales, and cheap apologues, Mrs. Sand proclaims her truth—that we need a new Messiah, and that the Christian religion is no more! O awful, awful name of God! Light unbearable! Mystery unfathomable! Vastness immeasurable!—Who are these who come forward to explain the mystery, and gaze unblinking into the depths of the light, and measure the immeasurable vastness to a hair? O name, that God’s people of old did fear to utter! O light, that God’s prophet would have perished had he seen! Who are these that are now so familiar with it?—Women, truly; for the most part weak women—weak in intellect, weak mayhap in spelling and grammar, but marvellously strong in faith:—women, who step down to the people with stately step and voice of authority, and deliver their twopenny tablets as if there were some Divine authority for the wretched nonsense recorded there!
With regard to the spelling and grammar, our Parisian Pythoness stands, in the goodly fellowship, remarkable. Her style is a noble, and, as far as a foreigner can judge, a strange tongue, beautifully rich and pure. She has a very exuberant imagination, and, with it, a very chaste style of expression. She never scarcely indulges in declamation, as other modern prophets do, and yet her sentences are exquisitely melodious and full. She seldom runs a thought to death (after the manner of some prophets, who, when they catch a little one, toy with it until they kill it), but she leaves you at the end of one of her brief, rich, melancholy sentences, with plenty of food for future cogitation. I can’t express to you the charm of them; they seem to me like the sound of country bells—provoking I don’t know what vein of musing and meditation, and falling sweetly and sadly on the ear.
This wonderful power of language must have been felt by most people who read Madame Sand’s first books, Valentine and Indiana: in Spiridion it is greater, I think, than ever; and for those who are not afraid of the matter of the novel, the manner will be found most delightful. The author’s intention, I presume, is to describe, in a parable, her notions of the downfall of the Catholic Church; and, indeed, of the whole Christian scheme: and she places her hero in a monastery in Italy, where, among the characters about him, and the events which occur, the particular tenets of Madame Dudevant’s doctrine are not inaptly laid down. Innocent, faithful, tender-hearted, a young monk, by name Angel, finds himself, when he has pronounced his vows, an object of aversion and hatred to the godly men whose lives he so much respects, and whose love he would make any sacrifice to win. After enduring much, he flings himself at the feet of his confessor, and begs for his sympathy and counsel; but the confessor spurns him away, and accuses him, fiercely, of some unknown and terrible crime—bids him never return to the confessional until contrition has touched his heart, and the stains which sully his spirit are, by sincere repentance, washed away.