But Pogson did not, for some time, venture to resume that sprightly and elegant familiarity which generally forms the great charm of his conversation: he was too much frightened at the presence he was in, and contented himself by graceful and solemn bows, deep attention, and ejaculations of ‘Yes, my lady,’ and ‘No, your ladyship,’ for some minutes after the discovery had been made. Pogson piqued himself on his breeding: ‘I hate the aristocracy,’ he said, ‘but that’s no reason why I shouldn’t behave like a gentleman.’

A surly, silent little gentleman, who had been the third at the ordinary, and would take no part either in the conversation or in Pogson’s champagne, now took up his hat, and, grunting, left the room, when the happy bagman had the delight of a tête-à-tête. The Baroness did not appear inclined to move: it was cold; a fire was comfortable, and she had ordered none in her apartment. Might Pogson give her one more glass of champagne, or would her ladyship prefer ‘something hot.’ Her ladyship gravely said, she never took anything hot! ‘Some champagne, then, a leetle drop?’ She would! she would! Oh, gods! how Pogson’s hand shook as he filled and offered her the glass!

What took place during the rest of the evening had better be described by Mr. Pogson himself, who has given us permission to publish his letter:—

This letter reached us duly, in our garrets, and we engaged such an apartment for Mr. Pogson as beseemed a gentleman of his rank in the world and the army. At the appointed hour, too, we repaired to the diligence office, and there beheld the arrival of the machine which contained him and his lovely Baroness.

To my surprise, there were two ladies in the coach with my friend, and not one, as I had expected. One of these, a stout female, carrying sundry baskets, bags, umbrellas, and woman’s wraps, was evidently a maid-servant; the other, in black, was Pogson’s fair one, evidently. I could see a gleam of curl-papers over a sallow face,—of a dusky nightcap flapping over the curl-papers,—but these were hidden by a lace veil and a huge velvet bonnet, of which the crowning birds-of-paradise were evidently in a moulting state. She was encased in many shawls and wrappers; she put, hesitatingly, a pretty little foot out of the carriage—Pogson was by her side in an instant, and, gallantly putting one of his white kids round her waist, aided this interesting creature to descend. I saw, by her walk, that she was five-and-forty, and that my little Pogson was a lost man.

After some brief parley between them—in which it was charming to hear how my friend Samuel would speak what he called French to a lady who could not understand one syllable of his jargon—the mutual hackney-coaches drew up; Madame la Baronne waved to the Captain a graceful French curtsey. ‘Adyou!’ said Samuel, and waved his lily hand. ‘Adyou-addimang.’

A brisk little gentleman, who had made the journey in the same coach with Pogson, but had more modestly taken a seat in the imperial, here passed us, and greeted me with a ‘How d’ye do?’ He had shouldered his own little valise, and was trudging off, scattering a cloud of commissionaires, who would have fain spared him the trouble.

‘Do you know that chap?’ says Pogson; ‘surly fellow, ain’t he?’

‘The kindest man in existence,’ answered I; ‘all the world knows Major British.’

‘Did you ever see such a foot and ankle?’ said Sam, after sitting for some time, regardless of the novelty of the scene; his hands in his pockets, plunged in the deepest thought.

‘Isn’t she a slap-up woman, eh, now?’ pursued he; and began enumerating her attractions, as a horse-jockey would the points of a favourite animal.

‘You seem to have gone a pretty length already,’ said I, ‘by promising to visit her to morrow.’

‘A good length?—I believe you. Leave me alone for that.’

‘But I thought you were only to be two in the coupé, you wicked rogue.’

‘Two in the coupy? Oh! ah! yes, you know—why, that is, I didn’t know she had her maid with her (what an ass I was to think of a noblewoman travelling without one!), and couldn’t, in course, refuse, when she asked me to let the maid in.’

‘Of course not.’

‘Couldn’t, you know, as a man of honour; but I made up for all that,’ said Pogson, winking slily, and putting his hand to his little bunch of a nose, in a very knowing way.

‘You did, and how?’

‘Why, you dog, I sat next to her; sat in the middle the whole way, and my back’s half broke, I can tell you:’ and thus having depicted his happiness, we soon reached the inn where this back-broken young man was to lodge during his stay in Paris.

The next day, at five, we met; Mr. Pogson had seen his Baroness, and described her lodgings, in his own expressive way, as ‘slap-up.’ She had received him quite like an old friend; treated him to eau sucrée, of which beverage he expressed himself a great admirer: and actually asked him to dine the next day. But there was a cloud over the ingenuous youth’s brow, and I inquired still further.

‘Why,’ said he, with a sigh, ‘I thought she was a widow; and, hang it! who should come in but her husband the Baron; a big fellow, sir, with a blue coat, a red ribbing, and such a pair of mustachios!’

‘Well,’ said I, ‘he didn’t turn you out, I suppose?’

‘Oh no! on the contrary, as kind as possible; his lordship said that he respected the English army; asked me what corps I was in,—said he had fought in Spain against us,—and made me welcome.’

‘What could you want more?’

I live up a hundred and thirty-seven steps in the remote quarter of the Luxembourg, and it is not to be expected that such a fashionable fellow as Sam Pogson, with his pockets full of money, and a new city to see, should be always wandering to my dull quarters; so that, although he did not make his appearance for some time, he must not be accused of any lukewarmness of friendship on that score.

He was out, too, when I called at his hotel; but once I had the good fortune to see him, with his hat curiously on one side, looking as pleased as Punch, and being driven, in an open cab, in the Champs Élysées. ‘That’s another tiptop chap,’ said he, when we met, at length. ‘What do you think of an Earl’s son, my boy? Honourable Tom Ringwood, son of the Earl of Cinqbars: what do you think of that, eh?’

I thought he was getting into very good society. Sam was a dashing fellow, and was always above his own line of life; he had met Mr. Ringwood at the Baron’s, and they’d been to the play together; and the honourable gent, as Sam called him, had joked with him about being well-to-do in a certain quarter; and he had had a game of billiards with the Baron, at the Estaminy, ‘a very distangy place, where you smoke,’ said Sam; ‘quite select, and frequented by the tiptop nobility;’ and they were as thick as peas in a shell; and they were to dine that day at Ringwood’s, and sup, the next night, with the Baroness.

‘I think the chaps down the road will stare,’ said Sam, ‘when they hear how I’ve been coming it.’ And stare, no doubt, they would; for it is certain that very few commercial gentlemen have had Mr. Pogson’s advantages.

The next morning we had made an arrangement to go out shopping together, and to purchase some articles of female gear, that Sam intended to bestow on his relations when he returned. Seven needle-books, for his sisters; a gilt buckle, for his mamma; a handsome French cashmere shawl and bonnet, for his aunt (the old lady keeps an inn in the Borough, and has plenty of money, and no heirs); and a toothpick case, for his father. Sam is a good fellow to all his relations, and as for his aunt, he adores her. Well, we were to go and make these purchases, and I arrived punctually at my time; but Sam was stretched on a sofa, very pale and dismal.

I saw how it had been.—‘A little too much of Mr. Ringwood’s claret, I suppose?’

‘Where does the Honourable Tom live?’ says I.

‘Honourable!’ says Sam, with a hollow horrid laugh; ‘I tell you, Dick, he’s no more Honourable than you are.’

‘What, an impostor?’

‘No, no; not that. He is a real Honourable, only—’

‘Oh, ho! I smell a rat—a little jealous, eh?’

‘Jealousy be hanged! I tell you he’s a thief; and the Baron’s a thief; and, hang me, if I think his wife is any better. Eight-and-thirty pounds he won of me before supper; and made me drunk, and sent me home:—is that honourable? How can I afford to lose forty pounds? It’s took me two years to save it up:—if my old aunt gets wind of it, she’ll cut me off with a shilling: hang me!’—and here Sam, in an agony, tore his fair hair.

While bewailing his lot in this lamentable strain, his bell was rung, which signal being answered by a surly ‘Come in,’ a tall, very fashionable gentleman, with a fur coat, and a fierce tuft to his chin, entered the room. ‘Pogson, my buck, how goes it?’ said he familiarly, and gave a stare at me: I was making for my hat.

‘Don’t go,’ said Sam, rather eagerly; and I sat down again.

The Honourable Mr. Ringwood hummed and ha’d: and, at last, said he wished to speak to Mr. Pogson on business, in private, if possible.

‘There’s no secrets betwixt me and my friend,’ cried Sam.

Mr. Ringwood paused a little:—’ An awkward business that of last night,’ at length exclaimed he.

‘I believe it was an awkward business,’ said Sam drily.

‘I really am very sorry for your losses.’

‘Thank you: and so am I, I can tell you,’ said Sam.

‘You must mind, my good fellow, and not drink; for, when you drink, you will play high: by Gad, you led us in, and not we you.’

‘I dare say,’ answered Sam, with something of peevishness; ‘losses is losses: there’s no use talking about ‘em when they’re over and paid.’

‘And paid?’ here wonderingly spoke Mr. Ringwood; ‘why, my dear fel—— what the deuce—has Florval been with you?’

‘D——Florval!’ growled Tom, ‘I’ve never set eyes on his face since last night; and never wish to see him again.’

‘Come, come, enough of this talk; how do you intend to settle the bills which you gave him last night?’

‘Bills! what do you mean?’

‘What!’ shouted poor Sam, as from a dream, starting up, and looking preternaturally pale and hideous.

‘D—— it, sir, you don’t affect ignorance: you don’t pretend not to remember that you signed these bills, for money lost in my rooms: money lent to you, by Madame de Melval, at your own request, and lost to her husband? You don’t suppose, sir, that I shall be such an infernal idiot as to believe you, or such a coward as to put up with a mean subterfuge of this sort? Will you, or will you not, pay the money, sir?’

‘I will not,’ said Sam stoutly; ‘it’s a d——d swin——’

Here Mr. Ringwood sprang up, clenching his riding-whip, and looking so fierce, that Sam and I bounded back to the other end of the room. ‘Utter that word again, and, by Heaven, I’ll murder you!’ shouted Mr. Ringwood, and looked as if he would, too: ‘once more, will you, or will you not, pay this money?’

‘I can’t,’ said Sam faintly.

‘I’ll call again, Captain Pogson,’ said Mr. Ringwood, ‘I’ll call again in one hour; and, unless you come to some arrangement, you must meet my friend, the Baron de Melval, or I’ll post you for a swindler and a coward.’ With this he went out; the door thundered to after him, and when the clink of his steps departing had subsided, I was enabled to look round at Pog. The poor little man had his elbows on the marble table, his head between his hands, and looked as one has seen gentlemen look over a steam-vessel off Ramsgate, the wind blowing remarkably fresh: at last he fairly burst out crying.

‘If Mrs. Pogson heard of this,’ said I, ‘what would become of the Three Tuns?’ (for I wished to give him a lesson). ‘If your ma, who took you every Sunday to meeting, should know that her boy was paying attention to married women;—if Drench, Glauber, and Co., your employers, were to know that their confidential agent was a gambler, and unfit to be trusted with their money, how long do you think your connection would last with them, and who would afterwards employ you?’

My soul was filled, then, with a gentle yearning pity for Pogson, and revolved many plans for his rescue: none of these seeming to be practicable, at last we hit on the very wisest of all, and determined to apply for counsel to no less a person than Major British.

A blessing it is to be acquainted with my worthy friend, little Major British; and Heaven, sure, it was that put the Major into my head, when I heard of this awkward scrape of poor Pog’s. The Major is on half-pay, and occupies a modest apartment, au quatrième, in the very hotel which Pogson had patronised at my suggestion; indeed, I had chosen it from Major British’s own peculiar recommendation.

There is no better guide to follow than such a character as the honest Major, of whom there are many likenesses now scattered over the continent of Europe: men who love to live well, and are forced to live cheaply, and who find the English, abroad, a thousand times easier, merrier, and more hospitable than the same persons at home. I, for my part, never landed on Calais pier without feeling that a load of sorrows was left on the other side of the water; and have always fancied that black care stepped on board the steamer, along with the custom-house officers, at Gravesend, and accompanied one to yonder black louring towers of London—so busy, so dismal, and so vast.

British would have cut any foreigner’s throat who ventured to say so much, but entertained, no doubt, private sentiments of this nature; for he passed eight months of the year, regularly, abroad, with headquarters at Paris (the garrets before alluded to), and only went to England for the month’s shooting, on the grounds of his old Colonel, now an old Lord, of whose acquaintance the Major was passably inclined to boast.

He is, however, one of the most useful persons in society that can possibly be; for besides being incorrigibly duelsome on his own account, he is, for others, the most acute and peaceable counsellor in the world, and has carried more friends through scrapes and prevented more deaths than any member of the Humane Society. British never bought a single step in the army, as is well known. In ‘14 he killed a celebrated French fire-eater, who had slain a young friend of his, and living, as he does, a great deal with young men of pleasure, and good old sober family people, he is loved by them both, and has as welcome a place made for him at a roaring bachelor’s supper at the Café Anglais as at a staid dowager’s dinner-table in the Faubourg St. Honoré. Such pleasant old boys are very profitable aquaintances, let me tell you; and lucky is the young man who has one or two such friends in his list.

Hurrying on Pogson in his dress, I conducted him, panting, up to the Major’s quatrième, where we were cheerfully bidden to come in. The little gentleman was in his travelling jacket, and occupied in painting, elegantly, one of those natty pairs of boots in which he daily promenaded the Boulevards. A couple of pairs of tough buff gloves had been undergoing some pipe-claying operation under his hands; no man stepped out so spick and span, with a hat so nicely brushed, with a stiff cravat tied so neatly under a fat little red face, with a blue frock-coat so scrupulously fitted to a punchy little person, as Major British, about whom we have written these two pages. He stared rather hardly at my companion, but gave me a kind shake of the hand, and we proceeded at once to business. ‘Major British,’ said I, ‘we want your advice in regard to an unpleasant affair which has just occurred to my friend Pogson.’

‘Pogson, take a chair.’

‘You must know, sir, that Mr. Pogson, coming from Calais the other day, encountered, in the diligence, a very handsome woman.’

British winked at Pogson, who, wretched as he was, could not help feeling pleased.

‘Mr. Pogson was not more pleased with this lovely creature than was she with him; for, it appears, she gave him her card, invited him to her house, where he has been constantly, and has been received with much kindness.’

‘Now it’s coming,’ said the Major, with a grin: ‘her husband is jealous, I suppose, and there is a talk of the Bois de Boulogne: my dear sir, you can’t refuse—can’t refuse.’

‘It’s not that,’ said Pogson, wagging his head passionately.

‘Her husband the Baron seemed quite as much taken with Pogson as his lady was, and has introduced him to some very distingués friends of his own set. Last night one of the Baron’s friends gave a party in honour of my friend Pogson, who lost forty-eight pounds at cards before he was made drunk, and Heaven knows how much after.’

‘Not a shilling, by sacred Heaven!—not a shilling!’ yelled out Pogson. ‘After the supper I ad such an eadach, I couldn’t do anything but fall asleep on the sofa.’

‘You “ad such an eadach,” sir,’ said British sternly, who piques himself on his grammar and pronunciation, and scorns a cockney.

‘Such a h-eadache, sir,’ replied Pogson, with much meekness.

‘The unfortunate man is brought home at two o’clock, as tipsy as possible, dragged upstairs, senseless, to bed, and, on waking, receives a visit from his entertainer of the night before—a Lord’s son, Major, a tiptop fellow,—who brings a couple of bills that my friend Pogson is said to have signed.’

‘Well, my dear fellow, the thing’s quite simple,—he must pay them.’

‘I can’t pay them.’

‘He can’t pay them,’ said we both in a breath: ‘Pogson is a commercial traveller, with thirty shillings a week, and how the deuce is he to pay five hundred pounds?’

‘A bagman, sir! and what right has a bagman to gamble? Gentlemen gamble, sir; tradesmen, sir, have no business with the amusements of the gentry. What business had you with Barons and Lords’ sons, sir?—serve you right, sir.’

‘Sir,’ says Pogson, with some dignity, ‘merit, and not birth, is the criterion of a man; I despise an hereditary aristocracy, and admire only Nature’s gentlemen. For my part, I think that a British merch—’

‘Yes, but, Major,’ here cried that faithful friend, who has always stood by Pogson; ‘they won’t leave him alone.’

‘The Honourable gent says I must fight if I don’t pay,’ whimpered Sam.

‘What! fight you? Do you mean that the Honourable gent, as you call him, will go out with a bagman?’

‘He doesn’t know I’m a—I’m a commercial man,’ blushingly said Sam: ‘he fancies I’m a military gent.’

The Major’s gravity was quite upset at this absurd notion; and he laughed outrageously. ‘Why, the fact is, sir,’ said I, ‘that my friend Pogson, knowing the value of the title of Captain, and being complimented by the Baroness on his warlike appearance, said, boldly, he was in the army. He only assumed the rank in order to dazzle her weak imagination, never fancying that there was a husband, and a circle of friends, with whom he was afterwards to make an acquaintance; and then, you know, it was too late to withdraw.’

‘A pretty pickle you have put yourself in, Mr. Pogson, by making love to other men’s wives, and calling yourself names,’ said the Major, who was restored to good-humour. ‘And, pray, who is the honourable gent?’

‘The Earl of Cinqbars’ son,’ says Pogson, ‘the Honourable Tom Ringwood.’

‘I thought it was some such character: and the Baron is the Baron de Florval-Melval?’

‘The very same.’

‘And his wife a black-haired woman, with a pretty foot and ankle; calls herself Athenais; and is always talking about her trente-deux ans? Why, sir, that woman was an actress on the Boulevard when we were here in ‘15. She’s no more his wife than I am. Melval’s name is Chicot. The woman is always travelling between London and Paris: I saw she was hooking you at Calais; she has hooked ten men, in the course of the last two years, in this very way. She lent you money, didn’t she?’ ‘Yes.’—‘And she leans on your shoulder, and whispers, “Play half for me,” and somebody wins it, and the poor thing is as sorry as you are, and her husband storms and rages, and insists on double stakes; and she leans over your shoulder again, and tells every card in your hand to your adversary; and that’s the way it’s done, Mr. Pogson.’

‘I’ve been ad, I see I ave,’ said Pogson very humbly.

We departed: poor Sam perfectly silent and chapfallen; and I meditating on the wisdom of the half-pay philosopher, and wondering what means he would employ to rescue Pogson from his fate.

What these means were I know not; but Mr. Ringwood did not make his appearance at six; and, at eight, a letter arrived for ‘Mr. Pogson, commercial traveller,’ etc. etc. It was blank inside, but contained his two bills. Mr. Ringwood left town, almost immediately, for Vienna; nor did the Major explain the circumstances which caused his departure; but he muttered something about ‘knew some of his old tricks,’ threatened police, and made him disgorge directly.

Mr. Ringwood is, as yet, young at his trade; and I have often thought it was very green of him to give up the bills to the Major, who, certainly, would never have pressed the matter before the police, out of respect for his friend Lord Cinqbars.

Paris, July 30th, 1839.

Do you not laugh—O Pharos of Bungay—at the continuance of a humbug such as this? at the humbugging anniversary of a humbug? The King of the Barricades is, next to the Emperor Nicholas, the most absolute Sovereign in Europe; yet there is not in the whole of this fair kingdom of France a single man who cares sixpence about him, or his dynasty, except, mayhap, a few hangers-on at the Château, who eat his dinners, and put their hands in his purse. The feeling of loyalty is as dead as old Charles the Tenth; the Chambers have been laughed at, the country has been laughed at, all the successive ministries have been laughed at (and you know who is the wag that has amused himself with them all); and, behold, here come three days at the end of July, and cannons think it necessary to fire off, squibs and crackers to blaze and fizz, fountains to run wine, kings to make speeches, and subjects to crawl up greasy mâts-de-cocagne in token of gratitude and réjouissance publique!—My dear sir, in their aptitude to swallow, to utter, to enact humbugs, these French people, from Majesty downwards, beat all the other nations of this earth. In looking at these men, their manners, dresses, opinions, politics, actions, history, it is impossible to preserve a grave countenance; instead of having Carlyle to write a History of the French Revolution, I often think it should be handed over to Dickens or Theodore Hook, and oh! where is the Rabelais to be the faithful historian of the last phase of the Revolution—the last glorious nine years of which we are now commemorating the last glorious three days?

CELEBRATION OF THE DAYS OF JULY

‘To-day (Saturday), funeral ceremonies, in honour of the victims of July, were held in the various edifices consecrated to public worship.

‘These edifices, with the exception of some churches (especially that of the Petits-Pères), were uniformly hung with black on the outside; the hangings bore only this inscription: 27, 28, 29 July 1830—surrounded by a wreath of oak-leaves.

‘In the interior of the Catholic churches, it had only been thought proper to dress little catafalques, as for burials of the third and fourth class. Very few clergy attended; but a considerable number of the National Guard.

‘The Synagogue of the Israelites was entirely hung with black; and a great concourse of people attended. The service was performed with the greatest pomp.

‘In the Protestant temples there was likewise a very full attendance: apologetical discourses on the Revolution of July were pronounced by the pastors.

‘The absence of M. de Quélen (Archbishop of Paris), and of many members of the superior clergy, was remarked at Nôtre Dame.

‘The civil authorities attended service in the several districts.

‘The poles, ornamented with tricoloured flags, which formerly were placed on Nôtre Dame, were, it was remarked, suppressed. The flags on the Pont Neuf were, during the ceremony, only half-mast high, and covered with crape.’

‘The tombs of the Louvre were covered with black hangings, and adorned with tricoloured flags. In front and in the middle was erected an expiatory monument of a pyramidical shape, and surmounted by a funeral vase.

‘These tombs were guarded by the Municipal Guard, the Troops of the Line, the Sergens de Ville (town patrol), and a Brigade of Agents of Police in plain clothes, under the orders of peace-officer Vassal.

‘After the passage of the procession, the Garden was again open to the public.’

And the evening and the morning were the first day.

There’s nothing serious in mortality: is there, from the beginning of this account to the end thereof, aught but sheer, open, monstrous, undisguised humbug? I said, before, that you should have a history of these people by Dickens or Theodore Hook, but there is little need of professed wags;—do not the men write their own tale with an admirable Sancho-like gravity and naïveté, which one could not desire improved? How good is that touch of sly indignation about the little catafalques! how rich the contrast presented by the economy of the Catholics to the splendid disregard of expense exhibited by the devout Jews! and how touching the ‘apologetical discourses on the Revolution,’ delivered by the Protestant pastors! Fancy the profound affliction of the Gardes Municipaux, the Sergens de Ville, the police-agents in plain clothes, and the troops with fixed bayonets, sobbing round the ‘expiatory monuments of a pyramidical shape, surmounted by funeral vases,’ and compelled, by sad duty, to fire into the public who might wish to indulge in the same woe! O ‘Manes of July!’ (the phrase is pretty and grammatical), why did you with sharp bullets break those Louvre windows? Why did you bayonet redcoated Swiss behind that fair white facade, and, braving cannon, musket, sabre, prospective guillotine, burst yonder bronze gates, rush through that peaceful picture-gallery, and hurl royalty, loyalty, and a thousand years of Kings, head-over-heels out of yonder Tuileries windows?

I do not (although, perhaps, partial to the subject) want to talk more nonsense than the occasion warrants, and will pray you to cast your eyes over the following anecdote, that is now going the round of the papers, and respects the commutation of the punishment of that wretched, foolhardy Barbès, who, on his trial, seemed to invite the penalty which has just been remitted to him. You recollect the braggart’s speech: ‘When the Indian falls into the power of the enemy, he knows the fate that awaits him, and submits his head to the knife:—I am the Indian!’

‘Well——’

‘M. Victor Hugo was at the Opera on the night the sentence of the Court of Peers, condemning Barbès to death, was published. The great poet composed the following verses: