X.—THE FÊTE.
At length the eventful night arrived—a beautiful, still, star-lit night. You may fancy the splendor of the more than royal festivities. What a magnificent levee of gayety, rank, and beauty! What unexampled illuminations!—what fantastic and inexhaustible ingenuity of pyrotechnics! How the gorgeous suites of salons laughed with the brilliant crowd! How the terraces, arched and lined with soft-colored lamps, re-echoed with gay laughter or murmured flatteries! What an atmosphere it was of rosy hues, of music, and ceaseless hum of human enjoyment! For miles around, the wandering peasants beheld the wide, misty, prismatic circle that overarched the enchanted ground, and heard the silver harmonies and drumming thunders of the orchestras floating over the woods, and filling the void darkness with sounds of unseen festivities. In such a scene all are in good-humor—all wear their best looks. Each finds his appropriate amusement. The elegant gamester discovers his cards and his companions; the garrulous find listeners; the gossip retails, and imbibes, from a hundred sources, all the current scandal; vanity finds incense—beauty adoration; the young make love, or dance, or in groups give their spirits play in pleasantries, and raillery, and peals of animated laughter; their elders listen to the music, or watch the cards, or in a calmer fashion converse; while all, each according to his own peculiar taste, find whatever pleases their palate best. Whatever is rarest, most fantastic—things only dreamed of—the epicurean connoisseur has only to invoke, and, at a touch of the magic wand of Mammon, it is there before him. Wines, too,—what-not, est-est, tokay, and all the rest, flowing from the inexhaustible tap of the same Mephistopheles, with his golden gimlet. All the demons of luxury riot there, and at your nod ransack the earth for a flavor or a flask; and place it before you, almost before your wish is uttered. It is, indeed, the Mahomet's paradise of all true believers in the stomach, and worshippers of Bacchus. Thus in a realized dream all eddies on in a delicious intoxication, and each is at once the recipient of enjoyment and the dispenser of good-humor, imbibing through every sense enchanted fare, reflecting smiles, and radiating hilarity. Each, indeed, becomes, as it were, a single glowing particle in the genial and brilliant mass, and tends to keep alive the general fire, from which he derives and to which returns at once light and geniality. It is admitted that he who has discovered the grand arcanum, and has the philosopher's stone in his waistcoat-pocket, is, so to speak, ex officio, a magician. But M. Le Prun had no need of any such discoveries. He had the gold itself, and was, therefore, a ready-made magician, and as such was worshipped accordingly with an oriental fanaticism.
Monsieur le Prun had, like other favorites of fortune in the latter days of the monarchy, purchased his patent of noblesse. Every body knew that he was a parvenu; and rumor, as she is wont in such cases, had adorned his early history with so many myths and portents, that Niebuhr himself could hardly have distinguished between the fable and the truth. It was said and believed that he was a foundling—a Gipsy's son, a wandering beggar, a tinker. Others had seen him in rags, selling pencils at the steps between the Pont-Neuf and the Pont-au-Change. Others, again, maintained that he had for years filled the canine office of guide to an old blind mendicant, whose beat was about the Rue de Bauboug; and were even furnished with a number of pleasant anecdotes about his hardships and adroitness, while in this somewhat undignified position. Indeed, the varieties of positions though which good Mother Gossip sent him were such, and so interminable, that a relation of half of them would alone make a library of fiction. But fortune had consecrated this mean and smutty urchin. He stood now worshipped in the awful glory of his millions, pedestalled on his money-bags, gilded from head to heel; and what could the proudest noblesse upon earth do but forget and forgive the rags and hunger of his infancy, and come together, from the east and from the west, to drink of the cup of his enchantments, and cry, "Long live King Solomon in all his glory?"
"She is beautiful as a divinity," exclaimed the gallant old Marquess de Fauteuil, who had just completed an admiring survey of the fair Madame le Prun.
"Pretty—yes; but she has the manners of a petite moine," said the Duchess de la Cominade, an old flame of the marquis, who, in spite of her marriage and her mistakes, conceived her claims upon his devotions unabated.
"And her little gossip, too, Le Prun's niece, is a charming creature—an exquisitely contrived contrast. By my word, this place deserves its name—is it not truly the Chateau des Anges?"
"Who is that young person whom Le Prun is leading towards them? He is the only man I have seen to-night whose dress is perfect; and he looks like a hero of romance."
"That?—eh? Why that is the Marquis de Secqville."
"What! the horrid man who enslaves us all? I have not seen him for years—how very handsome he is!"
"Yes; and I fancy that melancholy air assists him very much in vanquishing the gentle sex. I once had a little vein of that myself."
"So you had," murmured the duchess, with a tender smile of memory, and a little sigh. "But is it not a madness of poor Le Prun to present that terrible man to his handsome young wife?"
"He is to marry the niece—the affair is concluded. Poor little thing! she looks so frightened; see—a little fluttered pigeon of Venus—it becomes her very much."
Meanwhile Le Prun and the marquis were approaching Lucille and Julie, who were seated together close to a window which opened to the floor, and admitted the soft summer air, charged with such sounds and perfumes as might have hovered among the evergreen groves of Calypso's island.
"He is coming," said Julie, "he is coming with my uncle."
"Who?" asked Lucille, looking coldly on the advancing figures.
"My—my fiancé, the Marquis de Secqville," whispered Julie, in trembling haste, blushing, and dropping her eyes.
"Oh, then, I must observe him carefully," said Lucille, with an arch smile.
"Do, and tell me honestly what you think of him."
"Ha! little rogue, I see you are not quite so indifferent as you pretend."
"My heart is indifferent—but—but he is very handsome—don't you think so?"
"Hush! here he is."
"I have the happiness, madame, to present Monsieur le Marquis de Secqville, with whom, as you are aware, we are about to have the honor of being nearly allied."
So said Monsieur le Prun, with a smile of conjugal affection, which may, or may not, have been genuine.
"I was not until now aware of the full extent of the honor and the happiness involved in that alliance," said the marquis, with a glance of respectful admiration.
Madame le Prun acknowledged this little speech with a slight bow, and a cold and haughty smile.
"You have been in the south lately?"
"Yes, madame, with my regiment at Avignon."
"So he says," interrupted the fermier-general, with a cunning leer; "but his colonel swears he never saw him there."
"Then either you or your colonel must be wrong," said Madame le Prun, drily.
"No, no, madame; but Monsieur le Prun likes a jest at my expense."
"Not at all," said Le Prun, laughing; "I protest D'Artois, his colonel, vows he has not seen him for six months at least."
"They are in a conspiracy to quiz me."
"Then you were at Avignon?"
"No such thing, I tell you; the fellow was about some mischief—ha! ha! ha!"
"He is resolved to laugh at me."
"Yes, yes, I say he is a mischievous fellow—the most dangerous dog in France; and so shy that, by my word, it requires a shrewd fellow like myself to discover his rogueries."
"And so he deserves not only all my sins, but a great deal more."
"Stay—here is the Visconte de Charrebourg. Visconte, this is the Marquis de Secqville, my future nephew."
The old visconte looked closely and dubiously for a moment in the young man's face. The marquis, on the contrary, seemed to have some little difficulty in suppressing a smile.
"But that I know I have not had the honor of meeting you before, I should——but no doubt it is a family likeness. I knew your father when he was about your age, and a very handsome fellow, by my faith. Is his brother, the Conte de Cresseron, still living?"
The old gentleman drew the marquis away before he had had time to pay his devoirs to Julie, who had shrunk at his approach into the background, and left the little group to themselves.
"What do you think of him?" whispered Julie, resuming her place by Lucille.
"He is pretty well."
"Monsieur le Marquis is a handsome man," said Blassemare, who at that moment joined them; and, addressing Lucille, "You have seen him before?"
"I?—no. He has just been presented to me for the first time."
"And you think him——"
"Rather handsome—indeed, decidedly handsome; but, somehow, his melancholy spoils him. But I forgot, Julie—I ask your pardon, my pretty niece, for criticising your hero. Remember, however, I admit his beauty, though I can't admire him."
There is no truth of which we have been reminded with such unnecessary reiteration, as the pretty obvious fact that every human enjoyment must, sooner or later, come to an end. The fête at the Chateau des Anges had no exemption from this law of nature and necessity. Musicians, cooks, artists, and artisans of all sorts, gradually disappeared. At length the last equipage whirled down the great avenue, and a stillness and void, more mournful from the immediate contrast, supervened.
The windows were closed—the yawning servants betook themselves to their beds, and the angel of sleep waved his downy wings over the old chateau. The genius of Blassemare was of that electric sort which is not easily unexcited. He could no more have slept than he could have transformed himself into one of the stone Tritons of the fountain by which in the moonlight he now stood alone. Blassemare had had a magnificent triumph; so well-contrived an entertainment had never, perhaps, been known before; and, like certain great generals, he felt desirous to visit the field of his victory after the heat of action was over.
Monsieur Le Prun was also wide awake and astir from other causes. No vein of Blassemare's excitement—not even jealousy, nor conscience, nor any mental malady—kept him waking. The cause of his vigilance was, simply, his late supper and an indigestion.
Now it happened that both these worthies were walking unconsciously almost side by side—Le Prun along the summit, and Blassemare along the base, of the beautiful terrace which stretched in front of the windows of the chateau.
There was a little receding court which lay in front of Madame Le Prun's windows, which were furnished with a heavy stone balcony. On the side opposite was a high wall, which divided the pleasure-grounds from the wild, wooded park that lay immediately beyond, and in this was a door with a private key and a spring lock.
Now it happened that both Monsieur Le Prun and the Sieur de Blassemare, as they approached this point, amid the fumes of expiring lamps and the wreck of fireworks, heard certain sounds of an unexpected sort. These were, in fact, human voices, conversing in earnest but suppressed tones—so low, indeed, that were it not for the breathless stillness of the night they would have been unheard.
"Sacre!" muttered Le Prun, looking up like a toothless old panther.
"Ma foi! what's this?" whispered Blassemare, whose jealousy was also alarmed.
The sounds continued—the eavesdroppers quickened their paces. Le Prun was, however, unfortunately a little asthmatic, as sometimes happens to bridegrooms of a certain age, and, spite of all his efforts to hold it in, he could not contain a burst of coughing.
Its effect was magical. There supervened an instantaneous silence, followed by the dropping of a heavy body upon the ground, as it seemed, under Madame Le Prun's windows. The descent was, however, unfortunately made; a dog, evidently hurt, raised a frightful yelping, making the night additionally hideous. Blassemare hurried up the steps, and at the top encountered Le Prun, running and panting, with his sword drawn. There was a sound, as of hastily closing the casement above the balcony—a light gleamed from it for an instant, and was extinguished—and, at the same moment, they beheld the dim figure of a man hurrying across the court, and darting through the opposite door, which shut with a crash behind him.
"Thieves! robbers!" shouted Le Prun, dashing at the door.
"Robbers! thieves!" cried a shrill voice of alarm from Madame Le Prun's casement.
"Horns! antlers!" halloed Blassemare.
"Robbers! robbers!"
"Thieves! thieves!"
The lady screamed, Le Prun bawled, Blassemare laughed.
"He is gone, however," said the latter, as soon as the explosion had a little subsided. "Suppose we get the key, madame. Please throw us yours from the window. I promise to pink the burglar through the body. Quick—quick!"
"Ay, ay," thundered Le Prun, "the key! the key!"
Madame Le Prun was too much excited to get it in an instant. She ran here, and flew there—she screamed and rummaged. Le Prun stormed. A key was at last thrown out, amid prayers and imprecations. How provoking!—it was a wrong one. Another effort—a new burst of execration from Le Prun—another fit of laughter from Blassemare—more screaming and pressing from the window—and all accompanied by the sustained yelping of the injured lap-dog.
"Here it is—this must be it," and another key clangs and jingles on the ground.
"Yes, this time it is the right key." The door flies open—Le Prun rushes puffing among the bushes. Blassemare sees something drop glittering to the ground as the door opens—a button and a little rag of velvet; he says nothing, but pockets it, and joins the moonlight chase.
It is all in vain. Le Prun, perspiring and purple, his passion as swollen as his veins, knowing not what to think, but fearing every thing, staggered back, silent and exhausted; Blassemare also silent—no longer laughing—abstracted, walks with knit brows, and compressed lips, beside him.
"Of course," said Blassemare, "you have the fullest reliance upon the honor of your wife?"
Monsieur Le Prun growled an inarticulate curse or two, and Blassemare whistled a minuet.
"Come, my dear Le Prun," he resumed, "let us be frank; you are uneasy."
"About what?"
"Madame Le Prun."
"She is not injured?"
"No, but——"
"Ah, she's in league with the thieves, may be?" said Le Prun, with an agitated sneer.
"Precisely so," answered Blassemare, with a cold laugh.
"I know what you think, and I know what I think," replied Le Prun, with suppressed fury.
His suspicions were all awake; he was bursting with rage, and looked truly infernal.
"On the faith of a gentleman," said Blassemare, with a changed tone, "I cannot be said to think any thing about the affair. I have my doubts, but that is all. We men are naturally suspicious; but, after all, there are such things as thieves and housebreakers."
Le Prun said nothing, but looked black and icy as the north wind.
"At all events," said Blassemare, "we men of the world know how to deal with affairs of this sort; so long as any uncertainty exists, put ostensibly the best possible construction upon it. Thus much is due to one's dignity in the eyes of the public; and in private we may prosecute inquiries unsuspected, and with the greater likelihood of success."
"I know the world as well as you, Blassemare. I'm sick of your tone of superiority and advice. I know when to respect and when to defy the world. A man can no more make a fortune without tact than he can lose one without folly."
"Well, well," said Blassemare, who was used to an occasional rebuff, and regarded a gruff word from his principal no more than he did the buzz of a beetle, "I know all that very well; but you, robust fellows, with millions at your back, are less likely to respect those subtle and delicate influences which sometimes, notwithstanding, carry mischief with them, than we poor, sensitive valetudinarians, without a guinea in our pockets; and if you will permit me, I will, when I return to-day, sift the matter for you. I understand woman; it is an art in itself, though not, perhaps, a very high one. A careless conversation with Madame Le Prun will let me further into the mystery, than a year spent in accumulating circumstantial evidence. You may rely on the result."
The fermier-general uttered something between a growl and a grunt, which might or might not convey assent; and, waving Blassemare towards the house, walked along the terrace alone; and sat himself down upon the steps at the further end.
The mental torpor which supervenes under sudden disasters was not, in the case of the fermier-general, without its dreamy groups of ugly images in prospect. As the light broke, and the darkness began to melt eastward into soft crimson mists and streaks of amber, Monsieur Le Prun rose stiffly from his hard, cold seat, and, with the slow step of a man irresolute and oppressed with profound wrath and mortification, began to return homeward.
"Robbers!—thieves!" he muttered bitterly. "How glibly the traitress echoed the cry! The rascal Blassemare gave the true alarm—she did not echo that. D—— her, and d——him! Robbers, indeed! Thieves!—very like. I know what they came a thieving for. Upon her balcony—talking in murmurs—the candle extinguished in such a devil of a hurry—the ready cry of 'Thieves'—the spring door open for his flight—and the long delay to find the key. Bah! what proofs are wanting?"
He heard just at this point a cracked voice singing a gay love verse from an open window. He knew the voice; every association connected with the performance and the performer jarred upon his nerves.
It was indeed the Visconte de Charrebourg, some of whose early gayety had returned with his good fortune. He had, such was the pride of his rich son-in-law, a little household of his own, and kept his state and his own exorbitantly early hours in a suite of rooms assigned him, through one of whose windows, arrayed in a velvet cap and gown of brocade, he was rivalling the lark and greeting the rising sun, and, while sipping his chocolate in the intervals, moved, with the nimble irregularity of idle and active-minded age, about his apartment.
"Well, sir, a pleasant affair this!" cried a harsh voice, interrupting his cheery occupation; and on looking round he saw the purple and sinister face of the fermier-general looming through the window.
"What affair?" asked the visconte, in unfeigned astonishment, for he had been quite certain that his worthy son-in-law was quietly in his bed.
"Your daughter's conduct."
"What of her?"
"Just this—she is a ——!" and, with the term of outrage, Le Prun uttered a forced laugh of fury.
"I cannot have heard you aright: be kind enough to repeat that."
There was a certain air of pomp and menace in this little speech, which drove Le Prun beyond all patience. He repeated the imputation in language still grosser. This was an insult which the ancient blood of the Charrebourgs could not tolerate, and the visconte taunted him with the honor which one of his house had done him in mingling their pure blood with that of a "roturier." Then came the obvious retort, "beggar," and even "trickster," retaliated by a torrent of scarcely articulate scorn and execration, and an appeal to the sword, which, with brutal contempt, (while at the same time, nevertheless, he recoiled instinctively a foot or two from the window,) the wealthy plebeian retorted by threatening to arrest him for the sums he had advanced. Le Prun had the best of it; he left the outraged visconte quivering and shrieking like an old woman in a frenzy. It was some comfort to have wrapt another in the hell-fire that tormented himself.
[From the Examiner.]
MAZZINI ON ITALY.
We may—we do differ from Mazzini in many of his political views, and in our estimate of what may be the wisest policy for Italian liberals in existing circumstances. We think that he seeks to impart to politics a mathematical precision of which they are not susceptible, and does not sufficiently regard a principle the correctness of which has been admitted by himself, that the fact of a thing being true in principle cannot give the right of suddenly enthroning it in practice. But his errors are all on the large and generous side. He is too apt to attribute to society the precise convictions and spirit he feels within himself, and so to expect impossibilities, by impossible means. But there is a power of reasoning in Mazzini, an unsullied moral purity, a chivalrous veracity and frankness, an utter abnegation of self, and a courage that has stood the severest trials, which command not only respect but veneration. He belongs to the martyr age of Italian liberalism, and possesses himself the highest qualities of the martyr.
His declared object in publishing the small volume[27] before us is to correct public opinion in England as to the Italian movement in which he took part. But it is a statement of principles rather than a narrative of details. It is always dignified in tone, often singularly eloquent, and substantially it contains little which would be likely to draw forth an expression of willing disagreement from any well-educated, high-minded, liberal Englishman.
Mr. Mazzini thus declares his reasons