WHAT HE GOT OUT OF IT.
He never took a day of rest,
He couldn't afford it;
He never had his trousers pressed,
He couldn't afford it;
He never went away, care-free,
To visit distant lands, to see
How fair a place this world might be—
He couldn't afford it.
He never went to see a play,
He couldn't afford it;
His love for art he put away,
He couldn't afford it;
He died and left his heirs a lot,
But no tall shaft proclaims the spot
In which he lies—his children thought
They couldn't afford it.
The Vision of Charles XI.
By PROSPER MÉRIMÉE.
Translated from the French for "The Scrap Book" by S. Ten Eyck Bourke.
Prosper Mérimée, whose virile pen enriched the world's literature by the creation of "Carmen," was born in 1803, in France. At the outset of his career he studied law, and until his death, in 1870, was associated with politics, occupying several posts of importance.
He was an intimate friend of the Countess de Montijo, later the Empress Eugénie, and always was persona grata at the Tuileries during the imperial régime. This fact, however, did not influence his success as a man of letters; for that he owed directly to the elegance and purity of his style, the truthfulness of his local coloring, and his forceful and versatile brain.
Mérimée traveled widely, corresponding with the Paris papers. It is to one of these journeys that the fragment, "The Vision of Charles XI," is attributable. Apart from its literary excellence, it is of interest as relating an actual occurrence during the reign of that Swedish monarch.
Visions and supernatural apparitions commonly inspire ridicule; some there are, however, so fully attested that to refuse them credence one must, to be consistent, reject the entire fabric of accumulated historical data.
An affidavit, drawn in due legal form, subscribed to by, and endorsed with the signatures of four witnesses worthy of belief—that is my guaranty for the authenticity of the occurrence which I purpose to narrate. I desire to add that the prophecy set forth in the affidavit was therein incorporated and cited before those events which, happening in our times, would seem subsequently to have wrought its fulfilment.
Charles XI, father of the famous Charles XII, was one of the most despotic, yet, withal, one of the wisest, monarchs who have reigned in Sweden.
He restricted the monstrous privileges of the nobility, abolished the power of the senate, and enacted laws in virtue of his own sole authority; in a word, he altered the constitution of the country, which before him had been oligarchic, and compelled the governing bodies—composed of the nobility, the clergy, the middle classes, and the peasants—known as the Estates, to invest him with the supreme power. He was, moreover, an enlightened man, brave, strongly attached to the Lutheran faith, inflexible in character, cold, assertive, and wholly devoid of imagination.
He had but recently lost his wife, Eleanor Ulrica. Although it was rumored that his severity toward her had hastened her end, her death had seemingly moved him more deeply than might have been expected of one so hard of heart. His humor grew more somber and taciturn than ever, and he devoted himself to his labors in behalf of his subjects with an assiduity which bespoke an imperative need of dispelling painful thoughts.
He was seated, late one autumn evening, in dressing-gown and slippers, before a huge fire, burning upon the hearth in his study. With him were his chamberlain, Count Brahe, whom he honored with his good will, and his doctor, Baumgarten, who, be it said in passing, was a man of advanced views, something of being a free-thinker and inclined to compel the world at large to doubt everything save the science of medicine. The king had summoned Baumgarten that evening to consult with him upon some indisposition of I know not what nature.
The hour waxed late, yet the king, contrary to custom, gave them no hint, by bidding them good night, that they might withdraw. With bowed head and eyes bent upon the embers, he remained buried in a profound silence, weary of his guests, yet dreading, he knew not why, to be alone.
Count Brahe, keenly aware that his presence was not sovereignly welcome, had several times expressed the fear that his majesty might stand in need of repose. A gesture from the king held him to his place.
The physician, in turn, discoursed upon the evils wrought by late hours on the constitution. Charles answered him between his teeth:
"Stay. I am not ready to sleep yet."
They strove to converse of divers matters, but each topic was exhausted with the second sentence, or, at most, the third. His majesty, it was apparent, was in one of his blackest moods, and in like circumstance a courtier's position is of the most delicate.
Count Brahe, surmising that the king's grief emanated from the regrets to which his consort's loss had given rise in his mind, gazed for a time at a portrait of the queen which hung upon the study walls, finally exclaiming, with a huge sigh:
"What a resemblance! The portrait has her very expression, so majestic, and, withal, so sweet——"
"Bah!" bruskly interrupted the king, who saw a reproach in every mention made of the queen in his presence, "the portrait flattered her. The queen was ugly."
Then, secretly ashamed of his own harshness, he rose and wandered about the room to conceal an emotion for which he blushed. He paused before a window looking upon the court. The night was dark, and the moon in her first quarter.
The palace where the Swedish sovereigns reside to-day was not then completed, and Charles XI, who began it, dwelt at the time in the old palace, situated at the head of the Ritterholm, which overlooks Lake Moeler. It is a huge structure in the shape of a horseshoe. The king's study was located in one extremity of the horseshoe, while almost opposite was the great hall in which the Estates were convoked to receive the communications of the Crown.
The windows of this room now appeared to be brilliantly lighted.
This seemed strange to the king. He at first attributed it to a reflection from some lackey's torch. But what could he be doing at this hour in an apartment which had not been opened for a long time past?
Moreover, the glow was too vivid to proceed from a single torch. It might well be occasioned by a conflagration, but the king could see no smoke, the window-panes were intact, and not a sound disturbed the stillness of the night; every indication pointed rather to an illumination.
Charles watched the windows for a time in silence. Count Brahe reached for the bell-rope, purposing to summon a page to investigate this unaccountable brilliancy, but the king checked him.
"I will go myself to the state hall," he said.
As he finished speaking these words his companions noted the sudden pallor and the expression of religious awe which overspread his features. But his step was none the less firm as he strode from the study, the chamberlain and the doctor following, each provided with a lighted taper.
The custodian of the keys, who likewise fulfilled the duties of caretaker, had already retired. Baumgarten roused him, bidding him, in the king's name, make ready to open the state apartments.
Amazed at the unexpected summons, the man dressed hastily, and taking his keys, joined his royal master. He first unlocked the door of the long corridor leading to the main apartment, which served as an antechamber or withdrawal room. The king entered, and marveled to find the walls draped with black.
"By whose order has this been done?" Charles demanded angrily.
"Sire, no such order has come to my notice," replied the custodian, much troubled. "The last time I swept the corridor the walls were paneled with oak as usual. Those hangings certainly do not belong to your majesty's equipment."
The king, with his rapid stride, had already traversed more than two-thirds of the corridor. The count and the custodian followed closely in his wake, the doctor lagging somewhat in the rear, divided between his fear of being left alone and his dread of the unknown dangers he might incur in pursuing an adventure which began so inauspiciously.
"Go no farther, sire," implored the custodian. "On my soul, there is witchcraft within. At this hour, since the death of your gracious consort, the queen, it is said she haunts this corridor. God grant us protection!"
"Pause, sire," exclaimed the count, in turn. "Hear the disturbances in the state hall! Who knows to what peril your majesty may be exposing yourself?"
"Sire," urged Baumgarten, whose taper had been extinguished by a puff of wind, "permit me at least to summon twenty of your guards."
"We enter now," responded the king with determination. And stopping before the lofty portal he said to the custodian: "Open this door without delay."
As he spoke he kicked the paneled oak, and the sound, reverberating among the echoes of the vaulted ceiling, thundered down the corridor like the noise of a cannon-shot.
The key rattled against the lock as the custodian, who was trembling violently, sought vainly to insert it in its groove.
"An old soldier trembling!" scoffed Charles. "Come, count, let us see you open the door."
"Sire," answered the count, falling back a step, "let your majesty command me to face the cannon of the Germans or the Danes, and I will obey unflinchingly. But here you are asking me to defy all hell!"
The king wrenched the key from the custodian's shaking hand.
"I see clearly," he observed contemptuously, "that this concerns myself alone."
And before any of his attendants could prevent him he flung the heavy oaken door wide, and crossed the threshold, repeating the customary "With God's help!"
His three attendants, impelled by a curiosity stronger than their fear, and ashamed, perhaps, to abandon their sovereign, followed him.
The great hall blazed with the light of myriad torches. Heavy draperies replaced the ancient tapestries on the walls with their woven figures.
Ranged along both sides of the apartment in the same order as of yore hung the flags of Denmark, Germany, and the country of the Muscovite—trophies taken in war by the soldiers of Gustavus Adolphus. But the Swedish flags intermingled with the long array were swathed in funereal crape.
An immense concourse swarmed upon the serried rows of benches opposite the throne. The members of the four Estates, garbed in black, were there, each in his allotted place. And this multitude of gleaming visages against the somber background so dazzled the eye that not one of the four beholders could distinguish a familiar face among the throng. So is it with the actor who fails to single out, in the confused mass of the crowded audience, one person he knows.
On the raised dais of the throne, from which the king was wont to harangue the assembly, they saw a bleeding corpse invested with the royal insignia.
At the right of this gruesome specter, crown on head, scepter in hand, stood a child. At the left, an aged man, or fantom shade, leaned for support against the throne. From his shoulders trailed the ceremonial mantle worn by the ancient administrators of Sweden before Wasa made of the government a monarchy.
Grave-visaged, austere men in flowing robes of black, evidently holding the office of judges, were gathered near the throne around a table littered with folios and parchments. Between the dais and the assembled Estates the four spectators beheld an executioner's block, funereally draped, and by its side the ax.
Of all that vast concourse of specters no single shade gave sign that the presence of Charles and the three persons who accompanied him had been observed. A confused murmur, in which the ear failed to detect any articulate sound, greeted their entrance.
Presently the oldest of the black-gowned judges—he who seemed to fulfil the functions of president of the tribunal—rose and struck thrice with his palm upon the open folio that lay before him.
A profound hush fell instantly upon the hall. Then, through the doorway facing that which Charles had just opened, came a band of young men of prepossessing appearance, with their arms bound behind their backs. They bore themselves well, their heads raised high, their mien unabashed. Behind them stalked a robust figure, clad in a brown leather jerkin, holding the ends of the ropes which confined their hands.
The foremost of the youths, who seemed to be their leader, halted before the funereal block, and surveyed it with superb disdain. A convulsive shudder swept over the crowned cadaver at sight of the youth, and from the gaping wound the crimson blood welled afresh.
The prisoner knelt beside the block, and bent his head above it; the ax flashed aloft, and descended with a resounding crash. A sanguine river gushed from the headless trunk, losing itself in that other bloody stream; the head bounded forward, rolling across the reddened floor to the living monarch's feet, and drenched them with its uncontrolled flow.
Up to that moment surprise had held Charles mute, but this horrible spectacle restored his power of speech. Striding forward to the dais, he boldly addressed the aged administrator, repeating the prescribed formula:
"If thou art of God, speak; if thou be of that Other, leave us in peace."
In solemn tones, slowly, the fantom spoke:
"Charles! King! Not in thy reign shall his blood flow [here the voice grew less distinct] but in the reign of thy fifth successor. Wo, wo, wo to the blood of Wasa!"
As he ceased speaking the spectral forms who had participated in this astounding vision faded. In a moment they were less than painted shadows; soon they were gone; the fantastic flaming torches flickered and died, and only the light from the tapers which his attendants carried remained to illuminate the ancient mural tapestries, still faintly agitated by some ghostly breeze.
For a space there lingered in the air a murmur, melodious withal, which one of the four witnesses has compared to the rustling of the wind among the leaves, and another to the breaking of harp-strings when the harp is being tuned. But all were agreed as to the duration of the vision.
The black draperies, the severed head, the blood-stains on the flooring, all vanished as had the specters; only upon the king's slipper a crimson stain endured, which must have served him as a reminder of the night's strange happenings, had they not been too indelibly impressed upon his memory ever to be effaced.
Regaining his study, the king ordered the foregoing narrative set forth in a written statement, which he signed, as did also the three attendants who had witnessed the apparition with him.
Every precaution was taken to prevent the contents of the document from becoming public, but the marvel was none the less divulged in some unknown manner, and that during the lifetime of Charles XI. The document is still in existence, and its authenticity has remained undisputed. Its closing sentences are remarkable.
"And if that which I have narrated," says the king, "be not the exact truth, I renounce all hope of that better life which I have perchance merited by some good deeds, and above all by my zeal for the welfare of my people and the defense of the religion of my ancestors."
If one recalls the circumstances attendant upon the death of Gustavus III, and the manner of judgment passed upon his assassin, Ankerstroem, one cannot fail to note the analogy between these and the occurrences detailed in the singular prophecy.
Ankerstroem figures as the youth beheaded in the presence of the assembled Estates, the crowned and bleeding cadaver represents his victim Gustavus III, the child, his son and successor Gustavus Adolphus IV. And finally, in the aged administrator, one recognizes the Duke of Sudermania, the uncle of Gustavus Adolphus IV, who was first appointed regent, and ultimately attained to the kingship, after the dethronement of his nephew.
OUR NATIONAL ANTHEM.
The Story of How Its Author Received His Inspiration, Where
He Wrote the Famous Poem, and How Various
Editors Have Altered Its Phraseology.
Francis Scott Key wrote only one poem that entitled him to a lasting reputation, but so firmly has that one poem gripped the patriotic consciousness of the American people that its fame is assured as long as the nation continues.
Key was born in Maryland, August 9, 1780. He practised law at Frederick, Maryland, in 1801, but he subsequently removed to Washington, where he became district attorney for the District of Columbia.
When the British ascended Chesapeake Bay, in 1814, and captured Washington, General Ross and Admiral Cockburn set up headquarters in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, at the home of Dr. William Beanes, one of Key's friends. Later, Dr. Beanes was made prisoner by the British. Interesting himself in securing the release of his friend, Key planned to exchange for him a British prisoner in the hands of the Americans. President Madison approved the exchange, and directed John S. Skinner, agent for the exchange of prisoners, to accompany Key to the British commander.
General Ross consented to the exchange. He ordered, however, that Key and Skinner be detained until after the approaching attack on Baltimore. They had gone from Baltimore out to the British fleet in a vessel provided for them by order of President Madison. Now they were transferred to the British frigate Surprise, commanded by Admiral Cockburn's son, but soon afterward they were permitted to return, under guard, to their own vessel, whence they witnessed the bombardment of Fort McHenry.
By the glare of guns they could see the flag flying over the fort during the night, but before morning the firing ceased, and the two men passed a period of suspense, waiting for dawn, to see whether or not the attack had failed.
When Key discovered that the flag was still there his feelings found vent in verse. On the back of a letter he jotted down in the rough "The Star-Spangled Banner."
On his return to Baltimore, Key revised the poem and gave it to Captain Benjamin Eades, of the Twenty-Seventh Baltimore Regiment, who had it printed. Taking a copy from the press, Eades went to the tavern next to the Holiday Street Theater—a gathering-place for actors and their congenial acquaintances. Mr. Key had directed that the words be sung to the air, "Anacreon in Heaven," composed in England by John Stafford Smith, between 1770 and 1775. The verses were first read aloud to the assembled crowd, and then Ferdinand Durang stepped upon a chair and sang them.
Key died in Baltimore, January 11, 1843. James Lick bequeathed sixty thousand dollars for a monument to his memory. This noble memorial, the work of W.W. Story, stands in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. It is fifty-one feet high. Under a double arch is a seated figure of Key in bronze, while above all is a bronze figure of America, with an unfolded flag.
As Key wrote it, the poem varies in several lines from the versions that are sung to-day. We reprint verbatim a copy written out by Key himself for James Maher, gardener of the White House. It may be worth while to preface it with certain explanations of his phraseology:
He was describing an actual situation, and he appears to have addressed the lines directly to his companion, Mr. Skinner. The smoke of battle explains "the clouds of the fight." The line, "This blood has washed out his foul footstep's pollution," modified by later editors, was his answer to the boasts of a British officer, who declared before the bombardment that the fort would quickly be reduced.
The change of "on" to "o'er" in the common versions of the phrase "now shines on the stream" is the result of bungling editing. Key was picturing the reflection of the flag on the water.
In the author's version, here given, the words that have been changed by compilers are italicized. The references by numerals indicate the variations of other editions.