I write my petition in French, because I do not understand any other language well; but if the finder is not able to make it out—that is to say, if I am in America, where French is not spoken—he need not destroy it. He will find some one in his neighborhood who knows it, for my incomparable language is known throughout the world.
I am waiting for my freedom. Come with brave men, and the schemes of my persecutor will be overset! Hasten!
Sauterelle Hirondelle de la Chaloupe.
If Henry had been an authorized translator, he would have exerted himself and made the translation entirely different from the original; as he was only a school-boy, he gave a close, but not excellent, rendering of it; and by employing the past tense instead of the present, all sublimity was lost. In fact, like everything else translated into English, it did not equal the original.
In the whole of this letter not a single reference is made to the beings of Mythology, to the state of affairs in France, to the goblins of the Hartz Mountains, to Macaulay’s New Zealander, nor to our own Pilgrim Fathers! This neglect is intolerable; but remembering that Henry was only a boy, we must judge him with leniency, and give him credit for writing in a straightforward and business-like style.
The boys listened with rapt attention while Henry read this letter. To them, it was grand, sublime, awful; and from that moment Henry was looked on as a superior being, as far above ordinary mortals as an average American citizen is above any “crowned head” in Europe.
Their admiration was graciously acknowledged by Henry. But he made several innovations, some of which took the embryo villains by surprise. In their wildest dreams they had never soared so high as to think of giving the imprisoned one a title—and Henry had made her a duke’s heiress! Ah! they were not so well acquainted with the ways of the world and the laws of romance as Henry.
But perhaps what pleased the plotters more than anything was the liberal use made of notes of exclamation. Charles counted them carefully, and reported their number to the gaping boys. The more the better, in this case, at all events, thought Steve. Poor innocent! he did not know that villainy and notes of exclamation go hand in hand.