Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. V, October, 1850, Volume I.

by Unknown

In the spring of 1848, however, when operations were resumed, after a cessation of the works for the winter, the scene changed. It began to blow very hard from the northwest; and the men secured their building, which was now several feet above the rocks, as well as they could, and covered it over with strong and heavy beams of timber, leaving a small aperture for ingress and egress, and then awaited in silence the result. During the night the wind increased, and the sea broke with such fury over the whole rock, that the men imagined every succeeding wave to be commissioned to sweep them into the abyss. It only extinguished their fire, however, and carried off most of their provisions, [pg 640] together with sundry heavy pieces of cast-iron, a large blacksmith's anvil, and the crane with which the building materials were lifted on the rock. The storm lasted upward of a week, during which time no vessel or boat could approach; and the crew of this island-ship remained drenched with water, and nearly perished with cold in a dark hole, with nothing to relieve their hunger but water-soaked biscuit. But the wind at length suddenly shifted, the sea moderated, and they were enabled eventually to crawl out of their hole more dead than alive. In a few days a boat approached as near as possible, and by the aid of ropes fastened round their waists, they were drawn one by one from the rock through the boiling surf. The men speedily recovered, and have since raised the building some twenty feet above the ground: the extreme height is to be sixty feet. This is the last adventure of the Enchanted Rock; but we trust a brilliant history is before it, in which, instead of expending its energies in idle cruises, it will act the part of the beneficent preserver of life and property.

The Force Of Fear. (From Chambers's Edinburgh Journal.)

At the close of the winter of 1825-6, about dusk in the afternoon, just as the wealthy dealers in the Palais Royal at Paris were about lighting their lamps and putting up their shutters (the practice of the major part of them at nightfall), a well-known money-changer sat behind his counter alone, surrounded by massive heaps of silver and gold, the glittering and sterling currency of all the kingdoms of Europe. He had well-nigh closed his operations for the day, and was enjoying in anticipation the prospect of a good dinner. Between the easy-chair upon which he reclined in perfect satisfaction, and the door which opened into the north side of the immense quadrangle of which the splendid edifice above-mentioned is composed, arose a stout wire partition, reaching nearly to the ceiling, and resting upon the counter, which traversed the whole length of the room. Thus he was effectually cut off from all possibility of unfriendly contact from any of his occasional visitors; while a small sliding-board that ran in and out under the wire partition served as the medium of his peculiar commerce. Upon this he received every coin, note, or draft presented for change; and having first carefully examined it, returned its value by the same conveyance, in the coin of France, or indeed of any country required. Behind him was a door communicating with his domestic chambers, and in the middle of the counter was another, the upper part of which formed a portion of the wire partition above described.

The denizen of this little chamber had already closed his outer shutters, and was just on the point of locking up his doors, and retiring to his repast, when two young men entered. They were evidently Italians, from their costume and peculiar dialect. Had it been earlier in the day, when there would have been sufficient light to have discerned their features and expression, it is probable that our merchant would have defeated their plans, for he was well skilled in detecting the tokens of fraud or design in the human countenance. But they had chosen their time too appropriately. One of them, advancing toward the counter, demanded change in French coin for an English sovereign, which he laid upon the sliding board, and passed through the wire partition. The moneychanger rose immediately, and having ascertained that the coin was genuine, returned its proper equivalent by the customary mode of transfer. The Italians turned as if to leave the apartment, when he who had received the money suddenly dropped the silver, as though accidentally, upon the floor. As it was now nearly dark, it was scarcely to be expected that they could find the whole of the pieces without the assistance of a light. This the unconscious merchant hastened to supply; and unlocking, without suspicion, the door of the partition between them, stooped with a candle over the floor in search of the lost coin. In this position the unfortunate man was immediately assailed with repeated stabs from a poniard, and he at length fell, after a few feeble and ineffectual struggles, senseless, and apparently lifeless, at the feet of his assassins.

A considerable time elapsed ere, by the fortuitous entrance of a stranger, he was discovered in this dreadful situation; when it was found that the assassins, having first helped themselves to an almost incredible amount of money, had fled, without any thing being left by which a clew might have been obtained to their retreat.

The unfortunate victim of their rapacity and cruelty was, however, not dead. Strange as it may appear, although he had received upward of twenty wounds, several of which plainly showed that the dagger had been driven to the very hilt, he survived; and in a few months after the event, was again to be seen in his long-accustomed place at the changer's board. In vain had the most diligent search been made by the military police of Paris for the perpetrators of this detestable deed. The villains had eluded all inquiry and investigation, and would in all probability have escaped undiscovered with their booty but for a mutually-cherished distrust of each other. Upon the first and complete success of their plan, the question arose, how to dispose of their enormous plunder, amounting to more than a hundred thousand pounds. Fearful of the researches of the police, they dared not retain it at their lodgings. To trust a third party with their secret was not to be thought of. At length, after long and anxious deliberation, they agreed to conceal the money outside the barriers of Paris until they should have concocted some safe plan for transporting it to their own country. This they accordingly did, burying the treasure under a tree about a mile from the Barrière d'Enfer. But [pg 641] they were still as far as ever from a mutual understanding. When they separated, on any pretense, each returned to the spot which contained the stolen treasure, where of course he was sure to find the other. Suspicion thus formed and fed soon grew into dislike and hatred, until at length, each loathing the sight of the other, they agreed finally to divide the booty, and then eternally to separate, each to the pursuit of his own gratification. It then became necessary to carry the whole of the money home to their lodgings in Paris, in order that it might, according to their notions, be equitably divided.

The reader must here be reminded that there exists in Paris a law relative to wines and spirituous liquors which allows them to be retailed at a much lower price without the barriers than that at which they are sold within the walls of the city. This law has given rise, among the lower orders of people, to frequent attempts at smuggling liquors in bladders concealed about their persons, often in their hats. The penalty for the offense was so high, that it was very rarely enforced, and practically it was very seldom, indeed, that the actual loss incurred by the offending party was any thing more than the paltry venture, which he was generally permitted to abandon, making the best use of his heels to escape any further punishment. The gensdarmes planted at the different barriers generally made a prey of the potables which they captured, and were consequently interested in keeping a good look-out for offenders. It was this vigilance that led to the discovery of the robbers; for, not being able to devise any better plan for the removal of the money than that of secreting it about their persons, they attempted thus to carry out their object. But as one of them, heavily encumbered with the golden spoils, was passing through the Barrière d'Enfer, one of the soldier-police who was on duty as sentinel, suspecting, from his appearance and hesitating gait, that he carried smuggled liquors in his hat, suddenly stepped behind him and struck it from his head with his halberd. What was his astonishment to behold, instead of the expected bladder of wine or spirits, several small bags of gold and rolls of English bank-notes! The confusion and prevarication of the wretch, who made vain and frantic attempts to recover the property, betrayed his guilt, and he was immediately taken into custody, together with his companion, who, following at a very short distance, was unhesitatingly pointed out by his cowardly and bewildered confederate as the owner of the money. No time was lost in conveying intelligence of their capture to their unfortunate victim, who immediately identified the notes as his own property, and at the first view of the assassins swore distinctly to the persons of both—to the elder, as having repeatedly stabbed him; and to the younger, as his companion and coadjutor.

The criminals were in due course of time tried, fully convicted, and, as was to be expected, sentenced to death by the guillotine; but, owing to some technical informality in the proceedings, the doom of the law could not be carried into execution until the sentence of the court had been confirmed upon appeal. This delay afforded time and opportunity for some meddling or interested individual—either moved by the desire of making a cruel experiment, or else by the hope of obtaining a reversal of the capital sentence against the prisoners—to work upon the feelings of the unfortunate money-changer. A few days after the sentence of death had been pronounced, the unhappy victim received a letter from an unknown hand, mysteriously worded, and setting forth, in expressions that seemed to him fearfully prophetic, that the thread of his own destiny was indissolubly united with that of his condemned assassins. It was evidently out of their power to take away his life; and it was equally out of his power to survive them, die by the sentence of the law, or how or when they might; it became clear—so argued this intermeddler—that the same moment which saw the termination of their lives, would inevitably be the last of his own. To fortify his arguments, the letter-writer referred to certain mystic symbols in the heavens. Now though the poor man could understand nothing of the trumpery diagrams which were set forth as illustrating the truth of the fatal warning thus conveyed to him, and though his friends universally laughed at the trick as a barefaced attempt of some anonymous impostor to rob justice of her due, it nevertheless made a deep impression upon his mind. Ignorant of every thing but what related immediately to his own money-getting profession, he had a blind and undefined awe of what he termed the supernatural sciences, and he inwardly thanked the kind monitor who had given him at least a chance of redeeming his days.

He immediately set about making application to the judges, in order to get the decree of death changed into a sentence to the galleys for life. He was equally surprised and distressed to find that they treated his petition with contempt, and ridiculed his fears. So far from granting his request, after repeated solicitations, they commanded him in a peremptory manner to appear no more before them. Driven almost to despair, he resolved upon petitioning the king; and after much expense and toil, he at length succeeded in obtaining an audience of Charles X. All was in vain. A crime so enormous, committed with such cool deliberation, left no opening for the plea of mercy: every effort he made only served to strengthen the resolution of the authorities to execute judgment. Finding all his efforts in vain, he appeared to resign himself despairingly to his fate. Deprived of all relish even for gain, he took to his bed, and languished in hopeless misery, and as the time for the execution of the criminals approached, lapsed more and more into terror and dismay.