In November he was installed with the orphans, whom he had left in England until he was ready for them, and the ladies who instructed them, in what was to be his home henceforth, with the exception of his second brief exile, until death, a house in the Impasse des Feuillantines in the Faubourg St. Jacques. Thirty of his pupils were paid for by the king, and others received at his own risk. On the 1st of the following March Napoleon landed from Elba, and at Lyons, on his way to Paris, ordered all returned exiles who had come back without his leave to quit France within a fortnight, under pain of death. On the 4th, all unconscious of what had happened, the merry old lady who was at the head of the establishment, and styled herself Religieuse indigne du Monastère des Feuillantines, was writing a letter, sparkling with fun, to invite the abbé's nephew to come in June and keep with them the triplex-majus feast of St. Guy. Before the end of the month she and the abbé and most of the orphans were again in banishment in London, and a crowd of fugitives were looking to him again for help. An appeal to his "generous friends, the citizens of Great Britain," brought in £500.
At Kensington, whither he retired to avoid any appearance of interference at Somers-town, he gave shelter to a young man, who was afterward too well known as the Abbé de la Mennais. A great friendship sprang up between them; and when the battle of Waterloo allowed of his return, Féli, as he was familiarly called, clung to the Abbé de Carron, whom uncertainties about his orphans detained in London, and accompanied him back to the Feuillantines in December. "What a man!" he wrote to a common friend of the abbé, whom he always called his good father, "or rather what a saint! I hope, by the help of his advice, to settle at last to something. It is high time. Thirty-three years lost, and worse than lost!" Happy would it have been for him if be had been guided by his venerable friend's counsels. The instincts of faith in the abbé made him suspect even the first volume of the Essai sur l'Indifférence. When the second came out, he wrote a most affectionate and touching letter, appealing from his head to his heart, and imploring him not to go on writing. But it was too late.
We regret that we cannot linger longer over the last days of the abbé. The difficulties about his establishment at Rennes, which were not settled till just before his death, prevented the return to his native place for which he had hoped, and he remained at Paris. We intended to confine ourselves mainly to his labors in England; and we have not space to dwell, as we could wish, on that wonderful institution of the Feuillantines, where the pupils never met a mistress without an embrace; where the great treat, after some months of study, was a week of what our foolish would-be governesses often call "menial drudgery," and the greatest treat of all was to wait at table on parties of poor people and play with their children; where Mr. (afterward Cardinal) Weld, whose daughter was married to Lord Clifford in the chapel of the institution, and all the most pious priests in Paris, came for edification and recreation; and whence relief flowed to all the destitute in the city. The good old abbé died worn out with toil and austerities, the chief of which, such as the wearing of spiked belts and haircloths, were not known till after his death, on the 15th of March, 1821. His memory was fresh at Somers-town; and at the requiem sung for him there the chapel was crowded with rich and poor, all in mourning attire; and the voice of the bishop preaching was interrupted by sobs and cries of grief. The simple motto on his grave is Pertransiit benifaciendo; and to few could the words be more truly applied. "Needy, yet enriching many," might be added as equally appropriate. The Catholics of England, as well as of France, have good reason to thank God for the life and labors of Abbé Carron.
Translated From the French.
The Birds' Friend.
For some years past, in the garden of the Tuileries, is seen, daily, a man of middle height, with a respectable and roundness of figure, thick mustaches, and beard slightly gray and bushy, who, as soon as he appears in one of the walks bordering the terrace of the water, is surrounded by a numerous brood of pigeons. He throws them a morsel of bread or cake which he brings with him, and the birds are so familiar with him that, far from flying away, they surround him, and dispute for his favors and liberality. Some of them, even, his favorites, flying around his head, perch on his shoulders, his arm or hand, and dip their bills in his mouth for their accustomed nourishment. He is the subject of admiration for young mothers, babies great and small, truant apprentices, and child nurses, generally. As soon as the bird man arrives, they precipitate themselves in his train. He advances majestically, and with quite an imposing air, followed by his impromptu court, which holds back slightly, from respect, no doubt, and fear of frightening the birds. Idle people who come every day to lounge in the garden of the Tuileries take their daily walk or read the papers, join the crowd of courtiers, and even Guignol himself, in presence of this redoubtable concourse, sees his representations deserted, and the Petite Provençe forsaken by the rheumatisms who come to seek a ray of sun on his benches. The friend of the birds walks with a sense of his own importance, and enjoys greatly the astonishment and homage of the crowd. With his cane under his arm, his hat on his head, and as immovable as the dervish on his minaret, or the little joist of the fable, he gravely accomplishes his daily office. The young mothers are astonished, the children open their large eyes, and I saw one of the smallest ones, Master Guguste, so terribly frightened, because the birds were not afraid of him, that he hid himself behind his big brother Aymer, and took in the whole scene by stealth, in bo-peep style. Master Guguste will certainly ask his father, whom he has led by the hand toward the place where the friend of the birds dines his pets, how is it the pigeons fly around this man's head, and when he, Master Guguste, runs toward them, they always fly away? The good little fellow forgets to add that he throws stones at them—his age has no mercy—and that the pigeons have the bad taste to prefer cake.
The birds' friend has become one of the sights of the Tuileries, and one of the pleasures of the Parisians. They come from the marshes to see him; and the provincial who arranges his programme for his visit to Paris never forgets to write in his note-book: "To go and see the wild beasts breakfast in the Garden of Plants; to go and see the hippopotamus bathe; to go and see the pigeons eat in the garden of the Tuileries." Innocent people ask by what talisman this man of the Tuileries has succeeded in taming the pigeons.
I think his method is a simple one, and that he has nothing in common with the charmers of India, nor even with Madame Vandermersch, who has astonished the saloons of Paris by the singular empire she exercises over the feathered tribe.
Then, the pigeons of the Tuileries, like all animals not tormented and accustomed to a crowd, are not easily frightened. If you have ever been to Venice, you have certainly seen the pigeons of the square of St. Mark. These pigeons, whose history is very curious, date their origin from the ancient republic of Venice. At that time, it was the custom on Palm Sunday to let fly from the top of the principal door of the church of St. Mark a large number of birds, with little rolls of paper so attached to their claws as to force them to fall into the hands of the crowd who filled the court, and disputed among themselves for this living prey. Some of these birds, having succeeded in ridding themselves of their fetters, and training the thread like the pigeon of La Fontaine, sought an asylum on the roof of the church of St. Mark, and on that of the ducal palace, not far from the celebrated leads that Silvio Pellico has described in "My Prisons," and Lord Byron has cursed in his immortal verses. They multiplied rapidly, and became the favorites of the population to such a degree that, to respect popular opinion, the senate of Venice issued a decree, stating that the pigeons of the square of St. Mark had become the guests of the republic, and as such should be respected and nourished at the cost of the state. While the republic of Venice existed, a man employed by the corn administration of the city came every morning to distribute the rations of the pigeons on the place of St. Mark and the Piazza. Since the establishment of Austrian rule, the Venetians support their favorite birds by voluntary contributions. Accustomed to live in peace with man, the pigeons of the place of St. Mark have become exceedingly familiar. They never fly away at the approach of the promenaders, and I have seen them perched on the edge of the buckets of the water-carriers, to quench their thirst, and not even take flight when these women took their buckets by the handle. In truth, the whole secret of taming animals consists in not frightening them by movements too sudden or by noise, never injuring them, and always treating them well.