CHRONICLES OF THE PLACE VENDOME.

THE DEGRADING.

BY TOBY ALL SPY.

EVEN the most enthusiastic panegyrist of the discipline and subordination of the British army must, if a man of Christian sympa. thies, connect such painful associations with the words "military punishment," that, if accidentally pronounced in his hearing, in the midst of a brilliant field-day, or royal review, the striking scene must forfeit half its charm in his eyes; the "ha! ha!" of the trumpet breathes discordantly in his ears; and the symmetrical lines of apparently mechanical figures present only a mass of deformity and confusion.

It is not so in France. There is nothing revolting to the finer feelings of humanity in the process by which the country clod is shaped into the trimly, agile, active soldier. In admiring the soldier-like array of a regiment on parade, or manoeuvring in the field, we feel that we are looking upon men, and men upon whom the frailties of mortal nature will never draw down the chastisement of dogs.

Among the numerous spectacles that recreate the eye of the stranger in Paris, is one that fills the mind of every Englishman with painful reflections-i. e. military degradation.

"Come with me to the Place Vendôme," cried I the other day to a country cousin of mine, lately on a visit to the French metropolis, (a somewhat snivelling philanthropist, who arrived here, charged with a catalogue of eleven hundred questions upon the origin of truth, much after the fashion of the English philosopher, described in St. Pierre's "Indian Cottage.") "I have something interesting to show you.'

"I thank you,” he replied. "I have seen quite as much as I desire of the bronze column."

"You were blind else!" cried I, knowing that he had been passing and repassing it hourly for ten days previous.

"And, as to mounting to the top," he resumed, "I should as soon think of climbing the chimney of a steam-engine!"

"Or I either," was my reply; "more particularly since, during your sojourn here, you have forced me to survey the city from the pinnacle of the temple of Notre Dame, and the wing of the telegraph at Montmartre, in spite of my declarations of preferring any other mode of rising in the world."

"But you are dragging me all this time towards the Place Vendôme," quoth my cousin Peter, as we pushed onwards in a throng, from which cries of "Allons! allons! on dégrade! on dégrade!" arose in all directions.

"Because I want you to witness a curious exhibition."

"Ay-ay! In the department of natural history, or of the fine arts?"

"In the simple history of human nature," was my rejoinder; and methought I heard a contemptuous whistle issue from beneath my

cousin Peter's amber spectacles. "I want you to see a military punishment."

"A military punishment! God's life, sir! for what do you take me? A man of my sensibility become an eye-witness of so disgusting an incident?" cried he, (with a countenance such as used to be worn by hundreds of auditors of Sir Francis Burdett's humanity harangues of former times, graphically describing, previous to a Westminster election, the horrors of flogging in the British army.)

Your sensibility is in no manner of danger,' ," said I, quietly resuming my hold of his arm, which the start of my cousin Peter had dislodged. "For the first time in your life you are about to see a soldier punished like a Christian, rather than like a brute."

At that moment we entered the Place Vendôme; that sober, solid, architectural monument, which, replete as it is with historical associa tions, has undergone no defeatures from the hand of time, or the hand of taste, from the epoch when the Scottish adventurer, Law, inhabited one of the most splendid hotels, obtained at the cost of hundreds of thousands of French victims, to the present hour, when Madame de F. inhabits precisely the same locality, obtained at the cost of one !— Though the bold and salient marks of granite, which still smile com. placently, or frown majestically over the basement stories of its noble habitations, are the same which smiled or frowned upon the tripping marquesses or red-heeled abbés of the reign of Louis XV., the carts conveying the same to execution after the deposition of Louis XVI., the massacres of two revolutions, the military ovations of the empire, and the puppet-show processions arising from the restoration of the bi-furcal line of Bourbon, their comely faces remain unwrinkled by the lapse of the couple of centuries which have played such fantastic tricks with the numerous generations of human visages succeeding to their original contemporaries.

On the day in question an autumnal sun was shining out brilliantly on the public offices-the Quartier Général, the Chancellerie, and others, which occupy so large a portion of the old octagon, distinguished from the hôtels garnis, their neighbours, only by the discoloured tri-coloured flags pendent over their several portes cochères -and on the present occasion, by the fact that, while the windows of the latter were crowded, from entresol to mansarde with curious spectators of all nations, but especially with British, those of the governmental hotels were empty; the inhabitants, as of all public offices all over the world, being scrupulously engaged in the discharge of their public duties.

"A splendid trophy, certainly !" quoth my cousin Peter, glancing, as well as the intensity of sunlight would allow, from the base to the summit of the noble column, (which, though I have stared it daily out of countenance for the last six years, I never survey without admiration.) "Still I can't make up my mind to the statue of Napoleon. 'Tis vulgar, sir-immensely vulgar, and altogether unworthy the memory of the defunct Emperor of the most polite nation in Europe."

"No doubt you would have preferred a Winged Victory, or a Fame blowing her trumpet on a china orange, as on the roof of the office of the Morning Post!" cried I, with indignation. "Or Napo. leon himself, perhaps, in his Dalmatic robe of state, looking like a

play-actor, or in a Roman cuirass and helmet, like the effigy of General Hollis in the Abbey !"

"I don't say but I might," replied Peter, coolly.

"Instead of which, you behold one of the greatest men of the greatest era in his habit as he tived' to regenerate the fallen kingdom of France! But, stay! I may spare myself a world of rhetoric. Think you that yonder group of peasants, to whom the old timbertoed invalid who accompanies them-some veteran uncle or grandsire -is pointing out, with tears in his eyes, the figure of his old masterhis camarade his petit caporal-would have experienced the feelings sparkling now in their looks at sight of the familiar Nap,'-the redingote grise-if the column of the grande armée had been surmounted by a Winged Victory, resembling those of the gilt candelabra on an inn chimney-piece; or even a man in an imperial robe, looking like Talma in a tragedy? But hark!"

At that moment the gay strains of a military band were borne towards us; becoming gradually clearer and clearer, and more and more inspiriting, till we caught sight of a gallant company of infantry marching in double quick time into the square, saluting the Quartier Général as it passed with a salutation that seemed addressed rather to the great man looking complacently down upon them from the sunny summit of the column. Quick as thought, troop now succeeded troop; sappers and miners, hussars, lancers, cuirassiers, dragoons light and heavy-companies, in short, from every regiment, composing the garrison of Paris; each in its best array, pipe-clayed and burnished, bright and shining, to form a hollow, oblong square, lining the whole of the south eastern moiety of the Place Vendôme; at the head of which was stationed the fine brass band, whose exciting strains were to impart so stirring an effect to the solemnity of the day. In the centre of the square (the men having taken up their ground in time,) the officers began to form into groups; while beyond the line was a second cordon of stupid starers, chiefly of that Paria caste—the gamins de Paris; and beyond the cordon of vaga. bonds a collection of intermingled carriages, cabriolets, carts, drays, trucks, and water-tons—such as usually beset the outskirts of an English race-course or review.

The scene was a striking one. Both military and civilians grew eager for the appearance of the delinquents, to witness whose degra dation from their position of soldiers of the French army they were assembled; and, though the loungers in the windows above, (from the fair young English children, clapping their little hands for glee, at the mansarde of the Hôtel de Londres, to the stout old Indian General, surveying the motley scene from his hospitable residence exactly opposite,) might admire the discipline of the troops, or point to the glittering arms, or white aprons, and tremendous beards of the pioneers, the crowd itself seemed strictly absorbed by the fate of the forthcoming prisoners.

At length there glided into the centre of the square, amid the groups of well-padded generals, with their snow-white mustachios, and well-bronzed colonels, with their iron-grey, two spruce figures"gentlemen in black,"-with white cravats and varnished boots-the judge-advocate and his clerk, appointed to read to the prisoners their sentence; and soon afterwards a sudden rush of the mob, (more especially of its more ragged portion,) towards the Quar

tier Général, announced that the point of interest lay in that direction.

"Whither are those blackguards running?" quoth my cousin Peter, revolving on his heel towards the commandant's residence, as if his boot contained a pivot.

"To look at blackguards greater than themselves!" I replied. "Did you not see the prisoners arrive just now at head-quarters, in a panier à salade ?"

"In a salad basket?" cried Peter, aghast, much in Mrs. Siddons's tone of surprise on learning that a mercantile gentleman of her acquaintance had died in his bureau. "How got they there, I

marvel?"

"A panier à salade," said I, didactically, (with a view to his future "Notes of a Traveller,")" is the species of hermetically-sealed police van, in which criminals are conveyed in France to the place of execution, and refractory soldiers to the scene of degradation. Look! The fellows are coming forth from the porte-cochère ! There are two of them, in the centre of the file of soldiers, with loaded muskets, to make way for which the mob falls back on either side, like the waves of the Red Sea for the passage of the Israelites. See how the gamins, in their ragged blouses, hurry to keep up with them, in hopes of catching a glimpse of their sinful or sorrowful countenances."

We are now in the thick of the throng, pushing and elbowing among the rest, with the due allowance of sacré nom de Dieus bestowed upon each fresh effort we made to advance towards the column; immediately fronting which were stationed the general and his état major, before whom the prisoners were to be marched for the hearing of their sentence. Hitherto I had wasted no attention on the individuals whose elbows punched my ribs, or whose oaths invaded my ears, conceiving them to belong to the vulgar herd of profane swearers and punchers. But when, on my cousin Peter's ejaculation of joy at catching sight of the prisoners, one deep sigha sigh almost amounting to a gasp-burst from the bosom of a pale, sickly young peasant girl, who was leaning on the arm of a decre. pit woman by my side, I could not help feeling that they might be more than commonly interested in the fate of the delinquents, and I consequently moderated my observations. I even contrived to obtain for them, by pushing aside a great lubberly English schoolboy, who stood gnawing a hunch of gâteau de Nanterre, to my right, a peep into the square similar to the one enjoyed sideways by myself and Peter.

A roll of drums now startled us to look again towards the base of the column; in front of which, midway between the two lines of soldiers, stood two miserable-looking beings, clad in an ignominious prison-uniform, the one of grey, the other of black cloth, with caps to match, and wooden shoes; the long cloak-shaped capote hanging so as to conceal their handcuffed wrists, and creating a sort of shapeless helplessness, strangely contrasted with the smart and trim viva. city of their former comrades. Mounting guard behind them stood a file of armed light infantry men; on one side the general command. ant, and facing them the spruce judge-advocate, holding an open paper in his hand.

Placed at too great a distance to distinguish by whom the word of command was given, I saw the two prisoners suddenly drop on their knees to listen to the bitter sentence of the law. The sinner in grey, whose criminality appeared to be a shade less dark than that of the sinner in black, bent down his head as he knelt, and, as far as I could judge by his movements, tears were falling from his eyes; but the fellow in black, with unequalled audacity, laughed outright, and kept up a series of buffooneries, as if attempting to excite the risibility of the spectators.

"What are they doing?" whispered Peter, whose spectacles were at fault.

"Reciting to the prisoners the sentences of their courts-martial, as confirmed by the council of war, previous to undergoing a certain term of imprisonment. Already, as you perceive, the men have been stripped of their military uniforms. They are now about to be degraded in the sight of the garrison of Paris, and paraded along the line in their prison clothes, handcuffed, and dragging after them each a cannon-ball, fastened by a chain round their middle. Expelled the service, they must take leave, as it were, of their comrades, under these humiliating degradations."

"The impudent rascal in black seems as bold as brass," cried Peter. "See! he has risen from his knees, and they are blindfolding him, while the boulet is being fastened on! Parade him along the line? Why, the fellow won't stir an inch."

"Look again!" cried I. And Peter had the satisfaction of seeing him impelled onwards smartly by a soldier holding him by the arm on either side, and soon the clanking of his chain and the rumbling of the boulet against the stones, as it dragged after him, asserted that he was in rapid motion. At that moment not a syllable was breathed along the ranks. Attention was the word -and the word itself was audible from one end of the Place Vendôme to the other, distinct as the striking of a bell.

Once and again the black figure with blindfolded eyes shuffled along in its sabots; halting at length before the column, there to abide during the punishment of its companion. But the moment the poor lad in grey was harnessed with his boulet, a murmur of commiseration arose among the throng. He was so young!-his countenance was so downcast!—and, though the colour and fashioning of his prison-garment announced that his transgression was of a very different nature from that of his companion, entailing only three months' detention in a military prison, instead of the hulks awaiting the criminal in black, (who was under sentence for theft, with attempt to murder the corporal by whom he was taken into custody,) the crowd, and more especially the female part of it, seemed of opinion that he was too severely punished.

Proud even in his broken-heartedness, he evidently scorned to be dragged along like a malefactor; for, though still retaining his downcast countenance, so that his swollen eyelids were scarcely discernible, he walked firm and erect, and the boulet moved steadily at his heels, instead of being jerked from stone to stone, as by the movements of his refractory fellow-prisoner. Grey Mantle was back again at the column in half the time the felon had accomplished his ignominious task. And now another prolonged roll of the drums announced that a por