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mother, was busy in having our wraps and rugs hung up to dry before the capacious fire-place; and the servant-maid had begun to cook some chops for us. Bell, too

who might have figured as the elder sister of this flaxen-haired and frank-eyed creature, who had appeared to us in the storm -was greatly interested in her; and was much pleased to hear her distinctly and proudly claim to be Scotch, although it was her misfortune to live a short distance on the wrong side of the Border. And with that the two girls fell to talking about Scotch and Cumbrian words; but here Bell had a tremendous advantage, and pushed it to such an extreme, that her opponent, with a pretty blush and a laugh, said that she did not know the English young ladies knew so much of Scotch. And when Bell protested that she would not be called English, the girl only stared. You see, she had never had the benefit of hearing the Lieutenant discourse on the history of Strathclyde.

Well, we had our chops and what not in the parlor of the inn; but it was remarkable how soon the Lieutenant proposed that we should return to the kitchen. He pretended that he was anxious to learn Scotch; and affected a profound surprise that the young lady of the inn should not know the meaning of the word "spurtle." When we went into the kitchen, however, it was to the mamma that he addressed himself chiefly; and behold! she speedily revealed to the young soldier that she was the widow of one of the Gretna priests. More than that I don't mean to say. Some of you young fellows who may read this might perhaps like to know the name and the precise whereabouts of the fair wildflower that we found blooming up in these remote solitudes; but neither shall be revealed. If there was any one of us who fell in love with the sweet and gentle face it was Queen Tita; and I know not what compacts about photographs may not have been made between the two women.

Meanwhile the Lieutenant had established himself as a great favorite with the elderly lady, and by and by she left the kitchen, and came back with a sheet of paper in her hand, which she presented to him. It turned out to be one of the forms of the marriage-certificates used by her husband in former days; and for curiosity's sake, I append it below, suppressing the name of the priest, for obvious reasons.

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"That is a dangerous paper to carry about wi' ye," said the old woman, with a smile.

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'Why so?" inquired the Lieutenant. "Because ye might be tempted to ask a young leddy to sign her name there;" and what should prevent that innocent-eyed girl turning just at this moment to look with a pleased smile at our Bell? The Lieutenant laughed, in an embarrassed way, and said the rugs might as well be taken from before the fire, as they were quite dry now.

I think none of us would have been sorry to have stayed the night in this homely and comfortable little inn, but we wished to get on to Lockerbie, so as to reach Edinburgh in other two days. Moreover, the clouds had broken, and there was a pale glimmer of sunshine appearing over the dark green woods and meadows. We had the horses put into the phaeton again, and with many a friendly word of thanks to the good people who had been so kind to us, we started once more to cross the Border.

"And what do you think of the first Scotch family you have seen?" says Queen Tita to the Lieutenant, as we cross the bridge again.

"Madame," he says, quite earnestly, “I did dream for a moment I was in Germany again-everything so friendly and homely, and the young lady not too proud to wait on you, and help the servant in the cooking; and then, when that is over, to talk to you with good education, and intelligence, and great simpleness and frankness. Oh, that is very good

whether it is Scotch, or German, or any other country-the simple ways, and the friendliness, and the absence of all the fashions and the hypocrisy."

"That young lady was very fashionably dressed, Count von Rosen," says Tita with a smile.

"That is nothing, Madame. Did she not bring in to us our dinner, just as the daughter of the house in a German country inn would do, as a compliment to you, and not to let the servant come in? Is it debasement, do you think? No. You do respect her for it; and you yourself, Madame, you did speak to her as if she were an old friend of yours-and why not, when you find people like that, honest and good-willing towards you?"

What demon of mischief was it that prompted Bell to sing that song as we drove through the darkening woods in this damp twilight? The Lieutenant had just got out her guitar for her when he was led into these fierce statements quoted above. And Bell, with a great gravity, sang— "Farewell to Glenshalloch, a farewell for ever, Farewell to my wee cot that stands by the river ;

The fall is loud-sounding in voices that vary, And the echoes surrounding lament with my Mary."

This much may be said, that the name of the young lady of whom they had been speaking was also Mary; and the Lieutenant, divining some profound sarcasm in the song, began to laugh and protest that it was not because the girl was pretty and gentle that he had discovered so much excellence in the customs of Scotch households. Then Bell sang once more-as the sun went down behind the woods, and we heard the streams murmuring in deep valleys by the side of the road

"Hame, hame, hame, O hame fain would I be, Hame, hame, hame, to my ain countree; There's an eye that ever weeps, and a fair face will be fain,

As I pass through Annan water, wi' my bonny bands again!"

We drive into the long village of Ecclefechan, and pause for a moment or two in front of the Bush Inn to let the horses have a draught of water and oatmeal. The Lieutenant, who has descended to look after this prescription, now comes out from the inn bearing a small tray with some tumblers on it.

"Madame," said he, "here is Scotch.

whisky-you must all drink it, for the good of the country."

"And of ourselves," says one of us, calling attention to the chill dampness of the night-air.

My lady pleaded for a bit of sugar, but that was not allowed; and when she had been induced to take about a third of the Lieutenant's preparation, she put down the glass with an air of having done her duty. As for Bell, she drank pretty nearly half the quantity; and the chances are that if the Lieutenant had handed her prussic acid, she would have felt herself bound, as a compliment, to have accepted it.

Darker and darker grew the landscape as we drove through the thick woods. And when, at last, we got into Lockerbie there was scarcely enough light of any sort to show us that the town, like most Scotch country towns and villages, was whitewashed. In the inn at which we stopped, appropriately named the Blue Bell, the Lieutenant once more remarked on the exceeding homeliness and friendliness of the Scotch. The landlord simply adopted us, and gave us advice in a grave, paternal fashion, about what we should have for supper. The waiter who attended us took quite a friendly interest in our trip; and said he would himself go and see that the horses which had accomplished such a feat were being properly looked after. Bell was immensely proud that she could understand one or two phrases that were rather obscure to the rest of the party; and the Lieutenant still further delighted her by declaring that he wished we could travel for months through this friendly land, which reminded him of his own country. Perhaps the inquisitive reader having learned that we drank Scotch whisky at the Bush Inn of Ecclefechan, would like to know what we drank at the Blue Bell of Lockerbie. He may address a letter to Queen Titania on that subject, and he will doubtless receive a perfectly frank answer.

[Note by Queen Titania.-"I do not see why our pretty Bell should be made the chief subject of all the foregoing revelations. I will say this, that she and myself were convinced that we never saw two men more jealous of each other than those two were in that inn near the Border. The old lady was quite amused by it; but I do not think the girl herself noticed it, for she is a very innocent and gentle young thing, and has probably had no experience of such absurdities. But I would like to ask who first mentioned that subject

of photographs; and who proposed to send her a whole series of engravings; and who offered to send her a volume of German songs. If Arthur had been there, we should have had the laugh all on our side; but now I suppose they will deny

that anything of the kind took place with the ordinary candor of gentlemen who are found out.] [From Macmillan's Magazine. (To be continued.)

LIFE OF MADAME DE LAFAYETTE.*

In our view of the French Revolution, the violence of the torrent then loosed has always seemed less wonderful than the exceeding weakness of the dam. Why on earth did people submit?

The germ of an answer to this question may perhaps be discovered in the little book which M. de Lasteyrie has so well translated for us. "Submit yourselves humbly to the will of God;" "obey the laws of your country." Yes, yes, but-so complex is life!-it may be shown that an undue and mistaken observance of these principles was the very evil which unchained the hell-hounds of the French Revolution. There is no greater mistake than that of imagining that the Reign of Terror was a time of incessant mobrule and turbulence. It was really from the want of a little healthy turbulence, and the utter absence of any such thing as a good, honest, indignant mob, that the continuance of the "Reign" was made possible. This is easily shown. When the whole power of the State has been suffered to fall into the hands of murderers, it necessarily becomes the duty of the good to rise up against crime-that is, against the law of the land; and in such case, like any other insurgents, they must look to their means of action. Having on their side character, property, and overwhelming numbers, the enemies of "the Terror" were endowed with great elements of strength, but they had to encounter a formidable antagonist —that is, an executive government which was legally armed with the power to kill whomsoever it chose; and besides combination and valor, they were grievously in need of opportunity. They wanted some interruption of the awful calm-some fight, some row, some disturbance-in order

* Life of Madame de Lafayette, by Madame de Lasteyrie, her Daughter; preceded by the Life of the Duchesse d'Ayen, by Madame de Lafayette, her Daughter. Translated from the French by Louis de Lasteyrie. Paris, Léon Techener, Rue de l'Arbre-Sec, 52: London, Barthès & Lowell, 14 Great Marlborough Street. 1872.

that, as soldiers say, they might be able to "rally upon it." For months and months nay, indeed, during nearly two years— they found no such occasion. Everywhere submission, submission, submission, corresponding and more than corresponding to the triple audacity of Danton.* The men "nowhere," as our turf people say; the women devoutly resigned.

With the aid of Monsieur de Lasteyrie's volume, observe a great noble's town-house in the early days of the Terror. An affray caused by some angry porters at the gate of the Hotel de Noailles, might have become the nucleus of a victorious onset, closely followed by a blessed deliverance; but then an affray was just what did not happen, and was not even probable. The law reigned. If you are not afraid of being denounced by some spy as the associate of "aristocrats," you can enter the building. There, when in strict privacy with some members of the great historic house of Noailles, you surely will see the germ of resistance to organised murder. Not at all. You will see two brave, noble, and high-hearted women—one charmingly attractive — recommending each other to prepare for death, with a priest contriving the disguise in which he will make bold to attend their execution; and this, mark, about a year before the time when the victims who thus prepared themselves for the knife of the slaughterer were really thrown into prison.

It was owing to their own "faults of temper," as the conjugal phrase goes, and not to the prowess of adversaries, that the butchers at length succumbed. Good men loathing murder had no part at all in the conflict which preceded the end of "the Terror." Robespierre himself was the man who (from overreaching ambition, or from hatred or dread of his brother-terrorists) rose up (with the Commune at his back) against the more blood-thirsty mem

*Ce qu'il nous faut c'est de l'audace, et encore de l'audace, et toujours de l'audace.

bers of the Committee, and it was only in the confusion resulting from the victory of men worse than he was, that honest people at last found courage to interpose.

Until the end thus came, the submissiveness of France knew no bounds. The Reign of Terror was also the Reign of Law. Every scoundrel who sat round the green table in the Committee of Public Safety, and agreed to the daily list of victims, was as amply invested with legal authority as any grand-juryman who brings in a "true bill" at our English assizes. The scaffold reeked, but the womenbringing their work with them—who came every day to see "Madame Guillotine" fed, could at least say that from the cutting of the hair of the victims to the removal of their bodies and the baskets containing their heads, the whole proceeding was strictly legal, and sanctioned besides by universal suffrage. Paris was quiet. Order reigned. Never, perhaps, was the law so respected.

But what is the meaning of all this? Were people all madly wicked? Not at all. Only a few were wicked; the rest were cowed. Cowed! A whole people, a brave people cowed? Well, the explanation seems to be this: The executions began, continued, increased in number, and therefore, of course-in one sense-it was by the will of God that they took place. Then, again, they were ordained by the law of the land. These two considerations so effectually reinforced the selfish motives which inclined men to shrink from the immediate danger of resistance, that there resulted that fatal guilt which has been the cause of so much evil in France-the guilt of Resignation.

Our French critics may tell us that we too-and that very lately-have incurred this kind of disgrace-the disgrace of guilty acquiescence. When the rioters, some five years ago, were in possession of Hyde Park, Parliament was sitting, and Mr. Gladstone was the leader of the Opposition. It was plainly incumbent upon him to stand up in his place and say that in the duty of maintaining order the Government would be as firmly supported by his side of the House as by their own accustomed adherents. He remained silent-guiltily silent; but we imagine that his error arose from an impassioned desire for the recovery of office, and a consequent unwillingness to run the least risk of

losing popular favor. In that view his delinquency should be carefully remembered against him; but it was, after all, a sin of ambition, and not one importing that fatal resignation which we have ventured to ascribe to the French.

Whatever counterbalancing merits may be reckoned in defence of the Faith, it seems impossible to doubt that this selfish vice, the vice of guilty resignation, is diligently taught by the Roman Catholic Church, and taught unhappily with a success which does not attend its other and more moral efforts. What makes the matter worse is, that people with the best natural dispositions and the most lively consciences are precisely those who are the most surely corrupted and demoralised by religion thus misapplied. The very men who, by their station, their character, and their natural goodness of heart, might seem to be the best qualified to stand by their country in her hour of trial, are more than all others exposed to this moral palsy. If Hampden had been a good Roman Catholic, he would have paid his shipmoney.

Considering the known bravery of the French race, we used always to marvel at the decision taken by the nobles who emigrated when threatened by the dangers of the Revolution; but some part at least of the required explanation is furnished by the circumstance of their having been bred up as Roman Catholics. It might have seemed that, in their gay brilliant time at Versailles, they were free enough from the sway of religion; but they were all men who had been piously taught in the days of their childhood; and when the hour of danger came, the fatal lesson of resignation which they had received in their early days refastened itself upon their minds, and concurred with their selfish fears in inducing them to shrink from the duty they owed to their country. Besides, the brilliant vigor of the women in France has an incalculable effect in inspiring the courage and enterprise of the men; and if the "better half"the by far better halfof the nation becomes so piously desponding of human resources as to be preparing for death, there must be imminent danger of a collapse on the part of the men. When French regiments go into action, they like to be led by a woman ;* but who

* At Inkerman the 2d battalion of the 3d Zou

would expect great achievements from the men of a Zouave battalion if the neatfooted vivandière who so prettily marches at their head were to begin prematurely despairing of victory, and crying out for a priest?

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The working of this poison-the poison which the French call "clerical"—is exemplified in the little book now before us. We there see the pious and blameless " riety" of the "grande dame" practising every virtue, and coming after all to the scaffold with angelic sweetness; no fathers, no husbands, no sons, no lovers throwing any sort of impediment in the way of all this organised murder; and by the time we have finished the volume, we begin to understand how the divine lesson of resignation to the will of God may be taught and taught and taught by priests till it ends in producing resignation to the will of de

mons.

The lives of both the Duchesse d'Ayen and the Marquise de la Fayette are written in so pious, or rather in so "clerical," a spirit, as to be absolutely colorless, and it is from their general tenor rather than from any particular passage that we have been able to deduce our conclusions. The lives, in truth, are so written that it would be more fitting to read them on a Sunday than to quote them on the other six days; but the narrative of the good priest Carrichon is extremely interesting, and we give it almost entire. We do this the more readily because the kind, zealous, devoted man tells us how he was able to grant absolution under circumstances strange and terrible.

"The Maréchale de Noailles,* the Duchesse d'Ayen her daughter-in-law, and the Vicomtesse de Noailles her grand-daughter, were detained prisoners in their own house from November 1793 till April 1794. The first I only knew by sight, but was well acquainted with the two others, whom I generally visited once a-week. Terror and crime were increasing together; victims were becoming more numerous. One day, as the ladies were exhorting each other to prepare for death, I said to them, as by foresight: If you go to the scaffold, and if God gives me strength to do so, I shall ac

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company you. They took me at my word, and eagerly exclaimed, Will you promise to do so? For one moment I hesitated. Yes, I replied; and so that you may easily recognise me, I shall wear a dark-blue coat and a red waist-coat. Since then they often reminded me of my promise.

"In the month of April 1794, during Easter week, they were all three conveyed to the Luxembourg. I had frequent accounts of them through M. Grellet,* whose delicate attentions and zealous services were of such use both to them and to their children. I was often reminded of my promise. On the 27th of June, on a Monday, or a Friday, he came to beg of me to fulfil the engagement I had taken with the Maréchal de Mouchy and his wife.

"I went to the Palais de Justice,' and succeeded in entering the court. I stood very near, with my eyes fixed upon them, during a quarter of an hour. M. and Mme. de Mouchy, whom I had only seen once at their own house, and whom I knew better than they knew me, could not distinguish me in the crowd. God inspired me, and with His help I did all I could for them. The Maréchal was singularly edifying, and prayed aloud with all his heart. The day before, on leaving the Luxembourg, he had said to those who had given him marks of sympathy: 'At seventeen years of age I mounted the breach for my King; at seventy-seven I ascend the scaffold for my God; my friends, I am not to be pitied.' I avoid details, which would become interminable. That day I thought it useless to go as far as the guillotine; besides, my courage failed me. This was ominous for the fulfilment of the promise I had made to their relations, who were thrown into the deepest affliction by this catastrophe. They had all been confined in the same prison, and had thus been of great comfort to each other.

"On the 22d of July (1794), on a Tuesday, between eight and ten o'clock in the morning, I was just going out; I heard a knock. I opened the door, and saw the Noailles children with their tutor. The children were cheerful, as is usually the case at that age, but under their merriment was concealed a sadness of heart caused

Tutor to Alexis and Alfred de Noailles, sons of the Vicomtesse de Noailles. † 4 Thermidor.

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