After many a weary march and desperate struggle, about 10,000 sad survivors got again to the banks of that fatal Loire, which now seemed to divide them from hope and protection. Henri, who had arranged the whole operation with consummate judgment, found the shores on both sides free of the enemy. But all the boats had been removed; and, after leaving orders to construct cafts with all possible despatch, he himself, with a few attendants, ventured over in a little wherry, which he had brought with him on a cart, to make arrangements for covering their landing. But they never saw the daring Henri again! The vigilant enemy came down upon them at this critical moment-intercepted his return-and, stationing several armed vessels in the stream, rendered the passage of the army altogether impossible. They fell back in despair upon Savenay; and there the brave and inde fatigable Marigny told Madame de L. that all was now over— that it was altogether impossible to resist the attack that would be made next day-and advised her to seek her safety in flight and disguise, without the loss of an instant. She set out accordingly, with her mother, in a gloomy day of December, under the conduct of a drunken peasant; and, after being out most of the night, at length obtained shelter in a dirty farm-house, from which, in the course of the day, she had the misery of seeing her unfortunate countrymen scattered over the whole open country, chased and butchered without mercy by the republicans, who now took a final of all the losses they had sustained. She had vengeance long been clothed in shreds and patches, and needed no disguise to conceal her quality. She was sometimes hidden in the mill when the troopers came to search for fugitives in her lonely retreat; and oftener sent, in the midst of winter, to herd the sheep or cattle of her faithful and compassionate host, along with his rawboned daughter. . The whole history of their escapes would make the adventures of Caleb Williams appear a cold and barren chronicle; but we have room only to mention that after the death of Robespierre there was a great abatement in the rigour of pursuit; and that a general amnesty was speedily proclaimed for all who had been concerned in the insurrection. A Tale of Terror. COURIER. [PAUL LOUIS COURIER, who was born in 1774, served in the French army in Italy, in 1798-9. He was a scholar and a man of taste; and his letters are full of indignation at the rapacity of the French conquerors. After the peace of Amiens he published several translations from the Greek. On the renewal of the war he served again in Italy; and held the rank of a chief of squadron in the Austrian campaign of 1809. He gave in his resignation in 1809, for his independent spirit made him obnoxious to the creatures of Napoleon. His literary reputation is chiefly built upon the political tracts which he wrote after the restoration of the Bourbons, which, in their caustic humour, are almost unequalled, and have been compared to the celebrated "Provincial Letters " of Pascal. The little piece which we translate gives no notion of his peculiar powers, but it is well adapted for an extract. The story is contained in a letter to Madame Pigalle, assassinated 1825.] I was once travelling in Calabria; a land of wicked people, who, I believe, hate every one, and particularly the French; the reason why would take long to tell you. Suffice it to say that they mortally hate us, and that one gets on very badly when one falls into their hands. I had for a companion a young man with a face-my faith, like the gentleman that we saw at Kincy; you remember? and better still perhaps I don't say so to interest you, but because it is a fact. In these mountains the roads are precipices; our horses got on with much difficulty; my companion went first; a path which appeared to him shorter and more practicable led us astray. It was my fault. Ought I to have trusted to a head only twenty years old? Whilst daylight lasted we tried to find our way through the wood, but the more we tried, the more bewildered we became, and it was pitch dark when we arrived at a very black-looking house. We entered, not without fear; but what could we do? We found a whole family of colliers at table; they immediately invited us to join them; my young man did not wait to be pressed: there we were eating and drinking; he, at least, for I was examining the place and the appearance of our hosts. Our hosts had quite the look of colliers, but the house you would have taken for an arsenal; there was nothing but guns, pistols, swords, knives, and cutlasses. Every thing displeased me, and I saw very well that I displeased them. My companion, on the contrary, was quite one of the family; he laughed and talked with them; and, with an imprudence that I ought to have foreseen, (but to what purpose, if it was decreed?) he told at once where we came from, where we were going, and that we were Frenchmen. Just imagine! amongst our most mortal enemies, alone, out of our road, so far from all human succour! and then, to omit nothing that might ruin us, he played the rich man, promised to give the next morning, as a remuneration to these people and to our guides, whatever they wished. Then he spoke of his portmanteau, begging them to take care of it, and to put it at the head of his bed; he did not wish, he said, for any other pillow. Oh, youth, youth! you are to be pitied! Cousin, one would have thought we carried the crown diamonds. What caused him so much solicitude about this portmanteau was his mistress's letters. Supper over, they left us. Our hosts slept below, we in the upper room, where we had supped. A loft raised some seven or eight feet, which was reached by a ladder, was the resting-place that awaited us; a sort of nest, into which we were to introduce ourselves by creeping under joists loaded with provisions for the year. My companion climbed up alone, and, already nearly asleep, laid himself down with his head upon the precious portmanteau. Having determined to sit up, I made a good fire, and seated myself by the side of it. The night, which had been undisturbed, was nearly over, and I began to reassure myself; when, about the time that I thought the break of day could not be very far off, I heard our host and his wife talking and disputing below; and putting my ear to the chimney, which communicated with the one in the lower room, I perfectly distinguished these words spoken by the husband: "Well, let us see, must they both be killed?" To which the wife replied, "Yes ;" and I heard no more. on? I stood scarcely breathing, my body cold as marble; to have seen me, you would hardly have known if I were alive or dead. Good heavens! when I think of it now!-We two, almost without weapons, against twelve or fifteen who had so many! and How shall I go my companion dead with sleep and fatigue! To call him, or make a noise, I dared not to escape alone was impossible; the window was not high, but below were two great dogs howling like wolves. In what an agony I was, imagine if you can. At the end of a long quarter of an hour I heard some one on the stairs, and, through the crack of the door, I saw the father, his lamp in one hand, and in the other one of his large knives. He came up, his wife after him, I was behind the door; he opened it, but before he came in he put down the lamp, which his wife took. He then entered, barefoot, and from the outside the woman said to him, in a low voice, shading the light of the lamp with her hand, "Softly, go softly." When he got to the ladder, he mounted it, his knife between his teeth, and getting up as high as the bed the poor young man lying with his throat bare-with one hand he took his knife, and with the other-Oh! cousin-he seized a ham, which hung from the ceiling, cut a slice from it, and retired as he had come. The door was closed again, the lamp disappeared, and I was left alone with my reflections. As soon as day appeared, all the family, making a great noise, came to awaken us as we had requested. They brought us something to eat, and gave us a very clean and a very good breakfast, I assure you. Two capons formed part of it, of which we must, said our hostess, take away one and eat the other. When I saw them I understood the meaning of those terrible words, "Must they both be killed?" and I think, cousin, you have enough penetration to guess now what they signified. The Opening Year. THE year of the Calendar and the year of the poets might well have different starting points. The poets would welcome a new year with spring-garlands of the tenderest green, and go forth into the fields to find the first violet giving out its perfume as an offering to the reproductive power which fills the earth with gladness. But the Calendar offers us only the slow lengthening of the days to mark the progress of change; and we have little joy in the lengthening when the old saw tells us→→→ "As day lengthens, Cold strengthens." "The The poets, however, have their resources, drawn out of the compensations that dances into a bridal song for the New :- For the year is but asleep; In its coffin in the clay, The tree-swung cradle of a child, Rocks the year :-be calm and mild, Like a sexton by her grave: March with grief doth howl and rave, Our ancestors assuredly had a more fervent love of nature than we have, when they filled their houses with evergreens while the snow blocked up their doorways, and replaced them with new emblems of the freshness which is never wholly dead whilst the rains of February and the winds of March were doing their nursing-work. The song for Candlemas-day (February 2) was as true a herald of the spring as the cuckoo and the swallow :— Down with rosemary and bays, Down with the mistletoe ; Instead of holly, now upraise The greener box for show. The holly hitherto did sway; Let box now domineer, Until the dancing Easter-day, Or Easter's eve appear. When yew is out, then birch comes in, And many flowers beside, Both of a fresh and fragrant kin, To honour Whitsuntide. Green rushes then, and sweetest lents, Come in for comely ornaments, Then youthful box, which now hath Thus times do shift; each thing nis turn WORDSWORTH, in one of his charming lyrics of the Spring, makes "the opening of the year" begin with “the first mild day of March:" It is the first mild day of March; Each minute sweeter than before, The redbreast sings from the tall larch There is a blessing in the air, Which seems a sense of joy to yield To the bare trees, and mountains bare, And grass in the green field. |