In patience he waited the hour when the com- | ble hand, and thrown by the force of the pany should depart. blow against the Count de Mesnard, had "Meanwhile the prince and princess, only only, as it always happens, felt the shock and separated by a wall from the man who was not the wound. On recovering himself, he numbering the minutes of their existence, put his hand on the place where he had been were enjoying in their box, without any pre-struck, and it there fell upon the hilt of a sentiment of evil, the pleasures of the perform- dagger. A horrible light broke in upon him. ance, and of conversation between the acts. The Duke and Duchess of Orleans were present that evening in a neighboring box, with their children. The two families, who were very intimate, owing to the relationship of the two duchesses, saluted each other with smiles of recognition. During an interval between the performances, the Duke and Duchess de Berry paid their cousins a visit in their box. The duke embraced the children, and played with the little Duke de Chartres, who was also doomed to a tragical death in the flower of his age. On passing through the lobby to return to their box, the duchess was struck in the breast by a box-door, which was violently thrown open at the moment she was passing. She was then enceinte a few weeks; and fearful that the blow, the fright, and fatigue might be injurious, she expressed a wish to retire before the end of the opera, and the bal masqué which was to follow it. The duke rose to conduct her himself to the carriage, intending to return to his box to enjoy the remaining pleasures of the night. 6 I am assassinated! I am a dead man!' he cried. I feel the dagger: that man has killed me!' At this exclamation, the Duchess de Berry, whose carriage had not yet departed, uttered a piercing scream. Open the door! open the door!' she cried to the footman, who still had his hand upon it: without waiting for the step to be lowered, she sprang out, and threw her arms round her husband, who had just extracted the poniard, which covered her dress with his blood. They seated the fainting prince upon a bench in the outer ball, where the servants wait for their masters. They tore open his dress, and the blood flowing from the wound, indicated the spot where the blow had been struck, upon the right breast. 'I am killed,' he repeated on recovering his senses; send for a priest: come here, my dear wife, that I may die in your arms!' "During this momentary pause in the vestibule, the sentinel, the footmen, and three gendarmes, horror-struck at the deed, ran in pursuit of the assassin. He had already passed the façade of the opera-house, in the Rue de Richelieu, and had concealed himself in the shadow of an arcade, which runs from this street under the broad arches of the Bibliotheque. A waiter of a café, named Paulnier, there seized him round the body, struggled with him, and, assisted by the sentinel and the gendarmes, brought him back to the place where he had committed the murder. He had nearly fallen a victim to the fury of the spectators, who collared and dragged him towards the vestibule; but the officers of the prince, trembling lest they should destroy with the criminal the secret of the plot of the crime, saved him, and had him conducted to the opera guard-house. M. de ClermontLodève followed him there to witness his first examination. They found upon him the second dagger, and the sheath of the one which he had left in the bosom of the prince. M. de Clermont returned with this weapon, and these evidences of the crime, to the vesti "On the summons of the prince's attendants, the royal carriage drove up to the door. | The young duchess, supported on one side by her husband's hand, and on the other by that of her equerry, Count de Mesnard, entered the carriage; the Countess de Béthisy, her lady-in-waiting, following her. Adieu!' said her husband smiling to her, we shall meet again.' The footmen folded up the steps of the carriage, and the prince turned round to enter the vestibule from the street. At this moment, Louvel, who had approached like an inoffensive spectator, or a servant who was waiting for his master, sprang, with all the vigor of his resolution, between the sentinel who was presenting arms, and the footman who was closing the carriage-door, and, seizing the left shoulder of the Duke de Berry with his left hand, as if to secure his victim under the knife, he struck him with the poniard in the right side, and left the weapon in the wound. The rapidity of the act, the confusion of the bystanders, the un-bule. certain light afforded by the torches, and the "The Duke de Berry was no longer there. staggering of the prince under the blow, pre- He had recovered his senses, and had been vented the Count de Choiseul and the Count removed in the arms of his servants to a small de Mesnard at the moment from discerning saloon behind his box, where he was surthe murderous act and gesture of the unknown. rounded by medical men, who were probing He fled unpursued towards the Rue de Riche- his wound. Alas!' said he, on learning the lieu; and, having turned the corner of the apprehension and name of the criminal, street, walked with a careless pace towards what a cruel fate, that I should die by the the Boulevard. hand of a Frenchman!' A ray of hope for a "The Duke de Berry, struck by an invisi-moment inspired the princess and the medi cal men he did not, however, partake of it, nor wished he to flatter his wife with an illusion which must only redouble her affliction. 'No,' said he, with a cool, firm, and incredulous tone; I will not delude myself; the poniard entered up to the very hilt, I can assure you.' His sight was now becoming dim from failing strength, occasioned by loss of blood, and he felt about for his wife, stretching his arms in all directions. 'Are you there, Caroline?' he demanded. 'Yes,' the princess tenderly replied; I am here, and I shall never quit you! The surgeon of his household, the companion of his exile, shocked at the rumor of the crime, had hastened to the side of the dying prince; and the blood having ceased to flow, he sucked the wound. What are you doing, Bougon ?' eagerly demanded the dying prince; perhaps the poniard was poisoned!" 6 at day-break. "The clattering of the horses "A few moments after, he expired, still articulating in his delirium the ungratified wish of his heart. He died in the act of pardoning; a great soul, obscured in life, shining forth in death; a hero of clemency, having at the first effort accomplished the most difficult and most meritorious act of humanitythat of dying well. "The deep sobs, which had hitherto been repressed, gushed forth at his last sigh. Ilis wife, in a state of delirium, cut off her hair, as a last token of affection, and laid it upon his body; then wildly cursing the country in which her husband had been murdered, she demanded of the king, in angry accents, permission to retire forever to Sicily. The king knelt down beside the bed, and closed with his own hand the lips and eyelids of the last living hope of his race." "His first word had been to ask not for a doctor but a priest. Struck in the very noontide of youth and of pleasure, there had been in his mind no transition between the thoughts of time and the thoughts of eternity. He had passed in one second from the spectacle of a fête to the contemplation of his end, like those men who, by a sudden immersion in cold water, are snatched from the burning delirium of intoxication. The priest came at length and members of the royal family hurried to the place on learning the dreadful intelligence. Surgeons, the most celebrated in Paris, also attended; but the case was beyond their aid. Life was fast ebbing. His wife did not quit him for a moment. He put his fingers on her head, as if to exhibit one last act of tenderness by caressing her beautiful hair. 'Caroline,' he said to her, take care of yourself, for the sake of the child you bear.' This was the first revelation of the birth of a son who escaped the crime, but not the evil fortune of his race. He recommended his servants with tears to his father; and expressed a wish to see his While the Parisians were horror-struck assassin, to demand of him the cause of his with this unforeseen crime, and lamented it as hatred, to reproach him for his injustice, and an irreparable disaster, the ultra-royalists of pardon him for his death. Who is this the palace hailed it as an opportunity of ruinman?' he murmured; what have I done to ing Decazes, by accusing him of being an achiin? It is perhaps some person that I have complice of Louvel. With the view of aiding unknowingly offended.' The Count d'Artois the surgeons in their consultations, Decazes assured him that the assassin had no personal had thought of ascertaining whether the daganimosity against him. It must be some ger was poisoned, and he accordingly, in an maniac, then,' said the duke. Ah! that I under-tone of voice, asked the question of would live until the king arrives, that he may Louvel. This whisper, reported to the courgrant me the pardon of this man! Promise me, tiers, was held up as a proof of complicity; father promise me, brother promise me and before any inquiry was made, the minisall of you, to ask the king to spare this man's ter was denounced in the Chamber of Deputies life!' as being an accomplice in the assassination. On the trial, and at the execution of Louvel, the wretched murderer declared that no one had conspired with him, and that the deed was entirely his own. The world at large acknowledged the truth of the declaration; but 66 They all promised him this, to calm the ardor of generosity and pardon which preyed upon his mind. His natural goodness displayed itself at the price of his own blood." The king apprized of the disaster, arrived not so the court, and, greatly against the will of Louis XVIII., he was under the necessity of dismissing by far the best minister of the Restoration. The whole transaction, as faithfully and graphically detailed by Lamartine the honest indignation of Decazes, the distress of the king, and the meanness of the Count d'Artois, the Duke and Duchess of Angoulême, and the Duchess of Berry, in pledge ing themselves to a falsehood -forms one of the most instructive facts in modern history. From the Spectator. VON ROCHAU'S WANDERINGS THROUGH LIVELINESS and plenty, with independent common sense, are the characteristics of this tour in Italy. Von Rochan is more French or English than German. He has the vivacity and felicitous expression of the Gaul, without his flippancy or exaggeration; nature or cosmopolitan training has banished the pedantry and phlegm of the Germans. These characteristics, coupled with a large experience and the present state of Italy, have given to his "Wanderings" a freshness and interest hardly to be expected from so thoroughly beaten a field. At these words a sudden flush of light came across my view of the matter, and the longer I thought about it the clearer did it become. These few words contain the whole enigma. Raphael makes no mistakes; his drawing is true, his colors well chosen and well treated, neither out of keeping with each other nor with sidered; he observes the proportion and relation the subject; his grouping is thoroughly conof every part; in one word, he is a correct painter. On this account he is admired by all those who are acquainted with the enormous difficulties of the technical part of painting; and it is therefore that those who are anxious themselves to overcome these difficulties study him with such persevering zeal. Raphael is a master of the handicraft of painting; and he must himself understand this craft who would thor oughly appreciate his perfection in this respect. This handicraft, however, is still only the body of art; what of the soul thereof? is the question. To make no mistakes is but a negative merit; and, however hard it may be to accomhave no vices will make a man virtuous. plish, can no more constitute an artist than to that which constitutes the work of art. colors and these lines, if they are to become The poetic fire must gleam through these living art. Does Raphael possess this creative power? Is there in him that inspiration, that soaring fancy, that bears us unconsciously heavenward on the mighty wings of genius? Do we read in his pictures the eloquence of an The good qualities of the tourist are accom- ardent soul; any passionate love, any fervent panied, almost of necessity, by corresponding piety; deep, powerful feeling of any kind whatdrawbacks: "maxima pars vatum decipi- ever? No, and forever no! The composition mur specie recti." The author's vivacity of Raphael is throughout cold, feeble, convensometimes leads him to aim at imparting at- tional, inexpressive; the composition, however, is traction to subjects of such trifling import as a criticism on a bad opera to which his ill fortune carried him. His independence of The law is truly laid down, but is it truly judgment and opposition to humbug occasion-matic expression, in Elymas struck with applied? Is there no composition, no draally lead him into artistic heresy. The Sistine blindness? or the Preaching at Athens? or Chapel finds no favor with him, and he boldly the Beautiful Gate? or Paul and Barnabas at records the impressions produced; in which numbers who take a slighter and more superLystra? ficial view than he avowedly did would prob- in visiting Italy; but art ancient or modern Art may not have been Von Rochau's object ably agree with him if they told the truth; painting, sculpture, architecture, or refor the art of seeing an old painting, especially mains, occupies a considerable share of his when the colors have faded, is a faculty, as attention. Sometimes his opinions may be Reynolds intimates, of difficult acquirement. extreme or questionable, but there is always Raphael finds less favor in Von Rochau's eyes a reason given; the judgment is always than Michael Angelo (whose great genius and clever, if not always sound; the criticism is whose services to art are admitted); but the lively and descriptive in a high degree, though, critic gives reasons for the faith that is in like most descriptive criticism, conveying the opinion which the piece suggests to the indiHow, in Heaven's name, does it happen that vidual, rather than what it will universally your artists make so much of Raphael?" I convey. Here is an example, distinct, strikasked, a short time ago, in a state of semi-ing, in harmony with history; but who can despair, addressing an Italian painter. "The say, reader, whether you or anybody else reason is, that Raphael makes fewer mistakes would see all this if it were not pointed out? than any one else," was the answer I received. There may be more of the tangible in Nero. him. *Wanderings through the Cities of Italy in 1850 and 1851. By A. L. Von Rochau. Translated by Mrs. Percy Sinnett. In two volumes. Published by Bentley. In the face of Tiberius, on the other hand, every feature is eloquent. An uncommon amount of understanding and strength of will may be read in the broad forehead and firmly closing mouth; the whole form of the head speaks of intellectual capacity, and the face is the mirror of a rich and cultivated mind; but the eye is that of a crouching tiger. Nero looks like a talented gentleman, whose vices have not yet reacted on his originally pleasing countenance; there is a something of primness in it, perhaps the effect of the smooth chin and upper lip and the formal whiskers, which I have not noticed in any other antique head. Entertaining and often solid as are the criticisms on art, and lively as are the descriptions of Italian nature and manners, the great interest of this book lies in its view of the condition of the people and the present state of opinion. Extensive travel and varied observation have shaken Von Rochau's patriotic estimation of Vaterland, but have confirmed his liberal opinions and love of progress. Such indications as are visible to a passing traveller of the tyranny under which Italy is groaning, or the feelings of the people towards their tyrants, did not escape him. And his opinion coincides with that of the latest travellers, that nearly the whole of Italy is a smouldering fire, ready to burst forth on the first opportunity. Venice seems to be the principal exception; where the easy goodnature of the people, and the extraordinary clemency of the governor (for though the terms of capitulation were favorable, their spirit might easily have been violated), have induced content. We all knew the intense hatred of the Milanese towards the Austrians, even before the late outbreak and its accompanying confiscations. The hatred of the Romans to the priests and the French seems fiercer than that of the Milanese to the Austrians. Even in Florence there is a feeling against the latter power, whatever there may be of loyalty to the duke. The influence of English and French manners and customs, of which there are no traces beyond the Apennines, is perceptible enough in Florence. Without noticing such things as may be meant for the use of travellers of hotels, English doctors, French cooks, &c., or of the abundance of foreign faces and foreign tongues in the streets it may be boldly asserted that foreign habits and fashions reign in the Florentine homes. The many similarities with German customs, however, which you meet with in the North of Italy, disappear almost entirely in Florence; and but for the Austrian possession one would only be reminded of Germany by the "Allgemeine Zeitung." That the Austrian troops are here in a perfectly strange country and stand completely isolated, may be seen in a multitude of slight circumstances. They have no connection with the Florentine troops, not even that footing of military courtesy on which the officers of hostile armies often meet. These are examples of the spirit at Rome. The intercourse between the Romans and the French, however, is not always carried on in this harmless manner; and even during this carnival very violent scenes took place. That the French soldiers should make their appearance in crowds on the Corso was already an occasion of bitter annoyance to the people, and the occasional military rudeness of their unwelcome guests in handling the Shrove-Tuesday weapons was a ground of just complaint. On the other in which, sportive as they were supposed to be, hand, the soldiers were exposed to many attacks, a bitter hostile feeling was sufficiently obvious. The French officers came only in plain clothes, and, in general, the moment they are off duty they hasten to get rid of their uniform; an infallible sign of their unfavorable position. The relations between the foreign garrison and the inhabitants of Rome have in part by no means improved by the lapse of time. There is, indeed, less of actual bloody strife, but these things do happen from time to time, and the murder of single Frenchmen is an incident continually recurring. all the sins of the Papal government are laid on The bitter feeling against them is universal; their shoulders; and in all things, great and small, the common sentiment is manifested. When on Sundays there is a grand parade held on the Spanish Piazza, there cannot, out of the curious and spectacle-loving populace of Rome, be a hundred people got together to listen to the excellent military music, nor contemplate the fine military spectacle, such as assuredly neither the Pope's soldiers nor those of the Civic Republic could have offered anything to approach. In the first days of my arrival, when I was looking about for a private lodging, I went into a house which had a great number of rooms empty. But when I had explained my wishes to the housewife, she turned suddenly to her daughter, with the question, put in an anxious tone, "But the gentleman is perhaps a French man ?" The daughter, who, I suppose understood national physiognomy and accent too well to mistake me for a Frenchman, laughed, and gave the required assurance to the contrary; which had an immediately tranquillizing effect on the elder. One may hear every day the wish uttered, "Would that the Germans were here instead of the French!" But it would be a great weakness to place any reliance on such expressions, however sincerely they may be meant at the time. Were the Germans really here, they would be no greater favorites probably than the present occupants; and in Bologna the people say, "Would that we had the French instead of - the Austrians, videlicet. The the Germans!". rest of Germany may thank Heaven that no such task has been laid upon her; a task in which there is absolutely nothing to win - nothing in the world -no credit, no gratitude, and least of all any agreeable self-approval. As for the French troops, they are far from being proud of the part they are playing here; nor is France precisely, as we all know. But I am nevertheless convinced that the French will never leave Rome of their own accord. The Ecclesiastical State will never more stand on its own legs. In Naples, the external signs of feeling are not so obvious, and the support of the foreigner is not so visible, though just as real. But for the Swiss troops the Bourbon would not long occupy his throne. So much is this the case, that the grave military offence of open drunkenness is passed over as a matter of course. In Piedmont, Von Rochau found opinion very different, as well as such parts of government as the traveller comes in contact with the police and the custom-house officials. Even the Roman Catholic religion seems to flourish under freedom of opinion, although the attacks of the press upon the Papacy are numerous. What struck me, however, as more remarkable than anything in the architecture, was the great number of young men, whom, contrary to the usual custom of Italian and non-Italian towns, I found in the churches of Genoa. Can it be, that, in spite of this wicked constitution that it possesses, Genoa is rather a religiously-disposed town; whilst in Rome, under the happy rule of the successors of St. Peter, the employment of all the spiritual and temporal means at its command has not enabled the Pope's government to check the tendency to infidelity, or what is, of course, worse, to Protestantism? Rome is swarming with cowls and frocks and shaven crowns. In Genoa, on the contrary, you see few priests, still fewer monks; ard of the Jesuits' scholars, with their clerical-looking vestments, none at all. Yet the Genoese are, to all appearance, good Catholics; whilst the Romans scarcely have any other religion than that of hatred and revenge; of which religion of theirs there will, probably, some day be a notable revelation. From the Dublin University Magazine. THE PINE-APPLE. THE stately Pine-Apple, fair as it is, with its regular diamond-cut surface and elevated green crown, is very barren of reminiscences. The Archigallus, or chief priest of Cybele, was represented bearing in one hand a pineapple in a cup. At Kensington is a picture of Charles II. receiving a pine-apple from his gardener, Rose, on his knees. This fruit, on account of its large and handsome crown of leaves, has been considered the emblem of royalty. Wherefore its companion shall be a royal poem, the composition of the eccentric daughter and successor of the brave Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, and written at Rome FROM THE ITALIAN OF CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN.* (Io son il Tempo alato, &c.) "I am Time, winged Time, Fate's minister sublime: I will spare naught in wide creation, "Ha, Time! hear thou thy fate: Thou threat'nest to annihilate ; But thou shalt lose thy sway. Soon as this world has passed away, Thy rule, O Time! is o'er, And thou thyself shalt be no more.' LIFE WITHOUT AN AIM. work. We would now speak of the aimless existence that strange anomaly in creation, a human being with nothing to do. Most miserable, worthy of most profound pity, is nature becomes a source of envy; the birds warsuch a being. The most insignificant object in ble on every spray, in ecstasy of joy; the tiny flower, hidden from all eyes, sends forth its fra grance of full happiness; the mountain stream dashes along with a sparkle and murmur of pure delight. The object of their creation is accomplished, and their life gushes forth in harmonic admiration, of worship, to the wretched idler ! O, plant! O, stream!-worthy of Here are powers ye never dreamed of-faculties divine, eternal; a head to think, but nothing to concentrate the thoughts; a heart to love, but tion; a hand to do, but no work to be done; no object to bathe with the living tide of affectalents unexercised, capacities undeveloped; a human life thrown away wasted as water poured forth in the desert. O, birds and flowers, ye are gods to such a mockery of life! Who can describe the fearful void of such an existence, wasted powers, the weariness of daily life, the the yearning for an object, the self-reproach for loathing of pleasure, of frivolity, and the fearful consciousness of deadening life of a spiritual paralysis, which hinders all response to human interests when enthusiasm ceases to arouse, and noble deeds no longer call forth the tear of joy; when the world becomes a blank, humanity a far-off sound, and no life is left but the heavy, benumbing weight of personal helplessness and desolation? O happier far is the toiling drudge who coins body and soul into the few poor shillings that can only keep his family in a long starvation; he has a hope unceasingly to light him, a duty to perform, a spark of love within that cannot die; and wretched, weary, unhuman, as his life may be, it is of royal worthit is separated by the immeasurable distance of life and death from the poor, perhaps pampered wretch, who is cursed for having no work to do. - Elizabeth Blackwell. She died at Rome, 1619. |