Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 305

Mr Bennet, in his 'Wanderings,' has some interesting passages on the subject of the albatross. 'It is pleasing,' he writes, 'to observe this superb bird sailing in the air in graceful and elegant movements, seemingly excited by some invisible power, for there is scarcely any movement of the wings seen after the first and frequent impulses are given, when the creature elevates itself in the air; rising and falling as if some concealed power guided its various motions, without any muscular exertion of its own, and then descending, sweeps the air close to the stern of the ship, with an independence of manner, as if it were "monarch of all it surveyed." It is from the very little muscular exertion used by these birds that they are capable of sustaining such long flights without repose… When seizing on an object floating on the water, they gradually descend with expanded or upraised wings, or sometimes alight, and float like a duck on the water, while devouring their food; then they again soar in mid-air, and recommence their erratic flights. It is interesting to view them during boisterous weather, flying with, and even against the wind, seeming the "gayest of the gay" in the midst of the howling and foaming waves.' In another passage, the author makes some further remarks as to this bird's powers of flight. 'I remarked,' he says, 'that the albatross would lower himself even to the water's edge, and elevate himself again without any apparent impulse; nor could I observe any percussion of the wings when the flight was directed against the wind, but then, of course, its progress was tardy. Many, however, have differed with me in considering that the birds never fly "dead against the wind," but in that manner which sailors term "close to the wind," and thus make progress, aided by, when seemingly flying against, the wind. This bird is evidently aided by its long wings, as well as tail, in directing its flight; it is never seen to soar to any great height, and is often observed to change its course by turning the wings and body in a lateral direction, and oftentimes, when raising itself, to bend the last joint of the wings downwards.'

From our extracts it is evident that for those who possess the 'art of seeing,' a voyage across the wide ocean is not necessarily a scene of monotonous weariness: there is food for instruction and inspiration everywhere; and here, with some further lines from the poem already quoted, we may appropriately bring our article to a close: —

'Oh thou wild and wondrous bird,Viewing thee, my thought is stirred.Round and round the world thou goest,Ocean solitude thou knowest —Into trackless wastes hast flown,Which no eye save thine hath known:Ever tireless – day or night;Calm or tempest – ceaseless flight.Albatross, I envy theeOft thy soaring pinions free;For we deem the realms of airToo ethereal for care.Gladness as of endless springsSeems to me is born with wings.Thou canst rise and see the sun,When his course to us is done:A moral here may us engross,Thou the teacher – albatross!'

THE PALACE OF THE FRENCH PRESIDENT

The Elysée National, which has been appropriated as the residence of Louis Napoleon, is an edifice which has gone through many changes of masters. Situated in the Rue Fauxbourg St Honoré, with a façade behind towards the far-famed Champs-Elysées, it enjoys one of the most agreeable localities in Paris. Externally it makes no great appearance, being shut in by a lofty wall in front; but in internal arrangements the house is elegant, with suites of grand apartments, common to the palaces of France. The builder and first proprietor of the Elysée was the wealthy Count d'Evreux, in the era of the Regent, Philip of Orleans, at the beginning of the eighteenth century. After this it became crown property, but for no long time.

One day, in the year 1743, Madame de Pompadour entered Louis XV.'s apartments, complaining of a dreadful headache. The king had made her a marchioness and a lady-in-waiting; he had laden her with honours and wealth. But this did not satisfy her, for unworthy favourites are never content: they were the revolutionists of those days.

'Is anything the matter with you, madame?' inquired the king anxiously, observing her downcast looks.

'Alas! I have no hôtel!' replied Madame de Pompadour.

'Is that all?' exclaimed the sovereign; and the same day the Hôtel d'Evreux was purchased for her: it need hardly be added, at the king's cost. A little while after, Madame de Pompadour was again severely incommoded by a distracting headache. Like questions from the monarch, and new complaints from the favourite.

'My hôtel is but a citizen's dwelling in comparison with Choisy and Trianon. Its interior is so antique and formal! I really seem to exist among the ghosts of a past century. In short, I am dying there of languor and ennui.'

'Live, fair lady! and let your abode be the temple of fashion.'

This was quite enough for La Pompadour, who, being a connoisseur in painting, sent next day for Boucher and Vanloo, and installed them in the Hôtel d'Evreux. The ceilings and panels were quickly peopled with rosy Cupids playing amid shepherds and shepherdesses: the gilt cornices were wreathed in flowers. The talents of the architect, L'Assurance, were also put into requisition, and the building greatly enlarged. Once more the king's purse was obliged to meet all the consequent demands for these improvements. L'Assurance, being his controller, took care to exercise no control whatever over the whims of the favourite. From thenceforth Madame de Pompadour held her court at the Hôtel d'Evreux. Courtly equipages began to crowd around it: balls and petits-soupers enlivened its halls.

On one occasion the queen of the place assumed the part of an actress, and after rehearsing her part with the Dukes de Chartres and Duras, and Madames de Brancas and d'Estrades, in her own saloon, they all set off in great style, and performed a little piece in the king's cabinet of medals. Another day, Crébillon, Voltaire, and all those beaux-esprits who sported on the brink of a volcano, were gathered around the marquise, to whom they addressed epigrams and madrigals. Voltaire, whose paw of velvet concealed a tearing claw, combined the madrigal and the epigram in the following verses: —

Que tous vos jours soient marqués par des fêtes;Que de nouveaux succès marquent ceux de Louis.Vivez tous deux sans ennemisEt gardez tous deux vos conquêtes.

Madame de Pompadour felt only the velvet; but the king felt the claw; and Voltaire became an exile, and lost his office of gentleman of the bedchamber. From that day forth the cat-like genius of Voltaire scratched those whom he had hitherto caressed: so easy is the transition from a flatterer to a foe!

But who is this other original who appears at the Hôtel d'Evreux? He is young and handsome, or at least he appears to be so, for his age is a problem. He pretends to have existed during the days of the Fronde, which would make him a centenarian. His friends declare that he has found the Philosopher's Stone; that he can renew his youth when he pleases; that he can read the past, the present, and the future. The fact is, that his origin is unknown; and so is his fortune. His wealth seems to be unbounded and exhaustless: his prodigality is carried to excess: he speaks every language, understands every science, cultivates every art: his wit is so lively, his eloquence so full of captivation, that he is able to make falsehood assume the air of truth: his whole life is, in fact, but a fable in action. Some people regard him as a demi-god, some take him for a devil; one affirms that he is a sorcerer, another that he is a magnetiser. It may easily be conceived that he becomes an idol in the frivolous and wonder-loving court of Louis XV.; nor is it less to be expected that La Pompadour should attract him to her magic circle. There he creates as great a sensation as at Versailles. One day the king comes purposely for the sake of having a private conversation with him. He interrogates him closely, hoping to win from him his secret: but all in vain. The Proteus escapes through a thousand windings, and charms Louis XV. without betraying himself to him. This wonderful, this inexplicable man, was the famous Count de St Germain.

Another day the favourite expresses her suspicion that the diamonds he wears are all false. Just at that moment he enters her saloon, sparkling from head to foot. His lace ruffles are fastened with rubies; his fingers are covered with rings; his shoe-buckles are valued at 200,000 livres. Madame de Pompadour, quite dazzled by this sparkling magnificence, asks if he is not afraid of risking so much wealth by wearing it about his person. St Germain guesses the suspicion, and answers it by taking out of his pocket a box. This box is full of jewels. The count intreats of Madame du Hausset (the favourite's dame de compagnie) to accept a small diamond cross. At length she is prevailed on to do so. It is immediately shown to the court jeweller, who values it at a hundred louis. Soon afterwards this strange personage disappears. His exit from the fashionable world is as mysterious as had been his entrée into it.

On Madame de Pompadour's death, the Hôtel d'Evreux reverted to Louis XV., and became first the residence of ambassadors extraordinary, and was afterwards used as the wardrobe of the crown, until in 1773, when it was purchased by Monsieur de Beaujon. M. de Beaujon was the Crœsus of that time, but a Crœsus who devoted his wealth to the encouragement of art, and to the succour of the indigent. The Hôtel d'Evreux became in his hands a depository of all that was choice and beautiful in the fine-arts. The marbles of Tassant, of Guyard, of Pajou; the tapestries of the Gobelins; the paintings of Vanloo, of Rubens, Teniers, Poussin, Guido, Murillo, &c. besides innumerable articles of virtù, were to be found in his saloons; and in one of the alcoves was placed a large mirror, so situated as to reflect the Champs-Elysées as in a beautiful landscape.

M. de Beaujon died in peace at his charming hôtel; but he had previously sold it to Louis XVI. This prince parted with it to Madame de Bourbon, the Princess de Lamballe's friend. Brief, however, was this lady's enjoyment of her charming residence. The Revolution approached, and she fled from France: so it passed into the hands of a certain Sieur Hovyn, who made it a place of public amusement, and all Paris danced, and played, and sang within its precincts, as they did at a later time at Tivoli.

One day these noisy gaieties were disturbed by sounds of a sadder and yet ruder nature. On the Place Louis XV., now become the Place de la Révolution, large bodies of troops were assembled; cries of savage fury echoed on every side; one voice of peace alone uttered its gentle tones, 'Son of St Louis, ascend to Heaven!' Then came shouts of 'Vive la République!' It was Louis XVI., who had been immolated on the altar of Terror. Unhappily, for a time such scenes were but too common in Paris: every heart was filled with either rage or terror, and the voice of joy was no longer heard among the people. There was neither music nor dancing at the Hôtel d'Evreux.

After Thermidor, however, it was re-opened to the public by some speculators, who had purchased it of the nation. In the time of the Directory and Consulate, the waltz and the quadrille flourished within its princely walls. Every victory of Bonaparte's was celebrated at the hamlet of Chantilly, for so was the newly-opened garden now called. But the Empire approaches, raising up some crowns, and creating others. In 1805, a handsome hussar becomes the purchaser of L'Elysée. He enters it on horseback, orders it to be repaired and richly decorated; and beneath the influence of his magic wand it quickly becomes once more a palace. That wand, unfortunately, is a sabre, and it is not swayed by the hand of taste. Luxury reappears, without elegance: the graceful fancies of Pompadour and of Beaujon are replaced by the heavy splendour of the Empire: the grand saloon alone is spared by the new master. This new master is Joachim Murat.

Madame Murat – the beautiful Marie Bonaparte – celebrated the victories of her husband and her brother by brilliant fêtes at the Elysée. It was there that she received the bulletins of Austerlitz and Jena; it was there she received the tidings of her being the queen of Naples. She resigned herself to her fate, and without a sigh, abandoned her Parisian hôtel for the Neapolitan throne.

L'Elysée, now restored to the domain of the crown, soon saw beneath its roof a little spare man, of lively disposition, and yet brusque and pensive by nature. With booted spurs, and his hand wrapped within his gray capote, he paced up and down its shady walks. This little man was the Emperor Napoleon. L'Elysée was a favourite residence of his, and he often dwelt there. There was but one thing he regretted in the garden – a straight and well-covered avenue, where he could walk on, engrossed in his own thoughts, without looking before him. These were some of his happiest days. He had still his guardian angel by his side – his Josephine. L'Elysée was for a long while their paradise. But a day came in which Josephine entered it alone bathed in tears. She was no longer empress, but it was not for this she wept: it was for the lost love of her husband, who cast her off with the hope of obtaining from another consort the long-desired heir to his vast dominions. In her retreat at L'Elysée, Josephine was consoled by the tender affection of her daughter, the Queen Hortense, and a few friends who clung to her in the hour of her adverse fortune.

In 1814, Napoleon quitted both L'Elysée and France. Another emperor, victorious in his turn, entered his cabinet, and exclaimed aloud, 'How many gigantic enterprises have been conceived in this unpretending apartment! And how wonderful was that intellect which could at once direct so many plans!' This emperor was Alexander of Russia. The following year Napoleon reappeared for a moment at L'Elysée. It was there that, on the 22d of June 1815, the Eagle, wounded at Waterloo, received its deathblow. It was seized by England, in the name of all Europe, and, by a stern necessity, cast upon the far-off rock of St Helena.

Inhabited under the Restoration by the Duke de Berri until his murder by Louvel, then by the Infant Don Miguel, and by the king of Naples: appropriated during Louis-Philippe's reign to the use of divers illustrious visitors, amongst whom were Ibrahim Pacha, the Bey of Tunis, and the Infanta of Spain, L'Elysée Bourbon was at length reserved as a dowry-palace for the Queen Marie-Amelia, in the contemplated possibility of her widowhood; but its future hostess having been obliged, like some of its former owners, to fly from her country, its portals were opened to a new master in December 1848, when, under the name of L'Elysée National, it became the residence of the President of the Republic – of a nephew of that Emperor who had said on leaving that very palace thirty-three years before, 'It is only with my name that France can hope to become free, happy, and independent.' Such have been the fortunes of L'Elysée National! Who can presume to say what destiny may yet be in store for it?

JUVENILE CRIME AND DESTITUTION

The increase of juvenile delinquency has become alarming. The criminal statistics of the country show that one-eighth of the offences which occupy our courts of justice are committed by mere children, and one-fourth by transgressors under twenty years of age. The depredations daily and daringly committed, especially in towns, and the destitution continually exhibited by crowds of young persons, have, during the current year, caused the public to manifest a very general anxiety to inquire into causes of so great and augmenting an evil. The inquiry cannot proceed far without eliciting the mournful fact, that the mode of dealing with crime in its earlier stages is not only seriously defective, but tends to foster and increase rather than to diminish it. Not hundreds, but thousands, of children are daily seen in London, and in every other large town, without the means of moral or intellectual culture, except that which has recently been provided by private benevolence. Abandoned by their parents, unrestrained, uncared-for by the law; hungry, and without food; cold, without clothing; weary, and without whereon to lay their heads; existing amidst every kind of suffering, and consequently influenced by the strongest temptations, they embrace crime as the only means of escape from want. Then, and not till then, does the law condescend to notice them; not to succour or reform, but to punish.

In this respect we are immeasurably behind the legislatures of other countries, not only modern, but ancient. The laws of Greece placed children of tender years in a state of pupilage, and made their teachers and pastors responsible for their conduct. Orphans who had no natural protectors were apportioned to 'patrons,' who were charged with, and made accountable for, their wellbeing. In modern France, and in other continental countries, children under sixteen years of age are not held responsible for the crimes they may commit, but their parents are; and if they have no parents, the state provides for them in its own fashion. The sixty-sixth article of the French penal code stands in English thus: —

'When the accused shall be under sixteen years of age, if it has been decided that he has acted without discernment, he shall be acquitted; but he must be, according to circumstances, returned to his parents, or sent to a House of Correction, there to be "brought up" (élevé), and detained during such a number of years as the judgment shall specify, and which in no case must extend beyond the time when the accused shall have attained his twentieth year.'

By another article of the same code (the 67th), all children found by the authorities who have neither parents nor homes are taken to the House of Correction: nor is this plan confined to France. The boldly-benevolent sheriff of Aberdeen, imitating this law, formed his most efficient school, by causing all the destitute and friendless children in the bounds of his jurisdiction to be 'taken up' and housed in his miscellaneous but admirable academy. The law of France, by this sort of procedure, exercises a protective influence over the friendless and forlorn. The law of England, on the contrary, only condescends to notice children when they have become criminals. Here the 'eye of the law' is shut against neglected and wretched outcasts from tainted homes, or the offspring of vicious parents; but opens them wide, and darts its fiery glare, to bring these young victims to punishment, when they have committed crimes for which, as we shall presently prove, they ought scarcely to be held accountable. The sternest moralist will not deny that in a majority of cases offenders under, say fourteen years of age, ought not to be deemed criminals in the ordinary sense of the term – that is to say, as offenders who, having acquired a knowledge of the duties of civilised life, have violated them: the fact being, that the very possibility of acquiring such knowledge the law denies; whilst, on the other hand, every incentive and temptation to dishonesty is working within them. These wretched young creatures are either homeless orphans, committing petty thefts to keep life in them, or the offspring of infamous parents, who urge them to pilfer, as a means of support in their own profligacy, or are hired and taught by practised ruffian employers to plunder for their benefit. How, then, can a child of tender years, for whom the legislature has provided no means of instruction, religious or moral, who has been sent out by his parents to beg or steal – caressed when successful, and punished when unlucky; or, more frequently, a being who has been cast loose upon the world, without a friend in it – form any just notion of his duties to society? Yet, because he has not done so, the law, when it detects him in the consequences of such ignorance, sends him to the treadmill or to jail. And even there our criminal code affords no means of reformation, nor always of employment;1 while, on the contrary, every sort of instruction in depravity, and every means of acquiring proficiency in thieving, are supplied by his prison associates. 'Prisons,' says the chaplain of the Pentonville Prison in the last report from that establishment, 'as they are throughout the country, generally speaking, are schools in which everything wicked, deceitful, impious, and abominable is practised, taught, and propagated at a great expense of public money and public morals.'

To illustrate vividly the condition of the juvenile criminal, the bearing the law has upon his career and ultimate destiny, and, finally, to render intelligible the best remedies it is in the power of the country to apply to this worst of social diseases, it is only necessary to trace the private history of at least one-half of the unfortunate young beings who now infest our streets.

Before us lie two documents, from which it is easy to glean the birth and parentage of a vast number of these wretched young creatures. The first is the Report of the Parkhurst Prison, and the second that of the Philanthropic Institution for the Reformation of Juvenile Offenders; both for the year 1848. Against the lists of 'admissions' into the latter establishment are placed short notes of the antecedents of the boys admitted during the year. The most frequently-recurring entries against the initials of those inmates who have been convicted more than once are such as: – 'Father dead; mother remarried; deserted by his friends.' 'Turned out of doors by a stepfather.' 'Illegitimate; father unknown.' 'Father of dissolute habits; deserted his wife.' 'An orphan, both parents dead;' or 'Parents unknown,' occurs frequently. 'Mother dead, father remarried, and turned out of doors,' and 'Utterly friendless,' are also repeated in several instances. 'Mother separated from her husband: she is of drunken habits: the boy led into evil by discomforts of home:' 'Father of drunken habits,' are occasional entries. Those boys who were admitted into the school upon one conviction only, seem, in a majority of instances, to have been led away by evil companions. We select the following from this category as examples: – 'The parents poor; father in bad health.' 'Father dead; mother respectable.' 'Enticed to theft by bad companions,' &c.

Imagine the life of a young outcast belonging to the first class of the cases above cited. His earliest endeavours may be towards honest employment. This he seeks far and near – day after day – till, worn out with fruitless solicitation, and nearly starved, he takes to begging. With any charity-money he may obtain he abates the pangs of hunger. In the casual wards of workhouses, to which the young wanderer is often driven for a night's rest, he has to associate with practised depredators;2 but when more successful, his sleeping companions in the low lodging-houses we have previously adverted to in this Journal are chiefly young thieves, whose occasional affluence he envies. He does not see their more frequent privations, because at these places of meeting no one can appear who has not been able to get money, the prompt payment of the admission fee being indispensable. He has no moral principles to fortify him against the jaunty, clever, convincing persuasions of his new friends. They seem, so far as he can judge, happy, and even joyous, which, to his perceptions, speak not only of sufficient for subsistence, but of superfluity. He contrasts his own condition and hopeless despondency with their evanescent happiness, and longs to acquire such depraved knowledge as will enable him to increase his quantum of food, and put him on a par with his neighbours. In short, he soon becomes a thief – not an occasional depredator, driven to dishonesty by the urgent demands of nature, but a regular, practised, professional pilferer. Fraud is his trade; and as it is by no means an easy one, he takes very great pains, and runs great risks, to learn it. When he has been 'lucky,' his gains are to him great, and he spends them in a way which debauches him still more, but which, for the time, affords him a sort of enjoyment. There are, however, long intervals between these saturnalia; and the want and misery he experiences meantime are sharp and severe. But they teach him no lesson, for with him it is 'either a hunger or a burst;' and when plenty comes, past privation is drowned in present enjoyment.