Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863

Monsieur de C – went on with his story: 'One day, before Juba (such was the negro's name), I loudly expressed my despair at my obscurity and the uselessness of my life, and I exclaimed: 'I would give ten years of my life to be placed in the first rank of our authors.' 'Ten years,' he coldly replied to me, 'are a great deal; it's paying dearly for a trifle; but that's nothing, I accept your ten years. I take them now; remember your promises: I shall keep mine!' I cannot depict to you my surprise at hearing him speak in this way. I thought years had weakened his reason; I smiled, and he shrugged his shoulders, and in a few days afterward I quitted the chateau to pay a visit to Paris. There I was thrown a great deal in literary society. Their example encouraged me, and I published several works, whose success I shall not weary you by describing. All Paris applauded me; the newspapers proclaimed my praises; the new name I had assumed became celebrated, and no later than yesterday, you, yourself, my young friend, admired me.'

A new gesture of surprise again interrupted his narrative: 'What! you are not the Duke de C – ?' I exclaimed.

'No,' said he very coldly.

'And,' I said to myself, 'a celebrated literary man! Is it Marmontel? or D'Alembert? or Voltaire?'

He sighed; a smile of regret and of contempt flitted over his lips, and he resumed his story: 'This literary reputation I had desired soon became insufficient for a soul as ardent as my own. I longed for nobler success, and I said to Juba, who had followed me to Paris, and who now remained with me: 'There is no real glory, no true fame, but that acquired in the profession of arms. What is a literary man? A poet? Nothing. But a great captain, a leader of an army! Ah! that's the destiny I desire; and for a great military reputation, I would give another ten years of my life.' 'I accept them,' Juba replied; 'I take them now; don't forget it.''

At this part of his story he stopped again, and, observing the trouble and hesitation visible in my every feature, he said:

'I warned you beforehand, young man, that you could not believe me; this seems a dream, a chimera to you!.. and to me, too!.. and yet the grades and the honors I obtained were no illusions; those soldiers I led to the cannon's mouth, those redoubts stormed, those flags won, those victories with which all France has rung … all that was my work … all that glory was mine.'…

While he strode up and down the room, and spoke with this warmth and enthusiasm, surprise chilled my blood, and I said to myself, 'Who can this gentleman be?.. Is he Coligny?.. Richelieu?.. the Marshal Saxe?'…

From this state of excitement he had fallen into great depression, and coming close to me, he said to me, with a sombre air:

'Juba spoke truly; and after a short time had passed away, disgusted with this vain bubble of military glory, I longed for the only thing real and satisfactory and permanent in this world; and when, at the cost of five or six years of life, I desired gold and wealth, Juba gave them too… Yes, my young friend, yes, I have seen fortune surpass all my desires; I became the lord of estates, of forests, of chateaux. Up to this morning they were all mine; if you don't believe me, if you don't believe Juba … wait … wait … he is coming … and you will see for yourself, with your own eyes, that what confounds your reason and mine, is unhappily but too real.'

He then walked toward the mantlepiece, looked at the clock, exhibited great alarm, and said to me in a whisper:

'This morning at daybreak I felt so depressed and weak I could scarcely get up. I rang for my servant. Juba came. 'What is the matter with me this morning?' I asked him. 'Master, nothing more than natural. The hour approaches, the moment draws near!' 'What hour? What moment?' 'Don't you remember? Heaven allotted sixty years as the term of your existence. You were thirty when I began to obey you!' 'Juba,' said I, seriously alarmed, 'are you in earnest?' 'Yes, master; in five years you have dissipated in glory twenty-five years of life. You gave them to me, they belong to me; and those years you bartered away shall now be added to the days I have to live.' 'What, was that the price of your services?' 'Others have paid more dearly for them. You have heard of Fabert: I protected him.' 'Silence! silence!' I said to him; 'you lie! you lie!' 'As you please; but get ready, you have only half an hour to live.' 'You are mocking me; you deceive me.' 'Not at all; make the calculation yourself. You have really lived thirty-five years; you have lost twenty-five years: total, sixty years.' He started to go out… I felt my strength diminishing; I felt my life waning away. 'Juba! Juba!' said I, 'give me a few hours, only a few hours,' I screamed; 'oh! give me a few hours longer!' 'No, no,' said he, 'that would be to diminish my own life, and I know better than you the value of life. There is no treasure in this world worth two hours' existence!' I could scarcely speak; my eyes became obscured by a thick veil, the icy hand of death began to freeze my veins. 'Oh!' said I, making an effort to speak, 'take back those estates for which I have sacrificed everything. Give me four hours longer, and I make you master of all my gold, of all my wealth, of all that opulence of fortune I have so earnestly desired.' 'Agreed: you have been a good master, and I am willing to do something for you; I consent to your prayer.' I felt my strength return; and I exclaimed: 'Four hours are so little … oh! Juba! … Juba … oh! Juba! give me yet four hours, and I renounce all my literary glory, all my works, everything that has placed me so high in the opinion of the world.' 'Four hours of life for that!' exclaimed the negro with contempt… 'That's a great deal; but never mind; you shan't say I refused your last dying request.' 'Oh! no! no! Juba, don't say my last dying request… Juba! Juba! I beg of you, give me until this evening, give me twelve hours, the whole day, and may my exploits, my victories, my military fame, my whole career be forever effaced from the memory of men!.. may nothing whatever remain of them!.. if you will give me this day, only to-day, Juba; and I shall be too well satisfied.' 'You abuse my generosity,' said he, 'and I am making a fool's bargain. But never mind, I give you until sundown. After that, ask me for nothing more. Don't forget, after sundown I shall come for you!'

'He went away,' added my companion, with a tone of despair I can never forget, 'and this is the last day of my life.' He then walked to the glazed door looking out on the park (it was open), and he exclaimed:

'Oh God! I shall see no more this beautiful sky, these green lawns, these sparkling waters; I shall never again breathe the balmy air of the spring! Madman that I was! I might have enjoyed for twenty-five years to come these blessings God has showered on all, blessings whose worth I knew not, and of which I am beginning to know the value. I have worn out my days, I have sacrificed my life for a vain chimera, for a sterile glory, which has not made me happy, and which died before me… See! see there!' said he, pointing to some peasants plodding their weary way homeward; 'what would I not give to share their labors and their poverty!.. But I have nothing to give, nothing to hope here below … nothing … not even misfortune!'… At this moment a sunbeam, a May sunbeam, lighted up his pale, haggard features; he took me by the arm with a sort of delirium, and said to me:

'See! oh see! how splendid is the sun!.. Oh! and I must leave all this!.. Oh! at the least let me enjoy it now… Let me taste to the full this pure and beautiful day … whose morrow I shall never see!'

He leaped into the park, and, before I could well comprehend what he was doing, he had disappeared down an alley. But, to speak truly, I could not have restrained him, even if I would… I had not now the strength; I fell back on the sofa, confounded, stunned, bewildered by all I had seen and heard. At length I arose and walked about the room to convince myself that I was awake, that I was not dreaming, that…

At this moment the door of the boudoir opened, and a servant announced:

'My master, Monsieur le Duc de C – .'

A gentleman some sixty years old and of a very aristocratic appearance came forward, and, taking me by the hand, begged my pardon for having kept me so long waiting.

'I was not at the chateau,' said he. 'I have just come from the town, where I have been to consult with the physicians about the health of the Count de C – , my younger brother.'

'Is he dangerously ill?'

'No, monsieur, thank Heaven, he is not; but in his youth visions of glory and of ambition had excited his imagination, and a grave fever, from which he has just recovered, and which came near proving fatal, has left his head in a state of delirium and insanity, which persuades him that he has only one day longer to live. That's his madness.'

Everything was explained to me now!

'Come, my young friend, now let us talk over your business; tell me what I can do for your advancement. We will go together to Versailles about the end of this month. I will present you at court.'

'I know how kind you are to me, duke, and I have come here to thank you for it.'

'What! have you renounced going to court, and to the advantages you may reckon on having there?'

'Yes.'

'But recollect, that aided by me, you will make a rapid progress, and that with a little assiduity and patience … say in ten years.'

'They would be ten years lost!'

'What!' exclaimed the duke with astonishment, 'is that purchasing too dearly glory, fortune, and fame?.. Silence, my young friend, we will go together to Versailles.'

'No, duke, I return to Brittany, and I beg you to accept my thanks and those of my family for your kindness.'

'You are mad!' said the duke.

But thinking over what I had heard and seen, I said to myself: 'You are the same!'

The next morning I turned my face homeward. With what pleasure I saw again my fine chateau de la Roche Bernard, the old trees of my park, and the beautiful sun of Brittany! I found again my vassals, my sisters, my mother, and happiness, which has never quitted me since, for eight days afterward I married Henrietta.

THE CHAINED RIVER

Home I love, I now must leave thee! Home I love, I now must goFar away, although it grieve me, through the valley, through the snow.By the night and through the valley, though the hail against us flies,Till we reach the frozen river – on its bank the foeman lies.Frozen river, mighty river! – wilt thou e'er again be freeFrom the fountain through the mountain, from the mountain to the sea.Yes; though Freedom's glorious river for a time be frozen fast,Still it cannot hold forever – Winter's reign will soon be past.Still it runs, although 'tis frozen – on beneath the icy plain,From the mountain to the ocean – free as thought, though held in chain.From the mountain to the ocean, from the ocean to the sky,Then in rainy drops returning – lo the ice-chains burst and fly!And the ice makes great the river. Breast the spring-flood if you dare!Rivers run though ice be o'er them – God and Freedom everywhere!

HOW THE WAR AFFECTS AMERICANS

At the outbreak of the present terrible civil war, the condition of the American people was apparently enviable beyond that of any other nation. We say apparently, because the seeds of the rebellion had long been germinating; and, to a philosophic eye, the great change destined to follow the rebellion was inevitable, though it was then impossible for human foresight to predict the steps by which that change would come. Unconscious of impending calamity, we were proud of our position and character as American citizens. We were free from oppressive taxation, and enjoyed unbounded liberty of speech and action. Revelling in the fertility of a virgin continent, unexampled in modern times for the facilities of cultivation and the richness of its return to human labor, it was a national characteristic to felicitate ourselves upon the general prosperity, and boastingly to compare our growing resources and our unlimited and almost spontaneous abundance, with the hard-earned and dearly purchased productions of other and more exhausted countries. Our population, swollen by streams of immigration from the crowded continents of the old world, has spread over the boundless plains of this, with amazing rapidity; and the physical improvements which have followed our wonderful expansion have been truly magical in their results, as shown by the decennial exhibits of the census, or presented in still more palpable form to the eye of the thoughtful and observant traveller. Since the fall of the Roman empire, no single government has possessed so magnificent a domain in the temperate regions of the globe; and certainly, no other people so numerous, intelligent, and powerful, has ever in any age of the world enjoyed the same unrestricted freedom in the pursuit of happiness: accordingly, none has ever exhibited the same extraordinary activity in enterprise, or equal success in the creation and accumulation of wealth. It was unfortunately true that our mighty energies were mostly employed in the production of physical results; and although our youthful, vigorous, and unrestricted efforts made these results truly marvellous, yet the moral and intellectual basis on which we built was not sufficiently broad and stable to sustain the vast superstructure of our prosperity. The foundations having been seriously disturbed, it becomes indispensable to look to their permanent security, whatever may be the temporary inconvenience arising from the necessary destruction of portions of the old fabric.

When the war began, the South was supplying the world with cotton – a staple which in modern times has become intimately connected with the physical well-being of the whole civilized world. At the same time, the Northwest was furnishing to all nations immense quantities of grain and animal food, her teeming fields presenting a sure resource against the uncertainty of seasons in those regions of the earth in which capital must supply the fertility which is still inexhaustible here. While such were the occupations of the South and the West, the North and East were advancing in the path of mechanical and commercial improvement, with a rapidity beyond all former example. Agricultural and manufacturing inventions were springing up, full grown, out of the teeming brain of the Yankees, and were fast altering the face of the world. New combinations of natural forces were appearing as the agents of the human will, and were multiplying the physical capacity of man in a ratio that seemed to know no bounds. Commercial enterprise kept pace with these magnificent creations, and never failed, with liberal and enlightened spirit, to avail itself of all the resources which industry produced or genius invented. Our tonnage surpassed that of the greatest nations; the skill of our shipbuilders was unsurpassed; and the courage, industry, and perseverance of our seamen were renowned all over the world. On every ocean and in every important harbor of the earth were daily visible the emblems of our national power and the evidences of our individual prosperity. But in one fatal moment, from a cause which was inherent in our moral and political condition, all this prodigious activity of thought and work was brought to a complete stand. Such a shock was never before experienced, because such a social and material momentum had never before been acquired by any nation, and then been arrested by so gigantic a calamity. It was as if the earth had been suddenly stopped on its axis, and all things on its surface had felt the destructive impulse of the centrifugal force.

War itself is, unhappily, no uncommon condition of mankind. Wars on a gigantic scale have often heretofore raged among the great nations, or even between sundered parts of the same people. It is not the magnitude of the present contest which constitutes its greatest peculiarity. It is rather the magnitude and importance of the interests it involves and the relations it sunders, which give it the tremendous significance it bears in the eyes of the world. Never has any war found the contending parties engaged in works of such world-wide and absorbing interest, as those which occupied both sections of our people at the commencement of this rebellion. No two people, connected by so many ties, enjoying such unlimited freedom of intercourse, so mutually dependent each upon the other, and occupying a country so utterly incapable of natural divisions, have ever been known to struggle with each other in so sanguinary a conflict. All the circumstances of the case have been unexampled in history. Accordingly the influence of the contest upon affairs on this continent, and indeed upon human affairs generally, has been great and disastrous in proportion to the magnitude of the peaceful works which have been suspended by it, and to the closeness of those brotherly relations which have heretofore existed between the contending parties, now violently broken, and perhaps forever destroyed.

Almost the entire industry and commerce of the United States have been diverted into new and unaccustomed channels. The most active and enterprising people in the world, in the midst of their varied occupations, suddenly find all the accustomed channels of business blocked up and the stream of their productions flowing back upon them in a disastrous flood, and stagnating in their workshops and storehouses. They are compelled to find new issues for their enterprise and to make a complete change in their habits and works. It is not merely in the cessation of all intercourse between the two vast sections, North and South, that this mighty transformation has taken place; but an equal alteration has been suddenly effected in the character of the business and the nature of the occupations which the people have heretofore pursued in the loyal States of the Union. Great branches of business, employing millions of capital, have been utterly annihilated or indefinitely suspended. Vast amounts of capital have been sunk and utterly lost in the deep gulf of separation which temporarily divides the States; or if they are ever to be recovered, it will be only after the storm shall have completely subsided, when some portions of the wrecks, which have been scattered in the fearful commotion, may be thrown safely on to the shores of reunion. It was anticipated, especially by the rebels themselves, that these incalculable losses, these tremendous shocks and sudden changes, would utterly overwhelm the North with ruin and tear her to pieces with faction and disorder. But this anticipation of accumulated disasters, in which the wish was father to the thought, has not been realized to any appreciable extent. The pecuniary losses have been in a great measure compensated by the immense demands of the war; and when faction has attempted to raise its head, it has been compelled to retire before the patriotic rebuke of the people. And although the vast expenditures of the war give present relief; by drawing largely on the resources of the future, yet the strength we acquire is none the less real or less effectual in overthrowing the rebellion.

But this sudden and grand emergency, with all its appalling concomitants of lives sacrificed, property destroyed, commercial disaster, and social derangement, has given a rare opportunity for the testing of our national character, and of our ability to meet and overcome the most tremendous difficulties and dangers. Perhaps the versatility of American genius and its ready adaptation to the new circumstances, are even more wonderful than any other exhibition made by our people in this great national crisis. There has never been any good reason to doubt the capacity of any portion of American citizens for warlike occupations, nor their possession of the moral qualities necessary to make them good soldiers. The long period of peace which has blessed our country, with the industrial, educational, and moral improvement produced by it, has rendered war justly distasteful to the Free States of the Union. They were slow to recognize the necessity for it; and nothing but the most solemn convictions of duty would have aroused them to the stern and unanimous determination with which they have entered on the present struggle. Swift would have been our degeneration, if the spirit of our fathers had already died out among us. But our history of less than a century since the Revolutionary war has fully maintained the self-reliant character of Americans and demonstrated their military abilities; and if the commercial and manufacturing populations of particular sections were supposed to have become somewhat enervated by long exemption from the labors and perils of war, it was certain that our large agricultural regions and especially our frontier settlements were peopled with men inured to toil and familiar with danger, constituting the best material for armies to be found in any country. Nor was it in fact true that any considerable portion of our people, even those drawn from the stores and workshops of the cities, had become so far deteriorated in vigor of body, or demoralized in spirit, as to be unfit for military service. The Southern leaders looked with scorn upon our volunteer army only until they encountered it in battle. They were then compelled to alter their preconceived opinions of the Yankee character, and to change their contempt, real or pretended, into respect, if not admiration. Even when superior numbers or better strategy enabled them to beat us, they have seldom failed to bear honorable testimony to the unflinching courage and endurance of our troops. Nor do we need the admissions of the enemy to establish this character for us; our own triumphs, on many glorious fields, are the best evidences of our ability in war, and of themselves sufficiently attest the valor and energy of our noble volunteers. In this aspect of the matter, we must not forget the peculiar character and constitution of our vast army. It is indeed worthy to be called the wonder of the world. It is virtually a voluntary association of the people for the purpose of putting down a gigantic rebellion and saving their own government from destruction. This is a social phenomenon never before known in history on a scale approaching the magnitude of our combinations – a phenomenon which could only take place in a popular government, where the unrestricted freedom of individual action promotes the virtues of personal independence, self-respect, and manly courage. Even the Southern people, fighting on their own soil, in a war which, though actually commenced by them, they now affect to consider wholly defensive – even they, with all their boasted unanimity, and with the fierce passions engendered by slavery, have been compelled to maintain their armies by a conscription of the most unexampled severity; while the loyal States, fighting solely for union and nationality – interests of the most general nature, and offering little of mere personal inducement – have so far escaped that necessity, and are now just preparing to resort to it. After all, it must be acknowledged by every just and generous mind, whether that of friend or foe, that there is a substratum of noble sentiment and manly impulses at the foundation of the Yankee character. The vast movements of the Northern people plainly show it. Their contributions for the support of soldiers' families and for the relief of the wounded and disabled, are upon a gigantic scale. They raise immense sums for the payment of bounties to volunteers, and thus, in every way, the burdens of the war are voluntarily assumed by the people, and to some extent distributed among them, so that every one may participate in the patriotic work. Nor is this large-hearted liberality confined solely to our own country. The sufferers in other lands, who have felt the disastrous effects of our great civil war, have not been forgotten. In the midst of a life-and-death struggle among ourselves, we have found time and means to assist in relieving their wants – an exhibition of liberality peculiar, and truly American in character.

Nor are these the only interesting features in the bearing of the American people at the present crisis. Perhaps a still more remarkable one is the entire devotion of the national energies – of intellect not less than of heart, of skill, not less than of capital – to the great purposes of the war. This was the necessary result of our free institutions; of our untrammelled pursuits; the mobility of our means and agencies of production; and the plastic character of all our creations. The amount of thought expended on this subject has been prodigious and incalculable. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to enumerate the ten thousand inventions and devices of all kinds which have been presented for the purpose of increasing the efficiency of weapons and of all the appliances of war, as well as for adding to the comfort and securing the health of the soldier. Every imaginable instrument of usefulness in any of the operations of the camp, or the march, or the field of battle, has been the subject of tentative ingenuity, such as none but Yankees could display. The musket, the carbine, the pistol, have been constructed upon numberless plans, apparently with every possible modification. The cartridge has been covered with copper, impervious to water, instead of paper, and has its own fulminate attached in various modes. Cannon shot and shells have been made in many new forms; and cannons themselves have been increased in calibre to an extraordinary size with proportionate efficiency, and have been constructed in various modes and forms never before conceived. The tent, the cot, the chest, the chair, the knife and fork, the stove and bakeoven, each and every one of them, have been touched by the transforming hand of homely genius, and have assumed a thousand unimaginable forms of usefulness and convenience. India rubber and every other available material have been made to perform new and appropriate parts in the general work. The result of all this unexampled activity and ingenuity has not yet been fully eliminated. It would require years of experience in war in order to bring American genius, as at present developed, to bear with all its extraordinary force on the mechanical details of the military art. Beyond doubt, numberless devices, among those presented, will prove to be utterly worthless; but many of them will certainly stand the test of experience, will be ultimately approved and adopted, and will remain as monuments of the enterprise and ingenuity aroused by the necessities of the country in this hour of its sad calamity.