Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol IV. No. XX. January, 1852.

Thus, though Thiers has many admirers, he has few friends. His changes have been so sudden and unexpected on many occasions, that few care to trust him. He is not a man to be depended upon. He has been a republican and a monarchist by turns: who knows but to-morrow he may be a Red? It all depends on how the wind blows! This is what they say of M. Thiers. The nobles regard him as a parvenu; the republicans stigmatize him as a renegade. The monarchists think of him as a waiter on Providence.

M. Cormenin (Timon), in his Livre des Orateurs, has drawn a portrait of Thiers with a pencil of caustic. Perhaps it is too severe; but many say it is just. In that masterly sketch, Cormenin says – “Principles make revolutions and revolutionists. Principles found monarchies, aristocracies, republics, parliaments. Principles are morals and religion, peace and war. Principles govern the world. In truth, M. Thiers affirms that there are no principles, that is to say, M. Thiers has none. That is all.”

LIFE AND DEATH

BY REV. CHARLES KINGSLEY, AUTHOR OF “ALTON LOCKE,” “YEAST,” ETC

God gives life, not only to us who have immortal souls, but to every thing on the face of the earth; for the psalm has been talking all through not only of men, but of beasts, fishes, trees, and rivers, and rocks, sun, and moon. Now, all these things have a life in them. Not a life like ours; but still you speak rightly and wisely when you say, “That tree is alive, and that tree is dead. That running water is live water; it is clear and fresh; but if it is kept standing it begins to putrefy; its life is gone from it, and a sort of death comes over it, and makes it foul, and unwholesome, and unfit to drink.” This is a deep matter, this, how there is a sort of life in every thing, even to the stones under our feet. I do not mean, of course, that stones can think as our life makes us do, or feel as the beasts’ life makes them do; or even grow as the trees’ life makes them do; but I mean that their life keeps them as they are, without changing. You hear miners and quarrymen talk very truly of the live rock. That stone, they say, was cut out of the live rock, meaning the rock as it was under ground, sound and hard; as it would be, for aught we know, to the end of time, unless it was taken out of the ground, out of the place where God’s Spirit meant it to be, and brought up to the open air and the rain, in which it is not its nature to be; and then you will see that the life of the stone begins to pass from it bit by bit, that it crumbles and peels away, and, in short, decays, and is turned again to its dust. Its organization, as it is called, or life, ends, and then – what? Does the stone lie forever useless? No. And there is the great, blessed mystery of how God’s Spirit is always bringing life out of death. When the stone is decayed and crumbled down to dust and clay, it makes soil. This very soil here, which you plow, is the decayed ruins of ancient hills; the clay which you dig up in the fields was once part of some slate or granite mountains, which were worn away by weather and water, that they might become fruitful earth. Wonderful! But any one who has studied these things can tell you they are true. Any one who has ever lived in mountainous countries ought to have seen the thing happen – ought to know that the land in the mountain valleys is made at first, and kept rich year by year by the washings from the hills above; and this is the reason why land left dry by rivers and by the sea is generally so rich. Then what becomes of the soil? It begins a new life. The roots of the plants take it up; the salts which they find in it – the staple, as we call them – go to make leaves and seed; the very sand has its use; it feeds the stocks of corn and grass, and makes them stiff. The corn-stalks would never stand upright if they could not get sand from the soil. So what a thousand years ago made part of a mountain, now makes part of a wheat plant; and in a year more the wheat grain will have been eaten, and the wheat straw, perhaps, eaten too, and they will have died– decayed in the bodies of the animals who have eaten them, and then they will begin a third new life – they will be turned into parts of the animal’s body – of a man’s body. So what is now your bones and flesh may have been once a rock on some hill-side a hundred miles away.

A BLACK EAGLE IN A BAD WAY

Austria, in this present year of grace, 1851, looks to me very much like a translated version of England under the Stuarts.

I am a resident at Vienna, and know Austria pretty well. I have seen many birds before now in a sickly state – have seen some absolutely rotting away – but I never saw one with such unpromising symptoms upon him as the Black Eagle of Austria.

The Court of Vienna is perhaps the most brilliant in Europe; the whole social system in Vienna is perhaps the most thoroughly unsound in Europe. Austria is weighed down by a numerous and impoverished nobility, by unjust taxes, and by a currency incredibly depreciated. Her commerce is hampered by all manner of monopolies, and is involved in such a complex network of restrictions, as only the industrious, gold-getting fingers of a few can unravel. Nearly the whole trade of Austria is in the hands of this busy, persevering few. Out of the immediate circle of the government, there is scarcely a satisfied man in the Austrian dominions. The nobles feel abridgment of their privileges, and decrease of profit by the abolition of their feudal rights, succeeding the late revolution. The merchants feel that in Austria they suffer more vexatious interference than it is in the nature of man to bear quietly. The people, a naturally good-humored race, have learned insensibly to clench their fists whenever they think of their absolute and paternal government.

The position of the nobles is ridiculous. They swarm over the land; increase and multiply, and starve. Not more than a few dozen of them can live honestly without employment; while not one of the noble millions may exercise a trade for bread; may practice law or medicine, or sink down into authorship. The Austrian patrician can not feed himself by marriage with a merchant’s daughter; if he do, his household will not be acknowledged by his noble friends. The he-noble must marry the she-noble, and they must make a miserable, mean, hungry, noble pair.

A celebrated Viennese Professor dined one day in England with a learned lord. “Pray, how is Baron Dash?” inquired a guest – said Baron Dash being at that time an Austrian Minister.

“He is quite well,” said the Professor.

“And his wife!” pursued the other. “I remember meeting her at Rome; they were just married, and she was a most delightful person. She created a sensation, no doubt, when she was received at your court?”

“She was not received at all,” said the Professor.

“How was that?” asked many voices.

“Because she is not born.”

“Not born” is the customary mode of ignoring (if I may use a slang word of this time) the existence of the vulgar, among the noble Viennese. At the present moment, the family of a Minister, or of any of the generals who have saved the throne, may be excluded from society on this pretense. Two recent exceptions have been made in favor of the wives of two of the most important people in the empire. They were invited to the court-balls; but were there treated so scurvily by the “born” ladies, that these unborn women visited them only once.

What is to be done by these poor nobles – shut out from commerce, law, and physic? Diplomacy is voted low; unless they get the great embassies. The church, as in all Catholic countries, is low; unless a nobleman should enter it with certain prospect of a cardinal’s hat or a bishopric. The best bishoprics in the world (meaning, of course, the most luxurious) are Austrian. The revenues of the Primate of Hungary are said to be worth the comfortable trifle of sixty thousand pounds a year.

But there remains for these wretched nobles, one road to independence and distinction; and this is the army. To the army, it may be said, the whole body of the Austrian nobility belongs. The more fortunate, that is to say, the highest in rank, add to their commissions places about the court. Cherished titles are acquired in this way; and a lady may insist on being seriously addressed in polite Austrian society as – say for example, Frau-ober-consistorial-hof-Directorinn.

In the army, of course, under such a system, we see lieutenants with the hair gone from their heads, and generals with no hair come yet on their chins. A young man of family may get a captaincy in three months, which his neighbor without patronage, might not get if he lived forever. Commissions are not sold in Austria as they are in England, but the Ministry of War knows how to respond to proper influence. In an army of five hundred thousand, vacancies, it is needless to say constantly occur. The lad who is named cornet in Hungary, is presently lieutenant of a regiment in Italy, and by-and-by a captain in Croatia. After that, he may awake some morning, major, with the place of aid-de-camp to the Emperor; and to such a boy, with friends to back him, the army is decidedly a good profession. The inferior officers are miserably paid, an ensign having little more than thirty pounds a year. A captain, however, is well paid in allowances, if not in money; while a colonel has forage for twelve horses, and very good contingencies besides. Again, there are to be considered other very important differences between pay in the Austrian and pay in the English army. An Austrian can live upon his pay. His simple uniform is not costly; he is free from mess expenses, and may dine for six-pence at the tavern favored by his comrades. Not being allowed at any time to lay aside his uniform, he can not run up a long tailor’s bill; and, being admitted to the best society, he need not spend much money on amusement. Besides, does not the state accord to him the privilege of going to the theatre for twopence?

The poorer officers in the Austrian service are so unreasonable and ill-conditioned, that they are not in general pleased by these advantages being given to men, who may possibly be well born, but who have certainly not been long born; and in many places combinations have been made to resist the unfair system of promotion. A young captain sent down to command gray-beards, with a lively sense of their own claims on the vacancy, is now and then required to fight, one after the other, the whole series of senior lieutenants. This causes a juvenile captain occasionally to shirk the visit to his regiment, and effect a prompt exchange.

Some part of the last-named difficulty is overcome by the existence of one or two corps of officers who have no regiment at all. Where there are no men to murmur, the business of promotion is carried on with perfect comfort.

In spite of all this, there is much to be said to the credit and honor of the innumerable throng of people forming the Austrian army. It is an excellently appointed and well-disciplined multitude. The gallantry of its soldiers, and the skill and experience of many of its highest officers, must be freely admitted. Then, too, the great number of nobles classed within it has at least had the good effect of creating a high standard of artificial honor. The fellow-feeling among Austrian soldiers is also great; those of the same rank accost each other with the “Du,” the household word of German conversation; and the common word for an old companion in arms is “Duty-bruder.”

Duels are frequent, but not often fatal, or even dangerous. To take the nib from an adversary’s nose, or to pare a small rind from his ear, is ample vengeance even for the blood-thirsty.

An Austrian officer who has received a blow, though only in an accidental scuffle, is called upon to quit his regiment, unless he has slain upon the spot the owner of the sacrilegious hand that struck him. This he is authorized by law to do, if struck while wearing uniform. The effect of this savage custom has been to produce in Austrian officers a peculiar meekness and forbearance; to keep them always watchful against quarrels with civilians; and to make them socially the quietest gentlemen in the world.

Last winter a fast English gent left a masked ball at the Redoute, intoxicated. Disarming a sentry, he ensconced himself until morning in his box. The gent was then forwarded to the frontier, but the soldier was flogged for not having shot him.

Freedom from arrest for debt is an immunity enjoyed by Austrian officers; but those who indulge too freely in their exemption from responsibility, may want defenders powerful enough to prevent their summary dismissal from the service.

I have written thus much about the Austrian army, because, in fact, as the world here now stands, every third man is or has been a soldier; and one can not talk about society in this empire without beginning at once to talk about its military aspect.

Gay and trifling as the metropolis is, with its abundance of out-door amusement, Vienna must be put down in plain words as the most inhospitable capital in Europe. The Austrians themselves admit that they could not endure to be received abroad as they are in the habit of receiving strangers here. The greater Austrian nobles never receive a stranger to their intimacy.

A late French embassador, who conducted his establishment with splendor, and was at all times profusely hospitable, used to say that he was not once asked privately to dinner during the whole period of his residence in Vienna. The diplomatic corps do not succeed in forcing the close barriers of Austrian exclusiveness; and twenty years of residence will not entitle a stranger to feel that he has made himself familiarly the friend of a single Austrian. Any one who has lived among the higher classes in Vienna will confirm my statement, and will recall with astonishment the somewhat indignant testimony of the oldest and most respected members of the corps diplomatique to the inhospitable way in which their friendly overtures have been received. Invitations to dinner are exceedingly rare; there are brilliant balls; but these do not satisfy an English longing for good-fellowship. Familiar visits and free social intercourse do not exist at all. Then there are the two great divisions of society – or the nobles and the merchant Jews; on one side poverty and pride; on the other, wealth and intellect. The ugliest and most illiterate of pauper-countesses would consider her glove soiled by contact with the rosy fingers of the fairest and most accomplished among bankers’ wives. The nobles so intermarrying and so looking down contemptuously upon the brain and sinew of the land, have, as a matter of course, degenerated into colorless morsels of humanity. How long they can remain uppermost is for themselves to calculate, if they can; it is enough for us who see good wine at the bottom, and lees at the top, to know that there must be a settlement impending.

For the inhospitality of Viennese society there is one sufficient reason; it springs out of the dread of espionage. In this city of Vienna alone there are said to be four hundred police spies, varying in rank between an archduke and a waiter. Letters are not safe; writing-desks are not sacred. An office for opening letters exists in the post-office. Upon the slightest suspicion or curiosity, seals have impressions taken from them, the wax is melted over a jet of flame, the letters are read, and, if necessary, copied, re-sealed, and delivered. Wafers are of course moistened by steam. You can not prevent this espionage, but it can be detected (supposing that to be any consolation) if you seal with wax over a wafer. One consequence of the melting and steaming practices of the Austrian post-office is especially afflicting to merchants; – bills come sometimes to be presented, while the letters containing advice of them lie detained by the authorities; acceptance, in the absence of advice, being refused.

From the surveillance of the police officials, perhaps not a house in Vienna is free. The man whom you invited as a friend, and who is dancing with your wife, may be a spy. You can not tell; and for this reason people in Vienna – naturally warm and sociable – close their doors upon familiarity, and are made freezingly inhospitable. Yet this grand machine of espionage leaves crime at liberty. Although murder is rare, or at least rare of discovery (there is a Todschauer, or inspector of deaths, but no coroner’s inquest), unpunished forgeries and robberies of the most shameless kind outrage society continually. Many of the more distant provinces are infested by gangs of organized banditti; who will ride, during broad daylight, into a country gentleman’s courtyard; invite themselves to dinner, take away his property, and insist on a ransom for himself if he has no wish to see his house in flames. When met by troops these bands of thieves are often strong enough to offer battle.

But, although the Austrian police can not protect Austrian subjects, it can annoy not only them, but foreigners besides. The English are extremely liable to suffer. One Englishman, only the other day, was ordered to the frontier for a quarrel with his landlady; another, for keeping bad society; another, for hissing a piece of music; three, for being suspected of political intrigue; two for being newspaper reporters. The French have lately come in for their share of police attentions; and we have lost, from the same cause, the company of two Americans. Among the Austrians themselves, the very name of the police is a word of terror. By their hearths they dare barely whisper matter that would be harmless enough elsewhere, but dangerous here, if falling upon a policeman’s ears.

Recently there was a poem published which professed to draw a parallel between a monarchy and a republic. Of course it was an orthodox and an almost rabid glorification of “sound” absolutist principles. The poet sent a copy to an Austrian noble; who, opening it carelessly, and immediately noticing the word “republic,” handed the book back to a servant, with a shudder, and a note to the author acknowledging its receipt, and wondering that the poet “should have thought him (the noble) capable of encouraging republican principles!” This note scarified the feelings of the rhymer intensely. He hurried off to exculpate himself and explain the real aim of his book. He did this, and, of course, his book was bought.

This is the state of Austria in 1851. Men of all grades look anxiously to France; well knowing that the events in Paris next year, if they lead to outbreak, will be felt in Vienna instantly. Yet Strauss delights the dancers, and the military bands play their “Hoch Lebe” round the throne. The nobles scorn the merchants and the men of letters; who return the noble scorn with a contemptuous pity. The murmur of the populace is heard below; but still we have the gayest capital in all the world. We throng the places of amusement. Dissipation occupies our minds and shuts out graver thought. Verily, Charles Stuart might be reigning in this capital.

THE POTTER OF TOURS

Among the choicest works of art contributed to the Great Industrial Exhibition by our French neighbors, were some enameled earthernware vases of remarkably fine workmanship, and particularly worthy of attention for their grotesque yet graceful decorations. These vases had, however, a still higher claim to distinction than that arising from their own intrinsic value, for they were the workmanship of one who may truly be ranked among “nature’s nobles,” although by birth and station owning no greater title than that of “Charles Avisseau, the potter of Tours.”

A worthy successor of Bernard Palissy, he has, like him, achieved the highest success in his art, in spite of difficulties which would have caused most other men to yield despairingly before what they would have deemed their untoward fate. Charles Avisseau was born at Tours on Christmas-day, in the year 1796. His father was a stone-cutter, but whenever labor was slack in that department, he sought additional occupation in a neighboring pottery. While still a child, he used frequently to accompany his father to the factory. His eager attention was quickly attracted by the delicate workmanship of the painters in enamel, and before long he attempted to imitate their designs. The master of the factory observed some flowers and butterflies which he had sketched on a coarse earthernware vase, and at once perceiving that he gave promise of being a good workman, he engaged him in the service of the factory.

The boy now began to feel himself a man, and entered with his whole soul into his work. By the dim and uncertain light of the one lamp around which the Avisseau family gathered in the long winter evenings, Charles would spend hour after hour in tracing out new designs for the earthernware he was to paint on the morrow. He was at first too poor to purchase either pencil or paper, and used to manufacture from clay the best substitute he could for the former, while he generally employed the walls of the apartment as a substitute for the latter. He applied himself indefatigably to the study of every branch of his art – the different varieties of earths, the methods of baking them, the mode of producing various enamels, &c. – until, after some years of patient labor in the humble situation he had first occupied, he was offered the post of superintendent of the manufactory of fine porcelain at Beaumont-les-Hôtels. He was still, however, but a poor man; and, having married very young, was struggling with family cares and the trials of penury, when one day there fell into his hands an old enameled earthenware vase, which filled him with a transport of astonishment and delight. This was the chef-d’œuvre he had so often dreamed of, and longed to accomplish; the colors were fired on the ware without the aid of the white glaze, and the effect was exquisite.

“Whose work is this masterpiece?” inquired the young man.

“That of Bernard Palissy,” was the reply; “a humble potter by birth. He lived at Saintes three centuries ago, and carried with him to the grave the secret of the means by which his beautiful enamels were produced.”

“Well, then,” thought Avisseau, “I will rediscover this great secret. If he was a potter like me, why should not I become an artist like him?”

From that hour forward he devoted himself with the most unwearying perseverance to his great pursuit. He passed whole nights over the furnace; and although ignorant of chemistry, and destitute of resources, instruments, or books, he tried one experiment after another, in hopes of at length attaining the much-desired object. His neighbors called him a madman and a fool; his wife, too gentle to complain, often looked on with sad and anxious eye as she saw their scanty resources diminishing day by day – wasted, as she conceived, in vain and fruitless experiments. All his hopes seemed doomed to disappointment, and destitution stared him in the face; yet one more trial he determined to make, although that one he promised should be the last. With the utmost care he blended the materials of his recomposed enamel, and applied them to the ware, previous to placing it in the oven. But who can describe the deep anxiety of the ensuing hour, the hour on which the fondly-cherished hopes of a lifetime seemed to hang? At length with beating heart and trembling hand he opened the furnace; his ware was duly baked, and the colors of his enamel had undergone no change! This was a sufficient reward for all his labors; and even to this day Avisseau can never speak of that moment without the deepest emotion.

But this was not a mind to rest contented with what he had already achieved: he longed still further to perfect his art. He accordingly gave up his situation in the factory, and opened a shop in Tours, where he earned his livelihood by selling little earthernware figures, ornaments for churches, &c., while he passed his nights in study and in making renewed experiments. He borrowed treatises on chemistry, botany, and mineralogy; studied plants, insects, and reptiles; and succeeded at last in composing a series of colors which were all fusible at the same temperature. One more step remained to be achieved: he wished to introduce gold among his enamel; but, alas! he was a poor man, too poor to buy even the smallest piece of that precious metal. For many a weary day and night this thought troubled him. Let us transport ourselves for a few moments to the interior of his lowly dwelling, and see how this difficulty too was overcome. It is a winter’s evening; two men – Charles Avisseau and his son – are seated at a table in the centre of the room; they have worked hard all day, but are not the less intent upon their present occupation – that of moulding a vase of graceful and classic form. Under their direction, two young sisters are engaged in tracing the veins upon some vine-leaves which had recently been modeled by the artists; while the mother of the family, seated by the chimney-corner, is employed in grinding the colors for her husband’s enamels. Her countenance expresses a peaceful gravity, although every now and then she might be perceived to direct an anxious and inquiring glance toward her goodman, who seemed to be this evening even more than usually pensive. At last he exclaimed, more as if speaking to himself than addressing his observation to others: