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

“A. Dumas.”

We are only surprised at the audacity of M. Dumas, in giving publicity to such a note.

As a curious and not unnatural issue, growing out of the free appropriation of Italian treasure, by the French Republicans of the last century, we notice the fact, that a certain Signor Braschi, whose father, or grandfather, was a near connection of Pope Pius VI., has recently laid claim to some of the most valuable pictures in the Louvre. It appears from his representations – supported by voluminous documentary evidence – that these objects pertained to a certain villa near Rome, occupied at the time of the French invasion by the Braschi family.

Signor Braschi, in quality of heir, now claims the spoils, including some of the most brilliant works of the Paris gallery. He avows his willingness, however, to waive his rights, in consideration of a few millions of francs, to be paid within the year. We have a fear that the only reparation the Republic will bestow, will be the offer of an airy apartment in the Maison des Fous.

Keeping to Paris gossip, for want of any thing special in that way belonging to our own capital, we find this little half-incident chronicled in the French papers.

Ladies, it is known (or if not known may hence forth be known) traffic in the funds at the Paris Exchange, in a way that would utterly amaze our princesses of the salon. You do not indeed see them upon the marble floor of the stately Bourse itself, but at the hour of “the board,” you are very sure to see a great many luxurious-looking little carriages drawn up in the neighborhood, and a great many ladies, at that special hour, are particularly zealous in their admiration of the old paintings which the dealers behind the Exchange, offer “at a bargain.” Very quick-running footmen are also stirring, and report sales and offers to their mistresses with most commendable activity.

Among these outsiders, some Paris romancist has remarked lately a very elegantly-dressed lady, who, three times a week, drew up her phaeton opposite the doors of the Vaudeville Theatre (which all habitués will remember, is just opposite the Bourse). Chance passers imagined her to be some actress of the boards, and gazed at her accordingly. But it was observed that an “agent de change” made repeated visits to her little phaeton, and at the closing of the board our lady disappeared down the Rue Vivienne.

Upon a certain day – no matter when – the bystanders were startled by piercing shrieks issuing from the phaeton of “my lady,” and all ran, to prevent as they supposed, some terrible crime. Sympathy proved vain; and to the inquiries of the police the “man of business” only made phlegmatic reply, that the funds had fallen some ten per cent., and “my lady” was ruined.

Three days after, and the phaeton was a voiture de remise in the Rue Lepelletier. The coachman had negotiated the sale, but all tidings of “my lady” were lost.

Guinot, to whom we have been indebted again and again, has twisted out of his brain (we can not doubt it) this little happening of Paris life, which, if not true, is yet as characteristic of France as a revolution.

Two funerals, he says, on a certain day wended their course toward the cemetery of Père la Chaise. One bier bore the body of a man; the other, the body of a woman. The day was a sour November day – with the half-mist and half-frostiness that sometimes ushers in the Paris winter. The mourners were few – as mourners at Paris are generally few. Arrived within the gates, one cortège took the path leading to the right; the other turned to the left. The ceremonies being over, a single mourner only remained at each tomb.

At the grave of the lady lingered a man, apparently overcome with grief; at the grave of the man – a lady, who seemed equally overcome. Their adieus were lengthened at the graves until all the attendants had disappeared. By chance, the grief of the two parties seemed to show the same amount of persistent sorrow, and of lingering regard: thus it happened that in retracing their slow and saddened steps toward the main entrance, they met in the grand alley face to face. They exchanged a look of sorrow, and an exclamation of surprise.

“You, madame?”

“Vous, monsieur?”

“But this is very strange,” continued the gentleman, “is it not? We have met so rarely, since we broke our marriage contract ten years ago!”

“The chance which has led me here is a very sad one, monsieur,” and madame says it in very dolorous tones.

“It is as much for me; I have followed to the grave a person very dear to me.”

“Ah,” returns madame, “she is dead! I, too, have lost my dearest friend,” and she sobs.

“I beg you would accept, madame, my sincerest sympathy.”

“And you too, sir; believe me, my heart bleeds for you.”

Upon thus much of mournful interchange of grief, supervenes a silence – only broken by the low steps of the parties, and by occasional sobs of lament.

Guinot opens their conversation again thus:

Gentleman.– “Alas, existence seems to me very worthless – all is dark!”

Lady.– “Ah, what must it be for me, then?”

Gentleman.– “How can I ever replace her fondness?”

Lady.– “To whom can I confide my griefs?”

Gentleman.– “What home will now receive me?”

Lady.– “Upon whose arm can I lean?”

In such humor our racy feuilletonist traces their walk and conversation along the parterres of that Paris garden of death; at the gate he dismisses one of the two carriages which attend them; he crowns their mutual offices of consolation with a happy reunion – never to be broken – till one shall be again a mourner, and the other a tenant of the tomb.

Thus, says he, grief moralizes; and wise resolutions ride at an easy gallop, into broken hearts!

And thus, we say, French ingenuity makes every hearse the carrier of a romance; and seasons the deepest woe with the piquancy of an intrigue!

Yet another story is swimming in our ink-stand; and with a gracious lift of the pen we shall stretch it upon our sheet.

At Viterbo, which, as every one ought to know, lies within the Italian confines, lived once a poor peasant, with a poor, but pretty daughter, whose name was Marianne. She had not the silks of our ladies, or the refinements, so called, of fashion. She wore a rough peasant robe, and watched her father’s kids as they wandered upon the olive-shaded slopes of Viterbo.

At Viterbo lived a youth whose name was Carlo. Carlo was prone to ramble; and albeit of higher family than the peasant’s daughter, he saw and loved, and wooed and won the pretty Marianne. They were betrothed in the hearing only of the drowsy tinkle of the bells that hung upon the necks of the kids, over which Marianne was shepherdess. To marry they were afraid. He feared the anger of his father; and she feared to desert the cottage of her mother.

Carlo, swearing devotion, went away to Rome and became an advocate. The revolution stirred the stolid Romans, and Carlo enlisted under Garibaldi. After a series of fights and of escapes, Carlo found himself in five years from his parting with the pretty peasantess of Viterbo, a refugee, in the Café de France, which stands behind the Palais Royal at Paris. Lamenting over his broken fortunes, and mourning for his poor Italy, he sauntered, upon a certain day, into the Garden of Plants, upon the further side of the Seine. It is a place where the neighboring world go to breathe the air of woods, and to relieve the stifling atmosphere of the city, with the openness and freedom of Nature. (In parenthesis, let us ask, when shall New York civilization reach such a kind provision for life?)

Carlo wandered, dejected, sad, musing of bitterness, when his eye fell upon a face that seemed familiar. It was the face of a lady – in Parisian costume, with a Parisian air – but very like to the pretty peasantess of Viterbo. He followed her – met her – accosted her; there was no mistaking her frighted look of recognition. She was distant and cool – for the fates had bound her fortunes to those of a Parisian bourgeois, and she was the wife of the very respectable Monsieur Bovin. Carlo was neither cool nor distant: for grief had cast him down, and now first, hope blessed him with a shadow of the joys that were gone. Madame Bovin’s distance wore off under the impassioned addresses of the poor refugee, and again and again Carlo found his way to the Jardin des Plantes.

Finally (alas for Paris virtue!) the household of the respectable Monsieur Bovin, was, upon a certain morning, deserted; only a little note of poor French told the disconsolate husband, that the pretty Marianne could no longer subdue her new kindled love for her Italian home, and had gone back to the hills of Viterbo.

The sorrowing husband, though he could not purchase content, could yet purchase the services of the police. Through them, he tracked the runaway lovers to the borders of France. Thereafter the search was vain.

But, alas, for poor Carlo, he was recognized by the myrmidons of the powers that be, thrown into a dungeon, and report tells a story of his death.

As for the pretty peasant, Marianne, she wandered forlorn to her father’s home; but the father’s home was gone; and now, for menial hire – in her peasant dress (in place of the Paris robes) and with a saddened heart – she watches the kids, upon the olive-shaded slopes of Viterbo!

EDITOR'S DRAWER

We are at the beginning of another year; a season in which all pause, and “take note of time” – time, the vehicle that carries every thing into nothing. “We talk,” says a quaint English author, “of spending our time, as if it were so much interest of a perpetual annuity; whereas, we are all living upon our capital; and he who wastes a single day, throws away that which can never be recalled or recovered:

‘Our moments fly apace,Nor will our minutes stay;Just like a flood our hasty daysAre sweeping us away!’”

It is well to think of these things, standing upon the verge of a new year. But let us not trouble the reader with a prolonged homily.

Every body will remember the missionary at one of the Cannibal Islands, who asked one of the natives if he had ever known a certain predecessor of his upon the island, who had labored in the moral vineyard there? “Yes, we know him well – we ate a part of him.” Now, the “piece of a cold missionary on the sideboard for a morning lunch,” of which the witty Sydney Smith made mention, is scarcely a less objectionable dish, on the score of the material, than the chief feature of a repast, held, according to a French journal, not a thousand miles from the Ascot race-course, in England:

“At the recent races at Ascot the famous horse Tiberius broke his leg, by bounding against one of the posts of the barrier, while preparing for the race. His owner, the Lord Millbank, lost ten thousand pounds in betting upon his noble steed, besides his value, and others also lost very heavily: the law, of course, being that all bets should be paid whether the failure to win came from the less speed or from accident.

“Three days afterward, Lord Millbank gave a very sumptuous dinner. The most distinguished of the English peerage were present, and the conviviality ran exceedingly high. Toward the close, the noble host rose in his place, and proposed an oblation to the health of the departed Tiberius.

“The toast was clamorously received, but the speaker remained standing with his glass in his hand.

“‘We drink to Tiberius,’ said Milord Millbank, when the shouts had subsided; ‘to Tiberius the most beautiful, the most admirable, the most spirited courser whose hoofs ever trod upon our glorious British turf!’

“Shouts again resounded to the roof in vehement peals.

“‘You know,’ continued his lordship, ‘the achievements of this horse. His deeds belong to history. Fame has taken charge of his glory. But it belongs to me, and to you, my lords and gentlemen, to do honor to his mortal remains! I wished that this lofty courser should have a burial worthy of his great, his immortal deservings. He has had it, my lords and gentlemen, he has had it! My cook has fitly prepared him, and you have feasted upon him to-day! Yes, my lords and gentlemen, this repast which you have relished so keenly – these dishes which awakened the so frequent inquiry, ‘What animal could be so delicious?’ – that animal, my lords and gentlemen, was Tiberius! It is that noble courser whose mortal remains now repose in your stomachs! May your digestions be light!’

“At these words the enthusiasm concentrated for a moment – possibly with some vague thought of an immediate resurrection – but with a sudden outburst of ‘Hurrahs!’ the sentiment took the turn of sublimity, and another glowing bumper was sent to join the departed courser in his metempsychosis.”

The English papers sometimes get off telling jokes against their neighbors across the Channel, but seldom any thing better than this. Besides, how thoroughly French it is, both in the conception and execution! Its origin could never be mistaken.

We put on record, in these holiday-times of imbibition, these warning stanzas, to guard the reader alike against cause and effect:

“My head with ceaseless pain is torn,Fast flow the tear-drops from my eyeI curse the day I e’er was born,And wish to lay me down and die;Bursts from my heart the frequent sigh,It checks the utterance of my tongue;But why complain of silence? – why,When all I speak is rash and wrong?“The untasted cup before me lies —What care I for its sparkle now?Before me other objects rise,I know not why – I know not how.My weary limbs beneath me bow.All useless is my unstrung hand:Why does this weight o’ershade my brow?Why doth my every vein expand?“What rends my head with racking pain?Why through my heart do sorrows pass?Why flow my tears like scalding rain?Why look my eyes like molten brass?And why from yonder brimming glassOf wine untasted have I shrunk?’Cause I can’t lift it – for, alas!I’m so pre-pos-ter-ous-ly drunk!”

The vagaries of the insane are sometimes amusing to witness; and not unfrequently there is a “method in their madness” that would not be amiss in those who are on the outside of lunatic asylums. Many years ago in Philadelphia, a patient in the insane asylum of that city fancied himself to be the Redeemer of the world; and his talk and actions were always in keeping with the character, save that he exacted a rigid deference to his person and his divinely-derived power. But one day another patient arrived, whose idiosyncrasy it was, that he was the Supreme Being. A little while after his entrance into the institution, he met in one of the halls, as he was passing, the imagined representative of the Son; who, not liking his bearing, reminded him who he was: “Yes, you are the Son, but know from this time henceforth, that you have seen the Father, and must obey him!” “And strange enough,” said the keeper of the institution to the friend who gives us the particulars, “from that day forward, all power was given unto the latter; and at length the fancied Son’s ‘air-drawn’ vision melted away, and he left the establishment a perfectly sane man.”

Some twelve or fifteen years ago there was in the lunatic asylum at Worcester, Massachusetts, a kind of crazy David Crockett, who fancied that he could do any thing that could be done, and a little more. One day a good many visitors were walking slowly through the halls, examining them, and occasionally saying a word or two to the patients. After a very courteous reception of a gentleman, who mentioned that he had come from South Carolina, the crazy man interrupted him abruptly with:

“Have you felt any of my earthquakes down there lately?”

One of the visitors replied: “No, we’ve had nothing of the kind, where I live.”

“I thought so! I knew it!” returned the patient, frowning. “I have an enemy. Ice! Ice! Why, I ordered one of my very best earthquakes for your part of the country! It was to have ripped up the earth, and sent the Mississippi into the Gulf of Mexico. Look here!” he continued, pointing to a crack in the plastering, “that’s one of my earthquakes! What do you think of that? I’ve got more orders for earthquakes than I can attend to in a year. I’ve got four coming off, up north this afternoon – two in Vermont!”

That was a good story that was told of an occurrence which took place in a stage-coach one morning many years ago in the western part of this State. A young, conceited fellow, who had been monopolizing almost all the conversation of the company, consisting of some sixteen passengers, had been narrating the wonderful exploits he had performed, the prodigies of valor of which he had been the hero, and the wonderful escapes of which he had been the subject. At least he related one adventure in which he was the principal actor, which was so perfectly astounding, that a low whistle of incredulity was a simultaneous demonstration on the part of the passengers. An old gentleman, with a solemn visage, and an ivory-headed cane, sitting in the back corner of the stage, here observed:

“That last adventure of yours, my young friend, is a very extraordinary one —very extraordinary. One could hardly believe it without having seen it. I didn’t see it; but I can relate a circumstance which happened in my family, and in which I was for a time deeply interested, which is almost as remarkable, and I believe quite as true. Will you hear it?”

“Certainly,” said our braggadocio; “I should be very glad to hear it.”

“Give it to us! give it to us!” echoed the whole company, getting an inkling, from the solemn phiz of the old gentleman, that something rich was in the wind.

“Well, sir,” continued the narrator, “the circumstance to which I alluded is this: My father had three children. He had an only brother, who had also three children. My grandfather had left to my father and my uncle a large estate, in the executorship of which a quarrel broke out, which grew more and more bitter, until at length the aid of the law was invoked, and many years of violent litigation ensued, during all which time the costs of the proceedings were gradually eating up the estate. My father and uncle saw this, and though bitter enemies, they had too much sense to bite each his own nose off. They were chivalrous and brave men, almost as much, probably, as yourself, sir (addressing the daring young gentleman aforesaid), and they determined to ‘fight it out among themselves,’ as the saying is, and thus keep the money in the family. Well, sir, my father made this proposition to my uncle; to wit: that the three sons of each, in the order of their age, should settle the disputed question on the field of honor; the majority of the survivors to decide the affirmative. It was readily acceded to. My eldest brother went out, on the appointed day, and at the first fire he fell dead upon the turf. My next eldest brother took his station at once, and at the second fire, shot my next eldest cousin through the lungs, and he never drew a whole breath afterward.”

Here the old gentleman’s emotion was so great that he paused a moment, as if to collect himself. Presently he proceeded:

“It now became my turn to take the stand; and upon me rested the hopes of my family. I can truly say, that it was not so much fear that made my hand tremble and my pistol to waver: it was the deep sense of responsibility that rested upon me. We took our places – a simultaneous discharge was a moment after heard – and, and – ”

Here the narrator put his handkerchief to his face, and seemed to shake with irrepressible agitation.

“Well, sir,” exclaimed our young Munchausen who had listened to the narrative with almost breathless attention, “well, sir – well? – what was the result? How did it end?”

“I was shot dead the first fire!” replied the old gentleman; “the property passed into the hands of my uncle and his family; and my surviving brother has been poor as a rat ever since!”

An uproarious laugh, that fairly shook the coach, told “Braggadocio” that he had been slightly “taken in and done for” after a manner entirely his own.

This anecdote will not be lost upon bored listeners to those who shoot with the long bow, or in other words, stretch a fact until they have made it as long as they want it. We have somewhere heard of a man at a dinner-party who was determined not to be outdone in this but too common species of archery. Some one present had been engaged in attracting the attention of the company to an account of a pike that he had caught the day before that weighed nineteen pounds! “Pooh!” exclaimed a gentleman sitting near him, “that is nothing to the one I caught last week, which weighed twenty-six pounds.” “Confound it!” whispered the first fisherman to his neighbor, “I wish I could catch my pike again; I’d add ten pounds to him directly!”

There is something more than mere good measures in the following lines. There is a satire upon Love and Mammon, when the deep affections of the heart reach a greater depth in the pocket:

“Dear friend, I’m glad to meet you here,But scarce know what to say,For such an angel I have seenAt your mamma’s to-day!Of fairer form than Venus, whenShe trod the Grecian shore;And then such splendid hair and eyesI never saw before.“Her air and manners were divine,Above all petty arts;Oh, surely she was formed to reignThe peerless Queen of Hearts.Dear Bob, we have been college friends,And friendship’s still the same;Now only tell me who she is —Oblige me with her name.“‘Fine hair and eyes!’ – ‘the Queen of Hearts!’Who can she be? – oh, yes!I know her now – why, Frederick, that’sMy sister’s governess!’Your sister’s governess!! – IndeedI thought it might be so;She looks genteel – but still there isAbout her something low!”

It is not a little amusing, or it would be if it were not rather a serious matter oftentimes, to hear a surgeon who loves his profession talk with another of the “splendid fungus” which he had recently removed, or the “beautiful case of amputation of both arms at the shoulder,” which he had just witnessed. A fair travesty of this is afforded in the letter purporting to come from an apothecary in the country to a friend in London, wherein, among other things, he wrote: “My patients are rather select than numerous, but I think the red lamp and brass plate may attract a few. I had a glorious case of dislocation of the shoulder last week, and nearly pulled the fellow in half with the assistance of two or three bricklayers who were building next door. The other doctor tried first, and couldn’t reduce it, because he had no bricklayers at hand. This has got my name up, rather. They are terrible Goths down here though. You can scarcely conceive the extent of their ignorance. Not one in twenty can read or write; and so all my dispensing-labels which I tie on the bottles are quite thrown away. A small female toddled into the surgery the other day, and horrified me by drawling out:

“‘If you please, sir, mother’s took the lotion, and rubbed her leg with the mixture!’

“This might have been serious, for the lotion contained a trifle of poison; but Jack and I started off directly; and as it happened very luckily to be washing-day, we drenched the stupefied woman with soap-suds and pearl-ash, until every thing was thrown off from the stomach, including, I suspect, a quantity of the lining membrane. This taught me the lesson, that a medical man should always have his instruments in order; for if Jack had not borrowed my stomach-pump to squirt at the cats with, a good deal of bother might have been avoided. But he is a clever fellow at heart, and would do any thing for me. He quite lived on the ice during the frost, tripping every body up he came near; and whether he injured them seriously or not, I know the will was good, and was therefore much obliged to him!”

It would be a curious thing, if they could be traced out, to ascertain the origin of half the quaint old sayings and maxims that have come down to the present time from unknown generations. Who, for example, was “Dick,” who had the odd-looking “hat-band,” and who has so long been the synonym or representative of oddly-acting people? Who knows any thing authentic of the leanness of “Job’s turkey,” who has so many followers in the ranks of humanity? Scores of other sayings there are, concerning which the same, or similar questions might be asked. Who ever knew, until comparatively late years, what was the origin of the cautionary saying, “Mind your P’s and Q’s?” A modern antiquarian, however, has put the world right in relation to that saying: In ale-houses, in the olden time, when chalk “scores” were marked upon the wall, or behind the door of the tap-room, it was customary to put the initials “P” and “Q” at the head of every man’s account, to show the number of “pints” and “quarts” for which he was in arrears; and we may presume many a friendly rustic to have tapped his neighbor on the shoulder, when he was indulging too freely in his potations, and to have exclaimed, as he pointed to the chalk-score, “Mind your P’s and Q’s, man! mind your P’s and Q’s!” The same writer, from whom we glean this information, mentions an amusing anecdote in connection with it, which had its origin in London, at the time a “Learned Pig” was attracting the attention of half the town. A theatrical wag, who attended the porcine performances, maliciously set before the four-legged actor some peas– a temptation which the animal could not resist, and which immediately occasioned him to lose the “cue” given him by the showman. The pig-exhibitor remonstrated with the author of the mischief, on the unfairness of what he had done; to which he replied: “I only wanted to ascertain whether the pig knew his ‘peas’ from his ‘cues!’”