The Continental Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 2, February, 1862

At the first glimpse of morning I bore her carefully to the side of the sleeping children, and, after replacing in the casket its contents, sped to the house of the physician whom I have previously mentioned, and, leaving word for immediate attendance, hastened back, and resumed my watch. Oh! in the dawn how pallid and sunken the features which I had so often seen flushed and full with the animation of life and genius! Evelyn woke and smiled peacefully on me, but lay as if still exhausted with weariness. The physician came. He was already aware that my wife had been engaged in her profession, though ignorant of the objects which had induced her to it. I informed him of my apprehensions. Conducting him to Evelyn, I excused his presence by stating my fear that she might require his advice after her excitement and fatigue. With skillful caution he observed her, and in conversation elicited the statement that some months since she had been ill from exposure. She had recovered, she said, and was entirely well, except that occasionally slight exertion prostrated her. Even while she spoke the monitor was continually making itself heard.

I drew him to the other apartment, and in a hoarse whisper said,—'Well, your verdict;—but I know it already from your countenance.'

'If you were wealthy,' he replied—

'Wealthy! I am rich—rich,' I interrupted him. 'Look!' (with this I opened the casket, and run my fingers through the glittering contents, like a miser through his coin.) 'Tell me what wealth can do, and these shall do it. To gain these she has imperiled life. Let them restore it if they can.'

I saw suspicion on his countenance. 'It is false,' I exclaimed, 'false! I tell you she is as pure as heaven. It was for me that she earned all these.' And I dashed them on the floor and ground them under my feet.

He seized me and was weeping. 'You are mad,' he said. 'I believe you. Now I understand all. Do not delay. Take her to Italy, and may Heaven preserve her to you.'

In a week's time we were on our voyage, accompanied by the children and the physician—the latter professing to Evelyn that he desired to make the tour of Europe. My own apology for the voyage was a wish to complete the tour previously interrupted.

The passage was long and tedious. Before reaching our destination my hopes of Evelyn's recovery had vanished. Her demeanor was so gentle, childlike and affectionate, my heart was wrung with anguish. I could not break her sweet serenity by disclosing the fate which was impending. She seemed to have reached a period of the most holy and perfect satisfaction. All the suppressed bitterness of former years—all the earnest resolution of the later time—had vanished, and she rested happy in the enjoyment of our mutual love. This quiet assisted the process of destruction. Had there been something to rouse her old energy, I am confident she would have made a desperate, perhaps successful, struggle for life. But I could not force myself to excite it by a warning against the insidious destroyer.

On our arrival she was in a deplorable condition of weakness. She imputed this debility to the voyage. Day by day I saw the flame of life dwindling, but she was unsuspicious, and only wondered that her recovery was so slow. Once, as she was watching, in a half-declining position, the setting sun, and talking of the happy days to come, I could contain myself no longer, but burst forth into a frenzy of sobbing.

'Evelyn,' I said, 'you are dying. You know it not, but, oh God, it is true. You are dying before me, and I can not save you. Perhaps it is too late for you to save yourself.'

At first she supposed that my emotion was only the undue result of anxiety for her, but as I grew calmer, and told her more precisely my meaning, and the causes of my fears, she said, with something of her old firmness,—

'If this be true, let me become fully convinced. Call in Dr. –, and leave me alone with him. I have not thought of dying, but should have known that my present happiness was too exquisite to last.'

I sent in the doctor, and he told her all. What passed between us, on my return, is too sacred for relation. It is enough that the bitterness of that hour filled all the capacity of the human heart for anguish and despair. Afterwards we became more reconciled to the dispositions of Heaven.

The history of her gradual decline need not be related—the hopes, the suspense, the disappointments—the reviving indications of health, the increasing symptoms of fatal disease—the flush and brilliancy as of exuberant vitality—the fading of all the hues of life—all the vicissitudes of the unrelenting progress of decay—one after another, resolving themselves into the lineaments of death.

It was indeed too late.

Frank still remained in Florence, but had discarded the society of his bachelor friends for that of the young lady previously mentioned, who was now entitled to call him husband.

Soon after our arrival I called upon him, announced Evelyn's illness, with its hopeless character. The young man was shocked. He had never thought of disease or death in connection with Evelyn. Who could? Besides, I could read in his face a horror mixed with thankfulness at the escape, as his memory recalled the madness which would have urged to guilt, her who was about to leave the scenes of earthly passion. I invited him to return with me. He did so, and I left him alone with Evelyn. I knew that his presence would now give her no shock.

What passed between them I never heard; but it was not beyond conjecture. The method of his regard for her subsequently, fully revealed it. It was the most lofty and refined feeling of which humanity is capable—the worship of the artist—the friendship of the man.

Well,—the last scene arrived. We knew that the time had come. It was, as she had hoped, at sunset. She gazed long at the changing splendors of the western sky. 'Such,' she said, 'is death. Life merely revolves away from us, but the soul still shines the same upon another sphere. The faith that invests death with terror is a false one. We pass from one world to another—drop one style of existence for a higher. We enter on a life in which may be realized all which here we have vainly sought for. The soul-longings shall all be there fulfilled. Come soon—all of you. I shall be waiting you. There love and friendship—unsullied and unruffled—without passion or misconception—will give perpetual happiness.'

And so she passed away. This is the tenth anniversary of her death. We bore hither all that was left of her to us, and Frank's chisel has marked her resting place. Her children are beside her, and I wait impatiently the time when I may enter with them on that existence where the budding affections of earth shall blossom into immortal enjoyment.

As Mr. Bell ceased his narrative, I pressed his hand, and without words departed.

About noon next day the rumor circulated through the streets that he was dead. I hastened to his house, and learned that it was true. He had been found at a late hour of the morning lying on his bed, dressed as I had left him. Physicians made an examination of the corpse, and attributed the cause to apoplexy. I did not lament him, for I knew his spirit was in the embrace of the loved ones who went before him.

SELF-RELIANCE

When the eaglets' tender wings are feathered  The old eagles crowd them from the nest;Down they flutter till their plumes have gathered  Strength to lift them to the granite crest  Of the hills their eldest sires possessed.When the one cub of the lordly lions  Strikes the earth and shakes his bristling mane,Forth they lash him, though he growl defiance,  O'er the sand-waste to pursue his gain,—  Shaggy Nimrod of the desert plain!Still the eagles watch out from the eyrie  On the mountains, their young heirs to screen;The old lions on the hot sand-prairie,—  If some peril track their cub,—unseen,  Stealthier than the Bedouin, glide between.So the noblest of earth's creatures noble  Are cast forth to find their way alone,So our manhood, in its day of trouble,  Is but crowded from the sheltering zone  And broad love-wings, to achieve its throne.We are left to battle, not forsaken,  Watched in secret by our awful Sire;Left to conquer, lest our spirits weaken,  And forget to wrestle and aspire,  Finding all things prompter than desire.He hath hid the everlasting presence  Of his Godhead from the world he made,Veiled his incommunicable essence  In thick darkness of thick clouds arrayed,  On our bold search flashing through the shade.We are gods in veritable seeming  When we struggle for our vacant thrones,But are earthlings beyond God's redeeming  While we lean, and creep, and beg in moans,  And base kneeling cramps our knitted bones.Strength is given us, and a field for labor,  Boundless vigor and a boundless field;Not to eat the harvests of our neighbor,  But our own fate's reaping-hook to wield—  Gathering only what our lands may yield;If perchance it may be wheat or darnel,  Bitter herbs to medicine a wrong,Stinging thistles round a haunted charnel,  Or rich wines to make us glad and strong,—  Fitting fruits that to each mood belong.While such power and scope to us are given,  Who shall bind us to the triumph-carOf some victor soul, before us driven,  Earlier hero in the work and war,  Him to mimic, humbly and afar?No! we will not stoop, and fawn and follow;  There are victories for our hands to win,Rocks to rive, and stubborn glebes to mellow,  Outward trials leagued to foes within;  Earth and self to purify from sin.No! our spirits shall not cringe and grovel,  Stooping lowly to a low thoughts door,As if Heaven were straitened to a hovel,  All its star-worlds set to rise no more,  And our genius had no wings to soar.Truths bequeathed us are for lures to action;  Not for grave-stones fane and altar stand,Tempting men to wait the resurrection  Of old prophets from their sunsets grand,—  Rather mile-stones towards the Promised Land,Gird your mantles and bind on your sandals,  Each man marching by his own birth-star;God will crown us when those glimmering candles  Swell to suns as forth we track them far,—  Suns that bear our throne and victory-bannered car!

THE HUGUENOT FAMILIES IN AMERICA

The celebrated 'Edict of Nantes' was, to speak accurately, a new confirmation of former treaties between the French government and the Protestants, or Huguenots—in fact, a royal act of indemnity for all past offences. The verdicts against the 'Reformed' were annulled and erased from the rolls of the Superior Courts, and to them unlimited liberty of conscience was recognized as a right. This important and solemn Edict marked for France the close of the Middle Ages, and the true commencement of modern times; it was sealed with the great seal of green wax, to testify its irrevocable and perpetual character. In signing this great document, Henry IV. completely triumphed over the usages of the Middle Ages, and the illustrious monarch wished nothing less than to grant to the 'Reformed' all the civil and religious rights which had been refused them by their enemies. For the first time France raised itself above religious parties. Still, a state policy so new could not fail to excite the clamors of the more violent, and the hatred of factions. The sovereign, however, remained firm. 'I have enacted the Edict,' said Henry to the Parliament of Paris,—'I wish it to be observed. My will must serve as the reason why. I am king. I speak to you as king.—I will be obeyed.' To the clergy he said, 'My predecessors have given you good words, but I, with my gray jacket,—I will give you good deeds. I am all gray on the outside, but I'm all gold within.' Praise to those noble sentiments, peace was maintained in the realm; the honor of which alone belongs to Henry IV.

In the first half of the seventeenth century, there could be counted in France more than eight hundred Reformed churches, with sixty-two Conferences. Such was the prosperity and powerful organization of the Protestant party until the fall of La Rochelle, which was emphatically called the citadel of 'the Reform.' This misfortune terminated the religious wars of France. The Huguenots, now excluded from the employment of the civil service and the court, became the industrial arms of the kingdom. They cultivated the fine lands of the Cevennes, the vineyards of Guienne, the cloths of Caen. In their hands were almost entirely the maritime trade of Normandy, with the silks and taffetas of Lyons, and, from even the testimony of their enemies, they combined with industry, frugality, integrity all those commercial virtues, which were hallowed by earnest love of religion and a constant fear of God. The vast plains which they owned in Bearn waved with bounteous harvests. Languedoc, so long devastated by civil wars, was raised from ruin by their untiring industry. In the diocese of Nimes was the valley of Vannage, renowned for its rich vegetation. Here the Huguenots had more than sixty churches or 'temples,' and they called this region 'Little Canaan.' Esperon, a lofty summit of the Cevennes, filled with sparkling springs and delicious wild flowers, was known as 'Hort-dieu' the garden of the Lord.

The Protestant party in France did not confine themselves to manufactures and commerce, but entered largely into the liberal pursuits. Many of the 'Reformed' distinguished themselves as physicians, advocates and writers, contributing largely to the literary glory of the age of Louis XIV. In all the principal cities of the kingdom, the Huguenots maintained colleges, the most flourishing of which were those at Orange, Caen, Bergeracs and Nimes, etc. etc. To the Huguenot gentlemen, in the reign of Louis XIII. and Louis XIV., France was indebted for her most brilliant victories. Marshal Rantzan, brave and devoted, received no less than sixty wounds, lost an arm, a leg, and an eye, his heart alone remaining untouched, amidst his many battles. Need we add the names of Turenne, one of the greatest tacticians of his day, with Schomberg, who, in the language of Madame de Sevigne, 'was a hero also,' or glorious Duquesne, the conqueror of De Ruyter? He beat the Spaniards and English by sea, bombarded Genoa and Algiers, spreading terror among the bold corsairs of the Barbary States; the Moslemin termed him 'The old French captain who had wedded the sea, and whom the angel of death had forgotten.' All these were illustrious leaders, with crowds of distinguished officers, and belonged to the Reformed religion. Wonderful and strange to relate, in the midst of all this national happiness and prosperity, the kingdom of France was again to appear before the world as the persecutor of her best citizens, the destroyer of her own vital interests. The Edict of Nantes was revoked on 22d October, 1685. It is not our purpose to name the causes of this suicidal policy, as they are indelibly written on the pages of our world's history, nor shall we point to the well-known provisions of this insane and bloody act. In a word, Protestant worship was abolished throughout France, under the penalty of arrest, with the confiscation of goods. Huguenot ministers were to quit the kingdom in a fortnight. Protestant schools were closed, and the laity were forbidden to follow their clergy, under severe and fatal penalties. All the strict laws concerning heretics were again renewed. But, in spite of all these enactments, dangers and opposition, the Huguenots began to leave France by thousands.

Many entreated the court, but in vain, for permission to withdraw themselves from France. This favor was only granted to the Marshal de Schomberg and the Marquis de Ruoigny, on condition of their retiring to Portugal and England. Admiral Duquesne, then aged eighty, was strongly urged by the king to change his religion. 'During sixty years,' said the old hero, showing his gray hairs,' I have rendered unto Cæsar the things which I owe to Cæsar; permit me now, sire, to render unto God the thing which I owe to God.' He was permitted to end his days in his native land. The provisions of the Edict were carried out with inflexible rigor. In the month of June, 1686, more than six hundred of the Reformed could be counted in the galleys at Marseilles, and nearly as many in those of Toulon, and the most of them condemned by the decision of a single marshal (de Mortieval). Fortunately for the refugees, the guards along the coast did not at all times faithfully execute the royal orders, but often aided the escape of the fugitives. Nor were the, land frontiers more faithfully guarded. In our day, it is impossible to state the correct numbers of the Protestant emigration. Assuming that one hundred thousand Protestants were distributed among twenty millions of Roman Catholics, we think it safe to calculate that from two hundred and fifty to three hundred thousand, during fifteen years, expatriated themselves from France. Sismondi estimates their number at three or four hundred thousand. Reaching London, Amsterdam or Berlin, the refugees were received with open purses and arms, and England, America, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Prussia, and Holland, all profited by this wholesale proscription of Frenchmen. All agree that these Protestant emigrants were among the bravest, the most industrious, loyal and pious in the kingdom of France, and that they carried with them the arts by which they had enriched their own land, and abundantly repaid the hospitality of those countries which afforded them that asylum denied them in their own.

The influence which the Huguenot refugees especially exerted upon trade and manufactures in those countries where they settled, was very striking and lasting. England and Holland, of all other nations, owe gratitude to the Protestants of France for the various branches of industry introduced by them, and which have greatly contributed in making their 'merchants princes,' and, their 'traffickers the honorable of the earth.' We refer to these nations particularly, because they are so intimately connected with the colonization of our own favored land. The Huguenot refugees in England introduced the silk factories in Spitalfields, using looms like those of Lyons and of Tours. They also commenced the manufacture of fine linen, calicoes, sail-cloth, tapestries, and paper, most of which had before been imported from France. It has been estimated that these refugees thus brought into Great Britain a trade which deprived France of an annual income of nearly ten millions of dollars. Science, arms, jurisprudence and literature, were also advanced by their arrival. The first newspaper in Ireland was published by the Pastor Droz, a refugee, who also founded a library in Dublin. Thelluson (Lord Redlesham), a brave soldier in the Peninsular war, General Ligonier, General Prevost of the British army, Sir Samuel Romilly, Majendie, Bishop of Chester, Henry Layard, the excavator of Nineveh, all are the descendants of the French Huguenots. Saurin secured the reputation of his powerful eloquence at the Hague; but in the French Church, Threadneedle street, London, he reached the summit of his splendid pulpit eloquence. Most of the Huguenots who fled to England for an asylum were natives of Normandy, Brittany, Picardy, and Guienne. Their numbers at the revocation may be calculated at eighty thousand. Hume estimates them at fifty thousand, another writer at seventy thousand, but we believe these calculations are too low. In 1676, the communicants of the Protestant French Church at Canterbury reached not less than twenty-five hundred. Of all the services of the Huguenots to England, none was more important than the energetic support to the Prince of Orange against James II. The Prince employed no less than seven hundred and thirty-six French officers, brave men who had been learned to conquer under the banner of Turenne and Condi. Schomberg was the hero at the battle of Boyne. One of his standards bore a BIBLE, supported on three swords, with the motto—'Ie maintiendray.' The gallant old man, now eighty-two years of age, fell mortally wounded, but triumphing, and with his dying eyes he saw the soldiers of James vanquished, and dispersed in headlong flight. Ruoigny, in the same battle, received a mortal wound, and, covered with blood, before the advancing French refugee regiments, cheered them on, crying, 'Onward, my lads, to glory! onward to glory!'

In England, the French Protestants long remained as a distinct people, preserving in a good degree a nationality of their own, but in the lapse of years this disappeared. One hardly knows in our day where to find a genuine Saxon,—'pure English undefiled,'—for the Huguenot blood circulates beneath many a well-known patronymic. Who would imagine that anything French could be traced in the colorless names of White and Black, or the authoritative ones of King and Masters? Still it is a well-known fact that such names, at the close of the last century, delighted in the designations of Leblanck (White), Lenoir (Black), Loiseau (Bird), Lejeune (Young), Le Tonnellier (Cooper), Lemaitre (Master), Leroy (King). These names were thus translated into good strong Saxon, the owners becoming one with the English in feeling, language, and religion. Holland, too, glorious Protestant Holland! the fatherland of American myriads, welcomed the fugitive Huguenots. From the beginning of the Middle Ages that noble land had been a hospitable home for the persecuted from all parts of Europe. During the last twenty years of the seventeenth century, the French emigration into that country became a political event. Amsterdam granted to all citizenship, with freemen's privilege of trade, and exemption of taxes for three years; and all the other towns of that nation rivalled each other in the same liberal and Christian spirit. In the single year of the revocation, more than two hundred and fifty Huguenot preachers reached the free soil of the United Provinces. Pensions were allowed to them, the married receiving four hundred florins, those in celibacy two hundred. The Prince of Orange attached two French preachers to his person, with many French officers to his army against James II.—thanks to the generous Princess of Orange, who selected several Huguenot dames as ladies of honor. One house at Harlaem was exclusively reserved for young ladies of noble birth. At the Hague, an ancient convent of preaching monks was changed into an asylum for the persecuted ladies. Of all lands which received the refugees, none witnessed such crowds as the Republic of Holland; and hence Boyle called it 'the grand arch of the refugees.' No documents exactly compute their number; one author calculates it at fifty-five thousand, and another, in 1686, at nearly seventy-five thousand souls. In the Dutch Republic and Germany, as was the result in England, the Huguenots exercised a most powerful influence on politics, literature, war, and religion, and industry and commerce. Holland, contrary to the general expectation, outlived the invasion of 1672, the Prince of Orange fortunately checking the designs of Louis XIV. Refugee soldiers had powerfully contributed to the triumph of his cause in England, Scotland, and Ireland, and then they followed him, with valor, in the war against Louis XIV., which compelled that monarch to sue for peace.

Literary men and preachers obtained repose and liberty in that land, with consideration and honor. Amsterdam alone received sixteen banished refugee ministers; and more than two hundred spread themselves through all the towns of the United Provinces. Very eloquent French pastors filled the pulpits of the Hague, Rotterdam, Leyden, and Harlaem. Their most brilliant orator was James Saurin. Abbaddié, hearing him for the first time, exclaimed, 'Is this a man or an angel, who is speaking to us?' Let us dwell a moment upon the character of this wonderful man. By the elevation of his thoughts and brilliancy of imagination, his luminous expositions, purity of style, with vigor of expression, he produced the most profound impression on the refugees and others who crowded to hear his varied eloquence. What charmed them most was the union in his style of Genevese zeal and earnestness with southern ardor, and especially those solemn prayers, with which he loved to close his discourses. Saurin displayed in these petitions strains of supplication which up to this time among the Hollanders had never been observed in any other preacher.

All the branches of human learning were advanced in Holland by the Protestant Frenchmen. Here no fetters on genius, no secret censorship or persecution, existed. The boldest democratic theories, with the most daring philosophic systems, were freely discussed, and the refugees promoted this spirit of investigation. They also increased the commerce and manufactures and agriculture of the Netherlands, and rendered Amsterdam one of the most famous cities of the world. Like the ancient city of Tyre, which the prophet named the 'perfection of beauty,' her merchant princes traded with all islands and nations. Macpherson, in his Annals of Commerce, estimates the annual loss to France, caused by the refugees establishing themselves in England and Holland, was not less than 3,582,000 pounds sterling, or about ninety millions of francs. Until the close of the eighteenth century, the descendants of the Huguenots in Holland were united among themselves, by intermarriage and the bonds of mutual sympathies. But in time a fusion with the Dutch became inevitable. Then, in Holland, as was the case with England and Germany, many refugees, abjuring their nationality, changed their French names into Dutch. The Leblancs called themselves De Witt,—the Deschamps, Van de Velde,—the Dubois, Van den Bosch,—the Chevaliers, Ruyter,—the Legrands, De Groot, etc. etc. With the change of names, Huguenot churches began to disappear, so that out of sixty-two which could be counted among the seven provinces in 1688, eleven only now remain,—among them those at Hague, Amsterdam, Leyden, Utrecht, Rotterdam, and Groningen. These are the last monuments of the Huguenot emigration to Holland, and a certain number of families preserve some sentiment of nationality, who consider themselves honored by their French, noble, Protestant origin, while at the same time they are united by patriotic affection to their newly adopted country.