Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 333, July 1843

"Yet you may believe that the landscape was not among my principal contemplations at the moment, though my eyes involuntarily turned on the town; where, from the blazes springing up in various quarters, I concluded that a general pillage had begun. That pillage was the order of the day much nearer to me, I could fully conceive, from the opening and shutting of doors, and the general tumult immediately under the leads where I stood. "Situation, gentlemen," said the old general, smiling, "is something, but circumstances are necessary to make it valuable. There never was a finer night for an investigation of the stars, if I had been an astronomer; and I dare say that the spot which formed my position would have been capital for an observatory; but the torches which danced up and down through the old and very dingy casements of the mansion, were a matter of much more curious remark to me than if I had discovered a new constellation.

"At length I was chased even out of this spot—my door had been found out. I have too much gallantry left to suppose that my Breton had betrayed me; though a dagger at her heart and a purse in her hand might be powerful arguments against saving the life of an old soldier who had reached his grand climacteric. At all events, as I saw torch after torch rising along the roofs, I moved into the darkness.

"I had here a new adventure. I saw a feeble light gleaming through the roof. An incautious step brought me upon a skylight, and I went through; my fall, however, being deadened by bursting my way through the canopy of a bed. I had fallen into the hospital of the chateau. A old Beguine was reading her breviary in an adjoining room. She rushed in with a scream. But those women are so much accustomed to casualties that I had no sooner acquainted her with the reasons of my flight, than she offered to assist my escape. She had been for some days in attendance on a sick servant. She led me down to the entrance of a subterranean communication between the mansion and the river, one of the old works which had probably been of serious service in the days when every chateau in the West was a fortress. The boat which had brought her from the convent was at the mouth of the subterranean; there, the Loire was open. If you ask, why I did not prefer throwing myself before the pursuers, and dying like a soldier, my reason was, that I should have been numbered merely among those who had fallen obscurely in the various skirmishes of the country; and besides, that if I escaped, I should have one chance more of preserving the province.

"But, at the moment when I thought myself most secure, I was in reality in the greatest peril. The Loire had long since broken into the work, which had probably never seen a mason since the wars of the League. I had made no calculation for this, and I had descended but a few steps, when I found my feet in water. I went on, however, till it reached my sword-belt. I then thought it time to pause; but just then, I heard a shout at the top of the passage—on the other hand I felt that the tide was rushing in, and to stay where I was would be impossible. The perplexity of that quarter of an hour would satisfy me for my whole life. I pretend to no philosophy, and have never desired to die before my time. But it was absolutely not so much the dread of finishing my career, as of the manner in which it must be finished there, which made the desperate anxiety of a struggle which I would not undergo again for the throne of the Mogul. Still, even with the roar of the water on one side, and of the rabble on the other, I had some presentiment that I should yet live to hang some of my pursuers. At all events I determined not to give my body to be torn to pieces by savages, and my name to be branded as a runaway and a poltron."

A strong suffusion overspread the veteran's face as he pronounced the words; he was evidently overcome by the possibility of the stigma.

"I have never spoken of this night before," said he, "and I allude to it even now, merely to tell this English gentleman and his friends how groundless would be the conception that the soldiers and nobles of an unfortunate country made their escape, before they had both suffered and done a good deal. My condition was probably not more trying than that of thousands less accustomed to meet difficulties than the officers of France: and I can assure him, that no country is more capable of a bold endurance of evils, or a chivalric attachment to a cause."

I gave my full belief to a proposition in which I had already full faith, and of which the brave and intelligent old man before me was so stately an example.

"But I must not detain you," said he, "any longer with an adventure which had not the common merit of a Boulevard spectacle; for it ended in neither the blowing up of a castle, nor, as you may perceive, the fall of the principal performer. As the tide rushed up through the works, I, of course receded, until at length I was caught sight of by the rabble. They poured down, and were now within a hundred yards of me, while I could not move. At that moment a strong light flashed along the cavern from the river, and I discovered for the first time that it too was not above a hundred yards from me. I had been a good swimmer in early life: I plunged in, soon reached the stream, and found that the light came from one of the boats that fish the Loire at night, and which had accidentally moored in front of my den. I got on board; the fisherman carried me to the other side; I made my way across the country, reached one of my garrisons, found the troops, fortunately, indignant at the treatment which the king's colours had received; marched at the head of two thousand men by daybreak, and by noon was in the Grande Place of Nantz; proceeded to try a dozen of the ringleaders of the riot, who had not been merely rebels, but robbers and murderers; and amid the acclamations of the honest citizens, gave them over to the fate which villains in every country deserve, and which is the only remedy for rebellion in any. But my example was not followed; its style did not please the ministers whom our king had been compelled to choose by the voice of the Palais Royal; and as his majesty would not consent to bring me to the scaffold for doing my duty, he compromised the matter, by an order to travel for a year, and a passport for England."

"Toutes les belles dames sont, plus ou moins, coquettes," says that gayest of all old gentlemen, the Prince de Ligne, who loved every body, amused every body, and laughed at every body. It is not for me to dispute the authority of one who contrived to charm, at once, the imperial severity of Maria Theresa and the imperial pride of Catharine; to baffle the keen investigation of the keenest of mankind, the eccentric Kaunitz; and rival the profusion of the most magnifique and oriental of all prime ministers, Potemkin.

Mariamne was a "belle dame," and a remarkably pretty one. She was therefore intitled to all the privileges of prettiness; and, it must be acknowledged, that she enjoyed them to a very animated extent. In the curious memoirs of French private life, from Plessis Les Tours down to St Evremond and Marmontel—and certainly—more amusing and dexterous dissections of human nature, at least as it is in France, never existed—our cooler countrymen often wonder at the strange attachments, subsisting for half a century between the old, who were nothing but simple fireside friends after all; and even between the old and the young. The story of Ninon and her Abbé—the unfortunate relationship, and the unfortunate catastrophe excepted—was the story of hundreds or thousands in every city of France fifty years ago. It arises from the vividness of the national mind, the quick susceptibility to being pleased, and the natural return which the heart makes in gratitude. If it sometimes led to error—it was the more to be regretted. But I do not touch on such views.

As the Jew's daughter had been rendered by her late adventure all but the affianced bride of Lafontaine, she immediately assumed all the rights of a bride, treated her slave as slaves are treated every where, received his friends at her villa with animation, and opened her heart to them all, from the old general downwards, even to me. I never had seen a creature so joyous, with all her soul so speaking on her lips, and all her happiness so sparkling in her eyes. She was the most restless, too, of human beings; but it was the restlessness of a glow of enjoyment, of a bird in the first sunshine, of a butterfly in the first glitter of its wings. She was now continually forming some party, some ingenious surprise of pleasure, some little sportive excursion, some half theatric scene, to keep all our hearts and eyes as much alive as her own. Lafontaine obviously did not like all this; and some keen encounters of their wits took place, on the pleasure which, as he averred, "she took in all society but his own."

"If the charge be true," said she one day, "why am I in fault? It is so natural to try to be happy."

"But, to be happy without me, Mariamne."

"Ah, what an impossibility!" laughed the little foreigner.

"But, to receive the attentions even of the general, old enough to have married your grandmother."

"Well, does it not show his taste, even in your own opinion, to follow your example, and admire what you tell me you worship?"

"You are changed; you are a girouette, Mariamne."

"Well, nothing in the world is so melancholy as one who lets all the world pass by it, without a thought, a feeling, or a wish. One might as well be one of the pictures in the Louvre, pretty and charming, and gazed at by all the passers-by, without a glance for any of them, in return. I have no kind of envy for being a mummy, covered with cloth of gold, and standing in a niche of cedar, yet with all its sensations vanished some thousand years ago."

"Was this the language you held to me when first we met, Mariamne?"

"Was this the language you held to me, when first we met, Charles? But I shall lose my spirits if I talk to you. What a sweet evening! What a delicious breeze! Bon soir!" And forth she went, tripping it among the beds of flowers like a sylph, followed by Lafontaine, moody and miserable, yet unable to resist the spell. Of those scenes I saw a hundred, regularly ending in the same conclusion; the lady always, as ladies ought, gaining the day, and the gentleman vexed, yet vanquished. But evil days were at hand; many a trial more severe than the pretty arguments of lovers awaited them; and Lafontaine was to prove himself a hero in more senses than one, before they met again.

It happened, that I was somewhat a favourite with Mariamne. Yet I was the only one of whom Lafontaine never exhibited a suspicion. His nature was chivalrous, the rencounter between us he regarded as in the strongest degree a pledge of brotherhood; and he allowed me to bask in the full sunshine of his fair one's smiles, without a thought of my intercepting one of their beams. In fact, he almost formally gave his wild bird into my charge. Accordingly, whenever he was called to London, which was not unfrequently the case, as the business of the emigrants with Government grew more serious, I was her chosen companion; and as she delighted in galloping over the hills and vales of Sussex, I was honoured by being her chief equerry; she repaying the service by acting as my cicerone.

"Come," said she one day, at the end of an excursion, or rather a race of some miles along the shore, which put our blood-horses in a foam, "have you ever seen Les Interieurs?"

"No."

"I saw you," she remarked, "admiring the Duchesse de Saint Alainville at our little ball the other night."

"It was impossible to refuse admiration. She is the noblest looking woman I ever saw."

"One of the noblest, sir, if you please. But, as I disdain the superb in every thing"——She fixed her bright eyes on me.

"The fascinating is certainly much superior." A slight blush touched her cheek, she bowed, and all was good-humour again.

"Well, then," said she, "since you have shown yourself rational at last, I shall present you to this superb beauty in her own palace. You shall see your idol in her morning costume, her French reality."

She touched the pane of a window with her whip, and a bowing domestic appeared. "Is her Grace at home?" was the question. "Her Grace receives to-day," was the answer. My companion looked surprised, but there was no retreating. We alighted from our horses to attend the "reception."

The cottage was simply a cottage, roofed with thatch; and furnished in the homeliest style of the peasants to whom it had belonged. We went up stairs. A few objects of higher taste were to be seen in the apartment to which we were now ushered—a pendule, a piano, and one or two portraits superbly framed, and with ducal coronets above them. But, to my great embarrassment, the room was full, and full of the first names of France. Yet the whole assemblage were female, and the glance which the Duchess cast from her fauteuil, as I followed my rather startled guide into the room, showed me that I had committed some terrible solecism, in intruding on the party. On what mysteries had I ventured, and what was to be the punishment of my temerity in the very shrine of the Bona Dea? My pretty guide, on finding herself with all those dark eyes fixed on her, and all those stately features looking something between sorrow and surprise, faltered, and grew alternately red and pale. We were both on the point of retiring; when the Duchess, after a brief consultation with some of the surrounding matronage, made a sign to Mariamne to approach. Her hospitality to all the emigrant families had undoubtedly given her a claim on their attentions. The result was a most gracious smile from Madame la Presidente, and I took my seat in silence and submission.

"Is France a country of female beauty?" is a question which I have often heard, and which I have always answered by a recollection of this scene. I never saw so many handsome women together, before or since. All were not Venuses, it is true; but there was an expression, almost a mould of feature, universal, which struck the eye more than beauty. It was impossible to doubt that I was among a high caste; there was a general look of nobleness, a lofty yet feminine grace of countenance, a stately sweetness, which are involuntarily connected with high birth, high manners, and high history.

There were some whose fine regularity of feature might have served as the model for a Greek sculptor. Yet those were not the faces on which the eye rested with the long and deep delight that "drinks in beauty." I saw some worthy or the sublime spell of Vandyke, more with the magnificence of style which Reynolds loved, and still more with the subdued dignity and touching elegance of which Lawrence was so charming a master.

On my return to French society in after years, I was absolutely astonished at the change which seemed to me to have taken place in the beauty of high life. I shall not hazard my reputation for gallantry, by tracing the contrast more closely. But evil times had singularly acted upon the physiognomy even of the nobles. The age of the roturier had been the climacteric of France. Generals from the ranks, countesses from the canaille, legislators from the dregs of the populace, and proprietors from the mingled stock of the parasite and the plunderer, naturally gave the countenance, formed by their habits, to the nation formed by their example.

Still there were, and are, examples of this original beauty to be found among the élite of the noble families; but they are rare, and to be looked on as one looks on a statue of Praxiteles found in the darkness and wrecks of Herculaneum. In the words of the old song, slightly changed—

"I roam'd through France's sanguine sand, At beauty's altar to adore, But there the sword had spoil'd the land, And Beauty's daughters were no more."

ENGLISH MUSIC AND ENGLISH MUSICIANS

Musical taste, as we observed in a former article, has undergone fewer mutations in England, than in most other countries where the art has been cultivated and esteemed. In order, therefore, to acquire an accurate knowledge of the state of musical taste and science which now prevails among us, it will be necessary to take a brief retrospect; and as much of the music still popular was composed during the earliest period of the art in England, we shall rapidly trace its history from the times of those early masters, whose names are still held in remembrance and repute, down to the present century.

When England threw off the Papal yoke, music was little known beyond the services of the church. Though the secular music of this period was barbarous in the extreme, yet masses were universally sung, and music had long formed a necessary element in the due performance of the services of the Romish church. During the reign of Henry VIII. few alterations were made in public worship; and the service continued to be sung and carried on in the Latin language, as before. From Strype's account of the funeral of this monarch, it appears that all the old ceremonies were observed, and that the rupture with Rome had caused no alteration in the obsequies performed on such occasions. In the reign of his successor, the church service was entirely changed, and the Protestant liturgy was first published for general use. Four years after this event, on the accession of Mary, the "old worship" was again restored. But when, at length, the reformed religion was firmly established by Elizabeth, and the ritual permanently changed, the music of the old masses, suited to the genius and structure of the Romish service, was no longer available for the simpler forms of worship by which it was replaced. During the holiest and most solemn portions of the ancient worship, the organ had for centuries been heard in the cathedrals, while the choruses of praise and adoration resounded through the aisles. Men's opinions may undergo a change, but the feelings and ideas created by early association, and fostered by habit, are far more lasting and enduring. The poet must have lamented the loss of the music, which, in the stern ascetic spirit of Puritanism prevailing at a later period of our history, he assisted to banish from our churches, as he sang—

"But let my due feet never fail To walk the studious cloisters pale, And love the high embowed roof, With antique pillars, massy proof, And storied windows richly dight, Casting a dim religious light, There let the pealing organ blow To the full-voiced choir below, In service high, and anthem clear, As may with sweetness, through mine ear, Dissolve me into extasies, And bring all heav'n before mine eyes."

At the period of which we speak, the want of music in the services of the church seems to have been severely felt, though perhaps the simpler forms of the new ritual were comparatively but little adapted for musical display. Great exertions were made throughout the kingdom by the deans and chapters to restore the efficiency of the choirs; and Elizabeth, in the exercise of what then appeared an undoubted prerogative of the crown, issued her warrant for the impressment of singing men and boys for the castle of Windsor. The churches and cathedrals still, indeed, retained their organs; "the choirs and places where they sing" were still in being; all the matériel was at hand; but, with the exception of the production of John Marbeck, called "The Book of Common Prayer Noted," which was printed in 1550, there was as yet no music for the new services in the English language. Two years after the accession of Elizabeth, and one year after the bill for the uniformity of common prayer had passed the legislature, a choral work, "very necessarie for the church of Christ to be frequented and used," was published, among the authors of which the name of Tallis appeared. The musical necessities of the newly established church appear to have stimulated or developed talents which, under other circumstances, might perhaps have been less prominently brought forward: at all events, the demand for this music would seem a principal reason why the early English masters should have devoted themselves so exclusively to sacred composition. Tallis and his pupil Byrd, both men of original genius, produced many compositions for the newly introduced ritual, which, by their intrinsic merit and comparative superiority, aided also by a constant demand for new music of the same character, gave a permanent direction to the exercise of musical talent; and the services of Tallis and Byrd became the classic objects of emulation and imitation, and sacred music became, in a peculiar manner, the national music of England. The compositions of these "fathers of our genuine and national sacred music," are still preserved, the latter of whom, Byrd, died in 1623, at the age of probably near eighty years.

The year 1588 forms an epoch in our musical history. An Italian merchant, who, by his mercantile connection with the Mediterranean, had opportunities of obtaining the newest and best compositions of his native country, had, for some years, been in the frequent habit of procuring the best singers of the day, to perform them, privately, at his house in London. This gentleman had at length the spirit and enterprise to publish a volume of Italian madrigals, entituled, "Musica Transalpina, Madrigales translated of four, five, and six parts, chosen out of divers excellent authors; with the first and second parts of La Virginella, made by Maister Byrd, upon two stanzas of Ariosto, and brought to speak English with the rest." These pieces seem to have given birth to that passion for madrigals which was afterwards so prevalent, and thus became the models of contemporary musicians. The next composer of any note was Orlando Gibbons. He died at an early age, soon after the accession of Charles I., to whom he had been appointed organist. This master composed several madrigals, but, like his predecessors, he devoted himself principally to sacred composition. The secular productions of Tallis, Byrd, and Gibbons, together with those of contemporary composers of inferior note, are, for the most part, now forgotten; but the sacred music of these three masters still forms a part of every collection of church music. Canons and fugues were the favourite modes of that early period; vain substitutes for melody, rhythm, and correct accentuation, in which particulars music was then greatly deficient. The merits of the compositions of the Elizabethan age, vaunted by the lovers of antiquity as the golden age of English music, are thus summed up by Dr Burney: "It is, therefore, upon the church music, madrigals, and songs in parts, of our countrymen during the reign of Elizabeth, that we must rest their reputation; and these, in point of harmony and contrivance, the chief excellencies of such compositions, appear in nothing inferior to those of the best contemporary compositions of the Continent. Taste, rhythm, accent, and grace, must not be sought for in this kind of music; indeed, we might as well censure the ancient Greeks for not writing in English, as the composers of the sixteenth century for their deficiency in these particulars, which having then no existence, even in idea, could not be wanted or expected; and it is necessarily the business of artists to cultivate or refine what is in the greatest esteem among the best judges of their own nation and times. And these, at this period, unanimously thought every species of musical composition below criticism except canons and fugues. Indeed, what is generally understood by taste in music, must ever be an abomination in the church; for, as it consists of new refinements or arrangements of notes, it would be construed into innovation, however meritorious, unless sanctioned by age. Thus the favourite points and passages in the madrigals of the sixteenth century, were in the seventeenth received as orthodox in the church; and those of the opera songs and cantatas of the seventeenth century, are used by the gravest and most pious ecclesiastical composers of the eighteenth." Of the skill of the performers, for whom this music, still listened to and admired, was written, he also observes, "that the art of singing, further than was necessary to keep a performer in tune, and time, must have been unknown;" and that "if £500 had been offered to any individual to perform a solo, fewer candidates would have entered the lists than if the like premium had been offered for flying from Salisbury steeple over Old Sarum without a balloon." For ourselves, we do not hesitate to acknowledge that, in our opinion, the services of these patriarchs of the English school surpass the great majority of similar productions by our later masters. They may, indeed, suffer when compared with the masses of the great continental masters; but they nevertheless possess a certain degree of simple majesty, well suited to the primitive character of the ritual of that church which disdains the use of ornament, and on principle declines to avail herself of any appeal to the senses as an auxiliary to devotion. We have been the more particular in our notice of these early masters, because, long without any rivals, their church music even now stamps the public taste, and is still held in the highest esteem by many among whom their names alone suffice to hold the judgment captive.