Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442

'Parbleu! quite ready; all ready counted in those charming assignats; and that is the joke of it. I wish the old villain may call or send soon'–

A gentle tap at the door interrupted the speaker. The son opened it, and the notary, accompanied by his familiar, Pierre Nadaud, quietly glided in.

'Talk of the devil,' growled Delessert audibly, 'and you are sure to get a whisk of his tail. Well, messieurs,' he added more loudly, 'your business?'

'Money—interest now due on the mortgage for three thousand francs,' replied M. Destouches with much suavity.

'Interest for two years,' continued the sourly-sardonic accents of Pierre Nadaud; 'six hundred francs precisely.'

'Very good, you shall have the money directly.' Delessert left the room; the notary took out and unclasped a note-book; and Pierre Nadaud placed a slip of papier timbré on the dinner-table, preparatory to writing a receipt.

'Here,' said Delessert, re-entering with a roll of soiled paper in his hand, 'here are your six hundred francs, well counted.'

The notary reclasped his note-book, and returned it to his pocket; Pierre Nadaud resumed possession of the receipt paper.

'You are not aware, then, friend Delessert,' said the notary, 'that creditors are no longer compelled to receive assignats in payment?'

'How? What do you say?'

'Pierre,' continued M. Destouches, 'read the extract from Le bulletin des Lois, published last week.' Pierre did so with a ringing emphasis, which would have rendered it intelligible to a child; and the unhappy debtor fully comprehended that his paper-money was comparatively worthless! It is needless to dwell upon the fury manifested by Delessert, the cool obduracy of the notary, or the cynical comments of the clerk. Enough to say, that M. Destouches departed without his money, after civilly intimating that legal proceedings would be taken forthwith. The son strove to soothe his father's passionate despair, but his words fell upon unheeding ears; and after several hours passed in alternate paroxysms of stormy rage and gloomy reverie, the elder Delessert hastily left the house, taking the direction of Strasbourg. Le Bossu watched his father's retreating figure from the door until it was lost in the clouds of blinding snow that was rapidly falling, and then sadly resumed some indoor employment. It was late when he retired to bed, and his father had not then returned. He would probably remain, the son thought, at Strasbourg for the night.

The chill, lead-coloured dawn was faintly struggling on the horizon with the black, gloomy night, when Le Bossu rose. Ten minutes afterwards, his father strode hastily into the house, and threw himself, without a word, upon a seat. His eyes, the son observed, were blood-shot, either with rage or drink—perhaps both; and his entire aspect wild, haggard, and fierce. Le Bossu silently presented him with a measure of vin ordinaire. It was eagerly swallowed, though Delessert's hand shook so that he could scarcely hold the pewter flagon to his lips.

'Something has happened,' said Le Bossu presently.

'Morbleu!—yes. That is,' added the father, checking himself, 'something might have happened, if– Who's there?'

'Only the wind shaking the door. What might have happened?' persisted the son.

'I will tell you, Antoine. I set off for Strasbourg yesterday, to see Destouches once again, and entreat him to accept the assignats in part-payment at least. He was not at home. Marguérite, the old servant, said he was gone to the cathedral, not long since reopened. Well, I found the usurer just coming out of the great western entrance, heathen as he is, looking as pious as a pilgrim. I accosted him, told my errand, begged, prayed, stormed! It was all to no purpose, except to attract the notice and comments of the passers-by. Destouches went his way, and I, with fury in my heart, betook myself to a wine-shop—Le Brun's. He would not even change an assignat to take for what I drank, which was not a little; and I therefore owe him for it. When the gendarmes cleared the house at last, I was nearly crazed with rage and drink. I must have been so, or I should never have gone to the Rue Béchard, forced myself once more into the notary's presence, and—and'–

'And what?' quivered the young man, as his father abruptly stopped, startled as before into silence by a sudden rattling of the crazy door. 'And what?'

'And abused him for a flinty-hearted scoundrel, as he is. He ordered me away, and threatened to call the guard. I was flinging out of the house, when Marguérite twitched me by the sleeve, and I stepped aside into the kitchen. "You must not think," she said, "of going home on such a night as this." It was snowing furiously, and blowing a hurricane at the time. "There is a straw pallet," Marguérite added, "where you can sleep, and nobody the wiser." I yielded. The good woman warmed some soup, and the storm not abating, I lay down to rest—to rest, do I say?' shouted Delessert, jumping madly to his feet, and pacing furiously to and fro—'the rest of devils! My blood was in a flame; and rage, hate, despair, blew the consuming fire by turns. I thought how I had been plundered by the mercenary ruffian sleeping securely, as he thought, within a dozen yards of the man he had ruined—sleeping securely just beyond the room containing the secrétaire in which the mortgage-deed of which I had been swindled was deposited'–

'Oh, father!' gasped the son.

'Be silent, boy, and you shall know all! It may be that I dreamed all this, for I think the creaking of a door, and a stealthy step on the stair, awoke me; but perhaps that, too, was part of the dream. However, I was at last wide awake, and I got up and looked out on the cold night. The storm had passed, and the moon had temporarily broken through the heavy clouds by which she was encompassed. Marguérite had said I might let myself out, and I resolved to depart at once. I was doing so, when, looking round, I perceived that the notary's office-door was ajar. Instantly a demon whispered, that although the law was restored, it was still blind and deaf as ever—could not see or hear in that dark silence—and that I might easily baffle the cheating usurer after all. Swiftly and softly, I darted towards the half-opened door—entered. The notary's secrétaire, Antoine, was wide open! I hunted with shaking hands for the deed, but could not find it. There was money in the drawers, and I—I think I should have taken some—did perhaps, I hardly know how—when I heard, or thought I did, a rustling sound not far off. I gazed wildly round, and plainly saw in the notary's bedroom—the door of which, I had not before observed, was partly open—the shadow of a man's figure clearly traced by the faint moonlight on the floor. I ran out of the room, and out of the house, with the speed of a madman, and here—here I am!' This said, he threw himself into a seat, and covered his face with his hands.

'That is a chink of money,' said Le Bossu, who had listened in dumb dismay to his father's concluding narrative. 'You had none, you said, when at the wine-shop.'

'Money! Ah, it may be as I said– Thunder of heaven!' cried the wretched man, again fiercely springing to his feet, 'I am lost!'

'I fear so,' replied a commissaire de police, who had suddenly entered, accompanied by several gendarmes—'if it be true, as we suspect, that you are the assassin of the notary Destouches.'

The assassin of the notary Destouches! Le Bossu heard but these words, and when he recovered consciousness, he found himself alone, save for the presence of a neighbour, who had been summoned to his assistance.

The procès verbal stated, in addition to much of what has been already related, that the notary had been found dead in his bed, at a very early hour of the morning, by his clerk Pierre Nadaud, who slept in the house. The unfortunate man had been stifled, by a pillow it was thought. His secrétaire had been plundered of a very large sum, amongst which were Dutch gold ducats—purchased by Destouches only the day before—of the value of more than 6000 francs. Delessert's mortgage-deed had also disappeared, although other papers of a similar character had been left. Six crowns had been found on Delessert's person, one of which was clipped in a peculiar manner, and was sworn to by an épicier as that offered him by the notary the day previous to the murder, and refused by him. No other portion of the stolen property could be found, although the police exerted themselves to the utmost for that purpose.

There was, however, quite sufficient evidence to convict Delessert of the crime, notwithstanding his persistent asseverations of innocence. His known hatred of Destouches, the threats he had uttered concerning him, his conduct in front of the cathedral, Marguérite's evidence, and the finding the crown in his pocket, left no doubt of his guilt, and he was condemned to suffer death by the guillotine. He appealed of course, but that, everybody felt, could only prolong his life for a short time, not save it.

There was one person, the convict's son, who did not for a moment believe that his father was the assassin of Destouches. He was satisfied in his own mind, that the real criminal was he whose step Delessert had dreamed he heard upon the stair, who had opened the office-door, and whose shadow fell across the bedroom floor; and his eager, unresting thoughts were bent upon bringing this conviction home to others. After awhile, light, though as yet dim and uncertain, broke in upon his filial task.

About ten days after the conviction of Delessert, Pierre Nadaud called upon M. Huguet, the procureur-général of Strasbourg. He had a serious complaint to make of Delessert, fils. The young man, chiefly, he supposed, because he had given evidence against his father, appeared to be nourishing a monomaniacal hatred against him, Pierre Nadaud. 'Wherever I go,' said the irritated complainant, 'at whatever hour, early in the morning and late at night, he dogs my steps. I can in no manner escape him, and I verily believe those fierce, malevolent eyes of his are never closed. I really fear he is meditating some violent act. He should, I respectfully submit, be restrained—placed in a maison de santé, for his intellects are certainly unsettled; or otherwise prevented from accomplishing the mischief I am sure he contemplates.'

M. Huguet listened attentively to this statement, reflected for a few moments, said inquiry should be made in the matter, and civilly dismissed the complainant.

In the evening of the same day, Le Bossu was brought before M. Huguet. He replied to that gentleman's questioning by the avowal, that he believed Nadaud had murdered M. Destouches. 'I believe also,' added the young man, 'that I have at last hit upon a clue that will lead to his conviction.'

'Indeed! Perhaps you will impart it to me?'

'Willingly. The property in gold and precious gems carried off has not yet been traced. I have discovered its hiding-place.'

'Say you so? That is extremely fortunate.'

'You know, sir, that beyond the Rue des Vignes there are three houses standing alone, which were gutted by fire some time since, and are now only temporarily boarded up. That street is entirely out of Nadaud's way, and yet he passes and repasses there five or six times a day. When he did not know that I was watching him, he used to gaze curiously at those houses, as if to notice if they were being disturbed for any purpose. Lately, if he suspects I am at hand, he keeps his face determinedly away from them, but still seems to have an unconquerable hankering after the spot. This very morning, there was a cry raised close to the ruins, that a child had been run over by a cart. Nadaud was passing: he knew I was close by, and violently checking himself, as I could see, kept his eyes fixedly averted from the place, which I have no longer any doubt contains the stolen treasure.'

'You are a shrewd lad,' said M. Huguet, after a thoughtful pause. 'An examination shall at all events take place at nightfall. You, in the meantime, remain here under surveillance.'

Between eleven and twelve o'clock, Le Bossu was again brought into M. Huguet's presence. The commissary who arrested his father was also there. 'You have made a surprising guess, if it be a guess,' said the procureur. 'The missing property has been found under a hearth-stone of the centre house.' Le Bossu raised his hands, and uttered a cry of delight. 'One moment,' continued M. Huguet. 'How do we know this is not a trick concocted by you and your father to mislead justice?'

'I have thought of that,' replied Le Bossu calmly. 'Let it be given out that I am under restraint, in compliance with Nadaud's request; then have some scaffolding placed to-morrow against the houses, as if preparatory to their being pulled down, and you will see the result, if a quiet watch is kept during the night.' The procureur and commissary exchanged glances, and Le Bossu was removed from the room.

It was verging upon three o'clock in the morning, when the watchers heard some one very quietly remove a portion of the back-boarding of the centre house. Presently, a closely-muffled figure, with a dark-lantern and a bag in his hand, crept through the opening, and made direct for the hearth-stone; lifted it, turned on his light slowly, gathered up the treasure, crammed it into his bag, and murmured with an exulting chuckle as he reclosed the lantern and stood upright: 'Safe—safe, at last!' At the instant, the light of half a dozen lanterns flashed upon the miserable wretch, revealing the stern faces of as many gendarmes. 'Quite safe, M. Pierre Nadaud!' echoed their leader. 'Of that you may be assured.' He was unheard: the detected culprit had fainted.

There is little to add. Nadaud perished by the guillotine, and Delessert was, after a time, liberated. Whether or not he thought his ill-gotten property had brought a curse with it, I cannot say; but, at all events, he abandoned it to the notary's heirs, and set off with Le Bossu for Paris, where, I believe, the sign of 'Delessert et Fils, Ferblantiers,' still flourishes over the front of a respectably furnished shop.

PHILOSOPHY OF THE SHEARS

The vestiarian profession has always been ill-treated by the world. Men have owed much, and in more senses than one, to their tailors, and have been accustomed to pay their debt in sneers and railleries—often in nothing else. The stage character of the tailor is stereotyped from generation to generation; his goose is a perennial pun; and his habitual melancholy is derived to this day from the flatulent diet on which he will persist in living—cabbage. He is effeminate, cowardly, dishonest—a mere fraction of a man both in soul and body. He is represented by the thinnest fellow in the company; his starved person and frightened look are the unfailing signals for a laugh; and he is never spoken to but in a gibe at his trade:

'Thou liest, thou thread,Thou thimble,Thou yard, three-quarters, half-yard, quarter, nail;Away thou rag, thou quantity, thou remnant;Or I shall so bemete thee with thy yard,As thou shalt think on prating while thou liv'st!'

All this is not a very favourable specimen of the way in which the stage holds the mirror up to nature. We may suppose that a certain character of effeminacy attached to a tailor in that olden time when he was the fashioner for women as well as men; but now that he has no professional dealings with the fair sex but when they assume masculine 'habits,' it is unreasonable to continue the stigma. In like manner, when the cloth belonged to the customer, it was allowable enough to suspect him of a little amiable weakness for cabbage; but now that he is himself the clothier, the joke is pointless and absurd. Tailors, however, can afford to laugh, as well as other people, at their conventional double—or rather ninth, for at least in our own day they have wrought very hard to elevate their calling into a science. The period of lace and frippery of all kinds has passed away, and this is the era of simple form, in which sartorial genius has only cloth to work upon as severely plain as the statuary's marble. It is true, we ourselves do not understand the 'anatomical principles' on which the more philosophical of the craft proceed, nor does our scholarship carry us quite the length of their Greek (?) terminology; but we acknowledge the result in their workmanship, although we cannot trace the steps by which it is brought about.

Very different is the plan now from what it was in the days of Shemus nan Snachad, James of the Needle, hereditary tailor to Vich Ian Vohr, when men were measured as classes rather than as individuals, and when a cutter had only to glance at the customer to ascertain to which category he belonged.

'You know the measure of a well-made man? Two double nails to the small of the leg'–

'Eleven from haunch to heel, seven round the waist. I give your honour leave to hang Shemus, if there's a pair of shears in the Highlands that has a baulder sneck than her ain at the camadh an truais (shape of the trews).' And so the thing was done, without tape or figures, without a word of Greek or anatomy! However, the anatomical tailors we shall not meddle with for the present, because we do not understand their science; nor with the Greek tailors, because we fear to take the liberty; nor with the Hebrew tailors, because we are only a Gentile ourselves. Our object is to draw attention to the doings of an individual who interferes with no science but his own, and who patronises exclusively his mother-tongue, which is not Hebrew, but broad Scotch.

This individual is Mr Macdonald, a near neighbour of ours, who, about eighteen years ago, listened with curiosity, but not with dread, to the clamorous pretensions of the craft to which he belonged. At that time, every man had a 'new principle' of his own for the sneck of the shears, some theoretical mode of cutting, which was to make the coat fit like the skin. Our neighbour, who had a practical and mechanical, rather than a speculative head, resolved not to be behind in the race of competition, but to proceed in a different way. 'It is all very well,' thought he, 'to talk of principles and theories; but with the requisite apparatus, the human figure may be measured as accurately as a block of stone;' and accordingly he set to work, not to invent a theory, but to construct a machine. This machine, though exhibited some time ago in the School of Arts, and received with great favour, we happened not to hear of till a few days ago; but a visit to our neighbour puts it now in our power to report that his apparatus does much more, as we shall presently explain, than measure a customer.

The machine consists of three perpendicular pieces of wood, the centre one between six and seven feet high, with a plinth for the measuree to stand upon. The wood is marked from top to bottom with inches and parts of an inch, and is furnished with slides, fitting closely, but movable at the pleasure of the operator. When the customer places himself upon this machine, standing at his full height, he has much the appearance of a man suffering the punishment of crucifixion, only his arms, instead of being extended, hang motionless by his sides, with the fingers pointed. A slide is now run up between the victim's legs, to give the measurement of what is technically called the fork; while others mark in like manner upon the inch scale, the position of the knees, hips, tips of the fingers, shoulder, neck, head, &c. When the operator is satisfied that he has thus obtained the accurate admeasurement of the figure, in its natural position when standing erect, the gentleman steps from the machine, and turning round, sees an exact diagram, in wood, of his own proportions.

This instrument, it will be seen, is very well adapted for the object for which it was intended; but it would, nevertheless, have escaped our inspection but for the other purposes of observation to which it has been applied by the ingenious inventor. He has measured in all about 5000 adults, registering in a book the measurement of each, with the names written by themselves. Among the autographs, we find that of Sir David Wilkie in the neighbourhood of the names of half a dozen American Indians. Here would be a new branch of inquiry for those who are addicted to the study of character through the handwriting. With such abundant materials before them, they would doubtless be able to determine the height and general proportions of their unseen correspondents. In the article of height, many men correspond to the minutest portion of an inch; but in the other proportions of the figure, it would seem that no two human beings are alike. So great is the disparity in persons of the same height, that the trunk of an individual of five feet and a half, is occasionally found to be as long as that of a man of six feet. In fact, Mr Macdonald, in an early period of his measurements, was so confounded by the difference in the proportions, that he at once came to the conclusion, that our population is made up of mixed tribes of mankind.

In the midst of all this diversity, the question was, What were the proper proportions? or, in other words, What proportions constituted a handsome figure? and here our vestiarian philosopher was for a long time at a loss. At length, however, he took 300 measurements, without selection, including the length of the trunk, of the head and neck, and of the fork, and adding them all together, struck the average: from which it resulted, that the average head and neck gives 10½ inches; trunk, 25 inches; and fork, 32 inches; making the whole figure, from the crown of the head to the sole of the shoe, 5 feet 7½ inches. The word we have italicised is the drawback: a tailor measures with the shoes on; and Mr Macdonald can only approximate to the truth when he deducts half an inch for the sole, and declares the average height of our population to be five feet seven inches. On this basis, however, he constructed a scale of beauty applying to all heights: If a man of 5 feet 7 inches give 10½ inches for head and neck, 25 for trunk, and 31½ for fork, what should another give, of 6 feet, or any other height? The approximation of a man's actual measurement to this rule of three determines his pretensions in the way of symmetry; and the inventor of the shibboleth has found it so far to answer, that a figure coming near the rule invariably pleases the eye, and gives the assurance of a handsome man. Independently of this advantage, a man of such proportions has great strength, and is able to withstand the fatigue of violent exercise for a longer period than one less symmetrically formed.

The term 'adult,' however, used by Mr Macdonald to designate those he measured, is not satisfactory—it does not inform us that the persons measured had reached their full development; for men continue to grow, as has been shewn by M. Quetelet, even after twenty-five. The height given, notwithstanding—five feet seven inches—in all probability approximates pretty closely to the true average; and the very different result shewn in Professor Forbes's measurements in the University must be set pretty nearly out of the question. The number of Scotsmen measured by the professor was 523 in all; but these were of eleven different ages, from fifteen to twenty-five, all averaged separately; and supposing the number of each age to have been alike, this would give less than fifty of the age of twenty-five—the average height of whom was 69.3 inches. But independently of the smallness of the number, the professor's customers were volunteers, and it is not to be supposed that under-sized persons would put themselves forward on such an occasion. It may be added, that even the height of the boot-heels of young collegians of twenty-five would tend to falsify the average.

Men do not only differ in their proportions from other men, but from themselves. The arms and legs may be paired, but they are not matched, and in every respect one side of the body is different from the other: the eyes are not set straight across the face, neither is the mouth; the nose is inclined to one side; the ears are of different sizes, and one is nearer the crown of the head than the other; there are not two fingers, nor two nails on the fingers, alike, and the same disagreement runs through the whole figure. This, however, is so common an observation, that we should not have thought it necessary to mention it, but for the bearing the facts given by our statist have upon the common theory by which the irregularity is sought to be accounted for. This declares, that use is the cause of the greater growth of one limb, &c.: that the right hand, for instance, is larger than the left, because it is in more active service. It appears, however, that although the left limbs are in general smaller, this is not, as it is usually supposed, invariably the case; while the ears and eyes, that are used indiscriminately, present the same relative difference of size. We do not, therefore, make our own proportions in this respect: we come into the world with them, and our occupations merely exaggerate a natural defect. An idle man will have one arm half an inch longer than the other; while a woman, who has been accustomed in early years to carry a child, exhibits a difference amounting sometimes to an inch and a half.