The Press. — London, England, 1854-04-29 00:00:00

400 Julian scarcely knew what to do. He had had too long a time to think of this interview, and to weigh the difficult part ho should have to act. This constraint at the outset completed his embarrassment. Besides, we know he did not possess that religion of the heart which alone could give him strength and courage. Too religious to endure the deathbed of a scoffer, what was be and what could he do to change it into a Christian scene ? It was in this state of alarm that he found himself in that chamber. At the bedside was the gaming-table ; seated on the bed, the Duke de Choiseul, whom he knew too well. On the pillow, that ghastly sneering counte nance, whose eyes had for the last thirty years anticipated the darkness of the tomb. Then that which our pen can not describe, the sound of that voice which might be com pared to a rose-leaf placed between the teeth of a skeleton, for the death-rattle had begun. He could merely address a few commonplace remarks to her on sickness and health ; the more serious words which he had proposed to add died upon his lips as if snatched from him by a demon. The patient, however, did not give him time to make another attempt, nor would she allow him to open his lips. Notwithstanding all this, either to keep up the delusion, or to gratify an insatiable inward craving, she was con• stantly returning to those subjects which she had resolved to avoid. " I believe you are priest in some out of the way place ? " Knowing it very well all the time. " Not more out of the way than any other." " Is the air good there?" " I believe so." " I suppose deaths occur there ?" " As elsewhere, madam." " As in Paris ? " No," said he, " far otherwise :" laying a stress on this word. "Bahl And do they marry?" " Why not? " said M. de Choiseul. " Hush I wanted to see if he would say ' far other- wise' again." " I could say so, madam. My people still consider mar riage as something grave and serious.' " So near Paris ?" " Alas I Madam, they are not philosophers." " And you used to be one ? Is it the cowl makes the • friar?" " At least, madam, I will never bring disgrace upon this garb." " Bravo !" said M. de Choiseul. " You could not have expressed more neatly that you well observe all the rules of decorum, and that you heartily—" • " Did I say that, M. le Duo?" " Ask madam." " M. l'Abbe," said she, " you say that in your parish they die quite differently ? " " Yes, madam." " Do they send for you to confess ?" " Yes." " And they go direct to heaven ? " " I know nothing about that." " Ah ! ah " Still my people do think of God and their souls. The rest is in His hands." " Awful " said the duke—" Heretic !—" "-You would rather have me an atheist ? " " I almost wish for one thing," said the dying woman. " What ?" " To ask you for extreme unction." " Do you speak seriously ?" " Seriously. The three friends uttered an exclamation of joy. The duke looked confounded. " But," continued she, "on one condition, that before I receive it you will swear that you believe in it yourself." The Duke de Choiseul raised his head. Julian remained for the moment speechless. The old blind woman looked at him steadfastly, as if she had regained her sight, to read his very thoughts. At length he said, " Madam, whether I believe or not in extreme unction, in the efficacy of some drops of oil, I cannot but hold the sentiments which are implied by exteme unction, and which allow me to tell you you are not far from holding also. A little more courage, madam. Be what you would wish to be, or rather what you are. Lay aside this mask—" " We become eloquent—" " You smile ? Listen to me. You require an oath of me, and I ask you for one also. Swear to me, before God, that the sentiments you appear to hold are genuine, and that you are not forcing yourself." " M. l'Abbe," said the duke, " I can scarcely forbear telling, you point blank, that this is going beyond all bounds. You forget that madame is at home." " And you, sir, that you are not at home." The ex-prime minister remained speechless. He could not understand that any one should presume to speak to him in this manner. " To conclude," said Julian, " it is evident one of us two must leave the room. Adieu, madam, adieu! " But on turning towards the dying woman he saw her arm stretched out to detain him. The duke perceived this gesture, and said, " I see it is I whose dismissal is desired. Adieu, sir, may you succeed —adieu." She did not answer. He went away scornfully. " Madam," said Julian, presently, "he is gone. You know what these three ladies think ; it is evident from the exclamation they uttered just now ; but consider yourself, and give them that satisfaction which they desire. Let more serious thoughts engage the remainder of your time, whether it be long or short. Here is the breviary ; I will only read sentences which apply to any one. Determine, madam." " Is he gone ? " murmured she, for the sneering adieu rt mined fixed like a barbed arrow in her unhappy soul. All at once, gathering up all the lingering strength of body and soul, she exclaimed, " Enough ! enough *To THE PRESS. your game, ladies ! The retaliation ! I shall win this time. Do me a last favour, M. l'Abbe. Here ! Take those three cards off my bed, and play for me; fancy, if you will, that you are playing for me against the devil ! My cards, ladies ! my cards !" Julian turned to go away; but she laid hold of his arm; she hastily arrranged with the other hand the cards which he had forgotten to give her. " There you are—begin." They began. She fell back upon the pillow. At the second number she was dead. Of the vigour with which M. Bungener can assume the functions of a preacher let the ful lowing passage testify. It reminds one of the bravura passages in the sermons of Bossuet and some of his contemporaries They sowed the wind, and they shall reap the whirl wind. They sowed the wind, who fed France upon their high. sounding speeches, supposing that they could wake a people with their words. They sowed the wind, who trembled before those speeches, and preserved the hatefulness of power, without preserving its wholesome reality. They sowed the wind, who assailed superstition ; for they knew not how to assail it, but by unsettling every kind of faith and morality. They sowed the wind, who defended religion ; for they defended its abuses more than its principles, the wink of man more than the work of God. They sowed the wind, those prodigal ministers, who wasted millions upon millions on an insatiable court. They sowed the wind, those philosophic states men, who promised more than either they, or their friends, or any government whatsoever, was able to per- form. Those courtiers who thought themselves wise because they declaimed against the court, who believed themselves citizens because they ridiculed their master—they sowed the wind. _ _ _ Those parliaments which set themselves up as defenders of the people, and, because they strove against the King, imagined that they could be something without a King —they sowed the wind. That King, who allowed all the elements of anarchy to ferment and strengthen, and knew neither what he could accomplish nor what he could not accomplish—he sowed the wind. And she, too, that unhappy Queen, who so inconsi derately gave herself over to feed every land of calumny and suspicion, she also sowed the wind. All, in short,—king, people, courtiers, sages, apostles of liberty or apostles of tyranny, treacherous or honest, men of genius or men of no genius,—all in this g'ddy age sowed the wind—all were doomed by an inflexible providence to reap the whirlwind. History, stern and inflexible, condemns us here to travel on the weary road of blood and misery, on which historians, either false or foolish, have dared to scatter flowers. In reading their incredible records, the children of the victims have asked themselves in amazement whether that sad drama which had terrified their early years were nothing but a dream. Those detestable names, which they had never heard pronounced without horror, were, then, it seems, the names of great men; and the executioners, enthroned upon the bodies of their victims, were also victims themselves, the apostles of political regeneration, and martyrs for the sake of their country l To the disgrace of reason, let us add that the friends of these butchers have not been the only persons to adopt these strange opinions. It is the fashion to dive into the lake of blood, to seek therein for any pearls which may have fallen there—to search for the good qualities which man has perchance manifested amidst the frenzies of a tiger, and then to admire them—nay, sometimes even to pity. But they must not look to us for either the one or the other. We will speak undisguisedly of the crimes and of the cruelties in their naked wickedness. We will banish the fatalism which excuses, and the weakness which for gives; for in history, to forgive is weakness, if it be not treason. The historian is a judge; a judge is only a man who' administers the law, and has not the right to pardon. This right belongs only to the sovereign ; and the sovereign in history is God. They who require that impartiality should consist in losing sight of principles—that the historian should be only an idle echo—let them close this book. We do not write for them. We could wish that our author would apply his mind to a consideration of the causes that prevented Protestantism from taking a wider and deeper growth in the soil of France. Was it that the Calvinistic type of the Reformation as planted in France was too alien from the national character? Or that, by bringing all moral sciences within the sphere of theology, Calvinistic Protestantism exposed itself to incessant assaults similar in kind to these mocking notes on French Protestant writers in the appendix to Voltaire's "Age of Louis the Fourteenth "? Or was the connection, of Protestantism with the Politiques destructive of its popularity ? Or was it the sinister con juncture of vigorous leaders on one side and vacillating ones on the other? These are points that we should like to see argued out fairly, and, as the subject has often exercised our own reflections, we may at some future time discuss it. SATURDAY, In the meanwhile there are many of our readers who will peruse with interest the recent writings of the remarkable writer now reviewed. We commend him to the favour able regard of all who like to study the intel lectual emanations from a mind of genius, at once sincerely scriptural in its faith, eloquent in its utterance, and philosophical in its tone. Notes on the Present Condition of Railway Legis • lotion. By T. Coates. Loudon ; J. Bigg and Sons. WE have here a protest against Mr. Card well's clauses, hastily written, but evidently drawn up by a person well acquainted with his subject. Mr. Coates complains that no discussion was taken on the re port of the railway committee of 1852 ; but that a surreptitious attempt has been made (as admitted by Mr. Bouverie) to pass what is virtually a general act by the mere authority of a committee, without con sulting the House of Commons collectively. It is also remarked that Mr. Bouverie incau tiously let out the true object of this proce - dure, which was to defeat the companies in detail, they being too powerful to be encoun tered when united for opposition The wiiter then proceeds to deal with the clauses them selves. To the first, second, and third there is little objection, except their vagueness. They were meant to compel the forwarding of traffic without partiality, and without need less delay. But in the fourth clause lay the sting of the enactment. If any man had cause of complaint against a company—if he went to law with that company in any court, and gains his suit, no matter how slight the grievance, provided it only referred to traffic arrangements and starting of trains—the Board of Trade was immediately thereafter em powered to step in, and with or without in quiry, as it might please, to take into its own hands the management of the defaulting company's traffic, by issuing orders from which no appeal would exist, enforced by an unlimited daily penalty. Or, as Mr. Coates puts it, " At the instance of any man who can convict a railway company of trifling in any of its minutest duties, the whole undertaking of that company may be handed over to the Board." Handed over, however, with one ex ception ; for, while power is taken out of the directors' hands, the responsibility, risk, and cost remain still with them. Against these provisions, monstrous in their nature and fatal to railway independence in their results, the House of Commons last month protested, Lord Chandos, Lord Stanley, and Mr. Labou chere, being the principal dissentients. Their objections were successful, and for the pro posed clauses a general act is now to be sub stituted. But the difficulty is not yet over come. Many railway bills have already passed with the clauses inserted; and it is not clear whether they can, or will, now be struck out. And even supposing this question amicably settled, there are features in the proposed act not less objectionable than the worst parts of the preceding attempt at legislation. These are mostly contained in clauses 5 to 14 inclu sive. Mr. Coates shall state the case against them : The fifth, sixth, and seventh clauses of the bill are iden tical with the three first of the clauses for " forwarding traffic," and they have been already discussed. The eighth alters materially the machinery created by the clauses for handing over to the Board of Trade the management of railways and the fixing of their tolls; and it substitutes this marvel lous process :—Any man who complains (page 5, line 36) of a railway company with respect to the arrangements for the receiving, forwarding, or delivering of traffic ; or with respect to the times of starting, stopping, or arriving of their trains ; or with respect to the tolls, rates, or charges exacted by such company, or in any other respect (page 6, line 2), may petition the Court of Chancery to refer the case to the Board of Trade for their consideration and report. And neither here nor through out the clauses does it seem that the court or the board is to be restricted by the legal rights of the parties, or by any other tie than their notion of convenience for the time being. Then the court (clause 9) may order the board to inquire into the case, and the board, if it thinks fit, may report its opinion on the same, and upon any " arrange ments as to the traffic, or any adjustment of the tolls, rates, and charges upon the railway" (line 25), which appear to the board "to be just or reasonable :" and finally the court ( clause 10) may make such order upon that report "as the court thinks proper ;" and so on totiea quells." (p. ti, line 43). Nay, more ; the court illay order the petition to be served on any other company (p. 7, line 10) ; " or may ~._, ,