The Press. — London, England, 1853-08-27 00:00:00

- AlJotgt 27,1853. to see you, Monsieur Claude. Ah ! 'tis the Bishop of Condom." " Claude !" " Claude !" What could be the meaning of that name ? Was it possible that Bourdaloue could hold intercourse with Claude —the leading doctor of the French Protestant Church—the champion of heresy—who had encountered in controversy Bossuet himself? It was even so. Claude had written so 'kiting the favour of being allowed to visit Bourdaloue, and expressing the admira tion which the learned Protestant felt for the eloquent Roman Catholic preacher. Bossuet was nettled. "He is a Huguenot !" said the Bishop of Condom ; " And a Christian," re plied Pere Bourdaloue. Then Claude came in, and found his old antagonist Bossuet before him. The meeting was awkward, and after a few minutes Claude was about retiring, when the two Fenelons were announced. Conversa tion then became pleasant and general, and some amusement was caused by the Marquis de Fenelon humbly saying, even in the pre sence of the Bishop of Condom, that he had repeatedly gone to hear the admirable sermons of Monsieur Claude. The topics of the day were then talked ot; and amongst others the impiety of the King's life, Claude heartily ex pressing a hope that the clergy would do their duty, and openly admonish his Majesty. After some time Bossuet and the } enelons retired, and Bourdaloue and Claude remained together. They talked of the morrow's ser mon of Bourdaloue, and some of it was then read, and parts of it were being criticised, when in burst an unexpected isitor whose countenance had something very peculiar in it. He had an assumed frankness, a shrewd glance in his eyes, a good-natured smile, but somehow he seemed to be full of ruses, and appeared to be too wily to be perfectly pleasing. It was Pere la Chaise, the King's confessor. He stumbled on Bourda daloue at the door of the preacher's long and narrow room, and he never premised that there was a third party in the chamber. Pere la Chaise at once, and with vehemence, at tacked Bourdaloue about rumours that were circulated, and cautioned him against the con sequences of imprudently assailing the King, causing scandal, and shutting up the Royal Chapel at Versailles. "Who would thank you for all that ?" cried La Chaise—" not me, neither the Church, nor the Court, nor the King himself ; nobody at all." "Except God I' cried a voice from the lower end of the room ; and the words of Claude electrified the compliant courtier-priest, La Chaise, and even struck on the excited nerves of Bourdaloue with almost supernatural effect. Nor would La Chaise wait to hear explanations. Suspecting some ruse, he lost no time in effecting his retreat, and then Claude, taking advantage of the incident, seized the moment, and dictated a peroration, of about four pages, thundering against the King. " I'll never dare to say all that !" cried Bourdaloue. " Yes ! you will," said Claude ; and the Huguenot went away. In the meanwhile Bossuet was with the King, and using all his art to persuade him to give up Madame de Montespan. Louis had been forewarned by La Chaise that there was a confederacy at work to bring the pulpit to bear upon him, and he tried to extract from Bossuet what Bourdaloue was going to say, and how far he would venture to take liberties with Le Grand Monarque. His heart at this time had been artfully played upon by Madame de Montespan, who had shown the " woman's wit" of sending the hesitating . King a charm ing letter, written by the King's natural son, the Duke of Maine, and addressed to his mother, Madame de Montespan. This letter —full of a boy's lively prattle—had roused much of the King's old tenderness to his mis tress, and he was thinking of the child's endearing words even when Bossuet was conversing with him. It was just at the mo ment when the Bishop of Condom thought he had finally overcome the reluctance of the King that a page appeared and handed the King a note, with the words. "You are the King—you are sorry for sending me away ; but I go. When these lines will be in your hand I shall no longer be at the palace." It was signed " Athenais." The note did its offiee—the shaft from Cupid's quiver hit the King's heart —and Bossuet felt that there was no other THE PRESS. resource but to rouse Bourdaloue to deliver the very peroration which he had learned from the preacher had been cutuposed by Claude. But there was the difficulty. Could the courage of Bourdaloue be depended on ? The stroke was attended with hazards of various kinds. if the King had been an ordinary sovereign he might have been easily swayed ; but he was Louis le Grand! He was a man beyond ordinary kings ; for let Monsieur Bun getter be heard in his own words while he depicts the character of limas the Four teenth:— Whether from his great ability or his great good fortune, Louis XIV. absorbed everything; and in the game manner as all the poets came at last to glory in being poets only by him and for him—so there was at length no orator—that is to say no preacher, since the pulpit al was 01%11 to elo• quence—who did not stoop beneath the same dominion, and gladly wear its livery. And this, it may be said, by the way, is one of the best proofs that Louis XIV. was no common wan. Let the legitimacy and morality at' this in fluence be discussed at pleasure ; let all the buses upon which it rested be made to totter One after the other (and we acknowledge that it can be done), yet the filet will still remain, that this influence was immense. and that it lasted fifty years. That eirennishuices prepared the way for it is undeniable ; that it was in some measure a homage to Louis XIV. himself is also true ; but even if he hail l a id nothing to do in order to acquire it, still it was a great deal to pre serve it, and to preserve it for half a century. Put a Louis XIII. or a Louis XVI. in his place, and see if it would have lasted. • • • • • He was then neither a great king in reality, since true greatness possesses qualities of which he was destitute ; ninth less a goad king, and he cared very little to be this be was a king, in all the extent and force of the appellation --s►uch a king as his father had not been, as his successors were not to be—a king whose like we tastreely rind two or three times in all the world's history—where there is never , theless no lack of those men who are called kings. Such was the personage with whom llourda lone was brought face to face in the pulpit•. At last the moment of trial came ; and the diumse ment is here worked up in the most masterly manner by the author. The reader is readily made to feel sympathy with the nervous anxiety of Bourdaloue. The hour has come at last, and it is even yet in the scales whether he will close with the usual flattery, " I have reason to console myself, &e.," ending in a panegyric, or concluding with the words written for him by Claude : Although accustomed to command an audience eight or ten times as numerous, he found himself at this mo ment the object of too lively, too pien•cing an attention, not to be confounded by it. If he had suspected nothing, per haps he would have perceived nothing, or would have id tributed this to an increased interest in himself, in his dis course; but how could he deceive, himself? Ile could not even take upon him tohave recourse tothe method which he' ordinarily used with success against the treaclwries of his memory—that of closing his eyes. in spite of himself he sought to read in those of the king the effect of his slightest words, and as the king, on his side, only listened with uneasiness and distrust, it was impossible that a little of his agitation should not pierce through the usual impas sibility of his feature's. It was a curious sight tee observe' these two men, both so skilful in impressing tethers, thus mutually impressing and fascinating esch other. The king was very nearly vanquished —ltourdsleme was still in his exordium, when a desperate temptation, a bewildering idea took possession of his mind. Here he is in the pulpit ;he has no more counsels or orders tee receive ; he is bet own master. What is tee hinder him front not delivering this horrible peroration, the cause of all his distraction '? He will not take up his former one again, oh no! That is de cidedly teen inadmissible, and more so at this time than ever. "I hare reasimfor ronmulaiiint,"—for shame ! Never, no, never will he say to the king anything like that or sp• preaching it. He will not recite that then, it is settled. He will be able to find a few words tee review it; he will improvise, if he must ; he will finish as he best can—and everybody will be satisfied. And every time he arrived at. this c*onc•lusion he seemed to bear sounding from the depths of his heart tlwse words eef Claude---" Except God !" "Yes," he thought, " except (:041,—and Bossuet, and Montansier, and the Queen, and my couscience.—and some from piety, and some front curiosity. and the king himself—the king. Ashamed eef having trembled, l e e will console himself only ley despising him who made hint tremble—for nothing—and who dill tom dare to gee 0n... And the sermon went on its way; and all this was whirling through the head eef the• orator; and the nearer the mo• ment drew when he would be forced tee decide, the more terrified he wets not tee know which side to take. Twenty times he was on the point of losing the thread of his dis course ; twenty times be would have lost it had his me mory been less tenacious; if, like a circus-rider standing upon a galloping horse, the very rapidity of his coons• had not tended tee preserve his equilibrium. But at the least shock, the least phrase omitted or changed, all would lone been broken, upset, lost. He' felt this, and it gave only the more vehemence to his utterance. Never had he• been in reality so absent in mind, never in appearance' so devout. In the arts, a power once discovered, you may apply it to everything ; in eloquence, one*• agitated, all your words re ceive from this fact a new life, even when the subject of which you speak has nothing, or scarcely anything, in corn- 401 mon with the primitive cause of this agitation. Agitated, alarmed, so long as emotion and terror do not go so far as to owl your 1411:,you are eloquent. And thus, he was most eloquent. Since the close office exordium the greater part of the hearers were his own ; but he was still making vain efforts to be theini. The events of the day—the preoccu rations of the next day—the Nubbin, thought of the passion, Wpm to abate+ all, and he, oho knew so well how to &gl ower all the miseries in the obscurest folds of these hearts which opened at his voice—he allowed these miiwries to fill and (maw his own. Oh fsw a moment of solitude ! For a corner to pray in ! to place' his insupportable burden at the' foot of the Crofts? Rut no, he must go on ; he imam drag it to the end. He is in the middle of his diseourse. Ile draws near the elose—aud he does not it know what he shall do. Another page, and hesitation will no longer b. possible. Another phrase only—two wor d s m o r e . His heed grows dizzy. his knees totter beneath him. He dashes on blindly, with a eonoentrated violence lie lets go the first words which come into his month. All is lost ! It is not the peroration of Claudio ; it is his own; the ono over which he has groaned ; the one which he wished to efface with his tears and his blood. It is as if the devil haul whispered in his ear. lint suddenly he stops and grows pale. As be turned his head, iu order at least to spare himself the shame' ufprouuuneing before the king's very taee these praises whirls seem like burning coals upon his lips—what does he see there, its that concur ? A grave, tun tionless, majestic c temince, which is distinctly defined against the long folds of a black mantle. It is he—the Protestant ! It is Claude! Bourdelone is annihilated. He slowly bows his head, he davit his hands. But, oh ! wonder ! he rises vain. Tlw fire of his eyes breaks forth again; his head is uptight and steady, his yoke vibrates. It is your turn, Louis le tirand! No one save lignite had perceived the motive of the int.mmtion, no one imagined it to be anything else but an oratolical ruse ; but the move ment hail been too natural, too true, too terrilsle not to have prodigious effect. The oretiw had perceived, as by the coy of a Math of lightning, ell the advantages he was going to derive from it. " 1 hors., Hererthelflo I, moon to CON• sole tropoir"—it was at these wools that Rourthileue had perceived Claude, and that he had Awn t o fall no more. TO console myself," he repeated slowly, " Ah, my bre thren, what was I about to say Y" And then, in the 1401111 of the orator's in vective, comes the climax of this most original and ingenious performance. We are not surmised at this work passing through upwards of ten editions in Fiance, and yet we have never heard or seen a transla tion of it into English, except that executed by Doctor Potts, of New York ! Front the evidence of its merits which our space allows us to produce, we are 4..onviticed that our readers will agree with our opening remarks on the ignorance of merit, or indifference to wards it, displayed by the publishers of cheap literature in leaving such a work to remain SO long without a large English circulation, alike due to its sterling talent and sound PnAcht.lint latilosophy. Crime: its Amount, Caws. awl Remedies. By Frederic Bill. London: Murray. Second Notior.] HAVING Investigated thoroughly the sources of criminality, Mr. Hill proceeds to explain in detail his propositions for its more effectual prevention. Ile commences by taking objec tion to what he calls the "leading principle " on which criminal law is administered, namely, the attempt " to deter from mime by award " ing punishment fir• different offences in pro " portion to their magnitude." Against this apparently reasonable rule he argues, first, that it cannot be carried out with even approxi mate accuracy, owing to the wide difference of individual guilt in eases externally similar ; and, next, that the end of punishment is not an6wered, when, after a given period, the of fender is let loose again upon society, without any precautions, ►coral or material, being taken against a repetition by him of the same. Let us consider these arguments separately. " The law eannot fix in each case the exact " amount of moral guilt." Undoubtedly not; for then must nu►u be able to read the heart of man. and human fallibility to pronounce infal lil►le judgments. IS►lt we join issue with Mr. Hill in regard of his definition. The magni tude of an Aimee, civilly Or socially consi dered, and the nitwd guilt involved in such offence, are, and in our imperfect state always must be, two very different things. The law can define the one, but not the other. Take an instance. An individual who by the disin terested aid of a friend has been rescued from disgrace or death turns against his benefactor without provocation, speaks ill of his eharac• ter, and reliises him the aid which he in turn is reduced to solicit. Nobody denies that such ingratitude implies mold turpitude of a very deep dye. Yet nobody proposes to make