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

~._, ,