Page images
PDF
EPUB

obliged to lend their arms to princes who are hostile to justice and the people's rights."

And when all was finished-when the lightning of Waterloo had struck him, how touching wer his last words to his army:

"Soldiers!" said he, "I will follow your steps although absent. It was the country you served in obeying me, and if I have had any share in your affections, I owe it to my ardent love for France-our common mother. Soldiers! some few efforts more, and the coalition will be dissolved. Napoleon will be grateful to you for the blows you are going to give."

From on board the Bellerophon, anchored in British waters, he addressed the following letter to the Prince Regent:

"Your Royal Highness! overcome by the factions which divide my country, and by the hostility of the great powers of Europe, I have terminated my political career, and I come, like Themistocles of old, to sit down at the hearth of the British people. I place myself under the protection of their laws, which I claim from your Royal Highness, as the most powerful, the most constant, and the most generous of my enemies."

At St. Helena his imagination retracted his past life, and reverted to Egypt and the East, and the brilliant recollections of his youth.

"I should have done better," said he, striking his forehead, "not to have quitted Egypt. Arabia waited for a hero. With the French in reserve and the Arabians and Egyptians as auxiliaries, I should have rendered myself master of India, and should now have been emperor of all the East."

Dwelling still on this grand idea he used to

say:

"St. Jean d'Acre taken, the French army would have flown to Damascus and Aleppo, and, in the twinkling of an eye, would have been on the Euphrates. The Christians of Syria, the Druses, the Armenians, would have joined it. The population was about to be shaken. I should have reached Constantinople and India, and I should have changed the face of the world."

Then, as if liberty, fairer than the empire of the world, had shed on him a new light, he exclaimed:

"The great and noble truths of the French Revolution will endure forever. We have covered them with so much lustre, associated them with such monuments and such prodigies, we have washed away their first stains with waves of glory. They are immortal, issuing from the tribune, cemented by the blood of battles, adorned with the laurels of victory, saluted with the acclamations of the people and of nations, sanctioned by treaties, they can never retrograde. They live in Great Britain. they are resplendent in America, they are nationalized in France. Behold the tripod from which will issue the light of the world."

Images of war floated continually before his imagination during the maladies which preceded his death:

"Go, my friends," he used to say, "and revisit your families; as for me, I shall see again my brave companions in the elysium of futurity. Yes! Kleber, Dessaix, Bessières, Duroc, Ney, Murat, Massena, Berthier, all will come to meet me. When they see me they will be wild with enthusiasm and glory; we shall talk of our wars with the Scipios, the Hannibals, the Cæsars, the Fredericks, unless," added he, with a smile, "the people there below should be afraid to see so many warriors together."

In an excess of delirium, which occurred during his illness, he imagined that he was at the head of the army of Italy, and that he had heard the drums beating. He exclaimed:

"Steingel, Dessaix, Massena; away, away! run-to the charge-they are ours!" Pondering on his melancholy situation on the rock of St. Helena, he used to soliloquize:

"Another Prometheus, I am nailed to a rock, where a vulture devours me. Yes! I had robbed fire from heaven to give it to France; the fire has returned to its source, and behold me here! The love of glory is like that bridge which Satan threw over chaos to pass from hell to paradise; glory joins the past to the future, from which it is separated by an immense abyss. Nothing remains for my son save my name""

The concluding words of his testament were marked by his usual eloquence:

"I desire," said he, "that my ashes may repose on the banks of the Seine, in the midst of the people whom I have so much loved."

As a statesman, he had at once too much genius and too much ambition to lay down the supreme power, and to reign under any master whatever, be it parliament, people, or king. As a warrior, he fell from the throne, not for having refused to re-establish legitimacy, not for having smothered liberty, but as a consequence of conquest. He was not, and he could not be, either a Wellington or a Washington, for the simplest of all reasons, that he was a Napoleon. He reigned as reign all the powers of this world, by the force of his principle; he perished as perish all powers of this world, by the violence and the abuse of his principle.

Greater than Alexander, Charlemagne, Peter, or Frederick, he, like them, has imprinted his name on an age; like them, he was a legislator; like them he established an empire; and his memory, which is universal, lives under the tent of the Arab, and crosses, with the canoes of the Indian, the fair waters of Oceania. The people of France, who forget so soon, have retained nothing of that revolution, which disturbed the world, except his name.

When the people accomplished the revolution of July, the flag, all soiled with dust, which was unfurled by the soldier-artisans-the chiefs of the insurrection-was the flag surmounted by the French Eagle-it was the flag of Austerlitz, of Jena, and of Wigram, and not that of Jemappes or Eleurus; it was the flag that was unfurled in the squares of Lisbon, of Vienna, of

L 2

Berlin, at Rome, at Moscow, and not that which floated over the federation of the Champs de Mars. It was the flag riddled by the bullets of Waterloo; it was the flag which the Emperor embraced at Fontainebleau, when he bade adieu to his Old Guard; it was the flag which had shaded his expiring brow at St. Helena; it was, in one word, the Flag of Napoleon.

He-this man-had dispelled the popular illusion which attached itself to the blood of kings-sovereignty, majesty, and power. He raised the people in their own esteem by showing to them kings, descended from kings, at the foot of a king who had sprung from the people. He SO overwhelmed hereditary monarchs, by placing them in juxtaposition with himself-he so oppressed them with his own greatness, that, in taking them one by one, and bringing them beside himself, they were scarcely perceiveable, so small and obscure did they become by comparison.

But let us listen to what the severe voice of history will pronounce against him:

He dethroned the sovereignty of the people. The emperor of the French republic, he became a despot; he threw the weight of his sword into the scales of the law; he incarcerated individual

liberty in his state prisons; he stifled the liberty of the press by the gags of the censorship; he violated trial by jury; he trampled under his feet the tribunals, the legislative bodies, and the senate; he depopulated the workshops and the fields; he engrafted on the army a new noblesse, which soon became more insupportable than the ancient one, because it had neither the same antiquity nor the same prestige; he levied arbitrary taxes; he desired that in the whole empire there should be but one voice-his voice; and but one law, his will. The capital, the cities, the armies, the fleets, the palaces, the museums, the magistrates, the citizens, became his capital, his cities, his armies, his fleets, his palaces, his museums, his magistrates and his subjects. He drew the nation out to conflict and to battle, but after having hesieged the forts of Cadiz-after having in his hands the keys of Lisbon, of Madrid, of Vienna, of Berlin, of Naples, and of Rome; after having made the pavement of Moscow tremble under the wheels of his artillery, he left France less great than he found her-bleeding with her wounds, dismantled of her fortresses, naked, impoverished, and humiliated.

JOANN Y, THE FAIRIE S.

No. 1.

(Legends of the County of Cork.)

BY ELIZABETH

I tell you 'tis no dhoorshé dhorsha (1) at all. No, he said, or she said, but the plain truth as ever you hear. It happened to a gossip iv my father's, an' I see the same 'oman myself as often as I have fingers an' toes on me, an' to this day sure anyone living anear Blarney knows about Joanny, the fairies, an' could tell what I'm going to tell you now jest as it happened no more an' no less.

'Tis fifty good year ago now, aye, bedad, or, iv I said it, nearer to sixty, whin ould Madame Jeffers (2), that could bring a man every day in the week from the gallows iv she liked, was livin' in the castle; an' before her son, the heir dylapydated the house, an' tossicated an'

(1) Mischievous gossip; idle talk. In this, or any other Irish phrase used in this paper, there is not the most remote pretence to correct spelling; the sound is merely given as nearly as may be.

(2) The Mrs. Jeffries meant here was sister to the Lord Chancellor of that day, and it was her natural influence with him which gave rise to this belief, which still prevails among the peasantry.

TOWNBRIDGE.

sould all the fine beautyful haythens an' gladyathors that wor about the square to aggrayvate her, an' put her to an' fro in her mind; an' thim wor the good times an' the fine prices for farmers, through the manes iv Boney's fightin' an warrin' through the world, an' putting everything three a-na-keylie (3); an' 'tis the Jeffers's wor the fine grand people that would come, maybe, width the pair iv pistols in their hand an' shoot you, an' afterwards, whin their passhin would cool, give you, maybe, the hor se or the fat cow, or the collop a sheep to make, it up agin, an' though the repale (4) was gone, faith, 'twasn't missed that time in Blarney; an' there was noane iv thim rale-roads or steamboats that do be bustin' an' killing the people hour an' minit, but everything plane, an' quiet, an aisey; an' there was noane iv thim combustybles they uses now goin' in farming, only the three fine craps, the whate, an' the oats, an' the barley. An thin the praties an'

(3) The Irish à tort et à traverɛ.

(4) The Irish parliament. "To bring over the Repale" is a usual mode of expression among the lower order of Irish for restoring native legislation.

so on begin agin an' the fine homely graffin (5), | sarvint boys, not forgetting a lick ov the tongue whin all the youngsthers used to have sich fun, to Mick iv she thought he was dhrinking the roastin' the praties an' the eggs in the hot young man in the bed's health too often; but ashes, an' all the naybors sinding their plough he was used to that, an' it rubbed off iv him or their pair o' ploughs to aitch other, an' noane aisy, an' indeed he used to say he'd be lonesome iv thim machines in fashion, only the fine like av' she didn't tell him every now anʼthin that winnin'-sheet at the cross-roads or the high he'd be sorry for his doin's yet. field, an' the windy day, an' all the girls watching it, an' letting the chaff fly width the blast, that, iv you plaise, is sowld now at the fourpince and the fippince a bag to fill the ticks width, aye thim wor the times.

a

Well, among all the tinintbry ordher, of the Jeffers's, there wasn't one better off thin Mikle Ahearne, that had the farm from 'em, that I'm tould is a Moddle Farm now; bad scran to 'em for moddles, one would think there was never a blade iv grass grew till thim petty-coat-looses come over from Scotland to taitch us how to shake hayseed. Mavrone, 'tisn't one or two things the ould counthry has to throuble her, but manny's the thing besides. But, as I was sayin', Mikle Ahearne was a studdy dacint (6) man, well known in fair an' market as a good buyer an' seller, an' a good judge iv a baste, but, be the good stick, 'twas no saycrit in the plough-land, or the nixt to it aither, that the gray mare was the better horse" at home, for, bedad, his wife was a ratlin' fine 'oman, five feet ten iv she was an inch, in her stocking vamps, width a tetch iv the fox in her blood, an' tongue in her head that could lave Mihaul know what was what while she'd be lookin' about her. But she was a great 'oman, intirely at the milk an buthter, an' a knowin' clane housekeeper, an' a good mother iv childhern; an' Mihaul was a quiet man, an' used to take no notice iv her talk, but left her folly on tell she was tired; an' beggorra, though he was a small man, he hadn't any consate in him that way, that a'most all thim little four futs have in thimselves, takin' always as if it would come like playin' marbles to 'em to thrip a steeple. He wasn't that soart at all, but he tuck a great shine entirely out of Joanny, through looking so big an' so plentyful alongside iv him at mass iv a Sunday or behind him on the beautiful dhrab cloth pillion at a berrin (7) or a hauling (9) home among the naybors; so that betwixt her having her own way width her tongue an' he taking his own way without making her an answer, taking a sup whin it answered him an' lavin' it afther him whin it didn't, be the piper o' war, they lived as paceable an' continted as any couple in the Barony.

Well, my dear, it come about that Joanny was put to bed width her fourth child, a fine armfull iv a boy; the first son, too, for the others wor only girls, an' everything wint on well an' the mother strong an' hearty, an' likely to be up in a couple iv days, giving her ordhers out o' the bed to the maids an' the

(5) Burning the surface of the ground, a most destructive mode of farming. (6) Steady. (7) Burials. (8) Bringing home a bride.

[ocr errors]

Well, my dear, this was the way that everything was, whin one mornin' Mihaul wint in as ushul whin he got up to bid the wife Dhea a gudth (9) an' see how the babby was thriving whin, God bless the hearers an' where tis tould the eyesight sprad in his head, whin he see out before him, in place iv the splendid bedfull iv a woman he left there last night, but a poor spint colloch (10) iv a yallah sperit widthout a tooth in her head, an' her two little ferrets iv eyes squinting up crucked at him; an' his beautyful crathur of an infant, with his little red fists doubled up an' his face like a blue bag, he was in sich a passhin alongside iv her. "Ayeh, my dear," he frightened up, at wonst, an' my good 'oman," ses he, what brought you here?" ses he. But the never an answer my ould lady made him, but squinted up at him wuss than ever. Well, at last he thought that maybe 'twas the way Joanny found herself so sthrong that she got up an' wint out as far as the cowhouse to see afther the milking an' that the one in the bed was some onshuck crayture (11) looking for her bit (God help us !), that sthrayed in an' led down in the warm, place the craythure whin she found it impty, But, bedad, he wasn't long or lazy finding his mistake out; the ould 'oman was there (12) for good, iv you plaise, an' his fine slashing 'oman iv a wife gone!

Well, my dear, 'twasn't long tell he made an alarm, an' all the wimmen iv the plaice wor about the bed screeching an' bawling; but, egorra, iv the tower o' Babble, where they ses all the talk is, walked down in the room to her, 'twouldn't put a stir in the sthranger, an' one iv the naybors whipt away the poor babby width her an' got him christen'd at wonst, the way nothing would have any power over him, at all evints.

Well, to make a long story short, this sthrange ould 'oman, whoever she was, linger'd width 'em for a month in the bed, an' thin she died; an,' indeed, be all accounts, Mick Ahearne acted every way dacint be her, an' gev' her a wake an' a funeral fit for anyone gentle or simple. An' be degrees he begin to come round agin, for though he often miss'd poor Joanny from him, still, as I said before, he was a fair an' aisey-going little man; an' afther all, I'm tould (I don't know myself, I'm sure, never havin' the knot tied on me, the Lord save us!) that there's many a wuss thrial to a man than losing his wife; an' he brought in a very proper studdy 'oman, a widdy an' aunt iv his own, to look afther the plaice an' the childber.

[blocks in formation]

"This ould decaivin' villin," ses Mick, "that wants to persuade me black an' white that she see poor Joanny last night! As if I was a fool to b'lieve her and her raumashe (25).”

she: "6

"Whisht, Mihaul avick (26)," ses Mrs. Gearey, speakin' soft to him, ""tis a wondherful thing," ses she, "to see you in a passhin,” ses hear what she has to say. take the craythure aisey an' lave us all There's many a quare thing going," ses she," an' there's nothing like the quiet way in the ind.

Noane iv thim Scureshas (13), that do be going | him av her, an' thin everyone axed what it was to the first man's berrin width the tear moryah all about. (14) in one eye an' the cock in the other; one looking out for the seckind, aye, an' iv I said it, the third an' the fourth, but no matter, for that, shure everyone to their thrade, an' av she was a widdy imself, shure the Widdy Gearey couldn't expect her own brother's son to marry her; so she minded Mick's house an' family, well as all the naybors saw for nine or tin months, and at the ind iv that time, a poor thravelling 'oman (15), that was always used to resoart to the house for a night's lodgin' whin she come the way, come in one evening, an' afther keening (16) poor Misthiss Ahearne well, for she was a fine cryer (17), an' wasn't there before sence she was gone, an' aiting a fine supper iv the praties that wor as dhry as any bread an' everyone iv thim as big as her head, an' the best iv thick milk an' new milk mixed, an' a good bit iv corn butther.

She led down in the bed iv fine clane sthraw, an' bed-clothes accordin' that was always kep in the little puck (18) anear the fire, for the likes iv her the craytures; but in the mornin', egonnys (19), whin she tuck her brek fist iv the same as she got last night, she looked very dark an' murnful in herself, an' she called Mick a one side an' said she had a thing to tell him. So he walked out width her into the yard, width his two hands in his pockets, quite keerless; an' to be sure 'twas marridge ran into the aunt's head an' all their heads whin they see 'em, an' the girls an' the min in the kitchen beginning to wink at one another that 'twas a match Bridheen (20) had for the masther, an' that she come width the message to him whin Ochone (21)! Mavione, all iv a sudden, they hear a pillillu (22) outside that scatther'd 'em all at wonst to see what was the matther; and whin they run out what would they see but the Far-a-thee (23), an' he having a hoult of Bridheen be the top iv the ould shawl she wore on her nick, an' he shakin' iv her for fair passhin.

"Yerrah, Mihaul, agra gal a lay machree (24), lave some iv the life in me," she was thrying to puff out as well as she could. "I'll stop here agin to-night," ses she, "an' watch yourself, an' thin you'll see if I'm telling you the thruth

or not."

But Mihaul would be shaking her to this day, I suppose, he was so mad, but one iv the boys tuck

(13) Viragos. (15) A beggar-woman, nearly among the Irish peasantry.

(16) The woman who keens.

(14) By the way.
always so called

"So she tuck the poor 'oman in, and gev her a dhrop o' the cowld wather an' a good sup iv sperits in it-that indeed, be all account, they wor never short iv in the house. An' whin she came to herself a little, she up an' tould how she woke in the middle iv the night, an' how she was dhrawing her bade (27) to her, to say a couple iv prayers for her bennyfacthors an' thim that was good to her here an' hereafther, an' that she thought she see the shaddy (28) passing her, an' 'twas nothing tell she shuck as if she was in the agey whin she see Misthiss Aherne pace an' rest to her sowl wherever she is, the fine flawhoor (29) 'oman that often gev away the good brekfist an' the good supper width her own two hands, walk over to the dhresser an' take the plate iv cowld biled praties an' the piggin' iv milk that was always led there, an' a clane towel every night iv coorse for the use iv any poor sowl that might be wandhering about doing their pinnance-the Lord relieve 'em, an' sind 'em speedy relase, the craythures! anʼ bring 'em hether to the fire-place, an' dhraw out a couple iv the red sods an' roast the praties, an' ait 'em width the milk, as if it was manys the day sence she got a bit or a sup, let alone a good male iv vittles. An' thin go over to the settle, where the childher slep' with one iv the girls, and look at 'em an' at last tuck the infant out iv the cradle an' examined him, and whin she put him back she gev one murnful look aroun' the whole in the plaice, an' walked out agin as she come in.

Well, my dear, she parsyvaired so sthrong in her story that at lingth an' at last Mick gev into her, an' sed he'd stop up that night an' watch. So, accordin' to that, the ould 'oman stopped, too, an' everything was settled as ushul, only that Mick tuck his stan' behind the room-doore, where he could see everything through the slits at his big aise. An' sure should walk in but the skin an' bones iv bis enough in the dead hour iv the night who wife-for there wasn't a bit iv flesh upon 'eman' wint through the very same coorse that was

(17) A lament in Irish; a sort of rhyming one, in tould be the poor 'oman, an' was makin' agin which all the good qualities of the deceased are

forth real or imaginary.

(18) Recess.

(19) My son.

set

(20) Beggars are great match-makers in Ireland

among the peasantry.

(22) A great cry or uproar.
(23) Man of the house.
(24) Irish terms of endearment.

(21) My sorrow.

for the doore, whin out Mick lept an' caught her about the waist.

[blocks in formation]

"Joanny, gra gal machree (30)," ses he, where are you, or where are you goin," ses he, from the childber? Think iv them, an' iv my Jonesome heart," ses he," and sthop width us. You must sthop width us; for my arms are around you, now," ses he, "an' they'll never let you go agin."

"Ah! no, Mick, agrah" (31) ses she, very murnful, "you can't keep me this time. I'm missin' from the good people," ses she, "sence the night the ould 'oman you berried was left in the bed, and myself whipt away, an' only I never ait a bit iv their vittles you never could get me at all, be any manner iv manes; but as I didn't, there's one way iv doin' it," ses she, "iv you have the courage to face it."

"Out width it at wonst," ses Mick, stiff and sperited, "an' av it's in the power iv mortal man," ses he, " to do it, you'll be in your house in the morning."

66

"Fair an' aisey, Mihaul," says she, "fair an' aisey; I'm not in the nixt fort to you," ses she, "but in another one two mile away to-wards the Round Tower; but in fifteen nights from this they're all raymoving to another plaice, a good way off, an' lave you go," ses she, to your brother, an' call to my brother, too," ses she, "an' ax 'em to go width you on the night I mintion to the ford ondherneath Mathea churchyard; but for your life," ses she, "don't (32) offer to forget to bring a bottle iv the blessed wather an' a black-handled knife width you, an' just egsackly between twelve an' one o'clock you'll see a long thrain iv thirty couple a horseback pass you by an' lave 'em all pass you," ses she, "tell you come to the last couple, an' I'll be an the grey horse nixt. You have a ring ready made all aroun' you; width the blessed wather make one cut iv the black-handled knife thro' the rains," ses she, "an' dhrag me off iv the horse into it, an' I'll be all right for evermore, for they never can tetch iv me agin; but ontil that's done, Mick machree-a (33), keep me you can't. So let me go, now; for my time is up, an' you'd only do me a dale iv injury if you thried to stop me to-night."

So he left her go her road, an' sorrowful enough the poor loving couple paited width aitch other; but the nixt mornin', poor Bridheen (34) tuck to the road agin, my dear, as proud as any paycock, width a bran new one iv the ould guineas sewed up safe in the plates (35) of her petticoat, an' many a Ghu dhea thu slaun (36) from the people in the house an' the naybors, for everyone was very glad to larn there was a chance that Joanny would be on the flure with thim agin.

Well, whin the time come in coorse Mihaul wint to his brother an' toult him everything, eganneys (37) he got nothing but the cowld showldher,

(30) Sweet love of my heart. (31) My love. (82) Attempt. (33) My heart. (34) Bridget. (35) Plaits; a favourite hiding-place for money among Irish people of her calling. (36) God speed you. (37) An expletive.

| for Davy Ahearne said he'd go far an' near for Mick or Joanny av it was anything else they wanted; but begor no one could expict him to dhraw the good people an' himself an' his own family, an' so he'd have no call to any pishoges (38), an' indeed his vanithee (39) sed the essack same; but whin he went to Joanny's brother, one Philly Linehan, 'twas wuss agin width him, for iv he ballyragged (40) the poor thravellin' 'oman, faith, Philly ballyragged him. self tin times wuss, and tould him he was the fast sprissaun (41) iv a vehoonig (42) that ever evened one iv his people to the fairies, an' 'twas as much as ever the wife could do to keep him from brainin' Mick width the sock iv the plough that he had in his hand carr'ing to be mended. But, bedad, Poor Mihaul was lyal (43) to Joanny all through, an' whin noane iv thim would go width him, be the piper o' war, he said he'd go himself; an' so he did, not forgetting to be shure iv the bottle iv blessid wather an' the black-handled waypon to commit depraydashins on the good people av they didn't give him back Joanny.

So, all well an' good, my dear, the 'pinted night was a beautyful moonlight one, whin my bould daaring Mick tuck his stan' jest at the stepping-stones ond herneath Mathea, an' shure the same churchyard was always an airey plece (44), an' was muv'd in one night from one side iv the wather to another, or at laste a part iv it; for, before it was all acrass, some 'oman (shure they're always doin' some mischief, the darlins), put out her head to see what the n'ise was, an' some iv the head stones fell in the wather, where they're to be seen 'tell this day. Ayeh! 'tis very hard to meddle width the good people at all. Well, egor, Mick made a fine big ring iv the wather all around about him, an' caught a hard grip iv the knife, an' had his air (45) cocked an' his eye out to see 'em coming; an' shure enough, jest as she said, in the dead hour iv the night, on they come in grate ordher, an', my dear, they all talkin' an' jibin' for the bare life among thimsel's, but he never dhrew his breath or offered to stir ontill they wor all gone by, except the last pair, an' thin he made a spring forrard; an' while you'd be sayin' thrapstick, he had the knife run through the bridle an' Joanny aff o' the horse 'ithin the ring width himself. An' 'twas thin the bullabaloo begin, an' the screechin' an' the prancing iv the horses in the river; an' they anear dashed every dhrop iv wather in it up about the road, they wor so mad for losin' their nuss (46). But 'twas no use for 'em, they hadn't the power iv taking her out o' the ring, but the two iv 'em had to sthop in it tell the mornin', though, an' 'twas the proud man wint home at daybrake, whin Mick Ahearne tuck home "Joanny, the Fairies," as she was called tell

[blocks in formation]
« PreviousContinue »