the risk of carrying fire and sword into The manner in which his own mother those hospitable houses which had so long received the news of the intended expedisheltered the fathers of Brittany? No, tion affords the strongest proof of the exbetter far were desertion and a savage life tent to which natural feeling may be subin the darkest forests; better the ruin of dued by circumstances. She had seen her families, and the constant presence of gar-husband die a lingering death from injuries risons on the domestic hearth; better death received in the cause to which her son was by the carbine of the gendarmes, or by ex-now about to devote himself: she had felt haustion, or even by the steel of the guillo-a sabre pressed by turns on the child she tine, when taken with a weapon of any sort bore in her arms and the one she carried in in the hand.' Such was the universal cry her bosom: she divines at a glance the obamongst the rural population; and so fre-ject of the interview, and sees in her mind's quent were desertions, that there were soon eye all, and more than all, the impending fewer recruits in the imperial barracks than danger, whilst the lost father's image flits in the woods. Resistance became the rule, before her like a dream. Yet no passionand obedience the exception. The colle- ate entreaty, no weak womanly remongians not merely partook, they anticipated strance breaks from her. Oh, my God!'

the feeling of their countrymen; but no she exclaims in a tone of mingled sadness favourable opportunity for a demonstration and resignation, it is true, then, that the presented itself till 1814, during the hun- most painful sacrifice still remained for me dred days, when they broke into open re-to make.' volt, formed themselves into a regular bat'Many years after this crisis,' says M. Rio, talion, named a leader, and took the field. the son who had made her so wretched was The exploits of this chosen band form the relating in the presence of a mother tortured by subject of M. Rio's publication-quorum another kind of maternal agony, the tribulations pars magna fui-for he was one of them; through which his own had passed, and this reand nothing can be more affecting or spirit-lation was listened to not only with a religious attention, but with unequivocal signs of a prostirring than their adventures. A set of found sympathy, which added a charm the more boys engaged, not in the barring-out of a to the melancholy expression of the look veiled pedagogue, but the exclusion of an emper- by an unalterable melancholy. The halo of or-defying, not birchen rods, but bayonets happiness shone no longer round that head, -enduring the worst extremities of hunger though still resplendent with youth and beauty. and fatigue without a murmur, mounting But the resources of the heart and the imaginato the assault of a fortified town with the tion, although habitually turned back upon themselves, could still revive at need when a conge gallantry of a forlorn-hope, and covering anial chord was touched. This was precisely retreat like veterans. When we remember the effect which the story of the Breton mother the defeat of Lord John Russell's friend, produced, if not by the similarity of the sufferMr. Frost, by Captain Gray and Sirings, at least by the identity of the sentiment Thomas Phillips, or see a London mob re- which had rendered them so trying for both.'coiling before a handful of life-guards, we p. 162.

are puzzled to account for the exploits of We have here the history of the beautithe Parisian populace during the three ful little poem with which Mrs. Norton has days;' and a visit to Eton or Harrow would enriched M. Rio's work, and we must pause certainly enhance our wonder at the boy- to make an extract:

patriots of Vannes. But all classes of Frenchmen are or were familiarised to the use of arms from infancy; and perhaps there was hardly one amongst this band of students whose feelings had not been seared and deadened to the ordinary run of youthful associations by some fatal remembrance, whose infant imagination had not been kindled by some fearful vow, who had not a father bleeding on the scaffold, a mother insulted by a brutal soldiery, or a brother perishing amidst the snows of Russia, to revenge. Our generation,' says M. Rio, was too near to that which had supplied the victims of the revolution, for the idea of a violent death by the hand of a soldier or executioner not to have long since become familiar to us.'

6

'It might not be !-his spirit
Was all too rash and bold;
His heart too young and fervent
For vows so calm and cold:
Yet think not that the widow
Her offering made in vain;
Heaven's unregarded blessings
Come down on us like rain;
And he may brave life's dangers
In hope, and not in dread,
Whose mother's prayers are lighting
A halo round his head:

In wheresce'er he wanders
Through the cold world dark and wild,
There white-winged angels follow
To guard earth's erring child.
Go! let the scoffer call it
A shadow and a dream;
Those meek subservient spirits
Are nearer than we deem :
Think not they visit only
The bright enraptured eye

Of some pure sainted martyr
Prepared and glad to die;
Or that the poet's fancy,
Or painter's coloured skill,
Creates a dream of beauty,
And moulds a world at will:
They live! they wander round us,
Soft resting on the cloud;
Although to human vision
The sight be disallowed;
They are to the almighty
What the rays are to the sun,
An emanating essence
From the great supernal One:
They bend for prayer to listen,
They weep to witness crimes;
They watch for holy moments-
Good thoughts-repentant times;
They cheer the meek and humble,
They heal the broken heart;
They teach the wavering spirit
From earthly ties to part;
Unseen they dwell among us,
As when they watched below
In spiritual anguish

The sepulchre of Woe:
And when we pray, though feeble
Our orisons may be,

They then are our companions,
Who pray eternally.'-p. 175.

About three hundred and fifty were eventually declared fit for service, and to supply these with arms and ammunition was the first point. After clubbing the pocketmoney of the entire establishment, and mortgaging or selling every article of personal property they could spare, they could only form a fund wofully disproportioned to the purpose; and then came the difficulty of investing it without exciting suspicion. They succeeded in buying a few muskets and fowling-pieces, but the greater number were obliged to rest satisfied with pocket pistols. The arms obtained, they were ignorant of the most effective mode of using them, and were, moreover, unwilling to join the confederate army in the guise of an awkward squad. But on what pretence could they apply for so much as a single drill-serjeant, and how long would their proceedings be tolerated by the governor,

Madame de Stäel says that nothing is more irritating than the resistance of the weak; and this is the only mode of accounting for the useless indignities heaped on the collegians. An attempt to make them do homage to the imperial eagle nearly caused an outbreak; but the crowning tyranny, the drop which made the cup overflow, was an outrage perpetrated on a comrade, who, after being cruelly beaten and kicked by the gendarmes, was expelled the college, and compelled to enlist as a soldier, for un-if they turned the college-yard into a paconsciously wearing a few white flowers in his cap:

:

'A stranger who mixed with the groups of scholars on the evening of the day when Leman

ach had to endure such ill treatment would have

stood astounded at all he saw and heard; all those beardless faces, pale with anger rather than with alarm, the peasants turning up their long hair under their wide-brimmed hats, as if to prepare for a struggle-those whose hearts were most swollen with indignation giving vent to it before an audience who replied sometimes by expressive gestures, and sometimes by tears, which rage as well as pity for their comrade wrung from them; and during all this time the women of the lower class, ever watchful and devoted sentinels, keeping an eye on every window which opened above our heads, in the fear that some spy might gather up our words, which, in fact, were bold and uncompromising; for we spoke of nothing less than an armed insurrection, and we spoke of it with the full and firm antici pation of the consequences which might fall upon our heads.'

From this time an armed insurrection was resolved upon, and the resolution was

rade? At length an expedient was hit upon. There was a Gascon officer in the garrison who had made no secret of his disgust at the insults heaped upon them. Secure of his sympathy, one of their committee repaired to him with a complaint of broken health and failing constitution, for which the regular exercise of the musket and sabre had been prescribed. The goodnatured officer readily fell into the trap, and gave up an hour every morning to teaching him. Every evening the young recruit became the teacher in his turn; the scene, a cellar or garret; the class, a dozen of his comrades, armed with sticks, with which they made ready, presented, charged, and indeed did everything but fire and stand at ease, until their instructor had got hoarse with calling to them: forgetting, as M. Rio suggests, that what they might learn in this manner would be utterly useless in the kind of warfare in which they were most likely to be engaged. Next came the grand question, Where were they to plant their standard? In what di

rection were they to cross the Rubicon ?| black eyes, full of fire, his firm and sonoThey could not revolt in the abstract; and rous mode of speaking, and, above all, his every individual mode suggested to them wound, from which he still limped a little, seemed fraught with impossibilities of its had long made him a highly interesting own. The notion of assembling in the personage for those amongst us who had middle of a plain, and declaring war against heard speak of his exploits.' He received the government, was soon rejected by the the deputation rather coldly at first; but as wildest. There were enough soldiers in soon as he was convinced of their real chathe neighbourhood to have eaten them all racter and intentions, he accepted their up bodily; and even when the bulk of these offer, gave them his full confidence, and had been drafted off to attend the emperor offered to communicate on their behalf to Waterloo, it was deemed prudent to with the superior council of which he was steal a march upon their enemies. It was a member. proposed to begin by a night attack on a neighbouring fort, garrisoned only by a few veterans, where they expected to find arms and ammunition enough to supply both their own body and the auxiliaries who were sure to be attracted by their success. A leader, however, was indispensable, and they fixed on their friend, the Gascon officer, as the finest person for the post. The same lad who had excited his sympathy was commissioned to make the offer; and unbounded, as may be imagined, was the officer's astonishment.

They returned overjoyed, and the news of their reception diffused a general feeling of hilarity; but three mortal weeks passed away in the agony of hope deferred, and no summons to action arrived from the chateau. The chevalier was as impatient as his troop, but he felt the folly of acting until the general movement had been combined. The hour arrived at last, precipitated by the indiscretion of the authorities. It was ascertained that forty or fifty of the more active students had been proscribed, and were to be shipped off as conscripts to the colonies. This made further delay impossible; and the Wednesday fol

'He remained at first utterly confounded, not with horror, which would have been more accord-lowing the receipt of the intelligence was ing to rule, but rather with admiration and pity; pity for our youth, and admiration at our audacity. Without affecting to be hurt at our doubts of his fidelity, he replied, with equal mildness and frankness, that he was bound to the cause which we wished to combat by recollections he would never disown, and vows no temptation should induce him to violate. "You have done wrong," he added, in faltering accents, "to make me this confidence: you ought to know that, in not denouncing you, I not only betray my duty but expose myself to be ignominiously shot at the head of my regiment. Never mind; you have nothing to fear from me, except upon the field of battle, where I shall have to execute the orders of my commander."

So ended their hopes in that quarterand no wonder they were puzzled on whom to fix them next, considering the qualities they demanded in a general:- We re quired that he should be at the same time enthusiastic and experienced; that he should have the heart warm and the head cool; and above all that he should have a soul sufficiently elevated to tell by our accent alone that we were not traitors.' They found one, notwithstanding, in the Chevalier de Margadel, the occupier of a neighbouring château, who had served with honour in the wars of La Vendée, and had commenced his military career in much the same manner in which they were anxious to commence theirs :- His martial air, his almost gigantic stature, his large

fixed for their departure. It is an affecting part of the story, that, the grand point once decided, the first place of resort was the confessional. They thus prepared to meet death; and after receiving plenary absolution at the hands of their spiritual fathers, who necessarily became acquainted with the plot, they held a meeting in the loft of an obscure house, for the purpose of taking an oath of fidelity. They here, one and all, swore never to make terms with the usurpation, and to die rather than abandon their comrades. Some traits of boyish fun or malice contrast curiously with these grave solemnities. Many students in rhetoric converted their allotted tasks in composition into bitter philippics against their professor, and actually placed them in his hands, at the risk of compromising the success of the undertaking at the last moment. At length the college clock struck four, the signal for each to make the best of his way to the place of rendezvous beyond the walls. In the course of the next three hours all of them managed to steal out unobserved. It was no business of the elderly ladies with whom they boarded to reveal their suspicions, and the alarm was not given until the next morning, when great was the surprise of the professors and almost ungovernable the rage of the garrison.

It had been arranged that they should

act in concert with the principal body of suddenly upon a valley where the main Breton Royalists, now organized under body of Chouans was encamped. Here General de Sol de Grisolles; and to effect the young auxiliaries are received with the a diversion in his favour, a party of the warmest sympathy, and though occasional youngest and worst-armed of the students misgivings are almost involuntarily expresswere directed to leave the rest, and showed on the score of their tender years, these themselves in a different quarter, where they might be mistaken for an independent force. This manoeuvre was entrusted to an aspirant for the priesthood, named Quellec, who was suffering from a dangerous malady, requiring the greatest care. 'A la garde de Dieu!' was his exclamation as he tore a blister off his breast before his pitying and admiring comrades.

The main party assembled at M. de Margadel's château, where a beautiful little girl of fifteen, his daughter, put them in their own eyes on a level with the preux chevaliers of the best age of chivalry, by adorning them with cockades made with her own fair hands. During the performance of this ceremony, the sun was shining as he shone at Austerlitz, and they began their march in the highest possible spirits, which were not diminished by finding smiling faces, a good supper, and good beds at the château where they halted for the night. But the morning had hardly broke when they were obliged to prepare in good earnest for the hardships and dangers of the field. Their supper had been interrupted by the arrival of an express to say that a hostile detachment was approaching, and the two youngest of the band were immediately posted on the look-out about a musket-shot from the château :

'One of them, Emile Rado, had hardly attained

only serve to make them pant the more eagerly for an opportunity of verifying the maxim expressed in their favourite couplet from Corneille. They did not wait long. The very day after the junction they learnt that a strong column had left Auray in search of them, crying Mort aux Chouans,' and promising to return shortly each with one of the scélérats at the point of his bayonet. An attempt at surprise was disconcerted by the vigilance of the Chouans, but an action was inevitable, and their dispositions were made accordingly.

In the front, heading two or three hundred peasants, marched Gamber, a Chouan chief of reputation and experience. Promoted to the rank of brigade-general during the Breton insurrection of 1799, Gamber had treated both with the republic and the empire for the submission of his followers, but he would never consent to be included in the capitulation, and, traced from lurkingplace to lurking-place like a wild beast, ho had escaped as if by miracle. Such was the terror he inspired, that four gendarmes, who had tracked him to a cottage where he was quietly eating his dinner, could not pluck up heart to lay hold of him. What is to be done ?'--so ran their conference'he has a double-barrelled gun between his legs, and a pair of pistols on the table; we might as well have to do with four devils.' Thereupon they beat a hasty retreat. Gamber was now broken by age and infirmities, but his eye brightened and his form expanded at the thought of again encountering his old enemies. He moved backwards and forwards repeating his favourite harangue-' Dan, dan, tan ra ar nélié, potred,'-which, for aught we know to the contrary, may equal Henri de Larochejaquelein's famous address, or Up, Guards, and at them!

the required age, and had not figured in the ceremony of the oath; but he was bound to us by a tie equally sacred to him, the family recollections which had marked out for him beforehand the line he had to take: his maternal grandmother had perished by the guillotine, as guilty of having given birth to two emigrant sons, and her daughter imprisoned with her was on the point of undergoing the same fate. She had related to her son all the details of this lamentable history; and now the turn of this son was come. His comrade,' [the author] 'nearly of the same age, had nearly the same wrongs: the republican The battle began by a close and unexsteel had struck down the head of his grand-pected fire upon the part of the line in father, threatened that of his father, and grazed which the students were posted. The Blues were concealed by the nature of the ground, and suffered their opponents to approach within pistol-shot before they fired. The student who commanded the advanced They watched all night in vain, but with- guard, though he had received a severe in an hour after they had been relieved, the wound and saw his friends falling round enemy was upon them in overwhelming him, continued to give his orders, leaning force, and the utmost they could do was on his carbine, with a coolness which into make their escape into the woods. Afspired his little party with fresh confidence, ter some hours of wandering they came and they gallantly returned the fire. Gam

the neck of his mother. And all these unatonedfor crimes came back upon us on seeing the members of the revolutionary tribunals who had ordered them re-appear upon the political stage.'

ber and the other leaders hastened to take in him, and hardly regards as his equal the part in the combat, which raged with great credulous countryman who goes to demand of fury for about twenty minutes. The young- God, by an intercession deemed all-powerful, the er Cadoudal (the son of George) was seen strength necessary to endure wretchedness and fighting at the head of his division with no soners amongst our captives, and we could not pardon injuries. There were many of these reaother weapon than a club, and as none of help feeling a malicious pleasure at seeing the the royalists had above ten or a dozen car- amazement into which they were thrown by our tridges at the utmost, they were all obliged to them incomprehensible generosity.' to come to close quarters without delay. Determined not to throw away a shot, they rushed up to the very teeth of their enemies, Vendeans so long invincible, was afterThis spirit of piety, which had made the and seldom fired till their muskets were on wards neglected by the Chouan leaders. the point of crossing. This desperate mode The peasants were more than once shocked of fighting confounded the Blues, who at by being compelled to march on a day set length gave way; but the conquerors were too much crippled to follow up the victory, Rio complains that their only attendant apart for the services of religion, and M. and most of those who attempted a pursuit were checked by the wish to possess them- chaplain was a kind of Friar Tuck, who threatened all who talked to him of conselves of the muskets and cartridge-boxes of the slain. As for old Gamber, his strength his umbrella or his fist, and, with a bottle of fession before a battle with the handle of failed after a quarter of an hour's chase, brandy in one pocket to balance the breand he was found seated on a rising ground, with feet naked, breast bare, and face inun- attention to his exclusive preference for the viary in the other, was constantly calling dated with perspiration and tears of rage, groaning over the impotence to which his After a short time spent in collecting infirmities had reduced him, and hardly capable of being consoled by the victory. Redon. The students requested to be alarms, it was resolved to attack the town of The General of the Blues was taken, and ex-lowed to form the advance-guard, but the pected to be put to death immediately. On his tremblingly asking Cadoudal what they ground that the young blood destined to perilous honour was refused to them, on the intended to do with him- There is only recruit the priesthood should be spared. one thing for us to do,' was the reply to They were notwithstanding the first to ensend you home; but tell me frankly, if you ter the place amidst a shower of balls from had been the conquerors, would you have treated us in the same manner?' 'It was the defenders retreated to the tower. The the houses, upon which the main body of my intention,' rejoined the other, casting horrors of the ensuing night are thus down his eyes-- but I dare not say it

bottle.

would have been in my power.' His portrayed by M. Rio:
wounds were dressed with the greatest care
by the Chevalier de Margadel, who only so
far indulged his triumph as to repeat these

verses from Alzire:

Des dieux que nous servons connais la différ

ence:

"During the whole of this long night the intervals of silence were short and rare. Although we were under cover from their shots, they kept firing in all directions wherever the light and the noise led them to suppose there were Chouans. Sometimes they appeared to agree to fire to

Les tiens t'ont commandé le meurtre et la ven-gether, and then the tower and town-hall were

geance;

Et le mien, quand ton bras vient de m'assassiner,

M'ordonne de te plaindre et de te pardonner.'

a

momentarily lighted up like furnaces in the midst of darkness, and we roused ourselves with a bound at the sound of these terrible explosions, which we took for the prelude of a sally, and we cried "To arms!" and this cry, repeated by our Their next step was to repair to the neigh- patrols, reaching to a distance in the obscurity, bouring chapel of Saint Anne to offer up came to interrupt the repast of some, the prayer thanksgiving for their victory, and to obtain or the sleep of others; in the uncertainty wheth a renewed absolution from their sins. The er the danger approached from within or from without, whether the matter in hand was to remanner in which this proceeding was pulse the garrison, or make head against a reinviewed by their prisoners calls forth the forcement from Nantes or Rennes, our people following just reflection from M. Rio: ran at all risks towards the spot where there was most noise-made their way as they best might 'More than one bourgeois philosophe (a char- across dark and cumbered streets, provoking the acter occasionally not less comic than the bour-cries and threats of those who were bearing the geois gentilhomme) believes he adds something litters of the wounded-then, when the alarm to his small stature by loudly expressing the was over, the sleepers and eaters resumed their contempt all these acts of popular piety inspire occupation with so much the more ease from its 7

VOL. LXX.