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    MUS. NORTON'S APPEAL FOR DIVORCE. Tiieuk...

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    The Confessions Of Marshal St. Arnaud. T...

    ^ - 55 ^ - js to conduct a distant expedition with this piecemeal system of supplies . Everything comes by bits and morsels ; cannon without their carriages or horses;—horses , without carriages or cannon . I "have fortytwo teams instead of a hundred—a thousand yi-matched horses instead of three thousand .- ' This picture of " destitution , " resembling the worst evidence before the Sebastopol Committee is shaded down by the phrase " more easily to be regretted than avoided ; " yet the Marshal proves , by his own discontent , that the Imperial purveyors of the -war were scarcely so apt at their tasks that they could with clean hands satirise , in official papers , the clumsiness of our constitutional operations . Up to the end of May , 1854 , the Crimea was , in the mind of St . Aunaud , a distant dream . The idea of bearing to its shores an army fully equipped , " terrified" him . He knew that , if the Allies ventured on the attempt , they must be imperfectly provided . While an open arena remained on the Danube , he was satisfied to count the conquest of Sebastopol among things barely possible . When , however , the Bulgarian horizon had been closed , he resumed his scheme of " a grand coup-de-main" and pressed it on the British commander . Already the pains of death approached him . The long malady of his life became more afflicting ; he feared lest fever should intercept his march , and even hoped that the activity of a real campaign would produce a favourable reaction . The armies , therefore , half clothed , and provided only for a summer campaign , were crowded on board vessels of war and transports , hurried across the Black Sea , and deposited on the coast of the Crimea . At Did Fort , three days before the battle of the Alma , Lord Raglan waited , apparently , to strengthen his field-trains , and to fortify the various anna of the service . But St . Arnaud , sleepless and in torture , \ irgcd on , with desperate importunity , his more provident allies . He despatched inccssaut requests to the British head-quarters to march at once , to attack the Russians , to push forward to Sebastopol . His letters breathe an impatient frenzy . At last , in the agony of disease , he threatened Lord Baclan that , unless the English forces were ready within a few hours , he would advance with the French alone , " and that nothing should intercept him . " This , then , was the tone of councils in the Allied Camp before the united advance on the Alma . Lord IUglax was unprepared ; Marshal St . Ahnaui > was eager ; and Marshal St . Abnaud ' s eagerness overcoming Lord Raglan ' s caution , precipitated the two armies , first ou the Alma , and then on Sevastopol . It is a characteristic of this correspondence , that it ignoi'cs altogether the services of the British genonils , both in the disposition of the enterprise and in the buttle of the Alma . St . Arnavd , who eulogised in public the " antique valour" of Lord Raglan , described the victory , n » well as planned the future course of the war , without mentioning his name . " . / shall be at Sebastopol "— " / may attack it on the flouth side "— " / completely defeated tho Russians "—such is hia invariable language . To tho English troops ho pay * , indeed , the tribute duo to their steadiness and solidity , but to their votoran chief he does not once- rei ' or . On tho contrary , tlio " antique valour" is claimed for himself and his fmmds . " "Wo shall surpass Aoamkmton ; butour siego will not bo prolonged , like that ; of Troy . Wo havo in our army more than one A oiin . i / rcfl , many , an Ajax , and many tlio equals of Pa-SHiooxus . All goon well ; my orders mv givon , and , God aiding ua , Franco will in

    October register one of the most splendid and intenepid feats of arms recorded in her military-history ^ ' "My orders are given , " and " France will register "—where was Lord Bagman , where G-reat Britain ? The character of Marshal St . Abnatjd , represented by his own pen , is that of a dashing , unscrupulous , egotistical soldier of fortune , thirsting to cry havoc , and disdaining all suggestions of policy or caution . It seems to be established , also , that the Crimean expedition was proposed by him , carried forward by him in opposition to Lord Raglan ' s cooler judgment , and aimed by him as a series of rapid blows at the Russian power in the Crimea . At the siege of Constantine , in Algeria , he tells us , he led his soldiers through the breach into a gulf of ruins , in which , " on his conscience , " he expected a mine to explode . One had exploded already , throwing an entire company into the air . Such was the French Commander-in-Chief , whose impetuosity—that of a hound in the leashlied forward the British troops and their more prudent Chief to the deadly Crimean campaign . In his mind , considerations of policy had no weight . As the War Minister of December , 1851 , he yearned to embroil | Europe in a war . He had written , long pre-1 viously , these remarkable words : " It has always been my dream to make war , on a grand scale , in " Europe . " He . had watched the Italian revolution , praying for an opportunity to dash in , at the head of a legion ; I and he had imagined a Russian war , as a superb satisfaction for his insatiable martial ; appetite . " I should . like , " he wrote in 1849 , " to strike a blow at Russia , in company with England . " How far these aspirations—these Zouave passions—affected the policy of the French Cabinet , the mutilated correspondence does not reveal ; nor are we inclined to lay too much stress on the sanguinary enthusiasm of St . Aekaud ; but his acts , throughout his life , corresponded with these sentiments , and marked him , in the eye of the sworn President , as the desperate hero of the covj ) d ' etat . The only trace of military policy to be discovered in these volumes , occurs in a letter dated April , 18 S-1 , which begins with a candid avowal : " What we want is success . A reverse would be disastrous , internally and externally . " In the same epistle he writes : " You speak of the Crimea—it is a gem : I dream of it . ... But we must make no premature declarations . AVe must deliberate with the Turks , and see the Hussions a little nearer , to know what they will , and what thev can do . " 1 Glancing for a moment at St . Arnaud in his personal relations , it isjusi to add , that his more intimate and familiar letters , nl-: waya picturesque and vivid in expression , 1 exhibit him as a man capable of strong and tender atlbctions , retaining , to tho close ot his lite-, a certain winning warmth and simplicity of temperament , rather than of oha-1 raeter . He was not so much a man of bad p rinciples , as of no principles .

    Mus. Norton's Appeal For Divorce. Tiieuk...

    MUS . NORTON'S APPEAL FOR DIVORCE . Tiieuk is a skeleton , it is said , in every house , but by a peculiar hypocrisy , almost unparalleled in tlio history of mankind , English society agrees to ignoro tho domestic mon-Btroaityf and ailocts to disbelieve in the oxistence of skeletons anywhere , except in disreputable neighbourhoods or ill-regulated families . In tho main these subjects are treated only as cases of individual irregularity ; instances that become known are pronouucod to bo " exceptional , " tho vory custom that discountenances tho overt

    al-Lusion to all facts in such circumstances helps bo render the disclosure exceptional , although fche fact is little so . There is , indeed , not a tale which comes out which does not imply , if it does not absolutely prove , that many families are implicated in each of the so-called exceptional cases ; and sometimes they are so ramified , that you might connect in the chain the larger part of the Peerage , a great province of the landed gentry , with no small contingents from the moneyed and the middle classes . We need say nothing about the working classes , because it is not the custom to consider them as belonging to " society ;" and when we point to the flagrant departure from established law in whole sections of the great bulkof the people , the answer is that such occurrences belong only to the ignorant and vulgar . It is this extraordinary substitution of presumption , instead of positive kno-wledge , which sanctions the perpetuation of injustice . Sometimes from the penetralia of the household comes the ghastly cry , uttered by the living voice before the skeleton becomes ossified mto an heirloom . But the cry is always stifled , if possible , or is politely disregarded . Hence it is the practice to maintain laws that have no relation to the actual state of society in this country , and this maintenance is obstinate , even after those who are the highest authorities on such subjects have made up their minds that the law cannot and ought not to be maintained . There is , for instance , no greater instance of flagrant injustice , violating every principle of equity , humanity , and decency , than the existing law with respect to divorce . The judges of the land , the chancellors and ex-ehancellors , the Law Lords , the lawyers in the ecclesiastical courts , Bishops and lay saints , agree to report that some change ought t & take place . One at least . They admit the causes of divorce existing as much amongst the poor as amongst the rich , yet , at present , divorce from the bond of marriage is not to be obtained without an Act of Parliament or the hundreds of pounds which that form of relief costs . The law is open to all men , and Jabez Stockport and Dinah his wife , the Manchester weavers , can . obtain a divorce , if they will procure the witnesses , arrange the evidence , employ the counsel , and pay for the Act of Parliament . Jabez and Di > ah generally go a shorter way to work , and render themselves open to various criminal and civil proceedings . One interested victim , Mrs . Nortongroaning under a bondage where she is bound yet alone , enslaved yet protectionless —has put forth an eloquent appeal in A Letter to the Queen , " * on that Divorce Bill with which Lord Chancellor Cranwortii has tantalized parliament , and the hopes of her Majesty ' s lieges . Mrs . Wouxosr shows how in the existing state of the law a woman may be exposed to j ) erseeution of every kind . She was charged with infidelity to h ^ ua ~ band in an action brought against Lord Melbourne , and although , as she affirms in the most solemn language , innocent , and prepared to establish her innocence , she was shut out from the court . She was separated from Her husband by consent , and after separation ho invades her separate property , examines tic books at her banker ' s , subpocMiaB her publishers , and compels them to declare what a e the copyrights they hold , what tlio « mms they pakl Mrs . Norton ; thus making her fool that even the earnings of her pen arc not her own in law : for , " amu / . in- to say , an © observes , " tho copyright ot ™ y ™ £ *™ Z z ; znpzi : zrjz 'zri ^ l ^^^ xvsssriSrsS Longmans } .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), July 14, 1855, page 11, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_14071855/page/11/