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Leader (1850-1860), 13th April 1850, Edition 1 of 1, Page 65

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      touching terms lie besought Ai ' sse" not to deprive him of her ldve . He renewed his offer of marriage , which she a <* ain declined . The dread of alienating him for ever inade her long delay her resolve ; but that fear at length yielded to conscience , and she accordingly announced to the Chevalier d'Aydie , that friendship must henceforth be the only feeling between them . Her sorrow was too evident , and he loved her too well , to indulge in useless remonstrances or reproaches . He submitted to her decision * not without grief , but resignedly ; protesting that her affection , whatever name she might give it , would ever be his only source of happiness , and promising never to seek her influence against the dictates of her conscience .

      He religiously kept his word ; and , though mingled sorrow and remorse had faded the numberless charms which had first enchanted hirri , his love for his Circassian mistress ever remained fervent and true . In the sincerity of that affection , he made her the whimsical proposal that , when their years were sucli as to justify such a course , without giving rise to scandal , they should both reside under the same roof , and spend the end of their life together ; thus realising in their old age the unavailing dream and longing of their youth . Mademoiselle Aisse smiled and wept as she heard him ; for she knew she would never live to see even that second dream fulfilled .

      " She ardently desired to consecrate her penitence , by confessing her sins to a priest ; but Madame de Ferriol would not probably have sanctioned such a step , arid Ai ' sse" was now too weak to go even to the neighbouring church . A plot to enable her to carry her desire into effect , was accordingly concerted between the chevalier , Madame du Deffand , and Madame de Parabere . The latter lady called on her friend , and took her in her carriage to the house of Madame du Deffand , where a clergyman had been brought by the Chevalier d'Aydie . Ai

      This solemn reconciliation of-her soul to God gave ' sse a peace of mind she had never known till then . The weary strive was over , the bitter cup was quaffed ,, and she felt spiritually strengthened and purified by its wholesome bitterness . Her conscience was at rest ; the chevalier loved her still ; she might love him without feeling burdened by the sense of ski or shame . But this happiness—for happiness it would have been—came too late . The strength of life and youth had been spent in the long struggle against passion . Signs she could not mistake soon told Ai ' sse" that her life was drawing to a

      close . " She had suffered too much not to feel resigned ; but she scarcely dared to contemplate the chevalier ' s grief . As though he could by his gifts have hoped to win back the life of a being so beloved , he was constantly heaping presents on every one around her . But love availed not aaainst death , and each day brought Aisse" nearer to the term of her existence . A few days before her end , she thus addressed Madame Calandrini , for the last time . * The life I have led has been very wretched . Have I ever had an instant ' s joy ? I could heverbe with myself . I dreaded to think . Remorse never abandoned me from

      the time that I opene 1 my eyes to the extent of my errors . Why then should I dread the separation of my soul , since I feel convinced that God is all goodness , and that my real happiness shall date from the moment when I leave this miserable body . ' "

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      EUGENE SUE ' S SOCIALIST NOVEL . Tjcs Mysteres du Peuple . Par Eug-thie Sue . Tomes 1 and 2 . W . Jeffs . The appetite for trash must be "voracious indeed whon ten thousand copies of such a work as this can be sold in France alone . Or rather , to do the public justice , it is not so much , the appetite for trash , as the love of seeing political and social questions treated by a romancist , which lends the interest of curiosity to so miserable a production . Here is a socialist novel , dull beyond all known profundities of dulness , ridiculous to a height that almost towers into the sublime , yet moving amidst the agitating scenes of revolutions , and pretending to display the radical causes of a people ' s misery , and to point to an issue from their troubles , and borne by its title , its purpose , and its author's name into thousands of families . To us the

      fact is significant . The my stare which it reveals is , that people are eagerly , blindly , clamorously seeking for some solution of the great questions flung up from the depths upon the surface by the universal convulsion of 1848 . The pamphlet—the article—the history , even the novel , is welcome which treats of these questions . Yc ? , even Sue is welcome ; not to us , indeed , for to us he is never welcome ; but to thousands . They rend his inept and wearisome declamations , they follow the slow windings of his impossible story , they read the ample notes which

      hu so diligently culls from newspapers and other recondite sources , and they accept without misgivings the base flatteries with which lie panders to their prejudices and ignorance . And in their tolerance of this shameless effrontery of a writer whose pretensions to aristocracy , a little while ago , were only less ridiculous than his pretensions to sincere democracy are now , we see an evidence of thn deep disquiet and anarchy which agitates them : any siid is welcome so that it swell their ranks ; the devil himself iightiug under their banner would receive his epaulettes , and the ensign of command . This it is

      which makes the fortunes of demagogues . Sad as it may make the philosophic onlooker , the sadness lies not in the fact of the man chosen but in the cause choosing—not in the fact of so vulgar-minded a charlatan as Sue being erected into a " personage , " but in the state of opinion which can render such alliance as his to any cause tolerable ! Iri ho one quality of a writer is Sue respectable . He is not sincere : his socialism arid democracy are

      transparent artifices . He cannot see the truth , and therefore cannot paint it . He has ho power of depicting human nature , but only a brutal melodramatic power of startling contrasts , arid rapid changes of scene . He has no healthy sympathy with what is elevated and heroic , none even with what is merely honest ; but his artifice consists in fastening upon some hideous subject having in itseif the fascination of horror , and in presenting this in violent contrast to the common amenities of life . Thus in

      his Mysteries of Paris we are alternately carried fmm the boozing-ken to the ball-room—from the fetid atmosphere of thieves and prostitutes to the fresh breath of pastoral scenes- We are introduced to an amiable society * of which the principal members are : Polidori , poisoner on a grand scale ; Le Mai tie d ' Ecole , murderer by nature ; Le Chdurineur , murderer by instinct ; Barbillori , murderer ; La famille Martial , murderers ; La Chouette , murderess ; Madame d'Orbignyi murderess ; Le Squeleite ,

      murderer ; Gros Boiteux , murderer ; Bras Rouge , cutpurse and spy ; Mere Burette and Pere Micou , receivers of stolen goods ; Tortillnrd , robber ; Le Vicomte de Saint Remy , forger ; Jacques Ferrand * murderer , forger , hypocrite , and everything else that is amiable and accomplished in crime ; Cecily , a female demon ; L'Ogresse , procuress ; Madame Sera « phirte , the accomplice of Ferrand ; the Countess Sarah Macgregor , a diabolical woman , but one whose hands are—the exception is worth specifying—not

      stained with blood . The Mysteres amidst which moved characters such as these had that morbid kind of interest which centres iix criminals and their doings ; and the book was carried all over Europe by the fascination of what was intrinsically loathsome in it . The Juif Errant followed " : it also adroitly moved amidst depravities and horrors , and had great success * though considerably less than Les Mysteres . With these efforts Sue had exhausted the topics of

      crime . He tried it again with Martin ^ but the failure was gigantic . He made another desperate effort with Les Sept Pe ' ches Capitanx , and here it was thought he had reached the lowest deeps of imbecility and dulness , until Les Mysteres du Pcuple appeared to show that in the lowest deeps there are deeps yet unfathomable , in the profoundest abysses of stupidity there are vistas of stupidity even more appalling and profound !

      Fortunately for his pocket—and that is all he can possibly care for in the matter—Sue discovered , even while writing the Myster ies of Paris , that a glorious vein was to be opened by making novels * ' social . " The unrest of society was so great , and the wrongs of some classes so profound , that any dramatic presentation of them would be ' * effective . " That vein lie opened . His knowledge was next to nothing , nor

      did he even trouble himself to acquire much ; newspapers and encyclopaedias were at hand—what more facile or more effective than to quote long passages therefrom in the notes , to support the windy declamation of the text ? Finding that process successful , he has in the present work added some passages from Thierry , Guizot , and other recondite sources , giving thus an ^ ir of erudition to his pages which must somewhat astonish even himself .

      Would you know the purport of this accumulated erudition , and these grand philosophic expositions ? It is nothing less than the demonstration of this thrilling fact : In France there are two peoples , Francs and Gauls , a conquering and a conquered nation . The Francs are the nobles ; they are miserable egotists , insolent oppressors , heartless , mindless hypocrites with—oh crown of infamv ! —white hands . The

      Gauls are pure , generous , meek , forbearing victims , with great pouls , exalted aspiration ? , and—dirty hands ! Observe , the essential point is cleanliness of hands : virtue is in inverse ratio to soap . The Gauls are generous not because tlioy are men , but because they are proletaires and have dirty hand ? . The Francs who do not work , how can they have generous feelings ? Well , these two races , according to Sue ,

      compose the French , nation ; as the Normans and Saxons compose the English ; and , though you would scarcely have suspected it , the history of France had been nothing but the oppressive dominion of the one race over the other , -which Sue now calis upon the oppressed Gauls to destroy ; The plan is riot without its adroitness ; Conceive how flattering to the proletaires to be told that they too have an . ancient lineage ! Birth ? Why ^ M . Lebrenn here traces his descent distinctly through a period of two thousand years—he is riiore noble than

      all the Faubourg St . Germain . And observe * not only has this one family preserved its pure blood through so riiahy- centuries , it has been historical in each . The " sovereignty of the" people '' was all very well , but what is that electoral fiction compared with the reality of " noblesse" ? What is lepeitpleroi to lepeuple-noble ? Surely , O proletaires ! you will subscribe to a journal the feuilleton of which is so unexpected a Herald's Office for you all ? " Come , buy , buy , buy ! here are ancestors , here are genealogies , buy , buy ! No more talk about ' inferior birth ' possible , buy , buy ! "

      We were precipitate iri saying the book was dull beyond redemption ; the buffoonery of its philosophy is not without some interest ; arid this it must have been which carried us through the two volumes , for of story there is absolutely not enough to fill twenty pages . To those who wish to see what can be done in that department of political philosophy we commend the book ; to those who wish for anything like a story , any picture of human life , or i even &riy " startling incidents , " we can promise nothing but disappointment .

      Wherefore have we gone out of our way to notice this book ? In general our selection of foreign literature will be made upon a principle of directing the reader to works we consider really valuable ; in this case we wished " to point amoral , " and the moral is this : One of the mischievous effects of repressing or refusing open discussion of great questions is that passions are inevitably roused on both sides , and instead of Inquiry we have Combat . I bring forward what I hold to be a truth ; instead of listening to me

      and arguing with me , you attribute bad motives to me , and dangerous consequences to my truth ; you are angry , and I get angry also . War has begun . In such a struggle all weapons are good that wound , all missiles snatched up that can hit a mark ; and hence the lies of a Chenu are made to serve the purpose of discrediting the republican partj ' , and the trash of an Eugene Sue serves to exasperate the rancour of the Republicans against the Conservatives .

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      NOTES AND EXTRACTS . A Noble Rule op Lifr . —Our great and most difficult duty as social beings is , to derive constant aid from society without taking its yoke ; to open our minds to the thoughts , reasonings , and persuasions of others , and yet to hold fast the sacred right of private judgment ; to receive impulses from- our fellow-beings , and yet to act from our own souls ; to sympathize with others , arid yet to determine our own feelings ; to act with others , and

      yet to follow our own consciences ; to unite social deference and self-dominion ; to join moral self-subsistence with social dependence ; to respect others without losing self-respect ; to love our friends , and to reverence our supeiiors , whilst our superior homage ' is given to that moral perfection which no friend and no superior has realized , and which , if faithfully pursued , will often demand separation from all around us . — Channing .

      Tub Real Ideal . —The passion for sentiment and " bercrerie" , indeed , carried to strange lengths . The Duchess of Mazarin , a fair and florid dame , riiore remarkable for good temper than for tact or wit , indulged her pastoral tendencies to an extravagant degree . She once resolved to give , in the heart of winter , a fete that should eclipse everything of the kind yet known . She fitted up her vast saloon in a style of extraordinary splendour , with wide looking-glasses that reached from the floor to the ceiling . At the further extremity , a wide recess , separated from it by a glass casement , was beautifully decorated With shrubs and flowers , so as to represent a lonely bower . Along a winding path , a pretty actress from the opera , attired as a shepherdess ,

      was to appear , with dog and crook , leading a flock of snowy sheep , to the sound of soft , pastoral melody . Tho light of the lamps , and the surrounding draperies , had bven judiciously disposed so as to heighten the effect of this little scene , with which the dancers were to be suddenly surprised at the most interesting moment of the ball . The poor Duchess of Mazarin was all impatience until that auspicious moment should arrive ; hut before she could Kive ihc signal that was to summ the shepherdess and her flock , a most unfortunate accident occurred . The sheep suddenly broke forth from their place of confinement , and burst through the glass casement into the ball-room . Panic-struck with the novel sight , and especially with the glare of innume-

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      Apbi * 13 * I 860 . ] $ >!) * %$ && * & ** 5

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), April 13, 1850, page 65, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1840/page/17/