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Northern Star (1837-1852), 4th September 1852, Edition 2 of 2, Page 13, REVIEWS. Le Coup d'etat de Louis Bonapar...

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      I September 4,1852. The Star Of Fbeedom....

      i September 4 , 1852 . THE STAR OF FBEEDOM . 61

      Fripral Lorni

      fripral lorni

      Threnody, On The Death Of Albert Darasz ...

      THRENODY , ON THE DEATH OF ALBERT DARASZ , I . Another death ! another martyr lain In the Exiles' tomb!—0 , Grief ! thy fangs are sharp ; And these hearfc-cleaving agonies threat to warp The hopefulest spirit from its upward strain . Alas ! the higher hope , the farther fall : And more than lofty hope must be thy pall . II . 0 unaccomplish'd hope ! 0 grief of griefs , When the sap faileth ere the worth is ripe < Thou proud fruit-bearer , whom Decay doth wipe , As a mere painting , from life's page ! The chiefs Of the World ' s worthies look'd to tlxee for aid ; And we to worship in thy branching shade .

      III . The axe hath struck thee in thy manhood ' s prime ; Thy purpose nn-mahn-ed : so fairly blown Thy blossom , and the fruit set : all foreknown The richness of thy virtue , the sublime Eternity ehkernel'd in its growth . Thy life read to us certain as God ' s troth , IV . Far from thy home thouliest ; strangers' ground Must pillow thy sad sleep . Some two or three . Thy brother-exiles , doubtly kin to thee , Their tears long since exhausted , droop around Thy narrow death-bed : hearts that may not break , Harden'dagainst thy loss for Poland ' s sake .

      V . Over thy grave no tears ; hut death-like clasp Of hands that may not wave thee back to shore Thy tomb is hut one martyr-stair the more , Whereon we mount the martyrs' crown to grasp . 0 Mend ! we dare not whisper Hope to lay Our bones by thine . Our hope must turn away .

      VI . Must fcini even from thy ashes , Well-beloved ! Hot thee , nor aught hut our relentless task , 3 Iay claim our thought . And yet , if Toil might ask A guerdon for the toiler worth-approved , "fwould he some weary hours , toil-spared , to gaze Back ou thy life , re-studying all its praise . VII . In vain ! Recall the past ! Recall thy life!—The shadow followeth the vanish'd form ; His grave is yet moist earth , their tears are warm : But flowers spring up , new blossoming smiles are rife . Xot unto us . Thy shadow clouds the world , Deepening the gloom wherein our life was fmTd .

      VIII . For we have lost thee ; and , though round onr brows The hastening hours should twine their dearest wreath Our country ' s freedom and the world ' s , thy death Would shade the laurel-blossoms . How carouse The full of joy above thy distent grave ? Daspair hath hurled all in that sea-eave .

      IX . Ah , no ! God ' s world is wider than our earth . What is this earth ? A narrow altar-stone , Which thou , brave friend ! did ' st lay thy life upon For God : a sacrifice of endless worth . . All worth is endless , thou must live therefore : Part of the Eternal Work for evermore . X . We look to see again thy form divine ; We pray to follow on thy path . What prayer ? The vo \ v that slayeth even griefs despair , The prayer of deeds of the same high stamp as thine Stay for us , Angel ! within heaven ' s gate : Thy ancient comrades call on thee to wait .

      XI . Our arms again shall hold thee to our heart ; Our eyes again shall read thy inmost soul ; And foot by foot toward the higher goal Our lives shall climb : —God ! nevermore to part . Pray God to snatch us up to heaven ' s gate : Lest thy swift-soaring spirit should not wait . XII . The sun is down ; hut in the western cloud s The lengthening trail of slendour grandly lies : The hem of Hope yet glistens in our eyes . And what though night the sunniest memory shrouds ? God hath a morrow for the loving . We Will grieve no more for one lost utterly .

      XIII . Memory and faith shall lift us to thy side . So shall our thought be wing'd , even as the dove Of comfort , that the weary ark may move Toward the shore . And whatsoe'er betide Our lives , —do we not know that thou art free From earth ' s lament , from earth ' s anxiety ? XIV . O blessed Dead ! beyond all earthly pains ; Bevond the calculation of low needs ; Thy growth no longer choked by earthly weeds ; Thy spirit clear'd from care ' s corrosive chains ! 0 blessed Dead ! O blessed life in death , Transcending all life ' s poor decease of breath i

      XV . Thou walkest not upon some desolate moor In the storm-wildering midnight , when thine own , Thy trusted friend , hath lagg'd and left thee lone . He knows not poverty who , being poor , Hath still one friend . But he who fain had kept The comrade whom his zeal hath overslept . XVI . Thon sufferest not the friendly cavilling , Impugning motive : nor that worse than spear Of ibeinan ,--biting doubt of one most dear Laid in thy deepest heart , a barbed sting Never to be withdrawn . For Are were , friends : Alas ! and neither to the other bends .

      XVII . Thou hast escaped continual falling off Of old companions ; and that aching void Of the proud heart which has beenover-buoy'd With friendship ' s idle breath ; and now the sc ; jif Of failure even as idly passeth by Thy tomb-ward corse : —Thon soaring through the sky

      XVIII . Knowing no mora that malady of hope—The sickness of deferral , thon canst look Thorough the heavens and , healthily patient , brook Delays-defeat . For in fchr virion ' s scope -Most distant cometh . We might see it too , But dizzying faintness over veils our view . XIX . And when disaster flings us in tho dust , — Or when we wearily drop on the highway-side , — Or when , in prisonfd , exiled depths , the pride Of suffering bows its head , as oft it must , — Wc cannot , looking on thy wasted corse , Perceive the future . Laud us of thy force !

      XX . Xo more of grief!—Thy voice conies to us now , Answering our invocation . We uplift Our eves ; and , looking through the tempest-rift Behold the light of thy triumphant brow There in the line of God . Lest we should miss His farthest throne , he neareth us with this .

      Fiieretro.

      fiieretro .

      Reviews. Le Coup D'Etat De Louis Bonapar...

      REVIEWS . Le Coup d ' etat de Louis Bonaparte—Histoiee de la Persecution de Decembre . Par Xavier Dun-leu London : Thomas . In the first series of tho Star of Freedom , under the headin 0 " 'Fall of the French Republic , " we give copious extracts from this work of Xavier Durrieu . This was the first detailed history of the coup d ' etat which was given to the world , and is as a historical work doubly valuable , inasmuch as what

      is written therein was witnessed by the writer himself , and not reported upon mere hearsay . There is no attempt at fine writing ; the hook is simply a narrative of the crimes of the coup d ' etat , and of the sufferings endured by the author in company of a host of other Republicans , after ' the triumph of Louis Bonaparte . Durrieu was editor of the Revolution , a Paris republican journal , and took an active part in the preparations which were made to resist Louis Bonaparte on the 2 nd , 3 rd , and 4 th of December . Along with many othershe

      , was arrested and cast into prison , and , after suffering innumerable and unheard-of miseries in the prisons and fortifications—every means of torture having been expressly ordered by the brutal tyranny calling itself a government—they were put on board the Canada frigate , at Cherbourg , to be transferred to the Duguesclin , at Brest , thence to be transported to Cayenne . The cruelties and indignities which . were perpetrated upon the poor captives in the rotten ship were truly horrible . Here is an account of the

      Voyage of the Canada . At last , after eight days of mortal agony , the wind slackened a little , and the frigate , amid the acclamations of the prisoners , departed for Brest . We experienced the last trial on board the Canada , hut this did not save us from all those we had still to suffer on other prison-ships . One lias no need , when there is at hand so many atrocious and incontestable crimes , to abandon oneself to simple conjectures ; but , truly , considering the horrible state of tiie sea , and the absolutely ruinous condition of the vessel , it is difficult to avoid attributing to enemies so

      unscrupulous the most sinister designs . It was in the month of January , in the season of squalls and tempests , and the night of the 15 th and 16 th was one of the wildest that ever occurred on the 02 ean . The waves constantly broke over the frigate . Kaised one moment on the height of a mountain wave , it immediately descended into a gulf . She was driven by the squall thirty-eight leagues from her route , between Ireland and Jersey . If we hadhadamongst us a single seaman capable of directing " a ship , the vessel would have appertained to us between those two lands of liberty . We would not have had , I believe , the

      bad wishes of any others than the gendarmes , and the gendarmes were absorbed in such a deep dejection that they could not long have resisted us . The hammocks knocked against each other , and were violently detached from the beams , but no one thought of fastening them up again , and those who were hurt hy the fall did not even complain . Pails and clothing rolled in a faetid water , which rushed in by the scuttles , as by so many sluces . In a last effort the sea shook the whole ship ; the wind tore the sails in tatters upon the yards , and drove

      them amongst the machinery of the steam-engine . Sails and steam at once became useless ; we no longer heard any noise but that of the pumps in the depths of the hold . The " frigate was as a drowned man , whose heart and arms at once fail him . A few hours more and the Canada would have been disposed of . Happily day at length broke , and , by a providential hazard , the wind carried us in sight of Brest . We were obliged , precipitately , to quit the Canada , which was at once delivered to the workmen to be taken to pieces . We arrived at ten o ' clock in the morning , and at noon we were all on board the Duguesclin .

      Whatever hopes they may have entertained of being better treated on board the new vessel than the old , they were doomed to be cruelly disappointed . Here was the same systematic tortures as heretofore .

      The " Duguesclin . " The transferment was accomplished with the same menacing appearance , the same attendance of an armed force as our embarkation on the Canada . The guard occupied the deck , armed with their boarding axes as before . The gendarmes were exasperated with the perils of the preceding night , and furious at the prospect of the long journey , which would , it was said , commence on the following morning . As soon as the transfermant ¦ was accomplished , we passed before two sub-officers . The one gave us a hammock cloth , ancl a covering : the other , wrote

      down our names , for , on the Duguesclin , as on the Canada , no nominative list had been received ; here still we were nothing more than foreats-, by the attitude of the guard , we could comprehend that we were always the same objects of repulsion ; regarded with the same disgust , we descended the stairs , which conducted us to the lowest battery of the vessel . In ordinary times , this battery might contain towards two hundred persons ; but now there were there five hundred , if there be excepted the two representatives of the Loiset , the old prefect of Orleans , and four or five others of our own friends who had been taken from the

      Canada , and shut up in the castle of Brest . " And they might have had enough humanity to have reserved for us the whole space . But , no ; at least a third , if not more , was taken up by enormous cases arranged along the port-holes , large chests iu the midst to contain the baggage , and a great wooden cylinder , circled with iron , which contained the water , corrupt ancl almost always foetid , destined for our drink , and before and behind by two formidable retrenchments , behind which we saw , always ooen , the mouths of the cannon loaded with grape-shot . This specious of corps-de-gtmh was constructed with planks

      in such a manner as to form barbacans through which they could ( at any moment , at a word , or a sign , fusilade us in every sense even in the most retired corners . Between the central chests and the great cylinder , a staircase conducted to the upper battery by a hatchway always guarded hy gendarmes , with pistols in their belts or in their hands , At three o ' clock it was already dark in the vast and noisy dungeon . The port- holes were carefully screwed or bolted ;

      they had left a very insufficient prevention against suffocation —only narrow openings of a few inches diameter , which could , when needed , be hermetically , sealed on the outside to render the suffocation complete . The confusion of the first moments hecame insupportable ; it was impossible to get placed , or to recognise each other . We were crushed together , and heaped upon each other as in the abominable cages of the Canada . There was no breathing . . Some few complained to one of the ship ' s lieutenants , charged to abate and somewhat discipline that

      Reviews. Le Coup D'Etat De Louis Bonapar...

      chaos of cries and woes : " Bah ! " replied he , " a little patience we are about to sail for Cayenne , and when we have passed the line you will , perhaps , have the port-holes opened ' . " That was all , and we continued to be trampled , crushed , and stifled . We succeeded , however , in being established along the cases and chests in divisions of forty , each of these divisions being itself divided into groups or ' messes of ten . Each division named a delegate , and each group a heal of the mess charged to receive the rations . Packages and valises were thrown into the chests , where they got all mixed togetherand from whence

      , they were never taken , for they could not be recovered except with infinite trouble and derangement , The seaman ' s hammock consists , as is known , in a hammock-cloth , which itself sustains a mattress . That couch , so very simple , and so very hard , was envied by us as much as was the bed of the Sybarite , for I need hardly say it was not accorded to us . We had given us only the cloth , most miserably cold , and traversed from head to foot with large and rough seams , which cut and bruised our backs . They had well invented tho most ingenious combinations . It was impossible to get a few moments of real

      sleep . Too slack , your body was bent in two , provoking every malady and all the tortures of suffocation ; too tight , nearly approaching the beams , it yielded , and drawing out the large nails to which it was attached , it precipitated you violently from a height of seven feet . The hammocks were prepared at seven in the evening , and at eight o ' clock in the morning they were heaped into the chests amongst the baggage . This double operation was accomplished in the deepest darkness . Happy they who , after the most fatiguing researches and long groping , could at last recover their hammock and their nail ! And I

      must add , that for want of room , nearly a hundred persons were every day without hammocks . Two divisions , in turn , were every" night reduced to the necessity of sleeping on the damp planks , having no other pillow than the iron chain used for raising or dropping the anchor . I have told you the ordinary of the Canada , it was also that of the Duguesclin . The bread , or the biscuits of the Jorcats , the -worm-eaten black beans , and once a week a little tough beef ; and always those black and revolting vessels , containing , for ten persons , aliments which the most gluttonous of our domestic- animals would have

      disdained . How they came to take that execrable nourishment in that hideous promiscuity I really cannot tell you , but for myself , disgust almost blinded me , and I could not eat . There was evidently on the part of the men who had a hand in that execution en masse , which they called transportation , a perverse meditation , a manifest intention to humiliate and degrade . Will any one believe that a government so prodigal of the millions of France would recoil before a miserable expense of a few francs ? We had been deprived of spoons as we had been deprived of lights , and as we had been interdicted smoking

      without necessity , without any motive , but only for the pleasure of increasing and rendering intolerable the tortures of so close a captivity . One day , notwithstanding , a piece of important news traversed the waves of the road , readied the deck , where it rejoiced the sailors , and reached even to us . Moved by some verses of Pierre Lachambaudie , on so many sufferings , at every instant hurt or insulted , the ladies of Brest wished to give us a proof of sympathy , and sent us some spoons . The learned instructions of the minister Ducos had not provided for this case , and the spoons were not arrested on their passage . They

      were accepted with a gratitude of which it was necessary to see the explosion to rightly comprehend the ignoble oppression we had endured . We were in the road , and were consequently refused the miserable pint of wine granted by the Ducos decree . Around the iron-circled cylinder , of which I have spoken , and which was named the charmer , were placed three or four leaden pipes , from which five hundred mouths constantly sucked a stagnant water , renewed scarcely once in 24 hours . I will not insist on that variety of torture , you can

      conceive it without doubt ; and , indeed , it was quite necessary to vanquish his repugnance . Hunger we could surmount , or , at least deceive it with some morcels of biscuit ; but how resist thirst—a burning feverish thirst , increased by that revolting drink itself , and by the miasma of an atmosphere incessantly vitiated ? At first , nevertheless , we made light of these physical pains ; moral pre-occupations , otherwise cruel , tore the hearts of all those fathers of families , of all those sons , of all those brothers , who for a long time had received no intelligence from without . We were surrounded as with a cordon sanitaire :

      the ministerial instructions expressly prohibited the slightest intercourse with the guard , even with the officers ; or the commander of the ship . We were nothing but a menagerie , kept in respect by the pistol of the gendarme and by the cannon before and behind us . At the last hour of our sojourn on board the Canada we had obtained , as a favour , leave to write to the maritime prefect of Brest , to ask if he would give us permission to send an adieu to our families . The prefect had not yet sent us any answer , and , notwithstanding , they only spoke of sailing for Cayenne . This terrible word , Cayenne , was on every lip ,

      especially on those of the gendarmes , who pronounced it with a grimace , but who , at any rate , made it a cruel sport and a sort of vengeance . At night they worked without respite or relaxation , above us , in the upper parts of the vessel . They hastily repaired the slightest damage . If sleep had been possible , the mallet of the caulker would have disturbed it every moment . At the first break of dawn we looked with anxietythrough the skylights , so much did we fear that a sudden removal would have launched us into the open sea . I wished to have my heart clear of all solicitudes ; I demanded in writing an interview with the commander , and signed , An Ancient

      Representative of the People . The commander immediately sent for ' me , and a gendarme conducted me to his saloon . I say saloon , , and not without cause , for I was dazzled by the luxury with i which our chief was surrounded . Two months' acquaintance e with the hulks and dungeons had , it is true , rendered me not t over particular as to comfort ; I had almost forgotten how men n who were not as yet treated quite like wild beasts , could be e lodged . M . Mallet , the commander , was walking to and fro -o with agitation ; he was in grand uniform , ornamented with his is crosses and most brilliant epaulettes , all glittering with gold Id

      and embroidery . He received me with a politeness mingled id with astonishment . " What , sir , " he said to me , " you have re been a representative of the people , and you are aboard the lie 1 Duguesclin ? f ~ " Why not , sir ? You are at present well ill aware that it is especially in prisons that are found the repre- -esentatives of the people , " the writers , and the majority of the he citizens who , by honourable means , have attached some notoriety : ty to their names . "— " At Paris , it is possible ; but in the ' Dugues-

      esdin V— " Ah ! yes , I understand , in the < Duguesclin' you only dy - reckon on the convicts . "— " Well , yes , frankly ; although , for for : some days past , I have thought otherwise . It sufficed , to unde-deceive yourself , to look through the list posted on your deck by byr your master-at-arms . I have not read it . It must be so infernal . ml .. I'll wager it does not contain a name that is not mis-spelt . Be-Be- - sides , I have my instructions , which order me to transport 5005000 men , whoever they may be , to Cayenne . My business is to obeypey / ,

  • Citation
    • Northern Star (1837-1852), Sept. 4, 1852, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/ns/issues/ns2_04091852/page/13/