FIFTH STORY: THE CABRIOLET.

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A HOT July day in Paris. It is hard to be borne;
and shall I persist in frying my daily dish
of nettlepots under the leads of the Hôtel de Louvre,
when a day will carry me where I may take breath and
refreshment under the waving poplars that tuft French
wayside—stiff, serried plumes that run everywhere in
France out to the horizon, and keep up the illusion of
army clank and marching grenadiers?

Will the reader join me in this escapade into the
French country—where I will not poetize, but will tell,
simply and truly, what I see, and what I hear?

Do you not love to amble, after all, with this sort of
traveller, who admits you to pack with him, to eat his

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last meal with him, to miss the train with him, to dine
with him, to see common things commonly? Are not
all the great things in the guide-books, the gift-books,
and the poets? Can I kindle them over? Are they
not burned to a crisp in your thought already—only
ashes left,—which you spread upon your own fancies (as
wood-ashes to home patches of clover) to make them
grow?

Well—we (the reader and I) pack our portmanteau;
'tis a small one; when you are old in travel you will always
carry a small one; the more experience, the less
the luggage; if you need coat or linen, you shall find
coat and linen in every capital of Europe; they wear
such things in all civilized countries; they sell them,
too. We therefore bundle together only such things as
we positively need, and giving them into the hands of a
facteur, we direct him to carry our luggage to the office
of the Diligences, a little way out of the Rue St.
Honoré. We book our portmanteau there for the eastern
town of Dôle, lying in the way to Switzerland, and
within sight of the best vineyard slopes of Burgundy.

Our next step shall be to go around to the passage
Vero-Dodat, and buy a goat-skin knapsack; it is large
enough for a change of linen, a guide-book, an extra
pair of woollen socks, soap and brushes, a pocket-telescope,
and perhaps a miniature Tennyson—for rainy
days in the mountains.

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With this—a slouch, broad-brimmed hat, a serviceable
tweed suit, and heavy walking shoes, we call a cab,
drive down the Rue Rivoli and the Rue St. Antonie,—
cross the Place of the Bastile, and arrive presently at
the station-house of the Lyons Railway. We pay a
fare of twenty-five sous (we should have paid a dollar
in New York), and take a ticket for Fontainbleau.

Why should we, with our hob-nailed shoes and
tweed overalls take a first-class place? Ah, the tenderly-proud
Americans! so vain of extravagance—so jealous
of anything like privilege—what muttons they
make for the innkeepers! We have outlived this; we
take a second-class seat; we pay less by a third; we
see more of the natives by half; we have plenty of air;
we have cushioned seats (though they may be covered
with striped bed-ticking); and the chances are even
that we shall have beside us some member of the Institute
of France, some eminent professional man, who
dislikes at once the seclusion and the price of the first-class
carriage.

Away we hurtle; the houses, the trees, the fortifications,
the plains, the great outstanding barracks, the
white villages, drift into the dreamy distance, where the
domes of Paris gleam in the haze like sparkling dandelions
on a dewy meadow. When we stop at Fontainebleau,
after a two hours' ride, we deliver our ticket
within the station-house; and as we shoulder our

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knapsack, and march into the town, we hear the buzz of the
train as it sweeps on toward Lyons.

We stop at the inn of the Cadran Bleu; a fat landlady
receives us—shows us to a little chamber, not so
large, perhaps, as your attic rooms of the New York
hotels, but only up a single flight of stairs; the floor is
of red tiles, which have been waxed that morning only,
and shine, and would seem slippery, except for our
good hob-nailed shoes. There is a dainty bed, with
coarse, cool, clean linen, and a water-pitcher of most
Liliputian make.

“Has Monsieur breakfasted?”

Of course we have breakfasted before ten o'clock;
still we will have a bite, since the ride and the fresh
air of the country have sharpened our appetite.

We will have a steak aux pommes, and a half bottle
of Beaune, and perhaps a bit of cheese and a plate of
cherries.

“Très bien!” says the landlady. And when we
have washed the dust from our eyes, and gone below,
into the long salle-à-manger, a tidy French girl (who
would be a grisette if she went to Paris) is laying our
cloth upon an end of the table, and we snuff the odor
of the steak, mingled with that of the jessamines from
the garden. And as we eat with sharpened taste (for
the Beaune is an appetizing wine), we rejoice in the
pleasant escape we have made; we compare that quiet

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lunch, within sound of the roar of the great French forest,
and only a stone's-throw away from the magnificent
home of Francis the First, with the lunches you may be
taking in the crowd of Saratoga or Newport, amidst the
clamor of a hundred waiters, and—frankly—we pity
you. In sheerest benevolence, we wish we might single
out a pretty face and figure from the hubbub of your
watering places, and place them beside us here in the
Cadran Bleu, and turn out a drop of the petillant, generous
wine, to moisten the fair lips withal;—how she
would forget the hob-nails, and we—the hoops;—how we
would luxuriate in the cool, scented air, and loiter away
afterward in the coppices of the palace garden!

As we said, the great things of travel are all familiar;
we leave them utterly; we pass through the Palace-yard—
away from the companies of strangers who
are passing in and out of the royal apartments—and
loiter on along the terrace, to the parapet that skirts the
garden pond. We sit there, idly nicking our hob-nailed
shoes against the wall, looking over to the rich sweep
of lawn and clumps of shrubbery that stretch away from
the farther shore. We buy a cake from an old woman,
and break it, and fling it to the fishes; these come
crowding to the bait by hundreds—heavy, lumbering
carp, who have lived in those waters these fifty years,
perhaps a century, and may have risen to catch bread-crumbs
from the hand of some pretty Dauphiness in

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the days gone. There are hoary veterans among them,
wagging their tails gravely, and blotched over with
gray spots, who it is said, date back as far as the times
of Francis the First. What a quiet, serene life they
must have passed! How much more royally than kings
they have braved the storms and the weaknesses of age!
The air is delightfully cool; the fragrance of a thousand
flowering things is on it; the shadow of the farther
trees falls heavy on the water. There are worse places
to loiter in than the gardens of Fontainbleau.

What, now, if we wander away into the forest, comparing,
as we go, the nibbling, ancient fishes of the
pool, to that bait-seeking fry we have seen in other
times and other watering-places—fat, dowdy dowagers;
brisk young misses, in shoals; bright-waistcoated bucks—
all disporting like the carp—coming by turns to the
surface—making a little break and a few eddies—catching
at floating crumbs—and retiring, when the season
is over, to hibernate under some overhanging roof-tree
which they call Home?

Oaks, beeches, tangled undergrowth, moss under-foot,
gray boulders, long vistas of highway
stretching to a low horizon; artists sketching on
camp-stools; Mr. Smith, and wife and daughter;
driving in a crazy phaeton (wife and daughter wearing
green frights, and reading Mr. Murray)—all these we
see, as we loiter on through the paths of the forest. We

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make three leagues of tramp by sundown, and are ready
for our dinner at the Cadran Bleu; Mr. Smith and
wife and daughter are just finishing theirs, at the end of
the long table. They mistake our nationality, and remark
somewhat freely upon French taste in matters of
diet. They are apparently from Huddersfield; they do
not once suspect that a man with a beard, whom they
meet at the Cadran Bleu, can speak or understand
English. So, as we eat our filet sauté aux champignons,
we learn that the oaks in Windsor Park are much finer
than those of Fontainbleau; that the French beer is
watery stuff; and that the Americans are not the only
self-satisfied people in the world.

Mr. Smith, wife and daughter, drop away at length;
we wander under the shade of the palace walls; a dragoon
passes from time to time, with sabre clattering at
his heels; the clock in the great court, where Napoleon
bade his army adieu before Elba, sounds ten as we turn
back to the inn; and from our window we see the stars
all aglow, and feel the breath of the forest.

Coffee at six with two fresh eggs. If you carry a
knapsack, you must carry early habits with it. The
hostess brings our little bill, smilingly; we promised to
tell you of commonest details, so you shall see the price
of our entertainment:

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Lunch	2 francs.
Wine	2 francs.
Dinner	4 francs.
Room	3 francs.
Wax-light	1 franc.
Breakfast	2 francs.
Service	1 franc.

Being a total of fifteen francs. It is not over dear,
when we reckon the pleasant Burgundy we have drunk,
and remember, too, that Fontainbleau is as near (in
time) to Paris, as Rockaway to New York.

How the birds sing in the woods; and how the
dew shines upon the nodding clover, which shows
itself here and there by the wayside! After two
hours' march—better than two leagues—we sit down
in the edge of the forest. We have passed a woodman
with his cart, a boy driving cattle, and a soldier with
his coat slung over his shoulder. We shall scarce
see any others till we are out of the wood.

A half hour there, under the oaks, and we are
ready for the tramp again. We are only putting ourselves
in walking trim for the passes of Switzerland,
and so take this level country very leisurely. The little
town of Fossard lies just upon the outskirts of the
forest. We welcome it gladly; for by the time it is
reached it is full noon. There is a straggling, white,
low cottage of stone, covered with mortar, and shaded

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perhaps by a pear or a plum-tree; then another,—like
the first; a woman in sabots (which are heavy beechen
shoes); and at last a larger cottage, with a fern bough
over the door, and a floor covered with baked tiles,
glossed over with grease, wax, and filth. The bough
means that we may find bread, cheese, and wine there,
and if not over-fastidious, a bed. The bread we take,
and a bottle of sour wine; and sit at the deal table,
writing there very much of what you are reading now,
in our pocket note-book.

So we push on our summer jaunt; fatigue; rest in
villages; strange dishes of stewed pears; Gruyère
cheese; country fairs, where at eventide, we see the
maidens dancing on the green sward; high old towns
with toppling towers; walks through vineyards; long
levels; woody copses, over which we see extinguisher
turrets of country chateaux.

But all this grows tiresome at length; and when we
have reached the little shabby town of St. Florentin, on
the third day, we venture to inquire about some coach
(for we are away from the neighborhood of railways)
which shall take us on to Dôle. But at St. Florentin
there is no coach, not even so much as a voiture à volonté,
to be found; so we buckle on our knapsack, and toil along
under the poplars to a little village far off in the plain,
where we are smuggled into what passes for the coupé
of a broken-down diligence. A man and little girl, who

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together occupy the third seat, regale themselves with a
fricandeau stuffed with garlic. The day is cool, the
windows down, the air close, and the perfume—(when
you travel on the by-ways of France, learn patience).

That night we reach a town where lived that prince
of boys' story-books about animals—Buffon. A tower
rises on the hills beside the town, covered with ivy—
gray, and venerable, and sober-looking; and the postillion
says it is Buffon's tower, and that the town is called
Buffon.

We desire to get to Dôle as soon as possible; so the
next morning—voilá un cabriolet!—to catch the diligence
that passes through the old town of Semur. This
French cabriolet which we take at Buffon, is very much
like a Scotch horse-cart with a top upon it. It has a
broad leather-cushioned seat in the back, large enough
for three persons. One is already occupied by a pretty
woman, of some four or five and twenty. The postillion
is squatted on a bit of timber that forms the whipple-tree.
We bid adieu to our accommodating landlady,
take off our hat to the landlady's daughter, and so go
jostling out of the old French town of Buffon, which,
ten to one, we shall never see again in our lives.

What think you, pray, of a drive in a French cabriolet,
with a pretty woman of five and twenty? We
will tell you all—just as it happened. Our eigar chances
to be unfinished. “Of course, smoking was offensive to
mademoiselle?”

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It proved otherwise; “Oh no! her husband was a
great smoker.”

“Ah, ma foi! can it be that madame, so young, is
indeed married!”

“It is indeed true”—and there is a glance both of
pleasure and of sadness in the woman's eye.

We begin to speculate upon what that gleam of
pleasure and of sadness may mean; and, finally, curiosity
gains on speculation. “Perhaps madame is travelling
from Paris like ourselves!”

“No; but she has been at Paris. What a charming
city! those delicious Boulevards and the shops, and
the Champs Elysées!”

“And if madame is not coming from Paris, perhaps
she is going to Paris?”

“Non plus;” even now we are not right. “She
is coming from Chalons, she is going to Semur.”

“Madame lives then, perhaps, at Semur?”

“Pardon, she is going for a visit.”

“And her husband is left alone then?”

“Pardon” (and there is a manifest sigh), he is not
alone.” And madame rearranges the bit of lace on each
side of her bonnet, and turns half around, so as to show
more fairly a very pretty brunette face, and an exceedingly
roguish eye.

“We are curious to know if it is madame's first visit
to Semur?”

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“Du tout!” and she sighs.

“Madame then has friends at Semur?”

“Ma foi! je ne saurais vous dire.” She does not
know.

This is very odd, we think. “And who can madame
be going to visit?”

“Her father—if he is still living.”

“But how can she doubt, if she has lived so near as
Chalons?”

“Pardon, I have not lived at Chalons, but at Bordeaux,
and Montpelier, and Pau, and along the Biscayan
mountains.”

“And is it long since she has seen her father?”

“Very long; ten long—long years; then they were
so happy! Ah! the charming country of Semur; the
fine sunny vineyards, and all so gay, and her sister and
little brother—” (madame pulls a handkerchief of battiste
out of a little silken bag).

We turn slightly to have a fuller sight of her.

We knew “it would be a glad thing to meet them
all!”

“Jamais, Monsieur, never, I can not; they are
gone!” and she turned her head away.

The French country-women are simple-minded, earnest,
and tell a story much better and easier than any
women in the world. We thought—we said, indeed—
“she was young to have wandered so far; she must have

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been very young to have quitted her father's house ten
years gone-by.”

“Very young—very foolish, Monsieur. I see,” says
she, turning, “that you want to know how it was, and
if you will be so good as to listen, I will tell you, Monsieur.”

Of course we were very happy to listen to so charming
a story-teller; and our readers as well, perhaps.

“You know, Monsieur, the quiet of one of our little
country towns very well; Semur is one of them. My
father was a small propriétaire; the house he lived in is
not upon the road, or I would show it to you by-and-by.
It had a large court-yard, with an arched gateway—
and there were two hearts cut upon the top stone; the
initials of my grandfather and grandmother on either
side; and all were pierced by a little dart. I dare say
you have seen many such as you have wandered through
the country; but now-a-days they do not make them.

“Well, my mother died when I was a little girl,
and my father was left with three children—my sister,
little Jacques, and I. Many and many a time we used
to romp about the court-yard, and sometimes go into
the fields at vineyard dressing, and pluck off the long
tendrils; and I would tie them round the head of little
Jacques; and my sister, who was a year older than I,
and whose name was Lucie, would tie them around my
head. It looked very pretty, to be sure, Monsieur; and

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I was so proud of little Jacques, and of myself too; I
wish they would come back, Monsieur—those times!
Do you know I think sometimes that, in Heaven, they
will come back?

“I do not know which was prettiest—Lucie or I;
she was taller and had lighter hair; and mine, you see,
is dark. (Two rows of curls hung each side of her
face, jet black.) I know I was never envious of her.”

“There was little need.”

“You think not, Monsieur; you shall see, presently.

“I have told you that my father was a small propri
étaire; there was another in the town whose lands were
greater than ours, and who boasted of having been
some time connected with noble blood, and who quite
looked down upon our family. But there is little of
that feeling left now in the French country—and I thank
God for it, Monsieur. And Jean Frère, who was a son
of this proud gentleman, had none of it when we were
young.

“There was no one in the village he went to see
oftener than he did Lucie and me. And we talked like
girls then, about who should marry Jean, and never
thought of what might really happen; and our bonne
used to say, when we spoke of Jean, that there were
others as good as Jean in the land, and capital husbands
in plenty. And then we would laugh, and

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sometimes tie the hand of Jacques to the hand of some pretty
girl, and so marry them, and never mind Jacques' pettish
struggles, and the pouts of the little bride; and
Jean himself would laugh as loud as any at this play.

“Sometimes Jean's father would come when we were
romping together, and take Jean away; and sometimes
kiss little Jacques, and say he was a young rogue, but
have never a word for us.

“So matters went on till Lucie was eighteen, and
Jacques a fine tall lad. Jean was not so rich as he had
been, for his father's vineyard had grown poor. Still
he came to see us, and all the village said there would
be a marriage some day; and some said it would be
Lucie, and some said it would be I.

“And now it was I began to watch Lucie when
Jean came; and to count the times he danced with Lucie,
and then to count the times that he danced with me.
But I did not dare to joke with Lucie about Jean, and
when we were together alone, we scarce ever talked of
Jean.”

“You were not in love with him, of course?”

“I did not say so,” said madame. “But he was
handsomer than any of the young men we saw; and I
so young—never mind!

“You do not know how jealous I became. We had
a room together, Lucie and I, and often in the night I
would steal to her bed and listen, to find if she ever

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whispered anything in her dreams; and sometimes when
I came in at evening, I would find her weeping. I remember
I went to her once, and put my arm softly
around her neck, and asked her what it was that troubled
her; and she only sobbed. I asked her if I had
offended her; `You!' said she, `ma sœur, ma mignonne!
' and she laid her head upon my shoulder, and cried
more than ever; and I cried too.

“So matters went on, and we saw, though we did
not speak to each other of it, that Jean came to see us
more and more rarely, and looked sad when he parted
with us, and did not play so often with little Jacques.

“At length—how it was we women never knew—
it was said that poor Jean's father, the proud gentleman,
had lost all his money, and that he was going
away to Paris. We felt very badly; and we asked
Jean, the next time he came to see us, if it was all true?
He said that it was true, and that the next year they
were going away, and that he should never see us again.
Poor Jean!—how he squeezed my hand as he said this;
but in his other hand he held Lucie's. Lucie was more
sensitive than I, and when I looked at her, I could see
that the tears were coming in her eyes.

“`You will be sorry when I am gone?' said Jean.

“`You know we shall,' said I; and I felt the tears
coming too.

“A half year had gone, and the time was

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approaching when Jean was to leave us. He had come at intervals
to pass his evenings with us; he was always a little
moody, as if some trouble was preying on his
mind; and was always very kind to Lucie, and kinder
still, I thought, to me.

“At length, one day, his father, a stately old gentleman,
came down and asked to see my father; and he
staid with him half an hour, and the thing was so new
that the whole village said there would be a marriage.
And I wandered away alone with little Jacques, and sat
down under an old tree—I shall try hard to find the
place—and twisted a garland for little Jacques, and
then tore it in pieces; and twisted another and tore that
in pieces, and then cried, so that Jacques said he believed
I was crazy. But I kissed him and said, `No,
Jacques, sister is not crazy!'

“When I went home, I found Lucie sad, and papa
sober and thoughtful; but he kissed me very tenderly,
and told me, as he often did, how dearly he loved me.
The next day Jean did not come, nor the next, nor the
next after. I could not bear it any longer, so I asked
papa what Jean's father had said to him, and why Jean
did not come?

“He kissed me, and said that Jean wanted to take
his child away from him. And I asked him—though I
remember I had hardly breath to do it—what he had
told him?

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“`I told him,' said papa, `that if Lucie would marry
Jean, and Jean would marry Lucie, they might marry,
and I would give them a father's blessing.'

“I burst into tears, and my father took me in his
arms; perhaps he thought I was so sorry to lose my
sister—I don't know. When I had strength to go to
our chamber, I threw myself into Lucie's arms and
cried as if my heart would break.

“She asked me what it meant? I said—`I love
you, Lucie!' And she said—`I love you, Lisette!'

“But soon I found that Jean had sent no message—
that he had not come—that all I told Lucie, of what my
father had said, was new to her; and she cried afresh;
and we dared say nothing to her of Jean. I fancied
how it was; for Jean's father was a proud gentleman,
and would never make a second request of such bourgeois
as we. Soon we heard that he had gone away,
and that he had taken Jean along with him. I longed
to follow—to write him even; but, poor Lucie!—I was
not certain but he might come back to claim her. Often
and often I wandered up by his father's old country
house, and I asked the steward's wife how he was looking
when he went away. `Oh,' said she, `le pauvre
jeune homme; he was so sad to leave his home!'

“And I thought to myself bitterly,—did this make
all his sadness?

“A whole year passed by, and we heard nothing of

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him. A regiment had come into the arrondissement,
and a young officer came occasionally to see us. Now,
Monsieur, I am ashamed to tell you what followed.
Lucie had not forgotten Jean: and I—God knows!—
had not forgotten him. But papa said that the officer
would make a good husband for me, and he told me as
much himself. I did not disbelieve him; but I did not
love him as I had loved Jean, and I doubted if Jean
would come back, and I knew not but he would come
back to marry Lucie, though I felt sure that he loved
me better than Lucie. So, Monsieur, it happened that
I married the young officer, and became a soldier's wife,
and in a month went away from my old home.

“But that was not the worst, Monsieur; before I
went, there came a letter from Paris for me, in Jean's
own writing.”

Madame turned her head again. Even the postillion
had suffered his horses to get into a dog-trot jog, that
he now made up for by a terrible thwacking, and a
pestilent shower of oaths; partly, perhaps, to deaden
his feelings.

“The letter,” said madame, going on, “told me
how he had loved me, how his father had told him
what my father had said; and how he had forbidden
him in his pride, to make any second proposal; and
how he had gone away to forget his griefs, but could
not; and he spoke of a time, when he would come back

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and claim me, even though he should forget and leave
his father. The whole night I cried over that letter,
but never showed it to Lucie. I was glad that I was
going away; but I could not love my husband.

“You do not know how bitter the parting was for
me; not so much to leave my father and Lucie, and
Jacques, but the old scenes where I had wandered with
Jean, and where we had played together, and where he
was to come back again perhaps, and think as he would
of me. I could not write him a letter even. I was
young then, and did not know but my duty to my husband
would forbid it. But I left a little locket he had
given me, and took out his hair, and put in place of it
a lock of my own, and scratched upon the back with a
needle—`Jean, I loved you; it is too late; I am married;
J'en pleurs!' And I handed it to little Jacques,
and made him promise to show it to no one, but to hand
to Jean, if he ever came again to Semur. Then I kissed
my father, and my sister, and little Jacques again and
again, and bid them all adieu—as well as I could for my
tears; I have never been in Semur since, Monsieur.”

“And what became of Jean?”

“You know,” continued she, “that I could not love
my husband, and I was glad we were going far away,
where I hoped I might forget all that had happened at
home; but God did not so arrange it.

“We were staying in Montpelier; you have been

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in Montpelier, Monsieur, and will remember the pretty
houses along the Rue de Paris; in one of them we were
living. Every month or two came letters from Lucie—
sad, very sad, at the first—and I forgot about myself
through pity of her. At length came one which told
me that Jean had come back; and it went on to say
how well he was looking. Poor Lucie did not know
how it all went to my soul, and how many tears her letters
cost me.

“Afterward came letters in gayer temper—still
full of the praises of Jean; and she wondered why I was
not glad to hear so much of him, and wondered that my
letters were growing so gloomy. Another letter came
still gayer, and a postscript that cut me to the heart;
the postscript was in Jacques' scrawling hand, and said
that all the village believed that Jean was to marry sister
Lucie. `We shall be so glad,' it said, `if you will
come home to the wedding!'

“Oh, Monsieur, I had thought I loved Lucie. I
am afraid I did not. I wrote no answer; I could
not. By-and-by came a thick letter with two little doves
upon the seal. I went to my room and barred the door,
and cried over it, without daring to open it. The truth
was as I had feared—Jean had married Lucie. Oh, my
feelings—my bitter feelings, Monsieur! Pray Heaven
you may never have such!

“My husband grew indignant at my sadness, and I

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disliked him more and more. Again we changed our
quarters to the mountains, where the troops had been
ordered, and for a very long time no letter came to me
from home. I had scarce a heart to write, and spent
day after day in my chamber. We were five years along
the Pyrenees; you remember the high mountains about
Pau, and the snowy tops that you can see from the
houses; but I enjoyed nothing of it all. By-and-by
came a letter with a black seal, in the straggling hand
of my poor father, saying that Jean and Lucie had gone
over the sea to the Isle of Mauritius, and that little
Jacques had sickened of a fever and was dead. I
longed to go and see my old father; but my husband
could not leave, and he was suspicious of me, and
would not suffer me to travel across France alone.

“So I spent years more—only one letter coming to
me in all that time—whether stopped by my husband's
orders or not I do not know. At length he was ordered
with his regiment to Chalons sur Marne; there were
old friends of his at Chalons, with whom he is stopping
now. We passed through Paris and I saw all its wonders;
yet I longed to get toward home. At length we
set off for Chalons. It was five days before I could
get my husband's leave to ride over to my old town.
I am afraid he has grown to hate me now.

“You see that old Chateau in ruins,” says she,
pointing out a mossy remnant of castle, on a hillock to

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the left—“it is only two kilomêtres from Semur. I have
been there often with Jean and Lucie,” and madame
looks earnestly, and with her whole heart in her eyes,
at the tottering old ruin. We ask the postillion the
name, and jot it down in our note-book.

“And your father knows nothing of your return?”

“I have written from Chalons,” resumed madame,
“but whether he be alive to read it, I do not know.”

And she begins now to detect the cottages, on which
in this old country ten years would make but little difference.
The roofs are covered over with that dappled
moss you see in Watelet's pictures, and the high stone
court-yards are gray with damp and age.

“La voilá!” at length exclaims madame, clapping
her hands; and in the valley into which we have just
turned, and are now crick-cracking along in the crazy
old cabriolet, appears the tall spire of Semur. A brown
tower or two flank it, and there is a group of gray
roofs mingled with the trees.

Madame keeps her hands clasped and is silent.

The postillion gives his hat a jaunty air, and crosses
himself as we pass a church by the way; and the farmeries
pass us one by one; then come the paved streets,
and the pigs, and the turbaned women in sabots, and
boys' eyes, all intent; and thick houses, and provincial
shops.

“The same dear old town of Semur!” says our

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female companion. And with a crack and a rumble, and
a jolt, we are presently at the door of the inn.

The woman runs her eye hastily over the inn loungers;
apparently she is dissatisfied. We clamber down
and assist her to dismount.

“Shall we make any inquiries for her?”

“Oh, Mon Dieu! j'ai trop de peur!” She is
afraid to ask; she will go see; and away she starts—
turns—throws back her veil—asks pardon—“we have
been so kind”—bids God bless us—waves her hand
and disappears around an angle of the old inn.

'Tis the last we see of her; for, in ten minutes we
are rattling away toward Dôle and the Juras.

SIXTH STORY: THE COUNT PESARO.

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I AM living in a garden, in the middle of the water.
Old arbors, made from trellised poles, which are
blackened with storms and with years, stretch down
through the centre of this garden, and are covered over
with the interlacing limbs of Lombard grape-vines.
At the end of this arbor-walk—not, it is true, very long,
but neatly gravelled and cleanly kept—is a low pavilion,
with an embowed window which looks out upon the
Grand Canal of Venice.

A painting of some Venetian artist, who lived before
the garden was planted, hangs upon the wall of the pavilion,
and receives a light,—on one side subdued by the
jutting fragments of a ruined palace, and on the other
reflected brightly from the green surface of the water.

The pavilion is built in the angle of those palace

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walls which inclose the garden, and which were never
raised to their full height. They offer, in their broken
and half-ruined state, a mournful commentary upon the
life of that dissolute republic which ended suddenly a
half century ago; since which time no stone has been
added to the palace walls. An iron paling, of flash appearance,
swings where the palace doors should have
hung. The windows are filled with mortar and brick,
save the one where my pavilion looks upon the water.
The huge lion heads that stand out here and there along
the foundation stones, are grimy with the sea-weed which
the salt tide feeds: and what should have been the court
of the palace is given up to the culture of a few sour
grapes of Lombardy, and to the morning strolls of a
stranger from a republic beyond the ocean.

From the pavilion window, I can count the old
homes of five Doges and of twenty noble Venetian families;
but there is no family of either Doge or noble in
any of them now. Two of the grandest are turned
into lodging-houses for strangers; the upper balcony—a
richly-wrought marble balcony—of the palace of the
most noble Ducal family of the Justiniani, is now decorated
with the black and white sign-board of my late
host, Monsieur Marseille, keeper of the Hôtel de l'Europe.
Another grand pile, which rises just opposite to
me, is filled with the degenerate officials of the mouldering
municipality of Venice. I see them day by day

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sauntering idly at the windows, or strutting with vain importance
in the corridors which a century ago echoed
the steps of very noble and very corrupt women. Still
others bear over the rich sculptured cornices of their
doors, among the marble masks and flowers, the painted
double-headed eagle of the Emperor Francis; and the
men I see moving with a stealthy pace over the marble
stairs, are miserable Italian hirelings, who wear the
livery, reverence the power, and chant the praises of their
Austrian master.

All day long the gondolas glide back and forth over
the green water of the canal—so near, that I can distinguish
faces under the sombre canopies of the boats, and
admire the neatly-gloved hands of ladies, or the martial
air of our military rulers. At night, too, when I choose
to linger with the blinds unclosed, I can see the lights
trailing from far down by the Square of St. Mark, when
no sound of the oars is heard; and can watch their
growing glimmer, and presently hear the distant ripple,
and see the lanterns shining brighter and brighter, and
hear the oar dip nearer and nearer, until with a dash—
a blaze, and a shadow of black—they pass.

The bay window of my pavilion, jutting from the
palace ruin, has marble steps leading down to the water.
At ten o'clock of the morning, if the sun is bright, my
gondolier, Guiseppe, is moored at one of the lions' heads,
in his black boat. A half hour's easy sail along the

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path of the Grand Canal, will set me down at the foot
of the Rialto. A score of palaces fling their shadows
across the way I pass over, between the Rialto and the
garden court; and a score more, catch the sun upon
their fronts, and reflect it dazzlingly. But, apart from
the life which the sun and the water lend to them, they
have all a dead look. The foundations are swayed and
cracked. Gloomy-looking shutters of rough boards
close up the window-openings of sculptured marble.
Newly-washed linen is hung out to dry upon the palace
balconies.

Even the scattered noble families which retain the
larger piles of building are too poor and powerless to
arrest the growing decay, or to keep up any show of
state. A black cockade upon the hat of their gondolier,
with a faded crimson waistcoat for livery, and a box at
the Fenice Theatre, make up the only ostensible signs
of a vain rank and of an expiring fortune.

If the whim or the business of the morning lead me
in an opposite direction, a few strokes of the oar will
carry my gondola under the shadow of those two granite
columns which belong to every picture of Venice,
and which are crowned with the winged lion of St.
Mark, and the patron Saint Theodore. Here is the
gathering-place of all strangers and loiterers; and one
may wander at will under the arcades of the Ducal Palace,
or over the billowy floor of the cathedral church.

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But there is a tramping of feet in this neighborhood,
and an active commerce in flowers and oranges,
and a business-like effrontery in lame old men, who serve
as valets-de-place, that fatigue me—that seem altogether
out of keeping with the proper gloom and mould and
sloth of the dying city.

My more frequent excursions are in another quarter.
Traversing the garden arbor of which I have spoken,
and passing through the corridor of the house which
skirts the garden, I find myself upon the edge of a narrow
canal, shaded by crumbling houses, which are inhabited
by a ghost-like people, whom you see gliding in
and out only in the gray of the morning or at twilight.
The narrow canal has a foot-way by its side, along which
passes an occasional bawling fish-merchant, who carries
his stock in a small willow crate upon his head; cold-looking,
lean women, with shawls drawn over them like
cowls, and stooping and slip-shod, sometimes shuffle
along the path, with cabbages under their arms, and disappear
down one of the dark courts which open on the
canal.

I think there must be a school in the neighborhood;
for not unfrequently a bevy of boys (a very rare sight
in Venice) passes under my window, under the eye of a
broad-hatted priest in a long black coat. But the boys,
I have observed, are sallow-faced, and have a withered,
mature look, as if they had grown old before their time.

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They seem to have inherited a part of the decay which
belongs to the desolate city; their laugh, as it comes to
my ear, is very hollow and vague, with none of the rollicking
glee in it which is bred of green fields and sunshine.

A funeral, on the contrary—when it passes, as it
sometimes has done, after twilight, with priests in white
capes, and candles flaunting a yellow, sickly light upon
the still water of the canal—seems to agree with the
place and with the people. The sight does not shock,
as it does in cities which are alive with action or with
sunshine; but, like a burst of laughter at a feast, the
monotonous funeral chant chimes with the mournful
habit of the place, and death seems to be only a louder
echo of the life.

A little distance away, there is a bridge which crosses
this canal; a dingy alley—I find, at its end—conducts
through slumberous houses to a narrow quay and a
broad sheet of water. Beyond the water lies the island
of Giudecca; between which and the quay I am upon,
lie moored the greater part of those sea-going craft
which supply now all the needs of the port of Venice.

Here are quaint vessels from Chioggia, at the other
end of the Lagoon, which have not changed their fashion
in a hundred years. They have the same high peak
and stern which they had in the days of the Doges;
and a painted Virgin at the bow is a constant prayer

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against peril. Here are clumsy feluccas from Crete and
the Ionian islands, with Greek sailors half-clad, who
have the same nut-brown faces and lithe limbs you see
in old pictures.

The canal of the Giudecca stretches to the westward,
dividing the island of the same name from the body
of the city, and then loses itself in the wide, lazy sweep
of the Lagoon; there, you see little isles with tall bell-towers,
and scattered lateen-rigged vessels, and square-armed
colliers from England, and low-lying fields of
rushes—all alike seeming to float upon the surface of
the water.

When the sun is near its setting, you cannot imagine
the witching beauty of this scene: the blue mountains
of Treviso rise from the distant edge of the Lagoon
in sharp, pyramidal forms; they grow less and
less in size as they sweep to the south, till finally—where
the smooth water makes the horizon-line—you can see,
five miles away, the trees of the last shore, seeming to
rise from the sea, and standing with all their lines firmly
and darkly drawn against a bright orange sky.

From this quay—a favorite walk of mine—as from
a vessel on the ocean, I see the sun dying each night in
the water. Add only to what I have said of the view a
warm, purple glow to the whole western half of the
heavens—the long shadow of a ship in the middle distance,
and the sound of a hundred sweet-toned vesper

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bells ringing from out all the towers of Venice, and
floating, and mellowing, and dying along the placid surface
of the sea—and you will have some notion of a quiet
Venetian evening.

Upon the bridges which spring with a light marble
arch across the side canals are grouped the figures of
loitering gondoliers. Their shaggy brown coats, with
pointed hoods, their tasselled caps, their crimson neckties,
and their attitudes of a lazy grace, as they lean
against the light stone balustrades, are all in happy
keeping with the scene. A marching company of priests,
two by two, with their broad hats nearly touching,
sometimes passes me; and their waving black cloaks stir
the air, like the wings of ill-omened birds. A lean beggar
who has been sunning himself throughout the day
in the lee of a palace wall, steals out cautiously, as he
sees me approach, and doffs his cap, and thrusts forward
his hand, with a cringing side-cast of the head, making
an inimitable pantomime of entreaty; and a coin so small
that I am ashamed to name it, brings a melodious “benedetto”
on my head.

I have come, indeed, to know every face which makes
its appearance along the quay of the Giudecca. A bettle-browed
man, with ragged children and a slatternly wife,
has lost all my sympathy by his perverse constancy in
begging and in asking blessings. A dog in an upper
balcony, which barked at me obstreporously on the first

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week of my appearance, subdued his bark to a low growl
after a fortnight, and now he makes only an inquiring
thrust of his nose through the balcony bars; and, having
scented an old acquaintance, retires with quiet gravity.

Most of all, I have remarked an old gentleman,
whom I scarce ever fail to meet at about the vesper
hour, in a long brown overcoat, of an antique fashion,
and wearing a hat which must have been the mode at
least forty years ago. His constant companion is a
young woman, with a very sweet, pale face, who clings
timidly to his arm; and who, like her protector, is clad
always in a sober-colored dress of an old date. Her
features are very delicate, and her hair, like that of all
the Venetian women, singularly beautiful. There is no
look of likeness between them, or I should have taken
them for father and daughter. They seem to talk but
little together; and I have sometimes thought that the
poor girl might be the victim of one of those savage
marriages of Europe, by which beauty and youth are
frequently tied—for some reasons of family or property—
to decrepitude and age.

Yet the old gentleman has a very firm step and a
proud look of the eye, which he keeps fixed steadfastly
before him, scarce deigning to notice any passer-by.
The girl, too—or perhaps I should rather say the woman—
seems struggling to maintain the same indifference
with the old gentleman; and all her side-looks are very
furtive and subdued.

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They walk rapidly, and always disappear down a
narrow court which is by the farther bridge of the quay,
and which leads into a mouldering quarter of the city.
They speak to no one; they do not even salute, so far
as I have seen, a single one of the parish priests who
glide back and forth upon the walk by the Giudecca.
Once only, a gondolier, with a flimsy black cockade, who
was loitering at the door of a wine-shop, lifted his hat
as they passed in a very respectful manner; but neither
man or woman seemed to acknowledge the salutation.

The steadfast look of the old gentleman, and the
clinging hold of the young woman upon his arm, have
once or twice induced me to believe him blind. But his
assured step upon the uneven surface of the stones, and
the readiness with which he meets the stairs of the successive
bridges, have satisfied me that it cannot be.

I am quite sure there is some mystery about the couple—
some old family story, perhaps, of wrong or of
crime, which, in its small way, might throw a light upon
the tyranny or the license which contributed to the wreck
of the Venetian State. I have hinted as much to my
professor of languages—who is a wiry little man, with
ferret eyes—and who has promised to clear up whatever
mystery may lie in the matter.

I shall hardly see him, however, again—being now
Christmas time—for a week to come.

The Christmas season drags heavily at Venice.

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The people may possibly be good Christians, but they
are certainly not cheerful ones. The air, indeed, has a
Christmas-like cold in its breath; but there is no cheer
of blazing fires to quicken one's thankfulness, and to
crackle a Christmas prayer for the bounties of the
year.

The pinched old women steal through the dim and
narrow pass-ways, with little earthen pots of live coals—
the only fire which ever blesses their dismal homes.
No frost lies along the fields with a silvery white coat,
stiffening the grass tips, and making eyes sparkle and
cheeks tingle; but the Venetian winter overtakes you
adrift—cutting you through with cold winds, that howl
among the ancient houses—dampening every blast with
the always present water, and bringing cold tokens
from the land-winter, in huge ice-cakes, which float
wide and drearily down the Lagoon.

There are no Christmas songs, and no Christmas
trees. Only the churches light up their chilly vaults
with a sickly blaze of candles; and the devout poor
ones, finding comfort in the air softened by the burning
of incense, kneel down for hours together. The dust
rests thickly on the tombs of nobles and of Doges, who
lie in the churches; dark pictures of Tintoretto stare at
you from behind the altars; the monotone of a chant
rises in a distant corner; beggars, with filthy blankets
drawn over their heads, thrust their meagre hands at

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you; and a chill dampness cleaves to you until you go
out into the sunlight again.

One bright streak of this sunshine lies all day long
upon the Riva,* which stretches from the ducal palace
to the arsenal. Here is always gathered a motley
throng of soldiers, of jugglers, of Punch-players, and
of the picturesque Turkish and Cretan sailors. Jostling
through this crowd, and passing the southern arcade of
the Palace, you meet at mid-afternoon of the Christmas
season with troops of ladies, who lounge up and down
over the square of St. Mark's in a kind of solemn saunter,
that I am sure can be seen nowhere else. Gone-by
fashions of Paris flame upon the heads of pale-cheeked
women, and weazen-faced old men struggle through
the mass, with anxious and doubting daughters clinging
closely to their arms.

The officers of the occupying army stride haughtily
upon the Place, eyeing with insolence whatever of beauty
is to be seen, and showing by every look and gesture
that they are the masters, and the others the menials.

I was looking on this strange grouping of people
not long ago, upon a festal day of the Christmas season,
when my eye fell upon the old gentleman whom I had
been accustomed to see upon the quiet Riva of the Zattere
across the Grand Canal. His pretty meek-faced
companion was beside him. They paced up and down

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with the same calm, dispassionate faces, there in the eye
of St. Mark's and of the crowd, which they had worn
in the view of the Lagoon and of the silent, solemn
sunsets.

It is true they had now gala dresses; but so old, so
quaint, that they seemed to belong, as they really did,
to an age gone by. The old gentleman wore a bell-shaped
hat, such as one sees in the pictures of the close
of the last century, and its material was not of the shiny,
silky substance of the present day, but of rich beaver.
The lady, too, showed a face delicate as before, but set
off with a coiffure so long gone by that its very age relieved
it from oddity, and made me think I was looking
at some sweet picture of a half century ago. The richest
of that old Venetian lace, which provokes always
the covetousness of travelling ladies, belonged to her
costume, and agreed charmingly with her quiet manner,
and with the forlorn air which added such a pleasing
mystery to the couple.

I could not observe that they seemed nearer to
friends or to kin in the middle of the crowd, than upon
the silent quay of the Zattere, where I had so often seen
them before. They appeared to be taking their gala
walk in memory of old days, utterly neglectful of all
around them, and living, as it were, an interior life—
sustained only by association,—which clung to the gaunt
shadow of the Campanile, and to the brilliant front of
San Marco, with a loving and a pious fondness.

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It is not to be wondered at, indeed, that those of
old Venetian blood should cherish vain and proud regrets.
They are living in the shadows of a great past.
An inferior race of creatures occupy the places of the
rich and the powerful. The very griffins mock at them
from the sculptured walls, and everywhere what is new
is dwarfed by contrast with the old.

I followed the old gentleman after a while into the
church of St. Mark. He walked reverently through the
vestibule, and put on a religious air that startled me.
Passing in at the central door, and slipping softly over
the wavy floor of mosaics, he knelt, with his companion,
at that little altar of the Virgin upon the left, where the
lights are always burning. They both bowed low, and
showed a fervor of devotion which is but rarely seen in
either Protestant or Popish churches.

I felt sure that a great grief of some kind rested on
them, and I hoped with all my heart that the Virgin
might heal it. Presently they raised their heads together,
as if their prayers had been in concert; they
crossed themselves; the old gentleman cast a look of
mournful admiration over the golden ceiling, and into
the obscure depths of the vaulted temple,—beckoned to
his companion, and turned to pass out.

There was something inexpressibly touching in the
manner of both, as they went through the final form of
devotion, at the doorway. It seemed to me that they

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saw in this temple hallowed by religion, the liveliest
traces of the ancient Venetian grandeur; here, indeed,
are the only monuments of the past Venetian splendor
which are still consecrated to their old service. The
Palace has passed into the keeping of strangers, and idle
soldiers, talking a new language, loiter under the arcades;
the basins of the Arsenal are occupied by a few disabled
vessels of foreign build; but in the churches—the same
God is worshiped, the same prayers are said, and the
same saints rule, from among the urns of the fathers
the devotions of the children.

I could not forbear following the old gentleman and
his companion, at a respectful distance, through the
neighboring alleys. They glided before me like some
spectral inhabitants of the ancient city, who had gloried
in its splendor, and who had come back to mourn over
its decay. Without a thought of tracing them to their
home, and indeed without any distinctness of intent,
save only the chase of a phantom thought, I followed
them through alley after alley. The paving stones were
damp and dark; the cornices of the houses almost met
overhead. The murmur of the voices upon the Square
of St. Mark's died away in the distance. The echoes
of a few scattered foot-falls alone broke the silence.

Sometimes I lost sight of them at an angle of the
narrow street, and presently came again in full view of
the old gentleman, resolutely striding on. I cannot tell

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how far it was from St. Mark's, when they stopped at a
tall doorway in the Calle Justiniana. I had passed that
way before, and had remarked an ancient bronze knocker
which hung upon the door, of rich Venetian sculpture.
I had even entertained the sacrilegious thought of negotiating
with the porter, or whoever might be the owner,
for its purchase.

A shrill voice from above responded to the summons
of the old gentleman, and with a click the latch flew
back and the door stood ajar. I came up in time to
catch a glimpse of the little square court within. It was
like that of most of the old houses of Venice. A cistern
curbing, richly wrought out of a single block of Istrian
marble, stood in the centre, set off with grotesque heads
of cherubs and of saints. The paving stones were
green and mossy, save one narrow pathway, which led
over them to the cistern. The stairway, upon one side
of the court, was high and steep; the balustrade was
adorned with battered figures of lions' heads and of griffins;
at the landing-place was an open balcony, from
which lofty windows, with the rich, pointed Venetian
tops, opened upon the principal suite of the house. But
all of these were closed with rough board shutters, here
and there slanting from their hinges, and showing broken
panes of glass, and the disorder of a neglected apartment.
A fragment of a faded fresco still flamed within
the balcony between the windows.

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Only upon the floor above was there any sign of life.
There I caught a glimpse of a white curtain, a cat dozing
in a half-opened window, and of a pot of flowers.

I conjectured how it was: proud birth and poverty
were joined in the old man. The great halls of the
house, which were once festive, were utterly deserted.
The sun, which reached only to the upper rooms,
brought a little warmth with it. No fire was made to
drive away the damps below.

A few pictures, it may be, remained upon the walls
of the closed rooms, the work of esteemed artists, showing
forth some scene of battle or of state, in which the
founders of the house had reaped honors from the Republic.
But the richly carved tables and quaint old
chairs, had, I did not doubt, slipped away one by one
to some Jew furniture-vender living near, who had
preyed with fawning and with profit upon the old gentleman's
humbled condition.

The daughter, too—if indeed the young woman were
his daughter—had, I doubted not, slipped old fragments
of Venetian lace into her reticule, on days of bitter cold
or of casual illness, to exchange against some little comfort
for the old gentleman.

I knew, indeed, that in this way much of the rich
cabinet-work, for which the Venetian artisans were so
famous two hundred years ago, had gone to supply the
modern palaces of Russian nobles by Moscow and Novogorod.

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Old time friendships, I knew, too often went to wreck
in the midst of such destitution; and there are those of
ancient lineage living in Venice very lonely and deserted,
only because their pride forbids that a friend should
witness the extent of their poverty. Yet even these
make some exterior show of dignity; they put black
cockades upon the hats of their servants, or, by a little
judicious management, they make their solitary fag of
all work do duty in a faded livery at the stern of a gondola.
They have, moreover, many of them, their little
remnants of country property, in the neighborhood of
Oderzo or Padua, where they go to economize the summer
months, and balance a carnival season at the Fenice,
by living upon vegetable diet, and wearing out the faded
finery of the winter.

But the old gentleman about whom I now felt myself
entertaining a deep concern, seemed to be even more
friendless and pitiable than these. He appeared to commune
only with the phantoms of the past; and I must
say that I admired his noble indifference to the degenerate
outcasts around him.

My ferret-eyed Professor made his appearance toward
the close of the Christmas week, in a very hilarious
humor. He is one of those happily constituted
creatures who never thinks of to-morrow, if only his
dinner of to-day is secure. I had contributed to his
cheer by inviting him to a quiet lunch (if quiet can be

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predicated of a bustling Italian Osteria) in the eating-rooms
of the Vapore. I had a hope of learning something
from him in respect to the old gentleman of the
Zattere.

I recalled my former mention of him, and ordered a
pint of Covegliano, which is a fiery little wine of a very
communicative and cheerful aroma.

“Benissimo,” said the Professor, but whether of the
wine or of the subject of my inquiry I could not tell.

I related to him what I had seen in the Christmas
time upon the Place, and described the parties more
fully.

The Professor was on the alert.

I mentioned that I had traced them to a certain tall
doorway he might remember in the Calle Justiniana.

“Lo cognosco,” said the Professor, twinkling his
eye. “It is the Signor Nobile Pesaro: poor gentleman!”
and he touched his temple significantly, as if the
old noble had a failing in his mind.

“And the lady?” said I.

“La sua figliuóla,” said he, filling his glass; after
which he waved his forefinger back and forth in an expressive
manner, as much as to say, “poor girl, her fate
is hard.”

With that he filled the glass again, and told me this
story of the Count Pesaro and his daughter.

[figure description] Page 224.[end figure description]

PESARO was once a very great name in Venice.
There was in former times a Doge Pesaro, and
there were high ministers of state, and ambassadors
to foreign courts belonging to the house. In the old
church of the Frari, upon the further side of the Grand
Canal, is a painting of Titian's, in which a family of
the Pesaro appears kneeling before the blessed Virgin.
A gorgeously-sculptured palace between the Rialto and
the Golden House is still known as the Pesaro Palace;
but the family which built it, and which dwelt there,
has long since lost all claim to its cherubs and griffins;
only the crumbling mansion where lives the old Count
and his daughter now boasts any living holders of the
Pesaro name.

These keep mostly upon the topmost floor of the
house, where a little sunshine finds its way, and plays
hospitably around the flower-pots which the daughter
has arranged upon a ledge of the window. Below—
as I had thought—the rooms are dark and dismal. The
rich furniture which belonged to them once is gone—
only a painting or two, by famous Venetian artists, now
hang upon the walls. They are portraits of near relations,
and the broken old gentleman, they say, lingers
for hours about them in gloomy silence.

[figure description] Page 225.[end figure description]