"No, no; there is no question of that kind: but pledge me your honour to undertake nothing adverse to me in this affair."

"As a mere citizen, I will not do so," replied the other; "but if I am ordered by a sufficient authority, I warn you."

"What do you mean, then, as a mere citizen!"

"That I will not go forth into the streets, to stir up the populace; nor into the barracks, to harangue the soldiers."

"Enough; I am satisfied. As for myself, I only desire to rescue the Republic; that done, I shall retire to Malmaison, and live peaceably."

A smile of a doubtful, but sardonic character, pa.s.sed over Bernadotte's features as he heard these words, while he turned coldly away, and walked towards the gate. "What, Augureau! thou here?" said he, as he pa.s.sed along, and with a contemptuous shrug he moved forward, and soon gained the street. And truly, it seemed strange that he, the fiercest of the Jacobins, the General who made his army a.s.semble in clubs and knots to deliberate during the campaign of Italy, that he should now lend himself to uphold the power of Buonaparte!

Meanwhile, the salons were crowded in every part, party succeeding party at the tables; where, amid the clattering of the breakfast and the clinking of gla.s.ses, the conversation swelled into a loud and continued din. Fouche, Berthier, and Talleyrand, were also to be seen, distinguishable by their dress, among the military uniforms; and here now might be heard the mingled doubts and fears, the hopes and dreads of each, as to the coming events; and many watched the pale, care-worn face of Bourienne, the secretary of Buonaparte, as if to read in his features the chances of success; while the General himself went from room to room, chatting confidentially with each in turn, recapitulating as he went the phrase, "The country is in danger!" and exhorting all to be patient, and wait calmly for the decision of the Council, which could not, now, be long of coming.

As they were still at table, M. Carnet, the deputation of the Council, entered, and delivered into Buonaparte's hands the sealed packet, from which he announced to the a.s.sembly that the legislative bodies had been removed to St. Cloud, to avoid the interruption of popular clamour, and that he, General Buonaparte, was named Commander-in-chief of the Army, and intrusted with the execution of the decree.

This first step had been effected by the skilful agency of Sieyes and Roger Ducos, who spent the whole of the preceding night in issuing the summonses for a meeting of the Council to such as they knew to be friendly to the cause they advocated. All the others received theirs too late; forty-two only were present at the meeting, and by that fragment of the Council the decree was pa.s.sed.

When Buonaparte had read the doc.u.ment to the end, he looked around him on the fierce, determined faces, bronzed and seared in many a battle-field, and said, "My brothers in arms, will you stand by me here?"

"We will! we will!" shouted they, with one roar of enthusiasm.

"And thou, Lefebvre, did I hear thy voice there?"

"Yes, General; to the death I'm yours."

Buonaparte unbuckled the sabre he wore at his side, and placing it in Lefebvre's hands, said, "I wore this at the Pyramids; it is a fitting present from one soldier to another. Now, then, to horse!"

The splendid _cortege_ moved along the gra.s.sy alleys to the gate, outside which, now, three regiments of cavalry and three battalions of the 17th were drawn up. Never was a Sovereign, in all his pride of power, surrounded with a more gorgeous staff. The conquerors of Italy, Germany, and Egypt, the greatest warriors of Europe, were there grouped around him--whose glorious star, even then, shone bright above him.

Scarcely had Buonaparte issued forth into the street than, raising his hat above his head, he called aloud, "_Vive la Republique!_" The troops caught up the cry, and the air rang with the wild cheers.

At the head of this force, surrounded by the Generals, he rode slowly along towards the Tuileries, at the entrance to the gardens of which stood Carnet, dressed in his robe of senator-in-waiting, to receive him.

Four Colonels, his aides-de-camp, marched in front of Buonaparte, as he entered the Hall of the Ancients--his walk was slow and measured, and his air studiously respectful.

The decree being read, General Buonaparte replied in a few broken phrases, expressive of his sense of the confidence reposed in him: the words came with difficulty, and he spoke like one abashed and confused.

He was no longer in front of his armed legions, whose war-worn looks inspired the burning eloquence of the camp--those flashing images, those daring flights, suited not the cold a.s.sembly, in whose presence he now stood--and he was ill at ease and disconcerted. It was only, at length, when turning to the Generals who pressed on after him, he addressed the following words, that his confidence in himself came back, and that he felt himself once more,--

"This is the Republic we desire to have--and this we shall have; for it is the wish of those who now stand around me."

The cries of "_Vive la Republique!_" burst from the officers at once, as they waved their _chapeaux_ in the air, mingled with louder shouts of "_Vive le General!_"

If the great events of the day were now over with the Council, they had only begun with Buonaparte.

"Whither now, General?" said Lefebvre, as he rode to his side.

"To the guillotine, I suppose," said Andreossy, with a look of sarcasm.

"We shall see that," was the cold answer of Buonaparte, while he gave the word to push forward to the Luxembourg.

This was but the prologue, and now began the great drama, the greatest, whether for its interest or its actors--that ever the world has been called to witness.

We all know the sequel, if sequel that can be called which our own days would imply is but the prologue of the piece!

CHAPTER XI. _Villa Scalviati, near Florence_

I have had a night of ghostly dreams and horrors; the imagination of Monk Lewis, or, worse, of Hoffman himself, never conceived any thing so diabolical. H., who visited me last evening, by way of interesting me related the incidents of a dreadful murder enacted in the very room I slept in. There was a reality given to the narrative by the presence of the scene itself--the ancient hangings still on the walls--the antique chairs and cabinets standing, as they had done, when the deed of blood took place; but, more than all, by the marble bust of the murderess herself: for it was a woman, singularly beautiful, young, and of the highest rank, who enacted it. The story is this:--

The Villa, which originally was in possession of the Medici family, and subsequently of the Strozzi's, was afterwards purchased by Count Juliano, one of the most distinguished of the Florentine n.o.bility.

With every personal advantage--youth, high station, and immense wealth, he was married to one his equal in every respect, and might thus have seemed an exception to the lot of humanity, his life realising, as it were, every possible element of happiness. Still he was not happy; amid all the voluptuous enjoyments of a life pa.s.sed in successive pleasures, the clouded brow and drooping eye told that some secret sorrow preyed upon him, and that his gay doublet in all its bravery covered a sad and sorrowing heart. His depression was generally attributed to the fact that, although now married three years, no child had been born to their union, or any likelihood that he should leave an heir to his great name and fortune. Not even to his nearest friends, however, did any confession admit this cause of sorrow; nor to the Countess, when herself lamenting over her childless lot, did he seem to shew any partic.i.p.ation in the grief.

The love of solitude, the desire to escape from all society, and pa.s.s hours, almost days, alone in a tower, the only admittance to which was by a stair from his own chamber, had now grown upon him to that extent, that his absence was regarded as a common occurrence by the guests of the castle, nor even excited a pa.s.sing notice from any one. If others ceased to speculate on the Count's sorrow, and the daily aversion he exhibited to mixing with the world, the Countess grew more and more eager to discover the source. All her blandishments to win his secret from him were, however, in vain; vague answers, evasive replies, or direct refusals to be interrogated, were all that she met with, and the subject was at length abandoned,--at least by these means.

Accident, however, disclosed what all her artifice had failed in--the key of the secret pa.s.sage to the tower, and which the Count never entrusted to any one, fell from his pocket one day, when riding from the door; the Countess eagerly seized it, and guessing at once to what it belonged, hastened to the Count's chamber.

The surmise was soon found to be correct; in a few moments she had entered the winding stairs, pa.s.sing up which, she reached a small octagon chamber at the summit of the tower. Scarcely had her eager eyes been thrown around the room, when they fell upon a little bed, almost concealed beneath a heavy canopy of silk, gorgeously embroidered with the Count's armorial bearings. Drawing rudely aside the hangings, she beheld the sleeping figure of a little boy, who, even in his infantine features, recalled the handsome traits of her husband's face. The child started and awoke with the noise, and looking wildly up, cried out, "Papa;" and then suddenly changing his utterance, said, "Mamma." Almost immediately, however, discovering his error, he searched with anxious eyes around the chamber for those he was wont to see beside him.

"Who are you?" said the Countess, in a voice that trembled with the most terrible conflict of terror and jealousy, excited to the verge of madness. "Who are you?"

"Il Conte Juliano," said the child, haughtily; and shewing at the same time a little medallion of gold embroidered on his coat, and displaying the family arms of the Julianos.

"Come with me, then, and, see your father's castle," said the Countess; and she lifted him from the bed, and led him down the steps of the steep stairs into, her husband's chamber.

It was the custom of the period, that the lady, no matter how exalted her rank, should with her own hands arrange the linen which composed her husband's toilet, and this service was never permitted to be discharged by any less exalted member of the household. When the Count returned, toward night-fall, he hastened to his room--an invitation, or command, to dine at the Court that day compelling him to dress with all speed. He asked for the Countess as he pa.s.sed up the stairs, but paid no attention to the reply, for as he entered his chamber he found she had already performed the accustomed office, and that the silver basket, with its snow-white contents, lay ready to his hand. With eager haste he proceeded to dress, and took up the embroidered shirt before him. When, horror of horrors! there lay beneath it the head of his child, severed from the body, still warm and bleeding--the dark eyes glaring as if with but half-extinguished life, the lips parted as if yet breathing! One cry of shrill and shrieking madness was heard through every vaulted chamber of that vast castle; the echoes were still ringing with it as the maddened father tore wildly from chamber to chamber in search of the murderess. She had quitted the castle on horseback two hours before.

Mounting his swiftest horse he followed her from castle to castle; the dreadful chase continued through the night and the next day; a few hours of terrible slumber refreshed him again to pursue her; and thus he wandered over the Apennines and the vast plain beyond them, days, weeks, months long, till in a wild conflict of his baffled vengeance and insanity he died! She was never heard of more!

Such is the horrid story of the chamber in which I sit; her bust, that of a lovely and gentle girl, fast entering into womanhood, is now before me; the forehead and the brows are singularly fine; the mouth alone reveals any thing of the terrible nature within; the lips are firm and compressed--the under one drawn slightly--very slightly--backward.

The head itself is low, and, for the comfort of phrenologists, sadly deficient in "veneration." The whole character of the face is, however, beautiful, and of a cla.s.sic order. It is horrible to connect the ident.i.ty with a tale of blood.

With this terrible tragedy still dwelling on my mind, and the features of her who enacted it, I fell asleep. The room in which I lay had witnessed the deed. The low portal in the corner, concealed behind the arras, led to the stairs of the tower; the deep window in the ma.s.sive wall looked out upon the swelling landscape over which she fled, and he, in mad fury, pursued her: these, were enough to seize and hold the mind, and, blending the actual with the past, to make up a vision of palpable reality. Oftentimes did I start from sleep. Now, it was the fancy of a foot upon the tower stair; now, a child's fairy step upon the terrace overhead; now, I heard, in imagination, the one, wild, fearful cry, uttered as if the reeling senses could endure no more! At last I found it better to rise and sit by the window, so overwrought and excited had my brain become. Day was breaking, not in the cold grey of a northern dawn, but in a rich glow of violet-coloured light, which, warmer on the mountain-tops, gradually merged into a faint pinkish hue upon the lesser hills, and became still fainter in the valleys and over the city itself.

A light, gauzy mist, tracked out in the air the course of the Arno; but so frail was this curtain, that the sun's rays were already rending and scattering its fragments, giving through the breaches bright peeps of villas, churches, and villages on the mountain sides: the great dome, too, rose up in solemn grandeur; and the tall tower of Santa Croce stood, sentinel like, over the sleeping city. Already the low sounds of labour, awakening to its daily call, were heard; the distant rumbling of the heavy waggon, the crashing noise of branches, as the olive-trees beside the road brushed against the lumbering teams; and, further off, the cheering voices of the boatmen, whose fast barks were hurrying along the rapid Arno;--all pleasant sounds, for they spoke of life and movement, of active minds and labouring hands, the only bulwarks against the corroding thoughts that eat into the sluggish soul of indolence.

For this fair scene--these fresh and balmy odours--this brilliant blending of blue sky and rosy earth, I could unsay all that I have said of Florence, and own, that it is beautiful! I could wish to sit here many mornings to come, and enjoy this prospect as now I do. Vain thought! as if I could follow my mind to the contemplation of the fair scene, and so rove away in fancy to all that I have dreamed of, have loved and cared for, have trusted and been deceived in!

I must be up and stirring--my time grows briefer. This hand, whose blue veins stand out like knotted cordage, is fearfully attenuated; another day or two, perhaps, the pen will be too much fatigue; and I have still "Good-by," to say to many--friends?--ay, the word will serve as well as another. I have letters to write--some to read over once again; some to burn without reading. This kind of occupation--this "setting one's house in order," for the last time--is like a rapid survey taken of a whole life, a species of overture, in which fragments of every air of the piece enter, the gay and cheerful succeeded by the sad and plaintive, so fast as almost to blend the tones together; and is not this mingled strain the very chord that sounds through human life?

Here, then, for my letter-box. What have we here?--a letter from the Marquis of D------, when he believed himself high in ministerial favour, and in a position to confer praise or censure:--

"_Carlton Club_.

"Dear Tempy,

"Your speech was admirable--first-rate; the quotation from Horace, the neatest thing I ever heard; and astonishing, because so palpably unpremeditated. Every one I've met is delighted, and all say that, with courage and the resolve to succeed, the prize is your own. I go to Ireland, they say, or Paris. The latter if I can; the former if I must. In either case, will you promise to come with me? The a.s.surance of this would be a very great relief to

"Yours, truly,