Southern literary gazette. (Charleston, S.C.) 1850-1852, December 25, 1852, Page 290, Image 4

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290 nation’s tears shed over their graves; or stigmatized as rebels to their king and country, and consigned to the dust, unla mented, unhonoured and unsung. The chapeau blanc still waved over the turrets of the Tuileries, for Charles X. still sat on a throne which, however, was now momently sinking from under him. The streets, broken up into barricades — i alas! how many streaming with blood! were, even at this early hour, filled with eager groups balancing the amount of yesterday’s strife, or speculating on the events of the coming day. Excitement was at its height; and to those within, every moment brought some report of victory or defeat, often framed less in ac cordance with truth than the political bias of the party who uttered it. But it soon became evident that the time was fast approaching when the force adverse to the existing monarchy would triumph. It was a day of intense and breathless anxiety to all, to none more than to Iso line. With the ardent vivacity of her countrywomen, her every energy was enlisted in the cause of libertv. Re strained by her sex from participating in the contest, she shared with the Sisters of Charity the task of administering to the necessities of the wounded and dying at the Hotel Dieu. And no voice was sweeter in cheering the sufferer, no hand tenderer in presenting the medicine-cup, or in applying the bandage. She had obeyed the summons of humanity, when the artillery was roaring through the streets, and the path from her home was beset with danger. The evening of the 29th had arrived. Exhausted by the fatigue of the day, sick ened with the sights of horror which everywhere met her view, lsoline felt overpowered and faint. Iler pale cheek and tottering frame attracted the notice : of one of the physicians in .attendance at the hospital, who was a personal friend; he warmly urged her to leave a scene , where Death’s darkening shadows, gath • ering over hundreds of victims, flung a j gloom over the spirits of all, and to re j turn to her home. Yielding to his entreaties, she left the Hotel Dieu. By taking an obscure and circuitous route, she had reached in safety the Rue St. Ilonore. It was blocked up by the contending parties. To escape the balls whizzing around her, she turned into a retired street. Even thither did ! the assailants come. The air was rent with shouts of defiance, and thickened with the smoke of discharged musketry. Though thus prevented by the shades of evening and clouds of vapour from dis cerning objects very distinctly, she yet observed two combatants, who fought with a savage desperation, which told in deed that “true foes once met part but in death. ’ She crept under a wall, and watched the contest with a sort of fasci- SOUTHERN LITERARY GAZETTE. nated earnestness. By a sudden move ment, she obtained a nearer view of their faces. She looked again, with a gaze which seemed to stretch her eyeballs to bursting, and recognized in one of the combatants—her father ! opposed to, as she fatally fancied, a young officer in the garde du corps to w hom she was secretly betrothed. Without waiting to ascertain if her fears were correct, she rushed forward with frantic eagerness. At that moment her father’s pistol was levelled at the heart of his adversary. She strove to wrest the weapon from his grasp. He turned sharply round; the pistol, by the suddenness of the movement, swerved from its aim, and exploded. Its contents lodged in the heart of Isoline! One deep groan, one low, gasping sob, and, with the life-blood welling from her innocent breast, she reeled towards her father, and fell dead at his feet ! Those who were near, declare that the shriek was scarcely human, which rent the air when the wretched parent disco vered that she, whose warm blood crim soned his garments, whom he had been accessory in forcing from time into eter nity, was his adored and gentle child. He refused at first to believe in her iden tity—then denied assent to the fact of her death. Bushing aside the clustering ringlets from her face—lovely even in the ashy aspect of death —he knelt by her side, kissed her, vehemently calling on her to come back to his arms and love. But, when silence was the only answer to his passionate entreaties, when compelled to believe that she was dead indeed—wfith a shrill piercing cry, which seemed to condense the essence of all human agony, he fell on her body in merciful unconsciousness. The beautiful cemetery of Pore la Chaise seldom fails to obtain from stran gers, who sojourn in the French capital, early inspection and unqualified admira tion. The serious and the contemplative visit it, and find in the unbroken stillness of its verdant paths, in the mouldering decay of its consecrated sepulchres, food for solemn and holy meditation. The young and the sensitive visit it. They from whose lips bursts the loudest laugh of joyousness, yet who weep the readiest and the bitterest tears ; thev go thither to commune with the spirits of the gifted and lovely, who lie crumbling at their feet. Even the gay, the thoughtless and the happy, on whom the touch of sadness never yet hath fallen; even they, the affluent in bliss, visit it to admire the tastefulness of its design, the splendour of its mausoleums, and to peruse its ten der and affecting epitaphs, the offerings of lavish love to the cold dust, now deaf alike to the ban of censure and to the voice of praise. Why is it that persons differing in age, sex, and temperament, yet so generally unite in deriving a mys terious pleasure from a ramble in a churchyard? Is it that they hope to dive into the secrets of another world, by hovering over the last resting places of perished humanity? Whatever the mo tive that leads us thitl er, the church yard is usually the first object of a traveller’s visit, the one in which he lingers longest. I he Sunday succeeding the termination of the Revolution was appointed for the obsequies of many of its victims. The inhabitants of Baris, obeying their na tional impulse, which has so justly won for them the appellation of a sight-see ing population, thronged the Boulevards, through which the cavalcade was to pass, in countless masses. And it would not have been very easy for a stranger, at first sight, to decide whether an occasion of joy or sorrow had congregated them together. So alien are any fixed habits of melancholy from the character of the French, that their giief, extravagant in its first outbreak over the death-bed of their kindred, frequently has expended itself, and settled down into comparative indifference, before the grave has closed over a parent or a child I may be par doned for saying this, from witnessing the demeanour of those who followed the mournful procession to the place of its destination, the cemetery of Fere la Chaise, and grouped themselves arouud the graves of those interred. True, there was much gesticulation ; and there were some stormy ebullitions of sorrow among the few. But there was none of that ex pression of overwhelming grief, “which lies too deep for tears;” none of that profound, earnest, settled anguish, either discernible in the mourners, or diffused among the multitude, which 1 am con vinced a similar occasion would have called forth in England. The ceremony was concluded; the crowd dispersed, and only a few strag glers, like myself, left of the hundreds, who, a brief time before, lined the ave nues of Pore la Chaise. I strolled towards the chapel, which, erected at the highest point of the ceme tery, commands so magnificent a view of the neighbouring city, with all its crime and sorrow, luxury and destitution. The service for the dead was performing with in the sacred edifice. My attention was instantly riveted by a man who evidently filled the character of chief mourner. 1 have visited many receptacles of human suffering, and seen the desolation of the heart reflected in the countenance, in, as I fancied, the strongest possible aspect. But never did I see misery—hopeless, helpless, immediate misery—so appal lingly developed, as in the face of that man. He seemed to have reached the utmost limit of human agony, to which the smallest added pang must bring death or insanity. \l)eceniber 25,