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LITERARY.
WILLIAM W. MANN, Editor.
SATURDAY, MAY 12, 1860.
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TO CORRESPONDENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS
We acknowledge the reception of the following arti
cles in prose and verse :
The Name* We Bear, (No. 2.)—by W. H. W.
The Bobbery—by Snow-dbop.
Childhood—by Juvenus. (Wc presume the author
meant Juvenis.)
Where We Meet to Part no More— by G. 8. P.
Pm Standing O'er Thy Orate, My Mother /—by
J. D. P.
line* To L e— by Tweedside.
The following communications are respectfully de
clined
Mope Nor the Beet Lines beginning When Death's
gloomy paU doth wave The Robbery Maud
The Song of the Storm-fiend Faith, Mope and
Charity The Lines beginning In lonely solitude at
Midnight hour The Lines to my Mother, ending
with But the Mope that live* in Heaven The Lines
beginning 71me is swiftly rolling on. We must de
cline, also, Childhood. The writer is evidently young,
as his signature imports, lie promises well as to char
aeterand talent, we doubt not; but the composition ho
sends for the Field and Fireside is too immature in
thought and style for insertion. He will write some
thing by and by, we think, that will adorn oar columns.
PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.
Messrs. Geo. A. Oates & Brother, Booksell
ers of Augusta, have laid upon our table the
following new works :
Bertha Percy, or L'Esperance, by Margaret
Field. (“Rejoicing in hope; patient in tri
bulation.”) New York: D. Appleton & Co.
A Voyage down the Amoor; With a land Journey
through Siberia, and Incidental Notices of Man
chooria, Kamschatka, and Japan. By Perry
McDonough Collins, United States Commer
cial Agent at the Amoor river. New York:
D. Appleton and Company.
Notes on Nursing; What it Is, and what it is Not.
By Florence Nightingale. New York: D.
Appleton and Company.
“ The following notes (says the Preface) are
by no means intended as a rule of thought
which nurses can teach themselves to
nutVj, still less as a manual to teach nurses
to nurst. They are meant simply to give
hints for thought to wiwen who have per
sonal charge or the health others.”
Friarswood Post- Office ; by the auc«> r 0 f « The
Heir of Redclyffe,” Ac., Ac. New loj; : D.
Appleton and Company.
Parts 12 and 13 of Chambers's Encyclopedia; A
Dictionary of Universal Knowledge for the
People; on the basis Qf the latest edition of
The German Conversations Lexicon. Illus
trated by wood engravings, and maps. New
York: D. Appleton A Co. •
OUR PARIS*(CORRESPONDENCE.
The Italian Question of revived and predominant im
portance—Gen. Lamoriciere appointed to the command
of the Pope's armies—The General's anteeeJ nts, con
comitants, anil snbsequents—Union of the priestly and
political “Dtvlne Right” parties against the Human
Rights party—Tne Pope's pan vobiscum missionaries,
missives, and missiles—The logic and maxims of the
Modem de la Rochefoucauld—ltifled territory and ri
fled cannons—lnsurrection in Sicily—A tanning for the
Powers that be—Cats! Cats!—Louis Blanc—Lucas de
Montigny, a son of llirabean-Sale of his collection of
autographs- -Original order for arrest of Robespierre,
Ac.—Original letter of Marie Antoinette.
Pams, April 19, ISA'..
Hero It i\ again, that “Italian Question,'’ of
the very name of which I fear many of your
XKX 80VSXS1UI AND VXRSBXDS.
readers are weary. Surely, if your correspond
ent had the choosiDg of his themes, he would 1
treat another than this. But his duty as report
er binds him to attend somewhat to current his
tory. Other subjects might be more entertain
ing, none are so deeply interesting. And at no
time since this correspondence began amidst the
stir of war and brilliant feats of arms, has this
same Italian Question been a more prominent
one in the minds of thoughtful men here than it
is to day. It connects with nearly every item of
the record of political news for the last fortnight.
It is likely to connect with the most important
news you will receive from Europe for a long
time to come. It is in fact the question of Euro
pean questions, this Italian Question, this Roman
Question ; if you will but look at it you will see
that it is the old question, the question between
authority and divine right on one side, and the
rights of man on the other. It is the question
in whose debate Martin Luther and Patrick
Henry, John Calvin and John Adams, were on a
side; of whose debate the burning of a Papal
bull in the old German town of Wittenberg and
the pitching of tea into Boston IJarbor, the trans
lation of the Bible into the vulgar tongue, and
the Battle of Bunker Hill, were alike incidents.
The men and incidents lately prominent in this
secular discussion, if they seem insignificant by
comparison, become important by connection. I
need, then, make no further apology for occupy
ing a large portion of this letter with them; the
true need of excuse would be for the imperfect
manner of it —but I rather trust to the good
sense and good nature of your readers to con
sider the difficulty of doing the work of a care
fully written volume in the necessarily, hastily
written column of a newspaper;—
And oftentimes excusing of a fault,
Doth make the fault the worse by the excuse:
As patches set upon a little breach,
[Your correspondent must, to suit the present
case, break the metre here, to modestly substi-.
tute for Earl Pembroke’s, “ little breach,” King
Lear’s “looped and windowed raggedness,”]
Discredit more in hiding of the fault.
Than did the fanlt before it was so patched.
It was rumored more than a fortnight ago that
General Lamoriciere was going to Rome to take
command of the Pope’s army of mercenaries. I
took no note of it in my letter to you of April 5.
It seemed too impossible: Lamoriciere was an
“opposition” member of the Chamber of Depu
ties for the last ten years of Louis Philippe's
reign; February 24, 1848, he proclaimed the ab
dication of that monarch in the streets of Paris,
clothed in the uniform of a National Guard; he
was afterwards minister of war under the Re
public and Cavaignac, and left that office on the
20th of December, being too good a Republican
to serve under President Louis Napoleon; in the
Constituent Assembly he acted with the moder
ate democrats; in the Legislative Assembly he
was one of the firmest defenders of the Repub
lican Constitution; decidedly, the rumor was too
idle to deserve mention. It has proved to be
true; to use an Algebraic expression it is true
plus. After all it is not astonishing that one of
the most brilliant African generals, prevented by
political accidents from taking service again in
the French army, should accept the purely mili
tary functions of commander-in-chief of a for
eign army. But he has accepted as bis own the
principles of the Papal government —this Ex-re
publican, this sometime martyr in the cause of
the Republic. [lf you think an explanatory note
on the political antecedents of the General would
be convenient to your readers, I leave it for you
to add, mon cher redadeur, than whom no one is
more competent. I* y*-- nun In
the early gray of that cold December morning in
1852 to tell me that Lamoriciere was one of the
first victims of the coup d'etat .] He has issued
a proclamation to the Papal army—this man
who, eleven years ago, was the eloquent advo
cate of Italian freedom, the earnest opponent of
the anti-revolutionary, French military occupa
tion of Rome, and military re-instatement of the
Pope—a proclamation in which he declares that
the Papacy is the key-stone of Christianity, and
its cause synonymous with that of civilization
and liberty, which are to-day menaced by Revo
lution as they formerly were by Islamism 1
But it is not in the tergiversation of a politi
cian, nor yet in the really important fact that the
Pope has at last obtained a military captain of
great ability to drill, discipline, and organize his
bands of mercenaries, that the great significance
of Lamoriciere's act is to be found. It is to be
looked upon as a representative act. While it
excites the derision and bitter mockery of its
author’s former colleagues, it is greeted with the
unanimous applause of the clerical and legitimist
party, now co-operating here in France. Its
significance, in fine, is to be measured by the
universal attention that has been paid to it, not
only by the French, but throughout Europe.
The priestly party, making common cause
everywhere with the legitimists, the partisans
of royal divine right, with the retrogrades, in a
word, have their eyes all turned to Italy:—with
side glances, watchful each of their special
causes. It is difficult, indeed impossible, to
know accurately the thoroughness and efficiency
of their organization. Patent signs and tokens
of their working are not wanting. I have already
spoken of the religious charitable societies, which
in France alone number little short of one million
members, and are all under the control of a cen
tral administration. Their moral influence is
immense, and their pecuniary influence is not to
be despised, although it is impossible for us
outsiders to measure it by figures. None of us
can know, more than the common run of mem
bers of these associations, what proportion of
the funds raised by trifling subscriptions, but
amounting to immense sums, are diverted from
their ostensible pusposes of feeding hungry
and clothing naked domestic Christians', and
converting foreign heathen, to supplying the
temporal wants of the Papal Government. There
is going on throughout Papal Christendom, a
subscription specially intended for the Roman
treasury—the old time levy of Peter's Pence is
now being raised in all the dioceseß of France
and Austria and Belgium. Do you thiuk it is
laid out in masses? No Roman Cresar, no
tb, dal baron, no peddling Yankee, ever showed
greaiw jr ree d for worldly goods than the earthly
represenuiive of Him who had not a place where
to lay His ht»d, shows for the retaining of what
territory he has, and the recovery of what he.
has lost. It is sari that he is deservedly con
fident chat by the Vitgin’s help, he shall recover
the Romagnas. Meantime he does not neglect
the grosser aid of hired fighting men. They
continue to come in, principally from Austria,
Bavaria, and other parts of Germany. With
these come enthusiasts of the better sort, beiore
whose disinterested sacrifices for principle’s
sake, (pr partisan passion’s sake), one could bow
with a certain respect, if it were not for laugh
ing. Monsieur de la Roclmfoucauld, for instance,
has recently excited the admiration us the faith
ful at Rome, by offering to the holy father to
furnish five hundred soldiers and their pay for
three years to Rio Pope’s army, and asking to
join it himself as a privato fighter, His Holiness
thought best, for some reason or other, to de
cline the proposition, but consoled the disap
*
pointed youDg Dnke with a knightly decoration
to his button bole. The young gentleman there
upon returns thanks, and begs the Vicar on
Earth of the Prince of Peace to accept twelve
rifled cannons. I say, imagine a devout mem
ber of one of our country churches, offering to
his honored, ill-paid pa stor, at a friendly “ sur
prise party” of the paj-Isliioners, a brace of re
volvers and aboffie-knife!
The story, rife a few- -weeks ago, that Neapoli
tan were to take the place of French troops in #
garrisoning Borne, is settled for the present— *
The King of Naples has the most eloqnent com
mentary on the text that Charity begins at
home, preached now’’ by his ever “ most loved
subjects.” On the seventh or eighth of this
month an insurrection broke out in Sicily at
Palermo and Messina. Os its extent, its actual
condition, its prospects, we have no information
that approximates to satisfactory. The author
ities at Naples constantly report it as a trifling
affair, completely subdued at its outset; mean
time they take singula r pains to intercept all
news from the island. Newspaper and private
correspondents residing there represent the
matter very differently ; their accounts, how
ever, are somewhat confused and quite deficient
in accuracy of detail. From the seat of the in
surrection itself we have not as yet any direct,
any nearly complete statements. Enough, how
ever, is known to make it certain that the rising
was a serious matter, to make it probable that
it rested on an extended pre-arranged plan, and
possible that it may grotf to the proportions of
a successful revolution. That the local govern
ment is thoroughly alarmed is abundantly
proved, first, by the fl ight of nearly all its par
tisans, not held to the island by their official
occupations, or by their inability to escape—the
steamers coming to Naples from Palermo are
crowded with fugitives; secondly, by the text
of a proclamation issued by the military com
mander of Palermo. The following are literal
extracts from some of the artitles of this docu
ment: “In the day time the inhabitants must
walk singly in the street; [two persons arm in
arm are an alarming popular assembly.] After
seven o’clock they must carry a light. No bell
must be rung; no placard of any kind must be
posted; offenders in either case will be tried by
the improvised council of war, which is in per
msment session. During the state of siege, de
clared by this proclamation, all the printing
offices will remain closed.” On the main land
there are violent symptoms of Neapolitan insur
rection.
With all this, anti Cavour’s ambition, will
there be war again tli is summer in Italy ? If it
begins in the south, oan it fail to involve Ve
netia and so Austria, and so Napoleon, and
then Hungary, and then Germany, and so a
general European ra t ? Judge ye.
To change the subj ect: as to cats for example..
Do not mock. As all French dogs are tax pay
ers—the humblest poodle’s poll is worth ten
annual francs to the Imperial treasury—so there
are feline office-holders under government.
Their pay is voted in the most solemn manner
by the Corps Legisla tij, when the members of
that “solemnlyconstituted imposture” vote the
annual budget; it is included in the appropria
tion for the Ministry- of Justice, in the special
appropriation for tfxe Imperial printing office,
whose administration holds frqm that Ministry.
The duty of these public cats, whose semi-daily
victual is paid for by the State, is to see to it
that the rats and mice do not injure the supplies
of paper and the printed books of the establish
ment. These quadrupedal functionaries have
been brought into notice of tho tax-paying, pen-
XIYC ptArttu, WcCTtJrtn clrculflSttuWofc, tTlat TOT a
while threatened serious quarrel between the
dignified Wpeflsl dignitaries, the respective di
rectors of the Imperial Printing House and of
the Imperial Archives. The twoestablishments
adjoin each other. Monsieur le Directeur des
Archives, indulges in a passion for rare aquatic
birds, of which he had a quantity In an arti
ficial pond in his garden. He notes that their
numbers mysteriously diminish; he is worried,
lies awake o’nights, then takes to daylight
watching for the cause of such disasters. From
sudden disappearance of birds to scattered feath
ers, from feathers to cats in’ general, from cats
in general to eats from over the wall in particu
lar, from that to tho setting of snares and fre
quent ensnaring of the same and execution of
death penalty, did lie proceed in the order of
the true Baconian philosophy. Monsieur le Di
recteur de Hmpripi ierie Imperials, has his at
tention turned, by bis human subordinates, to
ihc singular fact that despite a steady increase,
by birth, the feline population of tho place was
diminishing. Hence wonder, and watchfulness,
on that side of the -wall. Was it the workmen
who abstracted them to make presents of them
to their wives, [Parisians are very fond of cats.]
to their lady loves Ob, horrors! to sell them
to the cheap restaurants? Hence, wonder and
vigilance on that side of tho wall, which was
finally' rewarded. Le voilal “one of ours,”
with a snaro string on his neck 1 The clue once
found, nothing was easier than to follow it out
to the Archivist’s g-arden, to tho Archivist him
self. And so it came that the two dignitaries
were on the brink of a quarrel, which got wind
and let tliesefodd employes of the government
out of the bag.
Louis Blanc is lecturing in England, and in
the best of English, with deserved applause.
His thorough, idiomatic mastery of a foreign
tongue, is most reznarkable, though it can sur
prise no ono who read his answer to Lord Nor
manby’s book on the Revolution of 1848, which
was not only more correct in its statement of
facts, but vastly superior in English diction to
that second-rate diplomatist’s, that fourth-rate
novelist’s, bungling-, foolish production.
There is to begin here on the 30th of April,
and to continue through the following two
weeks, the sale of a most valuable collection of
autographs. It belonged to Lucas de Montigny,
a son of Mirabeau, and contains, beside numer
ous specimens of Mirabeau’s hand-writing, a
singularly rare and. rich store of historical MSS.,
relating to the times and events of the League,
of the French and of the great Revolution. No
equally important sale in this kind has taken
place for years. Tlie explanatory catalogue is
a Btout octavo volume of 560 pages, and is quite
an interesting and curious work. It comprises
about twelve thousand pieces of writing, of let
ters, reports, orders and other MSS., and more
than three thousand engraved portraits. Apro
pos of autographs: at an auction here, the
other day, was sold the original order for the
arrest of Robespiernf, Couthon and Gobeau,
signed by Billaud ~V arenne and Barrere, for 385
francs. Tho lucky purchaser of a livre d'heures,
sold at the auction rooms of Lyons recently,
discovered within its pages an original letter of
Marie Antoinette, -written while she was a pris
oner in tho Temple. The purpose of its con
tents is to ask tho Convention, for the second
time, to allow her atnother mattrass.
An American friend tells me that your novel
reading subscribers may be interested to learn
that the French translator of Guy Livingston,
states, by authority, that remarkable novel to
have been written by Mr. George A. Lawrence.
OUR FOREIGN CORRESPOND!.! CE.
Early Spring in Munich—Well-constructed winter hous
es—Polite forms more common In Germany than in
the United States—Restricted social intercourse be
tween the sexes in Germany—Lake Constance—John
Hass—his cage and martyrdom—Jerome qf Prague—
his martyrdom—Arenenberg, the (jwtaa'residence of
Hortense and Napoleon lll.—The twenty-two old mo
nasteries about Constance—The corrupt Concordats —
The archduchess Sophia, mother of the actual Emper
or of Austria—her character—The political priests of
now-a-dsy—The Jesuits at their old tricks—Abduction
of the young Count Ceroni.
Munich, April 18, 1860.
The winter is past, and spring has come with
birds and flowers. The larks have been singing
on bright mornings early, quite one month.
They make their appearance before the snow
has entirely disappeared. It is a joy to hear
these little creatures as they
“ singing, up to Heaven's gate ascend.”
What a pity we have no larks in our country,
and yet nothing would be easier than to take
over a few pairs and give them their liberty.
And so of the nightingales, of which we have
none, so far as I know. They, if turned loose
in the grounds surrounding a house, will build
there and rear their young. There must be no
cats about, as their nests lie very low. I was
at Constance the other day, and there the
jackdaws were as busy about tho old church
towers as if they belonged to the city corpora
tion. They are troublesome, and stop up gut
ters, &c., with their nest?. I think the storks
return about this season. I once saw a nest of
a stork near Bremen, that had emigrated and
come back during some thirty-five years. There
is a story of one that builds near Amsterdam,
on the leg of which a light ring, with an inscrip
tion, was once placed. On its return one spring,
it was found that this ring had been removed,
and another one with another date and the
word "Bengal,” substituted. These birds are
not very nice in their diet, as they eat serpents,
frogs, “ and such small deer.”
We have passed a winter without once feel
ing that it was winter, except when out of
doors. This is due to tho solid manner in which
tho houses are built, and to the double win
dows—a second casement is put in in Novem
ber and taken out in April. Sometimes it opens
outward on vertical hinges with two valves, but
in Munich, it consists of a complete frame ad
justed to the openings, outside the wiudow
already there, by means of hasps and staples.
This breaks all the attacks of wind and cold,
and a portion of it opens on hinges, so that the
apartment may be aired. It must be confessed,
however, that there is not much airing done by
the inhabitants of Munich during the winter,
and I fear that this is one cause ol the preva
lent typhoid fevers. Perhaps the expense of
warming houses may enter into the calculation.
' It is a pity that our wretched system of building
cou'd not bo discouraged, and the one in prac
tice here be adopted. Here your walla must
stand one year lifter they are up and the roof
on, and the openings must be well boarded in,
so that the walls may dry and settle, and then,
when it is plastered, there are none of those un
sightly cracks so common with us. In the
United States many colds' and fatal pulmonary
affections flow from rushing through, and mov
ing too soon into, new houses with the mortar
yet damp. In Rome they say, “you should put
your enemies into a new house the first year,
your friends the second, and you may move in
yourself the third.”
I have been here seven or eight months, and,
in this large city there has been no conflagra
tion durin* that tlmp; and although I
some persons rather tipsy, I nave seen no drunk
en rows, nor have I seen or heard of any pistol
lings, stabbings, etc. These little luxuries seem
to flourish best at home. During several win-'
ters at Florence and Rome I never heard the
alarm of fire. In the former town the only
thing like afire, was that of an old woman who
was reduced to ashes from her clothes taking
fire from a “ scaldino" placed under them. The
only fire company there, that I heard of, was
composed of three men—one armed with a sy
ringe about three feet long, the two others with
buckets.
After this, Messrs. Editors be pleased to observe
that I do not abuse the Germans indiscrimi
nately and always. Let me add here, that gen
erally, they are a much more polite people than
we, I mean in those external civilities and pro
prieties which lend so great a charm to life—such
as bows, courtesies, salutations, always includ
ing the raising of the hat by the men. It may
be said that all this is superficial, and the
of it is probably, but the influence of habitual
politeness is good, and its practice communicates
certain nameless graces to the observers of it.
I do not think it matters so much what people
think of you, if they are polite in their manners
towards you. Will your lady readers pardon
me, if I add, that women here carry a more ele
vated conventional deportment into society than
mostjof our American women do—and I think
the same may be remarked of well-bred English
women ? All men are not equally clever, and
some are bores in society. How many of our
American girls take no pains to conceal their
aversion to certain men who may be dull ond
uninteresting, and yet respectful homage on
(heir part deserves a delicate and considerate
deportment from those to whom it is rendered,
apart from the risk of wounding one’s feelings.
Now, so far as Munich is concerned, I leave
you to reconcile my remarks witn a social sys
tem which prohibits absolutely and entirely all
visiting and walking together of the sexes who
are not near blood relations. If the persons
seen in such situations are unmarried, it is taken
for granted that they are engaged. I have else
where, on a former occasion, borne ample testi
mony to the astonishing progress of tire arts —
as music, painting in oils, fresco, encaustic, on
glass and porcelain—the manufacture of porce
lain, etc., the gardening, the noble architecture,
etc., etc. I may, hereafter, advert to these
matters.
The road from hence to Lindau on the Lake
of Constance, makes a wide detour through
Augsburg. It passes through the plains of Ba
varia, leaving the Isar—the “Isar wiling ra
pidly” of Campbell’s poem—and crosses the Lech
and Iller, all these waters rolling north towards
the Danube. Near Kempton and Immenstadt
you encounter several snow fields on the west
ern slopes of the Bavarian Alps 1 . In thirty
minutes you plunge down from the snows to
the vineyards on the lake. Avoid the accom
modation train. It does not make more than
twelve to fifteen miles an hour. The second
class is comfortable and elegant—better than
the first class in France or the United States.—
The Lake of Geneva (Leman), and that of Con
stauce are much alike—some fifty-two and thirty
nine miles long, respectively, while the greater
width of tire latter makes the superficial area
about the same. One receives the Rhone, the
other the Rhine, from out snow-covered Alps,
and these rivers flow out in a blue current r rom
the opposite end of each lake, though
“ ‘be blue rushing of tbe arrowy Rhone,”
is more blue, swift and merry at Geneva, than
the Rhino is at Constance. The Lake of Con
stance is the scene of a very active commerce,
with very few restrictions on it No less than
five of the European powers shate it. The
towns of Constance, Meersburg, and Überlin
gen belong to x the Duchy of Baden—that of
Friederickshafen to Wurtemberg—those of Ro
transhorn and Roorshach to Switzerland, Lindau
to Bavaria, and Bregentz to Austria. These last
towns are near the passage of the Splugen. On
the south side of the lake are the Swiss can
tons of St. Gall, Appenzell, and Thurgau. Lin
dau is on a pretty island approached by two
bridges. Many quaint old towers of the ancient
walls yet remain. It has four thousand inhabi
tants, of whom, strangely enough, three-fourths
are Protestants. The little harbor is quite a
gem, containing perhaps three or four acres.—
The entrance has on the left, rising from one
end of the mole, a lighthouse—a model of
beauty, with its variegated bricks. On the
right, another mass of masonry in stone sus
tains, at the height of forty or fifty feet, a noble
lion of white marble, of great size. He rests
on his haunches, and looks seaward with bee
coming dignity, and the repose of conscious
strength. As you shoot past these objects on
entering the port, you have right before you,
an admirable bronze statue of the present King
Max, on a lofty pedestal, which for beauty and
justness of proportion, I have hardly seen sur
passed.
At Constance, we tried our hand at fishing
with indifferent success. We had kn occasional
salmon-colored trout to eat, however, at the in
ordinate price of seventy-five cents a pound.—
It was too early in the season, and the waters
k were too cold for fishing. Lately fish are abun
dant, however. My comrade, a clever young
Englishman belonging to the British Legation
here, rejoiced in one bite, which he was sure
was an immense trout, though it was more likely
a pike. From the circuit of the old walls, I
should suppose that Constance has made no
progress since they burned the virtuous and
noble John Huss there, in the year 1415, and
his friend Jerome of Prague some twenty-two
months later; all this for inveighing against
the corruptions of the Roman Church, to which
they belonged, and for maintaining the right to
read the Bible and worship God after their own
way. The Council of Constance was in session
more than three years, beginning in 1414, and
the great hall where they sat is yet shown to
visitors. One of the objects of this Council was
to elect « new Pope, or decide on tho claims of
the then Pope and anti-Pope. lluss went there
under a safe conduct from the Emperor Sigis— *
mund to defend his doctrines. By this base
counterfeit of an Emperor he was deserted in his
hour of great need. Tou see there a copy of
his last autograph letter to his people in Bo
hemia, in which, with noble forgiveness, he
charges the Emperor with being false to all his
engagements. The cage in which he was con
fined for three months prior to his execution—
perhaps five and a half feet by two and a half—
is now shown in the hall, having long since been
brought there from the dungeon of the Convent
where he was immured. Huss was not only a
good, but a most learned man, with the title of
“Magister in Artibus." His last words, when
tho flames had already partly consumed him,
were: “Ireturn my soul into thfhands of my
God and my Redeemer." Jerome of Prague was
a man equally pure and holy, and came gallantly
to the defence of his friend. He was Rector to
the then famous University of Prague, with
honorary titles in those of London and Erfurt.
When they began tfi light the fire behind him,
he begged them to apply it in front, adding, “ If
I had b**n afraid of fir* I wntihl mot have been
here." An old chronicle, which I read on the
spot, states that he went to his fate as merrily
as to a marriage feast, but adds, with the,stoi
cism of an indifferent spectator, that as he was
large and fat, he was long in being consumed,
and that he shrieked and screamed very much.
We drove one day to Arenenberg, some five
or six miles distant; where Louis Napoleon spent
some seventeen or eighteen years of his early
life, and where his mother, Hortense Beaubar
nais, ex-queen of Holland, died. It is pleasantly
situated on a wooded steep, with terraces built
out so that you look sheer down on trees and
shrubs far below you. Not far from thence, the
Rhine hurries down to the falls of Schaffhausen
The property yet belongs to the Emperor. The
house is small, but well furnished, and in per
fect taste. The circular dining table had chairs
for eight guests,—which is within the prescrib
ed limit, “not fewer than the graces, nor more
than the muses.’’ Besses old halbards, morions,
and other things mediaeval, are many souvenirs
of the first Emperor. The cliapel, plain without,
is in wonderfully good taste within. It con
tains a kneeling, portrait statue of Hortense, »
the hands clasped together with an air of devo
tion and repose, such as an innocent child would
have at its prayers. A simple inscription in
Latin purports that she was “ fortunate , unfor
tunate, and again fortunate" —words happily ap
plied, I think, to three prominent periods of her
eventful life. Alas I “ what shadows we are,
and,what shadows we pursue”—how few the
years during which the most gifted and the
greatest act their part!
At the period of the Council of Constance,
there were in and around that place some twen
ty-two monasteries and nunneries,with the whole
country circumjacent divided into great farifts,
and a miserable people working for the support
of their gloriously lazy sisterhood and brother
hood. Some of the conventual buildings no
longer exist, others are yet occupied, while many
are converted into manufactories and barracks
for soldiers. One noble chapel, in which some
of the flambayant tracery yet adorn the windows,
is used as a drying house for linen fabrics. Con
stance, though on the Swiss side of the Lake
and shut in by the Canton of Thurgau, belongs
to Baden—a little duchy, in the diet of which
they have just rejected, by a vote of 45 to 15,
the concordat surreptitiously made, a year or
two since, with the Pope by one of their minis
ters. If needful, I could give you the proofs
that Austria was at the bottom of this concor
dat, as well as of that actually concluded with
Wurtemburg, to which the King of'Wurtem
burg was opposed, but which he sanctioned for
fear of displeasing a certain well-known lady, to
whom the Pope presented the “golden rose” for
her services in the cause. They tried Bavaria,
but King Max turned his back upon them. The
archduchess Sophia, the mother of the present
Emperor, was the most active instrument in
getting up the Austrian concordat three or four
years since. She was one of the most beautiful
women in the empire, and though very devout,
her immoralities are so great as to be a public
scandal and a reproach. If any reader should
smile at the juxtaposition of two words above
through incredulity, it would only prove how
little Borne of your readers know of the actual
situation ot this rotten old Europe.
You know that tho consideration for these
mediieval arrangements (unliko the one conclu
ded by the first Napoleon) is, the more free and
systematic use of tho confessional, and terrors of
religion, Ac., so (hat standiug armies may be re
duced, conspiracies detected, and all that. The •
Emperor has coolly re-transferred back to the