There Thor alone Was in ill mood; He seldom sits When told the like; She knows where hid Rush down the fall The sun turns pale; The spacious earth The sea ingulfs; From heaven fall The lucid stars: At the end of time, The vapors rage, And playful flames Involve the skies. She sees arise, The gods convene The fields unsown A hall she sees It stands in heaven: Delights enjoy. Translated by HENDERSON. PICCIOLA. [Joseph Xavier Boniface, better known by his assumed name of Saintine, an elegant French writer, was born at Paris in 1798, and died in 1865. He wrote many poems, dramas and romances, and a history of Italian Wars. His beautiful story of Picciola, published in 1837, which was publicly crowned as a masterpiece of fiction, has been translated into many languages. Saintine, in co-operation with Eugène Scribe and other dramatists, produced many plays. We give an abridgment of this admired modern classic.] BOOK I. Charles Véramont, Count of Charney, whose name is, doubtless, not yet wholly forgotten by the learned of our time, and might, if sought, still be found in the records of the imperial police, was endowed by nature with an uncommon capacity for study. Unfortunately, his intellect, under scholastic discipline, had taken a disputatious turn. He was more used to discussion than to observation, and so became rather a learned man than a philosopher. At twenty-five the Count was master of seven languages; but, unlike certain learned polyglots, who seem to have given themselves the trouble of acquiring foreign tongues for the express purpose of exhibiting their ignorance and emptiness to foreigners, as well as to their own countrymen,-(for one can be a dolt in many languages as easily as in one,)—Charney regarded his acquirements as a linguist only as preparation for other and higher studies. While he possessed this body of servants at the command of his intellect, yet each had his duty, his special business. With his servants, the Germans, he engaged in metaphysics; with the English and Italians, in politics and legislation; with all, in history, which he could investigate to its very origin, thanks to his Hebrew, his Greek, and his Roman ser vants. Twenty rival truths perplexed the horizon of his mind-false beacons that set his reason at defiance. After being tossed about between Bossuet and Spinoza, between atheism and deism-bewildered among spiritualists, sensationalists, animists, ontologists, eclectics, and materialists, he took refuge in universal scepticism, desperately solving all doubts by universal negation. Having set aside the doctrine of innate ideas, and the revelation of theologians, as well as the opinions of Leibnitz, Locke, and Kant, Count Charney shut himself up in gross pantheism, refusing to believe in one supreme intelligence. The disorder inherent in creation, the perpetual contradictions between ideas and things, the unequal distribution of strength and fortune among mankind, fixed in his mind the conviction that blind matter alone had created all, and alone organized and directed all. Chance became his God, annihilation the object of his hope. He adopted his new creed with rapture, almost with triumph, as if he had himself created it, thinking himself happy in being freed by a sweeping incredulity from the doubts with which he had been besieged. The death of a relative placed him in possession of a large fortune. He bade adieu to science, and determined to live for pleasure alone. Since the installation of the Consulate, society in France had been reorganized with its former habits of luxury and splendor. In the midst of the clarion of victory which was heard from all quarters at once, Paris was intoxicated. Charney entered the world of wealth, the genial and dazzling world, the world of learning, wit, and grace; then in the midst of this life, at once idle and occupied, in this grand rush for pleasure, he was filled with surprise that he could not think himself happy. Our philosopher called to his aid sensual pleasures. In society, which had been so long a stranger to joy and gayety, and was still defiled by the blood-stained orgies of the Revolution, now renewing its life, and outstripping at the first bound the ostentatious magnificence of the Regency, he signalized himself by the extravagance of his expenditure and his follies, but all in vain. He had horses, equipages, an open table; he gave concerts, balls, huntingparties; but failed to secure pleasure as his guest. He had friends to flatter him in his triumphs, mistresses to love him in his moments of leisure, and although he put a high price on all this, he knew neither friendship nor love. Charney could not be happy. He became a philanthropist. To be useful to the men that he despised, he gave himself up anew to politics; not speculative, but active. He caused himself to be initiated into secret societies; he forced himself to feel again the only sort of fanaticism that remains for minds which have lost all illusions. In short, he became a conspirator; and against whom? Against the power of Bonaparte. May it not have been that this patriotic love, this universal love which seemed to animate him, after all, at bottom, was only hatred for one single man, a man whose glory and success annoyed him? Charney, the aristocrat, at last returned to the principle of equality; the proud nobleman from whom had been wrested his title of Count, which he held from his ancestors, did not choose that one should take with impunity that of Emperor, which could be held only from the sword. It matters not what conspiracy this was. There was no lack of conspiracies at that epoch. I only know that this one was brooding from 1803 to 1804; but it was not suffered to break out. The police, that providence which watched over the destinies of the future empire, discovered it in time. Government decided to make no noise about it, not even to give it the honor of a discharge of muskets on the Plaine de Grenelle, the place of military execution. The heads of the conspiracy were surprised, seized in their own houses, condemned almost without trial, and separately distributed in the prisons, citadels, or fortresses of the ninety-six departments of consular France. I remember, when crossing the Alps into Italy, a tourist, travelling on foot, my knapsack on my shoulder, and alpenstock in my hand, stopping to gaze thoughtfully on a torrent near the pass of Rodoretto, swollen by the melting ice of the upper glaciers. This torrent is the Clusone. Skirting its banks, I came with it into one of four valleys called "Protestant,' in memory of the ancient Vaudois, who formerly took refuge there. Here my torrent had no longer its rapid and riotous gait, nor its hundred roaring voices. Flowing now quietly, decently, almost coquettishly, it took upon itself the air of a modest rivulet, as it caressed with its waves the walls of Fenestrella. It was then that I first saw Fenestrella, celebrated for the forts which crown the two mountains between which the town is placed. These forts, which communicate by a covered way, had been partly dismantled during the wars of the republic. One of them, however, repaired and refortified, had become a prison of state when Piedmont was incorporated into France. It was in this fortress of Fenestrella that Charles Véramont, Count of Charney, was confined, accused of having plotted to subvert the regular and legal government of his country, to substitute for it a régime of disorder and terror. The room occupied by Charney was at the rear of the citadel, in a small building raised on the ruins of an ancient fortification, formerly connected with the defensive works, but which, in the rebuilding of the fort, was rendered useless. Four walls newly whitewashed, so that they did not even yield him the amusement of recognizing the traces of those who had before been inmates of this place of desolation; a table, at which he could do nothing but eat; one chair, whose singleness seemed ever to remind him that never would any human being sit there beside him; a trunk for his clothing; a little sideboard of painted deal, partly worm-eaten, presented a striking contrast to an elegant dressing-case inlaid with silver, which was placed upon it, the only remnant which was left him of his former luxury; a narrow bed, but clean; a pair of curtains of blue cloth, which hung at his window, -a derisive superfluity, a bitter raillery, for the closeness of the bars, and the high wall rising but a few feet opposite his window, left him little to fear from prying eyes or the importunity of the too ardent rays of the sun. Such was the furnishing of his chamber. Over this room was another exactly like it, but unoccupied; he had no companions in this detached portion of the fortress. The rest of his world was limited to a massive spiral stone stairway which led to a small paved court, sunk in one of the ancient moats of the citadel. In this place, for two hours each day, he took as much exercise and enjoyed as much liberty as the rules prescribed by the commandant permitted. From this court the prisoner could look upon the summit of the mountains, and the vapors which rose from the plains; for the ramparts, lower at the east, allowed the air and sun to penetrate. But once more in his chamber, a horizon of masonry alone met his eye, in the midst of this sublime and picturesque scenery which surrounded him. At the right rose the enchanting green hills of Saluces; at the left, the last undulations of the valleys of Aosta, and the banks of the Chiara; before him were the marvellous plains of Turin; behind him, the Alps, rising one above another, adorned with rocks, forests, and abysses, from Mount Genevra to Mount Cenis, and he could see nothing,-nothing but a misty sky suspended over his head in a frame of stones, nothing but the pavement of his court and the bars of his prison, nothing but the high wall that faced his window, of which the wearisome uniformity was only broken towards its extremity by a small square window, at which, from time to time, through the bars, he had a glimpse of a sad and frowning face. And this was the circumscribed world in which he must henceforward seek his diversions and find his joys. The effort taxed all his faculties. He marked on his walls, with a bit of charcoal, figures and dates which recalled to him the happy events of his youth. Alas! how small the number of them! He turned from these remembrances with a sinking heart. Then the fatal demon of scepticism returned with its desolating convictions, which he formed into phrases that he dared to inscribe on the walls, near the names of his mother and his sister. He taxed his ingenuity to multiply difficulties to vanquish, problems to solve, enigmas to guess, and ennui, formidable enemy, came to surprise him in the midst of these grave employments. The man whose face he had seen at the window at the extremity of the opposite wall might have furnished him, perhaps, with more real diversion; but this other prisoner seemed to avoid his notice, retir 'It was a paroxysm of selfishness, then," murmured Charney. แ Zounds! you are not a father, Signor Count," replied the jailer. "If my little Antonio, who is still at the breast, had to be weaned for the good of the empire, which is not much older than he-but silence, I do not wish to lodge at Fenestrella without the keys at my girdle or under my pillow." "And what are now the occupations of this bold conspirator?' "He catches flies," said the jailer, with a jesting glance. Charney no longer hated his neighbor; he despised him. He is then mad," cried he. Why mad, Signor Count? a later comer than he you have already become a master in the art of carving in wood. Patience." Notwithstanding the irony of these last words Charney resumed his manual labors, and the explanation of his hieroglyphicsremedies, alas! impotent against the pain with which he was tormented. In these puerilities, in this weariness, passed all the winter. Happily for him, a new subject of interest was soon to come to his aid. One day, at the prescribed hour, Charney was walking in the court-yard, his head bowed, his arms crossed behind his back, pacing slowly, as if he could so make the narrow space which he was permitted to perambulate seem larger. Spring announced its coming; a softer air dilated his lungs, and to live free, and be master of the soil and of space, seemed to him the goal of his desires. He counted one by one the pavingstones of his little court, without doubt to verify the exactness of his former calculations, for it was by no means the first time he had numbered them, when he perceived there, under his eyes, a little mound of earth raised between two stones, slightly opened at the top. He stopped; his heart beat without his being able to tell why. But all is hope or fear for a captive. In the most indifferent objects, and the most insignificant events, he seeks some hidden cause which speaks to him of deliverance. Perhaps this slight derangement on the surface might be produced by some great work under ground, perhaps a tunnel which would open and make a way for him to the fields and mountains. Perhaps his friends or his former accomplices were mining to reach him, and restore to him life and liberty. Was he to be free? Had France changed its master? In order, however, to make his mind quite clear about it, stooping over the little mound, he carefully removed some of the particles of earth, and saw with astonishment that the agitation which had overcome him for an instant had not even been caused by a busy, burrowing, scratching animal, armed with claws and teeth, but by a feeble specimen of vegetation, with scarcely strength to sprout, weak and languishing. Raising himself, profoundly humiliated, he was about to crush it with his heel, when a fresh breeze, laden with the perfume of honeysuckle and hawthorn, was wafted to him, as if to implore mercy for the poor plant, which perhaps one day would also have perfume to give him. Another thought came to him to arrest his destructive intention. How was it possible for that little plant, so tender, soft, and fragile, that a touch might break it, to raise, separate, and throw out that earth dried and hardened by the sun, trodden under foot by him, and almost cemented to the two blocks of granite between which it was pressed? He bent over it again and examined it with renewed attention. He saw at its upper extremity a sort of double fleshy valve, which folded over the first leaves, preserved them from the touch of any thing that might injure them, and at the same time enabled them to pierce that earthy crust in search of air and sun. Ah, said he to himself, behold all the secret. It receives from nature this principle of strength, as the young birds, who before they are born are armed with a bill hard enough to break the thick shell which confines them. Poor prisoner, thou possessest at least the instruments which can aid thee to gain thy freedom. He stood gazing at it a few moments, and no longer dreamed of crushing it. The next day, in taking his ordinary walk, he was striding along in an absentminded manner, and nearly trod on it by accident. He drew back quickly, and, surprised at the interest with which his new acquaintance inspired him, he paused to note its progress. The plant had grown, and the rays of the sun had caused it to lose somewhat of its sickly pallor. He reflected upon the power which that pale and slender stem possessed to absorb the luminous essence with which to nourish and strengthen itself, and to borrow from the prism the colors with which to clothe itself, colors assigned beforehand to each one of its parts. Yes, its leaves, without doubt, thought he, will be tinted with a different shade from its stem; and then its flowers, what color will they be? Yellow, blue, red? Why, nourished by the same sap as the stalk, do they not clothe themselves in the same livery? How do they draw their azure and scarlet from the same source where the other has only found a bright or sombre green? So it is to be, however; for notwithstanding the confusion and disorder of affairs here below, matter follows a regular though blind march. Blind, indeed, repeated he; I need no other proof of it than these two fleshy lobes which have facilitated its egress from the earth, but which now, of no use in its preservation, nourish themselves still from its substance, and hang down, wearying it by their weight-of what use are they? As he said this, day was declining, and the chilly spring evening approached; the two lobes rose slowly as he watched them, apparently desiring to justify themselves from his reproach; they drew closer together, and enclosed in their bosom, to protect it against the cold and the attacks of insects, the tender and fragile foliage which was about to be deprived of the sun, and who thus sheltered and warmed, slept under the two wings which the plant had just softly folded over it. The man of science comprehended more fully this mute but decided response, in observing that the outside of the vegetable bivalve had been slightly cut by the nibbling of a snail the night before, of which the traces still remained. This strange colloquy between thought on one side and action on the other, between the man and the plant, was not to end here. Charney had been too long occupied with metaphysical discussions to surrender himself easily to a good reason. "This is all very well," said he; "here as elsewhere a happy concurrence of fortuitous circumstances has favored this feeble creation. It was born, armed with a lever to lift the soil, and a buckler to protect its head, two conditions necessary to its existence; if it had happened that these had not been fulfilled, the plant must have died, stifled in its germ, like myriads of other individuals of its species, whom Nature has no doubt created, unfinished, imperfect, incapable of preserving and reproducing themselves and who have had but an hour of life on earth. Who can calculate the number of false and impotent combinations Nature has made, before succeeding in producing one single specimen fitted to endure? A blind man may hit the mark, but how many arrows must he lose before he attains this result. For thousands of ages matter has been triturated by the double movement of attraction and repulsion; is it then strange that Chance should so many times produce the right combinations? I grant that this envelope can protect these first leaves, but will it grow and enlarge so as to shelter and preserve also the other leaves against the cold and the attacks of their enemies? Next spring, when new foliage will be born as fragile and tender as this, will it be here to protect it again? No! Nothing then has been planned in all this, nothing is the result of intelligent thought, but rather of a happy chance. Sir Count, Nature has more than one response with which to refute your argument. Have patience, and observe that |