The Catholic World
Chapter 139 : Madame Recamier was one of the first to hear of it. She hastened to sit beside the cor

Madame Recamier was one of the first to hear of it. She hastened to sit beside the corpse of her revered friend, and mingled her tears with those of his mother and widow. The {95} latter, who had always been attached to her, now became her intimate companion, and, when she came to Paris, stayed at the Abbaye expressly to be near her. Even Chateaubriand, who had been Montmorency's political rival, joined the train of mourners, and composed a prayer on the occasion for Madame Recamier's use. It is somewhat inflated, and breathes the language of a poet rather than of a Christian. It ends thus: "O miracle of goodness! I shall find again in thy bosom the virtuous friend I have lost! Through thee and in thee I shall love him anew, and my entire spirit will once more be united to that of my friend. Then our divine attachment will be shared through eternity." These expressions are overstrained; but they ill.u.s.trate the character of Madame Recamier's affection for her male friends. Of these Chateaubriand became henceforward the chief, and his letters to her from Rome, together with his subsequent intercourse with her in Paris, form the most important part of her remaining history. Everything was summed up in him,--diplomacy, politics, literature: he was to her, and not to her only, their chief representative. His correspondence, as preserved by her niece, is sparkling and pointed, full of incident, and especially interesting to those who remember Rome during the last years of Leo XII. and the pontificate of Pius VIII. Three letters a week reached her while his emba.s.sy lasted, and he has inserted several of them in his "_Memoires_," though not without dressing them up a little for posterity. Veneration and regard for her is their key-note. _Mille tendres hommages_, he writes. _Que je suis heureux de vous aimer!_ But French politeness always sounds strange and fulsome when dissected in English. In May, 1829, he obtained leave to return to Paris for a time, and he was welcomed at the Abbaye by numerous admirers. There he read aloud his "_Moise,_" in the presence of Cousin, Villemain, Lamartine, Merimee, and a host of _literati_ beside. There he expressed all his fears for the ancient dynasty under the guidance of Prince Polignac. He had no personal feeling for the minister, save that of friends.h.i.+p. But he could discern the signs of the times. He sought an audience of the king, to warn him of the reefs on which he was being steered; but he was no favorite with Charles X., and his request was refused. Yet he might, if his counsels had been listened to, have saved his master from exile and France from the revolution of July. The crown was in his idea above all things except the law. He would neither abandon the charter for the king, nor the king for the charter. The ordinances of July were subversive of the const.i.tution, but the moment they were recalled he was on the monarch's side.

It was too late to stem the tide of insurrection. A ducal democrat was called to the throne. His partisans and those of the dethroned sovereign did not usually mix in society; but the salon in the Abbaye was an exception to every rule. There and at Dieppe, in the bathing season, the royalists Grenarde and Chateaubriand constantly met Ballanche, Ampere, Lacordaire, and Villemain, who welcomed the new regime. Madame Recamier, with admirable tact, kept them in social harmony, and her efforts in this direction were the more praiseworthy because she was not indifferent to their respective bias. She had always loved the old dynasty, both because of its hereditary rights and the glorious a.s.sociations attached to it in history. She lamented the shortsightedness of the Polignac ministry; but she lamented still more the accession of Louis Philippe, which drove the greater part of her friends into the obscurity of private life.

In April, 1830, her husband died. He was then in his eightieth year, and during his last illness was removed to the Abbaye, that he might be surrounded by every sort of attention. In taste, character, and understanding he differed from Madame Recamier {96} as widely as possible. They had but one quality in common: each was good and kind.

Notwithstanding the singularity of their tie, they lived together thirty-five years without any disagreement. M. Bernard and his old friend Simonard were also gone. Madame Lenormant was married, and though the family circle that used to dine at the Abbaye was no more, some faithful friends, such as Ballanche and Paul David, met daily at the widow's hospitable board. The former of these was especially disappointed by the fall of the elder Bourbon branch. He had hoped to see its alliance with that moral, political, and social progress which was the dream of his existence. Elective monarchy now seemed to hold out better prospects of his _palingenesie sociale_.

The att.i.tude a.s.sumed by Chateaubriand at this period was such as to command general respect. He attempted, but in vain, to procure the recognition of Henry V., and to place his rights under the protection of the Duke of Orleans. Then, declining to take the oath of allegiance to Louis Philippe, he retired from the peerage, and gave up his pension. The friends, however, from whom he differed were delighted to perceive that his cordiality with them in private was in no degree lessened. But there was a circle within the circle that frequented the Abbaye, and it was in 1832 that the Duc de Noailles became enrolled among the select few. This was owing in part to the sympathy which existed between him and Chateaubriand, and the high estimate which the latter formed of his judgment. Neither was he so dazzled by the future of society as to forget or despise its past. Both found in the history of the kings of France the sources of all subsequent improvement. The Duc de Noailles did not come alone to the Abbaye. His regard for Madame Recamier was such that he brought with him every member of his family whom he thought most worthy of her acquaintance, and invited her in turn and her friends to grace with their presence the fair domain of Maintenon. Here, surrounded by souvenirs of Louis XIV., Chateaubriand took notes for a chapter in his "Memoirs," which was not inserted, but given in ma.n.u.script to Madame Recamier. It fills seventeen pages, and forms one of the most striking parts of the volume under review. The writer recalls the delicious gardens he has visited in Greece, Ithaca, Grenada, Rome, and the East, and compares them with the surroundings of the chateau of Maintenon. He touches on many salient points in the history of that remarkable lady who bought it in 1675, and whose corpse had, in his own day, been dragged round the sacred enclosure of St. Cyr with a halter round the neck. He then pa.s.ses to the night spent in the chateau by Charles X., when the king, driven from the seat of government, dismissed his Swiss Guards, and placed himself almost in the condition of a prisoner. It was in Madame Recamier's drawing-room that the auto-biography for which this description was intended was first published, and that in the way so fas.h.i.+onable among the ancient Romans and still common in France--by the author's reading it aloud to an a.s.sembly of friends. Thus Statius read his "Thebais," [Footnote 16] thus Alfieri his tragedies, at Rome. The readings of the "_Memoires d'outre Tombe_" spread over two years, and his fame extended so fast that it was difficult to find room for those who craved admittance. Publishers, also, were eager to purchase the ma.n.u.script, to be printed at the writer's death; and some royalist friends availed themselves of this circ.u.mstance to obtain for him a pension for life. The excitement attending the recitals relieved his ennui, and literary labor helped to pay his debts. The work itself, though intensely interesting to all who heard it and felt personally interested in the events it recorded, is too lengthy, detailed, peevish, {97} and egotistic to add much to Chateaubriand's fame. Any theme he handled was sure to call forth eloquence and genius; but himself was the very worst subject he could choose,--the worst, not, perhaps, for the entertainment of his readers, but for the reputation of the writer.

[Footnote 16: Juvenal, Sat. VII., 82-86.]

In October, 1836, Louis Napoleon made his attempt at Strasburg, and having been arrested, was brought to Paris for trial. His mother, the ex-queen Hortense, fearing lest her presence there might only add to his danger, paused at Viry, and allowed her devoted follower, Madame Salvage, to proceed. This lady, relying on Madame Recamier's fidelity to her friends, repaired immediately to the Abbaye, and, with a portfolio of treasonable correspondence, sought an asylum there. On the morrow, Madame Recamier visited the queen, or, to speak more correctly, the d.u.c.h.ess of St. Leu, at Viry, and found her in extreme distress. Her worst fears, indeed, were over. The prince's life was spared, but, before his trial was concluded, he was s.h.i.+pped off to New York. The prospect of thus losing him afflicted the d.u.c.h.ess greatly, for she had a mortal malady, and knew that her time on earth could not be long. The next year, in fact, Louis Napoleon, informed of her dangerous illness, hastened to Europe to see her once more. In 1840 he again a.s.serted, at Boulogne, his claim to the throne. He was tried by the chamber of peers, and Madame Recamier, though she had been obliged to appear and answer some questions before the _juge d'instruction_, was not deterred by this annoyance from asking permission to visit the prisoner. She saw him at the _Conciergerie_, not through attachment to his cause, but for his departed mother's sake. Two years after, when imprisoned in the fortress of Ham, he sent her his "_Fragmens Historiques_." In writing to her, he said: "I have long wanted to thank you, madam, for the kind visit you paid me in the _Conciergerie_, and I am happy to have the opportunity now of expressing my grat.i.tude... . . You are so accustomed to delight those who approach you, that you will not be surprised at the pleasure I have felt in receiving a proof of your sympathy, and in learning that you feel for my misfortunes." Enclosed in this letter was another for Chateaubriand, much longer, and highly creditable to the prince's talents and good taste. In it he declared his intention of beguiling his prison hours by writing a history of Charlemagne as soon as he should have collected the necessary materials. The prominent place which that prince held in his thoughts is strikingly brought before us in the preface to his "Julius Caesar." In 1848, when fortune smiled, and he arrived in Paris already elected deputy, one of his first visits was to the Abbaye-aux-Bois. It was just after the death of Chateaubriand, and Madame Recamier had not the pleasure of seeing him.

In another year, she had entered into her rest, and he was far on the turbulent way to an imperial throne.

We must not forget to mention among her friends one with whom we may be excused for having more sympathy than with Napoleon III. This was Frederic Ozanam. He was born in 1813, and was still a student, and in his twentieth year, when first presented by Ampere to Madame Recamier.

Chateaubriand was much struck by him, and he was present at several readings of the "_Memoires_." But he came to the Abbaye rarely, and when his friend Ampere asked him the reason, he replied: "It is an a.s.sembly of persons too ill.u.s.trious for my obscurity. In seven years, when I become professor, I will avail myself of the kindness shown me." With rare modesty, the young man kept his word. In seven years, and no less, he took his place in the renowned circle. His talents were already appreciated, and though timid and all but awkward, his conversation often {98} broke through the restraints of habit, and swept along its s.h.i.+ning course as if he were surrounded by his pupils in the lecture-room. Every year added to his celebrity. His character, his philosophy, his scholars.h.i.+p, were all Christian, and his professional life was devoted to one end. He vindicated the moral and literary attainments of the middle ages against modern detractors--against those who mean by the dark ages the ages about which they are in the dark. He traced in all his works the history of letters in barbarous times, and showed how, through successive periods of decadence and renaissance, the Church has ever been carrying forward the civilization of mankind. [Footnote 17] His publications have been edited by friends of whom he was worthy--Lacordaire and Ampere; and who would come to lay a votive wreath on Madame Recamier's tomb, without having one also for the grave of Ozanam?

[Footnote 17: "_La Civilisation au Ve Siecle_," etc.]

The winter of 1840-41 was a disastrous one for Lyons and its neighborhood. The swollen waters of the Rhone and Saone rising, overflowed their banks, and ravaged the surrounding country with resistless violence. The government was not slow to relieve the sufferers, and public as well as private charity poured in from every quarter. Madame Recamier felt deeply for her native city, and resolved on making an extraordinary to aid it in its distress. She organized a _soiree_ to which persons were to be admitted by tickets. These were sold at twenty francs each, but were generally paid tor at a higher rate. Lady Byron gave a hundred for hers. Rachel recited _Esther;_ Garcia, Rubini, and Lablache sang; the Marquis de Verac placed his carriages at their disposal; and the Duc de Noailles supplied refreshments, footmen, and his _maitre d'hotel_. The Russians residing in Paris were especially active in disposing of tickets; Chateaubriand from eight o'clock to the end of the _soiree_ did the honors of the saloon by which the company entered. Reschid-Pacha sat on the steps of the musician's platform, half buried beneath waves of silk and flowers. The rooms were adorned with exquisite objects of art, and 4,390 francs were received and transmitted to the mayor of Lyons.

Sixty poor families were selected by the cures to receive this bounty; Madame Recamier having requested that it might not be broken up into petty sums. In the midst of the glittering throng that a.s.sembled in the old Abbaye that evening, it is said that she eclipsed them all in beauty and grace. This may appear fabulous to many, for she was then in her sixty-third year; yet her niece would hardly a.s.sert it if it had not been the general opinion.

In 1842, Madame Recamier had the satisfaction of seeing Ballanche take his place in the French Academy. His friends, indeed, were more elated on the occasion than the philosopher himself. Literary honors were little in his eyes compared with the exertion of a moral and philosophic influence. His pa.s.sion for machinery had nearly ruined him; and his generosity was always beyond his narrow means. Like Socrates in the basket, he lived above the earth, and the trivial concerns of daily life dried up the sap of his sublime speculations.

[Footnote 18] Chateaubriand used to call him the hierophant; for he had a small sect of followers whom he initiated in his mysticism.

[Footnote 18: Aristophanes. "The Clouds." ]

A cloud was gathering over his existence, and over the gladness of all who frequented the Abbaye. Since the year 1839, Madame Recamier's health had been growing feebler, and a cataract was perceived slowly forming on her eyes. She bore the affliction with her usual calm, and the fear of becoming less able to amuse Chateaubriand was her chief distress. When her blindness became confirmed, her eyes were still brilliant; and her ear being {99} fine, she knew all who approached her by their voice. The valet took care to set everything in her apartment in its fixed place, so that she could move about without stumbling. In this way she often dissembled her loss of sight, and many who visited her came away with the impression that she saw pretty well. Long intercourse with Chateaubriand had made her habits as methodical as his. He still came to her daily at half-past two. They took tea together, and talked for an hour. Then the door opened to visitors, and the good Ballanche was always the first. This would have been mere dissipation, but for the more serious occupations of the morning. She rose early, had the papers read to her rapidly, then the choicest of new works, and afterward some standard author. Modern literature had always been her delight; and it cheered her even in her darkness. When she drove out, it was generally with some charitable purpose; for the time was pa.s.sed for paying other visits. Never, since Montmorency had recommended it, did she forget to read or hear read, daily some work of piety; and as age advanced and sorrow weighed more heavily, she derived from the practice increasing solace and strength.

Now came what Ballanche called "the dispersion," from which afterward he dated his letters. Prince Augustus of Prussia died in 1845, and charged Humboldt to execute his last commands with regard to her whom he had never ceased to respect and love. Her portrait, by Gerard, which she had given him, and her letters, were returned when he could no longer treasure them. His death affected her deeply; for other flowers also were fading from life's garden, and the winter of age was freezing everything but her affections. From Maintenon she pa.s.sed into Normandy with her niece and Ampere, who had just returned from Egypt, weary and sick with travel. Wherever she went, the blind beauty of the first empire wanted no one claim to respectful and devoted attention.

By the use of belladonna, she sometimes dilated the pupil, and acquired for a few hours the sense of sight. In this way she saw and admired Ary Scheffer's beautiful picture of St. Augustine, which he brought from the exhibition to the Abbaye-aux-Bois, on purpose that Chateaubriand and herself might inspect it. But such brief enjoyment only made returning darkness more gloomy; and an operation offered the best prospect of permanent relief. Meanwhile, Chateaubriand having broken his collar-bone in stepping from his carriage, a delay occurred. Madame Recamier would not deprive herself of the pleasure of diverting him during his confinement to the house. Her friends often a.s.sembled under his roof; and when he visited the Abbaye again, he was always carried into the roam by two domestics. Indeed, he never walked any more. Nor in her case did the operation for cataract succeed, for the patient did not enjoy that composure which was indispensable for a cure. Ballanche had been seized with pleurisy, and was dangerously ill. The blind lady to whom he had so long been devoted, breaking through all her surgeon's instructions, and braving the light she should have shunned, crossed the street which separated her from the dying man, and sat by his pillow to the last.

One who has often looked on death declares that she never saw it present so grand a spectacle as in Ballanche. All his philosophy was heightened into faith; all his poetry was wrapt into devotion.

Serenely trusting in the divine goodness, he realized intensely the mysteries of the unseen world; and, with the holy viatic.u.m on his lips, quitted his earthly tabernacle with joy, whilst she who watched at his side lost all hope of sight in her streaming tears. Ballanche's mortal remains lie in the vault of the Recamier family; and his life has been written by Ampere. He and Madame Recamier {100} together selected the choicest pa.s.sages from his works; and beneath the shade of beech-trees, amid the calm of nature, her niece's daughters read aloud to her Ballanche's long-treasured letters. She would scarcely have survived her grief had not Chateaubriand's infirmities still given a scope to her existence. Madame de Chateaubriand died in the winter of 1846-7. She abounded in charitable works, and the poor loved her name. The desolate widower proposed that Madame Recamier should take her place. He pressed his suit, but she persisted in her refusal.

She thought the little variety caused by his daily visits to her essential for his comfort; and that if she were always with him, he would be less consoled. "What end," she asked, "could marriage answer?

At our age there is no service I may not reasonably render you. The world allows the purity of our attachment; let it remain unaltered. If we were younger, I would not hesitate a moment to become your wife, and so consecrate my life to you."

A second operation was performed, with no better result than before.

The hope of being enabled to serve Chateaubriand more effectually alone induced her to submit to it. His end was fast approaching, and society itself seemed about to be dissolved. Without were contests; within were fears. The revolution of February, 1848, undid the revolution of July, 1830. The streets of the capital flowed with blood, and the roar of cannon in the insurrection of June shook the chamber of the expiring poet, and brought tears to his eyes. He heard with keen interest of the death of Monseigneur Affre, the good shepherd who gave his life for his sheep. The intrepid courage of that glorious martyr lent fresh nerve to his jaded spirit; and though his brilliant intellect had for some time past lost its l.u.s.tre, his thoughts were perfectly collected to the last. He was heard to mutter to himself the words he had written in 1814: "No; I will never believe that I write on the tomb of France." The chill waters of the river of death could not extinguish the patriotism that burned in his breast.

The Abbe Guerry, his confessor and friend, stood near him with the consolations of religion; his nephew, Louis de Chateaubriand, and the superioress of the convent of Marie-Therese, which he and his wife had founded. After receiving the blessed sacrament, he never spoke again; but his eyes followed Madame Recamier with an expression of anguish whenever she left the room. This was her crowning sorrow, that she could not see the sufferer she sought to relieve. When the worst was over, the calm of despair spread over her face, and a deathly paleness, which nothing could remove. She gratefully a.s.sented to everything which was proposed for her comfort; but her sad smile proved how vain was the effort to restore her to gladness. Those affectionate beings alone who live on friends.h.i.+p can comprehend the extent of her desolation.

Chateaubriand's obsequies were performed in the church of the _Missions etrangeres_, where a large concourse a.s.sembled, notwithstanding the city and the state were still in the agony of a social crisis. But his ashes were transferred to his own Brittany, where a solitary rock in the bay had long before been granted him by the munic.i.p.ality of St. Malo, as a place of burial. More than 50,000 persons were present at this strange and solemn interment. They seemed to represent France mourning his loss. The sea was covered with boats; the roofs of the houses, and the sh.o.r.es beneath, were crowded with spectators; banners floated from rock and tower; while mournful canticles and booming cannon broke the stillness of the air. The coffin was laid in a recess of the steep cliff, and surmounted by a granite cross. Ampere was deputed by the French Academy to p.r.o.nounce his eulogy on the occasion; and he concluded his report to that body in these {101} words: "It would seem that the genius of the incomparable painter had been stamped on this last magnificent spectacle; and that to him alone among men it had been given to add, even after death, a splendid page to the immortal poem of his life."

On Easter day in the following year Madame Recamier was persuaded to remove from the Abbaye-aux-Bois to the National Library, where her niece and nephew resided. The cholera had broken out in the neighborhood of the Abbaye; and though she did not fear death, she had a peculiar horror of that dreadful pestilence. But her flight was vain; the scourge pursued her, and fell with sadden violence on her enfeebled frame. The day before, Ampere and Madame Salvage had dined with her, and on the morning of her seizure her niece's daughter Juliette had been reading to her the memoirs of Madame de Motteville.

During twelve hours she suffered extreme torture, but spoke with her confessor, and received the sacrament of extreme unction. Continual vomiting prevented the administration of the eucharist. Ampere, Paul David, the Abbe de Cazales, her relations and servants, knelt around her bed to join in the prayers for the dying. Sobs and tears choked their voices, and "Adieu, adieu, we shall meet again; we shall see each other again," were the only words her agony allowed her to utter.

Madame Recamier breathed her last on the 11th of May, 1849. The terrible epidemic, which generally leaves hideous traces behind, spared her lifeless frame, and left it like a beautiful piece of sculptured marble. Achille Deveria took a drawing of her as she lay in her cold sleep, and his faithful sketch expresses at the same time suffering and repose.

Such was the end of her who, without the prestige of authors.h.i.+p, was regarded by her contemporaries as one of the most remarkable women of her time. We will not indulge in any exaggerated statement of her piety. Great numbers, no doubt, have attained to more interior perfection. Her ambition to please was undoubtedly a weakness.

Religion did not make her what she was; yet she would never have been what she was without it. It was the ballast which steadied her when carrying crowded sail. It was the polar star that directed her course amid conflicting currents and adverse storms. It raised her standard of morality above that of many of her a.s.sociates. It taught her how to be devout without dissimulation, a patroness of letters without pedantry, a patriot and a royalist without national disdain or political animosity. It made her charitable to the poor, kind to the aged and sorrowful, gracious and una.s.suming with all, at the very time that the proudest of emperors invited her presence at his court, and his brother Lucien made her the idol of his verse. Its golden thread guided her aright through the intricate mazes of social life--through a matrimonial position equally strange and unreal--an engagement to a royal prince who was the foe of France--through friends.h.i.+ps with Bernadotte and Murat on their thrones, with the queens of Holland and of Naples when fallen, and with the third Napoleon when plotting to regain the sceptre of the first. It so lifted her above intrigue and cabals that she could give her right hand to the disaffected General Moreau and her left to the devoted Junot--could be made the confidante of all parties without betraying the secrets of any. It inclined her to be chary of giving advice, but to make it, when asked for, tell always on the side of virtue. It enabled her to exhort the sceptical with effect, and dispose the philosophic to accept the faith.

[Footnote 19]

[Footnote 19: See her letters to Ampere in the _Correspondant_, 1864.]

Her autobiography has unfortunately been destroyed by her own direction, because blindness would not allow her to revise it and cancel its {102} defects. But many fragments of it have been preserved, and a thousand personal recollections, collected from those who knew her, have been wrought by her niece and other biographers into a lasting monument.

From The Fortnightly Review

CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS.

BY SIR JOHN BOWRING.

I was gathering together some examples of the strange opinions held by the Chinese as to "outer nations," when I fell upon a curious official doc.u.ment, presented to the emperor by a great mandarin, who occupies a very prominent place in the modern history of China, Keshen, once viceroy of the two Kw.a.n.g. His name brought immediately to my recollection, by a very natural a.s.sociation, that of my old acquaintance, Father Huc, whose contributions to our knowledge of China, Tartary, and Tibet are among the most original authentic, and instructive that we possess.

It is a matter much to be regretted that only a small part of Father Huc's personal adventures has ever been communicated to the public. I first met with him on one of the Chusan islands, dressed as a Chinaman, and living in every particular as the natives live--his food was rice--his drink was only tea. He was recognized as the director and instructor of no less than five Catholic communities. I had heard of the existence of professors of the Tien-choo (heavenly master) religion, and, going some way into the interior, found the Lazzarist doctor instructing the people. He had an extraordinary mastery of the colloquial Chinese; spoke and wrote Manchoo, and was not unacquainted with the Mongolian tongue. I enjoyed his company as a fellow traveller, having given him a pa.s.sage in a vessel which was at my disposal, and I fell in with him in five different and distant parts of China. I have no doubt of the general veracity of his narrative, of his sincere love of truth--perhaps not wholly separated from a certain credulity and fondness for the marvellous, with which, I have observed, oriental travellers are not unfrequently imbued. It would be interesting to learn how Father Huc got to Peking, lived for many years in the city and its neighborhood, no one knowing or supposing him to be a foreigner--what were the arrangements by which, departing on his mission to Manchuria, he managed to escape from the scrutinizing eye of the police, at a period, too, when the determination to repel the intrusion of "barbarian strangers" was at its height. Of his interviews with Keshen, after the discovery of the objects of his journey, and the determination of the mandarin envoy to drive him out of the country, he gives many interesting particulars in his "Souvenirs," but he does not mention that Keshen, who had been stripped at Peking of some millions sterling, the gatherings of profits and peculations in the high offices he had filled, and who managed to ama.s.s a considerable sum of money in Tibet, confided his sayings in that country to the keeping of the Lazzarist missionary; and at the very time when the decree was issued for his banishment, Keshen obtained from him a promise that he would, when he pa.s.sed into the {103} territory of China, deliver over "the silver" to the parties whom Keshen designated. Huc was a delightful companion; he had no asperity; on the contrary, he was full of jokes and merriment.

Courageous, too, when in the presence of danger, his ready wit furnished him with every appliance necessary to his safety and protection. His familiarity with Chinese character was remarkable; he knew when and where and how to domineer and command, where it was safe to a.s.sume authority. In China, one of the common instruments of government is to send from the court secret spies, whose persons are unknown, and the object of whose mission is to report confidentially to the emperor on the shortcomings or misdoings of the great mandarins. It was often Huc's fortune to be thought one of these mysterious but redoubtable visitants, and he turned the suspicion to excellent account. The fact of his speaking Manchoo, and being well acquainted with Tartar forms and usages, very naturally strengthened the conclusion that it was most desirable to obtain his patronage and favorable opinion in the confidential communications to be made to the Tartar dynasty. No doubt many a functionary has trembled, self-condemned, in the presence of the missionary, and has courted his indulgent judgment by those attentions which are supposed to conciliate. Bribes, large and attractive, representing the estimated value of the service to be rendered, are constantly offered and frequently received by the traveller who is believed to have the ear of the supreme authority. I have heard that from twenty to thirty thousand pounds sterling are sometimes collected in a district circuit, the collection being made at the risk of either the bribed or the briber, or of both, each being necessarily at the mercy of the other in case of betrayal. But, at the same time, Father Huc possessed all the arts of prostration and deference when the circ.u.mstances of the case required them. There was, however, less of a.s.sumption in his lowliness than in his loftiness; his was never "a pride that aped humility." The acting was when he played the part of a ruler. He was altogether a natural man--un.o.btrusive, but fluent in the presence of those interested--and who could fail to be interested in his strange adventures? He never recovered the free use of his limbs after he returned to Europe; and died in France, leaving much undone--the doing of which would have been most useful to his race.

One of the great grievances of which the Chinese complained, in the time of the East India Company monopoly, and down to the Pottinger war, was the "oozing out" of the silver in China for the payment of a poisonous drug to the "outer barbarians." It was, however, then the fact, as it is the fact now, that the poppy is widely cultivated, and opium largely manufactured, by the Chinese themselves in several of the provinces of the empire. It used to be the belief in China that there alone was the pure metal produced, and that the coins brought from afar would in process of time be converted, by natural process, into base metal, or something worse. I recollect a person being charged with stealing his master's money; he did not deny having had the custody of the dollars, but swore they had been eaten by white ants. Keshen was directed to give his opinion to the emperor as to the quality of the silver brought to China by foreigners, and these are his words:

"The foreign money brought from these outer nations is all boiled and reduced by quicksilver. If you wrap it up and lay it aside for several years without touching it, it will be turned into moths and corroding insects, and the silver cups made from it by these strangers will change into feathers."

After stating that the coins show their impurity when submitted to the crucible, he adds:

"Yet we find that in Kiangnan and by the course of the river Hwac, and {104} all along the rivers to the south, foreign dollars are used in trade and circulated most abundantly; we even find them of more value than Sycee silver; this is really what I cannot understand!" Truly it pa.s.seth all understanding if the premises of the mandarin be correct.

Some one suggests that Keshen had read in our sacred book of our treasures "that moth and rust do corrupt" (Matt. vi. 19), and of the "riches" which "make to themselves wings and fly away" (Prov. xxiii.

5).

As was said of old time, "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,"

so the Chinese still recognize the principle that the penalty to be paid for crime need not be visited on the criminal himself, but that the subst.i.tution of an innocent for a guilty person to bear the award of the law may satisfy all the demands of justice. In the embarra.s.sments of the imperial treasury during the last war, proclamations of the emperor frequently appeared in the _Peking Gazette_, authorizing the commutation of the judicial sentences which inflicted personal punishment by the payment of sums of money, to be estimated according to the gravity of the offence, and the rank or opulence of the offender. Men are to be found as candidates for the scaffold when a large remuneration is offered for the sacrifice of life--to such a sacrifice posthumous honor is frequently attached--a family is rescued from poverty, and enters on the possession of comparative wealth. The ordinary price paid for a man's life is a hundred ounces of pure silver, of the value of about 33 sterling. In the Buddhist code such an act of devotion and self-sacrifice ranks very high in the scale of merits, and would ensure a splendid recompense in the awards of the tribunal which is, after death, to strike the balance of good and evil, when every individual's mortal history is to be the subject of review.

Some ill.u.s.trations may not be unwelcome. In the history of the intercourse of the East India Company with the Chinese, it will be found that the authorities were never satisfied with the averment that the individual charged with offences could not be found; they always insisted that some English subject could be found and delivered over to the penalties of the law. They invariably took high ground; a.s.serted that the laws of China must be respected in China, and that those laws provided a certain and always applicable punishment by which the demands of justice might and ought to be satisfied. They turned a deaf ear to the representation that, according to European law, the individual who had committed a crime was the only proper person to be punished for that crime, and considered it a sort of "barbarian" notion that any crime should be pa.s.sed over without being followed by the appropriate penalty visiting somebody or other. The theory fills the whole field of penal legislation. Households, villages, and even districts are made responsible for offences committed within their boundaries; and it is not unusual for high functionaries to be called upon to suffer for misdeeds not their own, which no vigilance could prevent and no sacrifices repair. There ought, say the sages, to be no wrong without a remedy, no sin without consequent suffering; and it is better that an innocent man should now and then be sacrificed than that guilt should not necessarily and inevitably be followed by penal consequences.

There is every reason to believe that on one occasion, to prevent the stoppage of trade, which was the menaced consequence of non-obedience, an innocent man was delivered over to the authorities (but not by the British), and executed at Canton. During the administration of Sir John Davis, six Englishmen were brutally murdered at Kwan Chuh Kei, a small village on the Pearl river. The English government insisted on the punishment of the murderers, and six men were publicly beheaded.

It is quite certain they had nothing to do with {105} the crime; they were brought gagged to the place of execution, and English gentlemen, under the instructions of the consul, witnessed the decapitation; but everybody was satisfied that the criminals were allowed to escape, and that guiltless men were beheaded in their stead; and Lord Palmerston most properly directed that no British authority should be present at such executions, lest their presence might be deemed to imply approbation of the administration of justice in China.

It once occurred to me to have to make representations to the governor of Kiangsoo in consequence of some Chinese troops having fired upon the British settlement of Shanghai. No injury was done, but the act was of a character which might have led to serious consequences. An interview was asked, and, accompanied by the British admiral, I went to the tent of the great mandarin. On being introduced, we found six soldiers kneeling by his side. Close at hand was an executioner, and we saw as we pa.s.sed the huge heavy swords which are employed by him in his wonted work. "It was quite right to complain," said the mandarin; "it was quite fit those who had committed the outrage should be visited with the punishment. Inquiries had been made, and it was very likely the men present were guilty; at all events, they had been in the neighborhood. Utter the word, and their heads shall fall at your feet." We informed his excellency that such abrupt and sudden action did not accord with our notions of justice, and we requested that the men might be relieved of their terrors and released on the spot This was done, and the governor, who was also the military commander-in-chief, merely told the trembling soldiers that they owed their lives to our clemency--a clemency they little antic.i.p.ated from "outside barbarians."

Baron Gros informed me that when the French emba.s.sy was going up the Peiho--which, by the way, is not the real name of the river, and only means a river in the north, by which the Tientsing stream is usually designated in the south--an outrage was committed on a French sailor by a Chinaman, who was arrested and condemned to death. A deputation waited on the amba.s.sador from the offender's native village, bringing with them an old man whom they wished to be hanged instead of him who had committed the offence. They represented that the condemned man was young, that his mother was dependent upon his labor, and would have no means of support if deprived of her son; that it would be very hard if she were made the victim. And, moreover, it could make no difference to his excellency (the minister) whether the old man or the young were executed. The death of either would show that punishment would a.s.suredly follow injuries done to the subjects of "the great man's nation." They were informed that European usages demanded that the criminal should suffer for the crime. They returned next day to offer "a better bargain" to the amba.s.sador. They brought down two men to suffer in expiation of the offence of one. Surely two Chinamen might be accepted for the wrong committed upon the stranger. The mission, of course, failed; the delegates departed sorely disappointed, and greatly wondering at the strange notions which the "red-haired outer men" had of what is right and what is wrong.

There is a Chinese aphorism, _Puh ta, puh chaou_ ("No blows, no truth"), whose universal recognition will best ill.u.s.trate the general character of the administration of justice. Torture is not employed on criminals alone in order to elicit confession, but constantly to witnesses when their evidence does not suit the foregone conclusions of the judge, who, in very many cases, is bribed beforehand, and desirous that the statements made should be such as to warrant his predetermined verdict. Truth is a virtue little appreciated among Orientals, and especially among the Chinese. They are afraid {106} of truth. It gives the authorities accurate information as to their whereabouts which may involve them in difficulties. They do not know what may have happened in a particular locality, and therefore prefer saying where they were not than where they were, in order to avoid compromising themselves by putting the _runners_ upon a true scent.

Then again, habits of mendacity and a constant disregard of truth lead to inaccuracy of observation. I remember a case in which three sets of witnesses gave three separate versions as to the time of the day on which an important event had occurred--that it was in bright daylight; that it was in utter darkness; that it was neither light nor dark; and in that case I had reason to believe there was no intended perjury.

Against perjury there is really no protection but in the dread of punishment. We tried in Hong Kong different usages which were expected to give some security for obtaining the "truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." c.o.c.ks' heads were cut off by or in the presence of the witnesses, and they p.r.o.nounced denunciations and consented to have their blood shed if there was falsehood in their testimony. Sometimes an earthenware plate was broken, and the parties offered themselves to be shattered and broken to bits as was the plate if they did not tell the truth. Others favored the writing of an aphorism of the sages on a piece of paper, burning it at a lamp, and requiring the witness to swear that as he hoped not to be burned and tormented he would say all that was true. But every experiment failed.

Oaths, however enforced, with whatever forms invested, were discovered to be utterly worthless; and it was wisely decided that the penalties of perjury should attach equally to the sworn and the unsworn man. It occurred to me to consult a person of some eminence as to the possibility of administering any form of an oath which would be held binding. He said that there was one temple within the city which was held sacred to truth, and that promises made and contracts entered into within that particular sanctuary were deemed better guaranteed than any other. But he said the place was inaccessible to Europeans; and he thought that nothing but the dread of punishment for falsehood gave any security, and even that security was most insufficient, for the elucidation of truth.

A case, which it was my duty to investigate, connected with the smuggling of British property, came before the chief judge at Canton.

I had come to a conclusion as to the guilt of certain parties, which conclusion was different from that formed by the Chinese official. One day several Chinamen were brought to me in a dreadfully mutilated state--their faces and arms covered with wounds and bruises inflicted by heavy blows of the bamboo. It appeared their evidence confirmed the opinion I had formed, and was altogether opposed to the theory of the mandarin, and they were bastinadoed until they declared that all they had said was false, and their testimony was made to accord with the views of the magistrate. Sentence was delayed; new and irresistible evidence was brought forward--meanwhile, perhaps, the mandarin had been bribed; but certain it is the witnesses were again summoned before him. They were informed they must be punished for the _lies_ they had told while under torture; and I heard, but I did not see the men a second time, that they were again beaten until they declared that their first and not their last story was the true one; the mandarin reporting that his early impressions had been removed on further investigation. [Footnote 20]