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then she would retire to a convent and expiate what she called the sin of her life.

The day was cloudy and wet-the rain falling in a dull drizzle. The atmosphere, murky, cold and oppressive, struck upon her heart like ice.

Every now and then she ran to the window, and, hurriedly snatching aside the curtain, looked out into the street, hoping to see a ray of light and warmth, but the atmosphere remained mournful, murky, heavy as lead, and leaden in color.

Laure quitted the window and pulled the bell, feverishly.

The maid appeared.

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"I beg of you !" exclaimed Laure, in a sort of terror, "not to detain me-you can read to me some other time."

Her husband gave her an examining glance. "Stop!" he said to himself; "this excitement-this agitation. She is concealing something from me!"

That moment the maid entered and announced that the carriage was ready.

"We will not need it this morning," said the banker, coldly. "Madame is not going out !"

Poor Laure! She did not struggle longer. She dropped into a chair-like a dove that has been struck by the fatal shot, or a lamb that feels the cold knife at its throat.

Monsieur Lefèvre, content with his victory, had the good sense to respect the stifled sobs of his victim.

He continued to read his paper without a movement of pity; without the stir of a muscle. At last breakfast sounded, and he led Laure into the dining-room. She went as one walking in her sleep. She was scarcely conscious of what passed around her. She could not swallow a morsel, but her husband did not permit her agony to destroy his appetite.

When the meal was finished Laure glanced at the clock. It was past noon. She saw, as in a horrible nightmare, Raoul conducted between two gendarmes, with downcast eyes, half dead with shame, yet resolved not to save his life by compromising her, perhaps casting an anxious glance in the crowd to see if she was not there.

And he would see nothing. He would believe that she had forgotten him; that she thought no more of him than if he had never existed-than if he had never told his love, and sacrificed honor, and, perhaps, his life, for her!

She seemed to hear the stinging, scathing words of the magistrate; she heard the jeers of the crowd, their cries and vociferations; she felt her strength going.

"What is it? Do you know anything?" whispered Laure, rushing forward.

The maid slipped a bit of paper into the hand of her mistress.

Laure gave a terrible cry, and fell into a dead faint.
She had seen drops of blood upon the billet.

His wife's fainting-fit annoyed Monsieur Lefèvre; it might interfere with his digestion.

"Take care of her," he said, tranquilly, to the maid. "When you have brought her to you may call me.” And he left the room.

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At nine o'clock of this same day-the 30th of Octobertwo men might have been seen rushing about the corridors of the Palace of Justice in an insane manner.

"It's your fault-yes, all your fault! You have made all this trouble!" cried one.

"Blame yourself. A person shouldn't lose his head in this style!" cried the other.

"Oh! where is this judge? When will he come? My faith-they get up late, these judges !" "Where is he to be found? There isn't a creature in this place. Oh! there's an advocate."

"Bah! He wouldn't know the first word."

And the two men walked about frantically, disputing, gesticulating, accusing each other. These two were no other than Bouchu, the concierge of No. 11, and his neighbor, Courbette.

Bouchu was in despair, like one who had committed a crime. He was ready to drop with fatigue.

"Mon Dieu !" he cried. "I am a lost man! I shall be despised in my quarter, and it is your fault-entirely your fault! You see robbers everywhere-you!" "And you are always imagining yourself robbed," returned Courbette.

"To imprison an innocent man!" cried Bouchu. "What will he say to me-this unhappy victim? If he revenges himself, what will become of me? I shall lose my home, perhaps, and the regard of every one." 'Why didn't he defend himself better, then ?"

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"But he couldn't defend himself-poor fellow!" was the reply.

"Nevertheless, I only told the truth. I am as sure of having seen him as I am of seeing you."

Bouchu shrugged his shoulders disdainfully. "Possibly. But do you think a young man, well dressed, well brought up, comes to rob? Bah! He was in love; he wanted to see one of my tenants! So imagine my desolation! How do you think this lady--the mistress of the house-regards me? My place is lost!"

And the poor man was ready to tear his hair in rage.

"Cursed pocketbook! I was so sure I had left it on the table, and there I had shut it in a drawer without remembering, and what you said turned my head! Ma foi! a place that has been handed down from father to son! I shall lose it !"

"Oh, no, you will not. Threaten to tell all to her husband, and she'll leave you in possession !"

Bouchu calmed himself somewhat at this idea, and

She made a step to the door, her hand pressed on her waited more quietly for the opening of the court. heart.

Monsieur Lefèvre, who was smoking tranquilly, turned toward her.

"Well, madame," he said, "are you ready to hear the reading?"

Laure gave him one glance. Her face expressed such horrible suffering that he stopped. He was silent, and read to himself.

At that moment Laure's maid appeared.

At ten o'clock every place was filled at once, as if by magic. When Bouchu had related to the magistrate what had happened, he regarded the concierge with a severe air. He believed Bouchu had been bribed to play this part and save the accused.

"And is it only this morning you have found this ?" he said, in a very bad humor.

"No, Monsieur le President, it was last night, and I have looked for three months. It seems a fatality."

Bouchu had such an air of truth about him that the president was shaken.

"Dead!" cried the two, in affright.

The magistrate did not speak, but hurried to the “Well, then,” he said, "it will be necessary to set this prison. The two men followed, speechless with horror. young man at liberty."

"It is for this that we have come," answered Bouchu. The magistrate called a messenger.

"Send for Monsieur Raoul de Faverny !" he said. Not many minutes elapsed before the messenger returned breathless, a note in his hand.

The magistrate opened it hastily. His face became livid. "You have killed a man !" he cried to the two concierges, who had waited out of curiosity. "Monsieur de Faverny has hung himself!"

When they had arrived at the cell where Raoul had been confined, all recoiled at the frightful sight.

The unhappy young man still hung from one of the bars of his prison.

Ir may be remarked, for the comfort of honest poverty, that avarice reigns most in those who have but few good qualities to recommend them. This is a weed that will grow only in barren soil.

NEW YORK CITY AFTER THE WAR OF 1812.
BY EVART A. DUYCKINCK.

man should take place at the expense of the city. At
twelve o'clock, meridian, on the 28th of April, the cere-
monies were performed in such a manner as to testify the

body, having been taken from the City Hall, was carried in procession down Wall Street to Pearl, through Pearl and Whitehall Streets to Broadway, and up Broadway to St. Paul's. The flags on the shipping were set at halfmast; all the bells tolled sullenly and ominously. The corpse was preceded by the clergy in white scarfs, and followed by the brother of the deceased and the hands of the sloop. After them came shipmasters and sailors, and a great concourse of citizens. The funeral service was read in St. Paul's by Dr. Hobart, and the body was buried in the churchyard."

In the events of the war of the United States with England of 1812, as it is termed, from the date of the formal declaration-the two countries had really been in a state of more or less active hostilities for some years pre-depth and intensity of the public indignation. The vious-the City of New York, though at one time anxious for her safety, was spared the disaster of immediate suffering as the scene of conflict. Her sympathies were not the less with the patriotic efforts of the day. A mercantile people, however averse from war, could not be insensible to the long series of injuries to American commerce by England, and the dishonor to the flag by her continued and contemptuous assertion, accompanied frequently with wanton violence, of the pretended right of search. Looking back upon the period, the feeling now is one of amazement at the patience which so long bore with the infliction. It was quite customary with British officers to arrest American vessels on their course, and take from them by force sailors plausibly or not claimed as British subjects, and transfer them, without further ceremony, to the service of the Crown.

Early in 1806, after these outrages had been endured for years, the United States Congress, at the instigation of the merchants of the leading cities, among which New York was prominent, was aroused to the preliminary action for redress of prohibiting the importation of British manufactures. This had scarcely been passed when an illustration, one of many, of the evils suffered was afforded at their very doors to the citizens of New York. The story is told in a review of the times by Dr. Morgan Dix, the rector of Trinity, in an historical address at the centennial celebration of St. Paul's Chapel: "On Friday, April 25th, 1806, at five o'clock in the evening, a poor little sloop, laden with market produce and stores, and hailing from the Delaware, was quietly making for the Narrows, on her way to New York. Preposterously as it sounds to us, when off Sandy Hook, she was fired into by a huge man-of-war, of two decks of guns, bearing His Britannic Majesty's commission, and named the Leander. At the first shot the little craft very submissively hove to. The frigate, however, fired again, and by this second shot John Pierce, the brother of the captain of the sloop, who was standing at the helm, was instantly killed. When the sloop came up to the city, bringing the news and the corpse together, there occurred one of those movements which are prophetic of coming trouble. The affidavits of the captain and master, containing a full account of the outrage, were laid before the Common Conncil by the Mayor, and it was thereupon ordered that the funeral of the murdered

When the struggle came, New York, in common with her sister cities, had, in the midst of the general suffering, one pleasing duty to perform-that of honoring the naval heroes of the day. She had ever a welcome for them as they came-first Hull, fresh from his victory over the Guerriere; then, in rapid succession, Jones, Decatur and Bainbridge. All had civic receptions; swords were presented; fêtes were given at the City Hotel; their portraits were painted by Jarvis, at the public cost, for the gallery at the City Hall. One of these occasions of rejoicing happily fell on a great day of festivity, when, on the 1st of January, 1813, Decatur's prize, the Macedonian, was brought to the city. "Here," says Mr. Lossing, the faithful chronicler of the war, "she was greeted with great joy as a 'New Year's gift.' 'A more acceptable compliment could not have been presented to a joyous people,' said one of the newspapers. 'She comes with the compliments of the season from old Neptune,' said another. Janus,' the peace-loving, smiled,' said a third, more classical. The excitement of a feast had then scarcely died away, for only three days before a splendid banquet had been given, at Gibson's City Hotel, to Hull, Jones and Decatur, by the corporation and citizens of New York, and the newspapers of the land speedily became the vehicles of the effusions' of a score of poets, who caught inspiration from the shouts of triumph that filled the air." Then in the following month came Lawrence's victory, in command of the Hornet, over the Peacock, when the Common Council of New York honored him with the freedom of the city, a memorial piece of plate, and a public dinner; to be followed, alas! by a very different reception, when, after he had fought his last gallant fight, and given to the world his noble signal of endurance, "Don't give up the ship!"

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his remains, in September, were brought to repose with funereal honors in a corner of Trinity Churchyard. There the Corporation erected a marble monument, a broken column, typical of his untimely end. In 1847, the tomb having become dilapidated, the remains were removed to a more conspicuous station in the churchyard on Broadway, at the southern entrance to the church, where a new monument commemorates the heroic death of Lawrence, and of his companion in the action, the youthful Ludlow.

The same month which saw the burial of Lawrence witnessed Perry's victory on Lake Erie, for which the City Hall was illuminated. In the Summer of 1814 came Commodore Porter, after the romantic and adventurous cruise of the Essex was over, escaping by flight in a whaleboat, on his return to the Atlantic coast, the

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THE ACADEMY OF DESIGN.

Summer and Autumn of the year was passed by her citizens in strenuous exertions for defense. De Witt Clinton was then Mayor of New York, and was not wanting in words and deeds of patriotic fervor. Voluntary offerings were made, a committee of defense was organized, citizens of all classes and professions turned out to work in the trenches and at the fortifications, which rose rapidly at the defensible points of the island, at Brooklyn, and elsewhere in the harbor. We may see traces of this hearty toil of the last generation preserved within the

present peaceful inclosure of the holiday Central Park. I adopted. The active-minded Dr. Hugh Williamson also Great gallantry was doubtless shown on the occasion by the citizens, though happily their work was never tested by the guns of the enemy. This was the season of the city poet Woodworth's easy war lyrics, and of Halleck's early verses commemorative of Swartwout's gallant company of distinguished citizens, the Iron Grays

"When first their banner waved in air, Invasion's bands were nigh,

And the battle-drum beat long and loud, And the torch of war blazed high!"

The completion of the Erie Canal, uniting the waters of the Hudson with the great Lakes, accomplished in 1825, was a supplement to the achievement of Fulton, the interest taken in which, at the time, can scarcely, notwithstanding the present value of the enterprise to the State, be appreciated in these days of rapidly executed, gigantic railway undertakings. It is only by the reflection that what we are now securing, over the vast region from the Atlantic to the Pacific, of national strength and prosperity, by the multiplication of long-extended tracks of railway, then seemed to depend entirely upon opening lines of communication by water. The agitation of the topic began with the independence of the country, a growth of its new life and unfettered energies. Washington, whose early experience in the West and training as an engineer gave him an intimate acquaintance with the physical elements of the subject, was always highly impressed as a statesman with its importance in a political view. He constantly urged the necessity of directing the trade of the West from Spain, then in possession of Louisiana, holding the mouth of the Mississippi, and Great Britain in the St. Lawrence, by opening new lateral water highways to the coast. He was anxious to secure these commercial advantages for Virginia. Nowhere was the opportunity greater for a grand scheme of improvement than in the State of New York, a generally open country, threaded by magnificent rivers, and dotted at intervals by lakes inferior in size only to the inland seas which formed her western boundary, The utilization of these resources was pointed out by the route of the old Indian water communications and portages from the Hudson to Montreal on the north, and the great Lakes on the west.

"Any one," says Cadwallader D. Colden, in his able "Canal Memoir,' "" that had traversed those portages, or heard them described, and knew that artificial ways had been constructed in other parts of the world, must have thought of completing these water communications by canals."

The general subject consequently occupied the atten tion, from the close of the Revolution, of the leading politicians of the State, and of various public-spirited persons of a scientific turn of mind. Foremost among the latter in bringing the topic to the attention of the Legislature was Christopher Colles, ever active in schemes for the common welfare, often in advance of his times, and, like most ingenious inventors without capital, but ill rewarded for his pains. He proposed an improvement of the navigation of the Mohawk, and subsequently of the water communication between Oswego and Albany. Elkanah Watson, a native of Massachusetts, a mercantile agent in Europe during the Revolution, imbued with the practical ideas of Washington in internal improvements, turned his attention, during a prolonged residence at Albany, to the study of Western canals, and is to be remembered for his exertions, by his pen and in other ways, in preparing the way for the system which was afterward

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employed his pen on the subject. Governor George Clinton, General Schuyler, and Gouverneur Morris, gave it an enlightened support. But of all the statesmen favoring the canal policy, De Witt Clinton holds the first place, for his evident and persistent efforts in the cause. For fifteen years, from 1810 to the completion of the work, he was its constant advocate, as Canal Commissioner personally surveying the ground, rendering it familiar to the public in popular writings, presenting the subject to the Legislature in an able memorial, and in 1817 drafting the Bill for its successful prosecution. the 4th of July of that year the great Erie Canal was commenced at Rome, Clinton, who had recently been elected Governor of the State, bearing a conspicuous part in the ceremony of the day. The construction of the work occupied about eight years, and was not carried on without considerable factious opposition from those who pretended to doubt the practicability of the affair, or objected to its cost. Clinton, a master of statement, met every difficulty in his addreses to the Legislature and reports of the progress of the undertaking. Success, at last, the only unassailable argument in such cases, crowned the work. In the public rejoicing at the event, the clouds which had hung over the enterprise from the beginning were dissipated for ever.

Never has the State of New York enjoyed a more hearty triumph. The celebration of the event began at Buffalo, on the 26th of October, 1825, with a city procession to the head of the canal, where Governor Clinton, with various official personages and delegations, entered the Seneca Chief, gayly fitted up as the leader of a flotilla of boats laden with the characteristic products of the West, drawn up to pass the entire extent of the canal, with its eighty-three locks and 363 miles to Albany, and the Hudson to its union with the ocean. As the first boat started on its course a signal-gun was fired at Buffalo, and repeated at near stations along the route till, in one continuous sound of roaring artillery, the intelligence reached New York in exactly one hour and twenty minutes. The time spent in thus forwarding the message on the banks of the Hudson River was exactly twenty minutes. A return communication was sent in similar manner and equally short time. All along the line of the canal-at Lockport, with its cleft mountain barrier; at Rochester, where prayers were offered up and an address delivered in one of the churches; at Syracuse; Utica; at Little Falls, with its wild, romantic scenery, to Albany, where a procession was formed to the capital; everywhere at all the intermediate villages-there were gatherings of the people, with notables of the region, with decorations, speeches, addresses and feastings. Descending the Hudson, the little flotilla of canal boats was escorted and led along by the famous steamboats of the river, the Chancellor Livingston at the head, conducting the Seneca Chief; the Constitution, with the Young Lion of the West in tow, charged with a representative freight of two living wolves, a fawn, a fox, four raccoons and two live eagles; the Chief Justice Marshall, the Constellation, the Swiftsure, the Ohio Branch, towing the safety barge Matilda; the Richmond-proud successors, after only a few years, of the first experimental vessels of Fulton. Many were the spectators on the banks of the river as the gay and novel procession moved along. By day there were cheers and salutes, receptions and feastings on shore at the chief towns; at night there were bonfires and illuminations, answered by rockets from the boats. At West Point there was a salute of twentyfour guns, wakening the echoes of the Highlands, and

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