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lofty mind dazzled by this innocence, the old man gave the child a kiss. It is the little one!' cried the soldiers; and Georgette, in her turn, was passed from arm to arm amid cries of adoration. The old grenadiers sobbed, and she smiled upon them."

Meanwhile Lantenac, saviour of others, himself now beyond hope,

stands at the head of the ladder, looking down upon this scene. His thoughts, his feelings, are again with wise power left to our imagination. "No one thought of him; perhaps

not even himself."

"He remained some moments dreamily on the edge of the window, as if he would leave the fire time to interfere. Then, without hurry, slowly, proudly, he stepped over the sill, and without turning round, straight, erect, with his back to the steps of the ladder, the flames behind him, the precipice before him, began to descend in silence with the majesty of a ghost. Those who were on the ladder threw themselves down. A shiver ran through the spectators, a kind of sacred horror made all draw back from him as from a vision. He, however, descended slowly into the shadow beneath him; while they recoiled, he approached. Not a line was on his marble paleness, no flash in his visionary eyes. At each step which he made towards the men whose terrified eyes were fixed upon him in the darkness, he seemed taller; the ladder trembled under his solemn foot; he looked like the statue of the Commandant going back to the sepulchre.

"When the Marquis had reached the bottom-when he was on the last range of the ladder, with one foot on the ground-a hand seized his collar. He turned round.

"I arrest you,' said Cimourdain. "You do well,' said Lantenac." We confess that this scene is to us the great mystery of the book, and we cannot pretend to fathom the meaning of the author, upon which, in other points, he leaves us in no great doubt. Whether it is his deliberate intention thus to transfer to his Royalist the gran

VOL. CXV.NO. DCCIV.

deur of the situation, while his favourite Cimourdain falls into the secondary place; or whether in one of those curious fits of artistic blindness, to which all men of genius seem liable, he is of opinion that the theatrical proposal of Cimourrifice himself, on condition that Landain, a few chapters before, to sactenac should be sacrificed, raises the Revolutionary to so great a height, that his rival has a kind of right to a similar advantage-we

Theatrical

are unable to tell. Cimourdain up to this point has been little more than a promise after it he is nothing but a failure. as is his offer to the defenders of the tower to give himself up to their vengeance if they will give up Lantenac,- -a proposal which is more base than grand, though the author does not intend it so-his Brutus attitude in respect to Gauvain and

his melodramatic conclusion are Our imaginamore theatrical still. tion is irresistibly driven to the Porte Saint Martin, when we hear the report of the pistol simultaneous with the stroke of the axe, by which Gauvain's inexorable judge proves his inability to survive Gauvain.

It is impossible to doubt that Cimourdain would reappear next moment in front of the curtain, and make a complacent bow to us, did we but cheer loud enough; but no desire to cheer moves our mind. When Lantenac, on the contrary, walks away out of his prison in Gauvain's cloak, we feel man to be perfectly true to his nature and position. The change

the

in his circumstances is so sudden that he is for the moment half-stupefied, and passes out through the guard-room in a kind of dream, mechanically returning the salute of the soldiers, who take him for Gauvain.

"When he was outside, with the grass under his feet, the forest close at 3 E

hand, and before him the free spacenight, liberty, life-he stopped short, and stood for a moment motionless, like a man who has allowed himself to be set in motion, who has yielded to surprise, and who, having taken advantage of an open door, considers whether he has done well or ill, hesitates before he goes further, and gives audience to his second thoughts. After a few seconds of reverie, he raised his right hand, cracked his middle finger against his thumb, said, 'Ma foi!' and went on."

This perfectly characteristic disappearance entirely satisfies the reader. It was Gauvain's affair, and not. Lantenac's, how it was all to finish. He himself had accepted without hesitation the results of his own act of devotion, hoping no escape, fearing no catastrophe. With the same calm he accepts the substitution of Gauvain for himself. The man is of iron, and pretends nothing more. Humanity comes upon him for one supreme moment; to be cruel in general is quite possible to him for the sake of his cause, but to be cruel in detail and for no end is impossible. Thus self-possessed, cool, and splendid, he disappears out of our vision: he has had the best of it all through; he has conquered his unwilling historian, and made himself the first person in the story, in spite of Hugo. The artist is great, but Art is greater, and Lantenac carries the day over the very man who created him-a quite incalculable triumph.

But while this picture of the royalist Marquis is an unquestionable success, and the episode of the three children is certainly one of the most beautiful that Victor Hugo or any man has ever produced, we doubt whether he can be said to have succeeded in what we presume is the real object of the work-the revelation of the Revolution and the Revolutionary in their best aspect to the reader. There is

much that is fine in the sketches of the aspect of Revolution in Paris; but we doubt whether any one will derive a clearer idea of, or more respectful interest in, Robespierre, Danton, and Marat, from their introduction into these pages. The description of Paris in its external aspects is fine. Some of the details car

an impression of thrilling reality in the extraordinary disturbance of all natural human order, which strikes the imagination more than greater matters. "The Louis d'or was worth three thousand nine hundred and fifty francs;" money-changers were in all the streets; queues of humble waiters upon Providence at every baker's shop; yet with all this, our author tells us, "very little theft; wild destitution, but stoical probity," and on the whole a determined content among the people, who played cards at the corners of the streets, and trusted to fate, and read the newspapers, at a moment when we, looking from afar off on this terrible scene, can see nothing in Paris but the guillotine, and can scarcely realise that the Place de Grêve was far enough from the sight and thoughts of the crowds in most of these streets. "With this was mingled, especially in the vanquished party, a certain haughty weariness of living. One man wrote to Fouquier Tinville, "Have the goodness to deliver me from life-here is my address." All this brings before us the wild and strange condition of affairs; though scarcely the divine right of the Revolution to be accepted as another form of that mysterious force which we call Necessity or Fate. In the description of Cimourdain again (though there is a great deal too much of it) there are many pregnant lines. "Cimourdain knew everything and was ignorant of everything. He knew all that science could teach him, and nothing of life. From thence

came his rigidity. He had his eyes blindfolded, like the Themis of Homer. He possessed the blind certitude of the arrow, which sees only the aim and flies to that. In revolution there is nothing so terrible as a straight line-Cimourdain went straight before him and was fatal." This description is wonderful in its force, and might explain the mingled strength and impotence of many men; but the man of whom it is said cannot manage to embody it, however his author tries to make him do so; the truth and power of the description do not give dignity to the personage, who is throughout laboured, false, and exaggerated. It is curious that M. Hugo's failure should have been on this side of the picture the one which, according to all his professed views and principles, he ought to understand best. Is it because the Vendean blood in him is, after all, stronger than opinion, that the Republican author the Apostle of the Revolution shows such evident traces of a higher comprehension when he treats the peasant of La Vendée, the Royalist general-the men of noble race and ancient traditions-than when he endeavours to breathe an inflated and extravagant life into the Revolutionary? Nothing can be more curious than this question. Gauvain, his favourite, his young hero, the type of all that is noblest on the two sides, the ideal man whom necessity demands as a sacrifice, but whom the poet loves even when he slays him-whom he must slay becauses he loves him, because he is too beautiful for earth-is no son of the people, but a young noble,

with haughty blood in his veins, and a long inheritance of honours behind him. Is it chance that makes this so, or is M. Hugo himself less a democrat than he gives himself credit for being? The inquiry is a curious one; and the work itself is a problem in Art.

We had placed at the head of this paper not the name of the book we have really discussed, but a general title, with the intention of embracing more than one work, as it is our habit to do. But what other work can we place by the side of 'Quatre-Vingt-Treize '? We do not pretend to be able to find one. Very few men now living have the power of writing as M. Hugo writes; still fewer of dashing upon so splendid a canvas a picture so varied, so crowded, so full of original power. All his political vagaries and all his philosophical madnesses, absurd as these often are, and pernicious, fade from our recollection when we find him thus on his natural ground. Though even the giant stumbles and falls sometimes, it is as a giant that he grasps the scene and the men, setting them before us with a force and potency which is characteristically his own, and which age seems only to mature and cultivate, not to weaken. No finer impersonation than that of Lantenac has ever come from his pen; and we might search deep and far, both in his own works and in those of his worthiest contemporaries, before we could find anything worthy to be placed by the side of Georgette. In this little figure, the poet has achieved one of his greatest triumphs.

POLITICS AFTER EASTER.

THE reception of the Conservative Budget by the leader of the Opposition (if it be right so to designate Mr Gladstone) was forbearing, courteous, and even kind. We believe that the Budget did not lie open to serious censure; but, notwithstanding its merits, Mr Gladstone, if he had been so minded, might, without seriously damaging it, have made it appear in the worst possible light. He would have conformed to his own tastes and habits if, in a voluminous and meaningless speech, he had-to the satisfaction of his own friends, if of no one else held the production up to condemnation and contempt. We are, therefore, the more indebted to him in that he not only was pleased to be gracious, but that he put a restraint on his own disposition in order to be so. Nothing could be gentler than his handling of the matter; and although it is well known that personal relations between him and the Chancellor of the Exchequer are very friendly, yet we think that we detect in his criticism something more than unwillingness to attack a friend. His whole speech proved that he wished to approve wherever he could properly do so; and that where he felt compelled to object, he was fain to make his protest considerately and blandly. His behaviour deserves to be fully acknowledged.

The

attitude which he assumed must, however, have much surprised all parties. We admit that it agreeably surprised us; and we have the testimony of their own press to convince us that it seriously disappointed our opponents. They cannot forgive the right honourable gentleman for letting the Conservative Budget escape so easily, and their chagrin

is not difficult to understand. Their last hope was cut away, the one hope which had cheered them a little through all their recent reverses. When they found themselves utterly shattered as a party, they looked forward with good heart to a speedy restoration to importance. "Their finance, their finance!" they said as exultingly as in their circumstances it was possible to speak; "wait till we see their idea of disposing of the five millions; wait till we see their project dissected by the first financial genius in Europe." They were holding Mr Gladstone in the slips, as it were, to be let loose at the proper moment on the unlucky Budget, which he was to rend, and trample, and shake for their delectation. After its annihilation, the people would soon repent and return. The result cannot but have sorely disappointed these flattering hopes. The tyrant when he saw the lion turn and lick the condemned slave;— the Moabite king, when the prophet whom he had engaged to curse his enemies at last declined to utter the commination, and, behold, he "blessed them altogether,"-must have felt very much as our Radical friends felt after the discussion on the Budget. So utterly cast down are they that we are not aware of their having predicted evil for us since that shipwreck of their hopes.

Certainly the state of things in the political arena suggests matter for grave contemplation to all parties,-to those who are gratified by it, and to those whom it balks of their expected triumph. The Liberals, doubtless, marvel that they find themselves like sheep without a shepherd so soon after the days of their tyrannous and galling domina

tion. It must be occurring to the more violent and reckless of them that, somehow or other, they have rather mismanaged their affairs. They do not, of course, allow that any of their champions can be suddenly smitten with admiration of Conservatism; they know that the Budget is very different from that which they would have proposed; and yet they see that the finance measures have not suffered at all from their attacks. Whence comes this moderation and forbearance? Have they worried their own chiefs until the latter, no longer officially bound to them, have lost the heart to fight vigorously under their colours, and so decline the combat altogether? Does it strike them that their insubordinate conduct has been felt and resented; that they are not the most pleasant of allies even in sunny days; and that the free display of the rough side of their character when fortune chose to frown, only the more strongly demonstrated their unfitness to work in concert with men of education and polish? No doubt they have their grievances.

They think that they have been unfairly refused many changes and confiscations which, by aiding to effect other changes and confiscations about which they were themselves indifferent, they earned the right to. Many who so zealously put their strength to pulling down the Irish Church, cannot understand why, now that they desire to pull down the Church of England, those whom they formerly obliged with a strong pull will not help them in return. Some, who, with out much interest in Ireland, lent their support to the mulcting of Irish landlords, and the fettering of Irish property, don't see why they should not have had their turn at English landlords and English property. It is certain, too, that both

the defeated Ministers and the defeated party are sore at the action which the people took. Either of them may have expected increased strength from the popular vote, but neither could have been prepared for a verdict against both—a clean sweep of everything Radical.

We fear that Mr Gladstone, if his feelings are hurt, will hardly make allowance for his late supporters. Perhaps they will make but little for him. Those, however, who had no part in the internal strife, cannot fail to see that the present state of things followed inevitably the compact by which the Radicals took Mr Gladstone for their leader. The marvel is, not that they came to ruin as a party, but that they managed to stave off ruin so long. It suited Conservative tactics not to hurry them from power, or the catastrophe must have occurred much sooner. It was an ill-sorted alliance which brought them together; but now that they have entered into partnership, an impartial mind can see no fair ground of quarrel. We have our suspicions of what is about to ensue, but it is too early to say yet what we apprehend. We must wait and see in what way Mr Gladstone's quasi retirement from active political life may operate. He must elect, one sees, either to lead or not to lead. His party cannot consent to be commanded always by subordinates, save when on great field days the chief may condescend to appear at their head. In the mean time it is not to be expected that we, who have always exhorted him to return to academical pursuits, will quarrel with the inclination which he feels for literary leisure.

How much more congenial must be life in a study amid a wealth of literature, than life in the House of Commons subject to such rude assaults as that which Mr Smollet

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