[Sidenote: British war with Persia]

New difficulties had arisen with Persia respecting Herat. The death of Yar Muhammad Khan in 1852 was followed by intrigues in Herat. The province became a bone of contention between the Shah of Persia and the aged Dost Muhammad Khan. This ruler's hostility to England during the second Sikh war had been condoned, and a treaty of friendship concluded between him and Lord Dalhousie. In virtue of this treaty the British sided with Dost Muhammad. When the Shah moved an army into Herat and captured the capital, England declared war on Persia. Arms and munitions in great quantity were presented to Dost Muhammad, together with a subsidy of ten thousand pounds a month so long as the Persian war should last. An expedition under Sir James Outram was sent from Bombay to the Gulf of Persia. The capture of Bushire by the English and their victory at Mohamrah brought the Shah of Persia to withdraw his troops from Afghanistan. Herat was relinquished. While the war lasted a new danger to the British Indian Empire arose at Delhi. In July, the heir-apparent of old Bahadur Shah, the reigning King of Delhi, suddenly died. A younger queen was believed to have poisoned him. She persuaded Bahadur Shah to proclaim her son heir to the throne. Lord Canning withheld Great Britain's recognition. An elder brother was recognized as successor by Lord Canning, on condition that he should leave Delhi upon his succession to the throne and take up his abode at Kutut. The young Queen was moved to wild wrath. She was a daughter of the House of Nadir Shah, burning with the traditional ambitions of her family. Forthwith she took a part in all manner of intrigues against the English on the side of Persia as well as of the Afghans. The remarkable outbursts of anti-British feeling that followed have been credited to her.



1857

[Sidenote: Chinese war ships sank]

[Sidenote: Assault on Fatshan]

The reverses of the Persians brought the Shah to terms. A treaty of peace was presently concluded in which all claim to Herat was abandoned by Persia. Early in the year the British expedition in China resumed hostilities. Commodore Elliot with five gunboats and a host of small boats destroyed a fleet of forty armed junks. Next an attack was delivered on the Chinese headquarters at Fatshan. A flotilla of English small boats cut their way through the long line of war junks, and a landing party under Commodore Harry Keppel attacked the main position. The Commodore's boat was sunk and several others had to be abandoned. A number of the Chinese junks were burned. Keppel's force was found too small to capture Fatshan. Sir Michael Seymour decided to postpone further hostilities until the arrival of the promised reinforcements that were to come after Lord Elgin. When these troops failed to arrive in good time, Lord Elgin went to Calcutta himself to hasten their despatch. There he found affairs of far more serious import than those in China.

[Sidenote: Murmurs in India]

[Sidenote: The greased cartridges]

Some time previously rumors had been circulated concerning a danger to British rule in India. Mysterious little cakes were circulated far and wide. Lord Canning, the new Governor-General, was blamed for not taking alarm. A dangerous story got abroad early in the year. The Enfield rifle had been introduced. Its cartridges were greased with animal lubricants. The fat of pigs was hateful to Mohammedans, while that of cows was still more of an abomination in the eyes of the Hindus. At Barrackpore, near Calcutta, where Sepoys were stationed, a Laskar reviled a Brahmin as defiled by the British cartridges. The whole of the Bengal army was seized with horror. The British authorities claimed that none of the greased cartridges had been issued to the Sepoys. The story of the greased cartridges ran up the Ganges to Benares, Delhi and Meerut. It was soon noised abroad that the bones of cows and pigs had been ground to powder and thrown into wells with flour and butter in order to destroy the caste of the Hindus so as to convert them to Christianity.

[Sidenote: Hindu soldiers demur]

In March, incendiary fires broke out at Barrackpore. The Sepoys from the Nineteenth Regiment refused to receive the cartridges dealt out to them. There was only one white regiment in the 400 miles between Barrackpore and Patna. After remonstrances had been made by the English officers, the Sepoys returned, but there still remained disaffection at Benares, Lucknow, Agra and other places. When it was believed that the excitement was allayed another outbreak occurred at Lucknow. Lawrence's energetic measures maintained order in Oude. The mutiny was only scattered, however. Within a week Meerut, thirty-eight miles northeast of Delhi, and the largest cantonment in India, was in a blaze. The story of the greased cartridges had been capped by that of the bone dust. Some eighty-five of a regiment of Sepoy cavalry refused to take the cartridges and were marched off to the guard-house. During the afternoon of the following Sunday, when the European officers were preparing for church, the imprisoned Sepoys were liberated with others. They shot down every European they met.

[Sidenote: The Indian mutiny]

The mutiny became a revolt. The rebellious Sepoys marched on Delhi. When the rebel troops came up from Meerut the English officers prepared to meet them. Their Sepoys joined the mutineers. The revolt spread throughout Delhi. In despair, Willoughby blew up the fort with 1,500 rebels who were assaulting it. Only four of his command escaped. Willoughby himself died six weeks afterward, while India and Europe were ringing with his name. Fifty Englishmen whom the rebels had captured were butchered in cold blood. Delhi on Monday evening was in rebel hands. The remaining officers on the Ridge fled for their lives. Their subsequent suffering was one of the harrowing features of the great convulsion. The revolution at Delhi opened Lord Canning's eyes. He telegraphed for regiments from Bombay, Burma, Madras and Ceylon.

[Sidenote: Lahore mutineers foiled]

On May 11, the news of the outbreak at Meerut was brought to the authorities at Lahore. Meean Meer is a large military cantonment five or six miles from Lahore, and there were then some four thousand native troops there, with only about thirteen hundred Europeans of the Queen's and the Company's service. There was no time to be lost. A parade was ordered on the morrow at Meean Meer. On the parade-ground an order was given for a military movement which brought the heads of four columns of the native troops in front of twelve guns charged with grape, the artillerymen with their port-fires lighted, and the soldiers of one of the Queen's regiments standing behind with loaded muskets. A command was given to the Sepoys to stack arms. Cowed, they piled their arms, which were borne away at once in carts by the European soldiers. All chances of a rebellious movement were over for the moment in the Punjab.

[Sidenote: Situation at Lucknow]

[Sidenote: Massacre of Jhansi]

At three stations—Lucknow, Jhansi and Cawnpore—the mutiny was of political importance. The city of Lucknow, the capital of Oude, extended four miles along the right bank of the river Goomti. The British Residency and other principal buildings were between the city and the river. The Residency was a walled inclosure, and near it stood a castellated structure, the Muchi Bowun. Since the affair of May 3, Sir Henry Lawrence had been making preparations for a defence in case of insurrection. The native force consisted of three regiments of infantry and one of cavalry, all Sepoys, and there was a European force of 570 men with sixty artillerymen. Lawrence brought all the European non-combatants within the Residency walls, and established a strong post between the Residency and the Muchi Bowun to command the two bridges which led to the cantonments. The outbreak began on May 30, when the insurgents rushed to the bridges, and, being repulsed by Lawrence, made off to Delhi. At Jhansi, the garrison of fifty-five men was butchered in cold blood.

[Sidenote: Defence of Cawnpore]

[Sidenote: Massacre of Cawnpore]

[Sidenote: Englishwomen spared]

At Cawnpore, on the Ganges, fifty-five miles southwest of Lucknow, the tragedy was even more terrible. Cawnpore had been in the possession of the English for more than fifty years. In May, sixty-one artillerymen and four Sepoy regiments were there. Sir Hugh Wheeler, the commandant, prepared for the coming storm. He took some old barracks and there quartered the white women, children and invalids. He accepted from the Nana, who professed great friendship, 200 Mahrattas and two guns. On the night of June 4, the Sepoy regiment at Cawnpore broke out in mutiny. The Nana overtook them on the road to Delhi and soon returned with them to Cawnpore. Sir Hugh was taken by surprise on the morning of the 6th, when he received a message from the Nana, announcing that his men were about to attack the Englishmen. Sir Hugh prepared for the defence of the barracks. The mutineers first rifled the city and cantonment, and murdered all the English who came in their way. At noon they opened fire on the intrenchments. From the 6th to the 25th of June, the inmates struggled against fearful odds. Though starving, they resisted successfully. On June 25, Wheeler received a proposal that safe passage would be given to Allahabad to those who were willing to lay down their arms. An armistice was proclaimed, and next morning terms were negotiated. The English were to capitulate and march out with their arms and sixty rounds of ammunition for each man, to the river a mile away, where boats would be furnished for all. The next morning they marched down to the boats—the men on foot, the wounded and non-combatants on elephants and bullocks. They were all huddled together on board the boats. Suddenly, at the sound of a bugle, a murderous fire was opened on them. The women and children, one hundred and twenty-five in number, were hurried off to prison, and the men were ordered to immediate execution. All was soon over. Nana was proclaimed Peishwa. English reinforcements were coming from Allahabad. Nana hastened back to Cawnpore. There, within a few days, more than two hundred English were taken prisoners. The men were all butchered, and eighty women and children were sent to join those in a house near the Nana. Great excitement prevailed in England, where it was believed that these women were subjected to all manner of outrage and made to long for death as an escape from shame. As a matter of fact the royal widows of the Nana's adoptive father did their utmost to protect the captive Englishwomen. They threatened to throw themselves and their children from the palace windows should any harm befall the English ladies. Thanks to them no worse indignity than the compulsory grinding of corn was inflicted on the white women. Meanwhile, Colonel Mill was pushing up from Calcutta. In July, he was joined at Allahabad by a column under General Havelock.

[Sidenote: Havelock to the relief]

[Sidenote: Englishwomen slaughtered]

[Sidenote: Capture of Cawnpore]

In July, Havelock left Allahabad for Cawnpore with 2,000 men, Europeans and Sikhs. He burned to avenge the massacre of Cawnpore. On the 12th and 15th of July he inflicted three defeats on the enemy. When within twenty miles of Cawnpore, having halted for the night, he heard that the women and children at Cawnpore were still alive, and that the Nana had taken the field to oppose him. He broke camp and marched fifteen miles that night. In the meantime, the crowning atrocity was committed at Cawnpore. The defeated rebels had returned to the Nana. On receiving the tidings of their repulse, he ordered the slaughter of the 200 women and children. They were hacked to death with swords, bayonets, knives and axes. Their remains were thrown into a well. At 2 p.m. Havelock toiled on with a thousand Europeans and three hundred Sikhs, and without cavalry and artillery, to meet the 5,000 rebels. Failing to silence the enemy's batteries, Havelock ordered a bayonet charge. Nana Sahib with his followers took flight. He was never heard from again. The next morning Havelock marched into the station at Cawnpore, and there found the well filled with mangled human remains. On July 20, having been reinforced by General Neill, whom he left in charge at Cawnpore, Havelock set out for the relief of Lucknow.

[Sidenote: The defence of Lucknow]

[Sidenote: Havelock captures Bethan]

The entire province of Oude was in a state of insurrection. The English had been closely besieged in Lucknow since the last day of May. The garrison had held out for two months against fifty thousand Hindus. On July 4, Sir Henry Lawrence was killed by a shell which burst in his room. Two weeks later, the rebels, learning of the advance of Havelock to Cawnpore, attacked the Residency with overwhelming force, but the garrison at last compelled them to retire. By the middle of August, Havelock advanced toward Bethan with 1,500 men. He met the enemy in force, and overcame him with a bayonet charge. The Mahratta palace was burned. This ended Havelock's first campaign against Lucknow. Without cavalry for the pursuit of the enemy, he fell back to Cawnpore.

During the months which followed the outbreak at Delhi, all political interest was centred in that ancient capital of Hindustan. Its recapture was vital to the re-establishment of British sovereignty. In the absence of railways the British were slow to cope with the situation. Every European soldier sent for the relief of Delhi from Calcutta was stopped en route. On June 8, a month after the affair at Delhi, Sir Henry Barnard took the field at Alipano, ten miles away. He defeated the mutineers, and then marched to the Ridge and reoccupied the old cantonment, which had been abandoned.

[Sidenote: Defence of Delhi]

[Sidenote: Delhi recaptured]

On June 23, the enemy made a desperate assault, and not long afterward repeated the attempt. Reinforcements came from the Punjab. The British now had 8,000 men. With their fifty-four guns they could shell the besiegers. At last, at 3 a.m. on September 14, three columns were formed for a sortie, with one in reserve. They rushed through the broken walls, and the first and second columns met at the Kabul Gate. Six days of desperate fighting followed. On September 20, the gates of the old fortified palace were broken open, but the inmates had fled. Thus fell the imperial city. The British army lost 4,000 men, among them Brigadier-General Nicholson, who led the storming party. The great mutiny at Delhi was stamped out, and the British flag waved over the capital of Hindustan. This was the turning point of the Sepoy mutiny.

[Sidenote: British vengeance]

[Sidenote: Delhi princes murdered]

The capture of Delhi was followed by acts of barbarous retribution. Hindu prisoners were shot from the mouths of cannon. Hodson, of "Hodson's Horse," a young officer who had once been cashiered for high-handed conduct in India, offered to General Wilson to capture the king and the royal family of Delhi. General Wilson gave him authority to make the attempt, but stipulated that the life of the king should be spared. By the help of native spies Hodson discovered that when Delhi was taken the king and his family had taken refuge in the tomb of the Emperor Hoomayoon. Hodson went boldly to this place with a few of his troopers. He found that the royal family of Delhi were surrounded there by a vast crowd of armed adherents. He called upon them all to lay down their arms at once. They threw down their arms, and the king surrendered himself to Hodson. Next day the three royal princes of Delhi were captured. Hodson borrowed a carbine from one of his troopers and shot the three princes dead. Their corpses, half naked, were exposed for some days at one of the gates of Delhi. Hodson committed the deed deliberately. Several days before, he wrote to a friend to say that if he got into the palace of Delhi, "the House of Timour will not be worth five minutes' purchase, I ween." On the day after the deed he wrote: "In twenty-four hours I disposed of the principal members of the House of Timour the Tartar. I am not cruel; but I confess that I do rejoice in the opportunity of ridding the earth of these ruffians."

[Sidenote: The Princess of Jhansi]

[Sidenote: An Amazon's death]

The mutineers had seized Gwalior, the capital of the Maharajah Scindia, who escaped to Agra. The English had to attack the rebels, retake Gwalior and restore Scindia. One of those who fought to the last on the mutineers' side was the Ranee, or Princess of Jhansi, whose territory had been one of the British annexations. She had flung all her energies into the rebellion. She took the field with Nana Sahib and Tantia Topi. For months after the fall of Delhi she contrived to baffle Sir Hugh Rose and the English. She led squadrons in the field. She fought with her own hand. She was foremost in the battle for the possession of Gwalior. In the garb of a horseman she led charge after charge, and she was killed among those who resisted to the last. Her body was found upon the field, scarred with wounds enough to have done credit to any hero. Sir Hugh Rose paid her a well-deserved tribute when he wrote: "The best man upon the side of the enemy was the woman found dead, the Ranee of Jhansi."

[Sidenote: Relief of Lucknow]

Lucknow was still beleaguered. Late in September, Havelock had prepared for a second attempt to relieve that place. Sir Colin Campbell had reached Calcutta as Commander-in-Chief. Sir James Outram had come to Allahabad on September 16. He joined Havelock with 1,400 men. With generous chivalry the "Bayard of India" waived his rank in honor of Havelock. "To you shall be left the glory of relieving Lucknow," he wrote. "I shall accompany you, placing my military service at your disposal, as a volunteer." On September 20, Havelock crossed the Granges into Oude with 2,500 men. Having twice defeated the enemy, on September 25 he cut his way through the streets of Lucknow. Late in the day he entered the British cantonments. The defence of the Residency at Lucknow was a glorious episode in British annals. It has been sung in immortal strains by Alfred Tennyson. The fortitude of the garrison was surpassed only by the self-sacrificing conduct of the women who nursed the wounded and cared for all. They received the thanks of Queen Victoria for their heroic devotion. For four months the garrison had watched for the succor which came at last. The surrounding city remained for two months longer in rebel hands. In November, Sir Colin Campbell with 2,000 men took charge of the intrenchments at Cawnpore, and then advanced against Lucknow with 5,000 men and thirty guns. He defeated the enemy and carried away the beleaguered garrison with all the women and children.

[Sidenote: Cawnpore rises again]

[Sidenote: Death of Havelock]

Still the British were unable to disperse the rebels and reoccupy the city. Sir Colin Campbell left Outram with 4,000 men near Lucknow. He himself returned to Cawnpore. On approaching that city he heard the roll of a distant cannonade. Tantia Topi had come again to the front. He had persuaded the Gwalior contingent to break out in mutiny and march against Cawnpore. General Windham resisted his advance. The whole city was in the hands of the rebel Sepoys, but the bridge of boats over the Ganges was saved to the British. Sir Colin Campbell marched over it, and in safety reached the intrenchment in which Windham was shut up. He routed the Gwalior rebels and drove them out of Cawnpore. General Havelock the day after he left Lucknow succumbed to dysentery. Throughout the British Empire there was universal sorrow that will never be forgotten so long as men recall the memory of the mutinies of Fifty-seven. Havelock's victories had aroused the drooping spirits of the British nation.

[Sidenote: Aftermath of the Mutiny]

[Sidenote: Rose's brilliant campaign]

[Sidenote: King of Delhi transported]

The subsequent history of the Sepoy revolt is largely a recital of military operations for the dispossession of the rebels and the restoration of British supremacy. Sir Colin Campbell, now Lord Clyde, undertook a general and successful campaign against the rebels of Oude and Rohlikund, and Sir James Outram drove them out of Lucknow, and re-established British sovereignty in the capital of Oude. At the same time a column under Sir Hugh Rose and another under General Whitlock did a similar work in Central India and Bundelkund. Rose's campaign was peculiarly difficult. It was carried out amid the jungles and ravines of the Vindhya Mountains, and in the secluded regions of Bundelkund. He fought battles against baffling odds, and captured the stronghold of Jhansi. He then marched against Tantia Topi, who had an army of 40,000 near Kalpi, which he routed and scattered. Having brought his campaign to a close, he congratulated his troops on having marched a thousand miles, defeated and dispersed the enemy, and captured a hundred guns. The old King of Delhi was put on trial, convicted and sentenced to transportation. He was sent to the Cape of Good Hope, but the colonists there refused to receive him. The last of the line of the Great Moguls of India had to go begging for a prison.

Toward the close of the year, when the Indian mutiny appeared to have spent its force, Lord Elgin returned from Calcutta to Hong Kong. In the meanwhile the English, French and American Governments had exchanged notes on the subject of Chinese outrages against Christians. Louis Napoleon was found to be in hearty accord with England's desire to make an example of China. Baron Gros was sent to China charged with a mission similar to that of Lord Elgin. The United States declined to join in active measures against China.

[Sidenote: Buchanan, American President]

In the United States of America, James Buchanan had become President at sixty-six years of age. He had served as a member of Congress from 1821 to 1831; then as Minister to Russia from 1832 to 1834; United States Senator from 1834 to 1845; Secretary of State under Polk from 1845 to 1849, and Minister to Great Britain from 1853 to 1856.

[Sidenote: Dred Scott case]

Buchanan's first message repeated the assurance that the discussion of slavery had come to an end. The clergy were found fault with for fomenting the disturbances. The President declared in favor of the admission of Kansas with a Constitution agreeable to the majority of the settlers. He also referred to an impending decision of the Supreme Court with which he had been acquainted and asked acquiescence in it. This was Judge Taney's decision in the Dred Scott case, rendered two days after Buchanan's inauguration. An action had been begun in the Circuit Court in Missouri by Scott, a negro, for the freedom of himself and children. He claimed that he had been removed by his master in 1834 to Illinois, a free State, and afterward taken into territory north of the compromise line. Sanford, his master, replied that Scott was not a citizen of Missouri, and could not bring an action, and that he and his children were Sanford's slaves. The lower courts differed, and the case was twice argued.

[Sidenote: The decision]

The decision nullified the Missouri restriction, or, indeed, any restriction by Congress on slavery in the Territories. Chief-Justice Taney said: "The question is whether that class of persons (negroes) compose a portion of the people, and are constituent members of this sovereignty. We think they are not included under the word citizen in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges" of that instrument. "They were at that time considered as a subordinate and inferior class who had been subjugated by the dominant race—and had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the government might choose to grant them. They had for more than a century been regarded as beings of an inferior grade—and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man is bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his (the white man's) benefit. The negro race by common consent had been excluded from civilized governments and the family of nations and doomed to slavery. The unhappy black race were separated from the whites by indelible marks long before established, and were never thought of or spoken of except as property." The Chief-Justice nullified the Missouri restriction, by asserting that "the act of Congress, which prohibited a citizen from holding property of this kind north of the line therein mentioned, is not warranted by the Constitution, and is therefore void." This made slavery the organic law of the land. Benton said that it was "no longer the exception with freedom the rule, but slavery the rule, with freedom the exception."

[Sidenote: Financial distress]

[Sidenote: Trouble with Mormons]

It was a year of financial distress in America, which recalled the hard times of twenty years before. The United States Treasury was empty. There had been a too rapid building of railway lines in comparatively undeveloped regions where they could not pay expenses for years to come. Settlers did not come so quickly as was expected, and a fall in railway shares resulted. There was great loss, yet the country suffered less than in 1837. During the summer the Mormons in Utah gave new trouble. Brigham Young, after Utah was excluded from the Union, destroyed the records of the United States courts, and practically drove Federal judges from their seats and other officials from the Territory. The Mormons now numbered 40,000 members, and felt strong enough to defy the government.

[Sidenote: Massacre of Mount Meadow]

In September, the Indians, believed to have been instigated by the Mormons, massacred an immigrant train of 120 persons at Mountain Meadow in Utah. Alfred Cumming, Superintendent of Indian Affairs on the upper Missouri, displaced Young as Governor of Utah. Judge Eckles of Indiana was appointed Chief-Justice of the Territory. A force of 2,500 men under Colonel A.S. Johnston was sent to Utah to suppress interference with the laws of the United States. On the arrival of the Federal troops in the autumn, they were attacked, on October 6, by the Mormons, their supply trains were destroyed, and their oxen driven off. Colonel Johnston was compelled to find winter quarters at Fort Bridger.

Early in the year a Legislature had met at Topeka, Kansas, and was immediately dissolved by the United States marshals. A Territorial Legislature also met at Lecompton and provided for a State Constitution. The people of Kansas utterly refused to recognize the Legislature chosen by the Missouri invaders, and both parties continued to hold their elections.

[Sidenote: Quintana]

Manuel Jose de Quintana, the Spanish playwright and patriotic poet, died on March 11, at Madrid. He was one of the many Spanish writers whose first poetic inspirations were derived from the stirring incidents of the Peninsular War. On the return of King Ferdinand VII., Quintana had to expiate his liberal sentiments by a term of six years in the prison of Pampeluna. The revolution of 1820 brought about his release, but three years later he was banished again from Madrid. An ode on King Ferdinand's marriage restored him to royal favor. He was appointed tutor to the Infanta Isabella, and in 1833 was made Minister of Public Instruction. Two years before his death Queen Isabella publicly crowned the poet with a wreath of laurel in the hall of the Cortes. It was a well-merited honor, for the poet's patriotic odes and ringing lyrics long before this had taken rank among the finest productions of the modern literature of Spain.

[Sidenote: Jules Breton]

Jules Breton, the famous French pupil of Drolling and of Devigne, exhibited this year at Paris one of his greatest works, "La Benediction des Bles." It was of this picture that Hamerton, the author of "Painting in France," wrote: "It is technically a work of singular importance in modern art for its almost perfect interpretation of sunshine."

[Sidenote: Alfred de Musset]

[Sidenote: Relations with Georges Sand]

[Sidenote: "Rolla" and "Les Nuits"]

Alfred de Musset, the French lyric poet, died on May 1, in Paris. Born in 1810, the scion of an old aristocratic family, he was brought up with the Duke of Orleans. They remained intimate friends until the Duke's death in 1842. In his eighteenth year De Musset took rank among the romantic writers of Paris by his first volume of poems—"Contes d'Espagne et d'Italie." During the next two years De Musset published another volume of poems and the collection "Un Spectacle dans un Fauteuil," and followed this up with several essays in dramatic verse, published under the title "Comedies Injouables." In 1833, De Musset went to Italy together with Georges Sand, but in Venice the lovers quarrelled and separated. The character of Stenio in Georges Sand's novel "Lelia" was recognized as a personification of De Musset. Alfred de Musset himself drew on these experiences for his novel "Confessions d'un Enfant du Siecle," published upon his return from Italy in 1836. Georges Sand, stung by De Musset's allegations concerning her, gave her version of their relations in the famous book "Elle et Lui," whereupon De Musset's brother Paul published an even less lovely version of the affair, in his book "Lui et Elle." During the succeeding year De Musset became one of the foremost contributors to the "Revue des Deux Mondes." In its pages appeared most of his "Comedies et Proverbes," and the lyric pieces of "Rolla" and "Les Nuits." Among his prose tales of this period were "Emmeline," "Les deux Maitresses," "Frederic et Bernerette," and "Le Fils du Titien." Having lost part of his income, the poet was made librarian of the Ministry of the Interior at the instance of the Duke of Orleans, and as such received an ample pension. After the revolution of 1848 he was deprived of this stipend. Louis Napoleon, on his coronation as Emperor, restored Alfred de Musset to office and had him elected to the French Academy. During his last years the poet wrote but little verse.

[Sidenote: De Musset's pessimism]

[Sidenote: "Rappelle-toi"]

As a lyric poet, Alfred de Musset claims foremost rank among the modern writers of France. His verse, like that of his contemporaries, Byron, Lermontov, Leopardi, Lenau and Heine, is tinged with sadness and pessimism. Like them, too, he excels in the mastery of the subtile beauties of his native tongue. Characteristic of the spirit of his verse, if not of its outward form, are these lines, translated from his beautiful lyric "Rappelle-toi!"

Recall our love when the shy dawn unfoldeth The enchanted radiance of the morning sun— Recall our love when darkling night beholdeth Veiled trains of silvery stars pass one by one, When wild thy bosom palpitates with pleasure, Or when the shades of night lull thee in dreamy measure; Then lend a willing ear To murmurings far and near: Recall our love!

Recall our love when fate hath separated Thy heart and mine, estranged for evermore— When by the grief of exile ever mated The soul is crushed that soared so high before— Remember our sad love, remember how we parted— Time, absence, grief, are naught for love full-hearted, So long as fond hearts beat, They ever must repeat: Recall our love!

Recall our love when under earth reposes This heart at last lulled in eternal sleep— Recall our love when on my grave dark roses In solitude their tender petals weep. You will not see me more, but in immortal anguish My stricken soul will ever near you languish; Under the midnight sky A spirit voice will sigh, Recall our love!

[Sidenote: "Les Fleurs de Mal"]

[Sidenote: Baudelaire's Litany]

During this same year in France the pessimism of Alfred de Musset was outdone by Baudelaire's famous collection of poems "Les Fleurs de Mal." Baudelaire, as a poet, took a unique place in French literature. Following in the footsteps of Victor Hugo, and the American, Poe—whose works he was the first to translate into French—he outdid both these masters of the grotesque in bizarre creations. He was the founder of diabolism in French letters. As Sainte-Beuve wrote of Baudelaire: "S'est pris l'enfer et s'est fait diable." The lucubrations of the so-called Satanic School of Byron, Shelley and Hugo were surpassed by Baudelaire's rapt worship of evil as the great power of the world. Take his famous Litany to Satan:

O thou the wisest and most beautiful of cherubim, A god betrayed by fate and reft of worshipping, O Satan, have pity on my endless woe!

Thou, who dost save the bones of the old sot That reels 'twixt prancing steeds and heeds them not, O Satan, have pity on my endless woe!

Adopted father of those whom in his rage on high The God of Vengeance banished from his paradise, O Satan, have pity on my endless woe!

Baudelaire's worship of evil was genuine, since he cared nothing for any virtue save the crowning virtue of artistic excellence. From beginning to end his "Fleurs de Mal" may be said to have blossomed in defiance of all that the world has accepted as virtuous. Baudelaire's unusual sense of the grotesque is believed to have been fostered by his early voyages in the Far East.

[Sidenote: Czerny]

Carl Czerny, the eminent pianist and teacher, died on July 15, at the age of sixty-six, at his birthplace, Vienna. Czerny while a boy showed rare talent for music. He received encouragement from such men as Beethoven, Clementi and Hummel, and began his career as a teacher at sixteen. An early concert tour in 1804 had to be given up on account of the wars. The rest of his life was spent in Vienna, where he became one of the most influential teachers. In all he published over a thousand compositions, the most lasting of which were his pedagogic piano studies. As a musical writer he gained recognition by a work on the history of music.

[Sidenote: Death of Beranger]

[Sidenote: The poet's early career]

[Sidenote: Napoleonic songs]

[Sidenote: Beranger in prison]

On the day following Czerny's death, Jean Pierre Beranger, the great French song writer, died at Paris. He was seventy-seven years old. Little cared for by his father, he was brought up by his grandfather, a tailor, who let him roam the streets as a gamin. At the age of nine he was sent to act as a tavern boy for his aunt, who kept a small inn near Peronne in Picardy. In his fourteenth year he was apprenticed to a printer, and learned the first principles of versification while setting up the poems of Andre Chenier. On his own behalf he soon printed a small volume of songs entitled "A Garland of Roses." In 1798, he returned to Paris, and was reclaimed by his father. For more than a year he had no settled occupation, during which time he composed some of his best songs. At the outset of the Nineteenth Century, Beranger definitely determined to follow the career of letters. He wrote a comedy, but failing to get it accepted threw it into the fire. Collecting all his poems he sent them to Lucien Bonaparte, the enlightened brother of the First Consul. Prince Lucien took the young poet under his patronage, but, unfortunately for Beranger, soon had to leave France, an exile. On his arrival at Rome, Lucien Bonaparte transmitted to Beranger the salary coming to him as a member of the Institute. As a song writer Beranger made the most of his opportunities. In 1809, he was appointed Secretary of the University of France, an office which he held throughout the Napoleonic era. In 1813, he became a member of the Jolly Topers of the Caveau, then the resort of the most distinguished literary men of Paris. On the fall of Napoleon, Beranger took it upon himself to sing the glory of the fallen empire in elegiac strains. A severe reprimand was administered to him by the government. His second series of Napoleonic songs, published in 1821, cost him his place and three months' confinement in the prison of St. Pelagie, while his third (1828) subjected him to nine months' imprisonment in La Force and a fine of ten thousand francs. The fine was paid by his admirers, and the prison in which he was incarcerated became the gathering place of the most celebrated literary men of the day. The songs which he composed during this period helped to bring about the revolution of 1830. Beranger now retired to Passy, then to Fontainebleau, and finally to Tours, where he completed what he called his "Memoires Chantantes" by the publication of a fourth volume of songs. After the revolution of 1848 he was elected to the Constituent Assembly, but soon resigned that post. His declining years were spent at Passy.

[Sidenote: Death of Comte]

Isidore Auguste Comte, the metaphysical writer and founder of modern positive philosophy, died on September 5, at Paris. He was born at Montpellier in 1798, and became acquainted in his early manhood with Saint-Simon. Failing to agree with Saint-Simon's doctrines, Comte began to lecture on his own system of philosophy as early as 1826. In 1849, he gave readings on the "History of Humanity." After the coup d'etat, however, the government of Louis Napoleon prohibited the continuance of his readings. Comte's teachings are a combination of empiricism and socialism. The first of his numerous works was published in 1822—"Plan of Scientific Work Necessary for Reorganizing Society." Comte's most important work, "A Course of Positive Philosophy," was published in six volumes, 1830-1842. During the period of his religious enthusiasm Comte published his "System of Positive Politics, or a Treatise of Sociology." This was followed by his "Positivistic Catechism," "An Appeal to Conservators," and "Subjective Synthesis." In England and America, Comte's works found many illustrious interpreters, and congregations adhering to the "Positivistic Ritual" were formed at several places in England. Among his most fervent adherents were Miss Martineau, R. Congreve, Stuart Mill, Buckle, Lewes, Bridges, Tyler, and the American, Carey. Positivism also found some noted exponents in Italy and Germany.

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