"One day I coolly walked out of the 'Asylum,' made off to a house I well knew, and ran up a credit account in my brother's name of good eight guldens for beer and tobacco. A glorious day! for I forgot all about the 'asylum,' and the 'indigent,' and every mortal pain and trouble in this inconvenient world.

"I was awakened from a deep dream by a heavy hand on my shoulder, and a loud voice in my ear.

"'Holloa! friend Lech.'

"'What's the matter?' inquired I, gaping.

"'Get up, and I'll tell you.'

"'Who are you?'

"'You'll know that soon enough; I am a police officer.'

"'And where am I, in God's name?'

"'Why, lying on your back, on the open Glacis.'

"That was pleasant, was it not? So they took me to the police-bureau, in the first case, for lying out in the open air; and when they found that I had used my brother's name to incur a debt, without his permission, they gave me two months for fraudulent intentions.

"'Why did you not stay at the "Bounty?"' expostulated my friend, the police-assistant, as we were talking the matter over.

"'Because it was too aristocratic and uncomfortable,' answered I.

"'Perhaps the Rathherr, your brother, will be able to get you into the "Refuge,"' said he, in a consoling way.

"'God bless you! they have kicked me out of there long ago.'

"'Then I know of nothing but the "Indigent" left for you.'

"'My worthy friend,' said I, 'that is the very last place I came from.'

"But I was determined to be revenged. When my time was expired, I sallied forth with my mind fully made up as to what I was to do. I knew the hour when my brother, in pursuance of his duties, usually entered the magistrate's office, and, attired as I was—look at me! just as I am now—in this old coat, the souvenir of the 'Indigent,' and these free-and-easy slippers, I waited at the great entrance of the Magistracy, to pay my respects to my brother, the Rath.

"I saw him coming; and, as soon as he reached the foot of the flight of stone steps, I marched forward, gave him a mock salute, and exclaimed, in a loud voice,

"'Good morning, brother!'

"'What is the meaning of this?' demanded he.

"'Look here, brother!' said I, 'look at this coat, and these shoes.'

"'Remove this fellow!' exclaimed he to the police, who were standing at his heels.

"I knew what would be the result, but had determined to have the play out. So I drew off my slipper, and, thrusting my hand right through the hole at the toe, I made a bit of play with my fingers, and shouted in his ear:

"'Look at this, brother. Are you not ashamed to see me? Look here! Look at this kripple-gespiel (puppet show)! Look!'

"Of course I was laid hold of; and here I am for another two months, for insulting a city functionary."

This story was received with a glee only equalled by the gusto with which it was related. The last expression, "kripple-gespiel," was peculiarly his own.

Before leaving Vienna, about a month after my release, I had determined to see the Bruhl, a wild, wooded, and mountainous district, at a short distance from the city. We had spent a delightful day among its thick pine woods, and on its towering heights, and in the evening made our way to the small town of Modling, where we intended to take the railway to Vienna. But there was a grand fete in the pleasure grounds close to the town, accompanied by a magnificent display of fireworks. This whiled away the time, and it was already dark, as we at length bent our steps towards the railway station.

Suddenly a voice that I knew too well, struck upon my ear.

"Pity the poor blind!" it exclaimed.

I turned, and behold! there was my one-eyed jail acquaintance, planted against a brick wall, a stout staff, at least six feet long, in his hand, and his apparently sightless eyes turned up to the sky.

"Pity the poor blind!"

In the greatest fear lest, even in his present blind condition, he might recognise, and claim me as an acquaintance, I hurried from the spot with all the speed of which I was capable, and, thank Heaven, never set eyes upon him again.



CHAPTER XXI.

A WALK THROUGH A MOUNTAIN.

I lately took a walk through the substance of a mountain, entering at the top, and coming out at the bottom, after a two or three mile journey underground. Perhaps the story of this trip is worth narrating. The mountain was part of an extensive property belonging to the Emperor of Austria, in his character of salt merchant, and contained the famous salt mine of Hallein.

The whole salt district of Upper Austria, called the Salzkammergut, forms part of a range of rocks that extends from Halle in the Tyrol, passes through Reichenthal in Bavaria, and continues by way of Hallein in Salzburg, to end at Ausse in Styria. The Austrian part of the range is now included in what is called the district of Salzburg, and that district abounds, as might be expected, in salt springs, hot and cold, which form in fact the baths of Gastein, Ischl, and some other places. The names of Salzburg (Saltborough), the capital, and of the Salzack (Saltbrook), on the left bank of which that pleasant city stands, indicate clearly enough the character of the surrounding country. Hallein is a small town eight miles to the south-east of Salzburg, and it was to the mine of Hallein, as before said, that I paid my visit.

On the way thither, we, a party of three foot-travellers, passed through much delightful rock and water scenery. From Linz, the capital of Upper Austria, we got through Wells and Laimbach to the river Traun, and trudged afoot beside its winding waters till we reached the point of its junction with the Traunsee, or Lake of Traun. At Gmunden, we stopped to look over the Imperial Salt Warehouses. The Emperor of Austria, as most people know, is the only dealer in salt and tobacco with whom his subjects are allowed to trade. His salt warehouses, therefore, must needs be extensive. They are situated at Gmunden to the left of the landing-place, from which a little steamer plies across the lake; and they are so built as to afford every facility for the unloading of boats that bring salt barrels from the mine by the highway of the Traun. The warehouses consisted simply of a large number of sheds piled with the salt in barrels, a few offices, and a low but spacious hall, filled, in a confused way, with dusty models. There were models of river-boats and salt moulds, mining tools, and tram ways, hydraulic models of all kinds, miniature furnaces, wooden troughs, and seething pans. We looked through these until the bell from the adjacent pier warned us, at five o'clock in the evening, to go on board the steamer that was quite ready to puff and splash its way across the beautiful green lake. We went under the shadow of the black and lofty Traunstien, and among pine-covered rocks, of which the reflections were mingled in the water with a ruddy glow, that streamed across a low shore from some fires towards which we were steering.

The glow proceeded from the fires of the Imperial Saltern, erected at Ebensee. We paid a short visit to the works, which have been erected at great cost; and display all the most recent improvements in the art of getting the best marketable salt from saline water. We found that the water, heavily impregnated, is conducted from the distant mines by wooden troughs into the drying pan. The pan is a large shallow vessel of metal, supported by small piles of brick, and a low brick wall about three feet high, extending round two-thirds of its circumference; leaving one-third, as the mouth of the furnace, open to the air. Among the brick columns, and within the wall, the fire flashed and curled under the seething pan. Ascending next into the house over the great pan, and looking down upon the surface and its contents through sliding doors upon the floors, we saw the white salt crusting like a coat of snow over the boiling water, and being raked, as it is formed, by workmen stationed at each of the trap doors. As the water evaporated, the salt was stirred and turned from rake to rake; and finally, when quite dry, raked into the neighbourhood of a long-handled spade, with which one workman was shovelling among the dried salt, and filling a long row of wooden moulds, placed ready to his hand. These moulds are sugar-loaf shaped, and perforated at the bottom like a sugar mould, in order that any remaining moisture may drain out of them. The moulds will be placed finally in a heated room before the salt will be considered dry enough for storeage as a manufactured article.

The brine that pours with an equable flow into the seething pan at Ebensee, is brought by wooden troughs from the salt mine at Hallein, a distance of thirty miles in a direct line. It comes by way of mountains and along a portion of the valley of the Traun, through which we continued our journey the same evening from Ebensee, until the darkness compelled us to rest for the night at a small inn on a hill side. The next day we went through Ischl and Wolfgang, and spent three hours of afternoon in climbing up the Scharfberg, which is more than a thousand feet higher than Snowdon, to see the sunset and the sunrise. There was sleeping accommodation on the top: so there is on the top of Snowdon. On the Scharfberg we had a hay-litter in a wooden shed, and ate goat's cheese and bread and butter. We saw neither sunset nor sunrise, but had a night of wind and rain, and came down in the morning through white mist within a rugged gully ploughed up by the rain, to get a wholesome breakfast at St. Gilgen on the lake. More I need not say about the journey than that, on the fifth day after leaving Ebensee, having rested a little in the very beautiful city of Salzburg, we marched into the town of Hallein, at the foot of the Durrnberg, the famous salt mountain, called Tumal by old chroniclers, and known for a salt mountain seven hundred and thirty years ago.

After a night's rest in the town, we were astir by five o'clock in the morning, and went forward on our visit to the mines. In the case of the Durrnberg salt mine, as I have already said, the miner enters at the top and comes out at the bottom. Our first business, therefore, was to walk up the mountain, the approach to which is by a long slope of about four English miles.

We met few miners by the way, and noticed in them few peculiarities of manners or costume. The national dress about these regions is a sort of cross between the Swiss Alpine costume and a common peasant dress of the lowlands. We saw indications of the sugar-loafed hat; jackets were worn almost by all, with knee-breeches and coloured leggings. The clothing was always neat and sound, and the clothed bodies looked reasonably healthy, except that they had all remarkably pale faces. The miners did not seem bodily to suffer from their occupation.

As we approached the summit of the Durrnberg, the dry brownish limestone showed its bare front to the morning sun. We entered the offices, partly contained in the rock, and applied for admission into the dominion of the gnomes. Our arrival was quite in the nick of time, for we had not to be kept waiting, as we happened to complete the party of twelve, without which the guides do not start. It was a Tower of London business; and, as at the Tower, the demand upon our purses was not very heavy. One gulden-schein—about tenpence—is the regulated fee. Our full titles having been duly put down in the register, each of us was furnished with a miner's costume, and, so habited, off we set.

We started from a point that is called the Obersteinberghauptstollen; our guides only having candles, one in advance, the other in the rear.

We were sensible of a pleasant coldness in the air when we had gone a little way into the sloping tunnel. The tunnel was lofty, wide, and dry. Having walked downwards on a gentle decline for a distance of nearly three thousand feet through the half gloom and among the echoes, we arrived at the mouth of the first shaft, named Freudenberg. The method of descent is called the "Rolle." It is both simple and efficacious. Down the steep slope of the shaft, and at an angle, in this case, of forty-one and a half degrees, runs a smooth railway consisting of two pieces of timber, each of about the thickness of a scaffold pole; they are twelve inches apart, and run together down the shaft like two sides of a thick ladder without the intervening rounds. Following the directions and example of the foremost guide, we sat astride, one behind the other, on this wooden tramway, and slid very comfortably to the bottom. The shaft itself was only of the width necessary to allow room for our passage. In this way we descended to the next chamber in the mountain, at a depth of a hundred and forty feet (perpendicular) from the top of the long slide.

We then stood in a low-roofed chamber, small enough to be lighted throughout by the dusky glare of our two candles. The walls and roof sparkled with brown and purple colours, showing the unworked stratum of rock-salt. We stood then at the head of the Untersteinberghauptstulm, and after a glance back at the narrow slit in the solid limestone through which we had just descended, we pursued our way along a narrow gallery of irregular level for a further distance of six hundred and sixty feet. A second shaft there opened us a passage into the deeper regions of the mine. With a boyish pleasure we all seated ourselves again upon a "Rolle"—this time upon the Johann-Jacob-berg-rolle, which is laid at an angle of forty-five and a half degrees—and away we slipped to the next level, which is at the perpendicular depth of another couple of hundred feet.

We alighted in another chamber where our candles made the same half gloom, with their ruddy glare into the darkness, and where there was the same sombre glittering upon the walls and ceiling. We pursued our track along a devious cutting, haunted by confused and giant shadows, suddenly passing black cavernous sideways that startled us as we came upon them, and I began to expect mummies, for I thought myself for one minute within an old Egyptian catacomb. After traversing a further distance of two thousand seven hundred feet we halted at the top of the third slide, the Konigsrolle. That shot us fifty-four feet deeper into the heart of the mountain. We had become quite expert at our exercise, and had left off considering, amid all these descents and traverses, what might be our real position in the bowels of the earth. Perhaps we might get down to Aladdin's garden and find trees loaded with emerald and ruby fruits. It was quite possible, for there was something very cabalistic, very strong of enchantment in the word Konhauserankehrschachtricht, the name given to the portion of the mine which we were then descending. Konhauser-return-shaft is, I think, however, about the meaning of that compound word.

So far we had felt nothing like real cold, although I had been promised a wintry atmosphere. Possibly with a miner's dress over my ordinary clothing, and with plenty of exercise, there was enough to counteract the effects of the chill air. But our eyes began to ache at the uncertain light, and we all straggled irregularly along the smooth cut shaft level for another sixty feet, and so reached the Konhauser-rolle, the fourth slide we had encountered in our progress.

That cheered us up a little, as it shot us down another one hundred and eight feet perpendicular depth to the Soolererzeugungswerk-Konhauser—surely a place nearer than ever to the magic regions of Abracadabra. If not Aladdin's garden, something wonderful ought surely by this time to have been reached. I was alive to any sight or sound, and was excited by the earnest whispering of my fellow adventurers, and the careful directions as to our progress given by the guides and light-bearers.

With eager rapidity we flitted among the black shadows of the cavern, till we reached a winding flight of giant steps. We mounted them with desperate excitement, and at the summit halted, for we felt that there was space before our faces, and had been told that those stairs led to a mid mountain lake, nine hundred and sixty feet below the mountain's top; two hundred and forty feet above its base. Presently, through the darkness, we perceived at an apparently interminable distance a few dots of light, that shed no lustre, and could help us in no way to pierce the pitchy gloom of the great cavern. The lights were not interminably distant, for they were upon the other shore, and this gnome lake is but a mere drop of water in the mountain mass, its length being three hundred and thirty, and its breadth one hundred and sixty feet.

Our guides lighted more candles, and we began to see their rays reflected from the water; we could hear too the dull splashing of the boat, which we could not see, as old Charon slowly ferried to our shore. More lights were used; they flashed and flickered from the opposite ferry station, and we began to have an indistinct sense of a spangled dome, and of an undulating surface of thick, black water, through which the coming boat loomed darkly. More candles were lighted on both sides of the Konhauser lake, a very Styx, defying all the illuminating force of candles; dead and dark in its dim cave, even the limits of which all our lights did not serve to define. The boat reached the place of embarcation, and we, wandering ghosts, half walked and were half carried into its broad clumsy hulk, and took each his allotted seat in ghostly silence. There was something really terrible in it all; in the slow funereal pace at which we floated across the subterranean lake; in the dead quiet among us, only interrupted by the slow plunge of the oar into the sickly waters. In spite of all the lights that had been kindled we were still in a thick vapour of darkness, and could form but a dreamy notion of the beauty and the grandeur of the crystal dome within which we men from the upper earth were hidden from our fellows. The lights were flared aloft as we crept sluggishly across the lake, and now and then were flashed back from a hanging stalactite, but that was all. The misty darkness about us brought to the fancy at the same time fearful images, and none of us were sorry when we reached the other shore in safety. There a rich glow of light awaited us, and there we were told a famous tale about the last Arch-ducal visit to these salt mines, where some thousands of lighted tapers glittered and flashed about him, and exhibited the vaulted roof and spangled lake in all their beauty. As we were not Archdukes, we had our Hades lighted only by a pound of short sixteens.

We left the lake behind us, and then, traversing a further distance of seventy feet along the Wehrschachtricht, arrived at the mouth of the Konhauser Stiege. Another rapid descent of forty-five feet at an angle of fifty degrees, and we reached Rupertschachtricht, a long cavern of the extent of five hundred and sixty feet, through which we toiled with a growing sense of weariness. We had now come to the top of the last and longest "slide" in the whole Durrnberg. It is called the Wolfdietrichberg-rolle, and is four hundred and sixty-eight feet long, carrying us two hundred and forty feet lower down into the mountain. We went down this "slide" with the alacrity of school-boys, one after another keeping the pot boiling, and all regulating our movements with great circumspection, for we knew that we had far to go and we could never see more than a few yards before us.

Having gained the ground beneath in safety, our attention was drawn to a fresh water well or spring, sunk in this spot at great cost by order of the Archduke, and blessed among miners. Amid all the stone and salt and brine, a gush of pure fresh water at our feet was very welcome to us all. The well was sunk, however, to get water that was necessary for the mining operations. We did not see any of those operations underground, for they are not exhibited; the show-trip underground is only among the ventilating shafts and galleries. Through the dark openings by which we had passed, we should have found our way (had we been permitted) to the miners. I have seen them working in the Tyrol, and their labours are extremely simple. Some of the rock-salt is quarried in transparent crystals, which undergo only the process of crushing before they are sent into the market as an article of commerce. Very little of this grain salt is seen in England, but on the continent it may be found in some of the first hotels, and on the table of most families. It is cheaper than the loaf salt, and is known in Germany under the title of salzkorn, and in France, as selle de cuisine. In order to obtain a finer grained and better salt, it is necessary that the original salt-crystals should be dissolved, and for this purpose parallel galleries are run into the rock, and there is dug in each of them a dyke or cistern. These dykes are then flushed with water, which is allowed to remain in them undisturbed for the space of from five to twelve months, according to the richness of the soil; and, being then thoroughly saturated with the salt that it has taken up, the brine is drawn off through wooden pipes from Hallein over hill and dale into the evaporating pans.

We had traversed the last level, and had reached what is generally called the end of the salt-mine; but we were still a long way distant from the pure air and the sunshine. We had travelled through seven galleries of an aggregate length of nearly two miles; we had floated across an earthy piece of water; had followed one another down six slides, and had penetrated to the depth of twelve hundred feet into the substance of the mountain limestone, gypsum, and marl. Having done all this, there we were, in the very heart of the Durrnberg, left by our guides, and intrusted to the care of two lank lads with haggard faces. We stood together in a spacious cavern, poorly lighted by our candles; there was a line of tram-rail running through the middle of it, and we soon saw the carriage that was to take us out of the mountain emerging from a dark nook in the distance. It was a truck with seats upon it, economically arranged after the fashion of an Irish jaunting car. The two lads were to be our horses, and our way lay through a black hollow in one side of the cavern, into which the tram-rail ran.

We took our seats, instructed to sit perfectly still, and to restrain our legs and arms from any straggling. There was no room to spare in the shaft we were about to traverse. Our car was run on to the tram-line, and the two lads, with a sickly smile, and a broad hint at their expected gratuity, began to pull, and promised us a rapid journey. In another minute we were whirring down an incline with a rush and a rattle, through the subterranean passage tunnelled into the solid limestone which runs to the outer edge of the Durrnberg. The length of this tunnel is considerably more than an English mile.

The reverberation and the want of light were nothing, but we were disagreeably sensible of a cloud of fine stone dust, and knew well that we should come out not only stone deaf, but as white as millers. Clinging to our seats with a cowardly instinct, down we went through a hurricane of sound and dust. At length we were sensible of a diminution in our speed, and the confusion of noises so far ceased, that we could hear the panting of our biped cattle. Then, straight before us, shining in the centre of the pitchy darkness, there was a bright blue star suddenly apparent. One of the poor lads in the whisper of exhaustion, and between his broken pantings for breath, told us that they always know when they have got half way by the blue star, for that is the daylight shining in.

A little necessary rest, and we were off again, the blue star before us growing gradually paler, and expanding and still growing whiter, till with an uncontrollable dash, and a concussion, we are thrown within a few feet of the broad incomparable daylight. With how much contempt of candles did I look up at the noonday sun! The two lads, streaming with perspiration, who had dragged us down the long incline, were made happy by the payment we all gladly offered for their services. Then, as we passed out of the mouth of the shaft, by a rude chamber cut out of the rock, we were induced to pause and purchase from a family of miners who reside there a little box of salt crystals, as a memento of our visit. Truly we must have been among the gnomes, for when I had reached the inn I spread the brilliant crystals I had brought home with me on my bedroom window sill, and there they sparkled in the sun and twinkled rainbows, changing and shifting their bright colours as though there were a living imp at work within. But when I got up next morning and looked for my crystals, in the place where each had stood, I found only a little slop of brine. That fact may, I have no doubt, be accounted for by the philosophers; but I prefer to think that it was something wondrous strange, and that I fared marvellously like people of whom I had read in German tales, how they received gifts from the good people who live in the bowels of the earth, and what became of them. I have had my experiences, and I do not choose to be sure whether those tales are altogether founded upon fancy.



CHAPTER XXII.

CAUSE AND EFFECT.

One September evening we rode into Carlsruhe. We made our entry in a crazy hackney cab behind a lazy horse that had been dragging us for a long time with cheerless industry between a double file of trees, along a road without a bend in it; a long, lanky, Quaker road, heavily drab-coated with dust; a tight-rope of a road that comes from Manheim, and is hooked on to the capital of Baden. Out of that allee we were dragged into the square-cut capital itself, which had evidently been planned by the genius of a ruler—not a prince, but the wooden measure. The horse stopped at the City of Pfortzheim, and as his decision on the subject of our halting-place appeared to be irrevocable, we got out.

At the capital of a grand dukedom, except Weimar, it is better to sleep (it is the only thing to be done there) and pass on; but it so happened that on that particular evening Carlsruhe was in a ferment: there was something brewing. I heard talk of a procession and of certain names, particularly the names Kugelblitz and Thalermacher. Never having heard those names before, and caring therefore nothing in the world about them, I tumbled into bed. To my delight, when I got up in the morning, I found the little town turned upside down. Landlord, boots, and chambermaid, overwhelmed me with exclamations, surmises, and incoherent summaries of the night's news. There had been an outbreak. Lieber Herr, a revolution! One entire house razed to the ground. "Hep! hep!" that is the old cry, "Down with the Jews!" All their bones would be made powder of. Tremendous funeral of Kugelblitz. Students on their way in a body from Heidelberg. Thalermacher the rich Jew, soldiers, the entire court, Meinheer, all in despair; a regular sack. Not only Kugelblitz, but Demboffsky, the Russian officer, killed. O hep! hep! a lamentable tragedy. "For they were two such fine-looking young men," mourned the chambermaid, "especially Demboffsky." "You had better," said the landlord, "stay in Carlsruhe till to-morrow."

Roused by the incoherent tidings, I hurried to the centre of the tumult. The house of the firm of Thalermacher and Company was situated in the High Street; and though, certainly, it had a doleful look, it was there situated still: it held its ground. Not a brick was displaced; but—gaunt and windowless, disfigured with great blotches of ink and dirt, its little shop rent from the wall and split up into faggots—it looked like a house out of which all life had been knocked; but there was the carcase. In the street before the house, there were by that time a few splinters of furniture remaining; the rest had been broken up or hidden by kind and cunning neighbours. The shop had been cobbled together with the broken shutters; and half-a-dozen soldiers, quite at their ease, were lounging pleasantly about the broken door.

The outbreak, I was told by the bystanders, was quite unpremeditated. A few stragglers had halted before the house at about eight o'clock on the preceding evening, and had been discussing there the dreadful tale connected with its owner. One gossip, in a sudden burst of anger, hurled a bottle of ink—then by chance in his hand—at the Jew's house. The idea was taken up with such good will that a hard rain of stones, bottles, and other missiles was soon pelting against Thalermacher's walls. Where all are unanimous it is not difficult to come to a conclusion. An hour's labour, lightened by yells and shouts of "Hep, hep!" was enough; and, the zeal of the people burning like a fire, soon left of the house nothing but its shell.

The authorities in Germany, usually so watchful and so prompt to interfere, were either taken completely off their guard, or tacitly permitted the rude work of vengeance; for, although there was a guard-post in the immediate vicinity, the whole efforts of the military were confined to conducting Thalermacher and his family into a place of safety. The protection Thalermacher received was of a peculiar kind. Under the plea of insuring him against public attack, he was conducted under escort, to the fortress of Rastadt, and there held a close prisoner, until the whole affair could be investigated.

The funeral procession of Lieutenant Kugelblitz was not a thing to be missed. I went, therefore, to the other end of the city, whence the procession was to start. The scene was impressive. Not merely his brothers-in-arms of the artillery, but the general-staff—all the officers of distinction in the Baden army, whose duties allowed them to be present—and even the Russian companions of his antagonist Demboffsky, acted as mourners.

As the procession came before the house of Thalermacher, I observed that a strong guard had been posted there for its protection. The funeral passed by without any demonstration whatever. Presently we turned up a narrow passage, leading from the high street towards the cemetery, and our progress became tediously slow as we moved with the close mass of people. At the burial-place every mound and stone was occupied. Flowers were trampled under foot, shrubs broken or uprooted, and the grass all stamped into the mould. The whole crowd listened to the impressive tone—only a few could hear the words—of the funeral harangue, and to the solemn hymn which followed. The service closed with the military honour of musketry fired over the soldier's grave. That over, I was sucked back by the retreating tide of citizens into the main street of Carlsruhe.

The crowd instantly dispersed; and, as I wandered through the side streets, I soon saw that the authorities had come to life. My attention was first called to an official announcement freshly posted, which warned all persons from assembling in the public street in knots or clusters, even of three or four, on pain of being instantly dispersed by the military. Another placard fulminated an injunction to parents, masters, and burghers to restrain and confine all persons under their charge—such as workmen, servants, and children—within their respective houses; because, for any offence committed by them against the public peace, such masters or parents would be held responsible. I began to fancy myself in a state of siege. Wandering again into the main street I was met by a strong division of dusty dragoons, in full equipment of war, which came sweeping and clashing along from adjacent parts of the country, evidently under urgent orders. Another and another followed. Troops of infantry tramped hastily along the side streets. The very few civilians I met in the streets seemed to be hurrying to shelter from a coming storm. Was there really any social tempest in the wind? Or were all these precautions but a locking of the stable door after the steed was stolen?

Having roamed by chance into a sequestered beer-house, I was surprised to find myself in the midst of a large party of students; probably from Heidelberg. They were well-grown youths, with silken blond beards; and in their behaviour, half-swaggerers, half-gentlemen. These were, perhaps, the enemies of order against whom the tremendous military preparations had been made.

As the day wore on it became evident that the authorities were ready to brave the most overwhelming revolution that ever burst forth. Troop after troop of cavalry galloped in; every soldier, indeed, of whatever arm stationed within an available distance of Carlsruhe, was brought within its walls. By eight o'clock in the evening the military preparations were completed: a picket of infantry was stationed at every street corner; and, from that hour to the break of day, parties of dragoons swept the main thoroughfares, clashing and clattering over the paved road with a din that kept me awake all night. Intercourse between one street and another, except on urgent business, was interdicted; and the humblest pedestrian found abroad without an urgent errand was conducted home with drums beating, colours flying, and all the honours of war. The display of force answered its purpose in preventing a second attack of Christians on Jews. The pale ghost of insubordination was laid and dared not walk abroad—especially at night.

I must say I felt a little relieved when it was ascertained for certain that the city was safe. I am no friend to despotism nor to political thraldom of any kind; but really it is impossible not to feel for the solemn aristocracies of German Grand-Duchies (who, if they be despots, are extremely amiable) when, poor people, they are in the least put out of their way: they are so dreadfully fussy, so fearfully piteous, so distraught, so inconsolable. I was glad therefore that, the revolution being put down, they could retire in peace to their coffee, their picquet, and their metaphysics. Doubtless Thalermacher (some Hebrew millionaire, perhaps) and Kugelblitz (a fire-eater, for certain) had headed a frightful band of anarchists; who, but for the indomitable energy of the authorities, would peradventure have changed the destiny of the entire Duchy, of Germany, of Europe itself! Nothing but so illimitable an apprehension could have been the cause of such a siege-like effect. What else could have occasioned the entire blockade of Carlsruhe?

I had, however, exaggerated the cause as well as the danger; and I will now relate the real circumstances which had led to all these awful results; for the facts were afterwards made known in the Carlsruhe and Baden-Baden public journals of the day.

Early in the month of August, eighteen hundred and forty-three, the inhabitants of Baden-Baden gave a ball in honour of the Grand-Princess Helene of Baden, and the Duchess of Nassau. Among the names on the subscription-list stood that of Herr Heller von Thalermacher. Some unexplained animosity existed between this gentleman and Lieutenant Kugelblitz, who was also one of the subscribers.

Baron Donner von Kugelblitz, chief lieutenant of the Baden artillery, although only in his twenty-ninth year, had already spent fourteen years in military service, and was highly esteemed for his soldierly qualities and straightforward bearing. He was tall, remarkably handsome, of an impetuous temperament, and his natural strength had been well developed by constant practice in manly and athletic exercises. Herr Heller von Thalermacher, or rather the firm of which he was the prominent member, was distinguished for qualities far different, but equally deserving of goodwill. The banking-house of Thalermacher was one of the most responsible in South Germany; and, at great expense and sacrifice, had introduced into the grand, but by no means affluent, duchy of Baden several branches of industry, which had enriched the ducal treasury, and furnished employment for thousands of industrious subjects. It had revived the almost extinguished mining interest; had introduced extensive spinning machinery; and had established a factory for the manufacture of beetroot sugar.

Lieutenant Kugelblitz, to whose opinion deference was due, expressed himself in such offensive terms with respect to Herr von Thalermacher, in relation to the ball, that the gentlemen who had prepared the subscription-list at once erased the objectionable name: Herr von Thalermacher at once demanded satisfaction from his accuser, but this Lieutenant Kugelblitz refused, on the ground that the banker was not respectable enough for powder and shot. Hereupon two courts of honour were formed, one composed of gentlemen civilians in Baden-Baden, and the other of the officers in Carlsruhe. Both appeared to have been called together at the wish of Lieutenant Kugelblitz, to inquire into and pronounce upon the point at issue. The civilians came to no decision. The military court of honour put the result of its deliberations in the Carlsruhe Zeitung, as a public advertisement, couched in these terms: "The Herr von Kugelblitz may not fight with the Herr von Thalermacher." Thus posted as a scamp, Thalermacher advertised back his own defence; and, by public circulars and bills, declared the accusation of Kugelblitz to be false and malicious, and his behaviour dishonourable and cowardly. At the same time, a Russian officer of good family,—Demboffsky—who had acted throughout as negotiator and friend on the part of Thalermacher, and who felt himself deeply compromised by the imputations put forth against his principal, declared publicly that the military court which had condemned the Herr von Thalermacher, after hearing only his accuser, was a one-sided and absurd tribunal, and that it was not competent to give any decision.

The result of this declaration was a challenge from Lieutenant Kugelblitz. Demboffsky said that he was quite willing to give his challenger the satisfaction he demanded, on condition that he should first arrange his quarrel with Herr Thalermacher, as became a gentleman.

On the night of the first of September (at the beginning of our English shooting season), the Russian being on a visit to his friend Thalermacher, in his apartments, assured him in the most positive terms that he would keep promise, and would make no hostile arrangement with Lieutenant Kugelblitz. Prince Trubetzkoi and other friends then present completely coincided in this mode of action. At half-past eleven at night, Demboffsky quitted his friend, and hastened homewards. Be had advanced only a few steps on the road, when suddenly two figures strode up to him, and stayed his progress. He at once recognised Kugelblitz, and a Spaniard named Manillo, who had lived for many years in Germany.

"Will you fight with me?" shouted Kugelblitz in a passion.

The Russian, although taken completely by surprise, replied that he would do as he had already said. He would fight with Senor Manillo at once if it were thought desirable; but he would engage in no hostilities with Kugelblitz, until the quarrel with Thalermacher was adjusted. Great was the wrath of Kugelblitz. He clenched his fist, shook it in the face of Demboffsky, and demanded furiously that he should give his word of honour to fight him in the morning. The Russian, who expected bodily violence, then said that since the insult had been pushed so far, there remained no other course open to him, than to accept the challenge; which he accordingly did, pledging himself to meet Kugelblitz on the morrow. He then hastened back to his friend Thalermacher, and related the occurrence to him.

On the following day the duel took place. It happened that Lieutenant Kugelblitz was under orders to mark out the artillery practice-ground at Hardwald, near Rastadt, and as he could not leave his post, the meeting took place in its neighbourhood. The two officers stood forward in deadly opposition with a measured distance of ten paces only.

Nevertheless, the first fire was without result; but, at the second fire, Kugelblitz was struck in the breast; yet he still held his weapon undischarged. He pressed his left hand on the wound as he pulled the trigger with his right. The pistol missed fire. Another cap was placed upon the nipple, but it also failed. The second of Demboffsky then handed another weapon to the dying man; who, with quiet resolution, still closing his wound with his fingers, drew for the third time upon his opponent, and with such effect, that, uttering a wild cry, and the words "Je suis mort!" "I am dead!" the Russian leapt up into the air, and then rolled upon the ground a corpse. Kugelblitz, exhausted by the efforts he had made to die like a gentleman, sank into the arms of his second, Manillo, and was carried insensible to Carlsruhe. He died at noon on the second day after the duel.

Thereupon the discerning and indignant public, a little biassed—as it too often has been in Germany—against the Jews in general, gutted the house of Herr von Thalermacher.

The state also fell in with the common notion; and, under the plea of sheltering an injured man, lodged him in prison for eleven days. Seals were also placed upon his papers and apartments. The State then set about ascertaining privately in how far the victim of mob law had been guilty of the mischief which by general acclamation was imputed to him.

After a hunt through the banker's desk, and an inspection of his drawers, the decision of the court tribunal of Rastadt was delivered. It was ordered that the Herr Heller von Thalermacher be forthwith liberated from the fortress of Rastadt, free and untainted. Further: that the seals be removed from his apartments and papers, seeing that nothing among them had been found which could cast the faintest shadow upon his reputation.

We had all been yelling at the wrong man. Kugelblitz was, after all, the author of the tragedy.



CHAPTER XXIII.

GREECE AND HER DELIVERER.

Four happy tramps in company, we passed the frontiers of Austria and Bavaria, near Berchtesgaden, in the hazy shimmering of an autumn morning sun. We came from the lakes and mountain regions of Upper Austria, and already yearned towards Munich, the Bavarian capital, as our next station and brief resting place. The sun seemed to have melted into the air, for we walked through it rather than beneath it, and sought in vain for coolness and shelter among the plum trees which lined the public road. Halting as the night closed in at the frontier town, Reichenhall, with its quaint old streets, and its distant fortress, casting a lengthened protective shadow over the place, we felt the indescribable luxury of the foot-traveller's rest; as readily enjoyed at such times on a litter of straw in the common room of an alehouse as between the cumbersome comforts of two German feather beds. Both the ale and the feather beds were at our service at Reichenhall, and we did not neglect them.

In the morning our road lay by sombre, romantic Traunstein, and what was better still, by the glistening waters of the lake of Chiem, whose broad surface was so unruffled, that the wide expanse seemed to lie in a hollow, and a delicious coolness whispered rather than blew across its tranquil waves. The day was waning as we made a half circuit round the edge of the lake, and the deepening night only stayed our steps and drove us to rest, after a march of twenty-four miles, in the village of Seebruck. At Rosenheim we were challenged by the Bavarian sentinel, who held post on a stone bridge leading to the town, but it was rather in kindliness than suspicion; and with some useful information as to our route, and a cheering valediction, we pursued our way. The villages of Weisham and Aibling lay before us, and must be passed before night; and it was in the immediate neighbourhood of these places, although I confess to some indistinctness as to the precise locality, that we came upon an object which at once surprised and delighted us.

By the side of the road, on a slight elevation, stood a beautiful stone monument, of the purest Grecian architecture, and of the most delicate workmanship. It was fresh and sharp from the chisel of the sculptor, and looked so stately and graceful in the midst of the level landscape and simple village scenery that we halted spontaneously to examine it. "Can it be the memorial of some battle?" exclaimed one. "Or a devotional shrine?" "Or a tomb?" Not any one of these. Its purpose was as singular as the sentiment it expressed would have been beautiful and touching, but for its presumption. Graven deeply into the stone were words in the German language to this effect: "This monument is raised in remembrance of the parting of Louis, King of Bavaria, with his second son Otho, who here left his bereaved father to become the Deliverer of Greece." As we stood and read these words the vision of the fond father and proud king, taking his last farewell of the son whom he fondly believed destined to fulfil so great a mission, floated before us, to be replaced the next instant by the no less eloquent picture of the court of the then King Otho, a German colony in the midst of the Greek people, living upon its blood, and wantoning with its treasure; and of this same Greek people, driven at length into fury by the rapacity of the hated Tudesca, who filled every position of authority and grasped at every office of emolument, and hunting them like a routed army out of the land. Still there was a depth of paternal affection in the words upon the monument, which impressed us with respect, as the miniature temple, with its delicate columns and classical proportions, had inspired us with admiration.

We pursued our way along the dull road, now halting a moment to cool our fevered feet, now restlessly shifting our knapsacks in the vain hope of lightening the burden, when, being in the immediate neighbourhood of the village of Aibling, we came upon a second monument equally classical in form, though of less pretensions than the first. A twice-told tale, uttered this time in a woman's accents; for the block of stone repeated the same story in almost identical words.

"Here the Queen of Bavaria parted with her beloved second son Otho, only comforted in her affliction by the knowledge that he has left her to become the Deliverer of Greece."

The hopes of the King and Queen of Bavaria, thus unluckily commemorated by these monuments, were no less at that time the hopes and the belief of all Europe—with what little of prophetic spirit full twenty years of experience has shown. Greece, swarming with Bavarian adventurers, till goaded to the utmost she drove them from her bosom; Greece, bankrupt, apathetic, and ungrateful; a Greek port blockaded by the ships of her first defender, and her vessels held in pawn for the payment of a miserable debt; Greece, piratical, dissembling, and rebellious, aiding in her weak and greedy ambition the worst enemy of Europe—so runs the story—but Greek deliverance not yet. Her joint occupation by French and English forces, and the possible imposition of a provisional government, may indeed lead to the unprophesied consummation—her deliverance—from King Otho.

No doubt, those monuments of mingled weakness and arrogance still whiten in the air; as for us, we continued our march towards the Bavarian capital, slept at a pilgrimage church that night, and on the following morning made a bargain with the driver of a country cart who had overtaken us, and seated on the rough timber which formed his load, jolted into Munich.

King Louis then reigned in Bavaria, but being so indifferent a prophet could not foresee his own speedy abdication.



CHAPTER XXIV.

THE FRENCH WORKMAN.

The original stuff out of which a French workman is made, is a street boy of fourteen years old, or, perhaps, twelve. That young gamin de Paris can sing as many love ditties and drinking songs as there are hairs upon his head, before he knows how much is nine times seven. He prefers always the agreeable to the useful: he knows how to dance all the quadrilles: he knows how to make grimaces of ten thousand sorts one after the other without stopping, and at the rate of twenty in a minute. Of his other attainments, I say little. It is possible that he may have been to one of the elementary schools set up by the Government; or, it may be that he knows not how to read; although, by Article 10 of a law passed in eighteen hundred and thirty-three, it was determined that no chief town of a department, or chief place of a commune, containing more than six thousand inhabitants, should be without at least one elementary school for public instruction.

Such as the boy may be, he is made an apprentice. He needs no act, or, as you say in England, indenture. His contract has to be attested at the Prefecture of Police, Bureau of Passports, Section of Livrets. Formerly, it was the custom in France for the apprentice to be both fed and lodged by his master; but, as the patron seldom received money with him, he was mainly fed on cuffs. Apprenticeship in Paris, which is France, begins at ages differing according to the nature of the trade. If strength be wanted, the youth is apprenticed at eighteen, but otherwise, perhaps, at fourteen. There are in Paris nineteen thousand apprentices dispersed among two hundred and seventy branches of trade.

Of all the apprentices whose number has been just named, only one in five is bound by a written agreement with his master. The rest have a verbal understanding. The youths commonly are restless; and, since they are apt to change their minds, the business of the master is not so much to teach them as to obtain value for himself as soon as he can out of their labour. It is the apprentice who is sent out to take orders in the town, and to play the part of messenger. In consequence of the looseness of the tie, it often happens that a thoughtless parent, when his son is able to earn wages, tells the youth that his master is sucking him and fattening upon his unpaid labour; that he might earn money for the house at home. The youth is glad to earn, and throws up his apprenticeship for independent work. It soon occurs to him that his parents are sucking him, and that his earnings ought to be for himself, and not for them. He then throws up his home dependence, as he had thrown up dependence on his master, takes a lodging, falls into careless company, and works on, a half-skilled labourer, receiving all his life a less income than he could have assured to himself by a few years of early perseverance.

When I was apprentice, eight years ago, I found that to be a good workman, it was needful to design and model. "Come with me," said my comrade Gredinot, "I will show you a good school." It was a winter evening; our work was over; and, with leave of the patron, we left our shop in the Rue Saint Martin, and went by Saint Saviour to the Rue Montorgueil. We bought as we went about twelve pounds of modelling clay. At the upper end of the street, my friend Gredinot turned up a dark passage. I followed him. A single lamp glimmered in the court to which it led us. We went up a few steps to the schoolroom. "Here we are," said Gredinot, in opening the door. We entered, carrying our caps. There was a low room lighted by flaring oil lamps; but in it were busts and statues of such beauty that it seemed to me to be the most delightful chamber in the world. Boys and youths and a few men, all in blouses like ourselves, laboured there. We threw our clay upon a public heap in a wooden trough near the door. There was only that mud to pay, and there were our own tools to take. Everything else was free. Gredinot introduced me to the master, and I learnt to model from that night. There are other schools—the school of Arts and Trades in the Rue St. Martin, and the Special and Gratuitous School of Design in the Rue du Tourraine, in connection, as I think, with the School of Fine Arts. I might number the museums and the libraries, and I may make mention also of the prizes of the Academy of Industry and of the Society for the Encouragement of National Industry.

The apprentice when out of his time goes to the prefecture of police. There he must obtain a livret, which must have on the face of it the seal of the prefecture, the full name of the admitted workman, his age, his place of birth, and a description of his person, his trade, and the name of the master who employs him. The French workman is taboo, until he is registered by the police and can produce his livret. The book costs him twopence halfpenny. Its first entry is a record of the completion of his apprenticeship. Afterwards every fresh engagement must be set down in it, with the dates of its beginning and its end, each stamped by the prefecture. The employer of a workman holds his livret as a pledge. When he receives money in advance, the sum is written in his book, and it is a debt there chargeable as a deduction of not more than one fifth upon all future employment, until it is paid. The workman when travelling must have his livret vised; for, without that, says the law, "he is a vagabond, and can be arrested and punished as such."

The workman registered and livreted, how does he live, work, and sleep? He is not a great traveller; for, unless forced into exile, the utmost notion of travel that a French workman has, is the removal—if he be a provincial—from his native province to Paris. We pass over the workman's chance of falling victim to the conscription, if he has no friends rich enough to buy for him a substitute, or if he cannot subscribe for the same object to a Conscription Mutual Assurance Company. When Louis Blanc had his own way in France the workmen did but ten hours' labour in the day. Now, however, as before, twelve or thirteen hours are regarded as a fair day's work. I and Friponnet, who are diamond jewellers, work ten hours only. My friend Cornichon, who is a goldsmith, works as long as a painter or a smith. Sunday labour used to be very general in France, but extended seldom beyond the half day; which was paid for at a higher rate. In Paris seven in eight of us used to earn money on the Sunday morning. That necessity could not be pleaded for the act, is proved by the fact, that often we did no work on Monday, but on that day spent the Sunday's earnings. As for wages, calculated on an average of several years, they are about as follows:—The average pay for a day's labour is three shillings and twopence. The lowest day's pay known is five pence, and the highest thirty shillings. About thirty thousand of us receive half-a-crown a day; five or six times as many (the majority) receive some sum between half-a-crown and four and twopence. About ten thousand receive higher wages. The best wages are earned by men whose work is connected with print, paper, and engraving. The workers in jewels and gold are the next best provided for; next to them workers in metal and in fancy ware. Workers on spun and woven fabrics get low wages; the lowest is earned, as in London, by slop-workers and all workers with the needle. The average receipts of Paris needlewomen have not, however, fallen below fourteenpence a day; those of them who work with fashionable dressmakers earn about one and eightpence. While speaking of the ill-paid class of women, I must mention that the most sentimental of our occupations earns the least bread. Those who make crowns of immortelles to hang upon the tombs, only earn about sevenpence-halfpenny a day. That trade is, in very truth, funereal. To come back to ourselves, it should be said that our wages, as a whole, have risen rather than declined during the last quarter of a century. It is a curious fact, however, that the pay for job-work has decreased very decidedly.

And how do we live? it is asked. Well enough. All of us eat two meals a day; but what we eat depends upon our money. We three, who draw up this account, work in one room. We begin fasting, and maintain our fast until eleven o'clock. Then we send the apprentice out to fetch our breakfasts. When he comes back with his stores, he disposes them neatly on a centre table in little groups. I generally have a pennyworth of ham, which certainly is tough, but very full of flavour; bread to the same value; a half share with Friponnet in two-pennyworth of wine, and a half-pennyworth of fried potatoes; thus spending in all threepence-halfpenny. Cornichon spends the same sum generally in another way. He has a pennyworth of cold boiled (unsalted) beef, a pennyworth of bread, a halfpennyworth of cheese and a pennyworth of currant jam. Friponnet is more extravagant. A common breakfast bill of fare with him is two penny sausages, twopennyworth of bread, a pennyworth of wine, a halfpenny paquet de couenne (which is a little parcel of crisply fried strips of bacon rind), and a baked pear. All this is sumptuous; for we are of the aristocracy of workmen. The labourers of Paris do not live so well. They go to the gargottes, where they get threepence halfpennyworth of bouilli—soup, beef and vegetable—which includes the title to a liberal supply of bread. Reeking, dingy dens are those gargottes, where all the poorer classes of Parisian workmen save the beef out of their breakfast bouilli, and carry it away to eat later in the day at the wine-shop; where it will make a dinner with more bread and a pennyworth of wine. Of bread they eat a great deal; and, reckoning that at fourpence and the wine at a penny, we find eightpence to be the daily cost of living to the great body of Parisian workmen.

We aristos among workpeople dine famously. My own practice is to dine in the street du Petit Carre upon dinners for ninepence; or, by taking dinner-tickets for fourteen days in advance, I get one dinner a fortnight given me gratuitously. I dine upon soup, a choice of three plates of meat, about half-a-pint of wine, a dessert and bread at discretion. Our dinner hour is four o'clock, and we are not likely to eat anything more before bedtime; although one of us may win a cup of coffee or a dram of brandy at billiards or dominoes in the evening. Cornichon and Friponnet dine in the street Chabannais; have soup at a penny a portion, small plates of meat at twopence each, dessert at a penny, and halfpenny slips of bread. Each of us when he has dined rolls up a cigarette, and lounges perhaps round the Palais Royal for half an hour.

As for our lodging the poorest of us live by tens in one room, and sleep by fours and fives upon one mattress; paying from twopence to tenpence a night. The ordinary cost of such lodging as the workman in Paris occupies is, for a whole room for one person, nine or ten shillings a month; for more than one, six or seven shillings each; and for half a bed, four shillings. Cornichon lives in room number thirty-six on the third floor of a furnished lodging house in the street du Petit Lion. You must ring for the porter if you would go in to Cornichon; and the porter must, by a jerk at a string, unlatch the street door if Cornichon wishes to come out to you. In a little court at the back are two flights of dirty stairs of red tile edged with wood. They lead to distinct portions of the house. Cornichon's room is paved with red tiles, polished now and then with beeswax. It is furnished with the bed and a few inches of bedside carpet, forming a small island on the floor, with two chairs, a commode with a black marble top, a washing-basin and a water-bottle. Cornichon has also a cupboard there in which he stores his wood for winter, paying twenty-pence per hundred pounds for logs; and as the room contains no grate, he rents a German stove from his landlord, paying four-and-two-pence for his use of it during the season.

Friponnet rents two unfurnished rooms up four pair of stairs, at the back of a house in the street d'Argenteuil. He pays ten shillings a month. They are furnished in mahogany and black marble bought of a broker, and I think not paid for yet. Fidette visits him there. She is a gold and silver polisher, his bonne amie. She has her own lodging; but she and Friponnet divide their earnings. They belong to one another: although no priest has blessed their voluntary contract. It is so, I am pained to say, with very many of us.

I have a half-bed in a little street, with a man who is a good fellow, considering he is a square-head—a German. The red tiles of my staircase are very clean, and slippery with beeswax. My landlord rents a portion of the third floor of the house, and under-lets it fearfully. One apartment has been penned off into four, and mine is the fourth section at the end. To reach me one must pass through the first pen, which is occupied by Monsieur and Madame. There they work, eat, and sleep; as for Madame, she never leaves it. Monsieur only goes away to wait upon the griffe, his master, when he wants more work; his griffe is a slop tailor. Monsieur and Madame sleep in a recess, which looks like a sarcophagus. A little Italian tailor also sleeps in the same pen; but whereabouts I know not—his bed is a mystery. The next pen is occupied by two carpenters, seldom at home. When they come home, all of us know it; for they are extremely musical. In the third pen live three more tailors, through whose territory I must pass to my own cabinet. But how snug that is! Although only eight feet by ten, it has two corner windows; and, if there is little furniture and but a scanty bed, there is a looking-glass fit for a baron, and some remains of violet-coloured hangings and long muslin curtains; either white or brown, I am not sure. I and the German pay for this apartment fifteen shillings monthly.

There is a kind of lodgers worth especial mention. The men working in the yards of masons, carpenters, and others—masons especially—frequently come from the provinces. They are not part of the fixed population; but are men who have left their wives and families to come up to the town and earn a sum of money. For this they work most energetically; living in the most abstemious manner, in order that they may not break into their hoard. They occupy furnished lodgings, flocking very much together. Thus the masons from the departments of la Creuse and la Haute Vienne occupy houses let out in furnished rooms exclusively to themselves, in the quarters of the Hotel de Ville, the Arsenal, Saint Marcel, and in other parts of Paris. The rigid parsimony of these men is disappointed terribly when any crisis happens. They are forced to eat their savings, to turn their clothing and their tools into food, and, by the revolution of eighteen hundred and forty-eight, were reduced to such great destitution, that in some of the houses occupied by them one dress was all that remained to all the lodgers. They wore it in turn, one going out in it to seek for work while all the rest remained at home in bed. The poor fellows thanked the want of exercise for helping them to want of appetite—the only kind of want that poverty desires.

These men, however, working in the great yards, eating their meals near them in an irregular and restless way, form clubs and associations which lead not seldom to strikes—blunders which we call placing ourselves en Greve. They take the name en Greve from the place in which one class of builders' workmen assemble when waiting to be hired. Various places are chosen by sundry workmen and workwomen for this practice of waiting to be hired. Laundresses, for example, are to be found near the church of our Lady of Lorette, where they endure, and too often enjoy, coarse words from passers-by.

Except in the case of the masons and labourers from the departments, it is to be regarded as no good sign when a workman makes a residence of furnished lodgings. The orderly workman marries, and acquires the property of furniture. The mason from the departments lives cheaply, and saves, to go home with money to his family, and acquire in his own village the property of land. The workman bound to Paris, who dwells only in furnished lodgings, and has bought no furniture, has rarely saved, and has rarely made an honest marriage. In most cases he is a lover of pleasure, frequents the theatre and the wine shop. From wine he runs on to the stronger stimulus of brandy; but these leave to him some gleams of his national vivacity. The most degraded does not get so lumpish as the English workman, whose brains have become sodden in the public-houses by long trains of pots of beer. By far the largest portion of the Paris workmen possess furniture: only twenty-one in a hundred—and that includes, of course, the mobile population, the masons, etc.—live in furnished lodgings.

For clothing we spend, according to our means, from four to fourteen pounds a year. Half of us have no coat in addition to the blouse. Before the crisis of eighteen hundred and forty-eight, one sixth of us had money in savings' banks, and one man in every two was a member of some benefit society. The benefit societies were numerous, each generally containing some two or three hundred members; but even our singing clubs are now suppressed, and we must not meet even to transact the business of a benefit society without giving notice of our design to the police, and receiving into our party at least two of its agents as lookers-on. The result has been the decay of all such societies, and the extinction of most of them. Where they remain, the average monthly subscription is fifteen-pence, which insures the payment of twenty-pence a day during sickness, with gratuitous advice and medicine from the doctor. The funds of such societies are lodged either in savings' banks, or in the Mont de Piete; which, though properly a pawnbroking establishment, has also its uses as a bank. The imperial fist presses everywhere down upon us. It has forced us out of sick clubs, because we sometimes talked in them about the state of the nation: it would build us huge barracks to live in, so that we may be had continually under watch and ward; and it has lately thrust in upon us a president of its own at the head of our Conseil de Prud'hommes, the only tribunal we possess for the adjustment of our internal trade disputes.

Of our pleasures on a Sunday afternoon the world has heard. We devote that to our families, if we have any; Monday, too often, to our friends. There are on Sundays our feats of gymnastics at open-air balls beyond the barriers, and our dancing saloons in the city; such as the Prado, the Bal Montesquieu, and the Dogs' Ball. There are our pleasant country rambles, and our pleasant little dinners in the fields. There are our games at poule, and dominoes, and piquet; and our pipes with dexterously blackened bowls. There are our theatres, the Funambule and the Porte St. Martin. Gamblers among us play at bowls in the Elysian fields, or they stay at home losing and winning more than they can properly afford to risk at ecarte.

Then there are our holidays. The best used to be "the three days of July," but they were lost in the last scramble. Yet we still have no lack of holiday amusement; our puppets to admire, and greasy poles to climb for prizes by men who have been prudently required first to declare and register their ambition at the Bureau of Police. Government so gets something like a list of the men who aspire; who wish to mount. It must be very useful. There are our water tournaments at St. Cloud and at Boulogne-sur-Seine; where they who have informed the police of their combative propensities, may thrust at each other with long-padded poles from boats which are being rowed forcibly into collision. We are not much of water-birds, but when we do undertake boating, we engage in the work like Algerine pirates. We must have a red sash round the waist or not a man of us will pull a stroke.

To go back to our homes and to our wives. When we do marry, we prefer a wife who can support herself by her own labour. If we have children, it is in our power to apply—and very many of us do apply—to the Bureau of Nurses; and, soon after an infant's birth, it can be sent down into the country at the monthly cost of about ten shillings and two pounds of lump sugar. That prevents the child from hindering our work or pleasure; and, as it is the interest of the nurse to protect the child for which she receives payment, why should we disturb our consciences with qualm or fear?

In Paris there are few factories; some that have existed were removed into the provinces for the sole purpose of avoiding the dictation of the workmen in the town. The Parisian fancy work employs a large number of people who can work at their own homes. In this, and in the whole industry of Paris, the division of labour is very great; but the fancy work offers a good deal of scope for originality and taste, and the workman of Paris is glad to furnish both. He will delight himself by working night and day to execute a sudden order, to be equal to some great occasion; but he cannot so well be depended upon when the work falls again into its even, humdrum pace. On the whole, however, they who receive good wages, and are trusted—as the men working for jewellers are trusted—become raised by the responsibility of their position, shun the wine-shop, live contented with the pleasures of their homes, dress with neatness, and would die rather than betray the confidence reposed in them. With all his faults and oddities, the workman of Paris is essentially a thoroughly good fellow. The solitary work of tailors and of shoemakers causes them of course to brood and think, and to turn out of their body a great number of men who take a foremost place in all political discussions. But the French workman always is a loser by political disturbance. The crisis of eighteen hundred and forty-eight—a workman's triumph—reduced the value of industry in Paris from sixty to twenty-eight millions of pounds. Fifty-four men in every hundred were at the same time thrown out of employ, or nearly two hundred thousand people in all.

But there are some callings, indeed, wholly untouched by a crisis. The manufacture of street gas goes on, for example, without any change. There are others that are even benefited by a revolution. After the last revolution, while other trades were turning away men to whom there was no longer work to give, the trades concerned in providing military equipment were taking on fresh hands. To that class in Paris, and to that only, there was an increase of business in eighteen hundred and forty-eight to the extent of twenty-nine per cent. The decrease of business among the printers, although few books were printed, did not amount to more than twenty-seven per cent., in consequence of the increased demand for proclamations, handbills, and manifestoes.

Without any extra crisis, men working in all trades have trouble enough to get over the mere natural checks upon industry, which come to most tradesmen twice a year in the shape of the dead seasons. Every month is a dead season to some trade; but the dead seasons which prevail over the largest number of workmen in Paris are the two months, July and August, in summer, and the two months, January and February, in winter. The dead season of summer is the more decided of the two. The periods of greatest activity, on the other hand, are the two months, April and May, and next to those the months, October and November. Printers are busiest in winter, builders are busiest in summer—so there are exceptions to the rule; but, except those who provide certain requisites for eating and drinking which are in continual demand, there are few workmen in Paris or elsewhere in France, who have not every year quite enough slack time to perplex them. They can ill afford the interference of any small crisis in the shape of a strike, or large crisis in the shape of a national tumult.

Finally, let me say that the French workman, take him all in all, is certainly a clever fellow. He is fond of Saint Monday, "solidarity," and shows; but is quickwitted at his work, and furiously energetic when there is any strong call made upon his industry. In the most debased form he has much more vigour and vivacity than the most debased of English operatives. He may be more immoral; but he is less brutish. If we are a little vain, and very fond of gaiety; and if we are improvident, we are not idle; and, with all our street fighting, we are not a discontented race. Except an Arab, who can be so happy as we know how to make ourselves, upon the smallest possible resources?



CHAPTER XXV.

LICENSED TO JUGGLE.

Some years ago a short iron-built man used to balance a scaffold pole upon his chin; to whizz a slop-basin round upon the end of it; and to imitate fire-works with golden balls and gleaming knives, in the public streets of London. I am afraid his genius was not rewarded in his own country; for not long ago I saw him starring it in Paris. As I stood by to watch his evolutions, in the Champs Elysees, I felt a patriotic glow when they were rewarded with the enthusiastic applause of a very wide and thick ring of French spectators.

There was one peculiarity in his performance which distinguished him from French open-air artistes—he never spoke. Possibly he was diffident of his French accent. He simply uttered a grunt when he wished to call attention to any extraordinary perfection in his performance; in imitation, perhaps, of the "La!—la!" of the prince of French acrobats, Auriol. Whatever he attempted he did well; that is to say, in a solid, deliberate, thorough manner. His style of chin-balancing, knife-catching, ball-throwing, and ground and lofty tumbling, was not so agile or flippant as that of his French competitors, but he never failed. On the circulation of his hat, the French halfpence were dropped in with great liberality.

As the fall of the curtain denotes the close of a play, so the raising of the square of carpet signifies the end of a juggler's performance; and, when my old acquaintance had rolled up his little bit of tapestry, and had pocketed his sous, I accosted him—"You are," I said, "an Englishman?"

"That's right!" he observed, familiarly.

"What say you to a glass of something, and a chat?"

"Say?" he repeated, with a very broad grin, "why, yes, to be sure!"

The tumbler, with his tools done up in a carpet-bag closed at the mouth with a bit of rope, and your humble servant were speedily seated in a neighbouring wine-shop.

"What do you prefer to drink?" I inquired.

"Cure-a-sore," he modestly answered.

The epicure! Quality and not quantity was evidently his taste; a sign of, at least, a sober fellow.

"You find yourself tolerably well off in Paris?"

"I should think I did," he answered, smacking his lips, "for I wos a wagabon in London; but here I am an artiste!"

"A distinction only in name, I suspect."

"P'raps it is; but there's a good deal of difference, mind you. In England (I have been a'most all over it) a feller in my line is a wagabon. He don't take no standing in society. He may be quiet, never get into no trouble, and never give nobody else none; but that don't help him. 'He gits his livin' in the streets,' they say, and that's enough. Well, 'spose he does? he 'as to work tremenjus hard for it."

"His certainly cannot be an idle life."

"It just ain't, if they'd only let us alone; but they won't—them blessed Peelers I mean. How would you like it?" he continued, appealing to me with as hard a look in the face as if I had been his most implacable enemy, "how would you like it, if you had looked up a jolly good pitch, and a reg'lar good comp'ny was a looking on—at the west end, in a slap up street, where there ain't no thoroughfare—and jist as you're a doin' the basin, and the browns is a droppin' into the 'at, up comes a Peeler. Then it's 'Move on!' You must go;" he stared harder than ever, and thumped his hand on the table; "I say you must go, and lose p'raps a pick up as 'u'd keep you for a week. How would you like that?"

"I should expostulate."

"Spostallate!—would you?" a slight curl of the lip, expressive of contempt at my ignorance of the general behaviour of policemen. "Ah! if you say 'bo!' to a Peeler he pulls you, and what's the consequence? Why, a month at the Steel!"—which hard name I understood to be given to the House of Correction.

"But the police are not unreasonable," I suggested.

"Well, p'raps some of 'em ain't," he remarked, "but you can't pick out your policemen, that's where it is."

"Do the police never interfere with you here?" I asked.

"They used to it; and I've had to beg back my traps more than once from the borough of the Police Correctionell, as they call it; but then that was 'cause I was hignorant of the law. When they see that I could git a 'onest living, an old cove in a cocked hat ses he to me, ses he, 'You're a saltimbanc, you are. Wery good. You go to the borough of police for public morals, and the minister (not a parson, mind you, but the 'ed hinspector), if he's satisfied with your character he'll give you a ticket."

"And did he?"

"Course he did; and I'm now one of the reg'lar perfession. I aint to be hinterfered with; leastways, without I'm donkey enough to go on the cross and be took up. That's the ticket," he exclaimed triumphantly, pulling out a bronze badge, "I'm number thirty-five, I am."

"And can you perform anywhere?"

"No; the police picked out thirteen good places—'pitches,' we calls 'em—where we can play. Ther's the list—thirteen on 'em all of a row—beginning on the Boulevards at the Place de la Colonne de Juilliet, and ending in the Champs Elysees." He unfolded a neatly written document that plainly defined the limits of Paris within which he, in common with his co-professors, was allowed to display his abilities.

With a small gratuity for the new light thrown upon the subject of street performances, I parted from my enterprising countryman, wishing him every success.

I have sometimes wondered whether—considering that we have all sorts of licensed people about us; people who are licensed to cram us upon steam-boats; to crowd us into omnibuses; to jolt us in ramshackle cabs; to supply us with bad brandy and other adulterated drinks; licentiates for practising physic; licentiates for carrying parcels; licentiates for taking money at their own doors for the diversions of singing and dancing; licentiates for killing game with gunpowder, which other people have been licensed to make—whether, I say, it would not be wise to license in England out-of-door as well as in-door amusements.



CHAPTER XXVI.

PERE PANPAN.

"Monsieur Panpan lives in the Place Valois," said my friend, newly arrived from London on a visit to Paris, "and as I am under a promise to his brother Victor to deliver a message on his behalf, I must keep my word even if I go alone, and execute my mission in pantomime. Will you be my interpreter?"

The Place Valois is a dreamy little square formed by tall houses: graced by an elegant fountain in its centre; guarded by a red-legged sentinel; and is chiefly remarkable in Parisian annals as the scene of the assassination of the Duc de Berri. There is a quiet, melancholy air about the place which accords well with its traditions; and even the little children who make it their playground on account of the absence of both vehicles and equestrians, pursue their sports in a subdued, tranquil way, hanging about the fountain's edge, and dabbling in the water with their little fingers. Monsieur Panpan's residence was not difficult to find. We entered by a handsome porte-cochere into a paved court-yard, and, having duly accounted for our presence to the watchful concierge who sat sedulously peering out of a green sentry-box, commenced our ascent to the upper regions. Seeing that Monsieur lived on the fourth floor, and that the steps of the spacious staircase were of that shallow description which disappoint the tread by falling short of its expectations, it was no wonder that we were rather out of breath when we reached the necessary elevation; and that we paused a moment to collect our thoughts, and calm our respiration, before knocking at the little backroom door, which we knew to be that of Monsieur Panpan.

Madame Panpan received us most graciously, setting chairs for us, and apologising for her husband, who, poor man, was sitting up in his bed, with a wan countenance, and hollow glistening eyes. We were in the close heavy air of a sick chamber. The room was very small, and the bedstead occupied a large portion of its space. It was lighted by one little window only, and that looked down a sort of square shaft which served as a ventilator to the house. A pale child, with large wandering eyes, watched us intently from behind the end of the little French bedstead, while the few toys he had been playing with lay scattered upon the floor. The room was very neat, although its furniture was poor and scanty; and by the brown saucepan perched upon the top of the diminutive German stove, which had strayed, as it were, from its chimney corner into the middle of the room, we knew that the pot-au-feu was in preparation. Madame, before whom was a small table covered with the unfinished portions of a corset, was very agreeable—rather coquettish, indeed, we should have said in England. Her eyes were bright and cheerful, and her hair drawn back from her forehead a la Chinoise. In a graceful, but decided way, she apologised for continuing her labours, which were evidently works of necessity rather than of choice.

"And Victor, that good boy," she exclaimed, when we had further explained the object of our visit, "was quite well! I am charmed! And he had found work, and succeeding so well in his affairs? I am enchanted! It is so amiable of him to send me this little cadeau!"

Monsieur Panpan, with his strange lustrous eyes, if not enchanted, rubbed his thin bony hands together as he sat up in the bed, and chuckled in an unearthly way at the good news. Having executed our commission, we felt it would be intrusive to prolong our stay, and therefore rose to depart, but received so pressing an invitation to repeat the visit, that, on the part of myself and friend, who was to leave Paris in a few days, I could not refuse to comply with a wish so cordially expressed, and evidently sincere. And thus commenced my acquaintance with the Panpans.

I cannot trace the course of our acquaintance, or tell how, from an occasional call, my visits became those of a bosom friend; but certain it is, that soon each returning Sunday saw me a guest at the table of Monsieur Panpan, where my couvert and serviette became sacred to my use; and, after the meal, were carefully cleaned and laid apart for the next occasion. This, I afterwards learned, was a customary mark of consideration towards an esteemed friend among the poorer class of Parisians. I soon learned their history. Their every-day existence was a simple, easily read story, and not the less simple and touching because it is the every-day story of thousands of poor French families. Madame was a stay-maker; and the whole care and responsibility of providing for the wants and comforts of a sick husband; for her little Victor, her eldest born; and the monthly stipend of her infant Henri, out at nurse some hundred leagues from Paris, hung upon the unaided exertions of her single hands, and the scrupulous and wonderful economy of her management.

One day I found Madame in tears. Panpan himself lay with rigid features, and his wiry hands spread out upon the counterpane. Madame was at first inconsolable and inexplicable, but at length, amid sobs, half suppressed, related the nature of their new misfortune. Would Monsieur believe that those miserable nurse-people, insulting as they were, had sent from the country to say, that unless the three months nursing of little Henri, together with the six pounds of lump sugar, which formed part of the original bargain, were immediately paid, cette pauvre bete (Henri that was), would be instantly dispatched to Paris, and proceedings taken for the recovery of the debt? Ces miserables!

Here poor Madame Panpan could not contain herself, but gave way to her affliction in a violent outburst of tears. And yet the poor child, the cause of all this sorrow, was almost as great stranger to his mother as he was to me, who had never seen him in my life. With scarcely a week's existence to boast of, he had been swaddled up in strange clothes; intrusted to strange hands; and hurried away some hundred leagues from the capital, to scramble about the clay floor of an unwholesome cottage, in company perhaps with some half-dozen atomies like himself, as strange to each other as they were to their own parents, to pass those famous mois de nourrice which form so important and momentous a period in the lives of most French people. Madame Panpan was however in no way responsible for this state of things; the system was there, not only recognised, but encouraged; become indeed a part of the social habits of the people, and it was no wonder if her poverty should have driven her to so popular and ready a means of meeting a great difficulty. How she extricated herself from this dilemma, it is not necessary to state; suffice it to say, that a few weeks saw cette petite bete Henri, happily domiciled in the Place Valois; and, if not overburdened with apparel, at least released from the terrible debt of six and thirty francs, and six pounds of lump-sugar.

It naturally happened, that on the pleasant Sunday afternoons, when we had disposed of our small, but often sumptuous dinner; perhaps a gigot de mouton with a clove of garlic in the knuckle; a fricassee de lapins with onions, or a fricandeau, Panpan himself would tell me part of his history; and in the course of our salad; of our little dessert of fresh fruit, or currant jelly; or perhaps, stimulated by the tiniest glass of brandy, would grow warm in the recital of his early experiences, and the unhappy chance which had brought him into his present condition.

"Ah, Monsieur!" he said one day, "little would you think, to see me cribbed up in this miserable bed, that I had been a soldier, or that the happiest days of my life had been passed in the woods of Fontainebleau, following the chase in the retinue of King Charles the Tenth of France. I was a wild young fellow in my boyhood; and, when at the age of eighteen I drew for the conscription and found it was my fate to serve, I believe I never was so happy in my life. I entered the cavalry; and, in spite of the heavy duties and strict discipline, it was a glorious time. It makes me mad, Monsieur, when I think of the happy days I have spent on the road, in barracks, and in snug country quarters, where there was cider or wine for the asking; to find myself in a solitary corner of great, thoughtless Paris, sick and helpless. It would be something to die out in the open fields like a worn-out horse, or to be shot like a wounded one. But this is terrible!—and I am but thirty-eight."

We comforted him in the best way we could with sage axioms of antique date, or more lively stories of passing events; but I saw a solitary tear creeping down the cheek of Madame Panpan, even in the midst of a quaint sally; and, under pretence of arranging his pillow, she bent over his head and kissed him gently on the forehead.

Pere Panpan—I had come by degrees to call him "Pere," although he was still young; for it sounded natural and kindly—continued his narrative in his rambling, gossiping way. He had been chosen, he said, to serve in the Garde Royale, of whom fifteen thousand sabres were stationed in and about the capital at this period; and in the royal forest of Fontainebleau, in the enjoyment of a sort of indolent activity, he passed his happiest days; now employed in the chase, now in the palace immediately about the person of the king, in a succession of active pleasures, or easy, varied duties. Panpan was no republican. Indeed, I question whether any very deep political principles governed his sentiments; which naturally allied themselves with those things that yielded the greatest amount of pleasure.

The misfortunes of Pere Panpan dated from the revolution of eighteen hundred and thirty. Then the glittering pageantry in the palace of Fontainebleau vanished like a dream. The wild clatter of military preparation; the rattling of steel and the trampling of horses; and away swept troop after troop, with sword-belt braced and carabine in hand, to plunge into the mad uproar of the streets of Paris, risen, stones and all, in revolution. The Garde Royale did their duty in those three terrible days, and if their gallant charges through the encumbered streets, or their patient endurance amid the merciless showers of indescribable missiles, were all in vain, it was because their foe was animated by an enthusiasm of which they knew nothing, save in the endurance of its effects. Panpan's individual fate, amid all this turmoil, was lamentable enough.

A few hours amid the dust; the sweltering heat; the yellings of the excited populace; the roaring of cannon and the pattering of musketry; saw the troop in which he served, broken and scattered, and Panpan himself rolling in the dust, with a thousand lights flashing in his eyes, and a brass button lodged in his side!

"Those villains of Parisians!" he exclaimed, "not content with showering their whole garde meuble upon our heads, fired upon us a diabolical collection of missiles, such as no mortal ever thought of before:—bits of broken brass; little plates of tin and iron rolled into sugar-loaves; crushed brace-buckles; crooked nails and wads of metal wire;—anything, indeed, that in their extremity they could lay their hands on, and ram into the muzzle of a gun! These things inflicted fearful gashes, and, in many cases, a mere flesh-wound turned out a death-stroke. Few that got hurt in our own troop lived to tell the tale."

A few more days and the whole royal cavalcade was scattered like chaff before the wind, and Charles the Tenth a fugitive on his way to England; a few more days and the wily Louis Philippe was taking the oath to a new constitution, and our friend, Panpan, lay carefully packed, brass button and all, in the Hotel-Dieu. The brass button was difficult to find, and when found the ugly fissure it had made grew gangrened, and would not heal; and thus it happened that many a bed became vacant, and got filled, and was vacant again, as their occupants either walked out, or were borne out, of the hospital gates, before Panpan was declared convalescent, and finally dismissed from the Hotel-Dieu as "cured."

The proud trooper was, however, an altered man; his health and spirits were gone; the whole corps of which he had so often boasted was broken up and dispersed; his means of livelihood were at an end, and, what was worse, he knew of no other in the exercise of which he could gain his daily bread. There were very many such helpless, tradeless men pacing the streets of Paris, when the fever of the revolution was cooled down, and ordinary business ways began to take their course. Nor was it those alone who were uninstructed in any useful occupation, but there were also the turbulent, dissatisfied spirits; builders of barricades, and leaders of club-sections, whom the late excitement, and their temporary elevation above their fellow workmen, had left restless and ambitious, and whose awakened energies, if not directed to some useful and congenial employment, would infallibly lead to mischief.