John S. C. Abbott

“ Love and peace are the elements of heaven. Hatred and war are the elements of hell. Man, upon the battle-field, even in a good cause, must call to his aid the energies of the world of woe. Rushing squadrons swept the field, crushing beneath iron hoofs the dying and the dead. Grapeshot mowed down the crowded ranks, splintering bones, and lacerating nerves, and extorting shrieks of agony which even the thunders of the battle could not drown. Henry plunged into the thickest of the fight, every where exposing himself to peril like the humblest soldier. The conflict was too desperate to be lasting. ”

“ There is often an impression that the Revolution was a sudden outbreak of blind unthinking passion—a tempest bursting from a serene sky; or like a battle in the night—masses rushing blindly in all directions, and friends and foes in confusion and phrensy smiting each other. But, on the contrary, the Revolution was of slow growth, a storm which had been for centuries accumulating. The gathering of the clouds, the gleam of its embosomed fires, and the roar of its approaching thunders arrested the attention of the observing long before the storm in all its fury burst upon France. ”

“ But we must not forget that there is a day of most solemn judgment near at hand. When you die, your body will be wrapped in the shroud, and placed in the coffin, and buried in the grave; and there it will remain and moulder to the dust, while the snows of unnumbered winters, and the tempests of unnumbered summers, shall rest upon the cold earth which covers you. But your spirit will not be there. Far away, beyond the cloudless skies, and blazing suns, and twinkling stars, it will have gone to judgment. How awful must be the scene which will open before you, as you enter the eternal world! ”

“ Where now are those monarchs who once ruled the world? Where now are the soldiers of those thronging armies, which, fourteen centuries ago, swept the nations with billows of flame and blood?
And where shall we all be when a few more of these fleeting years shall have passed away? Is it wise to live for this world alone, when life is such a vapor, and when we are so soon to be ushered into the dread scenes of eternity? There is a voice, solemn as the grave, coming up to us from all these past ages, saying, “Prepare to meet thy God.” ”

“ Its feeble flame is to be extinguished the moment life departs. The courtiers, from the windows of the distant palace, watch with the most intense solicitude the glimmering of that midnight taper. Should the king recover, they dreaded the reproach of having deserted him in the hour of his extremity. They hope, so earnestly, that he may not live. Should he die, they are anxious to be the first in their congratulations to the new king and queen. The hours of the night linger wearily away as expectant courtiers gaze impatiently through the gloom upon that dim torch. ”

“ Bells rung, cannon thundered, bonfires and illuminations blazed, rockets and fire-works, in meteoric splendor filled the air, bands of music poured forth their exuberant strains, and united Paris, thronging the garden of the Tuileries and flooding back into the Elysian Fields, rent the heavens with deafening shouts of exultation. As Napoleon stood at the window of his palace, witnessing this spectacle of a nation's gratitude, he said, "The sound of these acclamations is as sweet to me, as the voice of Josephine. How happy I am to be beloved by such a people." ”

“ Again the hideous clamor of demoniac war was heard, as the noise of their rude drums and savage yells fell upon the ear.
It was early in the afternoon of a day of almost tropical warmth and serenity, when all the voices of nature seemed to invite man to love and help his brother. Soon quite a fleet of massive boats was seen, descending the river, each boat crowded with twenty or thirty warriors, plumed and painted, and armed with bows and arrows, javelins, and clubs. They were yelling like demons, as if expecting by noise to rouse their courage to the highest point. ”

“ Here generation after generation of the moccasined savage, with silent tread, threaded his way, delighting in the gloom which no ray of the sun could penetrate, in the silence interrupted only by the cry of the wild beast in his lair, and awed by the marvelous beauty of lakes and streams, framed in mountains and fringed with forests, where water-fowl of every variety of note and plumage floated buoyant upon the wave, and pierced the air with monotonous and melancholy song. ”

“ The tornado of counter-revolution sweeps over Europe, and all her exalted friends and towering hopes are prostrated in the dust. Lingering years of disappointment and sadness pass over her, and old age, with its infirmities, places her upon a dying bed. One only child, Louis Napoleon, since President of the French Republic, the victim of corroding ambition and ceaselessly-gnawing discontent, stands at her bed-side to close her eyes, and to follow her, a solitary and lonely mourner, to the grave. The dream of life has passed. ”

“ The tramp of armed men, the rumbling of the ponderous enginery of war, the clamor of workmen throwing up barricades, the shouts of the mob, and often, rising above all, the soul-stirring strains of the "Marseillaise Hymn," pealed forth from thousands of impassioned lips, together with the darkness of the night, the flash of torches, the blaze of bonfires, presented a spectacle sublime beyond comprehension. The "Marseillaise Hymn" is unquestionably the most powerful composition in the world, both in its words and its music, to rouse the populace to a frenzy of enthusiasm. ”

“ The surf dashed sullenly upon the shore. The gale, sweeping the ocean, and moaning through the sombre firs and pines, drove the sheeted mist, like spectral apparitions of ill omen, over the land and the sea. As the Pilgrims re-embarked the rain changed to sleet. A day of suffering and of great peril was manifestly before them. The gale rapidly increased in violence. The billows dashed so furiously upon the beach there was no possibility of again landing unless they should find some sheltered cove. The waves frequently broke into the boat. ”

“ There is a small log cabin on a mound of the wilderness. A dense forest breaks the northern winds. A rippling stream runs by the door. Beyond lies the prairie rich in verdure and enamelled with gorgeous autumnal flowers. Herds of buffalo are grazing in groups of hundreds, sometimes of thousands, on the broad expanse. Gangs of deer are seen, graceful, beautiful, following in the train of the antlered bucks, and with scent so keen and eyes so piercing that it requires the utmost skill of the hunter to approach them within rifle shot. ”

“ The one borrows its auxiliaries from iron, coal, fire and boiling water; the other employs only silk and gas, a thin cloth filled with a light wind. The engine, with its frightful shrieks, its noisy rattling, and its black puffs of smoke, runs upon inflexible rails, roars through the bowels of the earth, and dives into the darkness of tunnels, seeming as if seeking some evil genius who might have invented it; the balloon, without noise and without effort, leaves the earth, where the laws of gravity hold us, and mounts tranquilly up toward heaven. ”

“ The palace which was her home surpassed in architectural grandeur and in all the appliances of voluptuous indulgence any abode which had ever before been reared upon earth. Obsequious servants and fawning courtiers anticipated her wishes, and her chariot with its glittering outriders swept like a meteor through the enchanting drives which art, aided by the wealth of a realm, had constructed, and yet probably there was not a woman in the whole realm, in garret or hut or furrowed field, who bore a heavier heart than that which throbbed within the bosom of the queen. ”

“ And, oh! it is so sad—the saddest sight of earth—to see one who is created of a noble nature, with glowing intellect and gushing affections, formed to move like an angel of light amidst sorrowing humanity, to cheer the heart-stricken, to strengthen the tempted, to support the weak, to win and save the lost,—it is, indeed, a sad sight to see such a one, all unmindful of his lofty lineage and glorious inheritance, casting every thing that is noble away, and living miserably for self and sin! Earth is full of such melancholy wrecks, as of archangels ruined. ”

“ Heroism rose exultant over all ills. The brilliant sun and the elastic air of an October morning invigorated their bodies, and the scene of sublimity through which they were passing stimulated their spirits to the highest pitch of enthusiasm. As the carts moved from the court-yard, with one simultaneous voice, clear and sonorous, the Girondists burst into the Marseillaise Hymn. The crowd gazed in silence as this funereal chant, not like the wailings of a dirge, but like the strains of an exultant song, swelled and died away upon the air. ”

“ But reflect from what a height of grandeur your majesty will descend; to what a depth of humiliation you will fall! Are you willing, oh prince, to surrender Russia to fire and blood, your churches to pillage, your subjects to the sword of the enemy? What heart is so insensible as not to be overwhelmed by the thought even of such a calamity?
"No; we will trust in the all-powerful God! No; you will not abandon us! You will blush at the name of a fugitive, of being the betrayer of your country. Lay aside all fear. Redouble your confidence in God. ”

“ He was already a sovereign, in possession of regal power, such as no other monarch in Europe enjoyed. Upon one object all the energies of his mighty mind were concentrated. France was his estate, his diadem, his all. The glory of France was his glory, the happiness of France his happiness, the riches of France his wealth. Never did a father with more untiring self-denial and toil labor for his family, than did Napoleon through days of Herculean exertion and nights of sleeplessness devote every energy of body and soul to the greatness of France. ”

“ Some of these mountain peaks of snow you can see only through the perspective of other mountains, nearer to you, and covered with verdure, which makes the snowy pyramids appear so distant, so sharply defined, so high up, so glorious; it is indeed like the voice of great truths stirring the soul. As your eye follows the range, they lie in such glittering masses against the horizon, in such grand repose; they shoot into the sky in bright weather in such infinite clearness, so pure, so flashing; that they seem never to lose the charm of a sudden and startling revelation to the mind. ”

“ In the evening Paris and all France blazed with illuminations and resounded with the shout of enfranchised millions. Balloons rose, from which copies of the Constitution were scattered as snow-flakes upon the multitude. The Elysian Fields, from the Arc de l'Etoile to the Tuileries, was brilliant with garlands and stars and pyramids of flame. Every tree blazed with quivering tongues of fire. Majestic orchestras pealed forth the notes of national triumph, and a multitude which no man could number filled that most magnificent avenue of Europe with plays, dances, shouts, and songs of exultation. ”

“ With the ferocity of wolves, they surrounded the palace in a mass impenetrable. The king and queen, as they looked from their windows upon the multitudinous gathering, swaying to and fro like the billows of the ocean in a storm, and with the clamor of human passions, more awful than the voice of many waters, rending the skies, instinctively clung to one another and to their children in their powerlessness. ”

“ There many of these guilty men remain, month after month, and year after year, in friendlessness, and in silence, and in sorrow. They are in confinement and disgrace. At night, they are marched to their solitary cells, there to pass the weary hours, with no friend to converse with, and no joy to cheer them. They are left, in darkness and in solitude, to their own gloomy reflections. And, oh! how many bitter tears must be shed in the midnight darkness of those cells! How many an unhappy criminal would give worlds, if he had them to give, that he might again be innocent and free! ”

“ Death is to all alike the same sublime event. There is something awful in the death of Julian. The tumult and the uproar of the battle rage around him; the blood gushes from his lacerated veins. But death itself is an event so sublime, that all its surroundings are of but little moment. It is the one thing, the one only thing, of which every person is sure. No matter when, where, or how, death comes: to leave this world forever; to go to the judgment-seat of Christ; to hear the sentence, “Welcome, ye blessed!” or “Depart, ye cursed!” ”

“ A false step, or a slip upon the icy rocks would precipitate the traveler, a mangled corpse, a thousand feet upon the fragments of granite in the gulf beneath. As higher and higher he climbed these wild and rugged and cloud-enveloped paths, borne by the unerring instinct of the faithful mule, his steps were often arrested by the roar of the avalanche and he gazed appalled upon its resistless rush, as rocks, and trees, and earth, and snow, and ice, swept by him with awful and resistless desolation, far down into the dimly discerned torrents which rushed beneath his feet. ”

“ An involuntary groan of despair runs like a death-knell through the channel below, and all is still as the grave. At the hight of nearly three hundred feet, the devoted boy lifts his hopeless heart and closing eyes to commend his soul to God. ’Tis but a moment—there!—one foot swings off!—he is reeling—trembling—toppling over into eternity! Hark! a shout falls on his ear from above! The man who is lying with half his length over the bridge, has caught a glimpse of the boy’s head and shoulders. Quick as thought, the noosed rope is within reach of the sinking youth. No one breathes. ”

“ Heartless gayety.
The queen, with her brilliant retinue, made a monthly visit to these palaces and pleasure-grounds, and with music, illumination, and dances, endeavored to beguile life of its cares. A noisy concourse, glittering with diamonds and all the embellishments of wealth, thronged the embowered avenues and the sumptuous halls. And while the young, in the mazes of the dance, and in the uneasy witchery of winning and losing hearts, were all engrossed, the old, in the still deeper but ignoble passion of desperate gaming, forgot gliding time and approaching eternity. ”

“ No man raised a voice of opposition. The general tide of rejoicing swept resistlessly over the land. From mountain to mountain the roar of cannon transmitted the tidings, from valley to valley chimes from the church bells caught and re-echoed the joyful sound, and from central Paris to the ocean, to the Rhine, to the Alps, and to the Pyrenees, twenty-four millions of people in one hour raised the shout of emancipation. ”

“ A more brilliant day never dawned. Through all the streets of the mammoth metropolis there was heard, in the earliest twilight of the day, the music of martial bands, the tramp of battalions, the clatter of iron hoofs, and the rumbling of heavy artillery wheels over the pavements, as regiments of infantry, artillery, and cavlary, in the proudest array, marched to the Boulevards to receive the honor of a review from the conqueror of Italy and of Egypt. The whole city was in commotion, guided by the unseen energies of Napoleon in the retirement of his closet. ”

“ Near the shore, the sea is turbid with these rocks and gravel; but as you go out into the channel, the ice becomes clearer and more glittering, the crevices and fissures deeper and more dangerous, and all the phenomena more astonishing. Deep, blue, pellucid founts of ice-cold water lie in the opening gulfs; and sometimes, putting your ear to the yawning fissures, you may hear the rippling of the rills below, that from the bosom of the glacier are hurrying down to constitute the Arve, bursting furiously forth from the great ice-cavern in the valley. ”

“ In France alone, at the beginning of the eleventh century, there were a thousand four hundred and thirty-four monasteries. Poverty was universal. The cottages of the peasants were mere hovels, without windows, damp and airless,—wretched kennels in which the joyless inmates crept to sleep. By the side of these abodes of want and woe the church rose in palatial splendor, with its massive walls, its majestic spire, its spacious aisles, and its statuary and paintings, which charmed the docile and unlettered multitude. The whole population of the village could assemble beneath its vaulted ceiling. ”

“ Sadness of Josephine. Josephine remained in Martinique three years. She passed her time in tranquil sadness, engaged in reading, in educating Hortense, and in unwearied acts of kindness to those around her. Like all noble minds, she had a great fondness for the beauties of nature. The luxuriant groves of the tropics, the serene skies which overarched her head, the gentle zephyrs which breathed through orange groves, all were congenial with her pensive spirit. The thought of Eugene, her beautiful boy, so far from her, preyed deeply upon her heart. ”

“ I must confess that, with all my horror of war, of counsels of violence, of enthusiastic and furious men like these Girondists, and of dreadful and guilty men like these Jacobins, I must confess that upon this particular point of the Austrian war I am, on the whole, compelled to agree with them. I see not how, upon any other principle, the peace of the world can be maintained, or the proper sovereignty and independence of nations be preserved, nor, finally, upon any other principle, what chance there can ever be for the general cause of the freedom of mankind. ”

“ We approach it through a labyrinth of enormous shapeless masses of granite, which during ages have fallen from the cliffs above, that frown over the very temple, and in all probability will some day themselves descend in ruins and crush it. Around the inclosure, and among these masses, for some distance up the mountain, a few fine old pine-trees throw a dark shade and form a magnificent foreground; while the river runs impetuously in its shingly bed, and the stifled but fearful sound of the stones which it rolls along with it, crushing together, mixes with the roar of its waters. ”

“ The overthrow of the ancient Roman empire was like a mountain crumbling down into sand. The then known world became but a vast arena for the conflict of petty barbarous tribes, ever surging to and fro. The demolition of the empire of Charlemagne was like the breaking-up of a majestic iceberg into a number of huge islands, each floating imperially over the waves, defying alike gales and billows. The spiritual empire of the Papacy had kept pace with the secular empire of Charlemagne: indeed, the Bishop of Rome swayed a sceptre before whose power even Charlemagne himself was compelled to bow. ”

“ They were the most appalling instruments of torture despotism ever wielded.
The Bastille. At the eastern entrance of Paris stood this world-renowned fortress and prison. In gloomy grandeur its eight towers darkened the air, surrounded by a massive wall of stone nine feet thick and a hundred feet high. The whole was encircled by a ditch twenty-five feet deep and one hundred and twenty feet wide. The Bastille was an object exciting universal awe. No one could ever pass beneath its shadow without thinking of the sighs which ceaselessly resounded through all its vaults. ”

“ This sea of ice, which embosoms in its farthest recesses a little living flower-garden, whither the humble-bees from Chamouny resort for honey, is also bordered by steep lonely beds of the fragrant rhododendron, or rose of the Alps. This hardy and beautiful flower grows from a bush larger than our sweet-fern, with foliage like the leaves of the ivory-plum. It continues blooming late in the season, and sometimes covers vast declivities on the mountains at a great hight, where one would hardly suppose it possible for a handful of earth to cling to the rocky surface. ”

“ The populace of Paris were actually starving. An energetic woman, half delirious with woe, seized a drum, and strode through the streets beating it violently, occasionally shrieking, "Bread! bread!" She soon collected a crowd of women, which rapidly increased from a few hundred to seven or eight thousand. The men gazed with wonder upon this strange apparition, such as earth had, perhaps, never seen before. Like a swelling inundation the living flood rolled through the streets, and soon the cry was heard, "To Versailles!" ”