Vauban

“ What is matter for regret is that the authority of Vauban should have practically paralysed the French school during the 18th and most of the 19th century, so that while the conditions of attack and defence were gradually altering they could admit no change of idea, and their best men, who could not help being original, were struggling against the whole weight of official opposition. ”

“ In 1689 he had had the courage to make a representation to the king in favour of the republication of the Edict of Nantes, and in 1698 he wrote his Projet d'une dixme. royale (see Economistes financières du XVIIIe siècle, Paris, 1851) , a remarkable work foreshadowing the principles of the French Revolution. Vauban was deeply impressed with the deplorable condition of the peasantry, whose labour he regarded as the main foundation of all wealth, and protested in particular against the unequal incidence of taxation and the exemptions and privileges of the upper classes. ”

“ When the war with Spain was renewed in 1667, Vauban had the principal direction of the sieges at which Louis XIV. presided in person. At Douay he received a musket-wound in his cheek, the scar of which is preserved by Coisevox and Lebrun in his bust and portraits. The capture of Lille, after only nine days of open trenches, procured for him a lieutenancy in the Guards and a pension, accompanied with the far more gratifying commendations of his sovereign. ”

“ The fly drove off.
"He seems a decent sort of man," said Paul to Élisabeth, "but he can't have much opportunity for talking. He's making up for lost time."
The street climbed the steep slope of the Corvigny hills and constituted, between two rows of shops, hotels and public buildings, the main artery of the town, blocked on this day with unaccustomed traffic. Then it dipped and skirted Vauban's ancient bastions. Next came a switchback road across a plain [Pg 14] commanded on the right and left by the two forts known as the Petit and the Grand Jonas. ”

“ Vaughan had said—
'How bright wert thou, when Shem's admiring eye,
Thy burnished, flaming arch did first descry;
When Terah, Nahor, Haran, Abram, Lot,
The youthful world's gray fathers in one knot,
Did with intentive looks watch every hour
For thy new light, and trembled at each shower!'
Indeed, all Campbell's 'Rainbow' is just a reflection of Vaughan's, and reminds you of those faint, pale shadows of the heavenly bow you sometimes see in the darkened and disarranged skies of spring. ”

“ If it were certain that I was to go to the scaffold, then I should not hesitate to tell him my relations with his daughter, that he might comfort her when, being gone from the world myself, my love could do her no harm. I could not think that he would hold against me the duel with his son, and I felt sure he would come to me if he could.
But why should I not try for both Voban and the Seigneur? So I spoke to Gabord.
"Voban! Voban!" said he. "Does dickey-bird play at peacock still?
Well, thou shalt see Voban. Thou shalt go trimmed to heaven—aho!" ”

“ A despairing look swept over Miss Gaubert's pretty face.
"A girl does not go out of her way," she repeated, "to see a man like you for nothing. Can you not understand that I am risking much by giving you this warning?"
"As I said before," answered Vaughan, "I am obliged to you, but my mind is made up. I can make no promise. The only thing I can say is that if Mr. Gaubert should call upon me I will remember that you have paid me this visit." ”

“ In the short interview which he had had with his cousin Kate, Herbert Vaughan had looked, for the first time in his life, on one whom to look at was to love. The blue-eyed belle of his native village, the pretty barmaid at the inn, the sweet-faced chorister in the church—with other boyish fancies, already half obliterated by two months of absence—were swept instantaneously into the dustbin of oblivion by that lovely apparition. He was face to face with a woman worthy of his love—one who deserved every aspiration of his soul. ”

“ Inaction and waiting were the hardest of trials to this girl, child of the mountain as she was.
Patience, Rénée! The time for doing will come. The blood of heroes does not flow uselessly in your young veins; ‘to do’ comes by nature to hearts like yours; ‘to wait’ is a lesson taught by care Divine.
Some stray reports penetrated even to the far recesses of this valley, the most southern of all the Vaudois dwelling-places. Some wandering folk would come from Vigne or Villaro, outcasts like themselves, whom they might question. ”

“ And now Vaughan, who had a leaning towards experimental agriculture, was right-hand man to a great Russian noble, deep in the interior, and was engaged to be married to the daughter of the Scotch superintendent of the prince’s cotton factory. Indeed the wedding-day had been fixed, and it was to invite me to be present at the ceremony that Vaughan had written. A long letter, such a one as no man would be justified in inflicting upon a friend, except at a time like that, when a new life, with all its novel cares, hopes, and joys, was about to begin. ”

“ Nina, whose hand was still in Vaughan's arm, turned white, and flashed a quick, upward look at him; then, with a glance at Eusebius, as fiery as the eternal wrath that that dear divine was accustomed to deal out so largely to other people, she led Ernest up to her father, who being providentially somewhat deaf, had not heard this by-play, and said, to her cousin's horror, "Papa, dear, Mr. Vaughan wants you to dine with him at Tortoni's to-night, to meet M. de Vendanges. You will be very happy, won't you?" ”

“ VAUGHAN, HENRY, ‘Silurist’ (1622–1695) , poet, was born at Newton-by-Usk in the parish of Llansaintffraed, Brecknockshire (Anthony à Wood MSS. Ff. 39, f. 216) . He and his twin-brother Thomas [q. v.] were born on 17 April 1622 (Sloane MS. 1741) . Their father, Thomas Vaughan (d. August 1658) , was the representative of an ancient and honourable Welsh family, the Vaughans of Tretower Castle, descended from Sir Roger Vaughan of Bredwardine, who had fallen at Agincourt. Vaughan's mother was Denys Gwillims, heiress of Newton. ”

“ Vaughan has very little quaintness, as we now understand that word, and none of the cloudiness and incorrigible grotesqueness which dominated his Alexandrian day. He has great temperance; he keeps his eye upon the end, and scarcely falls at all into “the fond adulteries of art,” inversions, unscholarly compound words, or hard-driven metaphors. If he be difficult to follow, it is only because he lives, as it were, in highly oxygenated air; he is remote and peculiar, but not eccentric. ”

“ As he had many friends who made considerable exertions in his favour, the house was crowded. His acting was so truly ludicrous, that the audience instead of letting fall the pearly drops over their cheeks, were in an unceasing roar of laughter. Between the play and the farce a drunken fellow of the name of Vaughan was to deliver the celebrated epilogue of “Bucks, have at ye all.” He had made the most solemn promise to abstain from his usual drop of grog till he had performed his tour of duty. But alas! poor human nature, like other great men, he yielded to the temptation of a flowing bowl. ”

“ But in his present mood Vaughan liked his plan the better for this. Henceforth he would be iron, he would be adamant! And only by a little thing did he betray that under the iron and under the adamant he carried an aching heart. When he came to book his place, deliberately, wilfully, he chose to travel by the Bath road and the White Lion coach, though he could have gone at least as conveniently by another coach and another route. Thus have men ever, since they first felt the pangs of love, rejoiced to press the dart more deeply in the wound. ”

“ But before I went, your poor father, Clara, protested most strongly against the scheme, and even came to London in the vain hope of dissuading me. He had some deep presentiment that it would end darkly, and so indeed it did.
"Ned," said he once more, "there are only two of us, and my dear wife is very delicate. I have been at Genoa, where those islanders are well known, and even there they are rarely spoken of but with a cold shudder. They are a splendid race, I believe, great heroes and all that, but they shoot a man with no more compunction than they shoot a muffro. ”

“ What Vaughan does know is nothing to him; when he salutes the Bodleian from his heart, he is thinking how little honey he has gathered from that vast hive, and how little it contains, when measured with what there is to learn from living and dying. ”

“ He lifted his hat with a pleasant air, and addressed me with a smile,
"Ah! now, this I call a pity, a great pity, indeed, Miss Vaughan; but that I always fear the imputation of pedantry, I should call it a bathos. You can hardly be aware that since you made that dreadful noise, you have fallen in my opinion from a Porcia, or an Arria, to a common maid Marian. Fie, fie, it is too disappointing. It saps one's candid faith in the nobility of human nature. ”

“ A tall dark man came up the steps, and shook the snow from his boots. The carriage-lamp shone in my face. I would not let him cross the threshold, but stood there and confronted him. He pretended to take me for some servant's child, and handed me a parcel covered with snow. I flung it down, and said, looking him full in the face, "I am Clara Vaughan, and you are the man who killed my father." "Carry her in, John," he said to the servant--"carry her in, or the poor little thing will die. What eyes!" ”

“ Are you quite certain that Conny and I are not--not--"
"Not base-born," I said--why be mawkish in Oscan-English, when Saxon is to be had?--"No, my darling, you are as lawful as I, your cousin Clara. We Vaughans are a passionate race, but we never make wrecks of women, and scoundrels of ourselves. That we leave for Corsicans, and people brought up to lies."
The sneer was most unjust, and dreadfully unkind, but far too natural for me, so long pent in, to resist it. I saw that I had grieved my pet, so I begged her pardon, and reviled myself, till all was right again. ”

“ Edgar Malins Vaughan, then about thirty-seven years old, was (I suppose) a very handsome man, and perhaps of a more striking presence than my dearest father. His face, when he was pleased, reminded me strongly of the glance and smile I had lost, but never could it convey that soft sweet look, which still came through the clouds to me, now and then in dreams. The outlines of my guardian's face were keener too and stronger, and his complexion far more swarthy. ”

“ It is this insight that makes Vaughan a mystic. He can see one thing everywhere, and all things the same—yet each with a thousand sides that radiate crossing lights, even as the airy particles around us. For him everything is the expression of, and points back to, some fact in the Divine Thought. ”

“ He listened eagerly and presently the noise grew louder, and became a strident and horrible hissing as if the pit beneath boiled with fervent heat, and Vaughan, unable to remain in suspense any longer, drew his cap half over his face in imitation of Dyson, and looked down to the hollow below. ”

“ Then I kissed her sweet lips, and admired her, more than she admired herself.
"Clara, it does not matter how much trouble you take; you can't make me look a quarter so well as you do."
"Not quite so tall, my darling, nor anything like so naughty; but a thousand times more lovely."
"Well, I wish I could think so. I am always longing to change with you."
"Don't talk nonsense, my pretty; if I were a man I should die for you. Now I glory in you as a Vaughan. Come along." ”

“ A NOBLE RESOLVE NOBLY CARRIED OUT.
It was morning. Walter Vaughan and his heir were partaking of an early meal before going to the chase. Just previous to their departure, “faithful Evan,” as he was called by the neighbours, entered the hall, and handed his master a letter, which he received with a trembling hand. Mr. Vaughan hastily broke the seal, and commenced perusing its contents, but before he had concluded its perusal, he became as pale as death, he shook like an aspen leaf, and his hand trembled violently. ”

“ The position of authority and influence occupied by Miss Vaughan in what she terms high Masonry is to be explained, as she modestly informs us, not by her personal qualities, but by a traditional secret concerning her family, which is known only to the Elect Magi. Miss Vaughan and her paternal uncle are the last descendants of the alchemist Thomas Vaughan, whom she terms a Rosicrucian, and identifies with Eirenæus Philalethes, author of “The Open Entrance to the Closed Palace of the King.” ”

“ When Gabord and Voban were gone, leaving the light behind, I went over to where the torch stuck in the wall, and drew Alixe’s letter from my pocket with eager fingers. It told the whole story of her heart.
CHATEAU ST. LOUIS, 27th November, 1757.
Though I write you these few words, dear Robert, I do not know that they will reach you, for as yet it is not certain they will let Voban visit you. A year, dear friend, and not a word from you! I should have broken my heart if I had not heard of you one way and another. They say you are much worn in body, though you have always a cheerful air. ”

“ His mistress now stopped her work, and made ready for a long speech, with the usual snap of her lips.
"Know London, Miss Vaughan! I was born in Red Cross Street, and I've never been further out of town than Chalk Farm fair, or Hampstead Waterworks, and, please God, I never will. Bless me, what an awful place the country is, awful! What with the trees, and the ditches, and the sting-nettles, and the black wainscot with skewers on the top--"
"Too bad of you, Mrs. Shelfer, to be frightened at palings--and your husband a gardener, too! But tell me whereabouts is Grove Street?" ”