PAUL LOUIS COURIER was born in Paris on January 4th, 1773. While he was yet but a child, his father left the capital for a small estate in the neighbourhood of Luynes, in Touraine. The reasons for this change of home were eminently characteristic of the country and time. Jean Paul Courier, the father, was a clever and accomplished man, whose money enabled him to find acquaintances in a rank far above his own. Among these was a certain duke, who had done him the honour to borrow one hundred and sixty thousand francs, but was showing no haste to repay them. The plebeian creditor took his revenge in an aristocratic fashion, and it soon came to his grace's ears that his duchess was playing him false. The duke, in his turn, chose a form of vengeance much in vogue among the upper classes. One night, as M. Courier was leaving the operahouse, he was set upon by two armed ruffians, whom, however, he managed to keep at bay till assistance arrived. One of his assailants was discovered to be the duke's valet; the other was a private in the King's Guards. They were pronounced guilty, and sentenced to be broken on the wheel ;1 but the magistrates were strictly forbidden to investigate the affair, nor was the duke's name ever publicly mentioned in connection with it. Courier was banished from the Court.

Thus deprived at one blow of his money and his noble acquaintances, the father turned his back on Paris, and devoted himself thenceforth to a country life, and to the education of his son.

Gifted with a lively wit, and a very fair scholar, the teacher found it no hard matter to inspire his sympathetic pupil with so keen a love for

1 A sentence duly executed in the Place de Grêve, as recorded in Lady Morgan's journal. No. 323.-VOL. LIV.

Greek literature that at the age of fifteen he was scarcely less familiar with Euripides and Sophocles than with Corneille and Racine.

Young Paul's classical studies were checked, however, for a time, by his removal to the Artillery College at Châlons; and in the spring of 1794 he joined the army of the Moselle. In the following year, having absented himself without leave on the occasion of his father's death, he was sent in punishment to Albi, in the south of France, where his duty consisted in receiving and inspecting cannon balls and gun-carriages; as a relief to the monotony of which wearisome details, he occupied himself in translating Cicero's oration, Pro Ligurio.' From Albi, Courier was sent to Toulouse, where he entered heartily into all the festivities and dissipations that marked the reaction which supervened upon the termination of the Reign of Terror. Unhappily, among the qualities he had inherited from his father was a certain laxity of morals, in consequence of which he was obliged one Sunday morning to make a hasty retreat from Toulouse, without the sanction or knowledge of his military superiors. His success in love affairs could not be attributed to his good looks, for he is described as being tall and lanky, with a wide mouth, thick lips, and a face scarred by small-pox.

This fresh irregularity having been condoned, Courier was ordered, after a brief delay, to join the army of England, at that time quartered in Brittany. As usual, consulting only his own pleasure and convenience, hè leisurely travelled along the northern coasts, and finally fixed himself at Rennes, where he sketched a rough draft of his 'Eloge d'Hélène.' A few months later he obtained his transfer to the army of Italy.

A A

On the 18th May, 1799, the main body of the French army, under Macdonald, quitted the Eternal City, leaving General Garnier with only six thousand men to make head against a multitude of enemies. The unequal struggle was maintained for four months, till on the 29th September the French were driven into the Castle of St. Angelo. On that day Courier had gone to pay his farewell visit to the Vatican, and had grown so absorbed in his studies, that night came on before he bethought him of his critical position. No sooner did he issue into the darkening streets than his uniform was recognised, and an infuriated mob gathered at his heels, uttering cries of "Al Giaccobino!" One man even fired a musket at him, and accidentally killed an old woman; while Courier, taking advantage of the confusion, escaped to his lodgings in the house of one Chiaramonte, a kind-hearted old man, who drove him in his own carriage to St. Angelo. A few days later the French embarked on board Commodore Trowbridge's squadron, and were landed at Marseilles. Between Marseilles and Paris the diligence was stopped by a band of brigands, calling themselves Legitimists, who despoiled the passengers of everything they possessed that was worth taking. A yet graver misfortune overtook the plundered artillery officer; he burst a blood vessel, and for four months was confined to his room in imminent danger of his life. On his recovery Courier frequented the society of such learned scholars as Akerblad, Millin, Clavier, Ste. Croix, Boissonade, &c., but took no part in the political movements of the day. It was about this time that he translated Cicero's philippics, but a sudden relapse again claimed for him his mother's affectionate nursing. Shortly afterwards he sustained an irreparable loss through the death of that tender parent, to whom he appears to have been devotedly attached.

During the next few years Courier

employed his leisure in various translations and imitations of the lesser classics, both Greek and Roman. They are of no particular merit, and remarkable chiefly as the work of a young officer whose nights devoted to pleasure.

were

In the autumn of the same year he was appointed, through the influence of Generals Duroc and Marmont, who had been fellow collegians with him at Châlons, Chef d'Escadron of the First Regiment of Horse Artillery, then stationed at Piacenza. Instead, however, of hastening to report himself, he spent a month on his farm in Touraine, and then travelled so entirely according to his own caprice that it was not until the 18th March, 1804, that he presented himself at the head-quarters of his regiment. The Consulate was by that time nearly played out, and the colonels of the different regiments had received instructions to sound the feelings of their respective corps as to the proclamation of an Empire. In Italy the idea was entertained somewhat coldly, though neither officers nor men cared to thwart the whim of their favourite leader. To Courier the assumption of the imperial title seemed a great mistake, and even a step backwards in the path of true dignity. It was a falling off from the natural grandeur of the man; and from that moment whatever attachment he may originally have felt for his profession gradually cooled down and finally changed to disgust. In a letter dated from Piacenza, May, 1804, Courier gives a graphic description of the scene that was enacted in his own regiment:

This is

"We have just made an Emperor, and for my part I was not at all in the way. how it happened. This morning [Colonel] D'Anthouard calls us together, and states the reason, bluntly, without preface or peroration'An Empire or the Republic, which is most to your taste?' as who should say, 'Roast or boiled, broth or soup, which will you take?' His speech finished, we look at one another, sitting all round in a circle. 'Gentlemen, how do you vote?' Not a word: no one opens his mouth. That lasted a quarter of an hour or more, and became embarrassing for D'An

thouard and for every one else, when Maire, a young man, a lieutenant whom you may have seen, stood up and said: 'If he wants to be Emperor, let him be; but so far as my opinion goes, I don't like it at all.' 'Explain yourself,' said the colonel; 'is it your wishis it not your wish?' It is not my wish,' replied Maire. 'Very good.' Fresh silence. We began to scan one another's faces as people do who see each other for the first time. We should be still at it if I had not taken up my parable. 'Gentlemen,' said I, 'it seems to me, under correction, that this is not a matter which concerns us. If the nation wants an Emperor, is it for you to discuss the point?' This reasoning appeared so strong, so luminous, so pertinent, that I carried away the meeting. Never had orator such a complete success. We all get up, sign, and go off to billiards. Maire said to me, Upon my word, commandant, you speak like Cicero, but why do you so particularly desire that he should be Emperor? To be done with it, and get away to our billiard match. Were we to stay there all day? And why are you against it?' 'I don't know,' said he, but I fancied he was made for something better.' The lieutenant's remark seems to me not far wrong. tell me what does a man like Buonaparte-a soldier, a leader of armies, the first captain in the world-mean by wishing to be called 'Majesty'? To be BUONAPARTE and make himself Sire'! He aspires to descend: no, he thinks to rise by placing himself on a level with kings. He prefers a title to a name. Poor man! His ideas are below his fortune."

In fact,

Towards the latter part of the same year Courier was promoted to the command of the Horse Artillery attached to the army of South Italy, under General Gouvion St. Cyr, and received from the hands of Marshal Jourdan the Cross of the Legion of Honour. Twelve months later he volunteered for the campaign in Calabria, a brief and inglorious affair which served only to increase his dislike to the profession of arms. He himself was so far unlucky that on several occasions he was robbed of everything but the clothes in which he stood. "I am not one of those," he wrote to a friend, "who have most reason to complain, seeing that I have still all my limbs; but the shirt on my back does not belong to me, from which you may judge of our discomforts in general." He also referred to his losses in a humorous letter of thanks addressed to General Mossel, from Mileto:

"I have received, General, the shirt you

bestow upon me. God reward you, General,

either in this world or in the next. Never was charity better placed. I am not, however, quite naked. I have even a shirt on my back, though, to tell the truth, it has no flap either in front or rear. There is no one but you, General, in the whole army capable of such a charitable act; for, besides that my comrades are, for the most part, as badly equipped as myself, it is now accepted as an axiom that I cannot keep anything, experience having shown that whatever is given to me goes to the brigands as a matter of right. People, therefore, are weary of clothing

me and of giving me alms, and it is the general belief that it will be my fate to die as naked as I was born."

Sick at heart over the incessant massacres of patriots, weary of the monotony of his professional duties, twice placed under arrest for grave derelictions from duty, and repeatedly involved in disputes with the military authorities, Courier sent in his resig. nation, which was at last accepted. His farewell to his brother officers was thoroughly characteristic:

"Good-bye, Major! Good-bye, my comrades, old and new, known and unknown! Drink what is cool, eat what is hot, make love as you may. Good-bye."

To M. Akerblad he mentioned that he had been present at a discussion as to whether the words porco and asino could be admitted into heroic verse, the decision being given in the affirmative, on the authority of Homer. "Notify this decree," he sarcastically remarks, "to your Tuscan literati, and to all whom it may concern. It is a point that interests many individuals who, otherwise, could never hope to see their names in epic poetry."

Courier reached Paris about the middle of April, 1809, just as all France had gone mad with exultation over the victories of Abensberg and Echmühl. He had also the mischance to encounter some old comrades, whom he had not seen for many years, on their way from Spain to join the victorious army in Germany. Among them was General Count Lariboisière, who pressed him to resume the service, promising to exert his

utmost interest in his favour. In a moment of weakness, or of enthusiasm, Courier consented, and obtained a provisional order to proceed to Vienna. It was not, however, until the middle of June that he reported himself at head-quarters, and was instructed to join the Fourteenth Corps, then engaged with the enemy. Unprovided with money or a horse, he was compelled to make his way on foot to the scene of hostilities, where, famished and fever-stricken, he stood to his guns in the island of Lobau until nature gave way, and some of his men carried him to a boat that was about to cross the Danube. Conveyed to Vienna he speedily recovered his health, and with it his old distaste for the military profession. He accordingly sought out Generals Lariboisière and Aubry, and begged them to erase his name from all the states of the army. That simple formality he chose to regard as his final manumission from military servitude, and forthwith took his departure for Strasburg, whence he wandered on to Lucerne, and there amused himself with a free but singularly elegant translation of Plutarch's life of Pericles. Of Plutarch he wrote to a friend :

"He is a pleasant author, and very little known by those who do not read him in his own tongue, for his merit lies wholly in his style. He laughs at facts, and makes use only of such as suit him, caring for nothing else than to appear an able writer. He would make Pompey win the battle of Pharsalia if, by doing so, his diction would be better rounded. He is right. All those absurdities called histories owe their sole value to artistic treatment."

Early in November Courier arrived in Florerce, and on the following day repaired to the Laurentian Library, in which, during the previous year, he had noticed a manuscript of Longus, which appeared to be complete. On a closer examination he now discovered that it contained some ten pages of the 'Daphnis and Chloe' that had been missing from all previous editions. This discovery he communicated to M.

Rénouard, a Paris publisher, who hap pened just then to be in Florence, and who evinced great interest in the matter, promising to bring out original editions of the Greek text and of Courier's proposed translation. The manuscript being particularly difficult to decipher, Courier employed Signor Furia, the librarian, and Signor Benoini, hist assistant, to make a clear copy, and to mark the place in the supplement occupied by this passage he slipped in between two folios a half sheet of paper, the underside of which was unluckily besmeared with ink. The volume, it should be explained, comprised several manuscripts, and among others one of Æsop, on which Signor Furia had been at work for some years, and had thus become familiar with the transcriber's peculiar formation of Greek characters and contractions. It was in exhibiting this discovery to M. Rénouard that Courier found that his marker stuck so tightly to the folio that he could not detach it without using dangerous violence. Signor Furia, being equally nervous, the French publisher undertook and adroitly accomplished the delicate task, but not without effacing at least a score of words scattered over as many lines. The librarian, though naturally somewhat disconcerted, appears at first to have treated the mishap as entirely accidental, which was undoubtedly the case, and while under that impression he declined Courier's offer of the copy made by himself and his assistant, contenting himself with attaching to the injured folio the marker that had wrought the mischief, and on which was written the following confession:

"This scrap of paper, inadvertently placed in the manuscript to serve as a marker, proved to be blotted with ink: the fault is wholly mine, through my heedlessness; in testimony whereof I append my signature.

"COURIER.

"Florence, the 10th November, 1809.”

The affair, however, was not so easily brushed aside. The 'Corriere Milanese' published a gross misrepresentation of the affair, of which

Courier wisely refused to take any notice. But when, fuming under this exposure of his own carelessness in having so long overlooked this missing fragment (really of no great intrinsic value), Signor Furia was foolish enough to follow the newspaper with an equally garbled narrative, a commotion was raised which at length came to the knowledge of General Gassendi, Minister of War, who had been making inquiries about a Chef d'Escadron of the Horse Artillery, missing since Wagram, and also of the Director-General of the Library, until then comfortably ignorant of the misadventure. Both these important personages now threatened to pounce upon the unfortunate Hellenist, who had been rendered famous by an ink blot. To General Gassendi Courier wrote a letter of explanation, couched in a strangely familiar strain, while in a lighter vein he sketched his critical position for the information of an exbrother-officer :

66 my

"Ah! my dear friend," he wrote, affairs are very much worse than you have been told. I have two ministers at my heels, one of whom wants to have me shot as a deserter, the other to have me hanged for having stolen some Greek. I reply to the former: Monseigneur, I am not a soldier, and consequently not a deserter.' To the latter, 'Monseigneur, I do not care two straws for Greek, and have stolen none.' They retort-the one: You are a soldier, for only a year ago you got drunk in the Island of Lobau, with L- and suchlike rakes, who spoke to you as to a comrade. You followed the Emperor on horseback, therefore you shall be shot.' The other: "You shall be hanged; for you have smirched a page of Greek to play a trick on certain pedants who know neither Greek nor any other language.' Thereupon I bewail myself, and ask: Shall I then be shot for having drunk to the health of the Emperor? Must I then be hanged for a dab of ink?'. . . . In truth, I trouble myself very little about it. I believe that I am really beyond the reach of these gentlemen, and equally quit of their protection and their persecution."

His belief was justified. He was molested neither by the Minister of War nor by the Director-General of the Library, but an indiscretion on the part of M. Rénouard provoked him to publish his famous letter addressed to

that publisher, in which he first gave his countrymen a taste of his pungency as a satirist. At the time this pamphlet created an extraordinary sensation, for men had lost their sense of independence and self-respect, and spoke of the superior authorities only with bated breath. It was generally approved by Courier's personal friends, except by M. Sylvestre de Sacy, who very properly objected to its offensive personalities and savage tone. To this charge Courier pleaded guilty, but urged in extenuation of his offence that, "seeing men and dogs at his heels, he had twirled his cudgel around, without much caring whom he struck."

In the summer of 1812 Courier left Italy for the last time. On his return to France he resided chiefly in Paris for the sake of enjoying the acquaintance of Clavier, under whose roof he learned to dream of domestic happiness, and began, in a fitful way, to desire a home for himself. Against this new sentiment his inveterate horror of restraint and his tendency to Bohemianism struggled fiercely though ineffectually, for in the spring of 1814 he found himself pledged to marry the daughter of his learned friend, a young lady of considerable personal attractions, endowed with much good sense and amiability, and possessed of many accomplishments. And yet his marriage was hardly arranged before the engagement was broken off through his besetting waywardness. Within forty-eight hours, however, he had repented of his capriciousness, and earnestly besought Madame Clavier to forgive him and intercede for him. His strange behaviour he attributed to the same cause that wrought the ruin of Psyche, namely, the counsels of kinsfolk, and he promised to work for M. Clavier in any way he might command. He would make translations, researches and notes, would copy out extracts, and would even strive to become an Academician. This curious act of contrition being accepted, the mature bridegroom of forty-two years