has inflicted upon us. Everything is ready for your marriage. It shall take place this very night' "To-night!' said I, much surprised.

666

'Yes,' replied he. 'The count is closely watched. To-night, at twelve o'clock, he will be in the chapel; we will meet him there; our servants can act as witnesses. Not a word must be exchanged; the chapel is dark; the slightest imprudence may ruin us. The count recommends you to follow his counsels exactly, for the spies of his father are constantly about him.'

"I believed all that my brother said. Oh I never can forget that horrible night! At midnight my brother came to seek me-made me shroud myself in a veil. We crossed the garden, we reached the chapel; my hand was placed in that of my bridegroom; we were married, and—as I quitted the altar happy and proud, the door of the chapel opened, and the count appeared pale and distracted."

"Ah! morbleu! you are my wife!" cried the General, starting up and falling at the feet of the baroness, who looked at him with astonishment, not unmingled with fear.

"Good God! what do you say?"

"Is it possible? Yes, yes! Do not stare at me so; I am not mad, although like to become so with joy and happiness! Carmen-is not that your name?"

"Carmen de Santiago."

"And his name was Fernando ?" "Yes, yes."

"That was it. It was that great Turk of a brother of yours who kept me locked up for twenty hours! The little gloomy chapel! And you said- Carmen is too happy?'"

Ah, yes. But pardon me, General; I cannot believe, I cannot understand-how you could have consented

"Pardi !-twenty-four hours in a dungeon, with the perspective of pasing my life there, or being starved to death, if I refused to marry with my eyes shut; I had no alternative."

"Ah! now I understand all. It is true, my brother since confessed that he had compelled a French officer to accept my hand."

"You hated me, then; and now that you know"

"I hated the stranger who had thus blighted my hopes. But you are no longer so; you are the adopted father of my Paul. You will always love me; will you not?" and the soft voice of the Baroness trembled. "Parbleu! Since I began without knowingI have only to go on. You know how sincere my friendship is for you." "It shall be still better," whispered Paul, who had joined the hands of the General and the Baroness. But," continued he, in a louder tone, "why this marriage?"

"My brother," resumed the Baroness, "afterwards owned with unfeeling, selfish indifference, the reasons for his conduct. I have told you that our fortune was not in proportion to our rank. The father of Ferdinand had sent for my brothers, and given them to understand that he was all powerful at the Court; that if they lent themselves to a clandestine union between his son and me, he would crush them with the weight of his vengeance; but if, on the contrary, they contrived

means of separating us for ever, he would give them fifty thousand dollars, and take them under his patronage. My unworthy brothers trembled, and they consented to the base bargain. My elder brother then invented the marriage plot; how he carried it into execution, you are aware. As proud as they were mean, my brothers would not acknowledge a French officer for their brother-inlaw, so you were escorted to the frontier. I thanked them for sparing me this shame, for I was about to become a mother."

"Poor lady!" groaned the general.

"My despair was dreadful. I fled and concealed my dishonour in a poor inn near Madrid. There my Paul was born. Fernando discovered my hiding place, and wished to see me. I refused. I had hoped to become his wife, but would not consent to be his mistress. Fernando did not know me. He suspected that ambition was my motive, and his heart turned against me; and, to be revenged, he robbed me of my child! Mad-desperate-I did all that was possible to recover my son. I begged, I eutreated, but he remained inflexible. He swore to me that my son was no longer in Spain, and that I should never see him more. Such grief was too much. For six months I was between life and death, but youth triumphed, and I recovered. I then learned that my brothers had been killed in a gamblinghouse brawl. I was disgusted with Spain. I trembled lest at some moment my unknown husband might appear and claim me. I realised the remains of our fortune, and came to France under an assumed name. For twenty years I have grieved for my son. Your friendship, General, has indeed been an alleviation to my sufferings. God has declared that my trials have lasted long enough. I now forget my sorrows. I pardon those who sacrificed me.'

"Oh! my mother! what happiness! Heaven has restored you your son, and has given you the affection of my benefactor!"

"Silence, boy!"

"For the General has loved you these ten years."

"What shall I do?-be quiet, can't you," muttered Duvernay, changing countenance. "It was on your account that he regretted the liberty he had lost in Spain."

"Have you finished ?"

Come, come, General; if I do not tell the truth, say so. Are you sorry that my mother is your wife?"

"Sorry! sorry! Why, I am like to go mad with joy at such unparalleled happiness. If she would only say, 'Well, General, I no longer regret the trick put upon me.' Sorry! If I could-if I dared

"Well! come, General," said Madame Duverd nay, for so we must now call her, holding out her hand to him, "do not put yourself in a passion; and-since you are my husband, I see no objec tion to acknowledging our marriage in France."

"That you will assume the name of Duvernay ?” "With pride."

"And become lady and mistress of my house!" "It would be my greatest happiness."

The General, not yet daring to embrace his wife-an hymenial anomaly which occurs oftener than people imagine-half stifled Paul in his arms.

Thou bringest back visions of heart-bounding times,
When thy midnight hour chorused the rude carol
rhymes;

When our Christmas was noted for festival mirth,
And the merry New Year had a boisterous birth.
I remember the station thou hadst in the hall,
Where the holly and mistletoe decked the rough
wall;

Where we mocked at thy voice till the herald of day
Peeped over the hills in his mantle of grey.

And thou bringest back sorrow, for, oh! thou hast

been

The companion of many a gloomier scene:
In the dead of the night I have heard thy loud tick,
Till my ear has recoiled and my heart has turned
sick.

I have sighed back to thee as I noiselessly crept
To the close-curtained bed where a dying one.
slept;

When thy echoing stroke and a mother's faint

breath

REMARKABLE COINCIDENCES IN THE
LIVES AND CHARACTERS OF THE EM-
PEROR TIBERIUS AND LOUIS XI.

THERE is a popular notion very current, and
which is often adopted as a matter of faith, with-
out much investigation, that human nature has
been gradually improving during successive ages
-keeping pace, as it were, with the march of
civilization, and the rapid progress of the phy-
sical sciences. But this is a fallacy which a slight
knowledge of history amply refutes, for on its re-
cords we are ever finding striking similarities in
the characters of men, widely divided by centu-
ries of time, and still more, by the different
systems of laws and customs in their respective

countries.

Nations rise, flourish and decay; the world is ever being astonished with new discoveries and developments, yet human nature has preserved its identity from the most remote period of antiquity to the present day. Ancient records afford no specimens of it-no examples of licentiousness, tyranny, or cruelty, which may not be closely paralleled in modern history.

But among the myriad proofs of this fact it would be difficult to produce more conclusive evidence than is found in a comparison of Louis XI. and the Emperor Tiberius, monarchs, who, although separated by an interval of 1,500 years, exhibited such singular coincidences in their dispositions and actions, that a Pythagorean might bring them forward as a proof of the doctrine of metempsychosis, arguing that as the Samian philosopher served as Euphorbus in the Trojan war, so the Roman Emperor had revived in the person of the French King. Or, to apply Byron's idea, with respect to the infamous Jefferies and the distinguished reviewer, to these two monarchs, they were

"In soul so like, so merciful, so just,

Some think that Satan had resigned his trust, And given the spirit to the world again." The political and social relations of Rome and France, upon the accession of their respective monarchs to power, were similar, in so far that they afforded many opportunities to rulers so bold and unscrupulous, of converting a limited power into a despotism.

The social condition of the people at the close of Augustus' reign was vicious in the extreme, as we may discover from the epistle of St. Paul, and the scorching satires of Juvenal, although the political and literary state of the empire was so flourishing that that period is usually considered the most brilliant in Roman history. Milton in his "Paradise Regained," gives a magnificent ac

count of the political relations of the Seven-hilled He also organized a powerful military force, comCity at this period-an account which is fully posed of foreign mercenaries, and those vassals confirmed by ancient history. He describes em- he had detached from the barons and peers, so bassies hastening thitherthat general or provincial assemblies of the states, which, however, rude or imperfect, formed a barrier against tyranny, were speedily triumphed over, and Louis was complimented by his syco

"Some from farthest south Svene, and where the shadow both way falls Meroe, nilotick isle. and more to west

The realm of Bocchus to the Black-moor sea;

From the Asian kings, and Parthian among these; phantic courtiers as being the deliverer of the

From India and the golden Chersonese,

And utmost Indian isle Taprobane,

Dusk faces with white silken turbans wreathed; From Gallia, Gades, and the British west; Germans, and Scythians, and Sarmatians, north Beyond Danubius to the Taurick pool. All nations now to Rome obedience pay." The Government at this period was by no means either arbitrary or despotic, but resembled in many of its features a limited monarchy, the rights of life and property being equally secured. Tiberius on his accession found that the restraints of such a system were serious obstacles to the gratification of his thirst for unlimited rule, and he immediately directed his energies to their destruction. With his habitual dissimulation he speedily accomplished this "amusing the people," in the words of Tacitus, "with a show of liberty, fair in appearance, but tending to plunge them into deeper slavery," until at length he destroyed the influence of the comitia or popular assemblies, by transferring their powers, even as Louis Napoleon has done lately in France, to a senate that abetted, and even anticipated him in his tyrannies. The ease with which he accomplished this, proved that little of the old Roman virtue, little of the pristine hatred of tyranny, remained.

Kings of France from slavery.

The similarity between the moral and political condition of the countries, and the policy which their respective monarchs pursued, having been seen, it remains to shew the singular parallelism of their actions, when subsequently, a morbid suspicion and jealousy incited them to crimes of the darkest hue.

During the early part of the reign of Tiberius, ere as yet he was confirmed in his authority, that cruelty of disposition which, developed even in his boyhood, caused Theodorus Gadaveus, his first instructor, to call him "a mass of clay, tempered with blood," was exerted in stealthily destroying those whose power or influence he feared. With a placid and cheerful countenance he planned his murderous schemes, and no remorse ever deterred him from their execution; the ties of blood were no obstacle-past favours were forgotten-all were sacrificed to his fears and ambi tion. Agrippa, the grandson of Augustus, might possibly become a rival; he fell by the hand of an assassin even before the death of Augustus was generally known. Poison carried off GerIf we now turn to the state of France at the manicus, the nephew of Tiberius; the splendour commencement of the fifteenth century, we shall of his military career rather hastened than averted find that there were circumstances which tended his destruction; he was extremely popular with as naturally to the gratification of the ambition the army and people, therefore, he must die. of Louis, as the effeminate slavishness of Rome Many others fell in the same secret manner, the did to that of Tiberius. The feudal system which popular odium scarcely glancing at their destroyer had raised the social condition of Europe from so long as he thought it expedient not to brave it the utter depravity in which it languished for openly. Blood did not assuage the terrors which centuries after the dissolution of the Roman Em- haunted him, and he sought to defend himself by pire, was fast sinking to decay. The severe "" a law of treason," which in his hands became a moral discipline for which feudal institutions were most terrible engine of despotism. Spies thronged especially to be valued, was fast yielding to falsc- the streets of Rome, and frequently the most inhood and treachery, while the chivalrous and dis-nocent expressions of incautious persons (howinterested principles of loyalty and devotion, ever illustrious for birth and talent) were tortured which they inculcated, were supplanted by a cold-into crimes worthy of death. Zeal for the welhearted, rationalizing selfishness.

fare of the empire was sedition; to talk of liberty, Louis XI., equal to Tiberius in dissimulation, crime; the praises of ancient heroes, death; reand possessed of the same skill in turning the gret for Augustus was abuse of Tiberius; silence spirit of the age to the furtherance of his own de- was plotting; joy the proof of a conspiracy likely signs, immediately on his accession, exerted all to succeed; and fear, the accompaniment of his abilities in sowing dissensions amidst the guilt. Informers were found in the family circle, formidable confederacy of the "States General," and the betrayed were hurried to prison and to a representative body composed of the three orders the tomb, knowing neither their crime nor their of the nation-nobles, clergy, and commoners. accuser. Nor was the monarch in this reign of

terror merely satisfied with the infliction of death and bodily tortures-his diabolical nature delighted in inventing mental agonies for his victims compared with which the loss of life would seem a blessing.

The fall of Sejanus, his treacherous associate in crime, whom he had exalted to a power slightly inferior to his own, was the signal for a dreadful massacre. As for a course of years he had destroyed all who were obnoxious to the favourite, so now the streets of Rome literally streamed with the blood of those who were in the slightest degree suspected of regretting his fall.

father, the reigning monarch, which, proving unsuccessful, he was forced to take refuge in the neighbouring state of Burgundy. While there, he still occupied himself in plotting against the unfortunate monarch, who at length perished by a disease brought on, by the rigid abstinence he adopted, in order to avoid being poisoned by his unnatural son. Louis ascended the throne scarcely disguising his joy at the result of his schemes, and almost his first act was to punish the servants and physicians, whose faithfulness to the late king he had found incorruptible. In his turn he became a prey to suspicious fears, and, like In the gloomy seclusion of Capreae-that is- Tiberius, he had recourse to a "law of treason," land rendered ever infamous by the fearful cruel- which made it criminal for any one to refrain ties and excesses of which it was the theatre- from reporting the slightest comment reflecting sat the tyrant, dragging on the wretched re- on the monarch's conduct or policy. France was mainder of his life,-torn by the hideous recol-overrun with his emissaries, disguised as pillections of his atrocities, yet constantly adding to grims, gipsies, or beggars, spreading distrust and their number. A letter of his to the senate pre- division amongst the great barons, and acting as served by Tacitus, shews the intensity of his suf- spies of their actions. ferings. "What to write," he says, "if I know how to decide, may the just God and the goddess of vengeance doom me to die in pangs worse than those under which I now linger." This reveals the inner life of the man-his own reflections, like the hounds of Acteon, rending their master. "Truly," in the words of the "oracle of ancient wisdom, a tyrant is the worst of slaves. Were his heart and sentiments laid open to our view, we should see him stretched on a mental rack, distracted by fears, and goaded by the pangs of guilt."

Superstition enslaved him during the latter part of his life; at one time he cringed to his astrologers as if his destiny was in their hands-and, again, he would summarily hurl them from the brow of a precipice when their prophecies failed to satisfy him. His dissimulation prevailed to the last moment; worn with disease, by a powerful effort he sustained the drooping energies of nature, shunning the approach of his physicians, lest they should discover death was at hand. At length he fell into a swoon, and while in that condition was smothered by his attendants, who thus sought to pay their court to his successor.

Such is the picture which history has transmitted to us of the character and actions of the Roman Emperor-and, if we now turn to the "French Tiberius," we find that although he had no Tacitus to paint the horrors of his life, yet have they been faithfully pourtrayed by the pen cils of a Varillas and a De Comines.

The early years of Louis were remarkable for a precocity in ambition and dissimulation. While yet a boy he entered into a conspiracy against his

Sir Walter Scott, in his brilliant novel of "Quentin Durward," has not at all drawn on his imagination in describing the wretched state of this unhappy country.

Nor was he jealous of the barons alone; his brother fell by poison a victim to his suspicions; and with an ingenuity almost diabolical he brought up his son in ignorance, surrounded by the most vulgar and depraved associates, fearing lest the young prince should afford him the same uneasiness that he had given to Charles VII. The same wretched suspicion induced him to treat his daughters with equal cruelty. Anne, of France, a beautiful and high-spirited princess, became obnoxious to him for her talents; he united her to an idiot. His second daughter, Jane, was wretchedly deformed, yet he forced the Duke of Orleans, the first prince of the blood, to marry her, fearing lest he should enter into some other alliance which might possibly endanger the throne.

His craftiness and treachery produced similar vices amongst his dependants, whose machinations, however, were almost invariably discovered by his superior sagacity. The Cardinal Balue and the Bishop of Verdun, raised by violence and injustice to the highest dignities in Church and State, betrayed his most secret councils to the Duke of Burgundy, whom of all men in France he had most reason to dread. Detection overtook them, and although they were shielded from death by the Court of Rome, still they were confined for life in iron cages, constructed with such horrible skill that a person of ordinary size could neither stand up at his full height, nor lie length

wise in them. These cages were invented by history, and extending from an early period of the Cardinal himself, for Louis encouraged the life to the very threshold of the unknown world. manufacture of new instruments of torture, and Both were addicted to gross and debasing constantly employed a number of German arti-pleasures, and alike unscrupulous in their attainsans in their fabrication.

ment. Both were cruel and relentless; the As with Tiberius, so his fears increased with craft and dissimulation of Tiberius were fully rihis age, and hurried him on to the perpetration valled by the like qualities in Louis. Both were of new crimes, in which he was ably seconded by possessed of an insatiable ambition, and of hauntTristan, his provost, and Oliver Le Dain, his bar- ing jealousies and suspicions. The shelter of soliber, whom he had raised to the rank of confidants.tude, and the protection of guards and fortresses Matthieu, the historian, relates that "wherever could save neither of them from the rack of guilt the king stopped his presence might be known, from the number of persons suspended from trees, and from the lamentable cries of the tortured victims who were confined in the adjoining prisons and houses."

Yet even amidst fears and cruelties he devoted much of his time to low, debasing pleasures, in the gratification of which he laid aside his usual penuriousness.

At length, as the infirmities of age crept upon him, surrounded by his foreign guards, he shut himself up in Plessis, as Tiberius did in Capreae, scarcely stirring from his chamber, or permitting any one to approach. The prelates whom he had caged were scarcely held in closer restraint; he feared his children and nearest relations; he permitted none to remain in the neighbourhood whose abilities were above the common order; the grounds around the castle were filled with traps and pit-falls; and his cross-bow men were instructed to shoot all who should approach by night. Even his greatest enemy could not wish him severer punishments than he inflicted on himself. The fear of death and of losing his power haunted him incessantly, and, with the memory of his crimes, embittered every moment. As Tiberius before his diviners, so the shrewd sagacity and craft of Louis failed him when in the presence of his physicians, astrologers and priests, and he cringed to them in the most abject and humiliating manner.

Although his strength decayed rapidly, and death stared him in the face, yet as he had dissembled in other affairs so he took every means to conceal this; he dressed better than had been his wont, and engaged his retainers in the most frivolous amusements in order to give discredit to the rumours of his weak and dying condition.

So closed the last scene in the life of the counterpart of the Roman Tiberius, before he entered without hope, into that eternity which his crimes had filled with terrors.

Thus have been shewn the salient points of two characters divided by fifteen centuries, yet preserving a parallelism scarcely to be rivalled in

on which their spirits were stretched, nor rescue them from the torturing grasp of superstition.

Finally, in the character of neither is there a single bright spot on which the mind can rest with pleasure; not a single ray to illumine the gloom of their miserable lives. In the words of the ancient poet, during their lifetime they never had a single friend-and, at their death, they left no mourners."

It may probably be thought by some that the crimes of these men belonged to what are called the dark ages of the world, and that there is not the slightest fear of their being re-enacted in the present age, which many are wont to regard as having attained a wonderful perfection in morality as well as science. But this feeling springs from a belief in that progressive improvement of human nature, which, however flattering to vanity, is only a delusive dream that vanishes before the light of truth. Even in our father-land, with its outward pressure of sound laws, and the equally powerful restraint of public opinion, we have su perabundant evidence, in the scenes constantly passing, that the boasted "march of intellect” has not extirpated the passions which actuated the Roman and French tyrants, but that their germs are still in existence, and only require nourishment and opportunity to develope themselves into as infamous a luxuriancy.

As the pirate, when brought before Alexander the Great, shewed that the only difference be tween them was in the extent of their ravagesthe one having fleets and armies, while the other had only one small ship-so there are many in the present day who only differ from Louis and Tiberius, in not having the same unlimited power of doing evil.

A GRADUATE,

Remember the sinner in the man; but remember also the man in the sinner.

The wisest habit is the habit of care in the formation of habits.

Honour is to Justice what the flower is to the plant.